My company was charming.

Opposite me by the massive Renaissance fireplace sat Venus; she was
not a casual woman of the half-world, who under this pseudonym wages
war against the enemy sex, like Mademoiselle Cleopatra, but the real,
true goddess of love.

She sat in an armchair and had kindled a crackling fire, whose
reflection ran in red flames over her pale face with its white eyes,
and from time to time over her feet when she sought to warm them.

Her head was wonderful in spite of the dead stony eyes; it was all
I could see of her. She had wrapped her marble-like body in a huge
fur, and rolled herself up trembling like a cat.

"I don't understand it," I exclaimed, "It isn't really cold any
longer. For two weeks past we have had perfect spring weather. You
must be nervous."

"Much obliged for your spring," she replied with a low stony voice,
and immediately afterwards sneezed divinely, twice in succession. "I
really can't stand it here much longer, and I am beginning to
understand--"

"What, dear lady?"

"I am beginning to believe the unbelievable and to understand the
un-understandable. All of a sudden I understand the Germanic virtue of
woman, and German philosophy, and I am no longer surprised that you of
the North do not know how to love, haven't even an idea of what love
is."

"But, madame," I replied flaring up, "I surely haven't given you any
reason."

"Oh, you--" The divinity sneezed for the third time, and shrugged
her shoulders with inimitable grace. "That's why I have always been
nice to you, and even come to see you now and then, although I catch
a cold every time, in spite of all my furs. Do you remember the first
time we met?"

"How could I forget it," I said. "You wore your abundant hair in
brown curls, and you had brown eyes and a red mouth, but I recognized
you immediately by the outline of your face and its marble-like
pallor--you always wore a violet-blue velvet jacket edged with
squirrel-skin."

"You were really in love with the costume, and awfully docile."

"You have taught me what love is. Your serene form of worship let me
forget two thousand years."

"And my faithfulness to you was without equal!"

"Well, as far as faithfulness goes--"

"Ungrateful!"

"I will not reproach you with anything. You are a divine woman, but
nevertheless a woman, and like every woman cruel in love."

"What you call cruel," the goddess of love replied eagerly, "is
simply the element of passion and of natural love, which is woman's
nature and makes her give herself where she loves, and makes her love
everything, that pleases her."

"Can there be any greater cruelty for a lover than the
unfaithfulness of the woman he loves?"

"Indeed!" she replied. "We are faithful as long as we love, but you
demand faithfulness of a woman without love, and the giving of
herself without enjoyment. Who is cruel there--woman or man? You of
the North in general take love too soberly and seriously. You talk
of duties where there should be only a question of pleasure."

"That is why our emotions are honorable and virtuous, and our
relations permanent."

"And yet a restless, always unsatisfied craving for the nudity of
paganism," she interrupted, "but that love, which is the highest joy,
which is divine simplicity itself, is not for you moderns, you
children of reflection. It works only evil in you. _As soon as you
wish to be natural, you become common._ To you nature seems something
hostile; you have made devils out of the smiling gods of Greece, and
out of me a demon. You can only exorcise and curse me, or slay
yourselves in bacchantic madness before my altar. And if ever one of
you has had the courage to kiss my red mouth, he makes a barefoot
pilgrimage to Rome in penitential robes and expects flowers to grow
from his withered staff, while under my feet roses, violets, and
myrtles spring up every hour, but their fragrance does not agree with
you. Stay among your northern fogs and Christian incense; let us
pagans remain under the debris, beneath the lava; do not disinter us.
Pompeii was not built for you, nor our villas, our baths, our temples.
You do not require gods. We are chilled in your world."

The beautiful marble woman coughed, and drew the dark sables still
closer about her shoulders.

"Much obliged for the classical lesson," I replied, "but you cannot
deny, that man and woman are mortal enemies, in your serene sunlit
world as well as in our foggy one. In love there is union into a
single being for a short time only, capable of only one thought, one
sensation, one will, in order to be then further disunited. And you
know this better than I; whichever of the two fails to subjugate will
soon feel the feet of the other on his neck--"

"And as a rule the man that of the woman," cried Madame Venus with
proud mockery, "which you know better than I."

"Of course, and that is why I don't have any illusions."

"You mean you are now my slave without illusions, and for that
reason you shall feel the weight of my foot without mercy."

"Madame!"

"Don't you know me yet? Yes, I am _cruel_--since you take so much
delight in that word-and am I not entitled to be so? Man is the one
who desires, woman the one who is desired. This is woman's entire but
decisive advantage. Through his passion nature has given man into
woman's hands, and the woman who does not know how to make him her
subject, her slave, her toy, and how to betray him with a smile in the
end is not wise."

"Exactly your principles," I interrupted angrily.

"They are based on the experience of thousands of years," she
replied ironically, while her white fingers played over the dark fur.
"The more devoted a woman shows herself, the sooner the man sobers
down and becomes domineering. The more cruelly she treats him and the
more faithless she is, the worse she uses him, the more wantonly she
plays with him, the less pity she shows him, by so much the more will
she increase his desire, be loved, worshipped by him. So it has
always been, since the time of Helen and Delilah, down to Catherine
the Second and Lola Montez."

"I cannot deny," I said, "that nothing will attract a man more than
the picture of a beautiful, passionate, cruel, and despotic woman who
wantonly changes her favorites without scruple in accordance with her
whim--"

"And in addition wears furs," exclaimed the divinity.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I know your predilection."

"Do you know," I interrupted, "that, since we last saw each other,
you have grown very coquettish."

"In what way, may I ask?"

"In that there is no way of accentuating your white body to greater
advantage than by these dark furs, and that--"

The divinity laughed.

"You are dreaming," she cried, "wake up!" and she clasped my arm
with her marble-white hand. "Do wake up," she repeated raucously with
the low register of her voice. I opened my eyes with difficulty.

I saw the hand which shook me, and suddenly it was brown as bronze;
the voice was the thick alcoholic voice of my cossack servant who
stood before me at his full height of nearly six feet.

"Do get up," continued the good fellow, "it is really disgraceful."

"What is disgraceful?"

"To fall asleep in your clothes and with a book besides." He snuffed
the candles which had burned down, and picked up the volume which had
fallen from my hand, "with a book by"--he looked at the title page--
"by Hegel. Besides it is high time you were starting for Mr.
Severin's who is expecting us for tea."

"A curious dream," said Severin when I had finished. He supported
his arms on his knees, resting his face in his delicate, finely
veined hands, and fell to pondering.

I knew that he wouldn't move for a long time, hardly even breathe. This
actually happened, but I didn't consider his behavior as in any way
remarkable. I had been on terms of close friendship with him for nearly
three years, and gotten used to his peculiarities. For it cannot be
denied that he was peculiar, although he wasn't quite the dangerous
madman that the neighborhood, or indeed the entire district of Kolomea,
considered him to be. I found his personality not only interesting--and
that is why many also regarded me a bit mad--but to a degree
sympathetic. For a Galician nobleman and land-owner, and considering his
age--he was hardly over thirty--he displayed surprising sobriety, a
certain seriousness, even pedantry. He lived according to a minutely
elaborated, half-philosophical, half-practical system, like clock-work;
not this alone, but also by the thermometer, barometer, aerometer,
hydrometer, Hippocrates, Hufeland, Plato, Kant, Knigge, and Lord
Chesterfield. But at times he had violent attacks of sudden passion, and
gave the impression of being about to run with his head right through a
wall. At such times every one preferred to get out of his way.

While he remained silent, the fire sang in the chimney and the large
venerable samovar sang; and the ancient chair in which I sat rocking
to and fro smoking my cigar, and the cricket in the old walls sang
too. I let my eyes glide over the curious apparatus, skeletons of
animals, stuffed birds, globes, plaster-casts, with which his room
was heaped full, until by chance my glance remained fixed on a
picture which I had seen often enough before. But to-day, under the
reflected red glow of the fire, it made an indescribable impression
on me.

It was a large oil painting, done in the robust full-bodied manner
of the Belgian school. Its subject was strange enough.

A beautiful woman with a radiant smile upon her face, with abundant
hair tied into a classical knot, on which white powder lay like a
soft hoarfrost, was resting on an ottoman, supported on her left arm.
She was nude in her dark furs. Her right hand played with a lash,
while her bare foot rested carelessly on a man, lying before her like
a slave, like a dog. In the sharply outlined, but well-formed
linaments of this man lay brooding melancholy and passionate
devotion; he looked up to her with the ecstatic burning eye of a
martyr. This man, the footstool for her feet, was Severin, but
beardless, and, it seemed, some ten years younger.

"_Venus in Furs_," I cried, pointing to the picture. "That is the way
I saw her in my dream."

"I, too," said Severin, "only I dreamed my dream with open eyes."

"Indeed?"

"It is a tiresome story."

"Your picture apparently suggested my dream," I continued. "But do
tell me what it means. I can imagine that it played a role in your
life, and perhaps a very decisive one. But the details I can only get
from you."

"Look at its counterpart," replied my strange friend, without
heeding my question.

The counterpart was an excellent copy of Titian's well-known "Venus
with the Mirror" in the Dresden Gallery.

"And what is the significance?"

Severin rose and pointed with his finger at the fur with which
Titian garbed his goddess of love.

"It, too, is a 'Venus in Furs,'" he said with a slight smile. "I
don't believe that the old Venetian had any secondary intention. He
simply painted the portrait of some aristocratic Mesalina, and was
tactful enough to let Cupid hold the mirror in which she tests her
majestic allure with cold satisfaction. He looks as though his task
were becoming burdensome enough. The picture is painted flattery.
Later an 'expert' in the Rococo period baptized the lady with the
name of Venus. The furs of the despot in which Titian's fair model
wrapped herself, probably more for fear of a cold than out of
modesty, have become a symbol of the tyranny and cruelty that
constitute woman's essence and her beauty.

"But enough of that. The picture, as it now exists, is a bitter
satire on our love. Venus in this abstract North, in this icy
Christian world, has to creep into huge black furs so as not to catch
cold--"

Severin laughed, and lighted a fresh cigarette.

Just then the door opened and an attractive, stoutish, blonde girl
entered. She had wise, kindly eyes, was dressed in black silk, and
brought us cold meat and eggs with our tea. Severin took one of the
latter, and decapitated it with his knife.

"Didn't I tell you that I want them soft-boiled?" he cried with a
violence that made the young woman tremble.

"But my dear Sevtchu--" she said timidly.

"Sevtchu, nothing," he yelled, "you are to obey, obey, do you
understand?" and he tore the _kantchuk_ [Footnote: A long whip with a
short handle.] which was hanging beside the weapons from its hook.

The woman fled from the chamber quickly and timidly like a doe.

"Just wait, I'll get you yet," he called after her.

"But Severin," I said placing my hand on his arm, "how can you treat
a pretty young woman thus?"

"Look at the woman," he replied, blinking humorously with his eyes.
"Had I flattered her, she would have cast the noose around my neck,
but now, when I bring her up with the _kantchuk_, she adores me."

"Nonsense!"

"Nonsense, nothing, that is the way you have to break in women."

"Well, if you like it, live like a pasha in your harem, but don't
lay down theories for me--"

"Why not," he said animatedly. "Goethe's 'you must be hammer or anvil'
is absolutely appropriate to the relation between man and woman.
Didn't Lady Venus in your dream prove that to you? Woman's power lies
in man's passion, and she knows how to use it, if man doesn't
understand himself. He has only one choice: to be the _tyrant_ over or
the _slave_ of woman. As soon as he gives in, his neck is under the
yoke, and the lash will soon fall upon him."

"Strange maxims!"

"Not maxims, but experiences," he replied, nodding his head, "_I have
actually felt the lash_. I am cured. Do you care to know how?"

He rose, and got a small manuscript from his massive desk, and put
it in front of me.

"You have already asked about the picture. I have long owed you an
explanation. Here--read!"

Severin sat down by the chimney with his back toward me, and seemed
to dream with open eyes. Silence had fallen again, and again the fire
sang in the chimney, and the samovar and the cricket in the old
walls. I opened the manuscript and read:

CONFESSIONS OF A SUPERSENSUAL MAN.

The margin of the manuscript bore as motto a variation of the well-known
lines from _Faust_:

   "Thou supersensual sensual wooer
   A woman leads you by the nose."
   --MEPHISTOPHELES.

I turned the title-page and read: "What follows has been compiled
from my diary of that period, because it is impossible ever frankly
to write of one's past, but in this way everything retains its fresh
colors, the colors of the present."

Gogol, the Russian Moliere, says--where? well, somewhere--"the real
comic muse is the one under whose laughing mask tears roll down."

A wonderful saying.

So I have a very curious feeling as I am writing all this down. The
atmosphere seems filled with a stimulating fragrance of flowers,
which overcomes me and gives me a headache. The smoke of the
fireplace curls and condenses into figures, small gray-bearded
kokolds that mockingly point their finger at me. Chubby-cheeked
cupids ride on the arms of my chair and on my knees. I have to smile
involuntarily, even laugh aloud, as I am writing down my adventures.
Yet I am not writing with ordinary ink, but with red blood that drips
from my heart. All its wounds long scarred over have opened and it
throbs and hurts, and now and then a tear falls on the paper.

The days creep along sluggishly in the little Carpathian health-resort.
You see no one, and no one sees you. It is boring enough to write idyls.
I would have leisure here to supply a whole gallery of paintings,
furnish a theater with new pieces for an entire season, a dozen
virtuosos with concertos, trios, and duos, but--what am I saying--the
upshot of it all is that I don't do much more than to stretch the
canvas, smooth the bow, line the scores. For I am--no false modesty,
Friend Severin; you can lie to others, but you don't quite succeed any
longer in lying to yourself--I am nothing but a dilettante, a dilettante
in painting, in poetry, in music, and several other of the so-called
unprofitable arts, which, however, at present secure for their masters
the income of a cabinet minister, or even that of a minor potentate.
Above all else I am a dilettante in life.

Up to the present I have lived as I have painted and written poetry.
I never got far beyond the preparation, the plan, the first act, the
first stanza. There are people like that who begin everything, and
never finish anything. I am such a one.

But what am I saying?

To the business in hand.

I lie in my window, and the miserable little town, which fills me
with despondency, really seems infinitely full of poetry. How
wonderful the outlook upon the blue wall of high mountains interwoven
with golden sunlight; mountain-torrents weave through them like
ribbons of silver! How clear and blue the heavens into which
snowcapped crags project; how green and fresh the forested slopes;
the meadows on which small herds graze, down to the yellow billows
of grain where reapers stand and bend over and rise up again.

The house in which I live stands in a sort of park, or forest, or
wilderness, whatever one wants to call it, and is very solitary.

Its sole inhabitants are myself, a widow from Lemberg, and Madame
Tartakovska, who runs the house, a little old woman, who grows older
and smaller each day. There are also an old dog that limps on one
leg, and a young cat that continually plays with a ball of yarn. This
ball of yarn, I believe, belongs to the widow.

She is said to be really beautiful, this widow, still very young,
twenty-four at the most, and very rich. She dwells in the first story,
and I on the ground floor. She always keeps the green blinds drawn, and
has a balcony entirely overgrown with green climbing-plants. I for my
part down below have a comfortable, intimate arbor of honeysuckle, in
which I read and write and paint and sing like a bird among the twigs. I
can look up on the balcony. Sometimes I actually do so, and then from
time to time a white gown gleams between the dense green network.

Really the beautiful woman up there doesn't interest me very much, for I
am in love with someone else, and terribly unhappy at that; far more
unhappy than the Knight of Toggenburg or the Chevalier in Manon
l'Escault, because the object of my adoration is of stone.

In the garden, in the tiny wilderness, there is a graceful little
meadow on which a couple of deer graze peacefully. On this meadow is
a stone statue of Venus, the original of which, I believe, is in
Florence. This Venus is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in
all my life.

That, however, does not signify much, for I have seen few beautiful
women, or rather few women at all. In love too, I am a dilettante who
never got beyond the preparation, the first act.

But why talk in superlatives, as if something that is beautiful
could be surpassed?

It is sufficient to say that this Venus is beautiful. I love her
passionately with a morbid intensity; madly as one can only love a
woman who never responds to our love with anything but an eternally
uniform, eternally calm, stony smile. I literally adore her.

I often lie reading under the leafy covering of a young birch when
the sun broods over the forest. Often I visit that cold, cruel
mistress of mine by night and lie on my knees before her, with the
face pressed against the cold pedestal on which her feet rest, and
my prayers go up to her.

The rising moon, which just now is waning, produces an indescribable
effect. It seems to hover among the trees and submerges the meadow
in its gleam of silver. The goddess stands as if transfigured, and
seems to bathe in the soft moonlight.

Once when I was returning from my devotions by one of the walks
leading to the house, I suddenly saw a woman's figure, white as
stone, under the illumination of the moon and separated from me
merely by a screen of trees. It seemed as if the beautiful woman of
marble had taken pity on me, become alive, and followed me. I was
seized by a nameless fear, my heart threatened to burst, and instead--

Well, I am a dilettante. As always, I broke down at the second
stanza; rather, on the contrary, I did not break down, but ran away
as fast as my legs would carry me.

       *       *       *       *       *

What an accident! Through a Jew, dealing in photographs I secured a
picture of my ideal. It is a small reproduction of Titian's "Venus
with the Mirror." What a woman! I want to write a poem, but instead,
I take the reproduction, and write on it: _Venus in Furs_.

You are cold, while you yourself fan flames. By all means wrap
yourself in your despotic furs, there is no one to whom they are more
appropriate, cruel goddess of love and of beauty!--After a while I add
a few verses from Goethe, which I recently found in his paralipomena
to _Faust_.

  TO AMOR

  "The pair of wings a fiction are,
   The arrows, they are naught but claws,
   The wreath conceals the little horns,
   For without any doubt he is
   Like all the gods of ancient Greece
   Only a devil in disguise."

Then I put the picture before me on my table, supporting it with a
book, and looked at it.

I was enraptured and at the same time filled with a strange fear by
the cold coquetry with which this magnificent woman draped her charms
in her furs of dark sable; by the severity and hardness which lay in
this cold marble-like face. Again I took my pen in hand, and wrote
the following words:

"To love, to be loved, what happiness! And yet how the glamour of
this pales in comparison with the tormenting bliss of worshipping a
woman who makes a plaything out of us, of being the slave of a
beautiful tyrant who treads us pitilessly underfoot. Even Samson, the
hero, the giant, again put himself into the hands of Delilah, even
after she had betrayed him, and again she betrayed him, and the
Philistines bound him and put out his eyes which until the very end
he kept fixed, drunken with rage and love, upon the beautiful
betrayer."

I was breakfasting in my honey-suckle arbor, and reading in the Book
of Judith. I envied the hero Holofernes because of the regal woman
who cut off his head with a sword, and because of his beautiful
sanguinary end.

"The almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into the
hands of a woman."

This sentence strangely impressed me.

How ungallant these Jews are, I thought. And their God might choose
more becoming expressions when he speaks of the fair sex.

"The almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into the
hands of a woman," I repeated to myself. What shall I do, so that He
may punish me?

Heaven preserve us! Here comes the housekeeper, who has again
diminished somewhat in size overnight. And up there among the green
twinings and garlandings the white gown gleams again. Is it Venus,
or the widow?

This time it happens to be the widow, for Madame Tartakovska makes
a courtesy, and asks me in her name for something to read. I run to
my room, and gather together a couple of volumes.

Later I remember that my picture of Venus is in one of them, and now
it and my effusions are in the hands of the white woman up there
together. What will she say?

I hear her laugh.

Is she laughing at me?

It is full moon. It is already peering over the tops of the low
hemlocks that fringe the park. A silvery exhalation fills the
terrace, the groups of trees, all the landscape, as far as the eye
can reach; in the distance it gradually fades away, like trembling
waters.

I cannot resist. I feel a strange urge and call within me. I put on
my clothes again and go out into the garden.

Some power draws me toward the meadow, toward her, who is my
divinity and my beloved.

The night is cool. I feel a slight chill. The atmosphere is heavy
with the odor of flowers and of the forest. It intoxicates.

What solemnity! What music round about! A nightingale sobs. The
stars quiver very faintly in the pale-blue glamour. The meadow seems
smooth, like a mirror, like a covering of ice on a pond.

The statue of Venus stands out august and luminous.

But--what has happened? From the marble shoulders of the goddess a
large dark fur flows down to her heels. I stand dumbfounded and stare
at her in amazement; again an indescribable fear seizes hold of me
and I take flight.

I hasten my steps, and notice that I have missed the main path. As
I am about to turn aside into one of the green walks I see Venus
sitting before me on a stone bench, not the beautiful woman of
marble, but the goddess of love herself with warm blood and throbbing
pulses. She has actually come to life for me, like the statue that
began to breathe for her creator. Indeed, the miracle is only half
completed. Her white hair seems still to be of stone, and her white
gown shimmers like moonlight, or is it satin? From her shoulders the
dark fur flows. But her lips are already reddening and her cheeks
begin to take color. Two diabolical green rays out of her eyes fall
upon me, and now she laughs.

Her laughter is very mysterious, very--I don't know. It cannot be
described, it takes my breath away. I flee further, and after every
few steps I have to pause to take breath. The mocking laughter
pursues me through the dark leafy paths, across light open spaces,
through the thicket where only single moonbeams can pierce. I can no
longer find my way, I wander about utterly confused, with cold drops
of perspiration on the forehead.

Finally I stand still, and engage in a short monologue.

It runs--well--one is either very polite to one's self or very rude.

I say to myself:

"Donkey!"

This word exercises a remarkable effect, like a magic formula, which
sets me free and makes me master of myself.

I am perfectly quiet in a moment.

With considerable pleasure I repeat: "Donkey!"

Now everything is perfectly clear and distinct before my eyes again.
There is the fountain, there the alley of box-wood, there the house
which I am slowly approaching.

Yet--suddenly the appearance is here again. Behind the green screen
through which the moonlight gleams so that it seems embroidered with
silver, I again see the white figure, the woman of stone whom I
adore, whom I fear and flee.

With a couple of leaps I am within the house and catch my breath and
reflect.

What am I really, a little dilettante or a great big donkey?

A sultry morning, the atmosphere is dead, heavily laden with odors,
yet stimulating. Again I am sitting in my honey-suckle arbor, reading
in the Odyssey about the beautiful witch who transformed her admirers
into beasts. A wonderful picture of antique love.

There is a soft rustling in the twigs and blades and the pages of my
book rustle and on the terrace likewise there is a rustling.

A woman's dress--

She is there--Venus--but without furs--No, this time it is merely
the widow--and yet--Venus-oh, what a woman!

As she stands there in her light white morning gown, looking at me, her
slight figure seems full of poetry and grace. She is neither large, nor
small; her head is alluring, piquant--in the sense of the period of the
French marquises--rather than formally beautiful. What enchantment and
softness, what roguish charm play about her none too small mouth! Her
skin is so infinitely delicate, that the blue veins show through
everywhere; even through the muslin covering her arms and bosom. How
abundant her red hair-it is red, not blonde or golden-yellow--how
diabolically and yet tenderly it plays around her neck! Now her eyes
meet mine like green lightnings--they are green, these eyes of hers,
whose power is so indescribable--green, but as are precious stones, or
deep unfathomable mountain lakes.

She observes my confusion, which has even made me discourteous, for I
have remained seated and still have my cap on my head.

She smiles roguishly.

Finally I rise and bow to her. She comes closer, and bursts out into
a loud, almost childlike laughter. I stammer, as only a little
dilettante or great big donkey can do on such an occasion.

Thus our acquaintance began.

The divinity asks for my name, and mentions her own.

Her name is Wanda von Dunajew.

And she is actually my Venus.

"But madame, what put the idea into your head?"

"The little picture in one of your books--"

"I had forgotten about it."

"The curious notes on its back--"

"Why curious?"

She looked at me.

"I have always wanted to know a real dreamer some time--for the sake
of the change--and you seem one of the maddest of the tribe."

"Dear lady--in fact--" Again I fell victim to an odious, asinine
stammering, and in addition blushed in a way that might have been
appropriate for a youngster of sixteen, but not for me, who was
almost a full ten years older--

"You were afraid of me last night."

"Really--of course--but won't you sit down?"

She sat down, and enjoyed my embarrassment--for actually I was even
more afraid of her now in the full light of day. A delightful
expression of contempt hovered about her upper lip.

"You look at love, and especially woman," she began, "as something
hostile, something against which you put up a defense, even if
unsuccessfully. You feel that their power over you gives you a
sensation of pleasurable torture, of pungent cruelty. This is a
genuinely modern point of view."

"You don't share it?"

"I do not share it," she said quickly and decisively, shaking her
head, so that her curls flew up like red flames.

"The ideal which I strive to realize in my life is the serene
sensuousness of the Greeks--pleasure without pain. I do not believe
in the kind of love which is preached by Christianity, by the
moderns, by the knights of the spirit. Yes, look at me, I am worse
than a heretic, I am a pagan.

  'Doest thou imagine long the goddess of love took counsel
   When in Ida's grove she was pleased with the hero Achilles?'

"These lines from Goethe's _Roman Elegy_ have always delighted me.

"In nature there is only the love of the heroic age, 'when gods and
goddesses loved.' At that time 'desire followed the glance, enjoyment
desire.' All else is factitious, affected, a lie. Christianity, whose
cruel emblem, the cross, has always had for me an element of the
monstrous, brought something alien and hostile into nature and its
innocent instincts.

"The battle of the spirit with the senses is the gospel of modern
man. I do not care to have a share in it."

"Yes, Mount Olympus would be the place for you, madame," I replied,
"but we moderns can no longer support the antique serenity, least of
all in love. The idea of sharing a woman, even if it were an Aspasia,
with another revolts us. We are jealous as is our God. For example,
we have made a term abuse out of the name of the glorious Phryne.

"We prefer one of Holbein's meagre, pallid virgins, which is wholly
ours to an antique Venus, no matter how divinely beautiful she is,
but who loves Anchises to-day, Paris to-morrow, Adonis the day after.
And if nature triumphs in us so that we give our whole glowing,
passionate devotion to such a woman, her serene joy of life appears
to us as something demonic and cruel, and we read into our happiness
a sin which we must expiate."

"So you too are one of those who rave about modern women, those
miserable hysterical feminine creatures who don't appreciate a real
man in their somnambulistic search for some dream-man and masculine
ideal. Amid tears and convulsions they daily outrage their Christian
duties; they cheat and are cheated; they always seek again and choose
and reject; they are never happy, and never give happiness. They
accuse fate instead of calmly confessing that they want to love and
live as Helen and Aspasia lived. Nature admits of no permanence in
the relation between man and woman."

"But, my dear lady--"

"Let me finish. It is only man's egoism which wants to keep woman
like some buried treasure. All endeavors to introduce permanence in
love, the most changeable thing in this changeable human existence,
have gone shipwreck in spite of religious ceremonies, vows, and
legalities. Can you deny that our Christian world has given itself
over to corruption?"

"But--"

"But you are about to say, the individual who rebels against the
arrangements of society is ostracized, branded, stoned. So be it. I
am willing to take the risk; my principles are very pagan. I will
live my own life as it pleases me. I am willing to do without your
hypocritical respect; I prefer to be happy. The inventors of the
Christian marriage have done well, simultaneously to invent
immortality. I, however, have no wish to live eternally. When with
my last breath everything as far as Wanda von Dunajew is concerned
comes to an end here below, what does it profit me whether my pure
spirit joins the choirs of angels, or whether my dust goes into the
formation of new beings? Shall I belong to one man whom I don't love,
merely because I have once loved him? No, I do not renounce; I love
everyone who pleases me, and give happiness to everyone who loves me.
Is that ugly? No, it is more beautiful by far, than if cruelly I
enjoy the tortures, which my beauty excites, and virtuously reject
the poor fellow who is pining away for me. I am young, rich, and
beautiful, and I live serenely for the sake of pleasure and
enjoyment."

While she was speaking her eyes sparkled roguishly, and I had taken
hold of her hands without exactly knowing what to do with them, but
being a genuine dilettante I hastily let go of them again.

"Your frankness," I said, "delights me, and not it alone--"

My confounded dilettantism again throttled me as though there were
a rope around my neck.

"You were about to say--"

"I was about to say--I was--I am sorry--I interrupted you."

"How, so?"

A long pause. She is doubtless engaging in a monologue, which
translated into my language would be comprised in the single word,
"donkey."

"If I may ask," I finally began, "how did you arrive at these--these
conclusions?"

"Quite simply, my father was an intelligent man. From my cradle onward
I was surrounded by replicas of ancient art; at ten years of age I
read _Gil Blas_, at twelve _La Pucelle_. Where others had
Hop-o'-my-thumb, Bluebeard, Cinderella, as childhood friends, mine
were Venus and Apollo, Hercules and Lackoon. My husband's personality
was filled with serenity and sunlight. Not even the incurable illness
which fell upon him soon after our marriage could long cloud his brow.
On the very night of his death he took me in his arms, and during the
many months when he lay dying in his wheel chair, he often said
jokingly to me: 'Well, have you already picked out a lover?' I blushed
with shame. 'Don't deceive me,' he added on one occasion, 'that would
seem ugly to me, but pick out an attractive lover, or preferably
several. You are a splendid woman, but still half a child, and you
need toys.'

"I suppose, I hardly need tell you that during his life time I had
no lover; but it was through him that I have become what I am, a
woman of Greece."

"A goddess," I interrupted.

"Which one," she smiled.

"Venus."

She threatened me with her finger and knitted her brows. "Perhaps,
even a 'Venus in Furs.' Watch out, I have a large, very large fur,
with which I could cover you up entirely, and I have a mind to catch
you in it as in a net."

"Do you believe," I said quickly, for an idea which seemed good, in
spite of its conventionality and triteness, flashed into my head, "do
you believe that your theories could be carried into execution at the
present time, that Venus would be permitted to stray with impunity
among our railroads and telegraphs in all her undraped beauty and
serenity?"

"_Undraped_, of course not, but in furs," she replied smiling, "would
you care to see mine?"

"And then--"

"What then?"

"Beautiful, free, serene, and happy human beings, such as the Greeks
were, are only possible when it is permitted to have _slaves_ who will
perform the prosaic tasks of every day for them and above all else
labor for them."

"Of course," she replied playfully, "an Olympian divinity, such as
I am, requires a whole army of slaves. Beware of me!"

"Why?"

I myself was frightened at the hardiness with which I uttered this
"why"; it did not startle her in the least.

She drew back her lips a little so that her small white teeth became
visible, and then said lightly, as if she were discussing some
trifling matter, "Do you want to be my slave?"

"There is no equality in love," I replied solemnly. "Whenever it is
a matter of choice for me of ruling or being ruled, it seems much
more satisfactory to me to be the slave of a beautiful woman. But
where shall I find the woman who knows how to rule, calmly, full of
self-confidence, even harshly, and not seek to gain her power by
means of petty nagging?"

"Oh, that might not be so difficult."

"You think--"

"I--for instance--" she laughed and leaned far back--"I have a real
talent for despotism--I also have the necessary furs--but last night
you were really seriously afraid of me!"

"Quite seriously."

"And now?"

"Now, I am more afraid of you than ever!"

We are together every day, I and--Venus; we are together a great
deal. We breakfast in my honey-suckle arbor, and have tea in her
little sitting-room. I have an opportunity to unfold all my small,
very small talents. Of what use would have been my study of all the
various sciences, my playing at all the arts, if I were unable in the
case of a pretty, little woman--

But this woman is by no means little; in fact she impresses me
tremendously. I made a drawing of her to-day, and felt particularly
clearly, how inappropriate the modern way of dressing is for a
cameo-head like hers. The configuration of her face has little of the
Roman, but much of the Greek.

Sometimes I should like to paint her as Psyche, and then again as
Astarte. It depends upon the expression in her eyes, whether it is
vaguely dreamy, or half-consuming, filled with tired desire.
She, however, insists that it be a portrait-likeness.

I shall make her a present of furs.

How could I have any doubts? If not for her, for whom would princely
furs be suitable?

       *       *       *       *       *

I was with her yesterday evening, reading the _Roman Elegies_ to her.
Then I laid the book aside, and improvised something for her. She
seemed pleased; rather more than that, she actually hung upon my
words, and her bosom heaved.

Or was I mistaken?

The rain beat in melancholy fashion on the window-panes, the fire
crackled in the fireplace in wintery comfort. I felt quite at home
with her, and for a moment lost all my fear of this beautiful woman;
I kissed her hand, and she permitted it.

Then I sat down at her feet and read a short poem I had written for
her.

  VENUS IN FURS.

  "Place thy foot upon thy slave,
  Oh thou, half of hell, half of dreams;
  Among the shadows, dark and grave,
  Thy extended body softly gleams."

And--so on. This time I really got beyond the first stanza. At her
request I gave her the poem in the evening, keeping no copy. And now
as I am writing this down in my diary I can only remember the first
stanza.

I am filled with a very curious sensation. I don't believe that I am
in love with Wanda; I am sure that at our first meeting, I felt
nothing of the lightning-like flashes of passion. But I feel how her
extraordinary, really divine beauty is gradually winding magic snares
about me. It isn't any spiritual sympathy which is growing in me; it
is a physical subjection, coming on slowly, but for that reason more
absolutely.

I suffer under it more and more each day, and she--she merely smiles.

       *       *       *       *       *

Without any provocation she suddenly said to me to-day: "You
interest me. Most men are very commonplace, without verve or poetry.
In you there is a certain depth and capacity for enthusiasm and a
deep seriousness, which delight me. I might learn to love you."

After a short but severe shower we went out together to the meadow
and the statue of Venus. All about us the earth steamed; mists rose
up toward heaven like clouds of incense; a shattered rainbow still
hovered in the air. The trees were still shedding drops, but sparrows
and finches were already hopping from twig to twig. They are
twittering gaily, as if very much pleased at something. Everything
is filled with a fresh fragrance. We cannot cross the meadow for it
is still wet. In the sunlight it looks like a small pool, and the
goddess of love seems to rise from the undulations of its mirror-like
surface. About her head a swarm of gnats is dancing, which,
illuminated by the sun, seem to hover above her like an aureole.

Wanda is enjoying the lovely scene. As all the benches along the
walk are still wet, she supports herself on my arm to rest a while.
A soft weariness permeates her whole being, her eyes are half closed;
I feel the touch of her breath on my cheek.

How I managed to get up courage enough I really don't know, but I
took hold of her hand, asking,

"Could you love me?"

"Why not," she replied, letting her calm, clear look rest upon me,
but not for long.

A moment later I am kneeling before her, pressing my burning face
against the fragrant muslin of her gown.

"But Severin--this isn't right," she cried.

But I take hold of her little foot, and press my lips upon it.

"You are getting worse and worse!" she cried. She tore herself free,
and fled rapidly toward the house, the while her adorable slipper
remained in my hand.

Is it an omen?

       *       *       *       *       *

All day long I didn't dare to go near her. Toward evening as I was
sitting in my arbor her gay red head peered suddenly through the
greenery of her balcony. "Why don't you come up?" he called down
impatiently.

I ran upstairs, and at the top lost courage again. I knocked very
lightly. She didn't say come-in, but opened the door herself, and
stood on the threshold.

"Where is my slipper?"

"It is--I have--I want," I stammered.

"Get it, and then we will have tea together, and chat."

When I returned, she was engaged in making tea. I ceremoniously
placed the slipper on the table, and stood in the corner like a child
awaiting punishment.

I noticed that her brows were slightly contracted, and there was an
expression of hardness and dominance about her lips which delighted
me.

All of a sudden she broke out laughing.

"So--you are really in love--with me?"

"Yes, and I suffer more from it than you can imagine?"

"You suffer?" she laughed again.

I was revolted, mortified, annihilated, but all this was quite
useless.

"Why?" she continued, "I like you, with all my heart."

She gave me her hand, and looked at me in the friendliest fashion.

"And will you be my wife?"

Wanda looked at me--how did she look at me? I think first of all
with surprise, and then with a tinge of irony.

"What has given you so much courage, all at once?"

"Courage?"

"Yes courage, to ask anyone to be your wife, and me in particular?"
She lifted up the slipper. "Was it through a sudden friendship with
this? But joking aside. Do you really wish to marry me?"

"Yes."

"Well, Severin, that is a serious matter. I believe, you love me,
and I care for you too, and what is more important each of us finds
the other interesting. There is no danger that we would soon get
bored, but, you know, I am a fickle person, and just for that reason
I take marriage seriously. If I assume obligations, I want to be able
to meet them. But I am afraid--no--it would hurt you."

"Please be perfectly frank with me," I replied.

"Well then honestly, I don't believe I could love a man longer than--"
She inclined her head gracefully to one side and mused.

"A year."

"What do you imagine--a month perhaps."

"Not even me?"

"Oh you--perhaps two."

"Two months!" I exclaimed.

"Two months is very long."

"You go beyond antiquity, madame."

"You see, you cannot stand the truth."

Wanda walked across the room and leaned back against the fireplace,
watching me and resting one of her arms on the mantelpiece.

"What shall I do with you?" she began anew.

"Whatever you wish," I replied with resignation, "whatever will give
you pleasure."

"How illogical!" she cried, "first you want to make me your wife,
and then you offer yourself to me as something to toy with."

"Wanda--I love you."

"Now we are back to the place where we started. You love me, and
want to make me your wife, but I don't want to enter into a new
marriage, because I doubt the permanence of both my and your
feelings."

"But if I am willing to take the risk with you?" I replied.

"But it also depends on whether I am willing to risk it with you,"
she said quietly. "I can easily imagine belonging to one man for my
entire life, but he would have to be a whole man, a man who would
dominate me, who would subjugate me by his inate strength, do you
understand? And every man--I know this very well--as soon as he falls
in love becomes weak, pliable, ridiculous. He puts himself into the
woman's hands, kneels down before her. The only man whom I could love
permanently would be he before whom I should have to kneel. I've gotten
to like you so much, however, that I'll try it with you."

I fell down at her feet.

"For heaven's sake, here you are kneeling already," she said
mockingly. "You are making a good beginning." When I had risen again
she continued, "I will give you a year's time to win me, to convince
me that we are suited to each other, that we might live together. If
you succeed, I will become your wife, and a wife, Severin, who will
conscientiously and strictly perform all her duties. During this year
we will live as though we were married--"

My blood rose to my head.

In her eyes too there was a sudden flame--

"We will live together," she continued, "share our daily life, so that
we may find out whether we are really fitted for each other. _I grant
you all the rights of a husband, of a lover, of a friend._ Are you
satisfied?"

"I suppose, I'll have to be?"

"You don't have to."

"Well then, I want to--"

"Splendid. That is how a man speaks. Here is my hand."

       *       *       *       *       *

For ten days I have been with her every hour, except at night. All
the time I was allowed to look into her eyes, hold her hands, listen
to what she said, accompany her wherever she went.

My love seems to me like a deep, bottomless abyss, into which I
subside deeper and deeper. There is nothing now which could save me
from it.

This afternoon we were resting on the meadow at the foot of the
Venus-statue. I plucked flowers and tossed them into her lap; she
wound them into wreaths with which we adorned our goddess.

Suddenly Wanda looked at me so strangely that my senses became
confused and passion swept over my head like a conflagration. Losing
command over myself, I threw my arms about her and clung to her lips,
and she--she drew me close to her heaving breast.

"Are you angry?" I then asked her.

"I am never angry at anything that is natural--" she replied, "but
_I_ am afraid you suffer."

"Oh, I am suffering frightfully."

"Poor friend!" she brushed my disordered hair back from my fore-head. "I
hope it isn't through any fault of mine."

"No--" I replied,--"and yet my love for you has become a sort of
madness. The thought that I might lose you, perhaps actually lose
you, torments me day and night."

"But you don't yet possess me," said Wanda, and again she looked at
me with that vibrant, consuming expression, which had already once
before carried me away. Then she rose, and with her small transparent
hands placed a wreath of blue anemones upon the ringletted white head
of Venus. Half against my will I threw my arm around her body.

"I can no longer live without you, oh wonderful woman," I said.
"Believe me, believe only this once, that this time it is not a
phrase, not a thing of dreams. I feel deep down in my innermost soul,
that my life belongs inseparably with yours. If you leave me, I shall
perish, go to pieces."

"That will hardly be necessary, for I love you," she took hold of my
chin, "you foolish man!"

"But you will be mine only under conditions, while I belong to you
unconditionally--"

"That isn't wise, Severin," she replied almost with a start. "Don't
you know me yet, do you absolutely refuse to know me? I am good when
I am treated seriously and reasonably, but when you abandon yourself
too absolutely to me, I grow arrogant--"

"So be it, be arrogant, be despotic," I cried in the fulness of
exaltation, "only be mine, mine forever." I lay at her feet,
embracing her knees.

"Things will end badly, my friend," she said soberly, without moving.

"It shall never end," I cried excitedly, almost violently. "Only death
shall part us. If you cannot be mine, all mine and for always, then _I
want to be your slave_, serve you, suffer everything from you, if only
you won't drive me away."

"Calm yourself," she said, bending down and kissing my forehead, "I
am really very fond of you, but your way is not the way to win and
hold me."

"I want to do everything, absolutely everything, that you want, only
not to lose you," I cried, "only not that, I cannot bear the thought."

"Do get up."

I obeyed.

"You are a strange person," continued Wanda. "You wish to possess me
at any price?"

"Yes, at any price."

"But of what value, for instance, would that be?"--She pondered; a
lurking uncanny expression entered her eyes--"If I no longer loved
you, if I belonged to another."

A shudder ran through me. I looked at her She stood firmly and
confident before me, and her eyes disclosed a cold gleam.

"You see," she continued, "the very thought frightens you." A
beautiful smile suddenly illuminated her face.

"I feel a perfect horror, when I imagine, that the woman I love and
who has responded to my love could give herself to another regardless
of me. But have I still a choice? If I love such a woman, even unto
madness, shall I turn my back to her and lose everything for the sake
of a bit of boastful strength; shall I send a bullet through my
brains? I have two ideals of woman. If I cannot obtain the one that
is noble and simple, the woman who will faithfully and truly share
my life, well then I don't want anything half-way or lukewarm. Then
I would rather be subject to a woman without virtue, fidelity, or pity.
Such a woman in her magnificent selfishness is likewise an ideal. If
I am not permitted to enjoy the happiness of love, fully and wholly,
I want to taste its pains and torments to the very dregs; I want to
be maltreated and betrayed by the woman I love, and the more cruelly
the better. This too is a luxury."

"Have you lost your senses," cried Wanda.

"I love you with all my soul," I continued, "with all my senses, and
your presence and personality are absolutely essential to me, if I
am to go on living. Choose between my ideals. Do with me what you will,
make of me your husband or your slave."

"Very well," said Wanda, contracting her small but strongly arched
brows, "it seems to me it would be rather entertaining to have a man,
who interests me and loves me, completely in my power; at least I
shall not lack pastime. You were imprudent enough to leave the choice
to me. Therefore I choose; I want you to be my slave, I shall make
a plaything for myself out of you!"

"Oh, please do," I cried half-shuddering, half-enraptured. "If the
foundation of marriage depends on equality and agreement, it is
likewise true that the greatest passions rise out of opposites. We
are such opposites, almost enemies. That is why my love is part hate,
part fear. In such a relation only one can be hammer and the other
anvil. I wish to be the anvil. I cannot be happy when I look down
upon the woman I love. I want to adore a woman, and this I can only
do when she is cruel towards me."

"But, Severin," replied Wanda, almost angrily, "do you believe me
capable of maltreating a man who loves me as you do, and whom I love?"

"Why not, if I adore you the more on this account? _It is possible to
love really only that which stands above us,_ a woman, who through her
beauty, temperament, intelligence, and strength of will subjugates us
and becomes a despot over us."

"Then that which repels others, attracts you."

"Yes. That is the strange part of me."

"Perhaps, after all, there isn't anything so very unique or strange
in all your passions, for who doesn't love beautiful furs? And
everyone knows and feels how closely sexual love and cruelty are
related."

"But in my case all these elements are raised to their highest
degree," I replied.

"In other words, reason has little power over you, and you are by
nature, soft, sensual, yielding."

"Were the martyrs also soft and sensual by nature?"

"The martyrs?"

"On the contrary, they were _supersensual men,_ who found enjoyment in
suffering. They sought out the most frightful tortures, even death
itself, as others seek joy, and as they were, so am I--_supersensual."_

"Have a care that in being such, you do not become a martyr to love,
the _martyr of a woman_."

We are sitting on Wanda's little balcony in the mellow fragrant
summer night. A twofold roof is above us, first the green ceiling of
climbing-plants, and then the vault of heaven sown with innumerable
stars. The low wailing love-call of a cat rises from the park. I am
sitting on footstool at the feet of my divinity, and am telling her
of my childhood.

"And even then all these strange tendencies were distinctly marked
in you?" asked Wanda.

"Of course, I can't remember a time when I didn't have them. Even in
my cradle, so mother has told me, I was _supersensual._ I scorned the
healthy breast of my nurse, and had to be brought up on goats' milk.
As a little boy I was mysteriously shy before women, which really was
only an expression of an inordinate interest in them. I was oppressed
by the gray arches and half-darknesses of the church, and actually
afraid of the glittering altars and images of the saints. Secretly,
however, I sneaked as to a secret joy to a plaster-Venus which stood
in my father's little library. I kneeled down before her, and to her I
said the prayers I had been taught--the Paternoster, the Ave Maria,
and the Credo.

"Once at night I left my bed to visit her. The sickle of the moon
was my light and showed me the goddess in a pale-blue cold light. I
prostrated myself before her and kissed her cold feet, as I had seen
our peasants do when they kissed the feet of the dead Savior.

"An irresistible yearning seized me.

"I got up and embraced the beautiful cold body and kissed the cold
lips. A deep shudder fell upon me and I fled, and later in a dream,
it seemed to me, as if the goddess stood beside my bed, threatening
me with up-raised arm.

"I was sent to school early and soon reached the gymnasium. I
passionately grasped at everything which promised to make the world
of antiquity accessible to me. Soon I was more familiar with the gods
of Greece than with the religion of Jesus. I was with Paris when he
gave the fateful apple to Venus, I saw Troy burn, and followed
Ulysses on his wanderings. The prototypes of all that is beautiful
sank deep into my soul, and consequently at the time when other boys
are coarse and obscene, I displayed an insurmountable aversion to
everything base, vulgar, unbeautiful.

"To me, the maturing youth, love for women seemed something
especially base and unbeautiful, for it showed itself to me first in
all its commonness. I avoided all contact with the fair sex; in
short, I was supersensual to madness.

"When I was about fourteen my mother had a charming chamber-maid,
young, attractive, with a figure just budding into womanhood. I was
sitting one day studying my Tacitus and growing enthusiastic over the
virtues of the ancient Teutons, while she was sweeping my room.
Suddenly she stopped, bent down over me, in the meantime holding fast
to the broom, and a pair of fresh, full, adorable lips touched mine.
The kiss of the enamoured little cat ran through me like a shudder,
but I raised up my _Germania_, like a shield against the temptress,
and indignantly left the room."

Wanda broke out in loud laughter. "It would, indeed, be hard to find
another man like you, but continue."

"There is another unforgetable incident belonging to that period,"
I continued my story. "Countess Sobol, a distant aunt of mine, was
visiting my parents. She was a beautiful majestic woman with an
attractive smile. I, however, hated her, for she was regarded by the
family as a sort of Messalina. My behavior toward her was as rude,
malicious, and awkward as possible.

"One day my parents drove to the capital of the district. My aunt
determined to take advantage of their absence, and to exercise
judgment over me. She entered unexpectedly in her fur-lined
_kazabaika,_ [Footnote: A woman's jacket.] followed by the cook,
kitchen-maid, and the cat of a chamber-maid whom I had scorned.
Without asking any questions, they seized me and bound me hand and
foot, in spite of my violent resistance. Then my aunt, with an evil
smile, rolled up her sleeve and began to whip me with a stout switch.
She whipped so hard that the blood flowed, and that, at last,
notwithstanding my heroic spirit, I cried and wept and begged for
mercy. She then had me untied, but I had to get down on my knees and
thank her for the punishment and kiss her hand.

"Now you understand the supersensual fool! Under the lash of a
beautiful woman my senses first realized the meaning of woman. In her
fur-jacket she seemed to me like a wrathful queen, and from then on
my aunt became the most desirable woman on God's earth.

"My Cato-like austerity, my shyness before woman, was nothing but an
excessive feeling for beauty. In my imagination sensuality became a
sort of cult. I took an oath to myself that I would not squander its
holy wealth upon any ordinary person, but I would reserve it for an
ideal woman, if possible for the goddess of love herself.

"I went to the university at a very early age. It was in the capital
where my aunt lived. My room looked at that time like Doctor
Faustus's. Everything in it was in a wild confusion. There were huge
closets stuffed full of books, which I bought for a song from a
Jewish dealer on the Servanica; [Footnote: The street of the Jews in
Lemberg.] there were globes, atlases, flasks, charts of the heavens,
skeletons of animals, skulls, the busts of eminent men. It looked as
though Mephistopheles might have stepped out from behind the huge
green store as a wandering scholiast at any moment.

"I studied everything in a jumble without system, without selection:
chemistry, alchemy, history, astronomy, philosophy, law, anatomy, and
literature; I read Homer, Virgil, Ossian, Schiller, Goethe,
Shakespeare, Cervantes, Voltaire, Moliere, the Koran, the Kosmos,
Casanova's Memoirs. I grew more confused each day, more fantastical,
more supersensual. All the time a beautiful ideal woman hovered in my
imagination. Every so and so often she appeared before me like a
vision among my leather-bound books and dead bones, lying on a bed of
roses, surrounded by cupids. Sometimes she appeared gowned like the
Olympians with the stern white face of the plaster Venus; sometimes in
braids of a rich brown, blue-eyes, in my aunt's red velvet
_kazabaika,_ trimmed with ermine.

"One morning when she had again risen out of the golden mist of my
imagination in all her smiling beauty, I went to see Countess Sobol,
who received me in a friendly, even cordial manner. She gave me a
kiss of welcome, which put all my senses in a turmoil. She was
probably about forty years old, but like most well-preserved women
of the world, still very attractive. She wore as always her fur-edged
jacket. This time it was one of green velvet with brown marten. But
nothing of the sternness which had so delighted me the other time was
now discernable.

"On the contrary, there was so little of cruelty in her that without
any more ado she let me adore her.

"Only too soon did she discover my supersensual folly and innocence,
and it pleased her to make me happy. As for myself--I was as happy
as a young god. What rapture for me to be allowed to lie before her
on my knees, and to kiss her hands, those with which she had scourged
me! What marvellous hands they were, of beautiful form, delicate,
rounded, and white, with adorable dimples! I really was in love with
her hands only. I played with them, let them submerge and emerge in
the dark fur, held them against the light, and was unable to satiate
my eyes with them."

Wanda involuntarily looked at her hand; I noticed it, and had to
smile.

"From the way in which the supersensual predominated in me in those
days you can see that I was in love only with the cruel lashes I
received from my aunt; and about two years later when I paid court
to a young actress only in the roles she played. Still later I became
the admirer of a respectable woman. She acted the part of
irreproachable virtue, only in the end to betray me with a rich Jew.
You see, it is because I was betrayed, sold, by a woman who feigned
the strictest principles and the highest ideals, that I hate that
sort of poetical, sentimental virtue so intensely. Give me rather a
woman who is honest enough to say to me: I am a Pompadour, a Lucretia
Borgia, and I am ready to adore her."

Wanda rose and opened the window.

"You have a curious way of arousing one's imagination, stimulating
all one's nerves, and making one's pulses beat faster. You put an
aureole on vice, provided only if it is honest. Your ideal is a
daring courtesan of genius. Oh, you are the kind of man who will
corrupt a woman to her very last fiber."

       *       *       *       *       *

In the middle of the night there was a knock at my window; I got up,
opened it, and was startled. Without stood "Venus in Furs," just as
she had appeared to me the first time.

"You have disturbed me with your stories; I have been tossing about
in bed, and can't go to sleep," she said. "Now come and stay with me."

"In a moment."

As I entered Wanda was crouching by the fireplace where she had
kindled a small fire.

"Autumn is coming," she began, "the nights are really quite cold
already. I am afraid you may not like it, but I can't put off my furs
until the room is sufficiently warm."

"Not like it--you are joking--you know--" I threw my arm around her,
and kissed her.

"Of course, I know, but why this great fondness for furs?"

"I was born with it," I replied. "I already had it as a child.
Furthermore furs have a stimulating effect on all highly organized
natures. This is due both to general and natural laws. It is a
physical stimulus which sets you tingling, and no one can wholly
escape it. Science has recently shown a certain relationship between
electricity and warmth; at any rate, their effects upon the human
organism are related. The torrid zone produces more passionate
characters, a heated atmosphere stimulation. Likewise with
electricity. This is the reason why the presence of cats exercises
such a magic influence upon highly-organized men of intellect. This
is why these long-tailed Graces of the animal kingdom, these
adorable, scintillating electric batteries have been the favorite
animal of a Mahommed, Cardinal Richelieu, Crebillon, Rousseau,
Wieland."

"A woman wearing furs, then," cried Wanda, "is nothing else than a
large cat, an augmented electric battery?"

"Certainly," I replied. "That is my explanation of the symbolic
meaning which fur has acquired as the attribute of power and beauty.
Monarchs and the dominant higher nobility in former times used it in
this sense for their costume, exclusively; great painters used it
only for queenly beauty. The most beautiful frame, which Raphael
could find for the divine forms of Fornarina and Titian for the
roseate body of his beloved, was dark furs."

"Thanks for the learned discourse on love," said Wanda, "but you
haven't told me everything. You associate something entirely
individual with furs."

"Certainly," I cried. "I have repeatedly told you that suffering has
a peculiar attraction for me. Nothing can intensify my passion more
than tyranny, cruelty, and especially the faithlessness of a
beautiful woman. And I cannot imagine this woman, this strange ideal
derived from an aesthetics of ugliness, this soul of Nero in the body
of a Phryne, except in furs."

"I understand," Wanda interrupted. "It gives a dominant and imposing
quality to a woman."

"Not only that," I continued. "You know I am _supersensual._ With me
everything has its roots in the imagination, and thence it receives
its nourishment. I was already pre-maturely developed and highly
sensitive, when at about the age of ten the legends of the martyrs
fell into my hands. I remember reading with a kind of horror, which
really was rapture, of how they pined in prisons, were laid on the
gridiron, pierced with arrows, boiled in pitch, thrown to wild
animals, nailed to the cross, and suffered the most horrible torment
with a kind of joy. To suffer and endure cruel torture from then on
seemed to me exquisite delight, especially when it was inflicted by a
beautiful woman, for ever since I can remember all poetry and
everything demonic was for me concentrated in woman. I literally
carried the idea into a sort of cult.

"I felt there was something sacred in sex; in fact, it was the only
sacred thing. In woman and her beauty I saw something divine, because
the most important function of existence--the continuation of the
species--is her vocation. To me woman represented a personification of
nature, _Isis_, and man was her priest, her slave. In contrast to him
she was cruel like nature herself who tosses aside whatever has served
her purposes as soon as she no longer has need for it. To him her
cruelties, even death itself, still were sensual raptures.

"I envied King Gunther whom the mighty Brunhilde fettered on the
bridal night, and the poor troubadour whom his capricious mistress
had sewed in the skins of wolves to have him hunted like game. I
envied the Knight Ctirad whom the daring Amazon Scharka craftily
ensnared in a forest near Prague, and carried to her castle Divin,
where, after having amused herself a while with him, she had him
broken on the wheel--"

"Disgusting," cried Wanda. "I almost wish you might fall into the
hands of a woman of their savage race. In the wolf's skin, under the
teeth of the dogs, or upon the wheel, you would lose the taste for
your kind of poetry."

"Do you think so? I hardly do."

"Have you actually lost your senses."

"Possibly. But let me go on. I developed a perfect passion for
reading stories in which the extremest cruelties were described. I
loved especially to look at pictures and prints which represented
them. All the sanguinary tyrants that ever occupied a throne; the
inquisitors who had the heretics tortured, roasted, and butchered;
all the woman whom the pages of history have recorded as lustful,
beautiful, and violent women like Libussa, Lucretia Borgia, Agnes of
Hungary, Queen Margot, Isabeau, the Sultana Roxolane, the Russian
Czarinas of last century--all these I saw in furs or in robes
bordered with ermine."

"And so furs now rouse strange imaginings in you," said Wanda, and
simultaneously she began to drape her magnificent fur-cloak
coquettishly about her, so that the dark shining sable played
beautifully around her bust and arms. "Well, how do you feel now,
half broken on the wheel?"

Her piercing green eyes rested on me with a peculiar mocking
satisfaction. Overcome by desire, I flung myself down before her, and
threw my arms about her.

"Yes--you have awakened my dearest dream," I cried. "It has slept
long enough."

"And this is?" She put her hand on my neck.

I was seized with a sweet intoxication under the influence of this
warm little hand and of her regard, which, tenderly searching, fell
upon me through her half-closed lids.

_"To be the slave of a woman, a beautiful woman, whom I love, whom
I worship."_

"And who on that account maltreats you," interrupted Wanda, laughing.

"Yes, who fetters me and whips me, treads me underfoot, the while
she gives herself to another."

"And who in her wantonness will go so far as to make a present of
you to your successful rival when driven insane by jealousy you must
meet him face to face, who will turn you over to his absolute mercy.
Why not? This final tableau doesn't please you so well?"

I looked at Wanda frightened.

"You surpass my dreams."

"Yes, we women are inventive," she said, "take heed, when you find
your ideal, it might easily happen, that she will treat you more
cruelly than you anticipate."

"I am afraid that I have already found my ideal!" I exclaimed,
burying my burning face in her lap.

"Not I?" exclaimed Wanda, throwing off her furs and moving about the
room laughing. She was still laughing as I went downstairs, and when
I stood musing in the yard, I still heard her peals of laughter above.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Do you really then expect me to embody your ideal?" Wanda asked
archly, when we met in the park to-day.

At first I could find no answer. The most antagonistic emotions were
battling within me. In the meantime she sat down on one of the
stone-benches, and played with a flower.

"Well--am I?"

I kneeled down and seized her hands.

"Once more I beg you to become my wife, my true and loyal wife; if
you can't do that then become the embodiment of my ideal, absolutely,
without reservation, without softness."

"You know I am ready at the end of a year to give you my hand, if
you prove to be the man I am seeking," Wanda replied very seriously,
"but I think you would be more grateful to me if through me you
realized your imaginings. Well, which do you prefer?"

"I believe that everything my imagination has dreamed lies latent in
your personality."

"You are mistaken."

"I believe," I continued, "that you enjoy having a man wholly in
your power, torturing him--"

"No, no," she exclaimed quickly, "or perhaps--." She pondered.

"I don't understand myself any longer," she continued, "but I have
a confession to make to you. You have corrupted my imagination and
inflamed my blood. I am beginning to like the things you speak of.
The enthusiasm with which you speak of a Pompadour, a Catherine the
Second, and all the other selfish, frivolous, cruel women, carries
me away and takes hold of my soul. It urges me on to become like those
women, who in spite of their vileness were slavishly adored during
their lifetime and still exert a miraculous power from their graves.

"You will end by making of me a despot in miniature, a domestic
Pompadour."

"Well then," I said in agitation, "if all this is inherent in you,
give way to this trend of your nature. Nothing half-way. If you can't
be a true and loyal wife to me, be a demon."

I was nervous from loss of sleep, and the proximity of the beautiful
woman affected me like a fever. I no longer recall what I said, but
I remember that I kissed her feet, and finally raised her foot and
put my neck under it. She withdrew it quickly, and rose almost angrily.

"If you love me, Severin," she said quickly, and her voice sounded
sharp and commanding, "never speak to me of those things again.
Understand, never! Otherwise I might really--" She smiled and sat
down again.

"I am entirely serious," I exclaimed, half-raving. "I adore you so
infinitely that I am willing to suffer anything from you, for the
sake of spending my whole life near you."

"Severin, once more I warn you."

"Your warning is vain. Do with me what you will, as long as you
don't drive me away."

"Severin," replied Wanda, "I am a frivolous young woman; it is
dangerous for you to put yourself so completely in my power. You will
end by actually becoming a plaything to me. Who will give warrant
that I shall not abuse your insane desire?"

"Your own nobility of character."

"Power makes people over-bearing."

"Be it," I cried, "tread me underfoot."

Wanda threw her arms around my neck, looked into my eyes, and shook
her head.

"I am afraid I can't, but I will try, for your sake, for I love you
Severin, as I have loved no other man."

       *       *       *       *       *

To-day she suddenly took her hat and shawl, and I had to go shopping
with her. She looked at whips, long whips with a short handle, the
kind that are used on dogs.

"Are these satisfactory?" said the shopkeeper.

"No, they are much too small," replied Wanda, with a side-glance at
me. "I need a large--"

"For a bull-dog, I suppose?" opined the merchant.

"Yes," she exclaimed, "of the kind that are used in Russia for
intractable slaves."

She looked further and finally selected a whip, at whose sight I
felt a strange creeping sensation.

"Now good-by, Severin," she said. "I have some other purchases to
make, but you can't go along."

I left her and took a walk. On the way back I saw Wanda coming out
at a furrier's. She beckoned me.

"Consider it well," she began in good spirits, "I have never made a
secret of how deeply your serious, dreamy character has fascinated
me. The idea of seeing this serious man wholly in my power, actually
lying enraptured at my feet, of course, stimulates me--but will this
attraction last? Woman loves a man; she maltreats a slave, and ends
by kicking him aside."

"Very well then, kick me aside," I replied, "when you are tired of
me. I want to be your slave."

"Dangerous forces lie within me," said Wanda, after we had gone a
few steps further. "You awaken them, and not to your advantage. You
know how to paint pleasure, cruelty, arrogance in glowing colors.
What would you say should I try my hand at them, and make you the
first object of my experiments. I would be like Dionysius who had the
inventor of the iron ox roasted within it in order to see whether his
wails and groans really resembled the bellowing of an ox.

"Perhaps I am a female Dionysius?"

"Be it," I exclaimed, "and my dreams will be fulfilled. I am yours
for good or evil, choose. The destiny that lies concealed within my
breast drives me on--demoniacally--relentlessly."

"My Beloved,

I do not care to see you to-day or to-morrow, and not until evening
the day after tomorrow, and then _as my slave_.

Your mistress

Wanda."

"As my slave" was underlined. I read the note which I received early
in the morning a second time. Then I had a donkey saddled, an animal
symbolic of learned professors, and rode into the mountains. I wanted
to numb my desire, my yearning, with the magnificent scenery of the
Carpathians. I am back, tired, hungry, thirsty, and more in love than
ever. I quickly change my clothes, and a few moments later knock at
her door.

"Come in!"

I enter. She is standing in the center of the room, dressed in a gown
of white satin which floods down her body like light. Over it she
wears a scarlet _kazabaika_, richly edged with ermine. Upon her
powdered, snowy hair is a little diadem of diamonds. She stands with
her arms folded across her breast, and with her brows contracted.

"Wanda!" I run toward her, and am about to throw my arm about her to
kiss her. She retreats a step, measuring me from top to bottom.

"Slave!"

"Mistress!" I kneel down, and kiss the hem of her garment.

"That is as it should be."

"Oh, how beautiful you are."

"Do I please you?" She stepped before the mirror, and looked at
herself with proud satisfaction.

"I shall become mad!"

Her lower lip twitched derisively, and she looked at me mockingly
from behind half-closed lids.

"Give me the whip."

I looked about the room.

"No," she exclaimed, "stay as you are, kneeling." She went over to
the fire-place, took the whip from the mantle-piece, and, watching
me with a smile, let it hiss through the air; then she slowly rolled
up the sleeve of her fur-jacket.

"Marvellous woman!" I exclaimed.

"Silence, slave!" She suddenly scowled, looked savage, and struck me
with the whip. A moment later she threw her arm tenderly about me, and
pityingly bent down to me. "Did I hurt you?" she asked, half-shyly,
half-timidly.

"No," I replied, "and even if you had, pains that come through you
are a joy. Strike again, if it gives you pleasure."

"But it doesn't give me pleasure."

Again I was seized with that strange intoxication.

"Whip me," I begged, "whip me without mercy."

Wanda swung the whip, and hit me twice. "Are you satisfied now?"

"No."

"Seriously, no?"

"Whip me, I beg you, it is a joy to me."

"Yes, because you know very well that it isn't serious," she
replied, "because I haven't the heart to hurt you. This brutal game
goes against my grain. Were I really the woman who beats her slaves
you would be horrified."

"No, Wanda," I replied, "I love you more than myself; I am devoted
to you for death and life. In all seriousness, you can do with me
whatever you will, whatever your caprice suggests."

"Severin!"

"Tread me underfoot!" I exclaimed, and flung myself face to the
floor before her.

"I hate all this play-acting," said Wanda impatiently.

"Well, then maltreat me seriously."

An uncanny pause.

"Severin, I warn you for the last time," began Wanda.

"If you love me, be cruel towards me," I pleaded with upraised eyes.

"If I love you," repeated Wanda. "Very well!" She stepped back and
looked at me with a sombre smile. _"Be then my slave, and know what
it means to be delivered into the hands of a woman."_ And at the
same moment she gave me a kick.

"How do you like that, slave?"

Then she flourished the whip.

"Get up!"

I was about to rise.

"Not that way," she commanded, "on your knees."

I obeyed, and she began to apply the lash.

The blows fell rapidly and powerfully on my back and arms. Each one
cut into my flesh and burned there, but the pains enraptured me. They
came from her whom I adored, and for whom I was ready at any hour to
lay down my life.

She stopped. "I am beginning to enjoy it," she said, "but enough for
to-day. I am beginning to feel a demonic curiosity to see how far
your strength goes. I take a cruel joy in seeing you tremble and
writhe beneath my whip, and in hearing your groans and wails; I want
to go on whipping without pity until you beg for mercy, until you
lose your senses. You have awakened dangerous elements in my being.
But now get up."

I seized her hand to press it to my lips.

"What impudence."

She shoved me away with her foot.

"Out of my sight, slave!"

       *       *       *       *       *

After having spent a feverish night filled with confused dreams, I
awoke. Dawn was just beginning to break.

How much of what was hovering in my memory was true; what had I
actually experienced and what had I dreamed? That I had been whipped
was certain. I can still feel each blow, and count the burning red
stripes on my body. And _she_ whipped me. Now I know everything.

My dream has become truth. How does it make me feel? Am I
disappointed in the realization of my dream?

No, I am merely somewhat tired, but her cruelty has enraptured me.
Oh, how I love her, adore her! All this cannot express in the
remotest way my feeling for her, my complete devotion to her. What
happiness to be her slave!

       *       *       *       *       *

She calls to me from her balcony. I hurry upstairs. She is standing
on the threshold, holding out her hand in friendly fashion. "I am
ashamed of myself," she says, while I embrace her, and she hides her
head against my breast.

"Why?"

"Please try to forget the ugly scene of yesterday," she said with
quivering voice, "I have fulfilled your mad wish, now let us be
reasonable and happy and love each other, and in a year I will be
your wife."

"My mistress," I exclaimed, "and I your slave!"

"Not another word of slavery, cruelty, or the whip," interrupted
Wanda. "I shall not grant you any of those favors, none except
wearing my fur-jacket; come and help me into it."

       *       *       *       *       *

The little bronze clock on which stood a cupid who had just shot his
bolt struck midnight.

I rose, and wanted to leave.

Wanda said nothing, but embraced me and drew me back on the ottoman.
She began to kiss me anew, and this silent language was so
comprehensible, so convincing--

And it told me more than I dared to understand.

A languid abandonment pervaded Wanda's entire being. What a
voluptuous softness there was in the gloaming of her half-closed
eyes, in the red flood of her hair which shimmered faintly under the
white powder, in the red and white satin which crackled about her
with every movement, in the swelling ermine of the _kazabaika_
in which she carelessly nestled.

"Please," I stammered, "but you will be angry with me."

"Do with me what you will," she whispered.

"Well, then whip me, or I shall go mad."

"Haven't I forbidden you," said Wanda sternly, "but you are
incorrigible."

"Oh, I am so terribly in love." I had sunken on my knees, and was
burying my glowing face in her lap.

"I really believe," said Wanda thoughtfully, "that your madness is
nothing but a demonic, unsatisfied sensuality. _Our unnatural way
of life must generate such illnesses._ Were you less virtuous, you
would be completely sane."

"Well then, make me sane," I murmured. My hands were running through
her hair and playing tremblingly with the gleaming fur, which rose
and fell like a moonlit wave upon her heaving bosom, and drove all
my senses into confusion.

And I kissed her. No, she kissed me savagely, pitilessly, as if she
wanted to slay me with her kisses. I was as in a delirium, and had
long since lost my reason, but now I, too, was breathless. I sought
to free myself.

"What is the matter?" asked Wanda.

"I am suffering agonies."

"You are suffering--" she broke out into a loud amused laughter.

"You laugh!" I moaned, "have you no idea--"

She was serious all of a sudden. She raised my head in her hands,
and with a violent gesture drew me to her breast.

"Wanda," I stammered.

"Of course, you enjoy suffering," she said, and laughed again, "but
wait, I'll bring you to your senses."

"No, I will no longer ask," I exclaimed, "whether you want to belong
to me for always or for only a brief moment of intoxication. I want
to drain my happiness to the full. You are mine now, and I would
rather lose you than never to have had you."

"Now you are sensible," she said. She kissed me again with her
murderous lips. I tore the ermine apart and the covering of lace and
her naked breast surged against mine.

Then my senses left me--

The first thing I remember is the moment when I saw blood dripping
from my hand, and she asked apathetically: "Did you scratch me?"

"No, I believe, I have bitten you."

       *       *       *       *       *

It is strange how every relation in life assumes a different face as
soon as a new person enters.

We spent marvellous days together; we visited the mountains and
lakes, we read together, and I completed Wanda's portrait. And how
we loved one another, how beautiful her smiling face was!

Then a friend of hers arrived, a divorced woman somewhat older, more
experienced, and less scrupulous than Wanda. Her influence is already
making itself felt in every direction.

Wanda wrinkles her brows, and displays a certain impatience with me.

Has she ceased loving me?

       *       *       *       *       *

For almost a fortnight this unbearable restraint has lain upon us.
Her friend lives with her, and we are never alone. A circle of men
surrounds the young women. With my seriousness and melancholy I am
playing an absurd role as lover. Wanda treats me like a stranger.

To-day, while out walking, she staid behind with me. I saw that this
was done intentionally, and I rejoiced. But what did she tell me?

"My friend doesn't understand how I can love you. She doesn't think
you either handsome or particularly attractive otherwise. She is
telling me from morning till night about the glamour of the frivolous
life in the capital, hinting at the advantages to which I could lay
claim, the large parties which I would find there, and the
distinguished and handsome admirers which I would attract. But of
what use is all this, since it happens that I love you."

For a moment I lost my breath, then I said: "I have no wish to stand
in the way of your happiness, Wanda. Do not consider me." Then I
raised my hat, and let her go ahead. She looked at me surprised, but
did not answer a syllable.

When by chance I happened to be close to her on the way back, she
secretly pressed my hand. Her glance was so radiant, so full of
promised happiness, that in a moment all the torments of these days
were forgotten and all their wounds healed.

I now am aware again of how much I love her.

       *       *       *       *       *

"My friend has complained about you," said Wanda to-day.

"Perhaps she feels that I despise her."

"But why do you despise her, you foolish young man?" exclaimed
Wanda, pulling my ears with both hands.

"Because she is a hypocrite," I said. "I respect only a woman who is
actually virtuous, or who openly lives for pleasure's sake."

"Like me, for instance," replied Wanda jestingly, "but you see,
child, a woman can only do that in the rarest cases. She can neither
be as gaily sensual, nor as spiritually free as man; her state is
always a mixture of the sensual and spiritual. Her heart desires to
enchain man permanently, while she herself is ever subject to the
desire for change. The result is a conflict, and thus usually against
her wishes lies and deception enter into her actions and personality
and corrupt her character."

"Certainly that is true," I said. "The transcendental character with
which woman wants to stamp love leads her to deception."

"But the world likewise demands it," Wanda interrupted. "Look at
this woman. She has a husband and a lover in Lemberg and has found
a new admirer here. She deceives all three and yet is honored by all
and respected by the world."

"I don't care," I exclaimed, "but she is to leave you alone; she
treats you like an article of commerce."

"Why not?" the beautiful woman interrupted vivaciously. "Every woman
has the instinct or desire to draw advantage out of her attractions,
and much is to be said for giving one's self without love or pleasure
because if you do it in cold blood, you can reap profit to best
advantage."

"Wanda, what are you saying?"

"Why not?" she said, "and take note of what I am about to say to you.
_Never feel secure with the woman you love,_ for there are more
dangers in woman's nature than you imagine. Women are neither as
_good_ as their admirers and defenders maintain, nor as _bad_ as their
enemies make them out to be. _Woman's character is characterlessness._
The best woman will momentarily go down into the mire, and the worst
unexpectedly rises to deeds of greatness and goodness and puts to
shame those that despise her. No woman is so good or so bad, but that
at any moment she is capable of the most diabolical as well as of the
most divine, of the filthiest as well as of the purest, thoughts,
emotions, and actions. In spite of all the advances of civilization,
woman has remained as she came out of the hand of nature. She has the
nature of a savage, who is faithful or faithless, magnanimous or
cruel, according to the impulse that dominates at the moment.
Throughout history it has always been a serious deep culture which has
produced moral character. Man even when he is selfish or evil always
follows _principles,_ woman never follows anything but _impulses._
Don't ever forget that, and never feel secure with the woman you
love."

       *       *       *       *       *

Her friend has left. At last an evening alone with her again. It
seems as if Wanda had saved up all the love, which had been kept from
her, for this superlative evening; never had she been so kind, so
near, so full of tenderness.

What happiness to cling to her lips, and to die away in her arms! In
a state of relaxation and wholly mine, her head rests against my
breast, and with drunken rapture our eyes seek each other.

I cannot yet believe, comprehend, that this woman is mine, wholly
mine.

"She is right on one point," Wanda began, without moving, without
opening her eyes, as if she were asleep.

"Who?"

She remained silent.

"Your friend?"

She nodded. "Yes, she is right, you are not a man, you are a
dreamer, a charming cavalier, and you certainly would be a priceless
slave, but I cannot imagine you as husband."

I was frightened.

"What is the matter? You are trembling?"

"I tremble at the thought of how easily I might lose you," I replied.

"Are you made less happy now, because of this?" she replied. "Does
it rob you of any of your joys, that I have belonged to another
before I did to you, that others after you will possess me, and would
you enjoy less if another were made happy simultaneously with you?"

"Wanda!"

"You see," she continued, "that would be a way out. You won't ever
lose me then. I care deeply for you and intellectually we are
harmonious, and I should like to live with you always, if in addition
to you I might have--"

"What an idea," I cried. "You fill me with a sort of horror."

"Do you love me any the less?"

"On the contrary."

Wanda had raised herself on her left arm. "I believe," she said,
"that to hold a man permanently, it is vitally important not to be
faithful to him. What honest woman has ever been as devotedly loved
as a hetaira?"

"There is a painful stimulus in the unfaithfulness of a beloved
woman. It is the highest kind of ecstacy."

"For you, too?" Wanda asked quickly.

"For me, too."

"And if I should give you that pleasure," Wanda exclaimed mockingly.

"I shall suffer terrible agonies, but I shall adore you the more,"
I replied. "But you would never deceive me, you would have the daemonic
greatness of saying to me: I shall love no one but you, but I shall
make happy whoever pleases me."

Wanda shook her head. "I don't like deception, I am honest, but what
man exists who can support the burden of truth. Were I say to you:
this serene, sensual life, this paganism is my ideal, would you be
strong enough to bear it?"

"Certainly. I could endure anything so as not to lose you. I feel
how little I really mean to you."

"But Severin--"

"But it is so," said I, "and just for that reason--"

"For that reason you would--" she smiled roguishly--"have I guessed
it?"

"Be your slave!" I exclaimed. "Be your unrestricted property,
without a will of my own, of which you could dispose as you wished,
and which would therefore never be a burden to you. While you drink
life at its fullness, while surrounded by luxury, you enjoy the
serene happiness and Olympian love, I want to be your servant, put
on and take off your shoes."

"You really aren't so far from wrong," replied Wanda, "for only as
my slave could you endure my loving others. Furthermore the freedom
of enjoyment of the ancient world is unthinkable without slavery. It
must give one a feeling of like unto a god to see a man kneel before
one and tremble. I want a slave, do you hear, Severin?"

"Am I not your slave?"

"Then listen to me," said Wanda excitedly, seizing my hand. "I want
to be yours, as long as I love you."

"A month?"

"Perhaps, even two."

"And then?"

"Then you become my slave."

"And you?"

"I? Why do you ask? I am a goddess and sometimes I descend from my
Olympian heights to you, softly, very softly, and secretly.

"But what does all this mean," said Wanda, resting her head in both
hands with her gaze lost in the distance, "a golden fancy which never
can become true." An uncanny brooding melancholy seemed shed over her
entire being; I have never seen her like that.

"Why unachievable?" I began.

"Because slavery doesn't exist any longer."

"Then we will go to a country where it still exists, to the Orient,
to Turkey," I said eagerly.

"You would--Severin--in all seriousness," Wanda replied. Her eyes
burned.

"Yes, in all seriousness, I want to be your slave," I continued. "I
want your power over me to be sanctified by law; I want my life to
be in your hands, I want nothing that could protect or save me from
you. Oh, what a voluptuous joy when once I feel myself entirely dependent
upon your absolute will, your whim, at your beck and call. And then
what happiness, when at some time you deign to be gracious, and the
slave may kiss the lips which mean life and death to him." I knelt
down, and leaned my burning forehead against her knee.

"You are talking as in a fever," said Wanda agitatedly, "and you
really love me so endlessly." She held me to her breast, and covered
me with kisses.

"You really want it?"

"I swear to you now by God and my honor, that I shall be your slave,
wherever and whenever you wish it, as soon as you command," I
exclaimed, hardly master of myself.

"And if I take you at your word?" said Wanda.

"Please do!"

"All this appeals to me," she said then. "It is different from
anything else--to know that a man who worships me, and whom I love
with all my heart, is so wholly mine, dependent on my will and
caprice, my possession and slave, while I--"

She looked strangely at me.

"If I should become frightfully frivolous you are to blame," she
continued. "It almost seems as if you were afraid of me already, but
you have sworn."

"And I shall keep my oath."

"I shall see to that," she replied. "I am beginning to enjoy it,
and, heaven help me, we won't stick to fancies now. You shall become
my slave, and I--I shall try to be _Venus in Furs_."

       *       *       *       *       *

I thought that at last I knew this woman, understood her, and now I
see I have to begin at the very beginning again. Only a little while
ago her reaction to my dreams was violently hostile, and now she
tries to carry them into execution with the soberest seriousness.

She has drawn up a contract according to which I give my word of
honor and agree under oath to be her slave, as long as she wishes.

With her arm around my neck she reads this, unprecedented,
incredible document to me. The end of each sentence she punctuates
with a kiss.

"But all the obligations in the contract are on my side," I said,
teasing her.

"Of course," she replied with great seriousness, "you cease to be my
lover, and consequently I am released from all duties and obligations
towards you. You will have to look upon my favors as pure
benevolence. You no longer have any rights, and no longer can lay
claim to any. There can be no limit to my power over you. Remember,
that you won't be much better than a dog, or some inanimate object.
You will be mine, my plaything, which I can break to pieces, whenever
I want an hour's amusement. You are nothing, I am everything. Do you
understand?" She laughed and kissed me again, and yet a sort of cold
shiver ran through me.

"Won't you allow me a few conditions--" I began.

"Conditions?" She contracted her forehead. "Ah! You are afraid
already, or perhaps you regret, but it is too late now. You have
sworn, I have your word of honor. But let me hear them."

"First of all I should like to have it included in our contract,
that you will never completely leave me, and then that you will never
give me over to the mercies of any of your admirers--"

"But Severin," exclaimed Wanda with her voice full of emotion and
with tears in her eyes, "how can you imagine that I--and you, a man
who loves me so absolutely, who puts himself so entirely in my power--"
She halted.

"No, no!" I said, covering her hands with kisses. "I don't fear
anything from you that might dishonor me. Forgive me the ugly
thought."

Wanda smiled happily, leaned her cheek against mine, and seemed to
reflect.

"You have forgotten something," she whispered coquettishly, "the
most important thing!"

"A condition?"

"Yes, that I must always wear my furs," exclaimed Wanda. "But I
promise you I'll do that anyhow because they give me a despotic
feeling. And I shall be very cruel to you, do you understand?"

"Shall I sign the contract?" I asked.

"Not yet," said Wanda. "I shall first add your conditions, and the
actual signing won't occur until the proper time and place."

"In Constantinople?"

"No. I have thought things over. What special value would there be
in owning a slave where everyone owns slaves. What I want is to
_have a slave, I alone,_ here in our civilized sober, Philistine
world, and a slave who submits helplessly to my power solely on
account of my beauty and personality, not because of law, of property
rights, or compulsions. This attracts me. But at any rate we will go
to a country where we are not known and where you can appear before
the world as my servant without embarrassment. Perhaps to Italy, to
Rome or Naples."

       *       *       *       *       *

We were sitting on Wanda's ottoman. She wore her ermine jacket, her
hair was loose and fell like a lion's mane down her back. She clung
to my lips, drawing my soul from my body. My head whirled, my blood
began to seethe, my heart beat violently against hers.

"I want to be absolutely in your power, Wanda," I exclaimed
suddenly, seized by that frenzy of passion when I can scarcely think
clearly or decide freely. "I want to put myself absolutely at your
mercy for good or evil without any condition, without any limit to
your power."

While saying this I had slipped from the ottoman, and lay at her
feet looking up at her with drunken eyes.

"How beautiful you now are," she exclaimed, "your eyes half-broken
in ecstacy fill me with joy, carry me away. How wonderful your look
would be if you were being beaten to death, in the extreme agony. You
have the eye of a martyr."

       *       *       *       *       *

Sometimes, nevertheless, I have an uneasy feeling about placing
myself so absolutely, so unconditionally into a woman's hands.
Suppose she did abuse my passion, her power?

Well, then I would experience what has occupied my imagination since
my childhood, what has always given me the feeling of seductive
terror. A foolish apprehension! It will be a wanton game she will play
with me, nothing more. She loves me, and she is good, a noble
personality, incapable of a breach of faith. But it lies in her hands
--_if she wants to she can._ What a temptation in this doubt, this
fear!

Now I understand Manon l'Escault and the poor chevalier, who, even
in the pillory, while she was another man's mistress, still adored
her.

Love knows no virtue, no profit; it loves and forgives and suffers
everything, because it must. It is not our judgment that leads us;
it is neither the advantages nor the faults which we discover, that
make us abandon ourselves, or that repel us.

It is a sweet, soft, enigmatic power that drives us on. We cease to
think, to feel, to will; we let ourselves be carried away by it, and
ask not whither?

       *       *       *       *       *

A Russian prince made his first appearance today on the promenade.
He aroused general interest on account of his athletic figure,
magnificent face, and splendid bearing. The women particularly gaped
at him as though he were a wild animal, but he went his way gloomily
without paying attention to any one. He was accompanied by two
servants, one a negro, completely dressed in red satin, and the other
a Circassian in his full gleaming uniform. Suddenly he saw Wanda, and
fixed his cold piercing look upon her; he even turned his head after
her, and when she had passed, he stood still and followed her with
his eyes.

And she--she veritably devoured him with her radiant green eyes--and
did everything possible to meet him again.

The cunning coquetry with which she walked, moved, and looked at
him, almost stifled me. On the way home I remarked about it. She knit
her brows.

"What do you want," she said, "the prince is a man whom I might
like, who even dazzles me, and I am free. I can do what I please--"

"Don't you love me any longer--" I stammered, frightened.

"I love only you," she replied, "but I shall have the prince pay
court to me."

"Wanda!"

"Aren't you my slave?" she said calmly. "Am I not Venus, the cruel
northern Venus in Furs?"

I was silent. I felt literally crushed by her words; her cold look
entered my heart like a dagger.

"You will find out immediately the prince's name, residence, and
circumstances," she continued. "Do you understand?"

"But--"

"No argument, obey!" exclaimed Wanda, more sternly than I would have
thought possible for her, "and don't dare to enter my sight until you
can answer my questions."

It was not till afternoon that I could obtain the desired
information for Wanda. She let me stand before her like a servant,
while she leaned back in her arm-chair and listened to me, smiling.
Then she nodded; she seemed to be satisfied.

"Bring me my footstool," she commanded shortly.

I obeyed, and after having put it before her and having put her feet
on it, I remained kneeling.

"How will this end?" I asked sadly after a short pause.

She broke into playful laughter. "Why things haven't even begun yet."

"You are more heartless than I imagined," I replied, hurt.

"Severin," Wanda began earnestly. "I haven't done anything yet, not
the slightest thing, and you are already calling me heartless. What
will happen when I begin to carry your dreams to their realization,
when I shall lead a gay, free life and have a circle of admirers
about me, when I shall actually fulfil your ideal, tread you
underfoot and apply the lash?"

"You take my dreams too seriously."

"Too seriously? I can't stop at make-believe, when once I begin,"
she replied. "You know I hate all play-acting and comedy. You have
wished it. Was it my idea or yours? Did I persuade you or did you
inflame my imagination? I am taking things seriously now."

"Wanda," I replied, caressingly, "listen quietly to me. We love each
other infinitely, we are very happy, will you sacrifice our entire
future to a whim?"

"It is no longer a whim," she exclaimed.

"What is it?" I asked frightened.

"Something that was probably latent in me," she said quietly and
thoughtfully. "Perhaps it would never have come to light, if you had
not called it to life, and made it grow. Now that it has become a
powerful impulse, fills my whole being, now that I enjoy it, now that
I cannot and do not want to do otherwise, now you want to back out--
you--are you a man?"

"Dear, sweet Wanda!" I began to caress her, kiss her.

"Don't--you are not a man--"

"And you," I flared up.

"I am stubborn," she said, "you know that. I haven't a strong
imagination, and like you I am weak in execution. But when I make up
my mind to do something, I carry it through, and the more certainly,
the more opposition I meet. Leave me alone!"

She pushed me away, and got up.

"Wanda!" I likewise rose, and stood facing her.

"Now you know what I am," she continued. "Once more I warn you. You
still have the choice. I am not compelling you to be my slave."

"Wanda," I replied with emotion and tears filling my eyes, "don't
you know how I love you?"

Her lips quivered contemptuously.

"You are mistaken, you make yourself out worse than you are; you are
good and noble by nature--"

"What do you know about my nature," she interrupted vehemently, "you
will get to know me as I am."

"Wanda!"

"Decide, will you submit, unconditionally?"

"And if I say no."

"Then--"

She stepped close up to me, cold and contemptuous. As she stood
before me now, the arms folded across her breast, with an evil smile
about her lips, she was in fact the despotic woman of my dreams. Her
expression seemed hard, and nothing lay in her eyes that promised
kindness or mercy.

"Well--" she said at last.

"You are angry," I cried, "you will punish me."

"Oh no!" she replied, "I shall let you go. You are free. I am not
holding you."

"Wanda--I, who love you so--"

"Yes, you, my dear sir, you who adore me," she exclaimed
contemptuously, "but who are a coward, a liar, and a breaker of
promises. Leave me instantly--"

"Wanda I--"

"Wretch!"

My blood rose in my heart. I threw myself down at her feet and began
to cry.

"Tears, too!" She began to laugh. Oh, this laughter was frightful.
"Leave me--I don't want to see you again."

"Oh my God!" I cried, beside myself. "I will do whatever you
command, be your slave, a mere object with which you can do what you
will--only don't send me away--I can't bear it--I cannot live without
you." I embraced her knees, and covered her hand with kisses.

"Yes, you must be a slave, and feel the lash, for you are not a
man," she said calmly. She said this to me with perfect composure,
not angrily, not even excitedly, and it was what hurt most. "Now I
know you, your dog-like nature, that adores where it is kicked, and
the more, the more it is maltreated. Now I know you, and now you
shall come to know me."

She walked up and down with long strides, while I remained crushed
on my knees; my head was hanging supine, tears flowed from my eyes.

"Come here," Wanda commanded harshly, sitting down on the ottoman.
I obeyed her command, and sat down beside her. She looked at me
sombrely, and then a light suddenly seemed to illuminate the interior
of her eye. Smiling, she drew me toward her breast, and began to kiss
the tears out of my eyes.

       *       *       *       *       *

The odd part of my situation is that I am like the bear in Lily's
park. I can escape and don't want to; I am ready to endure everything
as soon as she threatens to set me free.

       *       *       *       *       *

If only she would use the whip again. There is something uncanny in
the kindness with which she treats me. I seem like a little captive
mouse with which a beautiful cat prettily plays. She is ready at any
moment to tear it to pieces, and my heart of a mouse threatens to
burst.

What are her intentions? What does she purpose to do with me?

       *       *       *       *       *

It seems she has completely forgotten the contract, my slavehood. Or
was it actually only stubbornness? And she gave up her whole plan as
soon as I no longer opposed her and submitted to her imperial whim?

How kind she is to me, how tender, how loving! We are spending
marvellously happy days.

To-day she had me read to her the scene between Faust and
Mephistopheles, in which the latter appears as a wandering scholar.
Her glance hung on me with strange pleasure.

"I don't understand," she said when I had finished, "how a man who
can read such great and beautiful thoughts with such expression, and
interpret them so clearly, concisely, and intelligently, can at the
same time be such a visionary and supersensual ninny as you are."

"Were you pleased," said I, and kissed her forehead.

She gently stroked my brow. "I love you, Severin," she whispered. "I
don't believe I could ever love any one more than you. Let us be
sensible, what do you say?"

Instead of replying I folded her in my arms; a deep inward, yet
vaguely sad happiness filled my breast, my eyes grew moist, and a
tear fell upon her hand.

"How can you cry!" she exclaimed, "you are a child!"

       *       *       *       *       *

On a pleasure drive we met the Russian prince in his carriage. He
seemed to be unpleasantly surprised to see me by Wanda's side, and
looked as if he wanted to pierce her through and through with his
electric gray eyes. She, however, did not seem to notice him. I felt
at that moment like kneeling down before her and kissing her feet.
She let her glance glide over him indifferently as though he were an
inanimate object, a tree, for instance, and turned to me with her
gracious smile.

       *       *       *       *       *

When I said good-night to her to-day she seemed suddenly
unaccountably distracted and moody. What was occupying her?

"I am sorry you are going," she said when I was already standing on
the threshold.

"It is entirely in your hands to shorten the hard period of my
trial, to cease tormenting me--" I pleaded.

"Do you imagine that this compulsion isn't a torment for me, too,"
Wanda interjected.

"Then end it," I exclaimed, embracing her, "be my wife."

"_Never, Severin_," she said gently, but with great firmness.

"What do you mean?"

I was frightened in my innermost soul.

"_You are not the man for me._"

I looked at her, and slowly withdrew my arm which was still about
her waist; then I left the room, and she--she did not call me back.

       *       *       *       *       *

A sleepless night; I made countless decisions, only to toss them
aside again. In the morning I wrote her a letter in which I declared
our relationship dissolved. My hand trembled when I put on the seal,
and I burned my fingers.

As I went upstairs to hand it to the maid, my knees threatened to
give way.

The door opened, and Wanda thrust forth her head full of curling-papers.

"I haven't had my hair dressed yet," she said, smiling. "What have
you there?"

"A letter--"

"For me?"

I nodded.

"Ah, you want to break with me," she exclaimed, mockingly.

"Didn't you tell me yesterday that I wasn't the man for you?"

_"I repeat it now!"_

"Very well, then." My whole body was trembling, my voice failed me,
and I handed her the letter.

"Keep it," she said, measuring me coldly. "You forget that is no
longer a question as to whether you satisfy me as a man; as a _slave_
you will doubtless do well enough."

"Madame!" I exclaimed, aghast.

"That is what you will call me in the future," replied Wanda,
throwing back her head with a movement of unutterable contempt. "Put
your affairs in order within the next twenty-four hours. The day
after to-morrow I shall start for Italy, and you will accompany me
as my servant."

"Wanda--"

"I forbid any sort of familiarity," she said, cutting my words short,
"likewise you are not to come in unless I call or ring for you, and
you are not to speak to me until you are spoken to. From now on your
name is no longer Severin, but _Gregor_."

I trembled with rage, and yet, unfortunately, I cannot deny it, I
also felt a strange pleasure and stimulation.

"But, madame, you know my circumstances," I began in my confusion.
"I am dependent on my father, and I doubt whether he will give me the
large sum of money needed for this journey--"

"That means you have no money, Gregor," said Wanda, delightedly, "so
much the better, you are then entirely dependent on me, and in fact
my slave."

"You don't consider," I tried to object, "that as man of honor it is
impossible for me--"

"I have indeed considered it," she replied almost with a tone of
command. "As a man of honor you must keep your oath and redeem your
promise to follow me as slave whithersoever I demand and to obey
whatever I command. Now leave me, Gregor!"

I turned toward the door.

"Not yet--you may first kiss my hand." She held it out to me with a
certain proud indifference, and I the dilettante, the donkey, the
miserable slave pressed it with intense tenderness against my lips
which were dry and hot with excitement.

There was another gracious nod of the head.

Then I was dismissed.

       *       *       *       *       *

Though it was late in the evening my light was still lit, and a fire
was burning in the large green stove. There were still many things
among my letters and documents to be put in order. Autumn, as is
usually the case with us, had fallen with all its power.

Suddenly she knocked at my window with the handle of her whip.

I opened and saw her standing outside in her ermine-lined jacket and
in a high round Cossack cap of ermine of the kind which the great
Catherine favored.

"Are you ready, Gregor?" she asked darkly.

"Not yet, mistress," I replied.

"I like that word," she said then, "you are always to call me
mistress, do you understand? We leave here to-morrow morning at nine
o'clock. As far as the district capital you will be my companion and
friend, but from the moment that we enter the railway-coach you are
my slave, my servant. Now close the window, and open the door."

After I had done as she had demanded, and after she had entered, she
asked, contracting her brows ironically, "well, how do you like me."

"Wanda, you--"

"Who gave you permission?" She gave me a blow with the whip.

"You are very beautiful, mistress."

Wanda smiled and sat down in the arm-chair. "Kneel down--here beside
my chair."

I obeyed.

"Kiss my hand."

I seized her small cold hand and kissed it.

"And the mouth--"

In a surge of passion I threw my arms around the beautiful cruel
woman, and covered her face, arms, and breast with glowing kisses.
She returned them with equal fervor--the eyelids closed as in a
dream. It was after midnight when she left.

       *       *       *       *       *

At nine o'clock sharp in the morning everything was ready for departure,
as she had ordered. We left the little Carpathian health-resort in a
comfortable light carriage. The most interesting drama of my life had
reached a point of development whose denouement it was then impossible
to foretell.

So far everything went well. I sat beside Wanda, and she chatted
very graciously and intelligently with me, as with a good friend,
concerning Italy, Pisemski's new novel, and Wagner's music. She wore
a sort of Amazonesque travelling-dress of black cloth with a short
jacket of the same material, set with dark fur. It fitted closely and
showed her figure to best advantage. Over it she wore dark furs. Her
hair wound into an antique knot, lay beneath a small dark fur-hat
from which a black veil hung. Wanda was in very good humor; she fed
me candies, played with my hair, loosened my neck cloth and made a
pretty cockade of it; she covered my knees with her furs and
stealthily pressed the fingers of my hand. When our Jewish driver
persistently went on nodding to himself, she even gave me a kiss, and
her cold lips had the fresh frosty fragrance of a young autumnal
rose, which blossoms alone amid bare stalks and yellow leaves and
upon whose calyx the first frost has hung tiny diamonds of ice.

       *       *       *       *       *

We are at the district capital. We get out at the railway station.
Wanda throws off her furs and places them over my arm, and goes
to secure the tickets.

When she returns she has completely changed.

"Here is your ticket, Gregor," she says in a tone which supercilious
ladies use to their servants.

"A third-class ticket," I reply with comic horror.

"Of course," she continues, "but now be careful. You won't get on
until I am settled in my compartment and don't need you any longer.
At each station you will hurry to my car and ask for my orders. Don't
forget. And now give me my furs."

After I had helped her into them, humbly like a slave, she went to
find an empty first-class coupe. I followed. Supporting herself on
my shoulder, she got on and I wrapped her feet in bear-skins and placed
them on the warming bottle.

Then she nodded to me, and dismissed me. I slowly ascended a third-class
carriage, which was filled with abominable tobacco-smoke that seemed
like the fogs of Acheron at the entrance to Hades. I now had the leisure
to muse about the riddle of human existence, and about its greatest
riddle of all--_woman_.

       *       *       *       *       *

Whenever the train stops, I jump off, run to her carriage, and with
drawn cap await her orders. She wants coffee and then a glass of
water, at another time a bowl of warm water to wash her hands, and
thus it goes on. She lets several men who have entered her
compartment pay court to her. I am dying of jealousy and have to leap
about like an antelope so as to secure what she wants quickly and
not miss the train.

In this way the night passes. I haven't had time to eat a mouthful
and I can't sleep, I have to breathe the same oniony air with Polish
peasants, Jewish peddlers, and common soldiers.

When I mount the steps of her coupe, she is lying stretched out
on cushions in her comfortable furs, covered up with the skins of
animals. She is like an oriental despot, and the men sit like Indian
deities, straight upright against the walls and scarcely dare to
breathe.

       *       *       *       *       *

She stops over in Vienna for a day to go shopping, and particularly
to buy series of luxurious gowns. She continues to treat me as her
servant. I follow her at the respectful distance of ten paces. She
hands me her packages without so much as even deigning a kind look,
and laden down like a donkey I pant along behind.

Before leaving she takes all my clothes and gives them to the hotel
waiters. I am ordered to put on her livery. It is a Cracovian costume
in her colors, light-blue with red facings, and red quadrangular cap,
ornamented with peacock-feathers. The costume is rather becoming to
me.

The silver buttons bear her coat of arms. I have the feeling of having
been sold or of having bonded myself to the devil. My fair demon leads
me from Vienna to Florence. Instead of linen-garbed Mazovians and
greasy-haired Jews, my companions now are curly-haired Contadini, a
magnificent sergeant of the first Italian Grenadiers, and a poor German
painter. The tobacco smoke no longer smells of onions, but of salami and
cheese.

Night has fallen again. I lie on my wooden bed as on a rack; my arms and
legs seem broken. But there nevertheless is an element of poetry in the
affair. The stars sparkle round about, the Italian sergeant has a face
like Apollo Belvedere, and the German painter sings a lovely German
song.

  "Now that all the shadows gather
  And endless stars grow light,
  Deep yearning on me falls
  And softly fills the night."

  "Through the sea of dreams
  Sailing without cease,
  Sailing goes my soul
  In thine to find release."

And I am thinking of the beautiful woman who is sleeping in regal
comfort among her soft furs.

       *       *       *       *       *

Florence! Crowds, cries, importunate porters and cab-drivers. Wanda
chooses a carriage, and dismisses the porters.

"What have I a servant for," she says, "Gregor--here is the ticket--
get the luggage."

She wraps herself in her furs and sits quietly in the carriage while I
drag the heavy trunks hither, one after another. I break down for a
moment under the last one; a good-natured _carabiniere_ with an
intelligent face comes to my assistance. She laughs.

"It must be heavy," said she, "all my furs are in it."

I get up on the driver's seat, wiping drops of perspiration from my
brow. She gives the name of the hotel, and the driver urges on his
horse. In a few minutes we halt at the brilliantly illuminated
entrance.

"Have you any rooms?" she asks the portier.

"Yes, madame."

"Two for me, one for my servant, all with stoves."

"Two first-class rooms for you, madame, both with stoves," replied
the waiter who had hastily come up, "and one without heat for your
servant."

She looked at them, and then abruptly said: "they are satisfactory,
have fires built at once; my servant can sleep in the unheated room."

I merely looked at her.

"Bring up the trunks, Gregor," she commands, paying no attention to
my looks. "In the meantime I'll be dressing, and then will go down
to the dining-room, and you can eat something for supper."

As she goes into the adjoining room, I drag the trunks upstairs and
help the waiter build a fire in her bed-room. He tries to question
me in bad French about my employer. With a brief glance I see the
blazing fire, the fragrant white poster-bed, and the rugs which cover
the floor. Tired and hungry I then descend the stairs, and ask for
something to eat. A good-natured waiter, who used to be in the
Austrian army and takes all sorts of pains to entertain me in German,
shows me the dining-room and waits on me. I have just had the first
fresh drink in thirty-six hours and the first bite of warm food on
my fork, when she enters.

I rise.

"What do you mean by taking me into a dining-room in which my
servant is eating," she snaps at the waiter, flaring with anger. She
turns around and leaves.

Meanwhile I thank heaven that I am permitted to go on eating. Later
I climb the four flights upstairs to my room. My small trunk is
already there, and a miserable little oil-lamp is burning. It is a
narrow room without fire-place, without a window, but with a small
air-hole. If it weren't so beastly cold, it would remind me of one
of the Venetian _piombi_. [Footnote: These were notorious prisons
under the leaden roof of the Palace of the Doges.] Involuntarily I
have to laugh out aloud, so that it re-echoes, and I am startled by
my own laughter.

Suddenly the door is pulled open and the waiter with a theatrical
Italian gesture calls "You are to come down to madame, at once." I
pick up my cap, stumble down the first few steps, but finally arrive
in front of her door on the first floor and knock.

"Come in!"

I enter, shut the door, and stand attention.

Wanda has made herself comfortable. She is sitting in a neglige of
white muslin and laces on a small red divan with her feet on a
footstool that matches. She has thrown her fur-cloak about her. It
is the identical cloak in which she appeared to me for the first time,
as goddess of love.

The yellow lights of the candelabra which stand on projections,
their reflections in the large mirrors, and the red flames from the
open fireplace play beautifully on the green velvet, the dark-brown
sable of the cloak, the smooth white skin, and the red, flaming hair
of the beautiful woman. Her clear, but cold face is turned toward me,
and her cold green eyes rest upon me.

"I am satisfied with you, Gregor," she began.

I bowed.

"Come closer."

I obeyed.

"Still closer," she looked down, and stroked the sable with her
hand. "Venus in Furs receives her slave. I can see that you are more
than an ordinary dreamer, you don't remain far in arrears of your
dreams; you are the sort of man who is ready to carry his dreams into
effect, no matter how mad they are. I confess, I like this; it
impresses me. There is strength in this, and strength is the only
thing one respects. I actually believe that under unusual
circumstances, in a period of great deeds, what seems to be your
weakness would reveal itself as extraordinary power. Under the early
emperors you would have been a martyr, at the time of the Reformation
an anabaptist, during the French Revolution one of those inspired
Girondists who mounted the guillotine with the marseillaise on their
lips. But you are my slave, my--"

She suddenly leaped up; the furs slipped down, and she threw her
arms with soft pressure about my neck.

"My beloved slave, Severin, oh, how I love you, how I adore you, how
handsome you are in your Cracovian costume! You will be cold to-night
up in your wretched room without a fire. Shall I give you one of my
furs, dear heart, the large one there--"

She quickly picked it up, throwing it over my shoulders, and before
I knew what had happened I was completely wrapped up in it.

"How wonderfully becoming furs are to your face, they bring out your
noble lines. As soon as you cease being my slave, you must wear a
velvet coat with sable, do you understand? Otherwise I shall never
put on my fur-jacket again."

And again she began to caress me and kiss me; finally she drew me
down on the little divan.

"You seem to be pleased with yourself in furs," she said. "Quick,
quick, give them to me, or I will lose all sense of dignity."

I placed the furs about her, and Wanda slipped her right arm into
the sleeve.

"This is the pose in Titian's picture. But now enough of joking.
Don't always look so solemn, it makes me feel sad. As far as the
world is concerned you are still merely my servant; you are not yet
my slave, for you have not yet signed the contract. You are still
free, and can leave me any moment. You have played your part
magnificently. I have been delighted, but aren't you tired of it
already, and don't you think I am abominable? Well, say something--I
command it."

"Must I confess to you, Wanda?" I began.

"Yes, you must."

"Even if you take advantage of it," I continued, "I shall love you
the more deeply, adore you the more fanatically, the worse you treat
me. What you have just done inflames my blood and intoxicates all my
senses." I held her close to me and clung for several moments to her
moist lips.

"Oh, you beautiful woman," I then exclaimed, looking at her. In my
enthusiasm I tore the sable from her shoulders and pressed my mouth
against her neck.

"You love me even when I am cruel," said Wanda, "now go!--you bore
me--don't you hear?"

She boxed my ears so that I saw stars and bells rang in my ears.

"Help me into my furs, slave."

I helped her, as well as I could.

"How awkward," she exclaimed, and was scarcely in it before she
struck me in the face again. I felt myself growing pale.

"Did I hurt you?" she asked, softly touching me with her hand.

"No, no," I exclaimed.

"At any rate you have no reason to complain, you want it thus; now
kiss me again."

I threw my arms about her, and her lips clung closely to mine. As
she lay against my breast in her large heavy furs, I had a curiously
oppressive sensation. It was as if a wild beast, a she-bear, were
embracing me. It seemed as if I were about to feel her claws in my
flesh. But this time the she-bear let me off easily.

With my heart filled with smiling hopes, I went up to my miserable
servant's room, and threw myself down on my hard couch.

"Life is really amazingly droll," I thought. "A short time ago the
most beautiful woman, Venus herself, rested against your breast, and
now you have an opportunity for studying the Chinese hell. Unlike us,
they don't hurl the damned into flames, but they have devils chasing
them out into fields of ice.

"Very likely the founders of their religion also slept in unheated
rooms."

       *       *       *       *       *

During the night I startled out of my sleep with a scream. I had
been dreaming of an icefield in which I had lost my way; I had been
looking in vain for a way out. Suddenly an eskimo drove up in a
sleigh harnessed with reindeer; he had the face of the waiter who had
shown me to the unheated room.

"What are you looking for here, my dear sir?" he exclaimed. "This is
the North Pole."

A moment later he had disappeared, and Wanda flew over the smooth
ice on tiny skates. Her white satin skirt fluttered and crackled; the
ermine of her jacket and cap, but especially her face, gleamed whiter
than the snow. She shot toward me, inclosed me in her arms, and began
to kiss me. Suddenly I felt my blood running warm down my side.

"What are you doing?" I asked horror-stricken.

She laughed, and as I looked at her now, it was no longer Wanda, but
a huge, white she-bear, who was digging her paws into my body.

I cried out in despair, and still heard her diabolical laughter when
I awoke, and looked about the room in surprise.

Early in the morning I stood at Wanda's door, and the waiter brought
the coffee. I took it from him, and served it to my beautiful
mistress. She had already dressed, and looked magnificent, all fresh
and roseate. She smiled graciously at me and called me back, when I
was about to withdraw respectfully.

"Come, Gregor, have your breakfast quickly too," she said, "then we
will go house-hunting. I don't want to stay in the hotel any longer
than I have to. It is very embarassing here. If I chat with you for
more than a minute, people will immediately say: 'The fair Russian
is having an affair with her servant, you see, the race of Catherines
isn't extinct yet.'"

Half an hour later we went out; Wanda was in her cloth-gown with the
Russian cap, and I in my Cracovian costume. We created quite a stir. I
walked about ten paces behind, looking very solemn, but expected
momentarily to have to break out into loud laughter. There was scarcely
a street in which one or the other of the attractive houses did not bear
the sign _camere ammobiliate_. Wanda always sent me upstairs, and only
when the apartment seemed to answer her requirements did she herself
ascend. By noon I was as tired as a stag-hound after the hunt.

We entered a new house and left it again without having found a suitable
habitation. Wanda was already somewhat out of humor. Suddenly she said
to me: "Severin, the seriousness with which you play your part is
charming, and the restrictions, which we have placed upon each other are
really annoying me. I can't stand it any longer, I do love you, I must
kiss you. Let's go into one of the houses."

"But, my lady--" I interposed.

"Gregor?" She entered the next open corridor and ascended a few
steps of the dark stair-way; then she threw her arms about me with
passionate tenderness and kissed me.

"Oh, Severin, you were very wise. You are much more dangerous as
slave than I would have imagined; you are positively irrestible, and
I am afraid I shall have to fall in love with you again."

"Don't you love me any longer then," I asked seized by a sudden
fright.

She solemnly shook her head, but kissed me again with her swelling,
adorable lips.

We returned to the hotel. Wanda had luncheon, and ordered me also
quickly to get something to eat.

Of course, I wasn't served as quickly as she, and so it happened
that just as I was carrying the second bite of my steak to my mouth,
the waiter entered and called out with his theatrical gesture:
"Madame wants you, at once."

I took a rapid and painful leave of my food, and, tired and hungry,
hurried toward Wanda, who was already on the street.

"I wouldn't have imagined you could be so cruel," I said
reproachfully. "With all these, fatiguing duties you don't even leave
me time to eat in peace."

Wanda laughed gaily. "I thought you had finished," she said, "but
never mind. Man was born to suffer, and you in particular. The
martyrs didn't have any beefsteaks either."

I followed her resentfully, gnawing at my hunger.

"I have given up the idea of finding a place in the city," Wanda
continued. "It will be difficult to find an entire floor which is
shut off and where you can do as you please. In such a strange, mad
relationship as ours there must be no jarring note. I shall rent an
entire villa--and you will be surprised. You have my permission now
to satisfy your hunger, and look about a bit in Florence. I won't be
home till evening. If I need you then, I will have you called."

I looked at the Duomo, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Logia di Lanzi, and
then I stood for a long time on the banks of the Arno. Again and
again I let my eyes rest on the magnificent ancient Florence, whose
round cupolas and towers were drawn in soft lines against the blue,
cloudless sky. I watched its splendid bridges beneath whose wide
arches the lively waves of the beautiful, yellow river ran, and the
green hills which surrounded the city, bearing slender cypresses and
extensive buildings, palaces and monasteries.

It is a different world, this one in which we are--a gay, sensuous,
smiling world. The landscape too has nothing of the seriousness and
somberness of ours. It is a long ways off to the last white villas
scattered among the pale green of the mountains, and yet there isn't
a spot that isn't bright with sunlight. The people are less serious
than we; perhaps, they think less, but they all look as though they
were happy.

It is also maintained that death is easier in the South.

I have a vague feeling now that such a thing as beauty without thorn
and love of the senses without torment does exist.

Wanda has discovered a delightful little villa and rented it for the
winter. It is situated on a charming hill on the left bank of the
Arno, opposite the Cascine. It is surrounded by an attractive garden
with lovely paths, grass plots, and magnificent meadow of camelias.
It is only two stories high, quadrangular in the Italian fashion. An
open gallery runs along one side, a sort of loggia with plaster-casts
of antique statues; stone steps lead from it down into the garden.
From the gallery you enter a bath with a magnificent marble basin,
from which winding stairs lead to my mistress' bed-chamber.

Wanda occupies the second story by herself.

A room on the ground floor has been assigned to me; it is very
attractive, and even has a fireplace.

I have roamed through the garden. On a round hillock I discovered a
little temple, but I found its door locked. However, there is a chink
in the door and when I glue my eye to it, I see the goddess of love
on a white pedestal.

A slight shudder passes over me. It seems to me as if she were
smiling at me saying: "Are you there? I have been expecting you."

       *       *       *       *       *

It is evening. An attractive maid brings me orders to appear before
my mistress. I ascend the wide marble stairs, pass through the
anteroom, a large salon furnished with extravagant magnificence, and
knock at the door of the bedroom. I knock very softly for the luxury
displayed everywhere intimidates me. Consequently no one hears me,
and I stand for some time in front of the door. I have a feeling as
if I were standing before the bed-room of the great Catherine, and
it seems as if at any moment she might come out in her green sleeping
furs, with the red ribbon and decoration on her bare breast, and with
her little white powdered curls.

I knocked again. Wanda impatiently pulls the door open.

"Why so late?" she asks.

"I was standing in front of the door, but you didn't hear me knock,"
I reply timidly. She closes the door, and clinging to me, she leads
me to the red damask ottoman on which she had been resting. The
entire arrangement of the room is in red damask--wall-paper,
curtains, portieres, hangings of the bed. A magnificent painting of
Samson and Delilah forms the ceiling.

Wanda receives me in an intoxicating dishabille. Her white satin
dress flows gracefully and picturesquely down her slender body,
leaving her arms and breast bare, and carelessly they nestle amid the
dark hair of the great fur of sable, lined with green velvet. Her red
hair falls down her back as far as the hips, only half held by
strings of black pearls.

"Venus in Furs," I whisper, while she draws me to her breast and
threatens to stifle me with her kisses. Then I no longer speak and
neither do I think; everything is drowned out in an ocean of
unimagined bliss.

"Do you still love me?" she asks, her eye softening in passionate
tenderness.

"You ask!" I exclaimed.

"You still remember your oath," she continued with an alluring
smile, "now that everything is prepared, everything in readiness, I
ask you once more, is it still your serious wish to become my slave?"

"Am I not ready?" I asked in surprise.

"You have not yet signed the papers."

"Papers--what papers?"

"Oh, I see, you want to give it up," she said, "well then, we will
let it go."

"But Wanda," I said, "you know that nothing gives me greater
happiness than to serve you, to be your slave. I would give
everything for the sake of feeling myself wholly in your power, even
unto death--"

"How beautiful you are," she whispered, "when you speak so
enthusiastically, so passionately. I am more in love with you than
ever and you want me to be dominant, stern, and cruel. I am afraid,
it will be impossible for me to be so."

"I am not afraid," I replied smiling, "where are the papers?'"

"So that you may know what it means to be absolutely in my power, I
have drafted a second agreement in which you declare that you have
decided to kill yourself. In that way I can even kill you, if I so
desire."

"Give them to me."

While I was unfolding the documents and reading them, Wanda got pen
and ink. She then sat down beside me with her arm about my neck, and
looked over my shoulder at the paper.

The first one read:

AGREEMENT BETWEEN MME. VON DUNAJEW AND SEVERIN VON KUSIEMSKI

"Severin von Kusiemski ceases with the present day being the affianced
of Mme. Wanda von Dunajew, and renounces all the rights appertaining
thereunto; he on the contrary binds himself on his word of honor as a
man and nobleman, that hereafter he will be her _slave_ until such
time that she herself sets him at liberty again.

"As the slave of Mme. von Dunajew he is to bear the name Gregor, and
he is unconditionally to comply with every one of her wishes, and to
obey every one of her commands; he is always to be submissive to his
mistress, and is to consider her every sign of favor as an
extraordinary mercy.

"Mme. von Dunajew is entitled not only to punish her slave as she
deems best, even for the slightest inadvertence or fault, but also
is herewith given the right to torture him as the mood may seize her
or merely for the sake of whiling away the time. Should she so desire,
she may kill him whenever she wishes; in short, he is her
unrestricted property.

"Should Mme. von Dunajew ever set her slave at liberty, Severin von
Kusiemski agrees to forget everything that he has experienced or
suffered as her slave, and promises _never under any circumstances and
in no wise to think of vengeance or retaliation_.

"Mme. von Dunajew on her behalf agrees as his mistress to appear as
often as possible in her furs, especially when she purposes some
cruelty toward her slave."

Appended at the bottom of the agreement was the date of the present
day.

The second document contained only a few words.

"Having since many years become weary of existence and its
illusions, I have of my own free will put an end to my worthless
life."

I was seized with a deep horror when I had finished. There was still
time, I could still withdraw, but the madness of passion and the
sight of the beautiful woman that lay all relaxed against my shoulder
carried me away.

"This one you will have to copy, Severin," said Wanda, indicating
the second document. "It has to be entirely in your own handwriting;
this, of course, isn't necessary in the case of the agreement."

I quickly copied the few lines in which I designated myself a
suicide, and handed them to Wanda. She read them, and put them on the
table with a smile.

"Now have you the courage to sign it?" she asked with a crafty
smile, inclining her head.

I took the pen.

"Let me sign first," said Wanda, "your hand is trembling, are you
afraid of the happiness that is to be yours?"

She took the agreement and pen. While engaging in my internal struggle,
I looked upward for a moment. It occurred to me that the painting on the
ceiling, like many of those of the Italian and Dutch schools, was
utterly unhistorical, but this very fact gave it a strange mood which
had an almost uncanny effect on me. Delilah, an opulent woman with
flaming red hair, lay extended, half-disrobed, in a dark fur-cloak, upon
a red ottoman, and bent smiling over Samson who had been overthrown and
bound by the Philistines. Her smile in its mocking coquetry was full of
a diabolical cruelty; her eyes, half-closed, met Samson's, and his with
a last look of insane passion cling to hers, for already one of his
enemies is kneeling on his breast with the red-hot iron to blind him.

"Now--" said Wanda. "Why you are all lost in thought. What is the
matter with you, everything will remain just as it was, even after
you have signed, don't you know me yet, dear heart?"

I looked at the agreement. Her name was written there in bold
letters. I peered once more into her eyes with their potent magic,
then I took the pen and quickly signed the agreement.

"You are trembling," said Wanda calmly, "shall I help you?"

She gently took hold of my hand, and my name appeared at the bottom
of the second paper. Wanda looked once more at the two documents, and
then locked them in the desk which stood at the head of the ottoman.

"Now then, give me your passport and money."

I took out my wallet and handed it to her. She inspected it, nodded,
and put it with other things while in a sweet drunkenness I kneeled
before her leaning my head against her breast.

Suddenly she thrusts me away with her foot, leaps up, and pulls the
bell-rope. In answer to its sound three young, slender negresses
enter; they are as if carved of ebony, and are dressed from head to
foot in red satin; each one has a rope in her hand.

Suddenly I realize my position, and am about to rise. Wanda stands
proudly erect, her cold beautiful face with its sombre brows and
contemptous eyes is turned toward me. She stands before me as
mistress, commanding, gives a sign with her hand, and before I really
know what has happened to me the negresses have dragged me to the
ground, and have tied me hand and foot. As in the case of one about
to be executed my arms are bound behind my back, so that I can
scarcely move.

"Give me the whip, Haydee," commands Wanda, with unearthly calm.

The negress hands it to her mistress, kneeling.

"And now take off my heavy furs," she continues, "they impede me."

The negress obeyed.

"The jacket there!" Wanda commanded.

Haydee quickly brought her the _kazabaika_, set with ermine, which lay
on the bed, and Wanda slipped into it with two inimitably graceful
movements.

"Now tie him to the pillar here!"

The negresses lifted me up, and twisting a heavy rope around my
body, tied me standing against one of the massive pillars which
supported the top of the wide Italian bed.

Then they suddenly disappeared, as if the earth had swallowed them.

Wanda swiftly approached me. Her white satin dress flowed behind her
in a long train, like silver, like moonlight; her hair flared like
flames against the white fur of her jacket. Now she stood in front
of me with her left hand firmly planted on her hips, in her right hand
she held the whip. She uttered an abrupt laugh.

"Now play has come to an end between us," she said with heartless
coldness. "Now we will begin in dead earnest. You fool, I laugh at you
and despise you; you who in your insane infatuation have given
yourself as a plaything to _me_, the frivolous and capricious woman.
You are no longer the man I love, but _my slave_, at my mercy even
unto life and death.

"You shall know me!

"First of all you shall have a taste of the whip in all seriousness,
without having done anything to deserve it, so that you may
understand what to expect, if you are awkward, disobedient, or
refractory."

With a wild grace she rolled back her fur-lined sleeve, and struck
me across the back.

I winced, for the whip cut like a knife into my flesh.

"Well, how do you like that?" she exclaimed.

I was silent.

"Just wait, you will yet whine like a dog beneath my whip," she
threatened, and simultaneously began to strike me again.

The blows fell quickly, in rapid succession, with terrific force
upon my back, arms, and neck; I had to grit my teeth not to scream
aloud. Now she struck me in the face, warm blood ran down, but she
laughed, and continued her blows.

"It is only now I understand you," she exclaimed. "It really is a
joy to have some one so completely in one's power, and a man at that,
who loves you--you do love me?--No--Oh! I'll tear you to shreds yet,
and with each blow my pleasure will grow. Now, twist like a worm,
scream, whine! You will find no mercy in me!"

Finally she seemed tired.

She tossed the whip aside, stretched out on the ottoman, and rang.

The negresses entered.

"Untie him!"

As they loosened the rope, I fell to the floor like a lump of wood.
The black women grinned, showing their white teeth.

"Untie the rope around his feet."

They did it, but I was unable to rise.

"Come over here, Gregor."

I approached the beautiful woman. Never did she seem more seductive
to me than to-day in spite of all her cruelty and contempt.

"One step further," Wanda commanded. "Now kneel down, and kiss my
foot."

She extended her foot beyond the hem of white satin, and I, the
supersensual fool, pressed my lips upon it.

"Now, you won't lay eyes on me for an entire month, Gregor," she
said seriously. "I want to become a stranger to you, so you will more
easily adjust yourself to our new relationship. In the meantime you
will work in the garden, and await my orders. Now, off with you,
slave!"

       *       *       *       *       *

A month has passed with monotonous regularity, heavy work, and a
melancholy hunger, hunger for her, who is inflicting all these
torments on me.

I am under the gardener's orders; I help him lop the trees and prune
the hedges, transplant flowers, turn over the flower beds, sweep the
gravel paths; I share his coarse food and his hard cot; I rise and
go to bed with the chickens. Now and then I hear that our mistress
is amusing herself, surrounded by admirers. Once I heard her gay
laughter even down here in the garden.

I seem awfully stupid to myself. Was it the result of my present
life, or was I so before? The month is drawing to a close--the day
after to-morrow. What will she do with me now, or has she forgotten
me, and left me to trim hedges and bind bouquets till my dying day?

A written order.

"The slave Gregor is herewith ordered to my personal service.

Wanda Dunajew."

With a beating heart I draw aside the damask curtain on the
following morning, and enter the bed-room of my divinity. It is still
filled with a pleasant half darkness.

"Is it you, Gregor?" she asks, while I kneel before the fire-place,
building a fire. I tremble at the sound of the beloved voice. I
cannot see her herself; she is invisible behind the curtains of the
four-poster bed.

"Yes, my mistress," I reply.

"How late is it?"

"Past nine o'clock."

"Breakfast."

I hasten to get it, and then kneel down with the tray beside her bed.

"Here is breakfast, my mistress."

Wanda draws back the curtains, and curiously enough at the first
glance when I see her among the pillows with loosened flowing hair,
she seems an absolute stranger, a beautiful woman, but the beloved
soft lines are gone. This face is hard and has an expression of
weariness and satiety.

Or is it simply that formerly my eye did not see this?

She fixes her green eyes upon me, more with curiosity than with
menace, perhaps even somewhat pityingly, and lazily pulls the dark
sleeping fur on which she lies over the bared shoulder.

At this moment she is very charming, very maddening, and I feel my
blood rising to my head and heart. The tray in my hands begins to
sway. She notices it and reached out for the whip which is lying on
the toilet-table.

"You are awkward, slave," she says furrowing her brow.

I lower my looks to the ground, and hold the tray as steadily as
possible. She eats her breakfast, yawns, and stretches her opulent
limbs in the magnificent furs.

She has rung. I enter.

"Take this letter to Prince Corsini."

I hurry into the city, and hand the letter to the Prince. He is a
handsome young man with glowing black eyes. Consumed with jealousy,
I take his answer to her.

"What is the matter with you?" she asks with lurking spitefulness.
"You are very pale."

"Nothing, mistress, I merely walked rather fast."

At luncheon the prince is at her side, and I am condemned to serve
both her and him. They joke, and I am, as if non-existent, for both.
For a brief moment I see black; I was just pouring some Bordeaux into
his glass, and spilled it over the table-cloth and her gown.

"How awkward," Wanda exclaimed and slapped my face. The prince
laughed, and she also, but I felt the blood rising to my face.

After luncheon she drove in the Cascine. She has a little carriage
with a handsome, brown English horse, and holds the reins herself.
I sit behind and notice how coquettishly she acts, and nods with a
smile when one of the distinguished gentlemen bows to her.

As I help her out of the carriage, she leans lightly on my arm; the
contact runs through me like an electric shock. She _is_ a wonderful
woman, and I love her more than ever.

       *       *       *       *       *

For dinner at six she has invited a small group of men and women. I
serve, but this time I do not spill any wine over the table-cloth.

A slap in the face is more effective than ten lectures. It makes you
understand very quickly, especially when the instruction is by the
way of a small woman's hand.

       *       *       *       *       *

After dinner she drives to the Pergola Theater. As she descends the
stairs in her black velvet dress with its large collar of ermine and
with a diadem of white roses on her hair, she is literally stunning.
I open the carriage-door, and help her in. In front of the theater
I leap from the driver's seat, and in alighting she leaned on my arm,
which trembled under the sweet burden. I open the door of her box,
and then wait in the vestibule. The performance lasts four hours; she
receives visits from her cavaliers, the while I grit my teeth with
rage.

It is way beyond midnight when my mistress's bell sounds for the
last time.

"Fire!" she orders abruptly, and when the fire-place crackles, "Tea!"

When I return with the samovar, she has already undressed, and with
the aid of the negress slipped into a white negligee.

Haydee thereupon leaves.

"Hand me the sleeping-furs," says Wanda, sleepily stretching her
lovely limbs. I take them from the arm-chair, and hold them while she
slowly and lazily slides into the sleeves. She then throws herself
down on the cushions of the ottoman.

"Take off my shoes, and put on my velvet slippers."

I kneel down and tug at the little shoe which resists my efforts.
"Hurry, hurry!" Wanda exclaims, "you are hurting me! just you wait--I
will teach you." She strikes me with the whip, but now the shoe is
off.

"Now get out!" Still a kick--and then I can go to bed.

       *       *       *       *       *

To-night I accompanied her to a soiree. In the entrance-hall she
ordered me to help her out of her furs; then with a proud smile,
confident of victory, she entered the brilliantly illuminated room.
I again waited with gloomy and monotonous thoughts, watching hour after
hour run by. From time to time the sounds of music reached me, when
the door remained open for a moment. Several servants tried to start
a conversation with me, but soon desisted, since I knew only a few
words of Italian.

Finally I fell asleep, and dreamed that I murdered Wanda in a
violent attack of jealousy. I was condemned to death, and saw myself
strapped on the board; the knife fell, I felt it on my neck, but I
was still alive--

Then the executioner slapped my face.

No, it wasn't the executioner; it was Wanda who stood wrathfully
before me demanding her furs. I am at her side in a moment, and help
her on with it.

There is a deep joy in wrapping a beautiful woman into her furs, and
in seeing and feeling how her neck and magnificent limbs nestle in
the precious soft furs, and to lift the flowing hair over the collar.
When she throws it off a soft warmth and a faint fragrance of her
body still clings to the ends of the hairs of sable. It is enough to
drive one mad.

       *       *       *       *       *

Finally a day came when there were neither guests, nor theater, nor
other company. I breathed a sigh of relief. Wanda sat in the gallery,
reading, and apparently had no orders for me. At dusk when the
silvery evening mists fell she withdrew. I served her at dinner, she
ate by herself, but had not a look, not a syllable for me, not even
a slap in the face.

I actually desire a slap from her hand. Tears fill my eyes, and I
feel that she has humiliated me so deeply, that she doesn't even find
it worth while to torture or maltreat me any further.

Before she goes to bed, her bell calls me.

"You will sleep here to-night, I had horrible dreams last night, and
am afraid of being alone. Take one of the cushions from the ottoman,
and lie down on the bearskin at my feet."

Then Wanda put out the lights. The only illumination in the room was
from a small lamp suspended from the ceiling. She herself got into
bed. "Don't stir, so as not to wake me."

I did as she had commanded, but could not fall asleep for a long
time. I saw the beautiful woman, beautiful as a goddess, lying on her
back on the dark sleeping-furs; her arms beneath her neck, with a
flood of red hair over them. I heard her magnificent breast rise in
deep regular breathing, and whenever she moved ever so slightly. I
woke up and listened to see whether she needed me.

But she did not require me.

No task was required of me; I meant no more to her than a night-lamp, or
a revolver which one places under one's pillow.

       *       *       *       *       *

Am I mad or is she? Does all this arise out of an inventive, wanton
woman's brain with the intention of surpassing my supersensual
fantasies, or is this woman really one of those Neronian characters
who take a diabolical pleasure in treading underfoot, like a worm,
human beings, who have thoughts and feelings and a will like theirs?

What have I experienced?

When I knelt with the coffee-tray beside her bed, Wanda suddenly
placed her hand on my shoulder and her eyes plunged deep into mine.

"What beautiful eyes you have," she said softly, "and especially now
since you suffer. Are you very unhappy?"

I bowed my head, and kept silent.

"Severin, do you still love me," she suddenly exclaimed
passionately, "can you still love me?"

She drew me close with such vehemence that the coffee-tray upset,
the can and cups fell to the floor, and the coffee ran over the
carpet.

"Wanda--my Wanda," I cried out and held her passionately against me;
I covered her mouth, face, and breast with kisses.

"It is my unhappiness that I love you more and more madly the worse
you treat me, the more frequently you betray me. Oh, I shall die of
pain and love and jealousy."

"But I haven't betrayed you, as yet, Severin," replied Wanda smiling.

"Not? Wanda! Don't jest so mercilessly with me," I cried. "Haven't
I myself taken the letter to the Prince--"

"Of course, it was an invitation for luncheon."

"You have, since we have been in Florence--"

"I have been absolutely faithful to you," replied Wanda, "I swear it
by all that is holy to me. All that I have done was merely to fulfill
your dream and it was done for your sake.

"However, I shall take a lover, otherwise things will be only half
accomplished, and in the end you will yet reproach me with not having
treated you cruelly enough, my dear beautiful slave! But to-day you
shall be Severin again, the only one I love. I haven't given away
your clothes. They are here in the chest. Go and dress as you used
to in the little Carpathian health-resort when our love was so intimate.
Forget everything that has happened since; oh, you will forget it
easily in my arms; I shall kiss away all your sorrows."

She began to treat me tenderly like a child, to kiss me and caress
me. Finally she said with a gracious smile, "Go now and dress, I too
will dress. Shall I put on my fur-jacket? Oh yes, I know, now run
along!"

When I returned she was standing in the center of the room in her
white satin dress, and the red _kazabaika_ edged with ermine; her hair
was white with powder and over her forehead she wore a small diamond
diadem. For a moment she reminded me in an uncanny way of Catherine
the Second, but she did not give me much time for reminiscences. She
drew me down on the ottoman beside her and we enjoyed two blissful
hours. She was no longer the stern capricious mistress, she was
entirely a fine lady, a tender sweetheart. She showed me photographs
and books which had just appeared, and talked about them with so much
intelligence, clarity, and good taste, that I more than once carried
her hand to my lips, enraptured. She then had me recite several of
Lermontov's poems, and when I was all afire with enthusiasm, she
placed her small hand gently on mine. Her expression was soft, and her
eyes were filled with tender pleasure.

"Are you happy?"

"Not yet."

She then leaned back on the cushions, and slowly opened her
_kazabaika_.

But I quickly covered the half-bared breast again with the ermine.
"You are driving me mad." I stammered.

"Come!"

I was already lying in her arms, and like a serpent she was kissing
me with her tongue, when again she whispered, "Are you happy?"

"Infinitely!" I exclaimed.

She laughed aloud. It was an evil, shrill laugh which made cold
shivers run down by back.

"You used to dream of being the slave, the plaything of a beautiful
woman, and now you imagine you are a free human being, a man, my
lover-you fool! A sign from me, and you are a slave again. Down on
your knees!"

I sank down from the ottoman to her feet, but my eye still clung
doubtingly on hers.

"You can't believe it," she said, looking at me with her arms folded
across her breast. "I am bored, and you will just do to while away
a couple of hours of time. Don't look at me that way--"

She kicked me with her foot.

"You are just what I want, a human being, a thing, an animal--"

She rang. The three negresses entered.

"Tie his hands behind his back."

I remained kneeling and unresistingly let them do this. They led me
into the garden, down to the little vineyard, which forms the
southern boundary. Corn had been planted between the espaliers, and
here and there a few dead stalks still stood. To one side was a
plough.

The negresses tied me to a post, and amused themselves sticking me
with their golden hair-needles. But this did not last long, before
Wanda appeared with her ermine cap on her head, and with her hands
in the pockets of her jacket. She had me untied, and then my hands
were fastened together on my back. She finally had a yoke put around
my neck, and harnessed me to the plough.

Then her black demons drove me out into the field. One of them held
the plough, the other one led me by a line, the third applied the
whip, and Venus in Furs stood to one side and looked on.

       *       *       *       *       *

When I was serving dinner on the following day Wanda said: "Bring
another cover, I want you to dine with me to-day," and when I was
about to sit down opposite her, she added, "No, over here, close by
my side."

She is in the best of humors, gives me soup with her spoon, feeds me
with her fork, and places her head on the table like a playful kitten
and flirts with me. I have the misfortune of looking at Haydee, who
serves in my place, perhaps a little longer than is necessary. It is
only now that I noticed her noble, almost European cast of
countenance and her magnificent statuesque bust, which is as if hewn
out of black marble. The black devil observes that she pleases me,
and, grinning, shows her teeth. She has hardly left the room, before
Wanda leaps up in a rage.

"What, you dare to look at another woman besides me! Perhaps you
like her even better than you do me, she is even more demonic!"

I am frightened; I have never seen her like this before; she is
suddenly pale even to the lips and her whole body trembles. Venus in
Furs is jealous of her slave. She snatches the whip from its hook and
strikes me in the face; then she calls her black servants, who bind
me, and carry me down into the cellar, where they throw me into a
dark, dank, subterranean compartment, a veritable prison-cell.

Then the lock of the door clicks, the bolts are drawn, a key sings
in the lock. I am a prisoner, buried.

I have been lying here for I don't know how long, bound like a calf
about to be hauled to the slaughter, on a bundle of damp straw,
without any light, without food, without drink, without sleep. It
would be like her to let me starve to death, if I don't freeze to
death before then. I am shaking with cold. Or is it fever? I believe
I am beginning to hate this woman.

       *       *       *       *       *

A red streak, like blood, floods across the floor; it is a light
falling through the door which is now thrust open.

Wanda appears on the threshold, wrapped in her sables, holding a
lighted torch.

"Are you still alive?" she asks.

"Are you coming to kill me?" I reply with a low, hoarse voice.

With two rapid strides Wanda reaches my side, she kneels down beside
me, and places my head in her lap. "Are you ill? Your eyes glow so,
do you love me? I want you to love me."

She draws forth a short dagger. I start with fright when its blade
gleams in front of my eyes. I actually believe that she is about to
kill me. She laughs, and cuts the ropes that bind me.

       *       *       *       *       *

Every evening after dinner she now has me called. I have to read to
her, and she discusses with me all sorts of interesting problems and
subjects. She seems entirely transformed; it is as if she were
ashamed of the savagery which she betrayed to me and of the cruelty
with which she treated me. A touching gentleness transfigures her
entire being, and when at the good-night she gives me her hand, a
superhuman power of goodness and love lies in her eyes, of the kind
which calls forth tears in us and causes us to forget all the
miseries of existence and all the terrors of death.

       *       *       *       *       *

I am reading _Manon l'Escault_ to her. She feels the association, she
doesn't say a word, but she smiles from time to time, and finally she
shuts up the little book.

"Don't you want to go on reading?"

"Not to-day. We will ourselves act _Manon l'Escault_ to-day. I have a
rendezvous in the Cascine, and you, my dear Chevalier, will accompany
me; I know, you will do it, won't you?"

"You command it."

"I do not command it, I beg it of you," she says with irresistible
charm. She then rises, puts her hands on my shoulders, and looks at
me.

"Your eyes!" she exclaims. "I love you, Severin, you have no idea
how I love you!"

"Yes, I have!" I replied bitterly, "so much so that you have
arranged for a rendezvous with some one else."

"I do this only to allure you the more," she replied vivaciously. "I
must have admirers, so as not to lose you. I don't ever want to lose
you, never, do you hear, for I love only you, you alone."

She clung passionately to my lips.

"Oh, if I only could, as I would, give you all of my soul in a kiss--
thus--but now come."

She slipped into a simple black velvet coat, and put a dark _bashlyk_
[Footnote: A kind of Russian cap.] on her head. Then she rapidly went
through the gallery, and entered the carriage.

"Gregor will drive," she called out to the coachman who withdrew in
surprise.

I ascended the driver's seat, and angrily whipped up the horses.

In the Cascine where the main roadway turns into a leafy path, Wanda
got out. It was night, only occasional stars shone through the gray
clouds that fled across the sky. By the bank of the Arno stood a man
in a dark cloak, with a brigand's hat, and looked at the yellow
waves. Wanda rapidly walked through the shrubbery, and tapped him on
the shoulder. I saw him turn and seize her hand, and then they
disappeared behind the green wall.

An hour full of torments. Finally there was a rustling in the bushes
to one side, and they returned.

The man accompanied her to the carriage. The light of the lamp fell
full and glaringly upon an infinitely young, soft and dreamy face
which I had never before seen, and played in his long, blond curls.

She held out her hand which he kissed with deep respect, then she
signaled to me, and immediately the carriage flew along the leafy
wall which follows the river like a long green screen.

       *       *       *       *       *

The bell at the garden-gate rings. It is a familiar face. The man
from the Cascine.

"Whom shall I announce?" I ask him in French. He timidly shakes his
head.

"Do you, perhaps, understand some German?" he asks shyly.

"Yes. Your name, please."

"Oh! I haven't any yet," he replies, embarrassed--"Tell your
mistress the German painter from the Cascine is here and would like--
but there she is herself."

Wanda had stepped out on the balcony, and nodded toward the stranger.

"Gregor, show the gentleman in!" she called to me.

I showed the painter the stairs.

"Thanks, I'll find her now, thanks, thanks very much." He ran up the
steps. I remained standing below, and looked with deep pity on the
poor German.

Venus in Furs has caught his soul in the red snares of hair. He will
paint her, and go mad.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is a sunny winter's day. Something that looks like gold trembles
on the leaves of the clusters of trees down below in the green level
of the meadow. The camelias at the foot of the gallery are glorious
in their abundant buds. Wanda is sitting in the loggia; she is
drawing. The German painter stands opposite her with his hands folded
as in adoration, and looks at her. No, he rather looks at her face,
and is entirely absorbed in it, enraptured.

But she does not see him, neither does she see me, who with the
spade in my hand am turning over the flower-bed, solely that I may
see her and feel her nearness, which produces an effect on me like
poetry, like music.

       *       *       *       *       *

The painter has gone. It is a hazardous thing to do, but I risk it.
I go up to the gallery, quite close, and ask Wanda "Do you love the
painter, mistress?"

She looks at me without getting angry, shakes her head, and finally
even smiles.

"I feel sorry for him," she replies, "but I do not love him. I love no
one. _I used to love you, as ardently, as passionately, as deeply as
it was possible for me to love,_ but now I don't love even you any
more; my heart is a void, dead, and this makes me sad."

"Wanda!" I exclaimed, deeply moved.

"Soon, you too will no longer love me," she continued, "tell me when
you have reached that point, and I will give back to you your
freedom."

"Then I shall remain your slave, all my life long, for I adore you
and shall always adore you," I cried, seized by that fanaticism of
love which has repeatedly been so fatal to me.

Wanda looked at me with a curious pleasure. "Consider well what you
do," she said. "I have loved you infinitely and have been despotic
towards you so that I might fulfil your dream. Something of my old
feeling, a sort of real sympathy for you, still trembles in my
breast. When that too has gone who knows whether then I shall give
you your liberty; whether I shall not then become really cruel,
merciless, even brutal toward; whether I shall not take a diabolical
pleasure in tormenting and putting on the rack the man who worships
me idolatrously, the while I remain indifferent or love someone else;
perhaps, I shall enjoy seeing him die of his love for me. Consider
this well."

"I have long since considered all that," I replied as in a glow of
fever. "I cannot exist, cannot live without you; I shall die if you
set me at liberty; let me remain your slave, kill me, but do not
drive me away."

"Very well then, be my slave," she replied, "but don't forget that
I no longer love you, and your love doesn't mean any more to me than
a dog's, and dogs are kicked."

       *       *       *       *       *

To-day I visited the Venus of Medici.

It was still early, and the little octagonal room in the Tribuna was
filled with half-lights like a sanctuary; I stood with folded hands
in deep adoration before the silent image of the divinity.

But I did not stand for long.

Not a human soul was in the gallery, not even an Englishman, and I
fell down on my knees. I looked up at the lovely slender body, the
budding breasts, the virginal and yet voluptuous face, the fragrant
curls which seemed to conceal tiny horns on each side of the forehead.

       *       *       *       *       *

My mistress's bell.

It is noonday. She, however, is still abed with her arms intertwined
behind her neck.

"I want to bathe," she says, "and you will attend me. Lock the door!"

I obey.

"Now go downstairs and make sure the door below is also locked."

I descended the winding stairs that lead from her bedroom to the
bath; my feet gave way beneath me, and I had to support myself
against the iron banister. After having ascertained that the door
leading to the Loggia and the garden was locked, I returned. Wanda
was now sitting on the bed with loosened hair, wrapped in her green
velvet furs. When she made a rapid movement, I noticed that the furs
were her only covering. It made me start terribly, I don't know why?
I was like one condemned to death, who knows he is on the way to the
scaffold, and yet begins to tremble when he sees it.

"Come, Gregor, take me on your arms."

"You mean, mistress?"

"You are to carry me, don't you understand?"

I lifted her up, so that she rested in my arms, while she twined
hers around my neck. Slowly, step by step, I went down the stairs
with her and her hair beat from time to time against my cheek and her
foot sought support against my knee. I trembled under the beautiful
burden I was carrying, and every moment it seemed as if I had to
break down beneath it.

The bath consisted of a wide, high rotunda, which received a soft
quiet light from a red glass cupola above. Two palms extended their
broad leaves like a roof over a couch of velvet cushions. From here
steps covered with Turkish rugs led to the white marble basin which
occupied the center.

"There is a green ribbon on my toilet-table upstairs," said Wanda,
as I let her down on the couch, "go get it, and also bring the whip."

I flew upstairs and back again, and kneeling put both in my mistress's
hands. She then had me twist her heavy electric hair into a large knot
which I fastened with the green ribbon. Then I prepared the bath. I did
this very awkwardly because my hands and feet refused to obey me. Again
and again I had to look at the beautiful woman lying on the red velvet
cushions, and from time to time her wonderful body gleamed here and
there beneath the furs. Some magnetic power stronger than my will
compelled me to look. I felt that all sensuality and lustfulness lies in
that which is half-concealed or intentionally disclosed; and the truth
of this I recognized even more acutely, when the basin at last was full,
and Wanda threw off the fur-cloak with a single gesture, and stood
before me like the goddess in the Tribuna.

At that moment she seemed as sacred and chaste to me in her unveiled
beauty, as did the divinity of long ago. I sank down on my knees
before her, and devoutly pressed my lips on her foot.

My soul which had been storm-tossed only a little while earlier,
suddenly was perfectly calm, and I now felt no element of cruelty in
Wanda.

She slowly descended the stairs, and I could watch her with a
calmness in which not a single atom of torment or desire was
intermingled. I could see her plunge into and rise out of the
crystalline water, and the wavelets which she herself raised played
about her like tender lovers.

Our nihilistic aesthetician is right when he says: a real apple is
more beautiful than a painted one, and a living woman is more
beautiful than a Venus of stone.

And when she left the bath, and the silvery drops and the roseate
light rippled down her body, I was seized with silent rapture. I
wrapped the linen sheets about her, drying her glorious body. The
calm bliss remained with me, even now when one foot upon me as upon
a footstool, she rested on the cushions in her large velvet cloak.
The lithe sables nestled desirously against her cold marble-like body.
Her left arm on which she supported herself lay like a sleeping swan
in the dark fur of the sleeve, while her left hand played carelessly
with the whip.

By chance my look fell on the massive mirror on the wall opposite,
and I cried out, for I saw the two of us in its golden frame as in
a picture. The picture was so marvellously beautiful, so strange, so
imaginative, that I was filled with deep sorrow at the thought that
its lines and colors would have to dissolve like mist.

"What is the matter?" asked Wanda.

I pointed to the mirror.

"Ah, that is really beautiful," she exclaimed, "too bad one can't
capture the moment and make it permanent."

"And why not?" I asked. "Would not any artist, even the most famous,
be proud if you gave him leave to paint you and make you immortal by
means of his brush.

"The very thought that this extra-ordinary beauty is to be lost to
the world," I continued still watching her enthusiastically, "is
horrible--all this glorious facial expression, this mysterious eye
with its green fires, this demonic hair, this magnificence of body.
The idea fills me with a horror of death, of annihilation. But the
hand of an artist shall snatch you from this. You shall not like the
rest of us disappear absolutely and forever, without leaving a trace
of your having been. Your picture must live, even when you yourself
have long fallen to dust; your beauty must triumph beyond death!"

Wanda smiled.

"Too bad, that present-day Italy hasn't a Titian or Raphael," she
said, "but, perhaps, love will make amends for genius, who knows; our
little German might do?" She pondered.

"Yes, he shall paint you, and I will see to it that the god of love
mixes his colors."

       *       *       *       *       *

The young painter has established his studio in her villa; he is
completely in her net. He has just begun a Madonna, a Madonna with
red hair and green eyes! Only the idealism of a German would attempt
to use this thorough-bred woman as a model for a picture of
virginity. The poor fellow really is an almost bigger donkey than I
am. Our misfortune is that our Titania has discovered our ass's ears
too soon.

       *       *       *       *       *

Now she laughs derisively at us, and how she laughs! I hear her
insolent melodious laughter in his studio, under the open window of
which I stand, jealously listening.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Are you mad, me--ah, it is unbelievable, me as the Mother of God!"
she exclaimed and laughed again. "Wait a moment, I will show you
another picture of myself, one that I myself have painted, and you
shall copy it."

Her head appeared in the window, luminous like a flame under the
sunlight.

"Gregor!"

I hurried up the stairs, through the gallery, into the studio.

"Lead him to the bath," Wanda commanded, while she herself hurried
away.

A few moments passed and Wanda arrived; dressed in nothing but the
sable fur, with the whip in her hand; she descended the stairs and
stretched out on the velvet cushions as on the former occasion. I lay
at her feet and she placed one of her feet upon me; her right hand
played with the whip. "Look at me," she said, "with your deep,
fanatical look, that's it."

The painter had turned terribly pale. He devoured the scene with his
beautiful dreamy blue eyes; his lips opened, but he remained dumb.

"Well, how do you like the picture?"

"Yes, that is how I want to paint you," said the German, but it was
really not a spoken language; it was the eloquent moaning, the
weeping of a sick soul, a soul sick unto death.

       *       *       *       *       *

The charcoal outline of the painting is done; the heads and flesh
parts are painted in. Her diabolical face is already becoming visible
under a few bold strokes, life flashes in her green eyes.

Wanda stands in front of the canvas with her arms crossed over her
breast.

"This picture, like many of those of the Venetian school, is
simultaneously to represent a portrait and to tell a story,"
explained the painter, who again had become pale as death.

"And what will you call it?" she asked, "but what is the matter with
you, are you ill?"

"I am afraid--" he answered with a consuming look fixed on the
beautiful woman in furs, "but let us talk of the picture."

"Yes, let us talk about the picture."

"I imagine the goddess of love as having descended from Mount Olympus
for the sake of some mortal man. And always cold in this modern world
of ours, she seeks to keep her sublime body warm in a large heavy fur
and her feet in the lap of her lover. I imagine the favorite of a
beautiful despot, who whips her slave, when she is tired of kissing
him, and the more she treads him underfoot, the more insanely he loves
her. And so I shall call the picture: _Venus in Furs_."

       *       *       *       *       *

The painter paints slowly, but his passion grows more and more
rapidly. I am afraid he will end up by committing suicide. She plays
with him and propounds riddles to him which he cannot solve, and he
feels his blood congealing in the process, but it amuses her.

During the sitting she nibbles at candies, and rolls the paper-wrappers
into little pellets with which she bombards him.

"I am glad you are in such good humor," said the painter, "but your face
has lost the expression which I need for my picture."

"The expression which you need for your picture," she replied,
smiling. "Wait a moment."

She rose, and dealt me a blow with the whip. The painter looked at
her with stupefaction, and a child-like surprise showed on his face,
mingled with disgust and admiration.

While whipping me, Wanda's face acquired more and more of the cruel,
contemptuous character, which so haunts and intoxicates me.

"Is this the expression you need for your picture?" she exclaimed.
The painter lowered his look in confusion before the cold ray of her
eye.

"It is the expression--" he stammered, "but I can't paint now--"

"What?" said Wanda, scornfully, "perhaps I can help you?"

"Yes--" cried the German, as if taken with madness, "whip me too."

"Oh! With pleasure," she replied, shrugging her shoulders, "but if
I am to whip you I want to do it in sober earnest."

"Whip me to death," cried the painter.

"Will you let me tie you?" she asked, smiling.

"Yes--" he moaned--

Wanda left the room for a moment, and returned with ropes.

"Well--are you still brave enough to put yourself into the power of
Venus in Furs, the beautiful despot, for better or worse?" she began
ironically.

"Yes, tie me," the painter replied dully. Wanda tied his hands on
his back and drew a rope through his arms and a second one around his
body, and fettered him to the cross-bars of the window. Then she
rolled back the fur, seized the whip, and stepped in front of him.

The scene had a grim attraction for me, which I cannot describe. I
felt my heart beat, when, with a smile, she drew back her arm for the
first blow, and the whip hissed through the air. He winced slightly
under the blow. Then she let blow after blow rain upon him, with her
mouth half-opened and her teeth flashing between her red lips, until
he finally seemed to ask for mercy with his piteous, blue eyes. It
was indescribable.

       *       *       *       *       *

She is sitting for him now, alone. He is working on her head.

She has posted me in the adjoining room behind a heavy curtain,
where I can't be seen, but can see everything.

What does she intend now?

Is she afraid of him? She has driven him insane enough to be sure,
or is she hatching a new torment for me? My knees tremble.

They are talking. He has lowered his voice so that I cannot
understand a word, and she replies in the same way. What is the
meaning of this? Is there an understanding between them?

I suffer frightful torments; my heart seems about to burst.

He kneels down before her, embraces her, and presses his head
against her breast, and she--in her heartlessness--laughs--and now
I hear her saying aloud:

"Ah! You need another application of the whip."

"Woman! Goddess! Are you without a heart--can't you love," exclaimed
the German, "don't you even know, what it means to love, to be
consumed with desire and passion, can't you even imagine what I
suffer? Have you no pity for me?"

"No!" she replied proudly and mockingly, "but I have the whip."

She drew it quickly from the pocket of her fur-coat, and struck him
in the face with the handle. He rose, and drew back a couple of paces.

"Now, are you ready to paint again?" she asked indifferently. He did
not reply, but again went to the easel and took up his brush and
palette.

The painting is marvellously successful. It is a portrait which as
far as the likeness goes couldn't be better, and at the same time it
seems to have an ideal quality. The colors glow, are supernatural;
almost diabolical, I would call them.

The painter has put all his sufferings, his adoration, and all his
execration into the picture.

       *       *       *       *       *

Now he is painting me; we are alone together for several hours every
day. To-day he suddenly turned to me with his vibrant voice and said:

"You love this woman?"

"Yes."

"I also love her." His eyes were bathed in tears. He remained silent
for a while, and continued painting.

"We have a mountain at home in Germany within which she dwells," he
murmured to himself. "She is a demon."

       *       *       *       *       *

The picture is finished. She insisted on paying him for it,
munificently, in the manner of queens.

"Oh, you have already paid me," he said, with a tormented smile,
refusing her offer.

Before he left, he secretly opened his portfolio, and let me look
inside. I was startled. Her head looked at me as if out of a mirror
and seemed actually to be alive.

"I shall take it along," he said, "it is mine; she can't take it
away from me. I have earned it with my heart's blood."

       *       *       *       *       *

"I am really rather sorry for the poor painter," she said to me to-day,
"it is absurd to be as virtuous as I am. Don't you think so too?"

I did not dare to reply to her.

"Oh, I forgot that I am talking with a slave; I need some fresh air,
I want to be diverted, I want to forget.

"The carriage, quick!"

Her new dress is extravagant: Russian half-boots of violet-blue
velvet trimmed with ermine, and a skirt of the same material,
decorated with narrow stripes and rosettes of furs. Above it is an
appropriate, close-fitting jacket, also richly trimmed and lined with
ermine. The headdress is a tall cap of ermine of the style of
Catherine the Second, with a small aigrette, held in place by a
diamond-agraffe; her red hair falls loose down her back. She ascends
on the driver's seat, and holds the reins herself; I take my seat
behind. How she lashes on the horses! The carriage flies along like
mad.

Apparently it is her intention to attract attention to-day, to make
conquests, and she succeeds completely. She is the lioness of the
Cascine. People nod to her from carriages; on the footpath people
gather in groups to discuss her. She pays no attention to anyone,
except now and then acknowledging the greetings of elderly gentlemen
with a slight nod.

Suddenly a young man on a lithe black horse dashes up at full speed.
As soon as he sees Wanda, he stops his horse and makes it walk. When
he is quite close, he stops entirely and lets her pass. And she too
sees him--the lioness, the lion. Their eyes meet. She madly drives
past him, but she cannot tear herself free from the magic power of
his look, and she turns her head after him.

My heart stops when I see the half-surprised, half-enraptured look
with which she devours him, but he is worthy of it.

For he is, indeed, a magnificent specimen of man, No, rather, he is
a man whose like I have never yet seen among the living. He is in the
Belvedere, graven in marble, with the same slender, yet steely
musculature, with the same face and the same waving curls. What makes
him particularly beautiful is that he is beardless. If his hips were
less narrow, one might take him for a woman in disguise. The curious
expression about the mouth, the lion's lip which slightly discloses
the teeth beneath, lends a flashing tinge of cruelty to the beautiful
face--

Apollo flaying Marsyas.

He wears high black boots, closely fitting breeches of white
leather, short fur coat of black cloth, of the kind worn by Italian
cavalry officers, trimmed with astrakhan and many rich loops; on his
black locks is a red fez.

I now understand the masculine Eros, and I marvel at Socrates for
having remained virtuous in view of an Alcibiades like this.

       *       *       *       *       *

I have never seen my lioness so excited. Her cheeks flamed when she
left from the carriage at her villa. She hurried upstairs, and with
an imperious gesture ordered me to follow.

Walking up and down her room with long strides, she began to talk so
rapidly, that I was frightened.

"You are to find out who the man in the Cascine was, immediately--

"Oh, what a man! Did you see him? What do you think of him? Tell me."

"The man is beautiful," I replied dully.

"He is so beautiful," she paused, supporting herself on the arm of
a chair, "that he has taken my breath away."

"I can understand the impression he has made on you," I replied, my
imagination carrying me away in a mad whirl. "I am quite lost in
admiration myself, and I can imagine--"

"You may imagine," she laughed aloud, "that this man is my lover,
and that he will apply the lash to you, and that you will enjoy being
punished by him.

"But now go, go."

       *       *       *       *       *

Before evening fell, I had the desired information.

Wanda was still fully dressed when I returned. She reclined on the
ottoman, her face buried in her hands, her hair in a wild tangle,
like the red mane of a lioness.

"What is his name?" she asked, uncanny calm.

"Alexis Papadopolis."

"A Greek, then,"

I nodded.

"He is very young?"

"Scarcely older than you. They say he was educated in Paris, and
that he is an atheist. He fought against the Turks in Candia, and is
said to have distinguished himself there no less by his race-hatred
and cruelty, than by his bravery."

"All in all, then, a man," she cried with sparkling eyes.

"At present he is living in Florence," I continued, "he is said to
be tremendously rich--"

"I didn't ask you about that," she interrupted quickly and sharply.
"The man is dangerous. Aren't you afraid of him? I am afraid of him.
Has he a wife?"

"No."

"A mistress?"

"No."

"What theaters does he attend?"

"To-night he will be at the Nicolini Theater, where Virginia Marini
and Salvini are acting; they are the greatest living artists in
Italy, perhaps in Europe.

"See that you get a box--and be quick about it!" she commanded.

"But, mistress--"

"Do you want a taste of the whip?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"You can wait down in the lobby," she said when I had placed the
opera-glasses and the programme on the edge of her box and adjusted
the footstool.

I am standing there and had to lean against the wall for support so
as not to fall down with envy and rage--no, rage isn't the right
word; it was a mortal fear.

I saw her in her box dressed in blue moire, with a huge ermine cloak
about her bare shoulders; he sat opposite. I saw them devour each
other with their eyes. For both of them the stage, Goldoni's _Pamela,_
Salvini, Marini, the public, even the entire world, were non-existant
to-night. And I--what was I at that moment?--

       *       *       *       *       *

To-day she is attending the ball at the Greek ambassador's. Does she
know, that she will meet him there?

At any rate she dressed, as if she did. A heavy sea-green silk dress
plastically encloses her divine form, leaving the bust and arms bare. In
her hair, which is done into a single flaming knot, a white water-lily
blossoms; from it the leaves of reeds interwoven with a few loose
strands fall down toward her neck. There no longer is any trace of
agitation or trembling feverishness in her being. She is calm, so calm,
that I feel my blood congealing and my heart growing cold under her
glance. Slowly, with a weary, indolent majesty, she ascends the marble
staircase, lets her precious wrap slide off, and listlessly enters the
hall, where the smoke of a hundred candles has formed a silvery mist.

For a few moments my eyes follow her in a daze, then I pick up her
furs, which without my being aware, had slipped from my hands. They
are still warm from her shoulders.

I kiss the spot, and my eyes fill with tears.

       *       *       *       *       *

He has arrived.

In his black velvet coat extravagantly trimmed with sable, he is a
beautiful, haughty despot who plays with the lives and souls of men.
He stands in the ante-room, looking around proudly, and his eyes rest
on me for an uncomfortably long time.

Under his icy glance I am again seized by a mortal fear. I have a
presentiment that this man can enchain her, captivate her, subjugate
her, and I feel inferior in contrast with his savage masculinity; I
am filled with envy, with jealousy.

I feel that I am a queer weakly creature of brains, merely! And what
is most humiliating, I want to hate him, but I can't. Why is that
among all the host of servants he has chosen me.

With an inimitably aristocratic nod of the head he calls me over to
him, and I--I obey his call--against my own will.

"Take my furs," he quickly commands.

My entire body trembles with resentment, but I obey, abjectly like
a slave.

       *       *       *       *       *

All night long I waited in the ante-room, raving as in a fever.
Strange images hovered past my inner eye. I saw their meeting--their
long exchange of looks. I saw her float through the hall in his arms,
drunken, lying with half-closed lids against his breast. I saw him
in the holy of holies of love, lying on the ottoman, not as slave,
but as master, and she at his feet. On my knees I served them, the
tea-tray faltering in my hands, and I saw him reach for the whip.
But now the servants are talking about him.

He is a man who is like a woman; he knows that he is beautiful, and
he acts accordingly. He changes his clothes four or five times a day,
like a vain courtesan.

In Paris he appeared first in woman's dress, and the men assailed
him with love-letters. An Italian singer, famous equally for his art
and his passionate intensity, even invaded his home, and lying on his
knees before him threatened to commit suicide if he wouldn't be his.

"I am sorry," he replied, smiling, "I should like to do you the
favor, but you will have to carry out your threat, for I am a man."

       *       *       *       *       *

The drawing-room has already thinned out to a marked degree, but she
apparently has no thought of leaving.

Morning is already peering through the blinds.

At last I hear the rustling of her heavy gown which flows along
behind her like green waves. She advances step by step, engaged in
conversation with him.

I hardly exist for her any longer; she doesn't even trouble to give
me an order.

"The cloak for madame," he commands. He, of course, doesn't think of
looking after her himself.

While I put her furs about her, he stands to one side with his arms
crossed. While I am on my knees putting on her fur over-shoes, she
lightly supports herself with her hand on his shoulder. She asks:

"And what about the lioness?"

"When the lion whom she has chosen and with whom she lives is
attacked by another," the Greek went on with his narrative, "the
lioness quietly lies down and watches the battle. Even if her mate
is worsted she does not go to his aid. She looks on indifferently as
he bleeds to death under his opponent's claws, and follows the victor,
the stronger--that is the female's nature."

At this moment my lioness looked quickly and curiously at me.

It made me shudder, though I didn't know why--and the red dawn
immerses me and her and him in blood.

       *       *       *       *       *

She did not go to bed, but merely threw off her ball-dress and undid
her hair; then she ordered me to build a fire, and she sat by the
fire-place, and stared into the flames.

"Do you need me any longer, mistress?" I asked, my voice failed me
at the last word.

Wanda shook her head.

I left the room, passed through the gallery, and sat down on one of
the steps, leading from there down into the garden. A gentle north
wind brought a fresh, damp coolness from the Arno, the green hills
extended into the distance in a rosy mist, a golden haze hovered over
the city, over the round cupola of the Duomo.

A few stars still tremble in the pale-blue sky.

I tore open my coat, and pressed my burning forehead against the
marble. Everything that had happened so far seemed to me a mere
child's play; but now things were beginning to be serious, terribly
serious.

I anticipated a catastrophe, I visualized it, I could lay hold of it
with my hands, but I lacked the courage to meet it. My strength was
broken. And if I am honest with myself, neither the pains and
sufferings that threatened me, not the humiliations that impended,
were the thing that frightened me.

I merely felt a fear, the fear of losing her whom I loved with a
sort of fanatical devotion; but it was so overwhelming, so crushing
that I suddenly began to sob like a child.

       *       *       *       *       *

During the day she remained locked in her room, and had the negress
attend her. When the evening star rose glowing in the blue sky, I saw
her pass through the garden, and, carefully following her at a
distance, watched her enter the shrine of Venus. I stealthily
followed and peered through the chink in the door.

She stood before the divine image of the goddess, her hands folded
as in prayer, and the sacred light of the star of love casts its blue
rays over her.

       *       *       *       *       *

On my couch at night the fear of losing her and despair took such
powerful hold of me that they made a hero and a libertine of me. I
lighted the little red oil-lamp which hung in the corridor beneath
a saint's image, and entered her bedroom, covering the light with one
hand.

The lioness had been hunted and driven until she was exhausted. She
had fallen asleep among her pillows, lying on her back, her hands
clenched, breathing heavily. A dream seemed to oppress her. I slowly
withdrew my hand, and let the red light fall full on her wonderful
face.

But she did not awaken.

I gently set the lamp on the floor, sank down beside Wanda's bed,
and rested my head on her soft, glowing arm.

She moved slightly, but even now did not awaken. I do not know how
long I lay thus in the middle of the night, turned as into a stone
by horrible torments.

Finally a severe trembling seized me, and I was able to cry. My
tears flowed over her arm. She quivered several times and finally sat
up; she brushed her hand across her eyes, and looked at me.

"Severin," she exclaimed, more frightened than angry.

I was unable to reply.

"Severin," she continued softly, "what is the matter? Are you ill?"

Her voice sounded so sympathetic, so kind, so full of love, that it
clutched my breast like red-hot tongs and I began to sob aloud.

"Severin," she began anew. "My poor unhappy friend." Her hand gently
stroked my hair. "I am sorry, very sorry for you; but I can't help
you; with the best intention in the world I know of nothing that
would cure you."

"Oh, Wanda, must it be?" I moaned in my agony.

"What, Severin? What are you talking about?"

"Don't you love me any more?" I continued. "Haven't you even a
little bit of pity for me? Has the beautiful stranger taken complete
possession of you?"

"I cannot lie," she replied softly after a short pause. "He has made
an impression on me which I haven't yet been able to analyse, further
than that I suffer and tremble beneath it. It is an impression of the
sort I have met with in the works of poets or on the stage, but I
always thought it was a figment of the imagination. Oh, he is a man
like a lion, strong and beautiful and yet gentle, not brutal like the
men of our northern world. I am sorry for you, Severin, I am; but I
must possess him. What am I saying? I must give myself to him, if he
will have me."

"Consider your reputation, Wanda, which so far has remained
spotless," I exclaimed, "even if I no longer mean anything to you."

"I am considering it," she replied, "I intend to be strong, as long
as it is possible, I want--" she buried her head shyly in the pillows
--"I want to become his wife--if he will have me."

"Wanda," I cried, seized again by that mortal fear, which always
robs me of my breath, makes me lose possession of myself, "you want
to be his wife, belong to him for always. Oh! Do not drive me away!
He does not love you--"

"Who says that?" she exclaimed, flaring up.

"He does not love you," I went on passionately, "but I love you, I
adore you, I am your slave, I let you tread me underfoot, I want to
carry you on my arms through life."

"Who says that he doesn't love me?" she interrupted vehemently.

"Oh! be mine," I replied, "be mine! I cannot exist, cannot live
without you. Have mercy on me, Wanda, have mercy!"

She looked at me again, and her face had her cold heartless
expression, her evil smile.

"You say he doesn't love me," she said, scornfully. "Very well then,
get what consolation you can out of it."

With this she turned over on the other side, and contemptuously
showed me her back.

"Good God, are you a woman without flesh or blood, haven't you a
heart as well as I!" I cried, while my breast heaved convulsively.

"You know what I am," she replied, coldly. "I am a woman of stone,
_Venus in Furs_, your ideal, kneel down, and pray to me."

"Wanda!" I implored, "mercy!"

She began to laugh. I buried my face in her pillows. Pain had
loosened the floodgates of my tears and I let them flow.

For a long time silence reigned, then Wanda slowly raised herself.

"You bore me," she began.

"Wanda!"

"I am tired, let me go to sleep."

"Mercy," I implored. "Do not drive me away. No man, no one, will
love you as I do."

"Let me go to sleep,"--she turned her back to me again.

I leaped up, and snatched the poinard, which hung beside her bed,
from its sheath, and placed its point against my breast.

"I shall kill myself here before your eyes," I murmured dully.

"Do what you please," Wanda replied with complete indifference. "But
let me go to sleep." She yawned aloud. "I am very sleepy."

For a moment I stood as if petrified. Then I began to laugh and cry
at the same time. Finally I placed the poinard in my belt, and again
fell on my knees before her.

"Wanda, listen to me, only for a few moments," I begged.

"I want to go to sleep! Don't you hear!" she cried, leaping angrily
out of bed and pushing me away with her foot. "You forget that I am
your mistress?" When I didn't budge, she seized the whip and struck
me. I rose; she struck me again--this time right in the face.

"Wretch, slave!"

With clenched fist held heavenward, I left her bedroom with a sudden
resolve. She tossed the whip aside, and broke out into clear
laughter. I can imagine that my theatrical attitude must have been
very droll.

       *       *       *       *       *

I have determined to set myself free from this heartless woman, who
has treated me so cruelly, and is now about to break faith and betray
me, as a reward for all my slavish devotion, for everything I have
suffered from her. I packed my few belongings into a bundle, and then
wrote her as follows:

"Dear Madam,--

I have loved you even to madness, I have given myself to you as no man
ever has given himself to a woman. You have abused my most sacred
emotions, and played an impudent, frivolous game with me. However, as
long as you were merely cruel and merciless, it was still possible for
me to love you. Now you are about to become _cheap_. I am no longer
the slave whom you can kick about and whip. You yourself have set me
free, and I am leaving a woman I can only hate and despise.

Severin Kusiemski."

I handed these lines to the negress, and hastened away as fast as I
could go. I arrived at the railway-station all out of breath.
Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my heart and stopped. I began to
weep. It is humiliating that I want to flee and I can't. I turn back--
whither?--to her, whom I abhor, and yet, at the same time, adore.

Again I pause. I cannot go back. I dare not.

But how am I to leave Florence. I remember that I haven't any money,
not a penny. Very well then, on foot; it is better to be an honest
beggar than to eat the bread of a courtesan.

But still I can't leave.

She has my pledge, my word of honor. I have to return. Perhaps she
will release me.

After a few rapid strides, I stop again.

She has my word of honor and my bond, that I shall remain her slave
as long as she desires, until she herself gives me my freedom. But
I might kill myself.

I go through the Cascine down to the Arno, where its yellow waters
plash monotonously about a couple of stray willows. There I sit, and
cast up my final accounts with existence. I let my entire life pass
before me in review. On the whole, it is rather a wretched affair--a
few joys, an endless number of indifferent and worthless things, and
between these an abundant harvest of pains, miseries, fears,
disappointments, shipwrecked hopes, afflictions, sorrow and grief.

I thought of my mother, whom I loved so deeply and whom I had to
watch waste away beneath a horrible disease; of my brother, who full
of the promise of joy and happiness died in the flower of youth,
without even having put his lips to the cup of life. I thought of my
dead nurse, my childhood playmates, the friends that had striven and
studied with me; of all those, covered by the cold, dead, indifferent
earth. I thought of my turtle-dove, who not infrequently made his
cooing bows to me, instead of to his mate.--All have returned, dust
unto dust.

I laughed aloud, and slid down into the water, but at the same
moment I caught hold of one of the willow-branches, hanging above the
yellow waves. As in a vision, I see the woman who has caused all my
misery. She hovers above the level of the water, luminous in the
sunlight as though she were transparent, with red flames about her
head and neck. She turns her face toward me and smiles.

       *       *       *       *       *

I am back again, dripping, wet through, glowing with shame and
fever. The negress has delivered my letter; I am judged, lost, in the
power of a heartless, affronted woman.

Well, let her kill me. I am unable to do it myself, and yet I have
no wish to go on living.

As I walk around the house, she is standing in the gallery, leaning
over the railing. Her face is full in the light of the sun, and her
green eyes sparkle.

"Still alive?" she asked, without moving. I stood silent, with bowed
head.

"Give me back my poinard," she continued. "It is of no use to you.
You haven't even the courage to take your own life."

"I have lost it," I replied, trembling, shaken by chills.

She looked me over with a proud, scornful glance.

"I suppose you lost it in the Arno?" She shrugged her shoulders. "No
matter. Well, and why didn't you leave?"

I mumbled something which neither she nor I myself could understand.

"Oh! you haven't any money," she cried. "Here!" With an
indescribably disdainful gesture she tossed me her purse.

I did not pick it up.

Both of us were silent for some time.

"You don't want to leave then?"

"I can't."

       *       *       *       *       *

Wanda drives in the Cascine without me, and goes to the theater
without me; she receives company, and the negress serves her. No one
asks after me. I stray about the garden, irresolutely, like an animal
that has lost its master.

Lying among the bushes, I watch a couple of sparrows, fighting over
a seed.

Suddenly I hear the swish of a woman's dress.

Wanda approaches in a gown of dark silk, modestly closed up to the
neck; the Greek is with her. They are in an eager discussion, but I
cannot as yet understand a word of what they are saying. He stamps
his foot so that the gravel scatters about in all directions, and he
lashes the air with his riding whip. Wanda startles.

Is she afraid that he will strike her?

Have they gone that far?

He has left her, she calls him; he does not hear her, does not want
to hear her.

Wanda sadly lowers her head, and then sits down on the nearest
stone-bench. She sits for a long time, lost in thought. I watch her with
a sort of malevolent pleasure, finally I pull myself together by sheer
force of will, and ironically step before her. She startles, and
trembles all over.

"I come to wish you happiness," I said, bowing, "I see, my dear
lady, too, has found a master."

"Yes, thank God!" she exclaimed, "not a new slave, I have had enough
of them. A master! Woman needs a master, and she adores him."

"You adore him, Wanda?" I cried, "this brutal person--"

"Yes, I love him, as I have never loved any one else."

"Wanda!" I clenched my fists, but tears already filled my eyes, and
I was seized by the delirium of passion, as by a sweet madness. "Very
well, take him as your husband, let him be your master, but I want
to remain your slave, as long as I live."

"You want to remain my slave, even then?" she said, "that would be
interesting, but I am afraid he wouldn't permit it."

"He?"

"Yes, he is already jealous of you," she exclaimed, "he, of you! He
demanded that I dismiss you immediately, and when I told him who you
were--"

"You told him--" I repeated, thunderstruck.

"I told him everything," she replied, "our whole story, all your
queerness, everything--and he, instead of being amused, grew angry,
and stamped his foot."

"And threatened to strike you?"

Wanda looked to the ground, and remained silent.

"Yes, indeed," I said with mocking bitterness, "you are afraid of
him, Wanda!" I threw myself down at her feet, and in my agitation
embraced her knees. "I don't want anything of you, except to be your
slave, to be always near you! I will be your dog-"

"Do you know, you bore me?" said Wanda, indifferently.

I leaped up. Everything within me was seething.

"You are now no longer cruel, but cheap," I said, clearly and
distinctly, accentuating every word.

"You have already written that in your letter," Wanda replied, with
a proud shrug of the shoulders. "A man of brains should never repeat
himself."

"The way you are treating me," I broke out, "what would you call it?"

"I might punish you," she replied ironically, "but I prefer this
time to reply with reasons instead of lashes. You have no right to
accuse me. Haven't I always been honest with you? Haven't I warned
you more than once? Didn't I love you with all my heart, even
passionately, and did I conceal the fact from you, that it was
dangerous to give yourself into my power, to abase yourself before
me, and that I want to be dominated? But you wished to be my
plaything, my slave! You found the highest pleasure in feeling the
foot, the whip of an arrogant, cruel woman. What do you want now?

"Dangerous potentialities were slumbering in me, but you were the
first to awaken them. If I now take pleasure in torturing you,
abusing you, it is your fault; you have made of me what I now am, and
now you are even unmanly, weak, and miserable enough to accuse me."

"Yes, I am guilty," I said, "but haven't I suffered because of it?
Let us put an end now to the cruel game."

"That is my wish, too," she replied with a curious deceitful look.

"Wanda!" I exclaimed violently, "don't drive me to extremes; you see
that I am a man again."

"A fire of straw," she replied, "which makes a lot of stir for a
moment, and goes out as quickly as it flared up. You imagine you can
intimidate me, and you only make yourself ridiculous. Had you been
the man I first thought you were, serious, reserved, stern, I would
have loved you faithfully, and become your wife. Woman demands that
she can look up to a man, but one like you who voluntarily places his
neck under her foot, she uses as a welcome plaything, only to toss
it aside when she is tired of it."

"Try to toss me aside," I said, jeeringly. "Some toys are dangerous."

"Don't challenge me," exclaimed Wanda. Her eyes began to flash, and
a flush entered her cheeks.

"If you won't be mine now," I continued, with a voice stifled with
rage, "no one else shall possess you either."

"What play is this from?" she mocked, seizing me by the breast. She
was pale with anger at this moment. "Don't challenge me," she
continued, "I am not cruel, but I don't know whether I may not become
so and whether then there will be any bounds."

"What worse can you do, than to make your lover, your husband?" I
exclaimed, more and more enraged.

"I might make you _his_ slave," she replied quickly, "are you not in
my power? Haven't I the agreement? But, of course, you will merely
take pleasure in it, if I have you bound, and say to him.

"Do with him what you please."

"Woman, are you mad!" I cried.

"I am entirely rational," she said, calmly. "I warn you for the last
time. Don't offer any resistance, one who has gone as far as I have
gone might easily go still further. I feel a sort of hatred for you,
and would find a real joy in seeing him beat you to death; I am still
restraining myself, but--"

Scarcely master of myself any longer, I seized her by the wrist and
forced her to the ground, so that she lay on her knees before me.

"Severin!" she cried. Rage and terror were painted on her face.

"I shall kill you if you marry him," I threatened; the words came
hoarsely and dully from my breast. "You are mine, I won't let you go,
I love you too much." Then I clutched her and pressed her close to
me; my right hand involuntarily seized the dagger which I still had
in my belt.

Wanda fixed a large, calm, incomprehensible look on me.

"I like you that way," she said, carelessly. "Now you are a man, and
at this moment I know I still love you."

"Wanda," I wept with rapture, and bent down over her, covering her
dear face with kisses, and she, suddenly breaking into a loud gay
laugh, said, "Have you finished with your ideal now, are you
satisfied with me?"

"You mean?" I stammered, "that you weren't serious?"

"I am very serious," she gaily continued. "I love you, only you, and
you--you foolish, little man, didn't know that everything was only
make-believe and play-acting. How hard it often was for me to strike
you with the whip, when I would have rather taken your head and
covered it with kisses. But now we are through with that, aren't we?
I have played my cruel role better than you expected, and now you
will be satisfied with my being a good, little wife who isn't
altogether unattractive. Isn't that so? We will live like rational
people--"

"You will marry me!" I cried, overflowing with happiness.

"Yes--marry you--you dear, darling man," whispered Wanda, kissing my
hands.

I drew her up to my breast.

"Now, you are no longer Gregor, my slave," said she, "but Severin,
the dear man I love--"

"And he--you don't love him?" I asked in agitation.

"How could you imagine my loving a man of his brutal type? You were
blind to everything, I was really afraid for you."

"I almost killed myself for your sake."

"Really?" she cried, "ah, I still tremble at the thought, that you
were already in the Arno."

"But you saved me," I replied, tenderly. "You hovered over the
waters and smiled, and your smile called me back to life."

       *       *       *       *       *

I have a curious feeling when I now hold her in my arms and she lies
silently against my breast and lets me kiss her and smiles. I feel
like one who has suddenly awakened out of a feverish delirium, or
like a shipwrecked man who has for many days battled with waves that
momentarily threatened to devour him and finally has found a safe
shore.

       *       *       *       *       *

"I hate this Florence, where you have been so unhappy," she
declared, as I was saying good-night to her. "I want to leave
immediately, tomorrow, you will be good enough to write a couple of
letters for me, and, while you are doing that, I will drive to the
city to pay my farewell visits. Is that satisfactory to you?"

"Of course, you dear, sweet, beautiful woman."

       *       *       *       *       *

Early in the morning she knocked at my door to ask how I had slept.
Her tenderness is positively wonderful. I should never have believed
that she could be so tender.

       *       *       *       *       *

She has now been gone for over four hours. I have long since
finished the letters, and am now sitting in the gallery, looking down
the street to see whether I cannot discover her carriage in the
distance. I am a little worried about her, and yet I know there is
no reason under heaven why I should doubt or fear. However, a feeling
of oppression weighs me down, and I cannot rid myself of it. It is
probably the sufferings of the past days, which still cast their
shadows into my soul.

       *       *       *       *       *

She is back, radiant with happiness and contentment.

"Well, has everything gone as you wished?" I asked tenderly, kissing
her hand.

"Yes, dear heart," she replied, "and we shall leave to-night. Help
me pack my trunks."

       *       *       *       *       *

Toward evening she asked me to go to the post-office and mail her
letters myself. I took her carriage, and was back within an hour.

"Mistress has asked for you," said the negress, with a grin, as I
ascended the wide marble stairs.

"Has anyone been here?"

"No one," she replied, crouching down on the steps like a black cat.

I slowly passed through the drawing-room, and then stood before her
bedroom door.

Why does my heart beat so? Am I not perfectly happy?

Opening the door softly, I draw back the portiere. Wanda is lying on
the ottoman, and does not seem to notice me. How beautiful she looks,
in her silver-gray dress, which fits closely, and while displaying
in tell-tale fashion her splendid figure, leaves her wonderful bust
and arms bare.

Her hair is interwoven with, and held up by a black velvet ribbon.
A mighty fire is burning in the fire-place, the hanging lamp casts
a reddish glow, and the whole room is as if drowned in blood.

"Wanda," I said at last.

"Oh Severin," she cried out joyously. "I have been impatiently
waiting for you." She leaped up, and folded me in her arms. She sat
down again on the rich cushions and tried to draw me down to her
side, but I softly slid down to her feet and placed my head in her
lap.

"Do you know I am very much in love with you to-day?" she whispered,
brushing a few stray hairs from my forehead and kissing my eyes.

"How beautiful your eyes are, I have always loved them as the best
of you, but to-day they fairly intoxicate me. I am all--" She
extended her magnificent limbs and tenderly looked at me from beneath
her red lashes.

"And you--you are cold--you hold me like a block of wood; wait, I'll
stir you with the fire of love," she said, and again clung fawningly
and caressingly to my lips.

"I no longer please you; I suppose I'll have to be cruel to you
again, evidently I have been too kind to you to-day. Do you know, you
little fool, what I shall do, I shall whip you for a while--"

"But child--"

"I want to."

"Wanda!"

"Come, let me bind you," she continued, and ran gaily through the
room. "I want to see you very much in love, do you understand? Here
are the ropes. I wonder if I can still do it?"

She began with fettering my feet and then she tied my hands behind
my back, pinioning my arms like those of a prisoner.

"So," she said, with gay eagerness. "Can you still move?"

"No."

"Fine--"

She then tied a noose in a stout rope, threw it over my head, and
let it slip down as far as the hips. She drew it tight, and bound me
to a pillar.

A curious tremor seized me at that moment.

"I have a feeling as if I were about to be executed," I said with a
low voice.

"Well, you shall have a thorough punishment to-day," exclaimed Wanda.

"But put on your fur-jacket, please," I said.

"I shall gladly give you that pleasure," she replied. She got her
_kazabaika_, and put it on. Then she stood in front of me with
her arms folded across her chest, and looked at me out of half-closed
eyes.

"Do you remember the story of the ox of Dionysius?" she asked.

"I remember it only vaguely, what about it?"

"A courtier invented a new implement of torture for the Tyrant of
Syracuse. It was an iron ox in which those condemned to death were
to be shut, and then pushed into a mighty furnace.

"As soon as the iron ox began to get hot, and the condemned person
began to cry out in his torment, his wails sounded like the bellowing
of an ox.

"Dionysius nodded graciously to the inventor, and to put his
invention to an immediate test had him shut up in the iron ox.

"It is a very instructive story.

"It was you who innoculated me with selfishness, pride, and cruelty,
and _you shall be their first victim._ I now literally enjoy having a
human being that thinks and feels and desires like myself in my power;
I love to abuse a man who is stronger in intelligence and body than I,
especially a man who loves me.

"Do you still love me?"

"Even to madness," I exclaimed.

"So much the better," she replied, "and so much the more will you
enjoy what I am about to do with you now."

"What is the matter with you?" I asked. "I don't understand you,
there is a gleam of real cruelty in your eyes to-day, and you are
strangely beautiful--completely _Venus in Furs."_

Without replying Wanda placed her arms around my neck and kissed me.
I was again seized by my fanatical passion.

"Where is the whip?" I asked.

Wanda laughed, and withdrew a couple of steps.

"You really insist upon being punished?" she exclaimed, proudly
tossing back her head.

"Yes."

Suddenly Wanda's face was completely transformed. It was as if
disfigured by rage; for a moment she seemed even ugly to me.

"Very well, then _you_ whip him!" she called loudly.

At the same instant the beautiful Greek stuck his head of black
curls through the curtains of her four-poster bed. At first I was
speechless, petrified. There was a horribly comic element in the
situation. I would have laughed aloud, had not my position been at
the same time so terribly cruel and humiliating.

It went beyond anything I had imagined. A cold shudder ran down my
back, when my rival stepped from the bed in his riding boots, his
tight-fitting white breeches, and his short velvet jacket, and I saw
his athletic limbs.

"You are indeed cruel," he said, turning to Wanda.

"Only inordinately fond of pleasure," she replied with a wild sort
of humor. "Pleasure alone lends value to existence; whoever enjoys
does not easily part from life, whoever suffers or is needy meets
death like a friend.

"But whoever wants to enjoy must take life gaily in the sense of the
ancient world; he dare not hesitate to enjoy at the expense of others;
he must never feel pity; he must be ready to harness others to his
carriage or his plough as though they were animals. He must know how to
make slaves of men who feel and would enjoy as he does, and use them for
his service and pleasure without remorse. It is not his affair whether
they like it, or whether they go to rack and ruin. He must always
remember this, that if they had him in their power, as he has them they
would act in exactly the same way, and he would have to pay for their
pleasure with his sweat and blood and soul. That was the world of the
ancients: pleasure and cruelty, liberty and slavery went hand in hand.
People who want to live like the gods of Olympus must of necessity have
slaves whom they can toss into their fish-ponds, and gladiators who will
do battle, the while they banquet, and they must not mind if by chance a
bit of blood bespatters them."

Her words brought back my complete self-possession.

"Unloosen me!" I exclaimed angrily.

"Aren't you my slave, my property?" replied Wanda. "Do you want me
to show you the agreement?"

"Untie me!" I threatened, "otherwise--" I tugged at the ropes.

"Can he tear himself free?" she asked. "He has threatened to kill me."

"Be entirely at ease," said the Greek, testing my fetters.

"I shall call for help," I began again.

"No one will hear you," replied Wanda, "and no one will hinder me
from abusing your most sacred emotions or playing a frivolous game
with you." she continued, repeating with satanic mockery phrases from
my letter to her.

"Do you think I am at this moment merely cruel and merciless, or am
I also about to become cheap? What? Do you still love me, or do you
already hate and despise me? Here is the whip--" She handed it to the
Greek who quickly stepped closer.

"Don't you dare!" I exclaimed, trembling with indignation, "I won't
permit it--"

"Oh, because I don't wear furs," the Greek replied with an ironical
smile, and he took his short sable from the bed.

"You are adorable," exclaimed Wanda, kissing him, and helping him
into his furs.

"May I really whip him?" he asked.

"Do with him what you please," replied Wanda.

"Beast!" I exclaimed, utterly revolted.

The Greek fixed his cold tigerish look upon me and tried out the
whip. His muscles swelled when he drew back his arms, and made the
whip hiss through the air. I was bound like Marsyas while Apollo was
getting ready to flay me.

My look wandered about the room and remained fixed on the ceiling,
where Samson, lying at Delilah's feet, was about to have his eyes put
out by the Philistines. The picture at that moment seemed to me like
a symbol, an eternal parable of passion and lust, of the love of man
for woman. "Each one of us in the end is a Samson," I thought, "and
ultimately for better or worse is betrayed by the woman he loves,
whether he wears an ordinary coat or sables."

"Now watch me break him in," said the Greek. He showed his teeth,
and his face acquired the blood-thirsty expression, which startled
me the first time I saw him.

And he began to apply the lash--so mercilessly, with such frightful
force that I quivered under each blow, and began to tremble all over
with pain. Tears rolled down over my cheeks. In the meantime Wanda
lay on the ottoman in her fur-jacket, supporting herself on her arm;
she looked on with cruel curiosity, and was convulsed with laughter.

The sensation of being whipped by a successful rival before the eyes
of an adored woman cannot be described. I almost went mad with shame
and despair.

What was most humiliating was that at first I felt a certain wild,
supersensual stimulation under Apollo's whip and the cruel laughter
of my Venus, no matter how horrible my position was. But Apollo
whipped on and on, blow after blow, until I forgot all about poetry,
and finally gritted my teeth in impotent rage, and cursed my wild
dreams, woman, and love.

All of a sudden I saw with horrible clarity whither blind passion
and lust have led man, ever since Holofernes and Agamemnon--into a
blind alley, into the net of woman's treachery, into misery, slavery,
and death.

It was as though I were awakening from a dream.

Blood was already flowing under the whip. I wound like a worm that
is trodden on, but he whipped on without mercy, and she continued to
laugh without mercy. In the meantime she locked her packed trunk and
slipped into her travelling furs, and was still laughing, when she
went downstairs on his arm and entered the carriage.

Then everything was silent for a moment.

I listened breathlessly.

The carriage door slammed, the horse began to pull--the rolling of
the carriage for a short time--then all was over.

       *       *       *       *       *

For a moment I thought of taking vengeance, of killing him, but I
was bound by the abominable agreement. So nothing was left for me to
do except to keep my pledged word and grit my teeth.

       *       *       *       *       *

My first impulse after this, the most cruel catastrophe of my life,
was to seek laborious tasks, dangers, and privations. I wanted to
become a soldier and go to Asia or Algiers, but my father was old and
ill and wanted me.

So I quietly returned home and for two years helped him bear his
burdens, and learned how to look after the estate which I had never
done before. To _labor_ and to _do my duty_ was comforting like a
drink of fresh water. Then my father died, and I inherited the estate,
but it meant no change.

I had put on my own Spanish boots and went on living just as
rationally as if the old man were standing behind me, looking over
my shoulder with his large wise eyes.

One day a box arrived, accompanied by a letter. I recognized Wanda's
writing.

Curiously moved, I opened it, and read.

"Sir.--

Now that over three years have passed since that night in Florence,
I suppose, I may confess to you that I loved you deeply. You
yourself, however, stifled my love by your fantastic devotion and
your insane passion. From the moment that you became my slave, I knew
it would be impossible for you ever to become my husband. However,
I found it interesting to have you realize your ideal in my own person,
and, while I gloriously amused myself, perhaps, to cure you.

I found the strong man for whom I felt a need, and I was as happy
with him as, I suppose, it is possible for any one to be on this
funny ball of clay.

But my happiness, like all things mortal, was of short duration.
About a year ago he fell in a duel, and since then I have been living
in Paris, like an Aspasia--

And you?--Your life surely is not without its sunshine, if you have
gained control of your imagination, and those qualities in you have
materialized, which at first so attracted me to you--your clarity of
intellect, kindness of heart, and, above all else, your--_moral
seriousness_.

I hope you have been cured under my whip; the cure was cruel, but
radical. In memory of that time and of a woman who loved you
passionately, I am sending you the portrait by the poor German.

_Venus in Furs_."

I had to smile, and as I fell to musing the beautiful woman suddenly
stood before me in her velvet jacket trimmed with ermine, with the
whip in her hand. And I continued to smile at the woman I had once
loved so insanely, at the fur-jacket that had once so entranced me,
at the whip, and ended by smiling at myself and saying: The cure was
cruel, but radical; but the main point is, I have been cured.

       *       *       *       *       *

"And the moral of the story?" I said to Severin when I put the
manuscript down on the table.

"That I was a donkey," he exclaimed without turning around, for he
seemed to be embarrassed. "If only I had beaten her!"

"A curious remedy," I exclaimed, "which might answer with your
peasant-women--"

"Oh, they are used to it," he replied eagerly, "but imagine the
effect upon one of our delicate, nervous, hysterical ladies--"

"But the moral?"

"That woman, as nature has created her and as man is at present
educating her, is his enemy. She can only be his slave or his despot,
but _never his companion._ This she can become only when she has
the same rights as he, and is his equal in education and work.

"At present we have only the choice of being hammer or anvil, and I
was the kind of donkey who let a woman make a slave of him, do you
understand?

"The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be
whipped, deserves to be whipped.

"The blows, as you see, have agreed with me; the roseate supersensual
mist has dissolved, and no one can ever make me believe again that
these 'sacred apes of Benares' [Footnote: One of Schopenhauer's
designations for women.] or Plato's rooster [Footnote: Diogenes
threw a plucked rooster into Plato's school and exclaimed: "Here
you have Plato's human being."] are the image of God."


Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of
lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow
dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild
morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

—_Introibo ad altare Dei_.

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:

—Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!

Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about
and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the
awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent
towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat
and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned
his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking
gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light
untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.

Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the
bowl smartly.

—Back to barracks! he said sternly.

He added in a preacher’s tone:

—For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul
and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One
moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all.

He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call, then paused
awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and
there with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles
answered through the calm.

—Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off
the current, will you?

He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering
about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and
sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages.
A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips.

—The mockery of it! he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek!

He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet,
laughing to himself. Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily
halfway and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as
he propped his mirror on the parapet, dipped the brush in the bowl and
lathered cheeks and neck.

Buck Mulligan’s gay voice went on.

—My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a
Hellenic ring, hasn’t it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself. We
must go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out
twenty quid?

He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried:

—Will he come? The jejune jesuit!

Ceasing, he began to shave with care.

—Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly.

—Yes, my love?

—How long is Haines going to stay in this tower?

Buck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his right shoulder.

—God, isn’t he dreadful? he said frankly. A ponderous Saxon. He thinks
you’re not a gentleman. God, these bloody English! Bursting with money
and indigestion. Because he comes from Oxford. You know, Dedalus, you
have the real Oxford manner. He can’t make you out. O, my name for you
is the best: Kinch, the knife-blade.

He shaved warily over his chin.

—He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said. Where is
his guncase?

—A woful lunatic! Mulligan said. Were you in a funk?

—I was, Stephen said with energy and growing fear. Out here in the dark
with a man I don’t know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a
black panther. You saved men from drowning. I’m not a hero, however. If
he stays on here I am off.

Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his razorblade. He hopped down
from his perch and began to search his trouser pockets hastily.

—Scutter! he cried thickly.

He came over to the gunrest and, thrusting a hand into Stephen’s upper
pocket, said:

—Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor.

Stephen suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its corner a
dirty crumpled handkerchief. Buck Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly.
Then, gazing over the handkerchief, he said:

—The bard’s noserag! A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen.
You can almost taste it, can’t you?

He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his fair
oakpale hair stirring slightly.

—God! he said quietly. Isn’t the sea what Algy calls it: a great sweet
mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. _Epi oinopa
ponton_. Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks! I must teach you. You must read them
in the original. _Thalatta! Thalatta!_ She is our great sweet mother.
Come and look.

Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet. Leaning on it he looked
down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbourmouth of
Kingstown.

—Our mighty mother! Buck Mulligan said.

He turned abruptly his grey searching eyes from the sea to Stephen’s
face.

—The aunt thinks you killed your mother, he said. That’s why she won’t
let me have anything to do with you.

—Someone killed her, Stephen said gloomily.

—You could have knelt down, damn it, Kinch, when your dying mother
asked you, Buck Mulligan said. I’m hyperborean as much as you. But to
think of your mother begging you with her last breath to kneel down and
pray for her. And you refused. There is something sinister in you....

He broke off and lathered again lightly his farther cheek. A tolerant
smile curled his lips.

—But a lovely mummer! he murmured to himself. Kinch, the loveliest
mummer of them all!

He shaved evenly and with care, in silence, seriously.

Stephen, an elbow rested on the jagged granite, leaned his palm against
his brow and gazed at the fraying edge of his shiny black coat-sleeve.
Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Silently,
in a dream she had come to him after her death, her wasted body within
its loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood,
her breath, that had bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of
wetted ashes. Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a
great sweet mother by the wellfed voice beside him. The ring of bay and
skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. A bowl of white china had
stood beside her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had
torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting.

Buck Mulligan wiped again his razorblade.

—Ah, poor dogsbody! he said in a kind voice. I must give you a shirt
and a few noserags. How are the secondhand breeks?

—They fit well enough, Stephen answered.

Buck Mulligan attacked the hollow beneath his underlip.

—The mockery of it, he said contentedly. Secondleg they should be. God
knows what poxy bowsy left them off. I have a lovely pair with a hair
stripe, grey. You’ll look spiffing in them. I’m not joking, Kinch. You
look damn well when you’re dressed.

—Thanks, Stephen said. I can’t wear them if they are grey.

—He can’t wear them, Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror.
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can’t wear grey
trousers.

He folded his razor neatly and with stroking palps of fingers felt the
smooth skin.

Stephen turned his gaze from the sea and to the plump face with its
smokeblue mobile eyes.

—That fellow I was with in the Ship last night, said Buck Mulligan,
says you have g. p. i. He’s up in Dottyville with Connolly Norman.
General paralysis of the insane!

He swept the mirror a half circle in the air to flash the tidings
abroad in sunlight now radiant on the sea. His curling shaven lips
laughed and the edges of his white glittering teeth. Laughter seized
all his strong wellknit trunk.

—Look at yourself, he said, you dreadful bard!

Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him, cleft by
a crooked crack. Hair on end. As he and others see me. Who chose this
face for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too.

—I pinched it out of the skivvy’s room, Buck Mulligan said. It does her
all right. The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi.
Lead him not into temptation. And her name is Ursula.

Laughing again, he brought the mirror away from Stephen’s peering eyes.

—The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror, he said. If
Wilde were only alive to see you!

Drawing back and pointing, Stephen said with bitterness:

—It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked lookingglass of a servant.

Buck Mulligan suddenly linked his arm in Stephen’s and walked with him
round the tower, his razor and mirror clacking in the pocket where he
had thrust them.

—It’s not fair to tease you like that, Kinch, is it? he said kindly.
God knows you have more spirit than any of them.

Parried again. He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that of his. The
cold steel pen.

—Cracked lookingglass of a servant! Tell that to the oxy chap
downstairs and touch him for a guinea. He’s stinking with money and
thinks you’re not a gentleman. His old fellow made his tin by selling
jalap to Zulus or some bloody swindle or other. God, Kinch, if you and
I could only work together we might do something for the island.
Hellenise it.

Cranly’s arm. His arm.

—And to think of your having to beg from these swine. I’m the only one
that knows what you are. Why don’t you trust me more? What have you up
your nose against me? Is it Haines? If he makes any noise here I’ll
bring down Seymour and we’ll give him a ragging worse than they gave
Clive Kempthorpe.

Young shouts of moneyed voices in Clive Kempthorpe’s rooms. Palefaces:
they hold their ribs with laughter, one clasping another. O, I shall
expire! Break the news to her gently, Aubrey! I shall die! With slit
ribbons of his shirt whipping the air he hops and hobbles round the
table, with trousers down at heels, chased by Ades of Magdalen with the
tailor’s shears. A scared calf’s face gilded with marmalade. I don’t
want to be debagged! Don’t you play the giddy ox with me!

Shouts from the open window startling evening in the quadrangle. A deaf
gardener, aproned, masked with Matthew Arnold’s face, pushes his mower
on the sombre lawn watching narrowly the dancing motes of grasshalms.

To ourselves... new paganism... omphalos.

—Let him stay, Stephen said. There’s nothing wrong with him except at
night.

—Then what is it? Buck Mulligan asked impatiently. Cough it up. I’m
quite frank with you. What have you against me now?

They halted, looking towards the blunt cape of Bray Head that lay on
the water like the snout of a sleeping whale. Stephen freed his arm
quietly.

—Do you wish me to tell you? he asked.

—Yes, what is it? Buck Mulligan answered. I don’t remember anything.

He looked in Stephen’s face as he spoke. A light wind passed his brow,
fanning softly his fair uncombed hair and stirring silver points of
anxiety in his eyes.

Stephen, depressed by his own voice, said:

—Do you remember the first day I went to your house after my mother’s
death?

Buck Mulligan frowned quickly and said:

—What? Where? I can’t remember anything. I remember only ideas and
sensations. Why? What happened in the name of God?

—You were making tea, Stephen said, and went across the landing to get
more hot water. Your mother and some visitor came out of the
drawingroom. She asked you who was in your room.

—Yes? Buck Mulligan said. What did I say? I forget.

—You said, Stephen answered, _O, it’s only Dedalus whose mother is
beastly dead._

A flush which made him seem younger and more engaging rose to Buck
Mulligan’s cheek.

—Did I say that? he asked. Well? What harm is that?

He shook his constraint from him nervously.

—And what is death, he asked, your mother’s or yours or my own? You saw
only your mother die. I see them pop off every day in the Mater and
Richmond and cut up into tripes in the dissectingroom. It’s a beastly
thing and nothing else. It simply doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t kneel
down to pray for your mother on her deathbed when she asked you. Why?
Because you have the cursed jesuit strain in you, only it’s injected
the wrong way. To me it’s all a mockery and beastly. Her cerebral lobes
are not functioning. She calls the doctor sir Peter Teazle and picks
buttercups off the quilt. Humour her till it’s over. You crossed her
last wish in death and yet you sulk with me because I don’t whinge like
some hired mute from Lalouette’s. Absurd! I suppose I did say it. I
didn’t mean to offend the memory of your mother.

He had spoken himself into boldness. Stephen, shielding the gaping
wounds which the words had left in his heart, said very coldly:

—I am not thinking of the offence to my mother.

—Of what then? Buck Mulligan asked.

—Of the offence to me, Stephen answered.

Buck Mulligan swung round on his heel.

—O, an impossible person! he exclaimed.

He walked off quickly round the parapet. Stephen stood at his post,
gazing over the calm sea towards the headland. Sea and headland now
grew dim. Pulses were beating in his eyes, veiling their sight, and he
felt the fever of his cheeks.

A voice within the tower called loudly:

—Are you up there, Mulligan?

—I’m coming, Buck Mulligan answered.

He turned towards Stephen and said:

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

His head halted again for a moment at the top of the staircase, level
with the roof:

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

His head vanished but the drone of his descending voice boomed out of
the stairhead:

     And no more turn aside and brood
     Upon love’s bitter mystery
     For Fergus rules the brazen cars.

Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the
stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of
water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the
dim sea. The twining stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the
harpstrings, merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words
shimmering on the dim tide.

A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly, shadowing the bay in
deeper green. It lay beneath him, a bowl of bitter waters. Fergus’
song: I sang it alone in the house, holding down the long dark chords.
Her door was open: she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and
pity I went to her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed. For
those words, Stephen: love’s bitter mystery.

Where now?

Her secrets: old featherfans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk,
a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer. A birdcage hung in the
sunny window of her house when she was a girl. She heard old Royce sing
in the pantomime of Turko the Terrible and laughed with others when he
sang:

     I am the boy
     That can enjoy
     Invisibility.

Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed.

     And no more turn aside and brood.


Folded away in the memory of nature with her toys. Memories beset his
brooding brain. Her glass of water from the kitchen tap when she had
approached the sacrament. A cored apple, filled with brown sugar,
roasting for her at the hob on a dark autumn evening. Her shapely
fingernails reddened by the blood of squashed lice from the children’s
shirts.

In a dream, silently, she had come to him, her wasted body within its
loose graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath,
bent over him with mute secret words, a faint odour of wetted ashes.

Her glazing eyes, staring out of death, to shake and bend my soul. On
me alone. The ghostcandle to light her agony. Ghostly light on the
tortured face. Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all
prayed on their knees. Her eyes on me to strike me down. _Liliata
rutilantium te confessorum turma circumdet: iubilantium te virginum
chorus excipiat._

Ghoul! Chewer of corpses!

No, mother! Let me be and let me live.

—Kinch ahoy!

Buck Mulligan’s voice sang from within the tower. It came nearer up the
staircase, calling again. Stephen, still trembling at his soul’s cry,
heard warm running sunlight and in the air behind him friendly words.

—Dedalus, come down, like a good mosey. Breakfast is ready. Haines is
apologising for waking us last night. It’s all right.

—I’m coming, Stephen said, turning.

—Do, for Jesus’ sake, Buck Mulligan said. For my sake and for all our
sakes.

His head disappeared and reappeared.

—I told him your symbol of Irish art. He says it’s very clever. Touch
him for a quid, will you? A guinea, I mean.

—I get paid this morning, Stephen said.

—The school kip? Buck Mulligan said. How much? Four quid? Lend us one.

—If you want it, Stephen said.

—Four shining sovereigns, Buck Mulligan cried with delight. We’ll have
a glorious drunk to astonish the druidy druids. Four omnipotent
sovereigns.

He flung up his hands and tramped down the stone stairs, singing out of
tune with a Cockney accent:

     O, won’t we have a merry time,
     Drinking whisky, beer and wine!
     On coronation,
     Coronation day!
     O, won’t we have a merry time
     On coronation day!

Warm sunshine merrying over the sea. The nickel shavingbowl shone,
forgotten, on the parapet. Why should I bring it down? Or leave it
there all day, forgotten friendship?

He went over to it, held it in his hands awhile, feeling its coolness,
smelling the clammy slaver of the lather in which the brush was stuck.
So I carried the boat of incense then at Clongowes. I am another now
and yet the same. A servant too. A server of a servant.

In the gloomy domed livingroom of the tower Buck Mulligan’s gowned form
moved briskly to and fro about the hearth, hiding and revealing its
yellow glow. Two shafts of soft daylight fell across the flagged floor
from the high barbacans: and at the meeting of their rays a cloud of
coalsmoke and fumes of fried grease floated, turning.

—We’ll be choked, Buck Mulligan said. Haines, open that door, will you?

Stephen laid the shavingbowl on the locker. A tall figure rose from the
hammock where it had been sitting, went to the doorway and pulled open
the inner doors.

—Have you the key? a voice asked.

—Dedalus has it, Buck Mulligan said. Janey Mack, I’m choked!

He howled, without looking up from the fire:

—Kinch!

—It’s in the lock, Stephen said, coming forward.

The key scraped round harshly twice and, when the heavy door had been
set ajar, welcome light and bright air entered. Haines stood at the
doorway, looking out. Stephen haled his upended valise to the table and
sat down to wait. Buck Mulligan tossed the fry on to the dish beside
him. Then he carried the dish and a large teapot over to the table, set
them down heavily and sighed with relief.

—I’m melting, he said, as the candle remarked when... But, hush! Not a
word more on that subject! Kinch, wake up! Bread, butter, honey.
Haines, come in. The grub is ready. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy
gifts. Where’s the sugar? O, jay, there’s no milk.

Stephen fetched the loaf and the pot of honey and the buttercooler from
the locker. Buck Mulligan sat down in a sudden pet.

—What sort of a kip is this? he said. I told her to come after eight.

—We can drink it black, Stephen said thirstily. There’s a lemon in the
locker.

—O, damn you and your Paris fads! Buck Mulligan said. I want Sandycove
milk.

Haines came in from the doorway and said quietly:

—That woman is coming up with the milk.

—The blessings of God on you! Buck Mulligan cried, jumping up from his
chair. Sit down. Pour out the tea there. The sugar is in the bag. Here,
I can’t go fumbling at the damned eggs.

He hacked through the fry on the dish and slapped it out on three
plates, saying:

—_In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti._

Haines sat down to pour out the tea.

—I’m giving you two lumps each, he said. But, I say, Mulligan, you do
make strong tea, don’t you?

Buck Mulligan, hewing thick slices from the loaf, said in an old
woman’s wheedling voice:

—When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I
makes water I makes water.

—By Jove, it is tea, Haines said.

Buck Mulligan went on hewing and wheedling:

—_So I do, Mrs Cahill,_ says she. _Begob, ma’am,_ says Mrs Cahill, _God
send you don’t make them in the one pot._

He lunged towards his messmates in turn a thick slice of bread, impaled
on his knife.

—That’s folk, he said very earnestly, for your book, Haines. Five lines
of text and ten pages of notes about the folk and the fishgods of
Dundrum. Printed by the weird sisters in the year of the big wind.

He turned to Stephen and asked in a fine puzzled voice, lifting his
brows:

—Can you recall, brother, is mother Grogan’s tea and water pot spoken
of in the Mabinogion or is it in the Upanishads?

—I doubt it, said Stephen gravely.

—Do you now? Buck Mulligan said in the same tone. Your reasons, pray?

—I fancy, Stephen said as he ate, it did not exist in or out of the
Mabinogion. Mother Grogan was, one imagines, a kinswoman of Mary Ann.

Buck Mulligan’s face smiled with delight.

—Charming! he said in a finical sweet voice, showing his white teeth
and blinking his eyes pleasantly. Do you think she was? Quite charming!

Then, suddenly overclouding all his features, he growled in a hoarsened
rasping voice as he hewed again vigorously at the loaf:

_—For old Mary Ann

She doesn’t care a damn.

But, hising up her petticoats..._

He crammed his mouth with fry and munched and droned.

The doorway was darkened by an entering form.

—The milk, sir!

—Come in, ma’am, Mulligan said. Kinch, get the jug.

An old woman came forward and stood by Stephen’s elbow.

—That’s a lovely morning, sir, she said. Glory be to God.

—To whom? Mulligan said, glancing at her. Ah, to be sure!

Stephen reached back and took the milkjug from the locker.

—The islanders, Mulligan said to Haines casually, speak frequently of
the collector of prepuces.

—How much, sir? asked the old woman.

—A quart, Stephen said.

He watched her pour into the measure and thence into the jug rich white
milk, not hers. Old shrunken paps. She poured again a measureful and a
tilly. Old and secret she had entered from a morning world, maybe a
messenger. She praised the goodness of the milk, pouring it out.
Crouching by a patient cow at daybreak in the lush field, a witch on
her toadstool, her wrinkled fingers quick at the squirting dugs. They
lowed about her whom they knew, dewsilky cattle. Silk of the kine and
poor old woman, names given her in old times. A wandering crone, lowly
form of an immortal serving her conqueror and her gay betrayer, their
common cuckquean, a messenger from the secret morning. To serve or to
upbraid, whether he could not tell: but scorned to beg her favour.

—It is indeed, ma’am, Buck Mulligan said, pouring milk into their cups.

—Taste it, sir, she said.

He drank at her bidding.

—If we could live on good food like that, he said to her somewhat
loudly, we wouldn’t have the country full of rotten teeth and rotten
guts. Living in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the streets paved
with dust, horsedung and consumptives’ spits.

—Are you a medical student, sir? the old woman asked.

—I am, ma’am, Buck Mulligan answered.

—Look at that now, she said.

Stephen listened in scornful silence. She bows her old head to a voice
that speaks to her loudly, her bonesetter, her medicineman: me she
slights. To the voice that will shrive and oil for the grave all there
is of her but her woman’s unclean loins, of man’s flesh made not in
God’s likeness, the serpent’s prey. And to the loud voice that now bids
her be silent with wondering unsteady eyes.

—Do you understand what he says? Stephen asked her.

—Is it French you are talking, sir? the old woman said to Haines.

Haines spoke to her again a longer speech, confidently.

—Irish, Buck Mulligan said. Is there Gaelic on you?

—I thought it was Irish, she said, by the sound of it. Are you from the
west, sir?

—I am an Englishman, Haines answered.

—He’s English, Buck Mulligan said, and he thinks we ought to speak
Irish in Ireland.

—Sure we ought to, the old woman said, and I’m ashamed I don’t speak
the language myself. I’m told it’s a grand language by them that knows.

—Grand is no name for it, said Buck Mulligan. Wonderful entirely. Fill
us out some more tea, Kinch. Would you like a cup, ma’am?

—No, thank you, sir, the old woman said, slipping the ring of the
milkcan on her forearm and about to go.

Haines said to her:

—Have you your bill? We had better pay her, Mulligan, hadn’t we?

Stephen filled again the three cups.

—Bill, sir? she said, halting. Well, it’s seven mornings a pint at
twopence is seven twos is a shilling and twopence over and these three
mornings a quart at fourpence is three quarts is a shilling. That’s a
shilling and one and two is two and two, sir.

Buck Mulligan sighed and, having filled his mouth with a crust thickly
buttered on both sides, stretched forth his legs and began to search
his trouser pockets.

—Pay up and look pleasant, Haines said to him, smiling.

Stephen filled a third cup, a spoonful of tea colouring faintly the
thick rich milk. Buck Mulligan brought up a florin, twisted it round in
his fingers and cried:

—A miracle!

He passed it along the table towards the old woman, saying:

—Ask nothing more of me, sweet. All I can give you I give.

Stephen laid the coin in her uneager hand.

—We’ll owe twopence, he said.

—Time enough, sir, she said, taking the coin. Time enough. Good
morning, sir.

She curtseyed and went out, followed by Buck Mulligan’s tender chant:

_—Heart of my heart, were it more,

More would be laid at your feet._

He turned to Stephen and said:

—Seriously, Dedalus. I’m stony. Hurry out to your school kip and bring
us back some money. Today the bards must drink and junket. Ireland
expects that every man this day will do his duty.

—That reminds me, Haines said, rising, that I have to visit your
national library today.

—Our swim first, Buck Mulligan said.

He turned to Stephen and asked blandly:

—Is this the day for your monthly wash, Kinch?

Then he said to Haines:

—The unclean bard makes a point of washing once a month.

—All Ireland is washed by the gulfstream, Stephen said as he let honey
trickle over a slice of the loaf.

Haines from the corner where he was knotting easily a scarf about the
loose collar of his tennis shirt spoke:

—I intend to make a collection of your sayings if you will let me.

Speaking to me. They wash and tub and scrub. Agenbite of inwit.
Conscience. Yet here’s a spot.

—That one about the cracked lookingglass of a servant being the symbol
of Irish art is deuced good.

Buck Mulligan kicked Stephen’s foot under the table and said with
warmth of tone:

—Wait till you hear him on Hamlet, Haines.

—Well, I mean it, Haines said, still speaking to Stephen. I was just
thinking of it when that poor old creature came in.

—Would I make any money by it? Stephen asked.

Haines laughed and, as he took his soft grey hat from the holdfast of
the hammock, said:

—I don’t know, I’m sure.

He strolled out to the doorway. Buck Mulligan bent across to Stephen
and said with coarse vigour:

—You put your hoof in it now. What did you say that for?

—Well? Stephen said. The problem is to get money. From whom? From the
milkwoman or from him. It’s a toss up, I think.

—I blow him out about you, Buck Mulligan said, and then you come along
with your lousy leer and your gloomy jesuit jibes.

—I see little hope, Stephen said, from her or from him.

Buck Mulligan sighed tragically and laid his hand on Stephen’s arm.

—From me, Kinch, he said.

In a suddenly changed tone he added:

—To tell you the God’s truth I think you’re right. Damn all else they
are good for. Why don’t you play them as I do? To hell with them all.
Let us get out of the kip.

He stood up, gravely ungirdled and disrobed himself of his gown, saying
resignedly:

—Mulligan is stripped of his garments.

He emptied his pockets on to the table.

—There’s your snotrag, he said.

And putting on his stiff collar and rebellious tie he spoke to them,
chiding them, and to his dangling watchchain. His hands plunged and
rummaged in his trunk while he called for a clean handkerchief. God,
we’ll simply have to dress the character. I want puce gloves and green
boots. Contradiction. Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I
contradict myself. Mercurial Malachi. A limp black missile flew out of
his talking hands.

—And there’s your Latin quarter hat, he said.

Stephen picked it up and put it on. Haines called to them from the
doorway:

—Are you coming, you fellows?

—I’m ready, Buck Mulligan answered, going towards the door. Come out,
Kinch. You have eaten all we left, I suppose. Resigned he passed out
with grave words and gait, saying, wellnigh with sorrow:

—And going forth he met Butterly.

Stephen, taking his ashplant from its leaningplace, followed them out
and, as they went down the ladder, pulled to the slow iron door and
locked it. He put the huge key in his inner pocket.

At the foot of the ladder Buck Mulligan asked:

—Did you bring the key?

—I have it, Stephen said, preceding them.

He walked on. Behind him he heard Buck Mulligan club with his heavy
bathtowel the leader shoots of ferns or grasses.

—Down, sir! How dare you, sir!

Haines asked:

—Do you pay rent for this tower?

—Twelve quid, Buck Mulligan said.

—To the secretary of state for war, Stephen added over his shoulder.

They halted while Haines surveyed the tower and said at last:

—Rather bleak in wintertime, I should say. Martello you call it?

—Billy Pitt had them built, Buck Mulligan said, when the French were on
the sea. But ours is the _omphalos_.

—What is your idea of Hamlet? Haines asked Stephen.

—No, no, Buck Mulligan shouted in pain. I’m not equal to Thomas Aquinas
and the fiftyfive reasons he has made out to prop it up. Wait till I
have a few pints in me first.

He turned to Stephen, saying, as he pulled down neatly the peaks of his
primrose waistcoat:

—You couldn’t manage it under three pints, Kinch, could you?

—It has waited so long, Stephen said listlessly, it can wait longer.

—You pique my curiosity, Haines said amiably. Is it some paradox?

—Pooh! Buck Mulligan said. We have grown out of Wilde and paradoxes.
It’s quite simple. He proves by algebra that Hamlet’s grandson is
Shakespeare’s grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own
father.

—What? Haines said, beginning to point at Stephen. He himself?

Buck Mulligan slung his towel stolewise round his neck and, bending in
loose laughter, said to Stephen’s ear:

—O, shade of Kinch the elder! Japhet in search of a father!

—We’re always tired in the morning, Stephen said to Haines. And it is
rather long to tell.

Buck Mulligan, walking forward again, raised his hands.

—The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue of Dedalus, he said.

—I mean to say, Haines explained to Stephen as they followed, this
tower and these cliffs here remind me somehow of Elsinore. _That
beetles o’er his base into the sea,_ isn’t it?

Buck Mulligan turned suddenly for an instant towards Stephen but did
not speak. In the bright silent instant Stephen saw his own image in
cheap dusty mourning between their gay attires.

—It’s a wonderful tale, Haines said, bringing them to halt again.

Eyes, pale as the sea the wind had freshened, paler, firm and prudent.
The seas’ ruler, he gazed southward over the bay, empty save for the
smokeplume of the mailboat vague on the bright skyline and a sail
tacking by the Muglins.

—I read a theological interpretation of it somewhere, he said bemused.
The Father and the Son idea. The Son striving to be atoned with the
Father.

Buck Mulligan at once put on a blithe broadly smiling face. He looked
at them, his wellshaped mouth open happily, his eyes, from which he had
suddenly withdrawn all shrewd sense, blinking with mad gaiety. He moved
a doll’s head to and fro, the brims of his Panama hat quivering, and
began to chant in a quiet happy foolish voice:

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

He held up a forefinger of warning.

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

He tugged swiftly at Stephen’s ashplant in farewell and, running
forward to a brow of the cliff, fluttered his hands at his sides like
fins or wings of one about to rise in the air, and chanted:

_—Goodbye, now, goodbye! Write down all I said
And tell Tom, Dick and Harry I rose from the dead.
What’s bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly
And Olivet’s breezy... Goodbye, now, goodbye!_

He capered before them down towards the fortyfoot hole, fluttering his
winglike hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury’s hat quivering in the fresh
wind that bore back to them his brief birdsweet cries.

Haines, who had been laughing guardedly, walked on beside Stephen and
said:

—We oughtn’t to laugh, I suppose. He’s rather blasphemous. I’m not a
believer myself, that is to say. Still his gaiety takes the harm out of
it somehow, doesn’t it? What did he call it? Joseph the Joiner?

—The ballad of joking Jesus, Stephen answered.

—O, Haines said, you have heard it before?

—Three times a day, after meals, Stephen said drily.

—You’re not a believer, are you? Haines asked. I mean, a believer in
the narrow sense of the word. Creation from nothing and miracles and a
personal God.

—There’s only one sense of the word, it seems to me, Stephen said.

Haines stopped to take out a smooth silver case in which twinkled a
green stone. He sprang it open with his thumb and offered it.

—Thank you, Stephen said, taking a cigarette.

Haines helped himself and snapped the case to. He put it back in his
sidepocket and took from his waistcoatpocket a nickel tinderbox, sprang
it open too, and, having lit his cigarette, held the flaming spunk
towards Stephen in the shell of his hands.

—Yes, of course, he said, as they went on again. Either you believe or
you don’t, isn’t it? Personally I couldn’t stomach that idea of a
personal God. You don’t stand for that, I suppose?

—You behold in me, Stephen said with grim displeasure, a horrible
example of free thought.

He walked on, waiting to be spoken to, trailing his ashplant by his
side. Its ferrule followed lightly on the path, squealing at his heels.
My familiar, after me, calling, Steeeeeeeeeeeephen! A wavering line
along the path. They will walk on it tonight, coming here in the dark.
He wants that key. It is mine. I paid the rent. Now I eat his salt
bread. Give him the key too. All. He will ask for it. That was in his
eyes.

—After all, Haines began...

Stephen turned and saw that the cold gaze which had measured him was
not all unkind.

—After all, I should think you are able to free yourself. You are your
own master, it seems to me.

—I am a servant of two masters, Stephen said, an English and an
Italian.

—Italian? Haines said.

A crazy queen, old and jealous. Kneel down before me.

—And a third, Stephen said, there is who wants me for odd jobs.

—Italian? Haines said again. What do you mean?

—The imperial British state, Stephen answered, his colour rising, and
the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church.

Haines detached from his underlip some fibres of tobacco before he
spoke.

—I can quite understand that, he said calmly. An Irishman must think
like that, I daresay. We feel in England that we have treated you
rather unfairly. It seems history is to blame.

The proud potent titles clanged over Stephen’s memory the triumph of
their brazen bells: _et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam
ecclesiam:_ the slow growth and change of rite and dogma like his own
rare thoughts, a chemistry of stars. Symbol of the apostles in the mass
for pope Marcellus, the voices blended, singing alone loud in
affirmation: and behind their chant the vigilant angel of the church
militant disarmed and menaced her heresiarchs. A horde of heresies
fleeing with mitres awry: Photius and the brood of mockers of whom
Mulligan was one, and Arius, warring his life long upon the
consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and Valentine, spurning
Christ’s terrene body, and the subtle African heresiarch Sabellius who
held that the Father was Himself His own Son. Words Mulligan had spoken
a moment since in mockery to the stranger. Idle mockery. The void
awaits surely all them that weave the wind: a menace, a disarming and a
worsting from those embattled angels of the church, Michael’s host, who
defend her ever in the hour of conflict with their lances and their
shields.

Hear, hear! Prolonged applause. _Zut! Nom de Dieu!_

—Of course I’m a Britisher, Haines’s voice said, and I feel as one. I
don’t want to see my country fall into the hands of German jews either.
That’s our national problem, I’m afraid, just now.

Two men stood at the verge of the cliff, watching: businessman,
boatman.

—She’s making for Bullock harbour.

The boatman nodded towards the north of the bay with some disdain.

—There’s five fathoms out there, he said. It’ll be swept up that way
when the tide comes in about one. It’s nine days today.

The man that was drowned. A sail veering about the blank bay waiting
for a swollen bundle to bob up, roll over to the sun a puffy face,
saltwhite. Here I am.

They followed the winding path down to the creek. Buck Mulligan stood
on a stone, in shirtsleeves, his unclipped tie rippling over his
shoulder. A young man clinging to a spur of rock near him, moved slowly
frogwise his green legs in the deep jelly of the water.

—Is the brother with you, Malachi?

—Down in Westmeath. With the Bannons.

—Still there? I got a card from Bannon. Says he found a sweet young
thing down there. Photo girl he calls her.

—Snapshot, eh? Brief exposure.

Buck Mulligan sat down to unlace his boots. An elderly man shot up near
the spur of rock a blowing red face. He scrambled up by the stones,
water glistening on his pate and on its garland of grey hair, water
rilling over his chest and paunch and spilling jets out of his black
sagging loincloth.

Buck Mulligan made way for him to scramble past and, glancing at Haines
and Stephen, crossed himself piously with his thumbnail at brow and
lips and breastbone.

—Seymour’s back in town, the young man said, grasping again his spur of
rock. Chucked medicine and going in for the army.

—Ah, go to God! Buck Mulligan said.

—Going over next week to stew. You know that red Carlisle girl, Lily?

—Yes.

—Spooning with him last night on the pier. The father is rotto with
money.

—Is she up the pole?

—Better ask Seymour that.

—Seymour a bleeding officer! Buck Mulligan said.

He nodded to himself as he drew off his trousers and stood up, saying
tritely:

—Redheaded women buck like goats.

He broke off in alarm, feeling his side under his flapping shirt.

—My twelfth rib is gone, he cried. I’m the _Übermensch._ Toothless
Kinch and I, the supermen.

He struggled out of his shirt and flung it behind him to where his
clothes lay.

—Are you going in here, Malachi?

—Yes. Make room in the bed.

The young man shoved himself backward through the water and reached the
middle of the creek in two long clean strokes. Haines sat down on a
stone, smoking.

—Are you not coming in? Buck Mulligan asked.

—Later on, Haines said. Not on my breakfast.

Stephen turned away.

—I’m going, Mulligan, he said.

—Give us that key, Kinch, Buck Mulligan said, to keep my chemise flat.

Stephen handed him the key. Buck Mulligan laid it across his heaped
clothes.

—And twopence, he said, for a pint. Throw it there.

Stephen threw two pennies on the soft heap. Dressing, undressing. Buck
Mulligan erect, with joined hands before him, said solemnly:

—He who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord. Thus spake
Zarathustra.

His plump body plunged.

—We’ll see you again, Haines said, turning as Stephen walked up the
path and smiling at wild Irish.

Horn of a bull, hoof of a horse, smile of a Saxon.

—The Ship, Buck Mulligan cried. Half twelve.

—Good, Stephen said.

He walked along the upwardcurving path.

     Liliata rutilantium.
     Turma circumdet.
     Iubilantium te virginum.

The priest’s grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly. I will
not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go.

A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning
the curve he waved his hand. It called again. A sleek brown head, a
seal’s, far out on the water, round.

Usurper.


[ 2 ]

—You, Cochrane, what city sent for him?

—Tarentum, sir.

—Very good. Well?

—There was a battle, sir.

—Very good. Where?

The boy’s blank face asked the blank window.

Fabled by the daughters of memory. And yet it was in some way if not as
memory fabled it. A phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blake’s wings
of excess. I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling
masonry, and time one livid final flame. What’s left us then?

—I forget the place, sir. 279 B. C.

—Asculum, Stephen said, glancing at the name and date in the
gorescarred book.

—Yes, sir. And he said: _Another victory like that and we are done
for._

That phrase the world had remembered. A dull ease of the mind. From a
hill above a corpsestrewn plain a general speaking to his officers,
leaned upon his spear. Any general to any officers. They lend ear.

—You, Armstrong, Stephen said. What was the end of Pyrrhus?

—End of Pyrrhus, sir?

—I know, sir. Ask me, sir, Comyn said.

—Wait. You, Armstrong. Do you know anything about Pyrrhus?

A bag of figrolls lay snugly in Armstrong’s satchel. He curled them
between his palms at whiles and swallowed them softly. Crumbs adhered
to the tissue of his lips. A sweetened boy’s breath. Welloff people,
proud that their eldest son was in the navy. Vico Road, Dalkey.

—Pyrrhus, sir? Pyrrhus, a pier.

All laughed. Mirthless high malicious laughter. Armstrong looked round
at his classmates, silly glee in profile. In a moment they will laugh
more loudly, aware of my lack of rule and of the fees their papas pay.

—Tell me now, Stephen said, poking the boy’s shoulder with the book,
what is a pier.

—A pier, sir, Armstrong said. A thing out in the water. A kind of a
bridge. Kingstown pier, sir.

Some laughed again: mirthless but with meaning. Two in the back bench
whispered. Yes. They knew: had never learned nor ever been innocent.
All. With envy he watched their faces: Edith, Ethel, Gerty, Lily. Their
likes: their breaths, too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets
tittering in the struggle.

—Kingstown pier, Stephen said. Yes, a disappointed bridge.

The words troubled their gaze.

—How, sir? Comyn asked. A bridge is across a river.

For Haines’s chapbook. No-one here to hear. Tonight deftly amid wild
drink and talk, to pierce the polished mail of his mind. What then? A
jester at the court of his master, indulged and disesteemed, winning a
clement master’s praise. Why had they chosen all that part? Not wholly
for the smooth caress. For them too history was a tale like any other
too often heard, their land a pawnshop.

Had Pyrrhus not fallen by a beldam’s hand in Argos or Julius Caesar not
been knifed to death. They are not to be thought away. Time has branded
them and fettered they are lodged in the room of the infinite
possibilities they have ousted. But can those have been possible seeing
that they never were? Or was that only possible which came to pass?
Weave, weaver of the wind.

—Tell us a story, sir.

—O, do, sir. A ghoststory.

—Where do you begin in this? Stephen asked, opening another book.

—_Weep no more,_ Comyn said.

—Go on then, Talbot.

—And the story, sir?

—After, Stephen said. Go on, Talbot.

A swarthy boy opened a book and propped it nimbly under the breastwork
of his satchel. He recited jerks of verse with odd glances at the text:

_—Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor..._

It must be a movement then, an actuality of the possible as possible.
Aristotle’s phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated
out into the studious silence of the library of Saint Genevieve where
he had read, sheltered from the sin of Paris, night by night. By his
elbow a delicate Siamese conned a handbook of strategy. Fed and feeding
brains about me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating
feelers: and in my mind’s darkness a sloth of the underworld,
reluctant, shy of brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds. Thought
is the thought of thought. Tranquil brightness. The soul is in a manner
all that is: the soul is the form of forms. Tranquility sudden, vast,
candescent: form of forms.

Talbot repeated:

_—Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves,

Through the dear might..._

—Turn over, Stephen said quietly. I don’t see anything.

—What, sir? Talbot asked simply, bending forward.

His hand turned the page over. He leaned back and went on again, having
just remembered. Of him that walked the waves. Here also over these
craven hearts his shadow lies and on the scoffer’s heart and lips and
on mine. It lies upon their eager faces who offered him a coin of the
tribute. To Caesar what is Caesar’s, to God what is God’s. A long look
from dark eyes, a riddling sentence to be woven and woven on the
church’s looms. Ay.

     Riddle me, riddle me, randy ro.
     My father gave me seeds to sow.

Talbot slid his closed book into his satchel.

—Have I heard all? Stephen asked.

—Yes, sir. Hockey at ten, sir.

—Half day, sir. Thursday.

—Who can answer a riddle? Stephen asked.

They bundled their books away, pencils clacking, pages rustling.
Crowding together they strapped and buckled their satchels, all
gabbling gaily:

—A riddle, sir? Ask me, sir.

—O, ask me, sir.

—A hard one, sir.

—This is the riddle, Stephen said:

     The cock crew,
     The sky was blue:
     The bells in heaven
     Were striking eleven.
     ’Tis time for this poor soul
     To go to heaven.

What is that?

—What, sir?

—Again, sir. We didn’t hear.

Their eyes grew bigger as the lines were repeated. After a silence
Cochrane said:

—What is it, sir? We give it up.

Stephen, his throat itching, answered:

—The fox burying his grandmother under a hollybush.

He stood up and gave a shout of nervous laughter to which their cries
echoed dismay.

A stick struck the door and a voice in the corridor called:

—Hockey!

They broke asunder, sidling out of their benches, leaping them. Quickly
they were gone and from the lumberroom came the rattle of sticks and
clamour of their boots and tongues.

Sargent who alone had lingered came forward slowly, showing an open
copybook. His tangled hair and scraggy neck gave witness of unreadiness
and through his misty glasses weak eyes looked up pleading. On his
cheek, dull and bloodless, a soft stain of ink lay, dateshaped, recent
and damp as a snail’s bed.

He held out his copybook. The word _Sums_ was written on the headline.
Beneath were sloping figures and at the foot a crooked signature with
blind loops and a blot. Cyril Sargent: his name and seal.

—Mr Deasy told me to write them out all again, he said, and show them
to you, sir.

Stephen touched the edges of the book. Futility.

—Do you understand how to do them now? he asked.

—Numbers eleven to fifteen, Sargent answered. Mr Deasy said I was to
copy them off the board, sir.

—Can you do them yourself? Stephen asked.

—No, sir.

Ugly and futile: lean neck and tangled hair and a stain of ink, a
snail’s bed. Yet someone had loved him, borne him in her arms and in
her heart. But for her the race of the world would have trampled him
underfoot, a squashed boneless snail. She had loved his weak watery
blood drained from her own. Was that then real? The only true thing in
life? His mother’s prostrate body the fiery Columbanus in holy zeal
bestrode. She was no more: the trembling skeleton of a twig burnt in
the fire, an odour of rosewood and wetted ashes. She had saved him from
being trampled underfoot and had gone, scarcely having been. A poor
soul gone to heaven: and on a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red
reek of rapine in his fur, with merciless bright eyes scraped in the
earth, listened, scraped up the earth, listened, scraped and scraped.

Sitting at his side Stephen solved out the problem. He proves by
algebra that Shakespeare’s ghost is Hamlet’s grandfather. Sargent
peered askance through his slanted glasses. Hockeysticks rattled in the
lumberroom: the hollow knock of a ball and calls from the field.

Across the page the symbols moved in grave morrice, in the mummery of
their letters, wearing quaint caps of squares and cubes. Give hands,
traverse, bow to partner: so: imps of fancy of the Moors. Gone too from
the world, Averroes and Moses Maimonides, dark men in mien and
movement, flashing in their mocking mirrors the obscure soul of the
world, a darkness shining in brightness which brightness could not
comprehend.

—Do you understand now? Can you work the second for yourself?

—Yes, sir.

In long shaky strokes Sargent copied the data. Waiting always for a
word of help his hand moved faithfully the unsteady symbols, a faint
hue of shame flickering behind his dull skin. _Amor matris:_ subjective
and objective genitive. With her weak blood and wheysour milk she had
fed him and hid from sight of others his swaddling bands.

Like him was I, these sloping shoulders, this gracelessness. My
childhood bends beside me. Too far for me to lay a hand there once or
lightly. Mine is far and his secret as our eyes. Secrets, silent, stony
sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their
tyranny: tyrants, willing to be dethroned.

The sum was done.

—It is very simple, Stephen said as he stood up.

—Yes, sir. Thanks, Sargent answered.

He dried the page with a sheet of thin blottingpaper and carried his
copybook back to his bench.

—You had better get your stick and go out to the others, Stephen said
as he followed towards the door the boy’s graceless form.

—Yes, sir.

In the corridor his name was heard, called from the playfield.

—Sargent!

—Run on, Stephen said. Mr Deasy is calling you.

He stood in the porch and watched the laggard hurry towards the scrappy
field where sharp voices were in strife. They were sorted in teams and
Mr Deasy came away stepping over wisps of grass with gaitered feet.
When he had reached the schoolhouse voices again contending called to
him. He turned his angry white moustache.

—What is it now? he cried continually without listening.

—Cochrane and Halliday are on the same side, sir, Stephen said.

—Will you wait in my study for a moment, Mr Deasy said, till I restore
order here.

And as he stepped fussily back across the field his old man’s voice
cried sternly:

—What is the matter? What is it now?

Their sharp voices cried about him on all sides: their many forms
closed round him, the garish sunshine bleaching the honey of his
illdyed head.

Stale smoky air hung in the study with the smell of drab abraded
leather of its chairs. As on the first day he bargained with me here.
As it was in the beginning, is now. On the sideboard the tray of Stuart
coins, base treasure of a bog: and ever shall be. And snug in their
spooncase of purple plush, faded, the twelve apostles having preached
to all the gentiles: world without end.

A hasty step over the stone porch and in the corridor. Blowing out his
rare moustache Mr Deasy halted at the table.

—First, our little financial settlement, he said.

He brought out of his coat a pocketbook bound by a leather thong. It
slapped open and he took from it two notes, one of joined halves, and
laid them carefully on the table.

—Two, he said, strapping and stowing his pocketbook away.

And now his strongroom for the gold. Stephen’s embarrassed hand moved
over the shells heaped in the cold stone mortar: whelks and money
cowries and leopard shells: and this, whorled as an emir’s turban, and
this, the scallop of saint James. An old pilgrim’s hoard, dead
treasure, hollow shells.

A sovereign fell, bright and new, on the soft pile of the tablecloth.

—Three, Mr Deasy said, turning his little savingsbox about in his hand.
These are handy things to have. See. This is for sovereigns. This is
for shillings. Sixpences, halfcrowns. And here crowns. See.

He shot from it two crowns and two shillings.

—Three twelve, he said. I think you’ll find that’s right.

—Thank you, sir, Stephen said, gathering the money together with shy
haste and putting it all in a pocket of his trousers.

—No thanks at all, Mr Deasy said. You have earned it.

Stephen’s hand, free again, went back to the hollow shells. Symbols too
of beauty and of power. A lump in my pocket: symbols soiled by greed
and misery.

—Don’t carry it like that, Mr Deasy said. You’ll pull it out somewhere
and lose it. You just buy one of these machines. You’ll find them very
handy.

Answer something.

—Mine would be often empty, Stephen said.

The same room and hour, the same wisdom: and I the same. Three times
now. Three nooses round me here. Well? I can break them in this instant
if I will.

—Because you don’t save, Mr Deasy said, pointing his finger. You don’t
know yet what money is. Money is power. When you have lived as long as
I have. I know, I know. If youth but knew. But what does Shakespeare
say? _Put but money in thy purse._

—Iago, Stephen murmured.

He lifted his gaze from the idle shells to the old man’s stare.

—He knew what money was, Mr Deasy said. He made money. A poet, yes, but
an Englishman too. Do you know what is the pride of the English? Do you
know what is the proudest word you will ever hear from an Englishman’s
mouth?

The seas’ ruler. His seacold eyes looked on the empty bay: it seems
history is to blame: on me and on my words, unhating.

—That on his empire, Stephen said, the sun never sets.

—Ba! Mr Deasy cried. That’s not English. A French Celt said that. He
tapped his savingsbox against his thumbnail.

—I will tell you, he said solemnly, what is his proudest boast. _I paid
my way._

Good man, good man.

_—I paid my way. I never borrowed a shilling in my life._ Can you feel
that? _I owe nothing._ Can you?

Mulligan, nine pounds, three pairs of socks, one pair brogues, ties.
Curran, ten guineas. McCann, one guinea. Fred Ryan, two shillings.
Temple, two lunches. Russell, one guinea, Cousins, ten shillings, Bob
Reynolds, half a guinea, Koehler, three guineas, Mrs MacKernan, five
weeks’ board. The lump I have is useless.

—For the moment, no, Stephen answered.

Mr Deasy laughed with rich delight, putting back his savingsbox.

—I knew you couldn’t, he said joyously. But one day you must feel it.
We are a generous people but we must also be just.

—I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy.

Mr Deasy stared sternly for some moments over the mantelpiece at the
shapely bulk of a man in tartan fillibegs: Albert Edward, prince of
Wales.

—You think me an old fogey and an old tory, his thoughtful voice said.
I saw three generations since O’Connell’s time. I remember the famine
in ’46. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the
union twenty years before O’Connell did or before the prelates of your
communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things.

Glorious, pious and immortal memory. The lodge of Diamond in Armagh the
splendid behung with corpses of papishes. Hoarse, masked and armed, the
planters’ covenant. The black north and true blue bible. Croppies lie
down.

Stephen sketched a brief gesture.

—I have rebel blood in me too, Mr Deasy said. On the spindle side. But
I am descended from sir John Blackwood who voted for the union. We are
all Irish, all kings’ sons.

—Alas, Stephen said.

—_Per vias rectas_, Mr Deasy said firmly, was his motto. He voted for
it and put on his topboots to ride to Dublin from the Ards of Down to
do so.

     Lal the ral the ra
     The rocky road to Dublin.

A gruff squire on horseback with shiny topboots. Soft day, sir John!
Soft day, your honour!... Day!... Day!... Two topboots jog dangling on
to Dublin. Lal the ral the ra. Lal the ral the raddy.

—That reminds me, Mr Deasy said. You can do me a favour, Mr Dedalus,
with some of your literary friends. I have a letter here for the press.
Sit down a moment. I have just to copy the end.

He went to the desk near the window, pulled in his chair twice and read
off some words from the sheet on the drum of his typewriter.

—Sit down. Excuse me, he said over his shoulder, _the dictates of
common sense._ Just a moment.

He peered from under his shaggy brows at the manuscript by his elbow
and, muttering, began to prod the stiff buttons of the keyboard slowly,
sometimes blowing as he screwed up the drum to erase an error.

Stephen seated himself noiselessly before the princely presence. Framed
around the walls images of vanished horses stood in homage, their meek
heads poised in air: lord Hastings’ _Repulse_, the duke of
Westminster’s _Shotover_, the duke of Beaufort’s _Ceylon_, _prix de
Paris_, 1866. Elfin riders sat them, watchful of a sign. He saw their
speeds, backing king’s colours, and shouted with the shouts of vanished
crowds.

—Full stop, Mr Deasy bade his keys. _But prompt ventilation of this
allimportant question..._

Where Cranly led me to get rich quick, hunting his winners among the
mudsplashed brakes, amid the bawls of bookies on their pitches and reek
of the canteen, over the motley slush. Even money _Fair Rebel._ Ten to
one the field. Dicers and thimbleriggers we hurried by after the hoofs,
the vying caps and jackets and past the meatfaced woman, a butcher’s
dame, nuzzling thirstily her clove of orange.

Shouts rang shrill from the boys’ playfield and a whirring whistle.

Again: a goal. I am among them, among their battling bodies in a
medley, the joust of life. You mean that knockkneed mother’s darling
who seems to be slightly crawsick? Jousts. Time shocked rebounds, shock
by shock. Jousts, slush and uproar of battles, the frozen deathspew of
the slain, a shout of spearspikes baited with men’s bloodied guts.

—Now then, Mr Deasy said, rising.

He came to the table, pinning together his sheets. Stephen stood up.

—I have put the matter into a nutshell, Mr Deasy said. It’s about the
foot and mouth disease. Just look through it. There can be no two
opinions on the matter.

May I trespass on your valuable space. That doctrine of _laissez faire_
which so often in our history. Our cattle trade. The way of all our old
industries. Liverpool ring which jockeyed the Galway harbour scheme.
European conflagration. Grain supplies through the narrow waters of the
channel. The pluterperfect imperturbability of the department of
agriculture. Pardoned a classical allusion. Cassandra. By a woman who
was no better than she should be. To come to the point at issue.

—I don’t mince words, do I? Mr Deasy asked as Stephen read on.

Foot and mouth disease. Known as Koch’s preparation. Serum and virus.
Percentage of salted horses. Rinderpest. Emperor’s horses at Mürzsteg,
lower Austria. Veterinary surgeons. Mr Henry Blackwood Price. Courteous
offer a fair trial. Dictates of common sense. Allimportant question. In
every sense of the word take the bull by the horns. Thanking you for
the hospitality of your columns.

—I want that to be printed and read, Mr Deasy said. You will see at the
next outbreak they will put an embargo on Irish cattle. And it can be
cured. It is cured. My cousin, Blackwood Price, writes to me it is
regularly treated and cured in Austria by cattledoctors there. They
offer to come over here. I am trying to work up influence with the
department. Now I’m going to try publicity. I am surrounded by
difficulties, by... intrigues by... backstairs influence by...

He raised his forefinger and beat the air oldly before his voice spoke.

—Mark my words, Mr Dedalus, he said. England is in the hands of the
jews. In all the highest places: her finance, her press. And they are
the signs of a nation’s decay. Wherever they gather they eat up the
nation’s vital strength. I have seen it coming these years. As sure as
we are standing here the jew merchants are already at their work of
destruction. Old England is dying.

He stepped swiftly off, his eyes coming to blue life as they passed a
broad sunbeam. He faced about and back again.

—Dying, he said again, if not dead by now.

     The harlot’s cry from street to street
     Shall weave old England’s windingsheet.

His eyes open wide in vision stared sternly across the sunbeam in which
he halted.

—A merchant, Stephen said, is one who buys cheap and sells dear, jew or
gentile, is he not?

—They sinned against the light, Mr Deasy said gravely. And you can see
the darkness in their eyes. And that is why they are wanderers on the
earth to this day.

On the steps of the Paris stock exchange the goldskinned men quoting
prices on their gemmed fingers. Gabble of geese. They swarmed loud,
uncouth about the temple, their heads thickplotting under maladroit
silk hats. Not theirs: these clothes, this speech, these gestures.
Their full slow eyes belied the words, the gestures eager and
unoffending, but knew the rancours massed about them and knew their
zeal was vain. Vain patience to heap and hoard. Time surely would
scatter all. A hoard heaped by the roadside: plundered and passing on.
Their eyes knew their years of wandering and, patient, knew the
dishonours of their flesh.

—Who has not? Stephen said.

—What do you mean? Mr Deasy asked.

He came forward a pace and stood by the table. His underjaw fell
sideways open uncertainly. Is this old wisdom? He waits to hear from
me.

—History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

From the playfield the boys raised a shout. A whirring whistle: goal.
What if that nightmare gave you a back kick?

—The ways of the Creator are not our ways, Mr Deasy said. All human
history moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God.

Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying:

—That is God.

Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee!

—What? Mr Deasy asked.

—A shout in the street, Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders.

Mr Deasy looked down and held for awhile the wings of his nose tweaked
between his fingers. Looking up again he set them free.

—I am happier than you are, he said. We have committed many errors and
many sins. A woman brought sin into the world. For a woman who was no
better than she should be, Helen, the runaway wife of Menelaus, ten
years the Greeks made war on Troy. A faithless wife first brought the
strangers to our shore here, MacMurrough’s wife and her leman,
O’Rourke, prince of Breffni. A woman too brought Parnell low. Many
errors, many failures but not the one sin. I am a struggler now at the
end of my days. But I will fight for the right till the end.

     For Ulster will fight
     And Ulster will be right.

Stephen raised the sheets in his hand.

—Well, sir, he began.

—I foresee, Mr Deasy said, that you will not remain here very long at
this work. You were not born to be a teacher, I think. Perhaps I am
wrong.

—A learner rather, Stephen said.

And here what will you learn more?

Mr Deasy shook his head.

—Who knows? he said. To learn one must be humble. But life is the great
teacher.

Stephen rustled the sheets again.

—As regards these, he began.

—Yes, Mr Deasy said. You have two copies there. If you can have them
published at once.

_ Telegraph. Irish Homestead._

—I will try, Stephen said, and let you know tomorrow. I know two
editors slightly.

—That will do, Mr Deasy said briskly. I wrote last night to Mr Field,
M.P. There is a meeting of the cattletraders’ association today at the
City Arms hotel. I asked him to lay my letter before the meeting. You
see if you can get it into your two papers. What are they?

_—The Evening Telegraph..._

—That will do, Mr Deasy said. There is no time to lose. Now I have to
answer that letter from my cousin.

—Good morning, sir, Stephen said, putting the sheets in his pocket.
Thank you.

—Not at all, Mr Deasy said as he searched the papers on his desk. I
like to break a lance with you, old as I am.

—Good morning, sir, Stephen said again, bowing to his bent back.

He went out by the open porch and down the gravel path under the trees,
hearing the cries of voices and crack of sticks from the playfield. The
lions couchant on the pillars as he passed out through the gate:
toothless terrors. Still I will help him in his fight. Mulligan will
dub me a new name: the bullockbefriending bard.

—Mr Dedalus!

Running after me. No more letters, I hope.

—Just one moment.

—Yes, sir, Stephen said, turning back at the gate.

Mr Deasy halted, breathing hard and swallowing his breath.

—I just wanted to say, he said. Ireland, they say, has the honour of
being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Do you know
that? No. And do you know why?

He frowned sternly on the bright air.

—Why, sir? Stephen asked, beginning to smile.

—Because she never let them in, Mr Deasy said solemnly.

A coughball of laughter leaped from his throat dragging after it a
rattling chain of phlegm. He turned back quickly, coughing, laughing,
his lifted arms waving to the air.

—She never let them in, he cried again through his laughter as he
stamped on gaitered feet over the gravel of the path. That’s why.

On his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung
spangles, dancing coins.


[ 3 ]

Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought
through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn
and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver,
rust: coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies.
Then he was aware of them bodies before of them coloured. How? By
knocking his sconce against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he was and a
millionaire, _maestro di color che sanno_. Limit of the diaphane in.
Why in? Diaphane, adiaphane. If you can put your five fingers through
it it is a gate, if not a door. Shut your eyes and see.

Stephen closed his eyes to hear his boots crush crackling wrack and
shells. You are walking through it howsomever. I am, a stride at a
time. A very short space of time through very short times of space.
Five, six: the _nacheinander_. Exactly: and that is the ineluctable
modality of the audible. Open your eyes. No. Jesus! If I fell over a
cliff that beetles o’er his base, fell through the _nebeneinander_
ineluctably! I am getting on nicely in the dark. My ash sword hangs at
my side. Tap with it: they do. My two feet in his boots are at the ends
of his legs, _nebeneinander_. Sounds solid: made by the mallet of _Los
Demiurgos_. Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand? Crush,
crack, crick, crick. Wild sea money. Dominie Deasy kens them a’.

     Won’t you come to Sandymount,
     Madeline the mare?

Rhythm begins, you see. I hear. A catalectic tetrameter of iambs
marching. No, agallop: _deline the mare_.

Open your eyes now. I will. One moment. Has all vanished since? If I
open and am for ever in the black adiaphane. _Basta!_ I will see if I
can see.

See now. There all the time without you: and ever shall be, world
without end.

They came down the steps from Leahy’s terrace prudently,
_Frauenzimmer_: and down the shelving shore flabbily, their splayed
feet sinking in the silted sand. Like me, like Algy, coming down to our
mighty mother. Number one swung lourdily her midwife’s bag, the other’s
gamp poked in the beach. From the liberties, out for the day. Mrs
Florence MacCabe, relict of the late Patk MacCabe, deeply lamented, of
Bride Street. One of her sisterhood lugged me squealing into life.
Creation from nothing. What has she in the bag? A misbirth with a
trailing navelcord, hushed in ruddy wool. The cords of all link back,
strandentwining cable of all flesh. That is why mystic monks. Will you
be as gods? Gaze in your _omphalos_. Hello. Kinch here. Put me on to
Edenville. Aleph, alpha: nought, nought, one.

Spouse and helpmate of Adam Kadmon: Heva, naked Eve. She had no navel.
Gaze. Belly without blemish, bulging big, a buckler of taut vellum, no,
whiteheaped corn, orient and immortal, standing from everlasting to
everlasting. Womb of sin.

Wombed in sin darkness I was too, made not begotten. By them, the man
with my voice and my eyes and a ghostwoman with ashes on her breath.
They clasped and sundered, did the coupler’s will. From before the ages
He willed me and now may not will me away or ever. A _lex eterna_ stays
about Him. Is that then the divine substance wherein Father and Son are
consubstantial? Where is poor dear Arius to try conclusions? Warring
his life long upon the contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality. Illstarred
heresiarch! In a Greek watercloset he breathed his last: _euthanasia_.
With beaded mitre and with crozier, stalled upon his throne, widower of
a widowed see, with upstiffed _omophorion_, with clotted hinderparts.

Airs romped round him, nipping and eager airs. They are coming, waves.
The whitemaned seahorses, champing, brightwindbridled, the steeds of
Mananaan.

I mustn’t forget his letter for the press. And after? The Ship, half
twelve. By the way go easy with that money like a good young imbecile.
Yes, I must.

His pace slackened. Here. Am I going to aunt Sara’s or not? My
consubstantial father’s voice. Did you see anything of your artist
brother Stephen lately? No? Sure he’s not down in Strasburg terrace
with his aunt Sally? Couldn’t he fly a bit higher than that, eh? And
and and and tell us, Stephen, how is uncle Si? O, weeping God, the
things I married into! De boys up in de hayloft. The drunken little
costdrawer and his brother, the cornet player. Highly respectable
gondoliers! And skeweyed Walter sirring his father, no less! Sir. Yes,
sir. No, sir. Jesus wept: and no wonder, by Christ!

I pull the wheezy bell of their shuttered cottage: and wait. They take
me for a dun, peer out from a coign of vantage.

—It’s Stephen, sir.

—Let him in. Let Stephen in.

A bolt drawn back and Walter welcomes me.

—We thought you were someone else.

In his broad bed nuncle Richie, pillowed and blanketed, extends over
the hillock of his knees a sturdy forearm. Cleanchested. He has washed
the upper moiety.

—Morrow, nephew.

He lays aside the lapboard whereon he drafts his bills of costs for the
eyes of master Goff and master Shapland Tandy, filing consents and
common searches and a writ of _Duces Tecum_. A bogoak frame over his
bald head: Wilde’s _Requiescat_. The drone of his misleading whistle
brings Walter back.

—Yes, sir?

—Malt for Richie and Stephen, tell mother. Where is she?

—Bathing Crissie, sir.

Papa’s little bedpal. Lump of love.

—No, uncle Richie...

—Call me Richie. Damn your lithia water. It lowers. Whusky!

—Uncle Richie, really...

—Sit down or by the law Harry I’ll knock you down.

Walter squints vainly for a chair.

—He has nothing to sit down on, sir.

—He has nowhere to put it, you mug. Bring in our chippendale chair.
Would you like a bite of something? None of your damned lawdeedaw airs
here. The rich of a rasher fried with a herring? Sure? So much the
better. We have nothing in the house but backache pills.

_All’erta!_

He drones bars of Ferrando’s _aria di sortita_. The grandest number,
Stephen, in the whole opera. Listen.

His tuneful whistle sounds again, finely shaded, with rushes of the
air, his fists bigdrumming on his padded knees.

This wind is sweeter.

Houses of decay, mine, his and all. You told the Clongowes gentry you
had an uncle a judge and an uncle a general in the army. Come out of
them, Stephen. Beauty is not there. Nor in the stagnant bay of Marsh’s
library where you read the fading prophecies of Joachim Abbas. For
whom? The hundredheaded rabble of the cathedral close. A hater of his
kind ran from them to the wood of madness, his mane foaming in the
moon, his eyeballs stars. Houyhnhnm, horsenostrilled. The oval equine
faces, Temple, Buck Mulligan, Foxy Campbell, Lanternjaws. Abbas father,
furious dean, what offence laid fire to their brains? Paff! _Descende,
calve, ut ne nimium decalveris_. A garland of grey hair on his
comminated head see him me clambering down to the footpace
(_descende!_), clutching a monstrance, basiliskeyed. Get down,
baldpoll! A choir gives back menace and echo, assisting about the
altar’s horns, the snorted Latin of jackpriests moving burly in their
albs, tonsured and oiled and gelded, fat with the fat of kidneys of
wheat.

And at the same instant perhaps a priest round the corner is elevating
it. Dringdring! And two streets off another locking it into a pyx.
Dringadring! And in a ladychapel another taking housel all to his own
cheek. Dringdring! Down, up, forward, back. Dan Occam thought of that,
invincible doctor. A misty English morning the imp hypostasis tickled
his brain. Bringing his host down and kneeling he heard twine with his
second bell the first bell in the transept (he is lifting his) and,
rising, heard (now I am lifting) their two bells (he is kneeling) twang
in diphthong.

Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint. Isle of saints. You were
awfully holy, weren’t you? You prayed to the Blessed Virgin that you
might not have a red nose. You prayed to the devil in Serpentine avenue
that the fubsy widow in front might lift her clothes still more from
the wet street. _O si, certo!_ Sell your soul for that, do, dyed rags
pinned round a squaw. More tell me, more still! On the top of the Howth
tram alone crying to the rain: _Naked women! Naked women!_ What about
that, eh?

What about what? What else were they invented for?

Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young.
You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause
earnestly, striking face. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one
saw: tell no-one. Books you were going to write with letters for
titles. Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W is
wonderful. O yes, W. Remember your epiphanies written on green oval
leaves, deeply deep, copies to be sent if you died to all the great
libraries of the world, including Alexandria? Someone was to read them
there after a few thousand years, a mahamanvantara. Pico della
Mirandola like. Ay, very like a whale. When one reads these strange
pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who
once...

The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again a
damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the
unnumbered pebbles beats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada.
Unwholesome sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing
upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed smouldered in seafire under a
midden of man’s ashes. He coasted them, walking warily. A porterbottle
stood up, stogged to its waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel:
isle of dreadful thirst. Broken hoops on the shore; at the land a maze
of dark cunning nets; farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the
higher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams
of brown steersmen and master mariners. Human shells.

He halted. I have passed the way to aunt Sara’s. Am I not going there?
Seems not. No-one about. He turned northeast and crossed the firmer
sand towards the Pigeonhouse.

_—Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position?_

_—C’est le pigeon, Joseph._

Patrice, home on furlough, lapped warm milk with me in the bar
MacMahon. Son of the wild goose, Kevin Egan of Paris. My father’s a
bird, he lapped the sweet _lait chaud_ with pink young tongue, plump
bunny’s face. Lap, _lapin._ He hopes to win in the _gros lots_. About
the nature of women he read in Michelet. But he must send me _La Vie de
Jésus_ by M. Léo Taxil. Lent it to his friend.

_—C’est tordant, vous savez. Moi, je suis socialiste. Je ne crois pas
en l’existence de Dieu. Faut pas le dire à mon père._

_—Il croit?_

_—Mon père, oui._

_Schluss_. He laps.

My Latin quarter hat. God, we simply must dress the character. I want
puce gloves. You were a student, weren’t you? Of what in the other
devil’s name? Paysayenn. P. C. N., you know: _physiques, chimiques et
naturelles_. Aha. Eating your groatsworth of _mou en civet_, fleshpots
of Egypt, elbowed by belching cabmen. Just say in the most natural
tone: when I was in Paris; _boul’ Mich’_, I used to. Yes, used to carry
punched tickets to prove an alibi if they arrested you for murder
somewhere. Justice. On the night of the seventeenth of February 1904
the prisoner was seen by two witnesses. Other fellow did it: other me.
Hat, tie, overcoat, nose. _Lui, c’est moi_. You seem to have enjoyed
yourself.

Proudly walking. Whom were you trying to walk like? Forget: a
dispossessed. With mother’s money order, eight shillings, the banging
door of the post office slammed in your face by the usher. Hunger
toothache. _Encore deux minutes_. Look clock. Must get. _Fermé_. Hired
dog! Shoot him to bloody bits with a bang shotgun, bits man spattered
walls all brass buttons. Bits all khrrrrklak in place clack back. Not
hurt? O, that’s all right. Shake hands. See what I meant, see? O,
that’s all right. Shake a shake. O, that’s all only all right.

You were going to do wonders, what? Missionary to Europe after fiery
Columbanus. Fiacre and Scotus on their creepystools in heaven spilt
from their pintpots, loudlatinlaughing: _Euge! Euge!_ Pretending to
speak broken English as you dragged your valise, porter threepence,
across the slimy pier at Newhaven. _Comment?_ Rich booty you brought
back; _Le Tutu_, five tattered numbers of _Pantalon Blanc et Culotte
Rouge_; a blue French telegram, curiosity to show:

—Mother dying come home father.

The aunt thinks you killed your mother. That’s why she won’t.

     Then here’s a health to Mulligan’s aunt
     And I’ll tell you the reason why.
     She always kept things decent in
     The Hannigan famileye.

His feet marched in sudden proud rhythm over the sand furrows, along by
the boulders of the south wall. He stared at them proudly, piled stone
mammoth skulls. Gold light on sea, on sand, on boulders. The sun is
there, the slender trees, the lemon houses.

Paris rawly waking, crude sunlight on her lemon streets. Moist pith of
farls of bread, the froggreen wormwood, her matin incense, court the
air. Belluomo rises from the bed of his wife’s lover’s wife, the
kerchiefed housewife is astir, a saucer of acetic acid in her hand. In
Rodot’s Yvonne and Madeleine newmake their tumbled beauties, shattering
with gold teeth _chaussons_ of pastry, their mouths yellowed with the
_pus_ of _flan bréton_. Faces of Paris men go by, their wellpleased
pleasers, curled conquistadores.

Noon slumbers. Kevin Egan rolls gunpowder cigarettes through fingers
smeared with printer’s ink, sipping his green fairy as Patrice his
white. About us gobblers fork spiced beans down their gullets. _Un demi
sétier!_ A jet of coffee steam from the burnished caldron. She serves
me at his beck. _Il est irlandais. Hollandais? Non fromage. Deux
irlandais, nous, Irlande, vous savez ah, oui!_ She thought you wanted a
cheese _hollandais_. Your postprandial, do you know that word?
Postprandial. There was a fellow I knew once in Barcelona, queer
fellow, used to call it his postprandial. Well: _slainte!_ Around the
slabbed tables the tangle of wined breaths and grumbling gorges. His
breath hangs over our saucestained plates, the green fairy’s fang
thrusting between his lips. Of Ireland, the Dalcassians, of hopes,
conspiracies, of Arthur Griffith now, A E, pimander, good shepherd of
men. To yoke me as his yokefellow, our crimes our common cause. You’re
your father’s son. I know the voice. His fustian shirt,
sanguineflowered, trembles its Spanish tassels at his secrets. M.
Drumont, famous journalist, Drumont, know what he called queen
Victoria? Old hag with the yellow teeth. _Vieille ogresse_ with the
_dents jaunes_. Maud Gonne, beautiful woman, _La Patrie_, M. Millevoye,
Félix Faure, know how he died? Licentious men. The froeken, _bonne à
tout faire_, who rubs male nakedness in the bath at Upsala. _Moi
faire_, she said, _Tous les messieurs_. Not this _Monsieur_, I said.
Most licentious custom. Bath a most private thing. I wouldn’t let my
brother, not even my own brother, most lascivious thing. Green eyes, I
see you. Fang, I feel. Lascivious people.

The blue fuse burns deadly between hands and burns clear. Loose
tobaccoshreds catch fire: a flame and acrid smoke light our corner. Raw
facebones under his peep of day boy’s hat. How the head centre got
away, authentic version. Got up as a young bride, man, veil,
orangeblossoms, drove out the road to Malahide. Did, faith. Of lost
leaders, the betrayed, wild escapes. Disguises, clutched at, gone, not
here.

Spurned lover. I was a strapping young gossoon at that time, I tell
you. I’ll show you my likeness one day. I was, faith. Lover, for her
love he prowled with colonel Richard Burke, tanist of his sept, under
the walls of Clerkenwell and, crouching, saw a flame of vengeance hurl
them upward in the fog. Shattered glass and toppling masonry. In gay
Paree he hides, Egan of Paris, unsought by any save by me. Making his
day’s stations, the dingy printingcase, his three taverns, the
Montmartre lair he sleeps short night in, rue de la Goutte-d’Or,
damascened with flyblown faces of the gone. Loveless, landless,
wifeless. She is quite nicey comfy without her outcast man, madame in
rue Gît-le-Cœur, canary and two buck lodgers. Peachy cheeks, a zebra
skirt, frisky as a young thing’s. Spurned and undespairing. Tell Pat
you saw me, won’t you? I wanted to get poor Pat a job one time. _Mon
fils_, soldier of France. I taught him to sing _The boys of Kilkenny
are stout roaring blades_. Know that old lay? I taught Patrice that.
Old Kilkenny: saint Canice, Strongbow’s castle on the Nore. Goes like
this. _O, O_. He takes me, Napper Tandy, by the hand.

     O, O the boys of
     Kilkenny...

Weak wasting hand on mine. They have forgotten Kevin Egan, not he them.
Remembering thee, O Sion.

He had come nearer the edge of the sea and wet sand slapped his boots.
The new air greeted him, harping in wild nerves, wind of wild air of
seeds of brightness. Here, I am not walking out to the Kish lightship,
am I? He stood suddenly, his feet beginning to sink slowly in the
quaking soil. Turn back.

Turning, he scanned the shore south, his feet sinking again slowly in
new sockets. The cold domed room of the tower waits. Through the
barbacans the shafts of light are moving ever, slowly ever as my feet
are sinking, creeping duskward over the dial floor. Blue dusk,
nightfall, deep blue night. In the darkness of the dome they wait,
their pushedback chairs, my obelisk valise, around a board of abandoned
platters. Who to clear it? He has the key. I will not sleep there when
this night comes. A shut door of a silent tower, entombing their blind
bodies, the panthersahib and his pointer. Call: no answer. He lifted
his feet up from the suck and turned back by the mole of boulders. Take
all, keep all. My soul walks with me, form of forms. So in the moon’s
midwatches I pace the path above the rocks, in sable silvered, hearing
Elsinore’s tempting flood.

The flood is following me. I can watch it flow past from here. Get back
then by the Poolbeg road to the strand there. He climbed over the sedge
and eely oarweeds and sat on a stool of rock, resting his ashplant in a
grike.

A bloated carcass of a dog lay lolled on bladderwrack. Before him the
gunwale of a boat, sunk in sand. _Un coche ensablé_ Louis Veuillot
called Gautier’s prose. These heavy sands are language tide and wind
have silted here. And these, the stoneheaps of dead builders, a warren
of weasel rats. Hide gold there. Try it. You have some. Sands and
stones. Heavy of the past. Sir Lout’s toys. Mind you don’t get one bang
on the ear. I’m the bloody well gigant rolls all them bloody well
boulders, bones for my steppingstones. Feefawfum. I zmellz de bloodz
odz an Iridzman.

A point, live dog, grew into sight running across the sweep of sand.
Lord, is he going to attack me? Respect his liberty. You will not be
master of others or their slave. I have my stick. Sit tight. From
farther away, walking shoreward across from the crested tide, figures,
two. The two maries. They have tucked it safe mong the bulrushes.
Peekaboo. I see you. No, the dog. He is running back to them. Who?

Galleys of the Lochlanns ran here to beach, in quest of prey, their
bloodbeaked prows riding low on a molten pewter surf. Dane vikings,
torcs of tomahawks aglitter on their breasts when Malachi wore the
collar of gold. A school of turlehide whales stranded in hot noon,
spouting, hobbling in the shallows. Then from the starving cagework
city a horde of jerkined dwarfs, my people, with flayers’ knives,
running, scaling, hacking in green blubbery whalemeat. Famine, plague
and slaughters. Their blood is in me, their lusts my waves. I moved
among them on the frozen Liffey, that I, a changeling, among the
spluttering resin fires. I spoke to no-one: none to me.

The dog’s bark ran towards him, stopped, ran back. Dog of my enemy. I
just simply stood pale, silent, bayed about. _Terribilia meditans_. A
primrose doublet, fortune’s knave, smiled on my fear. For that are you
pining, the bark of their applause? Pretenders: live their lives. The
Bruce’s brother, Thomas Fitzgerald, silken knight, Perkin Warbeck,
York’s false scion, in breeches of silk of whiterose ivory, wonder of a
day, and Lambert Simnel, with a tail of nans and sutlers, a scullion
crowned. All kings’ sons. Paradise of pretenders then and now. He saved
men from drowning and you shake at a cur’s yelping. But the courtiers
who mocked Guido in Or san Michele were in their own house. House of...
We don’t want any of your medieval abstrusiosities. Would you do what
he did? A boat would be near, a lifebuoy. _Natürlich_, put there for
you. Would you or would you not? The man that was drowned nine days ago
off Maiden’s rock. They are waiting for him now. The truth, spit it
out. I would want to. I would try. I am not a strong swimmer. Water
cold soft. When I put my face into it in the basin at Clongowes. Can’t
see! Who’s behind me? Out quickly, quickly! Do you see the tide flowing
quickly in on all sides, sheeting the lows of sand quickly,
shellcocoacoloured? If I had land under my feet. I want his life still
to be his, mine to be mine. A drowning man. His human eyes scream to me
out of horror of his death. I... With him together down... I could not
save her. Waters: bitter death: lost.

A woman and a man. I see her skirties. Pinned up, I bet.

Their dog ambled about a bank of dwindling sand, trotting, sniffing on
all sides. Looking for something lost in a past life. Suddenly he made
off like a bounding hare, ears flung back, chasing the shadow of a
lowskimming gull. The man’s shrieked whistle struck his limp ears. He
turned, bounded back, came nearer, trotted on twinkling shanks. On a
field tenney a buck, trippant, proper, unattired. At the lacefringe of
the tide he halted with stiff forehoofs, seawardpointed ears. His snout
lifted barked at the wavenoise, herds of seamorse. They serpented
towards his feet, curling, unfurling many crests, every ninth,
breaking, plashing, from far, from farther out, waves and waves.

Cocklepickers. They waded a little way in the water and, stooping,
soused their bags and, lifting them again, waded out. The dog yelped
running to them, reared up and pawed them, dropping on all fours, again
reared up at them with mute bearish fawning. Unheeded he kept by them
as they came towards the drier sand, a rag of wolf’s tongue redpanting
from his jaws. His speckled body ambled ahead of them and then loped
off at a calf’s gallop. The carcass lay on his path. He stopped,
sniffed, stalked round it, brother, nosing closer, went round it,
sniffling rapidly like a dog all over the dead dog’s bedraggled fell.
Dogskull, dogsniff, eyes on the ground, moves to one great goal. Ah,
poor dogsbody! Here lies poor dogsbody’s body.

—Tatters! Out of that, you mongrel!

The cry brought him skulking back to his master and a blunt bootless
kick sent him unscathed across a spit of sand, crouched in flight. He
slunk back in a curve. Doesn’t see me. Along by the edge of the mole he
lolloped, dawdled, smelt a rock and from under a cocked hindleg pissed
against it. He trotted forward and, lifting again his hindleg, pissed
quick short at an unsmelt rock. The simple pleasures of the poor. His
hindpaws then scattered the sand: then his forepaws dabbled and delved.
Something he buried there, his grandmother. He rooted in the sand,
dabbling, delving and stopped to listen to the air, scraped up the sand
again with a fury of his claws, soon ceasing, a pard, a panther, got in
spousebreach, vulturing the dead.

After he woke me last night same dream or was it? Wait. Open hallway.
Street of harlots. Remember. Haroun al Raschid. I am almosting it. That
man led me, spoke. I was not afraid. The melon he had he held against
my face. Smiled: creamfruit smell. That was the rule, said. In. Come.
Red carpet spread. You will see who.

Shouldering their bags they trudged, the red Egyptians. His blued feet
out of turnedup trousers slapped the clammy sand, a dull brick muffler
strangling his unshaven neck. With woman steps she followed: the
ruffian and his strolling mort. Spoils slung at her back. Loose sand
and shellgrit crusted her bare feet. About her windraw face hair
trailed. Behind her lord, his helpmate, bing awast to Romeville. When
night hides her body’s flaws calling under her brown shawl from an
archway where dogs have mired. Her fancyman is treating two Royal
Dublins in O’Loughlin’s of Blackpitts. Buss her, wap in rogues’ rum
lingo, for, O, my dimber wapping dell! A shefiend’s whiteness under her
rancid rags. Fumbally’s lane that night: the tanyard smells.

     White thy fambles, red thy gan
     And thy quarrons dainty is.
     Couch a hogshead with me then.
     In the darkmans clip and kiss.

Morose delectation Aquinas tunbelly calls this, _frate porcospino_.
Unfallen Adam rode and not rutted. Call away let him: _thy quarrons
dainty is_. Language no whit worse than his. Monkwords, marybeads
jabber on their girdles: roguewords, tough nuggets patter in their
pockets.

Passing now.

A side eye at my Hamlet hat. If I were suddenly naked here as I sit? I
am not. Across the sands of all the world, followed by the sun’s
flaming sword, to the west, trekking to evening lands. She trudges,
schlepps, trains, drags, trascines her load. A tide westering,
moondrawn, in her wake. Tides, myriadislanded, within her, blood not
mine, _oinopa ponton_, a winedark sea. Behold the handmaid of the moon.
In sleep the wet sign calls her hour, bids her rise. Bridebed,
childbed, bed of death, ghostcandled. _Omnis caro ad te veniet_. He
comes, pale vampire, through storm his eyes, his bat sails bloodying
the sea, mouth to her mouth’s kiss.

Here. Put a pin in that chap, will you? My tablets. Mouth to her kiss.
No. Must be two of em. Glue em well. Mouth to her mouth’s kiss.

His lips lipped and mouthed fleshless lips of air: mouth to her moomb.
Oomb, allwombing tomb. His mouth moulded issuing breath, unspeeched:
ooeeehah: roar of cataractic planets, globed, blazing, roaring
wayawayawayawayaway. Paper. The banknotes, blast them. Old Deasy’s
letter. Here. Thanking you for the hospitality tear the blank end off.
Turning his back to the sun he bent over far to a table of rock and
scribbled words. That’s twice I forgot to take slips from the library
counter.

His shadow lay over the rocks as he bent, ending. Why not endless till
the farthest star? Darkly they are there behind this light, darkness
shining in the brightness, delta of Cassiopeia, worlds. Me sits there
with his augur’s rod of ash, in borrowed sandals, by day beside a livid
sea, unbeheld, in violet night walking beneath a reign of uncouth
stars. I throw this ended shadow from me, manshape ineluctable, call it
back. Endless, would it be mine, form of my form? Who watches me here?
Who ever anywhere will read these written words? Signs on a white
field. Somewhere to someone in your flutiest voice. The good bishop of
Cloyne took the veil of the temple out of his shovel hat: veil of space
with coloured emblems hatched on its field. Hold hard. Coloured on a
flat: yes, that’s right. Flat I see, then think distance, near, far,
flat I see, east, back. Ah, see now! Falls back suddenly, frozen in
stereoscope. Click does the trick. You find my words dark. Darkness is
in our souls do you not think? Flutier. Our souls, shamewounded by our
sins, cling to us yet more, a woman to her lover clinging, the more the
more.

She trusts me, her hand gentle, the longlashed eyes. Now where the blue
hell am I bringing her beyond the veil? Into the ineluctable modality
of the ineluctable visuality. She, she, she. What she? The virgin at
Hodges Figgis’ window on Monday looking in for one of the alphabet
books you were going to write. Keen glance you gave her. Wrist through
the braided jesse of her sunshade. She lives in Leeson park with a
grief and kickshaws, a lady of letters. Talk that to someone else,
Stevie: a pickmeup. Bet she wears those curse of God stays suspenders
and yellow stockings, darned with lumpy wool. Talk about apple
dumplings, _piuttosto_. Where are your wits?

Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch me
soon, now. What is that word known to all men? I am quiet here alone.
Sad too. Touch, touch me.

He lay back at full stretch over the sharp rocks, cramming the
scribbled note and pencil into a pocket, his hat tilted down on his
eyes. That is Kevin Egan’s movement I made, nodding for his nap,
sabbath sleep. _Et vidit Deus. Et erant valde bona_. Alo! _Bonjour_.
Welcome as the flowers in May. Under its leaf he watched through
peacocktwittering lashes the southing sun. I am caught in this burning
scene. Pan’s hour, the faunal noon. Among gumheavy serpentplants,
milkoozing fruits, where on the tawny waters leaves lie wide. Pain is
far.

     And no more turn aside and brood.

His gaze brooded on his broadtoed boots, a buck’s castoffs,
_nebeneinander_. He counted the creases of rucked leather wherein
another’s foot had nested warm. The foot that beat the ground in
tripudium, foot I dislove. But you were delighted when Esther Osvalt’s
shoe went on you: girl I knew in Paris. _Tiens, quel petit pied!_
Staunch friend, a brother soul: Wilde’s love that dare not speak its
name. His arm: Cranly’s arm. He now will leave me. And the blame? As I
am. As I am. All or not at all.

In long lassoes from the Cock lake the water flowed full, covering
greengoldenly lagoons of sand, rising, flowing. My ashplant will float
away. I shall wait. No, they will pass on, passing, chafing against the
low rocks, swirling, passing. Better get this job over quick. Listen: a
fourworded wavespeech: seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos. Vehement breath of
waters amid seasnakes, rearing horses, rocks. In cups of rocks it
slops: flop, slop, slap: bounded in barrels. And, spent, its speech
ceases. It flows purling, widely flowing, floating foampool, flower
unfurling.

Under the upswelling tide he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and
sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats, in whispering water
swaying and upturning coy silver fronds. Day by day: night by night:
lifted, flooded and let fall. Lord, they are weary; and, whispered to,
they sigh. Saint Ambrose heard it, sigh of leaves and waves, waiting,
awaiting the fullness of their times, _diebus ac noctibus iniurias
patiens ingemiscit_. To no end gathered; vainly then released,
forthflowing, wending back: loom of the moon. Weary too in sight of
lovers, lascivious men, a naked woman shining in her courts, she draws
a toil of waters.

Five fathoms out there. Full fathom five thy father lies. At one, he
said. Found drowned. High water at Dublin bar. Driving before it a
loose drift of rubble, fanshoals of fishes, silly shells. A corpse
rising saltwhite from the undertow, bobbing a pace a pace a porpoise
landward. There he is. Hook it quick. Pull. Sunk though he be beneath
the watery floor. We have him. Easy now.

Bag of corpsegas sopping in foul brine. A quiver of minnows, fat of a
spongy titbit, flash through the slits of his buttoned trouserfly. God
becomes man becomes fish becomes barnacle goose becomes featherbed
mountain. Dead breaths I living breathe, tread dead dust, devour a
urinous offal from all dead. Hauled stark over the gunwale he breathes
upward the stench of his green grave, his leprous nosehole snoring to
the sun.

A seachange this, brown eyes saltblue. Seadeath, mildest of all deaths
known to man. Old Father Ocean. _Prix de Paris_: beware of imitations.
Just you give it a fair trial. We enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Come. I thirst. Clouding over. No black clouds anywhere, are there?
Thunderstorm. Allbright he falls, proud lightning of the intellect,
_Lucifer, dico, qui nescit occasum_. No. My cockle hat and staff and
hismy sandal shoon. Where? To evening lands. Evening will find itself.

He took the hilt of his ashplant, lunging with it softly, dallying
still. Yes, evening will find itself in me, without me. All days make
their end. By the way next when is it Tuesday will be the longest day.
Of all the glad new year, mother, the rum tum tiddledy tum. Lawn
Tennyson, gentleman poet. _Già_. For the old hag with the yellow teeth.
And Monsieur Drumont, gentleman journalist. _Già_. My teeth are very
bad. Why, I wonder. Feel. That one is going too. Shells. Ought I go to
a dentist, I wonder, with that money? That one. This. Toothless Kinch,
the superman. Why is that, I wonder, or does it mean something perhaps?

My handkerchief. He threw it. I remember. Did I not take it up?

His hand groped vainly in his pockets. No, I didn’t. Better buy one.

He laid the dry snot picked from his nostril on a ledge of rock,
carefully. For the rest let look who will.

Behind. Perhaps there is someone.

He turned his face over a shoulder, rere regardant. Moving through the
air high spars of a threemaster, her sails brailed up on the
crosstrees, homing, upstream, silently moving, a silent ship.


— II —


[ 4 ]

Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls.
He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart,
liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods’ roes. Most of all he
liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of
faintly scented urine.

Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting
her breakfast things on the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in the
kitchen but out of doors gentle summer morning everywhere. Made him
feel a bit peckish.

The coals were reddening.

Another slice of bread and butter: three, four: right. She didn’t like
her plate full. Right. He turned from the tray, lifted the kettle off
the hob and set it sideways on the fire. It sat there, dull and squat,
its spout stuck out. Cup of tea soon. Good. Mouth dry. The cat walked
stiffly round a leg of the table with tail on high.

—Mkgnao!

—O, there you are, Mr Bloom said, turning from the fire.

The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the
table, mewing. Just how she stalks over my writingtable. Prr. Scratch
my head. Prr.

Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly the lithe black form. Clean to see:
the gloss of her sleek hide, the white button under the butt of her
tail, the green flashing eyes. He bent down to her, his hands on his
knees.

—Milk for the pussens, he said.

—Mrkgnao! the cat cried.

They call them stupid. They understand what we say better than we
understand them. She understands all she wants to. Vindictive too.
Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it. Wonder
what I look like to her. Height of a tower? No, she can jump me.

—Afraid of the chickens she is, he said mockingly. Afraid of the
chookchooks. I never saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens.

—Mrkrgnao! the cat said loudly.

She blinked up out of her avid shameclosing eyes, mewing plaintively
and long, showing him her milkwhite teeth. He watched the dark eyeslits
narrowing with greed till her eyes were green stones. Then he went to
the dresser, took the jug Hanlon’s milkman had just filled for him,
poured warmbubbled milk on a saucer and set it slowly on the floor.

—Gurrhr! she cried, running to lap.

He watched the bristles shining wirily in the weak light as she tipped
three times and licked lightly. Wonder is it true if you clip them they
can’t mouse after. Why? They shine in the dark, perhaps, the tips. Or
kind of feelers in the dark, perhaps.

He listened to her licking lap. Ham and eggs, no. No good eggs with
this drouth. Want pure fresh water. Thursday: not a good day either for
a mutton kidney at Buckley’s. Fried with butter, a shake of pepper.
Better a pork kidney at Dlugacz’s. While the kettle is boiling. She
lapped slower, then licking the saucer clean. Why are their tongues so
rough? To lap better, all porous holes. Nothing she can eat? He glanced
round him. No.

On quietly creaky boots he went up the staircase to the hall, paused by
the bedroom door. She might like something tasty. Thin bread and butter
she likes in the morning. Still perhaps: once in a way.

He said softly in the bare hall:

—I’m going round the corner. Be back in a minute.

And when he had heard his voice say it he added:

—You don’t want anything for breakfast?

A sleepy soft grunt answered:

—Mn.

No. She didn’t want anything. He heard then a warm heavy sigh, softer,
as she turned over and the loose brass quoits of the bedstead jingled.
Must get those settled really. Pity. All the way from Gibraltar.
Forgotten any little Spanish she knew. Wonder what her father gave for
it. Old style. Ah yes! of course. Bought it at the governor’s auction.
Got a short knock. Hard as nails at a bargain, old Tweedy. Yes, sir. At
Plevna that was. I rose from the ranks, sir, and I’m proud of it. Still
he had brains enough to make that corner in stamps. Now that was
farseeing.

His hand took his hat from the peg over his initialled heavy overcoat
and his lost property office secondhand waterproof. Stamps: stickyback
pictures. Daresay lots of officers are in the swim too. Course they do.
The sweated legend in the crown of his hat told him mutely: Plasto’s
high grade ha. He peeped quickly inside the leather headband. White
slip of paper. Quite safe.

On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the latchkey. Not there.
In the trousers I left off. Must get it. Potato I have. Creaky
wardrobe. No use disturbing her. She turned over sleepily that time. He
pulled the halldoor to after him very quietly, more, till the footleaf
dropped gently over the threshold, a limp lid. Looked shut. All right
till I come back anyhow.

He crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose cellarflap of number
seventyfive. The sun was nearing the steeple of George’s church. Be a
warm day I fancy. Specially in these black clothes feel it more. Black
conducts, reflects, (refracts is it?), the heat. But I couldn’t go in
that light suit. Make a picnic of it. His eyelids sank quietly often as
he walked in happy warmth. Boland’s breadvan delivering with trays our
daily but she prefers yesterday’s loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot.
Makes you feel young. Somewhere in the east: early morning: set off at
dawn. Travel round in front of the sun, steal a day’s march on him.
Keep it up for ever never grow a day older technically. Walk along a
strand, strange land, come to a city gate, sentry there, old ranker
too, old Tweedy’s big moustaches, leaning on a long kind of a spear.
Wander through awned streets. Turbaned faces going by. Dark caves of
carpet shops, big man, Turko the terrible, seated crosslegged, smoking
a coiled pipe. Cries of sellers in the streets. Drink water scented
with fennel, sherbet. Dander along all day. Might meet a robber or two.
Well, meet him. Getting on to sundown. The shadows of the mosques among
the pillars: priest with a scroll rolled up. A shiver of the trees,
signal, the evening wind. I pass on. Fading gold sky. A mother watches
me from her doorway. She calls her children home in their dark
language. High wall: beyond strings twanged. Night sky, moon, violet,
colour of Molly’s new garters. Strings. Listen. A girl playing one of
those instruments what do you call them: dulcimers. I pass.

Probably not a bit like it really. Kind of stuff you read: in the track
of the sun. Sunburst on the titlepage. He smiled, pleasing himself.
What Arthur Griffith said about the headpiece over the _Freeman_
leader: a homerule sun rising up in the northwest from the laneway
behind the bank of Ireland. He prolonged his pleased smile. Ikey touch
that: homerule sun rising up in the northwest.

He approached Larry O’Rourke’s. From the cellar grating floated up the
flabby gush of porter. Through the open doorway the bar squirted out
whiffs of ginger, teadust, biscuitmush. Good house, however: just the
end of the city traffic. For instance M’Auley’s down there: n. g. as
position. Of course if they ran a tramline along the North Circular
from the cattlemarket to the quays value would go up like a shot.

Baldhead over the blind. Cute old codger. No use canvassing him for an
ad. Still he knows his own business best. There he is, sure enough, my
bold Larry, leaning against the sugarbin in his shirtsleeves watching
the aproned curate swab up with mop and bucket. Simon Dedalus takes him
off to a tee with his eyes screwed up. Do you know what I’m going to
tell you? What’s that, Mr O’Rourke? Do you know what? The Russians,
they’d only be an eight o’clock breakfast for the Japanese.

Stop and say a word: about the funeral perhaps. Sad thing about poor
Dignam, Mr O’Rourke.

Turning into Dorset street he said freshly in greeting through the
doorway:

—Good day, Mr O’Rourke.

—Good day to you.

—Lovely weather, sir.

—’Tis all that.

Where do they get the money? Coming up redheaded curates from the
county Leitrim, rinsing empties and old man in the cellar. Then, lo and
behold, they blossom out as Adam Findlaters or Dan Tallons. Then think
of the competition. General thirst. Good puzzle would be cross Dublin
without passing a pub. Save it they can’t. Off the drunks perhaps. Put
down three and carry five. What is that, a bob here and there, dribs
and drabs. On the wholesale orders perhaps. Doing a double shuffle with
the town travellers. Square it you with the boss and we’ll split the
job, see?

How much would that tot to off the porter in the month? Say ten barrels
of stuff. Say he got ten per cent off. O more. Fifteen. He passed Saint
Joseph’s National school. Brats’ clamour. Windows open. Fresh air helps
memory. Or a lilt. Ahbeesee defeegee kelomen opeecue rustyouvee
doubleyou. Boys are they? Yes. Inishturk. Inishark. Inishboffin. At
their joggerfry. Mine. Slieve Bloom.

He halted before Dlugacz’s window, staring at the hanks of sausages,
polonies, black and white. Fifteen multiplied by. The figures whitened
in his mind, unsolved: displeased, he let them fade. The shiny links,
packed with forcemeat, fed his gaze and he breathed in tranquilly the
lukewarm breath of cooked spicy pigs’ blood.

A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned dish: the last. He
stood by the nextdoor girl at the counter. Would she buy it too,
calling the items from a slip in her hand? Chapped: washingsoda. And a
pound and a half of Denny’s sausages. His eyes rested on her vigorous
hips. Woods his name is. Wonder what he does. Wife is oldish. New
blood. No followers allowed. Strong pair of arms. Whacking a carpet on
the clothesline. She does whack it, by George. The way her crooked
skirt swings at each whack.

The ferreteyed porkbutcher folded the sausages he had snipped off with
blotchy fingers, sausagepink. Sound meat there: like a stallfed heifer.

He took a page up from the pile of cut sheets: the model farm at
Kinnereth on the lakeshore of Tiberias. Can become ideal winter
sanatorium. Moses Montefiore. I thought he was. Farmhouse, wall round
it, blurred cattle cropping. He held the page from him: interesting:
read it nearer, the title, the blurred cropping cattle, the page
rustling. A young white heifer. Those mornings in the cattlemarket, the
beasts lowing in their pens, branded sheep, flop and fall of dung, the
breeders in hobnailed boots trudging through the litter, slapping a
palm on a ripemeated hindquarter, there’s a prime one, unpeeled
switches in their hands. He held the page aslant patiently, bending his
senses and his will, his soft subject gaze at rest. The crooked skirt
swinging, whack by whack by whack.

The porkbutcher snapped two sheets from the pile, wrapped up her prime
sausages and made a red grimace.

—Now, my miss, he said.

She tendered a coin, smiling boldly, holding her thick wrist out.

—Thank you, my miss. And one shilling threepence change. For you,
please?

Mr Bloom pointed quickly. To catch up and walk behind her if she went
slowly, behind her moving hams. Pleasant to see first thing in the
morning. Hurry up, damn it. Make hay while the sun shines. She stood
outside the shop in sunlight and sauntered lazily to the right. He
sighed down his nose: they never understand. Sodachapped hands. Crusted
toenails too. Brown scapulars in tatters, defending her both ways. The
sting of disregard glowed to weak pleasure within his breast. For
another: a constable off duty cuddling her in Eccles’ Lane. They like
them sizeable. Prime sausage. O please, Mr Policeman, I’m lost in the
wood.

—Threepence, please.

His hand accepted the moist tender gland and slid it into a sidepocket.
Then it fetched up three coins from his trousers’ pocket and laid them
on the rubber prickles. They lay, were read quickly and quickly slid,
disc by disc, into the till.

—Thank you, sir. Another time.

A speck of eager fire from foxeyes thanked him. He withdrew his gaze
after an instant. No: better not: another time.

—Good morning, he said, moving away.

—Good morning, sir.

No sign. Gone. What matter?

He walked back along Dorset street, reading gravely. Agendath Netaim:
planters’ company. To purchase waste sandy tracts from Turkish
government and plant with eucalyptus trees. Excellent for shade, fuel
and construction. Orangegroves and immense melonfields north of Jaffa.
You pay eighty marks and they plant a dunam of land for you with
olives, oranges, almonds or citrons. Olives cheaper: oranges need
artificial irrigation. Every year you get a sending of the crop. Your
name entered for life as owner in the book of the union. Can pay ten
down and the balance in yearly instalments. Bleibtreustrasse 34,
Berlin, W. 15.

Nothing doing. Still an idea behind it.

He looked at the cattle, blurred in silver heat. Silverpowdered
olivetrees. Quiet long days: pruning, ripening. Olives are packed in
jars, eh? I have a few left from Andrews. Molly spitting them out.
Knows the taste of them now. Oranges in tissue paper packed in crates.
Citrons too. Wonder is poor Citron still in Saint Kevin’s parade. And
Mastiansky with the old cither. Pleasant evenings we had then. Molly in
Citron’s basketchair. Nice to hold, cool waxen fruit, hold in the hand,
lift it to the nostrils and smell the perfume. Like that, heavy, sweet,
wild perfume. Always the same, year after year. They fetched high
prices too, Moisel told me. Arbutus place: Pleasants street: pleasant
old times. Must be without a flaw, he said. Coming all that way: Spain,
Gibraltar, Mediterranean, the Levant. Crates lined up on the quayside
at Jaffa, chap ticking them off in a book, navvies handling them
barefoot in soiled dungarees. There’s whatdoyoucallhim out of. How do
you? Doesn’t see. Chap you know just to salute bit of a bore. His back
is like that Norwegian captain’s. Wonder if I’ll meet him today.
Watering cart. To provoke the rain. On earth as it is in heaven.

A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly. Grey. Far.

No, not like that. A barren land, bare waste. Vulcanic lake, the dead
sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind could lift
those waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called
it raining down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All
dead names. A dead sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now. It bore
the oldest, the first race. A bent hag crossed from Cassidy’s,
clutching a naggin bottle by the neck. The oldest people. Wandered far
away over all the earth, captivity to captivity, multiplying, dying,
being born everywhere. It lay there now. Now it could bear no more.
Dead: an old woman’s: the grey sunken cunt of the world.

Desolation.

Grey horror seared his flesh. Folding the page into his pocket he
turned into Eccles street, hurrying homeward. Cold oils slid along his
veins, chilling his blood: age crusting him with a salt cloak. Well, I
am here now. Yes, I am here now. Morning mouth bad images. Got up wrong
side of the bed. Must begin again those Sandow’s exercises. On the
hands down. Blotchy brown brick houses. Number eighty still unlet. Why
is that? Valuation is only twentyeight. Towers, Battersby, North,
MacArthur: parlour windows plastered with bills. Plasters on a sore
eye. To smell the gentle smoke of tea, fume of the pan, sizzling
butter. Be near her ample bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes.

Quick warm sunlight came running from Berkeley road, swiftly, in slim
sandals, along the brightening footpath. Runs, she runs to meet me, a
girl with gold hair on the wind.

Two letters and a card lay on the hallfloor. He stooped and gathered
them. Mrs Marion Bloom. His quickened heart slowed at once. Bold hand.
Mrs Marion.

—Poldy!

Entering the bedroom he halfclosed his eyes and walked through warm
yellow twilight towards her tousled head.

—Who are the letters for?

He looked at them. Mullingar. Milly.

—A letter for me from Milly, he said carefully, and a card to you. And
a letter for you.

He laid her card and letter on the twill bedspread near the curve of
her knees.

—Do you want the blind up?

Letting the blind up by gentle tugs halfway his backward eye saw her
glance at the letter and tuck it under her pillow.

—That do? he asked, turning.

She was reading the card, propped on her elbow.

—She got the things, she said.

He waited till she had laid the card aside and curled herself back
slowly with a snug sigh.

—Hurry up with that tea, she said. I’m parched.

—The kettle is boiling, he said.

But he delayed to clear the chair: her striped petticoat, tossed soiled
linen: and lifted all in an armful on to the foot of the bed.

As he went down the kitchen stairs she called:

—Poldy!

—What?

—Scald the teapot.

On the boil sure enough: a plume of steam from the spout. He scalded
and rinsed out the teapot and put in four full spoons of tea, tilting
the kettle then to let the water flow in. Having set it to draw he took
off the kettle, crushed the pan flat on the live coals and watched the
lump of butter slide and melt. While he unwrapped the kidney the cat
mewed hungrily against him. Give her too much meat she won’t mouse. Say
they won’t eat pork. Kosher. Here. He let the bloodsmeared paper fall
to her and dropped the kidney amid the sizzling butter sauce. Pepper.
He sprinkled it through his fingers ringwise from the chipped eggcup.

Then he slit open his letter, glancing down the page and over. Thanks:
new tam: Mr Coghlan: lough Owel picnic: young student: Blazes Boylan’s
seaside girls.

The tea was drawn. He filled his own moustachecup, sham crown Derby,
smiling. Silly Milly’s birthday gift. Only five she was then. No, wait:
four. I gave her the amberoid necklace she broke. Putting pieces of
folded brown paper in the letterbox for her. He smiled, pouring.

     O, Milly Bloom, you are my darling.
     You are my lookingglass from night to morning.
     I’d rather have you without a farthing
     Than Katey Keogh with her ass and garden.

Poor old professor Goodwin. Dreadful old case. Still he was a courteous
old chap. Oldfashioned way he used to bow Molly off the platform. And
the little mirror in his silk hat. The night Milly brought it into the
parlour. O, look what I found in professor Goodwin’s hat! All we
laughed. Sex breaking out even then. Pert little piece she was.

He prodded a fork into the kidney and slapped it over: then fitted the
teapot on the tray. Its hump bumped as he took it up. Everything on it?
Bread and butter, four, sugar, spoon, her cream. Yes. He carried it
upstairs, his thumb hooked in the teapot handle.

Nudging the door open with his knee he carried the tray in and set it
on the chair by the bedhead.

—What a time you were! she said.

She set the brasses jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on
the pillow. He looked calmly down on her bulk and between her large
soft bubs, sloping within her nightdress like a shegoat’s udder. The
warmth of her couched body rose on the air, mingling with the fragrance
of the tea she poured.

A strip of torn envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow. In the
act of going he stayed to straighten the bedspread.

—Who was the letter from? he asked.

Bold hand. Marion.

—O, Boylan, she said. He’s bringing the programme.

—What are you singing?

—_Là ci darem_ with J. C. Doyle, she said, and _Love’s Old Sweet Song_.

Her full lips, drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell that incense leaves
next day. Like foul flowerwater.

—Would you like the window open a little?

She doubled a slice of bread into her mouth, asking:

—What time is the funeral?

—Eleven, I think, he answered. I didn’t see the paper.

Following the pointing of her finger he took up a leg of her soiled
drawers from the bed. No? Then, a twisted grey garter looped round a
stocking: rumpled, shiny sole.

—No: that book.

Other stocking. Her petticoat.

—It must have fell down, she said.

He felt here and there. _Voglio e non vorrei_. Wonder if she pronounces
that right: _voglio_. Not in the bed. Must have slid down. He stooped
and lifted the valance. The book, fallen, sprawled against the bulge of
the orangekeyed chamberpot.

—Show here, she said. I put a mark in it. There’s a word I wanted to
ask you.

She swallowed a draught of tea from her cup held by nothandle and,
having wiped her fingertips smartly on the blanket, began to search the
text with the hairpin till she reached the word.

—Met him what? he asked.

—Here, she said. What does that mean?

He leaned downward and read near her polished thumbnail.

—Metempsychosis?

—Yes. Who’s he when he’s at home?

—Metempsychosis, he said, frowning. It’s Greek: from the Greek. That
means the transmigration of souls.

—O, rocks! she said. Tell us in plain words.

He smiled, glancing askance at her mocking eyes. The same young eyes.
The first night after the charades. Dolphin’s Barn. He turned over the
smudged pages. _Ruby: the Pride of the Ring_. Hello. Illustration.
Fierce Italian with carriagewhip. Must be Ruby pride of the on the
floor naked. Sheet kindly lent. _The monster Maffei desisted and flung
his victim from him with an oath_. Cruelty behind it all. Doped
animals. Trapeze at Hengler’s. Had to look the other way. Mob gaping.
Break your neck and we’ll break our sides. Families of them. Bone them
young so they metamspychosis. That we live after death. Our souls. That
a man’s soul after he dies. Dignam’s soul...

—Did you finish it? he asked.

—Yes, she said. There’s nothing smutty in it. Is she in love with the
first fellow all the time?

—Never read it. Do you want another?

—Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock’s. Nice name he has.

She poured more tea into her cup, watching it flow sideways.

Must get that Capel street library book renewed or they’ll write to
Kearney, my guarantor. Reincarnation: that’s the word.

—Some people believe, he said, that we go on living in another body
after death, that we lived before. They call it reincarnation. That we
all lived before on the earth thousands of years ago or some other
planet. They say we have forgotten it. Some say they remember their
past lives.

The sluggish cream wound curdling spirals through her tea. Better
remind her of the word: metempsychosis. An example would be better. An
example?

The _Bath of the Nymph_ over the bed. Given away with the Easter number
of _Photo Bits_: Splendid masterpiece in art colours. Tea before you
put milk in. Not unlike her with her hair down: slimmer. Three and six
I gave for the frame. She said it would look nice over the bed. Naked
nymphs: Greece: and for instance all the people that lived then.

He turned the pages back.

—Metempsychosis, he said, is what the ancient Greeks called it. They
used to believe you could be changed into an animal or a tree, for
instance. What they called nymphs, for example.

Her spoon ceased to stir up the sugar. She gazed straight before her,
inhaling through her arched nostrils.

—There’s a smell of burn, she said. Did you leave anything on the fire?

—The kidney! he cried suddenly.

He fitted the book roughly into his inner pocket and, stubbing his toes
against the broken commode, hurried out towards the smell, stepping
hastily down the stairs with a flurried stork’s legs. Pungent smoke
shot up in an angry jet from a side of the pan. By prodding a prong of
the fork under the kidney he detached it and turned it turtle on its
back. Only a little burnt. He tossed it off the pan on to a plate and
let the scanty brown gravy trickle over it.

Cup of tea now. He sat down, cut and buttered a slice of the loaf. He
shore away the burnt flesh and flung it to the cat. Then he put a
forkful into his mouth, chewing with discernment the toothsome pliant
meat. Done to a turn. A mouthful of tea. Then he cut away dies of
bread, sopped one in the gravy and put it in his mouth. What was that
about some young student and a picnic? He creased out the letter at his
side, reading it slowly as he chewed, sopping another die of bread in
the gravy and raising it to his mouth.


Dearest Papli

Thanks ever so much for the lovely birthday present. It suits me
splendid. Everyone says I am quite the belle in my new tam. I got
mummy’s lovely box of creams and am writing. They are lovely. I am
getting on swimming in the photo business now. Mr Coghlan took one of
me and Mrs. Will send when developed. We did great biz yesterday. Fair
day and all the beef to the heels were in. We are going to lough Owel
on Monday with a few friends to make a scrap picnic. Give my love to
mummy and to yourself a big kiss and thanks. I hear them at the piano
downstairs. There is to be a concert in the Greville Arms on Saturday.
There is a young student comes here some evenings named Bannon his
cousins or something are big swells and he sings Boylan’s (I was on the
pop of writing Blazes Boylan’s) song about those seaside girls. Tell
him silly Milly sends my best respects. I must now close with fondest
love

                    Your fond daughter
                        Milly

P. S. Excuse bad writing am in hurry. Byby.

                        M.


Fifteen yesterday. Curious, fifteenth of the month too. Her first
birthday away from home. Separation. Remember the summer morning she
was born, running to knock up Mrs Thornton in Denzille street. Jolly
old woman. Lot of babies she must have helped into the world. She knew
from the first poor little Rudy wouldn’t live. Well, God is good, sir.
She knew at once. He would be eleven now if he had lived.

His vacant face stared pityingly at the postscript. Excuse bad writing.
Hurry. Piano downstairs. Coming out of her shell. Row with her in the
XL Café about the bracelet. Wouldn’t eat her cakes or speak or look.
Saucebox. He sopped other dies of bread in the gravy and ate piece
after piece of kidney. Twelve and six a week. Not much. Still, she
might do worse. Music hall stage. Young student. He drank a draught of
cooler tea to wash down his meal. Then he read the letter again: twice.

O, well: she knows how to mind herself. But if not? No, nothing has
happened. Of course it might. Wait in any case till it does. A wild
piece of goods. Her slim legs running up the staircase. Destiny.
Ripening now. Vain: very.

He smiled with troubled affection at the kitchen window. Day I caught
her in the street pinching her cheeks to make them red. Anemic a
little. Was given milk too long. On the _Erin’s King_ that day round
the Kish. Damned old tub pitching about. Not a bit funky. Her pale blue
scarf loose in the wind with her hair.

     All dimpled cheeks and curls,
     Your head it simply swirls.

Seaside girls. Torn envelope. Hands stuck in his trousers’ pockets,
jarvey off for the day, singing. Friend of the family. Swurls, he says.
Pier with lamps, summer evening, band.

     Those girls, those girls,
     Those lovely seaside girls.

Milly too. Young kisses: the first. Far away now past. Mrs Marion.
Reading, lying back now, counting the strands of her hair, smiling,
braiding.

A soft qualm, regret, flowed down his backbone, increasing. Will
happen, yes. Prevent. Useless: can’t move. Girl’s sweet light lips.
Will happen too. He felt the flowing qualm spread over him. Useless to
move now. Lips kissed, kissing, kissed. Full gluey woman’s lips.

Better where she is down there: away. Occupy her. Wanted a dog to pass
the time. Might take a trip down there. August bank holiday, only two
and six return. Six weeks off, however. Might work a press pass. Or
through M’Coy.

The cat, having cleaned all her fur, returned to the meatstained paper,
nosed at it and stalked to the door. She looked back at him, mewing.
Wants to go out. Wait before a door sometime it will open. Let her
wait. Has the fidgets. Electric. Thunder in the air. Was washing at her
ear with her back to the fire too.

He felt heavy, full: then a gentle loosening of his bowels. He stood
up, undoing the waistband of his trousers. The cat mewed to him.

—Miaow! he said in answer. Wait till I’m ready.

Heaviness: hot day coming. Too much trouble to fag up the stairs to the
landing.

A paper. He liked to read at stool. Hope no ape comes knocking just as
I’m.

In the tabledrawer he found an old number of _Titbits_. He folded it
under his armpit, went to the door and opened it. The cat went up in
soft bounds. Ah, wanted to go upstairs, curl up in a ball on the bed.

Listening, he heard her voice:

—Come, come, pussy. Come.

He went out through the backdoor into the garden: stood to listen
towards the next garden. No sound. Perhaps hanging clothes out to dry.
The maid was in the garden. Fine morning.

He bent down to regard a lean file of spearmint growing by the wall.
Make a summerhouse here. Scarlet runners. Virginia creepers. Want to
manure the whole place over, scabby soil. A coat of liver of sulphur.
All soil like that without dung. Household slops. Loam, what is this
that is? The hens in the next garden: their droppings are very good top
dressing. Best of all though are the cattle, especially when they are
fed on those oilcakes. Mulch of dung. Best thing to clean ladies’ kid
gloves. Dirty cleans. Ashes too. Reclaim the whole place. Grow peas in
that corner there. Lettuce. Always have fresh greens then. Still
gardens have their drawbacks. That bee or bluebottle here Whitmonday.

He walked on. Where is my hat, by the way? Must have put it back on the
peg. Or hanging up on the floor. Funny I don’t remember that. Hallstand
too full. Four umbrellas, her raincloak. Picking up the letters.
Drago’s shopbell ringing. Queer I was just thinking that moment. Brown
brillantined hair over his collar. Just had a wash and brushup. Wonder
have I time for a bath this morning. Tara street. Chap in the paybox
there got away James Stephens, they say. O’Brien.

Deep voice that fellow Dlugacz has. Agendath what is it? Now, my miss.
Enthusiast.

He kicked open the crazy door of the jakes. Better be careful not to
get these trousers dirty for the funeral. He went in, bowing his head
under the low lintel. Leaving the door ajar, amid the stench of mouldy
limewash and stale cobwebs he undid his braces. Before sitting down he
peered through a chink up at the nextdoor windows. The king was in his
countinghouse. Nobody.

Asquat on the cuckstool he folded out his paper, turning its pages over
on his bared knees. Something new and easy. No great hurry. Keep it a
bit. Our prize titbit: _Matcham’s Masterstroke_. Written by Mr Philip
Beaufoy, Playgoers’ Club, London. Payment at the rate of one guinea a
column has been made to the writer. Three and a half. Three pounds
three. Three pounds, thirteen and six.

Quietly he read, restraining himself, the first column and, yielding
but resisting, began the second. Midway, his last resistance yielding,
he allowed his bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read, reading
still patiently that slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Hope
it’s not too big bring on piles again. No, just right. So. Ah! Costive.
One tabloid of cascara sagrada. Life might be so. It did not move or
touch him but it was something quick and neat. Print anything now.
Silly season. He read on, seated calm above his own rising smell. Neat
certainly. _Matcham often thinks of the masterstroke by which he won
the laughing witch who now_. Begins and ends morally. _Hand in hand_.
Smart. He glanced back through what he had read and, while feeling his
water flow quietly, he envied kindly Mr Beaufoy who had written it and
received payment of three pounds, thirteen and six.

Might manage a sketch. By Mr and Mrs L. M. Bloom. Invent a story for
some proverb. Which? Time I used to try jotting down on my cuff what
she said dressing. Dislike dressing together. Nicked myself shaving.
Biting her nether lip, hooking the placket of her skirt. Timing her.
9.15. Did Roberts pay you yet? 9.20. What had Gretta Conroy on? 9.23.
What possessed me to buy this comb? 9.24. I’m swelled after that
cabbage. A speck of dust on the patent leather of her boot.

Rubbing smartly in turn each welt against her stockinged calf. Morning
after the bazaar dance when May’s band played Ponchielli’s dance of the
hours. Explain that: morning hours, noon, then evening coming on, then
night hours. Washing her teeth. That was the first night. Her head
dancing. Her fansticks clicking. Is that Boylan well off? He has money.
Why? I noticed he had a good rich smell off his breath dancing. No use
humming then. Allude to it. Strange kind of music that last night. The
mirror was in shadow. She rubbed her handglass briskly on her woollen
vest against her full wagging bub. Peering into it. Lines in her eyes.
It wouldn’t pan out somehow.

Evening hours, girls in grey gauze. Night hours then: black with
daggers and eyemasks. Poetical idea: pink, then golden, then grey, then
black. Still, true to life also. Day: then the night.

He tore away half the prize story sharply and wiped himself with it.
Then he girded up his trousers, braced and buttoned himself. He pulled
back the jerky shaky door of the jakes and came forth from the gloom
into the air.

In the bright light, lightened and cooled in limb, he eyed carefully
his black trousers: the ends, the knees, the houghs of the knees. What
time is the funeral? Better find out in the paper.

A creak and a dark whirr in the air high up. The bells of George’s
church. They tolled the hour: loud dark iron.

     Heigho! Heigho!
     Heigho! Heigho!
     Heigho! Heigho!

Quarter to. There again: the overtone following through the air. A
third.

Poor Dignam!


[ 5 ]

By lorries along sir John Rogerson’s quay Mr Bloom walked soberly, past
Windmill lane, Leask’s the linseed crusher, the postal telegraph
office. Could have given that address too. And past the sailors’ home.
He turned from the morning noises of the quayside and walked through
Lime street. By Brady’s cottages a boy for the skins lolled, his bucket
of offal linked, smoking a chewed fagbutt. A smaller girl with scars of
eczema on her forehead eyed him, listlessly holding her battered
caskhoop. Tell him if he smokes he won’t grow. O let him! His life
isn’t such a bed of roses. Waiting outside pubs to bring da home. Come
home to ma, da. Slack hour: won’t be many there. He crossed Townsend
street, passed the frowning face of Bethel. El, yes: house of: Aleph,
Beth. And past Nichols’ the undertaker. At eleven it is. Time enough.
Daresay Corny Kelleher bagged the job for O’Neill’s. Singing with his
eyes shut. Corny. Met her once in the park. In the dark. What a lark.
Police tout. Her name and address she then told with my tooraloom
tooraloom tay. O, surely he bagged it. Bury him cheap in a
whatyoumaycall. With my tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom.

In Westland row he halted before the window of the Belfast and Oriental
Tea Company and read the legends of leadpapered packets: choice blend,
finest quality, family tea. Rather warm. Tea. Must get some from Tom
Kernan. Couldn’t ask him at a funeral, though. While his eyes still
read blandly he took off his hat quietly inhaling his hairoil and sent
his right hand with slow grace over his brow and hair. Very warm
morning. Under their dropped lids his eyes found the tiny bow of the
leather headband inside his high grade ha. Just there. His right hand
came down into the bowl of his hat. His fingers found quickly a card
behind the headband and transferred it to his waistcoat pocket.

So warm. His right hand once more more slowly went over his brow and
hair. Then he put on his hat again, relieved: and read again: choice
blend, made of the finest Ceylon brands. The far east. Lovely spot it
must be: the garden of the world, big lazy leaves to float about on,
cactuses, flowery meads, snaky lianas they call them. Wonder is it like
that. Those Cinghalese lobbing about in the sun in _dolce far niente_,
not doing a hand’s turn all day. Sleep six months out of twelve. Too
hot to quarrel. Influence of the climate. Lethargy. Flowers of
idleness. The air feeds most. Azotes. Hothouse in Botanic gardens.
Sensitive plants. Waterlilies. Petals too tired to. Sleeping sickness
in the air. Walk on roseleaves. Imagine trying to eat tripe and
cowheel. Where was the chap I saw in that picture somewhere? Ah yes, in
the dead sea floating on his back, reading a book with a parasol open.
Couldn’t sink if you tried: so thick with salt. Because the weight of
the water, no, the weight of the body in the water is equal to the
weight of the what? Or is it the volume is equal to the weight? It’s a
law something like that. Vance in High school cracking his
fingerjoints, teaching. The college curriculum. Cracking curriculum.
What is weight really when you say the weight? Thirtytwo feet per
second per second. Law of falling bodies: per second per second. They
all fall to the ground. The earth. It’s the force of gravity of the
earth is the weight.

He turned away and sauntered across the road. How did she walk with her
sausages? Like that something. As he walked he took the folded
_Freeman_ from his sidepocket, unfolded it, rolled it lengthwise in a
baton and tapped it at each sauntering step against his trouserleg.
Careless air: just drop in to see. Per second per second. Per second
for every second it means. From the curbstone he darted a keen glance
through the door of the postoffice. Too late box. Post here. No-one.
In.

He handed the card through the brass grill.

—Are there any letters for me? he asked.

While the postmistress searched a pigeonhole he gazed at the recruiting
poster with soldiers of all arms on parade: and held the tip of his
baton against his nostrils, smelling freshprinted rag paper. No answer
probably. Went too far last time.

The postmistress handed him back through the grill his card with a
letter. He thanked her and glanced rapidly at the typed envelope.

Henry Flower Esq,
c/o P. O. Westland Row,
            City.


Answered anyhow. He slipped card and letter into his sidepocket,
reviewing again the soldiers on parade. Where’s old Tweedy’s regiment?
Castoff soldier. There: bearskin cap and hackle plume. No, he’s a
grenadier. Pointed cuffs. There he is: royal Dublin fusiliers.
Redcoats. Too showy. That must be why the women go after them. Uniform.
Easier to enlist and drill. Maud Gonne’s letter about taking them off
O’Connell street at night: disgrace to our Irish capital. Griffith’s
paper is on the same tack now: an army rotten with venereal disease:
overseas or halfseasover empire. Half baked they look: hypnotised like.
Eyes front. Mark time. Table: able. Bed: ed. The King’s own. Never see
him dressed up as a fireman or a bobby. A mason, yes.

He strolled out of the postoffice and turned to the right. Talk: as if
that would mend matters. His hand went into his pocket and a forefinger
felt its way under the flap of the envelope, ripping it open in jerks.
Women will pay a lot of heed, I don’t think. His fingers drew forth the
letter the letter and crumpled the envelope in his pocket. Something
pinned on: photo perhaps. Hair? No.

M’Coy. Get rid of him quickly. Take me out of my way. Hate company when
you.

—Hello, Bloom. Where are you off to?

—Hello, M’Coy. Nowhere in particular.

—How’s the body?

—Fine. How are you?

—Just keeping alive, M’Coy said.

His eyes on the black tie and clothes he asked with low respect:

—Is there any... no trouble I hope? I see you’re...

—O, no, Mr Bloom said. Poor Dignam, you know. The funeral is today.

—To be sure, poor fellow. So it is. What time?

A photo it isn’t. A badge maybe.

—E...eleven, Mr Bloom answered.

—I must try to get out there, M’Coy said. Eleven, is it? I only heard
it last night. Who was telling me? Holohan. You know Hoppy?

—I know.

Mr Bloom gazed across the road at the outsider drawn up before the door
of the Grosvenor. The porter hoisted the valise up on the well. She
stood still, waiting, while the man, husband, brother, like her,
searched his pockets for change. Stylish kind of coat with that roll
collar, warm for a day like this, looks like blanketcloth. Careless
stand of her with her hands in those patch pockets. Like that haughty
creature at the polo match. Women all for caste till you touch the
spot. Handsome is and handsome does. Reserved about to yield. The
honourable Mrs and Brutus is an honourable man. Possess her once take
the starch out of her.

—I was with Bob Doran, he’s on one of his periodical bends, and what do
you call him Bantam Lyons. Just down there in Conway’s we were.

Doran Lyons in Conway’s. She raised a gloved hand to her hair. In came
Hoppy. Having a wet. Drawing back his head and gazing far from beneath
his vailed eyelids he saw the bright fawn skin shine in the glare, the
braided drums. Clearly I can see today. Moisture about gives long sight
perhaps. Talking of one thing or another. Lady’s hand. Which side will
she get up?

—And he said: _Sad thing about our poor friend Paddy! What Paddy?_ I
said. _Poor little Paddy Dignam_, he said.

Off to the country: Broadstone probably. High brown boots with laces
dangling. Wellturned foot. What is he foostering over that change for?
Sees me looking. Eye out for other fellow always. Good fallback. Two
strings to her bow.

—_Why?_ I said. _What’s wrong with him?_ I said.

Proud: rich: silk stockings.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said.

He moved a little to the side of M’Coy’s talking head. Getting up in a
minute.

—_What’s wrong with him_? He said. _He’s dead_, he said. And, faith, he
filled up. _Is it Paddy Dignam_? I said. I couldn’t believe it when I
heard it. I was with him no later than Friday last or Thursday was it
in the Arch. _Yes,_ he said. _He’s gone. He died on Monday, poor
fellow_.

Watch! Watch! Silk flash rich stockings white. Watch!

A heavy tramcar honking its gong slewed between.

Lost it. Curse your noisy pugnose. Feels locked out of it. Paradise and
the peri. Always happening like that. The very moment. Girl in Eustace
street hallway Monday was it settling her garter. Her friend covering
the display of. _Esprit de corps_. Well, what are you gaping at?

—Yes, yes, Mr Bloom said after a dull sigh. Another gone.

—One of the best, M’Coy said.

The tram passed. They drove off towards the Loop Line bridge, her rich
gloved hand on the steel grip. Flicker, flicker: the laceflare of her
hat in the sun: flicker, flick.

—Wife well, I suppose? M’Coy’s changed voice said.

—O, yes, Mr Bloom said. Tiptop, thanks.

He unrolled the newspaper baton idly and read idly:

     What is home without
     Plumtree’s Potted Meat?
     Incomplete.
     With it an abode of bliss.

—My missus has just got an engagement. At least it’s not settled yet.

Valise tack again. By the way no harm. I’m off that, thanks.

Mr Bloom turned his largelidded eyes with unhasty friendliness.

—My wife too, he said. She’s going to sing at a swagger affair in the
Ulster Hall, Belfast, on the twentyfifth.

—That so? M’Coy said. Glad to hear that, old man. Who’s getting it up?

Mrs Marion Bloom. Not up yet. Queen was in her bedroom eating bread
and. No book. Blackened court cards laid along her thigh by sevens.
Dark lady and fair man. Letter. Cat furry black ball. Torn strip of
envelope.

     Love’s
     Old
     Sweet
     Song
     Comes lo-ove’s old...

—It’s a kind of a tour, don’t you see, Mr Bloom said thoughtfully.
_Sweeeet song_. There’s a committee formed. Part shares and part
profits.

M’Coy nodded, picking at his moustache stubble.

—O, well, he said. That’s good news.

He moved to go.

—Well, glad to see you looking fit, he said. Meet you knocking around.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said.

—Tell you what, M’Coy said. You might put down my name at the funeral,
will you? I’d like to go but I mightn’t be able, you see. There’s a
drowning case at Sandycove may turn up and then the coroner and myself
would have to go down if the body is found. You just shove in my name
if I’m not there, will you?

—I’ll do that, Mr Bloom said, moving to get off. That’ll be all right.

—Right, M’Coy said brightly. Thanks, old man. I’d go if I possibly
could. Well, tolloll. Just C. P. M’Coy will do.

—That will be done, Mr Bloom answered firmly.

Didn’t catch me napping that wheeze. The quick touch. Soft mark. I’d
like my job. Valise I have a particular fancy for. Leather. Capped
corners, rivetted edges, double action lever lock. Bob Cowley lent him
his for the Wicklow regatta concert last year and never heard tidings
of it from that good day to this.

Mr Bloom, strolling towards Brunswick street, smiled. My missus has
just got an. Reedy freckled soprano. Cheeseparing nose. Nice enough in
its way: for a little ballad. No guts in it. You and me, don’t you
know: in the same boat. Softsoaping. Give you the needle that would.
Can’t he hear the difference? Think he’s that way inclined a bit.
Against my grain somehow. Thought that Belfast would fetch him. I hope
that smallpox up there doesn’t get worse. Suppose she wouldn’t let
herself be vaccinated again. Your wife and my wife.

Wonder is he pimping after me?

Mr Bloom stood at the corner, his eyes wandering over the multicoloured
hoardings. Cantrell and Cochrane’s Ginger Ale (Aromatic). Clery’s
Summer Sale. No, he’s going on straight. Hello. _Leah_ tonight. Mrs
Bandmann Palmer. Like to see her again in that. _Hamlet_ she played
last night. Male impersonator. Perhaps he was a woman. Why Ophelia
committed suicide. Poor papa! How he used to talk of Kate Bateman in
that. Outside the Adelphi in London waited all the afternoon to get in.
Year before I was born that was: sixtyfive. And Ristori in Vienna. What
is this the right name is? By Mosenthal it is. Rachel, is it? No. The
scene he was always talking about where the old blind Abraham
recognises the voice and puts his fingers on his face.

Nathan’s voice! His son’s voice! I hear the voice of Nathan who left
his father to die of grief and misery in my arms, who left the house of
his father and left the God of his father.

Every word is so deep, Leopold.

Poor papa! Poor man! I’m glad I didn’t go into the room to look at his
face. That day! O, dear! O, dear! Ffoo! Well, perhaps it was best for
him.

Mr Bloom went round the corner and passed the drooping nags of the
hazard. No use thinking of it any more. Nosebag time. Wish I hadn’t met
that M’Coy fellow.

He came nearer and heard a crunching of gilded oats, the gently
champing teeth. Their full buck eyes regarded him as he went by, amid
the sweet oaten reek of horsepiss. Their Eldorado. Poor jugginses! Damn
all they know or care about anything with their long noses stuck in
nosebags. Too full for words. Still they get their feed all right and
their doss. Gelded too: a stump of black guttapercha wagging limp
between their haunches. Might be happy all the same that way. Good poor
brutes they look. Still their neigh can be very irritating.

He drew the letter from his pocket and folded it into the newspaper he
carried. Might just walk into her here. The lane is safer.

He passed the cabman’s shelter. Curious the life of drifting cabbies.
All weathers, all places, time or setdown, no will of their own.
_Voglio e non_. Like to give them an odd cigarette. Sociable. Shout a
few flying syllables as they pass. He hummed:

     Là ci darem la mano
     La la lala la la.


He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted in
the lee of the station wall. No-one. Meade’s timberyard. Piled balks.
Ruins and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch
court with its forgotten pickeystone. Not a sinner. Near the timberyard
a squatted child at marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb.
A wise tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to
disturb them. Mohammed cut a piece out of his mantle not to wake her.
Open it. And once I played marbles when I went to that old dame’s
school. She liked mignonette. Mrs Ellis’s. And Mr? He opened the letter
within the newspaper.

A flower. I think it’s a. A yellow flower with flattened petals. Not
annoyed then? What does she say?


Dear Henry

I got your last letter to me and thank you very much for it. I am sorry
you did not like my last letter. Why did you enclose the stamps? I am
awfully angry with you. I do wish I could punish you for that. I called
you naughty boy because I do not like that other world. Please tell me
what is the real meaning of that word? Are you not happy in your home
you poor little naughty boy? I do wish I could do something for you.
Please tell me what you think of poor me. I often think of the
beautiful name you have. Dear Henry, when will we meet? I think of you
so often you have no idea. I have never felt myself so much drawn to a
man as you. I feel so bad about. Please write me a long letter and tell
me more. Remember if you do not I will punish you. So now you know what
I will do to you, you naughty boy, if you do not wrote. O how I long to
meet you. Henry dear, do not deny my request before my patience are
exhausted. Then I will tell you all. Goodbye now, naughty darling, I
have such a bad headache. today. and write _by return_ to your longing

Martha


P. S. Do tell me what kind of perfume does your wife use. I want to
know.


He tore the flower gravely from its pinhold smelt its almost no smell
and placed it in his heart pocket. Language of flowers. They like it
because no-one can hear. Or a poison bouquet to strike him down. Then
walking slowly forward he read the letter again, murmuring here and
there a word. Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish your
cactus if you don’t please poor forgetmenot how I long violets to dear
roses when we soon anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha’s
perfume. Having read it all he took it from the newspaper and put it
back in his sidepocket.

Weak joy opened his lips. Changed since the first letter. Wonder did
she wrote it herself. Doing the indignant: a girl of good family like
me, respectable character. Could meet one Sunday after the rosary.
Thank you: not having any. Usual love scrimmage. Then running round
corners. Bad as a row with Molly. Cigar has a cooling effect. Narcotic.
Go further next time. Naughty boy: punish: afraid of words, of course.
Brutal, why not? Try it anyhow. A bit at a time.

Fingering still the letter in his pocket he drew the pin out of it.
Common pin, eh? He threw it on the road. Out of her clothes somewhere:
pinned together. Queer the number of pins they always have. No roses
without thorns.

Flat Dublin voices bawled in his head. Those two sluts that night in
the Coombe, linked together in the rain.

     O, Mairy lost the pin of her drawers.
     She didn’t know what to do
     To keep it up,
     To keep it up.

It? Them. Such a bad headache. Has her roses probably. Or sitting all
day typing. Eyefocus bad for stomach nerves. What perfume does your
wife use. Now could you make out a thing like that?

     To keep it up.

Martha, Mary. I saw that picture somewhere I forget now old master or
faked for money. He is sitting in their house, talking. Mysterious.
Also the two sluts in the Coombe would listen.

     To keep it up.

Nice kind of evening feeling. No more wandering about. Just loll there:
quiet dusk: let everything rip. Forget. Tell about places you have
been, strange customs. The other one, jar on her head, was getting the
supper: fruit, olives, lovely cool water out of a well, stonecold like
the hole in the wall at Ashtown. Must carry a paper goblet next time I
go to the trottingmatches. She listens with big dark soft eyes. Tell
her: more and more: all. Then a sigh: silence. Long long long rest.

Going under the railway arch he took out the envelope, tore it swiftly
in shreds and scattered them towards the road. The shreds fluttered
away, sank in the dank air: a white flutter, then all sank.

Henry Flower. You could tear up a cheque for a hundred pounds in the
same way. Simple bit of paper. Lord Iveagh once cashed a sevenfigure
cheque for a million in the bank of Ireland. Shows you the money to be
made out of porter. Still the other brother lord Ardilaun has to change
his shirt four times a day, they say. Skin breeds lice or vermin. A
million pounds, wait a moment. Twopence a pint, fourpence a quart,
eightpence a gallon of porter, no, one and fourpence a gallon of
porter. One and four into twenty: fifteen about. Yes, exactly. Fifteen
millions of barrels of porter.

What am I saying barrels? Gallons. About a million barrels all the
same.

An incoming train clanked heavily above his head, coach after coach.
Barrels bumped in his head: dull porter slopped and churned inside. The
bungholes sprang open and a huge dull flood leaked out, flowing
together, winding through mudflats all over the level land, a lazy
pooling swirl of liquor bearing along wideleaved flowers of its froth.

He had reached the open backdoor of All Hallows. Stepping into the
porch he doffed his hat, took the card from his pocket and tucked it
again behind the leather headband. Damn it. I might have tried to work
M’Coy for a pass to Mullingar.

Same notice on the door. Sermon by the very reverend John Conmee S. J.
on saint Peter Claver S. J. and the African Mission. Prayers for the
conversion of Gladstone they had too when he was almost unconscious.
The protestants are the same. Convert Dr William J. Walsh D.D. to the
true religion. Save China’s millions. Wonder how they explain it to the
heathen Chinee. Prefer an ounce of opium. Celestials. Rank heresy for
them. Buddha their god lying on his side in the museum. Taking it easy
with hand under his cheek. Josssticks burning. Not like Ecce Homo.
Crown of thorns and cross. Clever idea Saint Patrick the shamrock.
Chopsticks? Conmee: Martin Cunningham knows him: distinguishedlooking.
Sorry I didn’t work him about getting Molly into the choir instead of
that Father Farley who looked a fool but wasn’t. They’re taught that.
He’s not going out in bluey specs with the sweat rolling off him to
baptise blacks, is he? The glasses would take their fancy, flashing.
Like to see them sitting round in a ring with blub lips, entranced,
listening. Still life. Lap it up like milk, I suppose.

The cold smell of sacred stone called him. He trod the worn steps,
pushed the swingdoor and entered softly by the rere.

Something going on: some sodality. Pity so empty. Nice discreet place
to be next some girl. Who is my neighbour? Jammed by the hour to slow
music. That woman at midnight mass. Seventh heaven. Women knelt in the
benches with crimson halters round their necks, heads bowed. A batch
knelt at the altarrails. The priest went along by them, murmuring,
holding the thing in his hands. He stopped at each, took out a
communion, shook a drop or two (are they in water?) off it and put it
neatly into her mouth. Her hat and head sank. Then the next one. Her
hat sank at once. Then the next one: a small old woman. The priest bent
down to put it into her mouth, murmuring all the time. Latin. The next
one. Shut your eyes and open your mouth. What? _Corpus:_ body. Corpse.
Good idea the Latin. Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying. They
don’t seem to chew it: only swallow it down. Rum idea: eating bits of a
corpse. Why the cannibals cotton to it.

He stood aside watching their blind masks pass down the aisle, one by
one, and seek their places. He approached a bench and seated himself in
its corner, nursing his hat and newspaper. These pots we have to wear.
We ought to have hats modelled on our heads. They were about him here
and there, with heads still bowed in their crimson halters, waiting for
it to melt in their stomachs. Something like those mazzoth: it’s that
sort of bread: unleavened shewbread. Look at them. Now I bet it makes
them feel happy. Lollipop. It does. Yes, bread of angels it’s called.
There’s a big idea behind it, kind of kingdom of God is within you
feel. First communicants. Hokypoky penny a lump. Then feel all like one
family party, same in the theatre, all in the same swim. They do. I’m
sure of that. Not so lonely. In our confraternity. Then come out a bit
spreeish. Let off steam. Thing is if you really believe in it. Lourdes
cure, waters of oblivion, and the Knock apparition, statues bleeding.
Old fellow asleep near that confessionbox. Hence those snores. Blind
faith. Safe in the arms of kingdom come. Lulls all pain. Wake this time
next year.

He saw the priest stow the communion cup away, well in, and kneel an
instant before it, showing a large grey bootsole from under the lace
affair he had on. Suppose he lost the pin of his. He wouldn’t know what
to do to. Bald spot behind. Letters on his back: I.N.R.I? No: I.H.S.
Molly told me one time I asked her. I have sinned: or no: I have
suffered, it is. And the other one? Iron nails ran in.

Meet one Sunday after the rosary. Do not deny my request. Turn up with
a veil and black bag. Dusk and the light behind her. She might be here
with a ribbon round her neck and do the other thing all the same on the
sly. Their character. That fellow that turned queen’s evidence on the
invincibles he used to receive the, Carey was his name, the communion
every morning. This very church. Peter Carey, yes. No, Peter Claver I
am thinking of. Denis Carey. And just imagine that. Wife and six
children at home. And plotting that murder all the time. Those
crawthumpers, now that’s a good name for them, there’s always something
shiftylooking about them. They’re not straight men of business either.
O, no, she’s not here: the flower: no, no. By the way, did I tear up
that envelope? Yes: under the bridge.

The priest was rinsing out the chalice: then he tossed off the dregs
smartly. Wine. Makes it more aristocratic than for example if he drank
what they are used to Guinness’s porter or some temperance beverage
Wheatley’s Dublin hop bitters or Cantrell and Cochrane’s ginger ale
(aromatic). Doesn’t give them any of it: shew wine: only the other.
Cold comfort. Pious fraud but quite right: otherwise they’d have one
old booser worse than another coming along, cadging for a drink. Queer
the whole atmosphere of the. Quite right. Perfectly right that is.

Mr Bloom looked back towards the choir. Not going to be any music.
Pity. Who has the organ here I wonder? Old Glynn he knew how to make
that instrument talk, the _vibrato_: fifty pounds a year they say he
had in Gardiner street. Molly was in fine voice that day, the _Stabat
Mater_ of Rossini. Father Bernard Vaughan’s sermon first. Christ or
Pilate? Christ, but don’t keep us all night over it. Music they wanted.
Footdrill stopped. Could hear a pin drop. I told her to pitch her voice
against that corner. I could feel the thrill in the air, the full, the
people looking up:

_Quis est homo._

Some of that old sacred music splendid. Mercadante: seven last words.
Mozart’s twelfth mass: _Gloria_ in that. Those old popes keen on music,
on art and statues and pictures of all kinds. Palestrina for example
too. They had a gay old time while it lasted. Healthy too, chanting,
regular hours, then brew liqueurs. Benedictine. Green Chartreuse.
Still, having eunuchs in their choir that was coming it a bit thick.
What kind of voice is it? Must be curious to hear after their own
strong basses. Connoisseurs. Suppose they wouldn’t feel anything after.
Kind of a placid. No worry. Fall into flesh, don’t they? Gluttons,
tall, long legs. Who knows? Eunuch. One way out of it.

He saw the priest bend down and kiss the altar and then face about and
bless all the people. All crossed themselves and stood up. Mr Bloom
glanced about him and then stood up, looking over the risen hats. Stand
up at the gospel of course. Then all settled down on their knees again
and he sat back quietly in his bench. The priest came down from the
altar, holding the thing out from him, and he and the massboy answered
each other in Latin. Then the priest knelt down and began to read off a
card:

—O God, our refuge and our strength...

Mr Bloom put his face forward to catch the words. English. Throw them
the bone. I remember slightly. How long since your last mass? Glorious
and immaculate virgin. Joseph, her spouse. Peter and Paul. More
interesting if you understood what it was all about. Wonderful
organisation certainly, goes like clockwork. Confession. Everyone wants
to. Then I will tell you all. Penance. Punish me, please. Great weapon
in their hands. More than doctor or solicitor. Woman dying to. And I
schschschschschsch. And did you chachachachacha? And why did you? Look
down at her ring to find an excuse. Whispering gallery walls have ears.
Husband learn to his surprise. God’s little joke. Then out she comes.
Repentance skindeep. Lovely shame. Pray at an altar. Hail Mary and Holy
Mary. Flowers, incense, candles melting. Hide her blushes. Salvation
army blatant imitation. Reformed prostitute will address the meeting.
How I found the Lord. Squareheaded chaps those must be in Rome: they
work the whole show. And don’t they rake in the money too? Bequests
also: to the P.P. for the time being in his absolute discretion. Masses
for the repose of my soul to be said publicly with open doors.
Monasteries and convents. The priest in that Fermanagh will case in the
witnessbox. No browbeating him. He had his answer pat for everything.
Liberty and exaltation of our holy mother the church. The doctors of
the church: they mapped out the whole theology of it.

The priest prayed:

—Blessed Michael, archangel, defend us in the hour of conflict. Be our
safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil (may God
restrain him, we humbly pray!): and do thou, O prince of the heavenly
host, by the power of God thrust Satan down to hell and with him those
other wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of
souls.

The priest and the massboy stood up and walked off. All over. The women
remained behind: thanksgiving.

Better be shoving along. Brother Buzz. Come around with the plate
perhaps. Pay your Easter duty.

He stood up. Hello. Were those two buttons of my waistcoat open all the
time? Women enjoy it. Never tell you. But we. Excuse, miss, there’s a
(whh!) just a (whh!) fluff. Or their skirt behind, placket unhooked.
Glimpses of the moon. Annoyed if you don’t. Why didn’t you tell me
before. Still like you better untidy. Good job it wasn’t farther south.
He passed, discreetly buttoning, down the aisle and out through the
main door into the light. He stood a moment unseeing by the cold black
marble bowl while before him and behind two worshippers dipped furtive
hands in the low tide of holy water. Trams: a car of Prescott’s
dyeworks: a widow in her weeds. Notice because I’m in mourning myself.
He covered himself. How goes the time? Quarter past. Time enough yet.
Better get that lotion made up. Where is this? Ah yes, the last time.
Sweny’s in Lincoln place. Chemists rarely move. Their green and gold
beaconjars too heavy to stir. Hamilton Long’s, founded in the year of
the flood. Huguenot churchyard near there. Visit some day.

He walked southward along Westland row. But the recipe is in the other
trousers. O, and I forgot that latchkey too. Bore this funeral affair.
O well, poor fellow, it’s not his fault. When was it I got it made up
last? Wait. I changed a sovereign I remember. First of the month it
must have been or the second. O, he can look it up in the prescriptions
book.

The chemist turned back page after page. Sandy shrivelled smell he
seems to have. Shrunken skull. And old. Quest for the philosopher’s
stone. The alchemists. Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy
then. Why? Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your
character. Living all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants.
All his alabaster lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te
Virid. Smell almost cure you like the dentist’s doorbell. Doctor Whack.
He ought to physic himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion. The first
fellow that picked an herb to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples.
Want to be careful. Enough stuff here to chloroform you. Test: turns
blue litmus paper red. Chloroform. Overdose of laudanum. Sleeping
draughts. Lovephiltres. Paragoric poppysyrup bad for cough. Clogs the
pores or the phlegm. Poisons the only cures. Remedy where you least
expect it. Clever of nature.

—About a fortnight ago, sir?

—Yes, Mr Bloom said.

He waited by the counter, inhaling slowly the keen reek of drugs, the
dusty dry smell of sponges and loofahs. Lot of time taken up telling
your aches and pains.

—Sweet almond oil and tincture of benzoin, Mr Bloom said, and then
orangeflower water...

It certainly did make her skin so delicate white like wax.

—And white wax also, he said.

Brings out the darkness of her eyes. Looking at me, the sheet up to her
eyes, Spanish, smelling herself, when I was fixing the links in my
cuffs. Those homely recipes are often the best: strawberries for the
teeth: nettles and rainwater: oatmeal they say steeped in buttermilk.
Skinfood. One of the old queen’s sons, duke of Albany was it? had only
one skin. Leopold, yes. Three we have. Warts, bunions and pimples to
make it worse. But you want a perfume too. What perfume does your?
_Peau d’Espagne_. That orangeflower water is so fresh. Nice smell these
soaps have. Pure curd soap. Time to get a bath round the corner.
Hammam. Turkish. Massage. Dirt gets rolled up in your navel. Nicer if a
nice girl did it. Also I think I. Yes I. Do it in the bath. Curious
longing I. Water to water. Combine business with pleasure. Pity no time
for massage. Feel fresh then all the day. Funeral be rather glum.

—Yes, sir, the chemist said. That was two and nine. Have you brought a
bottle?

—No, Mr Bloom said. Make it up, please. I’ll call later in the day and
I’ll take one of these soaps. How much are they?

—Fourpence, sir.

Mr Bloom raised a cake to his nostrils. Sweet lemony wax.

—I’ll take this one, he said. That makes three and a penny.

—Yes, sir, the chemist said. You can pay all together, sir, when you
come back.

—Good, Mr Bloom said.

He strolled out of the shop, the newspaper baton under his armpit, the
coolwrappered soap in his left hand.

At his armpit Bantam Lyons’ voice and hand said:

—Hello, Bloom. What’s the best news? Is that today’s? Show us a minute.

Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove! Long cold upper lip. To look
younger. He does look balmy. Younger than I am.

Bantam Lyons’s yellow blacknailed fingers unrolled the baton. Wants a
wash too. Take off the rough dirt. Good morning, have you used Pears’
soap? Dandruff on his shoulders. Scalp wants oiling.

—I want to see about that French horse that’s running today, Bantam
Lyons said. Where the bugger is it?

He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his high collar.
Barber’s itch. Tight collar he’ll lose his hair. Better leave him the
paper and get shut of him.

—You can keep it, Mr Bloom said.

—Ascot. Gold cup. Wait, Bantam Lyons muttered. Half a mo. Maximum the
second.

—I was just going to throw it away, Mr Bloom said.

Bantam Lyons raised his eyes suddenly and leered weakly.

—What’s that? his sharp voice said.

—I say you can keep it, Mr Bloom answered. I was going to throw it away
that moment.

Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering: then thrust the outspread
sheets back on Mr Bloom’s arms.

—I’ll risk it, he said. Here, thanks.

He sped off towards Conway’s corner. God speed scut.

Mr Bloom folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soap
in it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of it
lately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for large
tender turkey. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Fleming
embezzling to gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now.
They never come back. Fleshpots of Egypt.

He walked cheerfully towards the mosque of the baths. Remind you of a
mosque, redbaked bricks, the minarets. College sports today I see. He
eyed the horseshoe poster over the gate of college park: cyclist
doubled up like a cod in a pot. Damn bad ad. Now if they had made it
round like a wheel. Then the spokes: sports, sports, sports: and the
hub big: college. Something to catch the eye.

There’s Hornblower standing at the porter’s lodge. Keep him on hands:
might take a turn in there on the nod. How do you do, Mr Hornblower?
How do you do, sir?

Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket weather.
Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can’t play it
here. Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Culler broke a window in the
Kildare street club with a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more in
their line. And the skulls we were acracking when M’Carthy took the
floor. Heatwave. Won’t last. Always passing, the stream of life, which
in the stream of life we trace is dearer than them all.

Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid
stream. This is my body.

He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of
warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his trunk
and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward,
lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of
his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father
of thousands, a languid floating flower.


[ 6 ]

Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the creaking
carriage and, entering deftly, seated himself. Mr Power stepped in
after him, curving his height with care.

—Come on, Simon.

—After you, Mr Bloom said.

Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, saying:

—Yes, yes.

—Are we all here now? Martin Cunningham asked. Come along, Bloom.

Mr Bloom entered and sat in the vacant place. He pulled the door to
after him and slammed it twice till it shut tight. He passed an arm
through the armstrap and looked seriously from the open carriagewindow
at the lowered blinds of the avenue. One dragged aside: an old woman
peeping. Nose whiteflattened against the pane. Thanking her stars she
was passed over. Extraordinary the interest they take in a corpse. Glad
to see us go we give them such trouble coming. Job seems to suit them.
Huggermugger in corners. Slop about in slipperslappers for fear he’d
wake. Then getting it ready. Laying it out. Molly and Mrs Fleming
making the bed. Pull it more to your side. Our windingsheet. Never know
who will touch you dead. Wash and shampoo. I believe they clip the
nails and the hair. Keep a bit in an envelope. Grows all the same
after. Unclean job.

All waited. Nothing was said. Stowing in the wreaths probably. I am
sitting on something hard. Ah, that soap: in my hip pocket. Better
shift it out of that. Wait for an opportunity.

All waited. Then wheels were heard from in front, turning: then nearer:
then horses’ hoofs. A jolt. Their carriage began to move, creaking and
swaying. Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of
the avenue passed and number nine with its craped knocker, door ajar.
At walking pace.

They waited still, their knees jogging, till they had turned and were
passing along the tramtracks. Tritonville road. Quicker. The wheels
rattled rolling over the cobbled causeway and the crazy glasses shook
rattling in the doorframes.

—What way is he taking us? Mr Power asked through both windows.

—Irishtown, Martin Cunningham said. Ringsend. Brunswick street.

Mr Dedalus nodded, looking out.

—That’s a fine old custom, he said. I am glad to see it has not died
out.

All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted by
passers. Respect. The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to the
smoother road past Watery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man,
clad in mourning, a wide hat.

—There’s a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said.

—Who is that?

—Your son and heir.

—Where is he? Mr Dedalus said, stretching over across.

The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway
before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerving back
to the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr Dedalus
fell back, saying:

—Was that Mulligan cad with him? His _fidus Achates_!

—No, Mr Bloom said. He was alone.

—Down with his aunt Sally, I suppose, Mr Dedalus said, the Goulding
faction, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa’s little lump
of dung, the wise child that knows her own father.

Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace Bros: the
bottleworks: Dodder bridge.

Richie Goulding and the legal bag. Goulding, Collis and Ward he calls
the firm. His jokes are getting a bit damp. Great card he was. Waltzing
in Stamer street with Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the
landlady’s two hats pinned on his head. Out on the rampage all night.
Beginning to tell on him now: that backache of his, I fear. Wife
ironing his back. Thinks he’ll cure it with pills. All breadcrumbs they
are. About six hundred per cent profit.

—He’s in with a lowdown crowd, Mr Dedalus snarled. That Mulligan is a
contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks
all over Dublin. But with the help of God and His blessed mother I’ll
make it my business to write a letter one of those days to his mother
or his aunt or whatever she is that will open her eye as wide as a
gate. I’ll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me.

He cried above the clatter of the wheels:

—I won’t have her bastard of a nephew ruin my son. A counterjumper’s
son. Selling tapes in my cousin, Peter Paul M’Swiney’s. Not likely.

He ceased. Mr Bloom glanced from his angry moustache to Mr Power’s mild
face and Martin Cunningham’s eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Noisy
selfwilled man. Full of his son. He is right. Something to hand on. If
little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house.
Walking beside Molly in an Eton suit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strange
feeling it would be. From me. Just a chance. Must have been that
morning in Raymond terrace she was at the window watching the two dogs
at it by the wall of the cease to do evil. And the sergeant grinning
up. She had that cream gown on with the rip she never stitched. Give us
a touch, Poldy. God, I’m dying for it. How life begins.

Got big then. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. My son inside her.
I could have helped him on in life. I could. Make him independent.
Learn German too.

—Are we late? Mr Power asked.

—Ten minutes, Martin Cunningham said, looking at his watch.

Molly. Milly. Same thing watered down. Her tomboy oaths. O jumping
Jupiter! Ye gods and little fishes! Still, she’s a dear girl. Soon be a
woman. Mullingar. Dearest Papli. Young student. Yes, yes: a woman too.
Life, life.

The carriage heeled over and back, their four trunks swaying.

—Corny might have given us a more commodious yoke, Mr Power said.

—He might, Mr Dedalus said, if he hadn’t that squint troubling him. Do
you follow me?

He closed his left eye. Martin Cunningham began to brush away
crustcrumbs from under his thighs.

—What is this, he said, in the name of God? Crumbs?

—Someone seems to have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Power
said.

All raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless
leather of the seats. Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose, frowned downward
and said:

—Unless I’m greatly mistaken. What do you think, Martin?

—It struck me too, Martin Cunningham said.

Mr Bloom set his thigh down. Glad I took that bath. Feel my feet quite
clean. But I wish Mrs Fleming had darned these socks better.

Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly.

—After all, he said, it’s the most natural thing in the world.

—Did Tom Kernan turn up? Martin Cunningham asked, twirling the peak of
his beard gently.

—Yes, Mr Bloom answered. He’s behind with Ned Lambert and Hynes.

—And Corny Kelleher himself? Mr Power asked.

—At the cemetery, Martin Cunningham said.

—I met M’Coy this morning, Mr Bloom said. He said he’d try to come.

The carriage halted short.

—What’s wrong?

—We’re stopped.

—Where are we?

Mr Bloom put his head out of the window.

—The grand canal, he said.

Gasworks. Whooping cough they say it cures. Good job Milly never got
it. Poor children! Doubles them up black and blue in convulsions. Shame
really. Got off lightly with illnesses compared. Only measles. Flaxseed
tea. Scarlatina, influenza epidemics. Canvassing for death. Don’t miss
this chance. Dogs’ home over there. Poor old Athos! Be good to Athos,
Leopold, is my last wish. Thy will be done. We obey them in the grave.
A dying scrawl. He took it to heart, pined away. Quiet brute. Old men’s
dogs usually are.

A raindrop spat on his hat. He drew back and saw an instant of shower
spray dots over the grey flags. Apart. Curious. Like through a
colander. I thought it would. My boots were creaking I remember now.

—The weather is changing, he said quietly.

—A pity it did not keep up fine, Martin Cunningham said.

—Wanted for the country, Mr Power said. There’s the sun again coming
out.

Mr Dedalus, peering through his glasses towards the veiled sun, hurled
a mute curse at the sky.

—It’s as uncertain as a child’s bottom, he said.

—We’re off again.

The carriage turned again its stiff wheels and their trunks swayed
gently. Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his beard.

—Tom Kernan was immense last night, he said. And Paddy Leonard taking
him off to his face.

—O, draw him out, Martin, Mr Power said eagerly. Wait till you hear
him, Simon, on Ben Dollard’s singing of _The Croppy Boy_.

—Immense, Martin Cunningham said pompously. _His singing of that simple
ballad, Martin, is the most trenchant rendering I ever heard in the
whole course of my experience._

—Trenchant, Mr Power said laughing. He’s dead nuts on that. And the
retrospective arrangement.

—Did you read Dan Dawson’s speech? Martin Cunningham asked.

—I did not then, Mr Dedalus said. Where is it?

—In the paper this morning.

Mr Bloom took the paper from his inside pocket. That book I must change
for her.

—No, no, Mr Dedalus said quickly. Later on please.

Mr Bloom’s glance travelled down the edge of the paper, scanning the
deaths: Callan, Coleman, Dignam, Fawcett, Lowry, Naumann, Peake, what
Peake is that? is it the chap was in Crosbie and Alleyne’s? no, Sexton,
Urbright. Inked characters fast fading on the frayed breaking paper.
Thanks to the Little Flower. Sadly missed. To the inexpressible grief
of his. Aged 88 after a long and tedious illness. Month’s mind:
Quinlan. On whose soul Sweet Jesus have mercy.

     It is now a month since dear Henry fled
     To his home up above in the sky
     While his family weeps and mourns his loss
     Hoping some day to meet him on high.

I tore up the envelope? Yes. Where did I put her letter after I read it
in the bath? He patted his waistcoatpocket. There all right. Dear Henry
fled. Before my patience are exhausted.

National school. Meade’s yard. The hazard. Only two there now. Nodding.
Full as a tick. Too much bone in their skulls. The other trotting round
with a fare. An hour ago I was passing there. The jarvies raised their
hats.

A pointsman’s back straightened itself upright suddenly against a
tramway standard by Mr Bloom’s window. Couldn’t they invent something
automatic so that the wheel itself much handier? Well but that fellow
would lose his job then? Well but then another fellow would get a job
making the new invention?

Antient concert rooms. Nothing on there. A man in a buff suit with a
crape armlet. Not much grief there. Quarter mourning. People in law
perhaps.

They went past the bleak pulpit of saint Mark’s, under the railway
bridge, past the Queen’s theatre: in silence. Hoardings: Eugene
Stratton, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Could I go to see _Leah_ tonight, I
wonder. I said I. Or the _Lily of Killarney_? Elster Grimes Opera
Company. Big powerful change. Wet bright bills for next week. _Fun on
the Bristol_. Martin Cunningham could work a pass for the Gaiety. Have
to stand a drink or two. As broad as it’s long.

He’s coming in the afternoon. Her songs.

Plasto’s. Sir Philip Crampton’s memorial fountain bust. Who was he?

—How do you do? Martin Cunningham said, raising his palm to his brow in
salute.

—He doesn’t see us, Mr Power said. Yes, he does. How do you do?

—Who? Mr Dedalus asked.

—Blazes Boylan, Mr Power said. There he is airing his quiff.

Just that moment I was thinking.

Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. From the door of the Red Bank the
white disc of a straw hat flashed reply: spruce figure: passed.

Mr Bloom reviewed the nails of his left hand, then those of his right
hand. The nails, yes. Is there anything more in him that they she sees?
Fascination. Worst man in Dublin. That keeps him alive. They sometimes
feel what a person is. Instinct. But a type like that. My nails. I am
just looking at them: well pared. And after: thinking alone. Body
getting a bit softy. I would notice that: from remembering. What causes
that? I suppose the skin can’t contract quickly enough when the flesh
falls off. But the shape is there. The shape is there still. Shoulders.
Hips. Plump. Night of the dance dressing. Shift stuck between the
cheeks behind.

He clasped his hands between his knees and, satisfied, sent his vacant
glance over their faces.

Mr Power asked:

—How is the concert tour getting on, Bloom?

—O, very well, Mr Bloom said. I hear great accounts of it. It’s a good
idea, you see...

—Are you going yourself?

—Well no, Mr Bloom said. In point of fact I have to go down to the
county Clare on some private business. You see the idea is to tour the
chief towns. What you lose on one you can make up on the other.

—Quite so, Martin Cunningham said. Mary Anderson is up there now.

Have you good artists?

—Louis Werner is touring her, Mr Bloom said. O yes, we’ll have all
topnobbers. J. C. Doyle and John MacCormack I hope and. The best, in
fact.

—And _Madame_, Mr Power said smiling. Last but not least.

Mr Bloom unclasped his hands in a gesture of soft politeness and
clasped them. Smith O’Brien. Someone has laid a bunch of flowers there.
Woman. Must be his deathday. For many happy returns. The carriage
wheeling by Farrell’s statue united noiselessly their unresisting
knees.

Oot: a dullgarbed old man from the curbstone tendered his wares, his
mouth opening: oot.

—Four bootlaces for a penny.

Wonder why he was struck off the rolls. Had his office in Hume street.
Same house as Molly’s namesake, Tweedy, crown solicitor for Waterford.
Has that silk hat ever since. Relics of old decency. Mourning too.
Terrible comedown, poor wretch! Kicked about like snuff at a wake.
O’Callaghan on his last legs.

And _Madame_. Twenty past eleven. Up. Mrs Fleming is in to clean. Doing
her hair, humming: _voglio e non vorrei_. No: _vorrei e non_. Looking
at the tips of her hairs to see if they are split. _Mi trema un poco
il_. Beautiful on that _tre_ her voice is: weeping tone. A thrush. A
throstle. There is a word throstle that expresses that.

His eyes passed lightly over Mr Power’s goodlooking face. Greyish over
the ears. _Madame_: smiling. I smiled back. A smile goes a long way.
Only politeness perhaps. Nice fellow. Who knows is that true about the
woman he keeps? Not pleasant for the wife. Yet they say, who was it
told me, there is no carnal. You would imagine that would get played
out pretty quick. Yes, it was Crofton met him one evening bringing her
a pound of rumpsteak. What is this she was? Barmaid in Jury’s. Or the
Moira, was it?

They passed under the hugecloaked Liberator’s form.

Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power.

—Of the tribe of Reuben, he said.

A tall blackbearded figure, bent on a stick, stumping round the corner
of Elvery’s Elephant house, showed them a curved hand open on his
spine.

—In all his pristine beauty, Mr Power said.

Mr Dedalus looked after the stumping figure and said mildly:

—The devil break the hasp of your back!

Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face from the window as
the carriage passed Gray’s statue.

—We have all been there, Martin Cunningham said broadly.

His eyes met Mr Bloom’s eyes. He caressed his beard, adding:

—Well, nearly all of us.

Mr Bloom began to speak with sudden eagerness to his companions’ faces.

—That’s an awfully good one that’s going the rounds about Reuben J and
the son.

—About the boatman? Mr Power asked.

—Yes. Isn’t it awfully good?

—What is that? Mr Dedalus asked. I didn’t hear it.

—There was a girl in the case, Mr Bloom began, and he determined to
send him to the Isle of Man out of harm’s way but when they were
both.....

—What? Mr Dedalus asked. That confirmed bloody hobbledehoy is it?

—Yes, Mr Bloom said. They were both on the way to the boat and he tried
to drown.....

—Drown Barabbas! Mr Dedalus cried. I wish to Christ he did!

Mr Power sent a long laugh down his shaded nostrils.

—No, Mr Bloom said, the son himself.....

Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely:

—Reuben J and the son were piking it down the quay next the river on
their way to the Isle of Man boat and the young chiseller suddenly got
loose and over the wall with him into the Liffey.

—For God’s sake! Mr Dedalus exclaimed in fright. Is he dead?

—Dead! Martin Cunningham cried. Not he! A boatman got a pole and fished
him out by the slack of the breeches and he was landed up to the father
on the quay more dead than alive. Half the town was there.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said. But the funny part is.....

—And Reuben J, Martin Cunningham said, gave the boatman a florin for
saving his son’s life.

A stifled sigh came from under Mr Power’s hand.

—O, he did, Martin Cunningham affirmed. Like a hero. A silver florin.

—Isn’t it awfully good? Mr Bloom said eagerly.

—One and eightpence too much, Mr Dedalus said drily.

Mr Power’s choked laugh burst quietly in the carriage.

Nelson’s pillar.

—Eight plums a penny! Eight for a penny!

—We had better look a little serious, Martin Cunningham said.

Mr Dedalus sighed.

—Ah then indeed, he said, poor little Paddy wouldn’t grudge us a laugh.
Many a good one he told himself.

—The Lord forgive me! Mr Power said, wiping his wet eyes with his
fingers. Poor Paddy! I little thought a week ago when I saw him last
and he was in his usual health that I’d be driving after him like this.
He’s gone from us.

—As decent a little man as ever wore a hat, Mr Dedalus said. He went
very suddenly.

—Breakdown, Martin Cunningham said. Heart.

He tapped his chest sadly.

Blazing face: redhot. Too much John Barleycorn. Cure for a red nose.
Drink like the devil till it turns adelite. A lot of money he spent
colouring it.

Mr Power gazed at the passing houses with rueful apprehension.

—He had a sudden death, poor fellow, he said.

—The best death, Mr Bloom said.

Their wide open eyes looked at him.

—No suffering, he said. A moment and all is over. Like dying in sleep.

No-one spoke.

Dead side of the street this. Dull business by day, land agents,
temperance hotel, Falconer’s railway guide, civil service college,
Gill’s, catholic club, the industrious blind. Why? Some reason. Sun or
wind. At night too. Chummies and slaveys. Under the patronage of the
late Father Mathew. Foundation stone for Parnell. Breakdown. Heart.

White horses with white frontlet plumes came round the Rotunda corner,
galloping. A tiny coffin flashed by. In a hurry to bury. A mourning
coach. Unmarried. Black for the married. Piebald for bachelors. Dun for
a nun.

—Sad, Martin Cunningham said. A child.

A dwarf’s face, mauve and wrinkled like little Rudy’s was. Dwarf’s
body, weak as putty, in a whitelined deal box. Burial friendly society
pays. Penny a week for a sod of turf. Our. Little. Beggar. Baby. Meant
nothing. Mistake of nature. If it’s healthy it’s from the mother. If
not from the man. Better luck next time.

—Poor little thing, Mr Dedalus said. It’s well out of it.

The carriage climbed more slowly the hill of Rutland square. Rattle his
bones. Over the stones. Only a pauper. Nobody owns.

—In the midst of life, Martin Cunningham said.

—But the worst of all, Mr Power said, is the man who takes his own
life.

Martin Cunningham drew out his watch briskly, coughed and put it back.

—The greatest disgrace to have in the family, Mr Power added.

—Temporary insanity, of course, Martin Cunningham said decisively. We
must take a charitable view of it.

—They say a man who does it is a coward, Mr Dedalus said.

—It is not for us to judge, Martin Cunningham said.

Mr Bloom, about to speak, closed his lips again. Martin Cunningham’s
large eyes. Looking away now. Sympathetic human man he is. Intelligent.
Like Shakespeare’s face. Always a good word to say. They have no mercy
on that here or infanticide. Refuse christian burial. They used to
drive a stake of wood through his heart in the grave. As if it wasn’t
broken already. Yet sometimes they repent too late. Found in the
riverbed clutching rushes. He looked at me. And that awful drunkard of
a wife of his. Setting up house for her time after time and then
pawning the furniture on him every Saturday almost. Leading him the
life of the damned. Wear the heart out of a stone, that. Monday
morning. Start afresh. Shoulder to the wheel. Lord, she must have
looked a sight that night Dedalus told me he was in there. Drunk about
the place and capering with Martin’s umbrella.

     And they call me the jewel of Asia,
     Of Asia,
     The geisha.

He looked away from me. He knows. Rattle his bones.

That afternoon of the inquest. The redlabelled bottle on the table. The
room in the hotel with hunting pictures. Stuffy it was. Sunlight
through the slats of the Venetian blind. The coroner’s sunlit ears, big
and hairy. Boots giving evidence. Thought he was asleep first. Then saw
like yellow streaks on his face. Had slipped down to the foot of the
bed. Verdict: overdose. Death by misadventure. The letter. For my son
Leopold.

No more pain. Wake no more. Nobody owns.

The carriage rattled swiftly along Blessington street. Over the stones.

—We are going the pace, I think, Martin Cunningham said.

—God grant he doesn’t upset us on the road, Mr Power said.

—I hope not, Martin Cunningham said. That will be a great race tomorrow
in Germany. The Gordon Bennett.

—Yes, by Jove, Mr Dedalus said. That will be worth seeing, faith.

As they turned into Berkeley street a streetorgan near the Basin sent
over and after them a rollicking rattling song of the halls. Has
anybody here seen Kelly? Kay ee double ell wy. Dead March from _Saul._
He’s as bad as old Antonio. He left me on my ownio. Pirouette! The
_Mater Misericordiae_. Eccles street. My house down there. Big place.
Ward for incurables there. Very encouraging. Our Lady’s Hospice for the
dying. Deadhouse handy underneath. Where old Mrs Riordan died. They
look terrible the women. Her feeding cup and rubbing her mouth with the
spoon. Then the screen round her bed for her to die. Nice young student
that was dressed that bite the bee gave me. He’s gone over to the
lying-in hospital they told me. From one extreme to the other.

The carriage galloped round a corner: stopped.

—What’s wrong now?

A divided drove of branded cattle passed the windows, lowing, slouching
by on padded hoofs, whisking their tails slowly on their clotted bony
croups. Outside them and through them ran raddled sheep bleating their
fear.

—Emigrants, Mr Power said.

—Huuuh! the drover’s voice cried, his switch sounding on their flanks.
Huuuh! out of that!

Thursday, of course. Tomorrow is killing day. Springers. Cuffe sold
them about twentyseven quid each. For Liverpool probably. Roastbeef for
old England. They buy up all the juicy ones. And then the fifth quarter
lost: all that raw stuff, hide, hair, horns. Comes to a big thing in a
year. Dead meat trade. Byproducts of the slaughterhouses for tanneries,
soap, margarine. Wonder if that dodge works now getting dicky meat off
the train at Clonsilla.

The carriage moved on through the drove.

—I can’t make out why the corporation doesn’t run a tramline from the
parkgate to the quays, Mr Bloom said. All those animals could be taken
in trucks down to the boats.

—Instead of blocking up the thoroughfare, Martin Cunningham said. Quite
right. They ought to.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said, and another thing I often thought, is to have
municipal funeral trams like they have in Milan, you know. Run the line
out to the cemetery gates and have special trams, hearse and carriage
and all. Don’t you see what I mean?

—O, that be damned for a story, Mr Dedalus said. Pullman car and saloon
diningroom.

—A poor lookout for Corny, Mr Power added.

—Why? Mr Bloom asked, turning to Mr Dedalus. Wouldn’t it be more decent
than galloping two abreast?

—Well, there’s something in that, Mr Dedalus granted.

—And, Martin Cunningham said, we wouldn’t have scenes like that when
the hearse capsized round Dunphy’s and upset the coffin on to the road.

—That was terrible, Mr Power’s shocked face said, and the corpse fell
about the road. Terrible!

—First round Dunphy’s, Mr Dedalus said, nodding. Gordon Bennett cup.

—Praises be to God! Martin Cunningham said piously.

Bom! Upset. A coffin bumped out on to the road. Burst open. Paddy
Dignam shot out and rolling over stiff in the dust in a brown habit too
large for him. Red face: grey now. Mouth fallen open. Asking what’s up
now. Quite right to close it. Looks horrid open. Then the insides
decompose quickly. Much better to close up all the orifices. Yes, also.
With wax. The sphincter loose. Seal up all.

—Dunphy’s, Mr Power announced as the carriage turned right.

Dunphy’s corner. Mourning coaches drawn up, drowning their grief. A
pause by the wayside. Tiptop position for a pub. Expect we’ll pull up
here on the way back to drink his health. Pass round the consolation.
Elixir of life.

But suppose now it did happen. Would he bleed if a nail say cut him in
the knocking about? He would and he wouldn’t, I suppose. Depends on
where. The circulation stops. Still some might ooze out of an artery.
It would be better to bury them in red: a dark red.

In silence they drove along Phibsborough road. An empty hearse trotted
by, coming from the cemetery: looks relieved.

Crossguns bridge: the royal canal.

Water rushed roaring through the sluices. A man stood on his dropping
barge, between clamps of turf. On the towpath by the lock a
slacktethered horse. Aboard of the _Bugabu._

Their eyes watched him. On the slow weedy waterway he had floated on
his raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a haulage rope past beds of
reeds, over slime, mudchoked bottles, carrion dogs. Athlone, Mullingar,
Moyvalley, I could make a walking tour to see Milly by the canal. Or
cycle down. Hire some old crock, safety. Wren had one the other day at
the auction but a lady’s. Developing waterways. James M’Cann’s hobby to
row me o’er the ferry. Cheaper transit. By easy stages. Houseboats.
Camping out. Also hearses. To heaven by water. Perhaps I will without
writing. Come as a surprise, Leixlip, Clonsilla. Dropping down lock by
lock to Dublin. With turf from the midland bogs. Salute. He lifted his
brown straw hat, saluting Paddy Dignam.

They drove on past Brian Boroimhe house. Near it now.

—I wonder how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Mr Power said.

—Better ask Tom Kernan, Mr Dedalus said.

—How is that? Martin Cunningham said. Left him weeping, I suppose?

—Though lost to sight, Mr Dedalus said, to memory dear.

The carriage steered left for Finglas road.

The stonecutter’s yard on the right. Last lap. Crowded on the spit of
land silent shapes appeared, white, sorrowful, holding out calm hands,
knelt in grief, pointing. Fragments of shapes, hewn. In white silence:
appealing. The best obtainable. Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder
and sculptor.

Passed.

On the curbstone before Jimmy Geary, the sexton’s, an old tramp sat,
grumbling, emptying the dirt and stones out of his huge dustbrown
yawning boot. After life’s journey.

Gloomy gardens then went by: one by one: gloomy houses.

Mr Power pointed.

—That is where Childs was murdered, he said. The last house.

—So it is, Mr Dedalus said. A gruesome case. Seymour Bushe got him off.
Murdered his brother. Or so they said.

—The crown had no evidence, Mr Power said.

—Only circumstantial, Martin Cunningham added. That’s the maxim of the
law. Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for one innocent
person to be wrongfully condemned.

They looked. Murderer’s ground. It passed darkly. Shuttered,
tenantless, unweeded garden. Whole place gone to hell. Wrongfully
condemned. Murder. The murderer’s image in the eye of the murdered.
They love reading about it. Man’s head found in a garden. Her clothing
consisted of. How she met her death. Recent outrage. The weapon used.
Murderer is still at large. Clues. A shoelace. The body to be exhumed.
Murder will out.

Cramped in this carriage. She mightn’t like me to come that way without
letting her know. Must be careful about women. Catch them once with
their pants down. Never forgive you after. Fifteen.

The high railings of Prospect rippled past their gaze. Dark poplars,
rare white forms. Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid the
trees, white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain
gestures on the air.

The felly harshed against the curbstone: stopped. Martin Cunningham put
out his arm and, wrenching back the handle, shoved the door open with
his knee. He stepped out. Mr Power and Mr Dedalus followed.

Change that soap now. Mr Bloom’s hand unbuttoned his hip pocket swiftly
and transferred the paperstuck soap to his inner handkerchief pocket.
He stepped out of the carriage, replacing the newspaper his other hand
still held.

Paltry funeral: coach and three carriages. It’s all the same.
Pallbearers, gold reins, requiem mass, firing a volley. Pomp of death.
Beyond the hind carriage a hawker stood by his barrow of cakes and
fruit. Simnel cakes those are, stuck together: cakes for the dead.
Dogbiscuits. Who ate them? Mourners coming out.

He followed his companions. Mr Kernan and Ned Lambert followed, Hynes
walking after them. Corny Kelleher stood by the opened hearse and took
out the two wreaths. He handed one to the boy.

Where is that child’s funeral disappeared to?

A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread,
dragging through the funereal silence a creaking waggon on which lay a
granite block. The waggoner marching at their head saluted.

Coffin now. Got here before us, dead as he is. Horse looking round at
it with his plume skeowways. Dull eye: collar tight on his neck,
pressing on a bloodvessel or something. Do they know what they cart out
here every day? Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Then Mount
Jerome for the protestants. Funerals all over the world everywhere
every minute. Shovelling them under by the cartload doublequick.
Thousands every hour. Too many in the world.

Mourners came out through the gates: woman and a girl. Leanjawed harpy,
hard woman at a bargain, her bonnet awry. Girl’s face stained with dirt
and tears, holding the woman’s arm, looking up at her for a sign to
cry. Fish’s face, bloodless and livid.

The mutes shouldered the coffin and bore it in through the gates. So
much dead weight. Felt heavier myself stepping out of that bath. First
the stiff: then the friends of the stiff. Corny Kelleher and the boy
followed with their wreaths. Who is that beside them? Ah, the
brother-in-law.

All walked after.

Martin Cunningham whispered:

—I was in mortal agony with you talking of suicide before Bloom.

—What? Mr Power whispered. How so?

—His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham whispered. Had the
Queen’s hotel in Ennis. You heard him say he was going to Clare.
Anniversary.

—O God! Mr Power whispered. First I heard of it. Poisoned himself?

He glanced behind him to where a face with dark thinking eyes followed
towards the cardinal’s mausoleum. Speaking.

—Was he insured? Mr Bloom asked.

—I believe so, Mr Kernan answered. But the policy was heavily
mortgaged. Martin is trying to get the youngster into Artane.

—How many children did he leave?

—Five. Ned Lambert says he’ll try to get one of the girls into Todd’s.

—A sad case, Mr Bloom said gently. Five young children.

—A great blow to the poor wife, Mr Kernan added.

—Indeed yes, Mr Bloom agreed.

Has the laugh at him now.

He looked down at the boots he had blacked and polished. She had
outlived him. Lost her husband. More dead for her than for me. One must
outlive the other. Wise men say. There are more women than men in the
world. Condole with her. Your terrible loss. I hope you’ll soon follow
him. For Hindu widows only. She would marry another. Him? No. Yet who
knows after. Widowhood not the thing since the old queen died. Drawn on
a guncarriage. Victoria and Albert. Frogmore memorial mourning. But in
the end she put a few violets in her bonnet. Vain in her heart of
hearts. All for a shadow. Consort not even a king. Her son was the
substance. Something new to hope for not like the past she wanted back,
waiting. It never comes. One must go first: alone, under the ground:
and lie no more in her warm bed.

—How are you, Simon? Ned Lambert said softly, clasping hands. Haven’t
seen you for a month of Sundays.

—Never better. How are all in Cork’s own town?

—I was down there for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert
said. Same old six and eightpence. Stopped with Dick Tivy.

—And how is Dick, the solid man?

—Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert answered.

—By the holy Paul! Mr Dedalus said in subdued wonder. Dick Tivy bald?

—Martin is going to get up a whip for the youngsters, Ned Lambert said,
pointing ahead. A few bob a skull. Just to keep them going till the
insurance is cleared up.

—Yes, yes, Mr Dedalus said dubiously. Is that the eldest boy in front?

—Yes, Ned Lambert said, with the wife’s brother. John Henry Menton is
behind. He put down his name for a quid.

—I’ll engage he did, Mr Dedalus said. I often told poor Paddy he ought
to mind that job. John Henry is not the worst in the world.

—How did he lose it? Ned Lambert asked. Liquor, what?

—Many a good man’s fault, Mr Dedalus said with a sigh.

They halted about the door of the mortuary chapel. Mr Bloom stood
behind the boy with the wreath looking down at his sleekcombed hair and
at the slender furrowed neck inside his brandnew collar. Poor boy! Was
he there when the father? Both unconscious. Lighten up at the last
moment and recognise for the last time. All he might have done. I owe
three shillings to O’Grady. Would he understand? The mutes bore the
coffin into the chapel. Which end is his head?

After a moment he followed the others in, blinking in the screened
light. The coffin lay on its bier before the chancel, four tall yellow
candles at its corners. Always in front of us. Corny Kelleher, laying a
wreath at each fore corner, beckoned to the boy to kneel. The mourners
knelt here and there in prayingdesks. Mr Bloom stood behind near the
font and, when all had knelt, dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper
from his pocket and knelt his right knee upon it. He fitted his black
hat gently on his left knee and, holding its brim, bent over piously.

A server bearing a brass bucket with something in it came out through a
door. The whitesmocked priest came after him, tidying his stole with
one hand, balancing with the other a little book against his toad’s
belly. Who’ll read the book? I, said the rook.

They halted by the bier and the priest began to read out of his book
with a fluent croak.

Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. _Dominenamine._ Bully
about the muzzle he looks. Bosses the show. Muscular christian. Woe
betide anyone that looks crooked at him: priest. Thou art Peter. Burst
sideways like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. With a belly on
him like a poisoned pup. Most amusing expressions that man finds. Hhhn:
burst sideways.

_—Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine._

Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin. Requiem
mass. Crape weepers. Blackedged notepaper. Your name on the altarlist.
Chilly place this. Want to feed well, sitting in there all the morning
in the gloom kicking his heels waiting for the next please. Eyes of a
toad too. What swells him up that way? Molly gets swelled after
cabbage. Air of the place maybe. Looks full up of bad gas. Must be an
infernal lot of bad gas round the place. Butchers, for instance: they
get like raw beefsteaks. Who was telling me? Mervyn Browne. Down in the
vaults of saint Werburgh’s lovely old organ hundred and fifty they have
to bore a hole in the coffins sometimes to let out the bad gas and burn
it. Out it rushes: blue. One whiff of that and you’re a goner.

My kneecap is hurting me. Ow. That’s better.

The priest took a stick with a knob at the end of it out of the boy’s
bucket and shook it over the coffin. Then he walked to the other end
and shook it again. Then he came back and put it back in the bucket. As
you were before you rested. It’s all written down: he has to do it.

_—Et ne nos inducas in tentationem._

The server piped the answers in the treble. I often thought it would be
better to have boy servants. Up to fifteen or so. After that, of course
...

Holy water that was, I expect. Shaking sleep out of it. He must be fed
up with that job, shaking that thing over all the corpses they trot up.
What harm if he could see what he was shaking it over. Every mortal day
a fresh batch: middleaged men, old women, children, women dead in
childbirth, men with beards, baldheaded businessmen, consumptive girls
with little sparrows’ breasts. All the year round he prayed the same
thing over them all and shook water on top of them: sleep. On Dignam
now.

_—In paradisum._

Said he was going to paradise or is in paradise. Says that over
everybody. Tiresome kind of a job. But he has to say something.

The priest closed his book and went off, followed by the server. Corny
Kelleher opened the sidedoors and the gravediggers came in, hoisted the
coffin again, carried it out and shoved it on their cart. Corny
Kelleher gave one wreath to the boy and one to the brother-in-law. All
followed them out of the sidedoors into the mild grey air. Mr Bloom
came last folding his paper again into his pocket. He gazed gravely at
the ground till the coffincart wheeled off to the left. The metal
wheels ground the gravel with a sharp grating cry and the pack of blunt
boots followed the trundled barrow along a lane of sepulchres.

The ree the ra the ree the ra the roo. Lord, I mustn’t lilt here.

—The O’Connell circle, Mr Dedalus said about him.

Mr Power’s soft eyes went up to the apex of the lofty cone.

—He’s at rest, he said, in the middle of his people, old Dan O’. But
his heart is buried in Rome. How many broken hearts are buried here,
Simon!

—Her grave is over there, Jack, Mr Dedalus said. I’ll soon be stretched
beside her. Let Him take me whenever He likes.

Breaking down, he began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling a little
in his walk. Mr Power took his arm.

—She’s better where she is, he said kindly.

—I suppose so, Mr Dedalus said with a weak gasp. I suppose she is in
heaven if there is a heaven.

Corny Kelleher stepped aside from his rank and allowed the mourners to
plod by.

—Sad occasions, Mr Kernan began politely.

Mr Bloom closed his eyes and sadly twice bowed his head.

—The others are putting on their hats, Mr Kernan said. I suppose we can
do so too. We are the last. This cemetery is a treacherous place.

They covered their heads.

—The reverend gentleman read the service too quickly, don’t you think?
Mr Kernan said with reproof.

Mr Bloom nodded gravely looking in the quick bloodshot eyes. Secret
eyes, secretsearching. Mason, I think: not sure. Beside him again. We
are the last. In the same boat. Hope he’ll say something else.

Mr Kernan added:

—The service of the Irish church used in Mount Jerome is simpler, more
impressive I must say.

Mr Bloom gave prudent assent. The language of course was another thing.

Mr Kernan said with solemnity:

—_I am the resurrection and the life_. That touches a man’s inmost
heart.

—It does, Mr Bloom said.

Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by two
with his toes to the daisies? No touching that. Seat of the affections.
Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood
every day. One fine day it gets bunged up: and there you are. Lots of
them lying around here: lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps: damn
the thing else. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you
are dead. That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves.
Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last
day! Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and
the rest of his traps. Find damn all of himself that morning.
Pennyweight of powder in a skull. Twelve grammes one pennyweight. Troy
measure.

Corny Kelleher fell into step at their side.

—Everything went off A1, he said. What?

He looked on them from his drawling eye. Policeman’s shoulders. With
your tooraloom tooraloom.

—As it should be, Mr Kernan said.

—What? Eh? Corny Kelleher said.

Mr Kernan assured him.

—Who is that chap behind with Tom Kernan? John Henry Menton asked. I
know his face.

Ned Lambert glanced back.

—Bloom, he said, Madame Marion Tweedy that was, is, I mean, the
soprano. She’s his wife.

—O, to be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven’t seen her for some
time. She was a finelooking woman. I danced with her, wait, fifteen
seventeen golden years ago, at Mat Dillon’s in Roundtown. And a good
armful she was.

He looked behind through the others.

—What is he? he asked. What does he do? Wasn’t he in the stationery
line? I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls.

Ned Lambert smiled.

—Yes, he was, he said, in Wisdom Hely’s. A traveller for blottingpaper.

—In God’s name, John Henry Menton said, what did she marry a coon like
that for? She had plenty of game in her then.

—Has still, Ned Lambert said. He does some canvassing for ads.

John Henry Menton’s large eyes stared ahead.

The barrow turned into a side lane. A portly man, ambushed among the
grasses, raised his hat in homage. The gravediggers touched their caps.

—John O’Connell, Mr Power said pleased. He never forgets a friend.

Mr O’Connell shook all their hands in silence. Mr Dedalus said:

—I am come to pay you another visit.

—My dear Simon, the caretaker answered in a low voice. I don’t want
your custom at all.

Saluting Ned Lambert and John Henry Menton he walked on at Martin
Cunningham’s side puzzling two long keys at his back.

—Did you hear that one, he asked them, about Mulcahy from the Coombe?

—I did not, Martin Cunningham said.

They bent their silk hats in concert and Hynes inclined his ear. The
caretaker hung his thumbs in the loops of his gold watchchain and spoke
in a discreet tone to their vacant smiles.

—They tell the story, he said, that two drunks came out here one foggy
evening to look for the grave of a friend of theirs. They asked for
Mulcahy from the Coombe and were told where he was buried. After
traipsing about in the fog they found the grave sure enough. One of the
drunks spelt out the name: Terence Mulcahy. The other drunk was
blinking up at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up.

The caretaker blinked up at one of the sepulchres they passed. He
resumed:

—And, after blinking up at the sacred figure, _Not a bloody bit like
the man_, says he. _That’s not Mulcahy_, says he, _whoever done it_.

Rewarded by smiles he fell back and spoke with Corny Kelleher,
accepting the dockets given him, turning them over and scanning them as
he walked.

—That’s all done with a purpose, Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes.

—I know, Hynes said. I know that.

—To cheer a fellow up, Martin Cunningham said. It’s pure
goodheartedness: damn the thing else.

Mr Bloom admired the caretaker’s prosperous bulk. All want to be on
good terms with him. Decent fellow, John O’Connell, real good sort.
Keys: like Keyes’s ad: no fear of anyone getting out. No passout
checks. _Habeas corpus_. I must see about that ad after the funeral.
Did I write Ballsbridge on the envelope I took to cover when she
disturbed me writing to Martha? Hope it’s not chucked in the dead
letter office. Be the better of a shave. Grey sprouting beard. That’s
the first sign when the hairs come out grey. And temper getting cross.
Silver threads among the grey. Fancy being his wife. Wonder he had the
gumption to propose to any girl. Come out and live in the graveyard.
Dangle that before her. It might thrill her first. Courting death.
Shades of night hovering here with all the dead stretched about. The
shadows of the tombs when churchyards yawn and Daniel O’Connell must be
a descendant I suppose who is this used to say he was a queer breedy
man great catholic all the same like a big giant in the dark. Will o’
the wisp. Gas of graves. Want to keep her mind off it to conceive at
all. Women especially are so touchy. Tell her a ghost story in bed to
make her sleep. Have you ever seen a ghost? Well, I have. It was a
pitchdark night. The clock was on the stroke of twelve. Still they’d
kiss all right if properly keyed up. Whores in Turkish graveyards.
Learn anything if taken young. You might pick up a young widow here.
Men like that. Love among the tombstones. Romeo. Spice of pleasure. In
the midst of death we are in life. Both ends meet. Tantalising for the
poor dead. Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the starving. Gnawing their
vitals. Desire to grig people. Molly wanting to do it at the window.
Eight children he has anyway.

He has seen a fair share go under in his time, lying around him field
after field. Holy fields. More room if they buried them standing.
Sitting or kneeling you couldn’t. Standing? His head might come up some
day above ground in a landslip with his hand pointing. All honeycombed
the ground must be: oblong cells. And very neat he keeps it too: trim
grass and edgings. His garden Major Gamble calls Mount Jerome. Well, so
it is. Ought to be flowers of sleep. Chinese cemeteries with giant
poppies growing produce the best opium Mastiansky told me. The Botanic
Gardens are just over there. It’s the blood sinking in the earth gives
new life. Same idea those jews they said killed the christian boy.
Every man his price. Well preserved fat corpse, gentleman, epicure,
invaluable for fruit garden. A bargain. By carcass of William
Wilkinson, auditor and accountant, lately deceased, three pounds
thirteen and six. With thanks.

I daresay the soil would be quite fat with corpsemanure, bones, flesh,
nails. Charnelhouses. Dreadful. Turning green and pink decomposing. Rot
quick in damp earth. The lean old ones tougher. Then a kind of a
tallowy kind of a cheesy. Then begin to get black, black treacle oozing
out of them. Then dried up. Deathmoths. Of course the cells or whatever
they are go on living. Changing about. Live for ever practically.
Nothing to feed on feed on themselves.

But they must breed a devil of a lot of maggots. Soil must be simply
swirling with them. Your head it simply swurls. Those pretty little
seaside gurls. He looks cheerful enough over it. Gives him a sense of
power seeing all the others go under first. Wonder how he looks at
life. Cracking his jokes too: warms the cockles of his heart. The one
about the bulletin. Spurgeon went to heaven 4 a.m. this morning. 11
p.m. (closing time). Not arrived yet. Peter. The dead themselves the
men anyhow would like to hear an odd joke or the women to know what’s
in fashion. A juicy pear or ladies’ punch, hot, strong and sweet. Keep
out the damp. You must laugh sometimes so better do it that way.
Gravediggers in _Hamlet_. Shows the profound knowledge of the human
heart. Daren’t joke about the dead for two years at least. _De mortuis
nil nisi prius_. Go out of mourning first. Hard to imagine his funeral.
Seems a sort of a joke. Read your own obituary notice they say you live
longer. Gives you second wind. New lease of life.

—How many have you for tomorrow? the caretaker asked.

—Two, Corny Kelleher said. Half ten and eleven.

The caretaker put the papers in his pocket. The barrow had ceased to
trundle. The mourners split and moved to each side of the hole,
stepping with care round the graves. The gravediggers bore the coffin
and set its nose on the brink, looping the bands round it.

Burying him. We come to bury Cæsar. His ides of March or June. He
doesn’t know who is here nor care. Now who is that lankylooking galoot
over there in the macintosh? Now who is he I’d like to know? Now I’d
give a trifle to know who he is. Always someone turns up you never
dreamt of. A fellow could live on his lonesome all his life. Yes, he
could. Still he’d have to get someone to sod him after he died though
he could dig his own grave. We all do. Only man buries. No, ants too.
First thing strikes anybody. Bury the dead. Say Robinson Crusoe was
true to life. Well then Friday buried him. Every Friday buries a
Thursday if you come to look at it.

     O, poor Robinson Crusoe!
     How could you possibly do so?

Poor Dignam! His last lie on the earth in his box. When you think of
them all it does seem a waste of wood. All gnawed through. They could
invent a handsome bier with a kind of panel sliding, let it down that
way. Ay but they might object to be buried out of another fellow’s.
They’re so particular. Lay me in my native earth. Bit of clay from the
holy land. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the one
coffin. I see what it means. I see. To protect him as long as possible
even in the earth. The Irishman’s house is his coffin. Embalming in
catacombs, mummies the same idea.

Mr Bloom stood far back, his hat in his hand, counting the bared heads.
Twelve. I’m thirteen. No. The chap in the macintosh is thirteen.
Death’s number. Where the deuce did he pop out of? He wasn’t in the
chapel, that I’ll swear. Silly superstition that about thirteen.

Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert has in that suit. Tinge of purple. I had
one like that when we lived in Lombard street west. Dressy fellow he
was once. Used to change three suits in the day. Must get that grey
suit of mine turned by Mesias. Hello. It’s dyed. His wife I forgot he’s
not married or his landlady ought to have picked out those threads for
him.

The coffin dived out of sight, eased down by the men straddled on the
gravetrestles. They struggled up and out: and all uncovered. Twenty.

Pause.

If we were all suddenly somebody else.

Far away a donkey brayed. Rain. No such ass. Never see a dead one, they
say. Shame of death. They hide. Also poor papa went away.

Gentle sweet air blew round the bared heads in a whisper. Whisper. The
boy by the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in
the black open space. Mr Bloom moved behind the portly kindly
caretaker. Wellcut frockcoat. Weighing them up perhaps to see which
will go next. Well, it is a long rest. Feel no more. It’s the moment
you feel. Must be damned unpleasant. Can’t believe it at first. Mistake
must be: someone else. Try the house opposite. Wait, I wanted to. I
haven’t yet. Then darkened deathchamber. Light they want. Whispering
around you. Would you like to see a priest? Then rambling and
wandering. Delirium all you hid all your life. The death struggle. His
sleep is not natural. Press his lower eyelid. Watching is his nose
pointed is his jaw sinking are the soles of his feet yellow. Pull the
pillow away and finish it off on the floor since he’s doomed. Devil in
that picture of sinner’s death showing him a woman. Dying to embrace
her in his shirt. Last act of _Lucia. Shall I nevermore behold thee_?
Bam! He expires. Gone at last. People talk about you a bit: forget you.
Don’t forget to pray for him. Remember him in your prayers. Even
Parnell. Ivy day dying out. Then they follow: dropping into a hole, one
after the other.

We are praying now for the repose of his soul. Hoping you’re well and
not in hell. Nice change of air. Out of the fryingpan of life into the
fire of purgatory.

Does he ever think of the hole waiting for himself? They say you do
when you shiver in the sun. Someone walking over it. Callboy’s warning.
Near you. Mine over there towards Finglas, the plot I bought. Mamma,
poor mamma, and little Rudy.

The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay in
on the coffin. Mr Bloom turned away his face. And if he was alive all
the time? Whew! By jingo, that would be awful! No, no: he is dead, of
course. Of course he is dead. Monday he died. They ought to have some
law to pierce the heart and make sure or an electric clock or a
telephone in the coffin and some kind of a canvas airhole. Flag of
distress. Three days. Rather long to keep them in summer. Just as well
to get shut of them as soon as you are sure there’s no.

The clay fell softer. Begin to be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind.

The caretaker moved away a few paces and put on his hat. Had enough of
it. The mourners took heart of grace, one by one, covering themselves
without show. Mr Bloom put on his hat and saw the portly figure make
its way deftly through the maze of graves. Quietly, sure of his ground,
he traversed the dismal fields.

Hynes jotting down something in his notebook. Ah, the names. But he
knows them all. No: coming to me.

—I am just taking the names, Hynes said below his breath. What is your
christian name? I’m not sure.

—L, Mr Bloom said. Leopold. And you might put down M’Coy’s name too. He
asked me to.

—Charley, Hynes said writing. I know. He was on the _Freeman_ once.

So he was before he got the job in the morgue under Louis Byrne. Good
idea a postmortem for doctors. Find out what they imagine they know. He
died of a Tuesday. Got the run. Levanted with the cash of a few ads.
Charley, you’re my darling. That was why he asked me to. O well, does
no harm. I saw to that, M’Coy. Thanks, old chap: much obliged. Leave
him under an obligation: costs nothing.

—And tell us, Hynes said, do you know that fellow in the, fellow was
over there in the...

He looked around.

—Macintosh. Yes, I saw him, Mr Bloom said. Where is he now?

—M’Intosh, Hynes said scribbling. I don’t know who he is. Is that his
name?

He moved away, looking about him.

—No, Mr Bloom began, turning and stopping. I say, Hynes!

Didn’t hear. What? Where has he disappeared to? Not a sign. Well of all
the. Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell. Become invisible. Good
Lord, what became of him?

A seventh gravedigger came beside Mr Bloom to take up an idle spade.

—O, excuse me!

He stepped aside nimbly.

Clay, brown, damp, began to be seen in the hole. It rose. Nearly over.
A mound of damp clods rose more, rose, and the gravediggers rested
their spades. All uncovered again for a few instants. The boy propped
his wreath against a corner: the brother-in-law his on a lump. The
gravediggers put on their caps and carried their earthy spades towards
the barrow. Then knocked the blades lightly on the turf: clean. One
bent to pluck from the haft a long tuft of grass. One, leaving his
mates, walked slowly on with shouldered weapon, its blade blueglancing.
Silently at the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. His navelcord.
The brother-in-law, turning away, placed something in his free hand.
Thanks in silence. Sorry, sir: trouble. Headshake. I know that. For
yourselves just.

The mourners moved away slowly without aim, by devious paths, staying
at whiles to read a name on a tomb.

—Let us go round by the chief’s grave, Hynes said. We have time.

—Let us, Mr Power said.

They turned to the right, following their slow thoughts. With awe Mr
Power’s blank voice spoke:

—Some say he is not in that grave at all. That the coffin was filled
with stones. That one day he will come again.

Hynes shook his head.

—Parnell will never come again, he said. He’s there, all that was
mortal of him. Peace to his ashes.

Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses,
broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes,
old Ireland’s hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on
some charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does
anybody really? Plant him and have done with him. Like down a
coalshoot. Then lump them together to save time. All souls’ day.
Twentyseventh I’ll be at his grave. Ten shillings for the gardener. He
keeps it free of weeds. Old man himself. Bent down double with his
shears clipping. Near death’s door. Who passed away. Who departed this
life. As if they did it of their own accord. Got the shove, all of
them. Who kicked the bucket. More interesting if they told you what
they were. So and So, wheelwright. I travelled for cork lino. I paid
five shillings in the pound. Or a woman’s with her saucepan. I cooked
good Irish stew. Eulogy in a country churchyard it ought to be that
poem of whose is it Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. Entered into rest
the protestants put it. Old Dr Murren’s. The great physician called him
home. Well it’s God’s acre for them. Nice country residence. Newly
plastered and painted. Ideal spot to have a quiet smoke and read the
_Church Times._ Marriage ads they never try to beautify. Rusty wreaths
hung on knobs, garlands of bronzefoil. Better value that for the money.
Still, the flowers are more poetical. The other gets rather tiresome,
never withering. Expresses nothing. Immortelles.

A bird sat tamely perched on a poplar branch. Like stuffed. Like the
wedding present alderman Hooper gave us. Hoo! Not a budge out of him.
Knows there are no catapults to let fly at him. Dead animal even
sadder. Silly-Milly burying the little dead bird in the kitchen
matchbox, a daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the grave.

The Sacred Heart that is: showing it. Heart on his sleeve. Ought to be
sideways and red it should be painted like a real heart. Ireland was
dedicated to it or whatever that. Seems anything but pleased. Why this
infliction? Would birds come then and peck like the boy with the basket
of fruit but he said no because they ought to have been afraid of the
boy. Apollo that was.

How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed.
As you are now so once were we.

Besides how could you remember everybody? Eyes, walk, voice. Well, the
voice, yes: gramophone. Have a gramophone in every grave or keep it in
the house. After dinner on a Sunday. Put on poor old greatgrandfather.
Kraahraark! Hellohellohello amawfullyglad kraark awfullygladaseeagain
hellohello amawf krpthsth. Remind you of the voice like the photograph
reminds you of the face. Otherwise you couldn’t remember the face after
fifteen years, say. For instance who? For instance some fellow that
died when I was in Wisdom Hely’s.

Rtststr! A rattle of pebbles. Wait. Stop!

He looked down intently into a stone crypt. Some animal. Wait. There he
goes.

An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the crypt, moving the
pebbles. An old stager: greatgrandfather: he knows the ropes. The grey
alive crushed itself in under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it.
Good hidingplace for treasure.

Who lives there? Are laid the remains of Robert Emery. Robert Emmet was
buried here by torchlight, wasn’t he? Making his rounds.

Tail gone now.

One of those chaps would make short work of a fellow. Pick the bones
clean no matter who it was. Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is meat
gone bad. Well and what’s cheese? Corpse of milk. I read in that
_Voyages in China_ that the Chinese say a white man smells like a
corpse. Cremation better. Priests dead against it. Devilling for the
other firm. Wholesale burners and Dutch oven dealers. Time of the
plague. Quicklime feverpits to eat them. Lethal chamber. Ashes to
ashes. Or bury at sea. Where is that Parsee tower of silence? Eaten by
birds. Earth, fire, water. Drowning they say is the pleasantest. See
your whole life in a flash. But being brought back to life no. Can’t
bury in the air however. Out of a flying machine. Wonder does the news
go about whenever a fresh one is let down. Underground communication.
We learned that from them. Wouldn’t be surprised. Regular square feed
for them. Flies come before he’s well dead. Got wind of Dignam. They
wouldn’t care about the smell of it. Saltwhite crumbling mush of
corpse: smell, taste like raw white turnips.

The gates glimmered in front: still open. Back to the world again.
Enough of this place. Brings you a bit nearer every time. Last time I
was here was Mrs Sinico’s funeral. Poor papa too. The love that kills.
And even scraping up the earth at night with a lantern like that case I
read of to get at fresh buried females or even putrefied with running
gravesores. Give you the creeps after a bit. I will appear to you after
death. You will see my ghost after death. My ghost will haunt you after
death. There is another world after death named hell. I do not like
that other world she wrote. No more do I. Plenty to see and hear and
feel yet. Feel live warm beings near you. Let them sleep in their
maggoty beds. They are not going to get me this innings. Warm beds:
warm fullblooded life.

Martin Cunningham emerged from a sidepath, talking gravely.

Solicitor, I think. I know his face. Menton, John Henry, solicitor,
commissioner for oaths and affidavits. Dignam used to be in his office.
Mat Dillon’s long ago. Jolly Mat. Convivial evenings. Cold fowl,
cigars, the Tantalus glasses. Heart of gold really. Yes, Menton. Got
his rag out that evening on the bowlinggreen because I sailed inside
him. Pure fluke of mine: the bias. Why he took such a rooted dislike to
me. Hate at first sight. Molly and Floey Dillon linked under the
lilactree, laughing. Fellow always like that, mortified if women are
by.

Got a dinge in the side of his hat. Carriage probably.

—Excuse me, sir, Mr Bloom said beside them.

They stopped.

—Your hat is a little crushed, Mr Bloom said pointing.

John Henry Menton stared at him for an instant without moving.

—There, Martin Cunningham helped, pointing also.

John Henry Menton took off his hat, bulged out the dinge and smoothed
the nap with care on his coatsleeve. He clapped the hat on his head
again.

—It’s all right now, Martin Cunningham said.

John Henry Menton jerked his head down in acknowledgment.

—Thank you, he said shortly.

They walked on towards the gates. Mr Bloom, chapfallen, drew behind a
few paces so as not to overhear. Martin laying down the law. Martin
could wind a sappyhead like that round his little finger, without his
seeing it.

Oyster eyes. Never mind. Be sorry after perhaps when it dawns on him.
Get the pull over him that way.

Thank you. How grand we are this morning!


[ 7 ]

IN THE HEART OF THE HIBERNIAN METROPOLIS


Before Nelson’s pillar trams slowed, shunted, changed trolley, started
for Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Clonskea, Rathgar and Terenure,
Palmerston Park and upper Rathmines, Sandymount Green, Rathmines,
Ringsend and Sandymount Tower, Harold’s Cross. The hoarse Dublin United
Tramway Company’s timekeeper bawled them off:

—Rathgar and Terenure!

—Come on, Sandymount Green!

Right and left parallel clanging ringing a doubledecker and a
singledeck moved from their railheads, swerved to the down line, glided
parallel.

—Start, Palmerston Park!

THE WEARER OF THE CROWN


Under the porch of the general post office shoeblacks called and
polished. Parked in North Prince’s street His Majesty’s vermilion
mailcars, bearing on their sides the royal initials, E. R., received
loudly flung sacks of letters, postcards, lettercards, parcels, insured
and paid, for local, provincial, British and overseas delivery.

GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS


Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince’s stores
and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped
dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince’s
stores.

—There it is, Red Murray said. Alexander Keyes.

—Just cut it out, will you? Mr Bloom said, and I’ll take it round to
the _Telegraph_ office.

The door of Ruttledge’s office creaked again. Davy Stephens, minute in
a large capecoat, a small felt hat crowning his ringlets, passed out
with a roll of papers under his cape, a king’s courier.

Red Murray’s long shears sliced out the advertisement from the
newspaper in four clean strokes. Scissors and paste.

—I’ll go through the printingworks, Mr Bloom said, taking the cut
square.

—Of course, if he wants a par, Red Murray said earnestly, a pen behind
his ear, we can do him one.

—Right, Mr Bloom said with a nod. I’ll rub that in.

We.

WILLIAM BRAYDEN, ESQUIRE, OF OAKLANDS, SANDYMOUNT


Red Murray touched Mr Bloom’s arm with the shears and whispered:

—Brayden.

Mr Bloom turned and saw the liveried porter raise his lettered cap as a
stately figure entered between the newsboards of the _Weekly Freeman
and National Press_ and the _Freeman’s Journal and National Press_.
Dullthudding Guinness’s barrels. It passed statelily up the staircase,
steered by an umbrella, a solemn beardframed face. The broadcloth back
ascended each step: back. All his brains are in the nape of his neck,
Simon Dedalus says. Welts of flesh behind on him. Fat folds of neck,
fat, neck, fat, neck.

—Don’t you think his face is like Our Saviour? Red Murray whispered.

The door of Ruttledge’s office whispered: ee: cree. They always build
one door opposite another for the wind to. Way in. Way out.

Our Saviour: beardframed oval face: talking in the dusk. Mary, Martha.
Steered by an umbrella sword to the footlights: Mario the tenor.

—Or like Mario, Mr Bloom said.

—Yes, Red Murray agreed. But Mario was said to be the picture of Our
Saviour.

Jesusmario with rougy cheeks, doublet and spindle legs. Hand on his
heart. In _Martha._

     Co-ome thou lost one,
     Co-ome thou dear one!

THE CROZIER AND THE PEN


—His grace phoned down twice this morning, Red Murray said gravely.

They watched the knees, legs, boots vanish. Neck.

A telegram boy stepped in nimbly, threw an envelope on the counter and
stepped off posthaste with a word:

_—Freeman!_

Mr Bloom said slowly:

—Well, he is one of our saviours also.

A meek smile accompanied him as he lifted the counterflap, as he passed
in through a sidedoor and along the warm dark stairs and passage, along
the now reverberating boards. But will he save the circulation?
Thumping. Thumping.

He pushed in the glass swingdoor and entered, stepping over strewn
packing paper. Through a lane of clanking drums he made his way towards
Nannetti’s reading closet.

WITH UNFEIGNED REGRET IT IS WE ANNOUNCE THE DISSOLUTION OF A MOST
RESPECTED DUBLIN BURGESS


Hynes here too: account of the funeral probably. Thumping. Thump. This
morning the remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam. Machines. Smash a
man to atoms if they got him caught. Rule the world today. His
machineries are pegging away too. Like these, got out of hand:
fermenting. Working away, tearing away. And that old grey rat tearing
to get in.

HOW A GREAT DAILY ORGAN IS TURNED OUT


Mr Bloom halted behind the foreman’s spare body, admiring a glossy
crown.

Strange he never saw his real country. Ireland my country. Member for
College green. He boomed that workaday worker tack for all it was
worth. It’s the ads and side features sell a weekly, not the stale news
in the official gazette. Queen Anne is dead. Published by authority in
the year one thousand and. Demesne situate in the townland of
Rosenallis, barony of Tinnahinch. To all whom it may concern schedule
pursuant to statute showing return of number of mules and jennets
exported from Ballina. Nature notes. Cartoons. Phil Blake’s weekly Pat
and Bull story. Uncle Toby’s page for tiny tots. Country bumpkin’s
queries. Dear Mr Editor, what is a good cure for flatulence? I’d like
that part. Learn a lot teaching others. The personal note. M. A. P.
Mainly all pictures. Shapely bathers on golden strand. World’s biggest
balloon. Double marriage of sisters celebrated. Two bridegrooms
laughing heartily at each other. Cuprani too, printer. More Irish than
the Irish.

The machines clanked in threefour time. Thump, thump, thump. Now if he
got paralysed there and no-one knew how to stop them they’d clank on
and on the same, print it over and over and up and back. Monkeydoodle
the whole thing. Want a cool head.

—Well, get it into the evening edition, councillor, Hynes said.

Soon be calling him my lord mayor. Long John is backing him, they say.

The foreman, without answering, scribbled press on a corner of the
sheet and made a sign to a typesetter. He handed the sheet silently
over the dirty glass screen.

—Right: thanks, Hynes said moving off.

Mr Bloom stood in his way.

—If you want to draw the cashier is just going to lunch, he said,
pointing backward with his thumb.

—Did you? Hynes asked.

—Mm, Mr Bloom said. Look sharp and you’ll catch him.

—Thanks, old man, Hynes said. I’ll tap him too.

He hurried on eagerly towards the _Freeman’s Journal_.

Three bob I lent him in Meagher’s. Three weeks. Third hint.

WE SEE THE CANVASSER AT WORK


Mr Bloom laid his cutting on Mr Nannetti’s desk.

—Excuse me, councillor, he said. This ad, you see. Keyes, you remember?

Mr Nannetti considered the cutting awhile and nodded.

—He wants it in for July, Mr Bloom said.

The foreman moved his pencil towards it.

—But wait, Mr Bloom said. He wants it changed. Keyes, you see. He wants
two keys at the top.

Hell of a racket they make. He doesn’t hear it. Nannan. Iron nerves.
Maybe he understands what I.

The foreman turned round to hear patiently and, lifting an elbow, began
to scratch slowly in the armpit of his alpaca jacket.

—Like that, Mr Bloom said, crossing his forefingers at the top.

Let him take that in first.

Mr Bloom, glancing sideways up from the cross he had made, saw the
foreman’s sallow face, think he has a touch of jaundice, and beyond the
obedient reels feeding in huge webs of paper. Clank it. Clank it. Miles
of it unreeled. What becomes of it after? O, wrap up meat, parcels:
various uses, thousand and one things.

Slipping his words deftly into the pauses of the clanking he drew
swiftly on the scarred woodwork.

HOUSE OF KEY(E)S


—Like that, see. Two crossed keys here. A circle. Then here the name.
Alexander Keyes, tea, wine and spirit merchant. So on.

Better not teach him his own business.

—You know yourself, councillor, just what he wants. Then round the top
in leaded: the house of keys. You see? Do you think that’s a good idea?

The foreman moved his scratching hand to his lower ribs and scratched
there quietly.

—The idea, Mr Bloom said, is the house of keys. You know, councillor,
the Manx parliament. Innuendo of home rule. Tourists, you know, from
the isle of Man. Catches the eye, you see. Can you do that?

I could ask him perhaps about how to pronounce that _voglio._ But then
if he didn’t know only make it awkward for him. Better not.

—We can do that, the foreman said. Have you the design?

—I can get it, Mr Bloom said. It was in a Kilkenny paper. He has a
house there too. I’ll just run out and ask him. Well, you can do that
and just a little par calling attention. You know the usual. Highclass
licensed premises. Longfelt want. So on.

The foreman thought for an instant.

—We can do that, he said. Let him give us a three months’ renewal.

A typesetter brought him a limp galleypage. He began to check it
silently. Mr Bloom stood by, hearing the loud throbs of cranks,
watching the silent typesetters at their cases.

ORTHOGRAPHICAL


Want to be sure of his spelling. Proof fever. Martin Cunningham forgot
to give us his spellingbee conundrum this morning. It is amusing to
view the unpar one ar alleled embarra two ars is it? double ess ment of
a harassed pedlar while gauging au the symmetry with a y of a peeled
pear under a cemetery wall. Silly, isn’t it? Cemetery put in of course
on account of the symmetry.

I should have said when he clapped on his topper. Thank you. I ought to
have said something about an old hat or something. No. I could have
said. Looks as good as new now. See his phiz then.

Sllt. The nethermost deck of the first machine jogged forward its
flyboard with sllt the first batch of quirefolded papers. Sllt. Almost
human the way it sllt to call attention. Doing its level best to speak.
That door too sllt creaking, asking to be shut. Everything speaks in
its own way. Sllt.

NOTED CHURCHMAN AN OCCASIONAL CONTRIBUTOR


The foreman handed back the galleypage suddenly, saying:

—Wait. Where’s the archbishop’s letter? It’s to be repeated in the
_Telegraph._ Where’s what’s his name?

He looked about him round his loud unanswering machines.

—Monks, sir? a voice asked from the castingbox.

—Ay. Where’s Monks?

—Monks!

Mr Bloom took up his cutting. Time to get out.

—Then I’ll get the design, Mr Nannetti, he said, and you’ll give it a
good place I know.

—Monks!

—Yes, sir.

Three months’ renewal. Want to get some wind off my chest first. Try it
anyhow. Rub in August: good idea: horseshow month. Ballsbridge.
Tourists over for the show.

A DAYFATHER


He walked on through the caseroom passing an old man, bowed,
spectacled, aproned. Old Monks, the dayfather. Queer lot of stuff he
must have put through his hands in his time: obituary notices, pubs’
ads, speeches, divorce suits, found drowned. Nearing the end of his
tether now. Sober serious man with a bit in the savingsbank I’d say.
Wife a good cook and washer. Daughter working the machine in the
parlour. Plain Jane, no damn nonsense.

AND IT WAS THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER


He stayed in his walk to watch a typesetter neatly distributing type.
Reads it backwards first. Quickly he does it. Must require some
practice that. mangiD kcirtaP. Poor papa with his hagadah book, reading
backwards with his finger to me. Pessach. Next year in Jerusalem. Dear,
O dear! All that long business about that brought us out of the land of
Egypt and into the house of bondage _alleluia. Shema Israel Adonai
Elohenu_. No, that’s the other. Then the twelve brothers, Jacob’s sons.
And then the lamb and the cat and the dog and the stick and the water
and the butcher. And then the angel of death kills the butcher and he
kills the ox and the dog kills the cat. Sounds a bit silly till you
come to look into it well. Justice it means but it’s everybody eating
everyone else. That’s what life is after all. How quickly he does that
job. Practice makes perfect. Seems to see with his fingers.

Mr Bloom passed on out of the clanking noises through the gallery on to
the landing. Now am I going to tram it out all the way and then catch
him out perhaps. Better phone him up first. Number? Yes. Same as
Citron’s house. Twentyeight. Twentyeight double four.

ONLY ONCE MORE THAT SOAP


He went down the house staircase. Who the deuce scrawled all over those
walls with matches? Looks as if they did it for a bet. Heavy greasy
smell there always is in those works. Lukewarm glue in Thom’s next door
when I was there.

He took out his handkerchief to dab his nose. Citronlemon? Ah, the soap
I put there. Lose it out of that pocket. Putting back his handkerchief
he took out the soap and stowed it away, buttoned, into the hip pocket
of his trousers.

What perfume does your wife use? I could go home still: tram: something
I forgot. Just to see: before: dressing. No. Here. No.

A sudden screech of laughter came from the _Evening Telegraph_ office.
Know who that is. What’s up? Pop in a minute to phone. Ned Lambert it
is.

He entered softly.

ERIN, GREEN GEM OF THE SILVER SEA


—The ghost walks, professor MacHugh murmured softly, biscuitfully to
the dusty windowpane.

Mr Dedalus, staring from the empty fireplace at Ned Lambert’s quizzing
face, asked of it sourly:

—Agonising Christ, wouldn’t it give you a heartburn on your arse?

Ned Lambert, seated on the table, read on:

—_Or again, note the meanderings of some purling rill as it babbles on
its way, tho’ quarrelling with the stony obstacles, to the tumbling
waters of Neptune’s blue domain, ’mid mossy banks, fanned by gentlest
zephyrs, played on by the glorious sunlight or ’neath the shadows cast
o’er its pensive bosom by the overarching leafage of the giants of the
forest_. What about that, Simon? he asked over the fringe of his
newspaper. How’s that for high?

—Changing his drink, Mr Dedalus said.

Ned Lambert, laughing, struck the newspaper on his knees, repeating:

—_The pensive bosom and the overarsing leafage_. O boys! O boys!

—And Xenophon looked upon Marathon, Mr Dedalus said, looking again on
the fireplace and to the window, and Marathon looked on the sea.

—That will do, professor MacHugh cried from the window. I don’t want to
hear any more of the stuff.

He ate off the crescent of water biscuit he had been nibbling and,
hungered, made ready to nibble the biscuit in his other hand.

High falutin stuff. Bladderbags. Ned Lambert is taking a day off I see.
Rather upsets a man’s day, a funeral does. He has influence they say.
Old Chatterton, the vicechancellor, is his granduncle or his
greatgranduncle. Close on ninety they say. Subleader for his death
written this long time perhaps. Living to spite them. Might go first
himself. Johnny, make room for your uncle. The right honourable Hedges
Eyre Chatterton. Daresay he writes him an odd shaky cheque or two on
gale days. Windfall when he kicks out. Alleluia.

—Just another spasm, Ned Lambert said.

—What is it? Mr Bloom asked.

—A recently discovered fragment of Cicero, professor MacHugh answered
with pomp of tone. _Our lovely land_.

SHORT BUT TO THE POINT


—Whose land? Mr Bloom said simply.

—Most pertinent question, the professor said between his chews. With an
accent on the whose.

—Dan Dawson’s land Mr Dedalus said.

—Is it his speech last night? Mr Bloom asked.

Ned Lambert nodded.

—But listen to this, he said.

The doorknob hit Mr Bloom in the small of the back as the door was
pushed in.

—Excuse me, J. J. O’Molloy said, entering.

Mr Bloom moved nimbly aside.

—I beg yours, he said.

—Good day, Jack.

—Come in. Come in.

—Good day.

—How are you, Dedalus?

—Well. And yourself?

J. J. O’Molloy shook his head.

SAD


Cleverest fellow at the junior bar he used to be. Decline, poor chap.
That hectic flush spells finis for a man. Touch and go with him. What’s
in the wind, I wonder. Money worry.

—_Or again if we but climb the serried mountain peaks._

—You’re looking extra.

—Is the editor to be seen? J. J. O’Molloy asked, looking towards the
inner door.

—Very much so, professor MacHugh said. To be seen and heard. He’s in
his sanctum with Lenehan.

J. J. O’Molloy strolled to the sloping desk and began to turn back the
pink pages of the file.

Practice dwindling. A mighthavebeen. Losing heart. Gambling. Debts of
honour. Reaping the whirlwind. Used to get good retainers from D. and
T. Fitzgerald. Their wigs to show the grey matter. Brains on their
sleeve like the statue in Glasnevin. Believe he does some literary work
for the _Express_ with Gabriel Conroy. Wellread fellow. Myles Crawford
began on the _Independent._ Funny the way those newspaper men veer
about when they get wind of a new opening. Weathercocks. Hot and cold
in the same breath. Wouldn’t know which to believe. One story good till
you hear the next. Go for one another baldheaded in the papers and then
all blows over. Hail fellow well met the next moment.

—Ah, listen to this for God’ sake, Ned Lambert pleaded. _Or again if we
but climb the serried mountain peaks..._

—Bombast! the professor broke in testily. Enough of the inflated
windbag!

—_Peaks_, Ned Lambert went on, _towering high on high, to bathe our
souls, as it were..._

—Bathe his lips, Mr Dedalus said. Blessed and eternal God! Yes? Is he
taking anything for it?

_—As ’twere, in the peerless panorama of Ireland’s portfolio,
unmatched, despite their wellpraised prototypes in other vaunted prize
regions, for very beauty, of bosky grove and undulating plain and
luscious pastureland of vernal green, steeped in the transcendent
translucent glow of our mild mysterious Irish twilight..._

HIS NATIVE DORIC


—The moon, professor MacHugh said. He forgot Hamlet.

_—That mantles the vista far and wide and wait till the glowing orb of
the moon shine forth to irradiate her silver effulgence..._

—O! Mr Dedalus cried, giving vent to a hopeless groan. Shite and
onions! That’ll do, Ned. Life is too short.

He took off his silk hat and, blowing out impatiently his bushy
moustache, welshcombed his hair with raking fingers.

Ned Lambert tossed the newspaper aside, chuckling with delight. An
instant after a hoarse bark of laughter burst over professor MacHugh’s
unshaven blackspectacled face.

—Doughy Daw! he cried.

WHAT WETHERUP SAID


All very fine to jeer at it now in cold print but it goes down like hot
cake that stuff. He was in the bakery line too, wasn’t he? Why they
call him Doughy Daw. Feathered his nest well anyhow. Daughter engaged
to that chap in the inland revenue office with the motor. Hooked that
nicely. Entertainments. Open house. Big blowout. Wetherup always said
that. Get a grip of them by the stomach.

The inner door was opened violently and a scarlet beaked face, crested
by a comb of feathery hair, thrust itself in. The bold blue eyes stared
about them and the harsh voice asked:

—What is it?

—And here comes the sham squire himself! professor MacHugh said
grandly.

—Getonouthat, you bloody old pedagogue! the editor said in recognition.

—Come, Ned, Mr Dedalus said, putting on his hat. I must get a drink
after that.

—Drink! the editor cried. No drinks served before mass.

—Quite right too, Mr Dedalus said, going out. Come on, Ned.

Ned Lambert sidled down from the table. The editor’s blue eyes roved
towards Mr Bloom’s face, shadowed by a smile.

—Will you join us, Myles? Ned Lambert asked.

MEMORABLE BATTLES RECALLED


—North Cork militia! the editor cried, striding to the mantelpiece. We
won every time! North Cork and Spanish officers!

—Where was that, Myles? Ned Lambert asked with a reflective glance at
his toecaps.

—In Ohio! the editor shouted.

—So it was, begad, Ned Lambert agreed.

Passing out he whispered to J. J. O’Molloy:

—Incipient jigs. Sad case.

—Ohio! the editor crowed in high treble from his uplifted scarlet face.
My Ohio!

—A perfect cretic! the professor said. Long, short and long.

O, HARP EOLIAN!


He took a reel of dental floss from his waistcoat pocket and, breaking
off a piece, twanged it smartly between two and two of his resonant
unwashed teeth.

—Bingbang, bangbang.

Mr Bloom, seeing the coast clear, made for the inner door.

—Just a moment, Mr Crawford, he said. I just want to phone about an ad.

He went in.

—What about that leader this evening? professor MacHugh asked, coming
to the editor and laying a firm hand on his shoulder.

—That’ll be all right, Myles Crawford said more calmly. Never you fret.
Hello, Jack. That’s all right.

—Good day, Myles, J. J. O’Molloy said, letting the pages he held slip
limply back on the file. Is that Canada swindle case on today?

The telephone whirred inside.

—Twentyeight... No, twenty... Double four... Yes.

SPOT THE WINNER


Lenehan came out of the inner office with _Sport_’s tissues.

—Who wants a dead cert for the Gold cup? he asked. Sceptre with O.
Madden up.

He tossed the tissues on to the table.

Screams of newsboys barefoot in the hall rushed near and the door was
flung open.

—Hush, Lenehan said. I hear feetstoops.

Professor MacHugh strode across the room and seized the cringing urchin
by the collar as the others scampered out of the hall and down the
steps. The tissues rustled up in the draught, floated softly in the air
blue scrawls and under the table came to earth.

—It wasn’t me, sir. It was the big fellow shoved me, sir.

—Throw him out and shut the door, the editor said. There’s a hurricane
blowing.

Lenehan began to paw the tissues up from the floor, grunting as he
stooped twice.

—Waiting for the racing special, sir, the newsboy said. It was Pat
Farrell shoved me, sir.

He pointed to two faces peering in round the doorframe.

—Him, sir.

—Out of this with you, professor MacHugh said gruffly.

He hustled the boy out and banged the door to.

J. J. O’Molloy turned the files crackingly over, murmuring, seeking:

—Continued on page six, column four.

—Yes, _Evening Telegraph_ here, Mr Bloom phoned from the inner office.
Is the boss...? Yes, _Telegraph_... To where? Aha! Which auction
rooms?... Aha! I see... Right. I’ll catch him.

A COLLISION ENSUES


The bell whirred again as he rang off. He came in quickly and bumped
against Lenehan who was struggling up with the second tissue.

—_Pardon, monsieur_, Lenehan said, clutching him for an instant and
making a grimace.

—My fault, Mr Bloom said, suffering his grip. Are you hurt? I’m in a
hurry.

—Knee, Lenehan said.

He made a comic face and whined, rubbing his knee:

—The accumulation of the _anno Domini_.

—Sorry, Mr Bloom said.

He went to the door and, holding it ajar, paused. J. J. O’Molloy
slapped the heavy pages over. The noise of two shrill voices, a
mouthorgan, echoed in the bare hallway from the newsboys squatted on
the doorsteps:

     We are the boys of Wexford
     Who fought with heart and hand.

EXIT BLOOM


—I’m just running round to Bachelor’s walk, Mr Bloom said, about this
ad of Keyes’s. Want to fix it up. They tell me he’s round there in
Dillon’s.

He looked indecisively for a moment at their faces. The editor who,
leaning against the mantelshelf, had propped his head on his hand,
suddenly stretched forth an arm amply.

—Begone! he said. The world is before you.

—Back in no time, Mr Bloom said, hurrying out.

J. J. O’Molloy took the tissues from Lenehan’s hand and read them,
blowing them apart gently, without comment.

—He’ll get that advertisement, the professor said, staring through his
blackrimmed spectacles over the crossblind. Look at the young scamps
after him.

—Show. Where? Lenehan cried, running to the window.

A STREET CORTÈGE


Both smiled over the crossblind at the file of capering newsboys in Mr
Bloom’s wake, the last zigzagging white on the breeze a mocking kite, a
tail of white bowknots.

—Look at the young guttersnipe behind him hue and cry, Lenehan said,
and you’ll kick. O, my rib risible! Taking off his flat spaugs and the
walk. Small nines. Steal upon larks.

He began to mazurka in swift caricature across the floor on sliding
feet past the fireplace to J. J. O’Molloy who placed the tissues in his
receiving hands.

—What’s that? Myles Crawford said with a start. Where are the other two
gone?

—Who? the professor said, turning. They’re gone round to the Oval for a
drink. Paddy Hooper is there with Jack Hall. Came over last night.

—Come on then, Myles Crawford said. Where’s my hat?

He walked jerkily into the office behind, parting the vent of his
jacket, jingling his keys in his back pocket. They jingled then in the
air and against the wood as he locked his desk drawer.

—He’s pretty well on, professor MacHugh said in a low voice.

—Seems to be, J. J. O’Molloy said, taking out a cigarettecase in
murmuring meditation, but it is not always as it seems. Who has the
most matches?

THE CALUMET OF PEACE


He offered a cigarette to the professor and took one himself. Lenehan
promptly struck a match for them and lit their cigarettes in turn. J.
J. O’Molloy opened his case again and offered it.

—_Thanky vous_, Lenehan said, helping himself.

The editor came from the inner office, a straw hat awry on his brow. He
declaimed in song, pointing sternly at professor MacHugh:

     ’Twas rank and fame that tempted thee,
     ’Twas empire charmed thy heart.

The professor grinned, locking his long lips.

—Eh? You bloody old Roman empire? Myles Crawford said.

He took a cigarette from the open case. Lenehan, lighting it for him
with quick grace, said:

—Silence for my brandnew riddle!

—_Imperium romanum_, J. J. O’Molloy said gently. It sounds nobler than
British or Brixton. The word reminds one somehow of fat in the fire.

Myles Crawford blew his first puff violently towards the ceiling.

—That’s it, he said. We are the fat. You and I are the fat in the fire.
We haven’t got the chance of a snowball in hell.

THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME


—Wait a moment, professor MacHugh said, raising two quiet claws. We
mustn’t be led away by words, by sounds of words. We think of Rome,
imperial, imperious, imperative.

He extended elocutionary arms from frayed stained shirtcuffs, pausing:

—What was their civilisation? Vast, I allow: but vile. Cloacae: sewers.
The Jews in the wilderness and on the mountaintop said: _It is meet to
be here. Let us build an altar to Jehovah_. The Roman, like the
Englishman who follows in his footsteps, brought to every new shore on
which he set his foot (on our shore he never set it) only his cloacal
obsession. He gazed about him in his toga and he said: _It is meet to
be here. Let us construct a watercloset._

—Which they accordingly did do, Lenehan said. Our old ancient
ancestors, as we read in the first chapter of Guinness’s, were partial
to the running stream.

—They were nature’s gentlemen, J. J. O’Molloy murmured. But we have
also Roman law.

—And Pontius Pilate is its prophet, professor MacHugh responded.

—Do you know that story about chief baron Palles? J. J. O’Molloy asked.
It was at the royal university dinner. Everything was going swimmingly
...

—First my riddle, Lenehan said. Are you ready?

Mr O’Madden Burke, tall in copious grey of Donegal tweed, came in from
the hallway. Stephen Dedalus, behind him, uncovered as he entered.

—_Entrez, mes enfants!_ Lenehan cried.

—I escort a suppliant, Mr O’Madden Burke said melodiously. Youth led by
Experience visits Notoriety.

—How do you do? the editor said, holding out a hand. Come in. Your
governor is just gone.

???


Lenehan said to all:

—Silence! What opera resembles a railwayline? Reflect, ponder,
excogitate, reply.

Stephen handed over the typed sheets, pointing to the title and
signature.

—Who? the editor asked.

Bit torn off.

—Mr Garrett Deasy, Stephen said.

—That old pelters, the editor said. Who tore it? Was he short taken?

     On swift sail flaming
     From storm and south
     He comes, pale vampire,
     Mouth to my mouth.

—Good day, Stephen, the professor said, coming to peer over their
shoulders. Foot and mouth? Are you turned...?

Bullockbefriending bard.

SHINDY IN WELLKNOWN RESTAURANT


—Good day, sir, Stephen answered blushing. The letter is not mine. Mr
Garrett Deasy asked me to...

—O, I know him, Myles Crawford said, and I knew his wife too. The
bloodiest old tartar God ever made. By Jesus, she had the foot and
mouth disease and no mistake! The night she threw the soup in the
waiter’s face in the Star and Garter. Oho!

A woman brought sin into the world. For Helen, the runaway wife of
Menelaus, ten years the Greeks. O’Rourke, prince of Breffni.

—Is he a widower? Stephen asked.

—Ay, a grass one, Myles Crawford said, his eye running down the
typescript. Emperor’s horses. Habsburg. An Irishman saved his life on
the ramparts of Vienna. Don’t you forget! Maximilian Karl O’Donnell,
graf von Tirconnell in Ireland. Sent his heir over to make the king an
Austrian fieldmarshal now. Going to be trouble there one day. Wild
geese. O yes, every time. Don’t you forget that!

—The moot point is did he forget it, J. J. O’Molloy said quietly,
turning a horseshoe paperweight. Saving princes is a thank you job.

Professor MacHugh turned on him.

—And if not? he said.

—I’ll tell you how it was, Myles Crawford began. A Hungarian it was one
day...

LOST CAUSES NOBLE MARQUESS MENTIONED


—We were always loyal to lost causes, the professor said. Success for
us is the death of the intellect and of the imagination. We were never
loyal to the successful. We serve them. I teach the blatant Latin
language. I speak the tongue of a race the acme of whose mentality is
the maxim: time is money. Material domination. _Dominus!_ Lord! Where
is the spirituality? Lord Jesus? Lord Salisbury? A sofa in a westend
club. But the Greek!

KYRIE ELEISON!


A smile of light brightened his darkrimmed eyes, lengthened his long
lips.

—The Greek! he said again. _Kyrios!_ Shining word! The vowels the
Semite and the Saxon know not. _Kyrie!_ The radiance of the intellect.
I ought to profess Greek, the language of the mind. _Kyrie eleison!_
The closetmaker and the cloacamaker will never be lords of our spirit.
We are liege subjects of the catholic chivalry of Europe that foundered
at Trafalgar and of the empire of the spirit, not an _imperium,_ that
went under with the Athenian fleets at Aegospotami. Yes, yes. They went
under. Pyrrhus, misled by an oracle, made a last attempt to retrieve
the fortunes of Greece. Loyal to a lost cause.

He strode away from them towards the window.

—They went forth to battle, Mr O’Madden Burke said greyly, but they
always fell.

—Boohoo! Lenehan wept with a little noise. Owing to a brick received in
the latter half of the _matinée_. Poor, poor, poor Pyrrhus!

He whispered then near Stephen’s ear:

LENEHAN’S LIMERICK


—_There’s a ponderous pundit MacHugh
Who wears goggles of ebony hue.
As he mostly sees double
To wear them why trouble?
I can’t see the Joe Miller. Can you?_


In mourning for Sallust, Mulligan says. Whose mother is beastly dead.

Myles Crawford crammed the sheets into a sidepocket.

—That’ll be all right, he said. I’ll read the rest after. That’ll be
all right.

Lenehan extended his hands in protest.

—But my riddle! he said. What opera is like a railwayline?

—Opera? Mr O’Madden Burke’s sphinx face reriddled.

Lenehan announced gladly:

—_The Rose of Castile_. See the wheeze? Rows of cast steel. Gee!

He poked Mr O’Madden Burke mildly in the spleen. Mr O’Madden Burke fell
back with grace on his umbrella, feigning a gasp.

—Help! he sighed. I feel a strong weakness.

Lenehan, rising to tiptoe, fanned his face rapidly with the rustling
tissues.

The professor, returning by way of the files, swept his hand across
Stephen’s and Mr O’Madden Burke’s loose ties.

—Paris, past and present, he said. You look like communards.

—Like fellows who had blown up the Bastile, J. J. O’Molloy said in
quiet mockery. Or was it you shot the lord lieutenant of Finland
between you? You look as though you had done the deed. General
Bobrikoff.

OMNIUM GATHERUM


—We were only thinking about it, Stephen said.

—All the talents, Myles Crawford said. Law, the classics...

—The turf, Lenehan put in.

—Literature, the press.

—If Bloom were here, the professor said. The gentle art of
advertisement.

—And Madam Bloom, Mr O’Madden Burke added. The vocal muse. Dublin’s
prime favourite.

Lenehan gave a loud cough.

—Ahem! he said very softly. O, for a fresh of breath air! I caught a
cold in the park. The gate was open.

“YOU CAN DO IT!”


The editor laid a nervous hand on Stephen’s shoulder.

—I want you to write something for me, he said. Something with a bite
in it. You can do it. I see it in your face. _In the lexicon of
youth_...

See it in your face. See it in your eye. Lazy idle little schemer.

—Foot and mouth disease! the editor cried in scornful invective. Great
nationalist meeting in Borris-in-Ossory. All balls! Bulldosing the
public! Give them something with a bite in it. Put us all into it, damn
its soul. Father, Son and Holy Ghost and Jakes M’Carthy.

—We can all supply mental pabulum, Mr O’Madden Burke said.

Stephen raised his eyes to the bold unheeding stare.

—He wants you for the pressgang, J. J. O’Molloy said.

THE GREAT GALLAHER


—You can do it, Myles Crawford repeated, clenching his hand in
emphasis. Wait a minute. We’ll paralyse Europe as Ignatius Gallaher
used to say when he was on the shaughraun, doing billiardmarking in the
Clarence. Gallaher, that was a pressman for you. That was a pen. You
know how he made his mark? I’ll tell you. That was the smartest piece
of journalism ever known. That was in eightyone, sixth of May, time of
the invincibles, murder in the Phoenix park, before you were born, I
suppose. I’ll show you.

He pushed past them to the files.

—Look at here, he said turning. The _New York World_ cabled for a
special. Remember that time?

Professor MacHugh nodded.

—_New York World_, the editor said, excitedly pushing back his straw
hat. Where it took place. Tim Kelly, or Kavanagh I mean. Joe Brady and
the rest of them. Where Skin-the-Goat drove the car. Whole route, see?

—Skin-the-Goat, Mr O’Madden Burke said. Fitzharris. He has that
cabman’s shelter, they say, down there at Butt bridge. Holohan told me.
You know Holohan?

—Hop and carry one, is it? Myles Crawford said.

—And poor Gumley is down there too, so he told me, minding stones for
the corporation. A night watchman.

Stephen turned in surprise.

—Gumley? he said. You don’t say so? A friend of my father’s, is it?

—Never mind Gumley, Myles Crawford cried angrily. Let Gumley mind the
stones, see they don’t run away. Look at here. What did Ignatius
Gallaher do? I’ll tell you. Inspiration of genius. Cabled right away.
Have you _Weekly Freeman_ of 17 March? Right. Have you got that?

He flung back pages of the files and stuck his finger on a point.

—Take page four, advertisement for Bransome’s coffee, let us say. Have
you got that? Right.

The telephone whirred.

A DISTANT VOICE


—I’ll answer it, the professor said, going.

—B is parkgate. Good.

His finger leaped and struck point after point, vibrating.

—T is viceregal lodge. C is where murder took place. K is Knockmaroon
gate.

The loose flesh of his neck shook like a cock’s wattles. An illstarched
dicky jutted up and with a rude gesture he thrust it back into his
waistcoat.

—Hello? _Evening Telegraph_ here... Hello?... Who’s there?... Yes...
Yes... Yes.

—F to P is the route Skin-the-Goat drove the car for an alibi,
Inchicore, Roundtown, Windy Arbour, Palmerston Park, Ranelagh. F.A.B.P.
Got that? X is Davy’s publichouse in upper Leeson street.

The professor came to the inner door.

—Bloom is at the telephone, he said.

—Tell him go to hell, the editor said promptly. X is Davy’s
publichouse, see?

CLEVER, VERY


—Clever, Lenehan said. Very.

—Gave it to them on a hot plate, Myles Crawford said, the whole bloody
history.

Nightmare from which you will never awake.

—I saw it, the editor said proudly. I was present. Dick Adams, the
besthearted bloody Corkman the Lord ever put the breath of life in, and
myself.

Lenehan bowed to a shape of air, announcing:

—Madam, I’m Adam. And Able was I ere I saw Elba.

—History! Myles Crawford cried. The Old Woman of Prince’s street was
there first. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth over that. Out of
an advertisement. Gregor Grey made the design for it. That gave him the
leg up. Then Paddy Hooper worked Tay Pay who took him on to the _Star._
Now he’s got in with Blumenfeld. That’s press. That’s talent. Pyatt! He
was all their daddies!

—The father of scare journalism, Lenehan confirmed, and the
brother-in-law of Chris Callinan.

—Hello?... Are you there?... Yes, he’s here still. Come across
yourself.

—Where do you find a pressman like that now, eh? the editor cried.

He flung the pages down.

—Clamn dever, Lenehan said to Mr O’Madden Burke.

—Very smart, Mr O’Madden Burke said.

Professor MacHugh came from the inner office.

—Talking about the invincibles, he said, did you see that some hawkers
were up before the recorder...

—O yes, J. J. O’Molloy said eagerly. Lady Dudley was walking home
through the park to see all the trees that were blown down by that
cyclone last year and thought she’d buy a view of Dublin. And it turned
out to be a commemoration postcard of Joe Brady or Number One or
Skin-the-Goat. Right outside the viceregal lodge, imagine!

—They’re only in the hook and eye department, Myles Crawford said.
Psha! Press and the bar! Where have you a man now at the bar like those
fellows, like Whiteside, like Isaac Butt, like silvertongued O’Hagan.
Eh? Ah, bloody nonsense. Psha! Only in the halfpenny place.

His mouth continued to twitch unspeaking in nervous curls of disdain.

Would anyone wish that mouth for her kiss? How do you know? Why did you
write it then?

RHYMES AND REASONS


Mouth, south. Is the mouth south someway? Or the south a mouth? Must be
some. South, pout, out, shout, drouth. Rhymes: two men dressed the
same, looking the same, two by two.

     ........................ la tua pace
     .................. che parlar ti piace
     Mentre che il vento, come fa, si tace.

He saw them three by three, approaching girls, in green, in rose, in
russet, entwining, _per l’aer perso_, in mauve, in purple, _quella
pacifica oriafiamma_, gold of oriflamme, _di rimirar fè più ardenti._
But I old men, penitent, leadenfooted, underdarkneath the night: mouth
south: tomb womb.

—Speak up for yourself, Mr O’Madden Burke said.

SUFFICIENT FOR THE DAY...


J. J. O’Molloy, smiling palely, took up the gage.

—My dear Myles, he said, flinging his cigarette aside, you put a false
construction on my words. I hold no brief, as at present advised, for
the third profession _qua_ profession but your Cork legs are running
away with you. Why not bring in Henry Grattan and Flood and Demosthenes
and Edmund Burke? Ignatius Gallaher we all know and his Chapelizod
boss, Harmsworth of the farthing press, and his American cousin of the
Bowery guttersheet not to mention _Paddy Kelly’s Budget_, _Pue’s
Occurrences_ and our watchful friend _The Skibbereen Eagle_. Why bring
in a master of forensic eloquence like Whiteside? Sufficient for the
day is the newspaper thereof.

LINKS WITH BYGONE DAYS OF YORE


—Grattan and Flood wrote for this very paper, the editor cried in his
face. Irish volunteers. Where are you now? Established 1763. Dr Lucas.
Who have you now like John Philpot Curran? Psha!

—Well, J. J. O’Molloy said, Bushe K.C., for example.

—Bushe? the editor said. Well, yes: Bushe, yes. He has a strain of it
in his blood. Kendal Bushe or I mean Seymour Bushe.

—He would have been on the bench long ago, the professor said, only for
.... But no matter.

J. J. O’Molloy turned to Stephen and said quietly and slowly:

—One of the most polished periods I think I ever listened to in my life
fell from the lips of Seymour Bushe. It was in that case of fratricide,
the Childs murder case. Bushe defended him.

     _And in the porches of mine ear did pour._

By the way how did he find that out? He died in his sleep. Or the other
story, beast with two backs?

—What was that? the professor asked.

ITALIA, MAGISTRA ARTIUM


—He spoke on the law of evidence, J. J. O’Molloy said, of Roman justice
as contrasted with the earlier Mosaic code, the _lex talionis_. And he
cited the Moses of Michelangelo in the vatican.

—Ha.

—A few wellchosen words, Lenehan prefaced. Silence!

Pause. J. J. O’Molloy took out his cigarettecase.

False lull. Something quite ordinary.

Messenger took out his matchbox thoughtfully and lit his cigar.

I have often thought since on looking back over that strange time that
it was that small act, trivial in itself, that striking of that match,
that determined the whole aftercourse of both our lives.

A POLISHED PERIOD


J. J. O’Molloy resumed, moulding his words:

—He said of it: _that stony effigy in frozen music, horned and
terrible, of the human form divine, that eternal symbol of wisdom and
of prophecy which, if aught that the imagination or the hand of
sculptor has wrought in marble of soultransfigured and of
soultransfiguring deserves to live, deserves to live._

His slim hand with a wave graced echo and fall.

—Fine! Myles Crawford said at once.

—The divine afflatus, Mr O’Madden Burke said.

—You like it? J. J. O’Molloy asked Stephen.

Stephen, his blood wooed by grace of language and gesture, blushed. He
took a cigarette from the case. J. J. O’Molloy offered his case to
Myles Crawford. Lenehan lit their cigarettes as before and took his
trophy, saying:

—Muchibus thankibus.

A MAN OF HIGH MORALE


—Professor Magennis was speaking to me about you, J. J. O’Molloy said
to Stephen. What do you think really of that hermetic crowd, the opal
hush poets: A. E. the mastermystic? That Blavatsky woman started it.
She was a nice old bag of tricks. A. E. has been telling some yankee
interviewer that you came to him in the small hours of the morning to
ask him about planes of consciousness. Magennis thinks you must have
been pulling A. E.’s leg. He is a man of the very highest morale,
Magennis.

Speaking about me. What did he say? What did he say? What did he say
about me? Don’t ask.

—No, thanks, professor MacHugh said, waving the cigarettecase aside.
Wait a moment. Let me say one thing. The finest display of oratory I
ever heard was a speech made by John F Taylor at the college historical
society. Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, the present lord justice of appeal, had
spoken and the paper under debate was an essay (new for those days),
advocating the revival of the Irish tongue.

He turned towards Myles Crawford and said:

—You know Gerald Fitzgibbon. Then you can imagine the style of his
discourse.

—He is sitting with Tim Healy, J. J. O’Molloy said, rumour has it, on
the Trinity college estates commission.

—He is sitting with a sweet thing, Myles Crawford said, in a child’s
frock. Go on. Well?

—It was the speech, mark you, the professor said, of a finished orator,
full of courteous haughtiness and pouring in chastened diction I will
not say the vials of his wrath but pouring the proud man’s contumely
upon the new movement. It was then a new movement. We were weak,
therefore worthless.

He closed his long thin lips an instant but, eager to be on, raised an
outspanned hand to his spectacles and, with trembling thumb and
ringfinger touching lightly the black rims, steadied them to a new
focus.

IMPROMPTU


In ferial tone he addressed J. J. O’Molloy:

—Taylor had come there, you must know, from a sickbed. That he had
prepared his speech I do not believe for there was not even one
shorthandwriter in the hall. His dark lean face had a growth of shaggy
beard round it. He wore a loose white silk neckcloth and altogether he
looked (though he was not) a dying man.

His gaze turned at once but slowly from J. J. O’Molloy’s towards
Stephen’s face and then bent at once to the ground, seeking. His
unglazed linen collar appeared behind his bent head, soiled by his
withering hair. Still seeking, he said:

—When Fitzgibbon’s speech had ended John F Taylor rose to reply.
Briefly, as well as I can bring them to mind, his words were these.

He raised his head firmly. His eyes bethought themselves once more.
Witless shellfish swam in the gross lenses to and fro, seeking outlet.

He began:

_—Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Great was my admiration in
listening to the remarks addressed to the youth of Ireland a moment
since by my learned friend. It seemed to me that I had been transported
into a country far away from this country, into an age remote from this
age, that I stood in ancient Egypt and that I was listening to the
speech of some highpriest of that land addressed to the youthful
Moses._

His listeners held their cigarettes poised to hear, their smokes
ascending in frail stalks that flowered with his speech. _And let our
crooked smokes._ Noble words coming. Look out. Could you try your hand
at it yourself?

_—And it seemed to me that I heard the voice of that Egyptian
highpriest raised in a tone of like haughtiness and like pride. I heard
his words and their meaning was revealed to me._

FROM THE FATHERS


It was revealed to me that those things are good which yet are
corrupted which neither if they were supremely good nor unless they
were good could be corrupted. Ah, curse you! That’s saint Augustine.

_—Why will you jews not accept our culture, our religion and our
language? You are a tribe of nomad herdsmen: we are a mighty people.
You have no cities nor no wealth: our cities are hives of humanity and
our galleys, trireme and quadrireme, laden with all manner merchandise
furrow the waters of the known globe. You have but emerged from
primitive conditions: we have a literature, a priesthood, an agelong
history and a polity._

Nile.

Child, man, effigy.

By the Nilebank the babemaries kneel, cradle of bulrushes: a man supple
in combat: stonehorned, stonebearded, heart of stone.

_—You pray to a local and obscure idol: our temples, majestic and
mysterious, are the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of Horus and Ammon Ra.
Yours serfdom, awe and humbleness: ours thunder and the seas. Israel is
weak and few are her children: Egypt is an host and terrible are her
arms. Vagrants and daylabourers are you called: the world trembles at
our name._

A dumb belch of hunger cleft his speech. He lifted his voice above it
boldly:

_—But, ladies and gentlemen, had the youthful Moses listened to and
accepted that view of life, had he bowed his head and bowed his will
and bowed his spirit before that arrogant admonition he would never
have brought the chosen people out of their house of bondage, nor
followed the pillar of the cloud by day. He would never have spoken
with the Eternal amid lightnings on Sinai’s mountaintop nor ever have
come down with the light of inspiration shining in his countenance and
bearing in his arms the tables of the law, graven in the language of
the outlaw._

He ceased and looked at them, enjoying a silence.

OMINOUS—FOR HIM!


J. J. O’Molloy said not without regret:

—And yet he died without having entered the land of promise.

—A—sudden—at—the—moment—though—from—lingering—illness—often—previously—
expectorated—demise, Lenehan added. And with a great future behind him.

The troop of bare feet was heard rushing along the hallway and
pattering up the staircase.

—That is oratory, the professor said uncontradicted.

Gone with the wind. Hosts at Mullaghmast and Tara of the kings. Miles
of ears of porches. The tribune’s words, howled and scattered to the
four winds. A people sheltered within his voice. Dead noise. Akasic
records of all that ever anywhere wherever was. Love and laud him: me
no more.

I have money.

—Gentlemen, Stephen said. As the next motion on the agenda paper may I
suggest that the house do now adjourn?

—You take my breath away. It is not perchance a French compliment? Mr
O’Madden Burke asked. ’Tis the hour, methinks, when the winejug,
metaphorically speaking, is most grateful in Ye ancient hostelry.

—That it be and hereby is resolutely resolved. All that are in favour
say ay, Lenehan announced. The contrary no. I declare it carried. To
which particular boosing shed...? My casting vote is: Mooney’s!

He led the way, admonishing:

—We will sternly refuse to partake of strong waters, will we not? Yes,
we will not. By no manner of means.

Mr O’Madden Burke, following close, said with an ally’s lunge of his
umbrella:

—Lay on, Macduff!

—Chip of the old block! the editor cried, clapping Stephen on the
shoulder. Let us go. Where are those blasted keys?

He fumbled in his pocket pulling out the crushed typesheets.

—Foot and mouth. I know. That’ll be all right. That’ll go in. Where are
they? That’s all right.

He thrust the sheets back and went into the inner office.

LET US HOPE


J. J. O’Molloy, about to follow him in, said quietly to Stephen:

—I hope you will live to see it published. Myles, one moment.

He went into the inner office, closing the door behind him.

—Come along, Stephen, the professor said. That is fine, isn’t it? It
has the prophetic vision. _Fuit Ilium!_ The sack of windy Troy.
Kingdoms of this world. The masters of the Mediterranean are fellaheen
today.

The first newsboy came pattering down the stairs at their heels and
rushed out into the street, yelling:

—Racing special!

Dublin. I have much, much to learn.

They turned to the left along Abbey street.

—I have a vision too, Stephen said.

—Yes? the professor said, skipping to get into step. Crawford will
follow.

Another newsboy shot past them, yelling as he ran:

—Racing special!

DEAR DIRTY DUBLIN


Dubliners.

—Two Dublin vestals, Stephen said, elderly and pious, have lived fifty
and fiftythree years in Fumbally’s lane.

—Where is that? the professor asked.

—Off Blackpitts, Stephen said.

Damp night reeking of hungry dough. Against the wall. Face glistering
tallow under her fustian shawl. Frantic hearts. Akasic records.
Quicker, darlint!

On now. Dare it. Let there be life.

—They want to see the views of Dublin from the top of Nelson’s pillar.
They save up three and tenpence in a red tin letterbox moneybox. They
shake out the threepenny bits and sixpences and coax out the pennies
with the blade of a knife. Two and three in silver and one and seven in
coppers. They put on their bonnets and best clothes and take their
umbrellas for fear it may come on to rain.

—Wise virgins, professor MacHugh said.

LIFE ON THE RAW


—They buy one and fourpenceworth of brawn and four slices of panloaf at
the north city diningrooms in Marlborough street from Miss Kate
Collins, proprietress... They purchase four and twenty ripe plums from
a girl at the foot of Nelson’s pillar to take off the thirst of the
brawn. They give two threepenny bits to the gentleman at the turnstile
and begin to waddle slowly up the winding staircase, grunting,
encouraging each other, afraid of the dark, panting, one asking the
other have you the brawn, praising God and the Blessed Virgin,
threatening to come down, peeping at the airslits. Glory be to God.
They had no idea it was that high.

Their names are Anne Kearns and Florence MacCabe. Anne Kearns has the
lumbago for which she rubs on Lourdes water, given her by a lady who
got a bottleful from a passionist father. Florence MacCabe takes a
crubeen and a bottle of double X for supper every Saturday.

—Antithesis, the professor said nodding twice. Vestal virgins. I can
see them. What’s keeping our friend?

He turned.

A bevy of scampering newsboys rushed down the steps, scattering in all
directions, yelling, their white papers fluttering. Hard after them
Myles Crawford appeared on the steps, his hat aureoling his scarlet
face, talking with J. J. O’Molloy.

—Come along, the professor cried, waving his arm.

He set off again to walk by Stephen’s side.

RETURN OF BLOOM


—Yes, he said. I see them.

Mr Bloom, breathless, caught in a whirl of wild newsboys near the
offices of the _Irish Catholic_ and _Dublin Penny Journal_, called:

—Mr Crawford! A moment!

—_Telegraph_! Racing special!

—What is it? Myles Crawford said, falling back a pace.

A newsboy cried in Mr Bloom’s face:

—Terrible tragedy in Rathmines! A child bit by a bellows!

INTERVIEW WITH THE EDITOR


—Just this ad, Mr Bloom said, pushing through towards the steps,
puffing, and taking the cutting from his pocket. I spoke with Mr Keyes
just now. He’ll give a renewal for two months, he says. After he’ll
see. But he wants a par to call attention in the _Telegraph_ too, the
Saturday pink. And he wants it copied if it’s not too late I told
councillor Nannetti from the _Kilkenny People_. I can have access to it
in the national library. House of keys, don’t you see? His name is
Keyes. It’s a play on the name. But he practically promised he’d give
the renewal. But he wants just a little puff. What will I tell him, Mr
Crawford?

K.M.A.


—Will you tell him he can kiss my arse? Myles Crawford said throwing
out his arm for emphasis. Tell him that straight from the stable.

A bit nervy. Look out for squalls. All off for a drink. Arm in arm.
Lenehan’s yachting cap on the cadge beyond. Usual blarney. Wonder is
that young Dedalus the moving spirit. Has a good pair of boots on him
today. Last time I saw him he had his heels on view. Been walking in
muck somewhere. Careless chap. What was he doing in Irishtown?

—Well, Mr Bloom said, his eyes returning, if I can get the design I
suppose it’s worth a short par. He’d give the ad, I think. I’ll tell
him...

K.M.R.I.A.


—He can kiss my royal Irish arse, Myles Crawford cried loudly over his
shoulder. Any time he likes, tell him.

While Mr Bloom stood weighing the point and about to smile he strode on
jerkily.

RAISING THE WIND


—_Nulla bona_, Jack, he said, raising his hand to his chin. I’m up to
here. I’ve been through the hoop myself. I was looking for a fellow to
back a bill for me no later than last week. Sorry, Jack. You must take
the will for the deed. With a heart and a half if I could raise the
wind anyhow.

J. J. O’Molloy pulled a long face and walked on silently. They caught
up on the others and walked abreast.

—When they have eaten the brawn and the bread and wiped their twenty
fingers in the paper the bread was wrapped in they go nearer to the
railings.

—Something for you, the professor explained to Myles Crawford. Two old
Dublin women on the top of Nelson’s pillar.

SOME COLUMN!—THAT’S WHAT WADDLER ONE SAID


—That’s new, Myles Crawford said. That’s copy. Out for the waxies’
Dargle. Two old trickies, what?

—But they are afraid the pillar will fall, Stephen went on. They see
the roofs and argue about where the different churches are: Rathmines’
blue dome, Adam and Eve’s, saint Laurence O’Toole’s. But it makes them
giddy to look so they pull up their skirts...

THOSE SLIGHTLY RAMBUNCTIOUS FEMALES


—Easy all, Myles Crawford said. No poetic licence. We’re in the
archdiocese here.

—And settle down on their striped petticoats, peering up at the statue
of the onehandled adulterer.

—Onehandled adulterer! the professor cried. I like that. I see the
idea. I see what you mean.

DAMES DONATE DUBLIN’S CITS SPEEDPILLS VELOCITOUS AEROLITHS, BELIEF


—It gives them a crick in their necks, Stephen said, and they are too
tired to look up or down or to speak. They put the bag of plums between
them and eat the plums out of it, one after another, wiping off with
their handkerchiefs the plumjuice that dribbles out of their mouths and
spitting the plumstones slowly out between the railings.

He gave a sudden loud young laugh as a close. Lenehan and Mr O’Madden
Burke, hearing, turned, beckoned and led on across towards Mooney’s.

—Finished? Myles Crawford said. So long as they do no worse.

SOPHIST WALLOPS HAUGHTY HELEN SQUARE ON PROBOSCIS. SPARTANS GNASH
MOLARS. ITHACANS VOW PEN IS CHAMP.


—You remind me of Antisthenes, the professor said, a disciple of
Gorgias, the sophist. It is said of him that none could tell if he were
bitterer against others or against himself. He was the son of a noble
and a bondwoman. And he wrote a book in which he took away the palm of
beauty from Argive Helen and handed it to poor Penelope.

Poor Penelope. Penelope Rich.

They made ready to cross O’Connell street.

HELLO THERE, CENTRAL!


At various points along the eight lines tramcars with motionless
trolleys stood in their tracks, bound for or from Rathmines,
Rathfarnham, Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Sandymount Green,
Ringsend and Sandymount Tower, Donnybrook, Palmerston Park and Upper
Rathmines, all still, becalmed in short circuit. Hackney cars, cabs,
delivery waggons, mailvans, private broughams, aerated mineral water
floats with rattling crates of bottles, rattled, rolled, horsedrawn,
rapidly.

WHAT?—AND LIKEWISE—WHERE?


—But what do you call it? Myles Crawford asked. Where did they get the
plums?

VIRGILIAN, SAYS PEDAGOGUE. SOPHOMORE PLUMPS FOR OLD MAN MOSES.


—Call it, wait, the professor said, opening his long lips wide to
reflect. Call it, let me see. Call it: _deus nobis hæc otia fecit._

—No, Stephen said. I call it _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_ or _The
Parable of The Plums._

—I see, the professor said.

He laughed richly.

—I see, he said again with new pleasure. Moses and the promised land.
We gave him that idea, he added to J. J. O’Molloy.

HORATIO IS CYNOSURE THIS FAIR JUNE DAY


J. J. O’Molloy sent a weary sidelong glance towards the statue and held
his peace.

—I see, the professor said.

He halted on sir John Gray’s pavement island and peered aloft at Nelson
through the meshes of his wry smile.

DIMINISHED DIGITS PROVE TOO TITILLATING FOR FRISKY FRUMPS. ANNE
WIMBLES, FLO WANGLES—YET CAN YOU BLAME THEM?


—Onehandled adulterer, he said smiling grimly. That tickles me, I must
say.

—Tickled the old ones too, Myles Crawford said, if the God Almighty’s
truth was known.


[ 8 ]

Pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch. A sugarsticky girl
shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother. Some school
treat. Bad for their tummies. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His
Majesty the King. God. Save. Our. Sitting on his throne sucking red
jujubes white.

A sombre Y. M. C. A. young man, watchful among the warm sweet fumes of
Graham Lemon’s, placed a throwaway in a hand of Mr Bloom.

Heart to heart talks.

Bloo... Me? No.

Blood of the Lamb.

His slow feet walked him riverward, reading. Are you saved? All are
washed in the blood of the lamb. God wants blood victim. Birth, hymen,
martyr, war, foundation of a building, sacrifice, kidney burntoffering,
druids’ altars. Elijah is coming. Dr John Alexander Dowie restorer of
the church in Zion is coming.

     Is coming! Is coming!! Is coming!!!
     All heartily welcome.

Paying game. Torry and Alexander last year. Polygamy. His wife will put
the stopper on that. Where was that ad some Birmingham firm the
luminous crucifix. Our Saviour. Wake up in the dead of night and see
him on the wall, hanging. Pepper’s ghost idea. Iron Nails Ran In.

Phosphorus it must be done with. If you leave a bit of codfish for
instance. I could see the bluey silver over it. Night I went down to
the pantry in the kitchen. Don’t like all the smells in it waiting to
rush out. What was it she wanted? The Malaga raisins. Thinking of
Spain. Before Rudy was born. The phosphorescence, that bluey greeny.
Very good for the brain.

From Butler’s monument house corner he glanced along Bachelor’s walk.
Dedalus’ daughter there still outside Dillon’s auctionrooms. Must be
selling off some old furniture. Knew her eyes at once from the father.
Lobbing about waiting for him. Home always breaks up when the mother
goes. Fifteen children he had. Birth every year almost. That’s in their
theology or the priest won’t give the poor woman the confession, the
absolution. Increase and multiply. Did you ever hear such an idea? Eat
you out of house and home. No families themselves to feed. Living on
the fat of the land. Their butteries and larders. I’d like to see them
do the black fast Yom Kippur. Crossbuns. One meal and a collation for
fear he’d collapse on the altar. A housekeeper of one of those fellows
if you could pick it out of her. Never pick it out of her. Like getting
£. s. d. out of him. Does himself well. No guests. All for number one.
Watching his water. Bring your own bread and butter. His reverence:
mum’s the word.

Good Lord, that poor child’s dress is in flitters. Underfed she looks
too. Potatoes and marge, marge and potatoes. It’s after they feel it.
Proof of the pudding. Undermines the constitution.

As he set foot on O’Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from
the parapet. Brewery barge with export stout. England. Sea air sours
it, I heard. Be interesting some day get a pass through Hancock to see
the brewery. Regular world in itself. Vats of porter wonderful. Rats
get in too. Drink themselves bloated as big as a collie floating. Dead
drunk on the porter. Drink till they puke again like christians.
Imagine drinking that! Rats: vats. Well, of course, if we knew all the
things.

Looking down he saw flapping strongly, wheeling between the gaunt
quaywalls, gulls. Rough weather outside. If I threw myself down? Reuben
J’s son must have swallowed a good bellyful of that sewage. One and
eightpence too much. Hhhhm. It’s the droll way he comes out with the
things. Knows how to tell a story too.

They wheeled lower. Looking for grub. Wait.

He threw down among them a crumpled paper ball. Elijah thirtytwo feet
per sec is com. Not a bit. The ball bobbed unheeded on the wake of
swells, floated under by the bridgepiers. Not such damn fools. Also the
day I threw that stale cake out of the Erin’s King picked it up in the
wake fifty yards astern. Live by their wits. They wheeled, flapping.

     The hungry famished gull
     Flaps o’er the waters dull.

That is how poets write, the similar sounds. But then Shakespeare has
no rhymes: blank verse. The flow of the language it is. The thoughts.
Solemn.

     Hamlet, I am thy father’s spirit
     Doomed for a certain time to walk the earth.

 —Two apples a penny! Two for a penny!

His gaze passed over the glazed apples serried on her stand.
Australians they must be this time of year. Shiny peels: polishes them
up with a rag or a handkerchief.

Wait. Those poor birds.

He halted again and bought from the old applewoman two Banbury cakes
for a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down
into the Liffey. See that? The gulls swooped silently, two, then all
from their heights, pouncing on prey. Gone. Every morsel.

Aware of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his
hands. They never expected that. Manna. Live on fish, fishy flesh they
have, all seabirds, gulls, seagoose. Swans from Anna Liffey swim down
here sometimes to preen themselves. No accounting for tastes. Wonder
what kind is swanmeat. Robinson Crusoe had to live on them.

They wheeled flapping weakly. I’m not going to throw any more. Penny
quite enough. Lot of thanks I get. Not even a caw. They spread foot and
mouth disease too. If you cram a turkey say on chestnutmeal it tastes
like that. Eat pig like pig. But then why is it that saltwater fish are
not salty? How is that?

His eyes sought answer from the river and saw a rowboat rock at anchor
on the treacly swells lazily its plastered board.

     Kino’s
     11/—
     Trousers

Good idea that. Wonder if he pays rent to the corporation. How can you
own water really? It’s always flowing in a stream, never the same,
which in the stream of life we trace. Because life is a stream. All
kinds of places are good for ads. That quack doctor for the clap used
to be stuck up in all the greenhouses. Never see it now. Strictly
confidential. Dr Hy Franks. Didn’t cost him a red like Maginni the
dancing master self advertisement. Got fellows to stick them up or
stick them up himself for that matter on the q. t. running in to loosen
a button. Flybynight. Just the place too. POST NO BILLS. POST 110
PILLS. Some chap with a dose burning him.

If he...?

O!

Eh?

No... No.

No, no. I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t surely?

No, no.

Mr Bloom moved forward, raising his troubled eyes. Think no more about
that. After one. Timeball on the ballastoffice is down. Dunsink time.
Fascinating little book that is of sir Robert Ball’s. Parallax. I never
exactly understood. There’s a priest. Could ask him. Par it’s Greek:
parallel, parallax. Met him pike hoses she called it till I told her
about the transmigration. O rocks!

Mr Bloom smiled O rocks at two windows of the ballastoffice. She’s
right after all. Only big words for ordinary things on account of the
sound. She’s not exactly witty. Can be rude too. Blurt out what I was
thinking. Still, I don’t know. She used to say Ben Dollard had a base
barreltone voice. He has legs like barrels and you’d think he was
singing into a barrel. Now, isn’t that wit. They used to call him big
Ben. Not half as witty as calling him base barreltone. Appetite like an
albatross. Get outside of a baron of beef. Powerful man he was at
stowing away number one Bass. Barrel of Bass. See? It all works out.

A procession of whitesmocked sandwichmen marched slowly towards him
along the gutter, scarlet sashes across their boards. Bargains. Like
that priest they are this morning: we have sinned: we have suffered. He
read the scarlet letters on their five tall white hats: H. E. L. Y. S.
Wisdom Hely’s. Y lagging behind drew a chunk of bread from under his
foreboard, crammed it into his mouth and munched as he walked. Our
staple food. Three bob a day, walking along the gutters, street after
street. Just keep skin and bone together, bread and skilly. They are
not Boyl: no, M’Glade’s men. Doesn’t bring in any business either. I
suggested to him about a transparent showcart with two smart girls
sitting inside writing letters, copybooks, envelopes, blottingpaper. I
bet that would have caught on. Smart girls writing something catch the
eye at once. Everyone dying to know what she’s writing. Get twenty of
them round you if you stare at nothing. Have a finger in the pie. Women
too. Curiosity. Pillar of salt. Wouldn’t have it of course because he
didn’t think of it himself first. Or the inkbottle I suggested with a
false stain of black celluloid. His ideas for ads like Plumtree’s
potted under the obituaries, cold meat department. You can’t lick ’em.
What? Our envelopes. Hello, Jones, where are you going? Can’t stop,
Robinson, I am hastening to purchase the only reliable inkeraser
_Kansell,_ sold by Hely’s Ltd, 85 Dame street. Well out of that ruck I
am. Devil of a job it was collecting accounts of those convents.
Tranquilla convent. That was a nice nun there, really sweet face.
Wimple suited her small head. Sister? Sister? I am sure she was crossed
in love by her eyes. Very hard to bargain with that sort of a woman. I
disturbed her at her devotions that morning. But glad to communicate
with the outside world. Our great day, she said. Feast of Our Lady of
Mount Carmel. Sweet name too: caramel. She knew I, I think she knew by
the way she. If she had married she would have changed. I suppose they
really were short of money. Fried everything in the best butter all the
same. No lard for them. My heart’s broke eating dripping. They like
buttering themselves in and out. Molly tasting it, her veil up. Sister?
Pat Claffey, the pawnbroker’s daughter. It was a nun they say invented
barbed wire.

He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. Rover
cycleshop. Those races are on today. How long ago is that? Year Phil
Gilligan died. We were in Lombard street west. Wait: was in Thom’s. Got
the job in Wisdom Hely’s year we married. Six years. Ten years ago:
ninetyfour he died yes that’s right the big fire at Arnott’s. Val
Dillon was lord mayor. The Glencree dinner. Alderman Robert O’Reilly
emptying the port into his soup before the flag fell. Bobbob lapping it
for the inner alderman. Couldn’t hear what the band played. For what we
have already received may the Lord make us. Milly was a kiddy then.
Molly had that elephantgrey dress with the braided frogs. Mantailored
with selfcovered buttons. She didn’t like it because I sprained my
ankle first day she wore choir picnic at the Sugarloaf. As if that. Old
Goodwin’s tall hat done up with some sticky stuff. Flies’ picnic too.
Never put a dress on her back like it. Fitted her like a glove,
shoulders and hips. Just beginning to plump it out well. Rabbitpie we
had that day. People looking after her.

Happy. Happier then. Snug little room that was with the red wallpaper.
Dockrell’s, one and ninepence a dozen. Milly’s tubbing night. American
soap I bought: elderflower. Cosy smell of her bathwater. Funny she
looked soaped all over. Shapely too. Now photography. Poor papa’s
daguerreotype atelier he told me of. Hereditary taste.

He walked along the curbstone.

Stream of life. What was the name of that priestylooking chap was
always squinting in when he passed? Weak eyes, woman. Stopped in
Citron’s saint Kevin’s parade. Pen something. Pendennis? My memory is
getting. Pen ...? Of course it’s years ago. Noise of the trams
probably. Well, if he couldn’t remember the dayfather’s name that he
sees every day.

Bartell d’Arcy was the tenor, just coming out then. Seeing her home
after practice. Conceited fellow with his waxedup moustache. Gave her
that song _Winds that blow from the south_.

Windy night that was I went to fetch her there was that lodge meeting
on about those lottery tickets after Goodwin’s concert in the
supperroom or oakroom of the Mansion house. He and I behind. Sheet of
her music blew out of my hand against the High school railings. Lucky
it didn’t. Thing like that spoils the effect of a night for her.
Professor Goodwin linking her in front. Shaky on his pins, poor old
sot. His farewell concerts. Positively last appearance on any stage.
May be for months and may be for never. Remember her laughing at the
wind, her blizzard collar up. Corner of Harcourt road remember that
gust. Brrfoo! Blew up all her skirts and her boa nearly smothered old
Goodwin. She did get flushed in the wind. Remember when we got home
raking up the fire and frying up those pieces of lap of mutton for her
supper with the Chutney sauce she liked. And the mulled rum. Could see
her in the bedroom from the hearth unclamping the busk of her stays:
white.

Swish and soft flop her stays made on the bed. Always warm from her.
Always liked to let her self out. Sitting there after till near two
taking out her hairpins. Milly tucked up in beddyhouse. Happy. Happy.
That was the night...

—O, Mr Bloom, how do you do?

—O, how do you do, Mrs Breen?

—No use complaining. How is Molly those times? Haven’t seen her for
ages.

—In the pink, Mr Bloom said gaily. Milly has a position down in
Mullingar, you know.

—Go away! Isn’t that grand for her?

—Yes. In a photographer’s there. Getting on like a house on fire. How
are all your charges?

—All on the baker’s list, Mrs Breen said.

How many has she? No other in sight.

—You’re in black, I see. You have no...

—No, Mr Bloom said. I have just come from a funeral.

Going to crop up all day, I foresee. Who’s dead, when and what did he
die of? Turn up like a bad penny.

—O, dear me, Mrs Breen said. I hope it wasn’t any near relation.

May as well get her sympathy.

—Dignam, Mr Bloom said. An old friend of mine. He died quite suddenly,
poor fellow. Heart trouble, I believe. Funeral was this morning.

     Your funeral’s tomorrow
     While you’re coming through the rye.
     Diddlediddle dumdum
     Diddlediddle...

—Sad to lose the old friends, Mrs Breen’s womaneyes said melancholily.

Now that’s quite enough about that. Just: quietly: husband.

—And your lord and master?

Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes. Hasn’t lost them anyhow.

—O, don’t be talking! she said. He’s a caution to rattlesnakes. He’s in
there now with his lawbooks finding out the law of libel. He has me
heartscalded. Wait till I show you.

Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly poured
out from Harrison’s. The heavy noonreek tickled the top of Mr Bloom’s
gullet. Want to make good pastry, butter, best flour, Demerara sugar,
or they’d taste it with the hot tea. Or is it from her? A barefoot arab
stood over the grating, breathing in the fumes. Deaden the gnaw of
hunger that way. Pleasure or pain is it? Penny dinner. Knife and fork
chained to the table.

Opening her handbag, chipped leather. Hatpin: ought to have a guard on
those things. Stick it in a chap’s eye in the tram. Rummaging. Open.
Money. Please take one. Devils if they lose sixpence. Raise Cain.
Husband barging. Where’s the ten shillings I gave you on Monday? Are
you feeding your little brother’s family? Soiled handkerchief:
medicinebottle. Pastille that was fell. What is she?...

—There must be a new moon out, she said. He’s always bad then. Do you
know what he did last night?

Her hand ceased to rummage. Her eyes fixed themselves on him, wide in
alarm, yet smiling.

—What? Mr Bloom asked.

Let her speak. Look straight in her eyes. I believe you. Trust me.

—Woke me up in the night, she said. Dream he had, a nightmare.

Indiges.

—Said the ace of spades was walking up the stairs.

—The ace of spades! Mr Bloom said.

She took a folded postcard from her handbag.

—Read that, she said. He got it this morning.

—What is it? Mr Bloom asked, taking the card. U. P.?

—U. p: up, she said. Someone taking a rise out of him. It’s a great
shame for them whoever he is.

—Indeed it is, Mr Bloom said.

She took back the card, sighing.

—And now he’s going round to Mr Menton’s office. He’s going to take an
action for ten thousand pounds, he says.

She folded the card into her untidy bag and snapped the catch.

Same blue serge dress she had two years ago, the nap bleaching. Seen
its best days. Wispish hair over her ears. And that dowdy toque: three
old grapes to take the harm out of it. Shabby genteel. She used to be a
tasty dresser. Lines round her mouth. Only a year or so older than
Molly.

See the eye that woman gave her, passing. Cruel. The unfair sex.

He looked still at her, holding back behind his look his discontent.
Pungent mockturtle oxtail mulligatawny. I’m hungry too. Flakes of
pastry on the gusset of her dress: daub of sugary flour stuck to her
cheek. Rhubarb tart with liberal fillings, rich fruit interior. Josie
Powell that was. In Luke Doyle’s long ago. Dolphin’s Barn, the
charades. U. p: up.

Change the subject.

—Do you ever see anything of Mrs Beaufoy? Mr Bloom asked.

—Mina Purefoy? she said.

Philip Beaufoy I was thinking. Playgoers’ Club. Matcham often thinks of
the masterstroke. Did I pull the chain? Yes. The last act.

—Yes.

—I just called to ask on the way in is she over it. She’s in the
lying-in hospital in Holles street. Dr Horne got her in. She’s three
days bad now.

—O, Mr Bloom said. I’m sorry to hear that.

—Yes, Mrs Breen said. And a houseful of kids at home. It’s a very stiff
birth, the nurse told me.

—O, Mr Bloom said.

His heavy pitying gaze absorbed her news. His tongue clacked in
compassion. Dth! Dth!

—I’m sorry to hear that, he said. Poor thing! Three days! That’s
terrible for her.

Mrs Breen nodded.

—She was taken bad on the Tuesday...

Mr Bloom touched her funnybone gently, warning her:

—Mind! Let this man pass.

A bony form strode along the curbstone from the river staring with a
rapt gaze into the sunlight through a heavystringed glass. Tight as a
skullpiece a tiny hat gripped his head. From his arm a folded dustcoat,
a stick and an umbrella dangled to his stride.

—Watch him, Mr Bloom said. He always walks outside the lampposts.
Watch!

—Who is he if it’s a fair question? Mrs Breen asked. Is he dotty?

—His name is Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, Mr
Bloom said smiling. Watch!

—He has enough of them, she said. Denis will be like that one of these
days.

She broke off suddenly.

—There he is, she said. I must go after him. Goodbye. Remember me to
Molly, won’t you?

—I will, Mr Bloom said.

He watched her dodge through passers towards the shopfronts. Denis
Breen in skimpy frockcoat and blue canvas shoes shuffled out of
Harrison’s hugging two heavy tomes to his ribs. Blown in from the bay.
Like old times. He suffered her to overtake him without surprise and
thrust his dull grey beard towards her, his loose jaw wagging as he
spoke earnestly.

Meshuggah. Off his chump.

Mr Bloom walked on again easily, seeing ahead of him in sunlight the
tight skullpiece, the dangling stickumbrelladustcoat. Going the two
days. Watch him! Out he goes again. One way of getting on in the world.
And that other old mosey lunatic in those duds. Hard time she must have
with him.

U. p: up. I’ll take my oath that’s Alf Bergan or Richie Goulding. Wrote
it for a lark in the Scotch house I bet anything. Round to Menton’s
office. His oyster eyes staring at the postcard. Be a feast for the
gods.

He passed the _Irish Times_. There might be other answers lying there.
Like to answer them all. Good system for criminals. Code. At their
lunch now. Clerk with the glasses there doesn’t know me. O, leave them
there to simmer. Enough bother wading through fortyfour of them.
Wanted, smart lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work. I called
you naughty darling because I do not like that other world. Please tell
me what is the meaning. Please tell me what perfume does your wife.
Tell me who made the world. The way they spring those questions on you.
And the other one Lizzie Twigg. My literary efforts have had the good
fortune to meet with the approval of the eminent poet A. E. (Mr Geo.
Russell). No time to do her hair drinking sloppy tea with a book of
poetry.

Best paper by long chalks for a small ad. Got the provinces now. Cook
and general, exc. cuisine, housemaid kept. Wanted live man for spirit
counter. Resp. girl (R.C.) wishes to hear of post in fruit or pork
shop. James Carlisle made that. Six and a half per cent dividend. Made
a big deal on Coates’s shares. Ca’ canny. Cunning old Scotch hunks. All
the toady news. Our gracious and popular vicereine. Bought the _Irish
Field_ now. Lady Mountcashel has quite recovered after her confinement
and rode out with the Ward Union staghounds at the enlargement
yesterday at Rathoath. Uneatable fox. Pothunters too. Fear injects
juices make it tender enough for them. Riding astride. Sit her horse
like a man. Weightcarrying huntress. No sidesaddle or pillion for her,
not for Joe. First to the meet and in at the death. Strong as a brood
mare some of those horsey women. Swagger around livery stables. Toss
off a glass of brandy neat while you’d say knife. That one at the
Grosvenor this morning. Up with her on the car: wishswish. Stonewall or
fivebarred gate put her mount to it. Think that pugnosed driver did it
out of spite. Who is this she was like? O yes! Mrs Miriam Dandrade that
sold me her old wraps and black underclothes in the Shelbourne hotel.
Divorced Spanish American. Didn’t take a feather out of her my handling
them. As if I was her clotheshorse. Saw her in the viceregal party when
Stubbs the park ranger got me in with Whelan of the _Express._
Scavenging what the quality left. High tea. Mayonnaise I poured on the
plums thinking it was custard. Her ears ought to have tingled for a few
weeks after. Want to be a bull for her. Born courtesan. No nursery work
for her, thanks.

Poor Mrs Purefoy! Methodist husband. Method in his madness. Saffron bun
and milk and soda lunch in the educational dairy. Y. M. C. A. Eating
with a stopwatch, thirtytwo chews to the minute. And still his
muttonchop whiskers grew. Supposed to be well connected. Theodore’s
cousin in Dublin Castle. One tony relative in every family. Hardy
annuals he presents her with. Saw him out at the Three Jolly Topers
marching along bareheaded and his eldest boy carrying one in a
marketnet. The squallers. Poor thing! Then having to give the breast
year after year all hours of the night. Selfish those t.t’s are. Dog in
the manger. Only one lump of sugar in my tea, if you please.

He stood at Fleet street crossing. Luncheon interval. A sixpenny at
Rowe’s? Must look up that ad in the national library. An eightpenny in
the Burton. Better. On my way.

He walked on past Bolton’s Westmoreland house. Tea. Tea. Tea. I forgot
to tap Tom Kernan.

Sss. Dth, dth, dth! Three days imagine groaning on a bed with a
vinegared handkerchief round her forehead, her belly swollen out. Phew!
Dreadful simply! Child’s head too big: forceps. Doubled up inside her
trying to butt its way out blindly, groping for the way out. Kill me
that would. Lucky Molly got over hers lightly. They ought to invent
something to stop that. Life with hard labour. Twilight sleep idea:
queen Victoria was given that. Nine she had. A good layer. Old woman
that lived in a shoe she had so many children. Suppose he was
consumptive. Time someone thought about it instead of gassing about the
what was it the pensive bosom of the silver effulgence. Flapdoodle to
feed fools on. They could easily have big establishments whole thing
quite painless out of all the taxes give every child born five quid at
compound interest up to twentyone five per cent is a hundred shillings
and five tiresome pounds multiply by twenty decimal system encourage
people to put by money save hundred and ten and a bit twentyone years
want to work it out on paper come to a tidy sum more than you think.

Not stillborn of course. They are not even registered. Trouble for
nothing.

Funny sight two of them together, their bellies out. Molly and Mrs
Moisel. Mothers’ meeting. Phthisis retires for the time being, then
returns. How flat they look all of a sudden after. Peaceful eyes.
Weight off their mind. Old Mrs Thornton was a jolly old soul. All my
babies, she said. The spoon of pap in her mouth before she fed them. O,
that’s nyumnyum. Got her hand crushed by old Tom Wall’s son. His first
bow to the public. Head like a prize pumpkin. Snuffy Dr Murren. People
knocking them up at all hours. For God’ sake, doctor. Wife in her
throes. Then keep them waiting months for their fee. To attendance on
your wife. No gratitude in people. Humane doctors, most of them.

Before the huge high door of the Irish house of parliament a flock of
pigeons flew. Their little frolic after meals. Who will we do it on? I
pick the fellow in black. Here goes. Here’s good luck. Must be
thrilling from the air. Apjohn, myself and Owen Goldberg up in the
trees near Goose green playing the monkeys. Mackerel they called me.

A squad of constables debouched from College street, marching in Indian
file. Goosestep. Foodheated faces, sweating helmets, patting their
truncheons. After their feed with a good load of fat soup under their
belts. Policeman’s lot is oft a happy one. They split up in groups and
scattered, saluting, towards their beats. Let out to graze. Best moment
to attack one in pudding time. A punch in his dinner. A squad of
others, marching irregularly, rounded Trinity railings making for the
station. Bound for their troughs. Prepare to receive cavalry. Prepare
to receive soup.

He crossed under Tommy Moore’s roguish finger. They did right to put
him up over a urinal: meeting of the waters. Ought to be places for
women. Running into cakeshops. Settle my hat straight. _There is not in
this wide world a vallee_. Great song of Julia Morkan’s. Kept her voice
up to the very last. Pupil of Michael Balfe’s, wasn’t she?

He gazed after the last broad tunic. Nasty customers to tackle. Jack
Power could a tale unfold: father a G man. If a fellow gave them
trouble being lagged they let him have it hot and heavy in the
bridewell. Can’t blame them after all with the job they have especially
the young hornies. That horsepoliceman the day Joe Chamberlain was
given his degree in Trinity he got a run for his money. My word he did!
His horse’s hoofs clattering after us down Abbey street. Lucky I had
the presence of mind to dive into Manning’s or I was souped. He did
come a wallop, by George. Must have cracked his skull on the
cobblestones. I oughtn’t to have got myself swept along with those
medicals. And the Trinity jibs in their mortarboards. Looking for
trouble. Still I got to know that young Dixon who dressed that sting
for me in the Mater and now he’s in Holles street where Mrs Purefoy.
Wheels within wheels. Police whistle in my ears still. All skedaddled.
Why he fixed on me. Give me in charge. Right here it began.

—Up the Boers!

—Three cheers for De Wet!

—We’ll hang Joe Chamberlain on a sourapple tree.

Silly billies: mob of young cubs yelling their guts out. Vinegar hill.
The Butter exchange band. Few years’ time half of them magistrates and
civil servants. War comes on: into the army helterskelter: same fellows
used to. Whether on the scaffold high.

Never know who you’re talking to. Corny Kelleher he has Harvey Duff in
his eye. Like that Peter or Denis or James Carey that blew the gaff on
the invincibles. Member of the corporation too. Egging raw youths on to
get in the know all the time drawing secret service pay from the
castle. Drop him like a hot potato. Why those plainclothes men are
always courting slaveys. Easily twig a man used to uniform.
Squarepushing up against a backdoor. Maul her a bit. Then the next
thing on the menu. And who is the gentleman does be visiting there? Was
the young master saying anything? Peeping Tom through the keyhole.
Decoy duck. Hotblooded young student fooling round her fat arms
ironing.

—Are those yours, Mary?

—I don’t wear such things... Stop or I’ll tell the missus on you. Out
half the night.

—There are great times coming, Mary. Wait till you see.

—Ah, gelong with your great times coming.

Barmaids too. Tobaccoshopgirls.

James Stephens’ idea was the best. He knew them. Circles of ten so that
a fellow couldn’t round on more than his own ring. Sinn Fein. Back out
you get the knife. Hidden hand. Stay in. The firing squad. Turnkey’s
daughter got him out of Richmond, off from Lusk. Putting up in the
Buckingham Palace hotel under their very noses. Garibaldi.

You must have a certain fascination: Parnell. Arthur Griffith is a
squareheaded fellow but he has no go in him for the mob. Or gas about
our lovely land. Gammon and spinach. Dublin Bakery Company’s tearoom.
Debating societies. That republicanism is the best form of government.
That the language question should take precedence of the economic
question. Have your daughters inveigling them to your house. Stuff them
up with meat and drink. Michaelmas goose. Here’s a good lump of thyme
seasoning under the apron for you. Have another quart of goosegrease
before it gets too cold. Halffed enthusiasts. Penny roll and a walk
with the band. No grace for the carver. The thought that the other chap
pays best sauce in the world. Make themselves thoroughly at home. Show
us over those apricots, meaning peaches. The not far distant day.
Homerule sun rising up in the northwest.

His smile faded as he walked, a heavy cloud hiding the sun slowly,
shadowing Trinity’s surly front. Trams passed one another, ingoing,
outgoing, clanging. Useless words. Things go on same, day after day:
squads of police marching out, back: trams in, out. Those two loonies
mooching about. Dignam carted off. Mina Purefoy swollen belly on a bed
groaning to have a child tugged out of her. One born every second
somewhere. Other dying every second. Since I fed the birds five
minutes. Three hundred kicked the bucket. Other three hundred born,
washing the blood off, all are washed in the blood of the lamb, bawling
maaaaaa.

Cityful passing away, other cityful coming, passing away too: other
coming on, passing on. Houses, lines of houses, streets, miles of
pavements, piledup bricks, stones. Changing hands. This owner, that.
Landlord never dies they say. Other steps into his shoes when he gets
his notice to quit. They buy the place up with gold and still they have
all the gold. Swindle in it somewhere. Piled up in cities, worn away
age after age. Pyramids in sand. Built on bread and onions. Slaves
Chinese wall. Babylon. Big stones left. Round towers. Rest rubble,
sprawling suburbs, jerrybuilt. Kerwan’s mushroom houses built of
breeze. Shelter, for the night.

No-one is anything.

This is the very worst hour of the day. Vitality. Dull, gloomy: hate
this hour. Feel as if I had been eaten and spewed.

Provost’s house. The reverend Dr Salmon: tinned salmon. Well tinned in
there. Like a mortuary chapel. Wouldn’t live in it if they paid me.
Hope they have liver and bacon today. Nature abhors a vacuum.

The sun freed itself slowly and lit glints of light among the
silverware opposite in Walter Sexton’s window by which John Howard
Parnell passed, unseeing.

There he is: the brother. Image of him. Haunting face. Now that’s a
coincidence. Course hundreds of times you think of a person and don’t
meet him. Like a man walking in his sleep. No-one knows him. Must be a
corporation meeting today. They say he never put on the city marshal’s
uniform since he got the job. Charley Kavanagh used to come out on his
high horse, cocked hat, puffed, powdered and shaved. Look at the
woebegone walk of him. Eaten a bad egg. Poached eyes on ghost. I have a
pain. Great man’s brother: his brother’s brother. He’d look nice on the
city charger. Drop into the D.B.C. probably for his coffee, play chess
there. His brother used men as pawns. Let them all go to pot. Afraid to
pass a remark on him. Freeze them up with that eye of his. That’s the
fascination: the name. All a bit touched. Mad Fanny and his other
sister Mrs Dickinson driving about with scarlet harness. Bolt upright
like surgeon M’Ardle. Still David Sheehy beat him for south Meath.
Apply for the Chiltern Hundreds and retire into public life. The
patriot’s banquet. Eating orangepeels in the park. Simon Dedalus said
when they put him in parliament that Parnell would come back from the
grave and lead him out of the house of commons by the arm.

—Of the twoheaded octopus, one of whose heads is the head upon which
the ends of the world have forgotten to come while the other speaks
with a Scotch accent. The tentacles...

They passed from behind Mr Bloom along the curbstone. Beard and
bicycle. Young woman.

And there he is too. Now that’s really a coincidence: second time.
Coming events cast their shadows before. With the approval of the
eminent poet, Mr Geo. Russell. That might be Lizzie Twigg with him. A.
E.: what does that mean? Initials perhaps. Albert Edward, Arthur
Edmund, Alphonsus Eb Ed El Esquire. What was he saying? The ends of the
world with a Scotch accent. Tentacles: octopus. Something occult:
symbolism. Holding forth. She’s taking it all in. Not saying a word. To
aid gentleman in literary work.

His eyes followed the high figure in homespun, beard and bicycle, a
listening woman at his side. Coming from the vegetarian. Only
weggebobbles and fruit. Don’t eat a beefsteak. If you do the eyes of
that cow will pursue you through all eternity. They say it’s healthier.
Windandwatery though. Tried it. Keep you on the run all day. Bad as a
bloater. Dreams all night. Why do they call that thing they gave me
nutsteak? Nutarians. Fruitarians. To give you the idea you are eating
rumpsteak. Absurd. Salty too. They cook in soda. Keep you sitting by
the tap all night.

Her stockings are loose over her ankles. I detest that: so tasteless.
Those literary etherial people they are all. Dreamy, cloudy,
symbolistic. Esthetes they are. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was that
kind of food you see produces the like waves of the brain the poetical.
For example one of those policemen sweating Irish stew into their
shirts you couldn’t squeeze a line of poetry out of him. Don’t know
what poetry is even. Must be in a certain mood.

     The dreamy cloudy gull
     Waves o’er the waters dull.

He crossed at Nassau street corner and stood before the window of
Yeates and Son, pricing the fieldglasses. Or will I drop into old
Harris’s and have a chat with young Sinclair? Wellmannered fellow.
Probably at his lunch. Must get those old glasses of mine set right.
Goerz lenses six guineas. Germans making their way everywhere. Sell on
easy terms to capture trade. Undercutting. Might chance on a pair in
the railway lost property office. Astonishing the things people leave
behind them in trains and cloakrooms. What do they be thinking about?
Women too. Incredible. Last year travelling to Ennis had to pick up
that farmer’s daughter’s bag and hand it to her at Limerick junction.
Unclaimed money too. There’s a little watch up there on the roof of the
bank to test those glasses by.

His lids came down on the lower rims of his irides. Can’t see it. If
you imagine it’s there you can almost see it. Can’t see it.

He faced about and, standing between the awnings, held out his right
hand at arm’s length towards the sun. Wanted to try that often. Yes:
completely. The tip of his little finger blotted out the sun’s disk.
Must be the focus where the rays cross. If I had black glasses.
Interesting. There was a lot of talk about those sunspots when we were
in Lombard street west. Looking up from the back garden. Terrific
explosions they are. There will be a total eclipse this year: autumn
some time.

Now that I come to think of it that ball falls at Greenwich time. It’s
the clock is worked by an electric wire from Dunsink. Must go out there
some first Saturday of the month. If I could get an introduction to
professor Joly or learn up something about his family. That would do
to: man always feels complimented. Flattery where least expected.
Nobleman proud to be descended from some king’s mistress. His
foremother. Lay it on with a trowel. Cap in hand goes through the land.
Not go in and blurt out what you know you’re not to: what’s parallax?
Show this gentleman the door.

Ah.

His hand fell to his side again.

Never know anything about it. Waste of time. Gasballs spinning about,
crossing each other, passing. Same old dingdong always. Gas: then
solid: then world: then cold: then dead shell drifting around, frozen
rock, like that pineapple rock. The moon. Must be a new moon out, she
said. I believe there is.

He went on by la maison Claire.

Wait. The full moon was the night we were Sunday fortnight exactly
there is a new moon. Walking down by the Tolka. Not bad for a Fairview
moon. She was humming. The young May moon she’s beaming, love. He other
side of her. Elbow, arm. He. Glowworm’s la-amp is gleaming, love.
Touch. Fingers. Asking. Answer. Yes.

Stop. Stop. If it was it was. Must.

Mr Bloom, quickbreathing, slowlier walking passed Adam court.

With a keep quiet relief his eyes took note this is the street here
middle of the day of Bob Doran’s bottle shoulders. On his annual bend,
M’Coy said. They drink in order to say or do something or _cherchez la
femme_. Up in the Coombe with chummies and streetwalkers and then the
rest of the year sober as a judge.

Yes. Thought so. Sloping into the Empire. Gone. Plain soda would do him
good. Where Pat Kinsella had his Harp theatre before Whitbred ran the
Queen’s. Broth of a boy. Dion Boucicault business with his harvestmoon
face in a poky bonnet. Three Purty Maids from School. How time flies,
eh? Showing long red pantaloons under his skirts. Drinkers, drinking,
laughed spluttering, their drink against their breath. More power, Pat.
Coarse red: fun for drunkards: guffaw and smoke. Take off that white
hat. His parboiled eyes. Where is he now? Beggar somewhere. The harp
that once did starve us all.

I was happier then. Or was that I? Or am I now I? Twentyeight I was.
She twentythree. When we left Lombard street west something changed.
Could never like it again after Rudy. Can’t bring back time. Like
holding water in your hand. Would you go back to then? Just beginning
then. Would you? Are you not happy in your home you poor little naughty
boy? Wants to sew on buttons for me. I must answer. Write it in the
library.

Grafton street gay with housed awnings lured his senses. Muslin prints,
silkdames and dowagers, jingle of harnesses, hoofthuds lowringing in
the baking causeway. Thick feet that woman has in the white stockings.
Hope the rain mucks them up on her. Countrybred chawbacon. All the beef
to the heels were in. Always gives a woman clumsy feet. Molly looks out
of plumb.

He passed, dallying, the windows of Brown Thomas, silk mercers.
Cascades of ribbons. Flimsy China silks. A tilted urn poured from its
mouth a flood of bloodhued poplin: lustrous blood. The huguenots
brought that here. _La causa è santa!_ Tara tara. Great chorus that.
Taree tara. Must be washed in rainwater. Meyerbeer. Tara: bom bom bom.

Pincushions. I’m a long time threatening to buy one. Sticking them all
over the place. Needles in window curtains.

He bared slightly his left forearm. Scrape: nearly gone. Not today
anyhow. Must go back for that lotion. For her birthday perhaps.
Junejulyaugseptember eighth. Nearly three months off. Then she mightn’t
like it. Women won’t pick up pins. Say it cuts lo.

Gleaming silks, petticoats on slim brass rails, rays of flat silk
stockings.

Useless to go back. Had to be. Tell me all.

High voices. Sunwarm silk. Jingling harnesses. All for a woman, home
and houses, silkwebs, silver, rich fruits spicy from Jaffa. Agendath
Netaim. Wealth of the world.

A warm human plumpness settled down on his brain. His brain yielded.
Perfume of embraces all him assailed. With hungered flesh obscurely, he
mutely craved to adore.

Duke street. Here we are. Must eat. The Burton. Feel better then.

He turned Combridge’s corner, still pursued. Jingling, hoofthuds.
Perfumed bodies, warm, full. All kissed, yielded: in deep summer
fields, tangled pressed grass, in trickling hallways of tenements,
along sofas, creaking beds.

—Jack, love!

—Darling!

—Kiss me, Reggy!

—My boy!

—Love!

His heart astir he pushed in the door of the Burton restaurant. Stink
gripped his trembling breath: pungent meatjuice, slush of greens. See
the animals feed.

Men, men, men.

Perched on high stools by the bar, hats shoved back, at the tables
calling for more bread no charge, swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy
food, their eyes bulging, wiping wetted moustaches. A pallid suetfaced
young man polished his tumbler knife fork and spoon with his napkin.
New set of microbes. A man with an infant’s saucestained napkin tucked
round him shovelled gurgling soup down his gullet. A man spitting back
on his plate: halfmasticated gristle: gums: no teeth to chewchewchew
it. Chump chop from the grill. Bolting to get it over. Sad booser’s
eyes. Bitten off more than he can chew. Am I like that? See ourselves
as others see us. Hungry man is an angry man. Working tooth and jaw.
Don’t! O! A bone! That last pagan king of Ireland Cormac in the
schoolpoem choked himself at Sletty southward of the Boyne. Wonder what
he was eating. Something galoptious. Saint Patrick converted him to
Christianity. Couldn’t swallow it all however.

—Roast beef and cabbage.

—One stew.

Smells of men. Spat-on sawdust, sweetish warmish cigarettesmoke, reek
of plug, spilt beer, men’s beery piss, the stale of ferment.

His gorge rose.

Couldn’t eat a morsel here. Fellow sharpening knife and fork to eat all
before him, old chap picking his tootles. Slight spasm, full, chewing
the cud. Before and after. Grace after meals. Look on this picture then
on that. Scoffing up stewgravy with sopping sippets of bread. Lick it
off the plate, man! Get out of this.

He gazed round the stooled and tabled eaters, tightening the wings of
his nose.

—Two stouts here.

—One corned and cabbage.

That fellow ramming a knifeful of cabbage down as if his life depended
on it. Good stroke. Give me the fidgets to look. Safer to eat from his
three hands. Tear it limb from limb. Second nature to him. Born with a
silver knife in his mouth. That’s witty, I think. Or no. Silver means
born rich. Born with a knife. But then the allusion is lost.

An illgirt server gathered sticky clattering plates. Rock, the head
bailiff, standing at the bar blew the foamy crown from his tankard.
Well up: it splashed yellow near his boot. A diner, knife and fork
upright, elbows on table, ready for a second helping stared towards the
foodlift across his stained square of newspaper. Other chap telling him
something with his mouth full. Sympathetic listener. Table talk. I
munched hum un thu Unchster Bunk un Munchday. Ha? Did you, faith?

Mr Bloom raised two fingers doubtfully to his lips. His eyes said:

—Not here. Don’t see him.

Out. I hate dirty eaters.

He backed towards the door. Get a light snack in Davy Byrne’s. Stopgap.
Keep me going. Had a good breakfast.

—Roast and mashed here.

—Pint of stout.

Every fellow for his own, tooth and nail. Gulp. Grub. Gulp. Gobstuff.

He came out into clearer air and turned back towards Grafton street.
Eat or be eaten. Kill! Kill!

Suppose that communal kitchen years to come perhaps. All trotting down
with porringers and tommycans to be filled. Devour contents in the
street. John Howard Parnell example the provost of Trinity every
mother’s son don’t talk of your provosts and provost of Trinity women
and children cabmen priests parsons fieldmarshals archbishops. From
Ailesbury road, Clyde road, artisans’ dwellings, north Dublin union,
lord mayor in his gingerbread coach, old queen in a bathchair. My
plate’s empty. After you with our incorporated drinkingcup. Like sir
Philip Crampton’s fountain. Rub off the microbes with your
handkerchief. Next chap rubs on a new batch with his. Father O’Flynn
would make hares of them all. Have rows all the same. All for number
one. Children fighting for the scrapings of the pot. Want a souppot as
big as the Phoenix park. Harpooning flitches and hindquarters out of
it. Hate people all round you. City Arms hotel _table d’hôte_ she
called it. Soup, joint and sweet. Never know whose thoughts you’re
chewing. Then who’d wash up all the plates and forks? Might be all
feeding on tabloids that time. Teeth getting worse and worse.

After all there’s a lot in that vegetarian fine flavour of things from
the earth garlic of course it stinks after Italian organgrinders crisp
of onions mushrooms truffles. Pain to the animal too. Pluck and draw
fowl. Wretched brutes there at the cattlemarket waiting for the poleaxe
to split their skulls open. Moo. Poor trembling calves. Meh. Staggering
bob. Bubble and squeak. Butchers’ buckets wobbly lights. Give us that
brisket off the hook. Plup. Rawhead and bloody bones. Flayed glasseyed
sheep hung from their haunches, sheepsnouts bloodypapered snivelling
nosejam on sawdust. Top and lashers going out. Don’t maul them pieces,
young one.

Hot fresh blood they prescribe for decline. Blood always needed.
Insidious. Lick it up smokinghot, thick sugary. Famished ghosts.

Ah, I’m hungry.

He entered Davy Byrne’s. Moral pub. He doesn’t chat. Stands a drink now
and then. But in leapyear once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once.

What will I take now? He drew his watch. Let me see now. Shandygaff?

—Hello, Bloom, Nosey Flynn said from his nook.

—Hello, Flynn.

—How’s things?

—Tiptop... Let me see. I’ll take a glass of burgundy and... let me see.

Sardines on the shelves. Almost taste them by looking. Sandwich? Ham
and his descendants musterred and bred there. Potted meats. What is
home without Plumtree’s potted meat? Incomplete. What a stupid ad!
Under the obituary notices they stuck it. All up a plumtree. Dignam’s
potted meat. Cannibals would with lemon and rice. White missionary too
salty. Like pickled pork. Expect the chief consumes the parts of
honour. Ought to be tough from exercise. His wives in a row to watch
the effect. _There was a right royal old nigger. Who ate or something
the somethings of the reverend Mr MacTrigger_. With it an abode of
bliss. Lord knows what concoction. Cauls mouldy tripes windpipes faked
and minced up. Puzzle find the meat. Kosher. No meat and milk together.
Hygiene that was what they call now. Yom Kippur fast spring cleaning of
inside. Peace and war depend on some fellow’s digestion. Religions.
Christmas turkeys and geese. Slaughter of innocents. Eat drink and be
merry. Then casual wards full after. Heads bandaged. Cheese digests all
but itself. Mity cheese.

—Have you a cheese sandwich?

—Yes, sir.

Like a few olives too if they had them. Italian I prefer. Good glass of
burgundy take away that. Lubricate. A nice salad, cool as a cucumber,
Tom Kernan can dress. Puts gusto into it. Pure olive oil. Milly served
me that cutlet with a sprig of parsley. Take one Spanish onion. God
made food, the devil the cooks. Devilled crab.

—Wife well?

—Quite well, thanks... A cheese sandwich, then. Gorgonzola, have you?

—Yes, sir.

Nosey Flynn sipped his grog.

—Doing any singing those times?

Look at his mouth. Could whistle in his own ear. Flap ears to match.
Music. Knows as much about it as my coachman. Still better tell him.
Does no harm. Free ad.

—She’s engaged for a big tour end of this month. You may have heard
perhaps.

—No. O, that’s the style. Who’s getting it up?

The curate served.

—How much is that?

—Seven d., sir... Thank you, sir.

Mr Bloom cut his sandwich into slender strips. _Mr MacTrigger_. Easier
than the dreamy creamy stuff. _His five hundred wives. Had the time of
their lives._

—Mustard, sir?

—Thank you.

He studded under each lifted strip yellow blobs. _Their lives_. I have
it. _It grew bigger and bigger and bigger_.

—Getting it up? he said. Well, it’s like a company idea, you see. Part
shares and part profits.

—Ay, now I remember, Nosey Flynn said, putting his hand in his pocket
to scratch his groin. Who is this was telling me? Isn’t Blazes Boylan
mixed up in it?

A warm shock of air heat of mustard hanched on Mr Bloom’s heart. He
raised his eyes and met the stare of a bilious clock. Two. Pub clock
five minutes fast. Time going on. Hands moving. Two. Not yet.

His midriff yearned then upward, sank within him, yearned more longly,
longingly.

Wine.

He smellsipped the cordial juice and, bidding his throat strongly to
speed it, set his wineglass delicately down.

—Yes, he said. He’s the organiser in point of fact.

No fear: no brains.

Nosey Flynn snuffled and scratched. Flea having a good square meal.

—He had a good slice of luck, Jack Mooney was telling me, over that
boxingmatch Myler Keogh won again that soldier in the Portobello
barracks. By God, he had the little kipper down in the county Carlow he
was telling me...

Hope that dewdrop doesn’t come down into his glass. No, snuffled it up.

—For near a month, man, before it came off. Sucking duck eggs by God
till further orders. Keep him off the boose, see? O, by God, Blazes is
a hairy chap.

Davy Byrne came forward from the hindbar in tuckstitched shirtsleeves,
cleaning his lips with two wipes of his napkin. Herring’s blush. Whose
smile upon each feature plays with such and such replete. Too much fat
on the parsnips.

—And here’s himself and pepper on him, Nosey Flynn said. Can you give
us a good one for the Gold cup?

—I’m off that, Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne answered. I never put anything on a
horse.

—You’re right there, Nosey Flynn said.

Mr Bloom ate his strips of sandwich, fresh clean bread, with relish of
disgust pungent mustard, the feety savour of green cheese. Sips of his
wine soothed his palate. Not logwood that. Tastes fuller this weather
with the chill off.

Nice quiet bar. Nice piece of wood in that counter. Nicely planed. Like
the way it curves there.

—I wouldn’t do anything at all in that line, Davy Byrne said. It ruined
many a man, the same horses.

Vintners’ sweepstake. Licensed for the sale of beer, wine and spirits
for consumption on the premises. Heads I win tails you lose.

—True for you, Nosey Flynn said. Unless you’re in the know. There’s no
straight sport going now. Lenehan gets some good ones. He’s giving
Sceptre today. Zinfandel’s the favourite, Lord Howard de Walden’s, won
at Epsom. Morny Cannon is riding him. I could have got seven to one
against Saint Amant a fortnight before.

—That so? Davy Byrne said...

He went towards the window and, taking up the pettycash book, scanned
its pages.

—I could, faith, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling. That was a rare bit of
horseflesh. Saint Frusquin was her sire. She won in a thunderstorm,
Rothschild’s filly, with wadding in her ears. Blue jacket and yellow
cap. Bad luck to big Ben Dollard and his John O’Gaunt. He put me off
it. Ay.

He drank resignedly from his tumbler, running his fingers down the
flutes.

—Ay, he said, sighing.

Mr Bloom, champing, standing, looked upon his sigh. Nosey numbskull.
Will I tell him that horse Lenehan? He knows already. Better let him
forget. Go and lose more. Fool and his money. Dewdrop coming down
again. Cold nose he’d have kissing a woman. Still they might like.
Prickly beards they like. Dogs’ cold noses. Old Mrs Riordan with the
rumbling stomach’s Skye terrier in the City Arms hotel. Molly fondling
him in her lap. O, the big doggybowwowsywowsy!

Wine soaked and softened rolled pith of bread mustard a moment mawkish
cheese. Nice wine it is. Taste it better because I’m not thirsty. Bath
of course does that. Just a bite or two. Then about six o’clock I can.
Six. Six. Time will be gone then. She...

Mild fire of wine kindled his veins. I wanted that badly. Felt so off
colour. His eyes unhungrily saw shelves of tins: sardines, gaudy
lobsters’ claws. All the odd things people pick up for food. Out of
shells, periwinkles with a pin, off trees, snails out of the ground the
French eat, out of the sea with bait on a hook. Silly fish learn
nothing in a thousand years. If you didn’t know risky putting anything
into your mouth. Poisonous berries. Johnny Magories. Roundness you
think good. Gaudy colour warns you off. One fellow told another and so
on. Try it on the dog first. Led on by the smell or the look. Tempting
fruit. Ice cones. Cream. Instinct. Orangegroves for instance. Need
artificial irrigation. Bleibtreustrasse. Yes but what about oysters.
Unsightly like a clot of phlegm. Filthy shells. Devil to open them too.
Who found them out? Garbage, sewage they feed on. Fizz and Red bank
oysters. Effect on the sexual. Aphrodis. He was in the Red Bank this
morning. Was he oysters old fish at table perhaps he young flesh in bed
no June has no ar no oysters. But there are people like things high.
Tainted game. Jugged hare. First catch your hare. Chinese eating eggs
fifty years old, blue and green again. Dinner of thirty courses. Each
dish harmless might mix inside. Idea for a poison mystery. That
archduke Leopold was it no yes or was it Otto one of those Habsburgs?
Or who was it used to eat the scruff off his own head? Cheapest lunch
in town. Of course aristocrats, then the others copy to be in the
fashion. Milly too rock oil and flour. Raw pastry I like myself. Half
the catch of oysters they throw back in the sea to keep up the price.
Cheap no-one would buy. Caviare. Do the grand. Hock in green glasses.
Swell blowout. Lady this. Powdered bosom pearls. The _élite. Crème de
la crème_. They want special dishes to pretend they’re. Hermit with a
platter of pulse keep down the stings of the flesh. Know me come eat
with me. Royal sturgeon high sheriff, Coffey, the butcher, right to
venisons of the forest from his ex. Send him back the half of a cow.
Spread I saw down in the Master of the Rolls’ kitchen area. Whitehatted
_chef_ like a rabbi. Combustible duck. Curly cabbage _à la duchesse de
Parme_. Just as well to write it on the bill of fare so you can know
what you’ve eaten. Too many drugs spoil the broth. I know it myself.
Dosing it with Edwards’ desiccated soup. Geese stuffed silly for them.
Lobsters boiled alive. Do ptake some ptarmigan. Wouldn’t mind being a
waiter in a swell hotel. Tips, evening dress, halfnaked ladies. May I
tempt you to a little more filleted lemon sole, miss Dubedat? Yes, do
bedad. And she did bedad. Huguenot name I expect that. A miss Dubedat
lived in Killiney, I remember. _Du de la_ is French. Still it’s the
same fish perhaps old Micky Hanlon of Moore street ripped the guts out
of making money hand over fist finger in fishes’ gills can’t write his
name on a cheque think he was painting the landscape with his mouth
twisted. Moooikill A Aitcha Ha ignorant as a kish of brogues, worth
fifty thousand pounds.

Stuck on the pane two flies buzzed, stuck.

Glowing wine on his palate lingered swallowed. Crushing in the
winepress grapes of Burgundy. Sun’s heat it is. Seems to a secret touch
telling me memory. Touched his sense moistened remembered. Hidden under
wild ferns on Howth below us bay sleeping: sky. No sound. The sky. The
bay purple by the Lion’s head. Green by Drumleck. Yellowgreen towards
Sutton. Fields of undersea, the lines faint brown in grass, buried
cities. Pillowed on my coat she had her hair, earwigs in the heather
scrub my hand under her nape, you’ll toss me all. O wonder! Coolsoft
with ointments her hand touched me, caressed: her eyes upon me did not
turn away. Ravished over her I lay, full lips full open, kissed her
mouth. Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and
chewed. Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweetsour of her spittle.
Joy: I ate it: joy. Young life, her lips that gave me pouting. Soft
warm sticky gumjelly lips. Flowers her eyes were, take me, willing
eyes. Pebbles fell. She lay still. A goat. No-one. High on Ben Howth
rhododendrons a nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants.
Screened under ferns she laughed warmfolded. Wildly I lay on her,
kissed her: eyes, her lips, her stretched neck beating, woman’s breasts
full in her blouse of nun’s veiling, fat nipples upright. Hot I tongued
her. She kissed me. I was kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair.
Kissed, she kissed me.

Me. And me now.

Stuck, the flies buzzed.

His downcast eyes followed the silent veining of the oaken slab.
Beauty: it curves: curves are beauty. Shapely goddesses, Venus, Juno:
curves the world admires. Can see them library museum standing in the
round hall, naked goddesses. Aids to digestion. They don’t care what
man looks. All to see. Never speaking. I mean to say to fellows like
Flynn. Suppose she did Pygmalion and Galatea what would she say first?
Mortal! Put you in your proper place. Quaffing nectar at mess with gods
golden dishes, all ambrosial. Not like a tanner lunch we have, boiled
mutton, carrots and turnips, bottle of Allsop. Nectar imagine it
drinking electricity: gods’ food. Lovely forms of women sculped
Junonian. Immortal lovely. And we stuffing food in one hole and out
behind: food, chyle, blood, dung, earth, food: have to feed it like
stoking an engine. They have no. Never looked. I’ll look today. Keeper
won’t see. Bend down let something fall see if she.

Dribbling a quiet message from his bladder came to go to do not to do
there to do. A man and ready he drained his glass to the lees and
walked, to men too they gave themselves, manly conscious, lay with men
lovers, a youth enjoyed her, to the yard.

When the sound of his boots had ceased Davy Byrne said from his book:

—What is this he is? Isn’t he in the insurance line?

—He’s out of that long ago, Nosey Flynn said. He does canvassing for
the _Freeman._

—I know him well to see, Davy Byrne said. Is he in trouble?

—Trouble? Nosey Flynn said. Not that I heard of. Why?

—I noticed he was in mourning.

—Was he? Nosey Flynn said. So he was, faith. I asked him how was all at
home. You’re right, by God. So he was.

—I never broach the subject, Davy Byrne said humanely, if I see a
gentleman is in trouble that way. It only brings it up fresh in their
minds.

—It’s not the wife anyhow, Nosey Flynn said. I met him the day before
yesterday and he coming out of that Irish farm dairy John Wyse Nolan’s
wife has in Henry street with a jar of cream in his hand taking it home
to his better half. She’s well nourished, I tell you. Plovers on toast.

—And is he doing for the _Freeman?_ Davy Byrne said.

Nosey Flynn pursed his lips.

—He doesn’t buy cream on the ads he picks up. You can make bacon of
that.

—How so? Davy Byrne asked, coming from his book.

Nosey Flynn made swift passes in the air with juggling fingers. He
winked.

—He’s in the craft, he said.

—Do you tell me so? Davy Byrne said.

—Very much so, Nosey Flynn said. Ancient free and accepted order. He’s
an excellent brother. Light, life and love, by God. They give him a leg
up. I was told that by a—well, I won’t say who.

—Is that a fact?

—O, it’s a fine order, Nosey Flynn said. They stick to you when you’re
down. I know a fellow was trying to get into it. But they’re as close
as damn it. By God they did right to keep the women out of it.

Davy Byrne smiledyawnednodded all in one:

—Iiiiiichaaaaaaach!

—There was one woman, Nosey Flynn said, hid herself in a clock to find
out what they do be doing. But be damned but they smelt her out and
swore her in on the spot a master mason. That was one of the saint
Legers of Doneraile.

Davy Byrne, sated after his yawn, said with tearwashed eyes:

—And is that a fact? Decent quiet man he is. I often saw him in here
and I never once saw him—you know, over the line.

—God Almighty couldn’t make him drunk, Nosey Flynn said firmly. Slips
off when the fun gets too hot. Didn’t you see him look at his watch?
Ah, you weren’t there. If you ask him to have a drink first thing he
does he outs with the watch to see what he ought to imbibe. Declare to
God he does.

—There are some like that, Davy Byrne said. He’s a safe man, I’d say.

—He’s not too bad, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling it up. He’s been known
to put his hand down too to help a fellow. Give the devil his due. O,
Bloom has his good points. But there’s one thing he’ll never do.

His hand scrawled a dry pen signature beside his grog.

—I know, Davy Byrne said.

—Nothing in black and white, Nosey Flynn said.

Paddy Leonard and Bantam Lyons came in. Tom Rochford followed frowning,
a plaining hand on his claret waistcoat.

—Day, Mr Byrne.

—Day, gentlemen.

They paused at the counter.

—Who’s standing? Paddy Leonard asked.

—I’m sitting anyhow, Nosey Flynn answered.

—Well, what’ll it be? Paddy Leonard asked.

—I’ll take a stone ginger, Bantam Lyons said.

—How much? Paddy Leonard cried. Since when, for God’ sake? What’s
yours, Tom?

—How is the main drainage? Nosey Flynn asked, sipping.

For answer Tom Rochford pressed his hand to his breastbone and
hiccupped.

—Would I trouble you for a glass of fresh water, Mr Byrne? he said.

—Certainly, sir.

Paddy Leonard eyed his alemates.

—Lord love a duck, he said. Look at what I’m standing drinks to! Cold
water and gingerpop! Two fellows that would suck whisky off a sore leg.
He has some bloody horse up his sleeve for the Gold cup. A dead snip.

—Zinfandel is it? Nosey Flynn asked.

Tom Rochford spilt powder from a twisted paper into the water set
before him.

—That cursed dyspepsia, he said before drinking.

—Breadsoda is very good, Davy Byrne said.

Tom Rochford nodded and drank.

—Is it Zinfandel?

—Say nothing! Bantam Lyons winked. I’m going to plunge five bob on my
own.

—Tell us if you’re worth your salt and be damned to you, Paddy Leonard
said. Who gave it to you?

Mr Bloom on his way out raised three fingers in greeting.

—So long! Nosey Flynn said.

The others turned.

—That’s the man now that gave it to me, Bantam Lyons whispered.

—Prrwht! Paddy Leonard said with scorn. Mr Byrne, sir, we’ll take two
of your small Jamesons after that and a...

—Stone ginger, Davy Byrne added civilly.

—Ay, Paddy Leonard said. A suckingbottle for the baby.

Mr Bloom walked towards Dawson street, his tongue brushing his teeth
smooth. Something green it would have to be: spinach, say. Then with
those Röntgen rays searchlight you could.

At Duke lane a ravenous terrier choked up a sick knuckly cud on the
cobblestones and lapped it with new zest. Surfeit. Returned with thanks
having fully digested the contents. First sweet then savoury. Mr Bloom
coasted warily. Ruminants. His second course. Their upper jaw they
move. Wonder if Tom Rochford will do anything with that invention of
his? Wasting time explaining it to Flynn’s mouth. Lean people long
mouths. Ought to be a hall or a place where inventors could go in and
invent free. Course then you’d have all the cranks pestering.

He hummed, prolonging in solemn echo the closes of the bars:

     Don Giovanni, a cenar teco
     M’invitasti.

Feel better. Burgundy. Good pick me up. Who distilled first? Some chap
in the blues. Dutch courage. That _Kilkenny People_ in the national
library now I must.

Bare clean closestools waiting in the window of William Miller,
plumber, turned back his thoughts. They could: and watch it all the way
down, swallow a pin sometimes come out of the ribs years after, tour
round the body changing biliary duct spleen squirting liver gastric
juice coils of intestines like pipes. But the poor buffer would have to
stand all the time with his insides entrails on show. Science.

—_A cenar teco._

What does that _teco_ mean? Tonight perhaps.

     Don Giovanni, thou hast me invited
     To come to supper tonight,
     The rum the rumdum.

Doesn’t go properly.

Keyes: two months if I get Nannetti to. That’ll be two pounds ten about
two pounds eight. Three Hynes owes me. Two eleven. Prescott’s dyeworks
van over there. If I get Billy Prescott’s ad: two fifteen. Five guineas
about. On the pig’s back.

Could buy one of those silk petticoats for Molly, colour of her new
garters.

Today. Today. Not think.

Tour the south then. What about English wateringplaces? Brighton,
Margate. Piers by moonlight. Her voice floating out. Those lovely
seaside girls. Against John Long’s a drowsing loafer lounged in heavy
thought, gnawing a crusted knuckle. Handy man wants job. Small wages.
Will eat anything.

Mr Bloom turned at Gray’s confectioner’s window of unbought tarts and
passed the reverend Thomas Connellan’s bookstore. _Why I left the
church of Rome? Birds’ Nest._ Women run him. They say they used to give
pauper children soup to change to protestants in the time of the potato
blight. Society over the way papa went to for the conversion of poor
jews. Same bait. Why we left the church of Rome.

A blind stripling stood tapping the curbstone with his slender cane. No
tram in sight. Wants to cross.

—Do you want to cross? Mr Bloom asked.

The blind stripling did not answer. His wallface frowned weakly. He
moved his head uncertainly.

—You’re in Dawson street, Mr Bloom said. Molesworth street is opposite.
Do you want to cross? There’s nothing in the way.

The cane moved out trembling to the left. Mr Bloom’s eye followed its
line and saw again the dyeworks’ van drawn up before Drago’s. Where I
saw his brillantined hair just when I was. Horse drooping. Driver in
John Long’s. Slaking his drouth.

—There’s a van there, Mr Bloom said, but it’s not moving. I’ll see you
across. Do you want to go to Molesworth street?

—Yes, the stripling answered. South Frederick street.

—Come, Mr Bloom said.

He touched the thin elbow gently: then took the limp seeing hand to
guide it forward.

Say something to him. Better not do the condescending. They mistrust
what you tell them. Pass a common remark.

—The rain kept off.

No answer.

Stains on his coat. Slobbers his food, I suppose. Tastes all different
for him. Have to be spoonfed first. Like a child’s hand, his hand. Like
Milly’s was. Sensitive. Sizing me up I daresay from my hand. Wonder if
he has a name. Van. Keep his cane clear of the horse’s legs: tired
drudge get his doze. That’s right. Clear. Behind a bull: in front of a
horse.

—Thanks, sir.

Knows I’m a man. Voice.

—Right now? First turn to the left.

The blind stripling tapped the curbstone and went on his way, drawing
his cane back, feeling again.

Mr Bloom walked behind the eyeless feet, a flatcut suit of herringbone
tweed. Poor young fellow! How on earth did he know that van was there?
Must have felt it. See things in their forehead perhaps: kind of sense
of volume. Weight or size of it, something blacker than the dark.
Wonder would he feel it if something was removed. Feel a gap. Queer
idea of Dublin he must have, tapping his way round by the stones. Could
he walk in a beeline if he hadn’t that cane? Bloodless pious face like
a fellow going in to be a priest.

Penrose! That was that chap’s name.

Look at all the things they can learn to do. Read with their fingers.
Tune pianos. Or we are surprised they have any brains. Why we think a
deformed person or a hunchback clever if he says something we might
say. Of course the other senses are more. Embroider. Plait baskets.
People ought to help. Workbasket I could buy for Molly’s birthday.
Hates sewing. Might take an objection. Dark men they call them.

Sense of smell must be stronger too. Smells on all sides, bunched
together. Each street different smell. Each person too. Then the
spring, the summer: smells. Tastes? They say you can’t taste wines with
your eyes shut or a cold in the head. Also smoke in the dark they say
get no pleasure.

And with a woman, for instance. More shameless not seeing. That girl
passing the Stewart institution, head in the air. Look at me. I have
them all on. Must be strange not to see her. Kind of a form in his
mind’s eye. The voice, temperatures: when he touches her with his
fingers must almost see the lines, the curves. His hands on her hair,
for instance. Say it was black, for instance. Good. We call it black.
Then passing over her white skin. Different feel perhaps. Feeling of
white.

Postoffice. Must answer. Fag today. Send her a postal order two
shillings, half a crown. Accept my little present. Stationer’s just
here too. Wait. Think over it.

With a gentle finger he felt ever so slowly the hair combed back above
his ears. Again. Fibres of fine fine straw. Then gently his finger felt
the skin of his right cheek. Downy hair there too. Not smooth enough.
The belly is the smoothest. No-one about. There he goes into Frederick
street. Perhaps to Levenston’s dancing academy piano. Might be settling
my braces.

Walking by Doran’s publichouse he slid his hand between his waistcoat
and trousers and, pulling aside his shirt gently, felt a slack fold of
his belly. But I know it’s whitey yellow. Want to try in the dark to
see.

He withdrew his hand and pulled his dress to.

Poor fellow! Quite a boy. Terrible. Really terrible. What dreams would
he have, not seeing? Life a dream for him. Where is the justice being
born that way? All those women and children excursion beanfeast burned
and drowned in New York. Holocaust. Karma they call that transmigration
for sins you did in a past life the reincarnation met him pike hoses.
Dear, dear, dear. Pity, of course: but somehow you can’t cotton on to
them someway.

Sir Frederick Falkiner going into the freemasons’ hall. Solemn as Troy.
After his good lunch in Earlsfort terrace. Old legal cronies cracking a
magnum. Tales of the bench and assizes and annals of the bluecoat
school. I sentenced him to ten years. I suppose he’d turn up his nose
at that stuff I drank. Vintage wine for them, the year marked on a
dusty bottle. Has his own ideas of justice in the recorder’s court.
Wellmeaning old man. Police chargesheets crammed with cases get their
percentage manufacturing crime. Sends them to the rightabout. The devil
on moneylenders. Gave Reuben J a great strawcalling. Now he’s really
what they call a dirty jew. Power those judges have. Crusty old topers
in wigs. Bear with a sore paw. And may the Lord have mercy on your
soul.

Hello, placard. Mirus bazaar. His Excellency the lord lieutenant.
Sixteenth. Today it is. In aid of funds for Mercer’s hospital. _The
Messiah_ was first given for that. Yes. Handel. What about going out
there: Ballsbridge. Drop in on Keyes. No use sticking to him like a
leech. Wear out my welcome. Sure to know someone on the gate.

Mr Bloom came to Kildare street. First I must. Library.

Straw hat in sunlight. Tan shoes. Turnedup trousers. It is. It is.

His heart quopped softly. To the right. Museum. Goddesses. He swerved
to the right.

Is it? Almost certain. Won’t look. Wine in my face. Why did I? Too
heady. Yes, it is. The walk. Not see. Get on.

Making for the museum gate with long windy steps he lifted his eyes.
Handsome building. Sir Thomas Deane designed. Not following me?

Didn’t see me perhaps. Light in his eyes.

The flutter of his breath came forth in short sighs. Quick. Cold
statues: quiet there. Safe in a minute.

No. Didn’t see me. After two. Just at the gate.

My heart!

His eyes beating looked steadfastly at cream curves of stone. Sir
Thomas Deane was the Greek architecture.

Look for something I.

His hasty hand went quick into a pocket, took out, read unfolded
Agendath Netaim. Where did I?

Busy looking.

He thrust back quick Agendath.

Afternoon she said.

I am looking for that. Yes, that. Try all pockets. Handker. _Freeman._
Where did I? Ah, yes. Trousers. Potato. Purse. Where?

Hurry. Walk quietly. Moment more. My heart.

His hand looking for the where did I put found in his hip pocket soap
lotion have to call tepid paper stuck. Ah soap there I yes. Gate.

Safe!


[ 9 ]

Urbane, to comfort them, the quaker librarian purred:

—And we have, have we not, those priceless pages of _Wilhelm Meister_.
A great poet on a great brother poet. A hesitating soul taking arms
against a sea of troubles, torn by conflicting doubts, as one sees in
real life.

He came a step a sinkapace forward on neatsleather creaking and a step
backward a sinkapace on the solemn floor.

A noiseless attendant setting open the door but slightly made him a
noiseless beck.

—Directly, said he, creaking to go, albeit lingering. The beautiful
ineffectual dreamer who comes to grief against hard facts. One always
feels that Goethe’s judgments are so true. True in the larger analysis.

Twicreakingly analysis he corantoed off. Bald, most zealous by the door
he gave his large ear all to the attendant’s words: heard them: and was
gone.

Two left.

—Monsieur de la Palice, Stephen sneered, was alive fifteen minutes
before his death.

—Have you found those six brave medicals, John Eglinton asked with
elder’s gall, to write _Paradise Lost_ at your dictation? _The Sorrows
of Satan_ he calls it.

Smile. Smile Cranly’s smile.

     First he tickled her
     Then he patted her
     Then he passed the female catheter
     For he was a medical
     Jolly old medi...

—I feel you would need one more for _Hamlet._ Seven is dear to the
mystic mind. The shining seven W.B. calls them.

Glittereyed his rufous skull close to his greencapped desklamp sought
the face bearded amid darkgreener shadow, an ollav, holyeyed. He
laughed low: a sizar’s laugh of Trinity: unanswered.

     Orchestral Satan, weeping many a rood
     Tears such as angels weep.
     Ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta.

He holds my follies hostage.

Cranly’s eleven true Wicklowmen to free their sireland. Gaptoothed
Kathleen, her four beautiful green fields, the stranger in her house.
And one more to hail him: _ave, rabbi_: the Tinahely twelve. In the
shadow of the glen he cooees for them. My soul’s youth I gave him,
night by night. God speed. Good hunting.

Mulligan has my telegram.

Folly. Persist.

—Our young Irish bards, John Eglinton censured, have yet to create a
figure which the world will set beside Saxon Shakespeare’s Hamlet
though I admire him, as old Ben did, on this side idolatry.

—All these questions are purely academic, Russell oracled out of his
shadow. I mean, whether Hamlet is Shakespeare or James I or Essex.
Clergymen’s discussions of the historicity of Jesus. Art has to reveal
to us ideas, formless spiritual essences. The supreme question about a
work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring. The painting of
Gustave Moreau is the painting of ideas. The deepest poetry of Shelley,
the words of Hamlet bring our minds into contact with the eternal
wisdom, Plato’s world of ideas. All the rest is the speculation of
schoolboys for schoolboys.

A. E. has been telling some yankee interviewer. Wall, tarnation strike
me!

—The schoolmen were schoolboys first, Stephen said superpolitely.
Aristotle was once Plato’s schoolboy.

—And has remained so, one should hope, John Eglinton sedately said. One
can see him, a model schoolboy with his diploma under his arm.

He laughed again at the now smiling bearded face.

Formless spiritual. Father, Word and Holy Breath. Allfather, the
heavenly man. Hiesos Kristos, magician of the beautiful, the Logos who
suffers in us at every moment. This verily is that. I am the fire upon
the altar. I am the sacrificial butter.

Dunlop, Judge, the noblest Roman of them all, A.E., Arval, the Name
Ineffable, in heaven hight: K.H., their master, whose identity is no
secret to adepts. Brothers of the great white lodge always watching to
see if they can help. The Christ with the bridesister, moisture of
light, born of an ensouled virgin, repentant sophia, departed to the
plane of buddhi. The life esoteric is not for ordinary person. O.P.
must work off bad karma first. Mrs Cooper Oakley once glimpsed our very
illustrious sister H.P.B.’s elemental.

O, fie! Out on’t! _Pfuiteufel!_ You naughtn’t to look, missus, so you
naughtn’t when a lady’s ashowing of her elemental.

Mr Best entered, tall, young, mild, light. He bore in his hand with
grace a notebook, new, large, clean, bright.

—That model schoolboy, Stephen said, would find Hamlet’s musings about
the afterlife of his princely soul, the improbable, insignificant and
undramatic monologue, as shallow as Plato’s.

John Eglinton, frowning, said, waxing wroth:

—Upon my word it makes my blood boil to hear anyone compare Aristotle
with Plato.

—Which of the two, Stephen asked, would have banished me from his
commonwealth?

Unsheathe your dagger definitions. Horseness is the whatness of
allhorse. Streams of tendency and eons they worship. God: noise in the
street: very peripatetic. Space: what you damn well have to see.
Through spaces smaller than red globules of man’s blood they
creepycrawl after Blake’s buttocks into eternity of which this
vegetable world is but a shadow. Hold to the now, the here, through
which all future plunges to the past.

Mr Best came forward, amiable, towards his colleague.

—Haines is gone, he said.

—Is he?

—I was showing him Jubainville’s book. He’s quite enthusiastic, don’t
you know, about Hyde’s _Lovesongs of Connacht._ I couldn’t bring him in
to hear the discussion. He’s gone to Gill’s to buy it.

     Bound thee forth, my booklet, quick
     To greet the callous public.
     Writ, I ween, ’twas not my wish
     In lean unlovely English.

—The peatsmoke is going to his head, John Eglinton opined.

We feel in England. Penitent thief. Gone. I smoked his baccy. Green
twinkling stone. An emerald set in the ring of the sea.

—People do not know how dangerous lovesongs can be, the auric egg of
Russell warned occultly. The movements which work revolutions in the
world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant’s heart on
the hillside. For them the earth is not an exploitable ground but the
living mother. The rarefied air of the academy and the arena produce
the sixshilling novel, the musichall song. France produces the finest
flower of corruption in Mallarmé but the desirable life is revealed
only to the poor of heart, the life of Homer’s Phæacians.

From these words Mr Best turned an unoffending face to Stephen.

—Mallarmé, don’t you know, he said, has written those wonderful prose
poems Stephen MacKenna used to read to me in Paris. The one about
_Hamlet._ He says: _il se promène, lisant au livre de lui-même_, don’t
you know, _reading the book of himself_. He describes _Hamlet_ given in
a French town, don’t you know, a provincial town. They advertised it.

His free hand graciously wrote tiny signs in air.

_Hamlet
ou
Le Distrait
Pièce de Shakespeare_


He repeated to John Eglinton’s newgathered frown:

—_Pièce de Shakespeare_, don’t you know. It’s so French. The French
point of view. _Hamlet ou_...

—The absentminded beggar, Stephen ended.

John Eglinton laughed.

—Yes, I suppose it would be, he said. Excellent people, no doubt, but
distressingly shortsighted in some matters.

Sumptuous and stagnant exaggeration of murder.

—A deathsman of the soul Robert Greene called him, Stephen said. Not
for nothing was he a butcher’s son, wielding the sledded poleaxe and
spitting in his palms. Nine lives are taken off for his father’s one.
Our Father who art in purgatory. Khaki Hamlets don’t hesitate to shoot.
The bloodboltered shambles in act five is a forecast of the
concentration camp sung by Mr Swinburne.

Cranly, I his mute orderly, following battles from afar.

     Whelps and dams of murderous foes whom none
     But we had spared...

Between the Saxon smile and yankee yawp. The devil and the deep sea.

—He will have it that _Hamlet_ is a ghoststory, John Eglinton said for
Mr Best’s behoof. Like the fat boy in Pickwick he wants to make our
flesh creep.

     List! List! O List!


My flesh hears him: creeping, hears.

     If thou didst ever...


—What is a ghost? Stephen said with tingling energy. One who has faded
into impalpability through death, through absence, through change of
manners. Elizabethan London lay as far from Stratford as corrupt Paris
lies from virgin Dublin. Who is the ghost from _limbo patrum_,
returning to the world that has forgotten him? Who is King Hamlet?

John Eglinton shifted his spare body, leaning back to judge.

Lifted.

—It is this hour of a day in mid June, Stephen said, begging with a
swift glance their hearing. The flag is up on the playhouse by the
bankside. The bear Sackerson growls in the pit near it, Paris garden.
Canvasclimbers who sailed with Drake chew their sausages among the
groundlings.

Local colour. Work in all you know. Make them accomplices.

—Shakespeare has left the huguenot’s house in Silver street and walks
by the swanmews along the riverbank. But he does not stay to feed the
pen chivying her game of cygnets towards the rushes. The swan of Avon
has other thoughts.

Composition of place. Ignatius Loyola, make haste to help me!

—The play begins. A player comes on under the shadow, made up in the
castoff mail of a court buck, a wellset man with a bass voice. It is
the ghost, the king, a king and no king, and the player is Shakespeare
who has studied _Hamlet_ all the years of his life which were not
vanity in order to play the part of the spectre. He speaks the words to
Burbage, the young player who stands before him beyond the rack of
cerecloth, calling him by a name:

     Hamlet, I am thy father’s spirit,

bidding him list. To a son he speaks, the son of his soul, the prince,
young Hamlet and to the son of his body, Hamnet Shakespeare, who has
died in Stratford that his namesake may live for ever.

Is it possible that that player Shakespeare, a ghost by absence, and in
the vesture of buried Denmark, a ghost by death, speaking his own words
to his own son’s name (had Hamnet Shakespeare lived he would have been
prince Hamlet’s twin), is it possible, I want to know, or probable that
he did not draw or foresee the logical conclusion of those premises:
you are the dispossessed son: I am the murdered father: your mother is
the guilty queen, Ann Shakespeare, born Hathaway?

—But this prying into the family life of a great man, Russell began
impatiently.

Art thou there, truepenny?

—Interesting only to the parish clerk. I mean, we have the plays. I
mean when we read the poetry of _King Lear_ what is it to us how the
poet lived? As for living our servants can do that for us, Villiers de
l’Isle has said. Peeping and prying into greenroom gossip of the day,
the poet’s drinking, the poet’s debts. We have _King Lear_: and it is
immortal.

Mr Best’s face, appealed to, agreed.

     Flow over them with your waves and with your waters,
     Mananaan, Mananaan MacLir...

How now, sirrah, that pound he lent you when you were hungry?

Marry, I wanted it.

Take thou this noble.

Go to! You spent most of it in Georgina Johnson’s bed, clergyman’s
daughter. Agenbite of inwit.

Do you intend to pay it back?

O, yes.

When? Now?

Well... No.

When, then?

I paid my way. I paid my way.

Steady on. He’s from beyant Boyne water. The northeast corner. You owe
it.

Wait. Five months. Molecules all change. I am other I now. Other I got
pound.

Buzz. Buzz.

But I, entelechy, form of forms, am I by memory because under
everchanging forms.

I that sinned and prayed and fasted.

A child Conmee saved from pandies.

I, I and I. I.

A.E.I.O.U.

—Do you mean to fly in the face of the tradition of three centuries?
John Eglinton’s carping voice asked. Her ghost at least has been laid
for ever. She died, for literature at least, before she was born.

—She died, Stephen retorted, sixtyseven years after she was born. She
saw him into and out of the world. She took his first embraces. She
bore his children and she laid pennies on his eyes to keep his eyelids
closed when he lay on his deathbed.

Mother’s deathbed. Candle. The sheeted mirror. Who brought me into this
world lies there, bronzelidded, under few cheap flowers. _Liliata
rutilantium._

I wept alone.

John Eglinton looked in the tangled glowworm of his lamp.

—The world believes that Shakespeare made a mistake, he said, and got
out of it as quickly and as best he could.

—Bosh! Stephen said rudely. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His
errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

Portals of discovery opened to let in the quaker librarian,
softcreakfooted, bald, eared and assiduous.

—A shrew, John Eglinton said shrewdly, is not a useful portal of
discovery, one should imagine. What useful discovery did Socrates learn
from Xanthippe?

—Dialectic, Stephen answered: and from his mother how to bring thoughts
into the world. What he learnt from his other wife Myrto (_absit
nomen!_), Socratididion’s Epipsychidion, no man, not a woman, will ever
know. But neither the midwife’s lore nor the caudlelectures saved him
from the archons of Sinn Fein and their naggin of hemlock.

—But Ann Hathaway? Mr Best’s quiet voice said forgetfully. Yes, we seem
to be forgetting her as Shakespeare himself forgot her.

His look went from brooder’s beard to carper’s skull, to remind, to
chide them not unkindly, then to the baldpink lollard costard,
guiltless though maligned.

—He had a good groatsworth of wit, Stephen said, and no truant memory.
He carried a memory in his wallet as he trudged to Romeville whistling
_The girl I left behind me._ If the earthquake did not time it we
should know where to place poor Wat, sitting in his form, the cry of
hounds, the studded bridle and her blue windows. That memory, _Venus
and Adonis_, lay in the bedchamber of every light-of-love in London. Is
Katharine the shrew illfavoured? Hortensio calls her young and
beautiful. Do you think the writer of _Antony and Cleopatra_, a
passionate pilgrim, had his eyes in the back of his head that he chose
the ugliest doxy in all Warwickshire to lie withal? Good: he left her
and gained the world of men. But his boywomen are the women of a boy.
Their life, thought, speech are lent them by males. He chose badly? He
was chosen, it seems to me. If others have their will Ann hath a way.
By cock, she was to blame. She put the comether on him, sweet and
twentysix. The greyeyed goddess who bends over the boy Adonis, stooping
to conquer, as prologue to the swelling act, is a boldfaced Stratford
wench who tumbles in a cornfield a lover younger than herself.

And my turn? When?

Come!

—Ryefield, Mr Best said brightly, gladly, raising his new book, gladly,
brightly.

He murmured then with blond delight for all:

     Between the acres of the rye
     These pretty countryfolk would lie.

Paris: the wellpleased pleaser.

A tall figure in bearded homespun rose from shadow and unveiled its
cooperative watch.

—I am afraid I am due at the _Homestead._

Whither away? Exploitable ground.

—Are you going? John Eglinton’s active eyebrows asked. Shall we see you
at Moore’s tonight? Piper is coming.

—Piper! Mr Best piped. Is Piper back?

Peter Piper pecked a peck of pick of peck of pickled pepper.

—I don’t know if I can. Thursday. We have our meeting. If I can get
away in time.

Yogibogeybox in Dawson chambers. _Isis Unveiled._ Their Pali book we
tried to pawn. Crosslegged under an umbrel umbershoot he thrones an
Aztec logos, functioning on astral levels, their oversoul, mahamahatma.
The faithful hermetists await the light, ripe for chelaship,
ringroundabout him. Louis H. Victory. T. Caulfield Irwin. Lotus ladies
tend them i’the eyes, their pineal glands aglow. Filled with his god,
he thrones, Buddh under plantain. Gulfer of souls, engulfer. Hesouls,
shesouls, shoals of souls. Engulfed with wailing creecries, whirled,
whirling, they bewail.

     In quintessential triviality
     For years in this fleshcase a shesoul dwelt.

—They say we are to have a literary surprise, the quaker librarian
said, friendly and earnest. Mr Russell, rumour has it, is gathering
together a sheaf of our younger poets’ verses. We are all looking
forward anxiously.

Anxiously he glanced in the cone of lamplight where three faces,
lighted, shone.

See this. Remember.

Stephen looked down on a wide headless caubeen, hung on his
ashplanthandle over his knee. My casque and sword. Touch lightly with
two index fingers. Aristotle’s experiment. One or two? Necessity is
that in virtue of which it is impossible that one can be otherwise.
Argal, one hat is one hat.

Listen.

Young Colum and Starkey. George Roberts is doing the commercial part.
Longworth will give it a good puff in the _Express._ O, will he? I
liked Colum’s _Drover._ Yes, I think he has that queer thing genius. Do
you think he has genius really? Yeats admired his line: _As in wild
earth a Grecian vase_. Did he? I hope you’ll be able to come tonight.
Malachi Mulligan is coming too. Moore asked him to bring Haines. Did
you hear Miss Mitchell’s joke about Moore and Martyn? That Moore is
Martyn’s wild oats? Awfully clever, isn’t it? They remind one of Don
Quixote and Sancho Panza. Our national epic has yet to be written, Dr
Sigerson says. Moore is the man for it. A knight of the rueful
countenance here in Dublin. With a saffron kilt? O’Neill Russell? O,
yes, he must speak the grand old tongue. And his Dulcinea? James
Stephens is doing some clever sketches. We are becoming important, it
seems.

Cordelia. _Cordoglio._ Lir’s loneliest daughter.

Nookshotten. Now your best French polish.

—Thank you very much, Mr Russell, Stephen said, rising. If you will be
so kind as to give the letter to Mr Norman...

—O, yes. If he considers it important it will go in. We have so much
correspondence.

—I understand, Stephen said. Thanks.

God ild you. The pigs’ paper. Bullockbefriending.

Synge has promised me an article for _Dana_ too. Are we going to be
read? I feel we are. The Gaelic league wants something in Irish. I hope
you will come round tonight. Bring Starkey.

Stephen sat down.

The quaker librarian came from the leavetakers. Blushing, his mask
said:

—Mr Dedalus, your views are most illuminating.

He creaked to and fro, tiptoing up nearer heaven by the altitude of a
chopine, and, covered by the noise of outgoing, said low:

—Is it your view, then, that she was not faithful to the poet?

Alarmed face asks me. Why did he come? Courtesy or an inward light?

—Where there is a reconciliation, Stephen said, there must have been
first a sundering.

—Yes.

Christfox in leather trews, hiding, a runaway in blighted treeforks,
from hue and cry. Knowing no vixen, walking lonely in the chase. Women
he won to him, tender people, a whore of Babylon, ladies of justices,
bully tapsters’ wives. Fox and geese. And in New Place a slack
dishonoured body that once was comely, once as sweet, as fresh as
cinnamon, now her leaves falling, all, bare, frighted of the narrow
grave and unforgiven.

—Yes. So you think...

The door closed behind the outgoer.

Rest suddenly possessed the discreet vaulted cell, rest of warm and
brooding air.

A vestal’s lamp.

Here he ponders things that were not: what Cæsar would have lived to do
had he believed the soothsayer: what might have been: possibilities of
the possible as possible: things not known: what name Achilles bore
when he lived among women.

Coffined thoughts around me, in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words.
Thoth, god of libraries, a birdgod, moonycrowned. And I heard the voice
of that Egyptian highpriest. _In painted chambers loaded with
tilebooks._

They are still. Once quick in the brains of men. Still: but an itch of
death is in them, to tell me in my ear a maudlin tale, urge me to wreak
their will.

—Certainly, John Eglinton mused, of all great men he is the most
enigmatic. We know nothing but that he lived and suffered. Not even so
much. Others abide our question. A shadow hangs over all the rest.

—But _Hamlet_ is so personal, isn’t it? Mr Best pleaded. I mean, a kind
of private paper, don’t you know, of his private life. I mean, I don’t
care a button, don’t you know, who is killed or who is guilty...

He rested an innocent book on the edge of the desk, smiling his
defiance. His private papers in the original. _Ta an bad ar an tir.
Taim in mo shagart_. Put beurla on it, littlejohn.

Quoth littlejohn Eglinton:

—I was prepared for paradoxes from what Malachi Mulligan told us but I
may as well warn you that if you want to shake my belief that
Shakespeare is Hamlet you have a stern task before you.

Bear with me.

Stephen withstood the bane of miscreant eyes glinting stern under
wrinkled brows. A basilisk. _E quando vede l’uomo l’attosca_. Messer
Brunetto, I thank thee for the word.

—As we, or mother Dana, weave and unweave our bodies, Stephen said,
from day to day, their molecules shuttled to and fro, so does the
artist weave and unweave his image. And as the mole on my right breast
is where it was when I was born, though all my body has been woven of
new stuff time after time, so through the ghost of the unquiet father
the image of the unliving son looks forth. In the intense instant of
imagination, when the mind, Shelley says, is a fading coal, that which
I was is that which I am and that which in possibility I may come to
be. So in the future, the sister of the past, I may see myself as I sit
here now but by reflection from that which then I shall be.

Drummond of Hawthornden helped you at that stile.

—Yes, Mr Best said youngly. I feel Hamlet quite young. The bitterness
might be from the father but the passages with Ophelia are surely from
the son.

Has the wrong sow by the lug. He is in my father. I am in his son.

—That mole is the last to go, Stephen said, laughing.

John Eglinton made a nothing pleasing mow.

—If that were the birthmark of genius, he said, genius would be a drug
in the market. The plays of Shakespeare’s later years which Renan
admired so much breathe another spirit.

—The spirit of reconciliation, the quaker librarian breathed.

—There can be no reconciliation, Stephen said, if there has not been a
sundering.

Said that.

—If you want to know what are the events which cast their shadow over
the hell of time of _King Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida,_
look to see when and how the shadow lifts. What softens the heart of a
man, shipwrecked in storms dire, Tried, like another Ulysses, Pericles,
prince of Tyre?

Head, redconecapped, buffeted, brineblinded.

—A child, a girl, placed in his arms, Marina.

—The leaning of sophists towards the bypaths of apocrypha is a constant
quantity, John Eglinton detected. The highroads are dreary but they
lead to the town.

Good Bacon: gone musty. Shakespeare Bacon’s wild oats. Cypherjugglers
going the highroads. Seekers on the great quest. What town, good
masters? Mummed in names: A. E., eon: Magee, John Eglinton. East of the
sun, west of the moon: _Tir na n-og_. Booted the twain and staved.

     How many miles to Dublin?
     Three score and ten, sir.
     Will we be there by candlelight?

—Mr Brandes accepts it, Stephen said, as the first play of the closing
period.

—Does he? What does Mr Sidney Lee, or Mr Simon Lazarus as some aver his
name is, say of it?

—Marina, Stephen said, a child of storm, Miranda, a wonder, Perdita,
that which was lost. What was lost is given back to him: his daughter’s
child. _My dearest wife_, Pericles says, _was like this maid._ Will any
man love the daughter if he has not loved the mother?

—The art of being a grandfather, Mr Best gan murmur. _L’art d’être
grand_...

—Will he not see reborn in her, with the memory of his own youth added,
another image?

Do you know what you are talking about? Love, yes. Word known to all
men. _Amor vero aliquid alicui bonum vult unde et ea quae concupiscimus
..._

—His own image to a man with that queer thing genius is the standard of
all experience, material and moral. Such an appeal will touch him. The
images of other males of his blood will repel him. He will see in them
grotesque attempts of nature to foretell or to repeat himself.

The benign forehead of the quaker librarian enkindled rosily with hope.

—I hope Mr Dedalus will work out his theory for the enlightenment of
the public. And we ought to mention another Irish commentator, Mr
George Bernard Shaw. Nor should we forget Mr Frank Harris. His articles
on Shakespeare in the _Saturday Review_ were surely brilliant. Oddly
enough he too draws for us an unhappy relation with the dark lady of
the sonnets. The favoured rival is William Herbert, earl of Pembroke. I
own that if the poet must be rejected such a rejection would seem more
in harmony with—what shall I say?—our notions of what ought not to have
been.

Felicitously he ceased and held a meek head among them, auk’s egg,
prize of their fray.

He thous and thees her with grave husbandwords. Dost love, Miriam? Dost
love thy man?

—That may be too, Stephen said. There’s a saying of Goethe’s which Mr
Magee likes to quote. Beware of what you wish for in youth because you
will get it in middle life. Why does he send to one who is a
_buonaroba,_ a bay where all men ride, a maid of honour with a
scandalous girlhood, a lordling to woo for him? He was himself a lord
of language and had made himself a coistrel gentleman and he had
written _Romeo and Juliet_. Why? Belief in himself has been untimely
killed. He was overborne in a cornfield first (ryefield, I should say)
and he will never be a victor in his own eyes after nor play
victoriously the game of laugh and lie down. Assumed dongiovannism will
not save him. No later undoing will undo the first undoing. The tusk of
the boar has wounded him there where love lies ableeding. If the shrew
is worsted yet there remains to her woman’s invisible weapon. There is,
I feel in the words, some goad of the flesh driving him into a new
passion, a darker shadow of the first, darkening even his own
understanding of himself. A like fate awaits him and the two rages
commingle in a whirlpool.

They list. And in the porches of their ears I pour.

—The soul has been before stricken mortally, a poison poured in the
porch of a sleeping ear. But those who are done to death in sleep
cannot know the manner of their quell unless their Creator endow their
souls with that knowledge in the life to come. The poisoning and the
beast with two backs that urged it King Hamlet’s ghost could not know
of were he not endowed with knowledge by his creator. That is why the
speech (his lean unlovely English) is always turned elsewhere,
backward. Ravisher and ravished, what he would but would not, go with
him from Lucrece’s bluecircled ivory globes to Imogen’s breast, bare,
with its mole cinquespotted. He goes back, weary of the creation he has
piled up to hide him from himself, an old dog licking an old sore. But,
because loss is his gain, he passes on towards eternity in undiminished
personality, untaught by the wisdom he has written or by the laws he
has revealed. His beaver is up. He is a ghost, a shadow now, the wind
by Elsinore’s rocks or what you will, the sea’s voice, a voice heard
only in the heart of him who is the substance of his shadow, the son
consubstantial with the father.

—Amen! was responded from the doorway.

Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?

_Entr’acte_.

A ribald face, sullen as a dean’s, Buck Mulligan came forward, then
blithe in motley, towards the greeting of their smiles. My telegram.

—You were speaking of the gaseous vertebrate, if I mistake not? he
asked of Stephen.

Primrosevested he greeted gaily with his doffed Panama as with a
bauble.

They make him welcome. _Was Du verlachst wirst Du noch dienen._

Brood of mockers: Photius, pseudomalachi, Johann Most.

He Who Himself begot middler the Holy Ghost and Himself sent Himself,
Agenbuyer, between Himself and others, Who, put upon by His fiends,
stripped and whipped, was nailed like bat to barndoor, starved on
crosstree, Who let Him bury, stood up, harrowed hell, fared into heaven
and there these nineteen hundred years sitteth on the right hand of His
Own Self but yet shall come in the latter day to doom the quick and
dead when all the quick shall be dead already.

gloriainexelcisdeo



He lifts his hands. Veils fall. O, flowers! Bells with bells with bells
aquiring.

—Yes, indeed, the quaker librarian said. A most instructive discussion.
Mr Mulligan, I’ll be bound, has his theory too of the play and of
Shakespeare. All sides of life should be represented.

He smiled on all sides equally.

Buck Mulligan thought, puzzled:

—Shakespeare? he said. I seem to know the name.

A flying sunny smile rayed in his loose features.

—To be sure, he said, remembering brightly. The chap that writes like
Synge.

Mr Best turned to him.

—Haines missed you, he said. Did you meet him? He’ll see you after at
the D. B. C. He’s gone to Gill’s to buy Hyde’s _Lovesongs of Connacht_.

—I came through the museum, Buck Mulligan said. Was he here?

—The bard’s fellowcountrymen, John Eglinton answered, are rather tired
perhaps of our brilliancies of theorising. I hear that an actress
played Hamlet for the fourhundredandeighth time last night in Dublin.
Vining held that the prince was a woman. Has no-one made him out to be
an Irishman? Judge Barton, I believe, is searching for some clues. He
swears (His Highness not His Lordship) by saint Patrick.

—The most brilliant of all is that story of Wilde’s, Mr Best said,
lifting his brilliant notebook. That _Portrait of Mr W. H._ where he
proves that the sonnets were written by a Willie Hughes, a man all
hues.

—For Willie Hughes, is it not? the quaker librarian asked.

Or Hughie Wills? Mr William Himself. W. H.: who am I?

—I mean, for Willie Hughes, Mr Best said, amending his gloss easily. Of
course it’s all paradox, don’t you know, Hughes and hews and hues, the
colour, but it’s so typical the way he works it out. It’s the very
essence of Wilde, don’t you know. The light touch.

His glance touched their faces lightly as he smiled, a blond ephebe.
Tame essence of Wilde.

You’re darned witty. Three drams of usquebaugh you drank with Dan
Deasy’s ducats.

How much did I spend? O, a few shillings.

For a plump of pressmen. Humour wet and dry.

Wit. You would give your five wits for youth’s proud livery he pranks
in. Lineaments of gratified desire.

There be many mo. Take her for me. In pairing time. Jove, a cool
ruttime send them. Yea, turtledove her.

Eve. Naked wheatbellied sin. A snake coils her, fang in’s kiss.

—Do you think it is only a paradox? the quaker librarian was asking.
The mocker is never taken seriously when he is most serious.

They talked seriously of mocker’s seriousness.

Buck Mulligan’s again heavy face eyed Stephen awhile. Then, his head
wagging, he came near, drew a folded telegram from his pocket. His
mobile lips read, smiling with new delight.

—Telegram! he said. Wonderful inspiration! Telegram! A papal bull!

He sat on a corner of the unlit desk, reading aloud joyfully:

—_The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the
immense debtorship for a thing done._ Signed: Dedalus. Where did you
launch it from? The kips? No. College Green. Have you drunk the four
quid? The aunt is going to call on your unsubstantial father. Telegram!
Malachi Mulligan, The Ship, lower Abbey street. O, you peerless mummer!
O, you priestified Kinchite!

Joyfully he thrust message and envelope into a pocket but keened in a
querulous brogue:

—It’s what I’m telling you, mister honey, it’s queer and sick we were,
Haines and myself, the time himself brought it in. ’Twas murmur we did
for a gallus potion would rouse a friar, I’m thinking, and he limp with
leching. And we one hour and two hours and three hours in Connery’s
sitting civil waiting for pints apiece.

He wailed:

—And we to be there, mavrone, and you to be unbeknownst sending us your
conglomerations the way we to have our tongues out a yard long like the
drouthy clerics do be fainting for a pussful.

Stephen laughed.

Quickly, warningfully Buck Mulligan bent down.

—The tramper Synge is looking for you, he said, to murder you. He heard
you pissed on his halldoor in Glasthule. He’s out in pampooties to
murder you.

—Me! Stephen exclaimed. That was your contribution to literature.

Buck Mulligan gleefully bent back, laughing to the dark eavesdropping
ceiling.

—Murder you! he laughed.

Harsh gargoyle face that warred against me over our mess of hash of
lights in rue Saint-André-des-Arts. In words of words for words,
palabras. Oisin with Patrick. Faunman he met in Clamart woods,
brandishing a winebottle. _C’est vendredi saint!_ Murthering Irish. His
image, wandering, he met. I mine. I met a fool i’the forest.

—Mr Lyster, an attendant said from the door ajar.

—... in which everyone can find his own. So Mr Justice Madden in his
_Diary of Master William Silence_ has found the hunting terms... Yes?
What is it?

—There’s a gentleman here, sir, the attendant said, coming forward and
offering a card. From the _Freeman._ He wants to see the files of the
_Kilkenny People_ for last year.

—Certainly, certainly, certainly. Is the gentleman?...

He took the eager card, glanced, not saw, laid down unglanced, looked,
asked, creaked, asked:

—Is he?... O, there!

Brisk in a galliard he was off, out. In the daylit corridor he talked
with voluble pains of zeal, in duty bound, most fair, most kind, most
honest broadbrim.

—This gentleman? _Freeman’s Journal? Kilkenny People?_ To be sure. Good
day, sir. _Kilkenny_... We have certainly...

A patient silhouette waited, listening.

—All the leading provincial... _Northern Whig, Cork Examiner,
Enniscorthy Guardian,_ 1903... Will you please?... Evans, conduct this
gentleman... If you just follow the atten... Or, please allow me...
This way... Please, sir...

Voluble, dutiful, he led the way to all the provincial papers, a bowing
dark figure following his hasty heels.

The door closed.

—The sheeny! Buck Mulligan cried.

He jumped up and snatched the card.

—What’s his name? Ikey Moses? Bloom.

He rattled on:

—Jehovah, collector of prepuces, is no more. I found him over in the
museum where I went to hail the foamborn Aphrodite. The Greek mouth
that has never been twisted in prayer. Every day we must do homage to
her. _Life of life, thy lips enkindle._

Suddenly he turned to Stephen:

—He knows you. He knows your old fellow. O, I fear me, he is Greeker
than the Greeks. His pale Galilean eyes were upon her mesial groove.
Venus Kallipyge. O, the thunder of those loins! _The god pursuing the
maiden hid_.

—We want to hear more, John Eglinton decided with Mr Best’s approval.
We begin to be interested in Mrs S. Till now we had thought of her, if
at all, as a patient Griselda, a Penelope stayathome.

—Antisthenes, pupil of Gorgias, Stephen said, took the palm of beauty
from Kyrios Menelaus’ brooddam, Argive Helen, the wooden mare of Troy
in whom a score of heroes slept, and handed it to poor Penelope. Twenty
years he lived in London and, during part of that time, he drew a
salary equal to that of the lord chancellor of Ireland. His life was
rich. His art, more than the art of feudalism as Walt Whitman called
it, is the art of surfeit. Hot herringpies, green mugs of sack,
honeysauces, sugar of roses, marchpane, gooseberried pigeons,
ringocandies. Sir Walter Raleigh, when they arrested him, had half a
million francs on his back including a pair of fancy stays. The
gombeenwoman Eliza Tudor had underlinen enough to vie with her of
Sheba. Twenty years he dallied there between conjugial love and its
chaste delights and scortatory love and its foul pleasures. You know
Manningham’s story of the burgher’s wife who bade Dick Burbage to her
bed after she had seen him in _Richard III_ and how Shakespeare,
overhearing, without more ado about nothing, took the cow by the horns
and, when Burbage came knocking at the gate, answered from the capon’s
blankets: _William the conqueror came before Richard III_. And the gay
lakin, mistress Fitton, mount and cry O, and his dainty birdsnies, lady
Penelope Rich, a clean quality woman is suited for a player, and the
punks of the bankside, a penny a time.

Cours la Reine. _Encore vingt sous. Nous ferons de petites
cochonneries. Minette? Tu veux?_

—The height of fine society. And sir William Davenant of Oxford’s
mother with her cup of canary for any cockcanary.

Buck Mulligan, his pious eyes upturned, prayed:

—Blessed Margaret Mary Anycock!

—And Harry of six wives’ daughter. And other lady friends from
neighbour seats as Lawn Tennyson, gentleman poet, sings. But all those
twenty years what do you suppose poor Penelope in Stratford was doing
behind the diamond panes?

Do and do. Thing done. In a rosery of Fetter lane of Gerard, herbalist,
he walks, greyedauburn. An azured harebell like her veins. Lids of
Juno’s eyes, violets. He walks. One life is all. One body. Do. But do.
Afar, in a reek of lust and squalor, hands are laid on whiteness.

Buck Mulligan rapped John Eglinton’s desk sharply.

—Whom do you suspect? he challenged.

—Say that he is the spurned lover in the sonnets. Once spurned twice
spurned. But the court wanton spurned him for a lord, his dearmylove.

Love that dare not speak its name.

—As an Englishman, you mean, John sturdy Eglinton put in, he loved a
lord.

Old wall where sudden lizards flash. At Charenton I watched them.

—It seems so, Stephen said, when he wants to do for him, and for all
other and singular uneared wombs, the holy office an ostler does for
the stallion. Maybe, like Socrates, he had a midwife to mother as he
had a shrew to wife. But she, the giglot wanton, did not break a
bedvow. Two deeds are rank in that ghost’s mind: a broken vow and the
dullbrained yokel on whom her favour has declined, deceased husband’s
brother. Sweet Ann, I take it, was hot in the blood. Once a wooer,
twice a wooer.

Stephen turned boldly in his chair.

—The burden of proof is with you not with me, he said frowning. If you
deny that in the fifth scene of _Hamlet_ he has branded her with infamy
tell me why there is no mention of her during the thirtyfour years
between the day she married him and the day she buried him. All those
women saw their men down and under: Mary, her goodman John, Ann, her
poor dear Willun, when he went and died on her, raging that he was the
first to go, Joan, her four brothers, Judith, her husband and all her
sons, Susan, her husband too, while Susan’s daughter, Elizabeth, to use
granddaddy’s words, wed her second, having killed her first.

O, yes, mention there is. In the years when he was living richly in
royal London to pay a debt she had to borrow forty shillings from her
father’s shepherd. Explain you then. Explain the swansong too wherein
he has commended her to posterity.

He faced their silence.

To whom thus Eglinton: You mean the will.
But that has been explained, I believe, by jurists.
She was entitled to her widow’s dower
At common law. His legal knowledge was great
Our judges tell us.
            Him Satan fleers,
Mocker:
            And therefore he left out her name
From the first draft but he did not leave out
The presents for his granddaughter, for his daughters,
For his sister, for his old cronies in Stratford
And in London. And therefore when he was urged,
As I believe, to name her
He left her his
Secondbest
Bed.

            _Punkt._

Leftherhis
Secondbest
Leftherhis
Bestabed
Secabest
Leftabed.

Woa!

—Pretty countryfolk had few chattels then, John Eglinton observed, as
they have still if our peasant plays are true to type.

—He was a rich country gentleman, Stephen said, with a coat of arms and
landed estate at Stratford and a house in Ireland yard, a capitalist
shareholder, a bill promoter, a tithefarmer. Why did he not leave her
his best bed if he wished her to snore away the rest of her nights in
peace?

—It is clear that there were two beds, a best and a secondbest, Mr
Secondbest Best said finely.

—_Separatio a mensa et a thalamo_, bettered Buck Mulligan and was
smiled on.

—Antiquity mentions famous beds, Second Eglinton puckered, bedsmiling.
Let me think.

—Antiquity mentions that Stagyrite schoolurchin and bald heathen sage,
Stephen said, who when dying in exile frees and endows his slaves, pays
tribute to his elders, wills to be laid in earth near the bones of his
dead wife and bids his friends be kind to an old mistress (don’t forget
Nell Gwynn Herpyllis) and let her live in his villa.

—Do you mean he died so? Mr Best asked with slight concern. I mean...

—He died dead drunk, Buck Mulligan capped. A quart of ale is a dish for
a king. O, I must tell you what Dowden said!

—What? asked Besteglinton.

William Shakespeare and company, limited. The people’s William. For
terms apply: E. Dowden, Highfield house...

—Lovely! Buck Mulligan suspired amorously. I asked him what he thought
of the charge of pederasty brought against the bard. He lifted his
hands and said: _All we can say is that life ran very high in those
days._ Lovely!

Catamite.

—The sense of beauty leads us astray, said beautifulinsadness Best to
ugling Eglinton.

Steadfast John replied severe:

—The doctor can tell us what those words mean. You cannot eat your cake
and have it.

Sayest thou so? Will they wrest from us, from me, the palm of beauty?

—And the sense of property, Stephen said. He drew Shylock out of his
own long pocket. The son of a maltjobber and moneylender he was himself
a cornjobber and moneylender, with ten tods of corn hoarded in the
famine riots. His borrowers are no doubt those divers of worship
mentioned by Chettle Falstaff who reported his uprightness of dealing.
He sued a fellowplayer for the price of a few bags of malt and exacted
his pound of flesh in interest for every money lent. How else could
Aubrey’s ostler and callboy get rich quick? All events brought grist to
his mill. Shylock chimes with the jewbaiting that followed the hanging
and quartering of the queen’s leech Lopez, his jew’s heart being
plucked forth while the sheeny was yet alive: _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_
with the coming to the throne of a Scotch philosophaster with a turn
for witchroasting. The lost armada is his jeer in _Love’s Labour Lost_.
His pageants, the histories, sail fullbellied on a tide of Mafeking
enthusiasm. Warwickshire jesuits are tried and we have a porter’s
theory of equivocation. The _Sea Venture_ comes home from Bermudas and
the play Renan admired is written with Patsy Caliban, our American
cousin. The sugared sonnets follow Sidney’s. As for fay Elizabeth,
otherwise carrotty Bess, the gross virgin who inspired _The Merry Wives
of Windsor_, let some meinherr from Almany grope his life long for
deephid meanings in the depths of the buckbasket.

I think you’re getting on very nicely. Just mix up a mixture of
theolologicophilolological. _Mingo, minxi, mictum, mingere._

—Prove that he was a jew, John Eglinton dared, expectantly. Your dean
of studies holds he was a holy Roman.

_Sufflaminandus sum._

—He was made in Germany, Stephen replied, as the champion French
polisher of Italian scandals.

—A myriadminded man, Mr Best reminded. Coleridge called him
myriadminded.

_Amplius. In societate humana hoc est maxime necessarium ut sit
amicitia inter multos._

—Saint Thomas, Stephen began...

—_Ora pro nobis_, Monk Mulligan groaned, sinking to a chair.

There he keened a wailing rune.

—_Pogue mahone! Acushla machree!_ It’s destroyed we are from this day!
It’s destroyed we are surely!

All smiled their smiles.

—Saint Thomas, Stephen smiling said, whose gorbellied works I enjoy
reading in the original, writing of incest from a standpoint different
from that of the new Viennese school Mr Magee spoke of, likens it in
his wise and curious way to an avarice of the emotions. He means that
the love so given to one near in blood is covetously withheld from some
stranger who, it may be, hungers for it. Jews, whom christians tax with
avarice, are of all races the most given to intermarriage. Accusations
are made in anger. The christian laws which built up the hoards of the
jews (for whom, as for the lollards, storm was shelter) bound their
affections too with hoops of steel. Whether these be sins or virtues
old Nobodaddy will tell us at doomsday leet. But a man who holds so
tightly to what he calls his rights over what he calls his debts will
hold tightly also to what he calls his rights over her whom he calls
his wife. No sir smile neighbour shall covet his ox or his wife or his
manservant or his maidservant or his jackass.

—Or his jennyass, Buck Mulligan antiphoned.

—Gentle Will is being roughly handled, gentle Mr Best said gently.

—Which will? gagged sweetly Buck Mulligan. We are getting mixed.

—The will to live, John Eglinton philosophised, for poor Ann, Will’s
widow, is the will to die.

_—Requiescat!_ Stephen prayed.

     What of all the will to do?
     It has vanished long ago...

—She lies laid out in stark stiffness in that secondbest bed, the
mobled queen, even though you prove that a bed in those days was as
rare as a motorcar is now and that its carvings were the wonder of
seven parishes. In old age she takes up with gospellers (one stayed
with her at New Place and drank a quart of sack the town council paid
for but in which bed he slept it skills not to ask) and heard she had a
soul. She read or had read to her his chapbooks preferring them to the
_Merry Wives_ and, loosing her nightly waters on the jordan, she
thought over _Hooks and Eyes for Believers’ Breeches_ and _The most
Spiritual Snuffbox to Make the Most Devout Souls Sneeze_. Venus has
twisted her lips in prayer. Agenbite of inwit: remorse of conscience.
It is an age of exhausted whoredom groping for its god.

—History shows that to be true, _inquit Eglintonus Chronolologos_. The
ages succeed one another. But we have it on high authority that a man’s
worst enemies shall be those of his own house and family. I feel that
Russell is right. What do we care for his wife or father? I should say
that only family poets have family lives. Falstaff was not a family
man. I feel that the fat knight is his supreme creation.

Lean, he lay back. Shy, deny thy kindred, the unco guid. Shy, supping
with the godless, he sneaks the cup. A sire in Ultonian Antrim bade it
him. Visits him here on quarter days. Mr Magee, sir, there’s a
gentleman to see you. Me? Says he’s your father, sir. Give me my
Wordsworth. Enter Magee Mor Matthew, a rugged rough rugheaded kern, in
strossers with a buttoned codpiece, his nether stocks bemired with
clauber of ten forests, a wand of wilding in his hand.

Your own? He knows your old fellow. The widower.

Hurrying to her squalid deathlair from gay Paris on the quayside I
touched his hand. The voice, new warmth, speaking. Dr Bob Kenny is
attending her. The eyes that wish me well. But do not know me.

—A father, Stephen said, battling against hopelessness, is a necessary
evil. He wrote the play in the months that followed his father’s death.
If you hold that he, a greying man with two marriageable daughters,
with thirtyfive years of life, _nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita_,
with fifty of experience, is the beardless undergraduate from
Wittenberg then you must hold that his seventyyear old mother is the
lustful queen. No. The corpse of John Shakespeare does not walk the
night. From hour to hour it rots and rots. He rests, disarmed of
fatherhood, having devised that mystical estate upon his son.
Boccaccio’s Calandrino was the first and last man who felt himself with
child. Fatherhood, in the sense of conscious begetting, is unknown to
man. It is a mystical estate, an apostolic succession, from only
begetter to only begotten. On that mystery and not on the madonna which
the cunning Italian intellect flung to the mob of Europe the church is
founded and founded irremovably because founded, like the world, macro
and microcosm, upon the void. Upon incertitude, upon unlikelihood.
_Amor matris_, subjective and objective genitive, may be the only true
thing in life. Paternity may be a legal fiction. Who is the father of
any son that any son should love him or he any son?

What the hell are you driving at?

I know. Shut up. Blast you. I have reasons.

_Amplius. Adhuc. Iterum. Postea._

Are you condemned to do this?

—They are sundered by a bodily shame so steadfast that the criminal
annals of the world, stained with all other incests and bestialities,
hardly record its breach. Sons with mothers, sires with daughters,
lesbic sisters, loves that dare not speak their name, nephews with
grandmothers, jailbirds with keyholes, queens with prize bulls. The son
unborn mars beauty: born, he brings pain, divides affection, increases
care. He is a new male: his growth is his father’s decline, his youth
his father’s envy, his friend his father’s enemy.

In rue Monsieur-le-Prince I thought it.

—What links them in nature? An instant of blind rut.

Am I a father? If I were?

Shrunken uncertain hand.

—Sabellius, the African, subtlest heresiarch of all the beasts of the
field, held that the Father was Himself His Own Son. The bulldog of
Aquin, with whom no word shall be impossible, refutes him. Well: if the
father who has not a son be not a father can the son who has not a
father be a son? When Rutlandbaconsouthamptonshakespeare or another
poet of the same name in the comedy of errors wrote _Hamlet_ he was not
the father of his own son merely but, being no more a son, he was and
felt himself the father of all his race, the father of his own
grandfather, the father of his unborn grandson who, by the same token,
never was born, for nature, as Mr Magee understands her, abhors
perfection.

Eglintoneyes, quick with pleasure, looked up shybrightly. Gladly
glancing, a merry puritan, through the twisted eglantine.

Flatter. Rarely. But flatter.

—Himself his own father, Sonmulligan told himself. Wait. I am big with
child. I have an unborn child in my brain. Pallas Athena! A play! The
play’s the thing! Let me parturiate!

He clasped his paunchbrow with both birthaiding hands.

—As for his family, Stephen said, his mother’s name lives in the forest
of Arden. Her death brought from him the scene with Volumnia in
_Coriolanus._ His boyson’s death is the deathscene of young Arthur in
_King John._ Hamlet, the black prince, is Hamnet Shakespeare. Who the
girls in _The Tempest_, in _Pericles,_ in _Winter’s Tale_ are we know.
Who Cleopatra, fleshpot of Egypt, and Cressid and Venus are we may
guess. But there is another member of his family who is recorded.

—The plot thickens, John Eglinton said.

The quaker librarian, quaking, tiptoed in, quake, his mask, quake, with
haste, quake, quack.

Door closed. Cell. Day.

They list. Three. They.

I you he they.

Come, mess.

STEPHEN: He had three brothers, Gilbert, Edmund, Richard. Gilbert in
his old age told some cavaliers he got a pass for nowt from Maister
Gatherer one time mass he did and he seen his brud Maister Wull the
playwriter up in Lunnon in a wrastling play wud a man on’s back. The
playhouse sausage filled Gilbert’s soul. He is nowhere: but an Edmund
and a Richard are recorded in the works of sweet William.

MAGEEGLINJOHN: Names! What’s in a name?

BEST: That is my name, Richard, don’t you know. I hope you are going to
say a good word for Richard, don’t you know, for my sake. _(Laughter)_

BUCKMULLIGAN: (_Piano, diminuendo_)

     Then outspoke medical Dick
     To his comrade medical Davy...

STEPHEN: In his trinity of black Wills, the villain shakebags, Iago,
Richard Crookback, Edmund in _King Lear_, two bear the wicked uncles’
names. Nay, that last play was written or being written while his
brother Edmund lay dying in Southwark.

BEST: I hope Edmund is going to catch it. I don’t want Richard, my name
...

_(Laughter)_

QUAKERLYSTER: (_A tempo_) But he that filches from me my good name...

STEPHEN: _(Stringendo)_ He has hidden his own name, a fair name,
William, in the plays, a super here, a clown there, as a painter of old
Italy set his face in a dark corner of his canvas. He has revealed it
in the sonnets where there is Will in overplus. Like John o’Gaunt his
name is dear to him, as dear as the coat and crest he toadied for, on a
bend sable a spear or steeled argent, honorificabilitudinitatibus,
dearer than his glory of greatest shakescene in the country. What’s in
a name? That is what we ask ourselves in childhood when we write the
name that we are told is ours. A star, a daystar, a firedrake, rose at
his birth. It shone by day in the heavens alone, brighter than Venus in
the night, and by night it shone over delta in Cassiopeia, the
recumbent constellation which is the signature of his initial among the
stars. His eyes watched it, lowlying on the horizon, eastward of the
bear, as he walked by the slumberous summer fields at midnight
returning from Shottery and from her arms.

Both satisfied. I too.

Don’t tell them he was nine years old when it was quenched.

And from her arms.

Wait to be wooed and won. Ay, meacock. Who will woo you?

Read the skies. _Autontimorumenos. Bous Stephanoumenos._ Where’s your
configuration? Stephen, Stephen, cut the bread even. S. D: _sua donna.
Già: di lui. Gelindo risolve di non amare S. D._

—What is that, Mr Dedalus? the quaker librarian asked. Was it a
celestial phenomenon?

—A star by night, Stephen said. A pillar of the cloud by day.

What more’s to speak?

Stephen looked on his hat, his stick, his boots.

_Stephanos,_ my crown. My sword. His boots are spoiling the shape of my
feet. Buy a pair. Holes in my socks. Handkerchief too.

—You make good use of the name, John Eglinton allowed. Your own name is
strange enough. I suppose it explains your fantastical humour.

Me, Magee and Mulligan.

Fabulous artificer. The hawklike man. You flew. Whereto?
Newhaven-Dieppe, steerage passenger. Paris and back. Lapwing. Icarus.
_Pater, ait._ Seabedabbled, fallen, weltering. Lapwing you are. Lapwing
be.

Mr Best eagerquietly lifted his book to say:

—That’s very interesting because that brother motive, don’t you know,
we find also in the old Irish myths. Just what you say. The three
brothers Shakespeare. In Grimm too, don’t you know, the fairytales. The
third brother that always marries the sleeping beauty and wins the best
prize.

Best of Best brothers. Good, better, best.

The quaker librarian springhalted near.

—I should like to know, he said, which brother you... I understand you
to suggest there was misconduct with one of the brothers... But perhaps
I am anticipating?

He caught himself in the act: looked at all: refrained.

An attendant from the doorway called:

—Mr Lyster! Father Dineen wants...

—O, Father Dineen! Directly.

Swiftly rectly creaking rectly rectly he was rectly gone.

John Eglinton touched the foil.

—Come, he said. Let us hear what you have to say of Richard and Edmund.
You kept them for the last, didn’t you?

—In asking you to remember those two noble kinsmen nuncle Richie and
nuncle Edmund, Stephen answered, I feel I am asking too much perhaps. A
brother is as easily forgotten as an umbrella.

Lapwing.

Where is your brother? Apothecaries’ hall. My whetstone. Him, then
Cranly, Mulligan: now these. Speech, speech. But act. Act speech. They
mock to try you. Act. Be acted on.

Lapwing.

I am tired of my voice, the voice of Esau. My kingdom for a drink.

On.

—You will say those names were already in the chronicles from which he
took the stuff of his plays. Why did he take them rather than others?
Richard, a whoreson crookback, misbegotten, makes love to a widowed Ann
(what’s in a name?), woos and wins her, a whoreson merry widow. Richard
the conqueror, third brother, came after William the conquered. The
other four acts of that play hang limply from that first. Of all his
kings Richard is the only king unshielded by Shakespeare’s reverence,
the angel of the world. Why is the underplot of _King Lear_ in which
Edmund figures lifted out of Sidney’s _Arcadia_ and spatchcocked on to
a Celtic legend older than history?

—That was Will’s way, John Eglinton defended. We should not now combine
a Norse saga with an excerpt from a novel by George Meredith. _Que
voulez-vous?_ Moore would say. He puts Bohemia on the seacoast and
makes Ulysses quote Aristotle.

—Why? Stephen answered himself. Because the theme of the false or the
usurping or the adulterous brother or all three in one is to
Shakespeare, what the poor are not, always with him. The note of
banishment, banishment from the heart, banishment from home, sounds
uninterruptedly from _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_ onward till Prospero
breaks his staff, buries it certain fathoms in the earth and drowns his
book. It doubles itself in the middle of his life, reflects itself in
another, repeats itself, protasis, epitasis, catastasis, catastrophe.
It repeats itself again when he is near the grave, when his married
daughter Susan, chip of the old block, is accused of adultery. But it
was the original sin that darkened his understanding, weakened his will
and left in him a strong inclination to evil. The words are those of my
lords bishops of Maynooth. An original sin and, like original sin,
committed by another in whose sin he too has sinned. It is between the
lines of his last written words, it is petrified on his tombstone under
which her four bones are not to be laid. Age has not withered it.
Beauty and peace have not done it away. It is in infinite variety
everywhere in the world he has created, in _Much Ado about Nothing_,
twice in _As you like It_, in _The Tempest_, in _Hamlet,_ in _Measure
for Measure_—and in all the other plays which I have not read.

He laughed to free his mind from his mind’s bondage.

Judge Eglinton summed up.

—The truth is midway, he affirmed. He is the ghost and the prince. He
is all in all.

—He is, Stephen said. The boy of act one is the mature man of act five.
All in all. In _Cymbeline,_ in _Othello_ he is bawd and cuckold. He
acts and is acted on. Lover of an ideal or a perversion, like José he
kills the real Carmen. His unremitting intellect is the hornmad Iago
ceaselessly willing that the moor in him shall suffer.

—Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuck Mulligan clucked lewdly. O word of fear!

Dark dome received, reverbed.

—And what a character is Iago! undaunted John Eglinton exclaimed. When
all is said Dumas _fils_ (or is it Dumas _père?)_ is right. After God
Shakespeare has created most.

—Man delights him not nor woman neither, Stephen said. He returns after
a life of absence to that spot of earth where he was born, where he has
always been, man and boy, a silent witness and there, his journey of
life ended, he plants his mulberrytree in the earth. Then dies. The
motion is ended. Gravediggers bury Hamlet _père_ and Hamlet _fils._ A
king and a prince at last in death, with incidental music. And, what
though murdered and betrayed, bewept by all frail tender hearts for,
Dane or Dubliner, sorrow for the dead is the only husband from whom
they refuse to be divorced. If you like the epilogue look long on it:
prosperous Prospero, the good man rewarded, Lizzie, grandpa’s lump of
love, and nuncle Richie, the bad man taken off by poetic justice to the
place where the bad niggers go. Strong curtain. He found in the world
without as actual what was in his world within as possible. Maeterlinck
says: _If Socrates leave his house today he will find the sage seated
on his doorstep. If Judas go forth tonight it is to Judas his steps
will tend._ Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through
ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives,
widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves. The playwright
who wrote the folio of this world and wrote it badly (He gave us light
first and the sun two days later), the lord of things as they are whom
the most Roman of catholics call _dio boia_, hangman god, is doubtless
all in all in all of us, ostler and butcher, and would be bawd and
cuckold too but that in the economy of heaven, foretold by Hamlet,
there are no more marriages, glorified man, an androgynous angel, being
a wife unto himself.

_—Eureka!_ Buck Mulligan cried. _Eureka!_

Suddenly happied he jumped up and reached in a stride John Eglinton’s
desk.

—May I? he said. The Lord has spoken to Malachi.

He began to scribble on a slip of paper.

Take some slips from the counter going out.

—Those who are married, Mr Best, douce herald, said, all save one,
shall live. The rest shall keep as they are.

He laughed, unmarried, at Eglinton Johannes, of arts a bachelor.

Unwed, unfancied, ware of wiles, they fingerponder nightly each his
variorum edition of _The Taming of the Shrew._

—You are a delusion, said roundly John Eglinton to Stephen. You have
brought us all this way to show us a French triangle. Do you believe
your own theory?

—No, Stephen said promptly.

—Are you going to write it? Mr Best asked. You ought to make it a
dialogue, don’t you know, like the Platonic dialogues Wilde wrote.

John Eclecticon doubly smiled.

—Well, in that case, he said, I don’t see why you should expect payment
for it since you don’t believe it yourself. Dowden believes there is
some mystery in _Hamlet_ but will say no more. Herr Bleibtreu, the man
Piper met in Berlin, who is working up that Rutland theory, believes
that the secret is hidden in the Stratford monument. He is going to
visit the present duke, Piper says, and prove to him that his ancestor
wrote the plays. It will come as a surprise to his grace. But he
believes his theory.

I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief. That is, help me to believe or
help me to unbelieve? Who helps to believe? _Egomen._ Who to unbelieve?
Other chap.

—You are the only contributor to _Dana_ who asks for pieces of silver.
Then I don’t know about the next number. Fred Ryan wants space for an
article on economics.

Fraidrine. Two pieces of silver he lent me. Tide you over. Economics.

—For a guinea, Stephen said, you can publish this interview.

Buck Mulligan stood up from his laughing scribbling, laughing: and then
gravely said, honeying malice:

—I called upon the bard Kinch at his summer residence in upper
Mecklenburgh street and found him deep in the study of the _Summa
contra Gentiles_ in the company of two gonorrheal ladies, Fresh Nelly
and Rosalie, the coalquay whore.

He broke away.

—Come, Kinch. Come, wandering Ængus of the birds.

Come, Kinch. You have eaten all we left. Ay. I will serve you your orts
and offals.

Stephen rose.

Life is many days. This will end.

—We shall see you tonight, John Eglinton said. _Notre ami_ Moore says
Malachi Mulligan must be there.

Buck Mulligan flaunted his slip and panama.

—Monsieur Moore, he said, lecturer on French letters to the youth of
Ireland. I’ll be there. Come, Kinch, the bards must drink. Can you walk
straight?

Laughing, he...

Swill till eleven. Irish nights entertainment.

Lubber...

Stephen followed a lubber...

One day in the national library we had a discussion. Shakes. After. His
lub back: I followed. I gall his kibe.

Stephen, greeting, then all amort, followed a lubber jester, a
wellkempt head, newbarbered, out of the vaulted cell into a shattering
daylight of no thought.

What have I learned? Of them? Of me?

Walk like Haines now.

The constant readers’ room. In the readers’ book Cashel Boyle O’Connor
Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell parafes his polysyllables. Item: was Hamlet
mad? The quaker’s pate godlily with a priesteen in booktalk.

—O please do, sir... I shall be most pleased...

Amused Buck Mulligan mused in pleasant murmur with himself,
selfnodding:

—A pleased bottom.

The turnstile.

Is that?... Blueribboned hat... Idly writing... What? Looked?...

The curving balustrade: smoothsliding Mincius.

Puck Mulligan, panamahelmeted, went step by step, iambing, trolling:

     John Eglinton, my jo, John,
     Why won’t you wed a wife?

He spluttered to the air:

—O, the chinless Chinaman! Chin Chon Eg Lin Ton. We went over to their
playbox, Haines and I, the plumbers’ hall. Our players are creating a
new art for Europe like the Greeks or M. Maeterlinck. Abbey Theatre! I
smell the pubic sweat of monks.

He spat blank.

Forgot: any more than he forgot the whipping lousy Lucy gave him. And
left the _femme de trente ans._ And why no other children born? And his
first child a girl?

Afterwit. Go back.

The dour recluse still there (he has his cake) and the douce youngling,
minion of pleasure, Phedo’s toyable fair hair.

Eh... I just eh... wanted... I forgot... he...

—Longworth and M’Curdy Atkinson were there...

Puck Mulligan footed featly, trilling:

     I hardly hear the purlieu cry
     Or a Tommy talk as I pass one by
     Before my thoughts begin to run
     On F. M’Curdy Atkinson,
     The same that had the wooden leg
     And that filibustering filibeg
     That never dared to slake his drouth,
     Magee that had the chinless mouth.
     Being afraid to marry on earth
     They masturbated for all they were worth.

Jest on. Know thyself.

Halted, below me, a quizzer looks at me. I halt.

—Mournful mummer, Buck Mulligan moaned. Synge has left off wearing
black to be like nature. Only crows, priests and English coal are
black.

A laugh tripped over his lips.

—Longworth is awfully sick, he said, after what you wrote about that
old hake Gregory. O you inquisitional drunken jewjesuit! She gets you a
job on the paper and then you go and slate her drivel to Jaysus.
Couldn’t you do the Yeats touch?

He went on and down, mopping, chanting with waving graceful arms:

—The most beautiful book that has come out of our country in my time.
One thinks of Homer.

He stopped at the stairfoot.

—I have conceived a play for the mummers, he said solemnly.

The pillared Moorish hall, shadows entwined. Gone the nine men’s
morrice with caps of indices.

In sweetly varying voices Buck Mulligan read his tablet:

_Everyman His Own Wife
or
A Honeymoon in the Hand
(a national immorality in three orgasms)
by
Ballocky Mulligan._


He turned a happy patch’s smirk to Stephen, saying:

—The disguise, I fear, is thin. But listen.

He read, _marcato:_

—Characters:

     TOBY TOSTOFF (a ruined Pole)
     CRAB (a bushranger)
     MEDICAL DICK )
         and      ) (two birds with one stone)
     MEDICAL DAVY )
     MOTHER GROGAN (a watercarrier)
     FRESH NELLY
         and
     ROSALIE (the coalquay whore).

He laughed, lolling a to and fro head, walking on, followed by Stephen:
and mirthfully he told the shadows, souls of men:

—O, the night in the Camden hall when the daughters of Erin had to lift
their skirts to step over you as you lay in your mulberrycoloured,
multicoloured, multitudinous vomit!

—The most innocent son of Erin, Stephen said, for whom they ever lifted
them.

About to pass through the doorway, feeling one behind, he stood aside.

Part. The moment is now. Where then? If Socrates leave his house today,
if Judas go forth tonight. Why? That lies in space which I in time must
come to, ineluctably.

My will: his will that fronts me. Seas between.

A man passed out between them, bowing, greeting.

—Good day again, Buck Mulligan said.

The portico.

Here I watched the birds for augury. Ængus of the birds. They go, they
come. Last night I flew. Easily flew. Men wondered. Street of harlots
after. A creamfruit melon he held to me. In. You will see.

—The wandering jew, Buck Mulligan whispered with clown’s awe. Did you
see his eye? He looked upon you to lust after you. I fear thee, ancient
mariner. O, Kinch, thou art in peril. Get thee a breechpad.

Manner of Oxenford.

Day. Wheelbarrow sun over arch of bridge.

A dark back went before them, step of a pard, down, out by the gateway,
under portcullis barbs.

They followed.

Offend me still. Speak on.

Kind air defined the coigns of houses in Kildare street. No birds.
Frail from the housetops two plumes of smoke ascended, pluming, and in
a flaw of softness softly were blown.

Cease to strive. Peace of the druid priests of Cymbeline: hierophantic:
from wide earth an altar.

            Laud we the gods
     And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils
     From our bless’d altars.



[ 10 ]

The superior, the very reverend John Conmee S. J. reset his smooth
watch in his interior pocket as he came down the presbytery steps. Five
to three. Just nice time to walk to Artane. What was that boy’s name
again? Dignam. Yes. _Vere dignum et iustum est._ Brother Swan was the
person to see. Mr Cunningham’s letter. Yes. Oblige him, if possible.
Good practical catholic: useful at mission time.

A onelegged sailor, swinging himself onward by lazy jerks of his
crutches, growled some notes. He jerked short before the convent of the
sisters of charity and held out a peaked cap for alms towards the very
reverend John Conmee S. J. Father Conmee blessed him in the sun for his
purse held, he knew, one silver crown.

Father Conmee crossed to Mountjoy square. He thought, but not for long,
of soldiers and sailors, whose legs had been shot off by cannonballs,
ending their days in some pauper ward, and of cardinal Wolsey’s words:
_If I had served my God as I have served my king He would not have
abandoned me in my old days._ He walked by the treeshade of
sunnywinking leaves: and towards him came the wife of Mr David Sheehy
M.P.

—Very well, indeed, father. And you, father?

Father Conmee was wonderfully well indeed. He would go to Buxton
probably for the waters. And her boys, were they getting on well at
Belvedere? Was that so? Father Conmee was very glad indeed to hear
that. And Mr Sheehy himself? Still in London. The house was still
sitting, to be sure it was. Beautiful weather it was, delightful
indeed. Yes, it was very probable that Father Bernard Vaughan would
come again to preach. O, yes: a very great success. A wonderful man
really.

Father Conmee was very glad to see the wife of Mr David Sheehy M.P.
Iooking so well and he begged to be remembered to Mr David Sheehy M.P.
Yes, he would certainly call.

—Good afternoon, Mrs Sheehy.

Father Conmee doffed his silk hat and smiled, as he took leave, at the
jet beads of her mantilla inkshining in the sun. And smiled yet again,
in going. He had cleaned his teeth, he knew, with arecanut paste.

Father Conmee walked and, walking, smiled for he thought on Father
Bernard Vaughan’s droll eyes and cockney voice.

—Pilate! Wy don’t you old back that owlin mob?

A zealous man, however. Really he was. And really did great good in his
way. Beyond a doubt. He loved Ireland, he said, and he loved the Irish.
Of good family too would one think it? Welsh, were they not?

O, lest he forget. That letter to father provincial.

Father Conmee stopped three little schoolboys at the corner of Mountjoy
square. Yes: they were from Belvedere. The little house. Aha. And were
they good boys at school? O. That was very good now. And what was his
name? Jack Sohan. And his name? Ger. Gallaher. And the other little
man? His name was Brunny Lynam. O, that was a very nice name to have.

Father Conmee gave a letter from his breast to Master Brunny Lynam and
pointed to the red pillarbox at the corner of Fitzgibbon street.

—But mind you don’t post yourself into the box, little man, he said.

The boys sixeyed Father Conmee and laughed:

—O, sir.

—Well, let me see if you can post a letter, Father Conmee said.

Master Brunny Lynam ran across the road and put Father Conmee’s letter
to father provincial into the mouth of the bright red letterbox. Father
Conmee smiled and nodded and smiled and walked along Mountjoy square
east.

Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing &c, in silk hat, slate
frockcoat with silk facings, white kerchief tie, tight lavender
trousers, canary gloves and pointed patent boots, walking with grave
deportment most respectfully took the curbstone as he passed lady
Maxwell at the corner of Dignam’s court.

Was that not Mrs M’Guinness?

Mrs M’Guinness, stately, silverhaired, bowed to Father Conmee from the
farther footpath along which she sailed. And Father Conmee smiled and
saluted. How did she do?

A fine carriage she had. Like Mary, queen of Scots, something. And to
think that she was a pawnbroker! Well, now! Such a... what should he
say?... such a queenly mien.

Father Conmee walked down Great Charles street and glanced at the
shutup free church on his left. The reverend T. R. Greene B.A. will
(D.V.) speak. The incumbent they called him. He felt it incumbent on
him to say a few words. But one should be charitable. Invincible
ignorance. They acted according to their lights.

Father Conmee turned the corner and walked along the North Circular
road. It was a wonder that there was not a tramline in such an
important thoroughfare. Surely, there ought to be.

A band of satchelled schoolboys crossed from Richmond street. All
raised untidy caps. Father Conmee greeted them more than once benignly.
Christian brother boys.

Father Conmee smelt incense on his right hand as he walked. Saint
Joseph’s church, Portland row. For aged and virtuous females. Father
Conmee raised his hat to the Blessed Sacrament. Virtuous: but
occasionally they were also badtempered.

Near Aldborough house Father Conmee thought of that spendthrift
nobleman. And now it was an office or something.

Father Conmee began to walk along the North Strand road and was saluted
by Mr William Gallagher who stood in the doorway of his shop. Father
Conmee saluted Mr William Gallagher and perceived the odours that came
from baconflitches and ample cools of butter. He passed Grogan’s the
Tobacconist against which newsboards leaned and told of a dreadful
catastrophe in New York. In America those things were continually
happening. Unfortunate people to die like that, unprepared. Still, an
act of perfect contrition.

Father Conmee went by Daniel Bergin’s publichouse against the window of
which two unlabouring men lounged. They saluted him and were saluted.

Father Conmee passed H. J. O’Neill’s funeral establishment where Corny
Kelleher totted figures in the daybook while he chewed a blade of hay.
A constable on his beat saluted Father Conmee and Father Conmee saluted
the constable. In Youkstetter’s, the porkbutcher’s, Father Conmee
observed pig’s puddings, white and black and red, lie neatly curled in
tubes.

Moored under the trees of Charleville Mall Father Conmee saw a
turfbarge, a towhorse with pendent head, a bargeman with a hat of dirty
straw seated amidships, smoking and staring at a branch of poplar above
him. It was idyllic: and Father Conmee reflected on the providence of
the Creator who had made turf to be in bogs whence men might dig it out
and bring it to town and hamlet to make fires in the houses of poor
people.

On Newcomen bridge the very reverend John Conmee S. J. of saint Francis
Xavier’s church, upper Gardiner street, stepped on to an outward bound
tram.

Off an inward bound tram stepped the reverend Nicholas Dudley C. C. of
saint Agatha’s church, north William street, on to Newcomen bridge.

At Newcomen bridge Father Conmee stepped into an outward bound tram for
he disliked to traverse on foot the dingy way past Mud Island.

Father Conmee sat in a corner of the tramcar, a blue ticket tucked with
care in the eye of one plump kid glove, while four shillings, a
sixpence and five pennies chuted from his other plump glovepalm into
his purse. Passing the ivy church he reflected that the ticket
inspector usually made his visit when one had carelessly thrown away
the ticket. The solemnity of the occupants of the car seemed to Father
Conmee excessive for a journey so short and cheap. Father Conmee liked
cheerful decorum.

It was a peaceful day. The gentleman with the glasses opposite Father
Conmee had finished explaining and looked down. His wife, Father Conmee
supposed. A tiny yawn opened the mouth of the wife of the gentleman
with the glasses. She raised her small gloved fist, yawned ever so
gently, tiptapping her small gloved fist on her opening mouth and
smiled tinily, sweetly.

Father Conmee perceived her perfume in the car. He perceived also that
the awkward man at the other side of her was sitting on the edge of the
seat.

Father Conmee at the altarrails placed the host with difficulty in the
mouth of the awkward old man who had the shaky head.

At Annesley bridge the tram halted and, when it was about to go, an old
woman rose suddenly from her place to alight. The conductor pulled the
bellstrap to stay the car for her. She passed out with her basket and a
marketnet: and Father Conmee saw the conductor help her and net and
basket down: and Father Conmee thought that, as she had nearly passed
the end of the penny fare, she was one of those good souls who had
always to be told twice _bless you, my child,_ that they have been
absolved, _pray for me._ But they had so many worries in life, so many
cares, poor creatures.

From the hoardings Mr Eugene Stratton grimaced with thick niggerlips at
Father Conmee.

Father Conmee thought of the souls of black and brown and yellow men
and of his sermon on saint Peter Claver S. J. and the African mission
and of the propagation of the faith and of the millions of black and
brown and yellow souls that had not received the baptism of water when
their last hour came like a thief in the night. That book by the
Belgian jesuit, _Le Nombre des Élus,_ seemed to Father Conmee a
reasonable plea. Those were millions of human souls created by God in
His Own likeness to whom the faith had not (D.V.) been brought. But
they were God’s souls, created by God. It seemed to Father Conmee a
pity that they should all be lost, a waste, if one might say.

At the Howth road stop Father Conmee alighted, was saluted by the
conductor and saluted in his turn.

The Malahide road was quiet. It pleased Father Conmee, road and name.
The joybells were ringing in gay Malahide. Lord Talbot de Malahide,
immediate hereditary lord admiral of Malahide and the seas adjoining.
Then came the call to arms and she was maid, wife and widow in one day.
Those were old worldish days, loyal times in joyous townlands, old
times in the barony.

Father Conmee, walking, thought of his little book _Old Times in the
Barony_ and of the book that might be written about jesuit houses and
of Mary Rochfort, daughter of lord Molesworth, first countess of
Belvedere.

A listless lady, no more young, walked alone the shore of lough Ennel,
Mary, first countess of Belvedere, listlessly walking in the evening,
not startled when an otter plunged. Who could know the truth? Not the
jealous lord Belvedere and not her confessor if she had not committed
adultery fully, _eiaculatio seminis inter vas naturale mulieris,_ with
her husband’s brother? She would half confess if she had not all sinned
as women did. Only God knew and she and he, her husband’s brother.

Father Conmee thought of that tyrannous incontinence, needed however
for man’s race on earth, and of the ways of God which were not our
ways.

Don John Conmee walked and moved in times of yore. He was humane and
honoured there. He bore in mind secrets confessed and he smiled at
smiling noble faces in a beeswaxed drawingroom, ceiled with full fruit
clusters. And the hands of a bride and of a bridegroom, noble to noble,
were impalmed by Don John Conmee.

It was a charming day.

The lychgate of a field showed Father Conmee breadths of cabbages,
curtseying to him with ample underleaves. The sky showed him a flock of
small white clouds going slowly down the wind. _Moutonner,_ the French
said. A just and homely word.

Father Conmee, reading his office, watched a flock of muttoning clouds
over Rathcoffey. His thinsocked ankles were tickled by the stubble of
Clongowes field. He walked there, reading in the evening, and heard the
cries of the boys’ lines at their play, young cries in the quiet
evening. He was their rector: his reign was mild.

Father Conmee drew off his gloves and took his rededged breviary out.
An ivory bookmark told him the page.

Nones. He should have read that before lunch. But lady Maxwell had
come.

Father Conmee read in secret _Pater_ and _Ave_ and crossed his breast.
_Deus in adiutorium._

He walked calmly and read mutely the nones, walking and reading till he
came to _Res_ in _Beati immaculati: Principium verborum tuorum veritas:
in eternum omnia iudicia iustitiæ tuæ._

A flushed young man came from a gap of a hedge and after him came a
young woman with wild nodding daisies in her hand. The young man raised
his cap abruptly: the young woman abruptly bent and with slow care
detached from her light skirt a clinging twig.

Father Conmee blessed both gravely and turned a thin page of his
breviary. _Sin: Principes persecuti sunt me gratis: et a verbis tuis
formidavit cor meum._

*    *    *


Corny Kelleher closed his long daybook and glanced with his drooping
eye at a pine coffinlid sentried in a corner. He pulled himself erect,
went to it and, spinning it on its axle, viewed its shape and brass
furnishings. Chewing his blade of hay he laid the coffinlid by and came
to the doorway. There he tilted his hatbrim to give shade to his eyes
and leaned against the doorcase, looking idly out.

Father John Conmee stepped into the Dollymount tram on Newcomen bridge.

Corny Kelleher locked his largefooted boots and gazed, his hat
downtilted, chewing his blade of hay.

Constable 57C, on his beat, stood to pass the time of day.

—That’s a fine day, Mr Kelleher.

—Ay, Corny Kelleher said.

—It’s very close, the constable said.

Corny Kelleher sped a silent jet of hayjuice arching from his mouth
while a generous white arm from a window in Eccles street flung forth a
coin.

—What’s the best news? he asked.

—I seen that particular party last evening, the constable said with
bated breath.

*    *    *


A onelegged sailor crutched himself round MacConnell’s corner, skirting
Rabaiotti’s icecream car, and jerked himself up Eccles street. Towards
Larry O’Rourke, in shirtsleeves in his doorway, he growled unamiably:

—_For England_...

He swung himself violently forward past Katey and Boody Dedalus, halted
and growled:

—_home and beauty._

J. J. O’Molloy’s white careworn face was told that Mr Lambert was in
the warehouse with a visitor.

A stout lady stopped, took a copper coin from her purse and dropped it
into the cap held out to her. The sailor grumbled thanks, glanced
sourly at the unheeding windows, sank his head and swung himself
forward four strides.

He halted and growled angrily:

—_For England_...

Two barefoot urchins, sucking long liquorice laces, halted near him,
gaping at his stump with their yellowslobbered mouths.

He swung himself forward in vigorous jerks, halted, lifted his head
towards a window and bayed deeply:

—_home and beauty._

The gay sweet chirping whistling within went on a bar or two, ceased.
The blind of the window was drawn aside. A card _Unfurnished
Apartments_ slipped from the sash and fell. A plump bare generous arm
shone, was seen, held forth from a white petticoatbodice and taut
shiftstraps. A woman’s hand flung forth a coin over the area railings.
It fell on the path.

One of the urchins ran to it, picked it up and dropped it into the
minstrel’s cap, saying:

—There, sir.

*    *    *


Katey and Boody Dedalus shoved in the door of the closesteaming
kitchen.

—Did you put in the books? Boody asked.

Maggy at the range rammed down a greyish mass beneath bubbling suds
twice with her potstick and wiped her brow.

—They wouldn’t give anything on them, she said.

Father Conmee walked through Clongowes fields, his thinsocked ankles
tickled by stubble.

—Where did you try? Boody asked.

—M’Guinness’s.

Boody stamped her foot and threw her satchel on the table.

—Bad cess to her big face! she cried.

Katey went to the range and peered with squinting eyes.

—What’s in the pot? she asked.

—Shirts, Maggy said.

Boody cried angrily:

—Crickey, is there nothing for us to eat?

Katey, lifting the kettlelid in a pad of her stained skirt, asked:

—And what’s in this?

A heavy fume gushed in answer.

—Peasoup, Maggy said.

—Where did you get it? Katey asked.

—Sister Mary Patrick, Maggy said.

The lacquey rang his bell.

—Barang!

Boody sat down at the table and said hungrily:

—Give us it here.

Maggy poured yellow thick soup from the kettle into a bowl. Katey,
sitting opposite Boody, said quietly, as her fingertip lifted to her
mouth random crumbs:

—A good job we have that much. Where’s Dilly?

—Gone to meet father, Maggy said.

Boody, breaking big chunks of bread into the yellow soup, added:

—Our father who art not in heaven.

Maggy, pouring yellow soup in Katey’s bowl, exclaimed:

—Boody! For shame!

A skiff, a crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming, rode lightly down the
Liffey, under Loopline bridge, shooting the rapids where water chafed
around the bridgepiers, sailing eastward past hulls and anchorchains,
between the Customhouse old dock and George’s quay.

*    *    *


The blond girl in Thornton’s bedded the wicker basket with rustling
fibre. Blazes Boylan handed her the bottle swathed in pink tissue paper
and a small jar.

—Put these in first, will you? he said.

—Yes, sir, the blond girl said. And the fruit on top.

—That’ll do, game ball, Blazes Boylan said.

She bestowed fat pears neatly, head by tail, and among them ripe
shamefaced peaches.

Blazes Boylan walked here and there in new tan shoes about the
fruitsmelling shop, lifting fruits, young juicy crinkled and plump red
tomatoes, sniffing smells.

H. E. L. Y.’S filed before him, tallwhitehatted, past Tangier lane,
plodding towards their goal.

He turned suddenly from a chip of strawberries, drew a gold watch from
his fob and held it at its chain’s length.

—Can you send them by tram? Now?

A darkbacked figure under Merchants’ arch scanned books on the hawker’s
cart.

—Certainly, sir. Is it in the city?

—O, yes, Blazes Boylan said. Ten minutes.

The blond girl handed him a docket and pencil.

—Will you write the address, sir?

Blazes Boylan at the counter wrote and pushed the docket to her.

—Send it at once, will you? he said. It’s for an invalid.

—Yes, sir. I will, sir.

Blazes Boylan rattled merry money in his trousers’ pocket.

—What’s the damage? he asked.

The blond girl’s slim fingers reckoned the fruits.

Blazes Boylan looked into the cut of her blouse. A young pullet. He
took a red carnation from the tall stemglass.

—This for me? he asked gallantly.

The blond girl glanced sideways at him, got up regardless, with his tie
a bit crooked, blushing.

—Yes, sir, she said.

Bending archly she reckoned again fat pears and blushing peaches.

Blazes Boylan looked in her blouse with more favour, the stalk of the
red flower between his smiling teeth.

—May I say a word to your telephone, missy? he asked roguishly.

*    *    *


_—Ma!_ Almidano Artifoni said.

He gazed over Stephen’s shoulder at Goldsmith’s knobby poll.

Two carfuls of tourists passed slowly, their women sitting fore,
gripping the handrests. Palefaces. Men’s arms frankly round their
stunted forms. They looked from Trinity to the blind columned porch of
the bank of Ireland where pigeons roocoocooed.

—_Anch’io ho avuto di queste idee_, Almidano Artifoni said, _quand’ ero
giovine come Lei. Eppoi mi sono convinto che il mondo è una bestia. È
peccato. Perchè la sua voce... sarebbe un cespite di rendita, via.
Invece, Lei si sacrifica._

—_Sacrifizio incruento,_ Stephen said smiling, swaying his ashplant in
slow swingswong from its midpoint, lightly.

_—Speriamo,_ the round mustachioed face said pleasantly. _Ma, dia retta
a me. Ci rifletta_.

By the stern stone hand of Grattan, bidding halt, an Inchicore tram
unloaded straggling Highland soldiers of a band.

—_Ci rifletterò,_ Stephen said, glancing down the solid trouserleg.

—_Ma, sul serio, eh?_ Almidano Artifoni said.

His heavy hand took Stephen’s firmly. Human eyes. They gazed curiously
an instant and turned quickly towards a Dalkey tram.

_—Eccolo,_ Almidano Artifoni said in friendly haste. _Venga a trovarmi
e ci pensi. Addio, caro._

—_Arrivederla, maestro,_ Stephen said, raising his hat when his hand
was freed. _E grazie._

—_Di che?_ Almidano Artifoni said. _Scusi, eh? Tante belle cose!_

Almidano Artifoni, holding up a baton of rolled music as a signal,
trotted on stout trousers after the Dalkey tram. In vain he trotted,
signalling in vain among the rout of barekneed gillies smuggling
implements of music through Trinity gates.

*    *    *


Miss Dunne hid the Capel street library copy of _The Woman in White_
far back in her drawer and rolled a sheet of gaudy notepaper into her
typewriter.

Too much mystery business in it. Is he in love with that one, Marion?
Change it and get another by Mary Cecil Haye.

The disk shot down the groove, wobbled a while, ceased and ogled them:
six.

Miss Dunne clicked on the keyboard:

—16 June 1904.

Five tallwhitehatted sandwichmen between Monypeny’s corner and the slab
where Wolfe Tone’s statue was not, eeled themselves turning H. E. L.
Y.’S and plodded back as they had come.

Then she stared at the large poster of Marie Kendall, charming
soubrette, and, listlessly lolling, scribbled on the jotter sixteens
and capital esses. Mustard hair and dauby cheeks. She’s not
nicelooking, is she? The way she’s holding up her bit of a skirt.
Wonder will that fellow be at the band tonight. If I could get that
dressmaker to make a concertina skirt like Susy Nagle’s. They kick out
grand. Shannon and all the boatclub swells never took his eyes off her.
Hope to goodness he won’t keep me here till seven.

The telephone rang rudely by her ear.

—Hello. Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir. I’ll ring them up after five. Only
those two, sir, for Belfast and Liverpool. All right, sir. Then I can
go after six if you’re not back. A quarter after. Yes, sir. Twentyseven
and six. I’ll tell him. Yes: one, seven, six.

She scribbled three figures on an envelope.

—Mr Boylan! Hello! That gentleman from _Sport_ was in looking for you.
Mr Lenehan, yes. He said he’ll be in the Ormond at four. No, sir. Yes,
sir. I’ll ring them up after five.

*    *    *


Two pink faces turned in the flare of the tiny torch.

—Who’s that? Ned Lambert asked. Is that Crotty?

—Ringabella and Crosshaven, a voice replied groping for foothold.

—Hello, Jack, is that yourself? Ned Lambert said, raising in salute his
pliant lath among the flickering arches. Come on. Mind your steps
there.

The vesta in the clergyman’s uplifted hand consumed itself in a long
soft flame and was let fall. At their feet its red speck died: and
mouldy air closed round them.

—How interesting! a refined accent said in the gloom.

—Yes, sir, Ned Lambert said heartily. We are standing in the historic
council chamber of saint Mary’s abbey where silken Thomas proclaimed
himself a rebel in 1534. This is the most historic spot in all Dublin.
O’Madden Burke is going to write something about it one of these days.
The old bank of Ireland was over the way till the time of the union and
the original jews’ temple was here too before they built their
synagogue over in Adelaide road. You were never here before, Jack, were
you?

—No, Ned.

—He rode down through Dame walk, the refined accent said, if my memory
serves me. The mansion of the Kildares was in Thomas court.

—That’s right, Ned Lambert said. That’s quite right, sir.

—If you will be so kind then, the clergyman said, the next time to
allow me perhaps...

—Certainly, Ned Lambert said. Bring the camera whenever you like. I’ll
get those bags cleared away from the windows. You can take it from here
or from here.

In the still faint light he moved about, tapping with his lath the
piled seedbags and points of vantage on the floor.

From a long face a beard and gaze hung on a chessboard.

—I’m deeply obliged, Mr Lambert, the clergyman said. I won’t trespass
on your valuable time...

—You’re welcome, sir, Ned Lambert said. Drop in whenever you like. Next
week, say. Can you see?

—Yes, yes. Good afternoon, Mr Lambert. Very pleased to have met you.

—Pleasure is mine, sir, Ned Lambert answered.

He followed his guest to the outlet and then whirled his lath away
among the pillars. With J. J. O’Molloy he came forth slowly into Mary’s
abbey where draymen were loading floats with sacks of carob and palmnut
meal, O’Connor, Wexford.

He stood to read the card in his hand.

—The reverend Hugh C. Love, Rathcoffey. Present address: Saint
Michael’s, Sallins. Nice young chap he is. He’s writing a book about
the Fitzgeralds he told me. He’s well up in history, faith.

The young woman with slow care detached from her light skirt a clinging
twig.

—I thought you were at a new gunpowder plot, J. J. O’Molloy said.

Ned Lambert cracked his fingers in the air.

—God! he cried. I forgot to tell him that one about the earl of Kildare
after he set fire to Cashel cathedral. You know that one? _I’m bloody
sorry I did it,_ says he, _but I declare to God I thought the
archbishop was inside._ He mightn’t like it, though. What? God, I’ll
tell him anyhow. That was the great earl, the Fitzgerald Mor. Hot
members they were all of them, the Geraldines.

The horses he passed started nervously under their slack harness. He
slapped a piebald haunch quivering near him and cried:

—Woa, sonny!

He turned to J. J. O’Molloy and asked:

—Well, Jack. What is it? What’s the trouble? Wait awhile. Hold hard.

With gaping mouth and head far back he stood still and, after an
instant, sneezed loudly.

—Chow! he said. Blast you!

—The dust from those sacks, J. J. O’Molloy said politely.

—No, Ned Lambert gasped, I caught a... cold night before... blast your
soul... night before last... and there was a hell of a lot of
draught...

He held his handkerchief ready for the coming...

—I was... Glasnevin this morning... poor little... what do you call
him... Chow!... Mother of Moses!

*    *    *


Tom Rochford took the top disk from the pile he clasped against his
claret waistcoat.

—See? he said. Say it’s turn six. In here, see. Turn Now On.

He slid it into the left slot for them. It shot down the groove,
wobbled a while, ceased, ogling them: six.

Lawyers of the past, haughty, pleading, beheld pass from the
consolidated taxing office to Nisi Prius court Richie Goulding carrying
the costbag of Goulding, Collis and Ward and heard rustling from the
admiralty division of king’s bench to the court of appeal an elderly
female with false teeth smiling incredulously and a black silk skirt of
great amplitude.

—See? he said. See now the last one I put in is over here: Turns Over.
The impact. Leverage, see?

He showed them the rising column of disks on the right.

—Smart idea, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling. So a fellow coming in late
can see what turn is on and what turns are over.

—See? Tom Rochford said.

He slid in a disk for himself: and watched it shoot, wobble, ogle,
stop: four. Turn Now On.

—I’ll see him now in the Ormond, Lenehan said, and sound him. One good
turn deserves another.

—Do, Tom Rochford said. Tell him I’m Boylan with impatience.

—Goodnight, M’Coy said abruptly. When you two begin...

Nosey Flynn stooped towards the lever, snuffling at it.

—But how does it work here, Tommy? he asked.

—Tooraloo, Lenehan said. See you later.

He followed M’Coy out across the tiny square of Crampton court.

—He’s a hero, he said simply.

—I know, M’Coy said. The drain, you mean.

—Drain? Lenehan said. It was down a manhole.

They passed Dan Lowry’s musichall where Marie Kendall, charming
soubrette, smiled on them from a poster a dauby smile.

Going down the path of Sycamore street beside the Empire musichall
Lenehan showed M’Coy how the whole thing was. One of those manholes
like a bloody gaspipe and there was the poor devil stuck down in it,
half choked with sewer gas. Down went Tom Rochford anyhow, booky’s vest
and all, with the rope round him. And be damned but he got the rope
round the poor devil and the two were hauled up.

—The act of a hero, he said.

At the Dolphin they halted to allow the ambulance car to gallop past
them for Jervis street.

—This way, he said, walking to the right. I want to pop into Lynam’s to
see Sceptre’s starting price. What’s the time by your gold watch and
chain?

M’Coy peered into Marcus Tertius Moses’ sombre office, then at
O’Neill’s clock.

—After three, he said. Who’s riding her?

—O. Madden, Lenehan said. And a game filly she is.

While he waited in Temple bar M’Coy dodged a banana peel with gentle
pushes of his toe from the path to the gutter. Fellow might damn easy
get a nasty fall there coming along tight in the dark.

The gates of the drive opened wide to give egress to the viceregal
cavalcade.

—Even money, Lenehan said returning. I knocked against Bantam Lyons in
there going to back a bloody horse someone gave him that hasn’t an
earthly. Through here.

They went up the steps and under Merchants’ arch. A darkbacked figure
scanned books on the hawker’s cart.

—There he is, Lenehan said.

—Wonder what he’s buying, M’Coy said, glancing behind.

—_Leopoldo or the Bloom is on the Rye,_ Lenehan said.

—He’s dead nuts on sales, M’Coy said. I was with him one day and he
bought a book from an old one in Liffey street for two bob. There were
fine plates in it worth double the money, the stars and the moon and
comets with long tails. Astronomy it was about.

Lenehan laughed.

—I’ll tell you a damn good one about comets’ tails, he said. Come over
in the sun.

They crossed to the metal bridge and went along Wellington quay by the
riverwall.

Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam came out of Mangan’s, late Fehrenbach’s,
carrying a pound and a half of porksteaks.

—There was a long spread out at Glencree reformatory, Lenehan said
eagerly. The annual dinner, you know. Boiled shirt affair. The lord
mayor was there, Val Dillon it was, and sir Charles Cameron and Dan
Dawson spoke and there was music. Bartell d’Arcy sang and Benjamin
Dollard...

—I know, M’Coy broke in. My missus sang there once.

—Did she? Lenehan said.

A card _Unfurnished Apartments_ reappeared on the windowsash of number
7 Eccles street.

He checked his tale a moment but broke out in a wheezy laugh.

—But wait till I tell you, he said. Delahunt of Camden street had the
catering and yours truly was chief bottlewasher. Bloom and the wife
were there. Lashings of stuff we put up: port wine and sherry and
curacoa to which we did ample justice. Fast and furious it was. After
liquids came solids. Cold joints galore and mince pies...

—I know, M’Coy said. The year the missus was there...

Lenehan linked his arm warmly.

—But wait till I tell you, he said. We had a midnight lunch too after
all the jollification and when we sallied forth it was blue o’clock the
morning after the night before. Coming home it was a gorgeous winter’s
night on the Featherbed Mountain. Bloom and Chris Callinan were on one
side of the car and I was with the wife on the other. We started
singing glees and duets: _Lo, the early beam of morning_. She was well
primed with a good load of Delahunt’s port under her bellyband. Every
jolt the bloody car gave I had her bumping up against me. Hell’s
delights! She has a fine pair, God bless her. Like that.

He held his caved hands a cubit from him, frowning:

—I was tucking the rug under her and settling her boa all the time.
Know what I mean?

His hands moulded ample curves of air. He shut his eyes tight in
delight, his body shrinking, and blew a sweet chirp from his lips.

—The lad stood to attention anyhow, he said with a sigh. She’s a gamey
mare and no mistake. Bloom was pointing out all the stars and the
comets in the heavens to Chris Callinan and the jarvey: the great bear
and Hercules and the dragon, and the whole jingbang lot. But, by God, I
was lost, so to speak, in the milky way. He knows them all, faith. At
last she spotted a weeny weeshy one miles away. _And what star is that,
Poldy?_ says she. By God, she had Bloom cornered. _That one, is it?_
says Chris Callinan, _sure that’s only what you might call a pinprick._
By God, he wasn’t far wide of the mark.

Lenehan stopped and leaned on the riverwall, panting with soft
laughter.

—I’m weak, he gasped.

M’Coy’s white face smiled about it at instants and grew grave. Lenehan
walked on again. He lifted his yachtingcap and scratched his hindhead
rapidly. He glanced sideways in the sunlight at M’Coy.

—He’s a cultured allroundman, Bloom is, he said seriously. He’s not one
of your common or garden... you know... There’s a touch of the artist
about old Bloom.

*    *    *


Mr Bloom turned over idly pages of _The Awful Disclosures of Maria
Monk_, then of Aristotle’s _Masterpiece._ Crooked botched print.
Plates: infants cuddled in a ball in bloodred wombs like livers of
slaughtered cows. Lots of them like that at this moment all over the
world. All butting with their skulls to get out of it. Child born every
minute somewhere. Mrs Purefoy.

He laid both books aside and glanced at the third: _Tales of the
Ghetto_ by Leopold von Sacher Masoch.

—That I had, he said, pushing it by.

The shopman let two volumes fall on the counter.

—Them are two good ones, he said.

Onions of his breath came across the counter out of his ruined mouth.
He bent to make a bundle of the other books, hugged them against his
unbuttoned waistcoat and bore them off behind the dingy curtain.

On O’Connell bridge many persons observed the grave deportment and gay
apparel of Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing &c.

Mr Bloom, alone, looked at the titles. _Fair Tyrants_ by James
Lovebirch. Know the kind that is. Had it? Yes.

He opened it. Thought so.

A woman’s voice behind the dingy curtain. Listen: the man.

No: she wouldn’t like that much. Got her it once.

He read the other title: _Sweets of Sin_. More in her line. Let us see.

He read where his finger opened.

_—All the dollarbills her husband gave her were spent in the stores on
wondrous gowns and costliest frillies. For him! For Raoul!_

Yes. This. Here. Try.

—_Her mouth glued on his in a luscious voluptuous kiss while his hands
felt for the opulent curves inside her déshabillé._

Yes. Take this. The end.

—You are late, he spoke hoarsely, eying her with a suspicious glare.

The beautiful woman threw off her sabletrimmed wrap, displaying her
queenly shoulders and heaving embonpoint. An imperceptible smile played
round her perfect lips as she turned to him calmly.

Mr Bloom read again: _The beautiful woman._

Warmth showered gently over him, cowing his flesh. Flesh yielded amply
amid rumpled clothes: whites of eyes swooning up. His nostrils arched
themselves for prey. Melting breast ointments (_for him! For Raoul!_).
Armpits’ oniony sweat. Fishgluey slime (_her heaving embonpoint!_).
Feel! Press! Crished! Sulphur dung of lions!

Young! Young!

An elderly female, no more young, left the building of the courts of
chancery, king’s bench, exchequer and common pleas, having heard in the
lord chancellor’s court the case in lunacy of Potterton, in the
admiralty division the summons, exparte motion, of the owners of the
Lady Cairns versus the owners of the barque Mona, in the court of
appeal reservation of judgment in the case of Harvey versus the Ocean
Accident and Guarantee Corporation.

Phlegmy coughs shook the air of the bookshop, bulging out the dingy
curtains. The shopman’s uncombed grey head came out and his unshaven
reddened face, coughing. He raked his throat rudely, puked phlegm on
the floor. He put his boot on what he had spat, wiping his sole along
it, and bent, showing a rawskinned crown, scantily haired.

Mr Bloom beheld it.

Mastering his troubled breath, he said:

—I’ll take this one.

The shopman lifted eyes bleared with old rheum.

—_Sweets of Sin,_ he said, tapping on it. That’s a good one.

*    *    *


The lacquey by the door of Dillon’s auctionrooms shook his handbell
twice again and viewed himself in the chalked mirror of the cabinet.

Dilly Dedalus, loitering by the curbstone, heard the beats of the bell,
the cries of the auctioneer within. Four and nine. Those lovely
curtains. Five shillings. Cosy curtains. Selling new at two guineas.
Any advance on five shillings? Going for five shillings.

The lacquey lifted his handbell and shook it:

—Barang!

Bang of the lastlap bell spurred the halfmile wheelmen to their sprint.
J. A. Jackson, W. E. Wylie, A. Munro and H. T. Gahan, their stretched
necks wagging, negotiated the curve by the College library.

Mr Dedalus, tugging a long moustache, came round from Williams’s row.
He halted near his daughter.

—It’s time for you, she said.

—Stand up straight for the love of the lord Jesus, Mr Dedalus said. Are
you trying to imitate your uncle John, the cornetplayer, head upon
shoulder? Melancholy God!

Dilly shrugged her shoulders. Mr Dedalus placed his hands on them and
held them back.

—Stand up straight, girl, he said. You’ll get curvature of the spine.
Do you know what you look like?

He let his head sink suddenly down and forward, hunching his shoulders
and dropping his underjaw.

—Give it up, father, Dilly said. All the people are looking at you.

Mr Dedalus drew himself upright and tugged again at his moustache.

—Did you get any money? Dilly asked.

—Where would I get money? Mr Dedalus said. There is no-one in Dublin
would lend me fourpence.

—You got some, Dilly said, looking in his eyes.

—How do you know that? Mr Dedalus asked, his tongue in his cheek.

Mr Kernan, pleased with the order he had booked, walked boldly along
James’s street.

—I know you did, Dilly answered. Were you in the Scotch house now?

—I was not, then, Mr Dedalus said, smiling. Was it the little nuns
taught you to be so saucy? Here.

He handed her a shilling.

—See if you can do anything with that, he said.

—I suppose you got five, Dilly said. Give me more than that.

—Wait awhile, Mr Dedalus said threateningly. You’re like the rest of
them, are you? An insolent pack of little bitches since your poor
mother died. But wait awhile. You’ll all get a short shrift and a long
day from me. Low blackguardism! I’m going to get rid of you. Wouldn’t
care if I was stretched out stiff. He’s dead. The man upstairs is dead.

He left her and walked on. Dilly followed quickly and pulled his coat.

—Well, what is it? he said, stopping.

The lacquey rang his bell behind their backs.

—Barang!

—Curse your bloody blatant soul, Mr Dedalus cried, turning on him.

The lacquey, aware of comment, shook the lolling clapper of his bell
but feebly:

—Bang!

Mr Dedalus stared at him.

—Watch him, he said. It’s instructive. I wonder will he allow us to
talk.

—You got more than that, father, Dilly said.

—I’m going to show you a little trick, Mr Dedalus said. I’ll leave you
all where Jesus left the jews. Look, there’s all I have. I got two
shillings from Jack Power and I spent twopence for a shave for the
funeral.

He drew forth a handful of copper coins, nervously.

—Can’t you look for some money somewhere? Dilly said.

Mr Dedalus thought and nodded.

—I will, he said gravely. I looked all along the gutter in O’Connell
street. I’ll try this one now.

—You’re very funny, Dilly said, grinning.

—Here, Mr Dedalus said, handing her two pennies. Get a glass of milk
for yourself and a bun or a something. I’ll be home shortly.

He put the other coins in his pocket and started to walk on.

The viceregal cavalcade passed, greeted by obsequious policemen, out of
Parkgate.

—I’m sure you have another shilling, Dilly said.

The lacquey banged loudly.

Mr Dedalus amid the din walked off, murmuring to himself with a pursing
mincing mouth gently:

—The little nuns! Nice little things! O, sure they wouldn’t do
anything! O, sure they wouldn’t really! Is it little sister Monica!

*    *    *


From the sundial towards James’s gate walked Mr Kernan, pleased with
the order he had booked for Pulbrook Robertson, boldly along James’s
street, past Shackleton’s offices. Got round him all right. How do you
do, Mr Crimmins? First rate, sir. I was afraid you might be up in your
other establishment in Pimlico. How are things going? Just keeping
alive. Lovely weather we’re having. Yes, indeed. Good for the country.
Those farmers are always grumbling. I’ll just take a thimbleful of your
best gin, Mr Crimmins. A small gin, sir. Yes, sir. Terrible affair that
_General Slocum_ explosion. Terrible, terrible! A thousand casualties.
And heartrending scenes. Men trampling down women and children. Most
brutal thing. What do they say was the cause? Spontaneous combustion.
Most scandalous revelation. Not a single lifeboat would float and the
firehose all burst. What I can’t understand is how the inspectors ever
allowed a boat like that... Now, you’re talking straight, Mr Crimmins.
You know why? Palm oil. Is that a fact? Without a doubt. Well now, look
at that. And America they say is the land of the free. I thought we
were bad here.

I smiled at him. _America,_ I said quietly, just like that. _What is
it? The sweepings of every country including our own. Isn’t that true?_
That’s a fact.

Graft, my dear sir. Well, of course, where there’s money going there’s
always someone to pick it up.

Saw him looking at my frockcoat. Dress does it. Nothing like a dressy
appearance. Bowls them over.

—Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are things?

—Hello, Bob, old man, Mr Dedalus answered, stopping.

Mr Kernan halted and preened himself before the sloping mirror of Peter
Kennedy, hairdresser. Stylish coat, beyond a doubt. Scott of Dawson
street. Well worth the half sovereign I gave Neary for it. Never built
under three guineas. Fits me down to the ground. Some Kildare street
club toff had it probably. John Mulligan, the manager of the Hibernian
bank, gave me a very sharp eye yesterday on Carlisle bridge as if he
remembered me.

Aham! Must dress the character for those fellows. Knight of the road.
Gentleman. And now, Mr Crimmins, may we have the honour of your custom
again, sir. The cup that cheers but not inebriates, as the old saying
has it.

North wall and sir John Rogerson’s quay, with hulls and anchorchains,
sailing westward, sailed by a skiff, a crumpled throwaway, rocked on
the ferrywash, Elijah is coming.

Mr Kernan glanced in farewell at his image. High colour, of course.
Grizzled moustache. Returned Indian officer. Bravely he bore his stumpy
body forward on spatted feet, squaring his shoulders. Is that Ned
Lambert’s brother over the way, Sam? What? Yes. He’s as like it as damn
it. No. The windscreen of that motorcar in the sun there. Just a flash
like that. Damn like him.

Aham! Hot spirit of juniper juice warmed his vitals and his breath.
Good drop of gin, that was. His frocktails winked in bright sunshine to
his fat strut.

Down there Emmet was hanged, drawn and quartered. Greasy black rope.
Dogs licking the blood off the street when the lord lieutenant’s wife
drove by in her noddy.

Bad times those were. Well, well. Over and done with. Great topers too.
Fourbottle men.

Let me see. Is he buried in saint Michan’s? Or no, there was a midnight
burial in Glasnevin. Corpse brought in through a secret door in the
wall. Dignam is there now. Went out in a puff. Well, well. Better turn
down here. Make a detour.

Mr Kernan turned and walked down the slope of Watling street by the
corner of Guinness’s visitors’ waitingroom. Outside the Dublin
Distillers Company’s stores an outside car without fare or jarvey
stood, the reins knotted to the wheel. Damn dangerous thing. Some
Tipperary bosthoon endangering the lives of the citizens. Runaway
horse.

Denis Breen with his tomes, weary of having waited an hour in John
Henry Menton’s office, led his wife over O’Connell bridge, bound for
the office of Messrs Collis and Ward.

Mr Kernan approached Island street.

Times of the troubles. Must ask Ned Lambert to lend me those
reminiscences of sir Jonah Barrington. When you look back on it all now
in a kind of retrospective arrangement. Gaming at Daly’s. No
cardsharping then. One of those fellows got his hand nailed to the
table by a dagger. Somewhere here lord Edward Fitzgerald escaped from
major Sirr. Stables behind Moira house.

Damn good gin that was.

Fine dashing young nobleman. Good stock, of course. That ruffian, that
sham squire, with his violet gloves gave him away. Course they were on
the wrong side. They rose in dark and evil days. Fine poem that is:
Ingram. They were gentlemen. Ben Dollard does sing that ballad
touchingly. Masterly rendition.

_At the siege of Ross did my father fall._

A cavalcade in easy trot along Pembroke quay passed, outriders leaping,
leaping in their, in their saddles. Frockcoats. Cream sunshades.

Mr Kernan hurried forward, blowing pursily.

His Excellency! Too bad! Just missed that by a hair. Damn it! What a
pity!

*    *    *


Stephen Dedalus watched through the webbed window the lapidary’s
fingers prove a timedulled chain. Dust webbed the window and the
showtrays. Dust darkened the toiling fingers with their vulture nails.
Dust slept on dull coils of bronze and silver, lozenges of cinnabar, on
rubies, leprous and winedark stones.

Born all in the dark wormy earth, cold specks of fire, evil, lights
shining in the darkness. Where fallen archangels flung the stars of
their brows. Muddy swinesnouts, hands, root and root, gripe and wrest
them.

She dances in a foul gloom where gum bums with garlic. A sailorman,
rustbearded, sips from a beaker rum and eyes her. A long and seafed
silent rut. She dances, capers, wagging her sowish haunches and her
hips, on her gross belly flapping a ruby egg.

Old Russell with a smeared shammy rag burnished again his gem, turned
it and held it at the point of his Moses’ beard. Grandfather ape
gloating on a stolen hoard.

And you who wrest old images from the burial earth? The brainsick words
of sophists: Antisthenes. A lore of drugs. Orient and immortal wheat
standing from everlasting to everlasting.

Two old women fresh from their whiff of the briny trudged through
Irishtown along London bridge road, one with a sanded tired umbrella,
one with a midwife’s bag in which eleven cockles rolled.

The whirr of flapping leathern bands and hum of dynamos from the
powerhouse urged Stephen to be on. Beingless beings. Stop! Throb always
without you and the throb always within. Your heart you sing of. I
between them. Where? Between two roaring worlds where they swirl, I.
Shatter them, one and both. But stun myself too in the blow. Shatter me
you who can. Bawd and butcher were the words. I say! Not yet awhile. A
look around.

Yes, quite true. Very large and wonderful and keeps famous time. You
say right, sir. A Monday morning, ’twas so, indeed.

Stephen went down Bedford row, the handle of the ash clacking against
his shoulderblade. In Clohissey’s window a faded 1860 print of Heenan
boxing Sayers held his eye. Staring backers with square hats stood
round the roped prizering. The heavyweights in tight loincloths
proposed gently each to other his bulbous fists. And they are
throbbing: heroes’ hearts.

He turned and halted by the slanted bookcart.

—Twopence each, the huckster said. Four for sixpence.

Tattered pages. _The Irish Beekeeper. Life and Miracles of the Curé of
Ars. Pocket Guide to Killarney._

I might find here one of my pawned schoolprizes. _Stephano Dedalo,
alumno optimo, palmam ferenti._

Father Conmee, having read his little hours, walked through the hamlet
of Donnycarney, murmuring vespers.

Binding too good probably. What is this? Eighth and ninth book of
Moses. Secret of all secrets. Seal of King David. Thumbed pages: read
and read. Who has passed here before me? How to soften chapped hands.
Recipe for white wine vinegar. How to win a woman’s love. For me this.
Say the following talisman three times with hands folded:

—_Se el yilo nebrakada femininum! Amor me solo! Sanktus! Amen._

Who wrote this? Charms and invocations of the most blessed abbot Peter
Salanka to all true believers divulged. As good as any other abbot’s
charms, as mumbling Joachim’s. Down, baldynoddle, or we’ll wool your
wool.

—What are you doing here, Stephen?

Dilly’s high shoulders and shabby dress.

Shut the book quick. Don’t let see.

—What are you doing? Stephen said.

A Stuart face of nonesuch Charles, lank locks falling at its sides. It
glowed as she crouched feeding the fire with broken boots. I told her
of Paris. Late lieabed under a quilt of old overcoats, fingering a
pinchbeck bracelet, Dan Kelly’s token. _Nebrakada femininum._

—What have you there? Stephen asked.

—I bought it from the other cart for a penny, Dilly said, laughing
nervously. Is it any good?

My eyes they say she has. Do others see me so? Quick, far and daring.
Shadow of my mind.

He took the coverless book from her hand. Chardenal’s French primer.

—What did you buy that for? he asked. To learn French?

She nodded, reddening and closing tight her lips.

Show no surprise. Quite natural.

—Here, Stephen said. It’s all right. Mind Maggy doesn’t pawn it on you.
I suppose all my books are gone.

—Some, Dilly said. We had to.

She is drowning. Agenbite. Save her. Agenbite. All against us. She will
drown me with her, eyes and hair. Lank coils of seaweed hair around me,
my heart, my soul. Salt green death.

We.

Agenbite of inwit. Inwit’s agenbite.

Misery! Misery!

*    *    *


—Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are things?

—Hello, Bob, old man, Mr Dedalus answered, stopping.

They clasped hands loudly outside Reddy and Daughter’s. Father Cowley
brushed his moustache often downward with a scooping hand.

—What’s the best news? Mr Dedalus said.

—Why then not much, Father Cowley said. I’m barricaded up, Simon, with
two men prowling around the house trying to effect an entrance.

—Jolly, Mr Dedalus said. Who is it?

—O, Father Cowley said. A certain gombeen man of our acquaintance.

—With a broken back, is it? Mr Dedalus asked.

—The same, Simon, Father Cowley answered. Reuben of that ilk. I’m just
waiting for Ben Dollard. He’s going to say a word to long John to get
him to take those two men off. All I want is a little time.

He looked with vague hope up and down the quay, a big apple bulging in
his neck.

—I know, Mr Dedalus said, nodding. Poor old bockedy Ben! He’s always
doing a good turn for someone. Hold hard!

He put on his glasses and gazed towards the metal bridge an instant.

—There he is, by God, he said, arse and pockets.

Ben Dollard’s loose blue cutaway and square hat above large slops
crossed the quay in full gait from the metal bridge. He came towards
them at an amble, scratching actively behind his coattails.

As he came near Mr Dedalus greeted:

—Hold that fellow with the bad trousers.

—Hold him now, Ben Dollard said.

Mr Dedalus eyed with cold wandering scorn various points of Ben
Dollard’s figure. Then, turning to Father Cowley with a nod, he
muttered sneeringly:

—That’s a pretty garment, isn’t it, for a summer’s day?

—Why, God eternally curse your soul, Ben Dollard growled furiously, I
threw out more clothes in my time than you ever saw.

He stood beside them beaming, on them first and on his roomy clothes
from points of which Mr Dedalus flicked fluff, saying:

—They were made for a man in his health, Ben, anyhow.

—Bad luck to the jewman that made them, Ben Dollard said. Thanks be to
God he’s not paid yet.

—And how is that _basso profondo_, Benjamin? Father Cowley asked.

Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, murmuring,
glassyeyed, strode past the Kildare street club.

Ben Dollard frowned and, making suddenly a chanter’s mouth, gave forth
a deep note.

—Aw! he said.

—That’s the style, Mr Dedalus said, nodding to its drone.

—What about that? Ben Dollard said. Not too dusty? What?

He turned to both.

—That’ll do, Father Cowley said, nodding also.

The reverend Hugh C. Love walked from the old chapterhouse of saint
Mary’s abbey past James and Charles Kennedy’s, rectifiers, attended by
Geraldines tall and personable, towards the Tholsel beyond the ford of
hurdles.

Ben Dollard with a heavy list towards the shopfronts led them forward,
his joyful fingers in the air.

—Come along with me to the subsheriff’s office, he said. I want to show
you the new beauty Rock has for a bailiff. He’s a cross between
Lobengula and Lynchehaun. He’s well worth seeing, mind you. Come along.
I saw John Henry Menton casually in the Bodega just now and it will
cost me a fall if I don’t... Wait awhile... We’re on the right lay,
Bob, believe you me.

—For a few days tell him, Father Cowley said anxiously.

Ben Dollard halted and stared, his loud orifice open, a dangling button
of his coat wagging brightbacked from its thread as he wiped away the
heavy shraums that clogged his eyes to hear aright.

—What few days? he boomed. Hasn’t your landlord distrained for rent?

—He has, Father Cowley said.

—Then our friend’s writ is not worth the paper it’s printed on, Ben
Dollard said. The landlord has the prior claim. I gave him all the
particulars. 29 Windsor avenue. Love is the name?

—That’s right, Father Cowley said. The reverend Mr Love. He’s a
minister in the country somewhere. But are you sure of that?

—You can tell Barabbas from me, Ben Dollard said, that he can put that
writ where Jacko put the nuts.

He led Father Cowley boldly forward, linked to his bulk.

—Filberts I believe they were, Mr Dedalus said, as he dropped his
glasses on his coatfront, following them.

*    *    *


—The youngster will be all right, Martin Cunningham said, as they
passed out of the Castleyard gate.

The policeman touched his forehead.

—God bless you, Martin Cunningham said, cheerily.

He signed to the waiting jarvey who chucked at the reins and set on
towards Lord Edward street.

Bronze by gold, Miss Kennedy’s head by Miss Douce’s head, appeared
above the crossblind of the Ormond hotel.

—Yes, Martin Cunningham said, fingering his beard. I wrote to Father
Conmee and laid the whole case before him.

—You could try our friend, Mr Power suggested backward.

—Boyd? Martin Cunningham said shortly. Touch me not.

John Wyse Nolan, lagging behind, reading the list, came after them
quickly down Cork hill.

On the steps of the City hall Councillor Nannetti, descending, hailed
Alderman Cowley and Councillor Abraham Lyon ascending.

The castle car wheeled empty into upper Exchange street.

—Look here, Martin, John Wyse Nolan said, overtaking them at the _Mail_
office. I see Bloom put his name down for five shillings.

—Quite right, Martin Cunningham said, taking the list. And put down the
five shillings too.

—Without a second word either, Mr Power said.

—Strange but true, Martin Cunningham added.

John Wyse Nolan opened wide eyes.

—I’ll say there is much kindness in the jew, he quoted, elegantly.

They went down Parliament street.

—There’s Jimmy Henry, Mr Power said, just heading for Kavanagh’s.

—Righto, Martin Cunningham said. Here goes.

Outside _la Maison Claire_ Blazes Boylan waylaid Jack Mooney’s
brother-in-law, humpy, tight, making for the liberties.

John Wyse Nolan fell back with Mr Power, while Martin Cunningham took
the elbow of a dapper little man in a shower of hail suit, who walked
uncertainly, with hasty steps past Micky Anderson’s watches.

—The assistant town clerk’s corns are giving him some trouble, John
Wyse Nolan told Mr Power.

They followed round the corner towards James Kavanagh’s winerooms. The
empty castle car fronted them at rest in Essex gate. Martin Cunningham,
speaking always, showed often the list at which Jimmy Henry did not
glance.

—And long John Fanning is here too, John Wyse Nolan said, as large as
life.

The tall form of long John Fanning filled the doorway where he stood.

—Good day, Mr Subsheriff, Martin Cunningham said, as all halted and
greeted.

Long John Fanning made no way for them. He removed his large Henry Clay
decisively and his large fierce eyes scowled intelligently over all
their faces.

—Are the conscript fathers pursuing their peaceful deliberations? he
said with rich acrid utterance to the assistant town clerk.

Hell open to christians they were having, Jimmy Henry said pettishly,
about their damned Irish language. Where was the marshal, he wanted to
know, to keep order in the council chamber. And old Barlow the
macebearer laid up with asthma, no mace on the table, nothing in order,
no quorum even, and Hutchinson, the lord mayor, in Llandudno and little
Lorcan Sherlock doing _locum tenens_ for him. Damned Irish language,
language of our forefathers.

Long John Fanning blew a plume of smoke from his lips.

Martin Cunningham spoke by turns, twirling the peak of his beard, to
the assistant town clerk and the subsheriff, while John Wyse Nolan held
his peace.

—What Dignam was that? long John Fanning asked.

Jimmy Henry made a grimace and lifted his left foot.

—O, my corns! he said plaintively. Come upstairs for goodness’ sake
till I sit down somewhere. Uff! Ooo! Mind!

Testily he made room for himself beside long John Fanning’s flank and
passed in and up the stairs.

—Come on up, Martin Cunningham said to the subsheriff. I don’t think
you knew him or perhaps you did, though.

With John Wyse Nolan Mr Power followed them in.

—Decent little soul he was, Mr Power said to the stalwart back of long
John Fanning ascending towards long John Fanning in the mirror.

—Rather lowsized. Dignam of Menton’s office that was, Martin Cunningham
said.

Long John Fanning could not remember him.

Clatter of horsehoofs sounded from the air.

—What’s that? Martin Cunningham said.

All turned where they stood. John Wyse Nolan came down again. From the
cool shadow of the doorway he saw the horses pass Parliament street,
harness and glossy pasterns in sunlight shimmering. Gaily they went
past before his cool unfriendly eyes, not quickly. In saddles of the
leaders, leaping leaders, rode outriders.

—What was it? Martin Cunningham asked, as they went on up the
staircase.

—The lord lieutenantgeneral and general governor of Ireland, John Wyse
Nolan answered from the stairfoot.

*    *    *


As they trod across the thick carpet Buck Mulligan whispered behind his
Panama to Haines:

—Parnell’s brother. There in the corner.

They chose a small table near the window, opposite a longfaced man
whose beard and gaze hung intently down on a chessboard.

—Is that he? Haines asked, twisting round in his seat.

—Yes, Mulligan said. That’s John Howard, his brother, our city marshal.

John Howard Parnell translated a white bishop quietly and his grey claw
went up again to his forehead whereat it rested. An instant after,
under its screen, his eyes looked quickly, ghostbright, at his foe and
fell once more upon a working corner.

—I’ll take a _mélange,_ Haines said to the waitress.

—Two _mélanges,_ Buck Mulligan said. And bring us some scones and
butter and some cakes as well.

When she had gone he said, laughing:

—We call it D.B.C. because they have damn bad cakes. O, but you missed
Dedalus on _Hamlet._

Haines opened his newbought book.

—I’m sorry, he said. Shakespeare is the happy huntingground of all
minds that have lost their balance.

The onelegged sailor growled at the area of 14 Nelson street:

—_England expects_...

Buck Mulligan’s primrose waistcoat shook gaily to his laughter.

—You should see him, he said, when his body loses its balance.
Wandering Ængus I call him.

—I am sure he has an _idée fixe,_ Haines said, pinching his chin
thoughtfully with thumb and forefinger. Now I am speculating what it
would be likely to be. Such persons always have.

Buck Mulligan bent across the table gravely.

—They drove his wits astray, he said, by visions of hell. He will never
capture the Attic note. The note of Swinburne, of all poets, the white
death and the ruddy birth. That is his tragedy. He can never be a poet.
The joy of creation...

—Eternal punishment, Haines said, nodding curtly. I see. I tackled him
this morning on belief. There was something on his mind, I saw. It’s
rather interesting because professor Pokorny of Vienna makes an
interesting point out of that.

Buck Mulligan’s watchful eyes saw the waitress come. He helped her to
unload her tray.

—He can find no trace of hell in ancient Irish myth, Haines said, amid
the cheerful cups. The moral idea seems lacking, the sense of destiny,
of retribution. Rather strange he should have just that fixed idea.
Does he write anything for your movement?

He sank two lumps of sugar deftly longwise through the whipped cream.
Buck Mulligan slit a steaming scone in two and plastered butter over
its smoking pith. He bit off a soft piece hungrily.

—Ten years, he said, chewing and laughing. He is going to write
something in ten years.

—Seems a long way off, Haines said, thoughtfully lifting his spoon.
Still, I shouldn’t wonder if he did after all.

He tasted a spoonful from the creamy cone of his cup.

—This is real Irish cream I take it, he said with forbearance. I don’t
want to be imposed on.

Elijah, skiff, light crumpled throwaway, sailed eastward by flanks of
ships and trawlers, amid an archipelago of corks, beyond new Wapping
street past Benson’s ferry, and by the threemasted schooner _Rosevean_
from Bridgwater with bricks.

*    *    *


Almidano Artifoni walked past Holles street, past Sewell’s yard. Behind
him Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, with
stickumbrelladustcoat dangling, shunned the lamp before Mr Law Smith’s
house and, crossing, walked along Merrion square. Distantly behind him
a blind stripling tapped his way by the wall of College park.

Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell walked as far as Mr
Lewis Werner’s cheerful windows, then turned and strode back along
Merrion square, his stickumbrelladustcoat dangling.

At the corner of Wilde’s house he halted, frowned at Elijah’s name
announced on the Metropolitan hall, frowned at the distant pleasance of
duke’s lawn. His eyeglass flashed frowning in the sun. With ratsteeth
bared he muttered:

—_Coactus volui._

He strode on for Clare street, grinding his fierce word.

As he strode past Mr Bloom’s dental windows the sway of his dustcoat
brushed rudely from its angle a slender tapping cane and swept onwards,
having buffeted a thewless body. The blind stripling turned his sickly
face after the striding form.

—God’s curse on you, he said sourly, whoever you are! You’re blinder
nor I am, you bitch’s bastard!

*    *    *


Opposite Ruggy O’Donohoe’s Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam, pawing the
pound and a half of Mangan’s, late Fehrenbach’s, porksteaks he had been
sent for, went along warm Wicklow street dawdling. It was too blooming
dull sitting in the parlour with Mrs Stoer and Mrs Quigley and Mrs
MacDowell and the blind down and they all at their sniffles and sipping
sups of the superior tawny sherry uncle Barney brought from Tunney’s.
And they eating crumbs of the cottage fruitcake, jawing the whole
blooming time and sighing.

After Wicklow lane the window of Madame Doyle, courtdress milliner,
stopped him. He stood looking in at the two puckers stripped to their
pelts and putting up their props. From the sidemirrors two mourning
Masters Dignam gaped silently. Myler Keogh, Dublin’s pet lamb, will
meet sergeantmajor Bennett, the Portobello bruiser, for a purse of
fifty sovereigns. Gob, that’d be a good pucking match to see. Myler
Keogh, that’s the chap sparring out to him with the green sash. Two bar
entrance, soldiers half price. I could easy do a bunk on ma. Master
Dignam on his left turned as he turned. That’s me in mourning. When is
it? May the twentysecond. Sure, the blooming thing is all over. He
turned to the right and on his right Master Dignam turned, his cap
awry, his collar sticking up. Buttoning it down, his chin lifted, he
saw the image of Marie Kendall, charming soubrette, beside the two
puckers. One of them mots that do be in the packets of fags Stoer
smokes that his old fellow welted hell out of him for one time he found
out.

Master Dignam got his collar down and dawdled on. The best pucker going
for strength was Fitzsimons. One puck in the wind from that fellow
would knock you into the middle of next week, man. But the best pucker
for science was Jem Corbet before Fitzsimons knocked the stuffings out
of him, dodging and all.

In Grafton street Master Dignam saw a red flower in a toff’s mouth and
a swell pair of kicks on him and he listening to what the drunk was
telling him and grinning all the time.

No Sandymount tram.

Master Dignam walked along Nassau street, shifted the porksteaks to his
other hand. His collar sprang up again and he tugged it down. The
blooming stud was too small for the buttonhole of the shirt, blooming
end to it. He met schoolboys with satchels. I’m not going tomorrow
either, stay away till Monday. He met other schoolboys. Do they notice
I’m in mourning? Uncle Barney said he’d get it into the paper tonight.
Then they’ll all see it in the paper and read my name printed and pa’s
name.

His face got all grey instead of being red like it was and there was a
fly walking over it up to his eye. The scrunch that was when they were
screwing the screws into the coffin: and the bumps when they were
bringing it downstairs.

Pa was inside it and ma crying in the parlour and uncle Barney telling
the men how to get it round the bend. A big coffin it was, and high and
heavylooking. How was that? The last night pa was boosed he was
standing on the landing there bawling out for his boots to go out to
Tunney’s for to boose more and he looked butty and short in his shirt.
Never see him again. Death, that is. Pa is dead. My father is dead. He
told me to be a good son to ma. I couldn’t hear the other things he
said but I saw his tongue and his teeth trying to say it better. Poor
pa. That was Mr Dignam, my father. I hope he’s in purgatory now because
he went to confession to Father Conroy on Saturday night.

*    *    *


William Humble, earl of Dudley, and lady Dudley, accompanied by
lieutenantcolonel Heseltine, drove out after luncheon from the
viceregal lodge. In the following carriage were the honourable Mrs
Paget, Miss de Courcy and the honourable Gerald Ward A. D. C. in
attendance.

The cavalcade passed out by the lower gate of Phoenix park saluted by
obsequious policemen and proceeded past Kingsbridge along the northern
quays. The viceroy was most cordially greeted on his way through the
metropolis. At Bloody bridge Mr Thomas Kernan beyond the river greeted
him vainly from afar. Between Queen’s and Whitworth bridges lord
Dudley’s viceregal carriages passed and were unsaluted by Mr Dudley
White, B. L., M. A., who stood on Arran quay outside Mrs M. E. White’s,
the pawnbroker’s, at the corner of Arran street west stroking his nose
with his forefinger, undecided whether he should arrive at Phibsborough
more quickly by a triple change of tram or by hailing a car or on foot
through Smithfield, Constitution hill and Broadstone terminus. In the
porch of Four Courts Richie Goulding with the costbag of Goulding,
Collis and Ward saw him with surprise. Past Richmond bridge at the
doorstep of the office of Reuben J Dodd, solicitor, agent for the
Patriotic Insurance Company, an elderly female about to enter changed
her plan and retracing her steps by King’s windows smiled credulously
on the representative of His Majesty. From its sluice in Wood quay wall
under Tom Devan’s office Poddle river hung out in fealty a tongue of
liquid sewage. Above the crossblind of the Ormond hotel, gold by
bronze, Miss Kennedy’s head by Miss Douce’s head watched and admired.
On Ormond quay Mr Simon Dedalus, steering his way from the greenhouse
for the subsheriff’s office, stood still in midstreet and brought his
hat low. His Excellency graciously returned Mr Dedalus’ greeting. From
Cahill’s corner the reverend Hugh C. Love, M. A., made obeisance
unperceived, mindful of lords deputies whose hands benignant had held
of yore rich advowsons. On Grattan bridge Lenehan and M’Coy, taking
leave of each other, watched the carriages go by. Passing by Roger
Greene’s office and Dollard’s big red printinghouse Gerty MacDowell,
carrying the Catesby’s cork lino letters for her father who was laid
up, knew by the style it was the lord and lady lieutenant but she
couldn’t see what Her Excellency had on because the tram and Spring’s
big yellow furniture van had to stop in front of her on account of its
being the lord lieutenant. Beyond Lundy Foot’s from the shaded door of
Kavanagh’s winerooms John Wyse Nolan smiled with unseen coldness
towards the lord lieutenantgeneral and general governor of Ireland. The
Right Honourable William Humble, earl of Dudley, G. C. V. O., passed
Micky Anderson’s all times ticking watches and Henry and James’s wax
smartsuited freshcheeked models, the gentleman Henry, _dernier cri_
James. Over against Dame gate Tom Rochford and Nosey Flynn watched the
approach of the cavalcade. Tom Rochford, seeing the eyes of lady Dudley
fixed on him, took his thumbs quickly out of the pockets of his claret
waistcoat and doffed his cap to her. A charming _soubrette,_ great
Marie Kendall, with dauby cheeks and lifted skirt smiled daubily from
her poster upon William Humble, earl of Dudley, and upon
lieutenantcolonel H. G. Heseltine, and also upon the honourable Gerald
Ward A. D. C. From the window of the D. B. C. Buck Mulligan gaily, and
Haines gravely, gazed down on the viceregal equipage over the shoulders
of eager guests, whose mass of forms darkened the chessboard whereon
John Howard Parnell looked intently. In Fownes’s street Dilly Dedalus,
straining her sight upward from Chardenal’s first French primer, saw
sunshades spanned and wheelspokes spinning in the glare. John Henry
Menton, filling the doorway of Commercial Buildings, stared from
winebig oyster eyes, holding a fat gold hunter watch not looked at in
his fat left hand not feeling it. Where the foreleg of King Billy’s
horse pawed the air Mrs Breen plucked her hastening husband back from
under the hoofs of the outriders. She shouted in his ear the tidings.
Understanding, he shifted his tomes to his left breast and saluted the
second carriage. The honourable Gerald Ward A. D. C., agreeably
surprised, made haste to reply. At Ponsonby’s corner a jaded white
flagon H. halted and four tallhatted white flagons halted behind him,
E.L.Y.’S, while outriders pranced past and carriages. Opposite Pigott’s
music warerooms Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing &c, gaily
apparelled, gravely walked, outpassed by a viceroy and unobserved. By
the provost’s wall came jauntily Blazes Boylan, stepping in tan shoes
and socks with skyblue clocks to the refrain of _My girl’s a Yorkshire
girl._

Blazes Boylan presented to the leaders’ skyblue frontlets and high
action a skyblue tie, a widebrimmed straw hat at a rakish angle and a
suit of indigo serge. His hands in his jacket pockets forgot to salute
but he offered to the three ladies the bold admiration of his eyes and
the red flower between his lips. As they drove along Nassau street His
Excellency drew the attention of his bowing consort to the programme of
music which was being discoursed in College park. Unseen brazen
highland laddies blared and drumthumped after the _cortège_:

     But though she’s a factory lass
     And wears no fancy clothes.
     Baraabum.
     Yet I’ve a sort of a
     Yorkshire relish for
     My little Yorkshire rose.
     Baraabum.

Thither of the wall the quartermile flat handicappers, M. C. Green, H.
Shrift, T. M. Patey, C. Scaife, J. B. Jeffs, G. N. Morphy, F.
Stevenson, C. Adderly and W. C. Huggard, started in pursuit. Striding
past Finn’s hotel Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell
stared through a fierce eyeglass across the carriages at the head of Mr
M. E. Solomons in the window of the Austro-Hungarian viceconsulate.
Deep in Leinster street by Trinity’s postern a loyal king’s man,
Hornblower, touched his tallyho cap. As the glossy horses pranced by
Merrion square Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam, waiting, saw salutes
being given to the gent with the topper and raised also his new black
cap with fingers greased by porksteak paper. His collar too sprang up.
The viceroy, on his way to inaugurate the Mirus bazaar in aid of funds
for Mercer’s hospital, drove with his following towards Lower Mount
street. He passed a blind stripling opposite Broadbent’s. In Lower
Mount street a pedestrian in a brown macintosh, eating dry bread,
passed swiftly and unscathed across the viceroy’s path. At the Royal
Canal bridge, from his hoarding, Mr Eugene Stratton, his blub lips
agrin, bade all comers welcome to Pembroke township. At Haddington road
corner two sanded women halted themselves, an umbrella and a bag in
which eleven cockles rolled to view with wonder the lord mayor and lady
mayoress without his golden chain. On Northumberland and Lansdowne
roads His Excellency acknowledged punctually salutes from rare male
walkers, the salute of two small schoolboys at the garden gate of the
house said to have been admired by the late queen when visiting the
Irish capital with her husband, the prince consort, in 1849 and the
salute of Almidano Artifoni’s sturdy trousers swallowed by a closing
door.


[ 11 ]

Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyringing.

Imperthnthn thnthnthn.

Chips, picking chips off rocky thumbnail, chips.

Horrid! And gold flushed more.

A husky fifenote blew.

Blew. Blue bloom is on the.

Goldpinnacled hair.

A jumping rose on satiny breast of satin, rose of Castile.

Trilling, trilling: Idolores.

Peep! Who’s in the... peepofgold?

Tink cried to bronze in pity.

And a call, pure, long and throbbing. Longindying call.

Decoy. Soft word. But look: the bright stars fade. Notes chirruping
answer.

O rose! Castile. The morn is breaking.

Jingle jingle jaunted jingling.

Coin rang. Clock clacked.

Avowal. _Sonnez._ I could. Rebound of garter. Not leave thee. Smack.
_La cloche!_ Thigh smack. Avowal. Warm. Sweetheart, goodbye!

Jingle. Bloo.

Boomed crashing chords. When love absorbs. War! War! The tympanum.

A sail! A veil awave upon the waves.

Lost. Throstle fluted. All is lost now.

Horn. Hawhorn.

When first he saw. Alas!

Full tup. Full throb.

Warbling. Ah, lure! Alluring.

Martha! Come!

Clapclap. Clipclap. Clappyclap.

Goodgod henev erheard inall.

Deaf bald Pat brought pad knife took up.

A moonlit nightcall: far, far.

I feel so sad. P. S. So lonely blooming.

Listen!

The spiked and winding cold seahorn. Have you the? Each, and for other,
plash and silent roar.

Pearls: when she. Liszt’s rhapsodies. Hissss.

You don’t?

Did not: no, no: believe: Lidlyd. With a cock with a carra.

Black. Deepsounding. Do, Ben, do.

Wait while you wait. Hee hee. Wait while you hee.

But wait!

Low in dark middle earth. Embedded ore.

Naminedamine. Preacher is he:

All gone. All fallen.

Tiny, her tremulous fernfoils of maidenhair.

Amen! He gnashed in fury.

Fro. To, fro. A baton cool protruding.

Bronzelydia by Minagold.

By bronze, by gold, in oceangreen of shadow. Bloom. Old Bloom.

One rapped, one tapped, with a carra, with a cock.

Pray for him! Pray, good people!

His gouty fingers nakkering.

Big Benaben. Big Benben.

Last rose Castile of summer left bloom I feel so sad alone.

Pwee! Little wind piped wee.

True men. Lid Ker Cow De and Doll. Ay, ay. Like you men. Will lift your
tschink with tschunk.

Fff! Oo!

Where bronze from anear? Where gold from afar? Where hoofs?

Rrrpr. Kraa. Kraandl.

Then not till then. My eppripfftaph. Be pfrwritt.

Done.

Begin!



Bronze by gold, miss Douce’s head by miss Kennedy’s head, over the
crossblind of the Ormond bar heard the viceregal hoofs go by, ringing
steel.

—Is that her? asked miss Kennedy.

Miss Douce said yes, sitting with his ex, pearl grey and _eau de Nil._

—Exquisite contrast, miss Kennedy said.

When all agog miss Douce said eagerly:

—Look at the fellow in the tall silk.

—Who? Where? gold asked more eagerly.

—In the second carriage, miss Douce’s wet lips said, laughing in the
sun.

He’s looking. Mind till I see.

She darted, bronze, to the backmost corner, flattening her face against
the pane in a halo of hurried breath.

Her wet lips tittered:

—He’s killed looking back.

She laughed:

—O wept! Aren’t men frightful idiots?

With sadness.

Miss Kennedy sauntered sadly from bright light, twining a loose hair
behind an ear. Sauntering sadly, gold no more, she twisted twined a
hair. Sadly she twined in sauntering gold hair behind a curving ear.

—It’s them has the fine times, sadly then she said.

A man.

Bloowho went by by Moulang’s pipes bearing in his breast the sweets of
sin, by Wine’s antiques, in memory bearing sweet sinful words, by
Carroll’s dusky battered plate, for Raoul.

The boots to them, them in the bar, them barmaids came. For them
unheeding him he banged on the counter his tray of chattering china.
And

—There’s your teas, he said.

Miss Kennedy with manners transposed the teatray down to an upturned
lithia crate, safe from eyes, low.

—What is it? loud boots unmannerly asked.

—Find out, miss Douce retorted, leaving her spyingpoint.

—Your _beau,_ is it?

A haughty bronze replied:

—I’ll complain to Mrs de Massey on you if I hear any more of your
impertinent insolence.

—Imperthnthn thnthnthn, bootssnout sniffed rudely, as he retreated as
she threatened as he had come.

Bloom.

On her flower frowning miss Douce said:

—Most aggravating that young brat is. If he doesn’t conduct himself
I’ll wring his ear for him a yard long.

Ladylike in exquisite contrast.

—Take no notice, miss Kennedy rejoined.

She poured in a teacup tea, then back in the teapot tea. They cowered
under their reef of counter, waiting on footstools, crates upturned,
waiting for their teas to draw. They pawed their blouses, both of black
satin, two and nine a yard, waiting for their teas to draw, and two and
seven.

Yes, bronze from anear, by gold from afar, heard steel from anear,
hoofs ring from afar, and heard steelhoofs ringhoof ringsteel.

—Am I awfully sunburnt?

Miss bronze unbloused her neck.

—No, said miss Kennedy. It gets brown after. Did you try the borax with
the cherry laurel water?

Miss Douce halfstood to see her skin askance in the barmirror
gildedlettered where hock and claret glasses shimmered and in their
midst a shell.

—And leave it to my hands, she said.

—Try it with the glycerine, miss Kennedy advised.

Bidding her neck and hands adieu miss Douce

—Those things only bring out a rash, replied, reseated. I asked that
old fogey in Boyd’s for something for my skin.

Miss Kennedy, pouring now a fulldrawn tea, grimaced and prayed:

—O, don’t remind me of him for mercy’ sake!

—But wait till I tell you, miss Douce entreated.

Sweet tea miss Kennedy having poured with milk plugged both two ears
with little fingers.

—No, don’t, she cried.

—I won’t listen, she cried.

But Bloom?

Miss Douce grunted in snuffy fogey’s tone:

—For your what? says he.

Miss Kennedy unplugged her ears to hear, to speak: but said, but prayed
again:

—Don’t let me think of him or I’ll expire. The hideous old wretch! That
night in the Antient Concert Rooms.

She sipped distastefully her brew, hot tea, a sip, sipped, sweet tea.

—Here he was, miss Douce said, cocking her bronze head three quarters,
ruffling her nosewings. Hufa! Hufa!

Shrill shriek of laughter sprang from miss Kennedy’s throat. Miss Douce
huffed and snorted down her nostrils that quivered imperthnthn like a
snout in quest.

—O! shrieking, miss Kennedy cried. Will you ever forget his goggle eye?

Miss Douce chimed in in deep bronze laughter, shouting:

—And your other eye!

Bloowhose dark eye read Aaron Figatner’s name. Why do I always think
Figather? Gathering figs, I think. And Prosper Loré’s huguenot name. By
Bassi’s blessed virgins Bloom’s dark eyes went by. Bluerobed, white
under, come to me. God they believe she is: or goddess. Those today. I
could not see. That fellow spoke. A student. After with Dedalus’ son.
He might be Mulligan. All comely virgins. That brings those rakes of
fellows in: her white.

By went his eyes. The sweets of sin. Sweet are the sweets.

Of sin.

In a giggling peal young goldbronze voices blended, Douce with Kennedy
your other eye. They threw young heads back, bronze gigglegold, to let
freefly their laughter, screaming, your other, signals to each other,
high piercing notes.

Ah, panting, sighing, sighing, ah, fordone, their mirth died down.

Miss Kennedy lipped her cup again, raised, drank a sip and
gigglegiggled. Miss Douce, bending over the teatray, ruffled again her
nose and rolled droll fattened eyes. Again Kennygiggles, stooping, her
fair pinnacles of hair, stooping, her tortoise napecomb showed,
spluttered out of her mouth her tea, choking in tea and laughter,
coughing with choking, crying:

—O greasy eyes! Imagine being married to a man like that! she cried.
With his bit of beard!

Douce gave full vent to a splendid yell, a full yell of full woman,
delight, joy, indignation.

—Married to the greasy nose! she yelled.

Shrill, with deep laughter, after, gold after bronze, they urged each
each to peal after peal, ringing in changes, bronzegold, goldbronze,
shrilldeep, to laughter after laughter. And then laughed more. Greasy I
knows. Exhausted, breathless, their shaken heads they laid, braided and
pinnacled by glossycombed, against the counterledge. All flushed (O!),
panting, sweating (O!), all breathless.

Married to Bloom, to greaseabloom.

—O saints above! miss Douce said, sighed above her jumping rose. I
wished I hadn’t laughed so much. I feel all wet.

—O, miss Douce! miss Kennedy protested. You horrid thing!

And flushed yet more (you horrid!), more goldenly.

By Cantwell’s offices roved Greaseabloom, by Ceppi’s virgins, bright of
their oils. Nannetti’s father hawked those things about, wheedling at
doors as I. Religion pays. Must see him for that par. Eat first. I
want. Not yet. At four, she said. Time ever passing. Clockhands
turning. On. Where eat? The Clarence, Dolphin. On. For Raoul. Eat. If I
net five guineas with those ads. The violet silk petticoats. Not yet.
The sweets of sin.

Flushed less, still less, goldenly paled.

Into their bar strolled Mr Dedalus. Chips, picking chips off one of his
rocky thumbnails. Chips. He strolled.

—O, welcome back, miss Douce.

He held her hand. Enjoyed her holidays?

—Tiptop.

He hoped she had nice weather in Rostrevor.

—Gorgeous, she said. Look at the holy show I am. Lying out on the
strand all day.

Bronze whiteness.

—That was exceedingly naughty of you, Mr Dedalus told her and pressed
her hand indulgently. Tempting poor simple males.

Miss Douce of satin douced her arm away.

—O go away! she said. You’re very simple, I don’t think.

He was.

—Well now I am, he mused. I looked so simple in the cradle they
christened me simple Simon.

—You must have been a doaty, miss Douce made answer. And what did the
doctor order today?

—Well now, he mused, whatever you say yourself. I think I’ll trouble
you for some fresh water and a half glass of whisky.

Jingle.

—With the greatest alacrity, miss Douce agreed.

With grace of alacrity towards the mirror gilt Cantrell and Cochrane’s
she turned herself. With grace she tapped a measure of gold whisky from
her crystal keg. Forth from the skirt of his coat Mr Dedalus brought
pouch and pipe. Alacrity she served. He blew through the flue two husky
fifenotes.

—By Jove, he mused, I often wanted to see the Mourne mountains. Must be
a great tonic in the air down there. But a long threatening comes at
last, they say. Yes. Yes.

Yes. He fingered shreds of hair, her maidenhair, her mermaid’s, into
the bowl. Chips. Shreds. Musing. Mute.

None nought said nothing. Yes.

Gaily miss Douce polished a tumbler, trilling:

—_O, Idolores, queen of the eastern seas!_

—Was Mr Lidwell in today?

In came Lenehan. Round him peered Lenehan. Mr Bloom reached Essex
bridge. Yes, Mr Bloom crossed bridge of Yessex. To Martha I must write.
Buy paper. Daly’s. Girl there civil. Bloom. Old Bloom. Blue bloom is on
the rye.

—He was in at lunchtime, miss Douce said.

Lenehan came forward.

—Was Mr Boylan looking for me?

He asked. She answered:

—Miss Kennedy, was Mr Boylan in while I was upstairs?

She asked. Miss voice of Kennedy answered, a second teacup poised, her
gaze upon a page:

—No. He was not.

Miss gaze of Kennedy, heard, not seen, read on. Lenehan round the
sandwichbell wound his round body round.

—Peep! Who’s in the corner?

No glance of Kennedy rewarding him he yet made overtures. To mind her
stops. To read only the black ones: round o and crooked ess.

Jingle jaunty jingle.

Girlgold she read and did not glance. Take no notice. She took no
notice while he read by rote a solfa fable for her, plappering flatly:

—Ah fox met ah stork. Said thee fox too thee stork: Will you put your
bill down inn my troath and pull upp ah bone?

He droned in vain. Miss Douce turned to her tea aside.

He sighed aside:

—Ah me! O my!

He greeted Mr Dedalus and got a nod.

—Greetings from the famous son of a famous father.

—Who may he be? Mr Dedalus asked.

Lenehan opened most genial arms. Who?

—Who may he be? he asked. Can you ask? Stephen, the youthful bard.

Dry.

Mr Dedalus, famous father, laid by his dry filled pipe.

—I see, he said. I didn’t recognise him for the moment. I hear he is
keeping very select company. Have you seen him lately?

He had.

—I quaffed the nectarbowl with him this very day, said Lenehan. In
Mooney’s _en ville_ and in Mooney’s _sur mer._ He had received the
rhino for the labour of his muse.

He smiled at bronze’s teabathed lips, at listening lips and eyes:

—The _élite_ of Erin hung upon his lips. The ponderous pundit, Hugh
MacHugh, Dublin’s most brilliant scribe and editor and that minstrel
boy of the wild wet west who is known by the euphonious appellation of
the O’Madden Burke.

After an interval Mr Dedalus raised his grog and

—That must have been highly diverting, said he. I see.

He see. He drank. With faraway mourning mountain eye. Set down his
glass.

He looked towards the saloon door.

—I see you have moved the piano.

—The tuner was in today, miss Douce replied, tuning it for the smoking
concert and I never heard such an exquisite player.

—Is that a fact?

—Didn’t he, miss Kennedy? The real classical, you know. And blind too,
poor fellow. Not twenty I’m sure he was.

—Is that a fact? Mr Dedalus said.

He drank and strayed away.

—So sad to look at his face, miss Douce condoled.

God’s curse on bitch’s bastard.

Tink to her pity cried a diner’s bell. To the door of the bar and
diningroom came bald Pat, came bothered Pat, came Pat, waiter of
Ormond. Lager for diner. Lager without alacrity she served.

With patience Lenehan waited for Boylan with impatience, for
jinglejaunty blazes boy.

Upholding the lid he (who?) gazed in the coffin (coffin?) at the
oblique triple (piano!) wires. He pressed (the same who pressed
indulgently her hand), soft pedalling, a triple of keys to see the
thicknesses of felt advancing, to hear the muffled hammerfall in
action.

Two sheets cream vellum paper one reserve two envelopes when I was in
Wisdom Hely’s wise Bloom in Daly’s Henry Flower bought. Are you not
happy in your home? Flower to console me and a pin cuts lo. Means
something, language of flow. Was it a daisy? Innocence that is.
Respectable girl meet after mass. Thanks awfully muchly. Wise Bloom
eyed on the door a poster, a swaying mermaid smoking mid nice waves.
Smoke mermaids, coolest whiff of all. Hair streaming: lovelorn. For
some man. For Raoul. He eyed and saw afar on Essex bridge a gay hat
riding on a jaunting car. It is. Again. Third time. Coincidence.

Jingling on supple rubbers it jaunted from the bridge to Ormond quay.
Follow. Risk it. Go quick. At four. Near now. Out.

—Twopence, sir, the shopgirl dared to say.

—Aha... I was forgetting... Excuse...

—And four.

At four she. Winsomely she on Bloohimwhom smiled. Bloo smi qui go.
Ternoon. Think you’re the only pebble on the beach? Does that to all.

For men.

In drowsy silence gold bent on her page.

From the saloon a call came, long in dying. That was a tuningfork the
tuner had that he forgot that he now struck. A call again. That he now
poised that it now throbbed. You hear? It throbbed, pure, purer, softly
and softlier, its buzzing prongs. Longer in dying call.

Pat paid for diner’s popcorked bottle: and over tumbler, tray and
popcorked bottle ere he went he whispered, bald and bothered, with miss
Douce.

—_The bright stars fade_...

A voiceless song sang from within, singing:

—... _the morn is breaking._

A duodene of birdnotes chirruped bright treble answer under sensitive
hands. Brightly the keys, all twinkling, linked, all harpsichording,
called to a voice to sing the strain of dewy morn, of youth, of love’s
leavetaking, life’s, love’s morn.

—_The dewdrops pearl_...

Lenehan’s lips over the counter lisped a low whistle of decoy.

—But look this way, he said, rose of Castile.

Jingle jaunted by the curb and stopped.

She rose and closed her reading, rose of Castile: fretted, forlorn,
dreamily rose.

—Did she fall or was she pushed? he asked her.

She answered, slighting:

—Ask no questions and you’ll hear no lies.

Like lady, ladylike.

Blazes Boylan’s smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor where he
strode. Yes, gold from anear by bronze from afar. Lenehan heard and
knew and hailed him:

—See the conquering hero comes.

Between the car and window, warily walking, went Bloom, unconquered
hero. See me he might. The seat he sat on: warm. Black wary hecat
walked towards Richie Goulding’s legal bag, lifted aloft, saluting.

—_And I from thee_...

—I heard you were round, said Blazes Boylan.

He touched to fair miss Kennedy a rim of his slanted straw. She smiled
on him. But sister bronze outsmiled her, preening for him her richer
hair, a bosom and a rose.

Smart Boylan bespoke potions.

—What’s your cry? Glass of bitter? Glass of bitter, please, and a
sloegin for me. Wire in yet?

Not yet. At four she. Who said four?

Cowley’s red lugs and bulging apple in the door of the sheriff’s
office.

Avoid. Goulding a chance. What is he doing in the Ormond? Car waiting.
Wait.

Hello. Where off to? Something to eat? I too was just. In here. What,
Ormond? Best value in Dublin. Is that so? Diningroom. Sit tight there.
See, not be seen. I think I’ll join you. Come on. Richie led on. Bloom
followed bag. Dinner fit for a prince.

Miss Douce reached high to take a flagon, stretching her satin arm, her
bust, that all but burst, so high.

—O! O! jerked Lenehan, gasping at each stretch. O!

But easily she seized her prey and led it low in triumph.

—Why don’t you grow? asked Blazes Boylan.

Shebronze, dealing from her oblique jar thick syrupy liquor for his
lips, looked as it flowed (flower in his coat: who gave him?), and
syrupped with her voice:

—Fine goods in small parcels.

That is to say she. Neatly she poured slowsyrupy sloe.

—Here’s fortune, Blazes said.

He pitched a broad coin down. Coin rang.

—Hold on, said Lenehan, till I...

—Fortune, he wished, lifting his bubbled ale.

—Sceptre will win in a canter, he said.

—I plunged a bit, said Boylan winking and drinking. Not on my own, you
know. Fancy of a friend of mine.

Lenehan still drank and grinned at his tilted ale and at miss Douce’s
lips that all but hummed, not shut, the oceansong her lips had trilled.
Idolores. The eastern seas.

Clock whirred. Miss Kennedy passed their way (flower, wonder who gave),
bearing away teatray. Clock clacked.

Miss Douce took Boylan’s coin, struck boldly the cashregister. It
clanged. Clock clacked. Fair one of Egypt teased and sorted in the till
and hummed and handed coins in change. Look to the west. A clack. For
me.

—What time is that? asked Blazes Boylan. Four?

O’clock.

Lenehan, small eyes ahunger on her humming, bust ahumming, tugged
Blazes Boylan’s elbowsleeve.

—Let’s hear the time, he said.

The bag of Goulding, Collis, Ward led Bloom by ryebloom flowered
tables. Aimless he chose with agitated aim, bald Pat attending, a table
near the door. Be near. At four. Has he forgotten? Perhaps a trick. Not
come: whet appetite. I couldn’t do. Wait, wait. Pat, waiter, waited.

Sparkling bronze azure eyed Blazure’s skyblue bow and eyes.

—Go on, pressed Lenehan. There’s no-one. He never heard.

—... _to Flora’s lips did hie._

High, a high note pealed in the treble clear.

Bronzedouce communing with her rose that sank and rose sought Blazes
Boylan’s flower and eyes.

—Please, please.

He pleaded over returning phrases of avowal.

—_I could not leave thee_...

—Afterwits, miss Douce promised coyly.

—No, now, urged Lenehan. _Sonnez la cloche!_ O do! There’s no-one.

She looked. Quick. Miss Kenn out of earshot. Sudden bent. Two kindling
faces watched her bend.

Quavering the chords strayed from the air, found it again, lost chord,
and lost and found it, faltering.

—Go on! Do! _Sonnez!_

Bending, she nipped a peak of skirt above her knee. Delayed. Taunted
them still, bending, suspending, with wilful eyes.

_—Sonnez!_

Smack. She set free sudden in rebound her nipped elastic garter
smackwarm against her smackable a woman’s warmhosed thigh.

—_La cloche!_ cried gleeful Lenehan. Trained by owner. No sawdust
there.

She smilesmirked supercilious (wept! aren’t men?), but, lightward
gliding, mild she smiled on Boylan.

—You’re the essence of vulgarity, she in gliding said.

Boylan, eyed, eyed. Tossed to fat lips his chalice, drank off his
chalice tiny, sucking the last fat violet syrupy drops. His spellbound
eyes went after, after her gliding head as it went down the bar by
mirrors, gilded arch for ginger ale, hock and claret glasses
shimmering, a spiky shell, where it concerted, mirrored, bronze with
sunnier bronze.

Yes, bronze from anearby.

—... _Sweetheart, goodbye!_

—I’m off, said Boylan with impatience.

He slid his chalice brisk away, grasped his change.

—Wait a shake, begged Lenehan, drinking quickly. I wanted to tell you.
Tom Rochford...

—Come on to blazes, said Blazes Boylan, going.

Lenehan gulped to go.

—Got the horn or what? he said. Wait. I’m coming.

He followed the hasty creaking shoes but stood by nimbly by the
threshold, saluting forms, a bulky with a slender.

—How do you do, Mr Dollard?

—Eh? How do? How do? Ben Dollard’s vague bass answered, turning an
instant from Father Cowley’s woe. He won’t give you any trouble, Bob.
Alf Bergan will speak to the long fellow. We’ll put a barleystraw in
that Judas Iscariot’s ear this time.

Sighing Mr Dedalus came through the saloon, a finger soothing an
eyelid.

—Hoho, we will, Ben Dollard yodled jollily. Come on, Simon. Give us a
ditty. We heard the piano.

Bald Pat, bothered waiter, waited for drink orders. Power for Richie.
And Bloom? Let me see. Not make him walk twice. His corns. Four now.
How warm this black is. Course nerves a bit. Refracts (is it?) heat.
Let me see. Cider. Yes, bottle of cider.

—What’s that? Mr Dedalus said. I was only vamping, man.

—Come on, come on, Ben Dollard called. Begone dull care. Come, Bob.

He ambled Dollard, bulky slops, before them (hold that fellow with the:
hold him now) into the saloon. He plumped him Dollard on the stool. His
gouty paws plumped chords. Plumped, stopped abrupt.

Bald Pat in the doorway met tealess gold returning. Bothered, he wanted
Power and cider. Bronze by the window, watched, bronze from afar.

Jingle a tinkle jaunted.

Bloom heard a jing, a little sound. He’s off. Light sob of breath Bloom
sighed on the silent bluehued flowers. Jingling. He’s gone. Jingle.
Hear.

—Love and War, Ben, Mr Dedalus said. God be with old times.

Miss Douce’s brave eyes, unregarded, turned from the crossblind,
smitten by sunlight. Gone. Pensive (who knows?), smitten (the smiting
light), she lowered the dropblind with a sliding cord. She drew down
pensive (why did he go so quick when I?) about her bronze, over the bar
where bald stood by sister gold, inexquisite contrast, contrast
inexquisite nonexquisite, slow cool dim seagreen sliding depth of
shadow, _eau de Nil._

—Poor old Goodwin was the pianist that night, Father Cowley reminded
them. There was a slight difference of opinion between himself and the
Collard grand.

There was.

—A symposium all his own, Mr Dedalus said. The devil wouldn’t stop him.
He was a crotchety old fellow in the primary stage of drink.

—God, do you remember? Ben bulky Dollard said, turning from the
punished keyboard. And by Japers I had no wedding garment.

They laughed all three. He had no wed. All trio laughed. No wedding
garment.

—Our friend Bloom turned in handy that night, Mr Dedalus said. Where’s
my pipe, by the way?

He wandered back to the bar to the lost chord pipe. Bald Pat carried
two diners’ drinks, Richie and Poldy. And Father Cowley laughed again.

—I saved the situation, Ben, I think.

—You did, averred Ben Dollard. I remember those tight trousers too.
That was a brilliant idea, Bob.

Father Cowley blushed to his brilliant purply lobes. He saved the
situa. Tight trou. Brilliant ide.

—I knew he was on the rocks, he said. The wife was playing the piano in
the coffee palace on Saturdays for a very trifling consideration and
who was it gave me the wheeze she was doing the other business? Do you
remember? We had to search all Holles street to find them till the chap
in Keogh’s gave us the number. Remember?

Ben remembered, his broad visage wondering.

—By God, she had some luxurious operacloaks and things there.

Mr Dedalus wandered back, pipe in hand.

—Merrion square style. Balldresses, by God, and court dresses. He
wouldn’t take any money either. What? Any God’s quantity of cocked hats
and boleros and trunkhose. What?

—Ay, ay, Mr Dedalus nodded. Mrs Marion Bloom has left off clothes of
all descriptions.

Jingle jaunted down the quays. Blazes sprawled on bounding tyres.

Liver and bacon. Steak and kidney pie. Right, sir. Right, Pat.

Mrs Marion. Met him pike hoses. Smell of burn. Of Paul de Kock. Nice
name he.

—What’s this her name was? A buxom lassy. Marion...

—Tweedy.

—Yes. Is she alive?

—And kicking.

—She was a daughter of...

—Daughter of the regiment.

—Yes, begad. I remember the old drummajor.

Mr Dedalus struck, whizzed, lit, puffed savoury puff after

—Irish? I don’t know, faith. Is she, Simon?

Puff after stiff, a puff, strong, savoury, crackling.

—Buccinator muscle is... What?... Bit rusty... O, she is... My Irish
Molly, O.

He puffed a pungent plumy blast.

—From the rock of Gibraltar... all the way.

They pined in depth of ocean shadow, gold by the beerpull, bronze by
maraschino, thoughtful all two. Mina Kennedy, 4 Lismore terrace,
Drumcondra with Idolores, a queen, Dolores, silent.

Pat served, uncovered dishes. Leopold cut liverslices. As said before
he ate with relish the inner organs, nutty gizzards, fried cods’ roes
while Richie Goulding, Collis, Ward ate steak and kidney, steak then
kidney, bite by bite of pie he ate Bloom ate they ate.

Bloom with Goulding, married in silence, ate. Dinners fit for princes.

By Bachelor’s walk jogjaunty jingled Blazes Boylan, bachelor, in sun in
heat, mare’s glossy rump atrot, with flick of whip, on bounding tyres:
sprawled, warmseated, Boylan impatience, ardentbold. Horn. Have you
the? Horn. Have you the? Haw haw horn.

Over their voices Dollard bassooned attack, booming over bombarding
chords:

—_When love absorbs my ardent soul_...

Roll of Bensoulbenjamin rolled to the quivery loveshivery roofpanes.

—War! War! cried Father Cowley. You’re the warrior.

—So I am, Ben Warrior laughed. I was thinking of your landlord. Love or
money.

He stopped. He wagged huge beard, huge face over his blunder huge.

—Sure, you’d burst the tympanum of her ear, man, Mr Dedalus said
through smoke aroma, with an organ like yours.

In bearded abundant laughter Dollard shook upon the keyboard. He would.

—Not to mention another membrane, Father Cowley added. Half time, Ben.
_Amoroso ma non troppo._ Let me there.

Miss Kennedy served two gentlemen with tankards of cool stout. She
passed a remark. It was indeed, first gentleman said, beautiful
weather. They drank cool stout. Did she know where the lord lieutenant
was going? And heard steelhoofs ringhoof ring. No, she couldn’t say.
But it would be in the paper. O, she need not trouble. No trouble. She
waved about her outspread _Independent,_ searching, the lord
lieutenant, her pinnacles of hair slowmoving, lord lieuten. Too much
trouble, first gentleman said. O, not in the least. Way he looked that.
Lord lieutenant. Gold by bronze heard iron steel.

 —............ _my ardent soul
I care not foror the morrow._

In liver gravy Bloom mashed mashed potatoes. Love and War someone is.
Ben Dollard’s famous. Night he ran round to us to borrow a dress suit
for that concert. Trousers tight as a drum on him. Musical porkers.
Molly did laugh when he went out. Threw herself back across the bed,
screaming, kicking. With all his belongings on show. O saints above,
I’m drenched! O, the women in the front row! O, I never laughed so
many! Well, of course that’s what gives him the base barreltone. For
instance eunuchs. Wonder who’s playing. Nice touch. Must be Cowley.
Musical. Knows whatever note you play. Bad breath he has, poor chap.
Stopped.

Miss Douce, engaging, Lydia Douce, bowed to suave solicitor, George
Lidwell, gentleman, entering. Good afternoon. She gave her moist (a
lady’s) hand to his firm clasp. Afternoon. Yes, she was back. To the
old dingdong again.

—Your friends are inside, Mr Lidwell.

George Lidwell, suave, solicited, held a lydiahand.

Bloom ate liv as said before. Clean here at least. That chap in the
Burton, gummy with gristle. No-one here: Goulding and I. Clean tables,
flowers, mitres of napkins. Pat to and fro. Bald Pat. Nothing to do.
Best value in Dub.

Piano again. Cowley it is. Way he sits in to it, like one together,
mutual understanding. Tiresome shapers scraping fiddles, eye on the
bowend, sawing the cello, remind you of toothache. Her high long snore.
Night we were in the box. Trombone under blowing like a grampus,
between the acts, other brass chap unscrewing, emptying spittle.
Conductor’s legs too, bagstrousers, jiggedy jiggedy. Do right to hide
them.

Jiggedy jingle jaunty jaunty.

Only the harp. Lovely. Gold glowering light. Girl touched it. Poop of a
lovely. Gravy’s rather good fit for a. Golden ship. Erin. The harp that
once or twice. Cool hands. Ben Howth, the rhododendrons. We are their
harps. I. He. Old. Young.

—Ah, I couldn’t, man, Mr Dedalus said, shy, listless.

Strongly.

—Go on, blast you! Ben Dollard growled. Get it out in bits.

—_M’appari,_ Simon, Father Cowley said.

Down stage he strode some paces, grave, tall in affliction, his long
arms outheld. Hoarsely the apple of his throat hoarsed softly. Softly
he sang to a dusty seascape there: _A Last Farewell._ A headland, a
ship, a sail upon the billows. Farewell. A lovely girl, her veil awave
upon the wind upon the headland, wind around her.

Cowley sang:

_—M’appari tutt’amor:
Il mio sguardo l’incontr..._

She waved, unhearing Cowley, her veil, to one departing, dear one, to
wind, love, speeding sail, return.

—Go on, Simon.

—Ah, sure, my dancing days are done, Ben... Well...

Mr Dedalus laid his pipe to rest beside the tuningfork and, sitting,
touched the obedient keys.

—No, Simon, Father Cowley turned. Play it in the original. One flat.

The keys, obedient, rose higher, told, faltered, confessed, confused.

Up stage strode Father Cowley.

—Here, Simon, I’ll accompany you, he said. Get up.

By Graham Lemon’s pineapple rock, by Elvery’s elephant jingly jogged.

Steak, kidney, liver, mashed, at meat fit for princes sat princes Bloom
and Goulding. Princes at meat they raised and drank, Power and cider.

Most beautiful tenor air ever written, Richie said: _Sonnambula._ He
heard Joe Maas sing that one night. Ah, what M’Guckin! Yes. In his way.
Choirboy style. Maas was the boy. Massboy. A lyrical tenor if you like.
Never forget it. Never.

Tenderly Bloom over liverless bacon saw the tightened features strain.
Backache he. Bright’s bright eye. Next item on the programme. Paying
the piper. Pills, pounded bread, worth a guinea a box. Stave it off
awhile. Sings too: _Down among the dead men._ Appropriate. Kidney pie.
Sweets to the. Not making much hand of it. Best value in.
Characteristic of him. Power. Particular about his drink. Flaw in the
glass, fresh Vartry water. Fecking matches from counters to save. Then
squander a sovereign in dribs and drabs. And when he’s wanted not a
farthing. Screwed refusing to pay his fare. Curious types.

Never would Richie forget that night. As long as he lived: never. In
the gods of the old Royal with little Peake. And when the first note.

Speech paused on Richie’s lips.

Coming out with a whopper now. Rhapsodies about damn all. Believes his
own lies. Does really. Wonderful liar. But want a good memory.

—Which air is that? asked Leopold Bloom.

—_All is lost now_.

Richie cocked his lips apout. A low incipient note sweet banshee
murmured: all. A thrush. A throstle. His breath, birdsweet, good teeth
he’s proud of, fluted with plaintive woe. Is lost. Rich sound. Two
notes in one there. Blackbird I heard in the hawthorn valley. Taking my
motives he twined and turned them. All most too new call is lost in
all. Echo. How sweet the answer. How is that done? All lost now.
Mournful he whistled. Fall, surrender, lost.

Bloom bent leopold ear, turning a fringe of doyley down under the vase.
Order. Yes, I remember. Lovely air. In sleep she went to him. Innocence
in the moon. Brave. Don’t know their danger. Still hold her back. Call
name. Touch water. Jingle jaunty. Too late. She longed to go. That’s
why. Woman. As easy stop the sea. Yes: all is lost.

—A beautiful air, said Bloom lost Leopold. I know it well.

Never in all his life had Richie Goulding.

He knows it well too. Or he feels. Still harping on his daughter. Wise
child that knows her father, Dedalus said. Me?

Bloom askance over liverless saw. Face of the all is lost. Rollicking
Richie once. Jokes old stale now. Wagging his ear. Napkinring in his
eye. Now begging letters he sends his son with. Crosseyed Walter sir I
did sir. Wouldn’t trouble only I was expecting some money. Apologise.

Piano again. Sounds better than last time I heard. Tuned probably.
Stopped again.

Dollard and Cowley still urged the lingering singer out with it.

—With it, Simon.

—It, Simon.

—Ladies and gentlemen, I am most deeply obliged by your kind
solicitations.

—It, Simon.

—I have no money but if you will lend me your attention I shall
endeavour to sing to you of a heart bowed down.

By the sandwichbell in screening shadow Lydia, her bronze and rose, a
lady’s grace, gave and withheld: as in cool glaucous _eau de Nil_ Mina
to tankards two her pinnacles of gold.

The harping chords of prelude closed. A chord, longdrawn, expectant,
drew a voice away.

—_When first I saw that form endearing_...

Richie turned.

—Si Dedalus’ voice, he said.

Braintipped, cheek touched with flame, they listened feeling that flow
endearing flow over skin limbs human heart soul spine. Bloom signed to
Pat, bald Pat is a waiter hard of hearing, to set ajar the door of the
bar. The door of the bar. So. That will do. Pat, waiter, waited,
waiting to hear, for he was hard of hear by the door.

—_Sorrow from me seemed to depart._

Through the hush of air a voice sang to them, low, not rain, not leaves
in murmur, like no voice of strings or reeds or whatdoyoucallthem
dulcimers touching their still ears with words, still hearts of their
each his remembered lives. Good, good to hear: sorrow from them each
seemed to from both depart when first they heard. When first they saw,
lost Richie Poldy, mercy of beauty, heard from a person wouldn’t expect
it in the least, her first merciful lovesoft oftloved word.

Love that is singing: love’s old sweet song. Bloom unwound slowly the
elastic band of his packet. Love’s old sweet _sonnez la_ gold. Bloom
wound a skein round four forkfingers, stretched it, relaxed, and wound
it round his troubled double, fourfold, in octave, gyved them fast.

—_Full of hope and all delighted_...

Tenors get women by the score. Increase their flow. Throw flower at his
feet. When will we meet? My head it simply. Jingle all delighted. He
can’t sing for tall hats. Your head it simply swurls. Perfumed for him.
What perfume does your wife? I want to know. Jing. Stop. Knock. Last
look at mirror always before she answers the door. The hall. There? How
do you? I do well. There? What? Or? Phial of cachous, kissing comfits,
in her satchel. Yes? Hands felt for the opulent.

Alas the voice rose, sighing, changed: loud, full, shining, proud.

—_But alas, ’twas idle dreaming_...

Glorious tone he has still. Cork air softer also their brogue. Silly
man! Could have made oceans of money. Singing wrong words. Wore out his
wife: now sings. But hard to tell. Only the two themselves. If he
doesn’t break down. Keep a trot for the avenue. His hands and feet sing
too. Drink. Nerves overstrung. Must be abstemious to sing. Jenny Lind
soup: stock, sage, raw eggs, half pint of cream. For creamy dreamy.

Tenderness it welled: slow, swelling, full it throbbed. That’s the
chat. Ha, give! Take! Throb, a throb, a pulsing proud erect.

Words? Music? No: it’s what’s behind.

Bloom looped, unlooped, noded, disnoded.

Bloom. Flood of warm jamjam lickitup secretness flowed to flow in music
out, in desire, dark to lick flow invading. Tipping her tepping her
tapping her topping her. Tup. Pores to dilate dilating. Tup. The joy
the feel the warm the. Tup. To pour o’er sluices pouring gushes. Flood,
gush, flow, joygush, tupthrob. Now! Language of love.

—... _ray of hope is_...

Beaming. Lydia for Lidwell squeak scarcely hear so ladylike the muse
unsqueaked a ray of hopk.

_Martha_ it is. Coincidence. Just going to write. Lionel’s song. Lovely
name you have. Can’t write. Accept my little pres. Play on her
heartstrings pursestrings too. She’s a. I called you naughty boy. Still
the name: Martha. How strange! Today.

The voice of Lionel returned, weaker but unwearied. It sang again to
Richie Poldy Lydia Lidwell also sang to Pat open mouth ear waiting to
wait. How first he saw that form endearing, how sorrow seemed to part,
how look, form, word charmed him Gould Lidwell, won Pat Bloom’s heart.

Wish I could see his face, though. Explain better. Why the barber in
Drago’s always looked my face when I spoke his face in the glass. Still
hear it better here than in the bar though farther.

—_Each graceful look_...

First night when first I saw her at Mat Dillon’s in Terenure. Yellow,
black lace she wore. Musical chairs. We two the last. Fate. After her.
Fate. Round and round slow. Quick round. We two. All looked. Halt. Down
she sat. All ousted looked. Lips laughing. Yellow knees.

—_Charmed my eye_...

Singing. _Waiting_ she sang. I turned her music. Full voice of perfume
of what perfume does your lilactrees. Bosom I saw, both full, throat
warbling. First I saw. She thanked me. Why did she me? Fate. Spanishy
eyes. Under a peartree alone patio this hour in old Madrid one side in
shadow Dolores shedolores. At me. Luring. Ah, alluring.

—_Martha! Ah, Martha!_

Quitting all languor Lionel cried in grief, in cry of passion dominant
to love to return with deepening yet with rising chords of harmony. In
cry of lionel loneliness that she should know, must martha feel. For
only her he waited. Where? Here there try there here all try where.
Somewhere.

—_Co-ome, thou lost one!

Co-ome, thou dear one!_

Alone. One love. One hope. One comfort me. Martha, chestnote, return!

_—Come!_

It soared, a bird, it held its flight, a swift pure cry, soar silver
orb it leaped serene, speeding, sustained, to come, don’t spin it out
too long long breath he breath long life, soaring high, high
resplendent, aflame, crowned, high in the effulgence symbolistic, high,
of the etherial bosom, high, of the high vast irradiation everywhere
all soaring all around about the all, the endlessnessnessness...

—_To me!_

Siopold!

Consumed.

Come. Well sung. All clapped. She ought to. Come. To me, to him, to
her, you too, me, us.

—Bravo! Clapclap. Good man, Simon. Clappyclapclap. Encore! Clapclipclap
clap. Sound as a bell. Bravo, Simon! Clapclopclap. Encore, enclap,
said, cried, clapped all, Ben Dollard, Lydia Douce, George Lidwell,
Pat, Mina Kennedy, two gentlemen with two tankards, Cowley, first gent
with tank and bronze Miss Douce and gold Miss Mina.

Blazes Boylan’s smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor, said before.
Jingle by monuments of sir John Gray, Horatio onehandled Nelson,
reverend father Theobald Mathew, jaunted, as said before just now.
Atrot, in heat, heatseated. _Cloche. Sonnez la. Cloche. Sonnez la._
Slower the mare went up the hill by the Rotunda, Rutland square. Too
slow for Boylan, blazes Boylan, impatience Boylan, joggled the mare.

An afterclang of Cowley’s chords closed, died on the air made richer.

And Richie Goulding drank his Power and Leopold Bloom his cider drank,
Lidwell his Guinness, second gentleman said they would partake of two
more tankards if she did not mind. Miss Kennedy smirked, disserving,
coral lips, at first, at second. She did not mind.

—Seven days in jail, Ben Dollard said, on bread and water. Then you’d
sing, Simon, like a garden thrush.

Lionel Simon, singer, laughed. Father Bob Cowley played. Mina Kennedy
served. Second gentleman paid. Tom Kernan strutted in. Lydia, admired,
admired. But Bloom sang dumb.

Admiring.

Richie, admiring, descanted on that man’s glorious voice. He remembered
one night long ago. Never forget that night. Si sang _’Twas rank and
fame_: in Ned Lambert’s ’twas. Good God he never heard in all his life
a note like that he never did _then false one we had better part_ so
clear so God he never heard _since love lives not_ a clinking voice
lives not ask Lambert he can tell you too.

Goulding, a flush struggling in his pale, told Mr Bloom, face of the
night, Si in Ned Lambert’s, Dedalus house, sang _’Twas rank and fame._

He, Mr Bloom, listened while he, Richie Goulding, told him, Mr Bloom,
of the night he, Richie, heard him, Si Dedalus, sing _’Twas rank and
fame_ in his, Ned Lambert’s, house.

Brothers-in-law: relations. We never speak as we pass by. Rift in the
lute I think. Treats him with scorn. See. He admires him all the more.
The night Si sang. The human voice, two tiny silky chords, wonderful,
more than all others.

That voice was a lamentation. Calmer now. It’s in the silence after you
feel you hear. Vibrations. Now silent air.

Bloom ungyved his crisscrossed hands and with slack fingers plucked the
slender catgut thong. He drew and plucked. It buzz, it twanged. While
Goulding talked of Barraclough’s voice production, while Tom Kernan,
harking back in a retrospective sort of arrangement talked to listening
Father Cowley, who played a voluntary, who nodded as he played. While
big Ben Dollard talked with Simon Dedalus, lighting, who nodded as he
smoked, who smoked.

Thou lost one. All songs on that theme. Yet more Bloom stretched his
string. Cruel it seems. Let people get fond of each other: lure them
on. Then tear asunder. Death. Explos. Knock on the head.
Outtohelloutofthat. Human life. Dignam. Ugh, that rat’s tail wriggling!
Five bob I gave. _Corpus paradisum._ Corncrake croaker: belly like a
poisoned pup. Gone. They sing. Forgotten. I too. And one day she with.
Leave her: get tired. Suffer then. Snivel. Big spanishy eyes goggling
at nothing. Her wavyavyeavyheavyeavyevyevyhair un comb:’d.

Yet too much happy bores. He stretched more, more. Are you not happy in
your? Twang. It snapped.

Jingle into Dorset street.

Miss Douce withdrew her satiny arm, reproachful, pleased.

—Don’t make half so free, said she, till we are better acquainted.

George Lidwell told her really and truly: but she did not believe.

First gentleman told Mina that was so. She asked him was that so. And
second tankard told her so. That that was so.

Miss Douce, miss Lydia, did not believe: miss Kennedy, Mina, did not
believe: George Lidwell, no: miss Dou did not: the first, the first:
gent with the tank: believe, no, no: did not, miss Kenn: Lidlydiawell:
the tank.

Better write it here. Quills in the postoffice chewed and twisted.

Bald Pat at a sign drew nigh. A pen and ink. He went. A pad. He went. A
pad to blot. He heard, deaf Pat.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said, teasing the curling catgut line. It certainly is.
Few lines will do. My present. All that Italian florid music is. Who is
this wrote? Know the name you know better. Take out sheet notepaper,
envelope: unconcerned. It’s so characteristic.

—Grandest number in the whole opera, Goulding said.

—It is, Bloom said.

Numbers it is. All music when you come to think. Two multiplied by two
divided by half is twice one. Vibrations: chords those are. One plus
two plus six is seven. Do anything you like with figures juggling.
Always find out this equal to that. Symmetry under a cemetery wall. He
doesn’t see my mourning. Callous: all for his own gut. Musemathematics.
And you think you’re listening to the etherial. But suppose you said it
like: Martha, seven times nine minus x is thirtyfive thousand. Fall
quite flat. It’s on account of the sounds it is.

Instance he’s playing now. Improvising. Might be what you like, till
you hear the words. Want to listen sharp. Hard. Begin all right: then
hear chords a bit off: feel lost a bit. In and out of sacks, over
barrels, through wirefences, obstacle race. Time makes the tune.
Question of mood you’re in. Still always nice to hear. Except scales up
and down, girls learning. Two together nextdoor neighbours. Ought to
invent dummy pianos for that. _Blumenlied_ I bought for her. The name.
Playing it slow, a girl, night I came home, the girl. Door of the
stables near Cecilia street. Milly no taste. Queer because we both, I
mean.

Bald deaf Pat brought quite flat pad ink. Pat set with ink pen quite
flat pad. Pat took plate dish knife fork. Pat went.

It was the only language Mr Dedalus said to Ben. He heard them as a boy
in Ringabella, Crosshaven, Ringabella, singing their barcaroles.
Queenstown harbour full of Italian ships. Walking, you know, Ben, in
the moonlight with those earthquake hats. Blending their voices. God,
such music, Ben. Heard as a boy. Cross Ringabella haven mooncarole.

Sour pipe removed he held a shield of hand beside his lips that cooed a
moonlight nightcall, clear from anear, a call from afar, replying.

Down the edge of his _Freeman_ baton ranged Bloom’s, your other eye,
scanning for where did I see that. Callan, Coleman, Dignam Patrick.
Heigho! Heigho! Fawcett. Aha! Just I was looking...

Hope he’s not looking, cute as a rat. He held unfurled his _Freeman._
Can’t see now. Remember write Greek ees. Bloom dipped, Bloo mur: dear
sir. Dear Henry wrote: dear Mady. Got your lett and flow. Hell did I
put? Some pock or oth. It is utterl imposs. Underline _imposs._ To
write today.

Bore this. Bored Bloom tambourined gently with I am just reflecting
fingers on flat pad Pat brought.

On. Know what I mean. No, change that ee. Accep my poor litt pres
enclos. Ask her no answ. Hold on. Five Dig. Two about here. Penny the
gulls. Elijah is com. Seven Davy Byrne’s. Is eight about. Say half a
crown. My poor little pres: p. o. two and six. Write me a long. Do you
despise? Jingle, have you the? So excited. Why do you call me naught?
You naughty too? O, Mairy lost the string of her. Bye for today. Yes,
yes, will tell you. Want to. To keep it up. Call me that other. Other
world she wrote. My patience are exhaust. To keep it up. You must
believe. Believe. The tank. It. Is. True.

Folly am I writing? Husbands don’t. That’s marriage does, their wives.
Because I’m away from. Suppose. But how? She must. Keep young. If she
found out. Card in my high grade ha. No, not tell all. Useless pain. If
they don’t see. Woman. Sauce for the gander.

A hackney car, number three hundred and twentyfour, driver Barton James
of number one Harmony avenue, Donnybrook, on which sat a fare, a young
gentleman, stylishly dressed in an indigoblue serge suit made by George
Robert Mesias, tailor and cutter, of number five Eden quay, and wearing
a straw hat very dressy, bought of John Plasto of number one Great
Brunswick street, hatter. Eh? This is the jingle that joggled and
jingled. By Dlugacz’ porkshop bright tubes of Agendath trotted a
gallantbuttocked mare.

—Answering an ad? keen Richie’s eyes asked Bloom.

—Yes, Mr Bloom said. Town traveller. Nothing doing, I expect.

Bloom mur: best references. But Henry wrote: it will excite me. You
know how. In haste. Henry. Greek ee. Better add postscript. What is he
playing now? Improvising. Intermezzo. P. S. The rum tum tum. How will
you pun? You punish me? Crooked skirt swinging, whack by. Tell me I
want to. Know. O. Course if I didn’t I wouldn’t ask. La la la ree.
Trails off there sad in minor. Why minor sad? Sign H. They like sad
tail at end. P. P. S. La la la ree. I feel so sad today. La ree. So
lonely. Dee.

He blotted quick on pad of Pat. Envel. Address. Just copy out of paper.
Murmured: Messrs Callan, Coleman and Co, limited. Henry wrote:

Miss Martha Clifford
    c/o P. O.
        Dolphin’s Barn Lane
            Dublin.

Blot over the other so he can’t read. There. Right. Idea prize titbit.
Something detective read off blottingpad. Payment at the rate of guinea
per col. Matcham often thinks the laughing witch. Poor Mrs Purefoy. U.
P: up.

Too poetical that about the sad. Music did that. Music hath charms.
Shakespeare said. Quotations every day in the year. To be or not to be.
Wisdom while you wait.

In Gerard’s rosery of Fetter lane he walks, greyedauburn. One life is
all. One body. Do. But do.

Done anyhow. Postal order, stamp. Postoffice lower down. Walk now.
Enough. Barney Kiernan’s I promised to meet them. Dislike that job.
House of mourning. Walk. Pat! Doesn’t hear. Deaf beetle he is.

Car near there now. Talk. Talk. Pat! Doesn’t. Settling those napkins.
Lot of ground he must cover in the day. Paint face behind on him then
he’d be two. Wish they’d sing more. Keep my mind off.

Bald Pat who is bothered mitred the napkins. Pat is a waiter hard of
his hearing. Pat is a waiter who waits while you wait. Hee hee hee hee.
He waits while you wait. Hee hee. A waiter is he. Hee hee hee hee. He
waits while you wait. While you wait if you wait he will wait while you
wait. Hee hee hee hee. Hoh. Wait while you wait.

Douce now. Douce Lydia. Bronze and rose.

She had a gorgeous, simply gorgeous, time. And look at the lovely shell
she brought.

To the end of the bar to him she bore lightly the spiked and winding
seahorn that he, George Lidwell, solicitor, might hear.

—Listen! she bade him.

Under Tom Kernan’s ginhot words the accompanist wove music slow.
Authentic fact. How Walter Bapty lost his voice. Well, sir, the husband
took him by the throat. _Scoundrel,_ said he, _You’ll sing no more
lovesongs._ He did, faith, sir Tom. Bob Cowley wove. Tenors get wom.
Cowley lay back.

Ah, now he heard, she holding it to his ear. Hear! He heard. Wonderful.
She held it to her own. And through the sifted light pale gold in
contrast glided. To hear.

Tap.

Bloom through the bardoor saw a shell held at their ears. He heard more
faintly that that they heard, each for herself alone, then each for
other, hearing the plash of waves, loudly, a silent roar.

Bronze by a weary gold, anear, afar, they listened.

Her ear too is a shell, the peeping lobe there. Been to the seaside.
Lovely seaside girls. Skin tanned raw. Should have put on coldcream
first make it brown. Buttered toast. O and that lotion mustn’t forget.
Fever near her mouth. Your head it simply. Hair braided over: shell
with seaweed. Why do they hide their ears with seaweed hair? And Turks
the mouth, why? Her eyes over the sheet. Yashmak. Find the way in. A
cave. No admittance except on business.

The sea they think they hear. Singing. A roar. The blood it is. Souse
in the ear sometimes. Well, it’s a sea. Corpuscle islands.

Wonderful really. So distinct. Again. George Lidwell held its murmur,
hearing: then laid it by, gently.

—What are the wild waves saying? he asked her, smiled.

Charming, seasmiling and unanswering Lydia on Lidwell smiled.

Tap.

By Larry O’Rourke’s, by Larry, bold Larry O’, Boylan swayed and Boylan
turned.

From the forsaken shell miss Mina glided to her tankards waiting. No,
she was not so lonely archly miss Douce’s head let Mr Lidwell know.
Walks in the moonlight by the sea. No, not alone. With whom? She nobly
answered: with a gentleman friend.

Bob Cowley’s twinkling fingers in the treble played again. The landlord
has the prior. A little time. Long John. Big Ben. Lightly he played a
light bright tinkling measure for tripping ladies, arch and smiling,
and for their gallants, gentlemen friends. One: one, one, one, one,
one: two, one, three, four.

Sea, wind, leaves, thunder, waters, cows lowing, the cattlemarket,
cocks, hens don’t crow, snakes hissss. There’s music everywhere.
Ruttledge’s door: ee creaking. No, that’s noise. Minuet of _Don
Giovanni_ he’s playing now. Court dresses of all descriptions in castle
chambers dancing. Misery. Peasants outside. Green starving faces eating
dockleaves. Nice that is. Look: look, look, look, look, look: you look
at us.

That’s joyful I can feel. Never have written it. Why? My joy is other
joy. But both are joys. Yes, joy it must be. Mere fact of music shows
you are. Often thought she was in the dumps till she began to lilt.
Then know.

M’Coy valise. My wife and your wife. Squealing cat. Like tearing silk.
Tongue when she talks like the clapper of a bellows. They can’t manage
men’s intervals. Gap in their voices too. Fill me. I’m warm, dark,
open. Molly in _quis est homo_: Mercadante. My ear against the wall to
hear. Want a woman who can deliver the goods.

Jog jig jogged stopped. Dandy tan shoe of dandy Boylan socks skyblue
clocks came light to earth.

O, look we are so! Chamber music. Could make a kind of pun on that. It
is a kind of music I often thought when she. Acoustics that is.
Tinkling. Empty vessels make most noise. Because the acoustics, the
resonance changes according as the weight of the water is equal to the
law of falling water. Like those rhapsodies of Liszt’s, Hungarian,
gipsyeyed. Pearls. Drops. Rain. Diddleiddle addleaddle ooddleooddle.
Hissss. Now. Maybe now. Before.

One rapped on a door, one tapped with a knock, did he knock Paul de
Kock with a loud proud knocker with a cock carracarracarra cock.
Cockcock.

Tap.

—_Qui sdegno,_ Ben, said Father Cowley.

—No, Ben, Tom Kernan interfered. _The Croppy Boy._ Our native Doric.

—Ay do, Ben, Mr Dedalus said. Good men and true.

—Do, do, they begged in one.

I’ll go. Here, Pat, return. Come. He came, he came, he did not stay. To
me. How much?

—What key? Six sharps?

—F sharp major, Ben Dollard said.

Bob Cowley’s outstretched talons griped the black deepsounding chords.

Must go prince Bloom told Richie prince. No, Richie said. Yes, must.
Got money somewhere. He’s on for a razzle backache spree. Much? He
seehears lipspeech. One and nine. Penny for yourself. Here. Give him
twopence tip. Deaf, bothered. But perhaps he has wife and family
waiting, waiting Patty come home. Hee hee hee hee. Deaf wait while they
wait.

But wait. But hear. Chords dark. Lugugugubrious. Low. In a cave of the
dark middle earth. Embedded ore. Lumpmusic.

The voice of dark age, of unlove, earth’s fatigue made grave approach
and painful, come from afar, from hoary mountains, called on good men
and true. The priest he sought. With him would he speak a word.

Tap.

Ben Dollard’s voice. Base barreltone. Doing his level best to say it.
Croak of vast manless moonless womoonless marsh. Other comedown. Big
ships’ chandler’s business he did once. Remember: rosiny ropes, ships’
lanterns. Failed to the tune of ten thousand pounds. Now in the Iveagh
home. Cubicle number so and so. Number one Bass did that for him.

The priest’s at home. A false priest’s servant bade him welcome. Step
in. The holy father. With bows a traitor servant. Curlycues of chords.

Ruin them. Wreck their lives. Then build them cubicles to end their
days in. Hushaby. Lullaby. Die, dog. Little dog, die.

The voice of warning, solemn warning, told them the youth had entered a
lonely hall, told them how solemn fell his footsteps there, told them
the gloomy chamber, the vested priest sitting to shrive.

Decent soul. Bit addled now. Thinks he’ll win in _Answers_, poets’
picture puzzle. We hand you crisp five pound note. Bird sitting
hatching in a nest. Lay of the last minstrel he thought it was. See
blank tee what domestic animal? Tee dash ar most courageous mariner.
Good voice he has still. No eunuch yet with all his belongings.

Listen. Bloom listened. Richie Goulding listened. And by the door deaf
Pat, bald Pat, tipped Pat, listened.

The chords harped slower.

The voice of penance and of grief came slow, embellished, tremulous.
Ben’s contrite beard confessed. _in nomine Domini,_ in God’s name he
knelt. He beat his hand upon his breast, confessing: _mea culpa._

Latin again. That holds them like birdlime. Priest with the communion
corpus for those women. Chap in the mortuary, coffin or coffey,
_corpusnomine._ Wonder where that rat is by now. Scrape.

Tap.

They listened. Tankards and miss Kennedy. George Lidwell, eyelid well
expressive, fullbusted satin. Kernan. Si.

The sighing voice of sorrow sang. His sins. Since Easter he had cursed
three times. You bitch’s bast. And once at masstime he had gone to
play. Once by the churchyard he had passed and for his mother’s rest he
had not prayed. A boy. A croppy boy.

Bronze, listening, by the beerpull gazed far away. Soulfully. Doesn’t
half know I’m. Molly great dab at seeing anyone looking.

Bronze gazed far sideways. Mirror there. Is that best side of her face?
They always know. Knock at the door. Last tip to titivate.

Cockcarracarra.

What do they think when they hear music? Way to catch rattlesnakes.
Night Michael Gunn gave us the box. Tuning up. Shah of Persia liked
that best. Remind him of home sweet home. Wiped his nose in curtain
too. Custom his country perhaps. That’s music too. Not as bad as it
sounds. Tootling. Brasses braying asses through uptrunks. Doublebasses
helpless, gashes in their sides. Woodwinds mooing cows. Semigrand open
crocodile music hath jaws. Woodwind like Goodwin’s name.

She looked fine. Her crocus dress she wore lowcut, belongings on show.
Clove her breath was always in theatre when she bent to ask a question.
Told her what Spinoza says in that book of poor papa’s. Hypnotised,
listening. Eyes like that. She bent. Chap in dresscircle staring down
into her with his operaglass for all he was worth. Beauty of music you
must hear twice. Nature woman half a look. God made the country man the
tune. Met him pike hoses. Philosophy. O rocks!

All gone. All fallen. At the siege of Ross his father, at Gorey all his
brothers fell. To Wexford, we are the boys of Wexford, he would. Last
of his name and race.

I too. Last of my race. Milly young student. Well, my fault perhaps. No
son. Rudy. Too late now. Or if not? If not? If still?

He bore no hate.

Hate. Love. Those are names. Rudy. Soon I am old.

Big Ben his voice unfolded. Great voice Richie Goulding said, a flush
struggling in his pale, to Bloom soon old. But when was young?

Ireland comes now. My country above the king. She listens. Who fears to
speak of nineteen four? Time to be shoving. Looked enough.

—_Bless me, father,_ Dollard the croppy cried. _Bless me and let me
go._

Tap.

Bloom looked, unblessed to go. Got up to kill: on eighteen bob a week.
Fellows shell out the dibs. Want to keep your weathereye open. Those
girls, those lovely. By the sad sea waves. Chorusgirl’s romance.
Letters read out for breach of promise. From Chickabiddy’s owny
Mumpsypum. Laughter in court. Henry. I never signed it. The lovely name
you.

Low sank the music, air and words. Then hastened. The false priest
rustling soldier from his cassock. A yeoman captain. They know it all
by heart. The thrill they itch for. Yeoman cap.

Tap. Tap.

Thrilled she listened, bending in sympathy to hear.

Blank face. Virgin should say: or fingered only. Write something on it:
page. If not what becomes of them? Decline, despair. Keeps them young.
Even admire themselves. See. Play on her. Lip blow. Body of white
woman, a flute alive. Blow gentle. Loud. Three holes, all women.
Goddess I didn’t see. They want it. Not too much polite. That’s why he
gets them. Gold in your pocket, brass in your face. Say something. Make
her hear. With look to look. Songs without words. Molly, that
hurdygurdy boy. She knew he meant the monkey was sick. Or because so
like the Spanish. Understand animals too that way. Solomon did. Gift of
nature.

Ventriloquise. My lips closed. Think in my stom. What?

Will? You? I. Want. You. To.

With hoarse rude fury the yeoman cursed, swelling in apoplectic bitch’s
bastard. A good thought, boy, to come. One hour’s your time to live,
your last.

Tap. Tap.

Thrill now. Pity they feel. To wipe away a tear for martyrs that want
to, dying to, die. For all things dying, for all things born. Poor Mrs
Purefoy. Hope she’s over. Because their wombs.

A liquid of womb of woman eyeball gazed under a fence of lashes,
calmly, hearing. See real beauty of the eye when she not speaks. On
yonder river. At each slow satiny heaving bosom’s wave (her heaving
embon) red rose rose slowly sank red rose. Heartbeats: her breath:
breath that is life. And all the tiny tiny fernfoils trembled of
maidenhair.

But look. The bright stars fade. O rose! Castile. The morn. Ha.
Lidwell. For him then not for. Infatuated. I like that? See her from
here though. Popped corks, splashes of beerfroth, stacks of empties.

On the smooth jutting beerpull laid Lydia hand, lightly, plumply, leave
it to my hands. All lost in pity for croppy. Fro, to: to, fro: over the
polished knob (she knows his eyes, my eyes, her eyes) her thumb and
finger passed in pity: passed, reposed and, gently touching, then slid
so smoothly, slowly down, a cool firm white enamel baton protruding
through their sliding ring.

With a cock with a carra.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I hold this house. Amen. He gnashed in fury. Traitors swing.

The chords consented. Very sad thing. But had to be.

Get out before the end. Thanks, that was heavenly. Where’s my hat. Pass
by her. Can leave that _Freeman_. Letter I have. Suppose she were the?
No. Walk, walk, walk. Like Cashel Boylo Connoro Coylo Tisdall Maurice
Tisntdall Farrell. Waaaaaaalk.

Well, I must be. Are you off? Yrfmstbyes. Blmstup. O’er ryehigh blue.
Ow. Bloom stood up. Soap feeling rather sticky behind. Must have
sweated: music. That lotion, remember. Well, so long. High grade. Card
inside. Yes.

By deaf Pat in the doorway straining ear Bloom passed.

At Geneva barrack that young man died. At Passage was his body laid.
Dolor! O, he dolores! The voice of the mournful chanter called to
dolorous prayer.

By rose, by satiny bosom, by the fondling hand, by slops, by empties,
by popped corks, greeting in going, past eyes and maidenhair, bronze
and faint gold in deepseashadow, went Bloom, soft Bloom, I feel so
lonely Bloom.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Pray for him, prayed the bass of Dollard. You who hear in peace.
Breathe a prayer, drop a tear, good men, good people. He was the croppy
boy.

Scaring eavesdropping boots croppy bootsboy Bloom in the Ormond hallway
heard the growls and roars of bravo, fat backslapping, their boots all
treading, boots not the boots the boy. General chorus off for a swill
to wash it down. Glad I avoided.

—Come on, Ben, Simon Dedalus cried. By God, you’re as good as ever you
were.

—Better, said Tomgin Kernan. Most trenchant rendition of that ballad,
upon my soul and honour it is.

—Lablache, said Father Cowley.

Ben Dollard bulkily cachuchad towards the bar, mightily praisefed and
all big roseate, on heavyfooted feet, his gouty fingers nakkering
castagnettes in the air.

Big Benaben Dollard. Big Benben. Big Benben.

Rrr.

And deepmoved all, Simon trumping compassion from foghorn nose, all
laughing they brought him forth, Ben Dollard, in right good cheer.

—You’re looking rubicund, George Lidwell said.

Miss Douce composed her rose to wait.

—Ben machree, said Mr Dedalus, clapping Ben’s fat back shoulderblade.
Fit as a fiddle only he has a lot of adipose tissue concealed about his
person.

Rrrrrrrsss.

—Fat of death, Simon, Ben Dollard growled.

Richie rift in the lute alone sat: Goulding, Collis, Ward. Uncertainly
he waited. Unpaid Pat too.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Miss Mina Kennedy brought near her lips to ear of tankard one.

—Mr Dollard, they murmured low.

—Dollard, murmured tankard.

Tank one believed: miss Kenn when she: that doll he was: she doll: the
tank.

He murmured that he knew the name. The name was familiar to him, that
is to say. That was to say he had heard the name of. Dollard, was it?
Dollard, yes.

Yes, her lips said more loudly, Mr Dollard. He sang that song lovely,
murmured Mina. Mr Dollard. And _The last rose of summer_ was a lovely
song. Mina loved that song. Tankard loved the song that Mina.

’Tis the last rose of summer dollard left bloom felt wind wound round
inside.

Gassy thing that cider: binding too. Wait. Postoffice near Reuben J’s
one and eightpence too. Get shut of it. Dodge round by Greek street.
Wish I hadn’t promised to meet. Freer in air. Music. Gets on your
nerves. Beerpull. Her hand that rocks the cradle rules the. Ben Howth.
That rules the world.

Far. Far. Far. Far.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Up the quay went Lionelleopold, naughty Henry with letter for Mady,
with sweets of sin with frillies for Raoul with met him pike hoses went
Poldy on.

Tap blind walked tapping by the tap the curbstone tapping, tap by tap.

Cowley, he stuns himself with it: kind of drunkenness. Better give way
only half way the way of a man with a maid. Instance enthusiasts. All
ears. Not lose a demisemiquaver. Eyes shut. Head nodding in time.
Dotty. You daren’t budge. Thinking strictly prohibited. Always talking
shop. Fiddlefaddle about notes.

All a kind of attempt to talk. Unpleasant when it stops because you
never know exac. Organ in Gardiner street. Old Glynn fifty quid a year.
Queer up there in the cockloft, alone, with stops and locks and keys.
Seated all day at the organ. Maunder on for hours, talking to himself
or the other fellow blowing the bellows. Growl angry, then shriek
cursing (want to have wadding or something in his no don’t she cried),
then all of a soft sudden wee little wee little pipy wind.

Pwee! A wee little wind piped eeee. In Bloom’s little wee.

—Was he? Mr Dedalus said, returning with fetched pipe. I was with him
this morning at poor little Paddy Dignam’s...

—Ay, the Lord have mercy on him.

—By the bye there’s a tuningfork in there on the...

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

—The wife has a fine voice. Or had. What? Lidwell asked.

—O, that must be the tuner, Lydia said to Simonlionel first I saw,
forgot it when he was here.

Blind he was she told George Lidwell second I saw. And played so
exquisitely, treat to hear. Exquisite contrast: bronzelid, minagold.

—Shout! Ben Dollard shouted, pouring. Sing out!

—’lldo! cried Father Cowley.

Rrrrrr.

I feel I want...

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap

—Very, Mr Dedalus said, staring hard at a headless sardine.

Under the sandwichbell lay on a bier of bread one last, one lonely,
last sardine of summer. Bloom alone.

—Very, he stared. The lower register, for choice.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Bloom went by Barry’s. Wish I could. Wait. That wonderworker if I had.
Twentyfour solicitors in that one house. Counted them. Litigation. Love
one another. Piles of parchment. Messrs Pick and Pocket have power of
attorney. Goulding, Collis, Ward.

But for example the chap that wallops the big drum. His vocation:
Mickey Rooney’s band. Wonder how it first struck him. Sitting at home
after pig’s cheek and cabbage nursing it in the armchair. Rehearsing
his band part. Pom. Pompedy. Jolly for the wife. Asses’ skins. Welt
them through life, then wallop after death. Pom. Wallop. Seems to be
what you call yashmak or I mean kismet. Fate.

Tap. Tap. A stripling, blind, with a tapping cane came taptaptapping by
Daly’s window where a mermaid hair all streaming (but he couldn’t see)
blew whiffs of a mermaid (blind couldn’t), mermaid, coolest whiff of
all.

Instruments. A blade of grass, shell of her hands, then blow. Even comb
and tissuepaper you can knock a tune out of. Molly in her shift in
Lombard street west, hair down. I suppose each kind of trade made its
own, don’t you see? Hunter with a horn. Haw. Have you the? _Cloche.
Sonnez la._ Shepherd his pipe. Pwee little wee. Policeman a whistle.
Locks and keys! Sweep! Four o’clock’s all’s well! Sleep! All is lost
now. Drum? Pompedy. Wait. I know. Towncrier, bumbailiff. Long John.
Waken the dead. Pom. Dignam. Poor little _nominedomine._ Pom. It is
music. I mean of course it’s all pom pom pom very much what they call
_da capo._ Still you can hear. As we march, we march along, march
along. Pom.

I must really. Fff. Now if I did that at a banquet. Just a question of
custom shah of Persia. Breathe a prayer, drop a tear. All the same he
must have been a bit of a natural not to see it was a yeoman cap.
Muffled up. Wonder who was that chap at the grave in the brown macin.
O, the whore of the lane!

A frowsy whore with black straw sailor hat askew came glazily in the
day along the quay towards Mr Bloom. When first he saw that form
endearing? Yes, it is. I feel so lonely. Wet night in the lane. Horn.
Who had the? Heehaw shesaw. Off her beat here. What is she? Hope she.
Psst! Any chance of your wash. Knew Molly. Had me decked. Stout lady
does be with you in the brown costume. Put you off your stroke, that.
Appointment we made knowing we’d never, well hardly ever. Too dear too
near to home sweet home. Sees me, does she? Looks a fright in the day.
Face like dip. Damn her. O, well, she has to live like the rest. Look
in here.

In Lionel Marks’s antique saleshop window haughty Henry Lionel Leopold
dear Henry Flower earnestly Mr Leopold Bloom envisaged battered
candlesticks melodeon oozing maggoty blowbags. Bargain: six bob. Might
learn to play. Cheap. Let her pass. Course everything is dear if you
don’t want it. That’s what good salesman is. Make you buy what he wants
to sell. Chap sold me the Swedish razor he shaved me with. Wanted to
charge me for the edge he gave it. She’s passing now. Six bob.

Must be the cider or perhaps the burgund.

Near bronze from anear near gold from afar they chinked their clinking
glasses all, brighteyed and gallant, before bronze Lydia’s tempting
last rose of summer, rose of Castile. First Lid, De, Cow, Ker, Doll, a
fifth: Lidwell, Si Dedalus, Bob Cowley, Kernan and big Ben Dollard.

Tap. A youth entered a lonely Ormond hall.

Bloom viewed a gallant pictured hero in Lionel Marks’s window. Robert
Emmet’s last words. Seven last words. Of Meyerbeer that is.

—True men like you men.

—Ay, ay, Ben.

—Will lift your glass with us.

They lifted.

Tschink. Tschunk.

Tip. An unseeing stripling stood in the door. He saw not bronze. He saw
not gold. Nor Ben nor Bob nor Tom nor Si nor George nor tanks nor
Richie nor Pat. Hee hee hee hee. He did not see.

Seabloom, greaseabloom viewed last words. Softly. _When my country
takes her place among._

Prrprr.

Must be the bur.

Fff! Oo. Rrpr.

_Nations of the earth._ No-one behind. She’s passed. _Then and not till
then._ Tram kran kran kran. Good oppor. Coming. Krandlkrankran. I’m
sure it’s the burgund. Yes. One, two. _Let my epitaph be._ Kraaaaaa.
_Written. I have._

Pprrpffrrppffff.

_Done._


[ 12 ]

I was just passing the time of day with old Troy of the D. M. P. at the
corner of Arbour hill there and be damned but a bloody sweep came along
and he near drove his gear into my eye. I turned around to let him have
the weight of my tongue when who should I see dodging along Stony
Batter only Joe Hynes.

—Lo, Joe, says I. How are you blowing? Did you see that bloody
chimneysweep near shove my eye out with his brush?

—Soot’s luck, says Joe. Who’s the old ballocks you were talking to?

—Old Troy, says I, was in the force. I’m on two minds not to give that
fellow in charge for obstructing the thoroughfare with his brooms and
ladders.

—What are you doing round those parts? says Joe.

—Devil a much, says I. There’s a bloody big foxy thief beyond by the
garrison church at the corner of Chicken lane—old Troy was just giving
me a wrinkle about him—lifted any God’s quantity of tea and sugar to
pay three bob a week said he had a farm in the county Down off a
hop-of-my-thumb by the name of Moses Herzog over there near Heytesbury
street.

—Circumcised? says Joe.

—Ay, says I. A bit off the top. An old plumber named Geraghty. I’m
hanging on to his taw now for the past fortnight and I can’t get a
penny out of him.

—That the lay you’re on now? says Joe.

—Ay, says I. How are the mighty fallen! Collector of bad and doubtful
debts. But that’s the most notorious bloody robber you’d meet in a
day’s walk and the face on him all pockmarks would hold a shower of
rain. _Tell him,_ says he, _I dare him,_ says he, _and I doubledare him
to send you round here again or if he does,_ says he, _I’ll have him
summonsed up before the court, so I will, for trading without a
licence._ And he after stuffing himself till he’s fit to burst. Jesus,
I had to laugh at the little jewy getting his shirt out. _He drink me
my teas. He eat me my sugars. Because he no pay me my moneys?_

For nonperishable goods bought of Moses Herzog, of 13 Saint Kevin’s
parade in the city of Dublin, Wood quay ward, merchant, hereinafter
called the vendor, and sold and delivered to Michael E. Geraghty,
esquire, of 29 Arbour hill in the city of Dublin, Arran quay ward,
gentleman, hereinafter called the purchaser, videlicet, five pounds
avoirdupois of first choice tea at three shillings and no pence per
pound avoirdupois and three stone avoirdupois of sugar, crushed
crystal, at threepence per pound avoirdupois, the said purchaser debtor
to the said vendor of one pound five shillings and sixpence sterling
for value received which amount shall be paid by said purchaser to said
vendor in weekly instalments every seven calendar days of three
shillings and no pence sterling: and the said nonperishable goods shall
not be pawned or pledged or sold or otherwise alienated by the said
purchaser but shall be and remain and be held to be the sole and
exclusive property of the said vendor to be disposed of at his good
will and pleasure until the said amount shall have been duly paid by
the said purchaser to the said vendor in the manner herein set forth as
this day hereby agreed between the said vendor, his heirs, successors,
trustees and assigns of the one part and the said purchaser, his heirs,
successors, trustees and assigns of the other part.

—Are you a strict t.t.? says Joe.

—Not taking anything between drinks, says I.

—What about paying our respects to our friend? says Joe.

—Who? says I. Sure, he’s out in John of God’s off his head, poor man.

—Drinking his own stuff? says Joe.

—Ay, says I. Whisky and water on the brain.

—Come around to Barney Kiernan’s, says Joe. I want to see the citizen.

—Barney mavourneen’s be it, says I. Anything strange or wonderful, Joe?

—Not a word, says Joe. I was up at that meeting in the City Arms.

—What was that, Joe? says I.

—Cattle traders, says Joe, about the foot and mouth disease. I want to
give the citizen the hard word about it.

So we went around by the Linenhall barracks and the back of the
courthouse talking of one thing or another. Decent fellow Joe when he
has it but sure like that he never has it. Jesus, I couldn’t get over
that bloody foxy Geraghty, the daylight robber. For trading without a
licence, says he.

In Inisfail the fair there lies a land, the land of holy Michan. There
rises a watchtower beheld of men afar. There sleep the mighty dead as
in life they slept, warriors and princes of high renown. A pleasant
land it is in sooth of murmuring waters, fishful streams where sport
the gurnard, the plaice, the roach, the halibut, the gibbed haddock,
the grilse, the dab, the brill, the flounder, the pollock, the mixed
coarse fish generally and other denizens of the aqueous kingdom too
numerous to be enumerated. In the mild breezes of the west and of the
east the lofty trees wave in different directions their firstclass
foliage, the wafty sycamore, the Lebanonian cedar, the exalted
planetree, the eugenic eucalyptus and other ornaments of the arboreal
world with which that region is thoroughly well supplied. Lovely
maidens sit in close proximity to the roots of the lovely trees singing
the most lovely songs while they play with all kinds of lovely objects
as for example golden ingots, silvery fishes, crans of herrings, drafts
of eels, codlings, creels of fingerlings, purple seagems and playful
insects. And heroes voyage from afar to woo them, from Eblana to
Slievemargy, the peerless princes of unfettered Munster and of Connacht
the just and of smooth sleek Leinster and of Cruachan’s land and of
Armagh the splendid and of the noble district of Boyle, princes, the
sons of kings.

And there rises a shining palace whose crystal glittering roof is seen
by mariners who traverse the extensive sea in barks built expressly for
that purpose, and thither come all herds and fatlings and firstfruits
of that land for O’Connell Fitzsimon takes toll of them, a chieftain
descended from chieftains. Thither the extremely large wains bring
foison of the fields, flaskets of cauliflowers, floats of spinach,
pineapple chunks, Rangoon beans, strikes of tomatoes, drums of figs,
drills of Swedes, spherical potatoes and tallies of iridescent kale,
York and Savoy, and trays of onions, pearls of the earth, and punnets
of mushrooms and custard marrows and fat vetches and bere and rape and
red green yellow brown russet sweet big bitter ripe pomellated apples
and chips of strawberries and sieves of gooseberries, pulpy and
pelurious, and strawberries fit for princes and raspberries from their
canes.

I dare him, says he, and I doubledare him. Come out here, Geraghty, you
notorious bloody hill and dale robber!

And by that way wend the herds innumerable of bellwethers and flushed
ewes and shearling rams and lambs and stubble geese and medium steers
and roaring mares and polled calves and longwools and storesheep and
Cuffe’s prime springers and culls and sowpigs and baconhogs and the
various different varieties of highly distinguished swine and Angus
heifers and polly bulllocks of immaculate pedigree together with prime
premiated milchcows and beeves: and there is ever heard a trampling,
cackling, roaring, lowing, bleating, bellowing, rumbling, grunting,
champing, chewing, of sheep and pigs and heavyhooved kine from
pasturelands of Lusk and Rush and Carrickmines and from the streamy
vales of Thomond, from the M’Gillicuddy’s reeks the inaccessible and
lordly Shannon the unfathomable, and from the gentle declivities of the
place of the race of Kiar, their udders distended with superabundance
of milk and butts of butter and rennets of cheese and farmer’s firkins
and targets of lamb and crannocks of corn and oblong eggs in great
hundreds, various in size, the agate with this dun.

So we turned into Barney Kiernan’s and there, sure enough, was the
citizen up in the corner having a great confab with himself and that
bloody mangy mongrel, Garryowen, and he waiting for what the sky would
drop in the way of drink.

—There he is, says I, in his gloryhole, with his cruiskeen lawn and his
load of papers, working for the cause.

The bloody mongrel let a grouse out of him would give you the creeps.
Be a corporal work of mercy if someone would take the life of that
bloody dog. I’m told for a fact he ate a good part of the breeches off
a constabulary man in Santry that came round one time with a blue paper
about a licence.

—Stand and deliver, says he.

—That’s all right, citizen, says Joe. Friends here.

—Pass, friends, says he.

Then he rubs his hand in his eye and says he:

—What’s your opinion of the times?

Doing the rapparee and Rory of the hill. But, begob, Joe was equal to
the occasion.

—I think the markets are on a rise, says he, sliding his hand down his
fork.

So begob the citizen claps his paw on his knee and he says:

—Foreign wars is the cause of it.

And says Joe, sticking his thumb in his pocket:

—It’s the Russians wish to tyrannise.

—Arrah, give over your bloody codding, Joe, says I. I’ve a thirst on me
I wouldn’t sell for half a crown.

—Give it a name, citizen, says Joe.

—Wine of the country, says he.

—What’s yours? says Joe.

—Ditto MacAnaspey, says I.

—Three pints, Terry, says Joe. And how’s the old heart, citizen? says
he.

—Never better, _a chara_, says he. What Garry? Are we going to win? Eh?

And with that he took the bloody old towser by the scruff of the neck
and, by Jesus, he near throttled him.

The figure seated on a large boulder at the foot of a round tower was
that of a broadshouldered deepchested stronglimbed frankeyed redhaired
freelyfreckled shaggybearded widemouthed largenosed longheaded
deepvoiced barekneed brawnyhanded hairylegged ruddyfaced sinewyarmed
hero. From shoulder to shoulder he measured several ells and his
rocklike mountainous knees were covered, as was likewise the rest of
his body wherever visible, with a strong growth of tawny prickly hair
in hue and toughness similar to the mountain gorse (_Ulex Europeus_).
The widewinged nostrils, from which bristles of the same tawny hue
projected, were of such capaciousness that within their cavernous
obscurity the fieldlark might easily have lodged her nest. The eyes in
which a tear and a smile strove ever for the mastery were of the
dimensions of a goodsized cauliflower. A powerful current of warm
breath issued at regular intervals from the profound cavity of his
mouth while in rhythmic resonance the loud strong hale reverberations
of his formidable heart thundered rumblingly causing the ground, the
summit of the lofty tower and the still loftier walls of the cave to
vibrate and tremble.

He wore a long unsleeved garment of recently flayed oxhide reaching to
the knees in a loose kilt and this was bound about his middle by a
girdle of plaited straw and rushes. Beneath this he wore trews of
deerskin, roughly stitched with gut. His nether extremities were
encased in high Balbriggan buskins dyed in lichen purple, the feet
being shod with brogues of salted cowhide laced with the windpipe of
the same beast. From his girdle hung a row of seastones which jangled
at every movement of his portentous frame and on these were graven with
rude yet striking art the tribal images of many Irish heroes and
heroines of antiquity, Cuchulin, Conn of hundred battles, Niall of nine
hostages, Brian of Kincora, the ardri Malachi, Art MacMurragh, Shane
O’Neill, Father John Murphy, Owen Roe, Patrick Sarsfield, Red Hugh
O’Donnell, Red Jim MacDermott, Soggarth Eoghan O’Growney, Michael
Dwyer, Francy Higgins, Henry Joy M’Cracken, Goliath, Horace Wheatley,
Thomas Conneff, Peg Woffington, the Village Blacksmith, Captain
Moonlight, Captain Boycott, Dante Alighieri, Christopher Columbus, S.
Fursa, S. Brendan, Marshal MacMahon, Charlemagne, Theobald Wolfe Tone,
the Mother of the Maccabees, the Last of the Mohicans, the Rose of
Castile, the Man for Galway, The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte
Carlo, The Man in the Gap, The Woman Who Didn’t, Benjamin Franklin,
Napoleon Bonaparte, John L. Sullivan, Cleopatra, Savourneen Deelish,
Julius Caesar, Paracelsus, sir Thomas Lipton, William Tell,
Michelangelo Hayes, Muhammad, the Bride of Lammermoor, Peter the
Hermit, Peter the Packer, Dark Rosaleen, Patrick W. Shakespeare, Brian
Confucius, Murtagh Gutenberg, Patricio Velasquez, Captain Nemo, Tristan
and Isolde, the first Prince of Wales, Thomas Cook and Son, the Bold
Soldier Boy, Arrah na Pogue, Dick Turpin, Ludwig Beethoven, the Colleen
Bawn, Waddler Healy, Angus the Culdee, Dolly Mount, Sidney Parade, Ben
Howth, Valentine Greatrakes, Adam and Eve, Arthur Wellesley, Boss
Croker, Herodotus, Jack the Giantkiller, Gautama Buddha, Lady Godiva,
The Lily of Killarney, Balor of the Evil Eye, the Queen of Sheba, Acky
Nagle, Joe Nagle, Alessandro Volta, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, Don
Philip O’Sullivan Beare. A couched spear of acuminated granite rested
by him while at his feet reposed a savage animal of the canine tribe
whose stertorous gasps announced that he was sunk in uneasy slumber, a
supposition confirmed by hoarse growls and spasmodic movements which
his master repressed from time to time by tranquilising blows of a
mighty cudgel rudely fashioned out of paleolithic stone.

So anyhow Terry brought the three pints Joe was standing and begob the
sight nearly left my eyes when I saw him land out a quid. O, as true as
I’m telling you. A goodlooking sovereign.

—And there’s more where that came from, says he.

—Were you robbing the poorbox, Joe? says I.

—Sweat of my brow, says Joe. ’Twas the prudent member gave me the
wheeze.

—I saw him before I met you, says I, sloping around by Pill lane and
Greek street with his cod’s eye counting up all the guts of the fish.

Who comes through Michan’s land, bedight in sable armour? O’Bloom, the
son of Rory: it is he. Impervious to fear is Rory’s son: he of the
prudent soul.

—For the old woman of Prince’s street, says the citizen, the subsidised
organ. The pledgebound party on the floor of the house. And look at
this blasted rag, says he. Look at this, says he. _The Irish
Independent,_ if you please, founded by Parnell to be the workingman’s
friend. Listen to the births and deaths in the _Irish all for Ireland
Independent,_ and I’ll thank you and the marriages.

And he starts reading them out:

—Gordon, Barnfield crescent, Exeter; Redmayne of Iffley, Saint Anne’s
on Sea: the wife of William T Redmayne of a son. How’s that, eh? Wright
and Flint, Vincent and Gillett to Rotha Marion daughter of Rosa and the
late George Alfred Gillett, 179 Clapham road, Stockwell, Playwood and
Ridsdale at Saint Jude’s, Kensington by the very reverend Dr Forrest,
dean of Worcester. Eh? Deaths. Bristow, at Whitehall lane, London:
Carr, Stoke Newington, of gastritis and heart disease: Cockburn, at the
Moat house, Chepstow...

—I know that fellow, says Joe, from bitter experience.

—Cockburn. Dimsey, wife of David Dimsey, late of the admiralty: Miller,
Tottenham, aged eightyfive: Welsh, June 12, at 35 Canning street,
Liverpool, Isabella Helen. How’s that for a national press, eh, my
brown son! How’s that for Martin Murphy, the Bantry jobber?

—Ah, well, says Joe, handing round the boose. Thanks be to God they had
the start of us. Drink that, citizen.

—I will, says he, honourable person.

—Health, Joe, says I. And all down the form.

Ah! Ow! Don’t be talking! I was blue mouldy for the want of that pint.
Declare to God I could hear it hit the pit of my stomach with a click.

And lo, as they quaffed their cup of joy, a godlike messenger came
swiftly in, radiant as the eye of heaven, a comely youth and behind him
there passed an elder of noble gait and countenance, bearing the sacred
scrolls of law and with him his lady wife a dame of peerless lineage,
fairest of her race.

Little Alf Bergan popped in round the door and hid behind Barney’s
snug, squeezed up with the laughing. And who was sitting up there in
the corner that I hadn’t seen snoring drunk blind to the world only Bob
Doran. I didn’t know what was up and Alf kept making signs out of the
door. And begob what was it only that bloody old pantaloon Denis Breen
in his bathslippers with two bloody big books tucked under his oxter
and the wife hotfoot after him, unfortunate wretched woman, trotting
like a poodle. I thought Alf would split.

—Look at him, says he. Breen. He’s traipsing all round Dublin with a
postcard someone sent him with U. p: up on it to take a li...

And he doubled up.

—Take a what? says I.

—Libel action, says he, for ten thousand pounds.

—O hell! says I.

The bloody mongrel began to growl that’d put the fear of God in you
seeing something was up but the citizen gave him a kick in the ribs.

_—Bi i dho husht,_ says he.

—Who? says Joe.

—Breen, says Alf. He was in John Henry Menton’s and then he went round
to Collis and Ward’s and then Tom Rochford met him and sent him round
to the subsheriff’s for a lark. O God, I’ve a pain laughing. U. p: up.
The long fellow gave him an eye as good as a process and now the bloody
old lunatic is gone round to Green street to look for a G man.

—When is long John going to hang that fellow in Mountjoy? says Joe.

—Bergan, says Bob Doran, waking up. Is that Alf Bergan?

—Yes, says Alf. Hanging? Wait till I show you. Here, Terry, give us a
pony. That bloody old fool! Ten thousand pounds. You should have seen
long John’s eye. U. p ....

And he started laughing.

—Who are you laughing at? says Bob Doran. Is that Bergan?

—Hurry up, Terry boy, says Alf.

Terence O’Ryan heard him and straightway brought him a crystal cup full
of the foamy ebon ale which the noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and
Bungardilaun brew ever in their divine alevats, cunning as the sons of
deathless Leda. For they garner the succulent berries of the hop and
mass and sift and bruise and brew them and they mix therewith sour
juices and bring the must to the sacred fire and cease not night or day
from their toil, those cunning brothers, lords of the vat.

Then did you, chivalrous Terence, hand forth, as to the manner born,
that nectarous beverage and you offered the crystal cup to him that
thirsted, the soul of chivalry, in beauty akin to the immortals.

But he, the young chief of the O’Bergan’s, could ill brook to be
outdone in generous deeds but gave therefor with gracious gesture a
testoon of costliest bronze. Thereon embossed in excellent smithwork
was seen the image of a queen of regal port, scion of the house of
Brunswick, Victoria her name, Her Most Excellent Majesty, by grace of
God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the
British dominions beyond the sea, queen, defender of the faith, Empress
of India, even she, who bore rule, a victress over many peoples, the
wellbeloved, for they knew and loved her from the rising of the sun to
the going down thereof, the pale, the dark, the ruddy and the ethiop.

—What’s that bloody freemason doing, says the citizen, prowling up and
down outside?

—What’s that? says Joe.

—Here you are, says Alf, chucking out the rhino. Talking about hanging,
I’ll show you something you never saw. Hangmen’s letters. Look at here.

So he took a bundle of wisps of letters and envelopes out of his
pocket.

—Are you codding? says I.

—Honest injun, says Alf. Read them.

So Joe took up the letters.

—Who are you laughing at? says Bob Doran.

So I saw there was going to be a bit of a dust. Bob’s a queer chap when
the porter’s up in him so says I just to make talk:

—How’s Willy Murray those times, Alf?

—I don’t know, says Alf. I saw him just now in Capel street with Paddy
Dignam. Only I was running after that...

—You what? says Joe, throwing down the letters. With who?

—With Dignam, says Alf.

—Is it Paddy? says Joe.

—Yes, says Alf. Why?

—Don’t you know he’s dead? says Joe.

—Paddy Dignam dead! says Alf.

—Ay, says Joe.

—Sure I’m after seeing him not five minutes ago, says Alf, as plain as
a pikestaff.

—Who’s dead? says Bob Doran.

—You saw his ghost then, says Joe, God between us and harm.

—What? says Alf. Good Christ, only five... What?... And Willy Murray
with him, the two of them there near whatdoyoucallhim’s... What? Dignam
dead?

—What about Dignam? says Bob Doran. Who’s talking about...?

—Dead! says Alf. He’s no more dead than you are.

—Maybe so, says Joe. They took the liberty of burying him this morning
anyhow.

—Paddy? says Alf.

—Ay, says Joe. He paid the debt of nature, God be merciful to him.

—Good Christ! says Alf.

Begob he was what you might call flabbergasted.

In the darkness spirit hands were felt to flutter and when prayer by
tantras had been directed to the proper quarter a faint but increasing
luminosity of ruby light became gradually visible, the apparition of
the etheric double being particularly lifelike owing to the discharge
of jivic rays from the crown of the head and face. Communication was
effected through the pituitary body and also by means of the
orangefiery and scarlet rays emanating from the sacral region and solar
plexus. Questioned by his earthname as to his whereabouts in the
heavenworld he stated that he was now on the path of prālāyā or return
but was still submitted to trial at the hands of certain bloodthirsty
entities on the lower astral levels. In reply to a question as to his
first sensations in the great divide beyond he stated that previously
he had seen as in a glass darkly but that those who had passed over had
summit possibilities of atmic development opened up to them.
Interrogated as to whether life there resembled our experience in the
flesh he stated that he had heard from more favoured beings now in the
spirit that their abodes were equipped with every modern home comfort
such as tālāfānā, ālāvātār, hātākāldā, wātāklāsāt and that the highest
adepts were steeped in waves of volupcy of the very purest nature.
Having requested a quart of buttermilk this was brought and evidently
afforded relief. Asked if he had any message for the living he exhorted
all who were still at the wrong side of Māyā to acknowledge the true
path for it was reported in devanic circles that Mars and Jupiter were
out for mischief on the eastern angle where the ram has power. It was
then queried whether there were any special desires on the part of the
defunct and the reply was: _We greet you, friends of earth, who are
still in the body. Mind C. K. doesn’t pile it on._ It was ascertained
that the reference was to Mr Cornelius Kelleher, manager of Messrs H.
J. O’Neill’s popular funeral establishment, a personal friend of the
defunct, who had been responsible for the carrying out of the interment
arrangements. Before departing he requested that it should be told to
his dear son Patsy that the other boot which he had been looking for
was at present under the commode in the return room and that the pair
should be sent to Cullen’s to be soled only as the heels were still
good. He stated that this had greatly perturbed his peace of mind in
the other region and earnestly requested that his desire should be made
known.

Assurances were given that the matter would be attended to and it was
intimated that this had given satisfaction.

He is gone from mortal haunts: O’Dignam, sun of our morning. Fleet was
his foot on the bracken: Patrick of the beamy brow. Wail, Banba, with
your wind: and wail, O ocean, with your whirlwind.

—There he is again, says the citizen, staring out.

—Who? says I.

—Bloom, says he. He’s on point duty up and down there for the last ten
minutes.

And, begob, I saw his physog do a peep in and then slidder off again.

Little Alf was knocked bawways. Faith, he was.

—Good Christ! says he. I could have sworn it was him.

And says Bob Doran, with the hat on the back of his poll, lowest
blackguard in Dublin when he’s under the influence:

—Who said Christ is good?

—I beg your parsnips, says Alf.

—Is that a good Christ, says Bob Doran, to take away poor little Willy
Dignam?

—Ah, well, says Alf, trying to pass it off. He’s over all his troubles.

But Bob Doran shouts out of him.

—He’s a bloody ruffian, I say, to take away poor little Willy Dignam.

Terry came down and tipped him the wink to keep quiet, that they didn’t
want that kind of talk in a respectable licensed premises. And Bob
Doran starts doing the weeps about Paddy Dignam, true as you’re there.

—The finest man, says he, snivelling, the finest purest character.

The tear is bloody near your eye. Talking through his bloody hat.
Fitter for him go home to the little sleepwalking bitch he married,
Mooney, the bumbailiff’s daughter, mother kept a kip in Hardwicke
street, that used to be stravaging about the landings Bantam Lyons told
me that was stopping there at two in the morning without a stitch on
her, exposing her person, open to all comers, fair field and no favour.

—The noblest, the truest, says he. And he’s gone, poor little Willy,
poor little Paddy Dignam.

And mournful and with a heavy heart he bewept the extinction of that
beam of heaven.

Old Garryowen started growling again at Bloom that was skeezing round
the door.

—Come in, come on, he won’t eat you, says the citizen.

So Bloom slopes in with his cod’s eye on the dog and he asks Terry was
Martin Cunningham there.

—O, Christ M’Keown, says Joe, reading one of the letters. Listen to
this, will you?

And he starts reading out one.

_7 Hunter Street,
Liverpool._


_To the High Sheriff of Dublin,
            Dublin._


_Honoured sir i beg to offer my services in the abovementioned painful
case i hanged Joe Gann in Bootle jail on the 12 of Febuary 1900 and i
hanged..._

—Show us, Joe, says I.

—_... private Arthur Chace for fowl murder of Jessie Tilsit in
Pentonville prison and i was assistant when..._

—Jesus, says I.

—_... Billington executed the awful murderer Toad Smith..._

The citizen made a grab at the letter.

—Hold hard, says Joe, _i have a special nack of putting the noose once
in he can’t get out hoping to be favoured i remain, honoured sir, my
terms is five ginnees._

_H. Rumbold,
            Master Barber._


—And a barbarous bloody barbarian he is too, says the citizen.

—And the dirty scrawl of the wretch, says Joe. Here, says he, take them
to hell out of my sight, Alf. Hello, Bloom, says he, what will you
have?

So they started arguing about the point, Bloom saying he wouldn’t and
he couldn’t and excuse him no offence and all to that and then he said
well he’d just take a cigar. Gob, he’s a prudent member and no mistake.

—Give us one of your prime stinkers, Terry, says Joe.

And Alf was telling us there was one chap sent in a mourning card with
a black border round it.

—They’re all barbers, says he, from the black country that would hang
their own fathers for five quid down and travelling expenses.

And he was telling us there’s two fellows waiting below to pull his
heels down when he gets the drop and choke him properly and then they
chop up the rope after and sell the bits for a few bob a skull.

In the dark land they bide, the vengeful knights of the razor. Their
deadly coil they grasp: yea, and therein they lead to Erebus whatsoever
wight hath done a deed of blood for I will on nowise suffer it even so
saith the Lord.

So they started talking about capital punishment and of course Bloom
comes out with the why and the wherefore and all the codology of the
business and the old dog smelling him all the time I’m told those
jewies does have a sort of a queer odour coming off them for dogs about
I don’t know what all deterrent effect and so forth and so on.

—There’s one thing it hasn’t a deterrent effect on, says Alf.

—What’s that? says Joe.

—The poor bugger’s tool that’s being hanged, says Alf.

—That so? says Joe.

—God’s truth, says Alf. I heard that from the head warder that was in
Kilmainham when they hanged Joe Brady, the invincible. He told me when
they cut him down after the drop it was standing up in their faces like
a poker.

—Ruling passion strong in death, says Joe, as someone said.

—That can be explained by science, says Bloom. It’s only a natural
phenomenon, don’t you see, because on account of the...

And then he starts with his jawbreakers about phenomenon and science
and this phenomenon and the other phenomenon.

The distinguished scientist Herr Professor Luitpold Blumenduft tendered
medical evidence to the effect that the instantaneous fracture of the
cervical vertebrae and consequent scission of the spinal cord would,
according to the best approved tradition of medical science, be
calculated to inevitably produce in the human subject a violent
ganglionic stimulus of the nerve centres of the genital apparatus,
thereby causing the elastic pores of the _corpora cavernosa_ to rapidly
dilate in such a way as to instantaneously facilitate the flow of blood
to that part of the human anatomy known as the penis or male organ
resulting in the phenomenon which has been denominated by the faculty a
morbid upwards and outwards philoprogenitive erection _in articulo
mortis per diminutionem capitis._

So of course the citizen was only waiting for the wink of the word and
he starts gassing out of him about the invincibles and the old guard
and the men of sixtyseven and who fears to speak of ninetyeight and Joe
with him about all the fellows that were hanged, drawn and transported
for the cause by drumhead courtmartial and a new Ireland and new this,
that and the other. Talking about new Ireland he ought to go and get a
new dog so he ought. Mangy ravenous brute sniffing and sneezing all
round the place and scratching his scabs. And round he goes to Bob
Doran that was standing Alf a half one sucking up for what he could
get. So of course Bob Doran starts doing the bloody fool with him:

—Give us the paw! Give the paw, doggy! Good old doggy! Give the paw
here! Give us the paw!

Arrah, bloody end to the paw he’d paw and Alf trying to keep him from
tumbling off the bloody stool atop of the bloody old dog and he talking
all kinds of drivel about training by kindness and thoroughbred dog and
intelligent dog: give you the bloody pip. Then he starts scraping a few
bits of old biscuit out of the bottom of a Jacobs’ tin he told Terry to
bring. Gob, he golloped it down like old boots and his tongue hanging
out of him a yard long for more. Near ate the tin and all, hungry
bloody mongrel.

And the citizen and Bloom having an argument about the point, the
brothers Sheares and Wolfe Tone beyond on Arbour Hill and Robert Emmet
and die for your country, the Tommy Moore touch about Sara Curran and
she’s far from the land. And Bloom, of course, with his knockmedown
cigar putting on swank with his lardy face. Phenomenon! The fat heap he
married is a nice old phenomenon with a back on her like a ballalley.
Time they were stopping up in the _City Arms_ pisser Burke told me
there was an old one there with a cracked loodheramaun of a nephew and
Bloom trying to get the soft side of her doing the mollycoddle playing
bézique to come in for a bit of the wampum in her will and not eating
meat of a Friday because the old one was always thumping her craw and
taking the lout out for a walk. And one time he led him the rounds of
Dublin and, by the holy farmer, he never cried crack till he brought
him home as drunk as a boiled owl and he said he did it to teach him
the evils of alcohol and by herrings, if the three women didn’t near
roast him, it’s a queer story, the old one, Bloom’s wife and Mrs O’Dowd
that kept the hotel. Jesus, I had to laugh at pisser Burke taking them
off chewing the fat. And Bloom with his _but don’t you see?_ and _but
on the other hand_. And sure, more be token, the lout I’m told was in
Power’s after, the blender’s, round in Cope street going home footless
in a cab five times in the week after drinking his way through all the
samples in the bloody establishment. Phenomenon!

—The memory of the dead, says the citizen taking up his pintglass and
glaring at Bloom.

—Ay, ay, says Joe.

—You don’t grasp my point, says Bloom. What I mean is...

—_Sinn Fein!_ says the citizen. _Sinn Fein amhain!_ The friends we love
are by our side and the foes we hate before us.

The last farewell was affecting in the extreme. From the belfries far
and near the funereal deathbell tolled unceasingly while all around the
gloomy precincts rolled the ominous warning of a hundred muffled drums
punctuated by the hollow booming of pieces of ordnance. The deafening
claps of thunder and the dazzling flashes of lightning which lit up the
ghastly scene testified that the artillery of heaven had lent its
supernatural pomp to the already gruesome spectacle. A torrential rain
poured down from the floodgates of the angry heavens upon the bared
heads of the assembled multitude which numbered at the lowest
computation five hundred thousand persons. A posse of Dublin
Metropolitan police superintended by the Chief Commissioner in person
maintained order in the vast throng for whom the York street brass and
reed band whiled away the intervening time by admirably rendering on
their blackdraped instruments the matchless melody endeared to us from
the cradle by Speranza’s plaintive muse. Special quick excursion trains
and upholstered charabancs had been provided for the comfort of our
country cousins of whom there were large contingents. Considerable
amusement was caused by the favourite Dublin streetsingers L-n-h-n and
M-ll-g-n who sang _The Night before Larry was stretched_ in their usual
mirth-provoking fashion. Our two inimitable drolls did a roaring trade
with their broadsheets among lovers of the comedy element and nobody
who has a corner in his heart for real Irish fun without vulgarity will
grudge them their hardearned pennies. The children of the Male and
Female Foundling Hospital who thronged the windows overlooking the
scene were delighted with this unexpected addition to the day’s
entertainment and a word of praise is due to the Little Sisters of the
Poor for their excellent idea of affording the poor fatherless and
motherless children a genuinely instructive treat. The viceregal
houseparty which included many wellknown ladies was chaperoned by Their
Excellencies to the most favourable positions on the grandstand while
the picturesque foreign delegation known as the Friends of the Emerald
Isle was accommodated on a tribune directly opposite. The delegation,
present in full force, consisted of Commendatore Bacibaci Beninobenone
(the semiparalysed _doyen_ of the party who had to be assisted to his
seat by the aid of a powerful steam crane), Monsieur Pierrepaul
Petitépatant, the Grandjoker Vladinmire Pokethankertscheff, the
Archjoker Leopold Rudolph von Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler, Countess Marha
Virága Kisászony Putrápesthi, Hiram Y. Bomboost, Count Athanatos
Karamelopulos, Ali Baba Backsheesh Rahat Lokum Effendi, Señor Hidalgo
Caballero Don Pecadillo y Palabras y Paternoster de la Malora de la
Malaria, Hokopoko Harakiri, Hi Hung Chang, Olaf Kobberkeddelsen,
Mynheer Trik van Trumps, Pan Poleaxe Paddyrisky, Goosepond Prhklstr
Kratchinabritchisitch, Borus Hupinkoff, Herr Hurhausdirektorpresident
Hans Chuechli-Steuerli,
Nationalgymnasiummuseumsanatoriumandsuspensoriumsordinaryprivatdocentge
neralhistoryspecialprofessordoctor Kriegfried Ueberallgemein. All the
delegates without exception expressed themselves in the strongest
possible heterogeneous terms concerning the nameless barbarity which
they had been called upon to witness. An animated altercation (in which
all took part) ensued among the F. O. T. E. I. as to whether the eighth
or the ninth of March was the correct date of the birth of Ireland’s
patron saint. In the course of the argument cannonballs, scimitars,
boomerangs, blunderbusses, stinkpots, meatchoppers, umbrellas,
catapults, knuckledusters, sandbags, lumps of pig iron were resorted to
and blows were freely exchanged. The baby policeman, Constable
MacFadden, summoned by special courier from Booterstown, quickly
restored order and with lightning promptitude proposed the seventeenth
of the month as a solution equally honourable for both contending
parties. The readywitted ninefooter’s suggestion at once appealed to
all and was unanimously accepted. Constable MacFadden was heartily
congratulated by all the F. O. T. E. I., several of whom were bleeding
profusely. Commendatore Beninobenone having been extricated from
underneath the presidential armchair, it was explained by his legal
adviser Avvocato Pagamimi that the various articles secreted in his
thirtytwo pockets had been abstracted by him during the affray from the
pockets of his junior colleagues in the hope of bringing them to their
senses. The objects (which included several hundred ladies’ and
gentlemen’s gold and silver watches) were promptly restored to their
rightful owners and general harmony reigned supreme.

Quietly, unassumingly Rumbold stepped on to the scaffold in faultless
morning dress and wearing his favourite flower, the _Gladiolus
Cruentus_. He announced his presence by that gentle Rumboldian cough
which so many have tried (unsuccessfully) to imitate—short, painstaking
yet withal so characteristic of the man. The arrival of the
worldrenowned headsman was greeted by a roar of acclamation from the
huge concourse, the viceregal ladies waving their handkerchiefs in
their excitement while the even more excitable foreign delegates
cheered vociferously in a medley of cries, _hoch, banzai, eljen, zivio,
chinchin, polla kronia, hiphip, vive, Allah_, amid which the ringing
_evviva_ of the delegate of the land of song (a high double F recalling
those piercingly lovely notes with which the eunuch Catalani
beglamoured our greatgreatgrandmothers) was easily distinguishable. It
was exactly seventeen o’clock. The signal for prayer was then promptly
given by megaphone and in an instant all heads were bared, the
commendatore’s patriarchal sombrero, which has been in the possession
of his family since the revolution of Rienzi, being removed by his
medical adviser in attendance, Dr Pippi. The learned prelate who
administered the last comforts of holy religion to the hero martyr when
about to pay the death penalty knelt in a most christian spirit in a
pool of rainwater, his cassock above his hoary head, and offered up to
the throne of grace fervent prayers of supplication. Hard by the block
stood the grim figure of the executioner, his visage being concealed in
a tengallon pot with two circular perforated apertures through which
his eyes glowered furiously. As he awaited the fatal signal he tested
the edge of his horrible weapon by honing it upon his brawny forearm or
decapitated in rapid succession a flock of sheep which had been
provided by the admirers of his fell but necessary office. On a
handsome mahogany table near him were neatly arranged the quartering
knife, the various finely tempered disembowelling appliances (specially
supplied by the worldfamous firm of cutlers, Messrs John Round and
Sons, Sheffield), a terra cotta saucepan for the reception of the
duodenum, colon, blind intestine and appendix etc when successfully
extracted and two commodious milkjugs destined to receive the most
precious blood of the most precious victim. The housesteward of the
amalgamated cats’ and dogs’ home was in attendance to convey these
vessels when replenished to that beneficent institution. Quite an
excellent repast consisting of rashers and eggs, fried steak and
onions, done to a nicety, delicious hot breakfast rolls and
invigorating tea had been considerately provided by the authorities for
the consumption of the central figure of the tragedy who was in capital
spirits when prepared for death and evinced the keenest interest in the
proceedings from beginning to end but he, with an abnegation rare in
these our times, rose nobly to the occasion and expressed the dying
wish (immediately acceded to) that the meal should be divided in
aliquot parts among the members of the sick and indigent roomkeepers’
association as a token of his regard and esteem. The _nec_ and _non
plus ultra_ of emotion were reached when the blushing bride elect burst
her way through the serried ranks of the bystanders and flung herself
upon the muscular bosom of him who was about to be launched into
eternity for her sake. The hero folded her willowy form in a loving
embrace murmuring fondly _Sheila, my own_. Encouraged by this use of
her christian name she kissed passionately all the various suitable
areas of his person which the decencies of prison garb permitted her
ardour to reach. She swore to him as they mingled the salt streams of
their tears that she would ever cherish his memory, that she would
never forget her hero boy who went to his death with a song on his lips
as if he were but going to a hurling match in Clonturk park. She
brought back to his recollection the happy days of blissful childhood
together on the banks of Anna Liffey when they had indulged in the
innocent pastimes of the young and, oblivious of the dreadful present,
they both laughed heartily, all the spectators, including the venerable
pastor, joining in the general merriment. That monster audience simply
rocked with delight. But anon they were overcome with grief and clasped
their hands for the last time. A fresh torrent of tears burst from
their lachrymal ducts and the vast concourse of people, touched to the
inmost core, broke into heartrending sobs, not the least affected being
the aged prebendary himself. Big strong men, officers of the peace and
genial giants of the royal Irish constabulary, were making frank use of
their handkerchiefs and it is safe to say that there was not a dry eye
in that record assemblage. A most romantic incident occurred when a
handsome young Oxford graduate, noted for his chivalry towards the fair
sex, stepped forward and, presenting his visiting card, bankbook and
genealogical tree, solicited the hand of the hapless young lady,
requesting her to name the day, and was accepted on the spot. Every
lady in the audience was presented with a tasteful souvenir of the
occasion in the shape of a skull and crossbones brooch, a timely and
generous act which evoked a fresh outburst of emotion: and when the
gallant young Oxonian (the bearer, by the way, of one of the most
timehonoured names in Albion’s history) placed on the finger of his
blushing _fiancée_ an expensive engagement ring with emeralds set in
the form of a fourleaved shamrock the excitement knew no bounds. Nay,
even the stern provostmarshal, lieutenantcolonel Tomkin-Maxwell
ffrenchmullan Tomlinson, who presided on the sad occasion, he who had
blown a considerable number of sepoys from the cannonmouth without
flinching, could not now restrain his natural emotion. With his mailed
gauntlet he brushed away a furtive tear and was overheard, by those
privileged burghers who happened to be in his immediate _entourage,_ to
murmur to himself in a faltering undertone:

—God blimey if she aint a clinker, that there bleeding tart. Blimey it
makes me kind of bleeding cry, straight, it does, when I sees her cause
I thinks of my old mashtub what’s waiting for me down Limehouse way.

So then the citizen begins talking about the Irish language and the
corporation meeting and all to that and the shoneens that can’t speak
their own language and Joe chipping in because he stuck someone for a
quid and Bloom putting in his old goo with his twopenny stump that he
cadged off of Joe and talking about the Gaelic league and the
antitreating league and drink, the curse of Ireland. Antitreating is
about the size of it. Gob, he’d let you pour all manner of drink down
his throat till the Lord would call him before you’d ever see the froth
of his pint. And one night I went in with a fellow into one of their
musical evenings, song and dance about she could get up on a truss of
hay she could my Maureen Lay and there was a fellow with a Ballyhooly
blue ribbon badge spiffing out of him in Irish and a lot of colleen
bawns going about with temperance beverages and selling medals and
oranges and lemonade and a few old dry buns, gob, flahoolagh
entertainment, don’t be talking. Ireland sober is Ireland free. And
then an old fellow starts blowing into his bagpipes and all the gougers
shuffling their feet to the tune the old cow died of. And one or two
sky pilots having an eye around that there was no goings on with the
females, hitting below the belt.

So howandever, as I was saying, the old dog seeing the tin was empty
starts mousing around by Joe and me. I’d train him by kindness, so I
would, if he was my dog. Give him a rousing fine kick now and again
where it wouldn’t blind him.

—Afraid he’ll bite you? says the citizen, jeering.

—No, says I. But he might take my leg for a lamppost.

So he calls the old dog over.

—What’s on you, Garry? says he.

Then he starts hauling and mauling and talking to him in Irish and the
old towser growling, letting on to answer, like a duet in the opera.
Such growling you never heard as they let off between them. Someone
that has nothing better to do ought to write a letter _pro bono
publico_ to the papers about the muzzling order for a dog the like of
that. Growling and grousing and his eye all bloodshot from the drouth
is in it and the hydrophobia dropping out of his jaws.

All those who are interested in the spread of human culture among the
lower animals (and their name is legion) should make a point of not
missing the really marvellous exhibition of cynanthropy given by the
famous old Irish red setter wolfdog formerly known by the _sobriquet_
of Garryowen and recently rechristened by his large circle of friends
and acquaintances Owen Garry. The exhibition, which is the result of
years of training by kindness and a carefully thoughtout dietary
system, comprises, among other achievements, the recitation of verse.
Our greatest living phonetic expert (wild horses shall not drag it from
us!) has left no stone unturned in his efforts to delucidate and
compare the verse recited and has found it bears a _striking_
resemblance (the italics are ours) to the ranns of ancient Celtic
bards. We are not speaking so much of those delightful lovesongs with
which the writer who conceals his identity under the graceful pseudonym
of the Little Sweet Branch has familiarised the bookloving world but
rather (as a contributor D. O. C. points out in an interesting
communication published by an evening contemporary) of the harsher and
more personal note which is found in the satirical effusions of the
famous Raftery and of Donal MacConsidine to say nothing of a more
modern lyrist at present very much in the public eye. We subjoin a
specimen which has been rendered into English by an eminent scholar
whose name for the moment we are not at liberty to disclose though we
believe that our readers will find the topical allusion rather more
than an indication. The metrical system of the canine original, which
recalls the intricate alliterative and isosyllabic rules of the Welsh
englyn, is infinitely more complicated but we believe our readers will
agree that the spirit has been well caught. Perhaps it should be added
that the effect is greatly increased if Owen’s verse be spoken somewhat
slowly and indistinctly in a tone suggestive of suppressed rancour.

     The curse of my curses
     Seven days every day
     And seven dry Thursdays
     On you, Barney Kiernan,
     Has no sup of water
     To cool my courage,
     And my guts red roaring
     After Lowry’s lights.

So he told Terry to bring some water for the dog and, gob, you could
hear him lapping it up a mile off. And Joe asked him would he have
another.

—I will, says he, _a chara_, to show there’s no ill feeling.

Gob, he’s not as green as he’s cabbagelooking. Arsing around from one
pub to another, leaving it to your own honour, with old Giltrap’s dog
and getting fed up by the ratepayers and corporators. Entertainment for
man and beast. And says Joe:

—Could you make a hole in another pint?

—Could a swim duck? says I.

—Same again, Terry, says Joe. Are you sure you won’t have anything in
the way of liquid refreshment? says he.

—Thank you, no, says Bloom. As a matter of fact I just wanted to meet
Martin Cunningham, don’t you see, about this insurance of poor
Dignam’s. Martin asked me to go to the house. You see, he, Dignam, I
mean, didn’t serve any notice of the assignment on the company at the
time and nominally under the act the mortgagee can’t recover on the
policy.

—Holy Wars, says Joe, laughing, that’s a good one if old Shylock is
landed. So the wife comes out top dog, what?

—Well, that’s a point, says Bloom, for the wife’s admirers.

—Whose admirers? says Joe.

—The wife’s advisers, I mean, says Bloom.

Then he starts all confused mucking it up about mortgagor under the act
like the lord chancellor giving it out on the bench and for the benefit
of the wife and that a trust is created but on the other hand that
Dignam owed Bridgeman the money and if now the wife or the widow
contested the mortgagee’s right till he near had the head of me addled
with his mortgagor under the act. He was bloody safe he wasn’t run in
himself under the act that time as a rogue and vagabond only he had a
friend in court. Selling bazaar tickets or what do you call it royal
Hungarian privileged lottery. True as you’re there. O, commend me to an
israelite! Royal and privileged Hungarian robbery.

So Bob Doran comes lurching around asking Bloom to tell Mrs Dignam he
was sorry for her trouble and he was very sorry about the funeral and
to tell her that he said and everyone who knew him said that there was
never a truer, a finer than poor little Willy that’s dead to tell her.
Choking with bloody foolery. And shaking Bloom’s hand doing the tragic
to tell her that. Shake hands, brother. You’re a rogue and I’m another.

—Let me, said he, so far presume upon our acquaintance which, however
slight it may appear if judged by the standard of mere time, is
founded, as I hope and believe, on a sentiment of mutual esteem as to
request of you this favour. But, should I have overstepped the limits
of reserve let the sincerity of my feelings be the excuse for my
boldness.

—No, rejoined the other, I appreciate to the full the motives which
actuate your conduct and I shall discharge the office you entrust to me
consoled by the reflection that, though the errand be one of sorrow,
this proof of your confidence sweetens in some measure the bitterness
of the cup.

—Then suffer me to take your hand, said he. The goodness of your heart,
I feel sure, will dictate to you better than my inadequate words the
expressions which are most suitable to convey an emotion whose
poignancy, were I to give vent to my feelings, would deprive me even of
speech.

And off with him and out trying to walk straight. Boosed at five
o’clock. Night he was near being lagged only Paddy Leonard knew the
bobby, 14A. Blind to the world up in a shebeen in Bride street after
closing time, fornicating with two shawls and a bully on guard,
drinking porter out of teacups. And calling himself a Frenchy for the
shawls, Joseph Manuo, and talking against the Catholic religion, and he
serving mass in Adam and Eve’s when he was young with his eyes shut,
who wrote the new testament, and the old testament, and hugging and
smugging. And the two shawls killed with the laughing, picking his
pockets, the bloody fool and he spilling the porter all over the bed
and the two shawls screeching laughing at one another. _How is your
testament? Have you got an old testament?_ Only Paddy was passing
there, I tell you what. Then see him of a Sunday with his little
concubine of a wife, and she wagging her tail up the aisle of the
chapel with her patent boots on her, no less, and her violets, nice as
pie, doing the little lady. Jack Mooney’s sister. And the old
prostitute of a mother procuring rooms to street couples. Gob, Jack
made him toe the line. Told him if he didn’t patch up the pot, Jesus,
he’d kick the shite out of him.

So Terry brought the three pints.

—Here, says Joe, doing the honours. Here, citizen.

—_Slan leat_, says he.

—Fortune, Joe, says I. Good health, citizen.

Gob, he had his mouth half way down the tumbler already. Want a small
fortune to keep him in drinks.

—Who is the long fellow running for the mayoralty, Alf? says Joe.

—Friend of yours, says Alf.

—Nannan? says Joe. The mimber?

—I won’t mention any names, says Alf.

—I thought so, says Joe. I saw him up at that meeting now with William
Field, M. P., the cattle traders.

—Hairy Iopas, says the citizen, that exploded volcano, the darling of
all countries and the idol of his own.

So Joe starts telling the citizen about the foot and mouth disease and
the cattle traders and taking action in the matter and the citizen
sending them all to the rightabout and Bloom coming out with his
sheepdip for the scab and a hoose drench for coughing calves and the
guaranteed remedy for timber tongue. Because he was up one time in a
knacker’s yard. Walking about with his book and pencil here’s my head
and my heels are coming till Joe Cuffe gave him the order of the boot
for giving lip to a grazier. Mister Knowall. Teach your grandmother how
to milk ducks. Pisser Burke was telling me in the hotel the wife used
to be in rivers of tears some times with Mrs O’Dowd crying her eyes out
with her eight inches of fat all over her. Couldn’t loosen her farting
strings but old cod’s eye was waltzing around her showing her how to do
it. What’s your programme today? Ay. Humane methods. Because the poor
animals suffer and experts say and the best known remedy that doesn’t
cause pain to the animal and on the sore spot administer gently. Gob,
he’d have a soft hand under a hen.

Ga Ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Black Liz is our hen. She lays eggs for
us. When she lays her egg she is so glad. Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Then
comes good uncle Leo. He puts his hand under black Liz and takes her
fresh egg. Ga ga ga ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook.

—Anyhow, says Joe, Field and Nannetti are going over tonight to London
to ask about it on the floor of the house of commons.

—Are you sure, says Bloom, the councillor is going? I wanted to see
him, as it happens.

—Well, he’s going off by the mailboat, says Joe, tonight.

—That’s too bad, says Bloom. I wanted particularly. Perhaps only Mr
Field is going. I couldn’t phone. No. You’re sure?

—Nannan’s going too, says Joe. The league told him to ask a question
tomorrow about the commissioner of police forbidding Irish games in the
park. What do you think of that, citizen? _The Sluagh na h-Eireann_.

Mr Cowe Conacre (Multifarnham. Nat.): Arising out of the question of my
honourable friend, the member for Shillelagh, may I ask the right
honourable gentleman whether the government has issued orders that
these animals shall be slaughtered though no medical evidence is
forthcoming as to their pathological condition?

Mr Allfours (Tamoshant. Con.): Honourable members are already in
possession of the evidence produced before a committee of the whole
house. I feel I cannot usefully add anything to that. The answer to the
honourable member’s question is in the affirmative.

Mr Orelli O’Reilly (Montenotte. Nat.): Have similar orders been issued
for the slaughter of human animals who dare to play Irish games in the
Phoenix park?

Mr Allfours: The answer is in the negative.

Mr Cowe Conacre: Has the right honourable gentleman’s famous
Mitchelstown telegram inspired the policy of gentlemen on the Treasury
bench? (O! O!)

Mr Allfours: I must have notice of that question.

Mr Staylewit (Buncombe. Ind.): Don’t hesitate to shoot.

(Ironical opposition cheers.)

The speaker: Order! Order!

(The house rises. Cheers.)

—There’s the man, says Joe, that made the Gaelic sports revival. There
he is sitting there. The man that got away James Stephens. The champion
of all Ireland at putting the sixteen pound shot. What was your best
throw, citizen?

—_Na bacleis_, says the citizen, letting on to be modest. There was a
time I was as good as the next fellow anyhow.

—Put it there, citizen, says Joe. You were and a bloody sight better.

—Is that really a fact? says Alf.

—Yes, says Bloom. That’s well known. Did you not know that?

So off they started about Irish sports and shoneen games the like of
lawn tennis and about hurley and putting the stone and racy of the soil
and building up a nation once again and all to that. And of course
Bloom had to have his say too about if a fellow had a rower’s heart
violent exercise was bad. I declare to my antimacassar if you took up a
straw from the bloody floor and if you said to Bloom: _Look at, Bloom.
Do you see that straw? That’s a straw_. Declare to my aunt he’d talk
about it for an hour so he would and talk steady.

A most interesting discussion took place in the ancient hall of _Brian
O’Ciarnain’s_ in _Sraid na Bretaine Bheag_, under the auspices of
_Sluagh na h-Eireann_, on the revival of ancient Gaelic sports and the
importance of physical culture, as understood in ancient Greece and
ancient Rome and ancient Ireland, for the development of the race. The
venerable president of the noble order was in the chair and the
attendance was of large dimensions. After an instructive discourse by
the chairman, a magnificent oration eloquently and forcibly expressed,
a most interesting and instructive discussion of the usual high
standard of excellence ensued as to the desirability of the
revivability of the ancient games and sports of our ancient Panceltic
forefathers. The wellknown and highly respected worker in the cause of
our old tongue, Mr Joseph M’Carthy Hynes, made an eloquent appeal for
the resuscitation of the ancient Gaelic sports and pastimes, practised
morning and evening by Finn MacCool, as calculated to revive the best
traditions of manly strength and prowess handed down to us from ancient
ages. L. Bloom, who met with a mixed reception of applause and hisses,
having espoused the negative the vocalist chairman brought the
discussion to a close, in response to repeated requests and hearty
plaudits from all parts of a bumper house, by a remarkably noteworthy
rendering of the immortal Thomas Osborne Davis’ evergreen verses
(happily too familiar to need recalling here) _A nation once again_ in
the execution of which the veteran patriot champion may be said without
fear of contradiction to have fairly excelled himself. The Irish
Caruso-Garibaldi was in superlative form and his stentorian notes were
heard to the greatest advantage in the timehonoured anthem sung as only
our citizen can sing it. His superb highclass vocalism, which by its
superquality greatly enhanced his already international reputation, was
vociferously applauded by the large audience among which were to be
noticed many prominent members of the clergy as well as representatives
of the press and the bar and the other learned professions. The
proceedings then terminated.

Amongst the clergy present were the very rev. William Delany, S. J., L.
L. D.; the rt rev. Gerald Molloy, D. D.; the rev. P. J. Kavanagh, C. S.
Sp.; the rev. T. Waters, C. C.; the rev. John M. Ivers, P. P.; the rev.
P. J. Cleary, O. S. F.; the rev. L. J. Hickey, O. P.; the very rev. Fr.
Nicholas, O. S. F. C.; the very rev. B. Gorman, O. D. C.; the rev. T.
Maher, S. J.; the very rev. James Murphy, S. J.; the rev. John Lavery,
V. F.; the very rev. William Doherty, D. D.; the rev. Peter Fagan, O.
M.; the rev. T. Brangan, O. S. A.; the rev. J. Flavin, C. C.; the rev.
M. A. Hackett, C. C.; the rev. W. Hurley, C. C.; the rt rev. Mgr
M’Manus, V. G.; the rev. B. R. Slattery, O. M. I.; the very rev. M. D.
Scally, P. P.; the rev. F. T. Purcell, O. P.; the very rev. Timothy
canon Gorman, P. P.; the rev. J. Flanagan, C. C. The laity included P.
Fay, T. Quirke, etc., etc.

—Talking about violent exercise, says Alf, were you at that
Keogh-Bennett match?

—No, says Joe.

—I heard So and So made a cool hundred quid over it, says Alf.

—Who? Blazes? says Joe.

And says Bloom:

—What I meant about tennis, for example, is the agility and training
the eye.

—Ay, Blazes, says Alf. He let out that Myler was on the beer to run up
the odds and he swatting all the time.

—We know him, says the citizen. The traitor’s son. We know what put
English gold in his pocket.

—True for you, says Joe.

And Bloom cuts in again about lawn tennis and the circulation of the
blood, asking Alf:

—Now, don’t you think, Bergan?

—Myler dusted the floor with him, says Alf. Heenan and Sayers was only
a bloody fool to it. Handed him the father and mother of a beating. See
the little kipper not up to his navel and the big fellow swiping. God,
he gave him one last puck in the wind, Queensberry rules and all, made
him puke what he never ate.

It was a historic and a hefty battle when Myler and Percy were
scheduled to don the gloves for the purse of fifty sovereigns.
Handicapped as he was by lack of poundage, Dublin’s pet lamb made up
for it by superlative skill in ringcraft. The final bout of fireworks
was a gruelling for both champions. The welterweight sergeantmajor had
tapped some lively claret in the previous mixup during which Keogh had
been receivergeneral of rights and lefts, the artilleryman putting in
some neat work on the pet’s nose, and Myler came on looking groggy. The
soldier got to business, leading off with a powerful left jab to which
the Irish gladiator retaliated by shooting out a stiff one flush to the
point of Bennett’s jaw. The redcoat ducked but the Dubliner lifted him
with a left hook, the body punch being a fine one. The men came to
handigrips. Myler quickly became busy and got his man under, the bout
ending with the bulkier man on the ropes, Myler punishing him. The
Englishman, whose right eye was nearly closed, took his corner where he
was liberally drenched with water and when the bell went came on gamey
and brimful of pluck, confident of knocking out the fistic Eblanite in
jigtime. It was a fight to a finish and the best man for it. The two
fought like tigers and excitement ran fever high. The referee twice
cautioned Pucking Percy for holding but the pet was tricky and his
footwork a treat to watch. After a brisk exchange of courtesies during
which a smart upper cut of the military man brought blood freely from
his opponent’s mouth the lamb suddenly waded in all over his man and
landed a terrific left to Battling Bennett’s stomach, flooring him
flat. It was a knockout clean and clever. Amid tense expectation the
Portobello bruiser was being counted out when Bennett’s second Ole
Pfotts Wettstein threw in the towel and the Santry boy was declared
victor to the frenzied cheers of the public who broke through the
ringropes and fairly mobbed him with delight.

—He knows which side his bread is buttered, says Alf. I hear he’s
running a concert tour now up in the north.

—He is, says Joe. Isn’t he?

—Who? says Bloom. Ah, yes. That’s quite true. Yes, a kind of summer
tour, you see. Just a holiday.

—Mrs B. is the bright particular star, isn’t she? says Joe.

—My wife? says Bloom. She’s singing, yes. I think it will be a success
too.

He’s an excellent man to organise. Excellent.

Hoho begob says I to myself says I. That explains the milk in the
cocoanut and absence of hair on the animal’s chest. Blazes doing the
tootle on the flute. Concert tour. Dirty Dan the dodger’s son off
Island bridge that sold the same horses twice over to the government to
fight the Boers. Old Whatwhat. I called about the poor and water rate,
Mr Boylan. You what? The water rate, Mr Boylan. You whatwhat? That’s
the bucko that’ll organise her, take my tip. ’Twixt me and you
Caddareesh.

Pride of Calpe’s rocky mount, the ravenhaired daughter of Tweedy. There
grew she to peerless beauty where loquat and almond scent the air. The
gardens of Alameda knew her step: the garths of olives knew and bowed.
The chaste spouse of Leopold is she: Marion of the bountiful bosoms.

And lo, there entered one of the clan of the O’Molloy’s, a comely hero
of white face yet withal somewhat ruddy, his majesty’s counsel learned
in the law, and with him the prince and heir of the noble line of
Lambert.

—Hello, Ned.

—Hello, Alf.

—Hello, Jack.

—Hello, Joe.

—God save you, says the citizen.

—Save you kindly, says J. J. What’ll it be, Ned?

—Half one, says Ned.

So J. J. ordered the drinks.

—Were you round at the court? says Joe.

—Yes, says J. J. He’ll square that, Ned, says he.

—Hope so, says Ned.

Now what were those two at? J. J. getting him off the grand jury list
and the other give him a leg over the stile. With his name in Stubbs’s.
Playing cards, hobnobbing with flash toffs with a swank glass in their
eye, adrinking fizz and he half smothered in writs and garnishee
orders. Pawning his gold watch in Cummins of Francis street where
no-one would know him in the private office when I was there with
Pisser releasing his boots out of the pop. What’s your name, sir?
Dunne, says he. Ay, and done says I. Gob, he’ll come home by weeping
cross one of those days, I’m thinking.

—Did you see that bloody lunatic Breen round there? says Alf. U. p: up.

—Yes, says J. J. Looking for a private detective.

—Ay, says Ned. And he wanted right go wrong to address the court only
Corny Kelleher got round him telling him to get the handwriting
examined first.

—Ten thousand pounds, says Alf, laughing. God, I’d give anything to
hear him before a judge and jury.

—Was it you did it, Alf? says Joe. The truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth, so help you Jimmy Johnson.

—Me? says Alf. Don’t cast your nasturtiums on my character.

—Whatever statement you make, says Joe, will be taken down in evidence
against you.

—Of course an action would lie, says J. J. It implies that he is not
_compos mentis_. U. p: up.

_—Compos_ your eye! says Alf, laughing. Do you know that he’s balmy?
Look at his head. Do you know that some mornings he has to get his hat
on with a shoehorn.

—Yes, says J. J., but the truth of a libel is no defence to an
indictment for publishing it in the eyes of the law.

—Ha ha, Alf, says Joe.

—Still, says Bloom, on account of the poor woman, I mean his wife.

—Pity about her, says the citizen. Or any other woman marries a half
and half.

—How half and half? says Bloom. Do you mean he...

—Half and half I mean, says the citizen. A fellow that’s neither fish
nor flesh.

—Nor good red herring, says Joe.

—That what’s I mean, says the citizen. A pishogue, if you know what
that is.

Begob I saw there was trouble coming. And Bloom explaining he meant on
account of it being cruel for the wife having to go round after the old
stuttering fool. Cruelty to animals so it is to let that bloody
povertystricken Breen out on grass with his beard out tripping him,
bringing down the rain. And she with her nose cockahoop after she
married him because a cousin of his old fellow’s was pewopener to the
pope. Picture of him on the wall with his Smashall Sweeney’s
moustaches, the signior Brini from Summerhill, the eyetallyano, papal
Zouave to the Holy Father, has left the quay and gone to Moss street.
And who was he, tell us? A nobody, two pair back and passages, at seven
shillings a week, and he covered with all kinds of breastplates bidding
defiance to the world.

—And moreover, says J. J., a postcard is publication. It was held to be
sufficient evidence of malice in the testcase Sadgrove v. Hole. In my
opinion an action might lie.

Six and eightpence, please. Who wants your opinion? Let us drink our
pints in peace. Gob, we won’t be let even do that much itself.

—Well, good health, Jack, says Ned.

—Good health, Ned, says J. J.

—-There he is again, says Joe.

—Where? says Alf.

And begob there he was passing the door with his books under his oxter
and the wife beside him and Corny Kelleher with his wall eye looking in
as they went past, talking to him like a father, trying to sell him a
secondhand coffin.

—How did that Canada swindle case go off? says Joe.

—Remanded, says J. J.

One of the bottlenosed fraternity it was went by the name of James
Wought alias Saphiro alias Spark and Spiro, put an ad in the papers
saying he’d give a passage to Canada for twenty bob. What? Do you see
any green in the white of my eye? Course it was a bloody barney. What?
Swindled them all, skivvies and badhachs from the county Meath, ay, and
his own kidney too. J. J. was telling us there was an ancient Hebrew
Zaretsky or something weeping in the witnessbox with his hat on him,
swearing by the holy Moses he was stuck for two quid.

—Who tried the case? says Joe.

—Recorder, says Ned.

—Poor old sir Frederick, says Alf, you can cod him up to the two eyes.

—Heart as big as a lion, says Ned. Tell him a tale of woe about arrears
of rent and a sick wife and a squad of kids and, faith, he’ll dissolve
in tears on the bench.

—Ay, says Alf. Reuben J was bloody lucky he didn’t clap him in the dock
the other day for suing poor little Gumley that’s minding stones, for
the corporation there near Butt bridge.

And he starts taking off the old recorder letting on to cry:

—A most scandalous thing! This poor hardworking man! How many children?
Ten, did you say?

—Yes, your worship. And my wife has the typhoid.

—And the wife with typhoid fever! Scandalous! Leave the court
immediately, sir. No, sir, I’ll make no order for payment. How dare
you, sir, come up before me and ask me to make an order! A poor
hardworking industrious man! I dismiss the case.

And whereas on the sixteenth day of the month of the oxeyed goddess and
in the third week after the feastday of the Holy and Undivided Trinity,
the daughter of the skies, the virgin moon being then in her first
quarter, it came to pass that those learned judges repaired them to the
halls of law. There master Courtenay, sitting in his own chamber, gave
his rede and master Justice Andrews, sitting without a jury in the
probate court, weighed well and pondered the claim of the first
chargeant upon the property in the matter of the will propounded and
final testamentary disposition _in re_ the real and personal estate of
the late lamented Jacob Halliday, vintner, deceased, versus
Livingstone, an infant, of unsound mind, and another. And to the solemn
court of Green street there came sir Frederick the Falconer. And he sat
him there about the hour of five o’clock to administer the law of the
brehons at the commission for all that and those parts to be holden in
and for the county of the city of Dublin. And there sat with him the
high sinhedrim of the twelve tribes of Iar, for every tribe one man, of
the tribe of Patrick and of the tribe of Hugh and of the tribe of Owen
and of the tribe of Conn and of the tribe of Oscar and of the tribe of
Fergus and of the tribe of Finn and of the tribe of Dermot and of the
tribe of Cormac and of the tribe of Kevin and of the tribe of Caolte
and of the tribe of Ossian, there being in all twelve good men and
true. And he conjured them by Him who died on rood that they should
well and truly try and true deliverance make in the issue joined
between their sovereign lord the king and the prisoner at the bar and
true verdict give according to the evidence so help them God and kiss
the book. And they rose in their seats, those twelve of Iar, and they
swore by the name of Him Who is from everlasting that they would do His
rightwiseness. And straightway the minions of the law led forth from
their donjon keep one whom the sleuthhounds of justice had apprehended
in consequence of information received. And they shackled him hand and
foot and would take of him ne bail ne mainprise but preferred a charge
against him for he was a malefactor.

—Those are nice things, says the citizen, coming over here to Ireland
filling the country with bugs.

So Bloom lets on he heard nothing and he starts talking with Joe,
telling him he needn’t trouble about that little matter till the first
but if he would just say a word to Mr Crawford. And so Joe swore high
and holy by this and by that he’d do the devil and all.

—Because, you see, says Bloom, for an advertisement you must have
repetition. That’s the whole secret.

—Rely on me, says Joe.

—Swindling the peasants, says the citizen, and the poor of Ireland. We
want no more strangers in our house.

—O, I’m sure that will be all right, Hynes, says Bloom. It’s just that
Keyes, you see.

—Consider that done, says Joe.

—Very kind of you, says Bloom.

—The strangers, says the citizen. Our own fault. We let them come in.
We brought them in. The adulteress and her paramour brought the Saxon
robbers here.

—Decree _nisi,_ says J. J.

And Bloom letting on to be awfully deeply interested in nothing, a
spider’s web in the corner behind the barrel, and the citizen scowling
after him and the old dog at his feet looking up to know who to bite
and when.

—A dishonoured wife, says the citizen, that’s what’s the cause of all
our misfortunes.

—And here she is, says Alf, that was giggling over the _Police Gazette_
with Terry on the counter, in all her warpaint.

—Give us a squint at her, says I.

And what was it only one of the smutty yankee pictures Terry borrows
off of Corny Kelleher. Secrets for enlarging your private parts.
Misconduct of society belle. Norman W. Tupper, wealthy Chicago
contractor, finds pretty but faithless wife in lap of officer Taylor.
Belle in her bloomers misconducting herself, and her fancyman feeling
for her tickles and Norman W. Tupper bouncing in with his peashooter
just in time to be late after she doing the trick of the loop with
officer Taylor.

—O jakers, Jenny, says Joe, how short your shirt is!

—There’s hair, Joe, says I. Get a queer old tailend of corned beef off
of that one, what?

So anyhow in came John Wyse Nolan and Lenehan with him with a face on
him as long as a late breakfast.

—Well, says the citizen, what’s the latest from the scene of action?
What did those tinkers in the city hall at their caucus meeting decide
about the Irish language?

O’Nolan, clad in shining armour, low bending made obeisance to the
puissant and high and mighty chief of all Erin and did him to wit of
that which had befallen, how that the grave elders of the most obedient
city, second of the realm, had met them in the tholsel, and there,
after due prayers to the gods who dwell in ether supernal, had taken
solemn counsel whereby they might, if so be it might be, bring once
more into honour among mortal men the winged speech of the seadivided
Gael.

—It’s on the march, says the citizen. To hell with the bloody brutal
Sassenachs and their _patois._

So J. J. puts in a word, doing the toff about one story was good till
you heard another and blinking facts and the Nelson policy, putting
your blind eye to the telescope and drawing up a bill of attainder to
impeach a nation, and Bloom trying to back him up moderation and
botheration and their colonies and their civilisation.

—Their syphilisation, you mean, says the citizen. To hell with them!
The curse of a goodfornothing God light sideways on the bloody
thicklugged sons of whores’ gets! No music and no art and no literature
worthy of the name. Any civilisation they have they stole from us.
Tonguetied sons of bastards’ ghosts.

—The European family, says J. J....

—They’re not European, says the citizen. I was in Europe with Kevin
Egan of Paris. You wouldn’t see a trace of them or their language
anywhere in Europe except in a _cabinet d’aisance._

And says John Wyse:

—Full many a flower is born to blush unseen.

And says Lenehan that knows a bit of the lingo:

—_Conspuez les Anglais! Perfide Albion!_

He said and then lifted he in his rude great brawny strengthy hands the
medher of dark strong foamy ale and, uttering his tribal slogan _Lamh
Dearg Abu_, he drank to the undoing of his foes, a race of mighty
valorous heroes, rulers of the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster
silent as the deathless gods.

—What’s up with you, says I to Lenehan. You look like a fellow that had
lost a bob and found a tanner.

—Gold cup, says he.

—Who won, Mr Lenehan? says Terry.

_—Throwaway,_ says he, at twenty to one. A rank outsider. And the rest
nowhere.

—And Bass’s mare? says Terry.

—Still running, says he. We’re all in a cart. Boylan plunged two quid
on my tip _Sceptre_ for himself and a lady friend.

—I had half a crown myself, says Terry, on _Zinfandel_ that Mr Flynn
gave me. Lord Howard de Walden’s.

—Twenty to one, says Lenehan. Such is life in an outhouse. _Throwaway,_
says he. Takes the biscuit, and talking about bunions. Frailty, thy
name is _Sceptre._

So he went over to the biscuit tin Bob Doran left to see if there was
anything he could lift on the nod, the old cur after him backing his
luck with his mangy snout up. Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard.

—Not there, my child, says he.

—Keep your pecker up, says Joe. She’d have won the money only for the
other dog.

And J. J. and the citizen arguing about law and history with Bloom
sticking in an odd word.

—Some people, says Bloom, can see the mote in others’ eyes but they
can’t see the beam in their own.

—_Raimeis_, says the citizen. There’s no-one as blind as the fellow
that won’t see, if you know what that means. Where are our missing
twenty millions of Irish should be here today instead of four, our lost
tribes? And our potteries and textiles, the finest in the whole world!
And our wool that was sold in Rome in the time of Juvenal and our flax
and our damask from the looms of Antrim and our Limerick lace, our
tanneries and our white flint glass down there by Ballybough and our
Huguenot poplin that we have since Jacquard de Lyon and our woven silk
and our Foxford tweeds and ivory raised point from the Carmelite
convent in New Ross, nothing like it in the whole wide world. Where are
the Greek merchants that came through the pillars of Hercules, the
Gibraltar now grabbed by the foe of mankind, with gold and Tyrian
purple to sell in Wexford at the fair of Carmen? Read Tacitus and
Ptolemy, even Giraldus Cambrensis. Wine, peltries, Connemara marble,
silver from Tipperary, second to none, our farfamed horses even today,
the Irish hobbies, with king Philip of Spain offering to pay customs
duties for the right to fish in our waters. What do the yellowjohns of
Anglia owe us for our ruined trade and our ruined hearths? And the beds
of the Barrow and Shannon they won’t deepen with millions of acres of
marsh and bog to make us all die of consumption?

—As treeless as Portugal we’ll be soon, says John Wyse, or Heligoland
with its one tree if something is not done to reafforest the land.
Larches, firs, all the trees of the conifer family are going fast. I
was reading a report of lord Castletown’s...

—Save them, says the citizen, the giant ash of Galway and the chieftain
elm of Kildare with a fortyfoot bole and an acre of foliage. Save the
trees of Ireland for the future men of Ireland on the fair hills of
Eire, O.

—Europe has its eyes on you, says Lenehan.

The fashionable international world attended _en masse_ this afternoon
at the wedding of the chevalier Jean Wyse de Neaulan, grand high chief
ranger of the Irish National Foresters, with Miss Fir Conifer of Pine
Valley. Lady Sylvester Elmshade, Mrs Barbara Lovebirch, Mrs Poll Ash,
Mrs Holly Hazeleyes, Miss Daphne Bays, Miss Dorothy Canebrake, Mrs
Clyde Twelvetrees, Mrs Rowan Greene, Mrs Helen Vinegadding, Miss
Virginia Creeper, Miss Gladys Beech, Miss Olive Garth, Miss Blanche
Maple, Mrs Maud Mahogany, Miss Myra Myrtle, Miss Priscilla Elderflower,
Miss Bee Honeysuckle, Miss Grace Poplar, Miss O Mimosa San, Miss Rachel
Cedarfrond, the Misses Lilian and Viola Lilac, Miss Timidity Aspenall,
Mrs Kitty Dewey-Mosse, Miss May Hawthorne, Mrs Gloriana Palme, Mrs
Liana Forrest, Mrs Arabella Blackwood and Mrs Norma Holyoake of
Oakholme Regis graced the ceremony by their presence. The bride who was
given away by her father, the M’Conifer of the Glands, looked
exquisitely charming in a creation carried out in green mercerised
silk, moulded on an underslip of gloaming grey, sashed with a yoke of
broad emerald and finished with a triple flounce of darkerhued fringe,
the scheme being relieved by bretelles and hip insertions of acorn
bronze. The maids of honour, Miss Larch Conifer and Miss Spruce
Conifer, sisters of the bride, wore very becoming costumes in the same
tone, a dainty _motif_ of plume rose being worked into the pleats in a
pinstripe and repeated capriciously in the jadegreen toques in the form
of heron feathers of paletinted coral. Senhor Enrique Flor presided at
the organ with his wellknown ability and, in addition to the prescribed
numbers of the nuptial mass, played a new and striking arrangement of
_Woodman, spare that tree_ at the conclusion of the service. On leaving
the church of Saint Fiacre _in Horto_ after the papal blessing the
happy pair were subjected to a playful crossfire of hazelnuts,
beechmast, bayleaves, catkins of willow, ivytod, hollyberries,
mistletoe sprigs and quicken shoots. Mr and Mrs Wyse Conifer Neaulan
will spend a quiet honeymoon in the Black Forest.

—And our eyes are on Europe, says the citizen. We had our trade with
Spain and the French and with the Flemings before those mongrels were
pupped, Spanish ale in Galway, the winebark on the winedark waterway.

—And will again, says Joe.

—And with the help of the holy mother of God we will again, says the
citizen, clapping his thigh. Our harbours that are empty will be full
again, Queenstown, Kinsale, Galway, Blacksod Bay, Ventry in the kingdom
of Kerry, Killybegs, the third largest harbour in the wide world with a
fleet of masts of the Galway Lynches and the Cavan O’Reillys and the
O’Kennedys of Dublin when the earl of Desmond could make a treaty with
the emperor Charles the Fifth himself. And will again, says he, when
the first Irish battleship is seen breasting the waves with our own
flag to the fore, none of your Henry Tudor’s harps, no, the oldest flag
afloat, the flag of the province of Desmond and Thomond, three crowns
on a blue field, the three sons of Milesius.

And he took the last swig out of the pint. Moya. All wind and piss like
a tanyard cat. Cows in Connacht have long horns. As much as his bloody
life is worth to go down and address his tall talk to the assembled
multitude in Shanagolden where he daren’t show his nose with the Molly
Maguires looking for him to let daylight through him for grabbing the
holding of an evicted tenant.

—Hear, hear to that, says John Wyse. What will you have?

—An imperial yeomanry, says Lenehan, to celebrate the occasion.

—Half one, Terry, says John Wyse, and a hands up. Terry! Are you
asleep?

—Yes, sir, says Terry. Small whisky and bottle of Allsop. Right, sir.

Hanging over the bloody paper with Alf looking for spicy bits instead
of attending to the general public. Picture of a butting match, trying
to crack their bloody skulls, one chap going for the other with his
head down like a bull at a gate. And another one: _Black Beast Burned
in Omaha, Ga_. A lot of Deadwood Dicks in slouch hats and they firing
at a Sambo strung up in a tree with his tongue out and a bonfire under
him. Gob, they ought to drown him in the sea after and electrocute and
crucify him to make sure of their job.

—But what about the fighting navy, says Ned, that keeps our foes at
bay?

—I’ll tell you what about it, says the citizen. Hell upon earth it is.
Read the revelations that’s going on in the papers about flogging on
the training ships at Portsmouth. A fellow writes that calls himself
_Disgusted One_.

So he starts telling us about corporal punishment and about the crew of
tars and officers and rearadmirals drawn up in cocked hats and the
parson with his protestant bible to witness punishment and a young lad
brought out, howling for his ma, and they tie him down on the buttend
of a gun.

—A rump and dozen, says the citizen, was what that old ruffian sir John
Beresford called it but the modern God’s Englishman calls it caning on
the breech.

And says John Wyse:

—’Tis a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

Then he was telling us the master at arms comes along with a long cane
and he draws out and he flogs the bloody backside off of the poor lad
till he yells meila murder.

—That’s your glorious British navy, says the citizen, that bosses the
earth. The fellows that never will be slaves, with the only hereditary
chamber on the face of God’s earth and their land in the hands of a
dozen gamehogs and cottonball barons. That’s the great empire they
boast about of drudges and whipped serfs.

—On which the sun never rises, says Joe.

—And the tragedy of it is, says the citizen, they believe it. The
unfortunate yahoos believe it.

They believe in rod, the scourger almighty, creator of hell upon earth,
and in Jacky Tar, the son of a gun, who was conceived of unholy boast,
born of the fighting navy, suffered under rump and dozen, was
scarified, flayed and curried, yelled like bloody hell, the third day
he arose again from the bed, steered into haven, sitteth on his beamend
till further orders whence he shall come to drudge for a living and be
paid.

—But, says Bloom, isn’t discipline the same everywhere. I mean wouldn’t
it be the same here if you put force against force?

Didn’t I tell you? As true as I’m drinking this porter if he was at his
last gasp he’d try to downface you that dying was living.

—We’ll put force against force, says the citizen. We have our greater
Ireland beyond the sea. They were driven out of house and home in the
black 47. Their mudcabins and their shielings by the roadside were laid
low by the batteringram and the _Times_ rubbed its hands and told the
whitelivered Saxons there would soon be as few Irish in Ireland as
redskins in America. Even the Grand Turk sent us his piastres. But the
Sassenach tried to starve the nation at home while the land was full of
crops that the British hyenas bought and sold in Rio de Janeiro. Ay,
they drove out the peasants in hordes. Twenty thousand of them died in
the coffinships. But those that came to the land of the free remember
the land of bondage. And they will come again and with a vengeance, no
cravens, the sons of Granuaile, the champions of Kathleen ni Houlihan.

—Perfectly true, says Bloom. But my point was...

—We are a long time waiting for that day, citizen, says Ned. Since the
poor old woman told us that the French were on the sea and landed at
Killala.

—Ay, says John Wyse. We fought for the royal Stuarts that reneged us
against the Williamites and they betrayed us. Remember Limerick and the
broken treatystone. We gave our best blood to France and Spain, the
wild geese. Fontenoy, eh? And Sarsfield and O’Donnell, duke of Tetuan
in Spain, and Ulysses Browne of Camus that was fieldmarshal to Maria
Teresa. But what did we ever get for it?

—The French! says the citizen. Set of dancing masters! Do you know what
it is? They were never worth a roasted fart to Ireland. Aren’t they
trying to make an _Entente cordiale_ now at Tay Pay’s dinnerparty with
perfidious Albion? Firebrands of Europe and they always were.

—_Conspuez les Français_, says Lenehan, nobbling his beer.

—And as for the Prooshians and the Hanoverians, says Joe, haven’t we
had enough of those sausageeating bastards on the throne from George
the elector down to the German lad and the flatulent old bitch that’s
dead?

Jesus, I had to laugh at the way he came out with that about the old
one with the winkers on her, blind drunk in her royal palace every
night of God, old Vic, with her jorum of mountain dew and her coachman
carting her up body and bones to roll into bed and she pulling him by
the whiskers and singing him old bits of songs about _Ehren on the
Rhine_ and come where the boose is cheaper.

—Well, says J. J. We have Edward the peacemaker now.

—Tell that to a fool, says the citizen. There’s a bloody sight more pox
than pax about that boyo. Edward Guelph-Wettin!

—And what do you think, says Joe, of the holy boys, the priests and
bishops of Ireland doing up his room in Maynooth in His Satanic
Majesty’s racing colours and sticking up pictures of all the horses his
jockeys rode. The earl of Dublin, no less.

—They ought to have stuck up all the women he rode himself, says little
Alf.

And says J. J.:

—Considerations of space influenced their lordships’ decision.

—Will you try another, citizen? says Joe.

—Yes, sir, says he. I will.

—You? says Joe.

—Beholden to you, Joe, says I. May your shadow never grow less.

—Repeat that dose, says Joe.

Bloom was talking and talking with John Wyse and he quite excited with
his dunducketymudcoloured mug on him and his old plumeyes rolling
about.

—Persecution, says he, all the history of the world is full of it.
Perpetuating national hatred among nations.

—But do you know what a nation means? says John Wyse.

—Yes, says Bloom.

—What is it? says John Wyse.

—A nation? says Bloom. A nation is the same people living in the same
place.

—By God, then, says Ned, laughing, if that’s so I’m a nation for I’m
living in the same place for the past five years.

So of course everyone had the laugh at Bloom and says he, trying to
muck out of it:

—Or also living in different places.

—That covers my case, says Joe.

—What is your nation if I may ask? says the citizen.

—Ireland, says Bloom. I was born here. Ireland.

The citizen said nothing only cleared the spit out of his gullet and,
gob, he spat a Red bank oyster out of him right in the corner.

—After you with the push, Joe, says he, taking out his handkerchief to
swab himself dry.

—Here you are, citizen, says Joe. Take that in your right hand and
repeat after me the following words.

The muchtreasured and intricately embroidered ancient Irish facecloth
attributed to Solomon of Droma and Manus Tomaltach og MacDonogh,
authors of the Book of Ballymote, was then carefully produced and
called forth prolonged admiration. No need to dwell on the legendary
beauty of the cornerpieces, the acme of art, wherein one can distinctly
discern each of the four evangelists in turn presenting to each of the
four masters his evangelical symbol, a bogoak sceptre, a North American
puma (a far nobler king of beasts than the British article, be it said
in passing), a Kerry calf and a golden eagle from Carrantuohill. The
scenes depicted on the emunctory field, showing our ancient duns and
raths and cromlechs and grianauns and seats of learning and maledictive
stones, are as wonderfully beautiful and the pigments as delicate as
when the Sligo illuminators gave free rein to their artistic fantasy
long long ago in the time of the Barmecides. Glendalough, the lovely
lakes of Killarney, the ruins of Clonmacnois, Cong Abbey, Glen Inagh
and the Twelve Pins, Ireland’s Eye, the Green Hills of Tallaght, Croagh
Patrick, the brewery of Messrs Arthur Guinness, Son and Company
(Limited), Lough Neagh’s banks, the vale of Ovoca, Isolde’s tower, the
Mapas obelisk, Sir Patrick Dun’s hospital, Cape Clear, the glen of
Aherlow, Lynch’s castle, the Scotch house, Rathdown Union Workhouse at
Loughlinstown, Tullamore jail, Castleconnel rapids,
Kilballymacshonakill, the cross at Monasterboice, Jury’s Hotel, S.
Patrick’s Purgatory, the Salmon Leap, Maynooth college refectory,
Curley’s hole, the three birthplaces of the first duke of Wellington,
the rock of Cashel, the bog of Allen, the Henry Street Warehouse,
Fingal’s Cave—all these moving scenes are still there for us today
rendered more beautiful still by the waters of sorrow which have passed
over them and by the rich incrustations of time.

—Show us over the drink, says I. Which is which?

—That’s mine, says Joe, as the devil said to the dead policeman.

—And I belong to a race too, says Bloom, that is hated and persecuted.
Also now. This very moment. This very instant.

Gob, he near burnt his fingers with the butt of his old cigar.

—Robbed, says he. Plundered. Insulted. Persecuted. Taking what belongs
to us by right. At this very moment, says he, putting up his fist, sold
by auction in Morocco like slaves or cattle.

—Are you talking about the new Jerusalem? says the citizen.

—I’m talking about injustice, says Bloom.

—Right, says John Wyse. Stand up to it then with force like men.

That’s an almanac picture for you. Mark for a softnosed bullet. Old
lardyface standing up to the business end of a gun. Gob, he’d adorn a
sweepingbrush, so he would, if he only had a nurse’s apron on him. And
then he collapses all of a sudden, twisting around all the opposite, as
limp as a wet rag.

—But it’s no use, says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That’s not
life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that
it’s the very opposite of that that is really life.

—What? says Alf.

—Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred. I must go now, says
he to John Wyse. Just round to the court a moment to see if Martin is
there. If he comes just say I’ll be back in a second. Just a moment.

Who’s hindering you? And off he pops like greased lightning.

—A new apostle to the gentiles, says the citizen. Universal love.

—Well, says John Wyse. Isn’t that what we’re told. Love your neighbour.

—That chap? says the citizen. Beggar my neighbour is his motto. Love,
moya! He’s a nice pattern of a Romeo and Juliet.

Love loves to love love. Nurse loves the new chemist. Constable 14A
loves Mary Kelly. Gerty MacDowell loves the boy that has the bicycle.
M. B. loves a fair gentleman. Li Chi Han lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow.
Jumbo, the elephant, loves Alice, the elephant. Old Mr Verschoyle with
the ear trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the turnedin eye. The man
in the brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead. His Majesty the King
loves Her Majesty the Queen. Mrs Norman W. Tupper loves officer Taylor.
You love a certain person. And this person loves that other person
because everybody loves somebody but God loves everybody.

—Well, Joe, says I, your very good health and song. More power,
citizen.

—Hurrah, there, says Joe.

—The blessing of God and Mary and Patrick on you, says the citizen.

And he ups with his pint to wet his whistle.

—We know those canters, says he, preaching and picking your pocket.
What about sanctimonious Cromwell and his ironsides that put the women
and children of Drogheda to the sword with the bible text _God is love_
pasted round the mouth of his cannon? The bible! Did you read that skit
in the _United Irishman_ today about that Zulu chief that’s visiting
England?

—What’s that? says Joe.

So the citizen takes up one of his paraphernalia papers and he starts
reading out:

—A delegation of the chief cotton magnates of Manchester was presented
yesterday to His Majesty the Alaki of Abeakuta by Gold Stick in
Waiting, Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs, to tender to His Majesty the
heartfelt thanks of British traders for the facilities afforded them in
his dominions. The delegation partook of luncheon at the conclusion of
which the dusky potentate, in the course of a happy speech, freely
translated by the British chaplain, the reverend Ananias Praisegod
Barebones, tendered his best thanks to Massa Walkup and emphasised the
cordial relations existing between Abeakuta and the British empire,
stating that he treasured as one of his dearest possessions an
illuminated bible, the volume of the word of God and the secret of
England’s greatness, graciously presented to him by the white chief
woman, the great squaw Victoria, with a personal dedication from the
august hand of the Royal Donor. The Alaki then drank a lovingcup of
firstshot usquebaugh to the toast _Black and White_ from the skull of
his immediate predecessor in the dynasty Kakachakachak, surnamed Forty
Warts, after which he visited the chief factory of Cottonopolis and
signed his mark in the visitors’ book, subsequently executing a
charming old Abeakutic wardance, in the course of which he swallowed
several knives and forks, amid hilarious applause from the girl hands.

—Widow woman, says Ned. I wouldn’t doubt her. Wonder did he put that
bible to the same use as I would.

—Same only more so, says Lenehan. And thereafter in that fruitful land
the broadleaved mango flourished exceedingly.

—Is that by Griffith? says John Wyse.

—No, says the citizen. It’s not signed Shanganagh. It’s only
initialled: P.

—And a very good initial too, says Joe.

—That’s how it’s worked, says the citizen. Trade follows the flag.

—Well, says J. J., if they’re any worse than those Belgians in the
Congo Free State they must be bad. Did you read that report by a man
what’s this his name is?

—Casement, says the citizen. He’s an Irishman.

—Yes, that’s the man, says J. J. Raping the women and girls and
flogging the natives on the belly to squeeze all the red rubber they
can out of them.

—I know where he’s gone, says Lenehan, cracking his fingers.

—Who? says I.

—Bloom, says he. The courthouse is a blind. He had a few bob on
_Throwaway_ and he’s gone to gather in the shekels.

—Is it that whiteeyed kaffir? says the citizen, that never backed a
horse in anger in his life?

—That’s where he’s gone, says Lenehan. I met Bantam Lyons going to back
that horse only I put him off it and he told me Bloom gave him the tip.
Bet you what you like he has a hundred shillings to five on. He’s the
only man in Dublin has it. A dark horse.

—He’s a bloody dark horse himself, says Joe.

—Mind, Joe, says I. Show us the entrance out.

—There you are, says Terry.

Goodbye Ireland I’m going to Gort. So I just went round the back of the
yard to pumpship and begob (hundred shillings to five) while I was
letting off my _(Throwaway_ twenty to) letting off my load gob says I
to myself I knew he was uneasy in his (two pints off of Joe and one in
Slattery’s off) in his mind to get off the mark to (hundred shillings
is five quid) and when they were in the (dark horse) pisser Burke was
telling me card party and letting on the child was sick (gob, must have
done about a gallon) flabbyarse of a wife speaking down the tube _she’s
better_ or _she’s_ (ow!) all a plan so he could vamoose with the pool
if he won or (Jesus, full up I was) trading without a licence (ow!)
Ireland my nation says he (hoik! phthook!) never be up to those bloody
(there’s the last of it) Jerusalem (ah!) cuckoos.

So anyhow when I got back they were at it dingdong, John Wyse saying it
was Bloom gave the ideas for Sinn Fein to Griffith to put in his paper
all kinds of jerrymandering, packed juries and swindling the taxes off
of the government and appointing consuls all over the world to walk
about selling Irish industries. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Gob, that
puts the bloody kybosh on it if old sloppy eyes is mucking up the show.
Give us a bloody chance. God save Ireland from the likes of that bloody
mouseabout. Mr Bloom with his argol bargol. And his old fellow before
him perpetrating frauds, old Methusalem Bloom, the robbing bagman, that
poisoned himself with the prussic acid after he swamping the country
with his baubles and his penny diamonds. Loans by post on easy terms.
Any amount of money advanced on note of hand. Distance no object. No
security. Gob, he’s like Lanty MacHale’s goat that’d go a piece of the
road with every one.

—Well, it’s a fact, says John Wyse. And there’s the man now that’ll
tell you all about it, Martin Cunningham.

Sure enough the castle car drove up with Martin on it and Jack Power
with him and a fellow named Crofter or Crofton, pensioner out of the
collector general’s, an orangeman Blackburn does have on the
registration and he drawing his pay or Crawford gallivanting around the
country at the king’s expense.

Our travellers reached the rustic hostelry and alighted from their
palfreys.

—Ho, varlet! cried he, who by his mien seemed the leader of the party.
Saucy knave! To us!

So saying he knocked loudly with his swordhilt upon the open lattice.

Mine host came forth at the summons, girding him with his tabard.

—Give you good den, my masters, said he with an obsequious bow.

—Bestir thyself, sirrah! cried he who had knocked. Look to our steeds.
And for ourselves give us of your best for ifaith we need it.

—Lackaday, good masters, said the host, my poor house has but a bare
larder. I know not what to offer your lordships.

—How now, fellow? cried the second of the party, a man of pleasant
countenance, So servest thou the king’s messengers, master Taptun?

An instantaneous change overspread the landlord’s visage.

—Cry you mercy, gentlemen, he said humbly. An you be the king’s
messengers (God shield His Majesty!) you shall not want for aught. The
king’s friends (God bless His Majesty!) shall not go afasting in my
house I warrant me.

—Then about! cried the traveller who had not spoken, a lusty
trencherman by his aspect. Hast aught to give us?

Mine host bowed again as he made answer:

—What say you, good masters, to a squab pigeon pasty, some collops of
venison, a saddle of veal, widgeon with crisp hog’s bacon, a boar’s
head with pistachios, a bason of jolly custard, a medlar tansy and a
flagon of old Rhenish?

—Gadzooks! cried the last speaker. That likes me well. Pistachios!

—Aha! cried he of the pleasant countenance. A poor house and a bare
larder, quotha! ’Tis a merry rogue.

So in comes Martin asking where was Bloom.

—Where is he? says Lenehan. Defrauding widows and orphans.

—Isn’t that a fact, says John Wyse, what I was telling the citizen
about Bloom and the Sinn Fein?

—That’s so, says Martin. Or so they allege.

—Who made those allegations? says Alf.

—I, says Joe. I’m the alligator.

—And after all, says John Wyse, why can’t a jew love his country like
the next fellow?

—Why not? says J. J., when he’s quite sure which country it is.

—Is he a jew or a gentile or a holy Roman or a swaddler or what the
hell is he? says Ned. Or who is he? No offence, Crofton.

—Who is Junius? says J. J.

—We don’t want him, says Crofter the Orangeman or presbyterian.

—He’s a perverted jew, says Martin, from a place in Hungary and it was
he drew up all the plans according to the Hungarian system. We know
that in the castle.

—Isn’t he a cousin of Bloom the dentist? says Jack Power.

—Not at all, says Martin. Only namesakes. His name was Virag, the
father’s name that poisoned himself. He changed it by deedpoll, the
father did.

—That’s the new Messiah for Ireland! says the citizen. Island of saints
and sages!

—Well, they’re still waiting for their redeemer, says Martin. For that
matter so are we.

—Yes, says J. J., and every male that’s born they think it may be their
Messiah. And every jew is in a tall state of excitement, I believe,
till he knows if he’s a father or a mother.

—Expecting every moment will be his next, says Lenehan.

—O, by God, says Ned, you should have seen Bloom before that son of his
that died was born. I met him one day in the south city markets buying
a tin of Neave’s food six weeks before the wife was delivered.

—_En ventre sa mère_, says J. J.

—Do you call that a man? says the citizen.

—I wonder did he ever put it out of sight, says Joe.

—Well, there were two children born anyhow, says Jack Power.

—And who does he suspect? says the citizen.

Gob, there’s many a true word spoken in jest. One of those mixed
middlings he is. Lying up in the hotel Pisser was telling me once a
month with headache like a totty with her courses. Do you know what I’m
telling you? It’d be an act of God to take a hold of a fellow the like
of that and throw him in the bloody sea. Justifiable homicide, so it
would. Then sloping off with his five quid without putting up a pint of
stuff like a man. Give us your blessing. Not as much as would blind
your eye.

—Charity to the neighbour, says Martin. But where is he? We can’t wait.

—A wolf in sheep’s clothing, says the citizen. That’s what he is. Virag
from Hungary! Ahasuerus I call him. Cursed by God.

—Have you time for a brief libation, Martin? says Ned.

—Only one, says Martin. We must be quick. J. J. and S.

—You, Jack? Crofton? Three half ones, Terry.

—Saint Patrick would want to land again at Ballykinlar and convert us,
says the citizen, after allowing things like that to contaminate our
shores.

—Well, says Martin, rapping for his glass. God bless all here is my
prayer.

—Amen, says the citizen.

—And I’m sure He will, says Joe.

And at the sound of the sacring bell, headed by a crucifer with
acolytes, thurifers, boatbearers, readers, ostiarii, deacons and
subdeacons, the blessed company drew nigh of mitred abbots and priors
and guardians and monks and friars: the monks of Benedict of Spoleto,
Carthusians and Camaldolesi, Cistercians and Olivetans, Oratorians and
Vallombrosans, and the friars of Augustine, Brigittines,
Premonstratensians, Servi, Trinitarians, and the children of Peter
Nolasco: and therewith from Carmel mount the children of Elijah prophet
led by Albert bishop and by Teresa of Avila, calced and other: and
friars, brown and grey, sons of poor Francis, capuchins, cordeliers,
minimes and observants and the daughters of Clara: and the sons of
Dominic, the friars preachers, and the sons of Vincent: and the monks
of S. Wolstan: and Ignatius his children: and the confraternity of the
christian brothers led by the reverend brother Edmund Ignatius Rice.
And after came all saints and martyrs, virgins and confessors: S. Cyr
and S. Isidore Arator and S. James the Less and S. Phocas of Sinope and
S. Julian Hospitator and S. Felix de Cantalice and S. Simon Stylites
and S. Stephen Protomartyr and S. John of God and S. Ferreol and S.
Leugarde and S. Theodotus and S. Vulmar and S. Richard and S. Vincent
de Paul and S. Martin of Todi and S. Martin of Tours and S. Alfred and
S. Joseph and S. Denis and S. Cornelius and S. Leopold and S. Bernard
and S. Terence and S. Edward and S. Owen Caniculus and S. Anonymous and
S. Eponymous and S. Pseudonymous and S. Homonymous and S. Paronymous
and S. Synonymous and S. Laurence O’Toole and S. James of Dingle and
Compostella and S. Columcille and S. Columba and S. Celestine and S.
Colman and S. Kevin and S. Brendan and S. Frigidian and S. Senan and S.
Fachtna and S. Columbanus and S. Gall and S. Fursey and S. Fintan and
S. Fiacre and S. John Nepomuc and S. Thomas Aquinas and S. Ives of
Brittany and S. Michan and S. Herman-Joseph and the three patrons of
holy youth S. Aloysius Gonzaga and S. Stanislaus Kostka and S. John
Berchmans and the saints Gervasius, Servasius and Bonifacius and S.
Bride and S. Kieran and S. Canice of Kilkenny and S. Jarlath of Tuam
and S. Finbarr and S. Pappin of Ballymun and Brother Aloysius Pacificus
and Brother Louis Bellicosus and the saints Rose of Lima and of Viterbo
and S. Martha of Bethany and S. Mary of Egypt and S. Lucy and S. Brigid
and S. Attracta and S. Dympna and S. Ita and S. Marion Calpensis and
the Blessed Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus and S. Barbara and S.
Scholastica and S. Ursula with eleven thousand virgins. And all came
with nimbi and aureoles and gloriae, bearing palms and harps and swords
and olive crowns, in robes whereon were woven the blessed symbols of
their efficacies, inkhorns, arrows, loaves, cruses, fetters, axes,
trees, bridges, babes in a bathtub, shells, wallets, shears, keys,
dragons, lilies, buckshot, beards, hogs, lamps, bellows, beehives,
soupladles, stars, snakes, anvils, boxes of vaseline, bells, crutches,
forceps, stags’ horns, watertight boots, hawks, millstones, eyes on a
dish, wax candles, aspergills, unicorns. And as they wended their way
by Nelson’s Pillar, Henry street, Mary street, Capel street, Little
Britain street chanting the introit in _Epiphania Domini_ which
beginneth _Surge, illuminare_ and thereafter most sweetly the gradual
_Omnes_ which saith _de Saba venient_ they did divers wonders such as
casting out devils, raising the dead to life, multiplying fishes,
healing the halt and the blind, discovering various articles which had
been mislaid, interpreting and fulfilling the scriptures, blessing and
prophesying. And last, beneath a canopy of cloth of gold came the
reverend Father O’Flynn attended by Malachi and Patrick. And when the
good fathers had reached the appointed place, the house of Bernard
Kiernan and Co, limited, 8, 9 and 10 little Britain street, wholesale
grocers, wine and brandy shippers, licensed for the sale of beer, wine
and spirits for consumption on the premises, the celebrant blessed the
house and censed the mullioned windows and the groynes and the vaults
and the arrises and the capitals and the pediments and the cornices and
the engrailed arches and the spires and the cupolas and sprinkled the
lintels thereof with blessed water and prayed that God might bless that
house as he had blessed the house of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and
make the angels of His light to inhabit therein. And entering he
blessed the viands and the beverages and the company of all the blessed
answered his prayers.

—_Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini._

—_Qui fecit cœlum et terram._

—_Dominus vobiscum._

—_Et cum spiritu tuo._

And he laid his hands upon that he blessed and gave thanks and he
prayed and they all with him prayed:

—_Deus, cuius verbo sanctificantur omnia, benedictionem tuam effunde
super creaturas istas: et praesta ut quisquis eis secundum legem et
voluntatem Tuam cum gratiarum actione usus fuerit per invocationem
sanctissimi nominis Tui corporis sanitatem et animæ tutelam Te auctore
percipiat per Christum Dominum nostrum._

—And so say all of us, says Jack.

—Thousand a year, Lambert, says Crofton or Crawford.

—Right, says Ned, taking up his John Jameson. And butter for fish.

I was just looking around to see who the happy thought would strike
when be damned but in he comes again letting on to be in a hell of a
hurry.

—I was just round at the courthouse, says he, looking for you. I hope
I’m not...

—No, says Martin, we’re ready.

Courthouse my eye and your pockets hanging down with gold and silver.
Mean bloody scut. Stand us a drink itself. Devil a sweet fear! There’s
a jew for you! All for number one. Cute as a shithouse rat. Hundred to
five.

—Don’t tell anyone, says the citizen.

—Beg your pardon, says he.

—Come on boys, says Martin, seeing it was looking blue. Come along now.

—Don’t tell anyone, says the citizen, letting a bawl out of him. It’s a
secret.

And the bloody dog woke up and let a growl.

—Bye bye all, says Martin.

And he got them out as quick as he could, Jack Power and Crofton or
whatever you call him and him in the middle of them letting on to be
all at sea and up with them on the bloody jaunting car.

—Off with you, says Martin to the jarvey.

The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop
the helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind and stood off
forward with all sail set, the spinnaker to larboard. A many comely
nymphs drew nigh to starboard and to larboard and, clinging to the
sides of the noble bark, they linked their shining forms as doth the
cunning wheelwright when he fashions about the heart of his wheel the
equidistant rays whereof each one is sister to another and he binds
them all with an outer ring and giveth speed to the feet of men whenas
they ride to a hosting or contend for the smile of ladies fair. Even so
did they come and set them, those willing nymphs, the undying sisters.
And they laughed, sporting in a circle of their foam: and the bark
clave the waves.

But begob I was just lowering the heel of the pint when I saw the
citizen getting up to waddle to the door, puffing and blowing with the
dropsy, and he cursing the curse of Cromwell on him, bell, book and
candle in Irish, spitting and spatting out of him and Joe and little
Alf round him like a leprechaun trying to peacify him.

—Let me alone, says he.

And begob he got as far as the door and they holding him and he bawls
out of him:

—Three cheers for Israel!

Arrah, sit down on the parliamentary side of your arse for Christ’ sake
and don’t be making a public exhibition of yourself. Jesus, there’s
always some bloody clown or other kicking up a bloody murder about
bloody nothing. Gob, it’d turn the porter sour in your guts, so it
would.

And all the ragamuffins and sluts of the nation round the door and
Martin telling the jarvey to drive ahead and the citizen bawling and
Alf and Joe at him to whisht and he on his high horse about the jews
and the loafers calling for a speech and Jack Power trying to get him
to sit down on the car and hold his bloody jaw and a loafer with a
patch over his eye starts singing _If the man in the moon was a jew,
jew, jew_ and a slut shouts out of her:

—Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister!

And says he:

—Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And
the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God.

—He had no father, says Martin. That’ll do now. Drive ahead.

—Whose God? says the citizen.

—Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a
jew like me.

Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop.

—By Jesus, says he, I’ll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy
name.

By Jesus, I’ll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here.

—Stop! Stop! says Joe.

A large and appreciative gathering of friends and acquaintances from
the metropolis and greater Dublin assembled in their thousands to bid
farewell to Nagyaságos uram Lipóti Virag, late of Messrs Alexander
Thom’s, printers to His Majesty, on the occasion of his departure for
the distant clime of Százharminczbrojúgulyás-Dugulás (Meadow of
Murmuring Waters). The ceremony which went off with great _éclat_ was
characterised by the most affecting cordiality. An illuminated scroll
of ancient Irish vellum, the work of Irish artists, was presented to
the distinguished phenomenologist on behalf of a large section of the
community and was accompanied by the gift of a silver casket,
tastefully executed in the style of ancient Celtic ornament, a work
which reflects every credit on the makers, Messrs Jacob _agus_ Jacob.
The departing guest was the recipient of a hearty ovation, many of
those who were present being visibly moved when the select orchestra of
Irish pipes struck up the wellknown strains of _Come Back to Erin_,
followed immediately by _Rakóczsy’s March_. Tarbarrels and bonfires
were lighted along the coastline of the four seas on the summits of the
Hill of Howth, Three Rock Mountain, Sugarloaf, Bray Head, the mountains
of Mourne, the Galtees, the Ox and Donegal and Sperrin peaks, the
Nagles and the Bograghs, the Connemara hills, the reeks of
M’Gillicuddy, Slieve Aughty, Slieve Bernagh and Slieve Bloom. Amid
cheers that rent the welkin, responded to by answering cheers from a
big muster of henchmen on the distant Cambrian and Caledonian hills,
the mastodontic pleasureship slowly moved away saluted by a final
floral tribute from the representatives of the fair sex who were
present in large numbers while, as it proceeded down the river,
escorted by a flotilla of barges, the flags of the Ballast office and
Custom House were dipped in salute as were also those of the electrical
power station at the Pigeonhouse and the Poolbeg Light.
_Visszontlátásra, kedvés barátom! Visszontlátásra!_ Gone but not
forgotten.

Gob, the devil wouldn’t stop him till he got hold of the bloody tin
anyhow and out with him and little Alf hanging on to his elbow and he
shouting like a stuck pig, as good as any bloody play in the Queen’s
royal theatre:

—Where is he till I murder him?

And Ned and J. J. paralysed with the laughing.

—Bloody wars, says I, I’ll be in for the last gospel.

But as luck would have it the jarvey got the nag’s head round the other
way and off with him.

—Hold on, citizen, says Joe. Stop!

Begob he drew his hand and made a swipe and let fly. Mercy of God the
sun was in his eyes or he’d have left him for dead. Gob, he near sent
it into the county Longford. The bloody nag took fright and the old
mongrel after the car like bloody hell and all the populace shouting
and laughing and the old tinbox clattering along the street.

The catastrophe was terrific and instantaneous in its effect. The
observatory of Dunsink registered in all eleven shocks, all of the
fifth grade of Mercalli’s scale, and there is no record extant of a
similar seismic disturbance in our island since the earthquake of 1534,
the year of the rebellion of Silken Thomas. The epicentre appears to
have been that part of the metropolis which constitutes the Inn’s Quay
ward and parish of Saint Michan covering a surface of fortyone acres,
two roods and one square pole or perch. All the lordly residences in
the vicinity of the palace of justice were demolished and that noble
edifice itself, in which at the time of the catastrophe important legal
debates were in progress, is literally a mass of ruins beneath which it
is to be feared all the occupants have been buried alive. From the
reports of eyewitnesses it transpires that the seismic waves were
accompanied by a violent atmospheric perturbation of cyclonic
character. An article of headgear since ascertained to belong to the
much respected clerk of the crown and peace Mr George Fottrell and a
silk umbrella with gold handle with the engraved initials, crest, coat
of arms and house number of the erudite and worshipful chairman of
quarter sessions sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, have been
discovered by search parties in remote parts of the island
respectively, the former on the third basaltic ridge of the giant’s
causeway, the latter embedded to the extent of one foot three inches in
the sandy beach of Holeopen bay near the old head of Kinsale. Other
eyewitnesses depose that they observed an incandescent object of
enormous proportions hurtling through the atmosphere at a terrifying
velocity in a trajectory directed southwest by west. Messages of
condolence and sympathy are being hourly received from all parts of the
different continents and the sovereign pontiff has been graciously
pleased to decree that a special _missa pro defunctis_ shall be
celebrated simultaneously by the ordinaries of each and every cathedral
church of all the episcopal dioceses subject to the spiritual authority
of the Holy See in suffrage of the souls of those faithful departed who
have been so unexpectedly called away from our midst. The work of
salvage, removal of _débris,_ human remains etc has been entrusted to
Messrs Michael Meade and Son, 159 Great Brunswick street, and Messrs T.
and C. Martin, 77, 78, 79 and 80 North Wall, assisted by the men and
officers of the Duke of Cornwall’s light infantry under the general
supervision of H. R. H., rear admiral, the right honourable sir
Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson, K. G., K. P., K. T., P. C.,
K. C. B., M. P., J. P., M. B., D. S. O., S. O. D., M. F. H., M. R. I.
A., B. L., Mus. Doc., P. L. G., F. T. C. D., F. R. U. I., F. R. C. P.
I. and F. R. C. S. I.

You never saw the like of it in all your born puff. Gob, if he got that
lottery ticket on the side of his poll he’d remember the gold cup, he
would so, but begob the citizen would have been lagged for assault and
battery and Joe for aiding and abetting. The jarvey saved his life by
furious driving as sure as God made Moses. What? O, Jesus, he did. And
he let a volley of oaths after him.

—Did I kill him, says he, or what?

And he shouting to the bloody dog:

—After him, Garry! After him, boy!

And the last we saw was the bloody car rounding the corner and old
sheepsface on it gesticulating and the bloody mongrel after it with his
lugs back for all he was bloody well worth to tear him limb from limb.
Hundred to five! Jesus, he took the value of it out of him, I promise
you.

When, lo, there came about them all a great brightness and they beheld
the chariot wherein He stood ascend to heaven. And they beheld Him in
the chariot, clothed upon in the glory of the brightness, having
raiment as of the sun, fair as the moon and terrible that for awe they
durst not look upon Him. And there came a voice out of heaven, calling:
_Elijah! Elijah!_ And He answered with a main cry: _Abba! Adonai!_ And
they beheld Him even Him, ben Bloom Elijah, amid clouds of angels
ascend to the glory of the brightness at an angle of fortyfive degrees
over Donohoe’s in Little Green street like a shot off a shovel.


[ 13 ]

The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious
embrace. Far away in the west the sun was setting and the last glow of
all too fleeting day lingered lovingly on sea and strand, on the proud
promontory of dear old Howth guarding as ever the waters of the bay, on
the weedgrown rocks along Sandymount shore and, last but not least, on
the quiet church whence there streamed forth at times upon the
stillness the voice of prayer to her who is in her pure radiance a
beacon ever to the stormtossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea.

The three girl friends were seated on the rocks, enjoying the evening
scene and the air which was fresh but not too chilly. Many a time and
oft were they wont to come there to that favourite nook to have a cosy
chat beside the sparkling waves and discuss matters feminine, Cissy
Caffrey and Edy Boardman with the baby in the pushcar and Tommy and
Jacky Caffrey, two little curlyheaded boys, dressed in sailor suits
with caps to match and the name _H. M. S. Belleisle_ printed on both.
For Tommy and Jacky Caffrey were twins, scarce four years old and very
noisy and spoiled twins sometimes but for all that darling little
fellows with bright merry faces and endearing ways about them. They
were dabbling in the sand with their spades and buckets, building
castles as children do, or playing with their big coloured ball, happy
as the day was long. And Edy Boardman was rocking the chubby baby to
and fro in the pushcar while that young gentleman fairly chuckled with
delight. He was but eleven months and nine days old and, though still a
tiny toddler, was just beginning to lisp his first babyish words. Cissy
Caffrey bent over to him to tease his fat little plucks and the dainty
dimple in his chin.

—Now, baby, Cissy Caffrey said. Say out big, big. I want a drink of
water.

And baby prattled after her:

—A jink a jink a jawbo.

Cissy Caffrey cuddled the wee chap for she was awfully fond of
children, so patient with little sufferers and Tommy Caffrey could
never be got to take his castor oil unless it was Cissy Caffrey that
held his nose and promised him the scatty heel of the loaf or brown
bread with golden syrup on. What a persuasive power that girl had! But
to be sure baby Boardman was as good as gold, a perfect little dote in
his new fancy bib. None of your spoilt beauties, Flora MacFlimsy sort,
was Cissy Caffrey. A truerhearted lass never drew the breath of life,
always with a laugh in her gipsylike eyes and a frolicsome word on her
cherryripe red lips, a girl lovable in the extreme. And Edy Boardman
laughed too at the quaint language of little brother.

But just then there was a slight altercation between Master Tommy and
Master Jacky. Boys will be boys and our two twins were no exception to
this golden rule. The apple of discord was a certain castle of sand
which Master Jacky had built and Master Tommy would have it right go
wrong that it was to be architecturally improved by a frontdoor like
the Martello tower had. But if Master Tommy was headstrong Master Jacky
was selfwilled too and, true to the maxim that every little Irishman’s
house is his castle, he fell upon his hated rival and to such purpose
that the wouldbe assailant came to grief and (alas to relate!) the
coveted castle too. Needless to say the cries of discomfited Master
Tommy drew the attention of the girl friends.

—Come here, Tommy, his sister called imperatively. At once! And you,
Jacky, for shame to throw poor Tommy in the dirty sand. Wait till I
catch you for that.

His eyes misty with unshed tears Master Tommy came at her call for
their big sister’s word was law with the twins. And in a sad plight he
was too after his misadventure. His little man-o’-war top and
unmentionables were full of sand but Cissy was a past mistress in the
art of smoothing over life’s tiny troubles and very quickly not one
speck of sand was to be seen on his smart little suit. Still the blue
eyes were glistening with hot tears that would well up so she kissed
away the hurtness and shook her hand at Master Jacky the culprit and
said if she was near him she wouldn’t be far from him, her eyes dancing
in admonition.

—Nasty bold Jacky! she cried.

She put an arm round the little mariner and coaxed winningly:

—What’s your name? Butter and cream?

—Tell us who is your sweetheart, spoke Edy Boardman. Is Cissy your
sweetheart?

—Nao, tearful Tommy said.

—Is Edy Boardman your sweetheart? Cissy queried.

—Nao, Tommy said.

—I know, Edy Boardman said none too amiably with an arch glance from
her shortsighted eyes. I know who is Tommy’s sweetheart. Gerty is
Tommy’s sweetheart.

—Nao, Tommy said on the verge of tears.

Cissy’s quick motherwit guessed what was amiss and she whispered to Edy
Boardman to take him there behind the pushcar where the gentleman
couldn’t see and to mind he didn’t wet his new tan shoes.

But who was Gerty?

Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in thought,
gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a
specimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see. She was
pronounced beautiful by all who knew her though, as folks often said,
she was more a Giltrap than a MacDowell. Her figure was slight and
graceful, inclining even to fragility but those iron jelloids she had
been taking of late had done her a world of good much better than the
Widow Welch’s female pills and she was much better of those discharges
she used to get and that tired feeling. The waxen pallor of her face
was almost spiritual in its ivorylike purity though her rosebud mouth
was a genuine Cupid’s bow, Greekly perfect. Her hands were of finely
veined alabaster with tapering fingers and as white as lemonjuice and
queen of ointments could make them though it was not true that she used
to wear kid gloves in bed or take a milk footbath either. Bertha Supple
told that once to Edy Boardman, a deliberate lie, when she was black
out at daggers drawn with Gerty (the girl chums had of course their
little tiffs from time to time like the rest of mortals) and she told
her not to let on whatever she did that it was her that told her or
she’d never speak to her again. No. Honour where honour is due. There
was an innate refinement, a languid queenly _hauteur_ about Gerty which
was unmistakably evidenced in her delicate hands and higharched instep.
Had kind fate but willed her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in
her own right and had she only received the benefit of a good education
Gerty MacDowell might easily have held her own beside any lady in the
land and have seen herself exquisitely gowned with jewels on her brow
and patrician suitors at her feet vying with one another to pay their
devoirs to her. Mayhap it was this, the love that might have been, that
lent to her softlyfeatured face at whiles a look, tense with suppressed
meaning, that imparted a strange yearning tendency to the beautiful
eyes, a charm few could resist. Why have women such eyes of witchery?
Gerty’s were of the bluest Irish blue, set off by lustrous lashes and
dark expressive brows. Time was when those brows were not so silkily
seductive. It was Madame Vera Verity, directress of the Woman Beautiful
page of the Princess Novelette, who had first advised her to try
eyebrowleine which gave that haunting expression to the eyes, so
becoming in leaders of fashion, and she had never regretted it. Then
there was blushing scientifically cured and how to be tall increase
your height and you have a beautiful face but your nose? That would
suit Mrs Dignam because she had a button one. But Gerty’s crowning
glory was her wealth of wonderful hair. It was dark brown with a
natural wave in it. She had cut it that very morning on account of the
new moon and it nestled about her pretty head in a profusion of
luxuriant clusters and pared her nails too, Thursday for wealth. And
just now at Edy’s words as a telltale flush, delicate as the faintest
rosebloom, crept into her cheeks she looked so lovely in her sweet
girlish shyness that of a surety God’s fair land of Ireland did not
hold her equal.

For an instant she was silent with rather sad downcast eyes. She was
about to retort but something checked the words on her tongue.
Inclination prompted her to speak out: dignity told her to be silent.
The pretty lips pouted awhile but then she glanced up and broke out
into a joyous little laugh which had in it all the freshness of a young
May morning. She knew right well, no-one better, what made squinty Edy
say that because of him cooling in his attentions when it was simply a
lovers’ quarrel. As per usual somebody’s nose was out of joint about
the boy that had the bicycle off the London bridge road always riding
up and down in front of her window. Only now his father kept him in in
the evenings studying hard to get an exhibition in the intermediate
that was on and he was going to go to Trinity college to study for a
doctor when he left the high school like his brother W. E. Wylie who
was racing in the bicycle races in Trinity college university. Little
recked he perhaps for what she felt, that dull aching void in her heart
sometimes, piercing to the core. Yet he was young and perchance he
might learn to love her in time. They were protestants in his family
and of course Gerty knew Who came first and after Him the Blessed
Virgin and then Saint Joseph. But he was undeniably handsome with an
exquisite nose and he was what he looked, every inch a gentleman, the
shape of his head too at the back without his cap on that she would
know anywhere something off the common and the way he turned the
bicycle at the lamp with his hands off the bars and also the nice
perfume of those good cigarettes and besides they were both of a size
too he and she and that was why Edy Boardman thought she was so
frightfully clever because he didn’t go and ride up and down in front
of her bit of a garden.

Gerty was dressed simply but with the instinctive taste of a votary of
Dame Fashion for she felt that there was just a might that he might be
out. A neat blouse of electric blue selftinted by dolly dyes (because
it was expected in the _Lady’s Pictorial_ that electric blue would be
worn) with a smart vee opening down to the division and kerchief pocket
(in which she always kept a piece of cottonwool scented with her
favourite perfume because the handkerchief spoiled the sit) and a navy
threequarter skirt cut to the stride showed off her slim graceful
figure to perfection. She wore a coquettish little love of a hat of
wideleaved nigger straw contrast trimmed with an underbrim of eggblue
chenille and at the side a butterfly bow of silk to tone. All Tuesday
week afternoon she was hunting to match that chenille but at last she
found what she wanted at Clery’s summer sales, the very it, slightly
shopsoiled but you would never notice, seven fingers two and a penny.
She did it up all by herself and what joy was hers when she tried it on
then, smiling at the lovely reflection which the mirror gave back to
her! And when she put it on the waterjug to keep the shape she knew
that that would take the shine out of some people she knew. Her shoes
were the newest thing in footwear (Edy Boardman prided herself that she
was very _petite_ but she never had a foot like Gerty MacDowell, a
five, and never would ash, oak or elm) with patent toecaps and just one
smart buckle over her higharched instep. Her wellturned ankle displayed
its perfect proportions beneath her skirt and just the proper amount
and no more of her shapely limbs encased in finespun hose with
highspliced heels and wide garter tops. As for undies they were Gerty’s
chief care and who that knows the fluttering hopes and fears of sweet
seventeen (though Gerty would never see seventeen again) can find it in
his heart to blame her? She had four dinky sets with awfully pretty
stitchery, three garments and nighties extra, and each set slotted with
different coloured ribbons, rosepink, pale blue, mauve and peagreen,
and she aired them herself and blued them when they came home from the
wash and ironed them and she had a brickbat to keep the iron on because
she wouldn’t trust those washerwomen as far as she’d see them scorching
the things. She was wearing the blue for luck, hoping against hope, her
own colour and lucky too for a bride to have a bit of blue somewhere on
her because the green she wore that day week brought grief because his
father brought him in to study for the intermediate exhibition and
because she thought perhaps he might be out because when she was
dressing that morning she nearly slipped up the old pair on her inside
out and that was for luck and lovers’ meeting if you put those things
on inside out or if they got untied that he was thinking about you so
long as it wasn’t of a Friday.

And yet and yet! That strained look on her face! A gnawing sorrow is
there all the time. Her very soul is in her eyes and she would give
worlds to be in the privacy of her own familiar chamber where, giving
way to tears, she could have a good cry and relieve her pentup feelings
though not too much because she knew how to cry nicely before the
mirror. You are lovely, Gerty, it said. The paly light of evening falls
upon a face infinitely sad and wistful. Gerty MacDowell yearns in vain.
Yes, she had known from the very first that her daydream of a marriage
has been arranged and the weddingbells ringing for Mrs Reggy Wylie T.
C. D. (because the one who married the elder brother would be Mrs
Wylie) and in the fashionable intelligence Mrs Gertrude Wylie was
wearing a sumptuous confection of grey trimmed with expensive blue fox
was not to be. He was too young to understand. He would not believe in
love, a woman’s birthright. The night of the party long ago in Stoer’s
(he was still in short trousers) when they were alone and he stole an
arm round her waist she went white to the very lips. He called her
little one in a strangely husky voice and snatched a half kiss (the
first!) but it was only the end of her nose and then he hastened from
the room with a remark about refreshments. Impetuous fellow! Strength
of character had never been Reggy Wylie’s strong point and he who would
woo and win Gerty MacDowell must be a man among men. But waiting,
always waiting to be asked and it was leap year too and would soon be
over. No prince charming is her beau ideal to lay a rare and wondrous
love at her feet but rather a manly man with a strong quiet face who
had not found his ideal, perhaps his hair slightly flecked with grey,
and who would understand, take her in his sheltering arms, strain her
to him in all the strength of his deep passionate nature and comfort
her with a long long kiss. It would be like heaven. For such a one she
yearns this balmy summer eve. With all the heart of her she longs to be
his only, his affianced bride for riches for poor, in sickness in
health, till death us two part, from this to this day forward.

And while Edy Boardman was with little Tommy behind the pushcar she was
just thinking would the day ever come when she could call herself his
little wife to be. Then they could talk about her till they went blue
in the face, Bertha Supple too, and Edy, little spitfire, because she
would be twentytwo in November. She would care for him with creature
comforts too for Gerty was womanly wise and knew that a mere man liked
that feeling of hominess. Her griddlecakes done to a goldenbrown hue
and queen Ann’s pudding of delightful creaminess had won golden
opinions from all because she had a lucky hand also for lighting a
fire, dredge in the fine selfraising flour and always stir in the same
direction, then cream the milk and sugar and whisk well the white of
eggs though she didn’t like the eating part when there were any people
that made her shy and often she wondered why you couldn’t eat something
poetical like violets or roses and they would have a beautifully
appointed drawingroom with pictures and engravings and the photograph
of grandpapa Giltrap’s lovely dog Garryowen that almost talked it was
so human and chintz covers for the chairs and that silver toastrack in
Clery’s summer jumble sales like they have in rich houses. He would be
tall with broad shoulders (she had always admired tall men for a
husband) with glistening white teeth under his carefully trimmed
sweeping moustache and they would go on the continent for their
honeymoon (three wonderful weeks!) and then, when they settled down in
a nice snug and cosy little homely house, every morning they would both
have brekky, simple but perfectly served, for their own two selves and
before he went out to business he would give his dear little wifey a
good hearty hug and gaze for a moment deep down into her eyes.

Edy Boardman asked Tommy Caffrey was he done and he said yes so then
she buttoned up his little knickerbockers for him and told him to run
off and play with Jacky and to be good now and not to fight. But Tommy
said he wanted the ball and Edy told him no that baby was playing with
the ball and if he took it there’d be wigs on the green but Tommy said
it was his ball and he wanted his ball and he pranced on the ground, if
you please. The temper of him! O, he was a man already was little Tommy
Caffrey since he was out of pinnies. Edy told him no, no and to be off
now with him and she told Cissy Caffrey not to give in to him.

—You’re not my sister, naughty Tommy said. It’s my ball.

But Cissy Caffrey told baby Boardman to look up, look up high at her
finger and she snatched the ball quickly and threw it along the sand
and Tommy after it in full career, having won the day.

—Anything for a quiet life, laughed Ciss.

And she tickled tiny tot’s two cheeks to make him forget and played
here’s the lord mayor, here’s his two horses, here’s his gingerbread
carriage and here he walks in, chinchopper, chinchopper, chinchopper
chin. But Edy got as cross as two sticks about him getting his own way
like that from everyone always petting him.

—I’d like to give him something, she said, so I would, where I won’t
say.

—On the beeoteetom, laughed Cissy merrily.

Gerty MacDowell bent down her head and crimsoned at the idea of Cissy
saying an unladylike thing like that out loud she’d be ashamed of her
life to say, flushing a deep rosy red, and Edy Boardman said she was
sure the gentleman opposite heard what she said. But not a pin cared
Ciss.

—Let him! she said with a pert toss of her head and a piquant tilt of
her nose. Give it to him too on the same place as quick as I’d look at
him.

Madcap Ciss with her golliwog curls. You had to laugh at her sometimes.
For instance when she asked you would you have some more Chinese tea
and jaspberry ram and when she drew the jugs too and the men’s faces on
her nails with red ink make you split your sides or when she wanted to
go where you know she said she wanted to run and pay a visit to the
Miss White. That was just like Cissycums. O, and will you ever forget
her the evening she dressed up in her father’s suit and hat and the
burned cork moustache and walked down Tritonville road, smoking a
cigarette. There was none to come up to her for fun. But she was
sincerity itself, one of the bravest and truest hearts heaven ever
made, not one of your twofaced things, too sweet to be wholesome.

And then there came out upon the air the sound of voices and the
pealing anthem of the organ. It was the men’s temperance retreat
conducted by the missioner, the reverend John Hughes S. J., rosary,
sermon and benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. They were there
gathered together without distinction of social class (and a most
edifying spectacle it was to see) in that simple fane beside the waves,
after the storms of this weary world, kneeling before the feet of the
immaculate, reciting the litany of Our Lady of Loreto, beseeching her
to intercede for them, the old familiar words, holy Mary, holy virgin
of virgins. How sad to poor Gerty’s ears! Had her father only avoided
the clutches of the demon drink, by taking the pledge or those powders
the drink habit cured in Pearson’s Weekly, she might now be rolling in
her carriage, second to none. Over and over had she told herself that
as she mused by the dying embers in a brown study without the lamp
because she hated two lights or oftentimes gazing out of the window
dreamily by the hour at the rain falling on the rusty bucket, thinking.
But that vile decoction which has ruined so many hearths and homes had
cast its shadow over her childhood days. Nay, she had even witnessed in
the home circle deeds of violence caused by intemperance and had seen
her own father, a prey to the fumes of intoxication, forget himself
completely for if there was one thing of all things that Gerty knew it
was that the man who lifts his hand to a woman save in the way of
kindness, deserves to be branded as the lowest of the low.

And still the voices sang in supplication to the Virgin most powerful,
Virgin most merciful. And Gerty, rapt in thought, scarce saw or heard
her companions or the twins at their boyish gambols or the gentleman
off Sandymount green that Cissy Caffrey called the man that was so like
himself passing along the strand taking a short walk. You never saw him
any way screwed but still and for all that she would not like him for a
father because he was too old or something or on account of his face
(it was a palpable case of Doctor Fell) or his carbuncly nose with the
pimples on it and his sandy moustache a bit white under his nose. Poor
father! With all his faults she loved him still when he sang _Tell me,
Mary, how to woo thee_ or _My love and cottage near Rochelle_ and they
had stewed cockles and lettuce with Lazenby’s salad dressing for supper
and when he sang _The moon hath raised_ with Mr Dignam that died
suddenly and was buried, God have mercy on him, from a stroke. Her
mother’s birthday that was and Charley was home on his holidays and Tom
and Mr Dignam and Mrs and Patsy and Freddy Dignam and they were to have
had a group taken. No-one would have thought the end was so near. Now
he was laid to rest. And her mother said to him to let that be a
warning to him for the rest of his days and he couldn’t even go to the
funeral on account of the gout and she had to go into town to bring him
the letters and samples from his office about Catesby’s cork lino,
artistic, standard designs, fit for a palace, gives tiptop wear and
always bright and cheery in the home.

A sterling good daughter was Gerty just like a second mother in the
house, a ministering angel too with a little heart worth its weight in
gold. And when her mother had those raging splitting headaches who was
it rubbed the menthol cone on her forehead but Gerty though she didn’t
like her mother’s taking pinches of snuff and that was the only single
thing they ever had words about, taking snuff. Everyone thought the
world of her for her gentle ways. It was Gerty who turned off the gas
at the main every night and it was Gerty who tacked up on the wall of
that place where she never forgot every fortnight the chlorate of lime
Mr Tunney the grocer’s christmas almanac, the picture of halcyon days
where a young gentleman in the costume they used to wear then with a
threecornered hat was offering a bunch of flowers to his ladylove with
oldtime chivalry through her lattice window. You could see there was a
story behind it. The colours were done something lovely. She was in a
soft clinging white in a studied attitude and the gentleman was in
chocolate and he looked a thorough aristocrat. She often looked at them
dreamily when she went there for a certain purpose and felt her own
arms that were white and soft just like hers with the sleeves back and
thought about those times because she had found out in Walker’s
pronouncing dictionary that belonged to grandpapa Giltrap about the
halcyon days what they meant.

The twins were now playing in the most approved brotherly fashion till
at last Master Jacky who was really as bold as brass there was no
getting behind that deliberately kicked the ball as hard as ever he
could down towards the seaweedy rocks. Needless to say poor Tommy was
not slow to voice his dismay but luckily the gentleman in black who was
sitting there by himself came gallantly to the rescue and intercepted
the ball. Our two champions claimed their plaything with lusty cries
and to avoid trouble Cissy Caffrey called to the gentleman to throw it
to her please. The gentleman aimed the ball once or twice and then
threw it up the strand towards Cissy Caffrey but it rolled down the
slope and stopped right under Gerty’s skirt near the little pool by the
rock. The twins clamoured again for it and Cissy told her to kick it
away and let them fight for it so Gerty drew back her foot but she
wished their stupid ball hadn’t come rolling down to her and she gave a
kick but she missed and Edy and Cissy laughed.

—If you fail try again, Edy Boardman said.

Gerty smiled assent and bit her lip. A delicate pink crept into her
pretty cheek but she was determined to let them see so she just lifted
her skirt a little but just enough and took good aim and gave the ball
a jolly good kick and it went ever so far and the two twins after it
down towards the shingle. Pure jealousy of course it was nothing else
to draw attention on account of the gentleman opposite looking. She
felt the warm flush, a danger signal always with Gerty MacDowell,
surging and flaming into her cheeks. Till then they had only exchanged
glances of the most casual but now under the brim of her new hat she
ventured a look at him and the face that met her gaze there in the
twilight, wan and strangely drawn, seemed to her the saddest she had
ever seen.

Through the open window of the church the fragrant incense was wafted
and with it the fragrant names of her who was conceived without stain
of original sin, spiritual vessel, pray for us, honourable vessel, pray
for us, vessel of singular devotion, pray for us, mystical rose. And
careworn hearts were there and toilers for their daily bread and many
who had erred and wandered, their eyes wet with contrition but for all
that bright with hope for the reverend father Father Hughes had told
them what the great saint Bernard said in his famous prayer of Mary,
the most pious Virgin’s intercessory power that it was not recorded in
any age that those who implored her powerful protection were ever
abandoned by her.

The twins were now playing again right merrily for the troubles of
childhood are but as fleeting summer showers. Cissy Caffrey played with
baby Boardman till he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air.
Peep she cried behind the hood of the pushcar and Edy asked where was
Cissy gone and then Cissy popped up her head and cried ah! and, my
word, didn’t the little chap enjoy that! And then she told him to say
papa.

—Say papa, baby. Say pa pa pa pa pa pa pa.

And baby did his level best to say it for he was very intelligent for
eleven months everyone said and big for his age and the picture of
health, a perfect little bunch of love, and he would certainly turn out
to be something great, they said.

—Haja ja ja haja.

Cissy wiped his little mouth with the dribbling bib and wanted him to
sit up properly and say pa pa pa but when she undid the strap she cried
out, holy saint Denis, that he was possing wet and to double the half
blanket the other way under him. Of course his infant majesty was most
obstreperous at such toilet formalities and he let everyone know it:

—Habaa baaaahabaaa baaaa.

And two great big lovely big tears coursing down his cheeks. It was all
no use soothering him with no, nono, baby, no and telling him about the
geegee and where was the puffpuff but Ciss, always readywitted, gave
him in his mouth the teat of the suckingbottle and the young heathen
was quickly appeased.

Gerty wished to goodness they would take their squalling baby home out
of that and not get on her nerves, no hour to be out, and the little
brats of twins. She gazed out towards the distant sea. It was like the
paintings that man used to do on the pavement with all the coloured
chalks and such a pity too leaving them there to be all blotted out,
the evening and the clouds coming out and the Bailey light on Howth and
to hear the music like that and the perfume of those incense they
burned in the church like a kind of waft. And while she gazed her heart
went pitapat. Yes, it was her he was looking at, and there was meaning
in his look. His eyes burned into her as though they would search her
through and through, read her very soul. Wonderful eyes they were,
superbly expressive, but could you trust them? People were so queer.
She could see at once by his dark eyes and his pale intellectual face
that he was a foreigner, the image of the photo she had of Martin
Harvey, the matinee idol, only for the moustache which she preferred
because she wasn’t stagestruck like Winny Rippingham that wanted they
two to always dress the same on account of a play but she could not see
whether he had an aquiline nose or a slightly _retroussé_ from where he
was sitting. He was in deep mourning, she could see that, and the story
of a haunting sorrow was written on his face. She would have given
worlds to know what it was. He was looking up so intently, so still,
and he saw her kick the ball and perhaps he could see the bright steel
buckles of her shoes if she swung them like that thoughtfully with the
toes down. She was glad that something told her to put on the
transparent stockings thinking Reggy Wylie might be out but that was
far away. Here was that of which she had so often dreamed. It was he
who mattered and there was joy on her face because she wanted him
because she felt instinctively that he was like no-one else. The very
heart of the girlwoman went out to him, her dreamhusband, because she
knew on the instant it was him. If he had suffered, more sinned against
than sinning, or even, even, if he had been himself a sinner, a wicked
man, she cared not. Even if he was a protestant or methodist she could
convert him easily if he truly loved her. There were wounds that wanted
healing with heartbalm. She was a womanly woman not like other flighty
girls unfeminine he had known, those cyclists showing off what they
hadn’t got and she just yearned to know all, to forgive all if she
could make him fall in love with her, make him forget the memory of the
past. Then mayhap he would embrace her gently, like a real man,
crushing her soft body to him, and love her, his ownest girlie, for
herself alone.

Refuge of sinners. Comfortress of the afflicted. _Ora pro nobis_. Well
has it been said that whosoever prays to her with faith and constancy
can never be lost or cast away: and fitly is she too a haven of refuge
for the afflicted because of the seven dolours which transpierced her
own heart. Gerty could picture the whole scene in the church, the
stained glass windows lighted up, the candles, the flowers and the blue
banners of the blessed Virgin’s sodality and Father Conroy was helping
Canon O’Hanlon at the altar, carrying things in and out with his eyes
cast down. He looked almost a saint and his confessionbox was so quiet
and clean and dark and his hands were just like white wax and if ever
she became a Dominican nun in their white habit perhaps he might come
to the convent for the novena of Saint Dominic. He told her that time
when she told him about that in confession, crimsoning up to the roots
of her hair for fear he could see, not to be troubled because that was
only the voice of nature and we were all subject to nature’s laws, he
said, in this life and that that was no sin because that came from the
nature of woman instituted by God, he said, and that Our Blessed Lady
herself said to the archangel Gabriel be it done unto me according to
Thy Word. He was so kind and holy and often and often she thought and
thought could she work a ruched teacosy with embroidered floral design
for him as a present or a clock but they had a clock she noticed on the
mantelpiece white and gold with a canarybird that came out of a little
house to tell the time the day she went there about the flowers for the
forty hours’ adoration because it was hard to know what sort of a
present to give or perhaps an album of illuminated views of Dublin or
some place.

The exasperating little brats of twins began to quarrel again and Jacky
threw the ball out towards the sea and they both ran after it. Little
monkeys common as ditchwater. Someone ought to take them and give them
a good hiding for themselves to keep them in their places, the both of
them. And Cissy and Edy shouted after them to come back because they
were afraid the tide might come in on them and be drowned.

—Jacky! Tommy!

Not they! What a great notion they had! So Cissy said it was the very
last time she’d ever bring them out. She jumped up and called them and
she ran down the slope past him, tossing her hair behind her which had
a good enough colour if there had been more of it but with all the
thingamerry she was always rubbing into it she couldn’t get it to grow
long because it wasn’t natural so she could just go and throw her hat
at it. She ran with long gandery strides it was a wonder she didn’t rip
up her skirt at the side that was too tight on her because there was a
lot of the tomboy about Cissy Caffrey and she was a forward piece
whenever she thought she had a good opportunity to show off and just
because she was a good runner she ran like that so that he could see
all the end of her petticoat running and her skinny shanks up as far as
possible. It would have served her just right if she had tripped up
over something accidentally on purpose with her high crooked French
heels on her to make her look tall and got a fine tumble. _Tableau!_
That would have been a very charming exposé for a gentleman like that
to witness.

Queen of angels, queen of patriarchs, queen of prophets, of all saints,
they prayed, queen of the most holy rosary and then Father Conroy
handed the thurible to Canon O’Hanlon and he put in the incense and
censed the Blessed Sacrament and Cissy Caffrey caught the two twins and
she was itching to give them a ringing good clip on the ear but she
didn’t because she thought he might be watching but she never made a
bigger mistake in all her life because Gerty could see without looking
that he never took his eyes off of her and then Canon O’Hanlon handed
the thurible back to Father Conroy and knelt down looking up at the
Blessed Sacrament and the choir began to sing the _Tantum ergo_ and she
just swung her foot in and out in time as the music rose and fell to
the _Tantumer gosa cramen tum_. Three and eleven she paid for those
stockings in Sparrow’s of George’s street on the Tuesday, no the Monday
before Easter and there wasn’t a brack on them and that was what he was
looking at, transparent, and not at her insignificant ones that had
neither shape nor form (the cheek of her!) because he had eyes in his
head to see the difference for himself.

Cissy came up along the strand with the two twins and their ball with
her hat anyhow on her to one side after her run and she did look a
streel tugging the two kids along with the flimsy blouse she bought
only a fortnight before like a rag on her back and a bit of her
petticoat hanging like a caricature. Gerty just took off her hat for a
moment to settle her hair and a prettier, a daintier head of nutbrown
tresses was never seen on a girl’s shoulders—a radiant little vision,
in sooth, almost maddening in its sweetness. You would have to travel
many a long mile before you found a head of hair the like of that. She
could almost see the swift answering flash of admiration in his eyes
that set her tingling in every nerve. She put on her hat so that she
could see from underneath the brim and swung her buckled shoe faster
for her breath caught as she caught the expression in his eyes. He was
eying her as a snake eyes its prey. Her woman’s instinct told her that
she had raised the devil in him and at the thought a burning scarlet
swept from throat to brow till the lovely colour of her face became a
glorious rose.

Edy Boardman was noticing it too because she was squinting at Gerty,
half smiling, with her specs like an old maid, pretending to nurse the
baby. Irritable little gnat she was and always would be and that was
why no-one could get on with her poking her nose into what was no
concern of hers. And she said to Gerty:

—A penny for your thoughts.

—What? replied Gerty with a smile reinforced by the whitest of teeth. I
was only wondering was it late.

Because she wished to goodness they’d take the snottynosed twins and
their babby home to the mischief out of that so that was why she just
gave a gentle hint about its being late. And when Cissy came up Edy
asked her the time and Miss Cissy, as glib as you like, said it was
half past kissing time, time to kiss again. But Edy wanted to know
because they were told to be in early.

—Wait, said Cissy, I’ll run ask my uncle Peter over there what’s the
time by his conundrum.

So over she went and when he saw her coming she could see him take his
hand out of his pocket, getting nervous, and beginning to play with his
watchchain, looking up at the church. Passionate nature though he was
Gerty could see that he had enormous control over himself. One moment
he had been there, fascinated by a loveliness that made him gaze, and
the next moment it was the quiet gravefaced gentleman, selfcontrol
expressed in every line of his distinguishedlooking figure.

Cissy said to excuse her would he mind please telling her what was the
right time and Gerty could see him taking out his watch, listening to
it and looking up and clearing his throat and he said he was very sorry
his watch was stopped but he thought it must be after eight because the
sun was set. His voice had a cultured ring in it and though he spoke in
measured accents there was a suspicion of a quiver in the mellow tones.
Cissy said thanks and came back with her tongue out and said uncle said
his waterworks were out of order.

Then they sang the second verse of the _Tantum ergo_ and Canon O’Hanlon
got up again and censed the Blessed Sacrament and knelt down and he
told Father Conroy that one of the candles was just going to set fire
to the flowers and Father Conroy got up and settled it all right and
she could see the gentleman winding his watch and listening to the
works and she swung her leg more in and out in time. It was getting
darker but he could see and he was looking all the time that he was
winding the watch or whatever he was doing to it and then he put it
back and put his hands back into his pockets. She felt a kind of a
sensation rushing all over her and she knew by the feel of her scalp
and that irritation against her stays that that thing must be coming on
because the last time too was when she clipped her hair on account of
the moon. His dark eyes fixed themselves on her again drinking in her
every contour, literally worshipping at her shrine. If ever there was
undisguised admiration in a man’s passionate gaze it was there plain to
be seen on that man’s face. It is for you, Gertrude MacDowell, and you
know it.

Edy began to get ready to go and it was high time for her and Gerty
noticed that that little hint she gave had had the desired effect
because it was a long way along the strand to where there was the place
to push up the pushcar and Cissy took off the twins’ caps and tidied
their hair to make herself attractive of course and Canon O’Hanlon
stood up with his cope poking up at his neck and Father Conroy handed
him the card to read off and he read out _Panem de coelo praestitisti
eis_ and Edy and Cissy were talking about the time all the time and
asking her but Gerty could pay them back in their own coin and she just
answered with scathing politeness when Edy asked her was she
heartbroken about her best boy throwing her over. Gerty winced sharply.
A brief cold blaze shone from her eyes that spoke volumes of scorn
immeasurable. It hurt—O yes, it cut deep because Edy had her own quiet
way of saying things like that she knew would wound like the confounded
little cat she was. Gerty’s lips parted swiftly to frame the word but
she fought back the sob that rose to her throat, so slim, so flawless,
so beautifully moulded it seemed one an artist might have dreamed of.
She had loved him better than he knew. Lighthearted deceiver and fickle
like all his sex he would never understand what he had meant to her and
for an instant there was in the blue eyes a quick stinging of tears.
Their eyes were probing her mercilessly but with a brave effort she
sparkled back in sympathy as she glanced at her new conquest for them
to see.

—O, responded Gerty, quick as lightning, laughing, and the proud head
flashed up. I can throw my cap at who I like because it’s leap year.

Her words rang out crystalclear, more musical than the cooing of the
ringdove, but they cut the silence icily. There was that in her young
voice that told that she was not a one to be lightly trifled with. As
for Mr Reggy with his swank and his bit of money she could just chuck
him aside as if he was so much filth and never again would she cast as
much as a second thought on him and tear his silly postcard into a
dozen pieces. And if ever after he dared to presume she could give him
one look of measured scorn that would make him shrivel up on the spot.
Miss puny little Edy’s countenance fell to no slight extent and Gerty
could see by her looking as black as thunder that she was simply in a
towering rage though she hid it, the little kinnatt, because that shaft
had struck home for her petty jealousy and they both knew that she was
something aloof, apart, in another sphere, that she was not of them and
never would be and there was somebody else too that knew it and saw it
so they could put that in their pipe and smoke it.

Edy straightened up baby Boardman to get ready to go and Cissy tucked
in the ball and the spades and buckets and it was high time too because
the sandman was on his way for Master Boardman junior. And Cissy told
him too that billy winks was coming and that baby was to go deedaw and
baby looked just too ducky, laughing up out of his gleeful eyes, and
Cissy poked him like that out of fun in his wee fat tummy and baby,
without as much as by your leave, sent up his compliments to all and
sundry on to his brandnew dribbling bib.

—O my! Puddeny pie! protested Ciss. He has his bib destroyed.

The slight _contretemps_ claimed her attention but in two twos she set
that little matter to rights.

Gerty stifled a smothered exclamation and gave a nervous cough and Edy
asked what and she was just going to tell her to catch it while it was
flying but she was ever ladylike in her deportment so she simply passed
it off with consummate tact by saying that that was the benediction
because just then the bell rang out from the steeple over the quiet
seashore because Canon O’Hanlon was up on the altar with the veil that
Father Conroy put round his shoulders giving the benediction with the
Blessed Sacrament in his hands.

How moving the scene there in the gathering twilight, the last glimpse
of Erin, the touching chime of those evening bells and at the same time
a bat flew forth from the ivied belfry through the dusk, hither,
thither, with a tiny lost cry. And she could see far away the lights of
the lighthouses so picturesque she would have loved to do with a box of
paints because it was easier than to make a man and soon the
lamplighter would be going his rounds past the presbyterian church
grounds and along by shady Tritonville avenue where the couples walked
and lighting the lamp near her window where Reggy Wylie used to turn
his freewheel like she read in that book _The Lamplighter_ by Miss
Cummins, author of _Mabel Vaughan_ and other tales. For Gerty had her
dreams that no-one knew of. She loved to read poetry and when she got a
keepsake from Bertha Supple of that lovely confession album with the
coralpink cover to write her thoughts in she laid it in the drawer of
her toilettable which, though it did not err on the side of luxury, was
scrupulously neat and clean. It was there she kept her girlish treasure
trove, the tortoiseshell combs, her child of Mary badge, the whiterose
scent, the eyebrowleine, her alabaster pouncetbox and the ribbons to
change when her things came home from the wash and there were some
beautiful thoughts written in it in violet ink that she bought in
Hely’s of Dame Street for she felt that she too could write poetry if
she could only express herself like that poem that appealed to her so
deeply that she had copied out of the newspaper she found one evening
round the potherbs. _Art thou real, my ideal?_ it was called by Louis J
Walsh, Magherafelt, and after there was something about _twilight, wilt
thou ever?_ and ofttimes the beauty of poetry, so sad in its transient
loveliness, had misted her eyes with silent tears for she felt that the
years were slipping by for her, one by one, and but for that one
shortcoming she knew she need fear no competition and that was an
accident coming down Dalkey hill and she always tried to conceal it.
But it must end, she felt. If she saw that magic lure in his eyes there
would be no holding back for her. Love laughs at locksmiths. She would
make the great sacrifice. Her every effort would be to share his
thoughts. Dearer than the whole world would she be to him and gild his
days with happiness. There was the allimportant question and she was
dying to know was he a married man or a widower who had lost his wife
or some tragedy like the nobleman with the foreign name from the land
of song had to have her put into a madhouse, cruel only to be kind. But
even if—what then? Would it make a very great difference? From
everything in the least indelicate her finebred nature instinctively
recoiled. She loathed that sort of person, the fallen women off the
accommodation walk beside the Dodder that went with the soldiers and
coarse men with no respect for a girl’s honour, degrading the sex and
being taken up to the police station. No, no: not that. They would be
just good friends like a big brother and sister without all that other
in spite of the conventions of Society with a big ess. Perhaps it was
an old flame he was in mourning for from the days beyond recall. She
thought she understood. She would try to understand him because men
were so different. The old love was waiting, waiting with little white
hands stretched out, with blue appealing eyes. Heart of mine! She would
follow, her dream of love, the dictates of her heart that told her he
was her all in all, the only man in all the world for her for love was
the master guide. Nothing else mattered. Come what might she would be
wild, untrammelled, free.

Canon O’Hanlon put the Blessed Sacrament back into the tabernacle and
genuflected and the choir sang _Laudate Dominum omnes gentes_ and then
he locked the tabernacle door because the benediction was over and
Father Conroy handed him his hat to put on and crosscat Edy asked
wasn’t she coming but Jacky Caffrey called out:

—O, look, Cissy!

And they all looked was it sheet lightning but Tommy saw it too over
the trees beside the church, blue and then green and purple.

—It’s fireworks, Cissy Caffrey said.

And they all ran down the strand to see over the houses and the church,
helterskelter, Edy with the pushcar with baby Boardman in it and Cissy
holding Tommy and Jacky by the hand so they wouldn’t fall running.

—Come on, Gerty, Cissy called. It’s the bazaar fireworks.

But Gerty was adamant. She had no intention of being at their beck and
call. If they could run like rossies she could sit so she said she
could see from where she was. The eyes that were fastened upon her set
her pulses tingling. She looked at him a moment, meeting his glance,
and a light broke in upon her. Whitehot passion was in that face,
passion silent as the grave, and it had made her his. At last they were
left alone without the others to pry and pass remarks and she knew he
could be trusted to the death, steadfast, a sterling man, a man of
inflexible honour to his fingertips. His hands and face were working
and a tremour went over her. She leaned back far to look up where the
fireworks were and she caught her knee in her hands so as not to fall
back looking up and there was no-one to see only him and her when she
revealed all her graceful beautifully shaped legs like that, supply
soft and delicately rounded, and she seemed to hear the panting of his
heart, his hoarse breathing, because she knew too about the passion of
men like that, hotblooded, because Bertha Supple told her once in dead
secret and made her swear she’d never about the gentleman lodger that
was staying with them out of the Congested Districts Board that had
pictures cut out of papers of those skirtdancers and highkickers and
she said he used to do something not very nice that you could imagine
sometimes in the bed. But this was altogether different from a thing
like that because there was all the difference because she could almost
feel him draw her face to his and the first quick hot touch of his
handsome lips. Besides there was absolution so long as you didn’t do
the other thing before being married and there ought to be women
priests that would understand without your telling out and Cissy
Caffrey too sometimes had that dreamy kind of dreamy look in her eyes
so that she too, my dear, and Winny Rippingham so mad about actors’
photographs and besides it was on account of that other thing coming on
the way it did.

And Jacky Caffrey shouted to look, there was another and she leaned
back and the garters were blue to match on account of the transparent
and they all saw it and they all shouted to look, look, there it was
and she leaned back ever so far to see the fireworks and something
queer was flying through the air, a soft thing, to and fro, dark. And
she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in
the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went
higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up
after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused
with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see
her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the
skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven,
on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and
then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was
trembling in every limb from being bent so far back that he had a full
view high up above her knee where no-one ever not even on the swing or
wading and she wasn’t ashamed and he wasn’t either to look in that
immodest way like that because he couldn’t resist the sight of the
wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so
immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She
would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms
to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow, the cry of a
young girl’s love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry
that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot
blind blank and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh
of O! and everyone cried O! O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a
stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all
greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lovely, O, soft, sweet,
soft!

Then all melted away dewily in the grey air: all was silent. Ah! She
glanced at him as she bent forward quickly, a pathetic little glance of
piteous protest, of shy reproach under which he coloured like a girl.
He was leaning back against the rock behind. Leopold Bloom (for it is
he) stands silent, with bowed head before those young guileless eyes.
What a brute he had been! At it again? A fair unsullied soul had called
to him and, wretch that he was, how had he answered? An utter cad he
had been! He of all men! But there was an infinite store of mercy in
those eyes, for him too a word of pardon even though he had erred and
sinned and wandered. Should a girl tell? No, a thousand times no. That
was their secret, only theirs, alone in the hiding twilight and there
was none to know or tell save the little bat that flew so softly
through the evening to and fro and little bats don’t tell.

Cissy Caffrey whistled, imitating the boys in the football field to
show what a great person she was: and then she cried:

—Gerty! Gerty! We’re going. Come on. We can see from farther up.

Gerty had an idea, one of love’s little ruses. She slipped a hand into
her kerchief pocket and took out the wadding and waved in reply of
course without letting him and then slipped it back. Wonder if he’s too
far to. She rose. Was it goodbye? No. She had to go but they would meet
again, there, and she would dream of that till then, tomorrow, of her
dream of yester eve. She drew herself up to her full height. Their
souls met in a last lingering glance and the eyes that reached her
heart, full of a strange shining, hung enraptured on her sweet
flowerlike face. She half smiled at him wanly, a sweet forgiving smile,
a smile that verged on tears, and then they parted.

Slowly, without looking back she went down the uneven strand to Cissy,
to Edy to Jacky and Tommy Caffrey, to little baby Boardman. It was
darker now and there were stones and bits of wood on the strand and
slippy seaweed. She walked with a certain quiet dignity characteristic
of her but with care and very slowly because—because Gerty MacDowell
was...

Tight boots? No. She’s lame! O!

Mr Bloom watched her as she limped away. Poor girl! That’s why she’s
left on the shelf and the others did a sprint. Thought something was
wrong by the cut of her jib. Jilted beauty. A defect is ten times worse
in a woman. But makes them polite. Glad I didn’t know it when she was
on show. Hot little devil all the same. I wouldn’t mind. Curiosity like
a nun or a negress or a girl with glasses. That squinty one is
delicate. Near her monthlies, I expect, makes them feel ticklish. I
have such a bad headache today. Where did I put the letter? Yes, all
right. All kinds of crazy longings. Licking pennies. Girl in Tranquilla
convent that nun told me liked to smell rock oil. Virgins go mad in the
end I suppose. Sister? How many women in Dublin have it today? Martha,
she. Something in the air. That’s the moon. But then why don’t all
women menstruate at the same time with the same moon, I mean? Depends
on the time they were born I suppose. Or all start scratch then get out
of step. Sometimes Molly and Milly together. Anyhow I got the best of
that. Damned glad I didn’t do it in the bath this morning over her
silly I will punish you letter. Made up for that tramdriver this
morning. That gouger M’Coy stopping me to say nothing. And his wife
engagement in the country valise, voice like a pickaxe. Thankful for
small mercies. Cheap too. Yours for the asking. Because they want it
themselves. Their natural craving. Shoals of them every evening poured
out of offices. Reserve better. Don’t want it they throw it at you.
Catch em alive, O. Pity they can’t see themselves. A dream of
wellfilled hose. Where was that? Ah, yes. Mutoscope pictures in Capel
street: for men only. Peeping Tom. Willy’s hat and what the girls did
with it. Do they snapshot those girls or is it all a fake? _Lingerie_
does it. Felt for the curves inside her _déshabillé._ Excites them also
when they’re. I’m all clean come and dirty me. And they like dressing
one another for the sacrifice. Milly delighted with Molly’s new blouse.
At first. Put them all on to take them all off. Molly. Why I bought her
the violet garters. Us too: the tie he wore, his lovely socks and
turnedup trousers. He wore a pair of gaiters the night that first we
met. His lovely shirt was shining beneath his what? of jet. Say a woman
loses a charm with every pin she takes out. Pinned together. O, Mairy
lost the pin of her. Dressed up to the nines for somebody. Fashion part
of their charm. Just changes when you’re on the track of the secret.
Except the east: Mary, Martha: now as then. No reasonable offer
refused. She wasn’t in a hurry either. Always off to a fellow when they
are. They never forget an appointment. Out on spec probably. They
believe in chance because like themselves. And the others inclined to
give her an odd dig. Girl friends at school, arms round each other’s
necks or with ten fingers locked, kissing and whispering secrets about
nothing in the convent garden. Nuns with whitewashed faces, cool coifs
and their rosaries going up and down, vindictive too for what they
can’t get. Barbed wire. Be sure now and write to me. And I’ll write to
you. Now won’t you? Molly and Josie Powell. Till Mr Right comes along,
then meet once in a blue moon. _Tableau!_ O, look who it is for the
love of God! How are you at all? What have you been doing with
yourself? Kiss and delighted to, kiss, to see you. Picking holes in
each other’s appearance. You’re looking splendid. Sister souls. Showing
their teeth at one another. How many have you left? Wouldn’t lend each
other a pinch of salt.

Ah!

Devils they are when that’s coming on them. Dark devilish appearance.
Molly often told me feel things a ton weight. Scratch the sole of my
foot. O that way! O, that’s exquisite! Feel it myself too. Good to rest
once in a way. Wonder if it’s bad to go with them then. Safe in one
way. Turns milk, makes fiddlestrings snap. Something about withering
plants I read in a garden. Besides they say if the flower withers she
wears she’s a flirt. All are. Daresay she felt I. When you feel like
that you often meet what you feel. Liked me or what? Dress they look
at. Always know a fellow courting: collars and cuffs. Well cocks and
lions do the same and stags. Same time might prefer a tie undone or
something. Trousers? Suppose I when I was? No. Gently does it. Dislike
rough and tumble. Kiss in the dark and never tell. Saw something in me.
Wonder what. Sooner have me as I am than some poet chap with
bearsgrease plastery hair, lovelock over his dexter optic. To aid
gentleman in literary. Ought to attend to my appearance my age. Didn’t
let her see me in profile. Still, you never know. Pretty girls and ugly
men marrying. Beauty and the beast. Besides I can’t be so if Molly.
Took off her hat to show her hair. Wide brim. Bought to hide her face,
meeting someone might know her, bend down or carry a bunch of flowers
to smell. Hair strong in rut. Ten bob I got for Molly’s combings when
we were on the rocks in Holles street. Why not? Suppose he gave her
money. Why not? All a prejudice. She’s worth ten, fifteen, more, a
pound. What? I think so. All that for nothing. Bold hand: Mrs Marion.
Did I forget to write address on that letter like the postcard I sent
to Flynn? And the day I went to Drimmie’s without a necktie. Wrangle
with Molly it was put me off. No, I remember. Richie Goulding: he’s
another. Weighs on his mind. Funny my watch stopped at half past four.
Dust. Shark liver oil they use to clean. Could do it myself. Save. Was
that just when he, she?

O, he did. Into her. She did. Done.

Ah!

Mr Bloom with careful hand recomposed his wet shirt. O Lord, that
little limping devil. Begins to feel cold and clammy. Aftereffect not
pleasant. Still you have to get rid of it someway. They don’t care.
Complimented perhaps. Go home to nicey bread and milky and say night
prayers with the kiddies. Well, aren’t they? See her as she is spoil
all. Must have the stage setting, the rouge, costume, position, music.
The name too. _Amours_ of actresses. Nell Gwynn, Mrs Bracegirdle, Maud
Branscombe. Curtain up. Moonlight silver effulgence. Maiden discovered
with pensive bosom. Little sweetheart come and kiss me. Still, I feel.
The strength it gives a man. That’s the secret of it. Good job I let
off there behind the wall coming out of Dignam’s. Cider that was.
Otherwise I couldn’t have. Makes you want to sing after. _Lacaus esant
taratara_. Suppose I spoke to her. What about? Bad plan however if you
don’t know how to end the conversation. Ask them a question they ask
you another. Good idea if you’re stuck. Gain time. But then you’re in a
cart. Wonderful of course if you say: good evening, and you see she’s
on for it: good evening. O but the dark evening in the Appian way I
nearly spoke to Mrs Clinch O thinking she was. Whew! Girl in Meath
street that night. All the dirty things I made her say. All wrong of
course. My arks she called it. It’s so hard to find one who. Aho! If
you don’t answer when they solicit must be horrible for them till they
harden. And kissed my hand when I gave her the extra two shillings.
Parrots. Press the button and the bird will squeak. Wish she hadn’t
called me sir. O, her mouth in the dark! And you a married man with a
single girl! That’s what they enjoy. Taking a man from another woman.
Or even hear of it. Different with me. Glad to get away from other
chap’s wife. Eating off his cold plate. Chap in the Burton today
spitting back gumchewed gristle. French letter still in my pocketbook.
Cause of half the trouble. But might happen sometime, I don’t think.
Come in, all is prepared. I dreamt. What? Worst is beginning. How they
change the venue when it’s not what they like. Ask you do you like
mushrooms because she once knew a gentleman who. Or ask you what
someone was going to say when he changed his mind and stopped. Yet if I
went the whole hog, say: I want to, something like that. Because I did.
She too. Offend her. Then make it up. Pretend to want something
awfully, then cry off for her sake. Flatters them. She must have been
thinking of someone else all the time. What harm? Must since she came
to the use of reason, he, he and he. First kiss does the trick. The
propitious moment. Something inside them goes pop. Mushy like, tell by
their eye, on the sly. First thoughts are best. Remember that till
their dying day. Molly, lieutenant Mulvey that kissed her under the
Moorish wall beside the gardens. Fifteen she told me. But her breasts
were developed. Fell asleep then. After Glencree dinner that was when
we drove home. Featherbed mountain. Gnashing her teeth in sleep. Lord
mayor had his eye on her too. Val Dillon. Apoplectic.

There she is with them down there for the fireworks. My fireworks. Up
like a rocket, down like a stick. And the children, twins they must be,
waiting for something to happen. Want to be grownups. Dressing in
mother’s clothes. Time enough, understand all the ways of the world.
And the dark one with the mop head and the nigger mouth. I knew she
could whistle. Mouth made for that. Like Molly. Why that highclass
whore in Jammet’s wore her veil only to her nose. Would you mind,
please, telling me the right time? I’ll tell you the right time up a
dark lane. Say prunes and prisms forty times every morning, cure for
fat lips. Caressing the little boy too. Onlookers see most of the game.
Of course they understand birds, animals, babies. In their line.

Didn’t look back when she was going down the strand. Wouldn’t give that
satisfaction. Those girls, those girls, those lovely seaside girls.
Fine eyes she had, clear. It’s the white of the eye brings that out not
so much the pupil. Did she know what I? Course. Like a cat sitting
beyond a dog’s jump. Women never meet one like that Wilkins in the high
school drawing a picture of Venus with all his belongings on show. Call
that innocence? Poor idiot! His wife has her work cut out for her.
Never see them sit on a bench marked _Wet Paint_. Eyes all over them.
Look under the bed for what’s not there. Longing to get the fright of
their lives. Sharp as needles they are. When I said to Molly the man at
the corner of Cuffe street was goodlooking, thought she might like,
twigged at once he had a false arm. Had, too. Where do they get that?
Typist going up Roger Greene’s stairs two at a time to show her
understandings. Handed down from father to, mother to daughter, I mean.
Bred in the bone. Milly for example drying her handkerchief on the
mirror to save the ironing. Best place for an ad to catch a woman’s eye
on a mirror. And when I sent her for Molly’s Paisley shawl to
Prescott’s by the way that ad I must, carrying home the change in her
stocking! Clever little minx. I never told her. Neat way she carries
parcels too. Attract men, small thing like that. Holding up her hand,
shaking it, to let the blood flow back when it was red. Who did you
learn that from? Nobody. Something the nurse taught me. O, don’t they
know! Three years old she was in front of Molly’s dressingtable, just
before we left Lombard street west. Me have a nice pace. Mullingar. Who
knows? Ways of the world. Young student. Straight on her pins anyway
not like the other. Still she was game. Lord, I am wet. Devil you are.
Swell of her calf. Transparent stockings, stretched to breaking point.
Not like that frump today. A. E. Rumpled stockings. Or the one in
Grafton street. White. Wow! Beef to the heel.

A monkey puzzle rocket burst, spluttering in darting crackles. Zrads
and zrads, zrads, zrads. And Cissy and Tommy and Jacky ran out to see
and Edy after with the pushcar and then Gerty beyond the curve of the
rocks. Will she? Watch! Watch! See! Looked round. She smelt an onion.
Darling, I saw, your. I saw all.

Lord!

Did me good all the same. Off colour after Kiernan’s, Dignam’s. For
this relief much thanks. In _Hamlet,_ that is. Lord! It was all things
combined. Excitement. When she leaned back, felt an ache at the butt of
my tongue. Your head it simply swirls. He’s right. Might have made a
worse fool of myself however. Instead of talking about nothing. Then I
will tell you all. Still it was a kind of language between us. It
couldn’t be? No, Gerty they called her. Might be false name however
like my name and the address Dolphin’s barn a blind.

     Her maiden name was Jemina Brown
     And she lived with her mother in Irishtown.

Place made me think of that I suppose. All tarred with the same brush.
Wiping pens in their stockings. But the ball rolled down to her as if
it understood. Every bullet has its billet. Course I never could throw
anything straight at school. Crooked as a ram’s horn. Sad however
because it lasts only a few years till they settle down to potwalloping
and papa’s pants will soon fit Willy and fuller’s earth for the baby
when they hold him out to do ah ah. No soft job. Saves them. Keeps them
out of harm’s way. Nature. Washing child, washing corpse. Dignam.
Children’s hands always round them. Cocoanut skulls, monkeys, not even
closed at first, sour milk in their swaddles and tainted curds.
Oughtn’t to have given that child an empty teat to suck. Fill it up
with wind. Mrs Beaufoy, Purefoy. Must call to the hospital. Wonder is
nurse Callan there still. She used to look over some nights when Molly
was in the Coffee Palace. That young doctor O’Hare I noticed her
brushing his coat. And Mrs Breen and Mrs Dignam once like that too,
marriageable. Worst of all at night Mrs Duggan told me in the City
Arms. Husband rolling in drunk, stink of pub off him like a polecat.
Have that in your nose in the dark, whiff of stale boose. Then ask in
the morning: was I drunk last night? Bad policy however to fault the
husband. Chickens come home to roost. They stick by one another like
glue. Maybe the women’s fault also. That’s where Molly can knock spots
off them. It’s the blood of the south. Moorish. Also the form, the
figure. Hands felt for the opulent. Just compare for instance those
others. Wife locked up at home, skeleton in the cupboard. Allow me to
introduce my. Then they trot you out some kind of a nondescript,
wouldn’t know what to call her. Always see a fellow’s weak point in his
wife. Still there’s destiny in it, falling in love. Have their own
secrets between them. Chaps that would go to the dogs if some woman
didn’t take them in hand. Then little chits of girls, height of a
shilling in coppers, with little hubbies. As God made them he matched
them. Sometimes children turn out well enough. Twice nought makes one.
Or old rich chap of seventy and blushing bride. Marry in May and repent
in December. This wet is very unpleasant. Stuck. Well the foreskin is
not back. Better detach.

Ow!

Other hand a sixfooter with a wifey up to his watchpocket. Long and the
short of it. Big he and little she. Very strange about my watch.
Wristwatches are always going wrong. Wonder is there any magnetic
influence between the person because that was about the time he. Yes, I
suppose, at once. Cat’s away, the mice will play. I remember looking in
Pill lane. Also that now is magnetism. Back of everything magnetism.
Earth for instance pulling this and being pulled. That causes movement.
And time, well that’s the time the movement takes. Then if one thing
stopped the whole ghesabo would stop bit by bit. Because it’s all
arranged. Magnetic needle tells you what’s going on in the sun, the
stars. Little piece of steel iron. When you hold out the fork. Come.
Come. Tip. Woman and man that is. Fork and steel. Molly, he. Dress up
and look and suggest and let you see and see more and defy you if
you’re a man to see that and, like a sneeze coming, legs, look, look
and if you have any guts in you. Tip. Have to let fly.

Wonder how is she feeling in that region. Shame all put on before third
person. More put out about a hole in her stocking. Molly, her underjaw
stuck out, head back, about the farmer in the ridingboots and spurs at
the horse show. And when the painters were in Lombard street west. Fine
voice that fellow had. How Giuglini began. Smell that I did. Like
flowers. It was too. Violets. Came from the turpentine probably in the
paint. Make their own use of everything. Same time doing it scraped her
slipper on the floor so they wouldn’t hear. But lots of them can’t kick
the beam, I think. Keep that thing up for hours. Kind of a general all
round over me and half down my back.

Wait. Hm. Hm. Yes. That’s her perfume. Why she waved her hand. I leave
you this to think of me when I’m far away on the pillow. What is it?
Heliotrope? No. Hyacinth? Hm. Roses, I think. She’d like scent of that
kind. Sweet and cheap: soon sour. Why Molly likes opoponax. Suits her,
with a little jessamine mixed. Her high notes and her low notes. At the
dance night she met him, dance of the hours. Heat brought it out. She
was wearing her black and it had the perfume of the time before. Good
conductor, is it? Or bad? Light too. Suppose there’s some connection.
For instance if you go into a cellar where it’s dark. Mysterious thing
too. Why did I smell it only now? Took its time in coming like herself,
slow but sure. Suppose it’s ever so many millions of tiny grains blown
across. Yes, it is. Because those spice islands, Cinghalese this
morning, smell them leagues off. Tell you what it is. It’s like a fine
fine veil or web they have all over the skin, fine like what do you
call it gossamer, and they’re always spinning it out of them, fine as
anything, like rainbow colours without knowing it. Clings to everything
she takes off. Vamp of her stockings. Warm shoe. Stays. Drawers: little
kick, taking them off. Byby till next time. Also the cat likes to sniff
in her shift on the bed. Know her smell in a thousand. Bathwater too.
Reminds me of strawberries and cream. Wonder where it is really. There
or the armpits or under the neck. Because you get it out of all holes
and corners. Hyacinth perfume made of oil of ether or something.
Muskrat. Bag under their tails. One grain pour off odour for years.
Dogs at each other behind. Good evening. Evening. How do you sniff? Hm.
Hm. Very well, thank you. Animals go by that. Yes now, look at it that
way. We’re the same. Some women, instance, warn you off when they have
their period. Come near. Then get a hogo you could hang your hat on.
Like what? Potted herrings gone stale or. Boof! Please keep off the
grass.

Perhaps they get a man smell off us. What though? Cigary gloves long
John had on his desk the other day. Breath? What you eat and drink
gives that. No. Mansmell, I mean. Must be connected with that because
priests that are supposed to be are different. Women buzz round it like
flies round treacle. Railed off the altar get on to it at any cost. The
tree of forbidden priest. O, father, will you? Let me be the first to.
That diffuses itself all through the body, permeates. Source of life.
And it’s extremely curious the smell. Celery sauce. Let me.

Mr Bloom inserted his nose. Hm. Into the. Hm. Opening of his waistcoat.
Almonds or. No. Lemons it is. Ah no, that’s the soap.

O by the by that lotion. I knew there was something on my mind. Never
went back and the soap not paid. Dislike carrying bottles like that hag
this morning. Hynes might have paid me that three shillings. I could
mention Meagher’s just to remind him. Still if he works that paragraph.
Two and nine. Bad opinion of me he’ll have. Call tomorrow. How much do
I owe you? Three and nine? Two and nine, sir. Ah. Might stop him giving
credit another time. Lose your customers that way. Pubs do. Fellows run
up a bill on the slate and then slinking around the back streets into
somewhere else.

Here’s this nobleman passed before. Blown in from the bay. Just went as
far as turn back. Always at home at dinnertime. Looks mangled out: had
a good tuck in. Enjoying nature now. Grace after meals. After supper
walk a mile. Sure he has a small bank balance somewhere, government
sit. Walk after him now make him awkward like those newsboys me today.
Still you learn something. See ourselves as others see us. So long as
women don’t mock what matter? That’s the way to find out. Ask yourself
who is he now. _The Mystery Man on the Beach_, prize titbit story by Mr
Leopold Bloom. Payment at the rate of one guinea per column. And that
fellow today at the graveside in the brown macintosh. Corns on his
kismet however. Healthy perhaps absorb all the. Whistle brings rain
they say. Must be some somewhere. Salt in the Ormond damp. The body
feels the atmosphere. Old Betty’s joints are on the rack. Mother
Shipton’s prophecy that is about ships around they fly in the
twinkling. No. Signs of rain it is. The royal reader. And distant hills
seem coming nigh.

Howth. Bailey light. Two, four, six, eight, nine. See. Has to change or
they might think it a house. Wreckers. Grace Darling. People afraid of
the dark. Also glowworms, cyclists: lightingup time. Jewels diamonds
flash better. Women. Light is a kind of reassuring. Not going to hurt
you. Better now of course than long ago. Country roads. Run you through
the small guts for nothing. Still two types there are you bob against.
Scowl or smile. Pardon! Not at all. Best time to spray plants too in
the shade after the sun. Some light still. Red rays are longest.
Roygbiv Vance taught us: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,
violet. A star I see. Venus? Can’t tell yet. Two. When three it’s
night. Were those nightclouds there all the time? Looks like a phantom
ship. No. Wait. Trees are they? An optical illusion. Mirage. Land of
the setting sun this. Homerule sun setting in the southeast. My native
land, goodnight.

Dew falling. Bad for you, dear, to sit on that stone. Brings on white
fluxions. Never have little baby then less he was big strong fight his
way up through. Might get piles myself. Sticks too like a summer cold,
sore on the mouth. Cut with grass or paper worst. Friction of the
position. Like to be that rock she sat on. O sweet little, you don’t
know how nice you looked. I begin to like them at that age. Green
apples. Grab at all that offer. Suppose it’s the only time we cross
legs, seated. Also the library today: those girl graduates. Happy
chairs under them. But it’s the evening influence. They feel all that.
Open like flowers, know their hours, sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes,
in ballrooms, chandeliers, avenues under the lamps. Nightstock in Mat
Dillon’s garden where I kissed her shoulder. Wish I had a full length
oilpainting of her then. June that was too I wooed. The year returns.
History repeats itself. Ye crags and peaks I’m with you once again.
Life, love, voyage round your own little world. And now? Sad about her
lame of course but must be on your guard not to feel too much pity.
They take advantage.

All quiet on Howth now. The distant hills seem. Where we. The
rhododendrons. I am a fool perhaps. He gets the plums, and I the
plumstones. Where I come in. All that old hill has seen. Names change:
that’s all. Lovers: yum yum.

Tired I feel now. Will I get up? O wait. Drained all the manhood out of
me, little wretch. She kissed me. Never again. My youth. Only once it
comes. Or hers. Take the train there tomorrow. No. Returning not the
same. Like kids your second visit to a house. The new I want. Nothing
new under the sun. Care of P. O. Dolphin’s Barn. Are you not happy in
your? Naughty darling. At Dolphin’s barn charades in Luke Doyle’s
house. Mat Dillon and his bevy of daughters: Tiny, Atty, Floey, Maimy,
Louy, Hetty. Molly too. Eightyseven that was. Year before we. And the
old major, partial to his drop of spirits. Curious she an only child, I
an only child. So it returns. Think you’re escaping and run into
yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home. And just when he
and she. Circus horse walking in a ring. Rip van Winkle we played. Rip:
tear in Henny Doyle’s overcoat. Van: breadvan delivering. Winkle:
cockles and periwinkles. Then I did Rip van Winkle coming back. She
leaned on the sideboard watching. Moorish eyes. Twenty years asleep in
Sleepy Hollow. All changed. Forgotten. The young are old. His gun rusty
from the dew.

Ba. What is that flying about? Swallow? Bat probably. Thinks I’m a
tree, so blind. Have birds no smell? Metempsychosis. They believed you
could be changed into a tree from grief. Weeping willow. Ba. There he
goes. Funny little beggar. Wonder where he lives. Belfry up there. Very
likely. Hanging by his heels in the odour of sanctity. Bell scared him
out, I suppose. Mass seems to be over. Could hear them all at it. Pray
for us. And pray for us. And pray for us. Good idea the repetition.
Same thing with ads. Buy from us. And buy from us. Yes, there’s the
light in the priest’s house. Their frugal meal. Remember about the
mistake in the valuation when I was in Thom’s. Twentyeight it is. Two
houses they have. Gabriel Conroy’s brother is curate. Ba. Again. Wonder
why they come out at night like mice. They’re a mixed breed. Birds are
like hopping mice. What frightens them, light or noise? Better sit
still. All instinct like the bird in drouth got water out of the end of
a jar by throwing in pebbles. Like a little man in a cloak he is with
tiny hands. Weeny bones. Almost see them shimmering, kind of a bluey
white. Colours depend on the light you see. Stare the sun for example
like the eagle then look at a shoe see a blotch blob yellowish. Wants
to stamp his trademark on everything. Instance, that cat this morning
on the staircase. Colour of brown turf. Say you never see them with
three colours. Not true. That half tabbywhite tortoiseshell in the
_City Arms_ with the letter em on her forehead. Body fifty different
colours. Howth a while ago amethyst. Glass flashing. That’s how that
wise man what’s his name with the burning glass. Then the heather goes
on fire. It can’t be tourists’ matches. What? Perhaps the sticks dry
rub together in the wind and light. Or broken bottles in the furze act
as a burning glass in the sun. Archimedes. I have it! My memory’s not
so bad.

Ba. Who knows what they’re always flying for. Insects? That bee last
week got into the room playing with his shadow on the ceiling. Might be
the one bit me, come back to see. Birds too. Never find out. Or what
they say. Like our small talk. And says she and says he. Nerve they
have to fly over the ocean and back. Lots must be killed in storms,
telegraph wires. Dreadful life sailors have too. Big brutes of
oceangoing steamers floundering along in the dark, lowing out like
seacows. _Faugh a ballagh!_ Out of that, bloody curse to you! Others in
vessels, bit of a handkerchief sail, pitched about like snuff at a wake
when the stormy winds do blow. Married too. Sometimes away for years at
the ends of the earth somewhere. No ends really because it’s round.
Wife in every port they say. She has a good job if she minds it till
Johnny comes marching home again. If ever he does. Smelling the tail
end of ports. How can they like the sea? Yet they do. The anchor’s
weighed. Off he sails with a scapular or a medal on him for luck. Well.
And the tephilim no what’s this they call it poor papa’s father had on
his door to touch. That brought us out of the land of Egypt and into
the house of bondage. Something in all those superstitions because when
you go out never know what dangers. Hanging on to a plank or astride of
a beam for grim life, lifebelt round him, gulping salt water, and
that’s the last of his nibs till the sharks catch hold of him. Do fish
ever get seasick?

Then you have a beautiful calm without a cloud, smooth sea, placid,
crew and cargo in smithereens, Davy Jones’ locker, moon looking down so
peaceful. Not my fault, old cockalorum.

A last lonely candle wandered up the sky from Mirus bazaar in search of
funds for Mercer’s hospital and broke, drooping, and shed a cluster of
violet but one white stars. They floated, fell: they faded. The
shepherd’s hour: the hour of folding: hour of tryst. From house to
house, giving his everwelcome double knock, went the nine o’clock
postman, the glowworm’s lamp at his belt gleaming here and there
through the laurel hedges. And among the five young trees a hoisted
lintstock lit the lamp at Leahy’s terrace. By screens of lighted
windows, by equal gardens a shrill voice went crying, wailing: _Evening
Telegraph, stop press edition! Result of the Gold Cup races!_ and from
the door of Dignam’s house a boy ran out and called. Twittering the bat
flew here, flew there. Far out over the sands the coming surf crept,
grey. Howth settled for slumber, tired of long days, of yumyum
rhododendrons (he was old) and felt gladly the night breeze lift,
ruffle his fell of ferns. He lay but opened a red eye unsleeping, deep
and slowly breathing, slumberous but awake. And far on Kish bank the
anchored lightship twinkled, winked at Mr Bloom.

Life those chaps out there must have, stuck in the same spot. Irish
Lights board. Penance for their sins. Coastguards too. Rocket and
breeches buoy and lifeboat. Day we went out for the pleasure cruise in
the Erin’s King, throwing them the sack of old papers. Bears in the
zoo. Filthy trip. Drunkards out to shake up their livers. Puking
overboard to feed the herrings. Nausea. And the women, fear of God in
their faces. Milly, no sign of funk. Her blue scarf loose, laughing.
Don’t know what death is at that age. And then their stomachs clean.
But being lost they fear. When we hid behind the tree at Crumlin. I
didn’t want to. Mamma! Mamma! Babes in the wood. Frightening them with
masks too. Throwing them up in the air to catch them. I’ll murder you.
Is it only half fun? Or children playing battle. Whole earnest. How can
people aim guns at each other. Sometimes they go off. Poor kids! Only
troubles wildfire and nettlerash. Calomel purge I got her for that.
After getting better asleep with Molly. Very same teeth she has. What
do they love? Another themselves? But the morning she chased her with
the umbrella. Perhaps so as not to hurt. I felt her pulse. Ticking.
Little hand it was: now big. Dearest Papli. All that the hand says when
you touch. Loved to count my waistcoat buttons. Her first stays I
remember. Made me laugh to see. Little paps to begin with. Left one is
more sensitive, I think. Mine too. Nearer the heart? Padding themselves
out if fat is in fashion. Her growing pains at night, calling, wakening
me. Frightened she was when her nature came on her first. Poor child!
Strange moment for the mother too. Brings back her girlhood. Gibraltar.
Looking from Buena Vista. O’Hara’s tower. The seabirds screaming. Old
Barbary ape that gobbled all his family. Sundown, gunfire for the men
to cross the lines. Looking out over the sea she told me. Evening like
this, but clear, no clouds. I always thought I’d marry a lord or a rich
gentleman coming with a private yacht. _Buenas noches, señorita. El
hombre ama la muchacha hermosa_. Why me? Because you were so foreign
from the others.

Better not stick here all night like a limpet. This weather makes you
dull. Must be getting on for nine by the light. Go home. Too late for
_Leah, Lily of Killarney._ No. Might be still up. Call to the hospital
to see. Hope she’s over. Long day I’ve had. Martha, the bath, funeral,
house of Keyes, museum with those goddesses, Dedalus’ song. Then that
bawler in Barney Kiernan’s. Got my own back there. Drunken ranters what
I said about his God made him wince. Mistake to hit back. Or? No. Ought
to go home and laugh at themselves. Always want to be swilling in
company. Afraid to be alone like a child of two. Suppose he hit me.
Look at it other way round. Not so bad then. Perhaps not to hurt he
meant. Three cheers for Israel. Three cheers for the sister-in-law he
hawked about, three fangs in her mouth. Same style of beauty.
Particularly nice old party for a cup of tea. The sister of the wife of
the wild man of Borneo has just come to town. Imagine that in the early
morning at close range. Everyone to his taste as Morris said when he
kissed the cow. But Dignam’s put the boots on it. Houses of mourning so
depressing because you never know. Anyhow she wants the money. Must
call to those Scottish Widows as I promised. Strange name. Takes it for
granted we’re going to pop off first. That widow on Monday was it
outside Cramer’s that looked at me. Buried the poor husband but
progressing favourably on the premium. Her widow’s mite. Well? What do
you expect her to do? Must wheedle her way along. Widower I hate to
see. Looks so forlorn. Poor man O’Connor wife and five children
poisoned by mussels here. The sewage. Hopeless. Some good matronly
woman in a porkpie hat to mother him. Take him in tow, platter face and
a large apron. Ladies’ grey flannelette bloomers, three shillings a
pair, astonishing bargain. Plain and loved, loved for ever, they say.
Ugly: no woman thinks she is. Love, lie and be handsome for tomorrow we
die. See him sometimes walking about trying to find out who played the
trick. U. p: up. Fate that is. He, not me. Also a shop often noticed.
Curse seems to dog it. Dreamt last night? Wait. Something confused. She
had red slippers on. Turkish. Wore the breeches. Suppose she does?
Would I like her in pyjamas? Damned hard to answer. Nannetti’s gone.
Mailboat. Near Holyhead by now. Must nail that ad of Keyes’s. Work
Hynes and Crawford. Petticoats for Molly. She has something to put in
them. What’s that? Might be money.

Mr Bloom stooped and turned over a piece of paper on the strand. He
brought it near his eyes and peered. Letter? No. Can’t read. Better go.
Better. I’m tired to move. Page of an old copybook. All those holes and
pebbles. Who could count them? Never know what you find. Bottle with
story of a treasure in it, thrown from a wreck. Parcels post. Children
always want to throw things in the sea. Trust? Bread cast on the
waters. What’s this? Bit of stick.

O! Exhausted that female has me. Not so young now. Will she come here
tomorrow? Wait for her somewhere for ever. Must come back. Murderers
do. Will I?

Mr Bloom with his stick gently vexed the thick sand at his foot. Write
a message for her. Might remain. What?

I.

Some flatfoot tramp on it in the morning. Useless. Washed away. Tide
comes here. Saw a pool near her foot. Bend, see my face there, dark
mirror, breathe on it, stirs. All these rocks with lines and scars and
letters. O, those transparent! Besides they don’t know. What is the
meaning of that other world. I called you naughty boy because I do not
like.

AM. A.

No room. Let it go.

Mr Bloom effaced the letters with his slow boot. Hopeless thing sand.
Nothing grows in it. All fades. No fear of big vessels coming up here.
Except Guinness’s barges. Round the Kish in eighty days. Done half by
design.

He flung his wooden pen away. The stick fell in silted sand, stuck. Now
if you were trying to do that for a week on end you couldn’t. Chance.
We’ll never meet again. But it was lovely. Goodbye, dear. Thanks. Made
me feel so young.

Short snooze now if I had. Must be near nine. Liverpool boat long gone.
Not even the smoke. And she can do the other. Did too. And Belfast. I
won’t go. Race there, race back to Ennis. Let him. Just close my eyes a
moment. Won’t sleep, though. Half dream. It never comes the same. Bat
again. No harm in him. Just a few.

O sweety all your little girlwhite up I saw dirty bracegirdle made me
do love sticky we two naughty Grace darling she him half past the bed
met him pike hoses frillies for Raoul de perfume your wife black hair
heave under embon _señorita_ young eyes Mulvey plump bubs me breadvan
Winkle red slippers she rusty sleep wander years of dreams return tail
end Agendath swoony lovey showed me her next year in drawers return
next in her next her next.

A bat flew. Here. There. Here. Far in the grey a bell chimed. Mr Bloom
with open mouth, his left boot sanded sideways, leaned, breathed. Just
for a few

     Cuckoo
     Cuckoo
     Cuckoo.

The clock on the mantelpiece in the priest’s house cooed where Canon
O’Hanlon and Father Conroy and the reverend John Hughes S. J. were
taking tea and sodabread and butter and fried mutton chops with catsup
and talking about

     Cuckoo
     Cuckoo
     Cuckoo.

Because it was a little canarybird that came out of its little house to
tell the time that Gerty MacDowell noticed the time she was there
because she was as quick as anything about a thing like that, was Gerty
MacDowell, and she noticed at once that that foreign gentleman that was
sitting on the rocks looking was

     Cuckoo
     Cuckoo
     Cuckoo.


[ 14 ]

Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus.

Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send
us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us
bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit.

Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa!

Universally that person’s acumen is esteemed very little perceptive
concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitably by
mortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of that
which the most in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of that in
them high mind’s ornament deserving of veneration constantly maintain
when by general consent they affirm that other circumstances being
equal by no exterior splendour is the prosperity of a nation more
efficaciously asserted than by the measure of how far forward may have
progressed the tribute of its solicitude for that proliferent
continuance which of evils the original if it be absent when
fortunately present constitutes the certain sign of omnipollent
nature’s incorrupted benefaction. For who is there who anything of some
significance has apprehended but is conscious that that exterior
splendour may be the surface of a downwardtending lutulent reality or
on the contrary anyone so is there unilluminated as not to perceive
that as no nature’s boon can contend against the bounty of increase so
it behoves every most just citizen to become the exhortator and
admonisher of his semblables and to tremble lest what had in the past
been by the nation excellently commenced might be in the future not
with similar excellence accomplished if an inverecund habit shall have
gradually traduced the honourable by ancestors transmitted customs to
that thither of profundity that that one was audacious excessively who
would have the hardihood to rise affirming that no more odious offence
can for anyone be than to oblivious neglect to consign that evangel
simultaneously command and promise which on all mortals with prophecy
of abundance or with diminution’s menace that exalted of reiteratedly
procreating function ever irrevocably enjoined?

It is not why therefore we shall wonder if, as the best historians
relate, among the Celts, who nothing that was not in its nature
admirable admired, the art of medicine shall have been highly honoured.
Not to speak of hostels, leperyards, sweating chambers, plaguegraves,
their greatest doctors, the O’Shiels, the O’Hickeys, the O’Lees, have
sedulously set down the divers methods by which the sick and the
relapsed found again health whether the malady had been the trembling
withering or loose boyconnell flux. Certainly in every public work
which in it anything of gravity contains preparation should be with
importance commensurate and therefore a plan was by them adopted
(whether by having preconsidered or as the maturation of experience it
is difficult in being said which the discrepant opinions of subsequent
inquirers are not up to the present congrued to render manifest)
whereby maternity was so far from all accident possibility removed that
whatever care the patient in that allhardest of woman hour chiefly
required and not solely for the copiously opulent but also for her who
not being sufficiently moneyed scarcely and often not even scarcely
could subsist valiantly and for an inconsiderable emolument was
provided.

To her nothing already then and thenceforward was anyway able to be
molestful for this chiefly felt all citizens except with proliferent
mothers prosperity at all not to can be and as they had received
eternity gods mortals generation to befit them her beholding, when the
case was so hoving itself, parturient in vehicle thereward carrying
desire immense among all one another was impelling on of her to be
received into that domicile. O thing of prudent nation not merely in
being seen but also even in being related worthy of being praised that
they her by anticipation went seeing mother, that she by them suddenly
to be about to be cherished had been begun she felt!

Before born bliss babe had. Within womb won he worship. Whatever in
that one case done commodiously done was. A couch by midwives attended
with wholesome food reposeful, cleanest swaddles as though
forthbringing were now done and by wise foresight set: but to this no
less of what drugs there is need and surgical implements which are
pertaining to her case not omitting aspect of all very distracting
spectacles in various latitudes by our terrestrial orb offered together
with images, divine and human, the cogitation of which by sejunct
females is to tumescence conducive or eases issue in the high sunbright
wellbuilt fair home of mothers when, ostensibly far gone and
reproductitive, it is come by her thereto to lie in, her term up.

Some man that wayfaring was stood by housedoor at night’s oncoming. Of
Israel’s folk was that man that on earth wandering far had fared. Stark
ruth of man his errand that him lone led till that house.

Of that house A. Horne is lord. Seventy beds keeps he there teeming
mothers are wont that they lie for to thole and bring forth bairns hale
so God’s angel to Mary quoth. Watchers tway there walk, white sisters
in ward sleepless. Smarts they still, sickness soothing: in twelve
moons thrice an hundred. Truest bedthanes they twain are, for Horne
holding wariest ward.

In ward wary the watcher hearing come that man mildhearted eft rising
with swire ywimpled to him her gate wide undid. Lo, levin leaping
lightens in eyeblink Ireland’s westward welkin. Full she drad that God
the Wreaker all mankind would fordo with water for his evil sins.
Christ’s rood made she on breastbone and him drew that he would rathe
infare under her thatch. That man her will wotting worthful went in
Horne’s house.

Loth to irk in Horne’s hall hat holding the seeker stood. On her stow
he ere was living with dear wife and lovesome daughter that then over
land and seafloor nine years had long outwandered. Once her in
townhithe meeting he to her bow had not doffed. Her to forgive now he
craved with good ground of her allowed that that of him swiftseen face,
hers, so young then had looked. Light swift her eyes kindled, bloom of
blushes his word winning.

As her eyes then ongot his weeds swart therefor sorrow she feared. Glad
after she was that ere adread was. Her he asked if O’Hare Doctor
tidings sent from far coast and she with grameful sigh him answered
that O’Hare Doctor in heaven was. Sad was the man that word to hear
that him so heavied in bowels ruthful. All she there told him, ruing
death for friend so young, algate sore unwilling God’s rightwiseness to
withsay. She said that he had a fair sweet death through God His
goodness with masspriest to be shriven, holy housel and sick men’s oil
to his limbs. The man then right earnest asked the nun of which death
the dead man was died and the nun answered him and said that he was
died in Mona Island through bellycrab three year agone come Childermas
and she prayed to God the Allruthful to have his dear soul in his
undeathliness. He heard her sad words, in held hat sad staring. So
stood they there both awhile in wanhope sorrowing one with other.

Therefore, everyman, look to that last end that is thy death and the
dust that gripeth on every man that is born of woman for as he came
naked forth from his mother’s womb so naked shall he wend him at the
last for to go as he came.

The man that was come in to the house then spoke to the nursingwoman
and he asked her how it fared with the woman that lay there in
childbed. The nursingwoman answered him and said that that woman was in
throes now full three days and that it would be a hard birth unneth to
bear but that now in a little it would be. She said thereto that she
had seen many births of women but never was none so hard as was that
woman’s birth. Then she set it all forth to him for because she knew
the man that time was had lived nigh that house. The man hearkened to
her words for he felt with wonder women’s woe in the travail that they
have of motherhood and he wondered to look on her face that was a fair
face for any man to see but yet was she left after long years a
handmaid. Nine twelve bloodflows chiding her childless.

And whiles they spake the door of the castle was opened and there
nighed them a mickle noise as of many that sat there at meat. And there
came against the place as they stood a young learningknight yclept
Dixon. And the traveller Leopold was couth to him sithen it had happed
that they had had ado each with other in the house of misericord where
this learningknight lay by cause the traveller Leopold came there to be
healed for he was sore wounded in his breast by a spear wherewith a
horrible and dreadful dragon was smitten him for which he did do make a
salve of volatile salt and chrism as much as he might suffice. And he
said now that he should go in to that castle for to make merry with
them that were there. And the traveller Leopold said that he should go
otherwhither for he was a man of cautels and a subtile. Also the lady
was of his avis and repreved the learningknight though she trowed well
that the traveller had said thing that was false for his subtility. But
the learningknight would not hear say nay nor do her mandement ne have
him in aught contrarious to his list and he said how it was a
marvellous castle. And the traveller Leopold went into the castle for
to rest him for a space being sore of limb after many marches
environing in divers lands and sometime venery.

And in the castle was set a board that was of the birchwood of Finlandy
and it was upheld by four dwarfmen of that country but they durst not
move more for enchantment. And on this board were frightful swords and
knives that are made in a great cavern by swinking demons out of white
flames that they fix then in the horns of buffalos and stags that there
abound marvellously. And there were vessels that are wrought by magic
of Mahound out of seasand and the air by a warlock with his breath that
he blases in to them like to bubbles. And full fair cheer and rich was
on the board that no wight could devise a fuller ne richer. And there
was a vat of silver that was moved by craft to open in the which lay
strange fishes withouten heads though misbelieving men nie that this be
possible thing without they see it natheless they are so. And these
fishes lie in an oily water brought there from Portugal land because of
the fatness that therein is like to the juices of the olivepress. And
also it was a marvel to see in that castle how by magic they make a
compost out of fecund wheatkidneys out of Chaldee that by aid of
certain angry spirits that they do in to it swells up wondrously like
to a vast mountain. And they teach the serpents there to entwine
themselves up on long sticks out of the ground and of the scales of
these serpents they brew out a brewage like to mead.

And the learning knight let pour for childe Leopold a draught and halp
thereto the while all they that were there drank every each. And childe
Leopold did up his beaver for to pleasure him and took apertly somewhat
in amity for he never drank no manner of mead which he then put by and
anon full privily he voided the more part in his neighbour glass and
his neighbour nist not of this wile. And he sat down in that castle
with them for to rest him there awhile. Thanked be Almighty God.

This meanwhile this good sister stood by the door and begged them at
the reverence of Jesu our alther liege Lord to leave their wassailing
for there was above one quick with child, a gentle dame, whose time
hied fast. Sir Leopold heard on the upfloor cry on high and he wondered
what cry that it was whether of child or woman and I marvel, said he,
that it be not come or now. Meseems it dureth overlong. And he was ware
and saw a franklin that hight Lenehan on that side the table that was
older than any of the tother and for that they both were knights
virtuous in the one emprise and eke by cause that he was elder he spoke
to him full gently. But, said he, or it be long too she will bring
forth by God His bounty and have joy of her childing for she hath
waited marvellous long. And the franklin that had drunken said,
Expecting each moment to be her next. Also he took the cup that stood
tofore him for him needed never none asking nor desiring of him to
drink and, Now drink, said he, fully delectably, and he quaffed as far
as he might to their both’s health for he was a passing good man of his
lustiness. And sir Leopold that was the goodliest guest that ever sat
in scholars’ hall and that was the meekest man and the kindest that
ever laid husbandly hand under hen and that was the very truest knight
of the world one that ever did minion service to lady gentle pledged
him courtly in the cup. Woman’s woe with wonder pondering.

Now let us speak of that fellowship that was there to the intent to be
drunken an they might. There was a sort of scholars along either side
the board, that is to wit, Dixon yclept junior of saint Mary
Merciable’s with other his fellows Lynch and Madden, scholars of
medicine, and the franklin that hight Lenehan and one from Alba Longa,
one Crotthers, and young Stephen that had mien of a frere that was at
head of the board and Costello that men clepen Punch Costello all long
of a mastery of him erewhile gested (and of all them, reserved young
Stephen, he was the most drunken that demanded still of more mead) and
beside the meek sir Leopold. But on young Malachi they waited for that
he promised to have come and such as intended to no goodness said how
he had broke his avow. And sir Leopold sat with them for he bore fast
friendship to sir Simon and to this his son young Stephen and for that
his languor becalmed him there after longest wanderings insomuch as
they feasted him for that time in the honourablest manner. Ruth red
him, love led on with will to wander, loth to leave.

For they were right witty scholars. And he heard their aresouns each
gen other as touching birth and righteousness, young Madden maintaining
that put such case it were hard the wife to die (for so it had fallen
out a matter of some year agone with a woman of Eblana in Horne’s house
that now was trespassed out of this world and the self night next
before her death all leeches and pothecaries had taken counsel of her
case). And they said farther she should live because in the beginning,
they said, the woman should bring forth in pain and wherefore they that
were of this imagination affirmed how young Madden had said truth for
he had conscience to let her die. And not few and of these was young
Lynch were in doubt that the world was now right evil governed as it
was never other howbeit the mean people believed it otherwise but the
law nor his judges did provide no remedy. A redress God grant. This was
scant said but all cried with one acclaim nay, by our Virgin Mother,
the wife should live and the babe to die. In colour whereof they waxed
hot upon that head what with argument and what for their drinking but
the franklin Lenehan was prompt each when to pour them ale so that at
the least way mirth might not lack. Then young Madden showed all the
whole affair and said how that she was dead and how for holy religion
sake by rede of palmer and bedesman and for a vow he had made to Saint
Ultan of Arbraccan her goodman husband would not let her death whereby
they were all wondrous grieved. To whom young Stephen had these words
following: Murmur, sirs, is eke oft among lay folk. Both babe and
parent now glorify their Maker, the one in limbo gloom, the other in
purgefire. But, gramercy, what of those Godpossibled souls that we
nightly impossibilise, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost, Very
God, Lord and Giver of Life? For, sirs, he said, our lust is brief. We
are means to those small creatures within us and nature has other ends
than we. Then said Dixon junior to Punch Costello wist he what ends.
But he had overmuch drunken and the best word he could have of him was
that he would ever dishonest a woman whoso she were or wife or maid or
leman if it so fortuned him to be delivered of his spleen of lustihead.
Whereat Crotthers of Alba Longa sang young Malachi’s praise of that
beast the unicorn how once in the millennium he cometh by his horn, the
other all this while, pricked forward with their jibes wherewith they
did malice him, witnessing all and several by saint Foutinus his
engines that he was able to do any manner of thing that lay in man to
do. Thereat laughed they all right jocundly only young Stephen and sir
Leopold which never durst laugh too open by reason of a strange humour
which he would not bewray and also for that he rued for her that bare
whoso she might be or wheresoever. Then spake young Stephen orgulous of
mother Church that would cast him out of her bosom, of law of canons,
of Lilith, patron of abortions, of bigness wrought by wind of seeds of
brightness or by potency of vampires mouth to mouth or, as Virgilius
saith, by the influence of the occident or by the reek of moonflower or
an she lie with a woman which her man has but lain with, _effectu
secuto_, or peradventure in her bath according to the opinions of
Averroes and Moses Maimonides. He said also how at the end of the
second month a human soul was infused and how in all our holy mother
foldeth ever souls for God’s greater glory whereas that earthly mother
which was but a dam to bear beastly should die by canon for so saith he
that holdeth the fisherman’s seal, even that blessed Peter on which
rock was holy church for all ages founded. All they bachelors then
asked of sir Leopold would he in like case so jeopard her person as
risk life to save life. A wariness of mind he would answer as fitted
all and, laying hand to jaw, he said dissembling, as his wont was, that
as it was informed him, who had ever loved the art of physic as might a
layman, and agreeing also with his experience of so seldomseen an
accident it was good for that mother Church belike at one blow had
birth and death pence and in such sort deliverly he scaped their
questions. That is truth, pardy, said Dixon, and, or I err, a pregnant
word. Which hearing young Stephen was a marvellous glad man and he
averred that he who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord for he
was of a wild manner when he was drunken and that he was now in that
taking it appeared eftsoons.

But sir Leopold was passing grave maugre his word by cause he still had
pity of the terrorcausing shrieking of shrill women in their labour and
as he was minded of his good lady Marion that had borne him an only
manchild which on his eleventh day on live had died and no man of art
could save so dark is destiny. And she was wondrous stricken of heart
for that evil hap and for his burial did him on a fair corselet of
lamb’s wool, the flower of the flock, lest he might perish utterly and
lie akeled (for it was then about the midst of the winter) and now sir
Leopold that had of his body no manchild for an heir looked upon him
his friend’s son and was shut up in sorrow for his forepassed happiness
and as sad as he was that him failed a son of such gentle courage (for
all accounted him of real parts) so grieved he also in no less measure
for young Stephen for that he lived riotously with those wastrels and
murdered his goods with whores.

About that present time young Stephen filled all cups that stood empty
so as there remained but little mo if the prudenter had not shadowed
their approach from him that still plied it very busily who, praying
for the intentions of the sovereign pontiff, he gave them for a pledge
the vicar of Christ which also as he said is vicar of Bray. Now drink
we, quod he, of this mazer and quaff ye this mead which is not indeed
parcel of my body but my soul’s bodiment. Leave ye fraction of bread to
them that live by bread alone. Be not afeard neither for any want for
this will comfort more than the other will dismay. See ye here. And he
showed them glistering coins of the tribute and goldsmith notes the
worth of two pound nineteen shilling that he had, he said, for a song
which he writ. They all admired to see the foresaid riches in such
dearth of money as was herebefore. His words were then these as
followeth: Know all men, he said, time’s ruins build eternity’s
mansions. What means this? Desire’s wind blasts the thorntree but after
it becomes from a bramblebush to be a rose upon the rood of time. Mark
me now. In woman’s womb word is made flesh but in the spirit of the
maker all flesh that passes becomes the word that shall not pass away.
This is the postcreation. _Omnis caro ad te veniet_. No question but
her name is puissant who aventried the dear corse of our Agenbuyer,
Healer and Herd, our mighty mother and mother most venerable and
Bernardus saith aptly that She hath an _omnipotentiam deiparae
supplicem_, that is to wit, an almightiness of petition because she is
the second Eve and she won us, saith Augustine too, whereas that other,
our grandam, which we are linked up with by successive anastomosis of
navelcords sold us all, seed, breed and generation, for a penny pippin.
But here is the matter now. Or she knew him, that second I say, and was
but creature of her creature, _vergine madre, figlia di tuo figlio_, or
she knew him not and then stands she in the one denial or ignorancy
with Peter Piscator who lives in the house that Jack built and with
Joseph the joiner patron of the happy demise of all unhappy marriages,
_parceque M. Léo Taxil nous a dit que qui l’avait mise dans cette
fichue position c’était le sacré pigeon, ventre de Dieu! Entweder_
transubstantiality _oder_ consubstantiality but in no case
subsubstantiality. And all cried out upon it for a very scurvy word. A
pregnancy without joy, he said, a birth without pangs, a body without
blemish, a belly without bigness. Let the lewd with faith and fervour
worship. With will will we withstand, withsay.

Hereupon Punch Costello dinged with his fist upon the board and would
sing a bawdy catch _Staboo Stabella_ about a wench that was put in pod
of a jolly swashbuckler in Almany which he did straightways now attack:
_The first three months she was not well, Staboo,_ when here nurse
Quigley from the door angerly bid them hist ye should shame you nor was
it not meet as she remembered them being her mind was to have all
orderly against lord Andrew came for because she was jealous that no
gasteful turmoil might shorten the honour of her guard. It was an
ancient and a sad matron of a sedate look and christian walking, in
habit dun beseeming her megrims and wrinkled visage, nor did her
hortative want of it effect for incontinently Punch Costello was of
them all embraided and they reclaimed the churl with civil rudeness
some and shaked him with menace of blandishments others whiles they all
chode with him, a murrain seize the dolt, what a devil he would be at,
thou chuff, thou puny, thou got in peasestraw, thou losel, thou
chitterling, thou spawn of a rebel, thou dykedropt, thou abortion thou,
to shut up his drunken drool out of that like a curse of God ape, the
good sir Leopold that had for his cognisance the flower of quiet,
margerain gentle, advising also the time’s occasion as most sacred and
most worthy to be most sacred. In Horne’s house rest should reign.

To be short this passage was scarce by when Master Dixon of Mary in
Eccles, goodly grinning, asked young Stephen what was the reason why he
had not cided to take friar’s vows and he answered him obedience in the
womb, chastity in the tomb but involuntary poverty all his days. Master
Lenehan at this made return that he had heard of those nefarious deeds
and how, as he heard hereof counted, he had besmirched the lily virtue
of a confiding female which was corruption of minors and they all
intershowed it too, waxing merry and toasting to his fathership. But he
said very entirely it was clean contrary to their suppose for he was
the eternal son and ever virgin. Thereat mirth grew in them the more
and they rehearsed to him his curious rite of wedlock for the disrobing
and deflowering of spouses, as the priests use in Madagascar island,
she to be in guise of white and saffron, her groom in white and grain,
with burning of nard and tapers, on a bridebed while clerks sung kyries
and the anthem _Ut novetur sexus omnis corporis mysterium_ till she was
there unmaided. He gave them then a much admirable hymen minim by those
delicate poets Master John Fletcher and Master Francis Beaumont that is
in their _Maid’s Tragedy_ that was writ for a like twining of lovers:
_To bed, to bed_ was the burden of it to be played with accompanable
concent upon the virginals. An exquisite dulcet epithalame of most
mollificative suadency for juveniles amatory whom the odoriferous
flambeaus of the paranymphs have escorted to the quadrupedal proscenium
of connubial communion. Well met they were, said Master Dixon, joyed,
but, harkee, young sir, better were they named Beau Mount and Lecher
for, by my troth, of such a mingling much might come. Young Stephen
said indeed to his best remembrance they had but the one doxy between
them and she of the stews to make shift with in delights amorous for
life ran very high in those days and the custom of the country approved
with it. Greater love than this, he said, no man hath that a man lay
down his wife for his friend. Go thou and do likewise. Thus, or words
to that effect, saith Zarathustra, sometime regius professor of French
letters to the university of Oxtail nor breathed there ever that man to
whom mankind was more beholden. Bring a stranger within thy tower it
will go hard but thou wilt have the secondbest bed. _Orate, fratres,
pro memetipso_. And all the people shall say, Amen. Remember, Erin, thy
generations and thy days of old, how thou settedst little by me and by
my word and broughtedst in a stranger to my gates to commit fornication
in my sight and to wax fat and kick like Jeshurum. Therefore hast thou
sinned against my light and hast made me, thy lord, to be the slave of
servants. Return, return, Clan Milly: forget me not, O Milesian. Why
hast thou done this abomination before me that thou didst spurn me for
a merchant of jalaps and didst deny me to the Roman and to the Indian
of dark speech with whom thy daughters did lie luxuriously? Look forth
now, my people, upon the land of behest, even from Horeb and from Nebo
and from Pisgah and from the Horns of Hatten unto a land flowing with
milk and money. But thou hast suckled me with a bitter milk: my moon
and my sun thou hast quenched for ever. And thou hast left me alone for
ever in the dark ways of my bitterness: and with a kiss of ashes hast
thou kissed my mouth. This tenebrosity of the interior, he proceeded to
say, hath not been illumined by the wit of the septuagint nor so much
as mentioned for the Orient from on high which brake hell’s gates
visited a darkness that was foraneous. Assuefaction minorates
atrocities (as Tully saith of his darling Stoics) and Hamlet his father
showeth the prince no blister of combustion. The adiaphane in the noon
of life is an Egypt’s plague which in the nights of prenativity and
postmortemity is their most proper _ubi_ and _quomodo_. And as the ends
and ultimates of all things accord in some mean and measure with their
inceptions and originals, that same multiplicit concordance which leads
forth growth from birth accomplishing by a retrogressive metamorphosis
that minishing and ablation towards the final which is agreeable unto
nature so is it with our subsolar being. The aged sisters draw us into
life: we wail, batten, sport, clip, clasp, sunder, dwindle, die: over
us dead they bend. First, saved from waters of old Nile, among
bulrushes, a bed of fasciated wattles: at last the cavity of a
mountain, an occulted sepulchre amid the conclamation of the hillcat
and the ossifrage. And as no man knows the ubicity of his tumulus nor
to what processes we shall thereby be ushered nor whether to Tophet or
to Edenville in the like way is all hidden when we would backward see
from what region of remoteness the whatness of our whoness hath fetched
his whenceness.

Thereto Punch Costello roared out mainly _Etienne chanson_ but he
loudly bid them, lo, wisdom hath built herself a house, this vast
majestic longstablished vault, the crystal palace of the Creator, all
in applepie order, a penny for him who finds the pea.

     Behold the mansion reared by dedal Jack
     See the malt stored in many a refluent sack,
     In the proud cirque of Jackjohn’s bivouac.

A black crack of noise in the street here, alack, bawled back. Loud on
left Thor thundered: in anger awful the hammerhurler. Came now the
storm that hist his heart. And Master Lynch bade him have a care to
flout and witwanton as the god self was angered for his hellprate and
paganry. And he that had erst challenged to be so doughty waxed wan as
they might all mark and shrank together and his pitch that was before
so haught uplift was now of a sudden quite plucked down and his heart
shook within the cage of his breast as he tasted the rumour of that
storm. Then did some mock and some jeer and Punch Costello fell hard
again to his yale which Master Lenehan vowed he would do after and he
was indeed but a word and a blow on any the least colour. But the
braggart boaster cried that an old Nobodaddy was in his cups it was
muchwhat indifferent and he would not lag behind his lead. But this was
only to dye his desperation as cowed he crouched in Horne’s hall. He
drank indeed at one draught to pluck up a heart of any grace for it
thundered long rumblingly over all the heavens so that Master Madden,
being godly certain whiles, knocked him on his ribs upon that crack of
doom and Master Bloom, at the braggart’s side, spoke to him calming
words to slumber his great fear, advertising how it was no other thing
but a hubbub noise that he heard, the discharge of fluid from the
thunderhead, look you, having taken place, and all of the order of a
natural phenomenon.

But was young Boasthard’s fear vanquished by Calmer’s words? No, for he
had in his bosom a spike named Bitterness which could not by words be
done away. And was he then neither calm like the one nor godly like the
other? He was neither as much as he would have liked to be either. But
could he not have endeavoured to have found again as in his youth the
bottle Holiness that then he lived withal? Indeed no for Grace was not
there to find that bottle. Heard he then in that clap the voice of the
god Bringforth or, what Calmer said, a hubbub of Phenomenon? Heard?
Why, he could not but hear unless he had plugged him up the tube
Understanding (which he had not done). For through that tube he saw
that he was in the land of Phenomenon where he must for a certain one
day die as he was like the rest too a passing show. And would he not
accept to die like the rest and pass away? By no means would he though
he must nor would he make more shows according as men do with wives
which Phenomenon has commanded them to do by the book Law. Then wotted
he nought of that other land which is called Believe-on-Me, that is the
land of promise which behoves to the king Delightful and shall be for
ever where there is no death and no birth neither wiving nor mothering
at which all shall come as many as believe on it? Yes, Pious had told
him of that land and Chaste had pointed him to the way but the reason
was that in the way he fell in with a certain whore of an eyepleasing
exterior whose name, she said, is Bird-in-the-Hand and she beguiled him
wrongways from the true path by her flatteries that she said to him as,
Ho, you pretty man, turn aside hither and I will show you a brave
place, and she lay at him so flatteringly that she had him in her grot
which is named Two-in-the-Bush or, by some learned, Carnal
Concupiscence.

This was it what all that company that sat there at commons in Manse of
Mothers the most lusted after and if they met with this whore
Bird-in-the-Hand (which was within all foul plagues, monsters and a
wicked devil) they would strain the last but they would make at her and
know her. For regarding Believe-on-Me they said it was nought else but
notion and they could conceive no thought of it for, first,
Two-in-the-Bush whither she ticed them was the very goodliest grot and
in it were four pillows on which were four tickets with these words
printed on them, Pickaback and Topsyturvy and Shameface and Cheek by
Jowl and, second, for that foul plague Allpox and the monsters they
cared not for them for Preservative had given them a stout shield of
oxengut and, third, that they might take no hurt neither from Offspring
that was that wicked devil by virtue of this same shield which was
named Killchild. So were they all in their blind fancy, Mr Cavil and Mr
Sometimes Godly, Mr Ape Swillale, Mr False Franklin, Mr Dainty Dixon,
Young Boasthard and Mr Cautious Calmer. Wherein, O wretched company,
were ye all deceived for that was the voice of the god that was in a
very grievous rage that he would presently lift his arm up and spill
their souls for their abuses and their spillings done by them
contrariwise to his word which forth to bring brenningly biddeth.

So Thursday sixteenth June Patk. Dignam laid in clay of an apoplexy and
after hard drought, please God, rained, a bargeman coming in by water a
fifty mile or thereabout with turf saying the seed won’t sprout, fields
athirst, very sadcoloured and stunk mightily, the quags and tofts too.
Hard to breathe and all the young quicks clean consumed without
sprinkle this long while back as no man remembered to be without. The
rosy buds all gone brown and spread out blobs and on the hills nought
but dry flag and faggots that would catch at first fire. All the world
saying, for aught they knew, the big wind of last February a year that
did havoc the land so pitifully a small thing beside this barrenness.
But by and by, as said, this evening after sundown, the wind sitting in
the west, biggish swollen clouds to be seen as the night increased and
the weatherwise poring up at them and some sheet lightnings at first
and after, past ten of the clock, one great stroke with a long thunder
and in a brace of shakes all scamper pellmell within door for the
smoking shower, the men making shelter for their straws with a clout or
kerchief, womenfolk skipping off with kirtles catched up soon as the
pour came. In Ely place, Baggot street, Duke’s lawn, thence through
Merrion green up to Holles street a swash of water flowing that was
before bonedry and not one chair or coach or fiacre seen about but no
more crack after that first. Over against the Rt. Hon. Mr Justice
Fitzgibbon’s door (that is to sit with Mr Healy the lawyer upon the
college lands) Mal. Mulligan a gentleman’s gentleman that had but come
from Mr Moore’s the writer’s (that was a papish but is now, folk say, a
good Williamite) chanced against Alec. Bannon in a cut bob (which are
now in with dance cloaks of Kendal green) that was new got to town from
Mullingar with the stage where his coz and Mal M’s brother will stay a
month yet till Saint Swithin and asks what in the earth he does there,
he bound home and he to Andrew Horne’s being stayed for to crush a cup
of wine, so he said, but would tell him of a skittish heifer, big of
her age and beef to the heel, and all this while poured with rain and
so both together on to Horne’s. There Leop. Bloom of Crawford’s journal
sitting snug with a covey of wags, likely brangling fellows, Dixon
jun., scholar of my lady of Mercy’s, Vin. Lynch, a Scots fellow, Will.
Madden, T. Lenehan, very sad about a racer he fancied and Stephen D.
Leop. Bloom there for a languor he had but was now better, he having
dreamed tonight a strange fancy of his dame Mrs Moll with red slippers
on in a pair of Turkey trunks which is thought by those in ken to be
for a change and Mistress Purefoy there, that got in through pleading
her belly, and now on the stools, poor body, two days past her term,
the midwives sore put to it and can’t deliver, she queasy for a bowl of
riceslop that is a shrewd drier up of the insides and her breath very
heavy more than good and should be a bullyboy from the knocks, they
say, but God give her soon issue. ’Tis her ninth chick to live, I hear,
and Lady day bit off her last chick’s nails that was then a twelvemonth
and with other three all breastfed that died written out in a fair hand
in the king’s bible. Her hub fifty odd and a methodist but takes the
sacrament and is to be seen any fair sabbath with a pair of his boys
off Bullock harbour dapping on the sound with a heavybraked reel or in
a punt he has trailing for flounder and pollock and catches a fine bag,
I hear. In sum an infinite great fall of rain and all refreshed and
will much increase the harvest yet those in ken say after wind and
water fire shall come for a prognostication of Malachi’s almanac (and I
hear that Mr Russell has done a prophetical charm of the same gist out
of the Hindustanish for his farmer’s gazette) to have three things in
all but this a mere fetch without bottom of reason for old crones and
bairns yet sometimes they are found in the right guess with their
queerities no telling how.

With this came up Lenehan to the feet of the table to say how the
letter was in that night’s gazette and he made a show to find it about
him (for he swore with an oath that he had been at pains about it) but
on Stephen’s persuasion he gave over the search and was bidden to sit
near by which he did mighty brisk. He was a kind of sport gentleman
that went for a merryandrew or honest pickle and what belonged of
women, horseflesh or hot scandal he had it pat. To tell the truth he
was mean in fortunes and for the most part hankered about the
coffeehouses and low taverns with crimps, ostlers, bookies, Paul’s men,
runners, flatcaps, waistcoateers, ladies of the bagnio and other rogues
of the game or with a chanceable catchpole or a tipstaff often at
nights till broad day of whom he picked up between his sackpossets much
loose gossip. He took his ordinary at a boilingcook’s and if he had but
gotten into him a mess of broken victuals or a platter of tripes with a
bare tester in his purse he could always bring himself off with his
tongue, some randy quip he had from a punk or whatnot that every
mother’s son of them would burst their sides. The other, Costello that
is, hearing this talk asked was it poetry or a tale. Faith, no, he
says, Frank (that was his name), ’tis all about Kerry cows that are to
be butchered along of the plague. But they can go hang, says he with a
wink, for me with their bully beef, a pox on it. There’s as good fish
in this tin as ever came out of it and very friendly he offered to take
of some salty sprats that stood by which he had eyed wishly in the
meantime and found the place which was indeed the chief design of his
embassy as he was sharpset. _Mort aux vaches_, says Frank then in the
French language that had been indentured to a brandyshipper that has a
winelodge in Bordeaux and he spoke French like a gentleman too. From a
child this Frank had been a donought that his father, a headborough,
who could ill keep him to school to learn his letters and the use of
the globes, matriculated at the university to study the mechanics but
he took the bit between his teeth like a raw colt and was more familiar
with the justiciary and the parish beadle than with his volumes. One
time he would be a playactor, then a sutler or a welsher, then nought
would keep him from the bearpit and the cocking main, then he was for
the ocean sea or to hoof it on the roads with the romany folk,
kidnapping a squire’s heir by favour of moonlight or fecking maids’
linen or choking chicken behind a hedge. He had been off as many times
as a cat has lives and back again with naked pockets as many more to
his father the headborough who shed a pint of tears as often as he saw
him. What, says Mr Leopold with his hands across, that was earnest to
know the drift of it, will they slaughter all? I protest I saw them but
this day morning going to the Liverpool boats, says he. I can scarce
believe ’tis so bad, says he. And he had experience of the like brood
beasts and of springers, greasy hoggets and wether wool, having been
some years before actuary for Mr Joseph Cuffe, a worthy salesmaster
that drove his trade for live stock and meadow auctions hard by Mr
Gavin Low’s yard in Prussia street. I question with you there, says he.
More like ’tis the hoose or the timber tongue. Mr Stephen, a little
moved but very handsomely told him no such matter and that he had
dispatches from the emperor’s chief tailtickler thanking him for the
hospitality, that was sending over Doctor Rinderpest, the bestquoted
cowcatcher in all Muscovy, with a bolus or two of physic to take the
bull by the horns. Come, come, says Mr Vincent, plain dealing. He’ll
find himself on the horns of a dilemma if he meddles with a bull that’s
Irish, says he. Irish by name and irish by nature, says Mr Stephen, and
he sent the ale purling about, an Irish bull in an English chinashop. I
conceive you, says Mr Dixon. It is that same bull that was sent to our
island by farmer Nicholas, the bravest cattlebreeder of them all, with
an emerald ring in his nose. True for you, says Mr Vincent cross the
table, and a bullseye into the bargain, says he, and a plumper and a
portlier bull, says he, never shit on shamrock. He had horns galore, a
coat of cloth of gold and a sweet smoky breath coming out of his
nostrils so that the women of our island, leaving doughballs and
rollingpins, followed after him hanging his bulliness in daisychains.
What for that, says Mr Dixon, but before he came over farmer Nicholas
that was a eunuch had him properly gelded by a college of doctors who
were no better off than himself. So be off now, says he, and do all my
cousin german the lord Harry tells you and take a farmer’s blessing,
and with that he slapped his posteriors very soundly. But the slap and
the blessing stood him friend, says Mr Vincent, for to make up he
taught him a trick worth two of the other so that maid, wife, abbess
and widow to this day affirm that they would rather any time of the
month whisper in his ear in the dark of a cowhouse or get a lick on the
nape from his long holy tongue than lie with the finest strapping young
ravisher in the four fields of all Ireland. Another then put in his
word: And they dressed him, says he, in a point shift and petticoat
with a tippet and girdle and ruffles on his wrists and clipped his
forelock and rubbed him all over with spermacetic oil and built stables
for him at every turn of the road with a gold manger in each full of
the best hay in the market so that he could doss and dung to his
heart’s content. By this time the father of the faithful (for so they
called him) was grown so heavy that he could scarce walk to pasture. To
remedy which our cozening dames and damsels brought him his fodder in
their apronlaps and as soon as his belly was full he would rear up on
his hind quarters to show their ladyships a mystery and roar and bellow
out of him in bulls’ language and they all after him. Ay, says another,
and so pampered was he that he would suffer nought to grow in all the
land but green grass for himself (for that was the only colour to his
mind) and there was a board put up on a hillock in the middle of the
island with a printed notice, saying: By the Lord Harry, Green is the
grass that grows on the ground. And, says Mr Dixon, if ever he got
scent of a cattleraider in Roscommon or the wilds of Connemara or a
husbandman in Sligo that was sowing as much as a handful of mustard or
a bag of rapeseed out he’d run amok over half the countryside rooting
up with his horns whatever was planted and all by lord Harry’s orders.
There was bad blood between them at first, says Mr Vincent, and the
lord Harry called farmer Nicholas all the old Nicks in the world and an
old whoremaster that kept seven trulls in his house and I’ll meddle in
his matters, says he. I’ll make that animal smell hell, says he, with
the help of that good pizzle my father left me. But one evening, says
Mr Dixon, when the lord Harry was cleaning his royal pelt to go to
dinner after winning a boatrace (he had spade oars for himself but the
first rule of the course was that the others were to row with
pitchforks) he discovered in himself a wonderful likeness to a bull and
on picking up a blackthumbed chapbook that he kept in the pantry he
found sure enough that he was a lefthanded descendant of the famous
champion bull of the Romans, _Bos Bovum_, which is good bog Latin for
boss of the show. After that, says Mr Vincent, the lord Harry put his
head into a cow’s drinkingtrough in the presence of all his courtiers
and pulling it out again told them all his new name. Then, with the
water running off him, he got into an old smock and skirt that had
belonged to his grandmother and bought a grammar of the bulls’ language
to study but he could never learn a word of it except the first
personal pronoun which he copied out big and got off by heart and if
ever he went out for a walk he filled his pockets with chalk to write
it upon what took his fancy, the side of a rock or a teahouse table or
a bale of cotton or a corkfloat. In short, he and the bull of Ireland
were soon as fast friends as an arse and a shirt. They were, says Mr
Stephen, and the end was that the men of the island seeing no help was
toward, as the ungrate women were all of one mind, made a wherry raft,
loaded themselves and their bundles of chattels on shipboard, set all
masts erect, manned the yards, sprang their luff, heaved to, spread
three sheets in the wind, put her head between wind and water, weighed
anchor, ported her helm, ran up the jolly Roger, gave three times
three, let the bullgine run, pushed off in their bumboat and put to sea
to recover the main of America. Which was the occasion, says Mr
Vincent, of the composing by a boatswain of that rollicking chanty:

_—Pope Peter’s but a pissabed.

A man’s a man for a’ that._

Our worthy acquaintance Mr Malachi Mulligan now appeared in the doorway
as the students were finishing their apologue accompanied with a friend
whom he had just rencountered, a young gentleman, his name Alec Bannon,
who had late come to town, it being his intention to buy a colour or a
cornetcy in the fencibles and list for the wars. Mr Mulligan was civil
enough to express some relish of it all the more as it jumped with a
project of his own for the cure of the very evil that had been touched
on. Whereat he handed round to the company a set of pasteboard cards
which he had had printed that day at Mr Quinnell’s bearing a legend
printed in fair italics: _Mr Malachi Mulligan. Fertiliser and
Incubator. Lambay Island_. His project, as he went on to expound, was
to withdraw from the round of idle pleasures such as form the chief
business of sir Fopling Popinjay and sir Milksop Quidnunc in town and
to devote himself to the noblest task for which our bodily organism has
been framed. Well, let us hear of it, good my friend, said Mr Dixon. I
make no doubt it smacks of wenching. Come, be seated, both. ’Tis as
cheap sitting as standing. Mr Mulligan accepted of the invitation and,
expatiating upon his design, told his hearers that he had been led into
this thought by a consideration of the causes of sterility, both the
inhibitory and the prohibitory, whether the inhibition in its turn were
due to conjugal vexations or to a parsimony of the balance as well as
whether the prohibition proceeded from defects congenital or from
proclivities acquired. It grieved him plaguily, he said, to see the
nuptial couch defrauded of its dearest pledges: and to reflect upon so
many agreeable females with rich jointures, a prey to the vilest
bonzes, who hide their flambeau under a bushel in an uncongenial
cloister or lose their womanly bloom in the embraces of some
unaccountable muskin when they might multiply the inlets of happiness,
sacrificing the inestimable jewel of their sex when a hundred pretty
fellows were at hand to caress, this, he assured them, made his heart
weep. To curb this inconvenient (which he concluded due to a
suppression of latent heat), having advised with certain counsellors of
worth and inspected into this matter, he had resolved to purchase in
fee simple for ever the freehold of Lambay island from its holder, lord
Talbot de Malahide, a Tory gentleman of note much in favour with our
ascendancy party. He proposed to set up there a national fertilising
farm to be named _Omphalos_ with an obelisk hewn and erected after the
fashion of Egypt and to offer his dutiful yeoman services for the
fecundation of any female of what grade of life soever who should there
direct to him with the desire of fulfilling the functions of her
natural. Money was no object, he said, nor would he take a penny for
his pains. The poorest kitchenwench no less than the opulent lady of
fashion, if so be their constructions and their tempers were warm
persuaders for their petitions, would find in him their man. For his
nutriment he shewed how he would feed himself exclusively upon a diet
of savoury tubercles and fish and coneys there, the flesh of these
latter prolific rodents being highly recommended for his purpose, both
broiled and stewed with a blade of mace and a pod or two of capsicum
chillies. After this homily which he delivered with much warmth of
asseveration Mr Mulligan in a trice put off from his hat a kerchief
with which he had shielded it. They both, it seems, had been overtaken
by the rain and for all their mending their pace had taken water, as
might be observed by Mr Mulligan’s smallclothes of a hodden grey which
was now somewhat piebald. His project meanwhile was very favourably
entertained by his auditors and won hearty eulogies from all though Mr
Dixon of Mary’s excepted to it, asking with a finicking air did he
purpose also to carry coals to Newcastle. Mr Mulligan however made
court to the scholarly by an apt quotation from the classics which, as
it dwelt upon his memory, seemed to him a sound and tasteful support of
his contention: _Talis ac tanta depravatio hujus seculi, O quirites, ut
matresfamiliarum nostrae lascivas cujuslibet semiviri libici
titillationes testibus ponderosis atque excelsis erectionibus
centurionum Romanorum magnopere anteponunt_, while for those of ruder
wit he drove home his point by analogies of the animal kingdom more
suitable to their stomach, the buck and doe of the forest glade, the
farmyard drake and duck.

Valuing himself not a little upon his elegance, being indeed a proper
man of person, this talkative now applied himself to his dress with
animadversions of some heat upon the sudden whimsy of the atmospherics
while the company lavished their encomiums upon the project he had
advanced. The young gentleman, his friend, overjoyed as he was at a
passage that had late befallen him, could not forbear to tell it his
nearest neighbour. Mr Mulligan, now perceiving the table, asked for
whom were those loaves and fishes and, seeing the stranger, he made him
a civil bow and said, Pray, sir, was you in need of any professional
assistance we could give? Who, upon his offer, thanked him very
heartily, though preserving his proper distance, and replied that he
was come there about a lady, now an inmate of Horne’s house, that was
in an interesting condition, poor body, from woman’s woe (and here he
fetched a deep sigh) to know if her happiness had yet taken place. Mr
Dixon, to turn the table, took on to ask of Mr Mulligan himself whether
his incipient ventripotence, upon which he rallied him, betokened an
ovoblastic gestation in the prostatic utricle or male womb or was due,
as with the noted physician, Mr Austin Meldon, to a wolf in the
stomach. For answer Mr Mulligan, in a gale of laughter at his smalls,
smote himself bravely below the diaphragm, exclaiming with an admirable
droll mimic of Mother Grogan (the most excellent creature of her sex
though ’tis pity she’s a trollop): There’s a belly that never bore a
bastard. This was so happy a conceit that it renewed the storm of mirth
and threw the whole room into the most violent agitations of delight.
The spry rattle had run on in the same vein of mimicry but for some
larum in the antechamber.

Here the listener who was none other than the Scotch student, a little
fume of a fellow, blond as tow, congratulated in the liveliest fashion
with the young gentleman and, interrupting the narrative at a salient
point, having desired his visavis with a polite beck to have the
obligingness to pass him a flagon of cordial waters at the same time by
a questioning poise of the head (a whole century of polite breeding had
not achieved so nice a gesture) to which was united an equivalent but
contrary balance of the bottle asked the narrator as plainly as was
ever done in words if he might treat him with a cup of it. _Mais bien
sûr_, noble stranger, said he cheerily, _et mille compliments_. That
you may and very opportunely. There wanted nothing but this cup to
crown my felicity. But, gracious heaven, was I left with but a crust in
my wallet and a cupful of water from the well, my God, I would accept
of them and find it in my heart to kneel down upon the ground and give
thanks to the powers above for the happiness vouchsafed me by the Giver
of good things. With these words he approached the goblet to his lips,
took a complacent draught of the cordial, slicked his hair and, opening
his bosom, out popped a locket that hung from a silk riband, that very
picture which he had cherished ever since her hand had wrote therein.
Gazing upon those features with a world of tenderness, Ah, Monsieur, he
said, had you but beheld her as I did with these eyes at that affecting
instant with her dainty tucker and her new coquette cap (a gift for her
feastday as she told me prettily) in such an artless disorder, of so
melting a tenderness, ’pon my conscience, even you, Monsieur, had been
impelled by generous nature to deliver yourself wholly into the hands
of such an enemy or to quit the field for ever. I declare, I was never
so touched in all my life. God, I thank thee, as the Author of my days!
Thrice happy will he be whom so amiable a creature will bless with her
favours. A sigh of affection gave eloquence to these words and, having
replaced the locket in his bosom, he wiped his eye and sighed again.
Beneficent Disseminator of blessings to all Thy creatures, how great
and universal must be that sweetest of Thy tyrannies which can hold in
thrall the free and the bond, the simple swain and the polished
coxcomb, the lover in the heyday of reckless passion and the husband of
maturer years. But indeed, sir, I wander from the point. How mingled
and imperfect are all our sublunary joys. Maledicity! he exclaimed in
anguish. Would to God that foresight had but remembered me to take my
cloak along! I could weep to think of it. Then, though it had poured
seven showers, we were neither of us a penny the worse. But beshrew me,
he cried, clapping hand to his forehead, tomorrow will be a new day
and, thousand thunders, I know of a _marchand de capotes_, Monsieur
Poyntz, from whom I can have for a _livre_ as snug a cloak of the
French fashion as ever kept a lady from wetting. Tut, tut! cries Le
Fécondateur, tripping in, my friend Monsieur Moore, that most
accomplished traveller (I have just cracked a half bottle _avec lui_ in
a circle of the best wits of the town), is my authority that in Cape
Horn, _ventre biche_, they have a rain that will wet through any, even
the stoutest cloak. A drenching of that violence, he tells me, _sans
blague_, has sent more than one luckless fellow in good earnest
posthaste to another world. Pooh! A _livre!_ cries Monsieur Lynch. The
clumsy things are dear at a sou. One umbrella, were it no bigger than a
fairy mushroom, is worth ten such stopgaps. No woman of any wit would
wear one. My dear Kitty told me today that she would dance in a deluge
before ever she would starve in such an ark of salvation for, as she
reminded me (blushing piquantly and whispering in my ear though there
was none to snap her words but giddy butterflies), dame Nature, by the
divine blessing, has implanted it in our hearts and it has become a
household word that _il y a deux choses_ for which the innocence of our
original garb, in other circumstances a breach of the proprieties, is
the fittest, nay, the only garment. The first, said she (and here my
pretty philosopher, as I handed her to her tilbury, to fix my
attention, gently tipped with her tongue the outer chamber of my ear),
the first is a bath... But at this point a bell tinkling in the hall
cut short a discourse which promised so bravely for the enrichment of
our store of knowledge.

Amid the general vacant hilarity of the assembly a bell rang and, while
all were conjecturing what might be the cause, Miss Callan entered and,
having spoken a few words in a low tone to young Mr Dixon, retired with
a profound bow to the company. The presence even for a moment among a
party of debauchees of a woman endued with every quality of modesty and
not less severe than beautiful refrained the humourous sallies even of
the most licentious but her departure was the signal for an outbreak of
ribaldry. Strike me silly, said Costello, a low fellow who was fuddled.
A monstrous fine bit of cowflesh! I’ll be sworn she has rendezvoused
you. What, you dog? Have you a way with them? Gad’s bud, immensely so,
said Mr Lynch. The bedside manner it is that they use in the Mater
hospice. Demme, does not Doctor O’Gargle chuck the nuns there under the
chin. As I look to be saved I had it from my Kitty who has been
wardmaid there any time these seven months. Lawksamercy, doctor, cried
the young blood in the primrose vest, feigning a womanish simper and
with immodest squirmings of his body, how you do tease a body! Drat the
man! Bless me, I’m all of a wibbly wobbly. Why, you’re as bad as dear
little Father Cantekissem, that you are! May this pot of four half
choke me, cried Costello, if she aint in the family way. I knows a lady
what’s got a white swelling quick as I claps eyes on her. The young
surgeon, however, rose and begged the company to excuse his retreat as
the nurse had just then informed him that he was needed in the ward.
Merciful providence had been pleased to put a period to the sufferings
of the lady who was _enceinte_ which she had borne with a laudable
fortitude and she had given birth to a bouncing boy. I want patience,
said he, with those who, without wit to enliven or learning to
instruct, revile an ennobling profession which, saving the reverence
due to the Deity, is the greatest power for happiness upon the earth. I
am positive when I say that if need were I could produce a cloud of
witnesses to the excellence of her noble exercitations which, so far
from being a byword, should be a glorious incentive in the human
breast. I cannot away with them. What? Malign such an one, the amiable
Miss Callan, who is the lustre of her own sex and the astonishment of
ours? And at an instant the most momentous that can befall a puny child
of clay? Perish the thought! I shudder to think of the future of a race
where the seeds of such malice have been sown and where no right
reverence is rendered to mother and maid in house of Horne. Having
delivered himself of this rebuke he saluted those present on the by and
repaired to the door. A murmur of approval arose from all and some were
for ejecting the low soaker without more ado, a design which would have
been effected nor would he have received more than his bare deserts had
he not abridged his transgression by affirming with a horrid
imprecation (for he swore a round hand) that he was as good a son of
the true fold as ever drew breath. Stap my vitals, said he, them was
always the sentiments of honest Frank Costello which I was bred up most
particular to honour thy father and thy mother that had the best hand
to a rolypoly or a hasty pudding as you ever see what I always looks
back on with a loving heart.

To revert to Mr Bloom who, after his first entry, had been conscious of
some impudent mocks which he however had borne with as being the fruits
of that age upon which it is commonly charged that it knows not pity.
The young sparks, it is true, were as full of extravagancies as
overgrown children: the words of their tumultuary discussions were
difficultly understood and not often nice: their testiness and
outrageous _mots_ were such that his intellects resiled from: nor were
they scrupulously sensible of the proprieties though their fund of
strong animal spirits spoke in their behalf. But the word of Mr
Costello was an unwelcome language for him for he nauseated the wretch
that seemed to him a cropeared creature of a misshapen gibbosity, born
out of wedlock and thrust like a crookback toothed and feet first into
the world, which the dint of the surgeon’s pliers in his skull lent
indeed a colour to, so as to put him in thought of that missing link of
creation’s chain desiderated by the late ingenious Mr Darwin. It was
now for more than the middle span of our allotted years that he had
passed through the thousand vicissitudes of existence and, being of a
wary ascendancy and self a man of rare forecast, he had enjoined his
heart to repress all motions of a rising choler and, by intercepting
them with the readiest precaution, foster within his breast that
plenitude of sufferance which base minds jeer at, rash judgers scorn
and all find tolerable and but tolerable. To those who create
themselves wits at the cost of feminine delicacy (a habit of mind which
he never did hold with) to them he would concede neither to bear the
name nor to herit the tradition of a proper breeding: while for such
that, having lost all forbearance, can lose no more, there remained the
sharp antidote of experience to cause their insolency to beat a
precipitate and inglorious retreat. Not but what he could feel with
mettlesome youth which, caring nought for the mows of dotards or the
gruntlings of the severe, is ever (as the chaste fancy of the Holy
Writer expresses it) for eating of the tree forbid it yet not so far
forth as to pretermit humanity upon any condition soever towards a
gentlewoman when she was about her lawful occasions. To conclude, while
from the sister’s words he had reckoned upon a speedy delivery he was,
however, it must be owned, not a little alleviated by the intelligence
that the issue so auspicated after an ordeal of such duress now
testified once more to the mercy as well as to the bounty of the
Supreme Being.

Accordingly he broke his mind to his neighbour, saying that, to express
his notion of the thing, his opinion (who ought not perchance to
express one) was that one must have a cold constitution and a frigid
genius not to be rejoiced by this freshest news of the fruition of her
confinement since she had been in such pain through no fault of hers.
The dressy young blade said it was her husband’s that put her in that
expectation or at least it ought to be unless she were another Ephesian
matron. I must acquaint you, said Mr Crotthers, clapping on the table
so as to evoke a resonant comment of emphasis, old Glory Allelujurum
was round again today, an elderly man with dundrearies, preferring
through his nose a request to have word of Wilhelmina, my life, as he
calls her. I bade him hold himself in readiness for that the event
would burst anon. ’Slife, I’ll be round with you. I cannot but extol
the virile potency of the old bucko that could still knock another
child out of her. All fell to praising of it, each after his own
fashion, though the same young blade held with his former view that
another than her conjugial had been the man in the gap, a clerk in
orders, a linkboy (virtuous) or an itinerant vendor of articles needed
in every household. Singular, communed the guest with himself, the
wonderfully unequal faculty of metempsychosis possessed by them, that
the puerperal dormitory and the dissecting theatre should be the
seminaries of such frivolity, that the mere acquisition of academic
titles should suffice to transform in a pinch of time these votaries of
levity into exemplary practitioners of an art which most men anywise
eminent have esteemed the noblest. But, he further added, it is mayhap
to relieve the pentup feelings that in common oppress them for I have
more than once observed that birds of a feather laugh together.

But with what fitness, let it be asked of the noble lord, his patron,
has this alien, whom the concession of a gracious prince has admitted
to civic rights, constituted himself the lord paramount of our internal
polity? Where is now that gratitude which loyalty should have
counselled? During the recent war whenever the enemy had a temporary
advantage with his granados did this traitor to his kind not seize that
moment to discharge his piece against the empire of which he is a
tenant at will while he trembled for the security of his four per
cents? Has he forgotten this as he forgets all benefits received? Or is
it that from being a deluder of others he has become at last his own
dupe as he is, if report belie him not, his own and his only enjoyer?
Far be it from candour to violate the bedchamber of a respectable lady,
the daughter of a gallant major, or to cast the most distant
reflections upon her virtue but if he challenges attention there (as it
was indeed highly his interest not to have done) then be it so. Unhappy
woman, she has been too long and too persistently denied her legitimate
prerogative to listen to his objurgations with any other feeling than
the derision of the desperate. He says this, a censor of morals, a very
pelican in his piety, who did not scruple, oblivious of the ties of
nature, to attempt illicit intercourse with a female domestic drawn
from the lowest strata of society! Nay, had the hussy’s scouringbrush
not been her tutelary angel, it had gone with her as hard as with
Hagar, the Egyptian! In the question of the grazing lands his peevish
asperity is notorious and in Mr Cuffe’s hearing brought upon him from
an indignant rancher a scathing retort couched in terms as
straightforward as they were bucolic. It ill becomes him to preach that
gospel. Has he not nearer home a seedfield that lies fallow for the
want of the ploughshare? A habit reprehensible at puberty is second
nature and an opprobrium in middle life. If he must dispense his balm
of Gilead in nostrums and apothegms of dubious taste to restore to
health a generation of unfledged profligates let his practice consist
better with the doctrines that now engross him. His marital breast is
the repository of secrets which decorum is reluctant to adduce. The
lewd suggestions of some faded beauty may console him for a consort
neglected and debauched but this new exponent of morals and healer of
ills is at his best an exotic tree which, when rooted in its native
orient, throve and flourished and was abundant in balm but,
transplanted to a clime more temperate, its roots have lost their
quondam vigour while the stuff that comes away from it is stagnant,
acid and inoperative.

The news was imparted with a circumspection recalling the ceremonial
usage of the Sublime Porte by the second female infirmarian to the
junior medical officer in residence, who in his turn announced to the
delegation that an heir had been born. When he had betaken himself to
the women’s apartment to assist at the prescribed ceremony of the
afterbirth in the presence of the secretary of state for domestic
affairs and the members of the privy council, silent in unanimous
exhaustion and approbation the delegates, chafing under the length and
solemnity of their vigil and hoping that the joyful occurrence would
palliate a licence which the simultaneous absence of abigail and
obstetrician rendered the easier, broke out at once into a strife of
tongues. In vain the voice of Mr Canvasser Bloom was heard endeavouring
to urge, to mollify, to refrain. The moment was too propitious for the
display of that discursiveness which seemed the only bond of union
among tempers so divergent. Every phase of the situation was
successively eviscerated: the prenatal repugnance of uterine brothers,
the Caesarean section, posthumity with respect to the father and, that
rarer form, with respect to the mother, the fratricidal case known as
the Childs Murder and rendered memorable by the impassioned plea of Mr
Advocate Bushe which secured the acquittal of the wrongfully accused,
the rights of primogeniture and king’s bounty touching twins and
triplets, miscarriages and infanticides, simulated or dissimulated, the
acardiac _foetus in foetu_ and aprosopia due to a congestion, the
agnathia of certain chinless Chinamen (cited by Mr Candidate Mulligan)
in consequence of defective reunion of the maxillary knobs along the
medial line so that (as he said) one ear could hear what the other
spoke, the benefits of anesthesia or twilight sleep, the prolongation
of labour pains in advanced gravidancy by reason of pressure on the
vein, the premature relentment of the amniotic fluid (as exemplified in
the actual case) with consequent peril of sepsis to the matrix,
artificial insemination by means of syringes, involution of the womb
consequent upon the menopause, the problem of the perpetration of the
species in the case of females impregnated by delinquent rape, that
distressing manner of delivery called by the Brandenburghers
_Sturzgeburt,_ the recorded instances of multiseminal, twikindled and
monstrous births conceived during the catamenic period or of
consanguineous parents—in a word all the cases of human nativity which
Aristotle has classified in his masterpiece with chromolithographic
illustrations. The gravest problems of obstetrics and forensic medicine
were examined with as much animation as the most popular beliefs on the
state of pregnancy such as the forbidding to a gravid woman to step
over a countrystile lest, by her movement, the navelcord should
strangle her creature and the injunction upon her in the event of a
yearning, ardently and ineffectually entertained, to place her hand
against that part of her person which long usage has consecrated as the
seat of castigation. The abnormalities of harelip, breastmole,
supernumerary digits, negro’s inkle, strawberry mark and portwine stain
were alleged by one as a _prima facie_ and natural hypothetical
explanation of those swineheaded (the case of Madame Grissel Steevens
was not forgotten) or doghaired infants occasionally born. The
hypothesis of a plasmic memory, advanced by the Caledonian envoy and
worthy of the metaphysical traditions of the land he stood for,
envisaged in such cases an arrest of embryonic development at some
stage antecedent to the human. An outlandish delegate sustained against
both these views, with such heat as almost carried conviction, the
theory of copulation between women and the males of brutes, his
authority being his own avouchment in support of fables such as that of
the Minotaur which the genius of the elegant Latin poet has handed down
to us in the pages of his Metamorphoses. The impression made by his
words was immediate but shortlived. It was effaced as easily as it had
been evoked by an allocution from Mr Candidate Mulligan in that vein of
pleasantry which none better than he knew how to affect, postulating as
the supremest object of desire a nice clean old man. Contemporaneously,
a heated argument having arisen between Mr Delegate Madden and Mr
Candidate Lynch regarding the juridical and theological dilemma created
in the event of one Siamese twin predeceasing the other, the difficulty
by mutual consent was referred to Mr Canvasser Bloom for instant
submittal to Mr Coadjutor Deacon Dedalus. Hitherto silent, whether the
better to show by preternatural gravity that curious dignity of the
garb with which he was invested or in obedience to an inward voice, he
delivered briefly and, as some thought, perfunctorily the
ecclesiastical ordinance forbidding man to put asunder what God has
joined.

But Malachias’ tale began to freeze them with horror. He conjured up
the scene before them. The secret panel beside the chimney slid back
and in the recess appeared... Haines! Which of us did not feel his
flesh creep! He had a portfolio full of Celtic literature in one hand,
in the other a phial marked _Poison._ Surprise, horror, loathing were
depicted on all faces while he eyed them with a ghostly grin. I
anticipated some such reception, he began with an eldritch laugh, for
which, it seems, history is to blame. Yes, it is true. I am the
murderer of Samuel Childs. And how I am punished! The inferno has no
terrors for me. This is the appearance is on me. Tare and ages, what
way would I be resting at all, he muttered thickly, and I tramping
Dublin this while back with my share of songs and himself after me the
like of a soulth or a bullawurrus? My hell, and Ireland’s, is in this
life. It is what I tried to obliterate my crime. Distractions,
rookshooting, the Erse language (he recited some), laudanum (he raised
the phial to his lips), camping out. In vain! His spectre stalks me.
Dope is my only hope... Ah! Destruction! The black panther! With a cry
he suddenly vanished and the panel slid back. An instant later his head
appeared in the door opposite and said: Meet me at Westland Row station
at ten past eleven. He was gone. Tears gushed from the eyes of the
dissipated host. The seer raised his hand to heaven, murmuring: The
vendetta of Mananaun! The sage repeated: _Lex talionis_. The
sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the immense
debtorship for a thing done. Malachias, overcome by emotion, ceased.
The mystery was unveiled. Haines was the third brother. His real name
was Childs. The black panther was himself the ghost of his own father.
He drank drugs to obliterate. For this relief much thanks. The lonely
house by the graveyard is uninhabited. No soul will live there. The
spider pitches her web in the solitude. The nocturnal rat peers from
his hole. A curse is on it. It is haunted. Murderer’s ground.

What is the age of the soul of man? As she hath the virtue of the
chameleon to change her hue at every new approach, to be gay with the
merry and mournful with the downcast, so too is her age changeable as
her mood. No longer is Leopold, as he sits there, ruminating, chewing
the cud of reminiscence, that staid agent of publicity and holder of a
modest substance in the funds. A score of years are blown away. He is
young Leopold. There, as in a retrospective arrangement, a mirror
within a mirror (hey, presto!), he beholdeth himself. That young figure
of then is seen, precociously manly, walking on a nipping morning from
the old house in Clanbrassil street to the high school, his booksatchel
on him bandolierwise, and in it a goodly hunk of wheaten loaf, a
mother’s thought. Or it is the same figure, a year or so gone over, in
his first hard hat (ah, that was a day!), already on the road, a
fullfledged traveller for the family firm, equipped with an orderbook,
a scented handkerchief (not for show only), his case of bright
trinketware (alas! a thing now of the past!) and a quiverful of
compliant smiles for this or that halfwon housewife reckoning it out
upon her fingertips or for a budding virgin, shyly acknowledging (but
the heart? tell me!) his studied baisemoins. The scent, the smile, but,
more than these, the dark eyes and oleaginous address, brought home at
duskfall many a commission to the head of the firm, seated with Jacob’s
pipe after like labours in the paternal ingle (a meal of noodles, you
may be sure, is aheating), reading through round horned spectacles some
paper from the Europe of a month before. But hey, presto, the mirror is
breathed on and the young knighterrant recedes, shrivels, dwindles to a
tiny speck within the mist. Now he is himself paternal and these about
him might be his sons. Who can say? The wise father knows his own
child. He thinks of a drizzling night in Hatch street, hard by the
bonded stores there, the first. Together (she is a poor waif, a child
of shame, yours and mine and of all for a bare shilling and her
luckpenny), together they hear the heavy tread of the watch as two
raincaped shadows pass the new royal university. Bridie! Bridie Kelly!
He will never forget the name, ever remember the night: first night,
the bridenight. They are entwined in nethermost darkness, the willer
with the willed, and in an instant (_fiat!_) light shall flood the
world. Did heart leap to heart? Nay, fair reader. In a breath ’twas
done but—hold! Back! It must not be! In terror the poor girl flees away
through the murk. She is the bride of darkness, a daughter of night.
She dare not bear the sunnygolden babe of day. No, Leopold. Name and
memory solace thee not. That youthful illusion of thy strength was
taken from thee—and in vain. No son of thy loins is by thee. There is
none now to be for Leopold, what Leopold was for Rudolph.

The voices blend and fuse in clouded silence: silence that is the
infinite of space: and swiftly, silently the soul is wafted over
regions of cycles of generations that have lived. A region where grey
twilight ever descends, never falls on wide sagegreen pasturefields,
shedding her dusk, scattering a perennial dew of stars. She follows her
mother with ungainly steps, a mare leading her fillyfoal. Twilight
phantoms are they, yet moulded in prophetic grace of structure, slim
shapely haunches, a supple tendonous neck, the meek apprehensive skull.
They fade, sad phantoms: all is gone. Agendath is a waste land, a home
of screechowls and the sandblind upupa. Netaim, the golden, is no more.
And on the highway of the clouds they come, muttering thunder of
rebellion, the ghosts of beasts. Huuh! Hark! Huuh! Parallax stalks
behind and goads them, the lancinating lightnings of whose brow are
scorpions. Elk and yak, the bulls of Bashan and of Babylon, mammoth and
mastodon, they come trooping to the sunken sea, _Lacus Mortis_. Ominous
revengeful zodiacal host! They moan, passing upon the clouds, horned
and capricorned, the trumpeted with the tusked, the lionmaned, the
giantantlered, snouter and crawler, rodent, ruminant and pachyderm, all
their moving moaning multitude, murderers of the sun.

Onward to the dead sea they tramp to drink, unslaked and with horrible
gulpings, the salt somnolent inexhaustible flood. And the equine
portent grows again, magnified in the deserted heavens, nay to heaven’s
own magnitude, till it looms, vast, over the house of Virgo. And lo,
wonder of metempsychosis, it is she, the everlasting bride, harbinger
of the daystar, the bride, ever virgin. It is she, Martha, thou lost
one, Millicent, the young, the dear, the radiant. How serene does she
now arise, a queen among the Pleiades, in the penultimate antelucan
hour, shod in sandals of bright gold, coifed with a veil of what do you
call it gossamer. It floats, it flows about her starborn flesh and
loose it streams, emerald, sapphire, mauve and heliotrope, sustained on
currents of the cold interstellar wind, winding, coiling, simply
swirling, writhing in the skies a mysterious writing till, after a
myriad metamorphoses of symbol, it blazes, Alpha, a ruby and triangled
sign upon the forehead of Taurus.

Francis was reminding Stephen of years before when they had been at
school together in Conmee’s time. He asked about Glaucon, Alcibiades,
Pisistratus. Where were they now? Neither knew. You have spoken of the
past and its phantoms, Stephen said. Why think of them? If I call them
into life across the waters of Lethe will not the poor ghosts troop to
my call? Who supposes it? I, Bous Stephanoumenos, bullockbefriending
bard, am lord and giver of their life. He encircled his gadding hair
with a coronal of vineleaves, smiling at Vincent. That answer and those
leaves, Vincent said to him, will adorn you more fitly when something
more, and greatly more, than a capful of light odes can call your
genius father. All who wish you well hope this for you. All desire to
see you bring forth the work you meditate, to acclaim you
Stephaneforos. I heartily wish you may not fail them. O no, Vincent
Lenehan said, laying a hand on the shoulder near him. Have no fear. He
could not leave his mother an orphan. The young man’s face grew dark.
All could see how hard it was for him to be reminded of his promise and
of his recent loss. He would have withdrawn from the feast had not the
noise of voices allayed the smart. Madden had lost five drachmas on
Sceptre for a whim of the rider’s name: Lenehan as much more. He told
them of the race. The flag fell and, huuh! off, scamper, the mare ran
out freshly with O. Madden up. She was leading the field. All hearts
were beating. Even Phyllis could not contain herself. She waved her
scarf and cried: Huzzah! Sceptre wins! But in the straight on the run
home when all were in close order the dark horse Throwaway drew level,
reached, outstripped her. All was lost now. Phyllis was silent: her
eyes were sad anemones. Juno, she cried, I am undone. But her lover
consoled her and brought her a bright casket of gold in which lay some
oval sugarplums which she partook. A tear fell: one only. A whacking
fine whip, said Lenehan, is W. Lane. Four winners yesterday and three
today. What rider is like him? Mount him on the camel or the boisterous
buffalo the victory in a hack canter is still his. But let us bear it
as was the ancient wont. Mercy on the luckless! Poor Sceptre! he said
with a light sigh. She is not the filly that she was. Never, by this
hand, shall we behold such another. By gad, sir, a queen of them. Do
you remember her, Vincent? I wish you could have seen my queen today,
Vincent said. How young she was and radiant (Lalage were scarce fair
beside her) in her yellow shoes and frock of muslin, I do not know the
right name of it. The chestnuts that shaded us were in bloom: the air
drooped with their persuasive odour and with pollen floating by us. In
the sunny patches one might easily have cooked on a stone a batch of
those buns with Corinth fruit in them that Periplipomenes sells in his
booth near the bridge. But she had nought for her teeth but the arm
with which I held her and in that she nibbled mischievously when I
pressed too close. A week ago she lay ill, four days on the couch, but
today she was free, blithe, mocked at peril. She is more taking then.
Her posies too! Mad romp that she is, she had pulled her fill as we
reclined together. And in your ear, my friend, you will not think who
met us as we left the field. Conmee himself! He was walking by the
hedge, reading, I think a brevier book with, I doubt not, a witty
letter in it from Glycera or Chloe to keep the page. The sweet creature
turned all colours in her confusion, feigning to reprove a slight
disorder in her dress: a slip of underwood clung there for the very
trees adore her. When Conmee had passed she glanced at her lovely echo
in that little mirror she carries. But he had been kind. In going by he
had blessed us. The gods too are ever kind, Lenehan said. If I had poor
luck with Bass’s mare perhaps this draught of his may serve me more
propensely. He was laying his hand upon a winejar: Malachi saw it and
withheld his act, pointing to the stranger and to the scarlet label.
Warily, Malachi whispered, preserve a druid silence. His soul is far
away. It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be
born. Any object, intensely regarded, may be a gate of access to the
incorruptible eon of the gods. Do you not think it, Stephen? Theosophos
told me so, Stephen answered, whom in a previous existence Egyptian
priests initiated into the mysteries of karmic law. The lords of the
moon, Theosophos told me, an orangefiery shipload from planet Alpha of
the lunar chain would not assume the etheric doubles and these were
therefore incarnated by the rubycoloured egos from the second
constellation.

However, as a matter of fact though, the preposterous surmise about him
being in some description of a doldrums or other or mesmerised which
was entirely due to a misconception of the shallowest character, was
not the case at all. The individual whose visual organs while the above
was going on were at this juncture commencing to exhibit symptoms of
animation was as astute if not astuter than any man living and anybody
that conjectured the contrary would have found themselves pretty
speedily in the wrong shop. During the past four minutes or thereabouts
he had been staring hard at a certain amount of number one Bass bottled
by Messrs Bass and Co at Burton-on-Trent which happened to be situated
amongst a lot of others right opposite to where he was and which was
certainly calculated to attract anyone’s remark on account of its
scarlet appearance. He was simply and solely, as it subsequently
transpired for reasons best known to himself, which put quite an
altogether different complexion on the proceedings, after the moment
before’s observations about boyhood days and the turf, recollecting two
or three private transactions of his own which the other two were as
mutually innocent of as the babe unborn. Eventually, however, both
their eyes met and as soon as it began to dawn on him that the other
was endeavouring to help himself to the thing he involuntarily
determined to help him himself and so he accordingly took hold of the
neck of the mediumsized glass recipient which contained the fluid
sought after and made a capacious hole in it by pouring a lot of it out
with, also at the same time, however, a considerable degree of
attentiveness in order not to upset any of the beer that was in it
about the place.

The debate which ensued was in its scope and progress an epitome of the
course of life. Neither place nor council was lacking in dignity. The
debaters were the keenest in the land, the theme they were engaged on
the loftiest and most vital. The high hall of Horne’s house had never
beheld an assembly so representative and so varied nor had the old
rafters of that establishment ever listened to a language so
encyclopaedic. A gallant scene in truth it made. Crotthers was there at
the foot of the table in his striking Highland garb, his face glowing
from the briny airs of the Mull of Galloway. There too, opposite to
him, was Lynch whose countenance bore already the stigmata of early
depravity and premature wisdom. Next the Scotchman was the place
assigned to Costello, the eccentric, while at his side was seated in
stolid repose the squat form of Madden. The chair of the resident
indeed stood vacant before the hearth but on either flank of it the
figure of Bannon in explorer’s kit of tweed shorts and salted cowhide
brogues contrasted sharply with the primrose elegance and townbred
manners of Malachi Roland St John Mulligan. Lastly at the head of the
board was the young poet who found a refuge from his labours of
pedagogy and metaphysical inquisition in the convivial atmosphere of
Socratic discussion, while to right and left of him were accommodated
the flippant prognosticator, fresh from the hippodrome, and that
vigilant wanderer, soiled by the dust of travel and combat and stained
by the mire of an indelible dishonour, but from whose steadfast and
constant heart no lure or peril or threat or degradation could ever
efface the image of that voluptuous loveliness which the inspired
pencil of Lafayette has limned for ages yet to come.

It had better be stated here and now at the outset that the perverted
transcendentalism to which Mr S. Dedalus’ (Div. Scep.) contentions
would appear to prove him pretty badly addicted runs directly counter
to accepted scientific methods. Science, it cannot be too often
repeated, deals with tangible phenomena. The man of science like the
man in the street has to face hardheaded facts that cannot be blinked
and explain them as best he can. There may be, it is true, some
questions which science cannot answer—at present—such as the first
problem submitted by Mr L. Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) regarding the future
determination of sex. Must we accept the view of Empedocles of
Trinacria that the right ovary (the postmenstrual period, assert
others) is responsible for the birth of males or are the too long
neglected spermatozoa or nemasperms the differentiating factors or is
it, as most embryologists incline to opine, such as Culpepper,
Spallanzani, Blumenbach, Lusk, Hertwig, Leopold and Valenti, a mixture
of both? This would be tantamount to a cooperation (one of nature’s
favourite devices) between the _nisus formativus_ of the nemasperm on
the one hand and on the other a happily chosen position, _succubitus
felix_, of the passive element. The other problem raised by the same
inquirer is scarcely less vital: infant mortality. It is interesting
because, as he pertinently remarks, we are all born in the same way but
we all die in different ways. Mr M. Mulligan (Hyg. et Eug. Doc.) blames
the sanitary conditions in which our greylunged citizens contract
adenoids, pulmonary complaints etc. by inhaling the bacteria which lurk
in dust. These factors, he alleged, and the revolting spectacles
offered by our streets, hideous publicity posters, religious ministers
of all denominations, mutilated soldiers and sailors, exposed scorbutic
cardrivers, the suspended carcases of dead animals, paranoic bachelors
and unfructified duennas—these, he said, were accountable for any and
every fallingoff in the calibre of the race. Kalipedia, he prophesied,
would soon be generally adopted and all the graces of life, genuinely
good music, agreeable literature, light philosophy, instructive
pictures, plastercast reproductions of the classical statues such as
Venus and Apollo, artistic coloured photographs of prize babies, all
these little attentions would enable ladies who were in a particular
condition to pass the intervening months in a most enjoyable manner. Mr
J. Crotthers (Disc. Bacc.) attributes some of these demises to
abdominal trauma in the case of women workers subjected to heavy
labours in the workshop and to marital discipline in the home but by
far the vast majority to neglect, private or official, culminating in
the exposure of newborn infants, the practice of criminal abortion or
in the atrocious crime of infanticide. Although the former (we are
thinking of neglect) is undoubtedly only too true the case he cites of
nurses forgetting to count the sponges in the peritoneal cavity is too
rare to be normative. In fact when one comes to look into it the wonder
is that so many pregnancies and deliveries go off so well as they do,
all things considered and in spite of our human shortcomings which
often baulk nature in her intentions. An ingenious suggestion is that
thrown out by Mr V. Lynch (Bacc. Arith.) that both natality and
mortality, as well as all other phenomena of evolution, tidal
movements, lunar phases, blood temperatures, diseases in general,
everything, in fine, in nature’s vast workshop from the extinction of
some remote sun to the blossoming of one of the countless flowers which
beautify our public parks is subject to a law of numeration as yet
unascertained. Still the plain straightforward question why a child of
normally healthy parents and seemingly a healthy child and properly
looked after succumbs unaccountably in early childhood (though other
children of the same marriage do not) must certainly, in the poet’s
words, give us pause. Nature, we may rest assured, has her own good and
cogent reasons for whatever she does and in all probability such deaths
are due to some law of anticipation by which organisms in which morbous
germs have taken up their residence (modern science has conclusively
shown that only the plasmic substance can be said to be immortal) tend
to disappear at an increasingly earlier stage of development, an
arrangement which, though productive of pain to some of our feelings
(notably the maternal), is nevertheless, some of us think, in the long
run beneficial to the race in general in securing thereby the survival
of the fittest. Mr S. Dedalus’ (Div. Scep.) remark (or should it be
called an interruption?) that an omnivorous being which can masticate,
deglute, digest and apparently pass through the ordinary channel with
pluterperfect imperturbability such multifarious aliments as cancrenous
females emaciated by parturition, corpulent professional gentlemen, not
to speak of jaundiced politicians and chlorotic nuns, might possibly
find gastric relief in an innocent collation of staggering bob, reveals
as nought else could and in a very unsavoury light the tendency above
alluded to. For the enlightenment of those who are not so intimately
acquainted with the minutiae of the municipal abattoir as this
morbidminded esthete and embryo philosopher who for all his overweening
bumptiousness in things scientific can scarcely distinguish an acid
from an alkali prides himself on being, it should perhaps be stated
that staggering bob in the vile parlance of our lowerclass licensed
victuallers signifies the cookable and eatable flesh of a calf newly
dropped from its mother. In a recent public controversy with Mr L.
Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) which took place in the commons’ hall of the
National Maternity Hospital, 29, 30 and 31 Holles street, of which, as
is well known, Dr A. Horne (Lic. in Midw., F. K. Q. C. P. I.) is the
able and popular master, he is reported by eyewitnesses as having
stated that once a woman has let the cat into the bag (an esthete’s
allusion, presumably, to one of the most complicated and marvellous of
all nature’s processes—the act of sexual congress) she must let it out
again or give it life, as he phrased it, to save her own. At the risk
of her own, was the telling rejoinder of his interlocutor, none the
less effective for the moderate and measured tone in which it was
delivered.

Meanwhile the skill and patience of the physician had brought about a
happy _accouchement._ It had been a weary weary while both for patient
and doctor. All that surgical skill could do was done and the brave
woman had manfully helped. She had. She had fought the good fight and
now she was very very happy. Those who have passed on, who have gone
before, are happy too as they gaze down and smile upon the touching
scene. Reverently look at her as she reclines there with the
motherlight in her eyes, that longing hunger for baby fingers (a pretty
sight it is to see), in the first bloom of her new motherhood,
breathing a silent prayer of thanksgiving to One above, the Universal
Husband. And as her loving eyes behold her babe she wishes only one
blessing more, to have her dear Doady there with her to share her joy,
to lay in his arms that mite of God’s clay, the fruit of their lawful
embraces. He is older now (you and I may whisper it) and a trifle
stooped in the shoulders yet in the whirligig of years a grave dignity
has come to the conscientious second accountant of the Ulster bank,
College Green branch. O Doady, loved one of old, faithful lifemate now,
it may never be again, that faroff time of the roses! With the old
shake of her pretty head she recalls those days. God! How beautiful now
across the mist of years! But their children are grouped in her
imagination about the bedside, hers and his, Charley, Mary Alice,
Frederick Albert (if he had lived), Mamy, Budgy (Victoria Frances),
Tom, Violet Constance Louisa, darling little Bobsy (called after our
famous hero of the South African war, lord Bobs of Waterford and
Candahar) and now this last pledge of their union, a Purefoy if ever
there was one, with the true Purefoy nose. Young hopeful will be
christened Mortimer Edward after the influential third cousin of Mr
Purefoy in the Treasury Remembrancer’s office, Dublin Castle. And so
time wags on: but father Cronion has dealt lightly here. No, let no
sigh break from that bosom, dear gentle Mina. And Doady, knock the
ashes from your pipe, the seasoned briar you still fancy when the
curfew rings for you (may it be the distant day!) and dout the light
whereby you read in the Sacred Book for the oil too has run low, and so
with a tranquil heart to bed, to rest. He knows and will call in His
own good time. You too have fought the good fight and played loyally
your man’s part. Sir, to you my hand. Well done, thou good and faithful
servant!

There are sins or (let us call them as the world calls them) evil
memories which are hidden away by man in the darkest places of the
heart but they abide there and wait. He may suffer their memory to grow
dim, let them be as though they had not been and all but persuade
himself that they were not or at least were otherwise. Yet a chance
word will call them forth suddenly and they will rise up to confront
him in the most various circumstances, a vision or a dream, or while
timbrel and harp soothe his senses or amid the cool silver tranquility
of the evening or at the feast, at midnight, when he is now filled with
wine. Not to insult over him will the vision come as over one that lies
under her wrath, not for vengeance to cut him off from the living but
shrouded in the piteous vesture of the past, silent, remote,
reproachful.

The stranger still regarded on the face before him a slow recession of
that false calm there, imposed, as it seemed, by habit or some studied
trick, upon words so embittered as to accuse in their speaker an
unhealthiness, a _flair,_ for the cruder things of life. A scene
disengages itself in the observer’s memory, evoked, it would seem, by a
word of so natural a homeliness as if those days were really present
there (as some thought) with their immediate pleasures. A shaven space
of lawn one soft May evening, the wellremembered grove of lilacs at
Roundtown, purple and white, fragrant slender spectators of the game
but with much real interest in the pellets as they run slowly forward
over the sward or collide and stop, one by its fellow, with a brief
alert shock. And yonder about that grey urn where the water moves at
times in thoughtful irrigation you saw another as fragrant sisterhood,
Floey, Atty, Tiny and their darker friend with I know not what of
arresting in her pose then, Our Lady of the Cherries, a comely brace of
them pendent from an ear, bringing out the foreign warmth of the skin
so daintily against the cool ardent fruit. A lad of four or five in
linseywoolsey (blossomtime but there will be cheer in the kindly hearth
when ere long the bowls are gathered and hutched) is standing on the
urn secured by that circle of girlish fond hands. He frowns a little
just as this young man does now with a perhaps too conscious enjoyment
of the danger but must needs glance at whiles towards where his mother
watches from the _piazzetta_ giving upon the flowerclose with a faint
shadow of remoteness or of reproach (_alles Vergängliche_) in her glad
look.

Mark this farther and remember. The end comes suddenly. Enter that
antechamber of birth where the studious are assembled and note their
faces. Nothing, as it seems, there of rash or violent. Quietude of
custody, rather, befitting their station in that house, the vigilant
watch of shepherds and of angels about a crib in Bethlehem of Juda long
ago. But as before the lightning the serried stormclouds, heavy with
preponderant excess of moisture, in swollen masses turgidly distended,
compass earth and sky in one vast slumber, impending above parched
field and drowsy oxen and blighted growth of shrub and verdure till in
an instant a flash rives their centres and with the reverberation of
the thunder the cloudburst pours its torrent, so and not otherwise was
the transformation, violent and instantaneous, upon the utterance of
the word.

Burke’s! outflings my lord Stephen, giving the cry, and a tag and
bobtail of all them after, cockerel, jackanapes, welsher, pilldoctor,
punctual Bloom at heels with a universal grabbing at headgear,
ashplants, bilbos, Panama hats and scabbards, Zermatt alpenstocks and
what not. A dedale of lusty youth, noble every student there. Nurse
Callan taken aback in the hallway cannot stay them nor smiling surgeon
coming downstairs with news of placentation ended, a full pound if a
milligramme. They hark him on. The door! It is open? Ha! They are out,
tumultuously, off for a minute’s race, all bravely legging it, Burke’s
of Denzille and Holles their ulterior goal. Dixon follows giving them
sharp language but raps out an oath, he too, and on. Bloom stays with
nurse a thought to send a kind word to happy mother and nurseling up
there. Doctor Diet and Doctor Quiet. Looks she too not other now? Ward
of watching in Horne’s house has told its tale in that washedout
pallor. Then all being gone, a glance of motherwit helping, he whispers
close in going: Madam, when comes the storkbird for thee?

The air without is impregnated with raindew moisture, life essence
celestial, glistening on Dublin stone there under starshiny _coelum._
God’s air, the Allfather’s air, scintillant circumambient cessile air.
Breathe it deep into thee. By heaven, Theodore Purefoy, thou hast done
a doughty deed and no botch! Thou art, I vow, the remarkablest
progenitor barring none in this chaffering allincluding most
farraginous chronicle. Astounding! In her lay a Godframed Godgiven
preformed possibility which thou hast fructified with thy modicum of
man’s work. Cleave to her! Serve! Toil on, labour like a very bandog
and let scholarment and all Malthusiasts go hang. Thou art all their
daddies, Theodore. Art drooping under thy load, bemoiled with butcher’s
bills at home and ingots (not thine!) in the countinghouse? Head up!
For every newbegotten thou shalt gather thy homer of ripe wheat. See,
thy fleece is drenched. Dost envy Darby Dullman there with his Joan? A
canting jay and a rheumeyed curdog is all their progeny. Pshaw, I tell
thee! He is a mule, a dead gasteropod, without vim or stamina, not
worth a cracked kreutzer. Copulation without population! No, say I!
Herod’s slaughter of the innocents were the truer name. Vegetables,
forsooth, and sterile cohabitation! Give her beefsteaks, red, raw,
bleeding! She is a hoary pandemonium of ills, enlarged glands, mumps,
quinsy, bunions, hayfever, bedsores, ringworm, floating kidney,
Derbyshire neck, warts, bilious attacks, gallstones, cold feet,
varicose veins. A truce to threnes and trentals and jeremies and all
such congenital defunctive music! Twenty years of it, regret them not.
With thee it was not as with many that will and would and wait and
never—do. Thou sawest thy America, thy lifetask, and didst charge to
cover like the transpontine bison. How saith Zarathustra? _Deine Kuh
Trübsal melkest Du. Nun Trinkst Du die süsse Milch des Euters_. See! it
displodes for thee in abundance. Drink, man, an udderful! Mother’s
milk, Purefoy, the milk of human kin, milk too of those burgeoning
stars overhead rutilant in thin rainvapour, punch milk, such as those
rioters will quaff in their guzzling den, milk of madness, the
honeymilk of Canaan’s land. Thy cow’s dug was tough, what? Ay, but her
milk is hot and sweet and fattening. No dollop this but thick rich
bonnyclaber. To her, old patriarch! Pap! _Per deam Partulam et
Pertundam nunc est bibendum!_

All off for a buster, armstrong, hollering down the street. Bonafides.
Where you slep las nigh? Timothy of the battered naggin. Like ole
Billyo. Any brollies or gumboots in the fambly? Where the Henry Nevil’s
sawbones and ole clo? Sorra one o’ me knows. Hurrah there, Dix! Forward
to the ribbon counter. Where’s Punch? All serene. Jay, look at the
drunken minister coming out of the maternity hospal! _Benedicat vos
omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius_. A make, mister. The Denzille lane
boys. Hell, blast ye! Scoot. Righto, Isaacs, shove em out of the
bleeding limelight. Yous join uz, dear sir? No hentrusion in life. Lou
heap good man. Allee samee dis bunch. _En avant, mes enfants!_ Fire
away number one on the gun. Burke’s! Burke’s! Thence they advanced five
parasangs. Slattery’s mounted foot. Where’s that bleeding awfur? Parson
Steve, apostates’ creed! No, no, Mulligan! Abaft there! Shove ahead.
Keep a watch on the clock. Chuckingout time. Mullee! What’s on you? _Ma
mère m’a mariée._ British Beatitudes! _Retamplatan digidi boumboum_.
Ayes have it. To be printed and bound at the Druiddrum press by two
designing females. Calf covers of pissedon green. Last word in art
shades. Most beautiful book come out of Ireland my time. _Silentium!_
Get a spurt on. Tention. Proceed to nearest canteen and there annex
liquor stores. March! Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are (attitudes!)
parching. Beer, beef, business, bibles, bulldogs battleships, buggery
and bishops. Whether on the scaffold high. Beer, beef, trample the
bibles. When for Irelandear. Trample the trampellers. Thunderation!
Keep the durned millingtary step. We fall. Bishops boosebox. Halt!
Heave to. Rugger. Scrum in. No touch kicking. Wow, my tootsies! You
hurt? Most amazingly sorry!

Query. Who’s astanding this here do? Proud possessor of damnall.
Declare misery. Bet to the ropes. Me nantee saltee. Not a red at me
this week gone. Yours? Mead of our fathers for the _Übermensch._
Dittoh. Five number ones. You, sir? Ginger cordial. Chase me, the
cabby’s caudle. Stimulate the caloric. Winding of his ticker. Stopped
short never to go again when the old. Absinthe for me, savvy?
_Caramba!_ Have an eggnog or a prairie oyster. Enemy? Avuncular’s got
my timepiece. Ten to. Obligated awful. Don’t mention it. Got a pectoral
trauma, eh, Dix? Pos fact. Got bet be a boomblebee whenever he wus
settin sleepin in hes bit garten. Digs up near the Mater. Buckled he
is. Know his dona? Yup, sartin I do. Full of a dure. See her in her
dishybilly. Peels off a credit. Lovey lovekin. None of your lean kine,
not much. Pull down the blind, love. Two Ardilauns. Same here. Look
slippery. If you fall don’t wait to get up. Five, seven, nine. Fine!
Got a prime pair of mincepies, no kid. And her take me to rests and her
anker of rum. Must be seen to be believed. Your starving eyes and
allbeplastered neck you stole my heart, O gluepot. Sir? Spud again the
rheumatiz? All poppycock, you’ll scuse me saying. For the hoi polloi. I
vear thee beest a gert vool. Well, doc? Back fro Lapland? Your
corporosity sagaciating O K? How’s the squaws and papooses? Womanbody
after going on the straw? Stand and deliver. Password. There’s hair.
Ours the white death and the ruddy birth. Hi! Spit in your own eye,
boss! Mummer’s wire. Cribbed out of Meredith. Jesified, orchidised,
polycimical jesuit! Aunty mine’s writing Pa Kinch. Baddybad Stephen
lead astray goodygood Malachi.

Hurroo! Collar the leather, youngun. Roun wi the nappy. Here, Jock braw
Hielentman’s your barleybree. Lang may your lum reek and your kailpot
boil! My tipple. _Merci._ Here’s to us. How’s that? Leg before wicket.
Don’t stain my brandnew sitinems. Give’s a shake of peppe, you there.
Catch aholt. Caraway seed to carry away. Twig? Shrieks of silence.
Every cove to his gentry mort. Venus Pandemos. _Les petites femmes_.
Bold bad girl from the town of Mullingar. Tell her I was axing at her.
Hauding Sara by the wame. On the road to Malahide. Me? If she who
seduced me had left but the name. What do you want for ninepence?
Machree, macruiskeen. Smutty Moll for a mattress jig. And a pull all
together. _Ex!_

Waiting, guvnor? Most deciduously. Bet your boots on. Stunned like,
seeing as how no shiners is acoming. Underconstumble? He’ve got the
chink _ad lib_. Seed near free poun on un a spell ago a said war hisn.
Us come right in on your invite, see? Up to you, matey. Out with the
oof. Two bar and a wing. You larn that go off of they there Frenchy
bilks? Won’t wash here for nuts nohow. Lil chile velly solly. Ise de
cutest colour coon down our side. Gawds teruth, Chawley. We are nae
fou. We’re nae tha fou. Au reservoir, mossoo. Tanks you.

’Tis, sure. What say? In the speakeasy. Tight. I shee you, shir.
Bantam, two days teetee. Bowsing nowt but claretwine. Garn! Have a
glint, do. Gum, I’m jiggered. And been to barber he have. Too full for
words. With a railway bloke. How come you so? Opera he’d like? Rose of
Castile. Rows of cast. Police! Some H2O for a gent fainted. Look at
Bantam’s flowers. Gemini. He’s going to holler. The colleen bawn. My
colleen bawn. O, cheese it! Shut his blurry Dutch oven with a firm
hand. Had the winner today till I tipped him a dead cert. The ruffin
cly the nab of Stephen Hand as give me the jady coppaleen. He strike a
telegramboy paddock wire big bug Bass to the depot. Shove him a joey
and grahamise. Mare on form hot order. Guinea to a goosegog. Tell a
cram, that. Gospeltrue. Criminal diversion? I think that yes. Sure
thing. Land him in chokeechokee if the harman beck copped the game.
Madden back Madden’s a maddening back. O lust our refuge and our
strength. Decamping. Must you go? Off to mammy. Stand by. Hide my
blushes someone. All in if he spots me. Come ahome, our Bantam.
Horryvar, mong vioo. Dinna forget the cowslips for hersel. Cornfide.
Wha gev ye thon colt? Pal to pal. Jannock. Of John Thomas, her spouse.
No fake, old man Leo. S’elp me, honest injun. Shiver my timbers if I
had. There’s a great big holy friar. Vyfor you no me tell? Vel, I ses,
if that aint a sheeny nachez, vel, I vil get misha mishinnah. Through
yerd our lord, Amen.

You move a motion? Steve boy, you’re going it some. More bluggy
drunkables? Will immensely splendiferous stander permit one stooder of
most extreme poverty and one largesize grandacious thirst to terminate
one expensive inaugurated libation? Give’s a breather. Landlord,
landlord, have you good wine, staboo? Hoots, mon, a wee drap to pree.
Cut and come again. Right. Boniface! Absinthe the lot. _Nos omnes
biberimus viridum toxicum diabolus capiat posterioria nostria_.
Closingtime, gents. Eh? Rome boose for the Bloom toff. I hear you say
onions? Bloo? Cadges ads. Photo’s papli, by all that’s gorgeous. Play
low, pardner. Slide. _Bonsoir la compagnie_. And snares of the
poxfiend. Where’s the buck and Namby Amby? Skunked? Leg bail. Aweel, ye
maun e’en gang yer gates. Checkmate. King to tower. Kind Kristyann wil
yu help yung man hoose frend tuk bungellow kee tu find plais whear tu
lay crown of his hed 2 night. Crickey, I’m about sprung. Tarnally dog
gone my shins if this beent the bestest puttiest longbreak yet. Item,
curate, couple of cookies for this child. Cot’s plood and prandypalls,
none! Not a pite of sheeses? Thrust syphilis down to hell and with him
those other licensed spirits. Time, gents! Who wander through the
world. Health all! _À la vôtre_!

Golly, whatten tunket’s yon guy in the mackintosh? Dusty Rhodes. Peep
at his wearables. By mighty! What’s he got? Jubilee mutton. Bovril, by
James. Wants it real bad. D’ye ken bare socks? Seedy cuss in the
Richmond? Rawthere! Thought he had a deposit of lead in his penis.
Trumpery insanity. Bartle the Bread we calls him. That, sir, was once a
prosperous cit. Man all tattered and torn that married a maiden all
forlorn. Slung her hook, she did. Here see lost love. Walking
Mackintosh of lonely canyon. Tuck and turn in. Schedule time. Nix for
the hornies. Pardon? Seen him today at a runefal? Chum o’ yourn passed
in his checks? Ludamassy! Pore piccaninnies! Thou’ll no be telling me
thot, Pold veg! Did ums blubble bigsplash crytears cos fren Padney was
took off in black bag? Of all de darkies Massa Pat was verra best. I
never see the like since I was born. _Tiens, tiens_, but it is well
sad, that, my faith, yes. O, get, rev on a gradient one in nine. Live
axle drives are souped. Lay you two to one Jenatzy licks him ruddy well
hollow. Jappies? High angle fire, inyah! Sunk by war specials. Be worse
for him, says he, nor any Rooshian. Time all. There’s eleven of them.
Get ye gone. Forward, woozy wobblers! Night. Night. May Allah the
Excellent One your soul this night ever tremendously conserve.

Your attention! We’re nae tha fou. The Leith police dismisseth us. The
least tholice. Ware hawks for the chap puking. Unwell in his abominable
regions. Yooka. Night. Mona, my true love. Yook. Mona, my own love.
Ook.

Hark! Shut your obstropolos. Pflaap! Pflaap! Blaze on. There she goes.
Brigade! Bout ship. Mount street way. Cut up! Pflaap! Tally ho. You not
come? Run, skelter, race. Pflaaaap!

Lynch! Hey? Sign on long o’ me. Denzille lane this way. Change here for
Bawdyhouse. We two, she said, will seek the kips where shady Mary is.
Righto, any old time. _Laetabuntur in cubilibus suis_. You coming long?
Whisper, who the sooty hell’s the johnny in the black duds? Hush!
Sinned against the light and even now that day is at hand when he shall
come to judge the world by fire. Pflaap! _Ut implerentur scripturae_.
Strike up a ballad. Then outspake medical Dick to his comrade medical
Davy. Christicle, who’s this excrement yellow gospeller on the Merrion
hall? Elijah is coming! Washed in the blood of the Lamb. Come on you
winefizzling, ginsizzling, booseguzzling existences! Come on, you
dog-gone, bullnecked, beetlebrowed, hogjowled, peanutbrained,
weaseleyed fourflushers, false alarms and excess baggage! Come on, you
triple extract of infamy! Alexander J Christ Dowie, that’s my name,
that’s yanked to glory most half this planet from Frisco beach to
Vladivostok. The Deity aint no nickel dime bumshow. I put it to you
that He’s on the square and a corking fine business proposition. He’s
the grandest thing yet and don’t you forget it. Shout salvation in King
Jesus. You’ll need to rise precious early, you sinner there, if you
want to diddle the Almighty God. Pflaaaap! Not half. He’s got a
coughmixture with a punch in it for you, my friend, in his back pocket.
Just you try it on.


[ 15 ]

_(The Mabbot street entrance of nighttown, before which stretches an
uncobbled tramsiding set with skeleton tracks, red and green
will-o’-the-wisps and danger signals. Rows of grimy houses with gaping
doors. Rare lamps with faint rainbow fans. Round Rabaiotti’s halted ice
gondola stunted men and women squabble. They grab wafers between which
are wedged lumps of coral and copper snow. Sucking, they scatter
slowly. Children. The swancomb of the gondola, highreared, forges on
through the murk, white and blue under a lighthouse. Whistles call and
answer.)_

THE CALLS: Wait, my love, and I’ll be with you.

THE ANSWERS: Round behind the stable.

_(A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, his shapeless mouth dribbling,
jerks past, shaken in Saint Vitus’ dance. A chain of children ’s hands
imprisons him.)_

THE CHILDREN: Kithogue! Salute!

THE IDIOT: _(Lifts a palsied left arm and gurgles.)_ Grhahute!

THE CHILDREN: Where’s the great light?

THE IDIOT: _(Gobbling.)_ Ghaghahest.

_(They release him. He jerks on. A pigmy woman swings on a rope slung
between two railings, counting. A form sprawled against a dustbin and
muffled by its arm and hat snores, groans, grinding growling teeth, and
snores again. On a step a gnome totting among a rubbishtip crouches to
shoulder a sack of rags and bones. A crone standing by with a smoky
oillamp rams her last bottle in the maw of his sack. He heaves his
booty, tugs askew his peaked cap and hobbles off mutely. The crone
makes back for her lair, swaying her lamp. A bandy child, asquat on the
doorstep with a paper shuttlecock, crawls sidling after her in spurts,
clutches her skirt, scrambles up. A drunken navvy grips with both hands
the railings of an area, lurching heavily. At a corner two night watch
in shouldercapes, their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall. A
plate crashes: a woman screams: a child wails. Oaths of a man roar,
mutter, cease. Figures wander, lurk, peer from warrens. In a room lit
by a candle stuck in a bottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the
hair of a scrofulous child. Cissy Caffrey’s voice, still young, sings
shrill from a lane.)_

CISSY CAFFREY:

     I gave it to Molly
     Because she was jolly,
     The leg of the duck,
     The leg of the duck.

_(Private Carr and Private Compton, swaggersticks tight in their
oxters, as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from
their mouths a volleyed fart. Laughter of men from the lane. A hoarse
virago retorts.)_

THE VIRAGO: Signs on you, hairy arse. More power the Cavan girl.

CISSY CAFFREY: More luck to me. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet. _(She
sings.)_

     I gave it to Nelly
     To stick in her belly,
     The leg of the duck,
     The leg of the duck.

_(Private Carr and Private Compton turn and counterretort, their tunics
bloodbright in a lampglow, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped
polls. Stephen Dedalus and Lynch pass through the crowd close to the
redcoats.)_

PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Jerks his finger.)_ Way for the parson.

PRIVATE CARR: _(Turns and calls.)_ What ho, parson!

CISSY CAFFREY: _(Her voice soaring higher.)_

     She has it, she got it,
     Wherever she put it,
     The leg of the duck.

_(Stephen, flourishing the ashplant in his left hand, chants with joy
the_ introit _for paschal time. Lynch, his jockeycap low on his brow,
attends him, a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face.)_

STEPHEN: _Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. Alleluia_.

_(The famished snaggletusks of an elderly bawd protrude from a
doorway.)_

THE BAWD: _(Her voice whispering huskily.)_ Sst! Come here till I tell
you. Maidenhead inside. Sst!

STEPHEN: _(Altius aliquantulum.) Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista_.

THE BAWD: _(Spits in their trail her jet of venom.)_ Trinity medicals.
Fallopian tube. All prick and no pence.

_(Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with Bertha Supple, draws her shawl
across her nostrils.)_

EDY BOARDMAN: _(Bickering.)_ And says the one: I seen you up Faithful
place with your squarepusher, the greaser off the railway, in his
cometobed hat. Did you, says I. That’s not for you to say, says I. You
never seen me in the mantrap with a married highlander, says I. The
likes of her! Stag that one is! Stubborn as a mule! And her walking
with two fellows the one time, Kilbride, the enginedriver, and
lancecorporal Oliphant.

STEPHEN: _(Triumphaliter.) Salvi facti sunt._

_(He flourishes his ashplant, shivering the lamp image, shattering
light over the world. A liver and white spaniel on the prowl slinks
after him, growling. Lynch scares it with a kick.)_

LYNCH: So that?

STEPHEN: (_Looks behind_.) So that gesture, not music not odour, would
be a universal language, the gift of tongues rendering visible not the
lay sense but the first entelechy, the structural rhythm.

LYNCH: Pornosophical philotheology. Metaphysics in Mecklenburgh street!

STEPHEN: We have shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked Socrates. Even
the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of
love.

LYNCH: Ba!

STEPHEN: Anyway, who wants two gestures to illustrate a loaf and a jug?
This movement illustrates the loaf and jug of bread or wine in Omar.
Hold my stick.

LYNCH: Damn your yellow stick. Where are we going?

STEPHEN: Lecherous lynx, to _la belle dame sans merci,_ Georgina
Johnson, _ad deam qui laetificat iuventutem meam._

_(Stephen thrusts the ashplant on him and slowly holds out his hands,
his head going back till both hands are a span from his breast, down
turned, in planes intersecting, the fingers about to part, the left
being higher.)_

LYNCH: Which is the jug of bread? It skills not. That or the
customhouse. Illustrate thou. Here take your crutch and walk.

_(They pass. Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a gaslamp and, clasping, climbs
in spasms. From the top spur he slides down. Jacky Caffrey clasps to
climb. The navvy lurches against the lamp. The twins scuttle off in the
dark. The navvy, swaying, presses a forefinger against a wing of his
nose and ejects from the farther nostril a long liquid jet of snot.
Shouldering the lamp he staggers away through the crowd with his
flaring cresset._

_Snakes of river fog creep slowly. From drains, clefts, cesspools,
middens arise on all sides stagnant fumes. A glow leaps in the south
beyond the seaward reaches of the river. The navvy, staggering forward,
cleaves the crowd and lurches towards the tramsiding. On the farther
side under the railway bridge Bloom appears, flushed, panting, cramming
bread and chocolate into a sidepocket. From Gillen’s hairdresser’s
window a composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson’s image. A concave
mirror at the side presents to him lovelorn longlost lugubru
Booloohoom. Grave Gladstone sees him level, Bloom for Bloom. He passes,
struck by the stare of truculent Wellington, but in the convex mirror
grin unstruck the bonham eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of Jollypoldy the
rixdix doldy._

_At Antonio Rabaiotti’s door Bloom halts, sweated under the bright
arclamp. He disappears. In a moment he reappears and hurries on.)_

BLOOM: Fish and taters. N. g. Ah!

_(He disappears into Olhausen’s, the porkbutcher’s, under the
downcoming rollshutter. A few moments later he emerges from under the
shutter, puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. In each hand he holds a
parcel, one containing a lukewarm pig’s crubeen, the other a cold
sheep’s trotter, sprinkled with wholepepper. He gasps, standing
upright. Then bending to one side he presses a parcel against his ribs
and groans.)_

BLOOM: Stitch in my side. Why did I run?

_(He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards the lampset
siding. The glow leaps again.)_

BLOOM: What is that? A flasher? Searchlight.

_(He stands at Cormack’s corner, watching.)_

BLOOM: _Aurora borealis_ or a steel foundry? Ah, the brigade, of
course. South side anyhow. Big blaze. Might be his house. Beggar’s
bush. We’re safe. _(He hums cheerfully.)_ London’s burning, London’s
burning! On fire, on fire! (_He catches sight of the navvy lurching
through the crowd at the farther side of Talbot street._) I’ll miss
him. Run. Quick. Better cross here.

_(He darts to cross the road. Urchins shout.)_

THE URCHINS: Mind out, mister!

(_Two cyclists, with lighted paper lanterns aswing, swim by him,
grazing him, their bells rattling._)

THE BELLS: Haltyaltyaltyall.

BLOOM: _(Halts erect, stung by a spasm.)_ Ow!

_(He looks round, darts forward suddenly. Through rising fog a dragon
sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon him, its
huge red headlight winking, its trolley hissing on the wire. The
motorman bangs his footgong.)_

THE GONG: Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo.

_(The brake cracks violently. Bloom, raising a policeman’s whitegloved
hand, blunders stifflegged out of the track. The motorman, thrown
forward, pugnosed, on the guidewheel, yells as he slides past over
chains and keys.)_

THE MOTORMAN: Hey, shitbreeches, are you doing the hat trick?

_(Bloom trickleaps to the curbstone and halts again. He brushes a
mudflake from his cheek with a parcelled hand.)_

BLOOM: No thoroughfare. Close shave that but cured the stitch. Must
take up Sandow’s exercises again. On the hands down. Insure against
street accident too. The Providential. _(He feels his trouser pocket.)_
Poor mamma’s panacea. Heel easily catch in track or bootlace in a cog.
Day the wheel of the black Maria peeled off my shoe at Leonard’s
corner. Third time is the charm. Shoe trick. Insolent driver. I ought
to report him. Tension makes them nervous. Might be the fellow balked
me this morning with that horsey woman. Same style of beauty. Quick of
him all the same. The stiff walk. True word spoken in jest. That awful
cramp in Lad lane. Something poisonous I ate. Emblem of luck. Why?
Probably lost cattle. Mark of the beast. _(He closes his eyes an
instant.)_ Bit light in the head. Monthly or effect of the other.
Brainfogfag. That tired feeling. Too much for me now. Ow!

_(A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against O’Beirne’s wall, a
visage unknown, injected with dark mercury. From under a wideleaved
sombrero the figure regards him with evil eye.)_

BLOOM: _Buenas noches, señorita Blanca, que calle es esta?_

THE FIGURE: (_Impassive, raises a signal arm._) Password. _Sraid
Mabbot._

BLOOM: Haha. _Merci._ Esperanto. _Slan leath. (He mutters.)_ Gaelic
league spy, sent by that fireeater.

_(He steps forward. A sackshouldered ragman bars his path. He steps
left, ragsackman left.)_

BLOOM: I beg.

(_He leaps right, sackragman right._)

BLOOM: I beg.

(_He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on._)

BLOOM: Keep to the right, right, right. If there is a signpost planted
by the Touring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon? I who
lost my way and contributed to the columns of the _Irish Cyclist_ the
letter headed _In darkest Stepaside_. Keep, keep, keep to the right.
Rags and bones at midnight. A fence more likely. First place murderer
makes for. Wash off his sins of the world.

_(Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against
Bloom.)_

BLOOM: O.

_(Shocked, on weak hams, he halts. Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there.
Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch, fobpocket, bookpocket,
pursepoke, sweets of sin, potato soap.)_

BLOOM: Beware of pickpockets. Old thieves’ dodge. Collide. Then snatch
your purse.

_(The retriever approaches sniffing, nose to the ground. A sprawled
form sneezes. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the long
caftan of an elder in Zion and a smokingcap with magenta tassels.
Horned spectacles hang down at the wings of the nose. Yellow poison
streaks are on the drawn face.)_

RUDOLPH: Second halfcrown waste money today. I told you not go with
drunken goy ever. So you catch no money.

BLOOM: _(Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back and,
crestfallen, feels warm and cold feetmeat.) Ja, ich weiss, papachi._

RUDOLPH: What you making down this place? Have you no soul? _(With
feeble vulture talons he feels the silent face of Bloom.)_ Are you not
my son Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? Are you not my dear son
Leopold who left the house of his father and left the god of his
fathers Abraham and Jacob?

BLOOM: _(With precaution.)_ I suppose so, father. Mosenthal. All that’s
left of him.

RUDOLPH: _(Severely.)_ One night they bring you home drunk as dog after
spend your good money. What you call them running chaps?

BLOOM: _(In youth’s smart blue Oxford suit with white vestslips,
narrowshouldered, in brown Alpine hat, wearing gent’s sterling silver
waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one
side of him coated with stiffening mud.)_ Harriers, father. Only that
once.

RUDOLPH: Once! Mud head to foot. Cut your hand open. Lockjaw. They make
you kaputt, Leopoldleben. You watch them chaps.

BLOOM: _(Weakly.)_ They challenged me to a sprint. It was muddy. I
slipped.

RUDOLPH: _(With contempt.) Goim nachez!_ Nice spectacles for your poor
mother!

BLOOM: Mamma!

ELLEN BLOOM: _(In pantomime dame’s stringed mobcap, widow Twankey’s
crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind,
grey mittens and cameo brooch, her plaited hair in a crispine net,
appears over the staircase banisters, a slanted candlestick in her
hand, and cries out in shrill alarm.)_ O blessed Redeemer, what have
they done to him! My smelling salts! _(She hauls up a reef of skirt and
ransacks the pouch of her striped blay petticoat. A phial, an Agnus
Dei, a shrivelled potato and a celluloid doll fall out.)_ Sacred Heart
of Mary, where were you at all at all?

_(Bloom, mumbling, his eyes downcast, begins to bestow his parcels in
his filled pockets but desists, muttering.)_

A VOICE: _(Sharply.)_ Poldy!

BLOOM: Who? _(He ducks and wards off a blow clumsily.)_ At your
service.

_(He looks up. Beside her mirage of datepalms a handsome woman in
Turkish costume stands before him. Opulent curves fill out her scarlet
trousers and jacket, slashed with gold. A wide yellow cummerbund
girdles her. A white yashmak, violet in the night, covers her face,
leaving free only her large dark eyes and raven hair.)_

BLOOM: Molly!

MARION: Welly? Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to
me. _(Satirically.)_ Has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long?

BLOOM: _(Shifts from foot to foot.)_ No, no. Not the least little bit.

_(He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, questions,
hopes, crubeens for her supper, things to tell her, excuse, desire,
spellbound. A coin gleams on her forehead. On her feet are jewelled
toerings. Her ankles are linked by a slender fetterchain. Beside her a
camel, hooded with a turreting turban, waits. A silk ladder of
innumerable rungs climbs to his bobbing howdah. He ambles near with
disgruntled hindquarters. Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her goldcurb
wristbangles angriling, scolding him in Moorish.)_

MARION: Nebrakada! Femininum!

_(The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a tree a large mango fruit,
offers it to his mistress, blinking, in his cloven hoof, then droops
his head and, grunting, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. Bloom
stoops his back for leapfrog.)_

BLOOM: I can give you... I mean as your business menagerer... Mrs
Marion... if you...

MARION: So you notice some change? _(Her hands passing slowly over her
trinketed stomacher, a slow friendly mockery in her eyes.)_ O Poldy,
Poldy, you are a poor old stick in the mud! Go and see life. See the
wide world.

BLOOM: I was just going back for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower
water. Shop closes early on Thursday. But the first thing in the
morning. _(He pats divers pockets.)_ This moving kidney. Ah!

_(He points to the south, then to the east. A cake of new clean lemon
soap arises, diffusing light and perfume.)_

THE SOAP:

     We’re a capital couple are Bloom and I.
     He brightens the earth. I polish the sky.

_(The freckled face of Sweny, the druggist, appears in the disc of the
soapsun.)_

SWENY: Three and a penny, please.

BLOOM: Yes. For my wife. Mrs Marion. Special recipe.

MARION: _(Softly.)_ Poldy!

BLOOM: Yes, ma’am?

MARION: _Ti trema un poco il cuore?_

_(In disdain she saunters away, plump as a pampered pouter pigeon,
humming the duet from_ Don Giovanni.)

BLOOM: Are you sure about that _Voglio_? I mean the pronunciati...

_(He follows, followed by the sniffing terrier. The elderly bawd seizes
his sleeve, the bristles of her chinmole glittering.)_

THE BAWD: Ten shillings a maidenhead. Fresh thing was never touched.
Fifteen. There’s no-one in it only her old father that’s dead drunk.

_(She points. In the gap of her dark den furtive, rainbedraggled,
Bridie Kelly stands.)_

BRIDIE: Hatch street. Any good in your mind?

_(With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs. A burly rough pursues
with booted strides. He stumbles on the steps, recovers, plunges into
gloom. Weak squeaks of laughter are heard, weaker.)_

THE BAWD: _(Her wolfeyes shining.)_ He’s getting his pleasure. You
won’t get a virgin in the flash houses. Ten shillings. Don’t be all
night before the polis in plain clothes sees us. Sixtyseven is a bitch.

_(Leering, Gerty Macdowell limps forward. She draws from behind,
ogling, and shows coyly her bloodied clout.)_

GERTY: With all my worldly goods I thee and thou. _(She murmurs.)_ You
did that. I hate you.

BLOOM: I? When? You’re dreaming. I never saw you.

THE BAWD: Leave the gentleman alone, you cheat. Writing the gentleman
false letters. Streetwalking and soliciting. Better for your mother
take the strap to you at the bedpost, hussy like you.

GERTY: _(To Bloom.)_ When you saw all the secrets of my bottom drawer.
_(She paws his sleeve, slobbering.)_ Dirty married man! I love you for
doing that to me.

_(She glides away crookedly. Mrs Breen in man’s frieze overcoat with
loose bellows pockets, stands in the causeway, her roguish eyes
wideopen, smiling in all her herbivorous buckteeth.)_

MRS BREEN: Mr...

BLOOM: _(Coughs gravely.)_ Madam, when we last had this pleasure by
letter dated the sixteenth instant...

MRS BREEN: Mr Bloom! You down here in the haunts of sin! I caught you
nicely! Scamp!

BLOOM: _(Hurriedly.)_ Not so loud my name. Whatever do you think of me?
Don’t give me away. Walls have ears. How do you do? It’s ages since I.
You’re looking splendid. Absolutely it. Seasonable weather we are
having this time of year. Black refracts heat. Short cut home here.
Interesting quarter. Rescue of fallen women. Magdalen asylum. I am the
secretary...

MRS BREEN: _(Holds up a finger.)_ Now, don’t tell a big fib! I know
somebody won’t like that. O just wait till I see Molly! _(Slily.)_
Account for yourself this very sminute or woe betide you!

BLOOM: _(Looks behind.)_ She often said she’d like to visit. Slumming.
The exotic, you see. Negro servants in livery too if she had money.
Othello black brute. Eugene Stratton. Even the bones and cornerman at
the Livermore christies. Bohee brothers. Sweep for that matter.

_(Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white duck suits, scarlet socks,
upstarched Sambo chokers and large scarlet asters in their buttonholes,
leap out. Each has his banjo slung. Their paler smaller negroid hands
jingle the twingtwang wires. Flashing white Kaffir eyes and tusks they
rattle through a breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back to
back, toe heel, heel toe, with smackfatclacking nigger lips.)_

TOM AND SAM:

     There’s someone in the house with Dina
     There’s someone in the house, I know,
     There’s someone in the house with Dina
     Playing on the old banjo.

_(They whisk black masks from raw babby faces: then, chuckling,
chortling, trumming, twanging, they diddle diddle cakewalk dance
away.)_

BLOOM: _(With a sour tenderish smile.)_ A little frivol, shall we, if
you are so inclined? Would you like me perhaps to embrace you just for
a fraction of a second?

MRS BREEN: _(Screams gaily.)_ O, you ruck! You ought to see yourself!

BLOOM: For old sake’ sake. I only meant a square party, a mixed
marriage mingling of our different little conjugials. You know I had a
soft corner for you. _(Gloomily.)_ ’Twas I sent you that valentine of
the dear gazelle.

MRS BREEN: Glory Alice, you do look a holy show! Killing simply. _(She
puts out her hand inquisitively.)_ What are you hiding behind your
back? Tell us, there’s a dear.

BLOOM: _(Seizes her wrist with his free hand.)_ Josie Powell that was,
prettiest deb in Dublin. How time flies by! Do you remember, harking
back in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, Georgina
Simpson’s housewarming while they were playing the Irving Bishop game,
finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading? Subject, what is in this
snuffbox?

MRS BREEN: You were the lion of the night with your seriocomic
recitation and you looked the part. You were always a favourite with
the ladies.

BLOOM: _(Squire of dames, in dinner jacket with wateredsilk facings,
blue masonic badge in his buttonhole, black bow and mother-of-pearl
studs, a prismatic champagne glass tilted in his hand.)_ Ladies and
gentlemen, I give you Ireland, home and beauty.

MRS BREEN: The dear dead days beyond recall. Love’s old sweet song.

BLOOM: _(Meaningfully dropping his voice.)_ I confess I’m teapot with
curiosity to find out whether some person’s something is a little
teapot at present.

MRS BREEN: _(Gushingly.)_ Tremendously teapot! London’s teapot and I’m
simply teapot all over me! _(She rubs sides with him.)_ After the
parlour mystery games and the crackers from the tree we sat on the
staircase ottoman. Under the mistletoe. Two is company.

BLOOM: _(Wearing a purple Napoleon hat with an amber halfmoon, his
fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her soft moist meaty palm
which she surrenders gently.)_ The witching hour of night. I took the
splinter out of this hand, carefully, slowly. _(Tenderly, as he slips
on her finger a ruby ring.) Là ci darem la mano._

MRS BREEN: _(In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, a
tinsel sylph’s diadem on her brow with her dancecard fallen beside her
moonblue satin slipper, curves her palm softly, breathing quickly.)
Voglio e non._ You’re hot! You’re scalding! The left hand nearest the
heart.

BLOOM: When you made your present choice they said it was beauty and
the beast. I can never forgive you for that. _(His clenched fist at his
brow.)_ Think what it means. All you meant to me then. _(Hoarsely.)_
Woman, it’s breaking me!

_(Denis Breen, whitetallhatted, with Wisdom Hely’s sandwichboards,
shuffles past them in carpet slippers, his dull beard thrust out,
muttering to right and left. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the pall of
the ace of spades, dogs him to left and right, doubled in laughter.)_

ALF BERGAN: _(Points jeering at the sandwichboards.)_ U. p: up.

MRS BREEN: _(To Bloom.)_ High jinks below stairs. _(She gives him the
glad eye.)_ Why didn’t you kiss the spot to make it well? You wanted
to.

BLOOM: _(Shocked.)_ Molly’s best friend! Could you?

MRS BREEN: _(Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers a pigeon kiss.)_
Hnhn. The answer is a lemon. Have you a little present for me there?

BLOOM: _(Offhandedly.)_ Kosher. A snack for supper. The home without
potted meat is incomplete. I was at _Leah_, Mrs Bandmann Palmer.
Trenchant exponent of Shakespeare. Unfortunately threw away the
programme. Rattling good place round there for pigs’ feet. Feel.

_(Richie Goulding, three ladies’ hats pinned on his head, appears
weighted to one side by the black legal bag of Collis and Ward on which
a skull and crossbones are painted in white limewash. He opens it and
shows it full of polonies, kippered herrings, Findon haddies and
tightpacked pills.)_

RICHIE: Best value in Dub.

_(Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands on the curbstone, folding his
napkin, waiting to wait.)_

PAT: _(Advances with a tilted dish of spillspilling gravy.)_ Steak and
kidney. Bottle of lager. Hee hee hee. Wait till I wait.

RICHIE: Goodgod. Inev erate inall...

_(With hanging head he marches doggedly forward. The navvy, lurching
by, gores him with his flaming pronghorn.)_

RICHIE: _(With a cry of pain, his hand to his back.)_ Ah! Bright’s!
Lights!

BLOOM: _(Points to the navvy.)_ A spy. Don’t attract attention. I hate
stupid crowds. I am not on pleasure bent. I am in a grave predicament.

MRS BREEN: Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your cock and
bull story.

BLOOM: I want to tell you a little secret about how I came to be here.
But you must never tell. Not even Molly. I have a most particular
reason.

MRS BREEN: _(All agog.)_ O, not for worlds.

BLOOM: Let’s walk on. Shall us?

MRS BREEN: Let’s.

_(The bawd makes an unheeded sign. Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen. The
terrier follows, whining piteously, wagging his tail.)_

THE BAWD: Jewman’s melt!

BLOOM: _(In an oatmeal sporting suit, a sprig of woodbine in the lapel,
tony buff shirt, shepherd’s plaid Saint Andrew’s cross scarftie, white
spats, fawn dustcoat on his arm, tawny red brogues, fieldglasses in
bandolier and a grey billycock hat.)_ Do you remember a long long time,
years and years ago, just after Milly, Marionette we called her, was
weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was it?

MRS BREEN: _(In smart Saxe tailormade, white velours hat and spider
veil.)_ Leopardstown.

BLOOM: I mean, Leopardstown. And Molly won seven shillings on a three
year old named Nevertell and coming home along by Foxrock in that old
fiveseater shanderadan of a waggonette you were in your heyday then and
you had on that new hat of white velours with a surround of molefur
that Mrs Hayes advised you to buy because it was marked down to
nineteen and eleven, a bit of wire and an old rag of velveteen, and
I’ll lay you what you like she did it on purpose...

MRS BREEN: She did, of course, the cat! Don’t tell me! Nice adviser!

BLOOM: Because it didn’t suit you one quarter as well as the other
ducky little tammy toque with the bird of paradise wing in it that I
admired on you and you honestly looked just too fetching in it though
it was a pity to kill it, you cruel naughty creature, little mite of a
thing with a heart the size of a fullstop.

MRS BREEN: _(Squeezes his arm, simpers.)_ Naughty cruel I was!

BLOOM: _(Low, secretly, ever more rapidly.)_ And Molly was eating a
sandwich of spiced beef out of Mrs Joe Gallaher’s lunch basket.
Frankly, though she had her advisers or admirers, I never cared much
for her style. She was...

MRS BREEN: Too...

BLOOM: Yes. And Molly was laughing because Rogers and Maggot O’Reilly
were mimicking a cock as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius
Moses, the tea merchant, drove past us in a gig with his daughter,
Dancer Moses was her name, and the poodle in her lap bridled up and you
asked me if I ever heard or read or knew or came across...

MRS BREEN: _(Eagerly.)_ Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

_(She fades from his side. Followed by the whining dog he walks on
towards hellsgates. In an archway a standing woman, bent forward, her
feet apart, pisses cowily. Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of loiterers
listen to a tale which their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with
raucous humour. An armless pair of them flop wrestling, growling, in
maimed sodden playfight.)_

THE GAFFER: _(Crouches, his voice twisted in his snout.)_ And when
Cairns came down from the scaffolding in Beaver street what was he
after doing it into only into the bucket of porter that was there
waiting on the shavings for Derwan’s plasterers.

THE LOITERERS: _(Guffaw with cleft palates.)_ O jays!

_(Their paintspeckled hats wag. Spattered with size and lime of their
lodges they frisk limblessly about him.)_

BLOOM: Coincidence too. They think it funny. Anything but that. Broad
daylight. Trying to walk. Lucky no woman.

THE LOITERERS: Jays, that’s a good one. Glauber salts. O jays, into the
men’s porter.

_(Bloom passes. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, dishevelled,
call from lanes, doors, corners.)_

THE WHORES:

Are you going far, queer fellow?

How’s your middle leg?

Got a match on you?

Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you.

_(He plodges through their sump towards the lighted street beyond. From
a bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered brazen trunk.
In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the navvy and the two
redcoats.)_

THE NAVVY: _(Belching.)_ Where’s the bloody house?

THE SHEBEENKEEPER: Purdon street. Shilling a bottle of stout.
Respectable woman.

THE NAVVY: _(Gripping the two redcoats, staggers forward with them.)_
Come on, you British army!

PRIVATE CARR: _(Behind his back.)_ He aint half balmy.

PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Laughs.)_ What ho!

PRIVATE CARR: _(To the navvy.)_ Portobello barracks canteen. You ask
for Carr. Just Carr.

THE NAVVY: _(Shouts.)_

     We are the boys. Of Wexford.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Say! What price the sergeantmajor?

PRIVATE CARR: Bennett? He’s my pal. I love old Bennett.

THE NAVVY: _(Shouts.)_

     The galling chain.
     And free our native land.

_(He staggers forward, dragging them with him. Bloom stops, at fault.
The dog approaches, his tongue outlolling, panting.)_

BLOOM: Wildgoose chase this. Disorderly houses. Lord knows where they
are gone. Drunks cover distance double quick. Nice mixup. Scene at
Westland row. Then jump in first class with third ticket. Then too far.
Train with engine behind. Might have taken me to Malahide or a siding
for the night or collision. Second drink does it. Once is a dose. What
am I following him for? Still, he’s the best of that lot. If I hadn’t
heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn’t have gone and wouldn’t have
met. Kismet. He’ll lose that cash. Relieving office here. Good biz for
cheapjacks, organs. What do ye lack? Soon got, soon gone. Might have
lost my life too with that mangongwheeltracktrolleyglarejuggernaut only
for presence of mind. Can’t always save you, though. If I had passed
Truelock’s window that day two minutes later would have been shot.
Absence of body. Still if bullet only went through my coat get damages
for shock, five hundred pounds. What was he? Kildare street club toff.
God help his gamekeeper.

_(He gazes ahead, reading on the wall a scrawled chalk legend_ Wet
Dream _and a phallic design._) Odd! Molly drawing on the frosted
carriagepane at Kingstown. What’s that like? _(Gaudy dollwomen loll in
the lighted doorways, in window embrasures, smoking birdseye
cigarettes. The odour of the sicksweet weed floats towards him in slow
round ovalling wreaths.)_

THE WREATHS: Sweet are the sweets. Sweets of sin.

BLOOM: My spine’s a bit limp. Go or turn? And this food? Eat it and get
all pigsticky. Absurd I am. Waste of money. One and eightpence too
much. _(The retriever drives a cold snivelling muzzle against his hand,
wagging his tail.)_ Strange how they take to me. Even that brute today.
Better speak to him first. Like women they like _rencontres._ Stinks
like a polecat. _Chacun son goût_. He might be mad. Dogdays. Uncertain
in his movements. Good fellow! Fido! Good fellow! Garryowen! _(The
wolfdog sprawls on his back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his
long black tongue lolling out.)_ Influence of his surroundings. Give
and have done with it. Provided nobody. _(Calling encouraging words he
shambles back with a furtive poacher’s tread, dogged by the setter into
a dark stalestunk corner. He unrolls one parcel and goes to dump the
crubeen softly but holds back and feels the trotter.)_ Sizeable for
threepence. But then I have it in my left hand. Calls for more effort.
Why? Smaller from want of use. O, let it slide. Two and six.

_(With regret he lets the unrolled crubeen and trotter slide. The
mastiff mauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself with growling
greed, crunching the bones. Two raincaped watch approach, silent,
vigilant. They murmur together.)_

THE WATCH: Bloom. Of Bloom. For Bloom. Bloom.

_(Each lays hand on Bloom’s shoulder.)_

FIRST WATCH: Caught in the act. Commit no nuisance.

BLOOM: _(Stammers.)_ I am doing good to others.

_(A covey of gulls, storm petrels, rises hungrily from Liffey slime
with Banbury cakes in their beaks.)_

THE GULLS: Kaw kave kankury kake.

BLOOM: The friend of man. Trained by kindness.

_(He points. Bob Doran, toppling from a high barstool, sways over the
munching spaniel.)_

BOB DORAN: Towser. Give us the paw. Give the paw.

_(The bulldog growls, his scruff standing, a gobbet of pig’s knuckle
between his molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles. Bob Doran
falls silently into an area.)_

SECOND WATCH: Prevention of cruelty to animals.

BLOOM: _(Enthusiastically.)_ A noble work! I scolded that tramdriver on
Harold’s cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his harness
scab. Bad French I got for my pains. Of course it was frosty and the
last tram. All tales of circus life are highly demoralising.

_(Signor Maffei, passionpale, in liontamer’s costume with diamond studs
in his shirtfront, steps forward, holding a circus paperhoop, a curling
carriagewhip and a revolver with which he covers the gorging
boarhound.)_

SIGNOR MAFFEI: _(With a sinister smile.)_ Ladies and gentlemen, my
educated greyhound. It was I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my
patent spiked saddle for carnivores. Lash under the belly with a
knotted thong. Block tackle and a strangling pulley will bring your
lion to heel, no matter how fractious, even _Leo ferox_ there, the
Libyan maneater. A redhot crowbar and some liniment rubbing on the
burning part produced Fritz of Amsterdam, the thinking hyena. _(He
glares.)_ I possess the Indian sign. The glint of my eye does it with
these breastsparklers. _(With a bewitching smile.)_ I now introduce
Mademoiselle Ruby, the pride of the ring.

FIRST WATCH: Come. Name and address.

BLOOM: I have forgotten for the moment. Ah, yes! _(He takes off his
high grade hat, saluting.)_ Dr Bloom, Leopold, dental surgeon. You have
heard of von Blum Pasha. Umpteen millions. _Donnerwetter!_ Owns half
Austria. Egypt. Cousin.

FIRST WATCH: Proof.

_(A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom’s hat.)_

BLOOM: _(In red fez, cadi’s dress coat with broad green sash, wearing a
false badge of the Legion of Honour, picks up the card hastily and
offers it.)_ Allow me. My club is the Junior Army and Navy. Solicitors:
Messrs John Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor’s Walk.

FIRST WATCH: _(Reads.)_ Henry Flower. No fixed abode. Unlawfully
watching and besetting.

SECOND WATCH: An alibi. You are cautioned.

BLOOM: _(Produces from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower.)_ This
is the flower in question. It was given me by a man I don’t know his
name. _(Plausibly.)_ You know that old joke, rose of Castile. Bloom.
The change of name. Virag. _(He murmurs privately and confidentially.)_
We are engaged you see, sergeant. Lady in the case. Love entanglement.
_(He shoulders the second watch gently.)_ Dash it all. It’s a way we
gallants have in the navy. Uniform that does it. _(He turns gravely to
the first watch.)_ Still, of course, you do get your Waterloo
sometimes. Drop in some evening and have a glass of old Burgundy. _(To
the second watch gaily.)_ I’ll introduce you, inspector. She’s game. Do
it in the shake of a lamb’s tail.

_(A dark mercurialised face appears, leading a veiled figure.)_

THE DARK MERCURY: The Castle is looking for him. He was drummed out of
the army.

MARTHA: _(Thickveiled, a crimson halter round her neck, a copy of the_
Irish Times _in her hand, in tone of reproach, pointing.)_ Henry!
Leopold! Lionel, thou lost one! Clear my name.

FIRST WATCH: _(Sternly.)_ Come to the station.

BLOOM: _(Scared, hats himself, steps back, then, plucking at his heart
and lifting his right forearm on the square, he gives the sign and
dueguard of fellowcraft.)_ No, no, worshipful master, light of love.
Mistaken identity. The Lyons mail. Lesurques and Dubosc. You remember
the Childs fratricide case. We medical men. By striking him dead with a
hatchet. I am wrongfully accused. Better one guilty escape than
ninetynine wrongfully condemned.

MARTHA: _(Sobbing behind her veil.)_ Breach of promise. My real name is
Peggy Griffin. He wrote to me that he was miserable. I’ll tell my
brother, the Bective rugger fullback, on you, heartless flirt.

BLOOM: _(Behind his hand.)_ She’s drunk. The woman is inebriated. _(He
murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim.)_ Shitbroleeth.

SECOND WATCH: _(Tears in his eyes, to Bloom.)_ You ought to be
thoroughly well ashamed of yourself.

BLOOM: Gentlemen of the jury, let me explain. A pure mare’s nest. I am
a man misunderstood. I am being made a scapegoat of. I am a respectable
married man, without a stain on my character. I live in Eccles street.
My wife, I am the daughter of a most distinguished commander, a gallant
upstanding gentleman, what do you call him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy,
one of Britain’s fighting men who helped to win our battles. Got his
majority for the heroic defence of Rorke’s Drift.

FIRST WATCH: Regiment.

BLOOM: _(Turns to the gallery.)_ The royal Dublins, boys, the salt of
the earth, known the world over. I think I see some old comrades in
arms up there among you. The R. D. F., with our own Metropolitan
police, guardians of our homes, the pluckiest lads and the finest body
of men, as physique, in the service of our sovereign.

A VOICE: Turncoat! Up the Boers! Who booed Joe Chamberlain?

BLOOM: _(His hand on the shoulder of the first watch.)_ My old dad too
was a J. P. I’m as staunch a Britisher as you are, sir. I fought with
the colours for king and country in the absentminded war under general
Gough in the park and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was
mentioned in dispatches. I did all a white man could. _(With quiet
feeling.)_ Jim Bludso. Hold her nozzle again the bank.

FIRST WATCH: Profession or trade.

BLOOM: Well, I follow a literary occupation, author-journalist. In fact
we are just bringing out a collection of prize stories of which I am
the inventor, something that is an entirely new departure. I am
connected with the British and Irish press. If you ring up...

_(Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a quill between his teeth. His
scarlet beak blazes within the aureole of his straw hat. He dangles a
hank of Spanish onions in one hand and holds with the other hand a
telephone receiver nozzle to his ear.)_

MYLES CRAWFORD: _(His cock’s wattles wagging.)_ Hello, seventyseven
eightfour. Hello. _Freeman’s Urinal_ and _Weekly Arsewipe_ here.
Paralyse Europe. You which? Bluebags? Who writes? Is it Bloom?

_(Mr Philip Beaufoy, palefaced, stands in the witnessbox, in accurate
morning dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing,
creased lavender trousers and patent boots. He carries a large
portfolio labelled_ Matcham’s Masterstrokes.)

BEAUFOY: _(Drawls.)_ No, you aren’t. Not by a long shot if I know it. I
don’t see it, that’s all. No born gentleman, no-one with the most
rudimentary promptings of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly
loathsome conduct. One of those, my lord. A plagiarist. A soapy sneak
masquerading as a literateur. It’s perfectly obvious that with the most
inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my bestselling copy, really
gorgeous stuff, a perfect gem, the love passages in which are beneath
suspicion. The Beaufoy books of love and great possessions, with which
your lordship is doubtless familiar, are a household word throughout
the kingdom.

BLOOM: _(Murmurs with hangdog meekness glum.)_ That bit about the
laughing witch hand in hand I take exception to, if I may...

BEAUFOY: _(His lip upcurled, smiles superciliously on the court.)_ You
funny ass, you! You’re too beastly awfully weird for words! I don’t
think you need over excessively disincommodate yourself in that regard.
My literary agent Mr J. B. Pinker is in attendance. I presume, my lord,
we shall receive the usual witnesses’ fees, shan’t we? We are
considerably out of pocket over this bally pressman johnny, this
jackdaw of Rheims, who has not even been to a university.

BLOOM: _(Indistinctly.)_ University of life. Bad art.

BEAUFOY: _(Shouts.)_ It’s a damnably foul lie, showing the moral
rottenness of the man! _(He extends his portfolio.)_ We have here
damning evidence, the _corpus delicti_, my lord, a specimen of my
maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the beast.

A VOICE FROM THE GALLERY:

     Moses, Moses, king of the jews,
     Wiped his arse in the _Daily News_.

BLOOM: _(Bravely.)_ Overdrawn.

BEAUFOY: You low cad! You ought to be ducked in the horsepond, you
rotter! _(To the court.)_ Why, look at the man’s private life! Leading
a quadruple existence! Street angel and house devil. Not fit to be
mentioned in mixed society! The archconspirator of the age!

BLOOM: _(To the court.)_ And he, a bachelor, how...

FIRST WATCH: The King versus Bloom. Call the woman Driscoll.

THE CRIER: Mary Driscoll, scullerymaid!

_(Mary Driscoll, a slipshod servant girl, approaches. She has a bucket
on the crook of her arm and a scouringbrush in her hand.)_

SECOND WATCH: Another! Are you of the unfortunate class?

MARY DRISCOLL: _(Indignantly.)_ I’m not a bad one. I bear a respectable
character and was four months in my last place. I was in a situation,
six pounds a year and my chances with Fridays out and I had to leave
owing to his carryings on.

FIRST WATCH: What do you tax him with?

MARY DRISCOLL: He made a certain suggestion but I thought more of
myself as poor as I am.

BLOOM: _(In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, heelless
slippers, unshaven, his hair rumpled: softly.)_ I treated you white. I
gave you mementos, smart emerald garters far above your station.
Incautiously I took your part when you were accused of pilfering.
There’s a medium in all things. Play cricket.

MARY DRISCOLL: _(Excitedly.)_ As God is looking down on me this night
if ever I laid a hand to them oylsters!

FIRST WATCH: The offence complained of? Did something happen?

MARY DRISCOLL: He surprised me in the rere of the premises, Your
honour, when the missus was out shopping one morning with a request for
a safety pin. He held me and I was discoloured in four places as a
result. And he interfered twict with my clothing.

BLOOM: She counterassaulted.

MARY DRISCOLL: _(Scornfully.)_ I had more respect for the
scouringbrush, so I had. I remonstrated with him, Your lord, and he
remarked: keep it quiet.

_(General laughter.)_

GEORGE FOTTRELL: _(Clerk of the crown and peace, resonantly.)_ Order in
court! The accused will now make a bogus statement.

_(Bloom, pleading not guilty and holding a fullblown waterlily, begins
a long unintelligible speech. They would hear what counsel had to say
in his stirring address to the grand jury. He was down and out but,
though branded as a black sheep, if he might say so, he meant to
reform, to retrieve the memory of the past in a purely sisterly way and
return to nature as a purely domestic animal. A sevenmonths’ child, he
had been carefully brought up and nurtured by an aged bedridden parent.
There might have been lapses of an erring father but he wanted to turn
over a new leaf and now, when at long last in sight of the whipping
post, to lead a homely life in the evening of his days, permeated by
the affectionate surroundings of the heaving bosom of the family. An
acclimatised Britisher, he had seen that summer eve from the footplate
of an engine cab of the Loop line railway company while the rain
refrained from falling glimpses, as it were, through the windows of
loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly
rural of happiness of the better land with Dockrell’s wallpaper at one
and ninepence a dozen, innocent Britishborn bairns lisping prayers to
the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their pensums or
model young ladies playing on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour
reciting the family rosary round the crackling Yulelog while in the
boreens and green lanes the colleens with their swains strolled what
times the strains of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with
four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a sacrifice, greatest bargain
ever...._

_(Renewed laughter. He mumbles incoherently. Reporters complain that
they cannot hear.)_

LONGHAND AND SHORTHAND: _(Without looking up from their notebooks.)_
Loosen his boots.

PROFESSOR MACHUGH: _(From the presstable, coughs and calls.)_ Cough it
up, man. Get it out in bits.

_(The crossexamination proceeds_ re _Bloom and the bucket. A large
bucket. Bloom himself. Bowel trouble. In Beaver street. Gripe, yes.
Quite bad. A plasterer’s bucket. By walking stifflegged. Suffered
untold misery. Deadly agony. About noon. Love or burgundy. Yes, some
spinach. Crucial moment. He did not look in the bucket. Nobody. Rather
a mess. Not completely. A_ Titbits _back number_.)

_(Uproar and catcalls. Bloom in a torn frockcoat stained with
whitewash, dinged silk hat sideways on his head, a strip of
stickingplaster across his nose, talks inaudibly.)_

J. J. O’MOLLOY: _(In barrister’s grey wig and stuffgown, speaking with
a voice of pained protest.)_ This is no place for indecent levity at
the expense of an erring mortal disguised in liquor. We are not in a
beargarden nor at an Oxford rag nor is this a travesty of justice. My
client is an infant, a poor foreign immigrant who started scratch as a
stowaway and is now trying to turn an honest penny. The trumped up
misdemeanour was due to a momentary aberration of heredity, brought on
by hallucination, such familiarities as the alleged guilty occurrence
being quite permitted in my client’s native place, the land of the
Pharaoh. _Prima facie_, I put it to you that there was no attempt at
carnally knowing. Intimacy did not occur and the offence complained of
by Driscoll, that her virtue was solicited, was not repeated. I would
deal in especial with atavism. There have been cases of shipwreck and
somnambulism in my client’s family. If the accused could speak he could
a tale unfold—one of the strangest that have ever been narrated between
the covers of a book. He himself, my lord, is a physical wreck from
cobbler’s weak chest. His submission is that he is of Mongolian
extraction and irresponsible for his actions. Not all there, in fact.

BLOOM: _(Barefoot, pigeonbreasted, in lascar’s vest and trousers,
apologetic toes turned in, opens his tiny mole’s eyes and looks about
him dazedly, passing a slow hand across his forehead. Then he hitches
his belt sailor fashion and with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes
the court, pointing one thumb heavenward.)_ Him makee velly muchee fine
night. _(He begins to lilt simply.)_

     Li li poo lil chile
     Blingee pigfoot evly night
     Payee two shilly...

_(He is howled down.)_

J. J. O’MOLLOY: _(Hotly to the populace.)_ This is a lonehand fight. By
Hades, I will not have any client of mine gagged and badgered in this
fashion by a pack of curs and laughing hyenas. The Mosaic code has
superseded the law of the jungle. I say it and I say it emphatically,
without wishing for one moment to defeat the ends of justice, accused
was not accessory before the act and prosecutrix has not been tampered
with. The young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very
own daughter. _(Bloom takes J. J. O’Molloy’s hand and raises it to his
lips.)_ I shall call rebutting evidence to prove up to the hilt that
the hidden hand is again at its old game. When in doubt persecute
Bloom. My client, an innately bashful man, would be the last man in the
world to do anything ungentlemanly which injured modesty could object
to or cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong turning when some
dastard, responsible for her condition, had worked his own sweet will
on her. He wants to go straight. I regard him as the whitest man I
know. He is down on his luck at present owing to the mortgaging of his
extensive property at Agendath Netaim in faraway Asia Minor, slides of
which will now be shown. _(To Bloom.)_ I suggest that you will do the
handsome thing.

BLOOM: A penny in the pound.

_(The image of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in
silver haze is projected on the wall. Moses Dlugacz, ferreteyed albino,
in blue dungarees, stands up in the gallery, holding in each hand an
orange citron and a pork kidney.)_

DLUGACZ: _(Hoarsely.)_ Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W. 13.

_(J. J. O’Molloy steps on to a low plinth and holds the lapel of his
coat with solemnity. His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, with
sunken eyes, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John F.
Taylor. He applies his handkerchief to his mouth and scrutinises the
galloping tide of rosepink blood.)_

J. J. O’MOLLOY: _(Almost voicelessly.)_ Excuse me. I am suffering from
a severe chill, have recently come from a sickbed. A few wellchosen
words. _(He assumes the avine head, foxy moustache and proboscidal
eloquence of Seymour Bushe.)_ When the angel’s book comes to be opened
if aught that the pensive bosom has inaugurated of soultransfigured and
of soultransfiguring deserves to live I say accord the prisoner at the
bar the sacred benefit of the doubt.

_(A paper with something written on it is handed into court._)

BLOOM: _(In court dress.)_ Can give best references. Messrs Callan,
Coleman. Mr Wisdom Hely J. P. My old chief Joe Cuffe. Mr V. B. Dillon,
ex lord mayor of Dublin. I have moved in the charmed circle of the
highest... Queens of Dublin society. _(Carelessly.)_ I was just
chatting this afternoon at the viceregal lodge to my old pals, sir
Robert and lady Ball, astronomer royal, at the levee. Sir Bob, I
said...

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: _(In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength
ivory gloves, wearing a sabletrimmed brickquilted dolman, a comb of
brilliants and panache of osprey in her hair.)_ Arrest him, constable.
He wrote me an anonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband
was in the North Riding of Tipperary on the Munster circuit, signed
James Lovebirch. He said that he had seen from the gods my peerless
globes as I sat in a box of the _Theatre Royal_ at a command
performance of _La Cigale_. I deeply inflamed him, he said. He made
improper overtures to me to misconduct myself at half past four p.m. on
the following Thursday, Dunsink time. He offered to send me through the
post a work of fiction by Monsieur Paul de Kock, entitled _The Girl
with the Three Pairs of Stays_.

MRS BELLINGHAM: _(In cap and seal coney mantle, wrapped up to the nose,
steps out of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell
quizzing-glasses which she takes from inside her huge opossum muff.)_
Also to me. Yes, I believe it is the same objectionable person. Because
he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker’s one sleety day
during the cold snap of February ninetythree when even the grid of the
wastepipe and the ballstop in my bath cistern were frozen. Subsequently
he enclosed a bloom of edelweiss culled on the heights, as he said, in
my honour. I had it examined by a botanical expert and elicited the
information that it was a blossom of the homegrown potato plant
purloined from a forcingcase of the model farm.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Shame on him!

_(A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward.)_

THE SLUTS AND RAGAMUFFINS: _(Screaming.)_ Stop thief! Hurrah there,
Bluebeard! Three cheers for Ikey Mo!

SECOND WATCH: _(Produces handcuffs.)_ Here are the darbies.

MRS BELLINGHAM: He addressed me in several handwritings with fulsome
compliments as a Venus in furs and alleged profound pity for my
frostbound coachman Palmer while in the same breath he expressed
himself as envious of his earflaps and fleecy sheepskins and of his
fortunate proximity to my person, when standing behind my chair wearing
my livery and the armorial bearings of the Bellingham escutcheon
garnished sable, a buck’s head couped or. He lauded almost
extravagantly my nether extremities, my swelling calves in silk hose
drawn up to the limit, and eulogised glowingly my other hidden
treasures in priceless lace which, he said, he could conjure up. He
urged me (Stating that he felt it his mission in life to urge me.) to
defile the marriage bed, to commit adultery at the earliest possible
opportunity.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: _(In amazon costume, hard hat,
jackboots cockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, fawn musketeer gauntlets
with braided drums, long train held up and hunting crop with which she
strikes her welt constantly.)_ Also me. Because he saw me on the polo
ground of the Phoenix park at the match All Ireland versus the Rest of
Ireland. My eyes, I know, shone divinely as I watched Captain Slogger
Dennehy of the Inniskillings win the final chukkar on his darling cob
_Centaur._ This plebeian Don Juan observed me from behind a hackney car
and sent me in double envelopes an obscene photograph, such as are sold
after dark on Paris boulevards, insulting to any lady. I have it still.
It represents a partially nude señorita, frail and lovely (his wife, as
he solemnly assured me, taken by him from nature), practising illicit
intercourse with a muscular torero, evidently a blackguard. He urged me
to do likewise, to misbehave, to sin with officers of the garrison. He
implored me to soil his letter in an unspeakable manner, to chastise
him as he richly deserves, to bestride and ride him, to give him a most
vicious horsewhipping.

MRS BELLINGHAM: Me too.

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Me too.

_(Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters
received from Bloom.)_

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: _(Stamps her jingling spurs in a
sudden paroxysm of fury.)_ I will, by the God above me. I’ll scourge
the pigeonlivered cur as long as I can stand over him. I’ll flay him
alive.

BLOOM: _(His eyes closing, quails expectantly.)_ Here? _(He squirms.)_
Again! _(He pants cringing.)_ I love the danger.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: Very much so! I’ll make it hot for
you. I’ll make you dance Jack Latten for that.

MRS BELLINGHAM: Tan his breech well, the upstart! Write the stars and
stripes on it!

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Disgraceful! There’s no excuse for him! A married
man!

BLOOM: All these people. I meant only the spanking idea. A warm
tingling glow without effusion. Refined birching to stimulate the
circulation.

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: _(Laughs derisively.)_ O, did you,
my fine fellow? Well, by the living God, you’ll get the surprise of
your life now, believe me, the most unmerciful hiding a man ever
bargained for. You have lashed the dormant tigress in my nature into
fury.

MRS BELLINGHAM: _(Shakes her muff and quizzing-glasses vindictively.)_
Make him smart, Hanna dear. Give him ginger. Thrash the mongrel within
an inch of his life. The cat-o’-nine-tails. Geld him. Vivisect him.

BLOOM: _(Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands: with hangdog mien.)_ O
cold! O shivery! It was your ambrosial beauty. Forget, forgive. Kismet.
Let me off this once. _(He offers the other cheek.)_

MRS YELVERTON BARRY: _(Severely.)_ Don’t do so on any account, Mrs
Talboys! He should be soundly trounced!

THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: _(Unbuttoning her gauntlet
violently.)_ I’ll do no such thing. Pigdog and always was ever since he
was pupped! To dare address me! I’ll flog him black and blue in the
public streets. I’ll dig my spurs in him up to the rowel. He is a
wellknown cuckold. _(She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in the air.)_
Take down his trousers without loss of time. Come here, sir! Quick!
Ready?

BLOOM: _(Trembling, beginning to obey.)_ The weather has been so warm.

_(Davy Stephens, ringletted, passes with a bevy of barefoot newsboys.)_

DAVY STEPHENS: _Messenger of the Sacred Heart_ and _Evening Telegraph_
with Saint Patrick’s Day supplement. Containing the new addresses of
all the cuckolds in Dublin.

_(The very reverend Canon O’Hanlon in cloth of gold cope elevates and
exposes a marble timepiece. Before him Father Conroy and the reverend
John Hughes S. J. bend low.)_

THE TIMEPIECE: _(Unportalling.)_

     Cuckoo.
     Cuckoo.
     Cuckoo.

_(The brass quoits of a bed are heard to jingle.)_

THE QUOITS: Jigjag. Jigajiga. Jigjag.

_(A panel of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing rapidly in the jurybox
the faces of Martin Cunningham, foreman, silkhatted, Jack Power, Simon
Dedalus, Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John Henry Menton, Myles Crawford,
Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M’Coy and the featureless face of
a Nameless One.)_

THE NAMELESS ONE: Bareback riding. Weight for age. Gob, he organised
her.

THE JURORS: _(All their heads turned to his voice.)_ Really?

THE NAMELESS ONE: _(Snarls.)_ Arse over tip. Hundred shillings to five.

THE JURORS: _(All their heads lowered in assent.)_ Most of us thought
as much.

FIRST WATCH: He is a marked man. Another girl’s plait cut. Wanted: Jack
the Ripper. A thousand pounds reward.

SECOND WATCH: _(Awed, whispers.)_ And in black. A mormon. Anarchist.

THE CRIER: _(Loudly.)_ Whereas Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is a
wellknown dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold and a public
nuisance to the citizens of Dublin and whereas at this commission of
assizes the most honourable...

_(His Honour, sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, in judicial
garb of grey stone rises from the bench, stonebearded. He bears in his
arms an umbrella sceptre. From his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic
ramshorns.)_

THE RECORDER: I will put an end to this white slave traffic and rid
Dublin of this odious pest. Scandalous! _(He dons the black cap.)_ Let
him be taken, Mr Subsheriff, from the dock where he now stands and
detained in custody in Mountjoy prison during His Majesty’s pleasure
and there be hanged by the neck until he is dead and therein fail not
at your peril or may the Lord have mercy on your soul. Remove him. _(A
black skullcap descends upon his head.)_

_(The subsheriff Long John Fanning appears, smoking a pungent Henry
Clay.)_

LONG JOHN FANNING: _(Scowls and calls with rich rolling utterance.)_
Who’ll hang Judas Iscariot?

_(H. Rumbold, master barber, in a bloodcoloured jerkin and tanner’s
apron, a rope coiled over his shoulder, mounts the block. A life
preserver and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his belt. He rubs
grimly his grappling hands, knobbed with knuckledusters.)_

RUMBOLD: _(To the recorder with sinister familiarity.)_ Hanging Harry,
your Majesty, the Mersey terror. Five guineas a jugular. Neck or
nothing.

_(The bells of George’s church toll slowly, loud dark iron.)_

THE BELLS: Heigho! Heigho!

BLOOM: _(Desperately.)_ Wait. Stop. Gulls. Good heart. I saw.
Innocence. Girl in the monkeyhouse. Zoo. Lewd chimpanzee.
_(Breathlessly.)_ Pelvic basin. Her artless blush unmanned me.
_(Overcome with emotion.)_ I left the precincts. (He turns to a figure
in the crowd, appealing.) Hynes, may I speak to you? You know me. That
three shillings you can keep. If you want a little more...

HYNES: _(Coldly.)_ You are a perfect stranger.

SECOND WATCH: _(Points to the corner.)_ The bomb is here.

FIRST WATCH: Infernal machine with a time fuse.

BLOOM: No, no. Pig’s feet. I was at a funeral.

FIRST WATCH: _(Draws his truncheon.)_ Liar!

_(The beagle lifts his snout, showing the grey scorbutic face of Paddy
Dignam. He has gnawed all. He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath. He
grows to human size and shape. His dachshund coat becomes a brown
mortuary habit. His green eye flashes bloodshot. Half of one ear, all
the nose and both thumbs are ghouleaten.)_

PADDY DIGNAM: _(In a hollow voice.)_ It is true. It was my funeral.
Doctor Finucane pronounced life extinct when I succumbed to the disease
from natural causes.

_(He lifts his mutilated ashen face moonwards and bays lugubriously.)_

BLOOM: _(In triumph.)_ You hear?

PADDY DIGNAM: Bloom, I am Paddy Dignam’s spirit. List, list, O list!

BLOOM: The voice is the voice of Esau.

SECOND WATCH: _(Blesses himself.)_ How is that possible?

FIRST WATCH: It is not in the penny catechism.

PADDY DIGNAM: By metempsychosis. Spooks.

A VOICE: O rocks.

PADDY DIGNAM: _(Earnestly.)_ Once I was in the employ of Mr J. H.
Menton, solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of 27
Bachelor’s Walk. Now I am defunct, the wall of the heart hypertrophied.
Hard lines. The poor wife was awfully cut up. How is she bearing it?
Keep her off that bottle of sherry. _(He looks round him.)_ A lamp. I
must satisfy an animal need. That buttermilk didn’t agree with me.

_(The portly figure of John O’Connell, caretaker, stands forth, holding
a bunch of keys tied with crape. Beside him stands Father Coffey,
chaplain, toadbellied, wrynecked, in a surplice and bandanna nightcap,
holding sleepily a staff of twisted poppies.)_

FATHER COFFEY: _(Yawns, then chants with a hoarse croak.)_ Namine.
Jacobs. Vobiscuits. Amen.

JOHN O’CONNELL: _(Foghorns stormily through his megaphone.)_ Dignam,
Patrick T, deceased.

PADDY DIGNAM: _(With pricked up ears, winces.)_ Overtones. _(He
wriggles forward and places an ear to the ground.)_ My master’s voice!

JOHN O’CONNELL: Burial docket letter number U. P. eightyfive thousand.
Field seventeen. House of Keys. Plot, one hundred and one.

_(Paddy Dignam listens with visible effort, thinking, his tail
stiffpointed, his ears cocked.)_

PADDY DIGNAM: Pray for the repose of his soul.

_(He worms down through a coalhole, his brown habit trailing its tether
over rattling pebbles. After him toddles an obese grandfather rat on
fungus turtle paws under a grey carapace. Dignam’s voice, muffled, is
heard baying under ground:_ Dignam’s dead and gone below. _Tom
Rochford, robinredbreasted, in cap and breeches, jumps from his
twocolumned machine.)_

TOM ROCHFORD: _(A hand to his breastbone, bows.)_ Reuben J. A florin I
find him. _(He fixes the manhole with a resolute stare.)_ My turn now
on. Follow me up to Carlow.

_(He executes a daredevil salmon leap in the air and is engulfed in the
coalhole. Two discs on the columns wobble, eyes of nought. All recedes.
Bloom plodges forward again through the sump. Kisses chirp amid the
rifts of fog. A piano sounds. He stands before a lighted house,
listening. The kisses, winging from their bowers, fly about him,
twittering, warbling, cooing.)_

THE KISSES: _(Warbling.)_ Leo! _(Twittering.)_ Icky licky micky sticky
for Leo! _(Cooing.)_ Coo coocoo! Yummyyum, Womwom! _(Warbling.)_ Big
comebig! Pirouette! Leopopold! _(Twittering.)_ Leeolee! _(Warbling.)_ O
Leo!

_(They rustle, flutter upon his garments, alight, bright giddy flecks,
silvery sequins.)_

BLOOM: A man’s touch. Sad music. Church music. Perhaps here.

_(Zoe Higgins, a young whore in a sapphire slip, closed with three
bronze buckles, a slim black velvet fillet round her throat, nods,
trips down the steps and accosts him.)_

ZOE: Are you looking for someone? He’s inside with his friend.

BLOOM: Is this Mrs Mack’s?

ZOE: No, eightyone. Mrs Cohen’s. You might go farther and fare worse.
Mother Slipperslapper. _(Familiarly.)_ She’s on the job herself tonight
with the vet her tipster that gives her all the winners and pays for
her son in Oxford. Working overtime but her luck’s turned today.
_(Suspiciously.)_ You’re not his father, are you?

BLOOM: Not I!

ZOE: You both in black. Has little mousey any tickles tonight?

_(His skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach. A hand glides over
his left thigh.)_

ZOE: How’s the nuts?

BLOOM: Off side. Curiously they are on the right. Heavier, I suppose.
One in a million my tailor, Mesias, says.

ZOE: _(In sudden alarm.)_ You’ve a hard chancre.

BLOOM: Not likely.

ZOE: I feel it.

_(Her hand slides into his left trouser pocket and brings out a hard
black shrivelled potato. She regards it and Bloom with dumb moist
lips.)_

BLOOM: A talisman. Heirloom.

ZOE: For Zoe? For keeps? For being so nice, eh?

_(She puts the potato greedily into a pocket then links his arm,
cuddling him with supple warmth. He smiles uneasily. Slowly, note by
note, oriental music is played. He gazes in the tawny crystal of her
eyes, ringed with kohol. His smile softens.)_

ZOE: You’ll know me the next time.

BLOOM: _(Forlornly.)_ I never loved a dear gazelle but it was sure
to...

_(Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the mountains. Near are lakes. Round
their shores file shadows black of cedargroves. Aroma rises, a strong
hairgrowth of resin. It burns, the orient, a sky of sapphire, cleft by
the bronze flight of eagles. Under it lies the womancity, nude, white,
still, cool, in luxury. A fountain murmurs among damask roses. Mammoth
roses murmur of scarlet winegrapes. A wine of shame, lust, blood
exudes, strangely murmuring.)_

ZOE: _(Murmuring singsong with the music, her odalisk lips lusciously
smeared with salve of swinefat and rosewater.) Schorach ani wenowach,
benoith Hierushaloim._

BLOOM: _(Fascinated.)_ I thought you were of good stock by your accent.

ZOE: And you know what thought did?

_(She bites his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth, sending on
him a cloying breath of stale garlic. The roses draw apart, disclose a
sepulchre of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones.)_

BLOOM: _(Draws back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a flat
awkward hand.)_ Are you a Dublin girl?

ZOE: _(Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to her coil.)_ No
bloody fear. I’m English. Have you a swaggerroot?

BLOOM: _(As before.)_ Rarely smoke, dear. Cigar now and then. Childish
device. _(Lewdly.)_ The mouth can be better engaged than with a
cylinder of rank weed.

ZOE: Go on. Make a stump speech out of it.

BLOOM: _(In workman’s corduroy overalls, black gansy with red floating
tie and apache cap.)_ Mankind is incorrigible. Sir Walter Ralegh
brought from the new world that potato and that weed, the one a killer
of pestilence by absorption, the other a poisoner of the ear, eye,
heart, memory, will, understanding, all. That is to say he brought the
poison a hundred years before another person whose name I forget
brought the food. Suicide. Lies. All our habits. Why, look at our
public life!

_(Midnight chimes from distant steeples.)_

THE CHIMES: Turn again, Leopold! Lord mayor of Dublin!

BLOOM: _(In alderman’s gown and chain.)_ Electors of Arran Quay, Inns
Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline, I say,
from the cattlemarket to the river. That’s the music of the future.
That’s my programme. _Cui bono?_ But our bucaneering Vanderdeckens in
their phantom ship of finance...

AN ELECTOR: Three times three for our future chief magistrate!

_(The aurora borealis of the torchlight procession leaps.)_

THE TORCHBEARERS: Hooray!

_(Several wellknown burgesses, city magnates and freemen of the city
shake hands with Bloom and congratulate him. Timothy Harrington, late
thrice Lord Mayor of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold chain
and white silk tie, confers with councillor Lorcan Sherlock,_ locum
tenens. _They nod vigorously in agreement.)_

LATE LORD MAYOR HARRINGTON: _(In scarlet robe with mace, gold mayoral
chain and large white silk scarf.)_ That alderman sir Leo Bloom’s
speech be printed at the expense of the ratepayers. That the house in
which he was born be ornamented with a commemorative tablet and that
the thoroughfare hitherto known as Cow Parlour off Cork street be
henceforth designated Boulevard Bloom.

COUNCILLOR LORCAN SHERLOCK: Carried unanimously.

BLOOM: _(Impassionedly.)_ These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen as
they recline in their upholstered poop, casting dice, what reck they?
Machines is their cry, their chimera, their panacea. Laboursaving
apparatuses, supplanters, bugbears, manufactured monsters for mutual
murder, hideous hobgoblins produced by a horde of capitalistic lusts
upon our prostituted labour. The poor man starves while they are
grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and
phartridges in their purblind pomp of pelf and power. But their reign
is rover for rever and ever and ev...

_(Prolonged applause. Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring
up. A streamer bearing the legends_ Cead Mile Failte _and_ Mah Ttob
Melek Israel _spans the street. All the windows are thronged with
sightseers, chiefly ladies. Along the route the regiments of the Royal
Dublin Fusiliers, the King’s own Scottish Borderers, the Cameron
Highlanders and the Welsh Fusiliers, standing to attention, keep back
the crowd. Boys from High school are perched on the lampposts,
telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings,
rainspouts, whistling and cheering. The pillar of the cloud appears. A
fife and drum band is heard in the distance playing the Kol Nidre. The
beaters approach with imperial eagles hoisted, trailing banners and
waving oriental palms. The chryselephantine papal standard rises high,
surrounded by pennons of the civic flag. The van of the procession
appears headed by John Howard Parnell, city marshal, in a chessboard
tabard, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms. They are
followed by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of
Dublin, his lordship the lord mayor of Cork, their worships the mayors
of Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Waterford, twentyeight Irish
representative peers, sirdars, grandees and maharajahs bearing the
cloth of estate, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade, the chapter of
the saints of finance in their plutocratic order of precedence, the
bishop of Down and Connor, His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue,
archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, His Grace, the most
reverend Dr William Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all
Ireland, the chief rabbi, the presbyterian moderator, the heads of the
baptist, anabaptist, methodist and Moravian chapels and the honorary
secretary of the society of friends. After them march the guilds and
trades and trainbands with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers,
millwrights, newspaper canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners,
trussmakers, chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers,
farriers, Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack
manufacturers, undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters,
corkcutters, assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export
bottlers, fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse
repository hands, bullion brokers, cricket and archery outfitters,
riddlemakers, egg and potato factors, hosiers and glovers, plumbing
contractors. After them march gentlemen of the bedchamber, Black Rod,
Deputy Garter, Gold Stick, the master of horse, the lord great
chamberlain, the earl marshal, the high constable carrying the sword of
state, saint Stephen’s iron crown, the chalice and bible. Four buglers
on foot blow a sennet. Beefeaters reply, winding clarions of welcome.
Under an arch of triumph Bloom appears, bareheaded, in a crimson velvet
mantle trimmed with ermine, bearing Saint Edward’s staff, the orb and
sceptre with the dove, the curtana. He is seated on a milkwhite horse
with long flowing crimson tail, richly caparisoned, with golden
headstall. Wild excitement. The ladies from their balconies throw down
rosepetals. The air is perfumed with essences. The men cheer. Bloom’s
boys run amid the bystanders with branches of hawthorn and
wrenbushes.)_

BLOOM’S BOYS:

     The wren, the wren,
     The king of all birds,
     Saint Stephen’s his day
     Was caught in the furze.

A BLACKSMITH: _(Murmurs.)_ For the honour of God! And is that Bloom? He
scarcely looks thirtyone.

A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER: That’s the famous Bloom now, the world’s greatest
reformer. Hats off!

_(All uncover their heads. Women whisper eagerly.)_

A MILLIONAIRESS: _(Richly.)_ Isn’t he simply wonderful?

A NOBLEWOMAN: _(Nobly.)_ All that man has seen!

A FEMINIST: _(Masculinely.)_ And done!

A BELLHANGER: A classic face! He has the forehead of a thinker.

_(Bloom’s weather. A sunburst appears in the northwest.)_

THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR: I here present your undoubted
emperor-president and king-chairman, the most serene and potent and
very puissant ruler of this realm. God save Leopold the First!

ALL: God save Leopold the First!

BLOOM: _(In dalmatic and purple mantle, to the bishop of Down and
Connor, with dignity.)_ Thanks, somewhat eminent sir.

WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: _(In purple stock and shovel hat.)_ Will
you to your power cause law and mercy to be executed in all your
judgments in Ireland and territories thereunto belonging?

BLOOM: _(Placing his right hand on his testicles, swears.)_ So may the
Creator deal with me. All this I promise to do.

MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: _(Pours a cruse of hairoil over Bloom’s
head.) Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis. Habemus carneficem._ Leopold,
Patrick, Andrew, David, George, be thou anointed!

_(Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold and puts on a ruby ring. He
ascends and stands on the stone of destiny. The representative peers
put on at the same time their twentyeight crowns. Joybells ring in
Christ church, Saint Patrick’s, George’s and gay Malahide. Mirus bazaar
fireworks go up from all sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic
designs. The peers do homage, one by one, approaching and
genuflecting.)_

THE PEERS: I do become your liege man of life and limb to earthly
worship.

_(Bloom holds up his right hand on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor
diamond. His palfrey neighs. Immediate silence. Wireless
intercontinental and interplanetary transmitters are set for reception
of message.)_

BLOOM: My subjects! We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula
Felix hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we have this day
repudiated our former spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the
princess Selene, the splendour of night.

_(The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the Black
Maria. The princess Selene, in moonblue robes, a silver crescent on her
head, descends from a Sedan chair, borne by two giants. An outburst of
cheering.)_

JOHN HOWARD PARNELL: _(Raises the royal standard.)_ Illustrious Bloom!
Successor to my famous brother!

BLOOM: _(Embraces John Howard Parnell.)_ We thank you from our heart,
John, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the promised land of
our common ancestors.

_(The freedom of the city is presented to him embodied in a charter.
The keys of Dublin, crossed on a crimson cushion, are given to him. He
shows all that he is wearing green socks.)_

TOM KERNAN: You deserve it, your honour.

BLOOM: On this day twenty years ago we overcame the hereditary enemy at
Ladysmith. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with
telling effect. Half a league onward! They charge! All is lost now! Do
we yield? No! We drive them headlong! Lo! We charge! Deploying to the
left our light horse swept across the heights of Plevna and, uttering
their warcry _Bonafide Sabaoth_, sabred the Saracen gunners to a man.

THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS: Hear! Hear!

JOHN WYSE NOLAN: There’s the man that got away James Stephens.

A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY: Bravo!

AN OLD RESIDENT: You’re a credit to your country, sir, that’s what you
are.

AN APPLEWOMAN: He’s a man like Ireland wants.

BLOOM: My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell
you verily it is even now at hand. Yea, on the word of a Bloom, ye
shall ere long enter into the golden city which is to be, the new
Bloomusalem in the Nova Hibernia of the future.

_(Thirtytwo workmen, wearing rosettes, from all the counties of
Ireland, under the guidance of Derwan the builder, construct the new
Bloomusalem. It is a colossal edifice with crystal roof, built in the
shape of a huge pork kidney, containing forty thousand rooms. In the
course of its extension several buildings and monuments are demolished.
Government offices are temporarily transferred to railway sheds.
Numerous houses are razed to the ground. The inhabitants are lodged in
barrels and boxes, all marked in red with the letters: L. B. Several
paupers fall from a ladder. A part of the walls of Dublin, crowded with
loyal sightseers, collapses.)_

THE SIGHTSEERS: _(Dying.) Morituri te salutant. (They die.)_

_(A man in a brown macintosh springs up through a trapdoor. He points
an elongated finger at Bloom.)_

THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH: Don’t you believe a word he says. That man is
Leopold M’Intosh, the notorious fireraiser. His real name is Higgins.

BLOOM: Shoot him! Dog of a christian! So much for M’Intosh!

_(A cannonshot. The man in the macintosh disappears. Bloom with his
sceptre strikes down poppies. The instantaneous deaths of many powerful
enemies, graziers, members of parliament, members of standing
committees, are reported. Bloom’s bodyguard distribute Maundy money,
commemoration medals, loaves and fishes, temperance badges, expensive
Henry Clay cigars, free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives in
sealed envelopes tied with gold thread, butter scotch, pineapple rock,_
billets doux _in the form of cocked hats, readymade suits, porringers
of toad in the hole, bottles of Jeyes’ Fluid, purchase stamps, 40 days’
indulgences, spurious coins, dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes,
season tickets available for all tramlines, coupons of the royal and
privileged Hungarian lottery, penny dinner counters, cheap reprints of
the World’s Twelve Worst Books: Froggy And Fritz (politic), Care of the
Baby (infantilic), 50 Meals for 7/6 (culinic), Was Jesus a Sun Myth?
(historic), Expel that Pain (medic), Infant’s Compendium of the
Universe (cosmic), Let’s All Chortle (hilaric), Canvasser’s Vade Mecum
(journalic), Loveletters of Mother Assistant (erotic), Who’s Who in
Space (astric), Songs that Reached Our Heart (melodic), Pennywise’s Way
to Wealth (parsimonic). A general rush and scramble. Women press
forward to touch the hem of Bloom’s robe. The lady Gwendolen Dubedat
bursts through the throng, leaps on his horse and kisses him on both
cheeks amid great acclamation. A magnesium flashlight photograph is
taken. Babes and sucklings are held up.)_

THE WOMEN: Little father! Little father!

THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS:

     Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home,
     Cakes in his pocket for Leo alone.

_(Bloom, bending down, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the stomach.)_

BABY BOARDMAN: _(Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his mouth.)_
Hajajaja.

BLOOM: _(Shaking hands with a blind stripling.)_ My more than Brother!
_(Placing his arms round the shoulders of an old couple.)_ Dear old
friends! _(He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls.)_
Peep! Bopeep! _(He wheels twins in a perambulator.)_ Ticktacktwo
wouldyousetashoe? _(He performs juggler’s tricks, draws red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet silk handkerchiefs from his
mouth.)_ Roygbiv. 32 feet per second. _(He consoles a widow.)_ Absence
makes the heart grow younger. _(He dances the Highland fling with
grotesque antics.)_ Leg it, ye devils! _(He kisses the bedsores of a
palsied veteran.)_ Honourable wounds! _(He trips up a fat policeman.)_
U. p: up. U. p: up. _(He whispers in the ear of a blushing waitress and
laughs kindly.)_ Ah, naughty, naughty! _(He eats a raw turnip offered
him by Maurice Butterly, farmer.)_ Fine! Splendid! _(He refuses to
accept three shillings offered him by Joseph Hynes, journalist.)_ My
dear fellow, not at all! _(He gives his coat to a beggar.)_ Please
accept. _(He takes part in a stomach race with elderly male and female
cripples.)_ Come on, boys! Wriggle it, girls!

THE CITIZEN: _(Choked with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his emerald
muffler.)_ May the good God bless him!

_(The rams’ horns sound for silence. The standard of Zion is hoisted.)_

BLOOM: _(Uncloaks impressively, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper and
reads solemnly.)_ Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom
Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim
Meshuggah Talith.

_(An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry, assistant town
clerk.)_

JIMMY HENRY: The Court of Conscience is now open. His Most Catholic
Majesty will now administer open air justice. Free medical and legal
advice, solution of doubles and other problems. All cordially invited.
Given at this our loyal city of Dublin in the year 1 of the
Paradisiacal Era.

PADDY LEONARD: What am I to do about my rates and taxes?

BLOOM: Pay them, my friend.

PADDY LEONARD: Thank you.

NOSEY FLYNN: Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance?

BLOOM: _(Obdurately.)_ Sirs, take notice that by the law of torts you
are bound over in your own recognisances for six months in the sum of
five pounds.

J. J. O’MOLLOY: A Daniel did I say? Nay! A Peter O’Brien!

NOSEY FLYNN: Where do I draw the five pounds?

PISSER BURKE: For bladder trouble?

BLOOM:

_Acid. nit. hydrochlor. dil.,_ 20 minims
_Tinct. nux vom.,_ 5 minims
_Extr. taraxel. lig.,_ 30 minims.
_Aq. dis. ter in die._

CHRIS CALLINAN: What is the parallax of the subsolar ecliptic of
Aldebaran?

BLOOM: Pleased to hear from you, Chris. K. 11.

JOE HYNES: Why aren’t you in uniform?

BLOOM: When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the
Austrian despot in a dank prison where was yours?

BEN DOLLARD: Pansies?

BLOOM: Embellish (beautify) suburban gardens.

BEN DOLLARD: When twins arrive?

BLOOM: Father (pater, dad) starts thinking.

LARRY O’ROURKE: An eightday licence for my new premises. You remember
me, sir Leo, when you were in number seven. I’m sending around a dozen
of stout for the missus.

BLOOM: _(Coldly.)_ You have the advantage of me. Lady Bloom accepts no
presents.

CROFTON: This is indeed a festivity.

BLOOM: _(Solemnly.)_ You call it a festivity. I call it a sacrament.

ALEXANDER KEYES: When will we have our own house of keys?

BLOOM: I stand for the reform of municipal morals and the plain ten
commandments. New worlds for old. Union of all, jew, moslem and
gentile. Three acres and a cow for all children of nature. Saloon motor
hearses. Compulsory manual labour for all. All parks open to the public
day and night. Electric dishscrubbers. Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and
mendicancy must now cease. General amnesty, weekly carnival with masked
licence, bonuses for all, esperanto the universal language with
universal brotherhood. No more patriotism of barspongers and dropsical
impostors. Free money, free rent, free love and a free lay church in a
free lay state.

O’MADDEN BURKE: Free fox in a free henroost.

DAVY BYRNE: _(Yawning.)_ Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach!

BLOOM: Mixed races and mixed marriage.

LENEHAN: What about mixed bathing?

_(Bloom explains to those near him his schemes for social regeneration.
All agree with him. The keeper of the Kildare street museum appears,
dragging a lorry on which are the shaking statues of several naked
goddesses, Venus Callipyge, Venus Pandemos, Venus Metempsychosis, and
plaster figures, also naked, representing the new nine muses, Commerce,
Operatic Music, Amor, Publicity, Manufacture, Liberty of Speech, Plural
Voting, Gastronomy, Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments,
Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the People.)_

FATHER FARLEY: He is an episcopalian, an agnostic, an anythingarian
seeking to overthrow our holy faith.

MRS RIORDAN: _(Tears up her will.)_ I’m disappointed in you! You bad
man!

MOTHER GROGAN: _(Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom.)_ You beast!
You abominable person!

NOSEY FLYNN: Give us a tune, Bloom. One of the old sweet songs.

BLOOM: _(With rollicking humour.)_

     I vowed that I never would leave her,
     She turned out a cruel deceiver.
     With my tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom.

HOPPY HOLOHAN: Good old Bloom! There’s nobody like him after all.

PADDY LEONARD: Stage Irishman!

BLOOM: What railway opera is like a tramline in Gibraltar? The Rows of
Casteele.

_(Laughter.)_

LENEHAN: Plagiarist! Down with Bloom!

THE VEILED SIBYL: _(Enthusiastically.)_ I’m a Bloomite and I glory in
it. I believe in him in spite of all. I’d give my life for him, the
funniest man on earth.

BLOOM: _(Winks at the bystanders.)_ I bet she’s a bonny lassie.

THEODORE PUREFOY: _(In fishingcap and oilskin jacket.)_ He employs a
mechanical device to frustrate the sacred ends of nature.

THE VEILED SIBYL: _(Stabs herself.)_ My hero god! _(She dies.)_

_(Many most attractive and enthusiastic women also commit suicide by
stabbing, drowning, drinking prussic acid, aconite, arsenic, opening
their veins, refusing food, casting themselves under steamrollers, from
the top of Nelson’s Pillar, into the great vat of Guinness’s brewery,
asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads in gasovens, hanging
themselves in stylish garters, leaping from windows of different
storeys.)_

ALEXANDER J DOWIE: _(Violently.)_ Fellowchristians and antiBloomites,
the man called Bloom is from the roots of hell, a disgrace to christian
men. A fiendish libertine from his earliest years this stinking goat of
Mendes gave precocious signs of infantile debauchery, recalling the
cities of the plain, with a dissolute granddam. This vile hypocrite,
bronzed with infamy, is the white bull mentioned in the Apocalypse. A
worshipper of the Scarlet Woman, intrigue is the very breath of his
nostrils. The stake faggots and the caldron of boiling oil are for him.
Caliban!

THE MOB: Lynch him! Roast him! He’s as bad as Parnell was. Mr Fox!

_(Mother Grogan throws her boot at Bloom. Several shopkeepers from
upper and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial
value, hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, stale bread,
sheep’s tails, odd pieces of fat.)_

BLOOM: _(Excitedly.)_ This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke
again. By heaven, I am guiltless as the unsunned snow! It was my
brother Henry. He is my double. He lives in number 2 Dolphin’s Barn.
Slander, the viper, has wrongfully accused me. Fellowcountrymen, _sgenl
inn ban bata coisde gan capall._ I call on my old friend, Dr Malachi
Mulligan, sex specialist, to give medical testimony on my behalf.

DR MULLIGAN: _(In motor jerkin, green motorgoggles on his brow.)_ Dr
Bloom is bisexually abnormal. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace’s
private asylum for demented gentlemen. Born out of bedlock hereditary
epilepsy is present, the consequence of unbridled lust. Traces of
elephantiasis have been discovered among his ascendants. There are
marked symptoms of chronic exhibitionism. Ambidexterity is also latent.
He is prematurely bald from selfabuse, perversely idealistic in
consequence, a reformed rake, and has metal teeth. In consequence of a
family complex he has temporarily lost his memory and I believe him to
be more sinned against than sinning. I have made a pervaginal
examination and, after application of the acid test to 5427 anal,
axillary, pectoral and pubic hairs, I declare him to be _virgo
intacta._

_(Bloom holds his high grade hat over his genital organs.)_

DR MADDEN: Hypsospadia is also marked. In the interest of coming
generations I suggest that the parts affected should be preserved in
spirits of wine in the national teratological museum.

DR CROTTHERS: I have examined the patient’s urine. It is albuminoid.
Salivation is insufficient, the patellar reflex intermittent.

DR PUNCH COSTELLO: The _fetor judaicus_ is most perceptible.

DR DIXON: _(Reads a bill of health.)_ Professor Bloom is a finished
example of the new womanly man. His moral nature is simple and lovable.
Many have found him a dear man, a dear person. He is a rather quaint
fellow on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the medical sense.
He has written a really beautiful letter, a poem in itself, to the
court missionary of the Reformed Priests’ Protection Society which
clears up everything. He is practically a total abstainer and I can
affirm that he sleeps on a straw litter and eats the most Spartan food,
cold dried grocer’s peas. He wears a hairshirt of pure Irish
manufacture winter and summer and scourges himself every Saturday. He
was, I understand, at one time a firstclass misdemeanant in Glencree
reformatory. Another report states that he was a very posthumous child.
I appeal for clemency in the name of the most sacred word our vocal
organs have ever been called upon to speak. He is about to have a baby.

_(General commotion and compassion. Women faint. A wealthy American
makes a street collection for Bloom. Gold and silver coins, blank
cheques, banknotes, jewels, treasury bonds, maturing bills of exchange,
I. O. U’s, wedding rings, watchchains, lockets, necklaces and bracelets
are rapidly collected.)_

BLOOM: O, I so want to be a mother.

MRS THORNTON: _(In nursetender’s gown.)_ Embrace me tight, dear. You’ll
be soon over it. Tight, dear.

_(Bloom embraces her tightly and bears eight male yellow and white
children. They appear on a redcarpeted staircase adorned with expensive
plants. All the octuplets are handsome, with valuable metallic faces,
wellmade, respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking five modern
languages fluently and interested in various arts and sciences. Each
has his name printed in legible letters on his shirtfront: Nasodoro,
Goldfinger, Chrysostomos, Maindorée, Silversmile, Silberselber,
Vifargent, Panargyros. They are immediately appointed to positions of
high public trust in several different countries as managing directors
of banks, traffic managers of railways, chairmen of limited liability
companies, vicechairmen of hotel syndicates.)_

A VOICE: Bloom, are you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David?

BLOOM: _(Darkly.)_ You have said it.

BROTHER BUZZ: Then perform a miracle like Father Charles.

BANTAM LYONS: Prophesy who will win the Saint Leger.

_(Bloom walks on a net, covers his left eye with his left ear, passes
through several walls, climbs Nelson’s Pillar, hangs from the top ledge
by his eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters (shells included), heals
several sufferers from king’s evil, contracts his face so as to
resemble many historical personages, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron, Wat
Tyler, Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry
Irving, Rip van Winkle, Kossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold
Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot
simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back,
eclipses the sun by extending his little finger.)_

BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO: _(In papal zouave’s uniform, steel cuirasses as
breastplate, armplates, thighplates, legplates, large profane
moustaches and brown paper mitre.) Leopoldi autem generatio._ Moses
begat Noah and Noah begat Eunuch and Eunuch begat O’Halloran and
O’Halloran begat Guggenheim and Guggenheim begat Agendath and Agendath
begat Netaim and Netaim begat Le Hirsch and Le Hirsch begat Jesurum and
Jesurum begat MacKay and MacKay begat Ostrolopsky and Ostrolopsky begat
Smerdoz and Smerdoz begat Weiss and Weiss begat Schwarz and Schwarz
begat Adrianopoli and Adrianopoli begat Aranjuez and Aranjuez begat
Lewy Lawson and Lewy Lawson begat Ichabudonosor and Ichabudonosor begat
O’Donnell Magnus and O’Donnell Magnus begat Christbaum and Christbaum
begat ben Maimun and ben Maimun begat Dusty Rhodes and Dusty Rhodes
begat Benamor and Benamor begat Jones-Smith and Jones-Smith begat
Savorgnanovich and Savorgnanovich begat Jasperstone and Jasperstone
begat Vingtetunieme and Vingtetunieme begat Szombathely and Szombathely
begat Virag and Virag begat Bloom _et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel._

A DEADHAND: _(Writes on the wall.)_ Bloom is a cod.

CRAB: _(In bushranger’s kit.)_ What did you do in the cattlecreep
behind Kilbarrack?

A FEMALE INFANT: _(Shakes a rattle.)_ And under Ballybough bridge?

A HOLLYBUSH: And in the devil’s glen?

BLOOM: _(Blushes furiously all over from frons to nates, three tears
falling from his left eye.)_ Spare my past.

THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS: _(In bodycoats, kneebreeches, with
Donnybrook fair shillelaghs.)_ Sjambok him!

_(Bloom with asses’ ears seats himself in the pillory with crossed
arms, his feet protruding. He whistles_ Don Giovanni, a cenar teco.
_Artane orphans, joining hands, caper round him. Girls of the Prison
Gate Mission, joining hands, caper round in the opposite direction.)_

THE ARTANE ORPHANS:

     You hig, you hog, you dirty dog!
     You think the ladies love you!

 THE PRISON GATE GIRLS:

     If you see Kay
     Tell him he may
     See you in tea
     Tell him from me.

HORNBLOWER: _(In ephod and huntingcap, announces.)_ And he shall carry
the sins of the people to Azazel, the spirit which is in the
wilderness, and to Lilith, the nighthag. And they shall stone him and
defile him, yea, all from Agendath Netaim and from Mizraim, the land of
Ham.

_(All the people cast soft pantomime stones at Bloom. Many bonafide
travellers and ownerless dogs come near him and defile him. Mastiansky
and Citron approach in gaberdines, wearing long earlocks. They wag
their beards at Bloom.)_

MASTIANSKY AND CITRON: Belial! Laemlein of Istria, the false Messiah!
Abulafia! Recant!

_(George R Mesias, Bloom’s tailor, appears, a tailor’s goose under his
arm, presenting a bill.)_

MESIAS: To alteration one pair trousers eleven shillings.

BLOOM: _(Rubs his hands cheerfully.)_ Just like old times. Poor Bloom!

_(Reuben J Dodd, blackbearded Iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing on his
shoulders the drowned corpse of his son, approaches the pillory.)_

REUBEN J: _(Whispers hoarsely.)_ The squeak is out. A split is gone for
the flatties. Nip the first rattler.

THE FIRE BRIGADE: Pflaap!

BROTHER BUZZ: _(Invests Bloom in a yellow habit with embroidery of
painted flames and high pointed hat. He places a bag of gunpowder round
his neck and hands him over to the civil power, saying.)_ Forgive him
his trespasses.

_(Lieutenant Myers of the Dublin Fire Brigade by general request sets
fire to Bloom. Lamentations.)_

THE CITIZEN: Thank heaven!

BLOOM: _(In a seamless garment marked I. H. S. stands upright amid
phoenix flames.)_ Weep not for me, O daughters of Erin.

_(He exhibits to Dublin reporters traces of burning. The daughters of
Erin, in black garments, with large prayerbooks and long lighted
candles in their hands, kneel down and pray.)_

THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIN:

     Kidney of Bloom, pray for us
     Flower of the Bath, pray for us
     Mentor of Menton, pray for us
     Canvasser for the Freeman, pray for us
     Charitable Mason, pray for us
     Wandering Soap, pray for us
     Sweets of Sin, pray for us
     Music without Words, pray for us
     Reprover of the Citizen, pray for us
     Friend of all Frillies, pray for us
     Midwife Most Merciful, pray for us
     Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us.

_(A choir of six hundred voices, conducted by Vincent O’Brien, sings
the chorus from Handel’s Messiah_ Alleluia for the Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth, _accompanied on the organ by Joseph Glynn. Bloom becomes
mute, shrunken, carbonised.)_

ZOE: Talk away till you’re black in the face.

BLOOM: _(In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in the band, dusty brogues, an
emigrant’s red handkerchief bundle in his hand, leading a black bogoak
pig by a sugaun, with a smile in his eye.)_ Let me be going now, woman
of the house, for by all the goats in Connemara I’m after having the
father and mother of a bating. _(With a tear in his eye.)_ All
insanity. Patriotism, sorrow for the dead, music, future of the race.
To be or not to be. Life’s dream is o’er. End it peacefully. They can
live on. _(He gazes far away mournfully.)_ I am ruined. A few pastilles
of aconite. The blinds drawn. A letter. Then lie back to rest. _(He
breathes softly.)_ No more. I have lived. Fare. Farewell.

ZOE: _(Stiffly, her finger in her neckfillet.)_ Honest? Till the next
time. _(She sneers.)_ Suppose you got up the wrong side of the bed or
came too quick with your best girl. O, I can read your thoughts!

BLOOM: _(Bitterly.)_ Man and woman, love, what is it? A cork and
bottle. I’m sick of it. Let everything rip.

ZOE: _(In sudden sulks.)_ I hate a rotter that’s insincere. Give a
bleeding whore a chance.

BLOOM: _(Repentantly.)_ I am very disagreeable. You are a necessary
evil. Where are you from? London?

ZOE: _(Glibly.)_ Hog’s Norton where the pigs plays the organs. I’m
Yorkshire born. _(She holds his hand which is feeling for her nipple.)_
I say, Tommy Tittlemouse. Stop that and begin worse. Have you cash for
a short time? Ten shillings?

BLOOM: _(Smiles, nods slowly.)_ More, houri, more.

ZOE: And more’s mother? _(She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws.)_
Are you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola? Come and I’ll
peel off.

BLOOM: _(Feeling his occiput dubiously with the unparalleled
embarrassment of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her peeled
pears.)_ Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she knew. The
greeneyed monster. _(Earnestly.)_ You know how difficult it is. I
needn’t tell you.

ZOE: _(Flattered.)_ What the eye can’t see the heart can’t grieve for.
_(She pats him.)_ Come.

BLOOM: Laughing witch! The hand that rocks the cradle.

ZOE: Babby!

BLOOM: _(In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with a caul of dark hair,
fixes big eyes on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles with a
chubby finger, his moist tongue lolling and lisping.)_ One two tlee:
tlee tlwo tlone.

THE BUCKLES: Love me. Love me not. Love me.

ZOE: Silent means consent. _(With little parted talons she captures his
hand, her forefinger giving to his palm the passtouch of secret
monitor, luring him to doom.)_ Hot hands cold gizzard.

_(He hesitates amid scents, music, temptations. She leads him towards
the steps, drawing him by the odour of her armpits, the vice of her
painted eyes, the rustle of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the
lion reek of all the male brutes that have possessed her.)_

THE MALE BRUTES: _(Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in
their loosebox, faintly roaring, their drugged heads swaying to and
fro.)_ Good!

_(Zoe and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated.
They examine him curiously from under their pencilled brows and smile
to his hasty bow. He trips awkwardly.)_

ZOE: _(Her lucky hand instantly saving him.)_ Hoopsa! Don’t fall
upstairs.

BLOOM: The just man falls seven times. _(He stands aside at the
threshold.)_ After you is good manners.

ZOE: Ladies first, gentlemen after.

_(She crosses the threshold. He hesitates. She turns and, holding out
her hands, draws him over. He hops. On the antlered rack of the hall
hang a man’s hat and waterproof. Bloom uncovers himself but, seeing
them, frowns, then smiles, preoccupied. A door on the return landing is
flung open. A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, brownsocked,
passes with an ape’s gait, his bald head and goatee beard upheld,
hugging a full waterjugjar, his twotailed black braces dangling at
heels. Averting his face quickly Bloom bends to examine on the
halltable the spaniel eyes of a running fox: then, his lifted head
sniffing, follows Zoe into the musicroom. A shade of mauve tissuepaper
dims the light of the chandelier. Round and round a moth flies,
colliding, escaping. The floor is covered with an oilcloth mosaic of
jade and azure and cinnabar rhomboids. Footmarks are stamped over it in
all senses, heel to heel, heel to hollow, toe to toe, feet locked, a
morris of shuffling feet without body phantoms, all in a scrimmage
higgledypiggledy. The walls are tapestried with a paper of yewfronds
and clear glades. In the grate is spread a screen of peacock feathers.
Lynch squats crosslegged on the hearthrug of matted hair, his cap back
to the front. With a wand he beats time slowly. Kitty Ricketts, a bony
pallid whore in navy costume, doeskin gloves rolled back from a coral
wristlet, a chain purse in her hand, sits perched on the edge of the
table swinging her leg and glancing at herself in the gilt mirror over
the mantelpiece. A tag of her corsetlace hangs slightly below her
jacket. Lynch indicates mockingly the couple at the piano.)_

KITTY: _(Coughs behind her hand.)_ She’s a bit imbecillic. _(She signs
with a waggling forefinger.)_ Blemblem. _(Lynch lifts up her skirt and
white petticoat with the wand. She settles them down quickly.)_ Respect
yourself. _(She hiccups, then bends quickly her sailor hat under which
her hair glows, red with henna.)_ O, excuse!

ZOE: More limelight, Charley. _(She goes to the chandelier and turns
the gas full cock.)_

KITTY: _(Peers at the gasjet.)_ What ails it tonight?

LYNCH: _(Deeply.)_ Enter a ghost and hobgoblins.

ZOE: Clap on the back for Zoe.

_(The wand in Lynch’s hand flashes: a brass poker. Stephen stands at
the pianola on which sprawl his hat and ashplant. With two fingers he
repeats once more the series of empty fifths. Florry Talbot, a blond
feeble goosefat whore in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry,
lolls spreadeagle in the sofacorner, her limp forearm pendent over the
bolster, listening. A heavy stye droops over her sleepy eyelid.)_

KITTY: _(Hiccups again with a kick of her horsed foot.)_ O, excuse!

ZOE: _(Promptly.)_ Your boy’s thinking of you. Tie a knot on your
shift.

_(Kitty Ricketts bends her head. Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over
her shoulder, back, arm, chair to the ground. Lynch lifts the curled
catterpillar on his wand. She snakes her neck, nestling. Stephen
glances behind at the squatted figure with its cap back to the front.)_

STEPHEN: As a matter of fact it is of no importance whether Benedetto
Marcello found it or made it. The rite is the poet’s rest. It may be an
old hymn to Demeter or also illustrate _Cœla enarrant gloriam Domini._
It is susceptible of nodes or modes as far apart as hyperphrygian and
mixolydian and of texts so divergent as priests haihooping round
David’s that is Circe’s or what am I saying Ceres’ altar and David’s
tip from the stable to his chief bassoonist about the alrightness of
his almightiness. _Mais nom de nom,_ that is another pair of trousers.
_Jetez la gourme. Faut que jeunesse se passe. (He stops, points at
Lynch’s cap, smiles, laughs.)_ Which side is your knowledge bump?

THE CAP: _(With saturnine spleen.)_ Bah! It is because it is. Woman’s
reason. Jewgreek is greekjew. Extremes meet. Death is the highest form
of life. Bah!

STEPHEN: You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts,
mistakes. How long shall I continue to close my eyes to disloyalty?
Whetstone!

THE CAP: Bah!

STEPHEN: Here’s another for you. _(He frowns.)_ The reason is because
the fundamental and the dominant are separated by the greatest possible
interval which...

THE CAP: Which? Finish. You can’t.

STEPHEN: _(With an effort.)_ Interval which. Is the greatest possible
ellipse. Consistent with. The ultimate return. The octave. Which.

THE CAP: Which?

_(Outside the gramophone begins to blare_ The Holy City.)

STEPHEN: _(Abruptly.)_ What went forth to the ends of the world to
traverse not itself, God, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller,
having itself traversed in reality itself becomes that self. Wait a
moment. Wait a second. Damn that fellow’s noise in the street. Self
which it itself was ineluctably preconditioned to become. _Ecco!_

LYNCH: _(With a mocking whinny of laughter grins at Bloom and Zoe
Higgins.)_ What a learned speech, eh?

ZOE: _(Briskly.)_ God help your head, he knows more than you have
forgotten.

_(With obese stupidity Florry Talbot regards Stephen.)_

FLORRY: They say the last day is coming this summer.

KITTY: No!

ZOE: _(Explodes in laughter.)_ Great unjust God!

FLORRY: _(Offended.)_ Well, it was in the papers about Antichrist. O,
my foot’s tickling.

_(Ragged barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past,
yelling.)_

THE NEWSBOYS: Stop press edition. Result of the rockinghorse races. Sea
serpent in the royal canal. Safe arrival of Antichrist.

_(Stephen turns and sees Bloom.)_

STEPHEN: A time, times and half a time.

_(Reuben J Antichrist, wandering jew, a clutching hand open on his
spine, stumps forward. Across his loins is slung a pilgrim’s wallet
from which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills. Aloft over
his shoulder he bears a long boatpole from the hook of which the sodden
huddled mass of his only son, saved from Liffey waters, hangs from the
slack of its breeches. A hobgoblin in the image of Punch Costello,
hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead
and Ally Sloper nose, tumbles in somersaults through the gathering
darkness.)_

ALL: What?

THE HOBGOBLIN: _(His jaws chattering, capers to and fro, goggling his
eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping with outstretched clutching arms, then
all at once thrusts his lipless face through the fork of his thighs.)
Il vient! C’est moi! L’homme qui rit! L’homme primigène! (He whirls
round and round with dervish howls.) Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux!
(He crouches juggling. Tiny roulette planets fly from his hands.) Les
jeux sont faits! (The planets rush together, uttering crepitant
cracks.) Rien va plus! (The planets, buoyant balloons, sail swollen up
and away. He springs off into vacuum.)_

FLORRY: _(Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly.)_ The end of
the world!

_(A female tepid effluvium leaks out from her. Nebulous obscurity
occupies space. Through the drifting fog without the gramophone blares
over coughs and feetshuffling.)_

THE GRAMOPHONE:

     Jerusalem!
     Open your gates and sing
     Hosanna...

_(A rocket rushes up the sky and bursts. A white star falls from it,
proclaiming the consummation of all things and second coming of Elijah.
Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the End
of the World, a twoheaded octopus in gillie’s kilts, busby and tartan
filibegs, whirls through the murk, head over heels, in the form of the
Three Legs of Man.)_

THE END OF THE WORLD: _(With a Scotch accent.)_ Wha’ll dance the keel
row, the keel row, the keel row?

_(Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah’s voice,
harsh as a corncrake’s, jars on high. Perspiring in a loose lawn
surplice with funnel sleeves he is seen, vergerfaced, above a rostrum
about which the banner of old glory is draped. He thumps the parapet.)_

ELIJAH: No yapping, if you please, in this booth. Jake Crane, Creole
Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths
shut. Say, I am operating all this trunk line. Boys, do it now. God’s
time is 12.25. Tell mother you’ll be there. Rush your order and you
play a slick ace. Join on right here. Book through to eternity
junction, the nonstop run. Just one word more. Are you a god or a
doggone clod? If the second advent came to Coney Island are we ready?
Florry Christ, Stephen Christ, Zoe Christ, Bloom Christ, Kitty Christ,
Lynch Christ, it’s up to you to sense that cosmic force. Have we cold
feet about the cosmos? No. Be on the side of the angels. Be a prism.
You have that something within, the higher self. You can rub shoulders
with a Jesus, a Gautama, an Ingersoll. Are you all in this vibration? I
say you are. You once nobble that, congregation, and a buck joyride to
heaven becomes a back number. You got me? It’s a lifebrightener, sure.
The hottest stuff ever was. It’s the whole pie with jam in. It’s just
the cutest snappiest line out. It is immense, supersumptuous. It
restores. It vibrates. I know and I am some vibrator. Joking apart and,
getting down to bedrock, A. J. Christ Dowie and the harmonial
philosophy, have you got that? O. K. Seventyseven west sixtyninth
street. Got me? That’s it. You call me up by sunphone any old time.
Bumboosers, save your stamps. _(He shouts.)_ Now then our glory song.
All join heartily in the singing. Encore! _(He sings.)_ Jeru...

THE GRAMOPHONE: _(Drowning his voice.)_ Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh...
_(The disc rasps gratingly against the needle.)_

THE THREE WHORES: _(Covering their ears, squawk.)_ Ahhkkk!

ELIJAH: _(In rolledup shirtsleeves, black in the face, shouts at the
top of his voice, his arms uplifted.)_ Big Brother up there, Mr
President, you hear what I done just been saying to you. Certainly, I
sort of believe strong in you, Mr President. I certainly am thinking
now Miss Higgins and Miss Ricketts got religion way inside them.
Certainly seems to me I don’t never see no wusser scared female than
the way you been, Miss Florry, just now as I done seed you. Mr
President, you come long and help me save our sisters dear. _(He winks
at his audience.)_ Our Mr President, he twig the whole lot and he aint
saying nothing.

KITTY-KATE: I forgot myself. In a weak moment I erred and did what I
did on Constitution hill. I was confirmed by the bishop and enrolled in
the brown scapular. My mother’s sister married a Montmorency. It was a
working plumber was my ruination when I was pure.

ZOE-FANNY: I let him larrup it into me for the fun of it.

FLORRY-TERESA: It was in consequence of a portwine beverage on top of
Hennessy’s three star. I was guilty with Whelan when he slipped into
the bed.

STEPHEN: In the beginning was the word, in the end the world without
end. Blessed be the eight beatitudes.

_(The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lenehan, Bannon,
Mulligan and Lynch in white surgical students’ gowns, four abreast,
goosestepping, tramp fast past in noisy marching.)_

THE BEATITUDES: _(Incoherently.)_ Beer beef battledog buybull businum
barnum buggerum bishop.

LYSTER: _(In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, says
discreetly.)_ He is our friend. I need not mention names. Seek thou the
light.

_(He corantos by. Best enters in hairdresser’s attire, shinily
laundered, his locks in curlpapers. He leads John Eglinton who wears a
mandarin’s kimono of Nankeen yellow, lizardlettered, and a high pagoda
hat.)_

BEST: _(Smiling, lifts the hat and displays a shaven poll from the
crown of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with an orange topknot.)_
I was just beautifying him, don’t you know. A thing of beauty, don’t
you know, Yeats says, or I mean, Keats says.

JOHN EGLINTON: _(Produces a greencapped dark lantern and flashes it
towards a corner: with carping accent.)_ Esthetics and cosmetics are
for the boudoir. I am out for truth. Plain truth for a plain man.
Tanderagee wants the facts and means to get them.

_(In the cone of the searchlight behind the coalscuttle, ollave,
holyeyed, the bearded figure of Mananaun MacLir broods, chin on knees.
He rises slowly. A cold seawind blows from his druid mouth. About his
head writhe eels and elvers. He is encrusted with weeds and shells. His
right hand holds a bicycle pump. His left hand grasps a huge crayfish
by its two talons.)_

MANANAUN MACLIR: _(With a voice of waves.)_ Aum! Hek! Wal! Ak! Lub!
Mor! Ma! White yoghin of the gods. Occult pimander of Hermes
Trismegistos. _(With a voice of whistling seawind.)_ Punarjanam
patsypunjaub! I won’t have my leg pulled. It has been said by one:
beware the left, the cult of Shakti. _(With a cry of stormbirds.)_
Shakti Shiva, darkhidden Father! _(He smites with his bicycle pump the
crayfish in his left hand. On its cooperative dial glow the twelve
signs of the zodiac. He wails with the vehemence of the ocean.)_ Aum!
Baum! Pyjaum! I am the light of the homestead! I am the dreamery
creamery butter.

_(A skeleton judashand strangles the light. The green light wanes to
mauve. The gasjet wails whistling.)_

THE GASJET: Pooah! Pfuiiiiiii!

_(Zoe runs to the chandelier and, crooking her leg, adjusts the
mantle.)_

ZOE: Who has a fag as I’m here?

LYNCH: _(Tossing a cigarette on to the table.)_ Here.

ZOE: _(Her head perched aside in mock pride.)_ Is that the way to hand
the _pot_ to a lady? _(She stretches up to light the cigarette over the
flame, twirling it slowly, showing the brown tufts of her armpits.
Lynch with his poker lifts boldly a side of her slip. Bare from her
garters up her flesh appears under the sapphire a nixie’s green. She
puffs calmly at her cigarette.)_ Can you see the beautyspot of my
behind?

LYNCH: I’m not looking

ZOE: _(Makes sheep’s eyes.)_ No? You wouldn’t do a less thing. Would
you suck a lemon?

_(Squinting in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at Bloom,
then twists round towards him, pulling her slip free of the poker. Blue
fluid again flows over her flesh. Bloom stands, smiling desirously,
twirling his thumbs. Kitty Ricketts licks her middle finger with her
spittle and, gazing in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows. Lipoti Virag,
basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the chimneyflue and
struts two steps to the left on gawky pink stilts. He is sausaged into
several overcoats and wears a brown macintosh under which he holds a
roll of parchment. In his left eye flashes the monocle of Cashel Boyle
O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell. On his head is perched an
Egyptian pshent. Two quills project over his ears.)_

VIRAG: _(Heels together, bows.)_ My name is Virag Lipoti, of
Szombathely. _(He coughs thoughtfully, drily.)_ Promiscuous nakedness
is much in evidence hereabouts, eh? Inadvertently her backview revealed
the fact that she is not wearing those rather intimate garments of
which you are a particular devotee. The injection mark on the thigh I
hope you perceived? Good.

BLOOM: Granpapachi. But...

VIRAG: Number two on the other hand, she of the cherry rouge and
coiffeuse white, whose hair owes not a little to our tribal elixir of
gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I
should opine. Backbone in front, so to say. Correct me but I always
understood that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses
of lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity.
In a word. Hippogriff. Am I right?

BLOOM: She is rather lean.

VIRAG: _(Not unpleasantly.)_ Absolutely! Well observed and those
pannier pockets of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to
suggest bunchiness of hip. A new purchase at some monster sale for
which a gull has been mulcted. Meretricious finery to deceive the eye.
Observe the attention to details of dustspecks. Never put on you
tomorrow what you can wear today. Parallax! _(With a nervous twitch of
his head.)_ Did you hear my brain go snap? Pollysyllabax!

BLOOM: _(An elbow resting in a hand, a forefinger against his cheek.)_
She seems sad.

VIRAG: _(Cynically, his weasel teeth bared yellow, draws down his left
eye with a finger and barks hoarsely.)_ Hoax! Beware of the flapper and
bogus mournful. Lily of the alley. All possess bachelor’s button
discovered by Rualdus Columbus. Tumble her. Columble her. Chameleon.
_(More genially.)_ Well then, permit me to draw your attention to item
number three. There is plenty of her visible to the naked eye. Observe
the mass of oxygenated vegetable matter on her skull. What ho, she
bumps! The ugly duckling of the party, longcasted and deep in keel.

BLOOM: _(Regretfully.)_ When you come out without your gun.

VIRAG: We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. Pay your
money, take your choice. How happy could you be with either...

BLOOM: With...?

VIRAG: _(His tongue upcurling.)_ Lyum! Look. Her beam is broad. She is
coated with quite a considerable layer of fat. Obviously mammal in
weight of bosom you remark that she has in front well to the fore two
protuberances of very respectable dimensions, inclined to fall in the
noonday soupplate, while on her rere lower down are two additional
protuberances, suggestive of potent rectum and tumescent for palpation,
which leave nothing to be desired save compactness. Such fleshy parts
are the product of careful nurture. When coopfattened their livers
reach an elephantine size. Pellets of new bread with fennygreek and
gumbenjamin swamped down by potions of green tea endow them during
their brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal
blubber. That suits your book, eh? Fleshhotpots of Egypt to hanker
after. Wallow in it. Lycopodium. _(His throat twitches.)_ Slapbang!
There he goes again.

BLOOM: The stye I dislike.

VIRAG: _(Arches his eyebrows.)_ Contact with a goldring, they say.
_Argumentum ad feminam_, as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece in
the consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyosauros. For the rest Eve’s
sovereign remedy. Not for sale. Hire only. Huguenot. _(He twitches.)_
It is a funny sound. _(He coughs encouragingly.)_ But possibly it is
only a wart. I presume you shall have remembered what I will have
taught you on that head? Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg.

BLOOM: _(Reflecting.)_ Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax. This
searching ordeal. It has been an unusually fatiguing day, a chapter of
accidents. Wait. I mean, wartsblood spreads warts, you said...

VIRAG: _(Severely, his nose hardhumped, his side eye winking.)_ Stop
twirling your thumbs and have a good old thunk. See, you have
forgotten. Exercise your mnemotechnic. _La causa è santa_. Tara. Tara.
_(Aside.)_ He will surely remember.

BLOOM: Rosemary also did I understand you to say or willpower over
parasitic tissues. Then nay no I have an inkling. The touch of a
deadhand cures. Mnemo?

VIRAG: _(Excitedly.)_ I say so. I say so. E’en so. Technic. _(He taps
his parchmentroll energetically.)_ This book tells you how to act with
all descriptive particulars. Consult index for agitated fear of
aconite, melancholy of muriatic, priapic pulsatilla. Virag is going to
talk about amputation. Our old friend caustic. They must be starved.
Snip off with horsehair under the denned neck. But, to change the venue
to the Bulgar and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you
like or dislike women in male habiliments? _(With a dry snigger.)_ You
intended to devote an entire year to the study of the religious problem
and the summer months of 1886 to square the circle and win that
million. Pomegranate! From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.
Pyjamas, let us say? Or stockingette gussetted knickers, closed? Or,
put we the case, those complicated combinations, camiknickers? _(He
crows derisively.)_ Keekeereekee!

_(Bloom surveys uncertainly the three whores then gazes at the veiled
mauve light, hearing the everflying moth.)_

BLOOM: I wanted then to have now concluded. Nightdress was never. Hence
this. But tomorrow is a new day will be. Past was is today. What now is
will then morrow as now was be past yester.

VIRAG: _(Prompts in a pig’s whisper.)_ Insects of the day spend their
brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the smell of the
inferiorly pulchritudinous female possessing extendified pudendal nerve
in dorsal region. Pretty Poll! _(His yellow parrotbeak gabbles
nasally.)_ They had a proverb in the Carpathians in or about the year
five thousand five hundred and fifty of our era. One tablespoonful of
honey will attract friend Bruin more than half a dozen barrels of first
choice malt vinegar. Bear’s buzz bothers bees. But of this apart. At
another time we may resume. We were very pleased, we others. _(He
coughs and, bending his brow, rubs his nose thoughtfully with a
scooping hand.)_ You shall find that these night insects follow the
light. An illusion for remember their complex unadjustable eye. For all
these knotty points see the seventeenth book of my Fundamentals of
Sexology or the Love Passion which Doctor L. B. says is the book
sensation of the year. Some, to example, there are again whose
movements are automatic. Perceive. That is his appropriate sun.
Nightbird nightsun nighttown. Chase me, Charley! _(He blows into
Bloom’s ear.)_ Buzz!

BLOOM: Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed
self then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I...

VIRAG: _(His face impassive, laughs in a rich feminine key.)_ Splendid!
Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble. _(He gobbles
gluttonously with turkey wattles.)_ Bubbly jock! Bubbly jock! Where are
we? Open Sesame! Cometh forth! _(He unrolls his parchment rapidly and
reads, his glowworm’s nose running backwards over the letters which he
claws.)_ Stay, good friend. I bring thee thy answer. Redbank oysters
will shortly be upon us. I’m the best o’cook. Those succulent bivalves
may help us and the truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through
mister omnivorous porker, were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility
or viragitis. Though they stink yet they sting. _(He wags his head with
cackling raillery.)_ Jocular. With my eyeglass in my ocular. _(He
sneezes.)_ Amen!

BLOOM: _(Absently.)_ Ocularly woman’s bivalve case is worse. Always
open sesame. The cloven sex. Why they fear vermin, creeping things. Yet
Eve and the serpent contradicts. Not a historical fact. Obvious analogy
to my idea. Serpents too are gluttons for woman’s milk. Wind their way
through miles of omnivorous forest to sucksucculent her breast dry.
Like those bubblyjocular Roman matrons one reads of in Elephantuliasis.

VIRAG: _(His mouth projected in hard wrinkles, eyes stonily forlornly
closed, psalms in outlandish monotone.)_ That the cows with their those
distended udders that they have been the the known...

BLOOM: I am going to scream. I beg your pardon. Ah? So. _(He repeats.)_
Spontaneously to seek out the saurian’s lair in order to entrust their
teats to his avid suction. Ant milks aphis. _(Profoundly.)_ Instinct
rules the world. In life. In death.

VIRAG: _(Head askew, arches his back and hunched wingshoulders, peers
at the moth out of blear bulged eyes, points a horning claw and
cries.)_ Who’s moth moth? Who’s dear Gerald? Dear Ger, that you? O
dear, he is Gerald. O, I much fear he shall be most badly burned. Will
some pleashe pershon not now impediment so catastrophics mit agitation
of firstclass tablenumpkin? _(He mews.)_ Puss puss puss puss! _(He
sighs, draws back and stares sideways down with dropping underjaw.)_
Well, well. He doth rest anon. (He snaps his jaws suddenly on the air.)

THE MOTH:

     I’m a tiny tiny thing
     Ever flying in the spring
     Round and round a ringaring.
     Long ago I was a king
     Now I do this kind of thing
     On the wing, on the wing!
     Bing!

_(He rushes against the mauve shade, flapping noisily.)_ Pretty pretty
pretty pretty pretty pretty petticoats.

_(From left upper entrance with two gliding steps Henry Flower comes
forward to left front centre. He wears a dark mantle and drooping
plumed sombrero. He carries a silverstringed inlaid dulcimer and a
longstemmed bamboo Jacob’s pipe, its clay bowl fashioned as a female
head. He wears dark velvet hose and silverbuckled pumps. He has the
romantic Saviour’s face with flowing locks, thin beard and moustache.
His spindlelegs and sparrow feet are those of the tenor Mario, prince
of Candia. He settles down his goffered ruffs and moistens his lips
with a passage of his amorous tongue.)_

HENRY: _(In a low dulcet voice, touching the strings of his guitar.)_
There is a flower that bloometh.

_(Virag truculent, his jowl set, stares at the lamp. Grave Bloom
regards Zoe’s neck. Henry gallant turns with pendant dewlap to the
piano.)_

STEPHEN: _(To himself.)_ Play with your eyes shut. Imitate pa. Filling
my belly with husks of swine. Too much of this. I will arise and go to
my. Expect this is the. Steve, thou art in a parlous way. Must visit
old Deasy or telegraph. Our interview of this morning has left on me a
deep impression. Though our ages. Will write fully tomorrow. I’m
partially drunk, by the way. _(He touches the keys again.)_ Minor chord
comes now. Yes. Not much however.

_(Almidano Artifoni holds out a batonroll of music with vigorous
moustachework.)_

ARTIFONI: _Ci rifletta. Lei rovina tutto._

FLORRY: Sing us something. Love’s old sweet song.

STEPHEN: No voice. I am a most finished artist. Lynch, did I show you
the letter about the lute?

FLORRY: _(Smirking.)_ The bird that can sing and won’t sing.

_(The Siamese twins, Philip Drunk and Philip Sober, two Oxford dons
with lawnmowers, appear in the window embrasure. Both are masked with
Matthew Arnold’s face.)_

PHILIP SOBER: Take a fool’s advice. All is not well. Work it out with
the buttend of a pencil, like a good young idiot. Three pounds twelve
you got, two notes, one sovereign, two crowns, if youth but knew.
Mooney’s en ville, Mooney’s sur mer, the Moira, Larchet’s, Holles
street hospital, Burke’s. Eh? I am watching you.

PHILIP DRUNK: _(Impatiently.)_ Ah, bosh, man. Go to hell! I paid my
way. If I could only find out about octaves. Reduplication of
personality. Who was it told me his name? _(His lawnmower begins to
purr.)_ Aha, yes. _Zoe mou sas agapo_. Have a notion I was here before.
When was it not Atkinson his card I have somewhere. Mac Somebody.
Unmack I have it. He told me about, hold on, Swinburne, was it, no?

FLORRY: And the song?

STEPHEN: Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

FLORRY: Are you out of Maynooth? You’re like someone I knew once.

STEPHEN: Out of it now. _(To himself.)_ Clever.

PHILIP DRUNK AND PHILIP SOBER: _(Their lawnmowers purring with a
rigadoon of grasshalms.)_ Clever ever. Out of it out of it. By the bye
have you the book, the thing, the ashplant? Yes, there it, yes.
Cleverever outofitnow. Keep in condition. Do like us.

ZOE: There was a priest down here two nights ago to do his bit of
business with his coat buttoned up. You needn’t try to hide, I says to
him. I know you’ve a Roman collar.

VIRAG: Perfectly logical from his standpoint. Fall of man. _(Harshly,
his pupils waxing.)_ To hell with the pope! Nothing new under the sun.
I am the Virag who disclosed the Sex Secrets of Monks and Maidens. Why
I left the church of Rome. Read the Priest, the Woman and the
Confessional. Penrose. Flipperty Jippert. _(He wriggles.)_ Woman,
undoing with sweet pudor her belt of rushrope, offers her allmoist yoni
to man’s lingam. Short time after man presents woman with pieces of
jungle meat. Woman shows joy and covers herself with featherskins. Man
loves her yoni fiercely with big lingam, the stiff one. _(He cries.)
Coactus volui._ Then giddy woman will run about. Strong man grapses
woman’s wrist. Woman squeals, bites, spucks. Man, now fierce angry,
strikes woman’s fat yadgana. _(He chases his tail.)_ Piffpaff! Popo!
_(He stops, sneezes.)_ Pchp! _(He worries his butt.)_ Prrrrrht!

LYNCH: I hope you gave the good father a penance. Nine glorias for
shooting a bishop.

ZOE: _(Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils.)_ He couldn’t get a
connection. Only, you know, sensation. A dry rush.

BLOOM: Poor man!

ZOE: _(Lightly.)_ Only for what happened him.

BLOOM: How?

VIRAG: _(A diabolic rictus of black luminosity contracting his visage,
cranes his scraggy neck forward. He lifts a mooncalf nozzle and howls.)
Verfluchte Goim!_ He had a father, forty fathers. He never existed. Pig
God! He had two left feet. He was Judas Iacchia, a Libyan eunuch, the
pope’s bastard. _(He leans out on tortured forepaws, elbows bent rigid,
his eye agonising in his flat skullneck and yelps over the mute
world.)_ A son of a whore. Apocalypse.

KITTY: And Mary Shortall that was in the lock with the pox she got from
Jimmy Pidgeon in the blue caps had a child off him that couldn’t
swallow and was smothered with the convulsions in the mattress and we
all subscribed for the funeral.

PHILIP DRUNK: _(Gravely.) Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position,
Philippe?_

PHILIP SOBER: _(Gaily.) C’était le sacré pigeon, Philippe._

_(Kitty unpins her hat and sets it down calmly, patting her henna hair.
And a prettier, a daintier head of winsome curls was never seen on a
whore’s shoulders. Lynch puts on her hat. She whips it off.)_

LYNCH: _(Laughs.)_ And to such delights has Metchnikoff inoculated
anthropoid apes.

FLORRY: _(Nods.)_ Locomotor ataxy.

ZOE: _(Gaily.)_ O, my dictionary.

LYNCH: Three wise virgins.

VIRAG: _(Agueshaken, profuse yellow spawn foaming over his bony
epileptic lips.)_ She sold lovephiltres, whitewax, orangeflower.
Panther, the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories. _(He
sticks out a flickering phosphorescent scorpion tongue, his hand on his
fork.)_ Messiah! He burst her tympanum. _(With gibbering baboon’s cries
he jerks his hips in the cynical spasm.)_ Hik! Hek! Hak! Hok! Huk! Kok!
Kuk!

_(Ben Jumbo Dollard, rubicund, musclebound, hairynostrilled,
hugebearded, cabbageeared, shaggychested, shockmaned, fatpapped, stands
forth, his loins and genitals tightened into a pair of black bathing
bagslops.)_

BEN DOLLARD: _(Nakkering castanet bones in his huge padded paws, yodels
jovially in base barreltone.)_ When love absorbs my ardent soul.

_(The virgins Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley burst through the
ringkeepers and the ropes and mob him with open arms.)_

THE VIRGINS: _(Gushingly.)_ Big Ben! Ben my Chree!

A VOICE: Hold that fellow with the bad breeches.

BEN DOLLARD: _(Smites his thigh in abundant laughter.)_ Hold him now.

HENRY: _(Caressing on his breast a severed female head, murmurs.)_
Thine heart, mine love. _(He plucks his lutestrings.)_ When first I
saw...

VIRAG: _(Sloughing his skins, his multitudinous plumage moulting.)_
Rats! _(He yawns, showing a coalblack throat, and closes his jaws by an
upward push of his parchmentroll.)_ After having said which I took my
departure. Farewell. Fare thee well. _Dreck!_

_(Henry Flower combs his moustache and beard rapidly with a pocketcomb
and gives a cow’s lick to his hair. Steered by his rapier, he glides to
the door, his wild harp slung behind him. Virag reaches the door in two
ungainly stilthops, his tail cocked, and deftly claps sideways on the
wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with his head.)_

THE FLYBILL: K. 11. Post No Bills. Strictly confidential. Dr Hy Franks.

HENRY: All is lost now.

_(Virag unscrews his head in a trice and holds it under his arm.)_

VIRAG’S HEAD: Quack!

_(Exeunt severally.)_

STEPHEN: _(Over his shoulder to Zoe.)_ You would have preferred the
fighting parson who founded the protestant error. But beware
Antisthenes, the dog sage, and the last end of Arius Heresiarchus. The
agony in the closet.

LYNCH: All one and the same God to her.

STEPHEN: _(Devoutly.)_ And sovereign Lord of all things.

FLORRY: _(To Stephen.)_ I’m sure you’re a spoiled priest. Or a monk.

LYNCH: He is. A cardinal’s son.

STEPHEN: Cardinal sin. Monks of the screw.

_(His Eminence Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all Ireland,
appears in the doorway, dressed in red soutane, sandals and socks.
Seven dwarf simian acolytes, also in red, cardinal sins, uphold his
train, peeping under it. He wears a battered silk hat sideways on his
head. His thumbs are stuck in his armpits and his palms outspread.
Round his neck hangs a rosary of corks ending on his breast in a
corkscrew cross. Releasing his thumbs, he invokes grace from on high
with large wave gestures and proclaims with bloated pomp:)_

THE CARDINAL:

     Conservio lies captured
     He lies in the lowest dungeon
     With manacles and chains around his limbs
     Weighing upwards of three tons.

_(He looks at all for a moment, his right eye closed tight, his left
cheek puffed out. Then, unable to repress his merriment, he rocks to
and fro, arms akimbo, and sings with broad rollicking humour:)_

     O, the poor little fellow
     Hihihihihis legs they were yellow
     He was plump, fat and heavy and brisk as a snake
     But some bloody savage
     To graize his white cabbage
     He murdered Nell Flaherty’s duckloving drake.

_(A multitude of midges swarms white over his robe. He scratches
himself with crossed arms at his ribs, grimacing, and exclaims:)_

I’m suffering the agony of the damned. By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to
Jesus those funny little chaps are not unanimous. If they were they’d
walk me off the face of the bloody globe.

_(His head aslant he blesses curtly with fore and middle fingers,
imparts the Easter kiss and doubleshuffles off comically, swaying his
hat from side to side, shrinking quickly to the size of his
trainbearers. The dwarf acolytes, giggling, peeping, nudging, ogling,
Easterkissing, zigzag behind him. His voice is heard mellow from afar,
merciful male, melodious:)_

     Shall carry my heart to thee,
     Shall carry my heart to thee,
     And the breath of the balmy night
     Shall carry my heart to thee!

 _(The trick doorhandle turns.)_

THE DOORHANDLE: Theeee!

ZOE: The devil is in that door.

_(A male form passes down the creaking staircase and is heard taking
the waterproof and hat from the rack. Bloom starts forward
involuntarily and, half closing the door as he passes, takes the
chocolate from his pocket and offers it nervously to Zoe.)_

ZOE: _(Sniffs his hair briskly.)_ Hmmm! Thank your mother for the
rabbits. I’m very fond of what I like.

BLOOM: _(Hearing a male voice in talk with the whores on the doorstep,
pricks his ears.)_ If it were he? After? Or because not? Or the double
event?

ZOE: _(Tears open the silverfoil.)_ Fingers was made before forks.
_(She breaks off and nibbles a piece, gives a piece to Kitty Ricketts
and then turns kittenishly to Lynch.)_ No objection to French lozenges?
_(He nods. She taunts him.)_ Have it now or wait till you get it? _(He
opens his mouth, his head cocked. She whirls the prize in left circle.
His head follows. She whirls it back in right circle. He eyes her.)_
Catch!

_(She tosses a piece. With an adroit snap he catches it and bites it
through with a crack.)_

KITTY: _(Chewing.)_ The engineer I was with at the bazaar does have
lovely ones. Full of the best liqueurs. And the viceroy was there with
his lady. The gas we had on the Toft’s hobbyhorses. I’m giddy still.

BLOOM: _(In Svengali’s fur overcoat, with folded arms and Napoleonic
forelock, frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance
towards the door. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a swift
pass with impelling fingers and gives the sign of past master, drawing
his right arm downwards from his left shoulder.)_ Go, go, go, I conjure
you, whoever you are!

_(A male cough and tread are heard passing through the mist outside.
Bloom’s features relax. He places a hand in his waistcoat, posing
calmly. Zoe offers him chocolate.)_

BLOOM: _(Solemnly.)_ Thanks.

ZOE: Do as you’re bid. Here!

_(A firm heelclacking tread is heard on the stairs.)_

BLOOM: _(Takes the chocolate.)_ Aphrodisiac? Tansy and pennyroyal. But
I bought it. Vanilla calms or? Mnemo. Confused light confuses memory.
Red influences lupus. Colours affect women’s characters, any they have.
This black makes me sad. Eat and be merry for tomorrow. _(He eats.)_
Influence taste too, mauve. But it is so long since I. Seems new.
Aphro. That priest. Must come. Better late than never. Try truffles at
Andrews.

_(The door opens. Bella Cohen, a massive whoremistress, enters. She is
dressed in a threequarter ivory gown, fringed round the hem with
tasselled selvedge, and cools herself flirting a black horn fan like
Minnie Hauck in_ Carmen. _On her left hand are wedding and keeper
rings. Her eyes are deeply carboned. She has a sprouting moustache. Her
olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted
nostrils. She has large pendant beryl eardrops.)_

BELLA: My word! I’m all of a mucksweat.

_(She glances round her at the couples. Then her eyes rest on Bloom
with hard insistence. Her large fan winnows wind towards her heated
faceneck and embonpoint. Her falcon eyes glitter.)_

THE FAN: _(Flirting quickly, then slowly.)_ Married, I see.

BLOOM: Yes. Partly, I have mislaid...

THE FAN: _(Half opening, then closing.)_ And the missus is master.
Petticoat government.

BLOOM: _(Looks down with a sheepish grin.)_ That is so.

THE FAN: _(Folding together, rests against her left eardrop.)_ Have you
forgotten me?

BLOOM: Nes. Yo.

THE FAN: _(Folded akimbo against her waist.)_ Is me her was you dreamed
before? Was then she him you us since knew? Am all them and the same
now we?

_(Bella approaches, gently tapping with the fan.)_

BLOOM: _(Wincing.)_ Powerful being. In my eyes read that slumber which
women love.

THE FAN: _(Tapping.)_ We have met. You are mine. It is fate.

BLOOM: _(Cowed.)_ Exuberant female. Enormously I desiderate your
domination. I am exhausted, abandoned, no more young. I stand, so to
speak, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before
the too late box of the general postoffice of human life. The door and
window open at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per
second according to the law of falling bodies. I have felt this instant
a twinge of sciatica in my left glutear muscle. It runs in our family.
Poor dear papa, a widower, was a regular barometer from it. He believed
in animal heat. A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat. Near the
end, remembering king David and the Sunamite, he shared his bed with
Athos, faithful after death. A dog’s spittle as you probably... _(He
winces.)_ Ah!

RICHIE GOULDING: _(Bagweighted, passes the door.)_ Mocking is catch.
Best value in Dub. Fit for a prince’s. Liver and kidney.

THE FAN: _(Tapping.)_ All things end. Be mine. Now.

BLOOM: _(Undecided.)_ All now? I should not have parted with my
talisman. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the searocks, a peccadillo at my
time of life. Every phenomenon has a natural cause.

THE FAN: _(Points downwards slowly.)_ You may.

BLOOM: _(Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace.)_ We
are observed.

THE FAN: _(Points downwards quickly.)_ You must.

BLOOM: _(With desire, with reluctance.)_ I can make a true black knot.
Learned when I served my time and worked the mail order line for
Kellett’s. Experienced hand. Every knot says a lot. Let me. In
courtesy. I knelt once before today. Ah!

_(Bella raises her gown slightly and, steadying her pose, lifts to the
edge of a chair a plump buskined hoof and a full pastern, silksocked.
Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over her hoof and with gentle fingers
draws out and in her laces.)_

BLOOM: _(Murmurs lovingly.)_ To be a shoefitter in Manfield’s was my
love’s young dream, the darling joys of sweet buttonhooking, to lace up
crisscrossed to kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so
incredibly impossibly small, of Clyde Road ladies. Even their wax model
Raymonde I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb
toe, as worn in Paris.

THE HOOF: Smell my hot goathide. Feel my royal weight.

BLOOM: _(Crosslacing.)_ Too tight?

THE HOOF: If you bungle, Handy Andy, I’ll kick your football for you.

BLOOM: Not to lace the wrong eyelet as I did the night of the bazaar
dance. Bad luck. Hook in wrong tache of her... person you mentioned.
That night she met... Now!

_(He knots the lace. Bella places her foot on the floor. Bloom raises
his head. Her heavy face, her eyes strike him in midbrow. His eyes grow
dull, darker and pouched, his nose thickens.)_

BLOOM: _(Mumbles.)_ Awaiting your further orders we remain,
gentlemen,...

BELLO: _(With a hard basilisk stare, in a baritone voice.)_ Hound of
dishonour!

BLOOM: _(Infatuated.)_ Empress!

BELLO: _(His heavy cheekchops sagging.)_ Adorer of the adulterous rump!

BLOOM: _(Plaintively.)_ Hugeness!

BELLO: Dungdevourer!

BLOOM: _(With sinews semiflexed.)_ Magmagnificence!

BELLO: Down! _(He taps her on the shoulder with his fan.)_ Incline feet
forward! Slide left foot one pace back! You will fall. You are falling.
On the hands down!

BLOOM: _(Her eyes upturned in the sign of admiration, closing, yaps.)_
Truffles!

_(With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting,
snuffling, rooting at his feet: then lies, shamming dead, with eyes
shut tight, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground in the attitude of
most excellent master.)_

BELLO: _(With bobbed hair, purple gills, fat moustache rings round his
shaven mouth, in mountaineer’s puttees, green silverbuttoned coat,
sport skirt and alpine hat with moorcock’s feather, his hands stuck
deep in his breeches pockets, places his heel on her neck and grinds it
in.)_ Footstool! Feel my entire weight. Bow, bondslave, before the
throne of your despot’s glorious heels so glistening in their proud
erectness.

BLOOM: _(Enthralled, bleats.)_ I promise never to disobey.

BELLO: _(Laughs loudly.)_ Holy smoke! You little know what’s in store
for you. I’m the Tartar to settle your little lot and break you in!
I’ll bet Kentucky cocktails all round I shame it out of you, old son.
Cheek me, I dare you. If you do tremble in anticipation of heel
discipline to be inflicted in gym costume.

_(Bloom creeps under the sofa and peers out through the fringe.)_

ZOE: _(Widening her slip to screen her.)_ She’s not here.

BLOOM: _(Closing her eyes.)_ She’s not here.

FLORRY: _(Hiding her with her gown.)_ She didn’t mean it, Mr Bello.
She’ll be good, sir.

KITTY: Don’t be too hard on her, Mr Bello. Sure you won’t, ma’amsir.

BELLO: _(Coaxingly.)_ Come, ducky dear, I want a word with you,
darling, just to administer correction. Just a little heart to heart
talk, sweety. _(Bloom puts out her timid head.)_ There’s a good girly
now. _(Bello grabs her hair violently and drags her forward.)_ I only
want to correct you for your own good on a soft safe spot. How’s that
tender behind? O, ever so gently, pet. Begin to get ready.

BLOOM: _(Fainting.)_ Don’t tear my...

BELLO: _(Savagely.)_ The nosering, the pliers, the bastinado, the
hanging hook, the knout I’ll make you kiss while the flutes play like
the Nubian slave of old. You’re in for it this time! I’ll make you
remember me for the balance of your natural life. _(His forehead veins
swollen, his face congested.)_ I shall sit on your ottoman saddleback
every morning after my thumping good breakfast of Matterson’s fat
hamrashers and a bottle of Guinness’s porter. _(He belches.)_ And suck
my thumping good Stock Exchange cigar while I read the _Licensed
Victualler’s Gazette_. Very possibly I shall have you slaughtered and
skewered in my stables and enjoy a slice of you with crisp crackling
from the baking tin basted and baked like sucking pig with rice and
lemon or currant sauce. It will hurt you. _(He twists her arm. Bloom
squeals, turning turtle.)_

BLOOM: Don’t be cruel, nurse! Don’t!

BELLO: _(Twisting.)_ Another!

BLOOM: _(Screams.)_ O, it’s hell itself! Every nerve in my body aches
like mad!

BELLO: _(Shouts.)_ Good, by the rumping jumping general! That’s the
best bit of news I heard these six weeks. Here, don’t keep me waiting,
damn you! _(He slaps her face.)_

BLOOM: _(Whimpers.)_ You’re after hitting me. I’ll tell...

BELLO: Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him.

ZOE: Yes. Walk on him! I will.

FLORRY: I will. Don’t be greedy.

KITTY: No, me. Lend him to me.

_(The brothel cook, Mrs Keogh, wrinkled, greybearded, in a greasy bib,
men’s grey and green socks and brogues, floursmeared, a rollingpin
stuck with raw pastry in her bare red arm and hand, appears at the
door.)_

MRS KEOGH: _(Ferociously.)_ Can I help? _(They hold and pinion Bloom.)_

BELLO: _(Squats with a grunt on Bloom’s upturned face, puffing
cigarsmoke, nursing a fat leg.)_ I see Keating Clay is elected
vicechairman of the Richmond asylum and by the by Guinness’s preference
shares are at sixteen three quarters. Curse me for a fool that didn’t
buy that lot Craig and Gardner told me about. Just my infernal luck,
curse it. And that Goddamned outsider _Throwaway_ at twenty to one.
_(He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom’s ear.)_ Where’s that
Goddamned cursed ashtray?

BLOOM: _(Goaded, buttocksmothered.)_ O! O! Monsters! Cruel one!

BELLO: Ask for that every ten minutes. Beg. Pray for it as you never
prayed before. _(He thrusts out a figged fist and foul cigar.)_ Here,
kiss that. Both. Kiss. _(He throws a leg astride and, pressing with
horseman’s knees, calls in a hard voice.)_ Gee up! A cockhorse to
Banbury cross. I’ll ride him for the Eclipse stakes. _(He bends
sideways and squeezes his mount’s testicles roughly, shouting.)_ Ho!
Off we pop! I’ll nurse you in proper fashion. _(He horserides
cockhorse, leaping in the, in the saddle.)_ The lady goes a pace a pace
and the coachman goes a trot a trot and the gentleman goes a gallop a
gallop a gallop a gallop.

FLORRY: _(Pulls at Bello.)_ Let me on him now. You had enough. I asked
before you.

ZOE: _(Pulling at Florry.)_ Me. Me. Are you not finished with him yet,
suckeress?

BLOOM: _(Stifling.)_ Can’t.

BELLO: Well, I’m not. Wait. _(He holds in his breath.)_ Curse it. Here.
This bung’s about burst. _(He uncorks himself behind: then, contorting
his features, farts loudly.)_ Take that! _(He recorks himself.)_ Yes,
by Jingo, sixteen three quarters.

BLOOM: _(A sweat breaking out over him.)_ Not man. _(He sniffs.)_
Woman.

BELLO: _(Stands up.)_ No more blow hot and cold. What you longed for
has come to pass. Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a
thing under the yoke. Now for your punishment frock. You will shed your
male garments, you understand, Ruby Cohen? and don the shot silk
luxuriously rustling over head and shoulders. And quickly too!

BLOOM: _(Shrinks.)_ Silk, mistress said! O crinkly! scrapy! Must I
tiptouch it with my nails?

BELLO: _(Points to his whores.)_ As they are now so will you be,
wigged, singed, perfumesprayed, ricepowdered, with smoothshaven
armpits. Tape measurements will be taken next your skin. You will be
laced with cruel force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with
whalebone busk to the diamondtrimmed pelvis, the absolute outside edge,
while your figure, plumper than when at large, will be restrained in
nettight frocks, pretty two ounce petticoats and fringes and things
stamped, of course, with my houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for
Alice and nice scent for Alice. Alice will feel the pullpull. Martha
and Mary will be a little chilly at first in such delicate thighcasing
but the frilly flimsiness of lace round your bare knees will remind
you...

BLOOM: _(A charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, mustard hair and large
male hands and nose, leering mouth.)_ I tried her things on only twice,
a small prank, in Holles street. When we were hard up I washed them to
save the laundry bill. My own shirts I turned. It was the purest
thrift.

BELLO: _(Jeers.)_ Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh? And showed
off coquettishly in your domino at the mirror behind closedrawn blinds
your unskirted thighs and hegoat’s udders in various poses of
surrender, eh? Ho! ho! I have to laugh! That secondhand black operatop
shift and short trunkleg naughties all split up the stitches at her
last rape that Mrs Miriam Dandrade sold you from the Shelbourne hotel,
eh?

BLOOM: Miriam. Black. Demimondaine.

BELLO: _(Guffaws.)_ Christ Almighty it’s too tickling, this! You were a
nicelooking Miriam when you clipped off your backgate hairs and lay
swooning in the thing across the bed as Mrs Dandrade about to be
violated by lieutenant Smythe-Smythe, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell M.
P., signor Laci Daremo, the robust tenor, blueeyed Bert, the liftboy,
Henri Fleury of Gordon Bennett fame, Sheridan, the quadroon Croesus,
the varsity wetbob eight from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid
Newfoundland and Bobs, dowager duchess of Manorhamilton. _(He guffaws
again.)_ Christ, wouldn’t it make a Siamese cat laugh?

BLOOM: _(Her hands and features working.)_ It was Gerald converted me
to be a true corsetlover when I was female impersonator in the High
School play _Vice Versa_. It was dear Gerald. He got that kink,
fascinated by sister’s stays. Now dearest Gerald uses pinky greasepaint
and gilds his eyelids. Cult of the beautiful.

BELLO: _(With wicked glee.)_ Beautiful! Give us a breather! When you
took your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on
the smoothworn throne.

BLOOM: Science. To compare the various joys we each enjoy.
_(Earnestly.)_ And really it’s better the position... because often I
used to wet...

BELLO: _(Sternly.)_ No insubordination! The sawdust is there in the
corner for you. I gave you strict instructions, didn’t I? Do it
standing, sir! I’ll teach you to behave like a jinkleman! If I catch a
trace on your swaddles. Aha! By the ass of the Dorans you’ll find I’m a
martinet. The sins of your past are rising against you. Many. Hundreds.

THE SINS OF THE PAST: _(In a medley of voices.)_ He went through a form
of clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the shadow of the
Black church. Unspeakable messages he telephoned mentally to Miss Dunn
at an address in D’Olier street while he presented himself indecently
to the instrument in the callbox. By word and deed he frankly
encouraged a nocturnal strumpet to deposit fecal and other matter in an
unsanitary outhouse attached to empty premises. In five public
conveniences he wrote pencilled messages offering his nuptial partner
to all strongmembered males. And by the offensively smelling vitriol
works did he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to
see if and what and how much he could see? Did he not lie in bed, the
gross boar, gloating over a nauseous fragment of wellused toilet paper
presented to him by a nasty harlot, stimulated by gingerbread and a
postal order?

BELLO: _(Whistles loudly.)_ Say! What was the most revolting piece of
obscenity in all your career of crime? Go the whole hog. Puke it out!
Be candid for once.

_(Mute inhuman faces throng forward, leering, vanishing, gibbering,
Booloohoom. Poldy Kock, Bootlaces a penny, Cassidy’s hag, blind
stripling, Larry Rhinoceros, the girl, the woman, the whore, the other,
the...)_

BLOOM: Don’t ask me! Our mutual faith. Pleasants street. I only thought
the half of the... I swear on my sacred oath...

BELLO: _(Peremptorily.)_ Answer. Repugnant wretch! I insist on knowing.
Tell me something to amuse me, smut or a bloody good ghoststory or a
line of poetry, quick, quick, quick! Where? How? What time? With how
many? I give you just three seconds. One! Two! Thr...

BLOOM: _(Docile, gurgles.)_ I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant...

BELLO: _(Imperiously.)_ O, get out, you skunk! Hold your tongue! Speak
when you’re spoken to.

BLOOM: _(Bows.)_ Master! Mistress! Mantamer!

_(He lifts his arms. His bangle bracelets fall.)_

BELLO: _(Satirically.)_ By day you will souse and bat our smelling
underclothes also when we ladies are unwell, and swab out our latrines
with dress pinned up and a dishclout tied to your tail. Won’t that be
nice? _(He places a ruby ring on her finger.)_ And there now! With this
ring I thee own. Say, thank you, mistress.

BLOOM: Thank you, mistress.

BELLO: You will make the beds, get my tub ready, empty the pisspots in
the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh’s the cook’s, a sandy one.
Ay, and rinse the seven of them well, mind, or lap it up like
champagne. Drink me piping hot. Hop! You will dance attendance or I’ll
lecture you on your misdeeds, Miss Ruby, and spank your bare bot right
well, miss, with the hairbrush. You’ll be taught the error of your
ways. At night your wellcreamed braceletted hands will wear
fortythreebutton gloves newpowdered with talc and having delicately
scented fingertips. For such favours knights of old laid down their
lives. _(He chuckles.)_ My boys will be no end charmed to see you so
ladylike, the colonel, above all, when they come here the night before
the wedding to fondle my new attraction in gilded heels. First I’ll
have a go at you myself. A man I know on the turf named Charles Alberta
Marsh (I was in bed with him just now and another gentleman out of the
Hanaper and Petty Bag office) is on the lookout for a maid of all work
at a short knock. Swell the bust. Smile. Droop shoulders. What offers?
_(He points.)_ For that lot. Trained by owner to fetch and carry,
basket in mouth. _(He bares his arm and plunges it elbowdeep in Bloom’s
vulva.)_ There’s fine depth for you! What, boys? That give you a
hardon? _(He shoves his arm in a bidder’s face.)_ Here wet the deck and
wipe it round!

A BIDDER: A florin.

_(Dillon’s lacquey rings his handbell.)_

THE LACQUEY: Barang!

A VOICE: One and eightpence too much.

CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH: Must be virgin. Good breath. Clean.

BELLO: _(Gives a rap with his gavel.)_ Two bar. Rockbottom figure and
cheap at the price. Fourteen hands high. Touch and examine shis points.
Handle hrim. This downy skin, these soft muscles, this tender flesh. If
I had only my gold piercer here! And quite easy to milk. Three newlaid
gallons a day. A pure stockgetter, due to lay within the hour. His
sire’s milk record was a thousand gallons of whole milk in forty weeks.
Whoa, my jewel! Beg up! Whoa! _(He brands his initial C on Bloom’s
croup.)_ So! Warranted Cohen! What advance on two bob, gentlemen?

A DARKVISAGED MAN: _(In disguised accent.)_ Hoondert punt sterlink.

VOICES: _(Subdued.)_ For the Caliph. Haroun Al Raschid.

BELLO: _(Gaily.)_ Right. Let them all come. The scanty, daringly short
skirt, riding up at the knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a
potent weapon and transparent stockings, emeraldgartered, with the long
straight seam trailing up beyond the knee, appeal to the better
instincts of the _blasé_ man about town. Learn the smooth mincing walk
on four inch Louis Quinze heels, the Grecian bend with provoking croup,
the thighs fluescent, knees modestly kissing. Bring all your powers of
fascination to bear on them. Pander to their Gomorrahan vices.

BLOOM: _(Bends his blushing face into his armpit and simpers with
forefinger in mouth.)_ O, I know what you’re hinting at now!

BELLO: What else are you good for, an impotent thing like you? _(He
stoops and, peering, pokes with his fan rudely under the fat suet folds
of Bloom’s haunches.)_ Up! Up! Manx cat! What have we here? Where’s
your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, cockyolly? Sing,
birdy, sing. It’s as limp as a boy of six’s doing his pooly behind a
cart. Buy a bucket or sell your pump. _(Loudly.)_ Can you do a man’s
job?

BLOOM: Eccles street...

BELLO: _(Sarcastically.)_ I wouldn’t hurt your feelings for the world
but there’s a man of brawn in possession there. The tables are turned,
my gay young fellow! He is something like a fullgrown outdoor man. Well
for you, you muff, if you had that weapon with knobs and lumps and
warts all over it. He shot his bolt, I can tell you! Foot to foot, knee
to knee, belly to belly, bubs to breast! He’s no eunuch. A shock of red
hair he has sticking out of him behind like a furzebush! Wait for nine
months, my lad! Holy ginger, it’s kicking and coughing up and down in
her guts already! That makes you wild, don’t it? Touches the spot? _(He
spits in contempt.)_ Spittoon!

BLOOM: I was indecently treated, I... Inform the police. Hundred
pounds. Unmentionable. I...

BELLO: Would if you could, lame duck. A downpour we want not your
drizzle.

BLOOM: To drive me mad! Moll! I forgot! Forgive! Moll... We... Still...

BELLO: _(Ruthlessly.)_ No, Leopold Bloom, all is changed by woman’s
will since you slept horizontal in Sleepy Hollow your night of twenty
years. Return and see.

_(Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the wold.)_

SLEEPY HOLLOW: Rip van Wink! Rip van Winkle!

BLOOM: _(In tattered mocassins with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing,
fingertipping, his haggard bony bearded face peering through the
diamond panes, cries out.)_ I see her! It’s she! The first night at Mat
Dillon’s! But that dress, the green! And her hair is dyed gold and
he...

BELLO: _(Laughs mockingly.)_ That’s your daughter, you owl, with a
Mullingar student.

_(Milly Bloom, fairhaired, greenvested, slimsandalled, her blue scarf
in the seawind simply swirling, breaks from the arms of her lover and
calls, her young eyes wonderwide.)_

MILLY: My! It’s Papli! But, O Papli, how old you’ve grown!

BELLO: Changed, eh? Our whatnot, our writingtable where we never wrote,
aunt Hegarty’s armchair, our classic reprints of old masters. A man and
his menfriends are living there in clover. The _Cuckoos’ Rest!_ Why
not? How many women had you, eh, following them up dark streets,
flatfoot, exciting them by your smothered grunts, what, you male
prostitute? Blameless dames with parcels of groceries. Turn about.
Sauce for the goose, my gander O.

BLOOM: They... I...

BELLO: _(Cuttingly.)_ Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet
you bought at Wren’s auction. In their horseplay with Moll the romp to
find the buck flea in her breeches they will deface the little statue
you carried home in the rain for art for art’s sake. They will violate
the secrets of your bottom drawer. Pages will be torn from your
handbook of astronomy to make them pipespills. And they will spit in
your ten shilling brass fender from Hampton Leedom’s.

BLOOM: Ten and six. The act of low scoundrels. Let me go. I will
return. I will prove...

A VOICE: Swear!

_(Bloom clenches his fists and crawls forward, a bowieknife between his
teeth.)_

BELLO: As a paying guest or a kept man? Too late. You have made your
secondbest bed and others must lie in it. Your epitaph is written. You
are down and out and don’t you forget it, old bean.

BLOOM: Justice! All Ireland versus one! Has nobody...? _(He bites his
thumb.)_

BELLO: Die and be damned to you if you have any sense of decency or
grace about you. I can give you a rare old wine that’ll send you
skipping to hell and back. Sign a will and leave us any coin you have!
If you have none see you damn well get it, steal it, rob it! We’ll bury
you in our shrubbery jakes where you’ll be dead and dirty with old Cuck
Cohen, my stepnephew I married, the bloody old gouty procurator and
sodomite with a crick in his neck, and my other ten or eleven husbands,
whatever the buggers’ names were, suffocated in the one cesspool. _(He
explodes in a loud phlegmy laugh.)_ We’ll manure you, Mr Flower! _(He
pipes scoffingly.)_ Byby, Poldy! Byby, Papli!

BLOOM: _(Clasps his head.)_ My willpower! Memory! I have sinned! I have
suff...

_(He weeps tearlessly.)_

BELLO: _(Sneers.)_ Crybabby! Crocodile tears!

_(Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the sacrifice, sobs, his face to
the earth. The passing bell is heard. Darkshawled figures of the
circumcised, in sackcloth and ashes, stand by the wailing wall. M.
Shulomowitz, Joseph Goldwater, Moses Herzog, Harris Rosenberg, M.
Moisel, J. Citron, Minnie Watchman, P. Mastiansky, The Reverend Leopold
Abramovitz, Chazen. With swaying arms they wail in pneuma over the
recreant Bloom.)_

THE CIRCUMCISED: _(In dark guttural chant as they cast dead sea fruit
upon him, no flowers.) Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad._

VOICES: _(Sighing.)_ So he’s gone. Ah yes. Yes, indeed. Bloom? Never
heard of him. No? Queer kind of chap. There’s the widow. That so? Ah,
yes.

_(From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends. The pall of
incense smoke screens and disperses. Out of her oakframe a nymph with
hair unbound, lightly clad in teabrown artcolours, descends from her
grotto and passing under interlacing yews stands over Bloom.)_

THE YEWS: _(Their leaves whispering.)_ Sister. Our sister. Ssh!

THE NYMPH: _(Softly.)_ Mortal! _(Kindly.)_ Nay, dost not weepest!

BLOOM: _(Crawls jellily forward under the boughs, streaked by sunlight,
with dignity.)_ This position. I felt it was expected of me. Force of
habit.

THE NYMPH: Mortal! You found me in evil company, highkickers, coster
picnicmakers, pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in
fleshtights and the nifty shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical
act, the hit of the century. I was hidden in cheap pink paper that
smelt of rock oil. I was surrounded by the stale smut of clubmen,
stories to disturb callow youth, ads for transparencies, truedup dice
and bustpads, proprietary articles and why wear a truss with
testimonial from ruptured gentleman. Useful hints to the married.

BLOOM: _(Lifts a turtle head towards her lap.)_ We have met before. On
another star.

THE NYMPH: _(Sadly.)_ Rubber goods. Neverrip brand as supplied to the
aristocracy. Corsets for men. I cure fits or money refunded.
Unsolicited testimonials for Professor Waldmann’s wonderful chest
exuber. My bust developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus
Rublin with photo.

BLOOM: You mean _Photo Bits?_

THE NYMPH: I do. You bore me away, framed me in oak and tinsel, set me
above your marriage couch. Unseen, one summer eve, you kissed me in
four places. And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes, my bosom and my
shame.

BLOOM: _(Humbly kisses her long hair.)_ Your classic curves, beautiful
immortal, I was glad to look on you, to praise you, a thing of beauty,
almost to pray.

THE NYMPH: During dark nights I heard your praise.

BLOOM: _(Quickly.)_ Yes, yes. You mean that I... Sleep reveals the
worst side of everyone, children perhaps excepted. I know I fell out of
bed or rather was pushed. Steel wine is said to cure snoring. For the
rest there is that English invention, pamphlet of which I received some
days ago, incorrectly addressed. It claims to afford a noiseless,
inoffensive vent. _(He sighs.)_ ’Twas ever thus. Frailty, thy name is
marriage.

THE NYMPH: _(Her fingers in her ears.)_ And words. They are not in my
dictionary.

BLOOM: You understood them?

THE YEWS: Ssh!

THE NYMPH: _(Covers her face with her hands.)_ What have I not seen in
that chamber? What must my eyes look down on?

BLOOM: _(Apologetically.)_ I know. Soiled personal linen, wrong side up
with care. The quoits are loose. From Gibraltar by long sea long ago.

THE NYMPH: _(Bends her head.)_ Worse, worse!

BLOOM: _(Reflects precautiously.)_ That antiquated commode. It wasn’t
her weight. She scaled just eleven stone nine. She put on nine pounds
after weaning. It was a crack and want of glue. Eh? And that absurd
orangekeyed utensil which has only one handle.

_(The sound of a waterfall is heard in bright cascade.)_

THE WATERFALL:

     Poulaphouca Poulaphouca
     Poulaphouca Poulaphouca.

THE YEWS: _(Mingling their boughs.)_ Listen. Whisper. She is right, our
sister. We grew by Poulaphouca waterfall. We gave shade on languorous
summer days.

JOHN WYSE NOLAN: _(In the background, in Irish National Forester’s
uniform, doffs his plumed hat.)_ Prosper! Give shade on languorous
days, trees of Ireland!

THE YEWS: _(Murmuring.)_ Who came to Poulaphouca with the High School
excursion? Who left his nutquesting classmates to seek our shade?

BLOOM: _(Scared.)_ High School of Poula? Mnemo? Not in full possession
of faculties. Concussion. Run over by tram.

THE ECHO: Sham!

BLOOM: _(Pigeonbreasted, bottleshouldered, padded, in nondescript
juvenile grey and black striped suit, too small for him, white tennis
shoes, bordered stockings with turnover tops and a red schoolcap with
badge.)_ I was in my teens, a growing boy. A little then sufficed, a
jolting car, the mingling odours of the ladies’ cloakroom and lavatory,
the throng penned tight on the old Royal stairs (for they love crushes,
instinct of the herd, and the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles vice),
even a pricelist of their hosiery. And then the heat. There were
sunspots that summer. End of school. And tipsycake. Halcyon days.

_(Halcyon days, high school boys in blue and white football jerseys and
shorts, Master Donald Turnbull, Master Abraham Chatterton, Master Owen
Goldberg, Master Jack Meredith, Master Percy Apjohn, stand in a
clearing of the trees and shout to Master Leopold Bloom.)_

THE HALCYON DAYS: Mackerel! Live us again. Hurray! _(They cheer.)_

BLOOM: _(Hobbledehoy, warmgloved, mammamufflered, starred with spent
snowballs, struggles to rise.)_ Again! I feel sixteen! What a lark!
Let’s ring all the bells in Montague street. _(He cheers feebly.)_
Hurray for the High School!

THE ECHO: Fool!

THE YEWS: _(Rustling.)_ She is right, our sister. Whisper. _(Whispered
kisses are heard in all the wood. Faces of hamadryads peep out from the
boles and among the leaves and break, blossoming into bloom.)_ Who
profaned our silent shade?

THE NYMPH: _(Coyly, through parting fingers.)_ There? In the open air?

THE YEWS: _(Sweeping downward.)_ Sister, yes. And on our virgin sward.

THE WATERFALL:

     Poulaphouca Poulaphouca
     Phoucaphouca Phoucaphouca.

THE NYMPH: _(With wide fingers.)_ O, infamy!

BLOOM: I was precocious. Youth. The fauna. I sacrificed to the god of
the forest. The flowers that bloom in the spring. It was pairing time.
Capillary attraction is a natural phenomenon. Lotty Clarke,
flaxenhaired, I saw at her night toilette through illclosed curtains
with poor papa’s operaglasses: The wanton ate grass wildly. She rolled
downhill at Rialto bridge to tempt me with her flow of animal spirits.
She climbed their crooked tree and I... A saint couldn’t resist it. The
demon possessed me. Besides, who saw?

_(Staggering Bob, a whitepolled calf, thrusts a ruminating head with
humid nostrils through the foliage.)_

STAGGERING BOB: (_Large teardrops rolling from his prominent eyes,
snivels._) Me. Me see.

BLOOM: Simply satisfying a need I... _(With pathos.)_ No girl would
when I went girling. Too ugly. They wouldn’t play...

_(High on Ben Howth through rhododendrons a nannygoat passes,
plumpuddered, buttytailed, dropping currants.)_

THE NANNYGOAT: _(Bleats.)_ Megeggaggegg! Nannannanny!

BLOOM: _(Hatless, flushed, covered with burrs of thistledown and
gorsespine.)_ Regularly engaged. Circumstances alter cases. _(He gazes
intently downwards on the water.)_ Thirtytwo head over heels per
second. Press nightmare. Giddy Elijah. Fall from cliff. Sad end of
government printer’s clerk. _(Through silversilent summer air the dummy
of Bloom, rolled in a mummy, rolls roteatingly from the Lion’s Head
cliff into the purple waiting waters.)_

THE DUMMYMUMMY: Bbbbblllllblblblblobschbg!

_(Far out in the bay between Bailey and Kish lights the_ Erin’s King
_sails, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her funnel towards
the land.)_

COUNCILLOR NANNETTI: _(Alone on deck, in dark alpaca, yellowkitefaced,
his hand in his waistcoat opening, declaims.)_ When my country takes
her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let
my epitaph be written. I have...

BLOOM: Done. Prff!

THE NYMPH: _(Loftily.)_ We immortals, as you saw today, have not such a
place and no hair there either. We are stonecold and pure. We eat
electric light. _(She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing
her forefinger in her mouth.)_ Spoke to me. Heard from behind. How then
could you...?

BLOOM: _(Pawing the heather abjectly.)_ O, I have been a perfect pig.
Enemas too I have administered. One third of a pint of quassia to which
add a tablespoonful of rocksalt. Up the fundament. With Hamilton Long’s
syringe, the ladies’ friend.

THE NYMPH: In my presence. The powderpuff. _(She blushes and makes a
knee.)_ And the rest!

BLOOM: _(Dejected.)_ Yes. _Peccavi!_ I have paid homage on that living
altar where the back changes name. _(With sudden fervour.)_ For why
should the dainty scented jewelled hand, the hand that rules...?

_(Figures wind serpenting in slow woodland pattern around the
treestems, cooeeing.)_

THE VOICE OF KITTY: _(In the thicket.)_ Show us one of them cushions.

THE VOICE OF FLORRY: Here.

_(A grouse wings clumsily through the underwood.)_

THE VOICE OF LYNCH: _(In the thicket.)_ Whew! Piping hot!

THE VOICE OF ZOE: _(From the thicket.)_ Came from a hot place.

THE VOICE OF VIRAG: _(A birdchief, bluestreaked and feathered in war
panoply with his assegai, striding through a crackling canebrake over
beechmast and acorns.)_ Hot! Hot! Ware Sitting Bull!

BLOOM: It overpowers me. The warm impress of her warm form. Even to sit
where a woman has sat, especially with divaricated thighs, as though to
grant the last favours, most especially with previously well uplifted
white sateen coatpans. So womanly, full. It fills me full.

THE WATERFALL:

     Phillaphulla Poulaphouca
     Poulaphouca Poulaphouca.

THE YEWS: Ssh! Sister, speak!

THE NYMPH: _(Eyeless, in nun’s white habit, coif and hugewinged wimple,
softly, with remote eyes.)_ Tranquilla convent. Sister Agatha. Mount
Carmel. The apparitions of Knock and Lourdes. No more desire. _(She
reclines her head, sighing.)_ Only the ethereal. Where dreamy creamy
gull waves o’er the waters dull.

_(Bloom half rises. His back trouserbutton snaps.)_

THE BUTTON: Bip!

_(Two sluts of the Coombe dance rainily by, shawled, yelling flatly.)_

THE SLUTS:

     O, Leopold lost the pin of his drawers
     He didn’t know what to do,
     To keep it up,
     To keep it up.

BLOOM: _(Coldly.)_ You have broken the spell. The last straw. If there
were only ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices? Shy
but willing like an ass pissing.

THE YEWS: _(Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their skinny arms
aging and swaying.)_ Deciduously!

THE NYMPH: _(Her features hardening, gropes in the folds of her
habit.)_ Sacrilege! To attempt my virtue! _(A large moist stain appears
on her robe.)_ Sully my innocence! You are not fit to touch the garment
of a pure woman. _(She clutches again in her robe.)_ Wait. Satan,
you’ll sing no more lovesongs. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. _(She draws a
poniard and, clad in the sheathmail of an elected knight of nine,
strikes at his loins.)_ Nekum!

BLOOM: _(Starts up, seizes her hand.)_ Hoy! Nebrakada! Cat o’ nine
lives! Fair play, madam. No pruningknife. The fox and the grapes, is
it? What do you lack with your barbed wire? Crucifix not thick enough?
_(He clutches her veil.)_ A holy abbot you want or Brophy, the lame
gardener, or the spoutless statue of the watercarrier, or good mother
Alphonsus, eh Reynard?

THE NYMPH: _(With a cry flees from him unveiled, her plaster cast
cracking, a cloud of stench escaping from the cracks.)_ Poli...!

BLOOM: _(Calls after her.)_ As if you didn’t get it on the double
yourselves. No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. I tried it.
Your strength our weakness. What’s our studfee? What will you pay on
the nail? You fee mendancers on the Riviera, I read. _(The fleeing
nymph raises a keen.)_ Eh? I have sixteen years of black slave labour
behind me. And would a jury give me five shillings alimony tomorrow,
eh? Fool someone else, not me. _(He sniffs.)_ Rut. Onions. Stale.
Sulphur. Grease.

_(The figure of Bella Cohen stands before him.)_

BELLA: You’ll know me the next time.

BLOOM: _(Composed, regards her.) Passée._ Mutton dressed as lamb. Long
in the tooth and superfluous hair. A raw onion the last thing at night
would benefit your complexion. And take some double chin drill. Your
eyes are as vapid as the glasseyes of your stuffed fox. They have the
dimensions of your other features, that’s all. I’m not a triple screw
propeller.

BELLA: _(Contemptuously.)_ You’re not game, in fact. _(Her sowcunt
barks.)_ Fbhracht!

BLOOM: _(Contemptuously.)_ Clean your nailless middle finger first,
your bully’s cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb. Take a handful
of hay and wipe yourself.

BELLA: I know you, canvasser! Dead cod!

BLOOM: I saw him, kipkeeper! Pox and gleet vendor!

BELLA: _(Turns to the piano.)_ Which of you was playing the dead march
from _Saul?_

ZOE: Me. Mind your cornflowers. _(She darts to the piano and bangs
chords on it with crossed arms.)_ The cat’s ramble through the slag.
_(She glances back.)_ Eh? Who’s making love to my sweeties? _(She darts
back to the table.)_ What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is my own.

_(Kitty, disconcerted, coats her teeth with the silver paper. Bloom
approaches Zoe.)_

BLOOM: _(Gently.)_ Give me back that potato, will you?

ZOE: Forfeits, a fine thing and a superfine thing.

BLOOM: _(With feeling.)_ It is nothing, but still, a relic of poor
mamma.

ZOE:

     Give a thing and take it back
     God’ll ask you where is that
     You’ll say you don’t know
     God’ll send you down below.

BLOOM: There is a memory attached to it. I should like to have it.

STEPHEN: To have or not to have that is the question.

ZOE: Here. _(She hauls up a reef of her slip, revealing her bare thigh,
and unrolls the potato from the top of her stocking.)_ Those that hides
knows where to find.

BELLA: _(Frowns.)_ Here. This isn’t a musical peepshow. And don’t you
smash that piano. Who’s paying here?

_(She goes to the pianola. Stephen fumbles in his pocket and, taking
out a banknote by its corner, hands it to her.)_

STEPHEN: _(With exaggerated politeness.)_ This silken purse I made out
of the sow’s ear of the public. Madam, excuse me. If you allow me. _(He
indicates vaguely Lynch and Bloom.)_ We are all in the same sweepstake,
Kinch and Lynch. _Dans ce bordel où tenons nostre état_.

LYNCH: _(Calls from the hearth.)_ Dedalus! Give her your blessing for
me.

STEPHEN: _(Hands Bella a coin.)_ Gold. She has it.

BELLA: _(Looks at the money, then at Stephen, then at Zoe, Florry and
Kitty.)_ Do you want three girls? It’s ten shillings here.

STEPHEN: _(Delightedly.)_ A hundred thousand apologies. _(He fumbles
again and takes out and hands her two crowns.)_ Permit, _brevi manu_,
my sight is somewhat troubled.

_(Bella goes to the table to count the money while Stephen talks to
himself in monosyllables. Zoe bends over the table. Kitty leans over
Zoe’s neck. Lynch gets up, rights his cap and, clasping Kitty’s waist,
adds his head to the group.)_

FLORRY: _(Strives heavily to rise.)_ Ow! My foot’s asleep. _(She limps
over to the table. Bloom approaches.)_

BELLA, ZOE, KITTY, LYNCH, BLOOM: _(Chattering and squabbling.)_ The
gentleman... ten shillings... paying for the three... allow me a
moment... this gentleman pays separate... who’s touching it?... ow! ...
mind who you’re pinching... are you staying the night or a short
time?... who did?... you’re a liar, excuse me... the gentleman paid
down like a gentleman... drink... it’s long after eleven.

STEPHEN: _(At the pianola, making a gesture of abhorrence.)_ No
bottles! What, eleven? A riddle!

ZOE: _(Lifting up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign into the
top of her stocking.)_ Hard earned on the flat of my back.

LYNCH: _(Lifting Kitty from the table.)_ Come!

KITTY: Wait. _(She clutches the two crowns.)_

FLORRY: And me?

LYNCH: Hoopla!

_(He lifts her, carries her and bumps her down on the sofa.)_

STEPHEN:

     The fox crew, the cocks flew,
     The bells in heaven
     Were striking eleven.
     ’Tis time for her poor soul
     To get out of heaven.

BLOOM: _(Quietly lays a half sovereign on the table between Bella and
Florry.)_ So. Allow me. _(He takes up the poundnote.)_ Three times ten.
We’re square.

BELLA: _(Admiringly.)_ You’re such a slyboots, old cocky. I could kiss
you.

ZOE: _(Points.)_ Him? Deep as a drawwell. _(Lynch bends Kitty back over
the sofa and kisses her. Bloom goes with the poundnote to Stephen.)_

BLOOM: This is yours.

STEPHEN: How is that? _Le distrait_ or absentminded beggar. _(He
fumbles again in his pocket and draws out a handful of coins. An object
falls.)_ That fell.

BLOOM: _(Stooping, picks up and hands a box of matches.)_ This.

STEPHEN: Lucifer. Thanks.

BLOOM: _(Quietly.)_ You had better hand over that cash to me to take
care of. Why pay more?

STEPHEN: _(Hands him all his coins.)_ Be just before you are generous.

BLOOM: I will but is it wise? _(He counts.)_ One, seven, eleven, and
five. Six. Eleven. I don’t answer for what you may have lost.

STEPHEN: Why striking eleven? Proparoxyton. Moment before the next
Lessing says. Thirsty fox. _(He laughs loudly.)_ Burying his
grandmother. Probably he killed her.

BLOOM: That is one pound six and eleven. One pound seven, say.

STEPHEN: Doesn’t matter a rambling damn.

BLOOM: No, but...

STEPHEN: _(Comes to the table.)_ Cigarette, please. _(Lynch tosses a
cigarette from the sofa to the table.)_ And so Georgina Johnson is dead
and married. _(A cigarette appears on the table. Stephen looks at it.)_
Wonder. Parlour magic. Married. Hm. _(He strikes a match and proceeds
to light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy.)_

LYNCH: _(Watching him.)_ You would have a better chance of lighting it
if you held the match nearer.

STEPHEN: _(Brings the match near his eye.)_ Lynx eye. Must get glasses.
Broke them yesterday. Sixteen years ago. Distance. The eye sees all
flat. _(He draws the match away. It goes out.)_ Brain thinks. Near:
far. Ineluctable modality of the visible. _(He frowns mysteriously.)_
Hm. Sphinx. The beast that has two backs at midnight. Married.

ZOE: It was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with
him.

FLORRY: _(Nods.)_ Mr Lambe from London.

STEPHEN: Lamb of London, who takest away the sins of our world.

LYNCH: _(Embracing Kitty on the sofa, chants deeply.) Dona nobis
pacem._

_(The cigarette slips from Stephen’s fingers. Bloom picks it up and
throws it in the grate.)_

BLOOM: Don’t smoke. You ought to eat. Cursed dog I met. _(To Zoe.)_ You
have nothing?

ZOE: Is he hungry?

STEPHEN: _(Extends his hand to her smiling and chants to the air of the
bloodoath in the_ Dusk of the Gods.)

     Hangende Hunger,
     Fragende Frau,
     Macht uns alle kaputt.

ZOE: _(Tragically.)_ Hamlet, I am thy father’s gimlet! _(She takes his
hand.)_ Blue eyes beauty I’ll read your hand. _(She points to his
forehead.)_ No wit, no wrinkles. _(She counts.)_ Two, three, Mars,
that’s courage. _(Stephen shakes his head.)_ No kid.

LYNCH: Sheet lightning courage. The youth who could not shiver and
shake. _(To Zoe.)_ Who taught you palmistry?

ZOE: _(Turns.)_ Ask my ballocks that I haven’t got. _(To Stephen.)_ I
see it in your face. The eye, like that. _(She frowns with lowered
head.)_

LYNCH: _(Laughing, slaps Kitty behind twice.)_ Like that. Pandybat.

_(Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the coffin of the pianola flies open,
the bald little round jack-in-the-box head of Father Dolan springs
up.)_

FATHER DOLAN: Any boy want flogging? Broke his glasses? Lazy idle
little schemer. See it in your eye.

_(Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the head of Don John Conmee rises
from the pianola coffin.)_

DON JOHN CONMEE: Now, Father Dolan! Now. I’m sure that Stephen is a
very good little boy!

ZOE: _(Examining Stephen’s palm.)_ Woman’s hand.

STEPHEN: _(Murmurs.)_ Continue. Lie. Hold me. Caress. I never could
read His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the haddock.

ZOE: What day were you born?

STEPHEN: Thursday. Today.

ZOE: Thursday’s child has far to go. _(She traces lines on his hand.)_
Line of fate. Influential friends.

FLORRY: _(Pointing.)_ Imagination.

ZOE: Mount of the moon. You’ll meet with a... _(She peers at his hands
abruptly.)_ I won’t tell you what’s not good for you. Or do you want to
know?

BLOOM: _(Detaches her fingers and offers his palm.)_ More harm than
good. Here. Read mine.

BELLA: Show. _(She turns up Bloom’s hand.)_ I thought so. Knobby
knuckles for the women.

ZOE: _(Peering at Bloom’s palm.)_ Gridiron. Travels beyond the sea and
marry money.

BLOOM: Wrong.

ZOE: _(Quickly.)_ O, I see. Short little finger. Henpecked husband.
That wrong?

_(Black Liz, a huge rooster hatching in a chalked circle, rises,
stretches her wings and clucks.)_

BLACK LIZ: Gara. Klook. Klook. Klook.

_(She sidles from her newlaid egg and waddles off.)_

BLOOM: _(Points to his hand.)_ That weal there is an accident. Fell and
cut it twentytwo years ago. I was sixteen.

ZOE: I see, says the blind man. Tell us news.

STEPHEN: See? Moves to one great goal. I am twentytwo. Sixteen years
ago he was twentytwo too. Sixteen years ago I twentytwo tumbled.
Twentytwo years ago he sixteen fell off his hobbyhorse. _(He winces.)_
Hurt my hand somewhere. Must see a dentist. Money?

_(Zoe whispers to Florry. They giggle. Bloom releases his hand and
writes idly on the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.)_

FLORRY: What?

_(A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with a
gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue,
Donnybrook, trots past. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying on the
sideseats. The Ormond boots crouches behind on the axle. Sadly over the
crossblind Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze.)_

THE BOOTS: _(Jogging, mocks them with thumb and wriggling
wormfingers.)_ Haw haw have you the horn?

_(Bronze by gold they whisper.)_

ZOE: _(To Florry.)_ Whisper.

_(They whisper again.)_

_(Over the well of the car Blazes Boylan leans, his boater straw set
sideways, a red flower in his mouth. Lenehan in yachtsman’s cap and
white shoes officiously detaches a long hair from Blazes Boylan’s coat
shoulder.)_

LENEHAN: Ho! What do I here behold? Were you brushing the cobwebs off a
few quims?

BOYLAN: _(Sated, smiles.)_ Plucking a turkey.

LENEHAN: A good night’s work.

BOYLAN: _(Holding up four thick bluntungulated fingers, winks.)_ Blazes
Kate! Up to sample or your money back. _(He holds out a forefinger.)_
Smell that.

LENEHAN: _(Smells gleefully.)_ Ah! Lobster and mayonnaise. Ah!

ZOE AND FLORRY: _(Laugh together.)_ Ha ha ha ha.

BOYLAN: _(Jumps surely from the car and calls loudly for all to hear.)_
Hello, Bloom! Mrs Bloom dressed yet?

BLOOM: _(In flunkey’s prune plush coat and kneebreeches, buff stockings
and powdered wig.)_ I’m afraid not, sir. The last articles...

BOYLAN: _(Tosses him sixpence.)_ Here, to buy yourself a gin and
splash. _(He hangs his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom’s antlered head.)_
Show me in. I have a little private business with your wife, you
understand?

BLOOM: Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Madam Tweedy is in her bath, sir.

MARION: He ought to feel himself highly honoured. _(She plops splashing
out of the water.)_ Raoul darling, come and dry me. I’m in my pelt.
Only my new hat and a carriage sponge.

BOYLAN: _(A merry twinkle in his eye.)_ Topping!

BELLA: What? What is it?

_(Zoe whispers to her.)_

MARION: Let him look, the pishogue! Pimp! And scourge himself! I’ll
write to a powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the bearded woman, to
raise weals out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a
signed and stamped receipt.

BOYLAN: (Clasps himself.) Here, I can’t hold this little lot much
longer. (He strides off on stiff cavalry legs.)

BELLA: _(Laughing.)_ Ho ho ho ho.

BOYLAN: _(To Bloom, over his shoulder.)_ You can apply your eye to the
keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times.

BLOOM: Thank you, sir. I will, sir. May I bring two men chums to
witness the deed and take a snapshot? _(He holds out an ointment jar.)_
Vaseline, sir? Orangeflower...? Lukewarm water...?

KITTY: _(From the sofa.)_ Tell us, Florry. Tell us. What...

_(Florry whispers to her. Whispering lovewords murmur, liplapping
loudly, poppysmic plopslop.)_

MINA KENNEDY: _(Her eyes upturned.)_ O, it must be like the scent of
geraniums and lovely peaches! O, he simply idolises every bit of her!
Stuck together! Covered with kisses!

LYDIA DOUCE: _(Her mouth opening.)_ Yumyum. O, he’s carrying her round
the room doing it! Ride a cockhorse. You could hear them in Paris and
New York. Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream.

KITTY: _(Laughing.)_ Hee hee hee.

BOYLAN’S VOICE: _(Sweetly, hoarsely, in the pit of his stomach.)_ Ah!
Godblazeqrukbrukarchkrasht!

MARION’S VOICE: _(Hoarsely, sweetly, rising to her throat.)_ O!
Weeshwashtkissinapooisthnapoohuck?

BLOOM: _(His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself.)_ Show! Hide! Show!
Plough her! More! Shoot!

BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY, KITTY: Ho ho! Ha ha! Hee hee!

LYNCH: _(Points.)_ The mirror up to nature. _(He laughs.)_ Hu hu hu hu
hu!

_(Stephen and Bloom gaze in the mirror. The face of William
Shakespeare, beardless, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis,
crowned by the reflection of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the
hall.)_

SHAKESPEARE: _(In dignified ventriloquy.)_ ’Tis the loud laugh bespeaks
the vacant mind. _(To Bloom.)_ Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest
invisible. Gaze. _(He crows with a black capon’s laugh.)_ Iagogo! How
my Oldfellow chokit his Thursdaymornun. Iagogogo!

BLOOM: _(Smiles yellowly at the three whores.)_ When will I hear the
joke?

ZOE: Before you’re twice married and once a widower.

BLOOM: Lapses are condoned. Even the great Napoleon when measurements
were taken next the skin after his death...

_(Mrs Dignam, widow woman, her snubnose and cheeks flushed with
deathtalk, tears and Tunney’s tawny sherry, hurries by in her weeds,
her bonnet awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips and nose, a pen
chivvying her brood of cygnets. Beneath her skirt appear her late
husband’s everyday trousers and turnedup boots, large eights. She holds
a Scottish widow’s insurance policy and a large marquee umbrella under
which her brood run with her, Patsy hopping on one shod foot, his
collar loose, a hank of porksteaks dangling, Freddy whimpering, Susy
with a crying cod’s mouth, Alice struggling with the baby. She cuffs
them on, her streamers flaunting aloft.)_

FREDDY: Ah, ma, you’re dragging me along!

SUSY: Mamma, the beeftea is fizzing over!

SHAKESPEARE: _(With paralytic rage.)_ Weda seca whokilla farst.

_(The face of Martin Cunningham, bearded, refeatures Shakespeare’s
beardless face. The marquee umbrella sways drunkenly, the children run
aside. Under the umbrella appears Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and
kimono gown. She glides sidling and bowing, twirling japanesily.)_

MRS CUNNINGHAM: _(Sings.)_

     And they call me the jewel of Asia!


MARTIN CUNNINGHAM: _(Gazes on her, impassive.)_ Immense! Most bloody
awful demirep!

STEPHEN: _Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti._ Queens lay with prize bulls.
Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgrossfather made the first
confessionbox. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions
of the house of Lambert. And Noah was drunk with wine. And his ark was
open.

BELLA: None of that here. Come to the wrong shop.

LYNCH: Let him alone. He’s back from Paris.

ZOE: _(Runs to stephen and links him.)_ O go on! Give us some
parleyvoo.

_(Stephen claps hat on head and leaps over to the fireplace where he
stands with shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread, a painted smile
on his face.)_

LYNCH: _(Pommelling on the sofa.)_ Rmm Rmm Rmm Rrrrrrmmmmm.

STEPHEN: _(Gabbles with marionette jerks.)_ Thousand places of
entertainment to expense your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves
and other things perhaps hers heart beerchops perfect fashionable house
very eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about
princesses like are dancing cancan and walking there parisian
clowneries extra foolish for bachelors foreigns the same if talking a
poor english how much smart they are on things love and sensations
voluptuous. Misters very selects for is pleasure must to visit heaven
and hell show with mortuary candles and they tears silver which occur
every night. Perfectly shocking terrific of religion’s things mockery
seen in universal world. All chic womans which arrive full of modesty
then disrobe and squeal loud to see vampire man debauch nun very fresh
young with _dessous troublants_. _(He clacks his tongue loudly.)_ _Ho,
là là! Ce pif qu’il a!_

LYNCH: _Vive le vampire!_

THE WHORES: Bravo! Parleyvoo!

STEPHEN: _(Grimacing with head back, laughs loudly, clapping himself.)_
Great success of laughing. Angels much prostitutes like and holy
apostles big damn ruffians. _Demimondaines_ nicely handsome sparkling
of diamonds very amiable costumed. Or do you are fond better what
belongs they moderns pleasure turpitude of old mans? _(He points about
him with grotesque gestures which Lynch and the whores reply to.)_
Caoutchouc statue woman reversible or lifesize tompeeptom of virgins
nudities very lesbic the kiss five ten times. Enter, gentleman, to see
in mirror every positions trapezes all that machine there besides also
if desire act awfully bestial butcher’s boy pollutes in warm veal liver
or omlet on the belly _pièce de Shakespeare._

BELLA: _(Clapping her belly sinks back on the sofa, with a shout of
laughter.)_ An omelette on the... Ho! ho! ho! ho!... omelette on the...

STEPHEN: _(Mincingly.)_ I love you, sir darling. Speak you englishman
tongue for _double entente cordiale._ O yes, _mon loup_. How much cost?
Waterloo. Watercloset. _(He ceases suddenly and holds up a
forefinger.)_

BELLA: _(Laughing.)_ Omelette...

THE WHORES: _(Laughing.)_ Encore! Encore!

STEPHEN: Mark me. I dreamt of a watermelon.

ZOE: Go abroad and love a foreign lady.

LYNCH: Across the world for a wife.

FLORRY: Dreams goes by contraries.

STEPHEN: _(Extends his arms.)_ It was here. Street of harlots. In
Serpentine avenue Beelzebub showed me her, a fubsy widow. Where’s the
red carpet spread?

BLOOM: _(Approaching Stephen.)_ Look...

STEPHEN: No, I flew. My foes beneath me. And ever shall be. World
without end. _(He cries.) Pater!_ Free!

BLOOM: I say, look...

STEPHEN: Break my spirit, will he? _O merde alors! (He cries, his
vulture talons sharpened.)_ Hola! Hillyho!

_(Simon Dedalus’ voice hilloes in answer, somewhat sleepy but ready.)_

SIMON: That’s all right. _(He swoops uncertainly through the air,
wheeling, uttering cries of heartening, on strong ponderous buzzard
wings.)_ Ho, boy! Are you going to win? Hoop! Pschatt! Stable with
those halfcastes. Wouldn’t let them within the bawl of an ass. Head up!
Keep our flag flying! An eagle gules volant in a field argent
displayed. Ulster king at arms! Haihoop! _(He makes the beagle’s call,
giving tongue.)_ Bulbul! Burblblburblbl! Hai, boy!

_(The fronds and spaces of the wallpaper file rapidly across country. A
stout fox, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his
grandmother, runs swift for the open, brighteyed, seeking badger earth,
under the leaves. The pack of staghounds follows, nose to the ground,
sniffing their quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrbling to be blooded. Ward
Union huntsmen and huntswomen live with them, hot for a kill. From Six
Mile Point, Flathouse, Nine Mile Stone follow the footpeople with
knotty sticks, hayforks, salmongaffs, lassos, flockmasters with
stockwhips, bearbaiters with tomtoms, toreadors with bullswords, grey
negroes waving torches. The crowd bawls of dicers, crown and anchor
players, thimbleriggers, broadsmen. Crows and touts, hoarse bookies in
high wizard hats clamour deafeningly.)_

THE CROWD:

     Card of the races. Racing card!
     Ten to one the field!
     Tommy on the clay here! Tommy on the clay!
     Ten to one bar one! Ten to one bar one!
     Try your luck on Spinning Jenny!
     Ten to one bar one!
     Sell the monkey, boys! Sell the monkey!
     I’ll give ten to one!
     Ten to one bar one!

_(A dark horse, riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winningpost,
his mane moonfoaming, his eyeballs stars. The field follows, a bunch of
bucking mounts. Skeleton horses, Sceptre, Maximum the Second,
Zinfandel, the Duke of Westminster’s Shotover, Repulse, the Duke of
Beaufort’s Ceylon, prix de Paris. Dwarfs ride them, rustyarmoured,
leaping, leaping in their, in their saddles. Last in a drizzle of rain
on a brokenwinded isabelle nag, Cock of the North, the favourite, honey
cap, green jacket, orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, gripping the
reins, a hockeystick at the ready. His nag on spavined whitegaitered
feet jogs along the rocky road.)_

THE ORANGE LODGES: _(Jeering.)_ Get down and push, mister. Last lap!
You’ll be home the night!

GARRETT DEASY: _(Bolt upright, his nailscraped face plastered with
postagestamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his blue eyes flashing in
the prism of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling
gallop.)_

_Per vias rectas!_

_(A yoke of buckets leopards all over him and his rearing nag a torrent
of mutton broth with dancing coins of carrots, barley, onions, turnips,
potatoes.)_

THE GREEN LODGES: Soft day, sir John! Soft day, your honour!

_(Private Carr, Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey pass beneath the
windows, singing in discord.)_

STEPHEN: Hark! Our friend noise in the street.

ZOE: _(Holds up her hand.)_ Stop!

PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON AND CISSY CAFFREY:

     Yet I’ve a sort of a
     Yorkshire relish for...

ZOE: That’s me. _(She claps her hands.)_ Dance! Dance! _(She runs to
the pianola.)_ Who has twopence?

BLOOM: Who’ll...?

LYNCH: _(Handing her coins.)_ Here.

STEPHEN: _(Cracking his fingers impatiently.)_ Quick! Quick! Where’s my
augur’s rod? _(He runs to the piano and takes his ashplant, beating his
foot in tripudium.)_

ZOE: _(Turns the drumhandle.)_ There.

_(She drops two pennies in the slot. Gold, pink and violet lights start
forth. The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz. Professor
Goodwin, in a bowknotted periwig, in court dress, wearing a stained
inverness cape, bent in two from incredible age, totters across the
room, his hands fluttering. He sits tinily on the pianostool and lifts
and beats handless sticks of arms on the keyboard, nodding with
damsel’s grace, his bowknot bobbing.)_

ZOE: _(Twirls round herself, heeltapping.)_ Dance. Anybody here for
there? Who’ll dance? Clear the table.

_(The pianola with changing lights plays in waltz time the prelude of_
My Girl’s a Yorkshire Girl. _Stephen throws his ashplant on the table
and seizes Zoe round the waist. Florry and Bella push the table towards
the fireplace. Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, begins to
waltz her round the room. Bloom stands aside. Her sleeve falling from
gracing arms, reveals a white fleshflower of vaccination. Between the
curtains Professor Maginni inserts a leg on the toepoint of which spins
a silk hat. With a deft kick he sends it spinning to his crown and
jauntyhatted skates in. He wears a slate frockcoat with claret silk
lapels, a gorget of cream tulle, a green lowcut waistcoat, stock collar
with white kerchief, tight lavender trousers, patent pumps and canary
gloves. In his buttonhole is an immense dahlia. He twirls in reversed
directions a clouded cane, then wedges it tight in his oxter. He places
a hand lightly on his breastbone, bows, and fondles his flower and
buttons.)_

MAGINNI: The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics. No connection with
Madam Legget Byrne’s or Levenston’s. Fancy dress balls arranged.
Deportment. The Katty Lanner step. So. Watch me! My terpsichorean
abilities. _(He minuets forward three paces on tripping bee’s feet.)
Tout le monde en avant! Révérence! Tout le monde en place!_

_(The prelude ceases. Professor Goodwin, beating vague arms shrivels,
sinks, his live cape falling about the stool. The air in firmer waltz
time sounds. Stephen and Zoe circle freely. The lights change, glow,
fade gold rosy violet.)_

THE PIANOLA:

     Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls, girls,
     Sweethearts they’d left behind...

_(From a corner the morning hours run out, goldhaired, slimsandalled,
in girlish blue, waspwaisted, with innocent hands. Nimbly they dance,
twirling their skipping ropes. The hours of noon follow in amber gold.
Laughing, linked, high haircombs flashing, they catch the sun in
mocking mirrors, lifting their arms.)_

MAGINNI: _(Clipclaps glovesilent hands.) Carré! Avant deux!_ Breathe
evenly! _Balance!_

_(The morning and noon hours waltz in their places, turning, advancing
to each other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis. Cavaliers behind
them arch and suspend their arms, with hands descending to, touching,
rising from their shoulders.)_

HOURS: You may touch my.

CAVALIERS: May I touch your?

HOURS: O, but lightly!

CAVALIERS: O, so lightly!

THE PIANOLA:

     My little shy little lass has a waist.

_(Zoe and Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. The twilight hours
advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their
cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. They are in grey
gauze with dark bat sleeves that flutter in the land breeze.)_

MAGINNI: _Avant huit! Traversé! Salut! Cours de mains! Croisé!_

_(The night hours, one by one, steal to the last place. Morning, noon
and twilight hours retreat before them. They are masked, with daggered
hair and bracelets of dull bells. Weary they curchycurchy under
veils.)_

THE BRACELETS: Heigho! Heigho!

ZOE: _(Twirling, her hand to her brow.)_ O!

MAGINNI: _Les tiroirs! Chaîne de dames! La corbeille! Dos à dos!_

_(Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the floor, weaving,
unweaving, curtseying, twirling, simply swirling.)_

ZOE: I’m giddy!

_(She frees herself, droops on a chair. Stephen seizes Florry and turns
with her.)_

MAGINNI: _Boulangère! Les ronds! Les ponts! Chevaux de bois!
Escargots!_

_(Twining, receding, with interchanging hands the night hours link each
each with arching arms in a mosaic of movements. Stephen and Florry
turn cumbrously.)_

MAGINNI: _Dansez avec vos dames! Changez de dames! Donnez le petit
bouquet à votre dame! Remerciez!_

THE PIANOLA:

     Best, best of all,
     Baraabum!

KITTY: _(Jumps up.)_ O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the
_Mirus_ bazaar!

_(She runs to Stephen. He leaves Florry brusquely and seizes Kitty. A
screaming bittern’s harsh high whistle shrieks. Groangrousegurgling
Toft’s cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room right roundabout the
room.)_

THE PIANOLA:

     My girl’s a Yorkshire girl.

ZOE:

Yorkshire through and through. Come on all!

_(She seizes Florry and waltzes her.)_

STEPHEN: _Pas seul!_

_(He wheels Kitty into Lynch’s arms, snatches up his ashplant from the
table and takes the floor. All wheel whirl waltz twirl. Bloombella
Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women. Stephen with hat ashplant frogsplits
in middle highkicks with skykicking mouth shut hand clasp part under
thigh. With clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho hornblower blue green
yellow flashes Toft’s cumbersome turns with hobbyhorse riders from
gilded snakes dangled, bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall
again.)_

THE PIANOLA:

     Though she’s a factory lass
     And wears no fancy clothes.

_(Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they
scootlootshoot lumbering by. Baraabum!)_

TUTTI: Encore! Bis! Bravo! Encore!

SIMON: Think of your mother’s people!

STEPHEN: Dance of death.

_(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey’s bell, horse, nag, steer,
piglings, Conmee on Christass, lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat
armfolded ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through.
Baraabum! On nags hogs bellhorses Gadarene swine Corny in coffin steel
shark stone onehandled Nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained
from pram falling bawling. Gum he’s a champion. Fuseblue peer from
barrel rev. evensong Love on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled
bicyclers Dilly with snowcake no fancy clothes. Then in last switchback
lumbering up and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for
tublumber bumpshire rose. Baraabum!)_

_(The couples fall aside. Stephen whirls giddily. Room whirls back.
Eyes closed he totters. Red rails fly spacewards. Stars all around suns
turn roundabout. Bright midges dance on walls. He stops dead.)_

STEPHEN: Ho!

_(Stephen’s mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor, in leper
grey with a wreath of faded orangeblossoms and a torn bridal veil, her
face worn and noseless, green with gravemould. Her hair is scant and
lank. She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and opens
her toothless mouth uttering a silent word. A choir of virgins and
confessors sing voicelessly.)_

THE CHOIR:

     Liliata rutilantium te confessorum...
     Iubilantium te virginum...

_(From the top of a tower Buck Mulligan, in particoloured jester’s
dress of puce and yellow and clown’s cap with curling bell, stands
gaping at her, a smoking buttered split scone in his hand.)_

BUCK MULLIGAN: She’s beastly dead. The pity of it! Mulligan meets the
afflicted mother. _(He upturns his eyes.)_ Mercurial Malachi!

THE MOTHER: _(With the subtle smile of death’s madness.)_ I was once
the beautiful May Goulding. I am dead.

STEPHEN: _(Horrorstruck.)_ Lemur, who are you? No. What bogeyman’s
trick is this?

BUCK MULLIGAN: _(Shakes his curling capbell.)_ The mockery of it! Kinch
dogsbody killed her bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. _(Tears of molten
butter fall from his eyes on to the scone.)_ Our great sweet mother!
_Epi oinopa ponton._

THE MOTHER: _(Comes nearer, breathing upon him softly her breath of
wetted ashes.)_ All must go through it, Stephen. More women than men in
the world. You too. Time will come.

STEPHEN: _(Choking with fright, remorse and horror.)_ They say I killed
you, mother. He offended your memory. Cancer did it, not I. Destiny.

THE MOTHER: _(A green rill of bile trickling from a side of her
mouth.)_ You sang that song to me. _Love’s bitter mystery._

STEPHEN: _(Eagerly.)_ Tell me the word, mother, if you know now. The
word known to all men.

THE MOTHER: Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at Dalkey
with Paddy Lee? Who had pity for you when you were sad among the
strangers? Prayer is allpowerful. Prayer for the suffering souls in the
Ursuline manual and forty days’ indulgence. Repent, Stephen.

STEPHEN: The ghoul! Hyena!

THE MOTHER: I pray for you in my other world. Get Dilly to make you
that boiled rice every night after your brainwork. Years and years I
loved you, O, my son, my firstborn, when you lay in my womb.

ZOE: _(Fanning herself with the grate fan.)_ I’m melting!

FLORRY: _(Points to Stephen.)_ Look! He’s white.

BLOOM: _(Goes to the window to open it more.)_ Giddy.

THE MOTHER: _(With smouldering eyes.)_ Repent! O, the fire of hell!

STEPHEN: _(Panting.)_ His noncorrosive sublimate! The corpsechewer! Raw
head and bloody bones.

THE MOTHER: _(Her face drawing near and nearer, sending out an ashen
breath.)_ Beware! _(She raises her blackened withered right arm slowly
towards Stephen’s breast with outstretched finger.)_ Beware God’s hand!
_(A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws
in Stephen’s heart.)_

STEPHEN: _(Strangled with rage.)_ Shite! _(His features grow drawn and
grey and old.)_

BLOOM: _(At the window.)_ What?

STEPHEN: _Ah non, par exemple!_ The intellectual imagination! With me
all or not at all. _Non serviam!_

FLORRY: Give him some cold water. Wait. _(She rushes out.)_

THE MOTHER: _(Wrings her hands slowly, moaning desperately.)_ O Sacred
Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Save him from hell, O Divine Sacred
Heart!

STEPHEN: No! No! No! Break my spirit, all of you, if you can! I’ll
bring you all to heel!

THE MOTHER: _(In the agony of her deathrattle.)_ Have mercy on Stephen,
Lord, for my sake! Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with
love, grief and agony on Mount Calvary.

STEPHEN: _Nothung!_

_(He lifts his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the
chandelier. Time’s livid final flame leaps and, in the following
darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)_

THE GASJET: Pwfungg!

BLOOM: Stop!

LYNCH: _(Rushes forward and seizes Stephen’s hand.)_ Here! Hold on!
Don’t run amok!

BELLA: Police!

_(Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back
stark, beats the ground and flies from the room, past the whores at the
door.)_

BELLA: _(Screams.)_ After him!

_(The two whores rush to the halldoor. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe stampede
from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows, returns.)_

THE WHORES: _(Jammed in the doorway, pointing.)_ Down there.

ZOE: _(Pointing.)_ There. There’s something up.

BELLA: Who pays for the lamp? _(She seizes Bloom’s coattail.)_ Here,
you were with him. The lamp’s broken.

BLOOM: _(Rushes to the hall, rushes back.)_ What lamp, woman?

A WHORE: He tore his coat.

BELLA: _(Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points.)_ Who’s to pay
for that? Ten shillings. You’re a witness.

BLOOM: _(Snatches up Stephen’s ashplant.)_ Me? Ten shillings? Haven’t
you lifted enough off him? Didn’t he...?

BELLA: _(Loudly.)_ Here, none of your tall talk. This isn’t a brothel.
A ten shilling house.

BLOOM: _(His head under the lamp, pulls the chain. Pulling, the gasjet
lights up a crushed mauve purple shade. He raises the ashplant.)_ Only
the chimney’s broken. Here is all he...

BELLA: _(Shrinks back and screams.)_ Jesus! Don’t!

BLOOM: _(Warding off a blow.)_ To show you how he hit the paper.
There’s not sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings!

FLORRY: _(With a glass of water, enters.)_ Where is he?

BELLA: Do you want me to call the police?

BLOOM: O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he’s a Trinity student.
Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. _(He makes
a masonic sign.)_ Know what I mean? Nephew of the vicechancellor. You
don’t want a scandal.

BELLA: _(Angrily.)_ Trinity. Coming down here ragging after the
boatraces and paying nothing. Are you my commander here or? Where is
he? I’ll charge him! Disgrace him, I will! _(She shouts.)_ Zoe! Zoe!

BLOOM: _(Urgently.)_ And if it were your own son in Oxford?
_(Warningly.)_ I know.

BELLA: _(Almost speechless.)_ Who are. Incog!

ZOE: _(In the doorway.)_ There’s a row on.

BLOOM: What? Where? _(He throws a shilling on the table and starts.)_
That’s for the chimney. Where? I need mountain air.

_(He hurries out through the hall. The whores point. Florry follows,
spilling water from her tilted tumbler. On the doorstep all the whores
clustered talk volubly, pointing to the right where the fog has cleared
off. From the left arrives a jingling hackney car. It slows to in front
of the house. Bloom at the halldoor perceives Corny Kelleher who is
about to dismount from the car with two silent lechers. He averts his
face. Bella from within the hall urges on her whores. They blow
ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Corny Kelleher replies with a ghastly
lewd smile. The silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey. Zoe and Kitty
still point right. Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws his caliph’s hood
and poncho and hurries down the steps with sideways face. Incog Haroun
al Raschid he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the
railings with fleet step of a pard strewing the drag behind him, torn
envelopes drenched in aniseed. The ashplant marks his stride. A pack of
bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in
tallyho cap and an old pair of grey trousers, follows from far, picking
up the scent, nearer, baying, panting, at fault, breaking away,
throwing their tongues, biting his heels, leaping at his tail. He
walks, runs, zigzags, gallops, lugs laid back. He is pelted with
gravel, cabbagestumps, biscuitboxes, eggs, potatoes, dead codfish,
woman’s slipperslappers. After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag
gallops in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, 66 C, night watch,
John Henry Menton, Wisdom Hely, V. B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti,
Alexander Keyes, Larry O’Rourke, Joe Cuffe, Mrs O’Dowd, Pisser Burke,
The Nameless One, Mrs Riordan, The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim,
Strangeface, Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris
Callinan, sir Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell
d’Arcy, Joe Hynes, red Murray, editor Brayden, T. M. Healy, Mr Justice
Fitzgibbon, John Howard Parnell, the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor
Joly, Mrs Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, the
Westland Row postmistress, C. P. M’Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan,
maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed driver,
rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Ellen M’Guinness, Mrs Joe
Gallaher, George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy,
Father Cowley, Crofton out of the Collector-general’s, Dan Dawson,
dental surgeon Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Bob Doran, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs
Wyse Nolan, John Wyse Nolan,
handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwidebehindinClonskea tram, the
bookseller of_ Sweets of Sin, _Miss Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames
Gerald and Stanislaus Moran of Roebuck, the managing clerk of
Drimmie’s, Wetherup, colonel Hayes, Mastiansky, Citron, Penrose, Aaron
Figatner, Moses Herzog, Michael E Geraghty, Inspector Troy, Mrs
Galbraith, the constable off Eccles street corner, old doctor Brady
with stethoscope, the mystery man on the beach, a retriever, Mrs Miriam
Dandrade and all her lovers.)_

THE HUE AND CRY: _(Helterskelterpelterwelter.)_ He’s Bloom! Stop Bloom!
Stopabloom! Stopperrobber! Hi! Hi! Stophim on the corner!

_(At the corner of Beaver street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting
stops on the fringe of the noisy quarrelling knot, a lot not knowing a
jot what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)_

STEPHEN: _(With elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly.)_ You
are my guests. Uninvited. By virtue of the fifth of George and seventh
of Edward. History to blame. Fabled by mothers of memory.

PRIVATE CARR: _(To Cissy Caffrey.)_ Was he insulting you?

STEPHEN: Addressed her in vocative feminine. Probably neuter.
Ungenitive.

VOICES: No, he didn’t. I seen him. The girl there. He was in Mrs
Cohen’s. What’s up? Soldier and civilian.

CISSY CAFFREY: I was in company with the soldiers and they left me to
do—you know, and the young man run up behind me. But I’m faithful to
the man that’s treating me though I’m only a shilling whore.

STEPHEN: _(Catches sight of Lynch’s and Kitty’s heads.)_ Hail,
Sisyphus. _(He points to himself and the others.)_ Poetic. Uropoetic.

VOICES: Shes faithfultheman.

CISSY CAFFREY: Yes, to go with him. And me with a soldier friend.

PRIVATE COMPTON: He doesn’t half want a thick ear, the blighter. Biff
him one, Harry.

PRIVATE CARR: _(To Cissy.)_ Was he insulting you while me and him was
having a piss?

LORD TENNYSON: _(Gentleman poet in Union Jack blazer and cricket
flannels, bareheaded, flowingbearded.)_ Theirs not to reason why.

PRIVATE COMPTON: Biff him, Harry.

STEPHEN: _(To Private Compton.)_ I don’t know your name but you are
quite right. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in
their shirts. Shirt is synechdoche. Part for the whole.

CISSY CAFFREY: _(To the crowd.)_ No, I was with the privates.

STEPHEN: _(Amiably.)_ Why not? The bold soldier boy. In my opinion
every lady for example...

PRIVATE CARR: _(His cap awry, advances to Stephen.)_ Say, how would it
be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw?

STEPHEN: _(Looks up to the sky.)_ How? Very unpleasant. Noble art of
selfpretence. Personally, I detest action. _(He waves his hand.)_ Hand
hurts me slightly. _Enfin ce sont vos oignons._ _(To Cissy Caffrey.)_
Some trouble is on here. What is it precisely?

DOLLY GRAY: _(From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving the sign
of the heroine of Jericho.)_ Rahab. Cook’s son, goodbye. Safe home to
Dolly. Dream of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you.

_(The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.)_

BLOOM: _(Elbowing through the crowd, plucks Stephen’s sleeve
vigorously.)_ Come now, professor, that carman is waiting.

STEPHEN: _(Turns.)_ Eh? _(He disengages himself.)_ Why should I not
speak to him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate
orange? _(He points his finger.)_ I’m not afraid of what I can talk to
if I see his eye. Retaining the perpendicular.

_(He staggers a pace back.)_

BLOOM: _(Propping him.)_ Retain your own.

STEPHEN: _(Laughs emptily.)_ My centre of gravity is displaced. I have
forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle
for life is the law of existence but but human philirenists, notably
the tsar and the king of England, have invented arbitration. _(He taps
his brow.)_ But in here it is I must kill the priest and the king.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Did you hear what the professor said? He’s a professor
out of the college.

CUNTY KATE: I did. I heard that.

BIDDY THE CLAP: He expresses himself with such marked refinement of
phraseology.

CUNTY KATE: Indeed, yes. And at the same time with such apposite
trenchancy.

PRIVATE CARR: _(Pulls himself free and comes forward.)_ What’s that
you’re saying about my king?

_(Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. He wears a white jersey on
which an image of the Sacred Heart is stitched with the insignia of
Garter and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinner’s and
Probyn’s horse, Lincoln’s Inn bencher and ancient and honourable
artillery company of Massachusetts. He sucks a red jujube. He is robed
as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron,
marked_ made in Germany. _In his left hand he holds a plasterer’s
bucket on which is printed_ Défense d’uriner. _A roar of welcome greets
him.)_

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly.)_ Peace,
perfect peace. For identification, bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys.
_(He turns to his subjects.)_ We have come here to witness a clean
straight fight and we heartily wish both men the best of good luck.
Mahak makar a bak.

_(He shakes hands with Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, Bloom
and Lynch. General applause. Edward the Seventh lifts his bucket
graciously in acknowledgment.)_

PRIVATE CARR: _(To Stephen.)_ Say it again.

STEPHEN: _(Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up.)_ I understand your
point of view though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the
age of patent medicines. A discussion is difficult down here. But this
is the point. You die for your country. Suppose. _(He places his arm on
Private Carr’s sleeve.)_ Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my
country die for me. Up to the present it has done so. I didn’t want it
to die. Damn death. Long live life!

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Levitates over heaps of slain, in the garb and
with the halo of Joking Jesus, a white jujube in his phosphorescent
face.)_

     My methods are new and are causing surprise.
     To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes.

STEPHEN: Kings and unicorns! _(He falls back a pace.)_ Come somewhere
and we’ll... What was that girl saying?...

PRIVATE COMPTON: Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers. Stick one
into Jerry.

BLOOM: _(To the privates, softly.)_ He doesn’t know what he’s saying.
Taken a little more than is good for him. Absinthe. Greeneyed monster.
I know him. He’s a gentleman, a poet. It’s all right.

STEPHEN: _(Nods, smiling and laughing.)_ Gentleman, patriot, scholar
and judge of impostors.

PRIVATE CARR: I don’t give a bugger who he is.

PRIVATE COMPTON: We don’t give a bugger who he is.

STEPHEN: I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull.

_(Kevin Egan of Paris in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o’-day
boy’s hat signs to Stephen.)_

KEVIN EGAN: H’lo! _Bonjour!_ The _vieille ogresse_ with the _dents
jaunes_.

_(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his rabbitface nibbling a quince
leaf.)_

PATRICE: _Socialiste!_

DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY: _(In medieval hauberk,
two wild geese volant on his helm, with noble indignation points a
mailed hand against the privates.)_ Werf those eykes to footboden, big
grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy!

BLOOM: _(To Stephen.)_ Come home. You’ll get into trouble.

STEPHEN: _(Swaying.)_ I don’t avoid it. He provokes my intelligence.

BIDDY THE CLAP: One immediately observes that he is of patrician
lineage.

THE VIRAGO: Green above the red, says he. Wolfe Tone.

THE BAWD: The red’s as good as the green. And better. Up the soldiers!
Up King Edward!

A ROUGH: _(Laughs.)_ Ay! Hands up to De Wet.

THE CITIZEN: _(With a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls.)_

     May the God above
     Send down a dove
     With teeth as sharp as razors
     To slit the throats
     Of the English dogs
     That hanged our Irish leaders.

THE CROPPY BOY: _(The ropenoose round his neck, gripes in his issuing
bowels with both hands.)_

     I bear no hate to a living thing,
     But I love my country beyond the king.

RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER: _(Accompanied by two blackmasked assistants,
advances with gladstone bag which he opens.)_ Ladies and gents, cleaver
purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. Knife with which Voisin
dismembered the wife of a compatriot and hid remains in a sheet in the
cellar, the unfortunate female’s throat being cut from ear to ear.
Phial containing arsenic retrieved from body of Miss Barron which sent
Seddon to the gallows.

_(He jerks the rope. The assistants leap at the victim’s legs and drag
him downward, grunting: the croppy boy’s tongue protrudes violently.)_

THE CROPPY BOY:

     Horhot ho hray hor hother’s hest.

_(He gives up the ghost. A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts
of sperm spouting through his deathclothes on to the cobblestones. Mrs
Bellingham, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys
rush forward with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.)_

RUMBOLD: I’m near it myself. _(He undoes the noose.)_ Rope which hanged
the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time. As applied to Her Royal
Highness. _(He plunges his head into the gaping belly of the hanged and
draws out his head again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails.)_ My
painful duty has now been done. God save the king!

EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Dances slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket, and
sings with soft contentment.)_

     On coronation day, on coronation day,
     O, won’t we have a merry time,
     Drinking whisky, beer and wine!

PRIVATE CARR: Here. What are you saying about my king?

STEPHEN: _(Throws up his hands.)_ O, this is too monotonous! Nothing.
He wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for some
brutish empire of his. Money I haven’t. _(He searches his pockets
vaguely.)_ Gave it to someone.

PRIVATE CARR: Who wants your bleeding money?

STEPHEN: _(Tries to move off.)_ Will someone tell me where I am least
likely to meet these necessary evils? _Ça se voit aussi à Paris._ Not
that I... But, by Saint Patrick...!

_(The women’s heads coalesce. Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears
seated on a toadstool, the deathflower of the potato blight on her
breast.)_

STEPHEN: Aha! I know you, gammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that
eats her farrow!

OLD GUMMY GRANNY: _(Rocking to and fro.)_ Ireland’s sweetheart, the
king of Spain’s daughter, alanna. Strangers in my house, bad manners to
them! _(She keens with banshee woe.)_ Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine!
_(She wails.)_ You met with poor old Ireland and how does she stand?

STEPHEN: How do I stand you? The hat trick! Where’s the third person of
the Blessed Trinity? Soggarth Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow.

CISSY CAFFREY: _(Shrill.)_ Stop them from fighting!

A ROUGH: Our men retreated.

PRIVATE CARR: _(Tugging at his belt.)_ I’ll wring the neck of any
fucker says a word against my fucking king.

BLOOM: _(Terrified.)_ He said nothing. Not a word. A pure
misunderstanding.

THE CITIZEN: _Erin go bragh!_

_(Major Tweedy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals,
decorations, trophies of war, wounds. Both salute with fierce
hostility.)_

PRIVATE COMPTON: Go it, Harry. Do him one in the eye. He’s a proboer.

STEPHEN: Did I? When?

BLOOM: _(To the redcoats.)_ We fought for you in South Africa, Irish
missile troops. Isn’t that history? Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by
our monarch.

THE NAVVY: _(Staggering past.)_ O, yes! O God, yes! O, make the kwawr a
krowawr! O! Bo!

_(Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted
spearpoints. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in
bearskin cap with hackleplume and accoutrements, with epaulettes, gilt
chevrons and sabretaches, his breast bright with medals, toes the line.
He gives the pilgrim warrior’s sign of the knights templars.)_

MAJOR TWEEDY: _(Growls gruffly.)_ Rorke’s Drift! Up, guards, and at
them! Mahar shalal hashbaz.

PRIVATE CARR: I’ll do him in.

PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Waves the crowd back.)_ Fair play, here. Make a
bleeding butcher’s shop of the bugger.

_(Massed bands blare_ Garryowen _and_ God save the King.)

CISSY CAFFREY: They’re going to fight. For me!

CUNTY KATE: The brave and the fair.

BIDDY THE CLAP: Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the best.

CUNTY KATE: _(Blushing deeply.)_ Nay, madam. The gules doublet and
merry saint George for me!

STEPHEN:

     The harlot’s cry from street to street
     Shall weave Old Ireland’s windingsheet.

PRIVATE CARR: _(Loosening his belt, shouts.)_ I’ll wring the neck of
any fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king.

BLOOM: _(Shakes Cissy Caffrey’s shoulders.)_ Speak, you! Are you struck
dumb? You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman,
sacred lifegiver!

CISSY CAFFREY: _(Alarmed, seizes Private Carr’s sleeve.)_ Amn’t I with
you? Amn’t I your girl? Cissy’s your girl. _(She cries.)_ Police!

STEPHEN: _(Ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey.)_

     White thy fambles, red thy gan
     And thy quarrons dainty is.

VOICES: Police!

DISTANT VOICES: Dublin’s burning! Dublin’s burning! On fire, on fire!

_(Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns
boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse
commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech.
Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on
cuirasses. Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea,
rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets,
cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines,
merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese.
The midnight sun is darkened. The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin
from Prospect and Mount Jerome in white sheepskin overcoats and black
goatfell cloaks arise and appear to many. A chasm opens with a
noiseless yawn. Tom Rochford, winner, in athlete’s singlet and
breeches, arrives at the head of the national hurdle handicap and leaps
into the void. He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In wild
attitudes they spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory
lasses with fancy clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society
ladies lift their skirts above their heads to protect themselves.
Laughing witches in red cutty sarks ride through the air on
broomsticks. Quakerlyster plasters blisters. It rains dragons’ teeth.
Armed heroes spring up from furrows. They exchange in amity the pass of
knights of the red cross and fight duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe
Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith O’Brien against Daniel O’Connell,
Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin M’Carthy against Parnell,
Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, John O’Leary against Lear
O’Johnny, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord Gerald Fitzedward, The
O’Donoghue of the Glens against The Glens of The O’Donoghue. On an
eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the fieldaltar of Saint
Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns. From the
high barbacans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the smokepalled
altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of unreason,
lies, naked, fettered, a chalice resting on her swollen belly. Father
Malachi O’Flynn in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his two left
feet back to the front, celebrates camp mass. The Reverend Mr Hugh C
Haines Love M. A. in a plain cassock and mortarboard, his head and
collar back to the front, holds over the celebrant’s head an open
umbrella.)_

FATHER MALACHI O’FLYNN: _Introibo ad altare diaboli._

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: To the devil which hath made glad my young
days.

FATHER MALACHI O’FLYNN: _(Takes from the chalice and elevates a
blooddripping host.) Corpus meum._

THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: _(Raises high behind the celebrant’s
petticoat, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a
carrot is stuck.)_ My body.

THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED: Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rof,
Aiulella!

_(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)_

ADONAI: Dooooooooooog!

THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED: Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent
reigneth!

_(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)_

ADONAI: Goooooooooood!

_(In strident discord peasants and townsmen of Orange and Green
factions sing_ Kick the Pope _and_ Daily, daily sing to Mary.)

PRIVATE CARR: _(With ferocious articulation.)_ I’ll do him in, so help
me fucking Christ! I’ll wring the bastard fucker’s bleeding blasted
fucking windpipe!

_(The retriever, nosing on the fringe of the crowd, barks noisily.)_

OLD GUMMY GRANNY: _(Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen’s hand.)_ Remove
him, acushla. At 8.35 a.m. you will be in heaven and Ireland will be
free. _(She prays.)_ O good God, take him!

BLOOM: _(Runs to Lynch.)_ Can’t you get him away?

LYNCH: He likes dialectic, the universal language. Kitty! _(To Bloom.)_
Get him away, you. He won’t listen to me.

_(He drags Kitty away.)_

STEPHEN: _(Points.) Exit Judas. Et laqueo se suspendit._

BLOOM: _(Runs to Stephen.)_ Come along with me now before worse
happens. Here’s your stick.

STEPHEN: Stick, no. Reason. This feast of pure reason.

CISSY CAFFREY: _(Pulling Private Carr.)_ Come on, you’re boosed. He
insulted me but I forgive him. _(Shouting in his ear.)_ I forgive him
for insulting me.

BLOOM: _(Over Stephen’s shoulder.)_ Yes, go. You see he’s incapable.

PRIVATE CARR: _(Breaks loose.)_ I’ll insult him.

_(He rushes towards Stephen, fist outstretched, and strikes him in the
face. Stephen totters, collapses, falls, stunned. He lies prone, his
face to the sky, his hat rolling to the wall. Bloom follows and picks
it up.)_

MAJOR TWEEDY: _(Loudly.)_ Carbine in bucket! Cease fire! Salute!

THE RETRIEVER: _(Barking furiously.)_ Ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute.

THE CROWD: Let him up! Don’t strike him when he’s down! Air! Who? The
soldier hit him. He’s a professor. Is he hurted? Don’t manhandle him!
He’s fainted!

A HAG: What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman and he under
the influence. Let them go and fight the Boers!

THE BAWD: Listen to who’s talking! Hasn’t the soldier a right to go
with his girl? He gave him the coward’s blow.

_(They grab at each other’s hair, claw at each other and spit.)_

THE RETRIEVER: _(Barking.)_ Wow wow wow.

BLOOM: _(Shoves them back, loudly.)_ Get back, stand back!

PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Tugging his comrade.)_ Here. Bugger off, Harry.
Here’s the cops! _(Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the group.)_

FIRST WATCH: What’s wrong here?

PRIVATE COMPTON: We were with this lady. And he insulted us. And
assaulted my chum. _(The retriever barks.)_ Who owns the bleeding tyke?

CISSY CAFFREY: _(With expectation.)_ Is he bleeding!

A MAN: _(Rising from his knees.)_ No. Gone off. He’ll come to all
right.

BLOOM: _(Glances sharply at the man.)_ Leave him to me. I can easily...

SECOND WATCH: Who are you? Do you know him?

PRIVATE CARR: _(Lurches towards the watch.)_ He insulted my lady
friend.

BLOOM: _(Angrily.)_ You hit him without provocation. I’m a witness.
Constable, take his regimental number.

SECOND WATCH: I don’t want your instructions in the discharge of my
duty.

PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Pulling his comrade.)_ Here, bugger off Harry. Or
Bennett’ll shove you in the lockup.

PRIVATE CARR: _(Staggering as he is pulled away.)_ God fuck old
Bennett. He’s a whitearsed bugger. I don’t give a shit for him.

FIRST WATCH: _(Takes out his notebook.)_ What’s his name?

BLOOM: _(Peering over the crowd.)_ I just see a car there. If you give
me a hand a second, sergeant...

FIRST WATCH: Name and address.

_(Corny Kelleher, weepers round his hat, a death wreath in his hand,
appears among the bystanders.)_

BLOOM: _(Quickly.)_ O, the very man! _(He whispers.)_ Simon Dedalus’
son. A bit sprung. Get those policemen to move those loafers back.

SECOND WATCH: Night, Mr Kelleher.

CORNY KELLEHER: _(To the watch, with drawling eye.)_ That’s all right.
I know him. Won a bit on the races. Gold cup. Throwaway. _(He laughs.)_
Twenty to one. Do you follow me?

FIRST WATCH: _(Turns to the crowd.)_ Here, what are you all gaping at?
Move on out of that.

_(The crowd disperses slowly, muttering, down the lane.)_

CORNY KELLEHER: Leave it to me, sergeant. That’ll be all right. _(He
laughs, shaking his head.)_ We were often as bad ourselves, ay or
worse. What? Eh, what?

FIRST WATCH: _(Laughs.)_ I suppose so.

CORNY KELLEHER: _(Nudges the second watch.)_ Come and wipe your name
off the slate. _(He lilts, wagging his head.)_ With my tooraloom
tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom. What, eh, do you follow me?

SECOND WATCH: _(Genially.)_ Ah, sure we were too.

CORNY KELLEHER: _(Winking.)_ Boys will be boys. I’ve a car round there.

SECOND WATCH: All right, Mr Kelleher. Good night.

CORNY KELLEHER: I’ll see to that.

BLOOM: _(Shakes hands with both of the watch in turn.)_ Thank you very
much, gentlemen. Thank you. _(He mumbles confidentially.)_ We don’t
want any scandal, you understand. Father is a wellknown highly
respected citizen. Just a little wild oats, you understand.

FIRST WATCH: O. I understand, sir.

SECOND WATCH: That’s all right, sir.

FIRST WATCH: It was only in case of corporal injuries I’d have to
report it at the station.

BLOOM: _(Nods rapidly.)_ Naturally. Quite right. Only your bounden
duty.

SECOND WATCH: It’s our duty.

CORNY KELLEHER: Good night, men.

THE WATCH: _(Saluting together.)_ Night, gentlemen. _(They move off
with slow heavy tread.)_

BLOOM: _(Blows.)_ Providential you came on the scene. You have a
car?...

CORNY KELLEHER: _(Laughs, pointing his thumb over his right shoulder to
the car brought up against the scaffolding.)_ Two commercials that were
standing fizz in Jammet’s. Like princes, faith. One of them lost two
quid on the race. Drowning his grief. And were on for a go with the
jolly girls. So I landed them up on Behan’s car and down to nighttown.

BLOOM: I was just going home by Gardiner street when I happened to...

CORNY KELLEHER: _(Laughs.)_ Sure they wanted me to join in with the
mots. No, by God, says I. Not for old stagers like myself and yourself.
_(He laughs again and leers with lacklustre eye.)_ Thanks be to God we
have it in the house, what, eh, do you follow me? Hah, hah, hah!

BLOOM: _(Tries to laugh.)_ He, he, he! Yes. Matter of fact I was just
visiting an old friend of mine there, Virag, you don’t know him (poor
fellow, he’s laid up for the past week) and we had a liquor together
and I was just making my way home...

_(The horse neighs.)_

THE HORSE: Hohohohohohoh! Hohohohome!

CORNY KELLEHER: Sure it was Behan our jarvey there that told me after
we left the two commercials in Mrs Cohen’s and I told him to pull up
and got off to see. _(He laughs.)_ Sober hearsedrivers a speciality.
Will I give him a lift home? Where does he hang out? Somewhere in
Cabra, what?

BLOOM: No, in Sandycove, I believe, from what he let drop.

_(Stephen, prone, breathes to the stars. Corny Kelleher, asquint,
drawls at the horse. Bloom, in gloom, looms down.)_

CORNY KELLEHER: _(Scratches his nape.)_ Sandycove! _(He bends down and
calls to Stephen.)_ Eh! _(He calls again.)_ Eh! He’s covered with
shavings anyhow. Take care they didn’t lift anything off him.

BLOOM: No, no, no. I have his money and his hat here and stick.

CORNY KELLEHER: Ah, well, he’ll get over it. No bones broken. Well,
I’ll shove along. _(He laughs.)_ I’ve a rendezvous in the morning.
Burying the dead. Safe home!

THE HORSE: _(Neighs.)_ Hohohohohome.

BLOOM: Good night. I’ll just wait and take him along in a few...

_(Corny Kelleher returns to the outside car and mounts it. The horse
harness jingles.)_

CORNY KELLEHER: _(From the car, standing.)_ Night.

BLOOM: Night.

_(The jarvey chucks the reins and raises his whip encouragingly. The
car and horse back slowly, awkwardly, and turn. Corny Kelleher on the
sideseat sways his head to and fro in sign of mirth at Bloom’s plight.
The jarvey joins in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the
farther seat. Bloom shakes his head in mute mirthful reply. With thumb
and palm Corny Kelleher reassures that the two bobbies will allow the
sleep to continue for what else is to be done. With a slow nod Bloom
conveys his gratitude as that is exactly what Stephen needs. The car
jingles tooraloom round the corner of the tooraloom lane. Corny
Kelleher again reassuralooms with his hand. Bloom with his hand
assuralooms Corny Kelleher that he is reassuraloomtay. The tinkling
hoofs and jingling harness grow fainter with their tooralooloo looloo
lay. Bloom, holding in his hand Stephen’s hat, festooned with shavings,
and ashplant, stands irresolute. Then he bends to him and shakes him by
the shoulder.)_

BLOOM: Eh! Ho! _(There is no answer; he bends again.)_ Mr Dedalus!
_(There is no answer.)_ The name if you call. Somnambulist. _(He bends
again and, hesitating, brings his mouth near the face of the prostrate
form.)_ Stephen! _(There is no answer. He calls again.)_ Stephen!

STEPHEN: _(Groans.)_ Who? Black panther. Vampire. _(He sighs and
stretches himself, then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels.)_

     Who... drive... Fergus now
     And pierce... wood’s woven shade?...

_(He turns on his left side, sighing, doubling himself together.)_

BLOOM: Poetry. Well educated. Pity. _(He bends again and undoes the
buttons of Stephen’s waistcoat.)_ To breathe. _(He brushes the
woodshavings from Stephen’s clothes with light hand and fingers.)_ One
pound seven. Not hurt anyhow. _(He listens.)_ What?

STEPHEN: _(Murmurs.)_

     ... shadows... the woods
     ... white breast... dim sea.

_(He stretches out his arms, sighs again and curls his body. Bloom,
holding the hat and ashplant, stands erect. A dog barks in the
distance. Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the ashplant. He looks
down on Stephen’s face and form.)_

BLOOM: _(Communes with the night.)_ Face reminds me of his poor mother.
In the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A
girl. Some girl. Best thing could happen him. _(He murmurs.)_... swear
that I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts,
art or arts... _(He murmurs.)_... in the rough sands of the sea... a
cabletow’s length from the shore... where the tide ebbs... and flows
...

_(Silent, thoughtful, alert he stands on guard, his fingers at his lips
in the attitude of secret master. Against the dark wall a figure
appears slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed
in an Eton suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a
book in his hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling,
kissing the page.)_

BLOOM: _(Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly.)_ Rudy!

RUDY: _(Gazes, unseeing, into Bloom’s eyes and goes on reading,
kissing, smiling. He has a delicate mauve face. On his suit he has
diamond and ruby buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory
cane with a violet bowknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat
pocket.)_


— III —


[ 16 ]

Preparatory to anything else Mr Bloom brushed off the greater bulk of
the shavings and handed Stephen the hat and ashplant and bucked him up
generally in orthodox Samaritan fashion which he very badly needed. His
(Stephen’s) mind was not exactly what you would call wandering but a
bit unsteady and on his expressed desire for some beverage to drink Mr
Bloom in view of the hour it was and there being no pump of Vartry
water available for their ablutions let alone drinking purposes hit
upon an expedient by suggesting, off the reel, the propriety of the
cabman’s shelter, as it was called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt
bridge where they might hit upon some drinkables in the shape of a milk
and soda or a mineral. But how to get there was the rub. For the nonce
he was rather nonplussed but inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon
him to take some measures on the subject he pondered suitable ways and
means during which Stephen repeatedly yawned. So far as he could see he
was rather pale in the face so that it occurred to him as highly
advisable to get a conveyance of some description which would answer in
their then condition, both of them being e.d.ed, particularly Stephen,
always assuming that there was such a thing to be found. Accordingly
after a few such preliminaries as brushing, in spite of his having
forgotten to take up his rather soapsuddy handkerchief after it had
done yeoman service in the shaving line, they both walked together
along Beaver street or, more properly, lane as far as the farrier’s and
the distinctly fetid atmosphere of the livery stables at the corner of
Montgomery street where they made tracks to the left from thence
debouching into Amiens street round by the corner of Dan Bergin’s. But
as he confidently anticipated there was not a sign of a Jehu plying for
hire anywhere to be seen except a fourwheeler, probably engaged by some
fellows inside on the spree, outside the North Star hotel and there was
no symptom of its budging a quarter of an inch when Mr Bloom, who was
anything but a professional whistler, endeavoured to hail it by
emitting a kind of a whistle, holding his arms arched over his head,
twice.

This was a quandary but, bringing common sense to bear on it, evidently
there was nothing for it but put a good face on the matter and foot it
which they accordingly did. So, bevelling around by Mullett’s and the
Signal House which they shortly reached, they proceeded perforce in the
direction of Amiens street railway terminus, Mr Bloom being handicapped
by the circumstance that one of the back buttons of his trousers had,
to vary the timehonoured adage, gone the way of all buttons though,
entering thoroughly into the spirit of the thing, he heroically made
light of the mischance. So as neither of them were particularly pressed
for time, as it happened, and the temperature refreshing since it
cleared up after the recent visitation of Jupiter Pluvius, they
dandered along past by where the empty vehicle was waiting without a
fare or a jarvey. As it so happened a Dublin United Tramways Company’s
sandstrewer happened to be returning and the elder man recounted to his
companion _à propos_ of the incident his own truly miraculous escape of
some little while back. They passed the main entrance of the Great
Northern railway station, the starting point for Belfast, where of
course all traffic was suspended at that late hour and passing the
backdoor of the morgue (a not very enticing locality, not to say
gruesome to a degree, more especially at night) ultimately gained the
Dock Tavern and in due course turned into Store street, famous for its
C division police station. Between this point and the high at present
unlit warehouses of Beresford place Stephen thought to think of Ibsen,
associated with Baird’s the stonecutter’s in his mind somehow in Talbot
place, first turning on the right, while the other who was acting as
his _fidus Achates_ inhaled with internal satisfaction the smell of
James Rourke’s city bakery, situated quite close to where they were,
the very palatable odour indeed of our daily bread, of all commodities
of the public the primary and most indispensable. Bread, the staff of
life, earn your bread, O tell me where is fancy bread, at Rourke’s the
baker’s it is said.

_En route_ to his taciturn and, not to put too fine a point on it, not
yet perfectly sober companion Mr Bloom who at all events was in
complete possession of his faculties, never more so, in fact
disgustingly sober, spoke a word of caution _re_ the dangers of
nighttown, women of ill fame and swell mobsmen, which, barely
permissible once in a while though not as a habitual practice, was of
the nature of a regular deathtrap for young fellows of his age
particularly if they had acquired drinking habits under the influence
of liquor unless you knew a little jiujitsu for every contingency as
even a fellow on the broad of his back could administer a nasty kick if
you didn’t look out. Highly providential was the appearance on the
scene of Corny Kelleher when Stephen was blissfully unconscious but for
that man in the gap turning up at the eleventh hour the finis might
have been that he might have been a candidate for the accident ward or,
failing that, the bridewell and an appearance in the court next day
before Mr Tobias or, he being the solicitor rather, old Wall, he meant
to say, or Mahony which simply spelt ruin for a chap when it got
bruited about. The reason he mentioned the fact was that a lot of those
policemen, whom he cordially disliked, were admittedly unscrupulous in
the service of the Crown and, as Mr Bloom put it, recalling a case or
two in the A division in Clanbrassil street, prepared to swear a hole
through a ten gallon pot. Never on the spot when wanted but in quiet
parts of the city, Pembroke road for example, the guardians of the law
were well in evidence, the obvious reason being they were paid to
protect the upper classes. Another thing he commented on was equipping
soldiers with firearms or sidearms of any description liable to go off
at any time which was tantamount to inciting them against civilians
should by any chance they fall out over anything. You frittered away
your time, he very sensibly maintained, and health and also character
besides which, the squandermania of the thing, fast women of the
_demimonde_ ran away with a lot of £. s. d. into the bargain and the
greatest danger of all was who you got drunk with though, touching the
much vexed question of stimulants, he relished a glass of choice old
wine in season as both nourishing and bloodmaking and possessing
aperient virtues (notably a good burgundy which he was a staunch
believer in) still never beyond a certain point where he invariably
drew the line as it simply led to trouble all round to say nothing of
your being at the tender mercy of others practically. Most of all he
commented adversely on the desertion of Stephen by all his pubhunting
_confrères_ but one, a most glaring piece of ratting on the part of his
brother medicos under all the circs.

—And that one was Judas, Stephen said, who up to then had said nothing
whatsoever of any kind.

Discussing these and kindred topics they made a beeline across the back
of the Customhouse and passed under the Loop Line bridge where a
brazier of coke burning in front of a sentrybox or something like one
attracted their rather lagging footsteps. Stephen of his own accord
stopped for no special reason to look at the heap of barren
cobblestones and by the light emanating from the brazier he could just
make out the darker figure of the corporation watchman inside the gloom
of the sentrybox. He began to remember that this had happened or had
been mentioned as having happened before but it cost him no small
effort before he remembered that he recognised in the sentry a
_quondam_ friend of his father’s, Gumley. To avoid a meeting he drew
nearer to the pillars of the railway bridge.

—Someone saluted you, Mr Bloom said.

A figure of middle height on the prowl evidently under the arches
saluted again, calling:

—Night!

Stephen of course started rather dizzily and stopped to return the
compliment. Mr Bloom actuated by motives of inherent delicacy inasmuch
as he always believed in minding his own business moved off but
nevertheless remained on the _qui vive_ with just a shade of anxiety
though not funkyish in the least. Though unusual in the Dublin area he
knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes who had next
to nothing to live on to be abroad waylaying and generally terrorising
peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some
secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the Thames
embankment category they might be hanging about there or simply
marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell
swoop at a moment’s notice, your money or your life, leaving you there
to point a moral, gagged and garrotted.

Stephen, that is when the accosting figure came to close quarters,
though he was not in an over sober state himself recognised Corley’s
breath redolent of rotten cornjuice. Lord John Corley some called him
and his genealogy came about in this wise. He was the eldest son of
inspector Corley of the G division, lately deceased, who had married a
certain Katherine Brophy, the daughter of a Louth farmer. His
grandfather Patrick Michael Corley of New Ross had married the widow of
a publican there whose maiden name had been Katherine (also) Talbot.
Rumour had it (though not proved) that she descended from the house of
the lords Talbot de Malahide in whose mansion, really an unquestionably
fine residence of its kind and well worth seeing, her mother or aunt or
some relative, a woman, as the tale went, of extreme beauty, had
enjoyed the distinction of being in service in the washkitchen. This
therefore was the reason why the still comparatively young though
dissolute man who now addressed Stephen was spoken of by some with
facetious proclivities as Lord John Corley.

Taking Stephen on one side he had the customary doleful ditty to tell.
Not as much as a farthing to purchase a night’s lodgings. His friends
had all deserted him. Furthermore he had a row with Lenehan and called
him to Stephen a mean bloody swab with a sprinkling of a number of
other uncalledfor expressions. He was out of a job and implored of
Stephen to tell him where on God’s earth he could get something,
anything at all, to do. No, it was the daughter of the mother in the
washkitchen that was fostersister to the heir of the house or else they
were connected through the mother in some way, both occurrences
happening at the same time if the whole thing wasn’t a complete
fabrication from start to finish. Anyhow he was all in.

—I wouldn’t ask you only, pursued he, on my solemn oath and God knows
I’m on the rocks.

—There’ll be a job tomorrow or next day, Stephen told him, in a boys’
school at Dalkey for a gentleman usher. Mr Garrett Deasy. Try it. You
may mention my name.

—Ah, God, Corley replied, sure I couldn’t teach in a school, man. I was
never one of your bright ones, he added with a half laugh. I got stuck
twice in the junior at the christian brothers.

—I have no place to sleep myself, Stephen informed him.

Corley at the first go-off was inclined to suspect it was something to
do with Stephen being fired out of his digs for bringing in a bloody
tart off the street. There was a dosshouse in Marlborough street, Mrs
Maloney’s, but it was only a tanner touch and full of undesirables but
M’Conachie told him you got a decent enough do in the Brazen Head over
in Winetavern street (which was distantly suggestive to the person
addressed of friar Bacon) for a bob. He was starving too though he
hadn’t said a word about it.

Though this sort of thing went on every other night or very near it
still Stephen’s feelings got the better of him in a sense though he
knew that Corley’s brandnew rigmarole on a par with the others was
hardly deserving of much credence. However _haud ignarus malorum
miseris succurrere disco etcetera_ as the Latin poet remarks especially
as luck would have it he got paid his screw after every middle of the
month on the sixteenth which was the date of the month as a matter of
fact though a good bit of the wherewithal was demolished. But the cream
of the joke was nothing would get it out of Corley’s head that he was
living in affluence and hadn’t a thing to do but hand out the needful.
Whereas. He put his hand in a pocket anyhow not with the idea of
finding any food there but thinking he might lend him anything up to a
bob or so in lieu so that he might endeavour at all events and get
sufficient to eat but the result was in the negative for, to his
chagrin, he found his cash missing. A few broken biscuits were all the
result of his investigation. He tried his hardest to recollect for the
moment whether he had lost as well he might have or left because in
that contingency it was not a pleasant lookout, very much the reverse
in fact. He was altogether too fagged out to institute a thorough
search though he tried to recollect. About biscuits he dimly
remembered. Who now exactly gave them he wondered or where was or did
he buy. However in another pocket he came across what he surmised in
the dark were pennies, erroneously however, as it turned out.

—Those are halfcrowns, man, Corley corrected him.

And so in point of fact they turned out to be. Stephen anyhow lent him
one of them.

—Thanks, Corley answered, you’re a gentleman. I’ll pay you back one
time. Who’s that with you? I saw him a few times in the Bleeding Horse
in Camden street with Boylan, the billsticker. You might put in a good
word for us to get me taken on there. I’d carry a sandwichboard only
the girl in the office told me they’re full up for the next three
weeks, man. God, you’ve to book ahead, man, you’d think it was for the
Carl Rosa. I don’t give a shite anyway so long as I get a job, even as
a crossing sweeper.

Subsequently being not quite so down in the mouth after the two and six
he got he informed Stephen about a fellow by the name of Bags Comisky
that he said Stephen knew well out of Fullam’s, the shipchandler’s,
bookkeeper there that used to be often round in Nagle’s back with
O’Mara and a little chap with a stutter the name of Tighe. Anyhow he
was lagged the night before last and fined ten bob for a drunk and
disorderly and refusing to go with the constable.

Mr Bloom in the meanwhile kept dodging about in the vicinity of the
cobblestones near the brazier of coke in front of the corporation
watchman’s sentrybox who evidently a glutton for work, it struck him,
was having a quiet forty winks for all intents and purposes on his own
private account while Dublin slept. He threw an odd eye at the same
time now and then at Stephen’s anything but immaculately attired
interlocutor as if he had seen that nobleman somewhere or other though
where he was not in a position to truthfully state nor had he the
remotest idea when. Being a levelheaded individual who could give
points to not a few in point of shrewd observation he also remarked on
his very dilapidated hat and slouchy wearing apparel generally
testifying to a chronic impecuniosity. Palpably he was one of his
hangerson but for the matter of that it was merely a question of one
preying on his nextdoor neighbour all round, in every deep, so to put
it, a deeper depth and for the matter of that if the man in the street
chanced to be in the dock himself penal servitude with or without the
option of a fine would be a very _rara avis_ altogether. In any case he
had a consummate amount of cool assurance intercepting people at that
hour of the night or morning. Pretty thick that was certainly.

The pair parted company and Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom who, with his
practised eye, was not without perceiving that he had succumbed to the
blandiloquence of the other parasite. Alluding to the encounter he
said, laughingly, Stephen, that is:

—He is down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named
Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman.

At this intelligence, in which he seemingly evinced little interest, Mr
Bloom gazed abstractedly for the space of a half a second or so in the
direction of a bucketdredger, rejoicing in the farfamed name of Eblana,
moored alongside Customhouse quay and quite possibly out of repair,
whereupon he observed evasively:

—Everybody gets their own ration of luck, they say. Now you mention it
his face was familiar to me. But, leaving that for the moment, how much
did you part with, he queried, if I am not too inquisitive?

—Half a crown, Stephen responded. I daresay he needs it to sleep
somewhere.

—Needs! Mr Bloom ejaculated, professing not the least surprise at the
intelligence, I can quite credit the assertion and I guarantee he
invariably does. Everyone according to his needs or everyone according
to his deeds. But, talking about things in general, where, added he
with a smile, will you sleep yourself? Walking to Sandycove is out of
the question. And even supposing you did you won’t get in after what
occurred at Westland Row station. Simply fag out there for nothing. I
don’t mean to presume to dictate to you in the slightest degree but why
did you leave your father’s house?

—To seek misfortune, was Stephen’s answer.

—I met your respected father on a recent occasion, Mr Bloom
diplomatically returned, today in fact, or to be strictly accurate, on
yesterday. Where does he live at present? I gathered in the course of
conversation that he had moved.

—I believe he is in Dublin somewhere, Stephen answered unconcernedly.
Why?

—A gifted man, Mr Bloom said of Mr Dedalus senior, in more respects
than one and a born _raconteur_ if ever there was one. He takes great
pride, quite legitimate, out of you. You could go back perhaps, he
hasarded, still thinking of the very unpleasant scene at Westland Row
terminus when it was perfectly evident that the other two, Mulligan,
that is, and that English tourist friend of his, who eventually euchred
their third companion, were patently trying as if the whole bally
station belonged to them to give Stephen the slip in the confusion,
which they did.

There was no response forthcoming to the suggestion however, such as it
was, Stephen’s mind’s eye being too busily engaged in repicturing his
family hearth the last time he saw it with his sister Dilly sitting by
the ingle, her hair hanging down, waiting for some weak Trinidad shell
cocoa that was in the sootcoated kettle to be done so that she and he
could drink it with the oatmealwater for milk after the Friday herrings
they had eaten at two a penny with an egg apiece for Maggy, Boody and
Katey, the cat meanwhile under the mangle devouring a mess of eggshells
and charred fish heads and bones on a square of brown paper, in
accordance with the third precept of the church to fast and abstain on
the days commanded, it being quarter tense or if not, ember days or
something like that.

—No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn’t personally repose much trust
in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element,
Dr Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher and friend if I were in your
shoes. He knows which side his bread is buttered on though in all
probability he never realised what it is to be without regular meals.
Of course you didn’t notice as much as I did. But it wouldn’t occasion
me the least surprise to learn that a pinch of tobacco or some narcotic
was put in your drink for some ulterior object.

He understood however from all he heard that Dr Mulligan was a
versatile allround man, by no means confined to medicine only, who was
rapidly coming to the fore in his line and, if the report was verified,
bade fair to enjoy a flourishing practice in the not too distant future
as a tony medical practitioner drawing a handsome fee for his services
in addition to which professional status his rescue of that man from
certain drowning by artificial respiration and what they call first aid
at Skerries, or Malahide was it?, was, he was bound to admit, an
exceedingly plucky deed which he could not too highly praise, so that
frankly he was utterly at a loss to fathom what earthly reason could be
at the back of it except he put it down to sheer cussedness or
jealousy, pure and simple.

—Except it simply amounts to one thing and he is what they call picking
your brains, he ventured to throw out.

The guarded glance of half solicitude half curiosity augmented by
friendliness which he gave at Stephen’s at present morose expression of
features did not throw a flood of light, none at all in fact on the
problem as to whether he had let himself be badly bamboozled to judge
by two or three lowspirited remarks he let drop or the other way about
saw through the affair and for some reason or other best known to
himself allowed matters to more or less. Grinding poverty did have that
effect and he more than conjectured that, high educational abilities
though he possessed, he experienced no little difficulty in making both
ends meet.

Adjacent to the men’s public urinal they perceived an icecream car
round which a group of presumably Italians in heated altercation were
getting rid of voluble expressions in their vivacious language in a
particularly animated way, there being some little differences between
the parties.

—_Puttana madonna, che ci dia i quattrini! Ho ragione? Culo rotto!_

_—Intendiamoci. Mezzo sovrano più..._

_—Dice lui, però!_

_—Mezzo._

_—Farabutto! Mortacci sui!_

_—Ma ascolta! Cinque la testa più..._

Mr Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman’s shelter, an unpretentious
wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had rarely if ever been
before, the former having previously whispered to the latter a few
hints anent the keeper of it said to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat
Fitzharris, the invincible, though he could not vouch for the actual
facts which quite possibly there was not one vestige of truth in. A few
moments later saw our two noctambules safely seated in a discreet
corner only to be greeted by stares from the decidedly miscellaneous
collection of waifs and strays and other nondescript specimens of the
genus _homo_ already there engaged in eating and drinking diversified
by conversation for whom they seemingly formed an object of marked
curiosity.

—Now touching a cup of coffee, Mr Bloom ventured to plausibly suggest
to break the ice, it occurs to me you ought to sample something in the
shape of solid food, say, a roll of some description.

Accordingly his first act was with characteristic _sangfroid_ to order
these commodities quietly. The _hoi polloi_ of jarvies or stevedores or
whatever they were after a cursory examination turned their eyes
apparently dissatisfied, away though one redbearded bibulous
individual, portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor probably, still
stared for some appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention
to the floor. Mr Bloom, availing himself of the right of free speech,
he having just a bowing acquaintance with the language in dispute,
though, to be sure, rather in a quandary over _voglio_, remarked to his
_protégé_ in an audible tone of voice _à propos_ of the battle royal in
the street which was still raging fast and furious:

—A beautiful language. I mean for singing purposes. Why do you not
write your poetry in that language? _Bella Poetria_! It is so melodious
and full. _Belladonna. Voglio._

Stephen, who was trying his dead best to yawn if he could, suffering
from lassitude generally, replied:

—To fill the ear of a cow elephant. They were haggling over money.

—Is that so? Mr Bloom asked. Of course, he subjoined pensively, at the
inward reflection of there being more languages to start with than were
absolutely necessary, it may be only the southern glamour that
surrounds it.

The keeper of the shelter in the middle of this _tête-à-tête_ put a
boiling swimming cup of a choice concoction labelled coffee on the
table and a rather antediluvian specimen of a bun, or so it seemed.
After which he beat a retreat to his counter, Mr Bloom determining to
have a good square look at him later on so as not to appear to. For
which reason he encouraged Stephen to proceed with his eyes while he
did the honours by surreptitiously pushing the cup of what was
temporarily supposed to be called coffee gradually nearer him.

—Sounds are impostures, Stephen said after a pause of some little time,
like names. Cicero, Podmore, Napoleon, Mr Goodbody. Jesus, Mr Doyle.
Shakespeares were as common as Murphies. What’s in a name?

—Yes, to be sure, Mr Bloom unaffectedly concurred. Of course. Our name
was changed too, he added, pushing the socalled roll across.

The redbearded sailor who had his weather eye on the newcomers boarded
Stephen, whom he had singled out for attention in particular, squarely
by asking:

—And what might your name be?

Just in the nick of time Mr Bloom touched his companion’s boot but
Stephen, apparently disregarding the warm pressure from an unexpected
quarter, answered:

—Dedalus.

The sailor stared at him heavily from a pair of drowsy baggy eyes,
rather bunged up from excessive use of boose, preferably good old
Hollands and water.

—You know Simon Dedalus? he asked at length.

—I’ve heard of him, Stephen said.

Mr Bloom was all at sea for a moment, seeing the others evidently
eavesdropping too.

—He’s Irish, the seaman bold affirmed, staring still in much the same
way and nodding. All Irish.

—All too Irish, Stephen rejoined.

As for Mr Bloom he could neither make head or tail of the whole
business and he was just asking himself what possible connection when
the sailor of his own accord turned to the other occupants of the
shelter with the remark:

—I seen him shoot two eggs off two bottles at fifty yards over his
shoulder. The lefthand dead shot.

Though he was slightly hampered by an occasional stammer and his
gestures being also clumsy as it was still he did his best to explain.

—Bottles out there, say. Fifty yards measured. Eggs on the bottles.
Cocks his gun over his shoulder. Aims.

He turned his body half round, shut up his right eye completely. Then
he screwed his features up someway sideways and glared out into the
night with an unprepossessing cast of countenance.

—Pom! he then shouted once.

The entire audience waited, anticipating an additional detonation,
there being still a further egg.

—Pom! he shouted twice.

Egg two evidently demolished, he nodded and winked, adding
bloodthirstily:

_—Buffalo Bill shoots to kill,

Never missed nor he never will._

A silence ensued till Mr Bloom for agreeableness’ sake just felt like
asking him whether it was for a marksmanship competition like the
Bisley.

—Beg pardon, the sailor said.

—Long ago? Mr Bloom pursued without flinching a hairsbreadth.

—Why, the sailor replied, relaxing to a certain extent under the magic
influence of diamond cut diamond, it might be a matter of ten years. He
toured the wide world with Hengler’s Royal Circus. I seen him do that
in Stockholm.

—Curious coincidence, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen unobtrusively.

—Murphy’s my name, the sailor continued. D. B. Murphy of Carrigaloe.
Know where that is?

—Queenstown harbour, Stephen replied.

—That’s right, the sailor said. Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle. That’s
where I hails from. I belongs there. That’s where I hails from. My
little woman’s down there. She’s waiting for me, I know. _For England,
home and beauty_. She’s my own true wife I haven’t seen for seven years
now, sailing about.

Mr Bloom could easily picture his advent on this scene, the homecoming
to the mariner’s roadside shieling after having diddled Davy Jones, a
rainy night with a blind moon. Across the world for a wife. Quite a
number of stories there were on that particular Alice Ben Bolt topic,
Enoch Arden and Rip van Winkle and does anybody hereabouts remember
Caoc O’Leary, a favourite and most trying declamation piece by the way
of poor John Casey and a bit of perfect poetry in its own small way.
Never about the runaway wife coming back, however much devoted to the
absentee. The face at the window! Judge of his astonishment when he
finally did breast the tape and the awful truth dawned upon him anent
his better half, wrecked in his affections. You little expected me but
I’ve come to stay and make a fresh start. There she sits, a grasswidow,
at the selfsame fireside. Believes me dead, rocked in the cradle of the
deep. And there sits uncle Chubb or Tomkin, as the case might be, the
publican of the Crown and Anchor, in shirtsleeves, eating rumpsteak and
onions. No chair for father. Broo! The wind! Her brandnew arrival is on
her knee, _post mortem_ child. With a high ro! and a randy ro! and my
galloping tearing tandy, O! Bow to the inevitable. Grin and bear it. I
remain with much love your brokenhearted husband W. B. Murphy.

The sailor, who scarcely seemed to be a Dublin resident, turned to one
of the jarvies with the request:

—You don’t happen to have such a thing as a spare chaw about you?

The jarvey addressed as it happened had not but the keeper took a die
of plug from his good jacket hanging on a nail and the desired object
was passed from hand to hand.

—Thank you, the sailor said.

He deposited the quid in his gob and, chewing and with some slow
stammers, proceeded:

—We come up this morning eleven o’clock. The threemaster _Rosevean_
from Bridgwater with bricks. I shipped to get over. Paid off this
afternoon. There’s my discharge. See? D. B. Murphy. A. B. S.

In confirmation of which statement he extricated from an inside pocket
and handed to his neighbour a not very cleanlooking folded document.

—You must have seen a fair share of the world, the keeper remarked,
leaning on the counter.

—Why, the sailor answered upon reflection upon it, I’ve circumnavigated
a bit since I first joined on. I was in the Red Sea. I was in China and
North America and South America. We was chased by pirates one voyage. I
seen icebergs plenty, growlers. I was in Stockholm and the Black Sea,
the Dardanelles under Captain Dalton, the best bloody man that ever
scuttled a ship. I seen Russia. _Gospodi pomilyou_. That’s how the
Russians prays.

—You seen queer sights, don’t be talking, put in a jarvey.

—Why, the sailor said, shifting his partially chewed plug. I seen queer
things too, ups and downs. I seen a crocodile bite the fluke of an
anchor same as I chew that quid.

He took out of his mouth the pulpy quid and, lodging it between his
teeth, bit ferociously:

—Khaan! Like that. And I seen maneaters in Peru that eats corpses and
the livers of horses. Look here. Here they are. A friend of mine sent
me.

He fumbled out a picture postcard from his inside pocket which seemed
to be in its way a species of repository and pushed it along the table.
The printed matter on it stated: _Choza de Indios. Beni, Bolivia._

All focussed their attention at the scene exhibited, a group of savage
women in striped loincloths, squatted, blinking, suckling, frowning,
sleeping amid a swarm of infants (there must have been quite a score of
them) outside some primitive shanties of osier.

—Chews coca all day, the communicative tarpaulin added. Stomachs like
breadgraters. Cuts off their diddies when they can’t bear no more
children.

See them sitting there stark ballocknaked eating a dead horse’s liver
raw.

His postcard proved a centre of attraction for Messrs the greenhorns
for several minutes if not more.

—Know how to keep them off? he inquired generally.

Nobody volunteering a statement he winked, saying:

—Glass. That boggles ’em. Glass.

Mr Bloom, without evincing surprise, unostentatiously turned over the
card to peruse the partially obliterated address and postmark. It ran
as follows: _Tarjeta Postal, Señor A Boudin, Galeria Becche, Santiago,
Chile._ There was no message evidently, as he took particular notice.
Though not an implicit believer in the lurid story narrated (or the
eggsniping transaction for that matter despite William Tell and the
Lazarillo-Don Cesar de Bazan incident depicted in _Maritana_ on which
occasion the former’s ball passed through the latter’s hat) having
detected a discrepancy between his name (assuming he was the person he
represented himself to be and not sailing under false colours after
having boxed the compass on the strict q.t. somewhere) and the
fictitious addressee of the missive which made him nourish some
suspicions of our friend’s _bona fides_ nevertheless it reminded him in
a way of a longcherished plan he meant to one day realise some
Wednesday or Saturday of travelling to London _via_ long sea not to say
that he had ever travelled extensively to any great extent but he was
at heart a born adventurer though by a trick of fate he had
consistently remained a landlubber except you call going to Holyhead
which was his longest. Martin Cunningham frequently said he would work
a pass through Egan but some deuced hitch or other eternally cropped up
with the net result that the scheme fell through. But even suppose it
did come to planking down the needful and breaking Boyd’s heart it was
not so dear, purse permitting, a few guineas at the outside considering
the fare to Mullingar where he figured on going was five and six, there
and back. The trip would benefit health on account of the bracing ozone
and be in every way thoroughly pleasurable, especially for a chap whose
liver was out of order, seeing the different places along the route,
Plymouth, Falmouth, Southampton and so on culminating in an instructive
tour of the sights of the great metropolis, the spectacle of our modern
Babylon where doubtless he would see the greatest improvement, tower,
abbey, wealth of Park lane to renew acquaintance with. Another thing
just struck him as a by no means bad notion was he might have a gaze
around on the spot to see about trying to make arrangements about a
concert tour of summer music embracing the most prominent pleasure
resorts, Margate with mixed bathing and firstrate hydros and spas,
Eastbourne, Scarborough, Margate and so on, beautiful Bournemouth, the
Channel islands and similar bijou spots, which might prove highly
remunerative. Not, of course, with a hole and corner scratch company or
local ladies on the job, witness Mrs C P M’Coy type lend me your valise
and I’ll post you the ticket. No, something top notch, an all star
Irish caste, the Tweedy-Flower grand opera company with his own legal
consort as leading lady as a sort of counterblast to the Elster Grimes
and Moody-Manners, perfectly simple matter and he was quite sanguine of
success, providing puffs in the local papers could be managed by some
fellow with a bit of bounce who could pull the indispensable wires and
thus combine business with pleasure. But who? That was the rub.

Also, without being actually positive, it struck him a great field was
to be opened up in the line of opening up new routes to keep pace with
the times _apropos_ of the Fishguard-Rosslare route which, it was
mooted, was once more on the _tapis_ in the circumlocution departments
with the usual quantity of red tape and dillydallying of effete
fogeydom and dunderheads generally. A great opportunity there certainly
was for push and enterprise to meet the travelling needs of the public
at large, the average man, i.e. Brown, Robinson and Co.

It was a subject of regret and absurd as well on the face of it and no
small blame to our vaunted society that the man in the street, when the
system really needed toning up, for the matter of a couple of paltry
pounds was debarred from seeing more of the world they lived in instead
of being always and ever cooped up since my old stick-in-the-mud took
me for a wife. After all, hang it, they had their eleven and more
humdrum months of it and merited a radical change of _venue_ after the
grind of city life in the summertime for choice when dame Nature is at
her spectacular best constituting nothing short of a new lease of life.
There were equally excellent opportunities for vacationists in the home
island, delightful sylvan spots for rejuvenation, offering a plethora
of attractions as well as a bracing tonic for the system in and around
Dublin and its picturesque environs even, Poulaphouca to which there
was a steamtram, but also farther away from the madding crowd in
Wicklow, rightly termed the garden of Ireland, an ideal neighbourhood
for elderly wheelmen so long as it didn’t come down, and in the wilds
of Donegal where if report spoke true the _coup d’œil_ was exceedingly
grand though the lastnamed locality was not easily getatable so that
the influx of visitors was not as yet all that it might be considering
the signal benefits to be derived from it while Howth with its historic
associations and otherwise, Silken Thomas, Grace O’Malley, George IV,
rhododendrons several hundred feet above sealevel was a favourite haunt
with all sorts and conditions of men especially in the spring when
young men’s fancy, though it had its own toll of deaths by falling off
the cliffs by design or accidentally, usually, by the way, on their
left leg, it being only about three quarters of an hour’s run from the
pillar. Because of course uptodate tourist travelling was as yet merely
in its infancy, so to speak, and the accommodation left much to be
desired. Interesting to fathom it seemed to him from a motive of
curiosity, pure and simple, was whether it was the traffic that created
the route or viceversa or the two sides in fact. He turned back the
other side of the card, picture, and passed it along to Stephen.

—I seen a Chinese one time, related the doughty narrator, that had
little pills like putty and he put them in the water and they opened
and every pill was something different. One was a ship, another was a
house, another was a flower. Cooks rats in your soup, he appetisingly
added, the chinks does.

Possibly perceiving an expression of dubiosity on their faces the
globetrotter went on, adhering to his adventures.

—And I seen a man killed in Trieste by an Italian chap. Knife in his
back. Knife like that.

Whilst speaking he produced a dangerouslooking claspknife quite in
keeping with his character and held it in the striking position.

—In a knockingshop it was count of a tryon between two smugglers.
Fellow hid behind a door, come up behind him. Like that. _Prepare to
meet your God_, says he. Chuk! It went into his back up to the butt.

His heavy glance drowsily roaming about kind of defied their further
questions even should they by any chance want to.

—That’s a good bit of steel, repeated he, examining his formidable
_stiletto_.

After which harrowing _dénouement_ sufficient to appal the stoutest he
snapped the blade to and stowed the weapon in question away as before
in his chamber of horrors, otherwise pocket.

—They’re great for the cold steel, somebody who was evidently quite in
the dark said for the benefit of them all. That was why they thought
the park murders of the invincibles was done by foreigners on account
of them using knives.

At this remark passed obviously in the spirit of _where ignorance is
bliss_ Mr B. and Stephen, each in his own particular way, both
instinctively exchanged meaning glances, in a religious silence of the
strictly _entre nous_ variety however, towards where Skin-the-Goat,
_alias_ the keeper, not turning a hair, was drawing spurts of liquid
from his boiler affair. His inscrutable face which was really a work of
art, a perfect study in itself, beggaring description, conveyed the
impression that he didn’t understand one jot of what was going on.
Funny, very!

There ensued a somewhat lengthy pause. One man was reading in fits and
starts a stained by coffee evening journal, another the card with the
natives _choza de_, another the seaman’s discharge. Mr Bloom, so far as
he was personally concerned, was just pondering in pensive mood. He
vividly recollected when the occurrence alluded to took place as well
as yesterday, roughly some score of years previously in the days of the
land troubles, when it took the civilised world by storm, figuratively
speaking, early in the eighties, eightyone to be correct, when he was
just turned fifteen.

—Ay, boss, the sailor broke in. Give us back them papers.

The request being complied with he clawed them up with a scrape.

—Have you seen the rock of Gibraltar? Mr Bloom inquired.

The sailor grimaced, chewing, in a way that might be read as yes, ay or
no.

—Ah, you’ve touched there too, Mr Bloom said, Europa point, thinking he
had, in the hope that the rover might possibly by some reminiscences
but he failed to do so, simply letting spirt a jet of spew into the
sawdust, and shook his head with a sort of lazy scorn.

—What year would that be about? Mr B interrogated. Can you recall the
boats?

Our _soi-disant_ sailor munched heavily awhile hungrily before
answering:

—I’m tired of all them rocks in the sea, he said, and boats and ships.
Salt junk all the time.

Tired seemingly, he ceased. His questioner perceiving that he was not
likely to get a great deal of change out of such a wily old customer,
fell to woolgathering on the enormous dimensions of the water about the
globe, suffice it to say that, as a casual glance at the map revealed,
it covered fully three fourths of it and he fully realised accordingly
what it meant to rule the waves. On more than one occasion, a dozen at
the lowest, near the North Bull at Dollymount he had remarked a
superannuated old salt, evidently derelict, seated habitually near the
not particularly redolent sea on the wall, staring quite obliviously at
it and it at him, dreaming of fresh woods and pastures new as someone
somewhere sings. And it left him wondering why. Possibly he had tried
to find out the secret for himself, floundering up and down the
antipodes and all that sort of thing and over and under, well, not
exactly under, tempting the fates. And the odds were twenty to nil
there was really no secret about it at all. Nevertheless, without going
into the _minutiae_ of the business, the eloquent fact remained that
the sea was there in all its glory and in the natural course of things
somebody or other had to sail on it and fly in the face of providence
though it merely went to show how people usually contrived to load that
sort of onus on to the other fellow like the hell idea and the lottery
and insurance which were run on identically the same lines so that for
that very reason if no other lifeboat Sunday was a highly laudable
institution to which the public at large, no matter where living inland
or seaside, as the case might be, having it brought home to them like
that should extend its gratitude also to the harbourmasters and
coastguard service who had to man the rigging and push off and out amid
the elements whatever the season when duty called _Ireland expects that
every man_ and so on and sometimes had a terrible time of it in the
wintertime not forgetting the Irish lights, Kish and others, liable to
capsize at any moment, rounding which he once with his daughter had
experienced some remarkably choppy, not to say stormy, weather.

—There was a fellow sailed with me in the _Rover_, the old seadog,
himself a rover, proceeded, went ashore and took up a soft job as
gentleman’s valet at six quid a month. Them are his trousers I’ve on me
and he gave me an oilskin and that jackknife. I’m game for that job,
shaving and brushup. I hate roaming about. There’s my son now, Danny,
run off to sea and his mother got him took in a draper’s in Cork where
he could be drawing easy money.

—What age is he? queried one hearer who, by the way, seen from the
side, bore a distant resemblance to Henry Campbell, the townclerk, away
from the carking cares of office, unwashed of course and in a seedy
getup and a strong suspicion of nosepaint about the nasal appendage.

—Why, the sailor answered with a slow puzzled utterance, my son, Danny?
He’d be about eighteen now, way I figure it.

The Skibbereen father hereupon tore open his grey or unclean anyhow
shirt with his two hands and scratched away at his chest on which was
to be seen an image tattooed in blue Chinese ink intended to represent
an anchor.

—There was lice in that bunk in Bridgwater, he remarked, sure as nuts.
I must get a wash tomorrow or next day. It’s them black lads I objects
to. I hate those buggers. Suck your blood dry, they does.

Seeing they were all looking at his chest he accommodatingly dragged
his shirt more open so that on top of the timehonoured symbol of the
mariner’s hope and rest they had a full view of the figure 16 and a
young man’s sideface looking frowningly rather.

—Tattoo, the exhibitor explained. That was done when we were lying
becalmed off Odessa in the Black Sea under Captain Dalton. Fellow, the
name of Antonio, done that. There he is himself, a Greek.

—Did it hurt much doing it? one asked the sailor.

That worthy, however, was busily engaged in collecting round the.
Someway in his. Squeezing or.

—See here, he said, showing Antonio. There he is cursing the mate. And
there he is now, he added, the same fellow, pulling the skin with his
fingers, some special knack evidently, and he laughing at a yarn.

And in point of fact the young man named Antonio’s livid face did
actually look like forced smiling and the curious effect excited the
unreserved admiration of everybody including Skin-the-Goat, who this
time stretched over.

—Ay, ay, sighed the sailor, looking down on his manly chest. He’s gone
too. Ate by sharks after. Ay, ay.

He let go of the skin so that the profile resumed the normal expression
of before.

—Neat bit of work, one longshoreman said.

—And what’s the number for? loafer number two queried.

—Eaten alive? a third asked the sailor.

—Ay, ay, sighed again the latter personage, more cheerily this time
with some sort of a half smile for a brief duration only in the
direction of the questioner about the number. Ate. A Greek he was.

And then he added with rather gallowsbird humour considering his
alleged end:

     —As bad as old Antonio,
     For he left me on my ownio.

The face of a streetwalker glazed and haggard under a black straw hat
peered askew round the door of the shelter palpably reconnoitring on
her own with the object of bringing more grist to her mill. Mr Bloom,
scarcely knowing which way to look, turned away on the moment
flusterfied but outwardly calm, and, picking up from the table the pink
sheet of the Abbey street organ which the jarvey, if such he was, had
laid aside, he picked it up and looked at the pink of the paper though
why pink. His reason for so doing was he recognised on the moment round
the door the same face he had caught a fleeting glimpse of that
afternoon on Ormond quay, the partially idiotic female, namely, of the
lane who knew the lady in the brown costume does be with you (Mrs B.)
and begged the chance of his washing. Also why washing which seemed
rather vague than not, your washing. Still candour compelled him to
admit he had washed his wife’s undergarments when soiled in Holles
street and women would and did too a man’s similar garments initialled
with Bewley and Draper’s marking ink (hers were, that is) if they
really loved him, that is to say, love me, love my dirty shirt. Still
just then, being on tenterhooks, he desired the female’s room more than
her company so it came as a genuine relief when the keeper made her a
rude sign to take herself off. Round the side of the _Evening
Telegraph_ he just caught a fleeting glimpse of her face round the side
of the door with a kind of demented glassy grin showing that she was
not exactly all there, viewing with evident amusement the group of
gazers round skipper Murphy’s nautical chest and then there was no more
of her.

—The gunboat, the keeper said.

—It beats me, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen, medically I am speaking,
how a wretched creature like that from the Lock hospital reeking with
disease can be barefaced enough to solicit or how any man in his sober
senses, if he values his health in the least. Unfortunate creature! Of
course I suppose some man is ultimately responsible for her condition.
Still no matter what the cause is from...

Stephen had not noticed her and shrugged his shoulders, merely
remarking:

—In this country people sell much more than she ever had and do a
roaring trade. Fear not them that sell the body but have not power to
buy the soul. She is a bad merchant. She buys dear and sells cheap.

The elder man, though not by any manner of means an old maid or a
prude, said it was nothing short of a crying scandal that ought to be
put a stop to _instanter_ to say that women of that stamp (quite apart
from any oldmaidish squeamishness on the subject), a necessary evil,
were not licensed and medically inspected by the proper authorities, a
thing, he could truthfully state, he, as a _paterfamilias_, was a
stalwart advocate of from the very first start. Whoever embarked on a
policy of the sort, he said, and ventilated the matter thoroughly would
confer a lasting boon on everybody concerned.

—You as a good catholic, he observed, talking of body and soul, believe
in the soul. Or do you mean the intelligence, the brainpower as such,
as distinct from any outside object, the table, let us say, that cup. I
believe in that myself because it has been explained by competent men
as the convolutions of the grey matter. Otherwise we would never have
such inventions as X rays, for instance. Do you?

Thus cornered, Stephen had to make a superhuman effort of memory to try
and concentrate and remember before he could say:

—They tell me on the best authority it is a simple substance and
therefore incorruptible. It would be immortal, I understand, but for
the possibility of its annihilation by its First Cause Who, from all I
can hear, is quite capable of adding that to the number of His other
practical jokes, _corruptio per se_ and _corruptio per accidens_ both
being excluded by court etiquette.

Mr Bloom thoroughly acquiesced in the general gist of this though the
mystical finesse involved was a bit out of his sublunary depth still he
felt bound to enter a demurrer on the head of simple, promptly
rejoining:

—Simple? I shouldn’t think that is the proper word. Of course, I grant
you, to concede a point, you do knock across a simple soul once in a
blue moon. But what I am anxious to arrive at is it is one thing for
instance to invent those rays Röntgen did or the telescope like Edison,
though I believe it was before his time Galileo was the man, I mean,
and the same applies to the laws, for example, of a farreaching natural
phenomenon such as electricity but it’s a horse of quite another colour
to say you believe in the existence of a supernatural God.

—O that, Stephen expostulated, has been proved conclusively by several
of the bestknown passages in Holy Writ, apart from circumstantial
evidence.

On this knotty point however the views of the pair, poles apart as they
were both in schooling and everything else with the marked difference
in their respective ages, clashed.

—Has been? the more experienced of the two objected, sticking to his
original point with a smile of unbelief. I’m not so sure about that.
That’s a matter for everyman’s opinion and, without dragging in the
sectarian side of the business, I beg to differ with you _in toto_
there. My belief is, to tell you the candid truth, that those bits were
genuine forgeries all of them put in by monks most probably or it’s the
big question of our national poet over again, who precisely wrote them
like _Hamlet_ and Bacon, as, you who know your Shakespeare infinitely
better than I, of course I needn’t tell you. Can’t you drink that
coffee, by the way? Let me stir it. And take a piece of that bun. It’s
like one of our skipper’s bricks disguised. Still no-one can give what
he hasn’t got. Try a bit.

—Couldn’t, Stephen contrived to get out, his mental organs for the
moment refusing to dictate further.

Faultfinding being a proverbially bad hat Mr Bloom thought well to stir
or try to the clotted sugar from the bottom and reflected with
something approaching acrimony on the Coffee Palace and its temperance
(and lucrative) work. To be sure it was a legitimate object and beyond
yea or nay did a world of good, shelters such as the present one they
were in run on teetotal lines for vagrants at night, concerts, dramatic
evenings and useful lectures (admittance free) by qualified men for the
lower orders. On the other hand he had a distinct and painful
recollection they paid his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy who had been
prominently associated with it at one time, a very modest remuneration
indeed for her pianoplaying. The idea, he was strongly inclined to
believe, was to do good and net a profit, there being no competition to
speak of. Sulphate of copper poison SO4 or something in some dried peas
he remembered reading of in a cheap eatinghouse somewhere but he
couldn’t remember when it was or where. Anyhow inspection, medical
inspection, of all eatables seemed to him more than ever necessary
which possibly accounted for the vogue of Dr Tibble’s Vi-Cocoa on
account of the medical analysis involved.

—Have a shot at it now, he ventured to say of the coffee after being
stirred.

Thus prevailed on to at any rate taste it Stephen lifted the heavy mug
from the brown puddle it clopped out of when taken up by the handle and
took a sip of the offending beverage.

—Still it’s solid food, his good genius urged, I’m a stickler for solid
food, his one and only reason being not gormandising in the least but
regular meals as the _sine qua non_ for any kind of proper work, mental
or manual. You ought to eat more solid food. You would feel a different
man.

—Liquids I can eat, Stephen said. But O, oblige me by taking away that
knife. I can’t look at the point of it. It reminds me of Roman history.

Mr Bloom promptly did as suggested and removed the incriminated
article, a blunt hornhandled ordinary knife with nothing particularly
Roman or antique about it to the lay eye, observing that the point was
the least conspicuous point about it.

—Our mutual friend’s stories are like himself, Mr Bloom _apropos_ of
knives remarked to his _confidante sotto voce_. Do you think they are
genuine? He could spin those yarns for hours on end all night long and
lie like old boots. Look at him.

Yet still though his eyes were thick with sleep and sea air life was
full of a host of things and coincidences of a terrible nature and it
was quite within the bounds of possibility that it was not an entire
fabrication though at first blush there was not much inherent
probability in all the spoof he got off his chest being strictly
accurate gospel.

He had been meantime taking stock of the individual in front of him and
Sherlockholmesing him up ever since he clapped eyes on him. Though a
wellpreserved man of no little stamina, if a trifle prone to baldness,
there was something spurious in the cut of his jib that suggested a
jail delivery and it required no violent stretch of imagination to
associate such a weirdlooking specimen with the oakum and treadmill
fraternity. He might even have done for his man supposing it was his
own case he told, as people often did about others, namely, that he
killed him himself and had served his four or five goodlooking years in
durance vile to say nothing of the Antonio personage (no relation to
the dramatic personage of identical name who sprang from the pen of our
national poet) who expiated his crimes in the melodramatic manner above
described. On the other hand he might be only bluffing, a pardonable
weakness because meeting unmistakable mugs, Dublin residents, like
those jarvies waiting news from abroad would tempt any ancient mariner
who sailed the ocean seas to draw the long bow about the schooner
_Hesperus_ and etcetera. And when all was said and done the lies a
fellow told about himself couldn’t probably hold a proverbial candle to
the wholesale whoppers other fellows coined about him.

—Mind you, I’m not saying that it’s all a pure invention, he resumed.
Analogous scenes are occasionally, if not often, met with. Giants,
though that is rather a far cry, you see once in a way, Marcella the
midget queen. In those waxworks in Henry street I myself saw some
Aztecs, as they are called, sitting bowlegged, they couldn’t straighten
their legs if you paid them because the muscles here, you see, he
proceeded, indicating on his companion the brief outline of the sinews
or whatever you like to call them behind the right knee, were utterly
powerless from sitting that way so long cramped up, being adored as
gods. There’s an example again of simple souls.

However reverting to friend Sinbad and his horrifying adventures (who
reminded him a bit of Ludwig, _alias_ Ledwidge, when he occupied the
boards of the Gaiety when Michael Gunn was identified with the
management in the _Flying Dutchman_, a stupendous success, and his host
of admirers came in large numbers, everyone simply flocking to hear him
though ships of any sort, phantom or the reverse, on the stage usually
fell a bit flat as also did trains) there was nothing intrinsically
incompatible about it, he conceded. On the contrary that stab in the
back touch was quite in keeping with those italianos though candidly he
was none the less free to admit those icecreamers and friers in the
fish way not to mention the chip potato variety and so forth over in
little Italy there near the Coombe were sober thrifty hardworking
fellows except perhaps a bit too given to pothunting the harmless
necessary animal of the feline persuasion of others at night so as to
have a good old succulent tuckin with garlic _de rigueur_ off him or
her next day on the quiet and, he added, on the cheap.

—Spaniards, for instance, he continued, passionate temperaments like
that, impetuous as Old Nick, are given to taking the law into their own
hands and give you your quietus doublequick with those poignards they
carry in the abdomen. It comes from the great heat, climate generally.
My wife is, so to speak, Spanish, half that is. Point of fact she could
actually claim Spanish nationality if she wanted, having been born in
(technically) Spain, i.e. Gibraltar. She has the Spanish type. Quite
dark, regular brunette, black. I for one certainly believe climate
accounts for character. That’s why I asked you if you wrote your poetry
in Italian.

—The temperaments at the door, Stephen interposed with, were very
passionate about ten shillings. _Roberto ruba roba sua_.

—Quite so, Mr Bloom dittoed.

—Then, Stephen said staring and rambling on to himself or some unknown
listener somewhere, we have the impetuosity of Dante and the isosceles
triangle miss Portinari he fell in love with and Leonardo and san
Tommaso Mastino.

—It’s in the blood, Mr Bloom acceded at once. All are washed in the
blood of the sun. Coincidence I just happened to be in the Kildare
street museum today, shortly prior to our meeting if I can so call it,
and I was just looking at those antique statues there. The splendid
proportions of hips, bosom. You simply don’t knock against those kind
of women here. An exception here and there. Handsome yes, pretty in a
way you find but what I’m talking about is the female form. Besides
they have so little taste in dress, most of them, which greatly
enhances a woman’s natural beauty, no matter what you say. Rumpled
stockings, it may be, possibly is, a foible of mine but still it’s a
thing I simply hate to see.

Interest, however, was starting to flag somewhat all round and then the
others got on to talking about accidents at sea, ships lost in a fog,
collisions with icebergs, all that sort of thing. Shipahoy of course
had his own say to say. He had doubled the cape a few odd times and
weathered a monsoon, a kind of wind, in the China seas and through all
those perils of the deep there was one thing, he declared, stood to him
or words to that effect, a pious medal he had that saved him.

So then after that they drifted on to the wreck off Daunt’s rock, wreck
of that illfated Norwegian barque nobody could think of her name for
the moment till the jarvey who had really quite a look of Henry
Campbell remembered it _Palme_ on Booterstown strand. That was the talk
of the town that year (Albert William Quill wrote a fine piece of
original verse of distinctive merit on the topic for the Irish
_Times_), breakers running over her and crowds and crowds on the shore
in commotion petrified with horror. Then someone said something about
the case of the s. s. _Lady Cairns_ of Swansea run into by the _Mona_
which was on an opposite tack in rather muggyish weather and lost with
all hands on deck. No aid was given. Her master, the _Mona_’s, said he
was afraid his collision bulkhead would give way. She had no water, it
appears, in her hold.

At this stage an incident happened. It having become necessary for him
to unfurl a reef the sailor vacated his seat.

—Let me cross your bows mate, he said to his neighbour who was just
gently dropping off into a peaceful doze.

He made tracks heavily, slowly with a dumpy sort of a gait to the door,
stepped heavily down the one step there was out of the shelter and bore
due left. While he was in the act of getting his bearings Mr Bloom who
noticed when he stood up that he had two flasks of presumably ship’s
rum sticking one out of each pocket for the private consumption of his
burning interior, saw him produce a bottle and uncork it or unscrew
and, applying its nozzle to his lips, take a good old delectable swig
out of it with a gurgling noise. The irrepressible Bloom, who also had
a shrewd suspicion that the old stager went out on a manœuvre after the
counterattraction in the shape of a female who however had disappeared
to all intents and purposes, could by straining just perceive him, when
duly refreshed by his rum puncheon exploit, gaping up at the piers and
girders of the Loop line rather out of his depth as of course it was
all radically altered since his last visit and greatly improved. Some
person or persons invisible directed him to the male urinal erected by
the cleansing committee all over the place for the purpose but after a
brief space of time during which silence reigned supreme the sailor,
evidently giving it a wide berth, eased himself closer at hand, the
noise of his bilgewater some little time subsequently splashing on the
ground where it apparently awoke a horse of the cabrank. A hoof scooped
anyway for new foothold after sleep and harness jingled. Slightly
disturbed in his sentrybox by the brazier of live coke the watcher of
the corporation stones who, though now broken down and fast breaking
up, was none other in stern reality than the Gumley aforesaid, now
practically on the parish rates, given the temporary job by Pat Tobin
in all human probability from dictates of humanity knowing him before
shifted about and shuffled in his box before composing his limbs again
in to the arms of Morpheus, a truly amazing piece of hard lines in its
most virulent form on a fellow most respectably connected and
familiarised with decent home comforts all his life who came in for a
cool £ 100 a year at one time which of course the doublebarrelled ass
proceeded to make general ducks and drakes of. And there he was at the
end of his tether after having often painted the town tolerably pink
without a beggarly stiver. He drank needless to be told and it pointed
only once more a moral when he might quite easily be in a large way of
business if—a big if, however—he had contrived to cure himself of his
particular partiality.

All meantime were loudly lamenting the falling off in Irish shipping,
coastwise and foreign as well, which was all part and parcel of the
same thing. A Palgrave Murphy boat was put off the ways at Alexandra
basin, the only launch that year. Right enough the harbours were there
only no ships ever called.

There were wrecks and wreckers, the keeper said, who was evidently _au
fait_.

What he wanted to ascertain was why that ship ran bang against the only
rock in Galway bay when the Galway harbour scheme was mooted by a Mr
Worthington or some name like that, eh? Ask the then captain, he
advised them, how much palmoil the British government gave him for that
day’s work, Captain John Lever of the Lever Line.

—Am I right, skipper? he queried of the sailor, now returning after his
private potation and the rest of his exertions.

That worthy picking up the scent of the fagend of the song or words
growled in wouldbe music but with great vim some kind of chanty or
other in seconds or thirds. Mr Bloom’s sharp ears heard him then
expectorate the plug probably (which it was), so that he must have
lodged it for the time being in his fist while he did the drinking and
making water jobs and found it a bit sour after the liquid fire in
question. Anyhow in he rolled after his successful
libation-_cum_-potation, introducing an atmosphere of drink into the
_soirée_, boisterously trolling, like a veritable son of a seacook:

     —The biscuits was as hard as brass
     And the beef as salt as Lot’s wife’s arse.
     O, Johnny Lever!
     Johnny Lever, O!

After which effusion the redoubtable specimen duly arrived on the scene
and regaining his seat he sank rather than sat heavily on the form
provided. Skin-the-Goat, assuming he was he, evidently with an axe to
grind, was airing his grievances in a forcible-feeble philippic anent
the natural resources of Ireland or something of that sort which he
described in his lengthy dissertation as the richest country bar none
on the face of God’s earth, far and away superior to England, with coal
in large quantities, six million pounds worth of pork exported every
year, ten millions between butter and eggs and all the riches drained
out of it by England levying taxes on the poor people that paid through
the nose always and gobbling up the best meat in the market and a lot
more surplus steam in the same vein. Their conversation accordingly
became general and all agreed that that was a fact. You could grow any
mortal thing in Irish soil, he stated, and there was that colonel
Everard down there in Navan growing tobacco. Where would you find
anywhere the like of Irish bacon? But a day of reckoning, he stated
_crescendo_ with no uncertain voice, thoroughly monopolising all the
conversation, was in store for mighty England, despite her power of
pelf on account of her crimes. There would be a fall and the greatest
fall in history. The Germans and the Japs were going to have their
little lookin, he affirmed. The Boers were the beginning of the end.
Brummagem England was toppling already and her downfall would be
Ireland, her Achilles heel, which he explained to them about the
vulnerable point of Achilles, the Greek hero, a point his auditors at
once seized as he completely gripped their attention by showing the
tendon referred to on his boot. His advice to every Irishman was: stay
in the land of your birth and work for Ireland and live for Ireland.
Ireland, Parnell said, could not spare a single one of her sons.

Silence all round marked the termination of his _finale_. The
impervious navigator heard these lurid tidings, undismayed.

—Take a bit of doing, boss, retaliated that rough diamond palpably a
bit peeved in response to the foregoing truism.

To which cold douche referring to downfall and so on the keeper
concurred but nevertheless held to his main view.

—Who’s the best troops in the army? the grizzled old veteran irately
interrogated. And the best jumpers and racers? And the best admirals
and generals we’ve got? Tell me that.

—The Irish, for choice, retorted the cabby like Campbell, facial
blemishes apart.

—That’s right, the old tarpaulin corroborated. The Irish catholic
peasant. He’s the backbone of our empire. You know Jem Mullins?

While allowing him his individual opinions as everyman the keeper added
he cared nothing for any empire, ours or his, and considered no
Irishman worthy of his salt that served it. Then they began to have a
few irascible words when it waxed hotter, both, needless to say,
appealing to the listeners who followed the passage of arms with
interest so long as they didn’t indulge in recriminations and come to
blows.

From inside information extending over a series of years Mr Bloom was
rather inclined to poohpooh the suggestion as egregious balderdash for,
pending that consummation devoutly to be or not to be wished for, he
was fully cognisant of the fact that their neighbours across the
channel, unless they were much bigger fools than he took them for,
rather concealed their strength than the opposite. It was quite on a
par with the quixotic idea in certain quarters that in a hundred
million years the coal seam of the sister island would be played out
and if, as time went on, that turned out to be how the cat jumped all
he could personally say on the matter was that as a host of
contingencies, equally relevant to the issue, might occur ere then it
was highly advisable in the interim to try to make the most of both
countries even though poles apart. Another little interesting point,
the amours of whores and chummies, to put it in common parlance,
reminded him Irish soldiers had as often fought for England as against
her, more so, in fact. And now, why? So the scene between the pair of
them, the licensee of the place rumoured to be or have been Fitzharris,
the famous invincible, and the other, obviously bogus, reminded him
forcibly as being on all fours with the confidence trick, supposing,
that is, it was prearranged as the lookeron, a student of the human
soul if anything, the others seeing least of the game. And as for the
lessee or keeper, who probably wasn’t the other person at all, he (B.)
couldn’t help feeling and most properly it was better to give people
like that the goby unless you were a blithering idiot altogether and
refuse to have anything to do with them as a golden rule in private
life and their felonsetting, there always being the offchance of a
Dannyman coming forward and turning queen’s evidence or king’s now like
Denis or Peter Carey, an idea he utterly repudiated. Quite apart from
that he disliked those careers of wrongdoing and crime on principle.
Yet, though such criminal propensities had never been an inmate of his
bosom in any shape or form, he certainly did feel and no denying it
(while inwardly remaining what he was) a certain kind of admiration for
a man who had actually brandished a knife, cold steel, with the courage
of his political convictions (though, personally, he would never be a
party to any such thing), off the same bat as those love vendettas of
the south, have her or swing for her, when the husband frequently,
after some words passed between the two concerning her relations with
the other lucky mortal (he having had the pair watched), inflicted
fatal injuries on his adored one as a result of an alternative
postnuptial _liaison_ by plunging his knife into her, until it just
struck him that Fitz, nicknamed Skin-the-Goat, merely drove the car for
the actual perpetrators of the outrage and so was not, if he was
reliably informed, actually party to the ambush which, in point of
fact, was the plea some legal luminary saved his skin on. In any case
that was very ancient history by now and as for our friend, the pseudo
Skin-the-etcetera, he had transparently outlived his welcome. He ought
to have either died naturally or on the scaffold high. Like actresses,
always farewell positively last performance then come up smiling again.
Generous to a fault of course, temperamental, no economising or any
idea of the sort, always snapping at the bone for the shadow. So
similarly he had a very shrewd suspicion that Mr Johnny Lever got rid
of some £. s. d. in the course of his perambulations round the docks in
the congenial atmosphere of the _Old Ireland_ tavern, come back to Erin
and so on. Then as for the other he had heard not so long before the
same identical lingo as he told Stephen how he simply but effectually
silenced the offender.

—He took umbrage at something or other, that muchinjured but on the
whole eventempered person declared, I let slip. He called me a jew and
in a heated fashion offensively. So I without deviating from plain
facts in the least told him his God, I mean Christ, was a jew too and
all his family like me though in reality I’m not. That was one for him.
A soft answer turns away wrath. He hadn’t a word to say for himself as
everyone saw. Am I not right?

He turned a long you are wrong gaze on Stephen of timorous dark pride
at the soft impeachment with a glance also of entreaty for he seemed to
glean in a kind of a way that it wasn’t all exactly.

—_Ex quibus_, Stephen mumbled in a noncommittal accent, their two or
four eyes conversing, _Christus_ or Bloom his name is or after all any
other, _secundum carnem_.

—Of course, Mr B. proceeded to stipulate, you must look at both sides
of the question. It is hard to lay down any hard and fast rules as to
right and wrong but room for improvement all round there certainly is
though every country, they say, our own distressful included, has the
government it deserves. But with a little goodwill all round. It’s all
very fine to boast of mutual superiority but what about mutual
equality. I resent violence and intolerance in any shape or form. It
never reaches anything or stops anything. A revolution must come on the
due instalments plan. It’s a patent absurdity on the face of it to hate
people because they live round the corner and speak another vernacular,
in the next house so to speak.

—Memorable bloody bridge battle and seven minutes’ war, Stephen
assented, between Skinner’s alley and Ormond market.

Yes, Mr Bloom thoroughly agreed, entirely endorsing the remark, that
was overwhelmingly right. And the whole world was full of that sort of
thing.

—You just took the words out of my mouth, he said. A hocuspocus of
conflicting evidence that candidly you couldn’t remotely...

All those wretched quarrels, in his humble opinion, stirring up bad
blood, from some bump of combativeness or gland of some kind,
erroneously supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag, were
very largely a question of the money question which was at the back of
everything, greed and jealousy, people never knowing when to stop.

—They accuse, remarked he audibly. He turned away from the others, who
probably… and spoke nearer to, so as the others… in case they…

—Jews, he softly imparted in an aside in Stephen’s ear, are accused of
ruining. Not a vestige of truth in it, I can safely say. History, would
you be surprised to learn, proves up to the hilt Spain decayed when the
inquisition hounded the jews out and England prospered when Cromwell,
an uncommonly able ruffian who in other respects has much to answer
for, imported them. Why? Because they are imbued with the proper
spirit. They are practical and are proved to be so. I don’t want to
indulge in any because you know the standard works on the subject and
then orthodox as you are. But in the economic, not touching religion,
domain the priest spells poverty. Spain again, you saw in the war,
compared with goahead America. Turks. It’s in the dogma. Because if
they didn’t believe they’d go straight to heaven when they die they’d
try to live better, at least so I think. That’s the juggle on which the
p.p.’s raise the wind on false pretences. I’m, he resumed with dramatic
force, as good an Irishman as that rude person I told you about at the
outset and I want to see everyone, concluded he, all creeds and classes
_pro rata_ having a comfortable tidysized income, in no niggard fashion
either, something in the neighbourhood of £ 300 per annum. That’s the
vital issue at stake and it’s feasible and would be provocative of
friendlier intercourse between man and man. At least that’s my idea for
what it’s worth. I call that patriotism. _Ubi patria_, as we learned a
smattering of in our classical days in _Alma Mater, vita bene_. Where
you can live well, the sense is, if you work.

Over his untastable apology for a cup of coffee, listening to this
synopsis of things in general, Stephen stared at nothing in particular.
He could hear, of course, all kinds of words changing colour like those
crabs about Ringsend in the morning burrowing quickly into all colours
of different sorts of the same sand where they had a home somewhere
beneath or seemed to. Then he looked up and saw the eyes that said or
didn’t say the words the voice he heard said, if you work.

—Count me out, he managed to remark, meaning work.

The eyes were surprised at this observation because as he, the person
who owned them pro tem. observed or rather his voice speaking did, all
must work, have to, together.

—I mean, of course, the other hastened to affirm, work in the widest
possible sense. Also literary labour not merely for the kudos of the
thing. Writing for the newspapers which is the readiest channel
nowadays. That’s work too. Important work. After all, from the little I
know of you, after all the money expended on your education you are
entitled to recoup yourself and command your price. You have every bit
as much right to live by your pen in pursuit of your philosophy as the
peasant has. What? You both belong to Ireland, the brain and the brawn.
Each is equally important.

—You suspect, Stephen retorted with a sort of a half laugh, that I may
be important because I belong to the _faubourg Saint Patrice_ called
Ireland for short.

—I would go a step farther, Mr Bloom insinuated.

—But I suspect, Stephen interrupted, that Ireland must be important
because it belongs to me.

—What belongs, queried Mr Bloom bending, fancying he was perhaps under
some misapprehension. Excuse me. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the
latter portion. What was it you...?

Stephen, patently crosstempered, repeated and shoved aside his mug of
coffee or whatever you like to call it none too politely, adding:

—We can’t change the country. Let us change the subject.

At this pertinent suggestion Mr Bloom, to change the subject, looked
down but in a quandary, as he couldn’t tell exactly what construction
to put on belongs to which sounded rather a far cry. The rebuke of some
kind was clearer than the other part. Needless to say the fumes of his
recent orgy spoke then with some asperity in a curious bitter way
foreign to his sober state. Probably the homelife to which Mr B
attached the utmost importance had not been all that was needful or he
hadn’t been familiarised with the right sort of people. With a touch of
fear for the young man beside him whom he furtively scrutinised with an
air of some consternation remembering he had just come back from Paris,
the eyes more especially reminding him forcibly of father and sister,
failing to throw much light on the subject, however, he brought to mind
instances of cultured fellows that promised so brilliantly nipped in
the bud of premature decay and nobody to blame but themselves. For
instance there was the case of O’Callaghan, for one, the halfcrazy
faddist, respectably connected though of inadequate means, with his mad
vagaries among whose other gay doings when rotto and making himself a
nuisance to everybody all round he was in the habit of ostentatiously
sporting in public a suit of brown paper (a fact). And then the usual
_dénouement_ after the fun had gone on fast and furious he got landed
into hot water and had to be spirited away by a few friends, after a
strong hint to a blind horse from John Mallon of Lower Castle Yard, so
as not to be made amenable under section two of the criminal law
amendment act, certain names of those subpœnaed being handed in but not
divulged for reasons which will occur to anyone with a pick of brains.
Briefly, putting two and two together, six sixteen which he pointedly
turned a deaf ear to, Antonio and so forth, jockeys and esthetes and
the tattoo which was all the go in the seventies or thereabouts even in
the house of lords because early in life the occupant of the throne,
then heir apparent, the other members of the upper ten and other high
personages simply following in the footsteps of the head of the state,
he reflected about the errors of notorieties and crowned heads running
counter to morality such as the Cornwall case a number of years before
under their veneer in a way scarcely intended by nature, a thing good
Mrs Grundy, as the law stands, was terribly down on though not for the
reason they thought they were probably whatever it was except women
chiefly who were always fiddling more or less at one another it being
largely a matter of dress and all the rest of it. Ladies who like
distinctive underclothing should, and every welltailored man must,
trying to make the gap wider between them by innuendo and give more of
a genuine filip to acts of impropriety between the two, she unbuttoned
his and then he untied her, mind the pin, whereas savages in the
cannibal islands, say, at ninety degrees in the shade not caring a
continental. However, reverting to the original, there were on the
other hand others who had forced their way to the top from the lowest
rung by the aid of their bootstraps. Sheer force of natural genius,
that. With brains, sir.

For which and further reasons he felt it was his interest and duty even
to wait on and profit by the unlookedfor occasion though why he could
not exactly tell being as it was already several shillings to the bad
having in fact let himself in for it. Still to cultivate the
acquaintance of someone of no uncommon calibre who could provide food
for reflection would amply repay any small. Intellectual stimulation,
as such, was, he felt, from time to time a firstrate tonic for the
mind. Added to which was the coincidence of meeting, discussion, dance,
row, old salt of the here today and gone tomorrow type, night loafers,
the whole galaxy of events, all went to make up a miniature cameo of
the world we live in especially as the lives of the submerged tenth,
viz. coalminers, divers, scavengers etc., were very much under the
microscope lately. To improve the shining hour he wondered whether he
might meet with anything approaching the same luck as Mr Philip Beaufoy
if taken down in writing suppose he were to pen something out of the
common groove (as he fully intended doing) at the rate of one guinea
per column. _My Experiences_, let us say, _in a Cabman’s Shelter_.

The pink edition extra sporting of the _Telegraph_ tell a graphic lie
lay, as luck would have it, beside his elbow and as he was just
puzzling again, far from satisfied, over a country belonging to him and
the preceding rebus the vessel came from Bridgwater and the postcard
was addressed A. Boudin find the captain’s age, his eyes went aimlessly
over the respective captions which came under his special province the
allembracing give us this day our daily press. First he got a bit of a
start but it turned out to be only something about somebody named H. du
Boyes, agent for typewriters or something like that. Great battle,
Tokio. Lovemaking in Irish, £ 200 damages. Gordon Bennett. Emigration
Swindle. Letter from His Grace. William ✠. Ascot meeting, the Gold Cup.
Victory of outsider _Throwaway_ recalls Derby of ’92 when Capt.
Marshall’s dark horse _Sir Hugo_ captured the blue ribband at long
odds. New York disaster. Thousand lives lost. Foot and Mouth. Funeral
of the late Mr Patrick Dignam.

So to change the subject he read about Dignam R. I. P. which, he
reflected, was anything but a gay sendoff. Or a change of address
anyway.

—_This morning_ (Hynes put it in of course) _the remains of the late Mr
Patrick Dignam were removed from his residence, no 9 Newbridge Avenue,
Sandymount, for interment in Glasnevin. The deceased gentleman was a
most popular and genial personality in city life and his demise after a
brief illness came as a great shock to citizens of all classes by whom
he is deeply regretted. The obsequies, at which many friends of the
deceased were present, were carried out_ (certainly Hynes wrote it with
a nudge from Corny) _by Messrs H. J. O’Neill and Son, 164 North Strand
Road. The mourners included: Patk. Dignam (son), Bernard Corrigan
(brother-in-law), Jno. Henry Menton, solr, Martin Cunningham, John
Power, eatondph 1/8 ador dorador douradora_ (must be where he called
Monks the dayfather about Keyes’s ad) _Thomas Kernan, Simon Dedalus,
Stephen Dedalus B. A., Edw. J. Lambert, Cornelius T. Kelleher, Joseph
M’C Hynes, L. Boom, C P M’Coy,—M’Intosh and several others_.

Nettled not a little by L. _Boom_ (as it incorrectly stated) and the
line of bitched type but tickled to death simultaneously by C. P. M’Coy
and Stephen Dedalus B. A. who were conspicuous, needless to say, by
their total absence (to say nothing of M’Intosh) L. Boom pointed it out
to his companion B. A. engaged in stifling another yawn, half
nervousness, not forgetting the usual crop of nonsensical howlers of
misprints.

—Is that first epistle to the Hebrews, he asked as soon as his bottom
jaw would let him, in? Text: open thy mouth and put thy foot in it.

—It is. Really, Mr Bloom said (though first he fancied he alluded to
the archbishop till he added about foot and mouth with which there
could be no possible connection) overjoyed to set his mind at rest and
a bit flabbergasted at Myles Crawford’s after all managing to. There.

While the other was reading it on page two Boom (to give him for the
nonce his new misnomer) whiled away a few odd leisure moments in fits
and starts with the account of the third event at Ascot on page three,
his side. Value 1000 sovs with 3000 sovs in specie added. For entire
colts and fillies. Mr F. Alexander’s _Throwaway_, b. h. by
_Rightaway-Thrale_, 5 yrs, 9 st 4 lbs (W. Lane) 1. Lord Howard de
Walden’s _Zinfandel_ (M. Cannon) 2. Mr W. Bass’s _Sceptre_ 3. Betting 5
to 4 on _Zinfandel_, 20 to 1 _Throwaway_ (off). _Sceptre_ a shade
heavier. It was anybody’s race then the rank outsider drew to the fore,
got long lead, beating Lord Howard de Walden’s chestnut colt and Mr W.
Bass’s bay filly Sceptre on a 2 1/2 mile course. Winner trained by
Braime so that Lenehan’s version of the business was all pure buncombe.
Secured the verdict cleverly by a length. 1000 sovs with 3000 in
specie. Also ran: J de Bremond’s (French horse Bantam Lyons was
anxiously inquiring after not in yet but expected any minute) _Maximum
II_. Different ways of bringing off a coup. Lovemaking damages. Though
that halfbaked Lyons ran off at a tangent in his impetuosity to get
left. Of course gambling eminently lent itself to that sort of thing
though as the event turned out the poor fool hadn’t much reason to
congratulate himself on his pick, the forlorn hope. Guesswork it
reduced itself to eventually.

—There was every indication they would arrive at that, he, Bloom, said.

—Who? the other, whose hand by the way was hurt, said.

One morning you would open the paper, the cabman affirmed, and read:
_Return of Parnell_. He bet them what they liked. A Dublin fusilier was
in that shelter one night and said he saw him in South Africa. Pride it
was killed him. He ought to have done away with himself or lain low for
a time after committee room no 15 until he was his old self again with
no-one to point a finger at him. Then they would all to a man have gone
down on their marrowbones to him to come back when he had recovered his
senses. Dead he wasn’t. Simply absconded somewhere. The coffin they
brought over was full of stones. He changed his name to De Wet, the
Boer general. He made a mistake to fight the priests. And so forth and
so on.

All the same Bloom (properly so dubbed) was rather surprised at their
memories for in nine cases out of ten it was a case of tarbarrels and
not singly but in their thousands and then complete oblivion because it
was twenty odd years. Highly unlikely of course there was even a shadow
of truth in the stones and, even supposing, he thought a return highly
inadvisable, all things considered. Something evidently riled them in
his death. Either he petered out too tamely of acute pneumonia just
when his various different political arrangements were nearing
completion or whether it transpired he owed his death to his having
neglected to change his boots and clothes after a wetting when a cold
resulted and failing to consult a specialist he being confined to his
room till he eventually died of it amid widespread regret before a
fortnight was at an end or quite possibly they were distressed to find
the job was taken out of their hands. Of course nobody being acquainted
with his movements even before there was absolutely no clue as to his
whereabouts which were decidedly of the _Alice, where art thou_ order
even prior to his starting to go under several aliases such as Fox and
Stewart so the remark which emanated from friend cabby might be within
the bounds of possibility. Naturally then it would prey on his mind as
a born leader of men which undoubtedly he was and a commanding figure,
a sixfooter or at any rate five feet ten or eleven in his stockinged
feet, whereas Messrs So and So who, though they weren’t even a patch on
the former man, ruled the roost after their redeeming features were
very few and far between. It certainly pointed a moral, the idol with
feet of clay, and then seventytwo of his trusty henchmen rounding on
him with mutual mudslinging. And the identical same with murderers. You
had to come back. That haunting sense kind of drew you. To show the
understudy in the title _rôle_ how to. He saw him once on the
auspicious occasion when they broke up the type in the _Insuppressible_
or was it _United Ireland_, a privilege he keenly appreciated, and, in
point of fact, handed him his silk hat when it was knocked off and he
said _Thank you_, excited as he undoubtedly was under his frigid
exterior notwithstanding the little misadventure mentioned between the
cup and the lip: what’s bred in the bone. Still as regards return. You
were a lucky dog if they didn’t set the terrier at you directly you got
back. Then a lot of shillyshally usually followed, Tom for and Dick and
Harry against. And then, number one, you came up against the man in
possession and had to produce your credentials like the claimant in the
Tichborne case, Roger Charles Tichborne, _Bella_ was the boat’s name to
the best of his recollection he, the heir, went down in as the evidence
went to show and there was a tattoo mark too in Indian ink, lord Bellew
was it, as he might very easily have picked up the details from some
pal on board ship and then, when got up to tally with the description
given, introduce himself with: _Excuse me, my name is So and So_ or
some such commonplace remark. A more prudent course, as Bloom said to
the not over effusive, in fact like the distinguished personage under
discussion beside him, would have been to sound the lie of the land
first.

—That bitch, that English whore, did for him, the shebeen proprietor
commented. She put the first nail in his coffin.

—Fine lump of a woman all the same, the _soi-disant_ townclerk Henry
Campbell remarked, and plenty of her. She loosened many a man’s thighs.
I seen her picture in a barber’s. The husband was a captain or an
officer.

—Ay, Skin-the-Goat amusingly added, he was and a cottonball one.

This gratuitous contribution of a humorous character occasioned a fair
amount of laughter among his _entourage_. As regards Bloom he, without
the faintest suspicion of a smile, merely gazed in the direction of the
door and reflected upon the historic story which had aroused
extraordinary interest at the time when the facts, to make matters
worse, were made public with the usual affectionate letters that passed
between them full of sweet nothings. First it was strictly Platonic
till nature intervened and an attachment sprang up between them till
bit by bit matters came to a climax and the matter became the talk of
the town till the staggering blow came as a welcome intelligence to not
a few evildisposed, however, who were resolved upon encompassing his
downfall though the thing was public property all along though not to
anything like the sensational extent that it subsequently blossomed
into. Since their names were coupled, though, since he was her declared
favourite, where was the particular necessity to proclaim it to the
rank and file from the housetops, the fact, namely, that he had shared
her bedroom which came out in the witnessbox on oath when a thrill went
through the packed court literally electrifying everybody in the shape
of witnesses swearing to having witnessed him on such and such a
particular date in the act of scrambling out of an upstairs apartment
with the assistance of a ladder in night apparel, having gained
admittance in the same fashion, a fact the weeklies, addicted to the
lubric a little, simply coined shoals of money out of. Whereas the
simple fact of the case was it was simply a case of the husband not
being up to the scratch, with nothing in common between them beyond the
name, and then a real man arriving on the scene, strong to the verge of
weakness, falling a victim to her siren charms and forgetting home
ties, the usual sequel, to bask in the loved one’s smiles. The eternal
question of the life connubial, needless to say, cropped up. Can real
love, supposing there happens to be another chap in the case, exist
between married folk? Poser. Though it was no concern of theirs
absolutely if he regarded her with affection, carried away by a wave of
folly. A magnificent specimen of manhood he was truly augmented
obviously by gifts of a high order, as compared with the other military
supernumerary that is (who was just the usual everyday _farewell, my
gallant captain_ kind of an individual in the light dragoons, the 18th
hussars to be accurate) and inflammable doubtless (the fallen leader,
that is, not the other) in his own peculiar way which she of course,
woman, quickly perceived as highly likely to carve his way to fame
which he almost bid fair to do till the priests and ministers of the
gospel as a whole, his erstwhile staunch adherents, and his beloved
evicted tenants for whom he had done yeoman service in the rural parts
of the country by taking up the cudgels on their behalf in a way that
exceeded their most sanguine expectations, very effectually cooked his
matrimonial goose, thereby heaping coals of fire on his head much in
the same way as the fabled ass’s kick. Looking back now in a
retrospective kind of arrangement all seemed a kind of dream. And then
coming back was the worst thing you ever did because it went without
saying you would feel out of place as things always moved with the
times. Why, as he reflected, Irishtown strand, a locality he had not
been in for quite a number of years looked different somehow since, as
it happened, he went to reside on the north side. North or south,
however, it was just the wellknown case of hot passion, pure and
simple, upsetting the applecart with a vengeance and just bore out the
very thing he was saying as she also was Spanish or half so, types that
wouldn’t do things by halves, passionate abandon of the south, casting
every shred of decency to the winds.

—Just bears out what I was saying, he, with glowing bosom said to
Stephen, about blood and the sun. And, if I don’t greatly mistake she
was Spanish too.

—The king of Spain’s daughter, Stephen answered, adding something or
other rather muddled about farewell and adieu to you Spanish onions and
the first land called the Deadman and from Ramhead to Scilly was so and
so many.

—Was she? Bloom ejaculated, surprised though not astonished by any
means, I never heard that rumour before. Possible, especially there, it
was as she lived there. So, Spain.

Carefully avoiding a book in his pocket _Sweets of_, which reminded him
by the by of that Capel street library book out of date, he took out
his pocketbook and, turning over the various contents it contained
rapidly finally he.

—Do you consider, by the by, he said, thoughtfully selecting a faded
photo which he laid on the table, that a Spanish type?

Stephen, obviously addressed, looked down on the photo showing a large
sized lady with her fleshy charms on evidence in an open fashion as she
was in the full bloom of womanhood in evening dress cut ostentatiously
low for the occasion to give a liberal display of bosom, with more than
vision of breasts, her full lips parted and some perfect teeth,
standing near, ostensibly with gravity, a piano on the rest of which
was _In Old Madrid_, a ballad, pretty in its way, which was then all
the vogue. Her (the lady’s) eyes, dark, large, looked at Stephen, about
to smile about something to be admired, Lafayette of Westmoreland
street, Dublin’s premier photographic artist, being responsible for the
esthetic execution.

—Mrs Bloom, my wife the _prima donna_ Madam Marion Tweedy, Bloom
indicated. Taken a few years since. In or about ninety six. Very like
her then.

Beside the young man he looked also at the photo of the lady now his
legal wife who, he intimated, was the accomplished daughter of Major
Brian Tweedy and displayed at an early age remarkable proficiency as a
singer having even made her bow to the public when her years numbered
barely sweet sixteen. As for the face it was a speaking likeness in
expression but it did not do justice to her figure which came in for a
lot of notice usually and which did not come out to the best advantage
in that getup. She could without difficulty, he said, have posed for
the ensemble, not to dwell on certain opulent curves of the. He dwelt,
being a bit of an artist in his spare time, on the female form in
general developmentally because, as it so happened, no later than that
afternoon he had seen those Grecian statues, perfectly developed as
works of art, in the National Museum. Marble could give the original,
shoulders, back, all the symmetry, all the rest. Yes, puritanisme, it
does though, Saint Joseph’s sovereign thievery alors (Bandez!) Figne
toi trop. Whereas no photo could because it simply wasn’t art in a
word.

The spirit moving him he would much have liked to follow Jack Tar’s
good example and leave the likeness there for a very few minutes to
speak for itself on the plea he so that the other could drink in the
beauty for himself, her stage presence being, frankly, a treat in
itself which the camera could not at all do justice to. But it was
scarcely professional etiquette so. Though it was a warm pleasant sort
of a night now yet wonderfully cool for the season considering, for
sunshine after storm. And he did feel a kind of need there and then to
follow suit like a kind of inward voice and satisfy a possible need by
moving a motion. Nevertheless he sat tight just viewing the slightly
soiled photo creased by opulent curves, none the worse for wear
however, and looked away thoughtfully with the intention of not further
increasing the other’s possible embarrassment while gauging her
symmetry of heaving _embonpoint_. In fact the slight soiling was only
an added charm like the case of linen slightly soiled, good as new,
much better in fact with the starch out. Suppose she was gone when he?
I looked for the lamp which she told me came into his mind but merely
as a passing fancy of his because he then recollected the morning
littered bed etcetera and the book about Ruby with met him pike hoses
(_sic_) in it which must have fell down sufficiently appropriately
beside the domestic chamberpot with apologies to Lindley Murray.

The vicinity of the young man he certainly relished, educated,
_distingué_ and impulsive into the bargain, far and away the pick of
the bunch though you wouldn’t think he had it in him yet you would.
Besides he said the picture was handsome which, say what you like, it
was though at the moment she was distinctly stouter. And why not? An
awful lot of makebelieve went on about that sort of thing involving a
lifelong slur with the usual splash page of gutterpress about the same
old matrimonial tangle alleging misconduct with professional golfer or
the newest stage favourite instead of being honest and aboveboard about
the whole business. How they were fated to meet and an attachment
sprang up between the two so that their names were coupled in the
public eye was told in court with letters containing the habitual mushy
and compromising expressions leaving no loophole to show that they
openly cohabited two or three times a week at some wellknown seaside
hotel and relations, when the thing ran its normal course, became in
due course intimate. Then the decree _nisi_ and the King’s proctor
tries to show cause why and, he failing to quash it, _nisi_ was made
absolute. But as for that the two misdemeanants, wrapped up as they
largely were in one another, could safely afford to ignore it as they
very largely did till the matter was put in the hands of a solicitor
who filed a petition for the party wronged in due course. He, B,
enjoyed the distinction of being close to Erin’s uncrowned king in the
flesh when the thing occurred on the historic _fracas_ when the fallen
leader’s, who notoriously stuck to his guns to the last drop even when
clothed in the mantle of adultery, (leader’s) trusty henchmen to the
number of ten or a dozen or possibly even more than that penetrated
into the printing works of the _Insuppressible_ or no it was _United
Ireland_ (a by no means by the by appropriate appellative) and broke up
the typecases with hammers or something like that all on account of
some scurrilous effusions from the facile pens of the O’Brienite
scribes at the usual mudslinging occupation reflecting on the erstwhile
tribune’s private morals. Though palpably a radically altered man he
was still a commanding figure though carelessly garbed as usual with
that look of settled purpose which went a long way with the
shillyshallyers till they discovered to their vast discomfiture that
their idol had feet of clay after placing him upon a pedestal which
she, however, was the first to perceive. As those were particularly hot
times in the general hullaballoo Bloom sustained a minor injury from a
nasty prod of some chap’s elbow in the crowd that of course congregated
lodging some place about the pit of the stomach, fortunately not of a
grave character. His hat (Parnell’s) a silk one was inadvertently
knocked off and, as a matter of strict history, Bloom was the man who
picked it up in the crush after witnessing the occurrence meaning to
return it to him (and return it to him he did with the utmost celerity)
who panting and hatless and whose thoughts were miles away from his hat
at the time all the same being a gentleman born with a stake in the
country he, as a matter of fact, having gone into it more for the kudos
of the thing than anything else, what’s bred in the bone instilled into
him in infancy at his mother’s knee in the shape of knowing what good
form was came out at once because he turned round to the donor and
thanked him with perfect _aplomb_, saying: _Thank you, sir_, though in
a very different tone of voice from the ornament of the legal
profession whose headgear Bloom also set to rights earlier in the
course of the day, history repeating itself with a difference, after
the burial of a mutual friend when they had left him alone in his glory
after the grim task of having committed his remains to the grave.

On the other hand what incensed him more inwardly was the blatant jokes
of the cabman and so on who passed it all off as a jest, laughing
immoderately, pretending to understand everything, the why and the
wherefore, and in reality not knowing their own minds, it being a case
for the two parties themselves unless it ensued that the legitimate
husband happened to be a party to it owing to some anonymous letter
from the usual boy Jones, who happened to come across them at the
crucial moment in a loving position locked in one another’s arms,
drawing attention to their illicit proceedings and leading up to a
domestic rumpus and the erring fair one begging forgiveness of her lord
and master upon her knees and promising to sever the connection and not
receive his visits any more if only the aggrieved husband would
overlook the matter and let bygones be bygones with tears in her eyes
though possibly with her tongue in her fair cheek at the same time as
quite possibly there were several others. He personally, being of a
sceptical bias, believed and didn’t make the smallest bones about
saying so either that man or men in the plural were always hanging
around on the waiting list about a lady, even supposing she was the
best wife in the world and they got on fairly well together for the
sake of argument, when, neglecting her duties, she chose to be tired of
wedded life and was on for a little flutter in polite debauchery to
press their attentions on her with improper intent, the upshot being
that her affections centred on another, the cause of many _liaisons_
between still attractive married women getting on for fair and forty
and younger men, no doubt as several famous cases of feminine
infatuation proved up to the hilt.

It was a thousand pities a young fellow, blessed with an allowance of
brains as his neighbour obviously was, should waste his valuable time
with profligate women who might present him with a nice dose to last
him his lifetime. In the nature of single blessedness he would one day
take unto himself a wife when Miss Right came on the scene but in the
interim ladies’ society was a _conditio sine qua non_ though he had the
gravest possible doubts, not that he wanted in the smallest to pump
Stephen about Miss Ferguson (who was very possibly the particular
lodestar who brought him down to Irishtown so early in the morning), as
to whether he would find much satisfaction basking in the boy and girl
courtship idea and the company of smirking misses without a penny to
their names bi or triweekly with the orthodox preliminary canter of
complimentplaying and walking out leading up to fond lovers’ ways and
flowers and chocs. To think of him house and homeless, rooked by some
landlady worse than any stepmother, was really too bad at his age. The
queer suddenly things he popped out with attracted the elder man who
was several years the other’s senior or like his father but something
substantial he certainly ought to eat even were it only an eggflip made
on unadulterated maternal nutriment or, failing that, the homely Humpty
Dumpty boiled.

—At what o’clock did you dine? he questioned of the slim form and tired
though unwrinkled face.

—Some time yesterday, Stephen said.

—Yesterday! exclaimed Bloom till he remembered it was already tomorrow
Friday. Ah, you mean it’s after twelve!

—The day before yesterday, Stephen said, improving on himself.

Literally astounded at this piece of intelligence Bloom reflected.
Though they didn’t see eye to eye in everything a certain analogy there
somehow was as if both their minds were travelling, so to speak, in the
one train of thought. At his age when dabbling in politics roughly some
score of years previously when he had been a _quasi_ aspirant to
parliamentary honours in the Buckshot Foster days he too recollected in
retrospect (which was a source of keen satisfaction in itself) he had a
sneaking regard for those same ultra ideas. For instance when the
evicted tenants question, then at its first inception, bulked largely
in people’s mind though, it goes without saying, not contributing a
copper or pinning his faith absolutely to its dictums, some of which
wouldn’t exactly hold water, he at the outset in principle at all
events was in thorough sympathy with peasant possession as voicing the
trend of modern opinion (a partiality, however, which, realising his
mistake, he was subsequently partially cured of) and even was twitted
with going a step farther than Michael Davitt in the striking views he
at one time inculcated as a backtothelander, which was one reason he
strongly resented the innuendo put upon him in so barefaced a fashion
by our friend at the gathering of the clans in Barney Kiernan’s so that
he, though often considerably misunderstood and the least pugnacious of
mortals, be it repeated, departed from his customary habit to give him
(metaphorically) one in the gizzard though, so far as politics
themselves were concerned, he was only too conscious of the casualties
invariably resulting from propaganda and displays of mutual animosity
and the misery and suffering it entailed as a foregone conclusion on
fine young fellows, chiefly, destruction of the fittest, in a word.

Anyhow upon weighing up the pros and cons, getting on for one, as it
was, it was high time to be retiring for the night. The crux was it was
a bit risky to bring him home as eventualities might possibly ensue
(somebody having a temper of her own sometimes) and spoil the hash
altogether as on the night he misguidedly brought home a dog (breed
unknown) with a lame paw (not that the cases were either identical or
the reverse though he had hurt his hand too) to Ontario Terrace as he
very distinctly remembered, having been there, so to speak. On the
other hand it was altogether far and away too late for the Sandymount
or Sandycove suggestion so that he was in some perplexity as to which
of the two alternatives. Everything pointed to the fact that it behoved
him to avail himself to the full of the opportunity, all things
considered. His initial impression was he was a shade standoffish or
not over effusive but it grew on him someway. For one thing he mightn’t
what you call jump at the idea, if approached, and what mostly worried
him was he didn’t know how to lead up to it or word it exactly,
supposing he did entertain the proposal, as it would afford him very
great personal pleasure if he would allow him to help to put coin in
his way or some wardrobe, if found suitable. At all events he wound up
by concluding, eschewing for the nonce hidebound precedent, a cup of
Epps’s cocoa and a shakedown for the night plus the use of a rug or two
and overcoat doubled into a pillow at least he would be in safe hands
and as warm as a toast on a trivet he failed to perceive any very vast
amount of harm in that always with the proviso no rumpus of any sort
was kicked up. A move had to be made because that merry old soul, the
grasswidower in question who appeared to be glued to the spot, didn’t
appear in any particular hurry to wend his way home to his dearly
beloved Queenstown and it was highly likely some sponger’s bawdyhouse
of retired beauties where age was no bar off Sheriff street lower would
be the best clue to that equivocal character’s whereabouts for a few
days to come, alternately racking their feelings (the mermaids’) with
sixchamber revolver anecdotes verging on the tropical calculated to
freeze the marrow of anybody’s bones and mauling their largesized
charms betweenwhiles with rough and tumble gusto to the accompaniment
of large potations of potheen and the usual blarney about himself for
as to who he in reality was let x equal my right name and address, as
Mr Algebra remarks _passim_. At the same time he inwardly chuckled over
his gentle repartee to the blood and ouns champion about his god being
a jew. People could put up with being bitten by a wolf but what
properly riled them was a bite from a sheep. The most vulnerable point
too of tender Achilles. Your god was a jew. Because mostly they
appeared to imagine he came from Carrick-on-Shannon or somewhereabouts
in the county Sligo.

—I propose, our hero eventually suggested after mature reflection while
prudently pocketing her photo, as it’s rather stuffy here you just come
home with me and talk things over. My diggings are quite close in the
vicinity. You can’t drink that stuff. Do you like cocoa? Wait. I’ll
just pay this lot.

The best plan clearly being to clear out, the remainder being plain
sailing, he beckoned, while prudently pocketing the photo, to the
keeper of the shanty who didn’t seem to.

—Yes, that’s the best, he assured Stephen to whom for the matter of
that Brazen Head or him or anywhere else was all more or less.

All kinds of Utopian plans were flashing through his (B’s) busy brain,
education (the genuine article), literature, journalism, prize titbits,
up to date billing, concert tours in English watering resorts packed
with hydros and seaside theatres, turning money away, duets in Italian
with the accent perfectly true to nature and a quantity of other
things, no necessity, of course, to tell the world and his wife from
the housetops about it, and a slice of luck. An opening was all was
wanted. Because he more than suspected he had his father’s voice to
bank his hopes on which it was quite on the cards he had so it would be
just as well, by the way no harm, to trail the conversation in the
direction of that particular red herring just to.

The cabby read out of the paper he had got hold of that the former
viceroy, earl Cadogan, had presided at the cabdrivers’ association
dinner in London somewhere. Silence with a yawn or two accompanied this
thrilling announcement. Then the old specimen in the corner who
appeared to have some spark of vitality left read out that sir Anthony
MacDonnell had left Euston for the chief secretary’s lodge or words to
that effect. To which absorbing piece of intelligence echo answered
why.

—Give us a squint at that literature, grandfather, the ancient mariner
put in, manifesting some natural impatience.

—And welcome, answered the elderly party thus addressed.

The sailor lugged out from a case he had a pair of greenish goggles
which he very slowly hooked over his nose and both ears.

—Are you bad in the eyes? the sympathetic personage like the townclerk
queried.

—Why, answered the seafarer with the tartan beard, who seemingly was a
bit of a literary cove in his own small way, staring out of seagreen
portholes as you might well describe them as, I uses goggles reading.
Sand in the Red Sea done that. One time I could read a book in the
dark, manner of speaking. _The Arabian Nights Entertainment_ was my
favourite and _Red as a Rose is She._

Hereupon he pawed the journal open and pored upon Lord only knows what,
found drowned or the exploits of King Willow, Iremonger having made a
hundred and something second wicket not out for Notts, during which
time (completely regardless of Ire) the keeper was intensely occupied
loosening an apparently new or secondhand boot which manifestly pinched
him as he muttered against whoever it was sold it, all of them who were
sufficiently awake enough to be picked out by their facial expressions,
that is to say, either simply looking on glumly or passing a trivial
remark.

To cut a long story short Bloom, grasping the situation, was the first
to rise from his seat so as not to outstay their welcome having first
and foremost, being as good as his word that he would foot the bill for
the occasion, taken the wise precaution to unobtrusively motion to mine
host as a parting shot a scarcely perceptible sign when the others were
not looking to the effect that the amount due was forthcoming, making a
grand total of fourpence (the amount he deposited unobtrusively in four
coppers, literally the last of the Mohicans), he having previously
spotted on the printed pricelist for all who ran to read opposite him
in unmistakable figures, coffee 2d, confectionery do, and honestly well
worth twice the money once in a way, as Wetherup used to remark.

—Come, he counselled to close the _séance_.

Seeing that the ruse worked and the coast was clear they left the
shelter or shanty together and the _élite_ society of oilskin and
company whom nothing short of an earthquake would move out of their
_dolce far niente_. Stephen, who confessed to still feeling poorly and
fagged out, paused at the, for a moment, the door.

—One thing I never understood, he said to be original on the spur of
the moment. Why they put tables upside down at night, I mean chairs
upside down, on the tables in cafés. To which impromptu the
neverfailing Bloom replied without a moment’s hesitation, saying
straight off:

—To sweep the floor in the morning.

So saying he skipped around, nimbly considering, frankly at the same
time apologetic to get on his companion’s right, a habit of his, by the
bye, his right side being, in classical idiom, his tender Achilles. The
night air was certainly now a treat to breathe though Stephen was a bit
weak on his pins.

—It will (the air) do you good, Bloom said, meaning also the walk, in a
moment. The only thing is to walk then you’ll feel a different man.
Come. It’s not far. Lean on me.

Accordingly he passed his left arm in Stephen’s right and led him on
accordingly.

—Yes, Stephen said uncertainly because he thought he felt a strange
kind of flesh of a different man approach him, sinewless and wobbly and
all that.

Anyhow they passed the sentrybox with stones, brazier etc. where the
municipal supernumerary, ex Gumley, was still to all intents and
purposes wrapped in the arms of Murphy, as the adage has it, dreaming
of fresh fields and pastures new. And _apropos_ of coffin of stones the
analogy was not at all bad as it was in fact a stoning to death on the
part of seventytwo out of eighty odd constituencies that ratted at the
time of the split and chiefly the belauded peasant class, probably the
selfsame evicted tenants he had put in their holdings.

So they turned on to chatting about music, a form of art for which
Bloom, as a pure amateur, possessed the greatest love, as they made
tracks arm in arm across Beresford place. Wagnerian music, though
confessedly grand in its way, was a bit too heavy for Bloom and hard to
follow at the first go-off but the music of Mercadante’s _Huguenots_,
Meyerbeer’s _Seven Last Words on the Cross_ and Mozart’s _Twelfth Mass_
he simply revelled in, the _Gloria_ in that being, to his mind, the
acme of first class music as such, literally knocking everything else
into a cocked hat. He infinitely preferred the sacred music of the
catholic church to anything the opposite shop could offer in that line
such as those Moody and Sankey hymns or _Bid me to live and I will live
thy protestant to be_. He also yielded to none in his admiration of
Rossini’s _Stabat Mater_, a work simply abounding in immortal numbers,
in which his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy, made a hit, a veritable
sensation, he might safely say, greatly adding to her other laurels and
putting the others totally in the shade, in the jesuit fathers’ church
in upper Gardiner street, the sacred edifice being thronged to the
doors to hear her with virtuosos, or _virtuosi_ rather. There was the
unanimous opinion that there was none to come up to her and suffice it
to say in a place of worship for music of a sacred character there was
a generally voiced desire for an encore. On the whole though favouring
preferably light opera of the _Don Giovanni_ description and _Martha_,
a gem in its line, he had a _penchant_, though with only a surface
knowledge, for the severe classical school such as Mendelssohn. And
talking of that, taking it for granted he knew all about the old
favourites, he mentioned _par excellence_ Lionel’s air in _Martha,
M’appari_, which, curiously enough, he had heard or overheard, to be
more accurate, on yesterday, a privilege he keenly appreciated, from
the lips of Stephen’s respected father, sung to perfection, a study of
the number, in fact, which made all the others take a back seat.
Stephen, in reply to a politely put query, said he didn’t sing it but
launched out into praises of Shakespeare’s songs, at least of in or
about that period, the lutenist Dowland who lived in Fetter lane near
Gerard the herbalist, who _anno ludendo hausi, Doulandus_, an
instrument he was contemplating purchasing from Mr Arnold Dolmetsch,
whom B. did not quite recall though the name certainly sounded
familiar, for sixtyfive guineas and Farnaby and son with their _dux_
and _comes_ conceits and Byrd (William) who played the virginals, he
said, in the Queen’s chapel or anywhere else he found them and one
Tomkins who made toys or airs and John Bull.

On the roadway which they were approaching whilst still speaking beyond
the swingchains a horse, dragging a sweeper, paced on the paven ground,
brushing a long swathe of mire up so that with the noise Bloom was not
perfectly certain whether he had caught aright the allusion to
sixtyfive guineas and John Bull. He inquired if it was John Bull the
political celebrity of that ilk, as it struck him, the two identical
names, as a striking coincidence.

By the chains the horse slowly swerved to turn, which perceiving,
Bloom, who was keeping a sharp lookout as usual, plucked the other’s
sleeve gently, jocosely remarking:

—Our lives are in peril tonight. Beware of the steamroller.

They thereupon stopped. Bloom looked at the head of a horse not worth
anything like sixtyfive guineas, suddenly in evidence in the dark quite
near so that it seemed new, a different grouping of bones and even
flesh because palpably it was a fourwalker, a hipshaker, a
blackbuttocker, a taildangler, a headhanger putting his hind foot
foremost the while the lord of his creation sat on the perch, busy with
his thoughts. But such a good poor brute he was sorry he hadn’t a lump
of sugar but, as he wisely reflected, you could scarcely be prepared
for every emergency that might crop up. He was just a big nervous
foolish noodly kind of a horse, without a second care in the world. But
even a dog, he reflected, take that mongrel in Barney Kiernan’s, of the
same size, would be a holy horror to face. But it was no animal’s fault
in particular if he was built that way like the camel, ship of the
desert, distilling grapes into potheen in his hump. Nine tenths of them
all could be caged or trained, nothing beyond the art of man barring
the bees. Whale with a harpoon hairpin, alligator tickle the small of
his back and he sees the joke, chalk a circle for a rooster, tiger my
eagle eye. These timely reflections anent the brutes of the field
occupied his mind somewhat distracted from Stephen’s words while the
ship of the street was manœuvring and Stephen went on about the highly
interesting old.

—What’s this I was saying? Ah, yes! My wife, he intimated, plunging _in
medias res_, would have the greatest of pleasure in making your
acquaintance as she is passionately attached to music of any kind.

He looked sideways in a friendly fashion at the sideface of Stephen,
image of his mother, which was not quite the same as the usual handsome
blackguard type they unquestionably had an insatiable hankering after
as he was perhaps not that way built.

Still, supposing he had his father’s gift as he more than suspected, it
opened up new vistas in his mind such as Lady Fingall’s Irish
industries, concert on the preceding Monday, and aristocracy in
general.

Exquisite variations he was now describing on an air _Youth here has
End_ by Jans Pieter Sweelinck, a Dutchman of Amsterdam where the frows
come from. Even more he liked an old German song of _Johannes Jeep_
about the clear sea and the voices of sirens, sweet murderers of men,
which boggled Bloom a bit:

     Von der Sirenen Listigkeit
     Tun die Poeten dichten.

These opening bars he sang and translated _extempore_. Bloom, nodding,
said he perfectly understood and begged him to go on by all means which
he did.

A phenomenally beautiful tenor voice like that, the rarest of boons,
which Bloom appreciated at the very first note he got out, could
easily, if properly handled by some recognised authority on voice
production such as Barraclough and being able to read music into the
bargain, command its own price where baritones were ten a penny and
procure for its fortunate possessor in the near future an _entrée_ into
fashionable houses in the best residential quarters of financial
magnates in a large way of business and titled people where with his
university degree of B. A. (a huge ad in its way) and gentlemanly
bearing to all the more influence the good impression he would
infallibly score a distinct success, being blessed with brains which
also could be utilised for the purpose and other requisites, if his
clothes were properly attended to so as to the better worm his way into
their good graces as he, a youthful tyro in society’s sartorial
niceties, hardly understood how a little thing like that could militate
against you. It was in fact only a matter of months and he could easily
foresee him participating in their musical and artistic
_conversaziones_ during the festivities of the Christmas season, for
choice, causing a slight flutter in the dovecotes of the fair sex and
being made a lot of by ladies out for sensation, cases of which, as he
happened to know, were on record—in fact, without giving the show away,
he himself once upon a time, if he cared to, could easily have. Added
to which of course would be the pecuniary emolument by no means to be
sneezed at, going hand in hand with his tuition fees. Not, he
parenthesised, that for the sake of filthy lucre he need necessarily
embrace the lyric platform as a walk in life for any lengthy space of
time. But a step in the required direction it was beyond yea or nay and
both monetarily and mentally it contained no reflection on his dignity
in the smallest and it often turned in uncommonly handy to be handed a
cheque at a muchneeded moment when every little helped. Besides, though
taste latterly had deteriorated to a degree, original music like that,
different from the conventional rut, would rapidly have a great vogue
as it would be a decided novelty for Dublin’s musical world after the
usual hackneyed run of catchy tenor solos foisted on a confiding public
by Ivan St Austell and Hilton St Just and their _genus omne_. Yes,
beyond a shadow of a doubt he could with all the cards in his hand and
he had a capital opening to make a name for himself and win a high
place in the city’s esteem where he could command a stiff figure and,
booking ahead, give a grand concert for the patrons of the King street
house, given a backerup, if one were forthcoming to kick him upstairs,
so to speak, a big _if_, however, with some impetus of the goahead sort
to obviate the inevitable procrastination which often tripped up a too
much fêted prince of good fellows. And it need not detract from the
other by one iota as, being his own master, he would have heaps of time
to practise literature in his spare moments when desirous of so doing
without its clashing with his vocal career or containing anything
derogatory whatsoever as it was a matter for himself alone. In fact, he
had the ball at his feet and that was the very reason why the other,
possessed of a remarkably sharp nose for smelling a rat of any sort,
hung on to him at all.

The horse was just then. And later on at a propitious opportunity he
purposed (Bloom did), without anyway prying into his private affairs on
the _fools step in where angels_ principle, advising him to sever his
connection with a certain budding practitioner who, he noticed, was
prone to disparage and even to a slight extent with some hilarious
pretext when not present, deprecate him, or whatever you like to call
it which in Bloom’s humble opinion threw a nasty sidelight on that side
of a person’s character, no pun intended.

The horse having reached the end of his tether, so to speak, halted
and, rearing high a proud feathering tail, added his quota by letting
fall on the floor which the brush would soon brush up and polish, three
smoking globes of turds. Slowly three times, one after another, from a
full crupper he mired. And humanely his driver waited till he (or she)
had ended, patient in his scythed car.

Side by side Bloom, profiting by the _contretemps_, with Stephen passed
through the gap of the chains, divided by the upright, and, stepping
over a strand of mire, went across towards Gardiner street lower,
Stephen singing more boldly, but not loudly, the end of the ballad.

     Und alle Schiffe brücken.

The driver never said a word, good, bad or indifferent, but merely
watched the two figures, as he sat on his lowbacked car, both black,
one full, one lean, walk towards the railway bridge, _to be married by
Father Maher_. As they walked they at times stopped and walked again
continuing their _tête à tête_ (which, of course, he was utterly out
of) about sirens, enemies of man’s reason, mingled with a number of
other topics of the same category, usurpers, historical cases of the
kind while the man in the sweeper car or you might as well call it in
the sleeper car who in any case couldn’t possibly hear because they
were too far simply sat in his seat near the end of lower Gardiner
street _and looked after their lowbacked car_.


[ 17 ]

What parallel courses did Bloom and Stephen follow returning?

Starting united both at normal walking pace from Beresford place they
followed in the order named Lower and Middle Gardiner streets and
Mountjoy square, west: then, at reduced pace, each bearing left,
Gardiner’s place by an inadvertence as far as the farther corner of
Temple street: then, at reduced pace with interruptions of halt,
bearing right, Temple street, north, as far as Hardwicke place.
Approaching, disparate, at relaxed walking pace they crossed both the
circus before George’s church diametrically, the chord in any circle
being less than the arc which it subtends.

Of what did the duumvirate deliberate during their itinerary?

Music, literature, Ireland, Dublin, Paris, friendship, woman,
prostitution, diet, the influence of gaslight or the light of arc and
glowlamps on the growth of adjoining paraheliotropic trees, exposed
corporation emergency dustbuckets, the Roman catholic church,
ecclesiastical celibacy, the Irish nation, jesuit education, careers,
the study of medicine, the past day, the maleficent influence of the
presabbath, Stephen’s collapse.

Did Bloom discover common factors of similarity between their
respective like and unlike reactions to experience?

Both were sensitive to artistic impressions, musical in preference to
plastic or pictorial. Both preferred a continental to an insular manner
of life, a cisatlantic to a transatlantic place of residence. Both
indurated by early domestic training and an inherited tenacity of
heterodox resistance professed their disbelief in many orthodox
religious, national, social and ethical doctrines. Both admitted the
alternately stimulating and obtunding influence of heterosexual
magnetism.

Were their views on some points divergent?

Stephen dissented openly from Bloom’s views on the importance of
dietary and civic selfhelp while Bloom dissented tacitly from Stephen’s
views on the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man in literature.
Bloom assented covertly to Stephen’s rectification of the anachronism
involved in assigning the date of the conversion of the Irish nation to
christianity from druidism by Patrick son of Calpornus, son of Potitus,
son of Odyssus, sent by pope Celestine I in the year 432 in the reign
of Leary to the year 260 or thereabouts in the reign of Cormac MacArt
(† 266 A.D.), suffocated by imperfect deglutition of aliment at Sletty
and interred at Rossnaree. The collapse which Bloom ascribed to gastric
inanition and certain chemical compounds of varying degrees of
adulteration and alcoholic strength, accelerated by mental exertion and
the velocity of rapid circular motion in a relaxing atmosphere, Stephen
attributed to the reapparition of a matutinal cloud (perceived by both
from two different points of observation Sandycove and Dublin) at first
no bigger than a woman’s hand.

Was there one point on which their views were equal and negative?

The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of adjoining
paraheliotropic trees.

Had Bloom discussed similar subjects during nocturnal perambulations in
the past?

In 1884 with Owen Goldberg and Cecil Turnbull at night on public
thoroughfares between Longwood avenue and Leonard’s corner and
Leonard’s corner and Synge street and Synge street and Bloomfield
avenue. In 1885 with Percy Apjohn in the evenings, reclined against the
wall between Gibraltar villa and Bloomfield house in Crumlin, barony of
Uppercross. In 1886 occasionally with casual acquaintances and
prospective purchasers on doorsteps, in front parlours, in third class
railway carriages of suburban lines. In 1888 frequently with major
Brian Tweedy and his daughter Miss Marion Tweedy, together and
separately on the lounge in Matthew Dillon’s house in Roundtown. Once
in 1892 and once in 1893 with Julius (Juda) Mastiansky, on both
occasions in the parlour of his (Bloom’s) house in Lombard street,
west.

What reflection concerning the irregular sequence of dates 1884, 1885,
1886, 1888, 1892, 1893, 1904 did Bloom make before their arrival at
their destination?

He reflected that the progressive extension of the field of individual
development and experience was regressively accompanied by a
restriction of the converse domain of interindividual relations.

As in what ways?

From inexistence to existence he came to many and was as one received:
existence with existence he was with any as any with any: from
existence to nonexistence gone he would be by all as none perceived.

What act did Bloom make on their arrival at their destination?

At the housesteps of the 4th of the equidifferent uneven numbers,
number 7 Eccles street, he inserted his hand mechanically into the back
pocket of his trousers to obtain his latchkey.

Was it there?

It was in the corresponding pocket of the trousers which he had worn on
the day but one preceding.

Why was he doubly irritated?

Because he had forgotten and because he remembered that he had reminded
himself twice not to forget.

What were then the alternatives before the, premeditatedly
(respectively) and inadvertently, keyless couple?

To enter or not to enter. To knock or not to knock.

Bloom’s decision?

A stratagem. Resting his feet on the dwarf wall, he climbed over the
area railings, compressed his hat on his head, grasped two points at
the lower union of rails and stiles, lowered his body gradually by its
length of five feet nine inches and a half to within two feet ten
inches of the area pavement and allowed his body to move freely in
space by separating himself from the railings and crouching in
preparation for the impact of the fall.

Did he fall?

By his body’s known weight of eleven stone and four pounds in
avoirdupois measure, as certified by the graduated machine for
periodical selfweighing in the premises of Francis Froedman,
pharmaceutical chemist of 19 Frederick street, north, on the last feast
of the Ascension, to wit, the twelfth day of May of the bissextile year
one thousand nine hundred and four of the christian era (jewish era
five thousand six hundred and sixtyfour, mohammadan era one thousand
three hundred and twentytwo), golden number 5, epact 13, solar cycle 9,
dominical letters C B, Roman indiction 2, Julian period 6617, MCMIV.

Did he rise uninjured by concussion?

Regaining new stable equilibrium he rose uninjured though concussed by
the impact, raised the latch of the area door by the exertion of force
at its freely moving flange and by leverage of the first kind applied
at its fulcrum, gained retarded access to the kitchen through the
subadjacent scullery, ignited a lucifer match by friction, set free
inflammable coal gas by turning on the ventcock, lit a high flame
which, by regulating, he reduced to quiescent candescence and lit
finally a portable candle.

What discrete succession of images did Stephen meanwhile perceive?

Reclined against the area railings he perceived through the transparent
kitchen panes a man regulating a gasflame of 14 CP, a man lighting a
candle of 1 CP, a man removing in turn each of his two boots, a man
leaving the kitchen holding a candle.

Did the man reappear elsewhere?

After a lapse of four minutes the glimmer of his candle was discernible
through the semitransparent semicircular glass fanlight over the
halldoor. The halldoor turned gradually on its hinges. In the open
space of the doorway the man reappeared without his hat, with his
candle.

Did Stephen obey his sign?

Yes, entering softly, he helped to close and chain the door and
followed softly along the hallway the man’s back and listed feet and
lighted candle past a lighted crevice of doorway on the left and
carefully down a turning staircase of more than five steps into the
kitchen of Bloom’s house.

What did Bloom do?

He extinguished the candle by a sharp expiration of breath upon its
flame, drew two spoonseat deal chairs to the hearthstone, one for
Stephen with its back to the area window, the other for himself when
necessary, knelt on one knee, composed in the grate a pyre of crosslaid
resintipped sticks and various coloured papers and irregular polygons
of best Abram coal at twentyone shillings a ton from the yard of Messrs
Flower and M’Donald of 14 D’Olier street, kindled it at three
projecting points of paper with one ignited lucifer match, thereby
releasing the potential energy contained in the fuel by allowing its
carbon and hydrogen elements to enter into free union with the oxygen
of the air.

Of what similar apparitions did Stephen think?

Of others elsewhere in other times who, kneeling on one knee or on two,
had kindled fires for him, of Brother Michael in the infirmary of the
college of the Society of Jesus at Clongowes Wood, Sallins, in the
county of Kildare: of his father, Simon Dedalus, in an unfurnished room
of his first residence in Dublin, number thirteen Fitzgibbon street: of
his godmother Miss Kate Morkan in the house of her dying sister Miss
Julia Morkan at 15 Usher’s Island: of his aunt Sara, wife of Richie
(Richard) Goulding, in the kitchen of their lodgings at 62 Clanbrassil
street: of his mother Mary, wife of Simon Dedalus, in the kitchen of
number twelve North Richmond street on the morning of the feast of
Saint Francis Xavier 1898: of the dean of studies, Father Butt, in the
physics’ theatre of university College, 16 Stephen’s Green, north: of
his sister Dilly (Delia) in his father’s house in Cabra.

What did Stephen see on raising his gaze to the height of a yard from
the fire towards the opposite wall?

Under a row of five coiled spring housebells a curvilinear rope,
stretched between two holdfasts athwart across the recess beside the
chimney pier, from which hung four smallsized square handkerchiefs
folded unattached consecutively in adjacent rectangles and one pair of
ladies’ grey hose with Lisle suspender tops and feet in their habitual
position clamped by three erect wooden pegs two at their outer
extremities and the third at their point of junction.

What did Bloom see on the range?

On the right (smaller) hob a blue enamelled saucepan: on the left
(larger) hob a black iron kettle.

What did Bloom do at the range?

He removed the saucepan to the left hob, rose and carried the iron
kettle to the sink in order to tap the current by turning the faucet to
let it flow.

Did it flow?

Yes. From Roundwood reservoir in county Wicklow of a cubic capacity of
2400 million gallons, percolating through a subterranean aqueduct of
filter mains of single and double pipeage constructed at an initial
plant cost of £ 5 per linear yard by way of the Dargle, Rathdown, Glen
of the Downs and Callowhill to the 26 acre reservoir at Stillorgan, a
distance of 22 statute miles, and thence, through a system of relieving
tanks, by a gradient of 250 feet to the city boundary at Eustace
bridge, upper Leeson street, though from prolonged summer drouth and
daily supply of 12 1/2 million gallons the water had fallen below the
sill of the overflow weir for which reason the borough surveyor and
waterworks engineer, Mr Spencer Harty, C. E., on the instructions of
the waterworks committee had prohibited the use of municipal water for
purposes other than those of consumption (envisaging the possibility of
recourse being had to the impotable water of the Grand and Royal canals
as in 1893) particularly as the South Dublin Guardians, notwithstanding
their ration of 15 gallons per day per pauper supplied through a 6 inch
meter, had been convicted of a wastage of 20,000 gallons per night by a
reading of their meter on the affirmation of the law agent of the
corporation, Mr Ignatius Rice, solicitor, thereby acting to the
detriment of another section of the public, selfsupporting taxpayers,
solvent, sound.

What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier,
returning to the range, admire?

Its universality: its democratic equality and constancy to its nature
in seeking its own level: its vastness in the ocean of Mercator’s
projection: its unplumbed profundity in the Sundam trench of the
Pacific exceeding 8000 fathoms: the restlessness of its waves and
surface particles visiting in turn all points of its seaboard: the
independence of its units: the variability of states of sea: its
hydrostatic quiescence in calm: its hydrokinetic turgidity in neap and
spring tides: its subsidence after devastation: its sterility in the
circumpolar icecaps, arctic and antarctic: its climatic and commercial
significance: its preponderance of 3 to 1 over the dry land of the
globe: its indisputable hegemony extending in square leagues over all
the region below the subequatorial tropic of Capricorn: the
multisecular stability of its primeval basin: its luteofulvous bed: its
capacity to dissolve and hold in solution all soluble substances
including millions of tons of the most precious metals: its slow
erosions of peninsulas and islands, its persistent formation of
homothetic islands, peninsulas and downwardtending promontories: its
alluvial deposits: its weight and volume and density: its
imperturbability in lagoons and highland tarns: its gradation of
colours in the torrid and temperate and frigid zones: its vehicular
ramifications in continental lakecontained streams and confluent
oceanflowing rivers with their tributaries and transoceanic currents,
gulfstream, north and south equatorial courses: its violence in
seaquakes, waterspouts, Artesian wells, eruptions, torrents, eddies,
freshets, spates, groundswells, watersheds, waterpartings, geysers,
cataracts, whirlpools, maelstroms, inundations, deluges, cloudbursts:
its vast circumterrestrial ahorizontal curve: its secrecy in springs
and latent humidity, revealed by rhabdomantic or hygrometric
instruments and exemplified by the well by the hole in the wall at
Ashtown gate, saturation of air, distillation of dew: the simplicity of
its composition, two constituent parts of hydrogen with one constituent
part of oxygen: its healing virtues: its buoyancy in the waters of the
Dead Sea: its persevering penetrativeness in runnels, gullies,
inadequate dams, leaks on shipboard: its properties for cleansing,
quenching thirst and fire, nourishing vegetation: its infallibility as
paradigm and paragon: its metamorphoses as vapour, mist, cloud, rain,
sleet, snow, hail: its strength in rigid hydrants: its variety of forms
in loughs and bays and gulfs and bights and guts and lagoons and atolls
and archipelagos and sounds and fjords and minches and tidal estuaries
and arms of sea: its solidity in glaciers, icebergs, icefloes: its
docility in working hydraulic millwheels, turbines, dynamos, electric
power stations, bleachworks, tanneries, scutchmills: its utility in
canals, rivers, if navigable, floating and graving docks: its
potentiality derivable from harnessed tides or watercourses falling
from level to level: its submarine fauna and flora (anacoustic,
photophobe), numerically, if not literally, the inhabitants of the
globe: its ubiquity as constituting 90
% of the human body: the noxiousness of its effluvia in lacustrine
% marshes,
pestilential fens, faded flowerwater, stagnant pools in the waning
moon.

Having set the halffilled kettle on the now burning coals, why did he
return to the stillflowing tap?

To wash his soiled hands with a partially consumed tablet of
Barrington’s lemonflavoured soap, to which paper still adhered, (bought
thirteen hours previously for fourpence and still unpaid for), in fresh
cold neverchanging everchanging water and dry them, face and hands, in
a long redbordered holland cloth passed over a wooden revolving roller.

What reason did Stephen give for declining Bloom’s offer?

That he was hydrophobe, hating partial contact by immersion or total by
submersion in cold water, (his last bath having taken place in the
month of October of the preceding year), disliking the aqueous
substances of glass and crystal, distrusting aquacities of thought and
language.

What impeded Bloom from giving Stephen counsels of hygiene and
prophylactic to which should be added suggestions concerning a
preliminary wetting of the head and contraction of the muscles with
rapid splashing of the face and neck and thoracic and epigastric region
in case of sea or river bathing, the parts of the human anatomy most
sensitive to cold being the nape, stomach and thenar or sole of foot?

The incompatibility of aquacity with the erratic originality of genius.

What additional didactic counsels did he similarly repress?

Dietary: concerning the respective percentage of protein and caloric
energy in bacon, salt ling and butter, the absence of the former in the
lastnamed and the abundance of the latter in the firstnamed.

Which seemed to the host to be the predominant qualities of his guest?

Confidence in himself, an equal and opposite power of abandonment and
recuperation.

What concomitant phenomenon took place in the vessel of liquid by the
agency of fire?

The phenomenon of ebullition. Fanned by a constant updraught of
ventilation between the kitchen and the chimneyflue, ignition was
communicated from the faggots of precombustible fuel to polyhedral
masses of bituminous coal, containing in compressed mineral form the
foliated fossilised decidua of primeval forests which had in turn
derived their vegetative existence from the sun, primal source of heat
(radiant), transmitted through omnipresent luminiferous diathermanous
ether. Heat (convected), a mode of motion developed by such combustion,
was constantly and increasingly conveyed from the source of
calorification to the liquid contained in the vessel, being radiated
through the uneven unpolished dark surface of the metal iron, in part
reflected, in part absorbed, in part transmitted, gradually raising the
temperature of the water from normal to boiling point, a rise in
temperature expressible as the result of an expenditure of 72 thermal
units needed to raise 1 pound of water from 50° to 212° Fahrenheit.

What announced the accomplishment of this rise in temperature?

A double falciform ejection of water vapour from under the kettlelid at
both sides simultaneously.

For what personal purpose could Bloom have applied the water so boiled?

To shave himself.

What advantages attended shaving by night?

A softer beard: a softer brush if intentionally allowed to remain from
shave to shave in its agglutinated lather: a softer skin if
unexpectedly encountering female acquaintances in remote places at
incustomary hours: quiet reflections upon the course of the day: a
cleaner sensation when awaking after a fresher sleep since matutinal
noises, premonitions and perturbations, a clattered milkcan, a
postman’s double knock, a paper read, reread while lathering,
relathering the same spot, a shock, a shoot, with thought of aught he
sought though fraught with nought might cause a faster rate of shaving
and a nick on which incision plaster with precision cut and humected
and applied adhered: which was to be done.

Why did absence of light disturb him less than presence of noise?

Because of the surety of the sense of touch in his firm full masculine
feminine passive active hand.

What quality did it (his hand) possess but with what counteracting
influence?

The operative surgical quality but that he was reluctant to shed human
blood even when the end justified the means, preferring, in their
natural order, heliotherapy, psychophysicotherapeutics, osteopathic
surgery.

What lay under exposure on the lower, middle and upper shelves of the
kitchen dresser, opened by Bloom?

On the lower shelf five vertical breakfast plates, six horizontal
breakfast saucers on which rested inverted breakfast cups, a
moustachecup, uninverted, and saucer of Crown Derby, four white
goldrimmed eggcups, an open shammy purse displaying coins, mostly
copper, and a phial of aromatic (violet) comfits. On the middle shelf a
chipped eggcup containing pepper, a drum of table salt, four
conglomerated black olives in oleaginous paper, an empty pot of
Plumtree’s potted meat, an oval wicker basket bedded with fibre and
containing one Jersey pear, a halfempty bottle of William Gilbey and
Co’s white invalid port, half disrobed of its swathe of coralpink
tissue paper, a packet of Epps’s soluble cocoa, five ounces of Anne
Lynch’s choice tea at 2/- per lb in a crinkled leadpaper bag, a
cylindrical canister containing the best crystallised lump sugar, two
onions, one, the larger, Spanish, entire, the other, smaller, Irish,
bisected with augmented surface and more redolent, a jar of Irish Model
Dairy’s cream, a jug of brown crockery containing a naggin and a
quarter of soured adulterated milk, converted by heat into water,
acidulous serum and semisolidified curds, which added to the quantity
subtracted for Mr Bloom’s and Mrs Fleming’s breakfasts, made one
imperial pint, the total quantity originally delivered, two cloves, a
halfpenny and a small dish containing a slice of fresh ribsteak. On the
upper shelf a battery of jamjars (empty) of various sizes and
proveniences.

What attracted his attention lying on the apron of the dresser?

Four polygonal fragments of two lacerated scarlet betting tickets,
numbered 8 87, 88 6.

What reminiscences temporarily corrugated his brow?

Reminiscences of coincidences, truth stranger than fiction,
preindicative of the result of the Gold Cup flat handicap, the official
and definitive result of which he had read in the _Evening Telegraph_,
late pink edition, in the cabman’s shelter, at Butt bridge.

Where had previous intimations of the result, effected or projected,
been received by him?

In Bernard Kiernan’s licensed premises 8, 9 and 10 little Britain
street: in David Byrne’s licensed premises, 14 Duke street: in
O’Connell street lower, outside Graham Lemon’s when a dark man had
placed in his hand a throwaway (subsequently thrown away), advertising
Elijah, restorer of the church in Zion: in Lincoln place outside the
premises of F. W. Sweny and Co (Limited), dispensing chemists, when,
when Frederick M. (Bantam) Lyons had rapidly and successively
requested, perused and restituted the copy of the current issue of the
_Freeman’s Journal_ and _National Press_ which he had been about to
throw away (subsequently thrown away), he had proceeded towards the
oriental edifice of the Turkish and Warm Baths, 11 Leinster street,
with the light of inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in
his arms the secret of the race, graven in the language of prediction.

What qualifying considerations allayed his perturbations?

The difficulties of interpretation since the significance of any event
followed its occurrence as variably as the acoustic report followed the
electrical discharge and of counterestimating against an actual loss by
failure to interpret the total sum of possible losses proceeding
originally from a successful interpretation.

His mood?

He had not risked, he did not expect, he had not been disappointed, he
was satisfied.

What satisfied him?

To have sustained no positive loss. To have brought a positive gain to
others. Light to the gentiles.

How did Bloom prepare a collation for a gentile?

He poured into two teacups two level spoonfuls, four in all, of Epps’s
soluble cocoa and proceeded according to the directions for use printed
on the label, to each adding after sufficient time for infusion the
prescribed ingredients for diffusion in the manner and in the quantity
prescribed.

What supererogatory marks of special hospitality did the host show his
guest?

Relinquishing his symposiarchal right to the moustache cup of imitation
Crown Derby presented to him by his only daughter, Millicent (Milly),
he substituted a cup identical with that of his guest and served
extraordinarily to his guest and, in reduced measure, to himself the
viscous cream ordinarily reserved for the breakfast of his wife Marion
(Molly).

Was the guest conscious of and did he acknowledge these marks of
hospitality?

His attention was directed to them by his host jocosely, and he
accepted them seriously as they drank in jocoserious silence Epps’s
massproduct, the creature cocoa.

Were there marks of hospitality which he contemplated but suppressed,
reserving them for another and for himself on future occasions to
complete the act begun?

The reparation of a fissure of the length of 1 1/2 inches in the right
side of his guest’s jacket. A gift to his guest of one of the four
lady’s handkerchiefs, if and when ascertained to be in a presentable
condition.

Who drank more quickly?

Bloom, having the advantage of ten seconds at the initiation and
taking, from the concave surface of a spoon along the handle of which a
steady flow of heat was conducted, three sips to his opponent’s one,
six to two, nine to three.

What cerebration accompanied his frequentative act?

Concluding by inspection but erroneously that his silent companion was
engaged in mental composition he reflected on the pleasures derived
from literature of instruction rather than of amusement as he himself
had applied to the works of William Shakespeare more than once for the
solution of difficult problems in imaginary or real life.

Had he found their solution?

In spite of careful and repeated reading of certain classical passages,
aided by a glossary, he had derived imperfect conviction from the text,
the answers not bearing in all points.

What lines concluded his first piece of original verse written by him,
potential poet, at the age of 11 in 1877 on the occasion of the
offering of three prizes of 10/-, 5/- and 2/6 respectively for
competition by the _Shamrock_, a weekly newspaper?

     An ambition to squint
     At my verses in print
     Makes me hope that for these you’ll find room.
     If you so condescend
     Then please place at the end
     The name of yours truly, L. Bloom.

Did he find four separating forces between his temporary guest and him?

Name, age, race, creed.

What anagrams had he made on his name in youth?

Leopold Bloom
Ellpodbomool
Molldopeloob
Bollopedoom
Old Ollebo, M. P.

What acrostic upon the abbreviation of his first name had he (kinetic
poet) sent to Miss Marion (Molly) Tweedy on the 14 February 1888?

     Poets oft have sung in rhyme
     Of music sweet their praise divine.
     Let them hymn it nine times nine.
     Dearer far than song or wine.
     You are mine. The world is mine.

What had prevented him from completing a topical song (music by R. G.
Johnston) on the events of the past, or fixtures for the actual, years,
entitled _If Brian Boru could but come back and see old Dublin now_,
commissioned by Michael Gunn, lessee of the Gaiety Theatre, 46, 47, 48,
49 South King street, and to be introduced into the sixth scene, the
valley of diamonds, of the second edition (30 January 1893) of the
grand annual Christmas pantomime _Sinbad the Sailor_ (produced by R.
Shelton 26 December 1892, written by Greenleaf Whittier, scenery by
George A. Jackson and Cecil Hicks, costumes by Mrs and Miss Whelan
under the personal supervision of Mrs Michael Gunn, ballets by Jessie
Noir, harlequinade by Thomas Otto) and sung by Nelly Bouverist,
principal girl?

Firstly, oscillation between events of imperial and of local interest,
the anticipated diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria (born 1820, acceded
1837) and the posticipated opening of the new municipal fish market:
secondly, apprehension of opposition from extreme circles on the
questions of the respective visits of Their Royal Highnesses the duke
and duchess of York (real) and of His Majesty King Brian Boru
(imaginary): thirdly, a conflict between professional etiquette and
professional emulation concerning the recent erections of the Grand
Lyric Hall on Burgh Quay and the Theatre Royal in Hawkins street:
fourthly, distraction resultant from compassion for Nelly Bouverist’s
non-intellectual, non-political, non-topical expression of countenance
and concupiscence caused by Nelly Bouverist’s revelations of white
articles of non-intellectual, non-political, non-topical underclothing
while she (Nelly Bouverist) was in the articles: fifthly, the
difficulties of the selection of appropriate music and humorous
allusions from _Everybody’s Book of Jokes_ (1000 pages and a laugh in
every one): sixthly, the rhymes, homophonous and cacophonous,
associated with the names of the new lord mayor, Daniel Tallon, the new
high sheriff, Thomas Pile and the new solicitorgeneral, Dunbar Plunket
Barton.

What relation existed between their ages?

16 years before in 1888 when Bloom was of Stephen’s present age Stephen
was 6. 16 years after in 1920 when Stephen would be of Bloom’s present
age Bloom would be 54. In 1936 when Bloom would be 70 and Stephen 54
their ages initially in the ratio of 16 to 0 would be as 17 1/2 to 13
1/2, the proportion increasing and the disparity diminishing according
as arbitrary future years were added, for if the proportion existing in
1883 had continued immutable, conceiving that to be possible, till then
1904 when Stephen was 22 Bloom would be 374 and in 1920 when Stephen
would be 38, as Bloom then was, Bloom would be 646 while in 1952 when
Stephen would have attained the maximum postdiluvian age of 70 Bloom,
being 1190 years alive having been born in the year 714, would have
surpassed by 221 years the maximum antediluvian age, that of
Methusalah, 969 years, while, if Stephen would continue to live until
he would attain that age in the year 3072 A.D., Bloom would have been
obliged to have been alive 83,300 years, having been obliged to have
been born in the year 81,396 B.C.

What events might nullify these calculations?

The cessation of existence of both or either, the inauguration of a new
era or calendar, the annihilation of the world and consequent
extermination of the human species, inevitable but impredictable.

How many previous encounters proved their preexisting acquaintance?

Two. The first in the lilacgarden of Matthew Dillon’s house, Medina
Villa, Kimmage road, Roundtown, in 1887, in the company of Stephen’s
mother, Stephen being then of the age of 5 and reluctant to give his
hand in salutation. The second in the coffeeroom of Breslin’s hotel on
a rainy Sunday in the January of 1892, in the company of Stephen’s
father and Stephen’s granduncle, Stephen being then 5 years older.

Did Bloom accept the invitation to dinner given then by the son and
afterwards seconded by the father?

Very gratefully, with grateful appreciation, with sincere appreciative
gratitude, in appreciatively grateful sincerity of regret, he declined.

Did their conversation on the subject of these reminiscences reveal a
third connecting link between them?

Mrs Riordan (Dante), a widow of independent means, had resided in the
house of Stephen’s parents from 1 September 1888 to 29 December 1891
and had also resided during the years 1892, 1893 and 1894 in the City
Arms Hotel owned by Elizabeth O’Dowd of 54 Prussia street where, during
parts of the years 1893 and 1894, she had been a constant informant of
Bloom who resided also in the same hotel, being at that time a clerk in
the employment of Joseph Cuffe of 5 Smithfield for the superintendence
of sales in the adjacent Dublin Cattle market on the North Circular
road.

Had he performed any special corporal work of mercy for her?

He had sometimes propelled her on warm summer evenings, an infirm widow
of independent, if limited, means, in her convalescent bathchair with
slow revolutions of its wheels as far as the corner of the North
Circular road opposite Mr Gavin Low’s place of business where she had
remained for a certain time scanning through his onelensed binocular
fieldglasses unrecognisable citizens on tramcars, roadster bicycles
equipped with inflated pneumatic tyres, hackney carriages, tandems,
private and hired landaus, dogcarts, ponytraps and brakes passing from
the city to the Phoenix Park and _vice versa_.

Why could he then support that his vigil with the greater equanimity?

Because in middle youth he had often sat observing through a rondel of
bossed glass of a multicoloured pane the spectacle offered with
continual changes of the thoroughfare without, pedestrians, quadrupeds,
velocipedes, vehicles, passing slowly, quickly, evenly, round and round
and round the rim of a round and round precipitous globe.

What distinct different memories had each of her now eight years
deceased?

The older, her bezique cards and counters, her Skye terrier, her
suppositious wealth, her lapses of responsiveness and incipient
catarrhal deafness: the younger, her lamp of colza oil before the
statue of the Immaculate Conception, her green and maroon brushes for
Charles Stewart Parnell and for Michael Davitt, her tissue papers.

Were there no means still remaining to him to achieve the rejuvenation
which these reminiscences divulged to a younger companion rendered the
more desirable?

The indoor exercises, formerly intermittently practised, subsequently
abandoned, prescribed in Eugen Sandow’s _Physical Strength and How to
Obtain It_ which, designed particularly for commercial men engaged in
sedentary occupations, were to be made with mental concentration in
front of a mirror so as to bring into play the various families of
muscles and produce successively a pleasant rigidity, a more pleasant
relaxation and the most pleasant repristination of juvenile agility.

Had any special agility been his in earlier youth?

Though ringweight lifting had been beyond his strength and the full
circle gyration beyond his courage yet as a High school scholar he had
excelled in his stable and protracted execution of the half lever
movement on the parallel bars in consequence of his abnormally
developed abdominal muscles.

Did either openly allude to their racial difference?

Neither.

What, reduced to their simplest reciprocal form, were Bloom’s thoughts
about Stephen’s thoughts about Bloom and about Stephen’s thoughts about
Bloom’s thoughts about Stephen?

He thought that he thought that he was a jew whereas he knew that he
knew that he knew that he was not.

What, the enclosures of reticence removed, were their respective
parentages?

Bloom, only born male transubstantial heir of Rudolf Virag
(subsequently Rudolph Bloom) of Szombathely, Vienna, Budapest, Milan,
London and Dublin and of Ellen Higgins, second daughter of Julius
Higgins (born Karoly) and Fanny Higgins (born Hegarty). Stephen, eldest
surviving male consubstantial heir of Simon Dedalus of Cork and Dublin
and of Mary, daughter of Richard and Christina Goulding (born Grier).

Had Bloom and Stephen been baptised, and where and by whom, cleric or
layman?

Bloom (three times), by the reverend Mr Gilmer Johnston M. A., alone,
in the protestant church of Saint Nicholas Without, Coombe, by James
O’Connor, Philip Gilligan and James Fitzpatrick, together, under a pump
in the village of Swords, and by the reverend Charles Malone C. C., in
the church of the Three Patrons, Rathgar. Stephen (once) by the
reverend Charles Malone C. C., alone, in the church of the Three
Patrons, Rathgar.

Did they find their educational careers similar?

Substituting Stephen for Bloom Stoom would have passed successively
through a dame’s school and the high school. Substituting Bloom for
Stephen Blephen would have passed successively through the preparatory,
junior, middle and senior grades of the intermediate and through the
matriculation, first arts, second arts and arts degree courses of the
royal university.

Why did Bloom refrain from stating that he had frequented the
university of life?

Because of his fluctuating incertitude as to whether this observation
had or had not been already made by him to Stephen or by Stephen to
him.

What two temperaments did they individually represent?

The scientific. The artistic.

What proofs did Bloom adduce to prove that his tendency was towards
applied, rather than towards pure, science?

Certain possible inventions of which he had cogitated when reclining in
a state of supine repletion to aid digestion, stimulated by his
appreciation of the importance of inventions now common but once
revolutionary, for example, the aeronautic parachute, the reflecting
telescope, the spiral corkscrew, the safety pin, the mineral water
siphon, the canal lock with winch and sluice, the suction pump.

Were these inventions principally intended for an improved scheme of
kindergarten?

Yes, rendering obsolete popguns, elastic airbladders, games of hazard,
catapults. They comprised astronomical kaleidoscopes exhibiting the
twelve constellations of the zodiac from Aries to Pisces, miniature
mechanical orreries, arithmetical gelatine lozenges, geometrical to
correspond with zoological biscuits, globemap playing balls,
historically costumed dolls.

What also stimulated him in his cogitations?

The financial success achieved by Ephraim Marks and Charles A. James,
the former by his 1d bazaar at 42 George’s street, south, the latter at
his 6 1/2d shop and world’s fancy fair and waxwork exhibition at 30
Henry street, admission 2d, children 1d: and the infinite possibilities
hitherto unexploited of the modern art of advertisement if condensed in
triliteral monoideal symbols, vertically of maximum visibility
(divined), horizontally of maximum legibility (deciphered) and of
magnetising efficacy to arrest involuntary attention, to interest, to
convince, to decide.

Such as?

K. 11. Kino’s 11/— Trousers.
House of Keys. Alexander J. Keyes.

Such as not?

Look at this long candle. Calculate when it burns out and you receive
gratis 1 pair of our special non-compo boots, guaranteed 1 candle
power. Address: Barclay and Cook, 18 Talbot street.
Bacilikil (Insect Powder).
Veribest (Boot Blacking).
Uwantit (Combined pocket twoblade penknife with corkscrew, nailfile and
pipecleaner).

Such as never?

What is home without Plumtree’s Potted Meat?

Incomplete.

With it an abode of bliss.

Manufactured by George Plumtree, 23 Merchants’ quay, Dublin, put up in
4 oz pots, and inserted by Councillor Joseph P. Nannetti, M. P.,
Rotunda Ward, 19 Hardwicke street, under the obituary notices and
anniversaries of deceases. The name on the label is Plumtree. A
plumtree in a meatpot, registered trade mark. Beware of imitations.
Peatmot. Trumplee. Moutpat. Plamtroo.

Which example did he adduce to induce Stephen to deduce that
originality, though producing its own reward, does not invariably
conduce to success?

His own ideated and rejected project of an illuminated showcart, drawn
by a beast of burden, in which two smartly dressed girls were to be
seated engaged in writing.

What suggested scene was then constructed by Stephen?

Solitary hotel in mountain pass. Autumn. Twilight. Fire lit. In dark
corner young man seated. Young woman enters. Restless. Solitary. She
sits. She goes to window. She stands. She sits. Twilight. She thinks.
On solitary hotel paper she writes. She thinks. She writes. She sighs.
Wheels and hoofs. She hurries out. He comes from his dark corner. He
seizes solitary paper. He holds it towards fire. Twilight. He reads.
Solitary.

What?

In sloping, upright and backhands: Queen’s Hotel, Queen’s Hotel,
Queen’s Hotel. Queen’s Ho...

What suggested scene was then reconstructed by Bloom?

The Queen’s Hotel, Ennis, county Clare, where Rudolph Bloom (Rudolf
Virag) died on the evening of the 27 June 1886, at some hour unstated,
in consequence of an overdose of monkshood (aconite) selfadministered
in the form of a neuralgic liniment composed of 2 parts of aconite
liniment to 1 of chloroform liniment (purchased by him at 10.20 a.m. on
the morning of 27 June 1886 at the medical hall of Francis Dennehy, 17
Church street, Ennis) after having, though not in consequence of
having, purchased at 3.15 p.m. on the afternoon of 27 June 1886 a new
boater straw hat, extra smart (after having, though not in consequence
of having, purchased at the hour and in the place aforesaid, the toxin
aforesaid), at the general drapery store of James Cullen, 4 Main
street, Ennis.

Did he attribute this homonymity to information or coincidence or
intuition?

Coincidence.

Did he depict the scene verbally for his guest to see?

He preferred himself to see another’s face and listen to another’s
words by which potential narration was realised and kinetic temperament
relieved.

Did he see only a second coincidence in the second scene narrated to
him, described by the narrator as _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine_ or _The
Parable of the Plums_?

It, with the preceding scene and with others unnarrated but existent by
implication, to which add essays on various subjects or moral apothegms
(e.g. _My Favourite Hero_ or _Procrastination is the Thief of Time_)
composed during schoolyears, seemed to him to contain in itself and in
conjunction with the personal equation certain possibilities of
financial, social, personal and sexual success, whether specially
collected and selected as model pedagogic themes (of cent per cent
merit) for the use of preparatory and junior grade students or
contributed in printed form, following the precedent of Philip Beaufoy
or Doctor Dick or Heblon’s _Studies in Blue_, to a publication of
certified circulation and solvency or employed verbally as intellectual
stimulation for sympathetic auditors, tacitly appreciative of
successful narrative and confidently augurative of successful
achievement, during the increasingly longer nights gradually following
the summer solstice on the day but three following, videlicet, Tuesday,
21 June (S. Aloysius Gonzaga), sunrise 3.33 a.m., sunset 8.29 p.m.

Which domestic problem as much as, if not more than, any other
frequently engaged his mind?

What to do with our wives.

What had been his hypothetical singular solutions?

Parlour games (dominos, halma, tiddledywinks, spilikins, cup and ball,
nap, spoil five, bezique, twentyfive, beggar my neighbour, draughts,
chess or backgammon): embroidery, darning or knitting for the
policeaided clothing society: musical duets, mandoline and guitar,
piano and flute, guitar and piano: legal scrivenery or envelope
addressing: biweekly visits to variety entertainments: commercial
activity as pleasantly commanding and pleasingly obeyed mistress
proprietress in a cool dairy shop or warm cigar divan: the clandestine
satisfaction of erotic irritation in masculine brothels, state
inspected and medically controlled: social visits, at regular
infrequent prevented intervals and with regular frequent preventive
superintendence, to and from female acquaintances of recognised
respectability in the vicinity: courses of evening instruction
specially designed to render liberal instruction agreeable.

What instances of deficient mental development in his wife inclined him
in favour of the lastmentioned (ninth) solution?

In disoccupied moments she had more than once covered a sheet of paper
with signs and hieroglyphics which she stated were Greek and Irish and
Hebrew characters. She had interrogated constantly at varying intervals
as to the correct method of writing the capital initial of the name of
a city in Canada, Quebec. She understood little of political
complications, internal, or balance of power, external. In calculating
the addenda of bills she frequently had recourse to digital aid. After
completion of laconic epistolary compositions she abandoned the
implement of calligraphy in the encaustic pigment, exposed to the
corrosive action of copperas, green vitriol and nutgall. Unusual
polysyllables of foreign origin she interpreted phonetically or by
false analogy or by both: metempsychosis (met him pike hoses), _alias_
(a mendacious person mentioned in sacred scripture).

What compensated in the false balance of her intelligence for these and
such deficiencies of judgment regarding persons, places and things?

The false apparent parallelism of all perpendicular arms of all
balances, proved true by construction. The counterbalance of her
proficiency of judgment regarding one person, proved true by
experiment.

How had he attempted to remedy this state of comparative ignorance?

Variously. By leaving in a conspicuous place a certain book open at a
certain page: by assuming in her, when alluding explanatorily, latent
knowledge: by open ridicule in her presence of some absent other’s
ignorant lapse.

With what success had he attempted direct instruction?

She followed not all, a part of the whole, gave attention with interest
comprehended with surprise, with care repeated, with greater difficulty
remembered, forgot with ease, with misgiving reremembered, rerepeated
with error.

What system had proved more effective?

Indirect suggestion implicating selfinterest.

Example?

She disliked umbrella with rain, he liked woman with umbrella, she
disliked new hat with rain, he liked woman with new hat, he bought new
hat with rain, she carried umbrella with new hat.

Accepting the analogy implied in his guest’s parable which examples of
postexilic eminence did he adduce?

Three seekers of the pure truth, Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides,
author of _More Nebukim_ (Guide of the Perplexed) and Moses Mendelssohn
of such eminence that from Moses (of Egypt) to Moses (Mendelssohn)
there arose none like Moses (Maimonides).

What statement was made, under correction, by Bloom concerning a fourth
seeker of pure truth, by name Aristotle, mentioned, with permission, by
Stephen?

That the seeker mentioned had been a pupil of a rabbinical philosopher,
name uncertain.

Were other anapocryphal illustrious sons of the law and children of a
selected or rejected race mentioned?

Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn (composer), Baruch Spinoza (philosopher),
Mendoza (pugilist), Ferdinand Lassalle (reformer, duellist).

What fragments of verse from the ancient Hebrew and ancient Irish
languages were cited with modulations of voice and translation of texts
by guest to host and by host to guest?

By Stephen: _suil, suil, suil arun, suil go siocair agus suil go cuin_
(walk, walk, walk your way, walk in safety, walk with care).

By Bloom: _Kifeloch, harimon rakatejch m’baad l’zamatejch_ (thy temple
amid thy hair is as a slice of pomegranate).

How was a glyphic comparison of the phonic symbols of both languages
made in substantiation of the oral comparison?

By juxtaposition. On the penultimate blank page of a book of inferior
literary style, entituled _Sweets of Sin_ (produced by Bloom and so
manipulated that its front cover came in contact with the surface of
the table) with a pencil (supplied by Stephen) Stephen wrote the Irish
characters for gee, eh, dee, em, simple and modified, and Bloom in turn
wrote the Hebrew characters ghimel, aleph, daleth and (in the absence
of mem) a substituted qoph, explaining their arithmetical values as
ordinal and cardinal numbers, videlicet 3, 1, 4, and 100.

Was the knowledge possessed by both of each of these languages, the
extinct and the revived, theoretical or practical?

Theoretical, being confined to certain grammatical rules of accidence
and syntax and practically excluding vocabulary.

What points of contact existed between these languages and between the
peoples who spoke them?

The presence of guttural sounds, diacritic aspirations, epenthetic and
servile letters in both languages: their antiquity, both having been
taught on the plain of Shinar 242 years after the deluge in the
seminary instituted by Fenius Farsaigh, descendant of Noah, progenitor
of Israel, and ascendant of Heber and Heremon, progenitors of Ireland:
their archaeological, genealogical, hagiographical, exegetical,
homiletic, toponomastic, historical and religious literatures
comprising the works of rabbis and culdees, Torah, Talmud (Mischna and
Ghemara), Massor, Pentateuch, Book of the Dun Cow, Book of Ballymote,
Garland of Howth, Book of Kells: their dispersal, persecution, survival
and revival: the isolation of their synagogical and ecclesiastical
rites in ghetto (S. Mary’s Abbey) and masshouse (Adam and Eve’s
tavern): the proscription of their national costumes in penal laws and
jewish dress acts: the restoration in Chanah David of Zion and the
possibility of Irish political autonomy or devolution.

What anthem did Bloom chant partially in anticipation of that multiple,
ethnically irreducible consummation?

     Kolod balejwaw pnimah
     Nefesch, jehudi, homijah.

Why was the chant arrested at the conclusion of this first distich?

In consequence of defective mnemotechnic.

How did the chanter compensate for this deficiency?

By a periphrastic version of the general text.

In what common study did their mutual reflections merge?

The increasing simplification traceable from the Egyptian epigraphic
hieroglyphs to the Greek and Roman alphabets and the anticipation of
modern stenography and telegraphic code in the cuneiform inscriptions
(Semitic) and the virgular quinquecostate ogham writing (Celtic).

Did the guest comply with his host’s request?

Doubly, by appending his signature in Irish and Roman characters.

What was Stephen’s auditive sensation?

He heard in a profound ancient male unfamiliar melody the accumulation
of the past.

What was Bloom’s visual sensation?

He saw in a quick young male familiar form the predestination of a
future.

What were Stephen’s and Bloom’s quasisimultaneous volitional
quasisensations of concealed identities?

Visually, Stephen’s: The traditional figure of hypostasis, depicted by
Johannes Damascenus, Lentulus Romanus and Epiphanius Monachus as
leucodermic, sesquipedalian with winedark hair.

Auditively, Bloom’s: The traditional accent of the ecstasy of
catastrophe.

What future careers had been possible for Bloom in the past and with
what exemplars?

In the church, Roman, Anglican or Nonconformist: exemplars, the very
reverend John Conmee S. J., the reverend T. Salmon, D. D., provost of
Trinity college, Dr Alexander J. Dowie. At the bar, English or Irish:
exemplars, Seymour Bushe, K. C., Rufus Isaacs, K. C. On the stage,
modern or Shakespearean: exemplars, Charles Wyndham, high comedian,
Osmond Tearle († 1901), exponent of Shakespeare.

Did the host encourage his guest to chant in a modulated voice a
strange legend on an allied theme?

Reassuringly, their place, where none could hear them talk, being
secluded, reassured, the decocted beverages, allowing for subsolid
residual sediment of a mechanical mixture, water plus sugar plus cream
plus cocoa, having been consumed.

Recite the first (major) part of this chanted legend.

     Little Harry Hughes and his schoolfellows all
     Went out for to play ball.
     And the very first ball little Harry Hughes played
     He drove it o’er the jew’s garden wall.
     And the very second ball little Harry Hughes played
     He broke the jew’s windows all.

littleharryhughes

How did the son of Rudolph receive this first part?

With unmixed feeling. Smiling, a jew, he heard with pleasure and saw
the unbroken kitchen window.

Recite the second part (minor) of the legend.

     Then out there came the jew’s daughter
     And she all dressed in green.
     “Come back, come back, you pretty little boy,
     And play your ball again.”
     
     I can’t come back and I won’t come back
     Without my schoolfellows all.
     For if my master he did hear
     He’d make it a sorry ball.”

     She took him by the lilywhite hand
     And led him along the hall
     Until she led him to a room
     Where none could hear him call.

     She took a penknife out of her pocket
     And cut off his little head.
     And now he’ll play his ball no more
     For he lies among the dead.

outcamethejew

How did the father of Millicent receive this second part?

With mixed feelings. Unsmiling, he heard and saw with wonder a jew’s
daughter, all dressed in green.

Condense Stephen’s commentary.

One of all, the least of all, is the victim predestined. Once by
inadvertence twice by design he challenges his destiny. It comes when
he is abandoned and challenges him reluctant and, as an apparition of
hope and youth, holds him unresisting. It leads him to a strange
habitation, to a secret infidel apartment, and there, implacable,
immolates him, consenting.

Why was the host (victim predestined) sad?

He wished that a tale of a deed should be told of a deed not by him
should by him not be told.

Why was the host (reluctant, unresisting) still?

In accordance with the law of the conservation of energy.

Why was the host (secret infidel) silent?

He weighed the possible evidences for and against ritual murder: the
incitations of the hierarchy, the superstition of the populace, the
propagation of rumour in continued fraction of veridicity, the envy of
opulence, the influence of retaliation, the sporadic reappearance of
atavistic delinquency, the mitigating circumstances of fanaticism,
hypnotic suggestion and somnambulism.

From which (if any) of these mental or physical disorders was he not
totally immune?

From hypnotic suggestion: once, waking, he had not recognised his
sleeping apartment: more than once, waking, he had been for an
indefinite time incapable of moving or uttering sounds. From
somnambulism: once, sleeping, his body had risen, crouched and crawled
in the direction of a heatless fire and, having attained its
destination, there, curled, unheated, in night attire had lain,
sleeping.

Had this latter or any cognate phenomenon declared itself in any member
of his family?

Twice, in Holles street and in Ontario terrace, his daughter Millicent
(Milly) at the ages of 6 and 8 years had uttered in sleep an
exclamation of terror and had replied to the interrogations of two
figures in night attire with a vacant mute expression.

What other infantile memories had he of her?

15 June 1889. A querulous newborn female infant crying to cause and
lessen congestion. A child renamed Padney Socks she shook with shocks
her moneybox: counted his three free moneypenny buttons, one, tloo,
tlee: a doll, a boy, a sailor she cast away: blond, born of two dark,
she had blond ancestry, remote, a violation, Herr Hauptmann Hainau,
Austrian army, proximate, a hallucination, lieutenant Mulvey, British
navy.

What endemic characteristics were present?

Conversely the nasal and frontal formation was derived in a direct line
of lineage which, though interrupted, would continue at distant
intervals to more distant intervals to its most distant intervals.

What memories had he of her adolescence?

She relegated her hoop and skippingrope to a recess. On the duke’s
lawn, entreated by an English visitor, she declined to permit him to
make and take away her photographic image (objection not stated). On
the South Circular road in the company of Elsa Potter, followed by an
individual of sinister aspect, she went half way down Stamer street and
turned abruptly back (reason of change not stated). On the vigil of the
15th anniversary of her birth she wrote a letter from Mullingar, county
Westmeath, making a brief allusion to a local student (faculty and year
not stated).

Did that first division, portending a second division, afflict him?

Less than he had imagined, more than he had hoped.

What second departure was contemporaneously perceived by him similarly,
if differently?

A temporary departure of his cat.

Why similarly, why differently?

Similarly, because actuated by a secret purpose the quest of a new male
(Mullingar student) or of a healing herb (valerian). Differently,
because of different possible returns to the inhabitants or to the
habitation.

In other respects were their differences similar?

In passivity, in economy, in the instinct of tradition, in
unexpectedness.

As?

Inasmuch as leaning she sustained her blond hair for him to ribbon it
for her (cf neckarching cat). Moreover, on the free surface of the lake
in Stephen’s green amid inverted reflections of trees her uncommented
spit, describing concentric circles of waterrings, indicated by the
constancy of its permanence the locus of a somnolent prostrate fish (cf
mousewatching cat). Again, in order to remember the date, combatants,
issue and consequences of a famous military engagement she pulled a
plait of her hair (cf earwashing cat). Furthermore, silly Milly, she
dreamed of having had an unspoken unremembered conversation with a
horse whose name had been Joseph to whom (which) she had offered a
tumblerful of lemonade which it (he) had appeared to have accepted (cf
hearthdreaming cat). Hence, in passivity, in economy, in the instinct
of tradition, in unexpectedness, their differences were similar.

In what way had he utilised gifts (1) an owl, 2) a clock, given as
matrimonial auguries, to interest and to instruct her?

As object lessons to explain: 1) the nature and habits of oviparous
animals, the possibility of aerial flight, certain abnormalities of
vision, the secular process of imbalsamation: 2) the principle of the
pendulum, exemplified in bob, wheelgear and regulator, the translation
in terms of human or social regulation of the various positions of
clockwise moveable indicators on an unmoving dial, the exactitude of
the recurrence per hour of an instant in each hour when the longer and
the shorter indicator were at the same angle of inclination,
_videlicet_, 5 5/11 minutes past each hour per hour in arithmetical
progression.

In what manners did she reciprocate?

She remembered: on the 27th anniversary of his birth she presented to
him a breakfast moustachecup of imitation Crown Derby porcelain ware.
She provided: at quarter day or thereabouts if or when purchases had
been made by him not for her she showed herself attentive to his
necessities, anticipating his desires. She admired: a natural
phenomenon having been explained by him to her she expressed the
immediate desire to possess without gradual acquisition a fraction of
his science, the moiety, the quarter, a thousandth part.

What proposal did Bloom, diambulist, father of Milly, somnambulist,
make to Stephen, noctambulist?

To pass in repose the hours intervening between Thursday (proper) and
Friday (normal) on an extemporised cubicle in the apartment immediately
above the kitchen and immediately adjacent to the sleeping apartment of
his host and hostess.

What various advantages would or might have resulted from a
prolongation of such an extemporisation?

For the guest: security of domicile and seclusion of study. For the
host: rejuvenation of intelligence, vicarious satisfaction. For the
hostess: disintegration of obsession, acquisition of correct Italian
pronunciation.

Why might these several provisional contingencies between a guest and a
hostess not necessarily preclude or be precluded by a permanent
eventuality of reconciliatory union between a schoolfellow and a jew’s
daughter?

Because the way to daughter led through mother, the way to mother
through daughter.

To what inconsequent polysyllabic question of his host did the guest
return a monosyllabic negative answer?

If he had known the late Mrs Emily Sinico, accidentally killed at
Sydney Parade railway station, 14 October 1903.

What inchoate corollary statement was consequently suppressed by the
host?

A statement explanatory of his absence on the occasion of the interment
of Mrs Mary Dedalus (born Goulding), 26 June 1903, vigil of the
anniversary of the decease of Rudolph Bloom (born Virag).

Was the proposal of asylum accepted?

Promptly, inexplicably, with amicability, gratefully it was declined.

What exchange of money took place between host and guest?

The former returned to the latter, without interest, a sum of money (£
1-7-0), one pound seven shillings sterling, advanced by the latter to
the former.

What counterproposals were alternately advanced, accepted, modified,
declined, restated in other terms, reaccepted, ratified, reconfirmed?

To inaugurate a prearranged course of Italian instruction, place the
residence of the instructed. To inaugurate a course of vocal
instruction, place the residence of the instructress. To inaugurate a
series of static, semistatic and peripatetic intellectual dialogues,
places the residence of both speakers (if both speakers were resident
in the same place), the _Ship_ hotel and tavern, 6 Lower Abbey street
(W. and E. Connery, proprietors), the National Library of Ireland, 10
Kildare street, the National Maternity Hospital, 29, 30 and 31 Holles
street, a public garden, the vicinity of a place of worship, a
conjunction of two or more public thoroughfares, the point of bisection
of a right line drawn between their residences (if both speakers were
resident in different places).

What rendered problematic for Bloom the realisation of these mutually
selfexcluding propositions?

The irreparability of the past: once at a performance of Albert
Hengler’s circus in the Rotunda, Rutland square, Dublin, an intuitive
particoloured clown in quest of paternity had penetrated from the ring
to a place in the auditorium where Bloom, solitary, was seated and had
publicly declared to an exhilarated audience that he (Bloom) was his
(the clown’s) papa. The imprevidibility of the future: once in the
summer of 1898 he (Bloom) had marked a florin (2/-) with three notches
on the milled edge and tendered it in payment of an account due to and
received by J. and T. Davy, family grocers, 1 Charlemont Mall, Grand
Canal, for circulation on the waters of civic finance, for possible,
circuitous or direct, return.

Was the clown Bloom’s son?

No.

Had Bloom’s coin returned?

Never.

Why would a recurrent frustration the more depress him?

Because at the critical turningpoint of human existence he desired to
amend many social conditions, the product of inequality and avarice and
international animosity.

He believed then that human life was infinitely perfectible,
eliminating these conditions?

There remained the generic conditions imposed by natural, as distinct
from human law, as integral parts of the human whole: the necessity of
destruction to procure alimentary sustenance: the painful character of
the ultimate functions of separate existence, the agonies of birth and
death: the monotonous menstruation of simian and (particularly) human
females extending from the age of puberty to the menopause: inevitable
accidents at sea, in mines and factories: certain very painful maladies
and their resultant surgical operations, innate lunacy and congenital
criminality, decimating epidemics: catastrophic cataclysms which make
terror the basis of human mentality: seismic upheavals the epicentres
of which are located in densely populated regions: the fact of vital
growth, through convulsions of metamorphosis, from infancy through
maturity to decay.

Why did he desist from speculation?

Because it was a task for a superior intelligence to substitute other
more acceptable phenomena in the place of the less acceptable phenomena
to be removed.

Did Stephen participate in his dejection?

He affirmed his significance as a conscious rational animal proceeding
syllogistically from the known to the unknown and a conscious rational
reagent between a micro and a macrocosm ineluctably constructed upon
the incertitude of the void.

Was this affirmation apprehended by Bloom?

Not verbally. Substantially.

What comforted his misapprehension?

That as a competent keyless citizen he had proceeded energetically from
the unknown to the known through the incertitude of the void.

In what order of precedence, with what attendant ceremony was the
exodus from the house of bondage to the wilderness of inhabitation
effected?

Lighted Candle in Stick borne by
BLOOM
Diaconal Hat on Ashplant borne by
STEPHEN

With what intonation _secreto_ of what commemorative psalm?

The 113th, _modus peregrinus: In exitu Israël de Egypto: domus Jacob de
populo barbaro_.

What did each do at the door of egress?

Bloom set the candlestick on the floor. Stephen put the hat on his
head.

For what creature was the door of egress a door of ingress?

For a cat.

What spectacle confronted them when they, first the host, then the
guest, emerged silently, doubly dark, from obscurity by a passage from
the rere of the house into the penumbra of the garden?

The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.

With what meditations did Bloom accompany his demonstration to his
companion of various constellations?

Meditations of evolution increasingly vaster: of the moon invisible in
incipient lunation, approaching perigee: of the infinite lattiginous
scintillating uncondensed milky way, discernible by daylight by an
observer placed at the lower end of a cylindrical vertical shaft 5000
ft deep sunk from the surface towards the centre of the earth: of
Sirius (alpha in Canis Maior) 10 lightyears (57,000,000,000,000 miles)
distant and in volume 900 times the dimension of our planet: of
Arcturus: of the precession of equinoxes: of Orion with belt and
sextuple sun theta and nebula in which 100 of our solar systems could
be contained: of moribund and of nascent new stars such as Nova in
1901: of our system plunging towards the constellation of Hercules: of
the parallax or parallactic drift of socalled fixed stars, in reality
evermoving wanderers from immeasurably remote eons to infinitely remote
futures in comparison with which the years, threescore and ten, of
allotted human life formed a parenthesis of infinitesimal brevity.

Were there obverse meditations of involution increasingly less vast?

Of the eons of geological periods recorded in the stratifications of
the earth: of the myriad minute entomological organic existences
concealed in cavities of the earth, beneath removable stones, in hives
and mounds, of microbes, germs, bacteria, bacilli, spermatozoa: of the
incalculable trillions of billions of millions of imperceptible
molecules contained by cohesion of molecular affinity in a single
pinhead: of the universe of human serum constellated with red and white
bodies, themselves universes of void space constellated with other
bodies, each, in continuity, its universe of divisible component bodies
of which each was again divisible in divisions of redivisible component
bodies, dividends and divisors ever diminishing without actual division
till, if the progress were carried far enough, nought nowhere was never
reached.

Why did he not elaborate these calculations to a more precise result?

Because some years previously in 1886 when occupied with the problem of
the quadrature of the circle he had learned of the existence of a
number computed to a relative degree of accuracy to be of such
magnitude and of so many places, e.g., the 9th power of the 9th power
of 9, that, the result having been obtained, 33 closely printed volumes
of 1000 pages each of innumerable quires and reams of India paper would
have to be requisitioned in order to contain the complete tale of its
printed integers of units, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of
thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions, hundreds
of millions, billions, the nucleus of the nebula of every digit of
every series containing succinctly the potentiality of being raised to
the utmost kinetic elaboration of any power of any of its powers.

Did he find the problems of the inhabitability of the planets and their
satellites by a race, given in species, and of the possible social and
moral redemption of said race by a redeemer, easier of solution?

Of a different order of difficulty. Conscious that the human organism,
normally capable of sustaining an atmospheric pressure of 19 tons, when
elevated to a considerable altitude in the terrestrial atmosphere
suffered with arithmetical progression of intensity, according as the
line of demarcation between troposphere and stratosphere was
approximated from nasal hemorrhage, impeded respiration and vertigo,
when proposing this problem for solution, he had conjectured as a
working hypothesis which could not be proved impossible that a more
adaptable and differently anatomically constructed race of beings might
subsist otherwise under Martian, Mercurial, Veneral, Jovian, Saturnian,
Neptunian or Uranian sufficient and equivalent conditions, though an
apogean humanity of beings created in varying forms with finite
differences resulting similar to the whole and to one another would
probably there as here remain inalterably and inalienably attached to
vanities, to vanities of vanities and to all that is vanity.

And the problem of possible redemption?

The minor was proved by the major.

Which various features of the constellations were in turn considered?

The various colours significant of various degrees of vitality (white,
yellow, crimson, vermilion, cinnabar): their degrees of brilliancy:
their magnitudes revealed up to and including the 7th: their positions:
the waggoner’s star: Walsingham way: the chariot of David: the annular
cinctures of Saturn: the condensation of spiral nebulae into suns: the
interdependent gyrations of double suns: the independent synchronous
discoveries of Galileo, Simon Marius, Piazzi, Le Verrier, Herschel,
Galle: the systematisations attempted by Bode and Kepler of cubes of
distances and squares of times of revolution: the almost infinite
compressibility of hirsute comets and their vast elliptical egressive
and reentrant orbits from perihelion to aphelion: the sidereal origin
of meteoric stones: the Libyan floods on Mars about the period of the
birth of the younger astroscopist: the annual recurrence of meteoric
showers about the period of the feast of S. Lawrence (martyr, 10
August): the monthly recurrence known as the new moon with the old moon
in her arms: the posited influence of celestial on human bodies: the
appearance of a star (1st magnitude) of exceeding brilliancy dominating
by night and day (a new luminous sun generated by the collision and
amalgamation in incandescence of two nonluminous exsuns) about the
period of the birth of William Shakespeare over delta in the recumbent
neversetting constellation of Cassiopeia and of a star (2nd magnitude)
of similar origin but of lesser brilliancy which had appeared in and
disappeared from the constellation of the Corona Septentrionalis about
the period of the birth of Leopold Bloom and of other stars of
(presumably) similar origin which had (effectively or presumably)
appeared in and disappeared from the constellation of Andromeda about
the period of the birth of Stephen Dedalus, and in and from the
constellation of Auriga some years after the birth and death of Rudolph
Bloom, junior, and in and from other constellations some years before
or after the birth or death of other persons: the attendant phenomena
of eclipses, solar and lunar, from immersion to emersion, abatement of
wind, transit of shadow, taciturnity of winged creatures, emergence of
nocturnal or crepuscular animals, persistence of infernal light,
obscurity of terrestrial waters, pallor of human beings.

His (Bloom’s) logical conclusion, having weighed the matter and
allowing for possible error?

That it was not a heaventree, not a heavengrot, not a heavenbeast, not
a heavenman. That it was a Utopia, there being no known method from the
known to the unknown: an infinity renderable equally finite by the
suppositious apposition of one or more bodies equally of the same and
of different magnitudes: a mobility of illusory forms immobilised in
space, remobilised in air: a past which possibly had ceased to exist as
a present before its probable spectators had entered actual present
existence.

Was he more convinced of the esthetic value of the spectacle?

Indubitably in consequence of the reiterated examples of poets in the
delirium of the frenzy of attachment or in the abasement of rejection
invoking ardent sympathetic constellations or the frigidity of the
satellite of their planet.

Did he then accept as an article of belief the theory of astrological
influences upon sublunary disasters?

It seemed to him as possible of proof as of confutation and the
nomenclature employed in its selenographical charts as attributable to
verifiable intuition as to fallacious analogy: the lake of dreams, the
sea of rains, the gulf of dews, the ocean of fecundity.

What special affinities appeared to him to exist between the moon and
woman?

Her antiquity in preceding and surviving successive tellurian
generations: her nocturnal predominance: her satellitic dependence: her
luminary reflection: her constancy under all her phases, rising and
setting by her appointed times, waxing and waning: the forced
invariability of her aspect: her indeterminate response to
inaffirmative interrogation: her potency over effluent and refluent
waters: her power to enamour, to mortify, to invest with beauty, to
render insane, to incite to and aid delinquency: the tranquil
inscrutability of her visage: the terribility of her isolated dominant
implacable resplendent propinquity: her omens of tempest and of calm:
the stimulation of her light, her motion and her presence: the
admonition of her craters, her arid seas, her silence: her splendour,
when visible: her attraction, when invisible.

What visible luminous sign attracted Bloom’s, who attracted Stephen’s,
gaze?

In the second storey (rere) of his (Bloom’s) house the light of a
paraffin oil lamp with oblique shade projected on a screen of roller
blind supplied by Frank O’Hara, window blind, curtain pole and
revolving shutter manufacturer, 16 Aungier street.

How did he elucidate the mystery of an invisible attractive person, his
wife Marion (Molly) Bloom, denoted by a visible splendid sign, a lamp?

With indirect and direct verbal allusions or affirmations: with subdued
affection and admiration: with description: with impediment: with
suggestion.

Both then were silent?

Silent, each contemplating the other in both mirrors of the reciprocal
flesh of theirhisnothis fellowfaces.

Were they indefinitely inactive?

At Stephen’s suggestion, at Bloom’s instigation both, first Stephen,
then Bloom, in penumbra urinated, their sides contiguous, their organs
of micturition reciprocally rendered invisible by manual
circumposition, their gazes, first Bloom’s, then Stephen’s, elevated to
the projected luminous and semiluminous shadow.

Similarly?

The trajectories of their, first sequent, then simultaneous, urinations
were dissimilar: Bloom’s longer, less irruent, in the incomplete form
of the bifurcated penultimate alphabetical letter, who in his ultimate
year at High School (1880) had been capable of attaining the point of
greatest altitude against the whole concurrent strength of the
institution, 210 scholars: Stephen’s higher, more sibilant, who in the
ultimate hours of the previous day had augmented by diuretic
consumption an insistent vesical pressure.

What different problems presented themselves to each concerning the
invisible audible collateral organ of the other?

To Bloom: the problems of irritability, tumescence, rigidity,
reactivity, dimension, sanitariness, pilosity.

To Stephen: the problem of the sacerdotal integrity of Jesus
circumcised (1 January, holiday of obligation to hear mass and abstain
from unnecessary servile work) and the problem as to whether the divine
prepuce, the carnal bridal ring of the holy Roman catholic apostolic
church, conserved in Calcata, were deserving of simple hyperduly or of
the fourth degree of latria accorded to the abscission of such divine
excrescences as hair and toenails.

What celestial sign was by both simultaneously observed?

A star precipitated with great apparent velocity across the firmament
from Vega in the Lyre above the zenith beyond the stargroup of the
Tress of Berenice towards the zodiacal sign of Leo.

How did the centripetal remainer afford egress to the centrifugal
departer?

By inserting the barrel of an arruginated male key in the hole of an
unstable female lock, obtaining a purchase on the bow of the key and
turning its wards from right to left, withdrawing a bolt from its
staple, pulling inward spasmodically an obsolescent unhinged door and
revealing an aperture for free egress and free ingress.

How did they take leave, one of the other, in separation?

Standing perpendicular at the same door and on different sides of its
base, the lines of their valedictory arms, meeting at any point and
forming any angle less than the sum of two right angles.

What sound accompanied the union of their tangent, the disunion of
their (respectively) centrifugal and centripetal hands?

The sound of the peal of the hour of the night by the chime of the
bells in the church of Saint George.

What echoes of that sound were by both and each heard?

By Stephen:

     Liliata rutilantium. Turma circumdet.
     Iubilantium te virginum. Chorus excipiat.

By Bloom:

     Heigho, heigho,
     Heigho, heigho.

Where were the several members of the company which with Bloom that day
at the bidding of that peal had travelled from Sandymount in the south
to Glasnevin in the north?

Martin Cunningham (in bed), Jack Power (in bed), Simon Dedalus (in
bed), Ned Lambert (in bed), Tom Kernan (in bed), Joe Hynes (in bed),
John Henry Menton (in bed), Bernard Corrigan (in bed), Patsy Dignam (in
bed), Paddy Dignam (in the grave).

Alone, what did Bloom hear?

The double reverberation of retreating feet on the heavenborn earth,
the double vibration of a jew’s harp in the resonant lane.

Alone, what did Bloom feel?

The cold of interstellar space, thousands of degrees below freezing
point or the absolute zero of Fahrenheit, Centigrade or Réaumur: the
incipient intimations of proximate dawn.

Of what did bellchime and handtouch and footstep and lonechill remind
him?

Of companions now in various manners in different places defunct: Percy
Apjohn (killed in action, Modder River), Philip Gilligan (phthisis,
Jervis Street hospital), Matthew F. Kane (accidental drowning, Dublin
Bay), Philip Moisel (pyemia, Heytesbury street), Michael Hart
(phthisis, Mater Misericordiae hospital), Patrick Dignam (apoplexy,
Sandymount).

What prospect of what phenomena inclined him to remain?

The disparition of three final stars, the diffusion of daybreak, the
apparition of a new solar disk.

Had he ever been a spectator of those phenomena?

Once, in 1887, after a protracted performance of charades in the house
of Luke Doyle, Kimmage, he had awaited with patience the apparition of
the diurnal phenomenon, seated on a wall, his gaze turned in the
direction of Mizrach, the east.

He remembered the initial paraphenomena?

More active air, a matutinal distant cock, ecclesiastical clocks at
various points, avine music, the isolated tread of an early wayfarer,
the visible diffusion of the light of an invisible luminous body, the
first golden limb of the resurgent sun perceptible low on the horizon.

Did he remain?

With deep inspiration he returned, retraversing the garden, reentering
the passage, reclosing the door. With brief suspiration he reassumed
the candle, reascended the stairs, reapproached the door of the front
room, hallfloor, and reentered.

What suddenly arrested his ingress?

The right temporal lobe of the hollow sphere of his cranium came into
contact with a solid timber angle where, an infinitesimal but sensible
fraction of a second later, a painful sensation was located in
consequence of antecedent sensations transmitted and registered.

Describe the alterations effected in the disposition of the articles of
furniture.

A sofa upholstered in prune plush had been translocated from opposite
the door to the ingleside near the compactly furled Union Jack (an
alteration which he had frequently intended to execute): the blue and
white checker inlaid majolicatopped table had been placed opposite the
door in the place vacated by the prune plush sofa: the walnut sideboard
(a projecting angle of which had momentarily arrested his ingress) had
been moved from its position beside the door to a more advantageous but
more perilous position in front of the door: two chairs had been moved
from right and left of the ingleside to the position originally
occupied by the blue and white checker inlaid majolicatopped table.

Describe them.

One: a squat stuffed easychair, with stout arms extended and back
slanted to the rere, which, repelled in recoil, had then upturned an
irregular fringe of a rectangular rug and now displayed on its amply
upholstered seat a centralised diffusing and diminishing
discolouration. The other: a slender splayfoot chair of glossy cane
curves, placed directly opposite the former, its frame from top to seat
and from seat to base being varnished dark brown, its seat being a
bright circle of white plaited rush.

What significances attached to these two chairs?

Significances of similitude, of posture, of symbolism, of
circumstantial evidence, of testimonial supermanence.

What occupied the position originally occupied by the sideboard?

A vertical piano (Cadby) with exposed keyboard, its closed coffin
supporting a pair of long yellow ladies’ gloves and an emerald ashtray
containing four consumed matches, a partly consumed cigarette and two
discoloured ends of cigarettes, its musicrest supporting the music in
the key of G natural for voice and piano of _Love’s Old Sweet Song_
(words by G. Clifton Bingham, composed by J. L. Molloy, sung by Madam
Antoinette Sterling) open at the last page with the final indications
_ad libitum, forte_, pedal, _animato_, sustained pedal, _ritirando_,
close.

With what sensations did Bloom contemplate in rotation these objects?

With strain, elevating a candlestick: with pain, feeling on his right
temple a contused tumescence: with attention, focussing his gaze on a
large dull passive and a slender bright active: with solicitation,
bending and downturning the upturned rugfringe: with amusement,
remembering Dr Malachi Mulligan’s scheme of colour containing the
gradation of green: with pleasure, repeating the words and antecedent
act and perceiving through various channels of internal sensibility the
consequent and concomitant tepid pleasant diffusion of gradual
discolouration.

His next proceeding?

From an open box on the majolicatopped table he extracted a black
diminutive cone, one inch in height, placed it on its circular base on
a small tin plate, placed his candlestick on the right corner of the
mantelpiece, produced from his waistcoat a folded page of prospectus
(illustrated) entitled Agendath Netaim, unfolded the same, examined it
superficially, rolled it into a thin cylinder, ignited it in the
candleflame, applied it when ignited to the apex of the cone till the
latter reached the stage of rutilance, placed the cylinder in the basin
of the candlestick disposing its unconsumed part in such a manner as to
facilitate total combustion.

What followed this operation?

The truncated conical crater summit of the diminutive volcano emitted a
vertical and serpentine fume redolent of aromatic oriental incense.

What homothetic objects, other than the candlestick, stood on the
mantelpiece?

A timepiece of striated Connemara marble, stopped at the hour of 4.46
a.m. on the 21 March 1896, matrimonial gift of Matthew Dillon: a dwarf
tree of glacial arborescence under a transparent bellshade, matrimonial
gift of Luke and Caroline Doyle: an embalmed owl, matrimonial gift of
Alderman John Hooper.

What interchanges of looks took place between these three objects and
Bloom?

In the mirror of the giltbordered pierglass the undecorated back of the
dwarf tree regarded the upright back of the embalmed owl. Before the
mirror the matrimonial gift of Alderman John Hooper with a clear
melancholy wise bright motionless compassionate gaze regarded Bloom
while Bloom with obscure tranquil profound motionless compassionated
gaze regarded the matrimonial gift of Luke and Caroline Doyle.

What composite asymmetrical image in the mirror then attracted his
attention?

The image of a solitary (ipsorelative) mutable (aliorelative) man.

Why solitary (ipsorelative)?

     Brothers and sisters had he none.
     Yet that man’s father was his grandfather’s son.

Why mutable (aliorelative)?

From infancy to maturity he had resembled his maternal procreatrix.
From maturity to senility he would increasingly resemble his paternal
procreator.

What final visual impression was communicated to him by the mirror?

The optical reflection of several inverted volumes improperly arranged
and not in the order of their common letters with scintillating titles
on the two bookshelves opposite.

Catalogue these books.

_Thom’s Dublin Post Office Directory_, 1886.

Denis Florence M’Carthy’s _Poetical Works_ (copper beechleaf bookmark
at p. 5).

Shakespeare’s _Works_ (dark crimson morocco, goldtooled).

_The Useful Ready Reckoner_ (brown cloth).

_The Secret History of the Court of Charles II_ (red cloth, tooled
binding).

_The Child’s Guide_ (blue cloth).

_The Beauties of Killarney_ (wrappers).

_When We Were Boys_ by William O’Brien M. P. (green cloth, slightly
faded, envelope bookmark at p. 217).

_Thoughts from Spinoza_ (maroon leather).

_The Story of the Heavens_ by Sir Robert Ball (blue cloth).

Ellis’s _Three Trips to Madagascar_ (brown cloth, title obliterated).

_The Stark-Munro Letters_ by A. Conan Doyle, property of the City of
Dublin Public Library, 106 Capel street, lent 21 May (Whitsun Eve)
1904, due 4 June 1904, 13 days overdue (black cloth binding, bearing
white letternumber ticket).

_Voyages in China_ by “Viator” (recovered with brown paper, red ink
title).

_Philosophy of the Talmud_ (sewn pamphlet).

Lockhart’s _Life of Napoleon_ (cover wanting, marginal annotations,
minimising victories, aggrandising defeats of the protagonist).

_Soll und Haben_ by Gustav Freytag (black boards, Gothic characters,
cigarette coupon bookmark at p. 24).

Hozier’s _History of the Russo-Turkish War_ (brown cloth, 2 volumes,
with gummed label, Garrison Library, Governor’s Parade, Gibraltar, on
verso of cover).

_Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland_ by William Allingham (second edition,
green cloth, gilt trefoil design, previous owner’s name on recto of
flyleaf erased).

_A Handbook of Astronomy_ (cover, brown leather, detached, 5 plates,
antique letterpress long primer, author’s footnotes nonpareil, marginal
clues brevier, captions small pica).

_The Hidden Life of Christ_ (black boards).

_In the Track of the Sun_ (yellow cloth, titlepage missing, recurrent
title intestation).

_Physical Strength and How to Obtain It_ by Eugen Sandow (red cloth).

_Short but yet Plain Elements of Geometry_ written in French by F.
Ignat. Pardies and rendered into Engliſh by John Harris D. D. London,
printed for R. Knaplock at the Biſhop’s Head, MDCCXI, with dedicatory
epiſtle to his worthy friend Charles Cox, eſquire, Member of Parliament
for the burgh of Southwark and having ink calligraphed statement on the
flyleaf certifying that the book was the property of Michael Gallagher,
dated this 10th day of May 1822 and requeſting the perſon who should
find it, if the book should be loſt or go aſtray, to reſtore it to
Michael Gallagher, carpenter, Dufery Gate, Enniſcorthy, county Wicklow,
the fineſt place in the world.

What reflections occupied his mind during the process of reversion of
the inverted volumes?

The necessity of order, a place for everything and everything in its
place: the deficient appreciation of literature possessed by females:
the incongruity of an apple incuneated in a tumbler and of an umbrella
inclined in a closestool: the insecurity of hiding any secret document
behind, beneath or between the pages of a book.

Which volume was the largest in bulk?

Hozier’s _History of the Russo-Turkish War._

What among other data did the second volume of the work in question
contain?

The name of a decisive battle (forgotten), frequently remembered by a
decisive officer, major Brian Cooper Tweedy (remembered).

Why, firstly and secondly, did he not consult the work in question?

Firstly, in order to exercise mnemotechnic: secondly, because after an
interval of amnesia, when, seated at the central table, about to
consult the work in question, he remembered by mnemotechnic the name of
the military engagement, Plevna.

What caused him consolation in his sitting posture?

The candour, nudity, pose, tranquility, youth, grace, sex, counsel of a
statue erect in the centre of the table, an image of Narcissus
purchased by auction from P. A. Wren, 9 Bachelor’s Walk.

What caused him irritation in his sitting posture?

Inhibitory pressure of collar (size 17) and waistcoat (5 buttons), two
articles of clothing superfluous in the costume of mature males and
inelastic to alterations of mass by expansion.

How was the irritation allayed?

He removed his collar, with contained black necktie and collapsible
stud, from his neck to a position on the left of the table. He
unbuttoned successively in reversed direction waistcoat, trousers,
shirt and vest along the medial line of irregular incrispated black
hairs extending in triangular convergence from the pelvic basin over
the circumference of the abdomen and umbilicular fossicle along the
medial line of nodes to the intersection of the sixth pectoral
vertebrae, thence produced both ways at right angles and terminating in
circles described about two equidistant points, right and left, on the
summits of the mammary prominences. He unbraced successively each of
six minus one braced trouser buttons, arranged in pairs, of which one
incomplete.

What involuntary actions followed?

He compressed between 2 fingers the flesh circumjacent to a cicatrice
in the left infracostal region below the diaphragm resulting from a
sting inflicted 2 weeks and 3 days previously (23 May 1904) by a bee.
He scratched imprecisely with his right hand, though insensible of
prurition, various points and surfaces of his partly exposed, wholly
abluted skin. He inserted his left hand into the left lower pocket of
his waistcoat and extracted and replaced a silver coin (1 shilling),
placed there (presumably) on the occasion (17 October 1903) of the
interment of Mrs Emily Sinico, Sydney Parade.

Compile the budget for 16 June 1904.

     Debit
                                        £. s. d.
     1 Pork kidney                      0—0—3
     1 Copy Freeman’s Journal           0—0—1
     1 Bath and Gratification           0—1—6
     Tramfare                           0—0—1
     1 In Memoriam Patrick Dignam       0—5—0
     2 Banbury cakes                    0—0—1
     1 Lunch                            0—0—7
     1 Renewal fee for book             0—1—0
     1 Packet Notepaper and Envelopes   0—0—2
     1 Dinner and Gratification         0—2—0
     1 Postal Order and Stamp           0—2—8
     Tramfare                           0—0—1
     1 Pig’s Foot                       0—0—4
     1 Sheep’s Trotter                  0—0—3
     1 Cake Fry’s Plain Chocolate       0—0—1
     1 Square Soda Bread                0—0—4
     1 Coffee and Bun                   0—0—4
     Loan (Stephen Dedalus) refunded    1—7—0
        BALANCE                         0—16—6
                                        —————
                                        2—19—3
     Credit
                                        £. s. d.
     Cash in hand                       0—4—9
     Commission recd. Freeman’s Journal 1—7—6
     Loan (Stephen Dedalus)             1—7—0
                                        —————
                                        2—19—3
Did the process of divestiture continue?

Did the process of divestiture continue?

Sensible of a benignant persistent ache in his footsoles he extended
his foot to one side and observed the creases, protuberances and
salient points caused by foot pressure in the course of walking
repeatedly in several different directions, then, inclined, he disnoded
the laceknots, unhooked and loosened the laces, took off each of his
two boots for the second time, detached the partially moistened right
sock through the fore part of which the nail of his great toe had again
effracted, raised his right foot and, having unhooked a purple elastic
sock suspender, took off his right sock, placed his unclothed right
foot on the margin of the seat of his chair, picked at and gently
lacerated the protruding part of the great toenail, raised the part
lacerated to his nostrils and inhaled the odour of the quick, then,
with satisfaction, threw away the lacerated ungual fragment.

Why with satisfaction?

Because the odour inhaled corresponded to other odours inhaled of other
ungual fragments, picked and lacerated by Master Bloom, pupil of Mrs
Ellis’s juvenile school, patiently each night in the act of brief
genuflection and nocturnal prayer and ambitious meditation.

In what ultimate ambition had all concurrent and consecutive ambitions
now coalesced?

Not to inherit by right of primogeniture, gavelkind or borough English,
or possess in perpetuity an extensive demesne of a sufficient number of
acres, roods and perches, statute land measure (valuation £ 42), of
grazing turbary surrounding a baronial hall with gatelodge and carriage
drive nor, on the other hand, a terracehouse or semidetached villa,
described as _Rus in Urbe_ or _Qui si sana_, but to purchase by private
treaty in fee simple a thatched bungalowshaped 2 storey dwellinghouse
of southerly aspect, surmounted by vane and lightning conductor,
connected with the earth, with porch covered by parasitic plants (ivy
or Virginia creeper), halldoor, olive green, with smart carriage finish
and neat doorbrasses, stucco front with gilt tracery at eaves and
gable, rising, if possible, upon a gentle eminence with agreeable
prospect from balcony with stone pillar parapet over unoccupied and
unoccupyable interjacent pastures and standing in 5 or 6 acres of its
own ground, at such a distance from the nearest public thoroughfare as
to render its houselights visible at night above and through a quickset
hornbeam hedge of topiary cutting, situate at a given point not less
than 1 statute mile from the periphery of the metropolis, within a time
limit of not more than 15 minutes from tram or train line (e.g.,
Dundrum, south, or Sutton, north, both localities equally reported by
trial to resemble the terrestrial poles in being favourable climates
for phthisical subjects), the premises to be held under feefarm grant,
lease 999 years, the messuage to consist of 1 drawingroom with
baywindow (2 lancets), thermometer affixed, 1 sittingroom, 4 bedrooms,
2 servants’ rooms, tiled kitchen with close range and scullery, lounge
hall fitted with linen wallpresses, fumed oak sectional bookcase
containing the Encyclopaedia Britannica and New Century Dictionary,
transverse obsolete medieval and oriental weapons, dinner gong,
alabaster lamp, bowl pendant, vulcanite automatic telephone receiver
with adjacent directory, handtufted Axminster carpet with cream ground
and trellis border, loo table with pillar and claw legs, hearth with
massive firebrasses and ormolu mantel chronometer clock, guaranteed
timekeeper with cathedral chime, barometer with hygrographic chart,
comfortable lounge settees and corner fitments, upholstered in ruby
plush with good springing and sunk centre, three banner Japanese screen
and cuspidors (club style, rich winecoloured leather, gloss renewable
with a minimum of labour by use of linseed oil and vinegar) and
pyramidically prismatic central chandelier lustre, bentwood perch with
fingertame parrot (expurgated language), embossed mural paper at 10/-
per dozen with transverse swags of carmine floral design and top crown
frieze, staircase, three continuous flights at successive right angles,
of varnished cleargrained oak, treads and risers, newel, balusters and
handrail, with steppedup panel dado, dressed with camphorated wax:
bathroom, hot and cold supply, reclining and shower: water closet on
mezzanine provided with opaque singlepane oblong window, tipup seat,
bracket lamp, brass tierod and brace, armrests, footstool and artistic
oleograph on inner face of door: ditto, plain: servants’ apartments
with separate sanitary and hygienic necessaries for cook, general and
betweenmaid (salary, rising by biennial unearned increments of £ 2,
with comprehensive fidelity insurance, annual bonus (£ 1) and retiring
allowance (based on the 65 system) after 30 years’ service), pantry,
buttery, larder, refrigerator, outoffices, coal and wood cellarage with
winebin (still and sparkling vintages) for distinguished guests, if
entertained to dinner (evening dress), carbon monoxide gas supply
throughout.

What additional attractions might the grounds contain?

As addenda, a tennis and fives court, a shrubbery, a glass summerhouse
with tropical palms, equipped in the best botanical manner, a rockery
with waterspray, a beehive arranged on humane principles, oval
flowerbeds in rectangular grassplots set with eccentric ellipses of
scarlet and chrome tulips, blue scillas, crocuses, polyanthus, sweet
William, sweet pea, lily of the valley (bulbs obtainable from sir James
W. Mackey (Limited) wholesale and retail seed and bulb merchants and
nurserymen, agents for chemical manures, 23 Sackville street, upper),
an orchard, kitchen garden and vinery, protected against illegal
trespassers by glasstopped mural enclosures, a lumbershed with padlock
for various inventoried implements.

As?

Eeltraps, lobsterpots, fishingrods, hatchet, steelyard, grindstone,
clodcrusher, swatheturner, carriagesack, telescope ladder, 10 tooth
rake, washing clogs, haytedder, tumbling rake, billhook, paintpot,
brush, hoe and so on.

What improvements might be subsequently introduced?

A rabbitry and fowlrun, a dovecote, a botanical conservatory, 2
hammocks (lady’s and gentleman’s), a sundial shaded and sheltered by
laburnum or lilac trees, an exotically harmonically accorded Japanese
tinkle gatebell affixed to left lateral gatepost, a capacious
waterbutt, a lawnmower with side delivery and grassbox, a lawnsprinkler
with hydraulic hose.

What facilities of transit were desirable?

When citybound frequent connection by train or tram from their
respective intermediate station or terminal. When countrybound
velocipedes, a chainless freewheel roadster cycle with side basketcar
attached, or draught conveyance, a donkey with wicker trap or smart
phaeton with good working solidungular cob (roan gelding, 14 h).

What might be the name of this erigible or erected residence?

Bloom Cottage. Saint Leopold’s. Flowerville.

Could Bloom of 7 Eccles street foresee Bloom of Flowerville?

In loose allwool garments with Harris tweed cap, price 8/6, and useful
garden boots with elastic gussets and wateringcan, planting aligned
young firtrees, syringing, pruning, staking, sowing hayseed, trundling
a weedladen wheelbarrow without excessive fatigue at sunset amid the
scent of newmown hay, ameliorating the soil, multiplying wisdom,
achieving longevity.

What syllabus of intellectual pursuits was simultaneously possible?

Snapshot photography, comparative study of religions, folklore relative
to various amatory and superstitious practices, contemplation of the
celestial constellations.

What lighter recreations?

Outdoor: garden and fieldwork, cycling on level macadamised causeways,
ascents of moderately high hills, natation in secluded fresh water and
unmolested river boating in secure wherry or light curricle with kedge
anchor on reaches free from weirs and rapids (period of estivation),
vespertinal perambulation or equestrian circumprocession with
inspection of sterile landscape and contrastingly agreeable cottagers’
fires of smoking peat turves (period of hibernation). Indoor:
discussion in tepid security of unsolved historical and criminal
problems: lecture of unexpurgated exotic erotic masterpieces: house
carpentry with toolbox containing hammer, awl, nails, screws, tintacks,
gimlet, tweezers, bullnose plane and turnscrew.

Might he become a gentleman farmer of field produce and live stock?

Not impossibly, with 1 or 2 stripper cows, 1 pike of upland hay and
requisite farming implements, e.g., an end-to-end churn, a turnip
pulper etc.

What would be his civic functions and social status among the county
families and landed gentry?

Arranged successively in ascending powers of hierarchical order, that
of gardener, groundsman, cultivator, breeder, and at the zenith of his
career, resident magistrate or justice of the peace with a family crest
and coat of arms and appropriate classical motto _(Semper paratus_),
duly recorded in the court directory (Bloom, Leopold P., M. P., P. C.,
K. P., L. L. D. (_honoris causa_), Bloomville, Dundrum) and mentioned
in court and fashionable intelligence (Mr and Mrs Leopold Bloom have
left Kingstown for England).

What course of action did he outline for himself in such capacity?

A course that lay between undue clemency and excessive rigour: the
dispensation in a heterogeneous society of arbitrary classes,
incessantly rearranged in terms of greater and lesser social
inequality, of unbiassed homogeneous indisputable justice, tempered
with mitigants of the widest possible latitude but exactable to the
uttermost farthing with confiscation of estate, real and personal, to
the crown. Loyal to the highest constituted power in the land, actuated
by an innate love of rectitude his aims would be the strict maintenance
of public order, the repression of many abuses though not of all
simultaneously (every measure of reform or retrenchment being a
preliminary solution to be contained by fluxion in the final solution),
the upholding of the letter of the law (common, statute and law
merchant) against all traversers in covin and trespassers acting in
contravention of bylaws and regulations, all resuscitators (by trespass
and petty larceny of kindlings) of venville rights, obsolete by
desuetude, all orotund instigators of international persecution, all
perpetuators of international animosities, all menial molestors of
domestic conviviality, all recalcitrant violators of domestic
connubiality.

Prove that he had loved rectitude from his earliest youth.

To Master Percy Apjohn at High School in 1880 he had divulged his
disbelief in the tenets of the Irish (protestant) church (to which his
father Rudolf Virag (later Rudolph Bloom) had been converted from the
Israelitic faith and communion in 1865 by the Society for promoting
Christianity among the jews) subsequently abjured by him in favour of
Roman catholicism at the epoch of and with a view to his matrimony in
1888. To Daniel Magrane and Francis Wade in 1882 during a juvenile
friendship (terminated by the premature emigration of the former) he
had advocated during nocturnal perambulations the political theory of
colonial (e.g. Canadian) expansion and the evolutionary theories of
Charles Darwin, expounded in _The Descent of Man_ and _The Origin of
Species_. In 1885 he had publicly expressed his adherence to the
collective and national economic programme advocated by James Fintan
Lalor, John Fisher Murray, John Mitchel, J. F. X. O’Brien and others,
the agrarian policy of Michael Davitt, the constitutional agitation of
Charles Stewart Parnell (M. P. for Cork City), the programme of peace,
retrenchment and reform of William Ewart Gladstone (M. P. for
Midlothian, N. B.) and, in support of his political convictions, had
climbed up into a secure position amid the ramifications of a tree on
Northumberland road to see the entrance (2 February 1888) into the
capital of a demonstrative torchlight procession of 20,000
torchbearers, divided into 120 trade corporations, bearing 2000 torches
in escort of the marquess of Ripon and (honest) John Morley.

How much and how did he propose to pay for this country residence?

As per prospectus of the Industrious Foreign Acclimatised Nationalised
Friendly Stateaided Building Society (incorporated 1874), a maximum of
£ 60 per annum, being 1/6 of an assured income, derived from giltedged
securities, representing at 5 % simple interest on capital of £ 1200
(estimate of price at 20 years’ purchase), of which 1/3 to be paid on
acquisition and the balance in the form of annual rent, viz. £ 800 plus
2 1/2 % interest on the same, repayable quarterly in equal annual
instalments until extinction by amortisation of loan advanced for
purchase within a period of 20 years, amounting to an annual rental of
£ 64, headrent included, the titledeeds to remain in possession of the
lender or lenders with a saving clause envisaging forced sale,
foreclosure and mutual compensation in the event of protracted failure
to pay the terms assigned, otherwise the messuage to become the
absolute property of the tenant occupier upon expiry of the period of
years stipulated.

What rapid but insecure means to opulence might facilitate immediate
purchase?

A private wireless telegraph which would transmit by dot and dash
system the result of a national equine handicap (flat or steeplechase)
of 1 or more miles and furlongs won by an outsider at odds of 50 to 1
at 3 hr 8 m p.m. at Ascot (Greenwich time), the message being received
and available for betting purposes in Dublin at 2.59 p.m. (Dunsink
time). The unexpected discovery of an object of great monetary value
(precious stone, valuable adhesive or impressed postage stamps (7
schilling, mauve, imperforate, Hamburg, 1866: 4 pence, rose, blue
paper, perforate, Great Britain, 1855: 1 franc, stone, official,
rouletted, diagonal surcharge, Luxemburg, 1878), antique dynastical
ring, unique relic) in unusual repositories or by unusual means: from
the air (dropped by an eagle in flight), by fire (amid the carbonised
remains of an incendiated edifice), in the sea (amid flotsam, jetsam,
lagan and derelict), on earth (in the gizzard of a comestible fowl). A
Spanish prisoner’s donation of a distant treasure of valuables or
specie or bullion lodged with a solvent banking corporation 100 years
previously at 5% compound interest of the collective worth of £
5,000,000 stg (five million pounds sterling). A contract with an
inconsiderate contractee for the delivery of 32 consignments of some
given commodity in consideration of cash payment on delivery per
delivery at the initial rate of 1/4d to be increased constantly in the
geometrical progression of 2 (1/4d, 1/2d, 1d, 2d, 4d, 8d, 1s 4d, 2s 8d
to 32 terms). A prepared scheme based on a study of the laws of
probability to break the bank at Monte Carlo. A solution of the secular
problem of the quadrature of the circle, government premium £ 1,000,000
sterling.

Was vast wealth acquirable through industrial channels?

The reclamation of dunams of waste arenary soil, proposed in the
prospectus of Agendath Netaim, Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W. 15, by the
cultivation of orange plantations and melonfields and reafforestation.
The utilisation of waste paper, fells of sewer rodents, human excrement
possessing chemical properties, in view of the vast production of the
first, vast number of the second and immense quantity of the third,
every normal human being of average vitality and appetite producing
annually, cancelling byproducts of water, a sum total of 80 lbs. (mixed
animal and vegetable diet), to be multiplied by 4,386,035, the total
population of Ireland according to census returns of 1901.

Were there schemes of wider scope?

A scheme to be formulated and submitted for approval to the harbour
commissioners for the exploitation of white coal (hydraulic power),
obtained by hydroelectric plant at peak of tide at Dublin bar or at
head of water at Poulaphouca or Powerscourt or catchment basins of main
streams for the economic production of 500,000 W. H. P. of electricity.
A scheme to enclose the peninsular delta of the North Bull at
Dollymount and erect on the space of the foreland, used for golf links
and rifle ranges, an asphalted esplanade with casinos, booths, shooting
galleries, hotels, boardinghouses, readingrooms, establishments for
mixed bathing. A scheme for the use of dogvans and goatvans for the
delivery of early morning milk. A scheme for the development of Irish
tourist traffic in and around Dublin by means of petrolpropelled
riverboats, plying in the fluvial fairway between Island bridge and
Ringsend, charabancs, narrow gauge local railways, and pleasure
steamers for coastwise navigation (10/- per person per day, guide
(trilingual) included). A scheme for the repristination of passenger
and goods traffics over Irish waterways, when freed from weedbeds. A
scheme to connect by tramline the Cattle Market (North Circular road
and Prussia street) with the quays (Sheriff street, lower, and East
Wall), parallel with the Link line railway laid (in conjunction with
the Great Southern and Western railway line) between the cattle park,
Liffey junction, and terminus of Midland Great Western Railway 43 to 45
North Wall, in proximity to the terminal stations or Dublin branches of
Great Central Railway, Midland Railway of England, City of Dublin Steam
Packet Company, Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, Dublin and
Glasgow Steam Packet Company, Glasgow, Dublin and Londonderry Steam
Packet Company (Laird line), British and Irish Steam Packet Company,
Dublin and Morecambe Steamers, London and North Western Railway
Company, Dublin Port and Docks Board Landing Sheds and transit sheds of
Palgrave, Murphy and Company, steamship owners, agents for steamers
from Mediterranean, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium and Holland and
for Liverpool Underwriters’ Association, the cost of acquired rolling
stock for animal transport and of additional mileage operated by the
Dublin United Tramways Company, limited, to be covered by graziers’
fees.

Positing what protasis would the contraction for such several schemes
become a natural and necessary apodosis?

Given a guarantee equal to the sum sought, the support, by deed of gift
and transfer vouchers during donor’s lifetime or by bequest after
donor’s painless extinction, of eminent financiers (Blum Pasha,
Rothschild, Guggenheim, Hirsch, Montefiore, Morgan, Rockefeller)
possessing fortunes in 6 figures, amassed during a successful life, and
joining capital with opportunity the thing required was done.

What eventuality would render him independent of such wealth?

The independent discovery of a goldseam of inexhaustible ore.

For what reason did he meditate on schemes so difficult of realisation?

It was one of his axioms that similar meditations or the automatic
relation to himself of a narrative concerning himself or tranquil
recollection of the past when practised habitually before retiring for
the night alleviated fatigue and produced as a result sound repose and
renovated vitality.

His justifications?

As a physicist he had learned that of the 70 years of complete human
life at least 2/7, viz. 20 years are passed in sleep. As a philosopher
he knew that at the termination of any allotted life only an
infinitesimal part of any person’s desires has been realised. As a
physiologist he believed in the artificial placation of malignant
agencies chiefly operative during somnolence.

What did he fear?

The committal of homicide or suicide during sleep by an aberration of
the light of reason, the incommensurable categorical intelligence
situated in the cerebral convolutions.

What were habitually his final meditations?

Of some one sole unique advertisement to cause passers to stop in
wonder, a poster novelty, with all extraneous accretions excluded,
reduced to its simplest and most efficient terms not exceeding the span
of casual vision and congruous with the velocity of modern life.

What did the first drawer unlocked contain?

A Vere Foster’s handwriting copybook, property of Milly (Millicent)
Bloom, certain pages of which bore diagram drawings, marked _Papli_,
which showed a large globular head with 5 hairs erect, 2 eyes in
profile, the trunk full front with 3 large buttons, 1 triangular foot:
2 fading photographs of queen Alexandra of England and of Maud
Branscombe, actress and professional beauty: a Yuletide card, bearing
on it a pictorial representation of a parasitic plant, the legend
_Mizpah_, the date Xmas 1892, the name of the senders: from Mr + Mrs M.
Comerford, the versicle: _May this Yuletide bring to thee, Joy and
peace and welcome glee_: a butt of red partly liquefied sealing wax,
obtained from the stores department of Messrs Hely’s, Ltd., 89, 90, and
91 Dame street: a box containing the remainder of a gross of gilt “J”
pennibs, obtained from same department of same firm: an old sandglass
which rolled containing sand which rolled: a sealed prophecy (never
unsealed) written by Leopold Bloom in 1886 concerning the consequences
of the passing into law of William Ewart Gladstone’s Home Rule bill of
1886 (never passed into law): a bazaar ticket, No 2004, of S. Kevin’s
Charity Fair, price 6d, 100 prizes: an infantile epistle, dated, small
em monday, reading: capital pee Papli comma capital aitch How are you
note of interrogation capital eye I am very well full stop new
paragraph signature with flourishes capital em Milly no stop: a cameo
brooch, property of Ellen Bloom (born Higgins), deceased: a cameo
scarfpin, property of Rudolph Bloom (born Virag), deceased: 3
typewritten letters, addressee, Henry Flower, c/o. P. O. Westland Row,
addresser, Martha Clifford, c/o. P. O. Dolphin’s Barn: the
transliterated name and address of the addresser of the 3 letters in
reversed alphabetic boustrophedonic punctated quadrilinear cryptogram
(vowels suppressed) N. IGS./WI. UU. OX/W. OKS. MH/Y. IM: a press
cutting from an English weekly periodical _Modern Society_, subject
corporal chastisement in girls’ schools: a pink ribbon which had
festooned an Easter egg in the year 1899: two partly uncoiled rubber
preservatives with reserve pockets, purchased by post from Box 32, P.
O., Charing Cross, London, W. C.: 1 pack of 1 dozen creamlaid envelopes
and feintruled notepaper, watermarked, now reduced by 3: some assorted
Austrian-Hungarian coins: 2 coupons of the Royal and Privileged
Hungarian Lottery: a lowpower magnifying glass: 2 erotic photocards
showing a) buccal coition between nude senorita (rere presentation,
superior position) and nude torero (fore presentation, inferior
position) b) anal violation by male religious (fully clothed, eyes
abject) of female religious (partly clothed, eyes direct), purchased by
post from Box 32, P. O., Charing Cross, London, W. C.: a press cutting
of recipe for renovation of old tan boots: a 1d adhesive stamp,
lavender, of the reign of Queen Victoria: a chart of the measurements
of Leopold Bloom compiled before, during and after 2 months’
consecutive use of Sandow-Whiteley’s pulley exerciser (men’s 15/-,
athlete’s 20/-) viz. chest 28 in and 29 1/2 in, biceps 9 in and 10 in,
forearm 8 1/2 in and 9 in, thigh 10 in and 12 in, calf 11 in and 12 in:
1 prospectus of The Wonderworker, the world’s greatest remedy for
rectal complaints, direct from Wonderworker, Coventry House, South
Place, London E C, addressed (erroneously) to Mrs L. Bloom with brief
accompanying note commencing (erroneously): Dear Madam.

Quote the textual terms in which the prospectus claimed advantages for
this thaumaturgic remedy.

It heals and soothes while you sleep, in case of trouble in breaking
wind, assists nature in the most formidable way, insuring instant
relief in discharge of gases, keeping parts clean and free natural
action, an initial outlay of 7/6 making a new man of you and life worth
living. Ladies find Wonderworker especially useful, a pleasant surprise
when they note delightful result like a cool drink of fresh spring
water on a sultry summer’s day. Recommend it to your lady and gentlemen
friends, lasts a lifetime. Insert long round end. Wonderworker.

Were there testimonials?

Numerous. From clergyman, British naval officer, wellknown author, city
man, hospital nurse, lady, mother of five, absentminded beggar.

How did absentminded beggar’s concluding testimonial conclude?

What a pity the government did not supply our men with wonderworkers
during the South African campaign! What a relief it would have been!

What object did Bloom add to this collection of objects?

A 4th typewritten letter received by Henry Flower (let H. F. be L. B.)
from Martha Clifford (find M. C.).

What pleasant reflection accompanied this action?

The reflection that, apart from the letter in question, his magnetic
face, form and address had been favourably received during the course
of the preceding day by a wife (Mrs Josephine Breen, born Josie
Powell), a nurse, Miss Callan (Christian name unknown), a maid,
Gertrude (Gerty, family name unknown).

What possibility suggested itself?

The possibility of exercising virile power of fascination in the not
immediate future after an expensive repast in a private apartment in
the company of an elegant courtesan, of corporal beauty, moderately
mercenary, variously instructed, a lady by origin.

What did the 2nd drawer contain?

Documents: the birth certificate of Leopold Paula Bloom: an endowment
assurance policy of £ 500 in the Scottish Widows’ Assurance Society,
intestated Millicent (Milly) Bloom, coming into force at 25 years as
with profit policy of £ 430, £ 462-10-0 and £ 500 at 60 years or death,
65 years or death and death, respectively, or with profit policy
(paidup) of £ 299-10-0 together with cash payment of £ 133-10-0, at
option: a bank passbook issued by the Ulster Bank, College Green branch
showing statement of a/c for halfyear ending 31 December 1903, balance
in depositor’s favour: £ 18-14-6 (eighteen pounds, fourteen shillings
and sixpence, sterling), net personalty: certificate of possession of £
900, Canadian 4% (inscribed) government stock (free of stamp duty):
dockets of the Catholic Cemeteries’ (Glasnevin) Committee, relative to
a graveplot purchased: a local press cutting concerning change of name
by deedpoll.

Quote the textual terms of this notice.

I, Rudolph Virag, now resident at no 52 Clanbrassil street, Dublin,
formerly of Szombathely in the kingdom of Hungary, hereby give notice
that I have assumed and intend henceforth upon all occasions and at all
times to be known by the name of Rudolph Bloom.

What other objects relative to Rudolph Bloom (born Virag) were in the
2nd drawer?

An indistinct daguerreotype of Rudolf Virag and his father Leopold
Virag executed in the year 1852 in the portrait atelier of their
(respectively) 1st and 2nd cousin, Stefan Virag of Szesfehervar,
Hungary. An ancient haggadah book in which a pair of hornrimmed convex
spectacles inserted marked the passage of thanksgiving in the ritual
prayers for Pessach (Passover): a photocard of the Queen’s Hotel,
Ennis, proprietor, Rudolph Bloom: an envelope addressed: _To My Dear
Son Leopold_.

What fractions of phrases did the lecture of those five whole words
evoke?

Tomorrow will be a week that I received... it is no use Leopold to be
... with your dear mother... that is not more to stand... to her... all
for me is out... be kind to Athos, Leopold... my dear son... always...
of me... _das Herz... Gott... dein_...

What reminiscences of a human subject suffering from progressive
melancholia did these objects evoke in Bloom?

An old man, widower, unkempt of hair, in bed, with head covered,
sighing: an infirm dog, Athos: aconite, resorted to by increasing doses
of grains and scruples as a palliative of recrudescent neuralgia: the
face in death of a septuagenarian, suicide by poison.

Why did Bloom experience a sentiment of remorse?

Because in immature impatience he had treated with disrespect certain
beliefs and practices.

As?

The prohibition of the use of fleshmeat and milk at one meal: the
hebdomadary symposium of incoordinately abstract, perfervidly concrete
mercantile coexreligionist excompatriots: the circumcision of male
infants: the supernatural character of Judaic scripture: the
ineffability of the tetragrammaton: the sanctity of the sabbath.

How did these beliefs and practices now appear to him?

Not more rational than they had then appeared, not less rational than
other beliefs and practices now appeared.

What first reminiscence had he of Rudolph Bloom (deceased)?

Rudolph Bloom (deceased) narrated to his son Leopold Bloom (aged 6) a
retrospective arrangement of migrations and settlements in and between
Dublin, London, Florence, Milan, Vienna, Budapest, Szombathely with
statements of satisfaction (his grandfather having seen Maria Theresia,
empress of Austria, queen of Hungary), with commercial advice (having
taken care of pence, the pounds having taken care of themselves).
Leopold Bloom (aged 6) had accompanied these narrations by constant
consultation of a geographical map of Europe (political) and by
suggestions for the establishment of affiliated business premises in
the various centres mentioned.

Had time equally but differently obliterated the memory of these
migrations in narrator and listener?

In narrator by the access of years and in consequence of the use of
narcotic toxin: in listener by the access of years and in consequence
of the action of distraction upon vicarious experiences.

What idiosyncracies of the narrator were concomitant products of
amnesia?

Occasionally he ate without having previously removed his hat.
Occasionally he drank voraciously the juice of gooseberry fool from an
inclined plate. Occasionally he removed from his lips the traces of
food by means of a lacerated envelope or other accessible fragment of
paper.

What two phenomena of senescence were more frequent?

The myopic digital calculation of coins, eructation consequent upon
repletion.

What object offered partial consolation for these reminiscences?

The endowment policy, the bank passbook, the certificate of the
possession of scrip.

Reduce Bloom by cross multiplication of reverses of fortune, from which
these supports protected him, and by elimination of all positive values
to a negligible negative irrational unreal quantity.

Successively, in descending helotic order: Poverty: that of the outdoor
hawker of imitation jewellery, the dun for the recovery of bad and
doubtful debts, the poor rate and deputy cess collector. Mendicancy:
that of the fraudulent bankrupt with negligible assets paying 1/4d in
the £, sandwichman, distributor of throwaways, nocturnal vagrant,
insinuating sycophant, maimed sailor, blind stripling, superannuated
bailiff’s man, marfeast, lickplate, spoilsport, pickthank, eccentric
public laughingstock seated on bench of public park under discarded
perforated umbrella. Destitution: the inmate of Old Man’s House (Royal
Hospital), Kilmainham, the inmate of Simpson’s Hospital for reduced but
respectable men permanently disabled by gout or want of sight. Nadir of
misery: the aged impotent disfranchised ratesupported moribund lunatic
pauper.

With which attendant indignities?

The unsympathetic indifference of previously amiable females, the
contempt of muscular males, the acceptance of fragments of bread, the
simulated ignorance of casual acquaintances, the latration of
illegitimate unlicensed vagabond dogs, the infantile discharge of
decomposed vegetable missiles, worth little or nothing, nothing or less
than nothing.

By what could such a situation be precluded?

By decease (change of state): by departure (change of place).

Which preferably?

The latter, by the line of least resistance.

What considerations rendered departure not entirely undesirable?

Constant cohabitation impeding mutual toleration of personal defects.
The habit of independent purchase increasingly cultivated. The
necessity to counteract by impermanent sojourn the permanence of
arrest.

What considerations rendered departure not irrational?

The parties concerned, uniting, had increased and multiplied, which
being done, offspring produced and educed to maturity, the parties, if
not disunited were obliged to reunite for increase and multiplication,
which was absurd, to form by reunion the original couple of uniting
parties, which was impossible.

What considerations rendered departure desirable?

The attractive character of certain localities in Ireland and abroad,
as represented in general geographical maps of polychrome design or in
special ordnance survey charts by employment of scale numerals and
hachures.

In Ireland?

The cliffs of Moher, the windy wilds of Connemara, lough Neagh with
submerged petrified city, the Giant’s Causeway, Fort Camden and Fort
Carlisle, the Golden Vale of Tipperary, the islands of Aran, the
pastures of royal Meath, Brigid’s elm in Kildare, the Queen’s Island
shipyard in Belfast, the Salmon Leap, the lakes of Killarney.

Abroad?

Ceylon (with spicegardens supplying tea to Thomas Kernan, agent for
Pulbrook, Robertson and Co, 2 Mincing Lane, London, E. C., 5 Dame
street, Dublin), Jerusalem, the holy city (with mosque of Omar and gate
of Damascus, goal of aspiration), the straits of Gibraltar (the unique
birthplace of Marion Tweedy), the Parthenon (containing statues of nude
Grecian divinities), the Wall street money market (which controlled
international finance), the Plaza de Toros at La Linea, Spain (where
O’Hara of the Camerons had slain the bull), Niagara (over which no
human being had passed with impunity), the land of the Eskimos (eaters
of soap), the forbidden country of Thibet (from which no traveller
returns), the bay of Naples (to see which was to die), the Dead Sea.

Under what guidance, following what signs?

At sea, septentrional, by night the polestar, located at the point of
intersection of the right line from beta to alpha in Ursa Maior
produced and divided externally at omega and the hypotenuse of the
rightangled triangle formed by the line alpha omega so produced and the
line alpha delta of Ursa Maior. On land, meridional, a bispherical
moon, revealed in imperfect varying phases of lunation through the
posterior interstice of the imperfectly occluded skirt of a carnose
negligent perambulating female, a pillar of the cloud by day.

What public advertisement would divulge the occultation of the
departed?

£ 5 reward, lost, stolen or strayed from his residence 7 Eccles street,
missing gent about 40, answering to the name of Bloom, Leopold (Poldy),
height 5 ft 9 1/2 inches, full build, olive complexion, may have since
grown a beard, when last seen was wearing a black suit. Above sum will
be paid for information leading to his discovery.

What universal binomial denominations would be his as entity and
nonentity?

Assumed by any or known to none. Everyman or Noman.

What tributes his?

Honour and gifts of strangers, the friends of Everyman. A nymph
immortal, beauty, the bride of Noman.

Would the departed never nowhere nohow reappear?

Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his
cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable suns and telescopic
planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme boundary of
space, passing from land to land, among peoples, amid events. Somewhere
imperceptibly he would hear and somehow reluctantly, suncompelled, obey
the summons of recall. Whence, disappearing from the constellation of
the Northern Crown he would somehow reappear reborn above delta in the
constellation of Cassiopeia and after incalculable eons of
peregrination return an estranged avenger, a wreaker of justice on
malefactors, a dark crusader, a sleeper awakened, with financial
resources (by supposition) surpassing those of Rothschild or the silver
king.

What would render such return irrational?

An unsatisfactory equation between an exodus and return in time through
reversible space and an exodus and return in space through irreversible
time.

What play of forces, inducing inertia, rendered departure undesirable?

The lateness of the hour, rendering procrastinatory: the obscurity of
the night, rendering invisible: the uncertainty of thoroughfares,
rendering perilous: the necessity for repose, obviating movement: the
proximity of an occupied bed, obviating research: the anticipation of
warmth (human) tempered with coolness (linen), obviating desire and
rendering desirable: the statue of Narcissus, sound without echo,
desired desire.

What advantages were possessed by an occupied, as distinct from an
unoccupied bed?

The removal of nocturnal solitude, the superior quality of human
(mature female) to inhuman (hotwaterjar) calefaction, the stimulation
of matutinal contact, the economy of mangling done on the premises in
the case of trousers accurately folded and placed lengthwise between
the spring mattress (striped) and the woollen mattress (biscuit
section).

What past consecutive causes, before rising preapprehended, of
accumulated fatigue did Bloom, before rising, silently recapitulate?

The preparation of breakfast (burnt offering): intestinal congestion
and premeditative defecation (holy of holies): the bath (rite of John):
the funeral (rite of Samuel): the advertisement of Alexander Keyes
(Urim and Thummim): the unsubstantial lunch (rite of Melchisedek): the
visit to museum and national library (holy place): the bookhunt along
Bedford row, Merchants’ Arch, Wellington Quay (Simchath Torah): the
music in the Ormond Hotel (Shira Shirim): the altercation with a
truculent troglodyte in Bernard Kiernan’s premises (holocaust): a blank
period of time including a cardrive, a visit to a house of mourning, a
leavetaking (wilderness): the eroticism produced by feminine
exhibitionism (rite of Onan): the prolonged delivery of Mrs Mina
Purefoy (heave offering): the visit to the disorderly house of Mrs
Bella Cohen, 82 Tyrone street, lower, and subsequent brawl and chance
medley in Beaver street (Armageddon): nocturnal perambulation to and
from the cabman’s shelter, Butt Bridge (atonement).

What selfimposed enigma did Bloom about to rise in order to go so as to
conclude lest he should not conclude involuntarily apprehend?

The cause of a brief sharp unforeseen heard loud lone crack emitted by
the insentient material of a strainveined timber table.

What selfinvolved enigma did Bloom risen, going, gathering
multicoloured multiform multitudinous garments, voluntarily
apprehending, not comprehend?

Who was M’Intosh?

What selfevident enigma pondered with desultory constancy during 30
years did Bloom now, having effected natural obscurity by the
extinction of artificial light, silently suddenly comprehend?

Where was Moses when the candle went out?

What imperfections in a perfect day did Bloom, walking, charged with
collected articles of recently disvested male wearing apparel,
silently, successively, enumerate?

A provisional failure to obtain renewal of an advertisement: to obtain
a certain quantity of tea from Thomas Kernan (agent for Pulbrook,
Robertson and Co, 5 Dame Street, Dublin, and 2 Mincing Lane, London E.
C.): to certify the presence or absence of posterior rectal orifice in
the case of Hellenic female divinities: to obtain admission (gratuitous
or paid) to the performance of _Leah_ by Mrs Bandmann Palmer at the
Gaiety Theatre, 46, 47, 48, 49 South King street.

What impression of an absent face did Bloom, arrested, silently recall?

The face of her father, the late Major Brian Cooper Tweedy, Royal
Dublin Fusiliers, of Gibraltar and Rehoboth, Dolphin’s Barn.

What recurrent impressions of the same were possible by hypothesis?

Retreating, at the terminus of the Great Northern Railway, Amiens
street, with constant uniform acceleration, along parallel lines
meeting at infinity, if produced: along parallel lines, reproduced from
infinity, with constant uniform retardation, at the terminus of the
Great Northern Railway, Amiens street, returning.

What miscellaneous effects of female personal wearing apparel were
perceived by him?

A pair of new inodorous halfsilk black ladies’ hose, a pair of new
violet garters, a pair of outsize ladies’ drawers of India mull, cut on
generous lines, redolent of opoponax, jessamine and Muratti’s Turkish
cigarettes and containing a long bright steel safety pin, folded
curvilinear, a camisole of batiste with thin lace border, an accordion
underskirt of blue silk moirette, all these objects being disposed
irregularly on the top of a rectangular trunk, quadruple battened,
having capped corners, with multicoloured labels, initialled on its
fore side in white lettering B. C. T. (Brian Cooper Tweedy).

What impersonal objects were perceived?

A commode, one leg fractured, totally covered by square cretonne
cutting, apple design, on which rested a lady’s black straw hat.
Orangekeyed ware, bought of Henry Price, basket, fancy goods, chinaware
and ironmongery manufacturer, 21, 22, 23 Moore street, disposed
irregularly on the washstand and floor and consisting of basin,
soapdish and brushtray (on the washstand, together), pitcher and night
article (on the floor, separate).

Bloom’s acts?

He deposited the articles of clothing on a chair, removed his remaining
articles of clothing, took from beneath the bolster at the head of the
bed a folded long white nightshirt, inserted his head and arms into the
proper apertures of the nightshirt, removed a pillow from the head to
the foot of the bed, prepared the bedlinen accordingly and entered the
bed.

How?

With circumspection, as invariably when entering an abode (his own or
not his own): with solicitude, the snakespiral springs of the mattress
being old, the brass quoits and pendent viper radii loose and tremulous
under stress and strain: prudently, as entering a lair or ambush of
lust or adders: lightly, the less to disturb: reverently, the bed of
conception and of birth, of consummation of marriage and of breach of
marriage, of sleep and of death.

What did his limbs, when gradually extended, encounter?

New clean bedlinen, additional odours, the presence of a human form,
female, hers, the imprint of a human form, male, not his, some crumbs,
some flakes of potted meat, recooked, which he removed.

If he had smiled why would he have smiled?

To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to
enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if
the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first,
last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor
alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity.

What preceding series?

Assuming Mulvey to be the first term of his series, Penrose, Bartell
d’Arcy, professor Goodwin, Julius Mastiansky, John Henry Menton, Father
Bernard Corrigan, a farmer at the Royal Dublin Society’s Horse Show,
Maggot O’Reilly, Matthew Dillon, Valentine Blake Dillon (Lord Mayor of
Dublin), Christopher Callinan, Lenehan, an Italian organgrinder, an
unknown gentleman in the Gaiety Theatre, Benjamin Dollard, Simon
Dedalus, Andrew (Pisser) Burke, Joseph Cuffe, Wisdom Hely, Alderman
John Hooper, Dr Francis Brady, Father Sebastian of Mount Argus, a
bootblack at the General Post Office, Hugh E. (Blazes) Boylan and so
each and so on to no last term.

What were his reflections concerning the last member of this series and
late occupant of the bed?

Reflections on his vigour (a bounder), corporal proportion (a
billsticker), commercial ability (a bester), impressionability (a
boaster).

Why for the observer impressionability in addition to vigour, corporal
proportion and commercial ability?

Because he had observed with augmenting frequency in the preceding
members of the same series the same concupiscence, inflammably
transmitted, first with alarm, then with understanding, then with
desire, finally with fatigue, with alternating symptoms of epicene
comprehension and apprehension.

With what antagonistic sentiments were his subsequent reflections
affected?

Envy, jealousy, abnegation, equanimity.

Envy?

Of a bodily and mental male organism specially adapted for the
superincumbent posture of energetic human copulation and energetic
piston and cylinder movement necessary for the complete satisfaction of
a constant but not acute concupiscence resident in a bodily and mental
female organism, passive but not obtuse.

Jealousy?

Because a nature full and volatile in its free state, was alternately
the agent and reagent of attraction. Because attraction between
agent(s) and reagent(s) at all instants varied, with inverse proportion
of increase and decrease, with incessant circular extension and radial
reentrance. Because the controlled contemplation of the fluctuation of
attraction produced, if desired, a fluctuation of pleasure.

Abnegation?

In virtue of a) acquaintance initiated in September 1903 in the
establishment of George Mesias, merchant tailor and outfitter, 5 Eden
Quay, b) hospitality extended and received in kind, reciprocated and
reappropriated in person, c) comparative youth subject to impulses of
ambition and magnanimity, colleagual altruism and amorous egoism, d)
extraracial attraction, intraracial inhibition, supraracial
prerogative, e) an imminent provincial musical tour, common current
expenses, net proceeds divided.

Equanimity?

As as natural as any and every natural act of a nature expressed or
understood executed in natured nature by natural creatures in
accordance with his, her and their natured natures, of dissimilar
similarity. As not so calamitous as a cataclysmic annihilation of the
planet in consequence of a collision with a dark sun. As less
reprehensible than theft, highway robbery, cruelty to children and
animals, obtaining money under false pretences, forgery, embezzlement,
misappropriation of public money, betrayal of public trust,
malingering, mayhem, corruption of minors, criminal libel, blackmail,
contempt of court, arson, treason, felony, mutiny on the high seas,
trespass, burglary, jailbreaking, practice of unnatural vice, desertion
from armed forces in the field, perjury, poaching, usury, intelligence
with the king’s enemies, impersonation, criminal assault, manslaughter,
wilful and premeditated murder. As not more abnormal than all other
parallel processes of adaptation to altered conditions of existence,
resulting in a reciprocal equilibrium between the bodily organism and
its attendant circumstances, foods, beverages, acquired habits,
indulged inclinations, significant disease. As more than inevitable,
irreparable.

Why more abnegation than jealousy, less envy than equanimity?

From outrage (matrimony) to outrage (adultery) there arose nought but
outrage (copulation) yet the matrimonial violator of the matrimonially
violated had not been outraged by the adulterous violator of the
adulterously violated.

What retribution, if any?

Assassination, never, as two wrongs did not make one right. Duel by
combat, no. Divorce, not now. Exposure by mechanical artifice
(automatic bed) or individual testimony (concealed ocular witnesses),
not yet. Suit for damages by legal influence or simulation of assault
with evidence of injuries sustained (selfinflicted), not impossibly.
Hushmoney by moral influence, possibly. If any, positively, connivance,
introduction of emulation (material, a prosperous rival agency of
publicity: moral, a successful rival agent of intimacy), depreciation,
alienation, humiliation, separation protecting the one separated from
the other, protecting the separator from both.

By what reflections did he, a conscious reactor against the void of
incertitude, justify to himself his sentiments?

The preordained frangibility of the hymen: the presupposed
intangibility of the thing in itself: the incongruity and disproportion
between the selfprolonging tension of the thing proposed to be done and
the selfabbreviating relaxation of the thing done: the fallaciously
inferred debility of the female: the muscularity of the male: the
variations of ethical codes: the natural grammatical transition by
inversion involving no alteration of sense of an aorist preterite
proposition (parsed as masculine subject, monosyllabic onomatopoeic
transitive verb with direct feminine object) from the active voice into
its correlative aorist preterite proposition (parsed as feminine
subject, auxiliary verb and quasimonosyllabic onomatopoeic past
participle with complementary masculine agent) in the passive voice:
the continued product of seminators by generation: the continual
production of semen by distillation: the futility of triumph or protest
or vindication: the inanity of extolled virtue: the lethargy of
nescient matter: the apathy of the stars.

In what final satisfaction did these antagonistic sentiments and
reflections, reduced to their simplest forms, converge?

Satisfaction at the ubiquity in eastern and western terrestrial
hemispheres, in all habitable lands and islands explored or unexplored
(the land of the midnight sun, the islands of the blessed, the isles of
Greece, the land of promise), of adipose anterior and posterior female
hemispheres, redolent of milk and honey and of excretory sanguine and
seminal warmth, reminiscent of secular families of curves of amplitude,
insusceptible of moods of impression or of contrarieties of expression,
expressive of mute immutable mature animality.

The visible signs of antesatisfaction?

An approximate erection: a solicitous adversion: a gradual elevation: a
tentative revelation: a silent contemplation.

Then?

He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each
plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure
prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation.

The visible signs of postsatisfaction?

A silent contemplation: a tentative velation: a gradual abasement: a
solicitous aversion: a proximate erection.

What followed this silent action?

Somnolent invocation, less somnolent recognition, incipient excitation,
catechetical interrogation.

With what modifications did the narrator reply to this interrogation?

Negative: he omitted to mention the clandestine correspondence between
Martha Clifford and Henry Flower, the public altercation at, in and in
the vicinity of the licensed premises of Bernard Kiernan and Co,
Limited, 8, 9 and 10 Little Britain street, the erotic provocation and
response thereto caused by the exhibitionism of Gertrude (Gerty),
surname unknown. Positive: he included mention of a performance by Mrs
Bandmann Palmer of _Leah_ at the Gaiety Theatre, 46, 47, 48, 49 South
King street, an invitation to supper at Wynn’s (Murphy’s) Hotel, 35, 36
and 37 Lower Abbey street, a volume of peccaminous pornographical
tendency entituled _Sweets of Sin_, anonymous author a gentleman of
fashion, a temporary concussion caused by a falsely calculated movement
in the course of a postcenal gymnastic display, the victim (since
completely recovered) being Stephen Dedalus, professor and author,
eldest surviving son of Simon Dedalus, of no fixed occupation, an
aeronautical feat executed by him (narrator) in the presence of a
witness, the professor and author aforesaid, with promptitude of
decision and gymnastic flexibility.

Was the narration otherwise unaltered by modifications?

Absolutely.

Which event or person emerged as the salient point of his narration?

Stephen Dedalus, professor and author.

What limitations of activity and inhibitions of conjugal rights were
perceived by listener and narrator concerning themselves during the
course of this intermittent and increasingly more laconic narration?

By the listener a limitation of fertility inasmuch as marriage had been
celebrated 1 calendar month after the 18th anniversary of her birth (8
September 1870), viz. 8 October, and consummated on the same date with
female issue born 15 June 1889, having been anticipatorily consummated
on the 10 September of the same year and complete carnal intercourse,
with ejaculation of semen within the natural female organ, having last
taken place 5 weeks previous, viz. 27 November 1893, to the birth on 29
December 1893 of second (and only male) issue, deceased 9 January 1894,
aged 11 days, there remained a period of 10 years, 5 months and 18 days
during which carnal intercourse had been incomplete, without
ejaculation of semen within the natural female organ. By the narrator a
limitation of activity, mental and corporal, inasmuch as complete
mental intercourse between himself and the listener had not taken place
since the consummation of puberty, indicated by catamenic hemorrhage,
of the female issue of narrator and listener, 15 September 1903, there
remained a period of 9 months and 1 day during which, in consequence of
a preestablished natural comprehension in incomprehension between the
consummated females (listener and issue), complete corporal liberty of
action had been circumscribed.

How?

By various reiterated feminine interrogation concerning the masculine
destination whither, the place where, the time at which, the duration
for which, the object with which in the case of temporary absences,
projected or effected.

What moved visibly above the listener’s and the narrator’s invisible
thoughts?

The upcast reflection of a lamp and shade, an inconstant series of
concentric circles of varying gradations of light and shadow.

In what directions did listener and narrator lie?

Listener, S. E. by E.: Narrator, N. W. by W.: on the 53rd parallel of
latitude, N., and 6th meridian of longitude, W.: at an angle of 45° to
the terrestrial equator.

In what state of rest or motion?

At rest relatively to themselves and to each other. In motion being
each and both carried westward, forward and rereward respectively, by
the proper perpetual motion of the earth through everchanging tracks of
neverchanging space.

In what posture?

Listener: reclined semilaterally, left, left hand under head, right leg
extended in a straight line and resting on left leg, flexed, in the
attitude of Gea-Tellus, fulfilled, recumbent, big with seed. Narrator:
reclined laterally, left, with right and left legs flexed, the index
finger and thumb of the right hand resting on the bridge of the nose,
in the attitude depicted in a snapshot photograph made by Percy Apjohn,
the childman weary, the manchild in the womb.

Womb? Weary?

He rests. He has travelled.

With?

Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor and Jinbad the Jailer and
Whinbad the Whaler and Ninbad the Nailer and Finbad the Failer and
Binbad the Bailer and Pinbad the Pailer and Minbad the Mailer and
Hinbad the Hailer and Rinbad the Railer and Dinbad the Kailer and
Vinbad the Quailer and Linbad the Yailer and Xinbad the Phthailer.

When?

Going to dark bed there was a square round Sinbad the Sailor roc’s
auk’s egg in the night of the bed of all the auks of the rocs of
Darkinbad the Brightdayler.

Where?

•


[ 18 ]

Yes because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his
breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the _City Arms_ hotel when
he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his
highness to make himself interesting for that old faggot Mrs Riordan
that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing
all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was
actually afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit telling me all
her ailments she had too much old chat in her about politics and
earthquakes and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God
help the world if all the women were her sort down on bathingsuits and
lownecks of course nobody wanted her to wear them I suppose she was
pious because no man would look at her twice I hope Ill never be like
her a wonder she didnt want us to cover our faces but she was a
welleducated woman certainly and her gabby talk about Mr Riordan here
and Mr Riordan there I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her
dog smelling my fur and always edging to get up under my petticoats
especially then still I like that in him polite to old women like that
and waiters and beggars too hes not proud out of nothing but not always
if ever he got anything really serious the matter with him its much
better for them to go into a hospital where everything is clean but I
suppose Id have to dring it into him for a month yes and then wed have
a hospital nurse next thing on the carpet have him staying there till
they throw him out or a nun maybe like the smutty photo he has shes as
much a nun as Im not yes because theyre so weak and puling when theyre
sick they want a woman to get well if his nose bleeds youd think it was
O tragic and that dyinglooking one off the south circular when he
sprained his foot at the choir party at the sugarloaf Mountain the day
I wore that dress Miss Stack bringing him flowers the worst old ones
she could find at the bottom of the basket anything at all to get into
a mans bedroom with her old maids voice trying to imagine he was dying
on account of her to never see thy face again though he looked more
like a man with his beard a bit grown in the bed father was the same
besides I hate bandaging and dosing when he cut his toe with the razor
paring his corns afraid hed get bloodpoisoning but if it was a thing I
was sick then wed see what attention only of course the woman hides it
not to give all the trouble they do yes he came somewhere Im sure by
his appetite anyway love its not or hed be off his feed thinking of her
so either it was one of those night women if it was down there he was
really and the hotel story he made up a pack of lies to hide it
planning it Hynes kept me who did I meet ah yes I met do you remember
Menton and who else who let me see that big babbyface I saw him and he
not long married flirting with a young girl at Pooles Myriorama and
turned my back on him when he slinked out looking quite conscious what
harm but he had the impudence to make up to me one time well done to
him mouth almighty and his boiled eyes of all the big stupoes I ever
met and thats called a solicitor only for I hate having a long wrangle
in bed or else if its not that its some little bitch or other he got in
with somewhere or picked up on the sly if they only knew him as well as
I do yes because the day before yesterday he was scribbling something a
letter when I came into the front room to show him Dignams death in the
paper as if something told me and he covered it up with the
blottingpaper pretending to be thinking about business so very probably
that was it to somebody who thinks she has a softy in him because all
men get a bit like that at his age especially getting on to forty he is
now so as to wheedle any money she can out of him no fool like an old
fool and then the usual kissing my bottom was to hide it not that I
care two straws now who he does it with or knew before that way though
Id like to find out so long as I dont have the two of them under my
nose all the time like that slut that Mary we had in Ontario terrace
padding out her false bottom to excite him bad enough to get the smell
of those painted women off him once or twice I had a suspicion by
getting him to come near me when I found the long hair on his coat
without that one when I went into the kitchen pretending he was
drinking water 1 woman is not enough for them it was all his fault of
course ruining servants then proposing that she could eat at our table
on Christmas day if you please O no thank you not in my house stealing
my potatoes and the oysters 2/6 per doz going out to see her aunt if
you please common robbery so it was but I was sure he had something on
with that one it takes me to find out a thing like that he said you
have no proof it was her proof O yes her aunt was very fond of oysters
but I told her what I thought of her suggesting me to go out to be
alone with her I wouldnt lower myself to spy on them the garters I
found in her room the Friday she was out that was enough for me a
little bit too much her face swelled up on her with temper when I gave
her her weeks notice I saw to that better do without them altogether do
out the rooms myself quicker only for the damn cooking and throwing out
the dirt I gave it to him anyhow either she or me leaves the house I
couldnt even touch him if I thought he was with a dirty barefaced liar
and sloven like that one denying it up to my face and singing about the
place in the W C too because she knew she was too well off yes because
he couldnt possibly do without it that long so he must do it somewhere
and the last time he came on my bottom when was it the night Boylan
gave my hand a great squeeze going along by the Tolka in my hand there
steals another I just pressed the back of his like that with my thumb
to squeeze back singing the young May moon shes beaming love because he
has an idea about him and me hes not such a fool he said Im dining out
and going to the Gaiety though Im not going to give him the
satisfaction in any case God knows hes a change in a way not to be
always and ever wearing the same old hat unless I paid some nicelooking
boy to do it since I cant do it myself a young boy would like me Id
confuse him a little alone with him if we were Id let him see my
garters the new ones and make him turn red looking at him seduce him I
know what boys feel with that down on their cheek doing that frigging
drawing out the thing by the hour question and answer would you do this
that and the other with the coalman yes with a bishop yes I would
because I told him about some dean or bishop was sitting beside me in
the jews temples gardens when I was knitting that woollen thing a
stranger to Dublin what place was it and so on about the monuments and
he tired me out with statues encouraging him making him worse than he
is who is in your mind now tell me who are you thinking of who is it
tell me his name who tell me who the german Emperor is it yes imagine
Im him think of him can you feel him trying to make a whore of me what
he never will he ought to give it up now at this age of his life simply
ruination for any woman and no satisfaction in it pretending to like it
till he comes and then finish it off myself anyway and it makes your
lips pale anyhow its done now once and for all with all the talk of the
world about it people make its only the first time after that its just
the ordinary do it and think no more about it why cant you kiss a man
without going and marrying him first you sometimes love to wildly when
you feel that way so nice all over you you cant help yourself I wish
some man or other would take me sometime when hes there and kiss me in
his arms theres nothing like a kiss long and hot down to your soul
almost paralyses you then I hate that confession when I used to go to
Father Corrigan he touched me father and what harm if he did where and
I said on the canal bank like a fool but whereabouts on your person my
child on the leg behind high up was it yes rather high up was it where
you sit down yes O Lord couldnt he say bottom right out and have done
with it what has that got to do with it and did you whatever way he put
it I forget no father and I always think of the real father what did he
want to know for when I already confessed it to God he had a nice fat
hand the palm moist always I wouldnt mind feeling it neither would he
Id say by the bullneck in his horsecollar I wonder did he know me in
the box I could see his face he couldnt see mine of course hed never
turn or let on still his eyes were red when his father died theyre lost
for a woman of course must be terrible when a man cries let alone them
Id like to be embraced by one in his vestments and the smell of incense
off him like the pope besides theres no danger with a priest if youre
married hes too careful about himself then give something to H H the
pope for a penance I wonder was he satisfied with me one thing I didnt
like his slapping me behind going away so familiarly in the hall though
I laughed Im not a horse or an ass am I I suppose he was thinking of
his fathers I wonder is he awake thinking of me or dreaming am I in it
who gave him that flower he said he bought he smelt of some kind of
drink not whisky or stout or perhaps the sweety kind of paste they
stick their bills up with some liqueur Id like to sip those richlooking
green and yellow expensive drinks those stagedoor johnnies drink with
the opera hats I tasted once with my finger dipped out of that American
that had the squirrel talking stamps with father he had all he could do
to keep himself from falling asleep after the last time after we took
the port and potted meat it had a fine salty taste yes because I felt
lovely and tired myself and fell asleep as sound as a top the moment I
popped straight into bed till that thunder woke me up God be merciful
to us I thought the heavens were coming down about us to punish us when
I blessed myself and said a Hail Mary like those awful thunderbolts in
Gibraltar as if the world was coming to an end and then they come and
tell you theres no God what could you do if it was running and rushing
about nothing only make an act of contrition the candle I lit that
evening in Whitefriars street chapel for the month of May see it
brought its luck though hed scoff if he heard because he never goes to
church mass or meeting he says your soul you have no soul inside only
grey matter because he doesnt know what it is to have one yes when I
lit the lamp because he must have come 3 or 4 times with that
tremendous big red brute of a thing he has I thought the vein or
whatever the dickens they call it was going to burst though his nose is
not so big after I took off all my things with the blinds down after my
hours dressing and perfuming and combing it like iron or some kind of a
thick crowbar standing all the time he must have eaten oysters I think
a few dozen he was in great singing voice no I never in all my life
felt anyone had one the size of that to make you feel full up he must
have eaten a whole sheep after whats the idea making us like that with
a big hole in the middle of us or like a Stallion driving it up into
you because thats all they want out of you with that determined vicious
look in his eye I had to halfshut my eyes still he hasnt such a
tremendous amount of spunk in him when I made him pull out and do it on
me considering how big it is so much the better in case any of it wasnt
washed out properly the last time I let him finish it in me nice
invention they made for women for him to get all the pleasure but if
someone gave them a touch of it themselves theyd know what I went
through with Milly nobody would believe cutting her teeth too and Mina
Purefoys husband give us a swing out of your whiskers filling her up
with a child or twins once a year as regular as the clock always with a
smell of children off her the one they called budgers or something like
a nigger with a shock of hair on it Jesusjack the child is a black the
last time I was there a squad of them falling over one another and
bawling you couldnt hear your ears supposed to be healthy not satisfied
till they have us swollen out like elephants or I dont know what
supposing I risked having another not off him though still if he was
married Im sure hed have a fine strong child but I dont know Poldy has
more spunk in him yes thatd be awfully jolly I suppose it was meeting
Josie Powell and the funeral and thinking about me and Boylan set him
off well he can think what he likes now if thatll do him any good I
know they were spooning a bit when I came on the scene he was dancing
and sitting out with her the night of Georgina Simpsons housewarming
and then he wanted to ram it down my neck it was on account of not
liking to see her a wallflower that was why we had the standup row over
politics he began it not me when he said about Our Lord being a
carpenter at last he made me cry of course a woman is so sensitive
about everything I was fuming with myself after for giving in only for
I knew he was gone on me and the first socialist he said He was he
annoyed me so much I couldnt put him into a temper still he knows a lot
of mixedup things especially about the body and the inside I often
wanted to study up that myself what we have inside us in that family
physician I could always hear his voice talking when the room was
crowded and watch him after that I pretended I had a coolness on with
her over him because he used to be a bit on the jealous side whenever
he asked who are you going to and I said over to Floey and he made me
the present of Byrons poems and the three pairs of gloves so that
finished that I could quite easily get him to make it up any time I
know how Id even supposing he got in with her again and was going out
to see her somewhere Id know if he refused to eat the onions I know
plenty of ways ask him to tuck down the collar of my blouse or touch
him with my veil and gloves on going out 1 kiss then would send them
all spinning however alright well see then let him go to her she of
course would only be too delighted to pretend shes mad in love with him
that I wouldnt so much mind Id just go to her and ask her do you love
him and look her square in the eyes she couldnt fool me but he might
imagine he was and make a declaration to her with his plabbery kind of
a manner like he did to me though I had the devils own job to get it
out of him though I liked him for that it showed he could hold in and
wasnt to be got for the asking he was on the pop of asking me too the
night in the kitchen I was rolling the potato cake theres something I
want to say to you only for I put him off letting on I was in a temper
with my hands and arms full of pasty flour in any case I let out too
much the night before talking of dreams so I didnt want to let him know
more than was good for him she used to be always embracing me Josie
whenever he was there meaning him of course glauming me over and when I
said I washed up and down as far as possible asking me and did you wash
possible the women are always egging on to that putting it on thick
when hes there they know by his sly eye blinking a bit putting on the
indifferent when they come out with something the kind he is what
spoils him I dont wonder in the least because he was very handsome at
that time trying to look like Lord Byron I said I liked though he was
too beautiful for a man and he was a little before we got engaged
afterwards though she didnt like it so much the day I was in fits of
laughing with the giggles I couldnt stop about all my hairpins falling
out one after another with the mass of hair I had youre always in great
humour she said yes because it grigged her because she knew what it
meant because I used to tell her a good bit of what went on between us
not all but just enough to make her mouth water but that wasnt my fault
she didnt darken the door much after we were married I wonder what shes
got like now after living with that dotty husband of hers she had her
face beginning to look drawn and run down the last time I saw her she
must have been just after a row with him because I saw on the moment
she was edging to draw down a conversation about husbands and talk
about him to run him down what was it she told me O yes that sometimes
he used to go to bed with his muddy boots on when the maggot takes him
just imagine having to get into bed with a thing like that that might
murder you any moment what a man well its not the one way everyone goes
mad Poldy anyhow whatever he does always wipes his feet on the mat when
he comes in wet or shine and always blacks his own boots too and he
always takes off his hat when he comes up in the street like then and
now hes going about in his slippers to look for £ 10000 for a postcard
U p up O sweetheart May wouldnt a thing like that simply bore you stiff
to extinction actually too stupid even to take his boots off now what
could you make of a man like that Id rather die 20 times over than
marry another of their sex of course hed never find another woman like
me to put up with him the way I do know me come sleep with me yes and
he knows that too at the bottom of his heart take that Mrs Maybrick
that poisoned her husband for what I wonder in love with some other man
yes it was found out on her wasnt she the downright villain to go and
do a thing like that of course some men can be dreadfully aggravating
drive you mad and always the worst word in the world what do they ask
us to marry them for if were so bad as all that comes to yes because
they cant get on without us white Arsenic she put in his tea off
flypaper wasnt it I wonder why they call it that if I asked him hed say
its from the Greek leave us as wise as we were before she must have
been madly in love with the other fellow to run the chance of being
hanged O she didnt care if that was her nature what could she do
besides theyre not brutes enough to go and hang a woman surely are they

theyre all so different Boylan talking about the shape of my foot he
noticed at once even before he was introduced when I was in the D B C
with Poldy laughing and trying to listen I was waggling my foot we both
ordered 2 teas and plain bread and butter I saw him looking with his
two old maids of sisters when I stood up and asked the girl where it
was what do I care with it dropping out of me and that black closed
breeches he made me buy takes you half an hour to let them down wetting
all myself always with some brandnew fad every other week such a long
one I did I forgot my suede gloves on the seat behind that I never got
after some robber of a woman and he wanted me to put it in the Irish
times lost in the ladies lavatory D B C Dame street finder return to
Mrs Marion Bloom and I saw his eyes on my feet going out through the
turning door he was looking when I looked back and I went there for tea
2 days after in the hope but he wasnt now how did that excite him
because I was crossing them when we were in the other room first he
meant the shoes that are too tight to walk in my hand is nice like that
if I only had a ring with the stone for my month a nice aquamarine Ill
stick him for one and a gold bracelet I dont like my foot so much still
I made him spend once with my foot the night after Goodwins botchup of
a concert so cold and windy it was well we had that rum in the house to
mull and the fire wasnt black out when he asked to take off my
stockings lying on the hearthrug in Lombard street west and another
time it was my muddy boots hed like me to walk in all the horses dung I
could find but of course hes not natural like the rest of the world
that I what did he say I could give 9 points in 10 to Katty Lanner and
beat her what does that mean I asked him I forget what he said because
the stoppress edition just passed and the man with the curly hair in
the Lucan dairy thats so polite I think I saw his face before somewhere
I noticed him when I was tasting the butter so I took my time Bartell
DArcy too that he used to make fun of when he commenced kissing me on
the choir stairs after I sang Gounods _Ave Maria_ what are we waiting
for O my heart kiss me straight on the brow and part which is my brown
part he was pretty hot for all his tinny voice too my low notes he was
always raving about if you can believe him I liked the way he used his
mouth singing then he said wasnt it terrible to do that there in a
place like that I dont see anything so terrible about it Ill tell him
about that some day not now and surprise him ay and Ill take him there
and show him the very place too we did it so now there you are like it
or lump it he thinks nothing can happen without him knowing he hadnt an
idea about my mother till we were engaged otherwise hed never have got
me so cheap as he did he was 10 times worse himself anyhow begging me
to give him a tiny bit cut off my drawers that was the evening coming
along Kenilworth square he kissed me in the eye of my glove and I had
to take it off asking me questions is it permitted to enquire the shape
of my bedroom so I let him keep it as if I forgot it to think of me
when I saw him slip it into his pocket of course hes mad on the subject
of drawers thats plain to be seen always skeezing at those brazenfaced
things on the bicycles with their skirts blowing up to their navels
even when Milly and I were out with him at the open air fete that one
in the cream muslin standing right against the sun so he could see
every atom she had on when he saw me from behind following in the rain
I saw him before he saw me however standing at the corner of the
Harolds cross road with a new raincoat on him with the muffler in the
Zingari colours to show off his complexion and the brown hat looking
slyboots as usual what was he doing there where hed no business they
can go and get whatever they like from anything at all with a skirt on
it and were not to ask any questions but they want to know where were
you where are you going I could feel him coming along skulking after me
his eyes on my neck he had been keeping away from the house he felt it
was getting too warm for him so I halfturned and stopped then he
pestered me to say yes till I took off my glove slowly watching him he
said my openwork sleeves were too cold for the rain anything for an
excuse to put his hand anear me drawers drawers the whole blessed time
till I promised to give him the pair off my doll to carry about in his
waistcoat pocket _O Maria Santisima_ he did look a big fool dreeping in
the rain splendid set of teeth he had made me hungry to look at them
and beseeched of me to lift the orange petticoat I had on with the
sunray pleats that there was nobody he said hed kneel down in the wet
if I didnt so persevering he would too and ruin his new raincoat you
never know what freak theyd take alone with you theyre so savage for it
if anyone was passing so I lifted them a bit and touched his trousers
outside the way I used to Gardner after with my ring hand to keep him
from doing worse where it was too public I was dying to find out was he
circumcised he was shaking like a jelly all over they want to do
everything too quick take all the pleasure out of it and father waiting
all the time for his dinner he told me to say I left my purse in the
butchers and had to go back for it what a Deceiver then he wrote me
that letter with all those words in it how could he have the face to
any woman after his company manners making it so awkward after when we
met asking me have I offended you with my eyelids down of course he saw
I wasnt he had a few brains not like that other fool Henny Doyle he was
always breaking or tearing something in the charades I hate an unlucky
man and if I knew what it meant of course I had to say no for form sake
dont understand you I said and wasnt it natural so it is of course it
used to be written up with a picture of a womans on that wall in
Gibraltar with that word I couldnt find anywhere only for children
seeing it too young then writing every morning a letter sometimes twice
a day I liked the way he made love then he knew the way to take a woman
when he sent me the 8 big poppies because mine was the 8th then I wrote
the night he kissed my heart at Dolphins barn I couldnt describe it
simply it makes you feel like nothing on earth but he never knew how to
embrace well like Gardner I hope hell come on Monday as he said at the
same time four I hate people who come at all hours answer the door you
think its the vegetables then its somebody and you all undressed or the
door of the filthy sloppy kitchen blows open the day old frostyface
Goodwin called about the concert in Lombard street and I just after
dinner all flushed and tossed with boiling old stew dont look at me
professor I had to say Im a fright yes but he was a real old gent in
his way it was impossible to be more respectful nobody to say youre out
you have to peep out through the blind like the messengerboy today I
thought it was a putoff first him sending the port and the peaches
first and I was just beginning to yawn with nerves thinking he was
trying to make a fool of me when I knew his tattarrattat at the door he
must have been a bit late because it was 1/4 after 3 when I saw the 2
Dedalus girls coming from school I never know the time even that watch
he gave me never seems to go properly Id want to get it looked after
when I threw the penny to that lame sailor for England home and beauty
when I was whistling there is a charming girl I love and I hadnt even
put on my clean shift or powdered myself or a thing then this day week
were to go to Belfast just as well he has to go to Ennis his fathers
anniversary the 27th it wouldnt be pleasant if he did suppose our rooms
at the hotel were beside each other and any fooling went on in the new
bed I couldnt tell him to stop and not bother me with him in the next
room or perhaps some protestant clergyman with a cough knocking on the
wall then hed never believe the next day we didnt do something its all
very well a husband but you cant fool a lover after me telling him we
never did anything of course he didnt believe me no its better hes
going where he is besides something always happens with him the time
going to the Mallow concert at Maryborough ordering boiling soup for
the two of us then the bell rang out he walks down the platform with
the soup splashing about taking spoonfuls of it hadnt he the nerve and
the waiter after him making a holy show of us screeching and confusion
for the engine to start but he wouldnt pay till he finished it the two
gentlemen in the 3rd class carriage said he was quite right so he was
too hes so pigheaded sometimes when he gets a thing into his head a
good job he was able to open the carriage door with his knife or theyd
have taken us on to Cork I suppose that was done out of revenge on him
O I love jaunting in a train or a car with lovely soft cushions I
wonder will he take a 1st class for me he might want to do it in the
train by tipping the guard well O I suppose therell be the usual idiots
of men gaping at us with their eyes as stupid as ever they can possibly
be that was an exceptional man that common workman that left us alone
in the carriage that day going to Howth Id like to find out something
about him 1 or 2 tunnels perhaps then you have to look out of the
window all the nicer then coming back suppose I never came back what
would they say eloped with him that gets you on on the stage the last
concert I sang at where its over a year ago when was it St Teresas hall
Clarendon St little chits of missies they have now singing Kathleen
Kearney and her like on account of father being in the army and my
singing the absentminded beggar and wearing a brooch for Lord Roberts
when I had the map of it all and Poldy not Irish enough was it him
managed it this time I wouldnt put it past him like he got me on to
sing in the _Stabat Mater_ by going around saying he was putting Lead
Kindly Light to music I put him up to that till the jesuits found out
he was a freemason thumping the piano lead Thou me on copied from some
old opera yes and he was going about with some of them Sinner Fein
lately or whatever they call themselves talking his usual trash and
nonsense he says that little man he showed me without the neck is very
intelligent the coming man Griffiths is he well he doesnt look it thats
all I can say still it must have been him he knew there was a boycott I
hate the mention of their politics after the war that Pretoria and
Ladysmith and Bloemfontein where Gardner lieut Stanley G 8th Bn 2nd
East Lancs Rgt of enteric fever he was a lovely fellow in khaki and
just the right height over me Im sure he was brave too he said I was
lovely the evening we kissed goodbye at the canal lock my Irish beauty
he was pale with excitement about going away or wed be seen from the
road he couldnt stand properly and I so hot as I never felt they could
have made their peace in the beginning or old oom Paul and the rest of
the other old Krugers go and fight it out between them instead of
dragging on for years killing any finelooking men there were with their
fever if he was even decently shot it wouldnt have been so bad I love
to see a regiment pass in review the first time I saw the Spanish
cavalry at La Roque it was lovely after looking across the bay from
Algeciras all the lights of the rock like fireflies or those sham
battles on the 15 acres the Black Watch with their kilts in time at the
march past the 10th hussars the prince of Wales own or the lancers O
the lancers theyre grand or the Dublins that won Tugela his father made
his money over selling the horses for the cavalry well he could buy me
a nice present up in Belfast after what I gave him theyve lovely linen
up there or one of those nice kimono things I must buy a mothball like
I had before to keep in the drawer with them it would be exciting going
round with him shopping buying those things in a new city better leave
this ring behind want to keep turning and turning to get it over the
knuckle there or they might bell it round the town in their papers or
tell the police on me but theyd think were married O let them all go
and smother themselves for the fat lot I care he has plenty of money
and hes not a marrying man so somebody better get it out of him if I
could find out whether he likes me I looked a bit washy of course when
I looked close in the handglass powdering a mirror never gives you the
expression besides scrooching down on me like that all the time with
his big hipbones hes heavy too with his hairy chest for this heat
always having to lie down for them better for him put it into me from
behind the way Mrs Mastiansky told me her husband made her like the
dogs do it and stick out her tongue as far as ever she could and he so
quiet and mild with his tingating cither can you ever be up to men the
way it takes them lovely stuff in that blue suit he had on and stylish
tie and socks with the skyblue silk things on them hes certainly
welloff I know by the cut his clothes have and his heavy watch but he
was like a perfect devil for a few minutes after he came back with the
stoppress tearing up the tickets and swearing blazes because he lost 20
quid he said he lost over that outsider that won and half he put on for
me on account of Lenehans tip cursing him to the lowest pits that
sponger he was making free with me after the Glencree dinner coming
back that long joult over the featherbed mountain after the lord Mayor
looking at me with his dirty eyes Val Dillon that big heathen I first
noticed him at dessert when I was cracking the nuts with my teeth I
wished I could have picked every morsel of that chicken out of my
fingers it was so tasty and browned and as tender as anything only for
I didnt want to eat everything on my plate those forks and fishslicers
were hallmarked silver too I wish I had some I could easily have
slipped a couple into my muff when I was playing with them then always
hanging out of them for money in a restaurant for the bit you put down
your throat we have to be thankful for our mangy cup of tea itself as a
great compliment to be noticed the way the world is divided in any case
if its going to go on I want at least two other good chemises for one
thing and but I dont know what kind of drawers he likes none at all I
think didnt he say yes and half the girls in Gibraltar never wore them
either naked as God made them that Andalusian singing her Manola she
didnt make much secret of what she hadnt yes and the second pair of
silkette stockings is laddered after one days wear I could have brought
them back to Lewers this morning and kicked up a row and made that one
change them only not to upset myself and run the risk of walking into
him and ruining the whole thing and one of those kidfitting corsets Id
want advertised cheap in the Gentlewoman with elastic gores on the hips
he saved the one I have but thats no good what did they say they give a
delightful figure line 11/6 obviating that unsightly broad appearance
across the lower back to reduce flesh my belly is a bit too big Ill
have to knock off the stout at dinner or am I getting too fond of it
the last they sent from ORourkes was as flat as a pancake he makes his
money easy Larry they call him the old mangy parcel he sent at Xmas a
cottage cake and a bottle of hogwash he tried to palm off as claret
that he couldnt get anyone to drink God spare his spit for fear hed die
of the drouth or I must do a few breathing exercises I wonder is that
antifat any good might overdo it the thin ones are not so much the
fashion now garters that much I have the violet pair I wore today thats
all he bought me out of the cheque he got on the first O no there was
the face lotion I finished the last of yesterday that made my skin like
new I told him over and over again get that made up in the same place
and dont forget it God only knows whether he did after all I said to
him Ill know by the bottle anyway if not I suppose Ill only have to
wash in my piss like beeftea or chickensoup with some of that opoponax
and violet I thought it was beginning to look coarse or old a bit the
skin underneath is much finer where it peeled off there on my finger
after the burn its a pity it isnt all like that and the four paltry
handkerchiefs about 6/- in all sure you cant get on in this world
without style all going in food and rent when I get it Ill lash it
around I tell you in fine style I always want to throw a handful of tea
into the pot measuring and mincing if I buy a pair of old brogues
itself do you like those new shoes yes were they Ive no clothes at all
the brown costume and the skirt and jacket and the one at the cleaners
3 whats that for any woman cutting up this old hat and patching up the
other the men wont look at you and women try to walk on you because
they know youve no man then with all the things getting dearer every
day for the 4 years more I have of life up to 35 no Im what am I at all
Ill be 33 in September will I what O well look at that Mrs Galbraith
shes much older than me I saw her when I was out last week her beautys
on the wane she was a lovely woman magnificent head of hair on her down
to her waist tossing it back like that like Kitty OShea in Grantham
street 1st thing I did every morning to look across see her combing it
as if she loved it and was full of it pity I only got to know her the
day before we left and that Mrs Langtry the jersey lily the prince of
Wales was in love with I suppose hes like the first man going the roads
only for the name of a king theyre all made the one way only a black
mans Id like to try a beauty up to what was she 45 there was some funny
story about the jealous old husband what was it at all and an oyster
knife he went no he made her wear a kind of a tin thing round her and
the prince of Wales yes he had the oyster knife cant be true a thing
like that like some of those books he brings me the works of Master
Francois Somebody supposed to be a priest about a child born out of her
ear because her bumgut fell out a nice word for any priest to write and
her a—e as if any fool wouldnt know what that meant I hate that
pretending of all things with that old blackguards face on him anybody
can see its not true and that Ruby and Fair Tyrants he brought me that
twice I remember when I came to page 50 the part about where she hangs
him up out of a hook with a cord flagellate sure theres nothing for a
woman in that all invention made up about he drinking the champagne out
of her slipper after the ball was over like the infant Jesus in the
crib at Inchicore in the Blessed Virgins arms sure no woman could have
a child that big taken out of her and I thought first it came out of
her side because how could she go to the chamber when she wanted to and
she a rich lady of course she felt honoured H R H he was in Gibraltar
the year I was born I bet he found lilies there too where he planted
the tree he planted more than that in his time he might have planted me
too if hed come a bit sooner then I wouldnt be here as I am he ought to
chuck that Freeman with the paltry few shillings he knocks out of it
and go into an office or something where hed get regular pay or a bank
where they could put him up on a throne to count the money all the day
of course he prefers plottering about the house so you cant stir with
him any side whats your programme today I wish hed even smoke a pipe
like father to get the smell of a man or pretending to be mooching
about for advertisements when he could have been in Mr Cuffes still
only for what he did then sending me to try and patch it up I could
have got him promoted there to be the manager he gave me a great mirada
once or twice first he was as stiff as the mischief really and truly
Mrs Bloom only I felt rotten simply with the old rubbishy dress that I
lost the leads out of the tails with no cut in it but theyre coming
into fashion again I bought it simply to please him I knew it was no
good by the finish pity I changed my mind of going to Todd and Burns as
I said and not Lees it was just like the shop itself rummage sale a lot
of trash I hate those rich shops get on your nerves nothing kills me
altogether only he thinks he knows a great lot about a womans dress and
cooking mathering everything he can scour off the shelves into it if I
went by his advices every blessed hat I put on does that suit me yes
take that thats alright the one like a weddingcake standing up miles
off my head he said suited me or the dishcover one coming down on my
backside on pins and needles about the shopgirl in that place in
Grafton street I had the misfortune to bring him into and she as
insolent as ever she could be with her smirk saying Im afraid were
giving you too much trouble what shes there for but I stared it out of
her yes he was awfully stiff and no wonder but he changed the second
time he looked Poldy pigheaded as usual like the soup but I could see
him looking very hard at my chest when he stood up to open the door for
me it was nice of him to show me out in any case Im extremely sorry Mrs
Bloom believe me without making it too marked the first time after him
being insulted and me being supposed to be his wife I just half smiled
I know my chest was out that way at the door when he said Im extremely
sorry and Im sure you were

yes I think he made them a bit firmer sucking them like that so long he
made me thirsty titties he calls them I had to laugh yes this one
anyhow stiff the nipple gets for the least thing Ill get him to keep
that up and Ill take those eggs beaten up with marsala fatten them out
for him what are all those veins and things curious the way its made 2
the same in case of twins theyre supposed to represent beauty placed up
there like those statues in the museum one of them pretending to hide
it with her hand are they so beautiful of course compared with what a
man looks like with his two bags full and his other thing hanging down
out of him or sticking up at you like a hatrack no wonder they hide it
with a cabbageleaf that disgusting Cameron highlander behind the meat
market or that other wretch with the red head behind the tree where the
statue of the fish used to be when I was passing pretending he was
pissing standing out for me to see it with his babyclothes up to one
side the Queens own they were a nice lot its well the Surreys relieved
them theyre always trying to show it to you every time nearly I passed
outside the mens greenhouse near the Harcourt street station just to
try some fellow or other trying to catch my eye as if it was 1 of the 7
wonders of the world O and the stink of those rotten places the night
coming home with Poldy after the Comerfords party oranges and lemonade
to make you feel nice and watery I went into 1 of them it was so biting
cold I couldnt keep it when was that 93 the canal was frozen yes it was
a few months after a pity a couple of the Camerons werent there to see
me squatting in the mens place meadero I tried to draw a picture of it
before I tore it up like a sausage or something I wonder theyre not
afraid going about of getting a kick or a bang of something there the
woman is beauty of course thats admitted when he said I could pose for
a picture naked to some rich fellow in Holles street when he lost the
job in Helys and I was selling the clothes and strumming in the coffee
palace would I be like that bath of the nymph with my hair down yes
only shes younger or Im a little like that dirty bitch in that Spanish
photo he has nymphs used they go about like that I asked him about her
and that word met something with hoses in it and he came out with some
jawbreakers about the incarnation he never can explain a thing simply
the way a body can understand then he goes and burns the bottom out of
the pan all for his Kidney this one not so much theres the mark of his
teeth still where he tried to bite the nipple I had to scream out arent
they fearful trying to hurt you I had a great breast of milk with Milly
enough for two what was the reason of that he said I could have got a
pound a week as a wet nurse all swelled out the morning that delicate
looking student that stopped in no 28 with the Citrons Penrose nearly
caught me washing through the window only for I snapped up the towel to
my face that was his studenting hurt me they used to weaning her till
he got doctor Brady to give me the belladonna prescription I had to get
him to suck them they were so hard he said it was sweeter and thicker
than cows then he wanted to milk me into the tea well hes beyond
everything I declare somebody ought to put him in the budget if I only
could remember the one half of the things and write a book out of it
the works of Master Poldy yes and its so much smoother the skin much an
hour he was at them Im sure by the clock like some kind of a big infant
I had at me they want everything in their mouth all the pleasure those
men get out of a woman I can feel his mouth O Lord I must stretch
myself I wished he was here or somebody to let myself go with and come
again like that I feel all fire inside me or if I could dream it when
he made me spend the 2nd time tickling me behind with his finger I was
coming for about 5 minutes with my legs round him I had to hug him
after O Lord I wanted to shout out all sorts of things fuck or shit or
anything at all only not to look ugly or those lines from the strain
who knows the way hed take it you want to feel your way with a man
theyre not all like him thank God some of them want you to be so nice
about it I noticed the contrast he does it and doesnt talk I gave my
eyes that look with my hair a bit loose from the tumbling and my tongue
between my lips up to him the savage brute Thursday Friday one Saturday
two Sunday three O Lord I cant wait till Monday

frseeeeeeeefronnnng train somewhere whistling the strength those
engines have in them like big giants and the water rolling all over and
out of them all sides like the end of Loves old sweeeetsonnnng the poor
men that have to be out all the night from their wives and families in
those roasting engines stifling it was today Im glad I burned the half
of those old Freemans and Photo Bits leaving things like that lying
about hes getting very careless and threw the rest of them up in the W
C I’ll get him to cut them tomorrow for me instead of having them there
for the next year to get a few pence for them have him asking wheres
last Januarys paper and all those old overcoats I bundled out of the
hall making the place hotter than it is that rain was lovely and
refreshing just after my beauty sleep I thought it was going to get
like Gibraltar my goodness the heat there before the levanter came on
black as night and the glare of the rock standing up in it like a big
giant compared with their 3 Rock mountain they think is so great with
the red sentries here and there the poplars and they all whitehot and
the smell of the rainwater in those tanks watching the sun all the time
weltering down on you faded all that lovely frock fathers friend Mrs
Stanhope sent me from the B Marche paris what a shame my dearest
Doggerina she wrote on it she was very nice whats this her other name
was just a p c to tell you I sent the little present have just had a
jolly warm bath and feel a very clean dog now enjoyed it wogger she
called him wogger wd give anything to be back in Gib and hear you sing
Waiting and in old Madrid Concone is the name of those exercises he
bought me one of those new some word I couldnt make out shawls amusing
things but tear for the least thing still there lovely I think dont you
will always think of the lovely teas we had together scrumptious
currant scones and raspberry wafers I adore well now dearest Doggerina
be sure and write soon kind she left out regards to your father also
Captain Grove with love yrs affly Hester x x x x x she didnt look a bit
married just like a girl he was years older than her wogger he was
awfully fond of me when he held down the wire with his foot for me to
step over at the bullfight at La Linea when that matador Gomez was
given the bulls ear these clothes we have to wear whoever invented them
expecting you to walk up Killiney hill then for example at that picnic
all staysed up you cant do a blessed thing in them in a crowd run or
jump out of the way thats why I was afraid when that other ferocious
old Bull began to charge the banderilleros with the sashes and the 2
things in their hats and the brutes of men shouting bravo toro sure the
women were as bad in their nice white mantillas ripping all the whole
insides out of those poor horses I never heard of such a thing in all
my life yes he used to break his heart at me taking off the dog barking
in bell lane poor brute and it sick what became of them ever I suppose
theyre dead long ago the 2 of them its like all through a mist makes
you feel so old I made the scones of course I had everything all to
myself then a girl Hester we used to compare our hair mine was thicker
than hers she showed me how to settle it at the back when I put it up
and whats this else how to make a knot on a thread with the one hand we
were like cousins what age was I then the night of the storm I slept in
her bed she had her arms round me then we were fighting in the morning
with the pillow what fun he was watching me whenever he got an
opportunity at the band on the Alameda esplanade when I was with father
and Captain Grove I looked up at the church first and then at the
windows then down and our eyes met I felt something go through me like
all needles my eyes were dancing I remember after when I looked at
myself in the glass hardly recognised myself the change he was
attractive to a girl in spite of his being a little bald intelligent
looking disappointed and gay at the same time he was like Thomas in the
shadow of Ashlydyat I had a splendid skin from the sun and the
excitement like a rose I didnt get a wink of sleep it wouldnt have been
nice on account of her but I could have stopped it in time she gave me
the Moonstone to read that was the first I read of Wilkie Collins East
Lynne I read and the shadow of Ashlydyat Mrs Henry Wood Henry Dunbar by
that other woman I lent him afterwards with Mulveys photo in it so as
he see I wasnt without and Lord Lytton Eugene Aram Molly bawn she gave
me by Mrs Hungerford on account of the name I dont like books with a
Molly in them like that one he brought me about the one from Flanders a
whore always shoplifting anything she could cloth and stuff and yards
of it O this blanket is too heavy on me thats better I havent even one
decent nightdress this thing gets all rolled under me besides him and
his fooling thats better I used to be weltering then in the heat my
shift drenched with the sweat stuck in the cheeks of my bottom on the
chair when I stood up they were so fattish and firm when I got up on
the sofa cushions to see with my clothes up and the bugs tons of them
at night and the mosquito nets I couldnt read a line Lord how long ago
it seems centuries of course they never came back and she didnt put her
address right on it either she may have noticed her wogger people were
always going away and we never I remember that day with the waves and
the boats with their high heads rocking and the smell of ship those
Officers uniforms on shore leave made me seasick he didnt say anything
he was very serious I had the high buttoned boots on and my skirt was
blowing she kissed me six or seven times didnt I cry yes I believe I
did or near it my lips were taittering when I said goodbye she had a
Gorgeous wrap of some special kind of blue colour on her for the voyage
made very peculiarly to one side like and it was extremely pretty it
got as dull as the devil after they went I was almost planning to run
away mad out of it somewhere were never easy where we are father or
aunt or marriage waiting always waiting to guiiiide him toooo me
waiting nor speeeed his flying feet their damn guns bursting and
booming all over the shop especially the Queens birthday and throwing
everything down in all directions if you didnt open the windows when
general Ulysses Grant whoever he was or did supposed to be some great
fellow landed off the ship and old Sprague the consul that was there
from before the flood dressed up poor man and he in mourning for the
son then the same old bugles for reveille in the morning and drums
rolling and the unfortunate poor devils of soldiers walking about with
messtins smelling the place more than the old longbearded jews in their
jellibees and levites assembly and sound clear and gunfire for the men
to cross the lines and the warden marching with his keys to lock the
gates and the bagpipes and only captain Groves and father talking about
Rorkes drift and Plevna and sir Garnet Wolseley and Gordon at Khartoum
lighting their pipes for them everytime they went out drunken old devil
with his grog on the windowsill catch him leaving any of it picking his
nose trying to think of some other dirty story to tell up in a corner
but he never forgot himself when I was there sending me out of the room
on some blind excuse paying his compliments the Bushmills whisky
talking of course but hed do the same to the next woman that came along
I suppose he died of galloping drink ages ago the days like years not a
letter from a living soul except the odd few I posted to myself with
bits of paper in them so bored sometimes I could fight with my nails
listening to that old Arab with the one eye and his heass of an
instrument singing his heah heah aheah all my compriment on your
hotchapotch of your heass as bad as now with the hands hanging off me
looking out of the window if there was a nice fellow even in the
opposite house that medical in Holles street the nurse was after when I
put on my gloves and hat at the window to show I was going out not a
notion what I meant arent they thick never understand what you say even
youd want to print it up on a big poster for them not even if you shake
hands twice with the left he didnt recognise me either when I half
frowned at him outside Westland row chapel where does their great
intelligence come in Id like to know grey matter they have it all in
their tail if you ask me those country gougers up in the City Arms
intelligence they had a damn sight less than the bulls and cows they
were selling the meat and the coalmans bell that noisy bugger trying to
swindle me with the wrong bill he took out of his hat what a pair of
paws and pots and pans and kettles to mend any broken bottles for a
poor man today and no visitors or post ever except his cheques or some
advertisement like that wonderworker they sent him addressed dear Madam
only his letter and the card from Milly this morning see she wrote a
letter to him who did I get the last letter from O Mrs Dwenn now what
possessed her to write from Canada after so many years to know the
recipe I had for pisto madrileno Floey Dillon since she wrote to say
she was married to a very rich architect if Im to believe all I hear
with a villa and eight rooms her father was an awfully nice man he was
near seventy always goodhumoured well now Miss Tweedy or Miss Gillespie
theres the piannyer that was a solid silver coffee service he had too
on the mahogany sideboard then dying so far away I hate people that
have always their poor story to tell everybody has their own troubles
that poor Nancy Blake died a month ago of acute neumonia well I didnt
know her so well as all that she was Floeys friend more than mine poor
Nancy its a bother having to answer he always tells me the wrong things
and no stops to say like making a speech your sad bereavement
symph̸athy I always make that mistake and new̸phew with 2 double yous
in I hope hell write me a longer letter the next time if its a thing he
really likes me O thanks be to the great God I got somebody to give me
what I badly wanted to put some heart up into me youve no chances at
all in this place like you used long ago I wish somebody would write me
a loveletter his wasnt much and I told him he could write what he liked
yours ever Hugh Boylan in old Madrid stuff silly women believe love is
sighing I am dying still if he wrote it I suppose thered be some truth
in it true or no it fills up your whole day and life always something
to think about every moment and see it all round you like a new world I
could write the answer in bed to let him imagine me short just a few
words not those long crossed letters Atty Dillon used to write to the
fellow that was something in the four courts that jilted her after out
of the ladies letterwriter when I told her to say a few simple words he
could twist how he liked not acting with precipat precipitancy with
equal candour the greatest earthly happiness answer to a gentlemans
proposal affirmatively my goodness theres nothing else its all very
fine for them but as for being a woman as soon as youre old they might
as well throw you out in the bottom of the ashpit.

Mulveys was the first when I was in bed that morning and Mrs Rubio
brought it in with the coffee she stood there standing when I asked her
to hand me and I pointing at them I couldnt think of the word a hairpin
to open it with ah horquilla disobliging old thing and it staring her
in the face with her switch of false hair on her and vain about her
appearance ugly as she was near 80 or a 100 her face a mass of wrinkles
with all her religion domineering because she never could get over the
Atlantic fleet coming in half the ships of the world and the Union Jack
flying with all her carabineros because 4 drunken English sailors took
all the rock from them and because I didnt run into mass often enough
in Santa Maria to please her with her shawl up on her except when there
was a marriage on with all her miracles of the saints and her black
blessed virgin with the silver dress and the sun dancing 3 times on
Easter Sunday morning and when the priest was going by with the bell
bringing the vatican to the dying blessing herself for his Majestad an
admirer he signed it I near jumped out of my skin I wanted to pick him
up when I saw him following me along the Calle Real in the shop window
then he tipped me just in passing but I never thought hed write making
an appointment I had it inside my petticoat bodice all day reading it
up in every hole and corner while father was up at the drill
instructing to find out by the handwriting or the language of stamps
singing I remember shall I wear a white rose and I wanted to put on the
old stupid clock to near the time he was the first man kissed me under
the Moorish wall my sweetheart when a boy it never entered my head what
kissing meant till he put his tongue in my mouth his mouth was
sweetlike young I put my knee up to him a few times to learn the way
what did I tell him I was engaged for for fun to the son of a Spanish
nobleman named Don Miguel de la Flora and he believed me that I was to
be married to him in 3 years time theres many a true word spoken in
jest there is a flower that bloometh a few things I told him true about
myself just for him to be imagining the Spanish girls he didnt like I
suppose one of them wouldnt have him I got him excited he crushed all
the flowers on my bosom he brought me he couldnt count the pesetas and
the perragordas till I taught him Cappoquin he came from he said on the
black water but it was too short then the day before he left May yes it
was May when the infant king of Spain was born Im always like that in
the spring Id like a new fellow every year up on the tiptop under the
rockgun near OHaras tower I told him it was struck by lightning and all
about the old Barbary apes they sent to Clapham without a tail
careering all over the show on each others back Mrs Rubio said she was
a regular old rock scorpion robbing the chickens out of Inces farm and
throw stones at you if you went anear he was looking at me I had that
white blouse on open in the front to encourage him as much as I could
without too openly they were just beginning to be plump I said I was
tired we lay over the firtree cove a wild place I suppose it must be
the highest rock in existence the galleries and casemates and those
frightful rocks and Saint Michaels cave with the icicles or whatever
they call them hanging down and ladders all the mud plotching my boots
Im sure thats the way down the monkeys go under the sea to Africa when
they die the ships out far like chips that was the Malta boat passing
yes the sea and the sky you could do what you liked lie there for ever
he caressed them outside they love doing that its the roundness there I
was leaning over him with my white ricestraw hat to take the newness
out of it the left side of my face the best my blouse open for his last
day transparent kind of shirt he had I could see his chest pink he
wanted to touch mine with his for a moment but I wouldnt let him he was
awfully put out first for fear you never know consumption or leave me
with a child embarazada that old servant Ines told me that one drop
even if it got into you at all after I tried with the Banana but I was
afraid it might break and get lost up in me somewhere because they once
took something down out of a woman that was up there for years covered
with limesalts theyre all mad to get in there where they come out of
youd think they could never go far enough up and then theyre done with
you in a way till the next time yes because theres a wonderful feeling
there so tender all the time how did we finish it off yes O yes I
pulled him off into my handkerchief pretending not to be excited but I
opened my legs I wouldnt let him touch me inside my petticoat because I
had a skirt opening up the side I tormented the life out of him first
tickling him I loved rousing that dog in the hotel rrrsssstt
awokwokawok his eyes shut and a bird flying below us he was shy all the
same I liked him like that moaning I made him blush a little when I got
over him that way when I unbuttoned him and took his out and drew back
the skin it had a kind of eye in it theyre all Buttons men down the
middle on the wrong side of them Molly darling he called me what was
his name Jack Joe Harry Mulvey was it yes I think a lieutenant he was
rather fair he had a laughing kind of a voice so I went round to the
whatyoucallit everything was whatyoucallit moustache had he he said hed
come back Lord its just like yesterday to me and if I was married hed
do it to me and I promised him yes faithfully Id let him block me now
flying perhaps hes dead or killed or a captain or admiral its nearly 20
years if I said firtree cove he would if he came up behind me and put
his hands over my eyes to guess who I might recognise him hes young
still about 40 perhaps hes married some girl on the black water and is
quite changed they all do they havent half the character a woman has
she little knows what I did with her beloved husband before he ever
dreamt of her in broad daylight too in the sight of the whole world you
might say they could have put an article about it in the Chronicle I
was a bit wild after when I blew out the old bag the biscuits were in
from Benady Bros and exploded it Lord what a bang all the woodcocks and
pigeons screaming coming back the same way that we went over middle
hill round by the old guardhouse and the jews burialplace pretending to
read out the Hebrew on them I wanted to fire his pistol he said he
hadnt one he didnt know what to make of me with his peak cap on that he
always wore crooked as often as I settled it straight H M S Calypso
swinging my hat that old Bishop that spoke off the altar his long
preach about womans higher functions about girls now riding the bicycle
and wearing peak caps and the new woman bloomers God send him sense and
me more money I suppose theyre called after him I never thought that
would be my name Bloom when I used to write it in print to see how it
looked on a visiting card or practising for the butcher and oblige M
Bloom youre looking blooming Josie used to say after I married him well
its better than Breen or Briggs does brig or those awful names with
bottom in them Mrs Ramsbottom or some other kind of a bottom Mulvey I
wouldnt go mad about either or suppose I divorced him Mrs Boylan my
mother whoever she was might have given me a nicer name the Lord knows
after the lovely one she had Lunita Laredo the fun we had running along
Williss road to Europa point twisting in and out all round the other
side of Jersey they were shaking and dancing about in my blouse like
Millys little ones now when she runs up the stairs I loved looking down
at them I was jumping up at the pepper trees and the white poplars
pulling the leaves off and throwing them at him he went to India he was
to write the voyages those men have to make to the ends of the world
and back its the least they might get a squeeze or two at a woman while
they can going out to be drowned or blown up somewhere I went up
Windmill hill to the flats that Sunday morning with captain Rubios that
was dead spyglass like the sentry had he said hed have one or two from
on board I wore that frock from the B Marche paris and the coral
necklace the straits shining I could see over to Morocco almost the bay
of Tangier white and the Atlas mountain with snow on it and the straits
like a river so clear Harry Molly darling I was thinking of him on the
sea all the time after at mass when my petticoat began to slip down at
the elevation weeks and weeks I kept the handkerchief under my pillow
for the smell of him there was no decent perfume to be got in that
Gibraltar only that cheap peau dEspagne that faded and left a stink on
you more than anything else I wanted to give him a memento he gave me
that clumsy Claddagh ring for luck that I gave Gardner going to south
Africa where those Boers killed him with their war and fever but they
were well beaten all the same as if it brought its bad luck with it
like an opal or pearl still it must have been pure 18 carrot gold
because it was very heavy but what could you get in a place like that
the sandfrog shower from Africa and that derelict ship that came up to
the harbour Marie the Marie whatyoucallit no he hadnt a moustache that
was Gardner yes I can see his face cleanshaven
Frseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeefrong that train again weeping tone once in the
dear deaead days beyondre call close my eyes breath my lips forward
kiss sad look eyes open piano ere oer the world the mists began I hate
that istsbeg comes loves sweet sooooooooooong Ill let that out full
when I get in front of the footlights again Kathleen Kearney and her
lot of squealers Miss This Miss That Miss Theother lot of sparrowfarts
skitting around talking about politics they know as much about as my
backside anything in the world to make themselves someway interesting
Irish homemade beauties soldiers daughter am I ay and whose are you
bootmakers and publicans I beg your pardon coach I thought you were a
wheelbarrow theyd die down dead off their feet if ever they got a
chance of walking down the Alameda on an officers arm like me on the
bandnight my eyes flash my bust that they havent passion God help their
poor head I knew more about men and life when I was 15 than theyll all
know at 50 they dont know how to sing a song like that Gardner said no
man could look at my mouth and teeth smiling like that and not think of
it I was afraid he mightnt like my accent first he so English all
father left me in spite of his stamps Ive my mothers eyes and figure
anyhow he always said theyre so snotty about themselves some of those
cads he wasnt a bit like that he was dead gone on my lips let them get
a husband first thats fit to be looked at and a daughter like mine or
see if they can excite a swell with money that can pick and choose
whoever he wants like Boylan to do it 4 or 5 times locked in each
others arms or the voice either I could have been a prima donna only I
married him comes looooves old deep down chin back not too much make it
double My Ladys Bower is too long for an encore about the moated grange
at twilight and vaunted rooms yes Ill sing Winds that blow from the
south that he gave after the choirstairs performance Ill change that
lace on my black dress to show off my bubs and Ill yes by God Ill get
that big fan mended make them burst with envy my hole is itching me
always when I think of him I feel I want to I feel some wind in me
better go easy not wake him have him at it again slobbering after
washing every bit of myself back belly and sides if we had even a bath
itself or my own room anyway I wish hed sleep in some bed by himself
with his cold feet on me give us room even to let a fart God or do the
least thing better yes hold them like that a bit on my side piano
quietly sweeeee theres that train far away pianissimo eeeee one more
song

that was a relief wherever you be let your wind go free who knows if
that pork chop I took with my cup of tea after was quite good with the
heat I couldnt smell anything off it Im sure that queerlooking man in
the porkbutchers is a great rogue I hope that lamp is not smoking fill
my nose up with smuts better than having him leaving the gas on all
night I couldnt rest easy in my bed in Gibraltar even getting up to see
why am I so damned nervous about that though I like it in the winter
its more company O Lord it was rotten cold too that winter when I was
only about ten was I yes I had the big doll with all the funny clothes
dressing her up and undressing that icy wind skeeting across from those
mountains the something Nevada sierra nevada standing at the fire with
the little bit of a short shift I had up to heat myself I loved dancing
about in it then make a race back into bed Im sure that fellow opposite
used to be there the whole time watching with the lights out in the
summer and I in my skin hopping around I used to love myself then
stripped at the washstand dabbing and creaming only when it came to the
chamber performance I put out the light too so then there were 2 of us
goodbye to my sleep for this night anyhow I hope hes not going to get
in with those medicals leading him astray to imagine hes young again
coming in at 4 in the morning it must be if not more still he had the
manners not to wake me what do they find to gabber about all night
squandering money and getting drunker and drunker couldnt they drink
water then he starts giving us his orders for eggs and tea and Findon
haddy and hot buttered toast I suppose well have him sitting up like
the king of the country pumping the wrong end of the spoon up and down
in his egg wherever he learned that from and I love to hear him falling
up the stairs of a morning with the cups rattling on the tray and then
play with the cat she rubs up against you for her own sake I wonder has
she fleas shes as bad as a woman always licking and lecking but I hate
their claws I wonder do they see anything that we cant staring like
that when she sits at the top of the stairs so long and listening as I
wait always what a robber too that lovely fresh plaice I bought I think
Ill get a bit of fish tomorrow or today is it Friday yes I will with
some blancmange with black currant jam like long ago not those 2 lb
pots of mixed plum and apple from the London and Newcastle Williams and
Woods goes twice as far only for the bones I hate those eels cod yes
Ill get a nice piece of cod Im always getting enough for 3 forgetting
anyway Im sick of that everlasting butchers meat from Buckleys loin
chops and leg beef and rib steak and scrag of mutton and calfs pluck
the very name is enough or a picnic suppose we all gave 5/- each and or
let him pay it and invite some other woman for him who Mrs Fleming and
drove out to the furry glen or the strawberry beds wed have him
examining all the horses toenails first like he does with the letters
no not with Boylan there yes with some cold veal and ham mixed
sandwiches there are little houses down at the bottom of the banks
there on purpose but its as hot as blazes he says not a bank holiday
anyhow I hate those ruck of Mary Ann coalboxes out for the day Whit
Monday is a cursed day too no wonder that bee bit him better the
seaside but Id never again in this life get into a boat with him after
him at Bray telling the boatman he knew how to row if anyone asked
could he ride the steeplechase for the gold cup hed say yes then it
came on to get rough the old thing crookeding about and the weight all
down my side telling me pull the right reins now pull the left and the
tide all swamping in floods in through the bottom and his oar slipping
out of the stirrup its a mercy we werent all drowned he can swim of
course me no theres no danger whatsoever keep yourself calm in his
flannel trousers Id like to have tattered them down off him before all
the people and give him what that one calls flagellate till he was
black and blue do him all the good in the world only for that longnosed
chap I dont know who he is with that other beauty Burke out of the City
Arms hotel was there spying around as usual on the slip always where he
wasnt wanted if there was a row on youd vomit a better face there was
no love lost between us thats 1 consolation I wonder what kind is that
book he brought me Sweets of Sin by a gentleman of fashion some other
Mr de Kock I suppose the people gave him that nickname going about with
his tube from one woman to another I couldnt even change my new white
shoes all ruined with the saltwater and the hat I had with that feather
all blowy and tossed on me how annoying and provoking because the smell
of the sea excited me of course the sardines and the bream in Catalan
bay round the back of the rock they were fine all silver in the
fishermens baskets old Luigi near a hundred they said came from Genoa
and the tall old chap with the earrings I dont like a man you have to
climb up to to get at I suppose theyre all dead and rotten long ago
besides I dont like being alone in this big barracks of a place at
night I suppose Ill have to put up with it I never brought a bit of
salt in even when we moved in the confusion musical academy he was
going to make on the first floor drawingroom with a brassplate or
Blooms private hotel he suggested go and ruin himself altogether the
way his father did down in Ennis like all the things he told father he
was going to do and me but I saw through him telling me all the lovely
places we could go for the honeymoon Venice by moonlight with the
gondolas and the lake of Como he had a picture cut out of some paper of
and mandolines and lanterns O how nice I said whatever I liked he was
going to do immediately if not sooner will you be my man will you carry
my can he ought to get a leather medal with a putty rim for all the
plans he invents then leaving us here all day youd never know what old
beggar at the door for a crust with his long story might be a tramp and
put his foot in the way to prevent me shutting it like that picture of
that hardened criminal he was called in Lloyds Weekly news 20 years in
jail then he comes out and murders an old woman for her money imagine
his poor wife or mother or whoever she is such a face youd run miles
away from I couldnt rest easy till I bolted all the doors and windows
to make sure but its worse again being locked up like in a prison or a
madhouse they ought to be all shot or the cat of nine tails a big brute
like that that would attack a poor old woman to murder her in her bed
Id cut them off him so I would not that hed be much use still better
than nothing the night I was sure I heard burglars in the kitchen and
he went down in his shirt with a candle and a poker as if he was
looking for a mouse as white as a sheet frightened out of his wits
making as much noise as he possibly could for the burglars benefit
there isnt much to steal indeed the Lord knows still its the feeling
especially now with Milly away such an idea for him to send the girl
down there to learn to take photographs on account of his grandfather
instead of sending her to Skerrys academy where shed have to learn not
like me getting all at school only hed do a thing like that all the
same on account of me and Boylan thats why he did it Im certain the way
he plots and plans everything out I couldnt turn round with her in the
place lately unless I bolted the door first gave me the fidgets coming
in without knocking first when I put the chair against the door just as
I was washing myself there below with the glove get on your nerves then
doing the loglady all day put her in a glasscase with two at a time to
look at her if he knew she broke off the hand off that little gimcrack
statue with her roughness and carelessness before she left that I got
that little Italian boy to mend so that you cant see the join for 2
shillings wouldnt even teem the potatoes for you of course shes right
not to ruin her hands I noticed he was always talking to her lately at
the table explaining things in the paper and she pretending to
understand sly of course that comes from his side of the house he cant
say I pretend things can he Im too honest as a matter of fact and
helping her into her coat but if there was anything wrong with her its
me shed tell not him I suppose he thinks Im finished out and laid on
the shelf well Im not no nor anything like it well see well see now
shes well on for flirting too with Tom Devans two sons imitating me
whistling with those romps of Murray girls calling for her can Milly
come out please shes in great demand to pick what they can out of her
round in Nelson street riding Harry Devans bicycle at night its as well
he sent her where she is she was just getting out of bounds wanting to
go on the skatingrink and smoking their cigarettes through their nose I
smelt it off her dress when I was biting off the thread of the button I
sewed on to the bottom of her jacket she couldnt hide much from me I
tell you only I oughtnt to have stitched it and it on her it brings a
parting and the last plumpudding too split in 2 halves see it comes out
no matter what they say her tongue is a bit too long for my taste your
blouse is open too low she says to me the pan calling the kettle
blackbottom and I had to tell her not to cock her legs up like that on
show on the windowsill before all the people passing they all look at
her like me when I was her age of course any old rag looks well on you
then a great touchmenot too in her own way at the Only Way in the
Theatre royal take your foot away out of that I hate people touching me
afraid of her life Id crush her skirt with the pleats a lot of that
touching must go on in theatres in the crush in the dark theyre always
trying to wiggle up to you that fellow in the pit at the Gaiety for
Beerbohm Tree in Trilby the last time Ill ever go there to be squashed
like that for any Trilby or her barebum every two minutes tipping me
there and looking away hes a bit daft I think I saw him after trying to
get near two stylishdressed ladies outside Switzers window at the same
little game I recognised him on the moment the face and everything but
he didnt remember me yes and she didnt even want me to kiss her at the
Broadstone going away well I hope shell get someone to dance attendance
on her the way I did when she was down with the mumps and her glands
swollen wheres this and wheres that of course she cant feel anything
deep yet I never came properly till I was what 22 or so it went into
the wrong place always only the usual girls nonsense and giggling that
Conny Connolly writing to her in white ink on black paper sealed with
sealingwax though she clapped when the curtain came down because he
looked so handsome then we had Martin Harvey for breakfast dinner and
supper I thought to myself afterwards it must be real love if a man
gives up his life for her that way for nothing I suppose there are a
few men like that left its hard to believe in it though unless it
really happened to me the majority of them with not a particle of love
in their natures to find two people like that nowadays full up of each
other that would feel the same way as you do theyre usually a bit
foolish in the head his father must have been a bit queer to go and
poison himself after her still poor old man I suppose he felt lost shes
always making love to my things too the few old rags I have wanting to
put her hair up at 15 my powder too only ruin her skin on her shes time
enough for that all her life after of course shes restless knowing shes
pretty with her lips so red a pity they wont stay that way I was too
but theres no use going to the fair with the thing answering me like a
fishwoman when I asked to go for a half a stone of potatoes the day we
met Mrs Joe Gallaher at the trottingmatches and she pretended not to
see us in her trap with Friery the solicitor we werent grand enough
till I gave her 2 damn fine cracks across the ear for herself take that
now for answering me like that and that for your impudence she had me
that exasperated of course contradicting I was badtempered too because
how was it there was a weed in the tea or I didnt sleep the night
before cheese I ate was it and I told her over and over again not to
leave knives crossed like that because she has nobody to command her as
she said herself well if he doesnt correct her faith I will that was
the last time she turned on the teartap I was just like that myself
they darent order me about the place its his fault of course having the
two of us slaving here instead of getting in a woman long ago am I ever
going to have a proper servant again of course then shed see him coming
Id have to let her know or shed revenge it arent they a nuisance that
old Mrs Fleming you have to be walking round after her putting the
things into her hands sneezing and farting into the pots well of course
shes old she cant help it a good job I found that rotten old smelly
dishcloth that got lost behind the dresser I knew there was something
and opened the area window to let out the smell bringing in his friends
to entertain them like the night he walked home with a dog if you
please that might have been mad especially Simon Dedalus son his father
such a criticiser with his glasses up with his tall hat on him at the
cricket match and a great big hole in his sock one thing laughing at
the other and his son that got all those prizes for whatever he won
them in the intermediate imagine climbing over the railings if anybody
saw him that knew us I wonder he didnt tear a big hole in his grand
funeral trousers as if the one nature gave wasnt enough for anybody
hawking him down into the dirty old kitchen now is he right in his head
I ask pity it wasnt washing day my old pair of drawers might have been
hanging up too on the line on exhibition for all hed ever care with the
ironmould mark the stupid old bundle burned on them he might think was
something else and she never even rendered down the fat I told her and
now shes going such as she was on account of her paralysed husband
getting worse theres always something wrong with them disease or they
have to go under an operation or if its not that its drink and he beats
her Ill have to hunt around again for someone every day I get up theres
some new thing on sweet God sweet God well when Im stretched out dead
in my grave I suppose Ill have some peace I want to get up a minute if
Im let wait O Jesus wait yes that thing has come on me yes now wouldnt
that afflict you of course all the poking and rooting and ploughing he
had up in me now what am I to do Friday Saturday Sunday wouldnt that
pester the soul out of a body unless he likes it some men do God knows
theres always something wrong with us 5 days every 3 or 4 weeks usual
monthly auction isnt it simply sickening that night it came on me like
that the one and only time we were in a box that Michael Gunn gave him
to see Mrs Kendal and her husband at the Gaiety something he did about
insurance for him in Drimmies I was fit to be tied though I wouldnt
give in with that gentleman of fashion staring down at me with his
glasses and him the other side of me talking about Spinoza and his soul
thats dead I suppose millions of years ago I smiled the best I could
all in a swamp leaning forward as if I was interested having to sit it
out then to the last tag I wont forget that wife of Scarli in a hurry
supposed to be a fast play about adultery that idiot in the gallery
hissing the woman adulteress he shouted I suppose he went and had a
woman in the next lane running round all the back ways after to make up
for it I wish he had what I had then hed boo I bet the cat itself is
better off than us have we too much blood up in us or what O patience
above its pouring out of me like the sea anyhow he didnt make me
pregnant as big as he is I dont want to ruin the clean sheets I just
put on I suppose the clean linen I wore brought it on too damn it damn
it and they always want to see a stain on the bed to know youre a
virgin for them all thats troubling them theyre such fools too you
could be a widow or divorced 40 times over a daub of red ink would do
or blackberry juice no thats too purply O Jamesy let me up out of this
pooh sweets of sin whoever suggested that business for women what
between clothes and cooking and children this damned old bed too
jingling like the dickens I suppose they could hear us away over the
other side of the park till I suggested to put the quilt on the floor
with the pillow under my bottom I wonder is it nicer in the day I think
it is easy I think Ill cut all this hair off me there scalding me I
might look like a young girl wouldnt he get the great suckin the next
time he turned up my clothes on me Id give anything to see his face
wheres the chamber gone easy Ive a holy horror of its breaking under me
after that old commode I wonder was I too heavy sitting on his knee I
made him sit on the easychair purposely when I took off only my blouse
and skirt first in the other room he was so busy where he oughtnt to be
he never felt me I hope my breath was sweet after those kissing comfits
easy God I remember one time I could scout it out straight whistling
like a man almost easy O Lord how noisy I hope theyre bubbles on it for
a wad of money from some fellow Ill have to perfume it in the morning
dont forget I bet he never saw a better pair of thighs than that look
how white they are the smoothest place is right there between this bit
here how soft like a peach easy God I wouldnt mind being a man and get
up on a lovely woman O Lord what a row youre making like the jersey
lily easy easy O how the waters come down at Lahore

who knows is there anything the matter with my insides or have I
something growing in me getting that thing like that every week when
was it last I Whit Monday yes its only about 3 weeks I ought to go to
the doctor only it would be like before I married him when I had that
white thing coming from me and Floey made me go to that dry old stick
Dr Collins for womens diseases on Pembroke road your vagina he called
it I suppose thats how he got all the gilt mirrors and carpets getting
round those rich ones off Stephens green running up to him for every
little fiddlefaddle her vagina and her cochinchina theyve money of
course so theyre all right I wouldnt marry him not if he was the last
man in the world besides theres something queer about their children
always smelling around those filthy bitches all sides asking me if what
I did had an offensive odour what did he want me to do but the one
thing gold maybe what a question if I smathered it all over his wrinkly
old face for him with all my compriments I suppose hed know then and
could you pass it easily pass what I thought he was talking about the
rock of Gibraltar the way he put it thats a very nice invention too by
the way only I like letting myself down after in the hole as far as I
can squeeze and pull the chain then to flush it nice cool pins and
needles still theres something in it I suppose I always used to know by
Millys when she was a child whether she had worms or not still all the
same paying him for that how much is that doctor one guinea please and
asking me had I frequent omissions where do those old fellows get all
the words they have omissions with his shortsighted eyes on me cocked
sideways I wouldnt trust him too far to give me chloroform or God knows
what else still I liked him when he sat down to write the thing out
frowning so severe his nose intelligent like that you be damned you
lying strap O anything no matter who except an idiot he was clever
enough to spot that of course that was all thinking of him and his mad
crazy letters my Precious one everything connected with your glorious
Body everything underlined that comes from it is a thing of beauty and
of joy for ever something he got out of some nonsensical book that he
had me always at myself 4 and 5 times a day sometimes and I said I
hadnt are you sure O yes I said I am quite sure in a way that shut him
up I knew what was coming next only natural weakness it was he excited
me I dont know how the first night ever we met when I was living in
Rehoboth terrace we stood staring at one another for about 10 minutes
as if we met somewhere I suppose on account of my being jewess looking
after my mother he used to amuse me the things he said with the half
sloothering smile on him and all the Doyles said he was going to stand
for a member of Parliament O wasnt I the born fool to believe all his
blather about home rule and the land league sending me that long strool
of a song out of the Huguenots to sing in French to be more classy O
beau pays de la Touraine that I never even sang once explaining and
rigmaroling about religion and persecution he wont let you enjoy
anything naturally then might he as a great favour the very 1st
opportunity he got a chance in Brighton square running into my bedroom
pretending the ink got on his hands to wash it off with the Albion milk
and sulphur soap I used to use and the gelatine still round it O I
laughed myself sick at him that day I better not make an alnight
sitting on this affair they ought to make chambers a natural size so
that a woman could sit on it properly he kneels down to do it I suppose
there isnt in all creation another man with the habits he has look at
the way hes sleeping at the foot of the bed how can he without a hard
bolster its well he doesnt kick or he might knock out all my teeth
breathing with his hand on his nose like that Indian god he took me to
show one wet Sunday in the museum in Kildare street all yellow in a
pinafore lying on his side on his hand with his ten toes sticking out
that he said was a bigger religion than the jews and Our Lords both put
together all over Asia imitating him as hes always imitating everybody
I suppose he used to sleep at the foot of the bed too with his big
square feet up in his wifes mouth damn this stinking thing anyway
wheres this those napkins are ah yes I know I hope the old press doesnt
creak ah I knew it would hes sleeping hard had a good time somewhere
still she must have given him great value for his money of course he
has to pay for it from her O this nuisance of a thing I hope theyll
have something better for us in the other world tying ourselves up God
help us thats all right for tonight now the lumpy old jingly bed always
reminds me of old Cohen I suppose he scratched himself in it often
enough and he thinks father bought it from Lord Napier that I used to
admire when I was a little girl because I told him easy piano O I like
my bed God here we are as bad as ever after 16 years how many houses
were we in at all Raymond terrace and Ontario terrace and Lombard
street and Holles street and he goes about whistling every time were on
the run again his huguenots or the frogs march pretending to help the
men with our 4 sticks of furniture and then the City Arms hotel worse
and worse says Warden Daly that charming place on the landing always
somebody inside praying then leaving all their stinks after them always
know who was in there last every time were just getting on right
something happens or he puts his big foot in it Thoms and Helys and Mr
Cuffes and Drimmies either hes going to be run into prison over his old
lottery tickets that was to be all our salvations or he goes and gives
impudence well have him coming home with the sack soon out of the
Freeman too like the rest on account of those Sinner Fein or the
freemasons then well see if the little man he showed me dribbling along
in the wet all by himself round by Coadys lane will give him much
consolation that he says is so capable and sincerely Irish he is indeed
judging by the sincerity of the trousers I saw on him wait theres
Georges church bells wait 3 quarters the hour wait two oclock well
thats a nice hour of the night for him to be coming home at to anybody
climbing down into the area if anybody saw him Ill knock him off that
little habit tomorrow first Ill look at his shirt to see or Ill see if
he has that French letter still in his pocketbook I suppose he thinks I
dont know deceitful men all their 20 pockets arent enough for their
lies then why should we tell them even if its the truth they dont
believe you then tucked up in bed like those babies in the Aristocrats
Masterpiece he brought me another time as if we hadnt enough of that in
real life without some old Aristocrat or whatever his name is
disgusting you more with those rotten pictures children with two heads
and no legs thats the kind of villainy theyre always dreaming about
with not another thing in their empty heads they ought to get slow
poison the half of them then tea and toast for him buttered on both
sides and newlaid eggs I suppose Im nothing any more when I wouldnt let
him lick me in Holles street one night man man tyrant as ever for the
one thing he slept on the floor half the night naked the way the jews
used when somebody dies belonged to them and wouldnt eat any breakfast
or speak a word wanting to be petted so I thought I stood out enough
for one time and let him he does it all wrong too thinking only of his
own pleasure his tongue is too flat or I dont know what he forgets that
wethen I dont Ill make him do it again if he doesnt mind himself and
lock him down to sleep in the coalcellar with the blackbeetles I wonder
was it her Josie off her head with my castoffs hes such a born liar too
no hed never have the courage with a married woman thats why he wants
me and Boylan though as for her Denis as she calls him that
forlornlooking spectacle you couldnt call him a husband yes its some
little bitch hes got in with even when I was with him with Milly at the
College races that Hornblower with the childs bonnet on the top of his
nob let us into by the back way he was throwing his sheeps eyes at
those two doing skirt duty up and down I tried to wink at him first no
use of course and thats the way his money goes this is the fruits of Mr
Paddy Dignam yes they were all in great style at the grand funeral in
the paper Boylan brought in if they saw a real officers funeral thatd
be something reversed arms muffled drums the poor horse walking behind
in black L Boom and Tom Kernan that drunken little barrelly man that
bit his tongue off falling down the mens W C drunk in some place or
other and Martin Cunningham and the two Dedaluses and Fanny MCoys
husband white head of cabbage skinny thing with a turn in her eye
trying to sing my songs shed want to be born all over again and her old
green dress with the lowneck as she cant attract them any other way
like dabbling on a rainy day I see it all now plainly and they call
that friendship killing and then burying one another and they all with
their wives and families at home more especially Jack Power keeping
that barmaid he does of course his wife is always sick or going to be
sick or just getting better of it and hes a goodlooking man still
though hes getting a bit grey over the ears theyre a nice lot all of
them well theyre not going to get my husband again into their clutches
if I can help it making fun of him then behind his back I know well
when he goes on with his idiotics because he has sense enough not to
squander every penny piece he earns down their gullets and looks after
his wife and family goodfornothings poor Paddy Dignam all the same Im
sorry in a way for him what are his wife and 5 children going to do
unless he was insured comical little teetotum always stuck up in some
pub corner and her or her son waiting Bill Bailey wont you please come
home her widows weeds wont improve her appearance theyre awfully
becoming though if youre goodlooking what men wasnt he yes he was at
the Glencree dinner and Ben Dollard base barreltone the night he
borrowed the swallowtail to sing out of in Holles street squeezed and
squashed into them and grinning all over his big Dolly face like a
wellwhipped childs botty didnt he look a balmy ballocks sure enough
that must have been a spectacle on the stage imagine paying 5/- in the
preserved seats for that to see him trotting off in his trowlers and
Simon Dedalus too he was always turning up half screwed singing the
second verse first the old love is the new was one of his so sweetly
sang the maiden on the hawthorn bough he was always on for flirtyfying
too when I sang Maritana with him at Freddy Mayers private opera he had
a delicious glorious voice Phoebe dearest goodbye sweetheart
_sweet_heart he always sang it not like Bartell DArcy sweet _tart_
goodbye of course he had the gift of the voice so there was no art in
it all over you like a warm showerbath O Maritana wildwood flower we
sang splendidly though it was a bit too high for my register even
transposed and he was married at the time to May Goulding but then hed
say or do something to knock the good out of it hes a widower now I
wonder what sort is his son he says hes an author and going to be a
university professor of Italian and Im to take lessons what is he
driving at now showing him my photo its not good of me I ought to have
got it taken in drapery that never looks out of fashion still I look
young in it I wonder he didnt make him a present of it altogether and
me too after all why not I saw him driving down to the Kingsbridge
station with his father and mother I was in mourning thats 11 years ago
now yes hed be 11 though what was the good in going into mourning for
what was neither one thing nor the other the first cry was enough for
me I heard the deathwatch too ticking in the wall of course he insisted
hed go into mourning for the cat I suppose hes a man now by this time
he was an innocent boy then and a darling little fellow in his lord
Fauntleroy suit and curly hair like a prince on the stage when I saw
him at Mat Dillons he liked me too I remember they all do wait by God
yes wait yes hold on he was on the cards this morning when I laid out
the deck union with a young stranger neither dark nor fair you met
before I thought it meant him but hes no chicken nor a stranger either
besides my face was turned the other way what was the 7th card after
that the 10 of spades for a journey by land then there was a letter on
its way and scandals too the 3 queens and the 8 of diamonds for a rise
in society yes wait it all came out and 2 red 8s for new garments look
at that and didnt I dream something too yes there was something about
poetry in it I hope he hasnt long greasy hair hanging into his eyes or
standing up like a red Indian what do they go about like that for only
getting themselves and their poetry laughed at I always liked poetry
when I was a girl first I thought he was a poet like lord Byron and not
an ounce of it in his composition I thought he was quite different I
wonder is he too young hes about wait 88 I was married 88 Milly is 15
yesterday 89 what age was he then at Dillons 5 or 6 about 88 I suppose
hes 20 or more Im not too old for him if hes 23 or 24 I hope hes not
that stuckup university student sort no otherwise he wouldnt go sitting
down in the old kitchen with him taking Eppss cocoa and talking of
course he pretended to understand it all probably he told him he was
out of Trinity college hes very young to be a professor I hope hes not
a professor like Goodwin was he was a potent professor of John Jameson
they all write about some woman in their poetry well I suppose he wont
find many like me where softly sighs of love the light guitar where
poetry is in the air the blue sea and the moon shining so beautifully
coming back on the nightboat from Tarifa the lighthouse at Europa point
the guitar that fellow played was so expressive will I ever go back
there again all new faces two glancing eyes a lattice hid Ill sing that
for him theyre my eyes if hes anything of a poet two eyes as darkly
bright as loves own star arent those beautiful words as loves young
star itll be a change the Lord knows to have an intelligent person to
talk to about yourself not always listening to him and Billy Prescotts
ad and Keyess ad and Tom the Devils ad then if anything goes wrong in
their business we have to suffer Im sure hes very distinguished Id like
to meet a man like that God not those other ruck besides hes young
those fine young men I could see down in Margate strand bathingplace
from the side of the rock standing up in the sun naked like a God or
something and then plunging into the sea with them why arent all men
like that thered be some consolation for a woman like that lovely
little statue he bought I could look at him all day long curly head and
his shoulders his finger up for you to listen theres real beauty and
poetry for you I often felt I wanted to kiss him all over also his
lovely young cock there so simple I wouldnt mind taking him in my mouth
if nobody was looking as if it was asking you to suck it so clean and
white he looks with his boyish face I would too in 1/2 a minute even if
some of it went down what its only like gruel or the dew theres no
danger besides hed be so clean compared with those pigs of men I
suppose never dream of washing it from 1 years end to the other the
most of them only thats what gives the women the moustaches Im sure
itll be grand if I can only get in with a handsome young poet at my age
Ill throw them the 1st thing in the morning till I see if the wishcard
comes out or Ill try pairing the lady herself and see if he comes out
Ill read and study all I can find or learn a bit off by heart if I knew
who he likes so he wont think me stupid if he thinks all women are the
same and I can teach him the other part Ill make him feel all over him
till he half faints under me then hell write about me lover and
mistress publicly too with our 2 photographs in all the papers when he
becomes famous O but then what am I going to do about him though

no thats no way for him has he no manners nor no refinement nor no
nothing in his nature slapping us behind like that on my bottom because
I didnt call him Hugh the ignoramus that doesnt know poetry from a
cabbage thats what you get for not keeping them in their proper place
pulling off his shoes and trousers there on the chair before me so
barefaced without even asking permission and standing out that vulgar
way in the half of a shirt they wear to be admired like a priest or a
butcher or those old hypocrites in the time of Julius Caesar of course
hes right enough in his way to pass the time as a joke sure you might
as well be in bed with what with a lion God Im sure hed have something
better to say for himself an old Lion would O well I suppose its
because they were so plump and tempting in my short petticoat he
couldnt resist they excite myself sometimes its well for men all the
amount of pleasure they get off a womans body were so round and white
for them always I wished I was one myself for a change just to try with
that thing they have swelling up on you so hard and at the same time so
soft when you touch it my uncle John has a thing long I heard those
cornerboys saying passing the comer of Marrowbone lane my aunt Mary has
a thing hairy because it was dark and they knew a girl was passing it
didnt make me blush why should it either its only nature and he puts
his thing long into my aunt Marys hairy etcetera and turns out to be
you put the handle in a sweepingbrush men again all over they can pick
and choose what they please a married woman or a fast widow or a girl
for their different tastes like those houses round behind Irish street
no but were to be always chained up theyre not going to be chaining me
up no damn fear once I start I tell you for their stupid husbands
jealousy why cant we all remain friends over it instead of quarrelling
her husband found it out what they did together well naturally and if
he did can he undo it hes coronado anyway whatever he does and then he
going to the other mad extreme about the wife in Fair Tyrants of course
the man never even casts a 2nd thought on the husband or wife either
its the woman he wants and he gets her what else were we given all
those desires for Id like to know I cant help it if Im young still can
I its a wonder Im not an old shrivelled hag before my time living with
him so cold never embracing me except sometimes when hes asleep the
wrong end of me not knowing I suppose who he has any man thatd kiss a
womans bottom Id throw my hat at him after that hed kiss anything
unnatural where we havent 1 atom of any kind of expression in us all of
us the same 2 lumps of lard before ever Id do that to a man pfooh the
dirty brutes the mere thought is enough I kiss the feet of you senorita
theres some sense in that didnt he kiss our halldoor yes he did what a
madman nobody understands his cracked ideas but me still of course a
woman wants to be embraced 20 times a day almost to make her look young
no matter by who so long as to be in love or loved by somebody if the
fellow you want isnt there sometimes by the Lord God I was thinking
would I go around by the quays there some dark evening where nobodyd
know me and pick up a sailor off the sea thatd be hot on for it and not
care a pin whose I was only do it off up in a gate somewhere or one of
those wildlooking gipsies in Rathfarnham had their camp pitched near
the Bloomfield laundry to try and steal our things if they could I only
sent mine there a few times for the name model laundry sending me back
over and over some old ones odd stockings that blackguardlooking fellow
with the fine eyes peeling a switch attack me in the dark and ride me
up against the wall without a word or a murderer anybody what they do
themselves the fine gentlemen in their silk hats that K C lives up
somewhere this way coming out of Hardwicke lane the night he gave us
the fish supper on account of winning over the boxing match of course
it was for me he gave it I knew him by his gaiters and the walk and
when I turned round a minute after just to see there was a woman after
coming out of it too some filthy prostitute then he goes home to his
wife after that only I suppose the half of those sailors are rotten
again with disease O move over your big carcass out of that for the
love of Mike listen to him the winds that waft my sighs to thee so well
he may sleep and sigh the great Suggester Don Poldo de la Flora if he
knew how he came out on the cards this morning hed have something to
sigh for a dark man in some perplexity between 2 7s too in prison for
Lord knows what he does that I dont know and Im to be slooching around
down in the kitchen to get his lordship his breakfast while hes rolled
up like a mummy will I indeed did you ever see me running Id just like
to see myself at it show them attention and they treat you like dirt I
dont care what anybody says itd be much better for the world to be
governed by the women in it you wouldnt see women going and killing one
another and slaughtering when do you ever see women rolling around
drunk like they do or gambling every penny they have and losing it on
horses yes because a woman whatever she does she knows where to stop
sure they wouldnt be in the world at all only for us they dont know
what it is to be a woman and a mother how could they where would they
all of them be if they hadnt all a mother to look after them what I
never had thats why I suppose hes running wild now out at night away
from his books and studies and not living at home on account of the
usual rowy house I suppose well its a poor case that those that have a
fine son like that theyre not satisfied and I none was he not able to
make one it wasnt my fault we came together when I was watching the two
dogs up in her behind in the middle of the naked street that
disheartened me altogether I suppose I oughtnt to have buried him in
that little woolly jacket I knitted crying as I was but give it to some
poor child but I knew well Id never have another our 1st death too it
was we were never the same since O Im not going to think myself into
the glooms about that any more I wonder why he wouldnt stay the night I
felt all the time it was somebody strange he brought in instead of
roving around the city meeting God knows who nightwalkers and
pickpockets his poor mother wouldnt like that if she was alive ruining
himself for life perhaps still its a lovely hour so silent I used to
love coming home after dances the air of the night they have friends
they can talk to weve none either he wants what he wont get or its some
woman ready to stick her knife in you I hate that in women no wonder
they treat us the way they do we are a dreadful lot of bitches I
suppose its all the troubles we have makes us so snappy Im not like
that he could easy have slept in there on the sofa in the other room I
suppose he was as shy as a boy he being so young hardly 20 of me in the
next room hed have heard me on the chamber arrah what harm Dedalus I
wonder its like those names in Gibraltar Delapaz Delagracia they had
the devils queer names there father Vilaplana of Santa Maria that gave
me the rosary Rosales y OReilly in the Calle las Siete Revueltas and
Pisimbo and Mrs Opisso in Governor street O what a name Id go and drown
myself in the first river if I had a name like her O my and all the
bits of streets Paradise ramp and Bedlam ramp and Rodgers ramp and
Crutchetts ramp and the devils gap steps well small blame to me if I am
a harumscarum I know I am a bit I declare to God I dont feel a day
older than then I wonder could I get my tongue round any of the Spanish
como esta usted muy bien gracias y usted see I havent forgotten it all
I thought I had only for the grammar a noun is the name of any person
place or thing pity I never tried to read that novel cantankerous Mrs
Rubio lent me by Valera with the questions in it all upside down the
two ways I always knew wed go away in the end I can tell him the
Spanish and he tell me the Italian then hell see Im not so ignorant
what a pity he didnt stay Im sure the poor fellow was dead tired and
wanted a good sleep badly I could have brought him in his breakfast in
bed with a bit of toast so long as I didnt do it on the knife for bad
luck or if the woman was going her rounds with the watercress and
something nice and tasty there are a few olives in the kitchen he might
like I never could bear the look of them in Abrines I could do the
criada the room looks all right since I changed it the other way you
see something was telling me all the time Id have to introduce myself
not knowing me from Adam very funny wouldnt it Im his wife or pretend
we were in Spain with him half awake without a Gods notion where he is
dos huevos estrellados senor Lord the cracked things come into my head
sometimes itd be great fun supposing he stayed with us why not theres
the room upstairs empty and Millys bed in the back room he could do his
writing and studies at the table in there for all the scribbling he
does at it and if he wants to read in bed in the morning like me as hes
making the breakfast for 1 he can make it for 2 Im sure Im not going to
take in lodgers off the street for him if he takes a gesabo of a house
like this Id love to have a long talk with an intelligent welleducated
person Id have to get a nice pair of red slippers like those Turks with
the fez used to sell or yellow and a nice semitransparent morning gown
that I badly want or a peachblossom dressing jacket like the one long
ago in Walpoles only 8/6 or 18/6 Ill just give him one more chance Ill
get up early in the morning Im sick of Cohens old bed in any case I
might go over to the markets to see all the vegetables and cabbages and
tomatoes and carrots and all kinds of splendid fruits all coming in
lovely and fresh who knows whod be the 1st man Id meet theyre out
looking for it in the morning Mamy Dillon used to say they are and the
night too that was her massgoing Id love a big juicy pear now to melt
in your mouth like when I used to be in the longing way then Ill throw
him up his eggs and tea in the moustachecup she gave him to make his
mouth bigger I suppose hed like my nice cream too I know what Ill do
Ill go about rather gay not too much singing a bit now and then mi fa
pieta Masetto then Ill start dressing myself to go out presto non son
piu forte Ill put on my best shift and drawers let him have a good
eyeful out of that to make his micky stand for him Ill let him know if
thats what he wanted that his wife is fucked yes and damn well fucked
too up to my neck nearly not by him 5 or 6 times handrunning theres the
mark of his spunk on the clean sheet I wouldnt bother to even iron it
out that ought to satisfy him if you dont believe me feel my belly
unless I made him stand there and put him into me Ive a mind to tell
him every scrap and make him do it out in front of me serve him right
its all his own fault if I am an adulteress as the thing in the gallery
said O much about it if thats all the harm ever we did in this vale of
tears God knows its not much doesnt everybody only they hide it I
suppose thats what a woman is supposed to be there for or He wouldnt
have made us the way He did so attractive to men then if he wants to
kiss my bottom Ill drag open my drawers and bulge it right out in his
face as large as life he can stick his tongue 7 miles up my hole as hes
there my brown part then Ill tell him I want £ 1 or perhaps 30/- Ill
tell him I want to buy underclothes then if he gives me that well he
wont be too bad I dont want to soak it all out of him like other women
do I could often have written out a fine cheque for myself and write
his name on it for a couple of pounds a few times he forgot to lock it
up besides he wont spend it Ill let him do it off on me behind provided
he doesnt smear all my good drawers O I suppose that cant be helped Ill
do the indifferent 1 or 2 questions Ill know by the answers when hes
like that he cant keep a thing back I know every turn in him Ill
tighten my bottom well and let out a few smutty words smellrump or lick
my shit or the first mad thing comes into my head then Ill suggest
about yes O wait now sonny my turn is coming Ill be quite gay and
friendly over it O but I was forgetting this bloody pest of a thing
pfooh you wouldnt know which to laugh or cry were such a mixture of
plum and apple no Ill have to wear the old things so much the better
itll be more pointed hell never know whether he did it or not there
thats good enough for you any old thing at all then Ill wipe him off me
just like a business his omission then Ill go out Ill have him eying up
at the ceiling where is she gone now make him want me thats the only
way a quarter after what an unearthly hour I suppose theyre just
getting up in China now combing out their pigtails for the day well
soon have the nuns ringing the angelus theyve nobody coming in to spoil
their sleep except an odd priest or two for his night office or the
alarmclock next door at cockshout clattering the brains out of itself
let me see if I can doze off 1 2 3 4 5 what kind of flowers are those
they invented like the stars the wallpaper in Lombard street was much
nicer the apron he gave me was like that something only I only wore it
twice better lower this lamp and try again so as I can get up early Ill
go to Lambes there beside Findlaters and get them to send us some
flowers to put about the place in case he brings him home tomorrow
today I mean no no Fridays an unlucky day first I want to do the place
up someway the dust grows in it I think while Im asleep then we can
have music and cigarettes I can accompany him first I must clean the
keys of the piano with milk whatll I wear shall I wear a white rose or
those fairy cakes in Liptons I love the smell of a rich big shop at 7
1/2d a lb or the other ones with the cherries in them and the pinky
sugar 11d a couple of lbs of those a nice plant for the middle of the
table Id get that cheaper in wait wheres this I saw them not long ago I
love flowers Id love to have the whole place swimming in roses God of
heaven theres nothing like nature the wild mountains then the sea and
the waves rushing then the beautiful country with the fields of oats
and wheat and all kinds of things and all the fine cattle going about
that would do your heart good to see rivers and lakes and flowers all
sorts of shapes and smells and colours springing up even out of the
ditches primroses and violets nature it is as for them saying theres no
God I wouldnt give a snap of my two fingers for all their learning why
dont they go and create something I often asked him atheists or
whatever they call themselves go and wash the cobbles off themselves
first then they go howling for the priest and they dying and why why
because theyre afraid of hell on account of their bad conscience ah yes
I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there
was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so
there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising
tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the
rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat
the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of
seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago
my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a
flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that
was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today
yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a
woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the
pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I
wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was
thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and
Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all
birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the
pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing
round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls
laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the
morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who
else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market
all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half
asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the
steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle
thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and
turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop
and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas 2 glancing eyes a lattice
hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night
and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the
watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown
torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the
glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all
the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and
the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and
Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put
the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a
red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well
as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again
yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and
first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could
feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and
yes I said yes I will Yes.





                           THE SATYRICON OF
                           PETRONIUS ARBITER

          Complete and unexpurgated translation by W. C. Firebaugh,
          in which are incorporated the forgeries of Nodot and Marchena,
          and the readings introduced into the text by De Salas.


Among the difficulties which beset the path of the conscientious
translator, a sense of his own unworthiness must ever take precedence;
but another, scarcely less disconcerting, is the likelihood of
misunderstanding some allusion which was perfectly familiar to the author
and his public, but which, by reason of its purely local significance,
is obscure and subject to the misinterpretation and emendation of a later
generation.

A translation worthy of the name is as much the product of a literary
epoch as it is of the brain and labor of a scholar; and Melmouth’s
version of the letters of Pliny the Younger, made, as it was, at a
period when the art of English letter writing had attained its highest
excellence, may well be the despair of our twentieth century apostles of
specialization.  Who, today, could imbue a translation of the Golden Ass
with the exquisite flavor of William Adlington’s unscholarly version of
that masterpiece?  Who could rival Arthur Golding’s rendering of the
Metamorphoses of Ovid, or Francis Hicke’s masterly rendering of Lucian’s
True History?  But eternal life means endless change and in nothing is
this truth more strikingly manifest than in the growth and decadence of
living languages and in the translation of dead tongues into the ever
changing tissue of the living.  Were it not for this, no translation
worthy of the name would ever stand in need of revision, except in
instances where the discovery and collation of fresh manuscripts had
improved the text.  In the case of an author whose characters speak in
the argot proper to their surroundings, the necessity for revision is
even more imperative; the change in the cultured speech of a language is
a process that requires years to become pronounced, the evolution of
slang is rapid and its usage ephemeral.  For example Stephen Gaselee, in
his bibliography of Petronius, calls attention to Harry Thurston Peck’s
rendering of “bell um pomum” by “he’s a daisy,” and remarks,
appropriately enough, “that this was well enough for 1898; but we would
now be more inclined to render it ‘he’s a peach.’”  Again, Peck renders
“illud erat vivere” by “that was life,” but, in the words of our lyric
American jazz, we would be more inclined to render it “that was the
life.”  “But,” as Professor Gaselee has said, “no rendering of this part
of the Satyricon can be final, it must always be in the slang of the
hour.”

“Some,” writes the immortal translator of Rabelais, in his preface,
“have deservedly gained esteem by translating; yet not many condescend
to translate but such as cannot invent; though to do the first well,
requires often as much genius as to do the latter.  I wish, reader,
thou mayest be as willing to do the author justice, as I have strove
to do him right.”

Many scholars have lamented the failure of Justus Lipsius to comment upon
Petronius or edit an edition of the Satyricon.  Had he done so, he might
have gone far toward piercing the veil of darkness which enshrouds the
authorship of the work and the very age in which the composer flourished.
To me, personally, the fact that Laurence Sterne did not undertake a
version, has caused much regret.  The master who delineated Tristram
Shandy’s father and the intrigue between the Widow Wadman and Uncle Toby
would have drawn Trimalchio and his peers to admiration.

                                                       W. C. F.




CONTENTS:

PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
THE SATYRICON
NOTES
     PROSTITUTION
     PAEDERASTIA
     CHAPTER NOTES
     9    Gladiator obscene
     17   Impotence
     26   Peepholes in brothels
     34   Silver Skeleton
     36   Marsyas
     40   A pie full of birds
     56   Contumelia
     116  Life in Rome
     116  Legacy hunting
     119  Castration
     127  Circe’s voice
     131  Sputum in charms
     131  The “infamous finger”
      138  The dildo
     The Cordax

SIX NOTES BY MARCHENA
     Introduction
     I    Soldiers in love
     II   Courtesans
     III  Greek love
     IV   Pollution
     V    Virginity
     VI   Pandars




INTRODUCTION.

Of the many masterpieces which classical antiquity has bequeathed to
modern times, few have attained, at intervals, to such popularity; few
have so gripped the interest of scholars and men of letters, as has this
scintillating miscellany known as the Satyricon, ascribed by tradition to
that Petronius who, at the court of Nero, acted as arbiter of elegance
and dictator of fashion.  The flashing, wit, the masterly touches which
bring out the characters with all the detail of a fine old copper
etching; the marvelous use of realism by this, its first prophet; the
sure knowledge of the perspective and background best adapted to each
episode; the racy style, so smooth, so elegant, so simple when the
educated are speaking, beguile the reader and blind him, at first, to the
many discrepancies and incoherences with which the text, as we have it,
is marred.  The more one concentrates upon this author, the more apparent
these faults become and the more one regrets the lacunae in the text.
Notwithstanding numerous articles which deal with this work, some from
the pens of the most profound scholars, its author is still shrouded in
the mists of uncertainty and conjecture.  He is as impersonal as
Shakespeare, as aloof as Flaubert, in the opinion of Charles Whibley,
and, it may be added, as genial as Rabelais; an enigmatic genius whose
secret will never be laid bare with the resources at our present command.
As I am not writing for scholars, I do not intend going very deeply into
the labyrinth of critical controversy which surrounds the author and the
work, but I shall deal with a few of the questions which, if properly
understood, will enhance the value of the Satyricon, and contribute, in
some degree, to a better understanding of the author.  For the sake of
convenience the questions discussed in this introduction will be arranged
in the following order:

1.  The Satyricon.

2.  The Author.
     a  His Character.
     b  His Purpose in Writing.
     c  Time in which the Action is placed.
     d  Localization of the Principal Episode.

3.  Realism.
     a  Influence of the Satyricon upon the Literature of the World.

4.  The Forgeries.



I

THE SATYRICON.  Heinsius and Scaliger derive the word from the Greek,
whence comes our English word satyr, but Casaubon, Dacier and Spanheim
derive it from the Latin ‘satura,’ a plate filled with different kinds
of food, and they refer to Porphyrion’s ‘multis et variis rebus hoc
carmen refertum est.’

The text, as we possess it, may be divided into three divisions: the
first and last relate the adventures of Encolpius and his companions, the
second, which is a digression, describes the Dinner of Trimalchio.  That
the work was originally divided into books, we had long known from
ancient glossaries, and we learn, from the title of the Traguriensian
manuscript, that the fragments therein contained are excerpts from the
fifteenth and sixteenth books.  An interpolation of Fulgentius (Paris
7975) attributes to Book Fourteen the scene related in Chapter 20 of the
work as we have it, and the glossary of St. Benedict Floriacensis cites
the passage ‘sed video te totum in illa haerere, quae Troiae halosin
ostendit (Chapter 89), as from Book Fifteen.  As there is no reason to
suppose that the chapters intervening between the end of the Cena
(Chapter 79) and Chapter 89 are out of place, it follows that this
passage may have belonged to Book Sixteen, or even Seventeen, but that it
could not have belonged to Book Fifteen.  From the interpolation of
Fulgentius we may hazard the opinion that the beginning of the fragments,
as we possess them (Chapters 1 to 26), form part of Book Fourteen.  The
Dinner of Trimalchio probably formed a complete book, fifteen, and the
continuation of the adventures of Encolpius down to his meeting with
Eumolpus (end of Chapter 140) Book Sixteen.  The discomfiture of Eumolpus
should have closed this book but not the entire work, as the exit of the
two principal characters is not fixed at the time our fragments come to
an end.  The original work, then, would probably have exceeded Tom Jones
in length.



II

THE AUTHOR.

a--“Not often,” says Studer (Rheinisches Museum, 1843), “has there been
so much dispute about the author, the times, the character and the
purpose of a writing of antiquity as about the fragments of the Satyricon
of Petronius.”  The discovery and publication of the Trau manuscript
brought about a literary controversy which has had few parallels, and
which has not entirely died out to this day, although the best
authorities ascribe the work to Caius Petronius, the Arbiter Elegantiarum
at the court of Nero.  “The question as to the date of the narrative of
the adventures of Encolpius and his boon companions must be regarded as
settled,” says Theodor Mommsen (Hermes, 1878); “this narrative is
unsurpassed in originality and mastery of treatment among the writings of
Roman literature.  Nor does anyone doubt the identity of its author and
the Arbiter Elegantiarum of Nero, whose end Tacitus relates.”

In any case, the author of this work, if it be the work of one brain,
must have been a profound psychologist, a master of realism, a
natural-born story teller, and a gentleman.


b--His principal object in writing the work was to amuse but, in amusing,
he also intended to pillory the aristocracy and his wit is as keen as the
point of a rapier; but, when we bear in mind the fact that he was an
ancient, we will find that his cynicism is not cruel, in him there is
none of the malignity of Aristophanes; there is rather the attitude of
the refined patrician who is always under the necessity of facing those
things which he holds most in contempt, the supreme artist who suffers
from the multitude of bill-boards, so to speak, who lashes the posters
but holds in pitying contempt those who know so little of true art that
they mistake those posters for the genuine article.  Niebuhr’s estimate
of his character is so just and free from prejudice, and proceeds from
a mind which, in itself, was so pure and wholesome, that I will quote it:

“All great dramatic poets are endowed with the power of creating beings
who seem to act and speak with perfect independence, so that the poet is
nothing more than the relator of what takes place.  When Goethe had
conceived Faust and Margarete, Mephistopheles and Wagner, they moved and
had their being without any exercise of his will.  But in the peculiar
power which Petronius exercises, in its application to every scene, to
every individual character, in everything, noble or mean, which he
undertakes, I know of but one who is fully equal to the Roman, and that
is Diderot.  Trimalchio and Agamemnon might have spoken for Petronius,
and the nephew Rameau and the parson Papin for Diderot, in every
condition and on every occasion inexhaustibly, out of their own nature;
just so the purest and noblest souls, whose kind was, after all, not
entirely extinct in their day.

“Diderot and a contemporary, related to him in spirit, Count Gaspar
Gozzi, are marked with the same cynicism which disfigures the Roman;
their age, like his, had become shameless.  But as the two former were in
their heart noble, upright, and benevolent men, and as in the writings of
Diderot genuine virtue and a tenderness unknown to his contemporaries
breathe, so the peculiarity of such a genius can, as it seems, be given
to a noble and elevated being only.  The deep contempt for prevailing
immorality which naturally leads to cynicism, and a heart which beats for
everything great and glorious,--virtues which then had no existence,
--speak from the pages of the Roman in a language intelligible to every
susceptible heart.”


e--Beck, in his paper, “The Age of Petronius Arbiter,” concluded that the
author lived and wrote between the years 6 A.D.  and 34 A.D., but he
overlooked the possibility that the author might have lived a few years
later, written of conditions as they were in his own times, and yet laid
the action of his novel a few years before.  Mommsen and Haley place the
time under Augustus, Buecheler, about 36-7 A.D., and Friedlaender under
Nero.


d--La Porte du Theil places the scene at Naples because of the fact the
city in which our heroes met Agamemnon must have been of some
considerable size because neither Encolpius nor Asclytos could find their
way back to their inn, when once they had left it, because both were
tired out from tramping around in search of it and because Giton had been
so impressed with this danger that he took the precaution to mark the
pillars with chalk in order that they might not be lost a second time.
The Gulf of Naples is the only bit of coastline which fits the needs of
the novel, hence the city must be Naples.  The fact that neither of the
characters knew the city proves that they had been recent arrivals, and
this furnishes a clue, vague though it is, to what may have gone before.

Haley, “Harvard Studies in Classical Philology,” vol. II, makes out a
very strong case for Puteoli, and his theory of the old town and the new
town is as ingenious as it is able.  Haley also has Trimalchio in his
favor, as has also La Porte du Theil.  “I saw the Sibyl at Cumae,” says
Trimalchio.  Now if the scene of the dinner is actually at Cumae this
sounds very peculiar; it might even be a gloss added by some copyist
whose knowledge was not equal to his industry.  On the other hand,
suppose Trimalchio is speaking of something so commonplace in his
locality that the second term has become a generic, then the difficulty
disappears.  We today, even though standing upon the very spot in Melos
where the Venus was unearthed, would still refer to her as the Venus de
Melos.  Friedlaender, in bracketing Cumis, has not taken this
sufficiently into consideration.  Mommsen, in an excellent paper (Hermes,
1878), has laid the scene at Cumae.  His logic is almost unanswerable,
and the consensus of opinion is in favor of the latter town.



III

REALISM.  Realism, as we are concerned with it, may be defined as the
literary effect produced by the marshaling of details in their exactitude
for the purpose of bringing out character.  The fact that they may be
ugly and vulgar the reverse, makes not the slightest difference.  The
modern realist contemplates the inanimate things which surround us with
peculiar complaisance, and it is right that he should as these things
exert upon us a constant and secret influence.  The workings of the human
mind, in complex civilizations, are by no means simple; they are involved
and varied: our thoughts, our feelings, our wills, associate themselves
with an infinite number of sensations and images which play one upon the
other, and which individualize, in some measure, every action we commit,
and stamp it.  The merit of our modern realists lies in the fact that
they have studied the things which surround us and our relations to them,
and thus have they been able to make their creations conform to human
experience.  The ancients gave little attention to this; the man, with
them, was the important thing; the environment the unimportant.  There
are, of course, exceptions; the interview between Ulysses and Nausiskaa
is probably the most striking.  From the standpoint of environment,
Petronius, in the greater portion of his work, is an ancient; but one
exception there is, and it is as brilliant as it is important.  The
entire episode, in which Trimalchio figures, offers an incredible
abundance of details.  The descriptions are exhaustive and minute, but
the author’s prime purpose was not description, it was to bring out the
characters, it was to pillory the Roman aristocracy, it was to amuse!
Cicero, in his prosecution of Verres, had shown up this aristocracy in
all its brutality and greed, it remained for the author of the Cena to
hold its absurdity up to the light of day, to lash an extravagance which,
though utterly unbridled, was yet unable to exhaust the looted
accumulations of years of political double dealing and malfeasance in
office.  Trimalchio’s introduction is a masterstroke, the porter at the
door is another, the effect of the wine upon the women, their jealousy
lest either’s husband should seem more liberal, their appraisal of each
other’s jewelry, Scintilla’s remark anent the finesse of Habinnas’
servant in the mere matter of pandering, the blear-eyed and black-toothed
slave, teasing a little bitch disgustingly fat, offering her pieces of
bread and when, from sheer inability, she refuses to eat, cramming it
down her throat, the effect of the alcohol upon Trimalchio, the little
old lady girded round with a filthy apron, wearing clogs which were not
mates, dragging in a huge dog on a chain, the incomparable humor in the
passage in which Hesus, desperately seasick, sees that which makes him
believe that even worse misfortunes are in store for him: these details
are masterpieces of realism.  The description of the night-prowling
shyster lawyer, whose forehead is covered with sebaceous wens, is the
very acme of propriety; our first meeting; with the poet Eumolpus is a
beautiful study in background and perspective.  Nineteen centuries have
gone their way since this novel was written, but if we look about us we
will be able to recognize, under the veneer of civilization, the
originals of the Satyricon and we will find that here, in a little corner
of the Roman world, all humanity was held in miniature.  Petronius must
be credited with the great merit of having introduced realism into the
novel.  By an inspiration of genius, he saw that the framework of
frivolous and licentious novels could be enlarged until it took in
contemporary custom and environment.  It is that which assures for him
an eminent place, not in Roman literature alone, but in the literature
of the world.

a--INFLUENCE OF THE SATYRICON UPON LITERATURE.  The vagrant heroes of
Petronius are the originals from whom directly, or indirectly, later
authors drew that inspiration which resulted in the great mass of
picaresque fiction; but, great as this is, it is not to this that the
Satyricon owes its powerful influence upon the literature of the world.
It is to the author’s recognition of the importance of environment,
of the vital role of inanimate surroundings as a means for bringing out
character and imbuing his episodes and the actions of his characters with
an air of reality and with those impulses and actions which are common to
human experience, that his influence is due.  By this, the Roman created
a new style of writing and inaugurated a class of literature which was
without parallel until the time of Apuleius and, in a lesser degree, of
Lucian.  This class of literature, though modified essentially from age
to age, in keeping with the dictates of moral purity or bigotry, innocent
or otherwise, has come to be the very stuff of which literary success in
fiction is made.  One may write a successful book without a thread of
romance; one cannot write a successful romance without some knowledge of
realism; the more intimate the knowledge the better the book, and it is
frequently to this that the failure of a novel is due, although the
critic might be at a loss to explain it.  Petronius lies behind Tristram
Shandy, his influence can be detected in Smollett, and even Fielding paid
tribute to him.



IV

FORGERIES OF PETRONIUS.

From the very nature of the writings of such an author as Petronius, it
is evident that the gaps in the text would have a marked tendency to
stimulate the curiosity of literary forgers and to tempt their sagacity,
literary or otherwise.  The recovery of the Trimalchionian episode, and
the subsequent pamphleteering would by no means eradicate this “cacoethes
emendandi.”

When, circa 1650, the library of the unfortunate Nicolas Cippico yielded
up the Trau fragment, the news of this discovery spread far and wide and
about twelve years later, Statileo, in response to the repeated requests
of the Venetian ambassador, Pietro Basadonna, made with his own hand a
copy of the MS., which he sent to Basadonna.  The ambassador, in turn,
permitted this MS. to be printed by one Frambotti, a printer endowed with
more industry than critical acumen, and the resultant textual conflation
had much to do with the pamphlet war which followed.  Had this Paduan
printer followed the explicit directions which he received, and printed
exactly what was given him much good paper might have been saved and a
very interesting chapter in the history of literary forgery would
probably never have been written.  The pamphlet war did not die out until
Bleau, in 1670-71, printed his exact reproduction of the Trau manuscript
and the corrections introduced by that licentiousness of emendation of
which we have spoken.

In October, 1690, Francois Nodot, a French soldier of fortune, a
commissary officer who combined belles lettres and philosophy with his
official duties, wrote to Charpentier, President of the Academy of
France, calling, his attention to a copy of a manuscript which he (Nodot)
possessed, and which came into his hands in the following manner: one
Du Pin, a French officer detailed to service with Austria, had been
present at the sack of Belgrade in 1688.  That this Du Pin had, while
there, made the acquaintance of a certain Greek renegade, having, as a
matter of fact, stayed in the house of this renegade.  The Greek’s
father, a man of some learning, had by some means come into possession of
the MS., and Du Pin, in going through some of the books in the house, had
come across it.  He had experienced the utmost difficulty in deciphering
the letters, and finally, driven by curiosity, had retained a copyist and
had it copied out.  That this Du Pin had this copy in his house at
Frankfort, and that he had given Nodot to understand that if he (Nodot)
came to Frankfort, he would be permitted to see this copy.  Owing to the
exigencies of military service, Nodot had been unable to go in person to
Frankfort, and that he had therefore availed himself of the friendly
interest and services of a certain merchant of Frankfort, who had
volunteered to find an amanuensis, have a copy made, and send it to
Nodot.  This was done, and Nodot concludes his letter to Charpentier by
requesting the latter to lay the result before the Academy and ask for
their blessing and approval.  These Nodotian Supplements were accepted as
authentic by the Academics of Arles and Nimes, as well as by Charpentier.
In a short time, however, the voices of scholarly skeptics began to be
heard in the land, and accurate and unbiased criticism laid bare the
fraud.  The Latinity was attacked and exception taken to Silver Age
prose in which was found a French police regulation which required newly
arrived travellers to register their names in the book of a police
officer of an Italian village of the first century.  Although they are
still retained in the text by some editors, this is done to give some
measure of continuity to an otherwise interrupted narrative, but they can
only serve to distort the author and obscure whatever view of him the
reader might otherwise have reached.  They are generally printed between
brackets or in different type.

In 1768 another and far abler forger saw the light of day.  Jose
Marchena, a Spaniard of Jewish extraction, was destined for an
ecclesiastical career.  He received an excellent education which served
to fortify a natural bent toward languages and historical criticism.  In
his early youth he showed a marked preference for uncanonical pursuits
and heretical doctrines and before he had reached his thirtieth year
prudence counseled him to prevent the consequences of his heresy and
avoid the too pressing Inquisition by a timely flight into France.
He arrived there in time to throw himself into the fight for liberty,
and in 1800 we find him at Basle attached to the staff of General Moreau.
While there he is said to have amused himself and some of his cronies by
writing notes on what Davenport would have called “Forbidden Subjects,”
 and, as a means of publishing his erotic lucubrations, he constructed
this fragment, which brings in those topics on which he had enlarged.
He translated the fragment into French, attached his notes, and issued
the book.  There is another story to the effect that he had been
reprimanded by Moreau for having written a loose song and that he
exculpated himself by assuring the general that it was but a new fragment
of Petronius which he had translated.  Two days later he had the fragment
ready to prove his contention.

This is the account given by his Spanish biographer.  In his preface,
dedicated to the Army of the Rhine, he states that he found the fragment
in a manuscript of the work of St. Gennadius on the Duties of Priests,
probably of the XI Century.  A close examination revealed the fact that
it was a palimpsest which, after treatment, permitted the restoration of
this fragment.  It is supposed to supply the gap in Chapter 26 after the
word “verberabant.”

Its obscenity outrivals that of the preceding text, and the grammar,
style, and curiosa felicitas Petroniana make it an almost perfect
imitation.  There is no internal evidence of forgery.  If the text is
closely scrutinized it will be seen that it is composed of words and
expressions taken from various parts of the Satyricon, “and that in every
line it has exactly the Petronian turn of phrase.”

“Not only is the original edition unprocurable,” to quote again from
Mr. Gaselee’s invaluable bibliography, “but the reprint at Soleure
(Brussels), 1865, consisted of only 120 copies, and is hard to find.
The most accessible place for English readers is in Bohn’s translation,
in which, however, only the Latin text is given; and the notes were a
most important part of the original work.”

These notes, humorously and perhaps sarcastically ascribed to Lallemand,
Sanctae Theologiae Doctor, “are six in number (all on various forms of
vice); and show great knowledge, classical and sociological, of unsavory
subjects.  Now that the book is too rare to do us any harm, we may admit
that the pastiche was not only highly amusing, but showed a perverse
cleverness amounting almost to genius.”

Marchena died at Madrid in great poverty in 1821.  A contemporary has
described him as being rather short and heavy set in figure, of great
frontal development, and vain beyond belief.  He considered himself
invincible where women were concerned.  He had a peculiar predilection
in the choice of animal pets and was an object of fear and curiosity
to the towns people.  His forgery might have been completely successful
had he not acknowledged it himself within two or three years after the
publication of his brochure.  The fragment will remain a permanent
tribute to the excellence of his scholarship, but it is his Ode to Christ
Crucified which has made him more generally known, and it is one of the
ironies of fate that caused this deformed giant of sarcasm to compose a
poem of such tender and touching piety.

Very little is known about Don Joe Antonio Gonzalez de Salas, whose
connecting passages, with the exception of one which is irrelevant, are
here included.

The learned editors of the Spanish encyclopedia naively preface their
brief sketch with the following assertion: “no tenemos noticias de su
vida.”  De Salas was born in 1588 and died in 1654.  His edition of
Petronius was first issued in 1629 and re-issued in 1643 with a copper
plate of the Editor.  The Paris edition, from which he says he supplied
certain deficiencies in the text, is unknown to bibliographers and is
supposed to be fictitious.

To distinguish the spurious passages, as a point of interest, in the
present edition, the forgeries of Nodot are printed within round
brackets, the forgery of Marchena within square brackets, and the
additions of De Salas in italics {In this PG etext in curly brackets}.

The work is also accompanied by a translation of the six notes, the
composition of which led Marchena to forge the fragment which first
appeared in the year 1800.  These have never before been translated.

Thanks are due Ralph Straus, Esq., and Professor Stephen Gaselee.




                           THE SATYRICON OF
                           PETRONIUS ARBITER


BRACKET CODE:
     (Forgeries of Nodot)
     [Forgeries of Marchena]
     {Additions of De Salas}
                              DW


VOLUME 1.--ADVENTURES OF ENCOLPIUS AND HIS COMPANIONS


CHAPTER THE FIRST.

(It has been so long; since I promised you the story of my adventures,
that I have decided to make good my word today; and, seeing that we have
thus fortunately met, not to discuss scientific matters alone, but also
to enliven our jolly conversation with witty stories.  Fabricius Veiento
has already spoken very cleverly on the errors committed in the name of
religion, and shown how priests, animated by an hypocritical mania for
prophecy, boldly expound mysteries which are too often such to
themselves.  But) are our rhetoricians tormented by another species of
Furies when they cry, “I received these wounds while fighting for the
public liberty; I lost this eye in your defense: give me a guide who will
lead me to my children, my limbs are hamstrung and will not hold me up!”
 Even these heroics could be endured if they made easier the road to
eloquence; but as it is, their sole gain from this ferment of matter and
empty discord of words is, that when they step into the Forum, they think
they have been carried into another world.  And it is my conviction that
the schools are responsible for the gross foolishness of our young men,
because, in them, they see or hear nothing at all of the affairs of
every-day life, but only pirates standing in chains upon the shore,
tyrants scribbling edicts in which sons are ordered to behead their own
fathers; responses from oracles, delivered in time of pestilence,
ordering the immolation of three or more virgins; every word a honied
drop, every period sprinkled with poppy-seed and sesame.




CHAPTER THE SECOND.

Those who are brought up on such a diet can no more attain to wisdom than
a kitchen scullion can attain to a keen sense of smell or avoid stinking
of the grease.  With your indulgence, I will speak out: you--teachers
--are chiefly responsible for the decay of oratory.  With your well
modulated and empty tones you have so labored for rhetorical effect that
the body of your speech has lost its vigor and died.  Young men did not
learn set speeches in the days when Sophocles and Euripides were
searching for words in which to express themselves.  In the days when
Pindar and the nine lyric poets feared to attempt Homeric verse there was
no private tutor to stifle budding genius.  I need not cite the poets for
evidence, for I do not find that either Plato or Demosthenes was given
to this kind of exercise.  A dignified and, if I may say it, a chaste,
style, is neither elaborate nor loaded with ornament; it rises supreme by
its own natural purity.  This windy and high-sounding bombast, a recent
immigrant to Athens, from Asia, touched with its breath the aspiring
minds of youth, with the effect of some pestilential planet, and as soon
as the tradition of the past was broken, eloquence halted and was
stricken dumb.  Since that, who has attained to the sublimity of
Thucydides, who rivalled the fame of Hyperides?  Not a single poem
has glowed with a healthy color, but all of them, as though nourished
on the same diet, lacked the strength to live to old age.  Painting
also suffered the same fate when the presumption of the Egyptians
“commercialized” that incomparable art.  (I was holding forth along these
lines one day, when Agamemnon came up to us and scanned with a curious
eye a person to whom the audience was listening so closely.)




CHAPTER THE THIRD.

He would not permit me to declaim longer in the portico than he himself
had sweat in the school, but exclaimed, “Your sentiments do not reflect
the public taste, young man, and you are a lover of common sense, which
is still more unusual.  For that reason, I will not deceive you as to the
secrets of my profession.  The teachers, who must gibber with lunatics,
are by no means to blame for these exercises.  Unless they spoke in
accordance with the dictates of their young pupils, they would, as Cicero
remarks, be left alone in the schools!  And, as designing parasites, when
they seek invitations to the tables of the rich, have in mind nothing
except what will, in their opinion, be most acceptable to their audience
--for in no other way can they secure their ends, save by setting snares
for the ears--so it is with the teachers of rhetoric, they might be
compared with the fisherman, who, unless he baits his hook with what he
knows is most appetizing to the little fish, may wait all day upon some
rock, without the hope of a catch.”




CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

What, then, is there to do?  The parents who are unwilling to permit
their children to undergo a course of training under strict discipline,
are the ones who deserve the reproof.  In the first place, everything
they possess, including the children, is devoted to ambition.  Then, that
their wishes may the more quickly be realized, they drive these unripe
scholars into the forum, and the profession of eloquence, than which none
is considered nobler, devolves upon boys who are still in the act of
being born!  If, however, they would permit a graded course of study to
be prescribed, in order that studious boys might ripen their minds by
diligent reading; balance their judgment by precepts of wisdom, correct
their compositions with an unsparing pen, hear at length what they ought
to imitate, and be convinced that nothing can be sublime when it is
designed to catch the fancy of boys, then the grand style of oratory
would immediately recover the weight and splendor of its majesty.  Now
the boys play in the schools, the young men are laughed at in the forum,
and, a worse symptom than either, no one, in his old age, will confess
the errors he was taught in his school days.  But that you may not
imagine that I disapprove of a jingle in the Lucilian manner, I will
deliver my opinions in verse,--




CHAPTER THE FIFTH.

    “The man who emerges with fame, from the school of stern art,

     Whose mind gropes for lofty ideals, to bring them to light,

     Must first, under rigid frugality, study his part;

     Nor yearn for the courts of proud princes who frown in their might:

     Nor scheme with the riff-raf, a client in order to dine,

     Nor can he with evil companions his wit drown in wine

     Nor sit, as a hireling, applauding an actor’s grimace.

     But, whether the fortress of arms-bearing Tritonis smile

     Upon him, or land which the Spartan colonials grace,

     Or home of the sirens, with poetry let him beguile

     The years of young manhood, and at the Maeonian spring

     His fortunate soul drink its fill: Then, when later, the lore

     Of Socrates’ school he has mastered, the reins let him fling,

     And brandish the weapons that mighty Demosthenes bore.

     Then, steeped in the culture and music of Greece, let his taste

     Be ripened and mellowed by all the great writers of Rome.

     At first, let him haunt not the courts; let his pages be graced

     By ringing and rhythmic effusions composed in his home

     Next, banquets and wars be his theme, sung in soul-stirring chant,

     In eloquent words such as undaunted Cicero chose.

     Come!  Gird up thy soul!  Inspiration will then force a vent

     And rush in a flood from a heart that is loved by the muse!”




CHAPTER THE SIXTH.

I was listening so attentively to this speech that I did not notice the
flight of Ascyltos, and while I was pacing the gardens, engulfed in this
flood-tide of rhetoric, a large crowd of students came out upon the
portico, having, it would seem, just listened to an extemporaneous
declamation, of I know not whom, the speaker of which had taken
exceptions to the speech of Agamemnon.  While, therefore, the young men
were making fun of the sentiments of this last speaker, and criticizing
the arrangement of the whole speech, I seized the opportunity and went
after Ascyltos, on the run; but, as I neither held strictly to the road,
nor knew where the inn was located, wherever I went, I kept coming back
to the same place, until, worn out with running, and long since dripping
with sweat, I approached a certain little old woman who sold country
vegetables.




CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.

“Please, mother,” I wheedled, “you don’t know where I lodge, do you?”
 Delighted with such humorous affability, “What’s the reason I don’t” she
replied, and getting upon her feet, she commenced to walk ahead of me.  I
took her for a prophetess until, when presently we came to a more obscure
quarter, the affable old lady pushed aside a crazy-quilt and remarked,
“Here’s where you ought to live,” and when I denied that I recognized the
house, I saw some men prowling stealthily between the rows of name-boards
and naked prostitutes.  Too late I realized that I had been led into a
brothel.  After cursing the wiles of the little old hag, I covered my
head and commenced to run through the middle of the night-house to the
exit opposite, when, lo and behold! whom should I meet on the very
threshold but Ascyltos himself, as tired as I was, and almost dead; you
would have thought that he had been brought by the self-same little old
hag!  I smiled at that, greeted him cordially, and asked him what he was
doing in such a scandalous place.




CHAPTER THE EIGHTH.

Wiping away the sweat with his hands, he replied, “If you only knew what
I have gone through!”  “What was it?”  I demanded.  “A most respectable
looking person came up to me,” he made reply, “while I was wandering all
over the town and could not find where I had left my inn, and very
graciously offered to guide me.  He led me through some very dark and
crooked alleys, to this place, pulled out his tool, and commenced to beg
me to comply with his appetite.  A whore had already vacated her cell for
an as, and he had laid hands upon me, and, but for the fact that I was
the stronger, I would have been compelled to take my medicine.”  (While
Ascyltos was telling me of his bad luck, who should come up again but
this same very respectable looking person, in company with a woman not at
all bad looking, and, looking at Ascyltos, he requested him to enter the
house, assuring him that there was nothing to fear, and, since he was
unwilling to take the passive part, he should have the active.  The
woman, on her part, urged me very persistently to accompany her, so we
followed the couple, at last, and were conducted between the rows of
name-boards, where we saw, in cells, many persons of each sex amusing
themselves in such a manner) that it seemed to me that every one of them
must have been drinking satyrion.  (On catching sight of us, they
attempted to seduce us with paederastic wantonness, and one wretch, with
his clothes girded up, assaulted Ascyltos, and, having thrown him down
upon a couch, attempted to gore him from above.  I succored the sufferer
immediately, however,) and having joined forces, we defied the
troublesome wretch.  (Ascyltos ran out of the house and took to his
heels, leaving me as the object of their lewd attacks, but the crowd,
finding me the stronger in body and purpose, let me go unharmed.)




CHAPTER THE NINTH.

(After having tramped nearly all over the city,) I caught sight of Giton,
as though through a fog, standing at the end of the street, (on the very
threshold of the inn,) and I hastened to the same place.  When I inquired
whether my “brother” had prepared anything for breakfast, the boy sat
down upon the bed and wiped away the trickling tears with his thumb.
I was greatly disturbed by such conduct on the part of my “brother,” and
demanded to be told what had happened.  After I had mingled threats with
entreaties, he answered slowly and against his will, “That brother or
comrade of yours rushed into the room a little while ago and commenced to
attempt my virtue by force.  When I screamed, he pulled out his tool and
gritted out--If you’re a Lucretia, you’ve found your Tarquin!”  When I
heard this, I shook my fists in Ascyltos’ face, “What have you to say for
yourself,” I snarled, “you rutting pathic harlot, whose very breath is
infected?”  Ascyltos pretended to bristle up and, shaking his fists more
boldly still, he roared: “Won’t you keep quiet, you filthy gladiator, you
who escaped from the criminal’s cage in the amphitheatre to which you
were condemned (for the murder of your host?)  Won’t you hold your
tongue, you nocturnal assassin, who, even when you swived it bravely,
never entered the lists with a decent woman in your life?  Was I not a
‘brother’ to you in the pleasure-garden, in the same sense as that in
which this boy now is in this lodging-house?”  “You sneaked away from the
master’s lecture,” I objected.




CHAPTER THE TENTH.  “What should I have done, you triple fool, when I was
dying of hunger?  I suppose I should have listened to opinions as much to
the purpose as the tinkle of broken glass or the interpretation of
dreams.  By Hercules, you are much more deserving of censure than I, you
who will flatter a poet so as to get an invitation to dinner!”  Then we
laughed ourselves out of a most disgraceful quarrel, and approached more
peaceably whatever remained to be done.  But the remembrance of that
injury recurred to my mind and, “Ascyltos,” I said, “I know we shall not
be able to agree, so let us divide our little packs of common stock and
try to defeat our poverty by our individual efforts.  Both you and I know
letters, but that I may not stand in the way of any undertaking of yours,
I will take up some other profession.  Otherwise, a thousand trifles will
bring us into daily collision and furnish cause for gossip through the
whole town.”  Ascyltos made no objection to this, but merely remarked,
“As we, in our capacity of scholars, have accepted an invitation to
dinner, for this date, let us not lose our night.  Since it seems to be
the graceful thing to do, I will look out for another lodging and another
‘brother,’ tomorrow.”  “Deferred pleasures are a long time coming,”
 I sighed.  It was lust that made this separation so hasty, for I had, for
a long time, wished to be rid of a troublesome chaperon, so that I could
resume my old relations with my Giton.  (Bearing this affront with
difficulty, Ascyltos rushed from the room, without uttering a word.
Such a headlong outburst augured badly, for I well knew his ungovernable
temper and his unbridled passion.  On this account, I followed him out,
desirous of fathoming his designs and of preventing their consequences,
but he hid himself skillfully from my eyes, and all in vain, I searched
for him for a long time.)




CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH.

After having had the whole town under my eyes, I returned to the little
room and, having claimed the kisses which were mine in good faith, I
encircled the boy in the closest of embraces and enjoyed the effect of
our happy vows to a point that might be envied.  Nor had all the
ceremonies been completed, when Ascyltos stole stealthily up to the
outside of the door and, violently wrenching off the bars, burst in upon
me, toying with my “brother.”  He filled the little room with his
laughter and hand-clapping, pulled away the cloak which covered us, “What
are you up to now, most sanctimonious ‘brother’?”  he jeered.  “What’s
going on here, a blanket-wedding?”  Nor did he confine himself to words,
but, pulling the strap off his bag, he began to lash me very thoroughly,
interjecting sarcasms the while, “This is the way you would share with
your comrade, is it!”  (The unexpectedness of the thing compelled me to
endure the blows in silence and to put up with the abuse, so I smiled at
my calamity, and very prudently, too, as otherwise I should have been put
to the necessity of fighting with a rival.  My pretended good humor
soothed his anger, and at last, Ascyltos smiled as well.  “See here,
Encolpius,” he said, “are you so engrossed with your debaucheries that
you do not realize that our money is gone, and that what we have left is
of no value?  In the summer, times are bad in the city.  The country is
luckier, let’s go and visit our friends.”  Necessity compelled the
approval of this plan, and the repression of any sense of injury as well,
so, loading Giton with our packs, we left the city and hastened to the
country-seat of Lycurgus, a Roman knight.  Inasmuch as Ascyltos has
formerly served him in the capacity of “brother,” he received us royally,
and the company there assembled, rendered our stay still more delightful.
In the first place, there was Tryphaena, a most beautiful woman, who had
come in company with Lycas, the master of a vessel and owner of estates
near the seashore.  Although Lycurgus kept a frugal table, the pleasures
we enjoyed in this most enchanting spot cannot be described in words.
Of course you know that Venus joined us all up, as quickly as possible.
The lovely Tryphaena pleased my taste, and listened willingly to my vows,
but hardly had I had time to enjoy her favors when Lycas, in a towering
rage because his preserves had been secretly invaded, demanded that I
indemnify him in her stead.  She was an old flame of his, so he broached
the subject of a mutual exchange of favors.  Burning with lust, he
pressed his suit, but Tryphaena possessed my heart, and I said Lycas nay.
By refusal, however, he was only made more ardent, followed me
everywhere, entered my room at night, and, after his entreaties had met
with contempt, he had recourse to violence against me, at which I yelled
so lustily that I aroused the entire household, and, by the help of
Lycurgus, I was delivered from the troublesome assault and escaped.  At
last, perceiving that the house of Lycurgus was not suitable to the
prosecution of his design, he attempted to persuade me to seek his
hospitality, and when his suggestion was refused, he made use of
Tryphaena’s influence over me.  She besought me to comply with Lycas’
desires, and she did this all the more readily as by that she hoped to
gain more liberty of action.  With affairs in this posture, I follow my
love, but Lycurgus, who had renewed his old relations with Ascyltos,
would not permit him to leave, so it was decided that he should remain
with Lycurgus, but that we would accompany Lycas.  Nevertheless, we had
it understood among ourselves that whenever the opportunity presented
itself, we would each pilfer whatever we could lay hands upon, for the
betterment of the common stock.  Lycas was highly delighted with my
acceptance of his invitation and hastened our departure, so, bidding our
friends good-bye, we arrived at his place on the very same day.  Lycas
had so arranged matters that, on the journey, he sat beside me, while
Tryphaena was next to Giton, the reason for this being his knowledge
of the woman’s notorious inconstancy; nor was he deceived, for she
immediately fell in love with the boy, and I easily perceived it.
In addition, Lycas took the trouble of calling my attention to the
situation, and laid stress upon the truth of what we saw.  On this
account, I received his advances more graciously, at which he was
overjoyed.  He was certain that contempt would be engendered from the
inconstancy of my “sister,” with the result that, being piqued at
Tryphaena, I would all the more freely receive his advances.  Now this
was the state of affairs at the house of Lycas, Tryphaena was desperately
in love with Giton, Giton’s whole soul was aflame for her, neither of
them was a pleasing sight to my eyes, and Lycas, studying to please me,
arranged novel entertainments each day, which Doris, his lovely wife,
seconded to the best of her ability, and so gracefully that she soon
expelled Tryphaena from my heart.  A wink of the eye acquainted Doris of
my passion, a coquettish glance informed me of the state of her heart,
and this silent language, anticipating the office of the tongue, secretly
expressed that longing of our souls which we had both experienced at the
same instant.  The jealousy of Lycas, already well known to me, was the
cause of my silence, but love itself revealed to the wife the designs
which Lycas had upon me.  At our first opportunity of exchanging
confidences, she revealed to me what she had discovered and I candidly
confessed, telling her of the coldness with which I had always met his
advances.  The far-sighted woman remarked that it would be necessary for
us to use our wits.  It turned out that her advice was sound, for I soon
found out that complacency to the one meant possession of the other.
Giton, in the meantime, was recruiting his exhausted strength, and
Tryphaena turned her attention to me, but, meeting with a repulse, she
flounced out in a rage.  The next thing this burning harlot did was to
discover my commerce with both husband and wife.  As for his wantonness
with me, she flung that aside, as by it she lost nothing, but she fell
upon the secret gratifications of Doris and made them known to Lycas,
who, his jealousy proving stronger than his lust, took steps to get
revenge.  Doris, however, forewarned by Tryphaena’s maid, looked out
for squalls and held aloof from any secret assignations.  When I became
aware of all this, I heartily cursed the perfidy of Tryphaena and the
ungrateful soul of Lycas, and made up my mind to be gone.  Fortune
favored me, as it turned out, for a vessel sacred to Isis and laden with
prize-money had, only the day before, run upon the rocks in the vicinity.
After holding a consultation with Giton, at which he gladly gave consent
to my plan, as Tryphaena visibly neglected him after having sapped his
virility, we hastened to the sea-shore early on the following morning,
and boarded the wreck, a thing easy of accomplishment as the watchmen,
who were in the pay of Lycas, knew us well.  But they were so attentive
to us that there was no opportunity of stealing a thing until, having
left Giton with them, I craftily slipped out of sight and sneaked aft
where the statue of Isis stood, and despoiled it of a valuable mantle and
a silver sistrum.  From the master’s cabin, I also pilfered other
valuable trifles and, stealthily sliding down a rope, went ashore.  Giton
was the only one who saw me and he evaded the watchmen and slipped away
after me.  I showed him the plunder, when he joined me, and we decided
to post with all speed to Ascyltos, but we did not arrive at the home of
Lycurgus until the following day.  In a few words I told Ascyltos of the
robbery, when he joined us, and of our unfortunate love-affairs as well.
He was for prepossessing the mind of Lycurgus in our favor, naming the
increasing wantonness of Lycas as the cause of our secret and sudden
change of habitation.  When Lycurgus had heard everything, he swore
that he would always be a tower of strength between us and our enemies.
Until Tryphaena and Doris were awake and out of bed, our flight remained
undiscovered, for we paid them the homage of a daily attendance at the
morning toilette.  When our unwonted absence was noted, Lycas sent out
runners to comb the sea-shore, for he suspected that we had been to the
wreck, but he was still unaware of the robbery, which was yet unknown
because the stern of the wreck was lying away from the beach, and the
master had not, as yet, gone back aboard.  Lycas flew into a towering
rage when our flight was established for certain, and railed bitterly at
Doris, whom he considered as the moving factor in it.  Of the hard words
and the beating he gave her I will say nothing, for the particulars are
not known to me, but I will affirm that Tryphaena, who was the sole cause
of the unpleasantness, persuaded Lycas to hunt for his fugitives in the
house of Lycurgus, which was our most probable sanctuary.  She
volunteered to accompany him in person, so that she could load us with
the abuse which we deserved at her hands.  They set out on the following
day and arrived at the estate of Lycurgus, but we were not there, for he
had taken us to a neighboring town to attend the feast of Hercules, which
was there being celebrated.  As soon as they found out about this, they
hastened to take to the road and ran right into us in the portico of the
temple.  At sight of them, we were greatly put out, and Lycas held forth
violently to Lycurgus, upon the subject of our flight, but he was met
with raised eyebrows and such a scowling forehead that I plucked up
courage and, in a loud voice, passed judgment upon his lewd and base
attempts and assaults upon me, not in the house of Lycurgus alone, but
even under his own roof: and as for the meddling Tryphaena, she received
her just deserts, for, at great length, I described her moral turpitude
to the crowd, our altercation had caused a mob to collect, and, to give
weight to my argument, I pointed to limber-hamed Giton, drained dry, as
it were, and to myself, reduced almost to skin and bones by the raging
lust of that nymphomaniac harlot.  So humiliated were our enemies by the
guffaws of the mob, that in gloomy ill-humor they beat a retreat to plot
revenge.  As they perceived that we had prepossessed the mind of Lycurgus
in our favor, they decided to await his return, at his estate, in order
that they might wean him away from his misapprehension.  As the
solemnities did not draw to a close until late at night, we could not
reach Lycurgus’ country place, so he conducted us to a villa of his,
situated near the halfway point of the journey, and, leaving us to sleep
there until the next day, he set off for his estate for the purpose of
transacting some business.  Upon his arrival, he found Lycas and
Tryphaena awaiting him, and they stated their case so diplomatically that
they prevailed upon him to deliver us into their hands.  Lycurgus, cruel
by nature and incapable of keeping his word, was by this time striving to
hit upon the best method of betraying us, and to that end, he persuaded
Lycas to go for help, while he himself returned to the villa and had us
put under guard.  To the villa he came, and greeted us with a scowl as
black as any Lycas himself had ever achieved, clenching his fists again
and again, he charged us with having lied about Lycas, and, turning
Ascyltos out, he gave orders that we were to be kept confined to the room
in which we had retired to rest.  Nor would he hear a word in our
defense, from Ascyltos, but, taking the latter with him, he returned to
his estate, reiterating his orders relative to our confinement, which was
to last until his return.  On the way back, Ascyltos vainly essayed to
break down Lycurgus’ determination, but neither prayers nor caresses, nor
even tears could move him.  Thereupon my “brother” conceived the design
of freeing us from our chains, and, antagonized by the stubbornness of
Lycurgus, he positively refused to sleep with him, and through this he
was in a better position to carry out the plan which he had thought out.
When the entire household was buried in its first sleep, Ascyltos loaded
our little packs upon his back and slipped out through a breach in the
wall, which he had previously noted, arriving at the villa with the dawn.
He gained entrance without opposition and found his way to our room,
which the guards had taken the precaution to bar.  It was easy to force
an entrance, as the fastening was made of wood, which same he pried off
with a piece of iron.  The fall of the lock roused us, for we were
snoring away, in spite of our unfortunate situation.  On account of the
long vigil, the guard was in such a deep sleep that we alone were wakened
by the crashing fall of the lock, and Ascyltos, coming in, told us in a
few words what he had done for us; but as far as that goes, not many were
necessary.  We were hurriedly dressing, when I was seized with the notion
of killing the guard and stripping the place.  This plan I confided to
Ascyltos, who approved of the looting, but pointed out a more desirable
solution without bloodshed: knowing all the crooks and turns, as he did,
he led us to a store-room which he opened.  We gathered up all that was
of value and sallied forth while it was yet early in the morning.
Shunning the public roads; we could not rest until we believed ourselves
safe from pursuit.  Ascyltos, when he had caught his breath, gloatingly
exulted of the pleasure which the looting of a villa belonging to
Lycurgus, a superlatively avaricious man, afforded him: he complained,
with justice of his parsimony, affirming that he himself had received no
reward for his k-nightly services, that he had been kept at a dry table
and on a skimpy ration of food.  This Lycurgus was so stingy that he
denied himself even the necessities of life, his immense wealth to the
contrary notwithstanding.)

     The tortured Tantalus still stands, to parch in his shifting pool,

     And starve, when fruit sways just beyond his grasp:

     The image of the miser rich, when his avaricious soul

     Robs him of food and drink, in Plenty’s clasp.

(Ascyltos was for going to Naples that same day, but I protested the
imprudence of going to any place where they would be on the lookout for
us.  “Let’s absent ourselves, for a while, and travel in the country.  We
are well supplied with means.”  This advice took his fancy and we set out
for a part of the country noted for the beauty of its estates, and where
not a few of our acquaintances were enjoying the sports of the season.
Scarcely had we covered half the distance, however, before it began to
pour down rain by the bucketful, compelling us to run for the nearest
village.  Upon entering the inn, we noticed many other wayfarers, who had
put up there to escape the storm.  The jam prevented our being watched,
and at the same time made it easier for us to pry about with curious
eyes, on the alert for something to appropriate.  Ascyltos, unseen by
anyone, picked up off the ground a little pouch in which he found some
gold pieces.  We were overjoyed with this auspicious beginning, but,
fearing that some one would miss the gold, we stealthily slipped out by
the back door.  A slave, who was saddling a horse in the courtyard,
suddenly left his work and went into the house, as if he had forgotten
something, and while he was gone I appropriated a superb mantle which was
tied fast to the saddle, by untying the thongs, then, utilizing a row of
outbuildings for cover, we made off into the nearest wood.  When we had
reached the depths of the grove, where we were in safety, we thoroughly
discussed the surest method of secreting our gold, so that we would
neither be accused of robbery nor robbed ourselves, and we finally
decided to sew it into the hem of a ragged tunic, which I threw over my
shoulders, after having turned the mantle over to Ascyltos for
safekeeping; we then made ready to start for the city via the
unfrequented roads.  We were just about to emerge from the shelter of
the wood when we heard, from somewhere on our left, “They can’t get away,
they came into this wood; let’s spread out and beat, and they will easily
be caught!”  On hearing this, we were thrown into such a terrible fright
that Ascyltos and Giton dashed away city-ward, through the underbrush,
and I retreated in such a hurry that the precious tunic slipped off my
shoulders without my knowing it.  At last, completely fagged out, and
unable to take another step, I lay down under a tree, and there I first
became aware of the loss of the tunic.  Chagrin restored my strength and
I leaped to my feet to look for the treasure, and for a long time I beat
around in vain.  Worn out with work and vexation, I forced my way into
the thickest part of the grove and remained there for four mortal hours,
but at last, bored to extinction by the horrible solitude, I sought a way
out.  As I went ahead, I caught sight of a peasant; then I had need of
all my nerve, and it did not fail me.  Marching boldly up to him, I asked
my way to the city, complaining that I had been lost in the wood for
several hours.  Seeing my condition, he took pity upon me, for I was
covered with mud and paler than death, and asked me whether I had seen
anyone in the place.  “Not a soul,” I replied, whereupon he kindly
conducted me to the high road, where he met two of his companions, who
informed him that they had beaten along every path in the forest without
having found anything except a tunic, which they showed him.  As may be
readily supposed, I did not have the audacity to claim it, though well
aware of its value, and my chagrin became almost insupportable as I
vented many a groaning curse over my lost treasure.  The peasants paid
no attention to me, and I was gradually left behind, as my weakness
increased my pace decreased.  For this reason, it was late when I reached
the city, and, entering the inn, beheld Ascyltos, stretched out, half
dead, upon a cot.  Too far gone to utter a single syllable, I threw
myself upon another.  Ascyltos became greatly excited at not seeing the
tunic which he had entrusted to me, demanding it insistently, but I was
so weak that my voice refused its office and I permitted the apathy of my
eyes to answer his demand, then, by and by, regaining my strength little
by little, I related the whole affair to Ascyltos, in every detail.  He
thought that I was joking, and although my testimony was fortified by a
copious flood of tears, it could easily be seen that he remained
unconvinced, believing that I wanted to cheat him out of the gold.
Giton, who was standing by during all this, was as downcast as myself,
and the suffering of the lad only served to increase my own vexation, but
the thing which bothered me most of all, was the painstaking search which
was being made for us; I told Ascyltos of this, but he only laughed it
off, as he had so happily extricated himself from the scrape.  He was
convinced that, as we were unknown and as no one had seen us, we were
perfectly safe.  We decided, nevertheless, to feign sickness, and to keep
to our room as long as possible; but, before we knew it, our money ran
out, and spurred by necessity we were forced to go abroad and sell some
of our plunder.)




CHAPTER THE TWELFTH.

Twilight was falling, as we entered the market-place, in which we noticed
a quantity of things for sale, not any of much value, it is true, but
such as could be disposed of to the best advantage when the semi-darkness
would serve to hide their doubtful origin.  As we had brought our stolen
mantle, we proceeded to make use of so favorable an opportunity, and, in
a secluded spot, displayed a corner of it, hoping the splendid garment
would attract some purchaser.  Nor was it long before a certain peasant,
whose face was familiar to my eyes, came up, accompanied by a young
woman, and began to examine the garment very closely.  Ascyltos, in turn,
cast a glance at the shoulders of our rustic customer, and was instantly
struck dumb with astonishment.  Nor could I myself look upon this man
without some emotion, for he seemed to be the identical person who had
picked up the ragged tunic in the lonely wood, and, as a matter of fact,
he was!  Ascyltos, afraid to believe the evidence of his own eyes for
fear of doing something rash, approached the man, as a prospective buyer,
took the hem of the tunic from the rustic’s shoulders, and felt it
thoroughly.




CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH.

Oh wonderful stroke of Fortune!  The peasant had not yet laid his
meddling hands upon the seams, but was scornfully offering the thing for
sale, as though it had been the leavings of some beggar.  When Ascyltos
had assured himself that the hoard was intact, and had taken note of the
social status of the seller, he led me a little aside from the crowd and
said, “Do you know, ‘brother,’ that the treasure about which I was so
worked up has come back to us?  That is the little tunic, and it seems
that the gold pieces are still untouched.  What ought we to do, and how
shall we make good our claim?”  I was overjoyed, not so much at seeing
our booty, as I was for the reason that Fortune had released me from a
very ugly suspicion.  I was opposed to doing anything by devious methods,
thinking that should he prove unwilling to restore to the proper owner an
article not his own, it ought to come to a civil action and a judgment
secured.




CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.

Not so Ascyltos, who was afraid of the law, and demurred, “Who knows us
here?  Who will place any credence in anything we say?  It seems to me
that it would be better to buy, ours though it is, and we know it, and
recover the treasure at small cost, rather than to engage in a doubtful
lawsuit.”

          Of what avail are any laws, where money rules alone,

          Where Poverty can never win its cases?

          Detractors of the times, who bear the Cynic’s scrip, are known

          To often sell the truth, and keep their faces!

          So Justice is at public auction bought,

          The knight gives judgement as Gold says he ought.

But, with the exception of a two-as piece with which we had intended
purchasing peas and lupines, there was nothing to hand; so, for fear our
loot should escape us in the interim, we resolved to appraise the mantle
at less, and, through a small sacrifice, secure a greater profit.
Accordingly, we spread it out, and the young woman of the covered head,
who was standing by the peasant’s side, narrowly inspected the markings,
seized the hem with both hands, and screamed “Thieves!” at the top of her
voice.  We were greatly disconcerted at this and, for fear that
inactivity on our part should seem to lend color to her charges, we
laid hold of the dirty ragged tunic, in our turn, and shouted with equal
spite, that this was our property which they had in their possession; but
our cases were by no means on an equality, and the hucksters who had
crowded around us at the uproar, laughed at our spiteful claim, and very
naturally, too, since one side laid claim to a very valuable mantle,
while the other demanded a rag which was not worth a good patch.




CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH.

Ascyltos, when he had secured silence, adroitly put a stop to their
laughter by exclaiming, “We can see that each puts the greater value upon
his own property.  Let them return our tunic to us, and take back their
mantle!”  This exchange was satisfactory enough to the peasant and the
young woman, but some night-prowling shyster lawyers, who wished to get
possession of the mantle for their own profit, demanded that both
articles be deposited with them, and the judge could look into the case
on the morrow, for it would appear that the ownership of the articles was
not so much to the point as was the suspicion of robbery that attached
to both sides.  The question of sequestration arose, and one of the
hucksters, I do not remember which, but he was bald, and his forehead was
covered with sebaceous wens, and he sometimes did odd jobs for the
lawyers, seized the mantle and vowed that HE would see to it that it was
produced at the proper time and place, but it was easily apparent that he
desired nothing but that the garment should be deposited with thieves,
and vanish; thinking that we would be afraid to appear as claimants for
fear of being charged with crime.  As far as we were concerned, we were
as willing as he, and Fortune aided the cause of each of us, for the
peasant, infuriated at our demand that his rags be shown in public, threw
the tunic in Ascyltos’ face, released us from responsibility, and
demanded that the mantle, which was the only object of litigation, be
sequestered.  As we thought we had recovered our treasure, we returned
hurriedly to the inn, and fastening the door, we had a good laugh at the
shrewdness of the hucksters, and not less so at that of our enemies, for
by it they had returned our money to us.  (While we were unstitching the
tunic to get at the gold pieces, we overheard some one quizzing the
innkeeper as to what kind of people those were, who had just entered his
house.  Alarmed at this inquiry, I went down, when the questioner had
gone, to find out what was the matter, and learned that the praetor’s
lictor, whose duty it was to see that the names of strangers were entered
in his rolls, had seen two people come into the inn, whose names were not
yet entered, and that was the reason he had made inquiry as to their
names and means of support.  Mine host furnished this information in such
an offhand manner that I became suspicious as to our entire safety in his
house; so, in order to avoid arrest, we decided to go out, and not to
return home until after dark, and we sallied forth, leaving the
management of dinner to Giton.  As it suited our purpose to avoid the
public streets, we strolled through the more unfrequented parts of the
city, and just at dusk we met two women in stolas, in a lonely spot, and
they were by no means homely.  Walking softly, we followed them to a
temple which they entered, and from which we could hear a curious
humming, which resembled the sound of voices issuing from the depths of a
cavern.  Curiosity impelled us also to enter the temple.  There we caught
sight of many women, who resembled Bacchantes, each of whom brandished in
her right hand an emblem of Priapus.  We were not permitted to see more,
for as their eyes fell upon us, they raised such a hubbub that the vault
of the temple trembled.  They attempted to lay hands upon us, but we ran
back to our inn as fast as we could go.)




CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH.

We had just disposed of the supper prepared by Giton, when there came a
timid rapping at the door.  We turned pale.  “Who is there?”  we asked.
“Open and you will find out,” came the answer.  While we were speaking,
the bar fell down of its own accord, the doors flew open and admitted our
visitor.  She was the selfsame young lady of the covered head who had but
a little while before stood by the peasant’s side.  “So you thought,”
 said she, “that you could make a fool of me, did you?  I am Quartilla’s
handmaid: Quartilla, whose rites you interrupted in the shrine.  She has
come to the inn, in person, and begs permission to speak with you.  Don’t
be alarmed!  She neither blames your mistake nor does she demand
punishment; on the contrary, she wonders what god has brought such
well-bred young gentlemen into her neighborhood!”




CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH.

We were still holding our tongues and refraining from any expression of
opinion, when the lady herself entered the room, attended by a little
girl.  Seating herself upon the bed, she wept for a long time.  Not even
then did we interject a single word, but waited, all attention, for what
was to follow these well ordered tears and this show of grief.  When the
diplomatic thunderstorm had passed over, she withdrew her haughty head
from her mantle and, ringing her hands until the joints cracked, “What is
the meaning of such audacity?” she demanded; “where did you learn such
tricks?  They are worthy of putting to shame the assurance of all the
robbers of the past!  I pity you, so help me the God of Truth, I do; for
no one can look with impunity upon that which it is unlawful for him to
see.  In our neighborhood, there are so many gods that it is easier to
meet one than it is to find a man!  But do not think that I was actuated
by any desire for revenge when I came here: I am more moved by your age
than I am by my own injury, for it is my belief that youthful imprudence
led you into committing a sacrilegious crime.  That very night, I tossed
so violently in the throes of a dangerous chill that I was afraid I had
contracted a tertian ague, and in my dreams I prayed for a medicine.  I
was ordered to seek you out, and to arrest the progress of the disease by
means of an expedient to be suggested by your wonderful penetration!  The
cure does not matter so much, however, for a deeper grief gnaws at my
vitals and drags me down, almost to the very doors of death itself.  I am
afraid that, with the careless impulsiveness of youth, you may divulge,
to the common herd, what you witnessed in the shrine of Priapus, and
reveal the rites of the gods to the rabble.  On this account, I stretch
out my suppliant hands to your knees, and beg and pray that you do not
make a mockery and a joke of our nocturnal rites, nor lay bare the
secrets of so many years, into which scarcely a thousand persons are
initiated.”




CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH.

The tears poured forth again, after this appeal, and, shaken by deep
sobs, she buried her whole face and breast in my bed; and I, moved by
pity and by apprehension, begged her to be of good cheer and to make
herself perfectly easy as to both of those issues, for not only would we
not betray any secrets to the rabble, but we would also second divine
providence, at any peril to ourselves, if any god had indicated to her
any cure for her tertian ague.  The woman cheered up at this promise, and
smothered me with kisses; from tears she passed to laughter, and fell to
running her fingers through the long hair that hung down about my ears.
“I will declare a truce with you,” she said, “and withdraw my complaint.
But had you been unwilling to administer the medicine which I seek, I had
a troop in readiness for the morrow, which would have exacted
satisfaction for my injury and reparation for my dignity!

          To be flouted is disgraceful, but to dictate terms, sublime

          Pleased am I to choose what course I will,

          Even sages will retort an insult at the proper tune.

          Victor most is he who does not kill.”

Then she suddenly clapped her hands, and broke into such a peal of
laughter that we were alarmed.  The maid, who had been the first to
arrive, did likewise, on one side of us, as also did the little girl who
had entered with the madame herself.




CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH.

The whole place was filled with mocking laughter, and we, who could see
no reason for such a change of front, stared blankly at each other and
then at the women.  (Then Quartilla spoke up, finally,) “I gave orders
that no mortal man should be admitted into this inn, this day, so that I
could receive the treatment for my ague without interruption!”  Ascyltos
was, for the moment, struck dumb by this admission of Quartilla’s, and I
turned colder than a Gallic winter, and could not utter a word; but the
personnel of the company relieved me from the fear that the worst might
be yet to come, for they were only three young women, too weak to attempt
any violence against us, who were of the male sex, at least, even if we
had nothing else of the man about us, and this was an asset.  Then, too,
we were girded higher, and I had so arranged matters that if it came to a
fight, I would engage Quartilla myself, Ascyltos the maid, and Giton the
girl.  (While I was turning over this plan in my mind, Quartilla came to
close quarters, to receive the treatment for her ague, but having her
hopes disappointed, she flounced out in a rage and, returning in a little
while, she had us overpowered by some unknown vagabonds, and gave orders
for us to be carried away to a splendid palace.)  Then our determination
gave place to astonishment, and death, sure and certain, began to obscure
the eyes of suffering.




CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.

“Pray; madame,” I groaned, “if you have anything worse in store, bring it
on quickly for we have not committed a crime so heinous as to merit death
by torture.”  The maid, whose name was Psyche, quickly spread a blanket
upon the floor (and) sought to secure an erection by fondling my member,
which was already a thousand times colder than death.  Ascyltos, well
aware by now of the danger of dipping into the secrets of others, covered
his head with his mantle.  (In the meantime,) the maid took two ribbons
from her bosom and bound our feet with one and our hands with the other.
(Finding myself trussed up in this fashion, I remarked, “You will not be
able to cure your mistress’ ague in this manner!”  “Granted,” the maid
replied, “but I have other and surer remedies at hand,” she brought me a
vessel full of satyrion, as she said this, and so cheerfully did she
gossip about its virtues that I drank down nearly all of the liquor, and
because Ascyltos had but a moment before rejected her advances, she
sprinkled the dregs upon his back, without his knowing it.)  When this
repartee had drawn to a close, Ascyltos exclaimed, “Don’t I deserve a
drink?”  Given away by my laughter, the maid clapped her hands and cried,
“I put one by you, young man; did you drink so much all by yourself?”
 “What’s that you say?”, Quartilla chimed in.  “Did Encolpius drink all
the satyrion there was in the house?”  And she laughed delightfully until
her sides shook.  Finally not even Giton himself could resist a smile,
especially when the little girl caught him around the neck and showered
innumerable kisses upon him, and he not at all averse to it.




CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.

We would have cried aloud in our misery but there was no one to give us
any help, and whenever I attempted to shout, “Help!  all honest
citizens,” Psyche would prick my cheeks with her hairpin, and the little
girl would intimidate Ascyltos with a brush dipped in satyrion.  Then a
catamite appeared, clad in a myrtle-colored frieze robe, and girded round
with a belt.  One minute he nearly gored us to death with his writhing
buttocks, and the next, he befouled us so with his stinking kisses that
Quartilla, with her robe tucked high, held up her whalebone wand and
ordered him to give the unhappy wretches quarter.  Both of us then took a
most solemn oath that so dread a secret should perish with us.  Several
wrestling instructors appeared and refreshed us, worn out as we were, by
a massage with pure oil, and when our fatigue had abated, we again donned
our dining clothes and were escorted to the next room, in which were
placed three couches, and where all the essentials necessary to a
splendid banquet were laid out in all their richness.  We took our
places, as requested, and began with a wonderful first course.  We were
all but submerged in Falernian wine.  When several other courses had
followed, and we were endeavoring to keep awake Quartilla exclaimed, “How
dare you think of going to sleep when you know that the vigil of Priapus
is to be kept?”




CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND.

Worn out by all his troubles, Ascyltos commenced to nod, and the maid,
whom he had slighted, and of course insulted, smeared lampblack all over
his face, and painted his lips and shoulders with vermillion, while he
drowsed.  Completely exhausted by so many untoward adventures, I, too,
was enjoying the shortest of naps, the whole household, within and
without, was doing the same, some were lying here and there asleep at our
feet, others leaned against the walls, and some even slept head to head
upon the threshold itself; the lamps, failing because of a lack of oil,
shed a feeble and flickering light, when two Syrians, bent upon stealing
an amphora of wine, entered the dining-room.  While they were greedily
pawing among the silver, they pulled the amphora in two, upsetting the
table with all the silver plate, and a cup, which had flown pretty high,
cut the head of the maid, who was drowsing upon a couch.  She screamed at
that, thereby betraying the thieves and wakening some of the drunkards.
The Syrians, who had come for plunder, seeing that they were about to be
detected, were so quick to throw themselves down besides a couch and
commence to snore as if they had been asleep for a long time, that you
would have thought they belonged there.  The butler had gotten up and
poured oil in the flickering lamps by this time, and the boys, having
rubbed their eyes open, had returned to their duty, when in came a female
cymbal player and the crashing brass awoke everybody.




CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD.

The banquet began all over again, and Quartilla challenged us to a
drinking-bout, the crash of the cymbals lending ardor to her revel.
A catamite appeared, the stalest of all mankind, well worthy of that
house.  Heaving a sigh, he wrung his hands until the joints cracked,
and spouted out the following verses,

    “Hither, hither quickly gather, pathic companions boon;
     Artfully stretch forth your limbs and on with the dance and play!
     Twinkling feet and supple thighs and agile buttocks in tune,
     Hands well skilled in raising passions, Delian eunuchs gay!”

When he had finished his poetry, he slobbered a most evil-smelling kiss
upon me, and then, climbing upon my couch, he proceeded with all his
might and main to pull all of my clothing off.  I resisted to the limit
of my strength.  He manipulated my member for a long time, but all in
vain.  Gummy streams poured down his sweating forehead, and there was so
much chalk in the wrinkles of his cheeks that you might have mistaken his
face for a roofless wall, from which the plaster was crumbling in a rain.




CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH.

Driven to the last extremity, I could no longer keep back the tears.
“Madame,” I burst out, “is this the night-cap which you ordered served to
me?”  Clapping her hands softly she cried out, “Oh you witty rogue, you
are a fountain of repartee, but you never knew before that a catamite was
called a k-night-cap, now did you?” Then, fearing my companion would come
off better than I, “Madame,” I said, “I leave it to your sense of
fairness: is Ascyltos to be the only one in this dining-room who keeps
holiday?”  “Fair enough,” conceded Quartilla, “let Ascyltos have his
k-night-cap too!”  On hearing that, the catamite changed mounts, and,
having bestridden my comrade, nearly drove him to distraction with his
buttocks and his kisses.  Giton was standing between us and splitting his
sides with laughter when Quartilla noticed him, and actuated by the
liveliest curiosity, she asked whose boy he was, and upon my answering
that he was my “brother,”  “Why has he not kissed me then?”  she
demanded.  Calling him to her, she pressed a kiss upon his mouth, then
putting her hand beneath his robe, she took hold of his little member, as
yet so undeveloped.  “This,” she remarked, “shall serve me very well
tomorrow, as a whet to my appetite, but today I’ll take no common fare
after choice fish!”




CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH.

She was still talking when Psyche, who was giggling, came to her side and
whispered something in her ear.  What it was, I did not catch.  “By all
means,” ejaculated Quartilla, “a brilliant idea!  Why shouldn’t our
pretty little Pannychis lose her maidenhead when the opportunity is so
favorable?”  A little girl, pretty enough, too, was led in at once; she
looked to be not over seven years of age, and she was the same one who
had before accompanied Quartilla to our room.  Amidst universal applause,
and in response to the demands of all, they made ready to perform the
nuptial rites.  I was completely out of countenance, and insisted that
such a modest boy as Giton was entirely unfitted for such a wanton part,
and moreover, that the child was not of an age at which she could receive
that which a woman must take.  “Is that so,” Quartilla scoffed, “is she
any younger than I was, when I submitted to my first man?  Juno, my
patroness, curse me if I can remember the time when I ever was a virgin,
for I diverted myself with others of my own age, as a child then as the
years passed, I played with bigger boys, until at last I reached my
present age.  I suppose that this explains the origin of the proverb,
‘Who carried the calf may carry the bull,’ as they say.”  As I feared
that Giton might run greater risk if I were absent, I got up to take
part in the ceremony.




CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH.

Psyche had already enveloped the child’s head in the bridal-veil, the
catamite, holding a torch, led the long procession of drunken women which
followed; they were clapping their hands, having previously decked out
the bridal-bed with a suggestive drapery.  Quartilla, spurred on by the
wantonness of the others, seized hold of Giton and drew him into the
bridal-chamber.  There was no doubt of the boy’s perfect willingness to
go, nor was the girl at all alarmed at the name of marriage.  When they
were finally in bed, and the door shut, we seated ourselves outside the
door of the bridal-chamber, and Quartilla applied a curious eye to a
chink, purposely made, watching their childish dalliance with lascivious
attention.  She then drew me gently over to her side that I might share
the spectacle with her, and when we both attempted to peep our faces were
pressed against each other; whenever she was not engrossed in the
performance, she screwed up her lips to meet mine, and pecked at me
continually with furtive kisses.  [A thunderous hammering was heard at
the door, while all this was going on, and everyone wondered what this
unexpected interruption could mean, when we saw a soldier, one of the
night-watch, enter with a drawn sword in his hand, and surrounded by a
crowd of young rowdies.  He glared about him with savage eyes and
blustering mien, and, catching sight of Quartilla, presently, “What’s up
now, you shameless woman,” he bawled; “what do you mean by making game of
me with lying promises, and cheating me out of the night you promised me?
But you won’t get off unpunished! You and that lover of yours are going to
find out that I’m a man!”  At the soldier’s orders, his companion bound
Quartilla and myself together, mouth to mouth, breast to breast, and
thigh to thigh; and not without a great deal of laughter.  Then the
catamite, also at the soldier’s order, began to beslaver me all over with
the fetid kisses of his stinking mouth, a treatment I could neither fly
from, nor in any other way avoid.  Finally, he ravished me, and worked
his entire pleasure upon me.  In the meantime, the satyrion which I had
drunk only a little while before spurred every nerve to lust and I began
to gore Quartilla impetuously, and she, burning with the same passion,
reciprocated in the game.  The rowdies laughed themselves sick, so moved
were they by that ludicrous scene, for here was I, mounted by the stalest
of catamites, involuntarily and almost unconsciously responding with as
rapid a cadence to him as Quartilla did in her wriggling under me.  While
this was going on, Pannychis, unaccustomed at her tender years to the
pastime of Venus, raised an outcry and attracted the attention of the
soldier, by this unexpected howl of consternation, for this slip of a
girl was being ravished, and Giton the victor, had won a not bloodless
victory.  Aroused by what he saw, the soldier rushed upon them, seizing
Pannychis, then Giton, then both of them together, in a crushing embrace.
The virgin burst into tears and plead with him to remember her age, but
her prayers availed her nothing, the soldier only being fired the more by
her childish charms.  Pannychis covered her head at last, resolved to
endure whatever the Fates had in store for her.  At this instant, an old
woman, the very same who had tricked me on that day when I was hunting
for our lodging, came to the aid of Pannychis, as though she had dropped
from the clouds.  With loud cries, she rushed into the house, swearing
that a gang of footpads was prowling about the neighborhood and the
people invoked the help of “All honest men,” in vain, for the members of
the night-watch were either asleep or intent upon some carouse, as they
were nowhere to be found.  Greatly terrified at this, the soldier rushed
headlong from Quartilla’s house.  His companions followed after him,
freeing Pannychis from impending danger and relieving the rest of us from
our fear.]  (I was so weary of Quartilla’s lechery that I began to
meditate means of escape.  I made my intentions known to Ascyltos, who,
as he wished to rid himself of the importunities of Psyche, was
delighted; had not Giton been shut up in the bridal-chamber, the plan
would have presented no difficulties, but we wished to take him with us,
and out of the way of the viciousness of these prostitutes.  We were
anxiously engaged in debating this very point, when Pannychis fell out of
bed, and dragged Giton after her, by her own weight.  He was not hurt,
but the girl gave her head a slight bump, and raised such a clamor that
Quartilla, in a terrible fright, rushed headlong into the room, giving us
the opportunity of making off.  We did not tarry, but flew back to our
inn where,) throwing ourselves upon the bed, we passed the remainder of
the night without fear.  (Sallying forth next day, we came upon two of
our kidnappers, one of whom Ascyltos savagely attacked the moment he set
eyes upon him, and, after having thrashed and seriously wounded him,
he ran to my aid against the other.  He defended himself so stoutly,
however, that he wounded us both, slightly, and escaped unscathed.)  The
third day had now dawned, the date set for the free dinner (at
Trimalchio’s,) but battered as we were, flight seemed more to our taste
than quiet, so (we hastened to our inn and, as our wounds turned out to
be trifling, we dressed them with vinegar and oil, and went to bed.  The
ruffian whom we had done for, was still lying upon the ground and we
feared detection.)  Affairs were at this pass, and we were framing
melancholy excuses with which to evade the coming revel, when a slave of
Agamemnon’s burst in upon our trembling conclave and said, “Don’t you
know with whom your engagement is today?  The exquisite Trimalchio, who
keeps a clock and a liveried bugler in his dining-room, so that he can
tell, instantly, how much of his life has run out!”  Forgetting all our
troubles at that, we dressed hurriedly and ordered Giton, who had very
willingly performed his servile office, to follow us to the bath.



ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:

Boys play in the schools, the young men are laughed at
Deferred pleasures are a long time coming
Egyptians “commercialized” that incomparable art
Errors committed in the name of religion
Everything including the children, is devoted to ambition
Laughed ourselves out of a most disgraceful quarrel
No one will confess the errors he was taught in his school days
Priests, animated by an hypocritical mania for prophecy
See or hear nothing at all of the affairs of every-day life
The teachers, who must gibber with lunatics
They secure their ends, save by setting snares for the ears





VOLUME 2.--THE DINNER OF TRIMALCHIO


CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH.

Having put on our clothes, in the meantime, we commenced to stroll around
and soon, the better to amuse ourselves, approached the circle of
players; all of a sudden we caught sight of a bald-headed old fellow,
rigged out in a russet colored tunic, playing ball with some long haired
boys.  It was not so much the boys who attracted our attention, although
they might well have merited it, as it was the spectacle afforded by this
beslippered paterfamilias playing with a green ball.  If one but touched
the ground, he never stooped for it to put it back in play; for a slave
stood by with a bagful from which the players were supplied.  We noted
other innovations as well, for two eunuchs were stationed at opposite
sides of the ring, one of whom held a silver chamber-pot, the other
counted the balls; not those which bounced back and forth from hand to
hand, in play, but those which fell to the ground.  While we were
marveling at this display of refinement, Menelaus rushed up, “He is the
one with whom you will rest upon your elbow,” he panted, “what you see
now, is only a prelude to the dinner.”  Menelaus had scarcely ceased
speaking when Trimalchio snapped his fingers; the eunuch, hearing the
signal, held the chamber-pot for him while he still continued playing.
After relieving his bladder, he called for water to wash his hands,
barely moistened his fingers, and dried them upon a boy’s head.




CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH.

To go into details would take too long.  We entered the bath, finally,
and after sweating for a minute or two in the warm room, we passed
through into the cold water.  But short as was the time, Trimalchio had
already been sprinkled with perfume and was being rubbed down, not with
linen towels, however, but with cloths made from the finest wool.
Meanwhile, three masseurs were guzzling Falernian under his eyes, and
when they spilled a great deal of it in their brawling, Trimalchio
declared they were pouring a libation to his Genius.  He was then wrapped
in a coarse scarlet wrap-rascal, and placed in a litter. Four runners,
whose liveries were decorated with metal plates, preceded him, as also
did a wheel-chair in which rode his favorite, a withered, blear eyed
slave, even more repulsive looking than his master.  A singing boy
approached the head of his litter, as he was being carried along, and
played upon small pipes the whole way, just as if he were communicating
some secret to his master’s ear.  Marveling greatly, we followed, and met
Agamemnon at the outer door, to the post of which was fastened a small
tablet bearing this inscription:

                    NO SLAVE TO LEAVE THE PREMISES
                 WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM THE MASTER.
                      PENALTY ONE HUNDRED LASHES.

In the vestibule stood the porter, clad in green and girded with a
cherry-colored belt, shelling peas into a silver dish.  Above the
threshold was suspended a golden cage, from which a black and white
magpie greeted the visitors.




CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH.

I almost fell backwards and broke my legs while staring at all this, for
to the left, as we entered, not far from the porter’s alcove, an enormous
dog upon a chain was painted upon the wall, and above him this
inscription, in capitals:

                             BEWARE THE DOG.

My companions laughed, but I plucked up my courage and did not hesitate,
but went on and examined the entire wall.  There was a scene in a slave
market, the tablets hanging from the slaves’ necks, and Trimalchio
himself, wearing his hair long, holding a caduceus in his hand, entering
Rome, led by the hand of Minerva.  Then again the painstaking artist had
depicted him casting up accounts, and still again, being appointed
steward; everything being explained by inscriptions.  Where the walls
gave way to the portico, Mercury was shown lifting him up by the chin,
to a tribunal placed on high.  Near by stood Fortune with her horn of
plenty, and the three Fates, spinning golden flax.  I also took note of a
group of runners, in the portico, taking their exercise under the eye of
an instructor, and in one corner was a large cabinet, in which was a very
small shrine containing silver Lares, a marble Venus, and a golden casket
by no means small, which held, so they told us, the first shavings of
Trimalchio’s beard.  I asked the hall-porter what pictures were in the
middle hall.  “The Iliad and the Odyssey,” he replied, “and the
gladiatorial games given under Laenas.”  There was no time in which to
examine them all.




CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH.

We had now come to the dining-room, at the entrance to which sat a
factor, receiving accounts, and, what gave me cause for astonishment,
rods and axes were fixed to the door-posts, superimposed, as it were,
upon the bronze beak of a ship, whereon was inscribed:

                     TO GAIUS POMPEIUS TRIMALCHIO
                            AUGUSTAL, SEVIR
                           FROM CINNAMUS HIS
                                STEWARD.

A double lamp, suspended from the ceiling, hung beneath the inscription,
and a tablet was fixed to each door-post; one, if my memory serves me,
was inscribed,

                       ON DECEMBER THIRTIETH AND
                             THIRTY FIRST
                                  OUR
                            GAIUS DINES OUT

the other bore a painting of the moon in her phases, and the seven
planets, and the days which were lucky and those which were unlucky,
distinguished by distinctive studs.  We had had enough of these novelties
and started to enter the dining-room when a slave, detailed to this duty,
cried out, “Right foot first.”  Naturally, we were afraid that some of us
might break some rule of conduct and cross the threshold the wrong way;
nevertheless, we started out, stepping off together with the right foot,
when all of a sudden, a slave who had been stripped, threw himself at our
feet, and commenced begging us to save him from punishment, as it was no
serious offense for which he was in jeopardy; the steward’s clothing had
been stolen from him in the baths, and the whole value could scarcely
amount to ten sesterces.  So we drew back our right feet and intervened
with the steward, who was counting gold pieces in the hall, begging him
to remit the slave’s punishment.  Putting a haughty face on the matter,
“It’s not the loss I mind so much,” he said, “as it is the carelessness
of this worthless rascal.  He lost my dinner clothes, given me on my
birthday they were, by a certain client, Tyrian purple too, but it had
been washed once already.  But what does it amount to?  I make you a
present of the scoundrel!”




CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIRST.

We felt deeply obligated by his great condescension, and the same
slave for whom we had interceded, rushed up to us as we entered the
dining-room, and to our astonishment, kissed us thick and fast, voicing
his thanks for our kindness.  “You’ll know in a minute whom you did a
favor for,” he confided, “the master’s wine is the thanks of a grateful
butler!”  At length we reclined, and slave boys from Alexandria poured
water cooled with snow upon our hands, while others following, attended
to our feet and removed the hangnails with wonderful dexterity, nor were
they silent even during this disagreeable operation, but they all kept
singing at their work.  I was desirous of finding out whether the whole
household could sing, so I ordered a drink; a boy near at hand instantly
repeated my order in a singsong voice fully as shrill, and whichever one
you accosted did the same.  You would not imagine that this was the
dining-room of a private gentleman, but rather that it was an exhibition
of pantomimes.  A very inviting relish was brought on, for by now all the
couches were occupied save only that of Trimalchio, for whom, after a new
custom, the chief place was reserved.

On the tray stood a donkey made of Corinthian bronze, bearing panniers
containing olives, white in one and black in the other.  Two platters
flanked the figure, on the margins of which were engraved Trimalchio’s
name and the weight of the silver in each.  Dormice sprinkled with
poppy-seed and honey were served on little bridges soldered fast to the
platter, and hot sausages on a silver gridiron, underneath which were
damson plums and pomegranate seeds.




CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SECOND.

We were in the midst of these delicacies when, to the sound of music,
Trimalchio himself was carried in and bolstered up in a nest of small
cushions, which forced a snicker from the less wary.  A shaven poll
protruded from a scarlet mantle, and around his neck, already muffled
with heavy clothing, he had tucked a napkin having a broad purple stripe
and a fringe that hung down all around.  On the little finger of his left
hand he wore a massive gilt ring, and on the first joint of the next
finger, a smaller one which seemed to me to be of pure gold, but as a
matter of fact it had iron stars soldered on all around it.  And then,
for fear all of his finery would not be displayed, he bared his right
arm, adorned with a golden arm-band and an ivory circlet clasped with a
plate of shining metal.




CHAPTER THE THIRTY-THIRD.

Picking his teeth with a silver quill, “Friends,” said he, “it was not
convenient for me to come into the dining-room just yet, but for fear my
absence should cause you any inconvenience, I gave over my own pleasure:
permit me, however, to finish my game.”  A slave followed with a
terebinth table and crystal dice, and I noted one piece of luxury that
was superlative; for instead of black and white pieces, he used gold and
silver coins.  He kept up a continual flow of various coarse expressions.
We were still dallying with the relishes when a tray was brought in, on
which was a basket containing a wooden hen with her wings rounded and
spread out as if she were brooding.  Two slaves instantly approached, and
to the accompaniment of music, commenced to feel around in the straw.
They pulled out some pea-hen’s eggs, which they distributed among the
diners.  Turning his head, Trimalchio saw what was going on.  “Friends,”
 he remarked.  “I ordered pea-hen’s eggs set under the hen, but I’m afraid
they’re addled, by Hercules I am let’s try them anyhow, and see if
they’re still fit to suck.”  We picked up our spoons, each of which
weighed not less than half a pound, and punctured the shells, which were
made of flour and dough, and as a matter of fact, I very nearly threw
mine away for it seemed to me that a chick had formed already, but upon
hearing an old experienced guest vow, “There must be something good
here,” I broke open the shell with my hand and discovered a fine fat
fig-pecker, imbedded in a yolk seasoned with pepper.




CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FOURTH.

Having finished his game, Trimalchio was served with a helping of
everything and was announcing in a loud voice his willingness to join
anyone in a second cup of honied wine, when, to a flourish of music, the
relishes were suddenly whisked away by a singing chorus, but a small dish
happened to fall to the floor, in the scurry, and a slave picked it up.
Seeing this, Trimalchio ordered that the boy be punished by a box on the
ear, and made him throw it down again; a janitor followed with his broom
and swept the silver dish away among the litter.  Next followed two
long-haired Ethiopians, carrying small leather bottles, such as are
commonly seen in the hands of those who sprinkle sand in the arena, and
poured wine upon our hands, for no one offered us water.  When
complimented upon these elegant extras, the host cried out, “Mars loves
a fair fight: and so I ordered each one a separate table: that way these
stinking slaves won’t make us so hot with their crowding.”  Some glass
bottles carefully sealed with gypsum were brought in at that instant; a
label bearing this inscription was fastened to the neck of each one:

                           OPIMIAN FALERNIAN
                         ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLD.

While we were studying the labels, Trimalchio clapped his hands and
cried, “Ah me!  To think that wine lives longer than poor little man.
Let’s fill ‘em up!  There’s life in wine and this is the real Opimian,
you can take my word for that.  I offered no such vintage yesterday,
though my guests were far more respectable.”  We were tippling away and
extolling all these elegant devices, when a slave brought in a silver
skeleton, so contrived that the joints and movable vertebra could be
turned in any direction.  He threw it down upon the table a time or two,
and its mobile articulation caused it to assume grotesque attitudes,
whereupon Trimalchio chimed in:

              “Poor man is nothing in the scheme of things
               And Orcus grips us and to Hades flings
               Our bones!  This skeleton before us here
               Is as important as we ever were!
               Let’s live then while we may and life is dear.”




CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIFTH.

The applause was followed by a course which, by its oddity, drew every
eye, but it did not come up to our expectations.  There was a circular
tray around which were displayed the signs of the zodiac, and upon each
sign the caterer had placed the food best in keeping with it.  Ram’s
vetches on Aries, a piece of beef on Taurus, kidneys and lamb’s fry on
Gemini, a crown on Cancer, the womb of an unfarrowed sow on Virgo, an
African fig on Leo, on Libra a balance, one pan of which held a tart and
the other a cake, a small seafish on Scorpio, a bull’s eye on
Sagittarius, a sea lobster on Capricornus, a goose on Aquarius and two
mullets on Pisces.  In the middle lay a piece of cut sod upon which
rested a honeycomb with the grass arranged around it.  An Egyptian slave
passed bread around from a silver oven and in a most discordant voice
twisted out a song in the manner of the mime in the musical farce called
Laserpitium.  Seeing that we were rather depressed at the prospect of
busying ourselves with such vile fare, Trimalchio urged us to fall to:
“Let us fall to, gentlemen, I beg of you, this is only the sauce!”




CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SIXTH.

While he was speaking, four dancers ran in to the time of the music,
and removed the upper part of the tray.  Beneath, on what seemed to be
another tray, we caught sight of stuffed capons and sows’ bellies, and in
the middle, a hare equipped with wings to resemble Pegasus.  At the
corners of the tray we also noted four figures of Marsyas and from their
bladders spouted a highly spiced sauce upon fish which were swimming
about as if in a tide-race.  All of us echoed the applause which was
started by the servants, and fell to upon these exquisite delicacies,
with a laugh.  “Carver,” cried Trimalchio, no less delighted with the
artifice practised upon us, and the carver appeared immediately.  Timing
his strokes to the beat of the music he cut up the meat in such a fashion
as to lead you to think that a gladiator was fighting from a chariot to
the accompaniment of a water-organ.  Every now and then Trimalchio would
repeat “Carver, Carver,” in a low voice, until I finally came to the
conclusion that some joke was meant in repeating a word so frequently, so
I did not scruple to question him who reclined above me.  As he had often
experienced byplay of this sort he explained, “You see that fellow who is
carving the meat, don’t you?  Well, his name is Carver.  Whenever
Trimalchio says Carver, carve her, by the same word, he both calls and
commands!”




CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SEVENTH.

I could eat no more, so I turned to my whilom informant to learn as much
as I could and sought to draw him out with far-fetched gossip.  I
inquired who that woman could be who was scurrying about hither and yon
in such a fashion.  “She’s called Fortunata,” he replied.  “She’s the
wife of Trimalchio, and she measures her money by the peck.  And only a
little while ago, what was she!  May your genius pardon me, but you would
not have been willing to take a crust of bread from her hand.  Now,
without rhyme or reason, she’s in the seventh heaven and is Trimalchio’s
factotum, so much so that he would believe her if she told him it was
dark when it was broad daylight!  As for him, he don’t know how rich he
is, but this harlot keeps an eye on everything and where you least expect
to find her, you’re sure to run into her.  She’s temperate, sober, full
of good advice, and has many good qualities, but she has a scolding
tongue, a very magpie on a sofa, those she likes, she likes, but those
she dislikes, she dislikes!  Trimalchio himself has estates as broad as
the flight of a kite is long, and piles of money.  There’s more silver
plate lying in his steward’s office than other men have in their whole
fortunes!  And as for slaves, damn me if I believe a tenth of them knows
the master by sight.  The truth is, that these stand-a-gapes are so much
in awe of him that any one of them would step into a fresh dunghill
without ever knowing it, at a mere nod from him!”




CHAPTER THE THIRTY-EIGHTH.

“And don’t you get the idea that he buys anything; everything is produced
at home, wool, pitch, pepper, if you asked for hen’s milk you would get
it.  Because he wanted his wool to rival other things in quality, he
bought rams at Tarentum and sent ‘em into his flocks with a slap on the
arse.  He had bees brought from Attica, so he could produce Attic honey
at home, and, as a side issue, so he could improve the native bees by
crossing with the Greek.  He even wrote to India for mushroom seed one
day, and he hasn’t a single mule that wasn’t sired by a wild ass.  Do you
see all those cushions?  Not a single one but what is stuffed with either
purple or scarlet wool!  He hasn’t anything to worry about!  Look out how
you criticise those other fellow-freedmen-friends of his, they’re all
well heeled.  See the fellow reclining at the bottom of the end couch?
He’s worth his 800,000 any day, and he rose from nothing.  Only a short
while ago he had to carry faggots on his own back.  I don’t know how true
it is, but they say that he snatched off an Incubo’s hat and found a
treasure!  For my part, I don’t envy any man anything that was given him
by a god.  He still carries the marks of his box on the ear, and he isn’t
wishing himself any bad luck!  He posted this notice, only the other day:

                     CAIUS POMPONIUS DIOGENES HAS
                           PURCHASED A HOUSE
                      THIS GARRET FOR RENT AFTER
                          THE KALENDS OF JULY.

“What do you think of the fellow in the freedman’s place?  He has a good
front, too, hasn’t he?  And he has a right to.  He saw his fortune
multiplied tenfold, but he lost heavily through speculation at the last.
I don’t think he can call his very hair his own, and it is no fault of
his either, by Hercules, it isn’t.  There’s no better fellow anywhere; his
rascally freedmen cheated him out of everything.  You know very well how
it is; everybody’s business is nobody’s business, and once let business
affairs start to go wrong, your friends will stand from under!  Look at
the fix he’s in, and think what a fine trade he had!  He used to be an
undertaker.  He dined like a king, boars roasted whole in their shaggy
Bides, bakers’ pastries, birds, cooks and bakers!  More wine was spilled
under his table than another has in his wine cellar.  His life was like a
pipe dream, not like an ordinary mortal’s.  When his affairs commenced to
go wrong, and he was afraid his creditors would guess that he was
bankrupt, he advertised an auction and this was his placard:

                     JULIUS PROCULUS WILL SELL AT
                        AUCTION HIS SUPERFLUOUS
                               FURNITURE”




CHAPTER THE THIRTY-NINTH.

Trimalchio broke in upon this entertaining gossip, for the course had
been removed and the guests, happy with wine, had started a general
conversation: lying back upon his couch, “You ought to make this wine go
down pleasantly,” he said, “the fish must have something to swim in.  But
I say, you didn’t think I’d be satisfied with any such dinner as you saw
on the top of that tray?  ‘Is Ulysses no better known?’  Well, well, we
shouldn’t forget our culture, even at dinner.  May the bones of my patron
rest in peace, he wanted me to become a man among men.  No one can show
me anything new, and that little tray has proved it.  This heaven where
the gods live, turns into as many different signs, and sometimes into the
Ram: therefore, whoever is born under that sign will own many flocks and
much wool, a hard head, a shameless brow, and a sharp horn.  A great many
school-teachers and rambunctious butters-in are born under that sign.”
 We applauded the wonderful penetration of our astrologer and he ran on,
“Then the whole heaven turns into a bull-calf and the kickers and
herdsmen and those who see to it that their own bellies are full, come
into the world.  Teams of horses and oxen are born under the Twins, and
well-hung wenchers and those who bedung both sides of the wall.  I was
born under the Crab and therefore stand on many legs and own much
property on land and sea, for the crab is as much at home on one as he is
in the other.  For that reason, I put nothing on that sign for fear of
weighing down my own destiny.  Bulldozers and gluttons are born under the
Lion, and women and fugitives and chain-gangs are born under the Virgin.
Butchers and perfumers are born under the Balance, and all who think that
it is their business to straighten things out.  Poisoners and assassins
are born under the Scorpion.  Cross-eyed people who look at the
vegetables and sneak away with the bacon, are born under the Archer.
Horny-handed sons of toil are born under Capricorn.  Bartenders and
pumpkin-heads are born under the Water-Carrier.  Caterers and
rhetoricians are born under the Fishes: and so the world turns round,
just like a mill, and something bad always comes to the top, and men are
either being born or else they’re dying.  As to the sod and the honeycomb
in the middle, for I never do anything without a reason, Mother Earth is
in the centre, round as an egg, and all that is good is found in her,
just like it is in a honeycomb.”




CHAPTER THE FORTIETH.

“Bravo!”  we yelled, and, with hands uplifted to the ceiling, we swore
that such fellows as Hipparchus and Aratus were not to be compared with
him.  At length some slaves came in who spread upon the couches some
coverlets upon which were embroidered nets and hunters stalking their
game with boar-spears, and all the paraphernalia of the chase.  We knew
not what to look for next, until a hideous uproar commenced, just outside
the dining-room door, and some Spartan hounds commenced to run around the
table all of a sudden.  A tray followed them, upon which was served a
wild boar of immense size, wearing a liberty cap upon its head, and from
its tusks hung two little baskets of woven palm fibre, one of which
contained Syrian dates, the other, Theban.  Around it hung little
suckling pigs made from pastry, signifying that this was a brood-sow with
her pigs at suck.  It turned out that these were souvenirs intended to be
taken home.  When it came to carving the boar, our old friend Carver, who
had carved the capons, did not appear, but in his place a great bearded
giant, with bands around his legs, and wearing a short hunting cape in
which a design was woven.  Drawing his hunting-knife, he plunged it
fiercely into the boar’s side, and some thrushes flew out of the gash.
fowlers, ready with their rods, caught them in a moment, as they
fluttered around the room and Trimalchio ordered one to each guest,
remarking, “Notice what fine acorns this forest-bred boar fed on,” and as
he spoke, some slaves removed the little baskets from the tusks and
divided the Syrian and Theban dates equally among the diners.




CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIRST.

Getting a moment to myself, in the meantime, I began to speculate as to
why the boar had come with a liberty cap upon his head.  After exhausting
my invention with a thousand foolish guesses, I made bold to put the
riddle which teased me to my old informant.  “Why, sure,” he replied,
“even your slave could explain that; there’s no riddle, everything’s as
plain as day!  This boar made his first bow as the last course of
yesterday’s dinner and was dismissed by the guests, so today he comes
back as a freedman!”  I damned my stupidity and refrained from asking any
more questions for fear I might leave the impression that I had never
dined among decent people before.  While we were speaking, a handsome
boy, crowned with vine leaves and ivy, passed grapes around, in a little
basket, and impersonated Bacchus-happy, Bacchus-drunk, and
Bacchus-dreaming, reciting, in the meantime, his master’s verses, in a
shrill voice.  Trimalchio turned to him and said, “Dionisus, be thou
Liber,” whereupon the boy immediately snatched the cap from the boar’s
head, and put it upon his own.  At that Trimalchio added, “You can’t
deny that my father’s middle name was Liber!”  We applauded Trimalchio’s
conceit heartily, and kissed the boy as he went around.  Trimalchio
retired to the close-stool, after this course, and we, having freedom of
action with the tyrant away, began to draw the other guests out.  After
calling for a bowl of wine, Dama spoke up, “A day’s nothing at all: it’s
night before you can turn around, so you can’t do better than to go
right to the dining-room from your bed.  It’s been so cold that I can
hardly get warm in a bath, but a hot drink’s as good as an overcoat:
I’ve had some long pegs, and between you and me, I’m a bit groggy; the
booze has gone to my head.”




CHAPTER THE FORTY-SECOND.

Here Seleucus took up the tale.  “I don’t bathe every day,” he confided,
“a bath uses you up like a fuller: water’s got teeth and your strength
wastes away a little every day; but when I’ve downed a pot of mead, I
tell the cold to suck my cock!  I couldn’t bathe today anyway, because I
was at a funeral; dandy fellow, he was too, good old Chrysanthus slipped
his wind!  Why, only the other day he said good morning’ to me, and I
almost think I’m talking to him now!  Gawd’s truth, we’re only blown-up
bladders strutting around, we’re less than flies, for they have some good
in them, but we’re only bubbles.  And supposing he had not kept to such a
low diet!  Why, not a drop of water or a crumb of bread so much as passed
his lips for five days; and yet he joined the majority!  Too many doctors
did away with him, or rather, his time had come, for a doctor’s not good
for anything except for a consolation to your mind!  He was well carried
out, anyhow, in the very bed he slept in during his lifetime.  And he was
covered with a splendid pall: the mourning was tastefully managed; he had
freed some slaves; even though his wife was sparing with her tears: and
what if he hadn’t treated her so well!  But when you come to women, women
all belong to the kite species: no one ought to waste a good turn upon
one of them; it’s just like throwing it down a well!  An old love’s like
a cancer!”




CHAPTER THE FORTY-THIRD.

He was becoming very tiresome, and Phileros cried out, “Let’s think about
the living!  He has what was coming to him, he lived respectably, and
respectably he died.  What’s he got to kick about’?  He made his pile
from an as, and would pick a quadrans out of a dunghill with his teeth,
any old time.  And he grew richer and richer, of course: just like a
honeycomb.  I expect that he left all of a hundred thousand, by Hercules,
I do!  All in cold cash, too; but I’ve eaten dog’s tongue and must speak
the truth: he was foul-mouthed, had a ready tongue, he was a trouble
maker and no man.  Now his brother was a good fellow, a friend to his
friend, free-handed, and he kept a liberal table.  He picked a loser at
the start, but his first vintage set him upon his legs, for he sold his
wine at the figure he demanded, and, what made him hold his head higher
still, he came into a legacy from which he stole more than had been left
to him.  Then that fool friend of yours, in a fit of anger at his
brother, willed his property away to some son-of-a-bitch or other, who
he was, I don’t know, but when a man runs away from his own kin, he has
a long way to go!  And what’s more, he had some slaves who were
ear-specialists at the keyhole, and they did him a lot of harm, for a man
won’t prosper when he believes, on the spot, every tale that he hears; a
man in business, especially.  Still, he had a good time as long as he
lived: for happy’s the fellow who gets the gift, not the one it was meant
for.  He sure was Fortune’s son!  Lead turned to gold in his hands.  It’s
easy enough when everything squares up and runs on schedule.  How old
would you think he was?  Seventy and over, but he was as tough as horn,
carried his age well, and was as black as a crow.  I knew the fellow for
years and years, and he was a lecher to the very last.  I don’t believe
that even the dog in his house escaped his attentions, by Hercules, I
don’t; and what a boy-lover he was!  Saw a virgin in every one he met!
Not that I blame him though, for it’s all he could take with him.”




CHAPTER THE FORTY-FOURTH.

Phileros had his say and Ganymedes exclaimed, “You gabble away about
things that don’t concern heaven or earth: and none of you cares how the
price of grain pinches.  I couldn’t even get a mouthful of bread today,
by Hercules, I couldn’t.  How the drought does hang on!  We’ve had famine
for a year.  If the damned AEdiles would only get what’s coming to them.
They graft with the bakers, scratch-my-arse-and-I’ll-scratch-yours!
That’s the way it always is, the poor devils are out of luck, but the
jaws of the capitalists are always keeping the Saturnalia.  If only we
had such lion-hearted sports as we had when I first came from Asia!  That
was the life!  If the flour was not the very best, they would beat up
those belly-robbing grafters till they looked like Jupiter had been at
them.  How well I remember Safinius; he lived near the old arch, when I
was a boy.  For a man, he was one hot proposition!  Wherever he went, the
ground smoked!  But he was square, dependable, a friend to a friend, you
could safely play mora with him, in the dark.  But how he did peel them
in the town hall: he spoke no parables, not he!  He did everything
straight from the shoulder and his voice roared like a trumpet in the
forum.  He never sweat nor spat.  I don’t know, but I think he had a
strain of the Asiatic in him.  And how civil and friendly-like he was,
in returning everyone’s greeting; called us all by name, just like he was
one of us!  And so provisions were cheap as dirt in those days.  The loaf
you got for an as, you couldn’t eat, not even if someone helped you, but
you see them no bigger than a bull’s eye now, and the hell of it is that
things are getting worse every day; this colony grows backwards like a
calf’s tall!  Why do we have to put up with an AEdile here, who’s not
worth three Caunian figs and who thinks more of an as than of our lives?
He has a good time at home, and his daily income’s more than another
man’s fortune.  I happen to know where he got a thousand gold pieces.
If we had any nuts, he’d not be so damned well pleased with himself!
Nowadays, men are lions at home and foxes abroad.  What gets me is, that
I’ve already eaten my old clothes, and if this high cost of living keeps
on, I’ll have to sell my cottages!  What’s going to happen to this town,
if neither gods nor men take pity on it?  May I never have any luck if I
don’t believe all this comes from the gods!  For no one believes that
heaven is heaven, no one keeps a fast, no one cares a hang about Jupiter:
they all shut their eyes and count up their own profits.  In the old
days, the married women, in their stolas, climbed the hill in their bare
feet, pure in heart, and with their hair unbound, and prayed to Jupiter
for rain!  And it would pour down in bucketfuls then or never, and they’d
all come home, wet as drowned rats.  But the gods all have the gout now,
because we are not religious; and so our fields are burning up!”




CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIFTH.

“Don’t be so down in the mouth,” chimed in Echion, the ragman; “if it
wasn’t that it’d be something else, as the farmer said, when he lost his
spotted pig.  If a thing don’t happen today, it may tomorrow.  That’s the
way life jogs along.  You couldn’t name a better country, by Hercules,
you couldn’t, if only the men had any brains.  She’s in hot water right
now, but she ain’t the only one.  We oughtn’t to be so particular;
heaven’s as far away everywhere else.  If you were somewhere else, you’d
swear that pigs walked around here already roasted.  Think of what’s
coming!  We’ll soon have a fine gladiator show to last for three days, no
training-school pupils; most of them will be freedmen.  Our Titus has a
hot head and plenty of guts and it will go to a finish.  I’m well
acquainted with him, and he’ll not stand for any frame-ups.  It will be
cold steel in the best style, no running away, the shambles will be in
the middle of the amphitheatre where all the crowd can see.  And what’s
more, he has the coin, for he came into thirty million when his father
had the bad luck to die.  He could blow in four hundred thousand and his
fortune never feel it, but his name would live forever.  He has some
dwarfs already, and a woman to fight from a chariot.  Then, there’s
Glyco’s steward; he was caught screwing Glyco’s wife.  You’ll see some
battle between jealous husbands and favored lovers.  Anyhow, that cheap
screw of a Glyco condemned his steward to the beasts and only published
his own shame.  How could the slave go wrong when he only obeyed orders?
It would have been better if that she-piss-pot, for that’s all she’s fit
for, had been tossed by the bull, but a fellow has to beat the saddle
when he can’t beat the jackass.  How could Glyco ever imagine that a
sprig of Hermogenes’ planting could turn out well?  Why, Hermogenes could
trim the claws of a flying hawk, and no snake ever hatched out a rope
yet!  And look at Glyco!  He’s smoked himself out in fine shape, and as
long as he lives, he’ll carry that stain!  No one but the devil himself
can wipe that out, but chickens always come home to roost.  My nose tells
me that Mammaea will set out a spread: two bits apiece for me and mine!
And he’ll nick Norbanus out of his political pull if he does; you all
know that it’s to his interest to hump himself to get the best of him.
And honestly, what did that fellow ever do for us?  He exhibited some two
cent gladiators that were so near dead they’d have fallen flat if you
blew your breath at them.  I’ve seen better thugs sent against wild
beasts!  And the cavalry he killed looked about as much like the real
thing as the horsemen on the lamps; you would have taken them for
dunghill cocks!  One plug had about as much action as a jackass with a
pack-saddle; another was club-footed; and a third who had to take the
place of one that was killed, was as good as dead, and hamstrung into the
bargain.  There was only one that had any pep, and he was a Thracian, but
he only fought when we egged him on.  The whole crowd was flogged
afterwards.  How the mob did yell ‘Lay it on!’  They were nothing but
runaways.  And at that he had the nerve to say, ‘I’ve given you a show.’
‘And I’ve applauded,’ I answered; ‘count it up and you’ll find that I
gave more than I got!  One hand washes the other.’”




CHAPTER THE FORTY-SIXTH

“Agamemnon, your looks seem to say, What’s this boresome nut trying to
hand us?’  Well, I’m talking because you, who can talk book-foolishness,
won’t.  You don’t belong to our bunch, so you laugh in your sleeve at the
way us poor people talk, but we know that you’re only a fool with a lot
of learning.  Well, what of it?  Some day I’ll get you to come to my
country place and take a look at my little estate.  We’ll have fresh eggs
and spring chicken to chew on when we get there; it will be all right
even if the weather has kept things back this year.  We’ll find enough to
satisfy us, and my kid will soon grow up to be a pupil of yours; he can
divide up to four, now, and you’ll have a little servant at your side, if
he lives.  When he has a minute to himself, he never takes his eyes from
his tablets; he’s smart too, and has the right kind of stuff in him, even
if he is crazy about birds.  I’ve had to kill three of his linnets
already.  I told him that a weasel had gotten them, but he’s found
another hobby, now he paints all the time.  He’s left the marks of his
heels on his Greek already, and is doing pretty well with his Latin,
although his master’s too easy with him; won’t make him stick to one
thing.  He comes to me to get me to give him something to write when his
master don’t want to work.  Then there’s another tutor, too, no scholar,
but very painstaking, though; he can teach you more than he knows
himself.  He comes to the house on holidays and is always satisfied with
whatever you pay him.  Some little time ago, I bought the kid some law
books; I want him to have a smattering of the law for home use.  There’s
bread in that!  As for literature, he’s got enough of that in him
already; if he begins to kick, I’ve concluded that I’ll make him learn
some trade; the barber’s, say, or the auctioneer’s, or even the lawyer’s.
That’s one thing no one but the devil can do him out of!  ‘Believe  what
your  daddy  says, Primigenius,’ I din into his ears every day, ‘whenever
you learn a thing, it’s yours.  Look at Phileros the attorney; he’d not
be keeping the wolf from the door now if he hadn’t studied.  It’s not
long since he had to carry his wares on his back and peddle them, but he
can put up a front with Norbanus himself now!  Learning’s a fine thing,
and a trade won’t starve.’”




CHAPTER THE FORTY-SEVENTH.

Twaddle of this sort was being bandied about when Trimalchio came in;
mopping his forehead and washing his hands in perfume, he said, after a
short pause, “Pardon me, gentlemen, but my stomach’s been on strike for
the past few days and the doctors disagreed about the cause.  But
pomegranate rind and pitch steeped in vinegar have helped me, and I hope
that my belly will get on its good behavior, for sometimes there’s such a
rumbling in my guts that you’d think a bellowing bull was in there.  So
if anyone wants to do his business, there’s no call to be bashful about
it.  None of us was born solid!  I don’t know of any worse torment than
having to hold it in, it’s the one thing Jupiter himself can’t hold in.
So you’re laughing, are you, Fortunata?  Why, you’re always keeping me
awake at night yourself.  I never objected yet to anyone in my
dining-room relieving himself when he wanted to, and the doctors forbid
our holding it in.  Everything’s ready outside, if the call’s more
serious, water, close-stool, and anything else you’ll need. Believe me,
when this rising vapor gets to the brain, it puts the whole body on the
burn.  Many a one I’ve known to kick in just because he wouldn’t own up
to the truth.”  We thanked him for his kindness and consideration, and
hid our laughter by drinking more and oftener. We had not realized that,
as yet, we were only in the middle of the entertainment, with a hill
still ahead, as the saying goes.  The tables were cleared off to the beat
of music, and three white hogs, muzzled, and wearing bells, were brought
into the dining-room.  The announcer informed us that one was a
two-year-old, another three, and the third just turned six.  I had an
idea that some rope-dancers had come in and that the hogs would perform
tricks, just as they do for the crowd on the streets, but Trimalchio
dispelled this illusion by asking, “Which one will you have served up
immediately, for dinner?  Any country cook can manage a dunghill cock, a
pentheus hash, or little things like that, but my cooks are well used to
serving up calves boiled whole, in their cauldrons!” Then he ordered a
cook to be called in at once, and without awaiting our pleasure, he
directed that the oldest be butchered, and demanded in a loud voice,
“What division do you belong too?”  When the fellow made answer that he
was from the fortieth, “Were you bought, or born upon my estates?”
 Trimalchio continued.  “Neither,” replied the cook, “I was left to you by
Pansa’s will.”  “See to it that this is properly done,” Trimalchio
warned, “or I’ll have you transferred to the division of messengers!”
 and the cook, bearing his master’s warning in mind, departed for the
kitchen with the next course in tow.




CHAPTER THE FORTY-EIGHTH.

Trimalchio’s threatening face relaxed and he turned to us, “If the wine
don’t please you,” he said, “I’ll change it; you ought to do justice to
it by drinking it.  I don’t have to buy it, thanks to the gods.
Everything here that makes your mouths water, was produced on one of my
country places which I’ve never yet seen, but they tell me it’s down
Terracina and Tarentum way.  I’ve got a notion to add Sicily to my other
little holdings, so in case I want to go to Africa, I’ll be able to sail
along my own coasts.  But tell me the subject of your speech today,
Agamemnon, for, though I don’t plead cases myself, I studied literature
for home use, and for fear you should think I don’t care about learning,
let me inform you that I have three libraries, one Greek and the others
Latin.  Give me the outline of your speech if you like me.”

“A poor man and a rich man were enemies,” Agamemmon began, when: “What’s
a poor man?”  Trimalchio broke in.  “Well put,” Agamemnon conceded and
went into details upon some problem or other, what it was I do not know.
Trimalchio instantly rendered the following verdict, “If that’s the case,
there’s nothing to dispute about; if it’s not the case, it don’t amount
to anything anyhow.”  These flashes of wit, and others equally
scintillating, we loudly applauded, and he went on: “Tell me, my dearest
Agamemnon, do you remember the twelve labors of Hercules or the story of
Ulysses, how the Cyclops threw his thumb out of joint with a pig-headed
crowbar?  When I was a boy, I used to read those stories in Homer.  And
then, there’s the Sibyl: with my own eyes I saw her, at Cumae, hanging up
in a jar; and whenever the boys would say to her ‘Sibyl, Sibyl, what
would you?’ she would answer, ‘I would die.’”




CHAPTER THE FORTY-NINTH.

Before he had run out of wind, a tray upon which was an enormous hog was
placed upon the table, almost filling it up.  We began to wonder at the
dispatch with which it had been prepared and swore that no cock could
have been served up in so short a time; moreover, this hog seemed to us
far bigger than the boar had been. Trimalchio scrutinized it closely and
“What the hell,” he suddenly bawled out, “this hog hain’t been gutted,
has it?  No, it hain’t, by Hercules, it hain’t!  Call that cook!  Call
that cook in here immediately!”  When the crestfallen cook stood at the
table and owned up that he had forgotten to bowel him, “So you forgot,
did you?”  Trimalchio shouted, “You’d think he’d only left out a bit of
pepper and cummin, wouldn’t you? Off with his clothes!”  The cook was
stripped without delay, and stood with hanging head, between two
torturers.  We all began to make excuses for him at this, saying, “Little
things like that are bound to happen once in a while, let us prevail upon
you to let him off; if he ever does such a thing again, not a one of us
will have a word to say in his behalf.”  But for my part, I was
mercilessly angry and could not help leaning over towards Agamemnon and
whispering in his ear, “It is easily seen that this fellow is criminally
careless, is it not?  How could anyone forget to draw a hog?  If he had
served me a fish in that fashion I wouldn’t overlook it, by Hercules, I
wouldn’t.”  But that was not Trimalchio’s way: his face relaxed into good
humor and he said, “Since your memory’s so short, you can gut him right
here before our eyes!” The cook put on his tunic, snatched up a carving
knife, with a trembling hand, and slashed the hog’s belly in several
places.  Sausages and meat-puddings, widening the apertures, by their
own weight, immediately tumbled out.




CHAPTER THE FIFTIETH.

The whole household burst into unanimous applause at this; “Hurrah for
Gaius,” they shouted.  As for the cook, he was given a drink and a silver
crown and a cup on a salver of Corinthian bronze. Seeing that Agamemnon
was eyeing the platter closely, Trimalchio remarked, “I’m the only one
that can show the real Corinthian!” I thought that, in his usual
purse-proud manner, he was going to boast that his bronzes were all
imported from Corinth, but he did even better by saying, “Wouldn’t you
like to know how it is that I’m the only one that can show the real
Corinthian?  Well, it’s because the bronze worker I patronize is named
Corinthus, and what’s Corinthian unless it’s what a Corinthus makes?
And, so you won’t think I’m a blockhead, I’m going to show you that I’m
well acquainted with how Corinthian first came into the world.  When Troy
was taken, Hannibal, who was a very foxy fellow and a great rascal into
the bargain, piled all the gold and silver and bronze statues in one pile
and set ‘em afire, melting these different metals into one: then the
metal workers took their pick and made bowls and dessert dishes and
statuettes as well.  That’s how Corinthian was born; neither one nor the
other, but an amalgam of all.  But I prefer glass, if you don’t mind my
saying so; it don’t stink, and if it didn’t break, I’d rather have it
than gold, but it’s cheap and common now.”




CHAPTER THE FIFTY-FIRST.

“But there was an artisan, once upon a time, who made a glass vial that
couldn’t be broken.  On that account he was admitted to Caesar with his
gift; then he dashed it upon the floor, when Caesar handed it back to
him.  The Emperor was greatly startled, but the artisan picked the vial
up off the pavement, and it was dented, just like a brass bowl would have
been!  He took a little hammer out of his tunic and beat out the dent
without any trouble.  When he had done that, he thought he would soon be
in Jupiter’s heaven, and more especially when Caesar said to him, ‘Is
there anyone else who knows how to make this malleable glass?  Think
now!’  And when he denied that anyone else knew the secret, Caesar
ordered his head chopped off, because if this should get out, we would
think no more of gold than we would of dirt.”




CHAPTER THE FIFTY-SECOND.

“And when it comes to silver, I’m a connoisseur; I have goblets as big as
wine-jars, a hundred of ‘em more or less, with engraving that shows how
Cassandra killed her sons, and the dead boys are lying so naturally that
you’d think ‘em alive.  I own a thousand bowls which Mummius left to my
patron, where Daedalus is shown shutting Niobe up in the Trojan horse,
and I also have cups engraved with the gladiatorial contests of Hermeros
and Petraites: they’re all heavy, too.  I wouldn’t sell my taste in these
matters for any money!”  A slave dropped a cup while he was running on in
this fashion.  Glaring at him, Trimalchio said, “Go hang yourself, since
you’re so careless.”  The boy’s lip quivered and he immediately commenced
to beg for mercy.  “Why do you pray to me?”  Trimalchio demanded, at
this: “I don’t intend to be harsh with you, I’m only warning you against
being so awkward.”  Finally, however, we got him to give the boy a pardon
and no sooner had this been done than the slave started running around
the room crying, “Out with the water and in with the wine!”  We all paid
tribute to this joke, but Agamemnon in particular, for he well knew what
strings to pull in order to secure another invitation to dinner.  Tickled
by our flattery, and mellowed by the wine, Trimalchio was just about
drunk.  “Why hasn’t one of you asked my Fortunata to dance?”  he
demanded, “There’s no one can do a better cancan, believe me,” and he
himself raised his arms above his head and favored us with an
impersonation of Syrus the actor; the whole household chanting:

                                Oh bravo
                             Oh bravissimo

in chorus, and he would have danced out into the middle of the room
before us all, had not Fortunata whispered in his ear, telling him,
I suppose, that such low buffoonery was not in keeping with his dignity.
But nothing could be so changeable as his humor, for one minute he stood
in awe of Fortunata, but his natural propensities would break out the
next.




CHAPTER THE FIFTY-THIRD.

But his passion for dancing was interrupted at this stage by a
stenographer who read aloud, as if he were reading the public records,
“On the seventh of the Kalends of July, on Trimalchio’s estates near
Cumae, were born thirty boys and forty girls: five hundred pecks of wheat
were taken from the threshing floors and stored in the granaries: five
hundred oxen were put to yoke: the slave Mithridates was crucified on the
same date for cursing the genius of our master, Gaius: on said date ten
million sesterces were returned to the vaults as no sound investment
could be found: on said date, a fire broke out in the gardens at Pompeii,
said fire originating in the house of Nasta, the bailiff.”  “What’s
that?” demanded Trimalchio.  “When were the gardens at Pompeii bought for
me?”  “Why, last year,” answered the stenographer, “for that reason the
item has not appeared in the accounts.”  Trimalchio flew into a rage at
this.  “If I’m not told within six months of any real estate that’s
bought for me,” he shouted, “I forbid it’s being carried to my account at
all!”  Next, the edicts of his aediles were read aloud, and the wills of
some of his foresters in which Trimalchio was disinherited by a codicil,
then the names of his bailiffs, and that of a freedwoman who had been
repudiated by a night watchman, after she had been caught in bed with a
bath attendant, that of a porter banished to Baioe, a steward who was
standing trial, and lastly the report of a decision rendered in the
matter of a lawsuit, between some valets.  When this was over with, some
rope dancers came in and a very boresome fool stood holding a ladder,
ordering his boy to dance from rung to rung, and finally at the top, all
this to the music of popular airs; then the boy was compelled to jump
through blazing hoops while grasping a huge wine jar with his teeth.
Trimalchio was the only one who was much impressed by these tricks,
remarking that it was a thankless calling and adding that in all the
world there were just two things which could give him acute pleasure,
rope-dancers and horn blowers; all other entertainments were nothing
but nonsense.  “I bought a company of comedians,” he went on, “but I
preferred for them to put on Atellane farces, and I ordered my
flute-player to play Latin airs only.”




CHAPTER THE FIFTY-FOURTH.

While our noble Gaius was still talking away, the boy slipped and fell,
alighting upon Trimalchio’s arm.  The whole household cried out, as did
also the guests, not that they bore such a coarse fellow any good will,
as they would gladly have seen his neck broken, but because such an
unlucky ending to the dinner might make it necessary for them to go into
mourning over a total stranger.  As for Trimalchio, he groaned heavily
and bent over his arm as though it had been injured: doctors flocked
around him, and Fortunata was among the very first, her hair was
streaming and she held a cup in her hand and screamed out her grief and
unhappiness.  As for the boy who had fallen, he was crawling at our feet,
imploring pardon.  I was uneasy for fear his prayers would lead up to
some ridiculous theatrical climax, for I had not yet been able to forget
that cook who had forgotten to bowel that hog, and so, for this reason, I
began to scan the whole dining-room very closely, to see if an automaton
would come out through the wall; and all the more so as a slave was
beaten for having bound up his master’s bruised arm in white wool instead
of purple.  Nor was my suspicion unjustified, for in place of punishment,
Trimalchio ordered that the boy be freed, so that no one could say that
so exalted a personage had been injured by a slave.




CHAPTER THE FIFTY-FIFTH.

We applauded his action and engaged in a discussion upon the instability
of human affairs, which many took sides. “A good reason,” declared
Trimalchio, “why such an occasion shouldn’t slip by without an epigram.”
 He called for his tablets at once, and after racking his brains for a
little while, he got off the following:

                    The unexpected will turn up;
                    Our whole lives Fortune bungles up.
                    Falernian, boy, hand round the cup.

This epigram led up to a discussion of the poets, and for a long time,
the greatest praise was bestowed upon Mopsus the Thracian, until
Trimalchio broke in with: “Professor, I wish you’d tell me how you’d
compare Cicero and Publilius.  I’m of the opinion that the first was the
more eloquent, but that the last moralizes more beautifully, for what can
excel these lines?

     Insatiable luxury crumbles the walls of war;
     To satiate gluttony, peacocks in coops are brought
     Arrayed in gold plumage like Babylon tapestry rich.
     Numidian guinea-fowls, capons, all perish for thee:
     And even the wandering stork, welcome guest that he is,
     The emblem of sacred maternity, slender of leg
     And gloctoring exile from winter, herald of spring,
     Still, finds his last nest in the--cauldron of gluttony base.
     India surrenders her pearls; and what mean they to thee?
     That thy wife decked with sea-spoils adorning her breast
          and her head
     On the couch of a stranger lies lifting adulterous legs?
     The emerald green, the glass bauble, what mean they to thee?
     Or the fire of the ruby?  Except that pure chastity shine
     From the depth of the jewels: in garments of woven wind clad
     Our brides might as well take their stand, their game
          naked to stalk,
     As seek it in gossamer tissue transparent as air.”




CHAPTER THE FIFTY-SIXTH.

“What should we say was the hardest calling, after literature?” he asked.
“That of the doctor or that of the money-changer, I would say: the
doctor, because he has to know what poor devils have got in their
insides, and when the fever’s due: but I hate them like the devil, for my
part, because they’re always ordering me on a diet of duck soup: and the
money-changer’s, because he’s got to be able to see the silver through
the copper plating.  When we come to the dumb beasts, the oxen and sheep
are the hardest worked, the oxen, thanks to whose labor we have bread to
chew on, the sheep, because their wool tricks us out so fine.  It’s the
greatest outrage under the sun for people to eat mutton and then wear a
tunic.  Then there’s the bee: in my opinion, they’re divine insects
because they puke honey, though there are folks that claim that they
bring it from Jupiter, and that’s the reason they sting, too, for
wherever you find a sweet, you’ll find a bitter too.” He was just putting
the philosophers out of business when lottery tickets were passed around
in a cup.  A slave boy assigned to that duty read aloud the names of the
souvenirs: “Silver s--ham,” a ham was brought in with some silver vinegar
cruets on top of it; “cervical”--something soft for the neck--a piece of
the cervix--neck--of a sheep was brought in; “serisapia”--after wit--“and
contumelia”--insult--we were given must wafers and an apple-melon--and a
phallus--contus--; “porri”--leeks--“and persica,” he picked up a whip and
a knife; “passeres”--sparrows” and a fly--trap,” the answer was
raisins--uva passa--and Attic honey; “cenatoria”--a dinner toga--“and
forensia”--business dress--he handed out a piece of meat--suggestive of
dinner--and a note-book--suggestive of business--; “canale”--chased by a
dog--“and pedale”--pertaining to the foot--, a hare and a slipper were
brought out; “lamphrey”--murena--“and a letter,” he held up a
mouse--mus--and a frog--rana--tied together, and a bundle of
beet--beta--the Greek letter beta--.  We laughed long and loud, there
were a thousand of these jokes, more or less, which have now escaped my
memory.




CHAPTER THE FIFTY-SEVENTH.

But Ascyltos threw off all restraint and ridiculed everything; throwing
up his hands, he laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks.  At last,
one of Trimalchio’s fellow-freedmen, the one who had the place next to
me, flew into a rage, “What’s the joke, sheep’s-head,” he bawled, “Don’t
our host’s swell entertainment suit you?  You’re richer than he is, I
suppose, and used to dining better!  As I hope the guardian spirit of
this house will be on my side, I’d have stopped his bleating long ago if
I’d been sitting next to him.  He’s a peach, he is, laughing at others;
some vagabond or other from who-knows-where, some night-pad who’s not
worth his own piss: just let me piss a ring around him and he wouldn’t
know where to run to!  I ain’t easy riled, no, by Hercules, I ain’t, but
worms breed in tender flesh.  Look at him laugh!  What the hell’s he got
to laugh at?  Is his family so damned fine-haired?  So you’re a Roman
knight!  Well, I’m a king’s son!  How’s it come that you’ve been a slave,
you’ll ask because I put myself into service because I’d rather be a
Roman citizen than a tax-paying provincial.  And now I hope that my life
will be such that no one can jeer at me.  I’m a man among men!  I take my
stroll bareheaded and owe no man a copper cent.  I never had a summons in
my life and no one ever said to me, in the forum, pay me what you owe me.
I’ve bought a few acres and saved up a few dollars and I feed twenty
bellies and a dog.  I ransomed my bedfellow so no one could wipe his
hands on her bosom; a thousand dinars it cost me, too.  I was chosen
priest of Augustus without paying the fee, and I hope that I won’t need
to blush in my grave after I’m dead.  But you’re so busy that you can’t
look behind you; you can spot a louse on someone else, all right, but you
can’t see the tick on yourself.  You’re the only one that thinks we’re so
funny; look at your professor, he’s older than you are, and we’re good
enough for him, but you’re only a brat with the milk still in your nose
and all you can prattle is ‘ma’ or ‘mu,’ you’re only a clay pot, a piece
of leather soaked in water, softer and slipperier, but none the better
for that.  You’ve got more coin than we have, have you?  Then eat two
breakfasts and two dinners a day.  I’d rather have my reputation than
riches, for my part, and before I make an end of this--who ever dunned me
twice?  In all the forty years I was in service, no one could tell
whether I was free or a slave.  I was only a long-haired boy when I came
to this colony and the town house was not built then.  I did my best to
please my master and he was a digniferous and majestical gentleman whose
nail-parings were worth more than your whole carcass.  I had enemies in
his house, too, who would have been glad to trip me up, but I swam the
flood, thanks to his kindness.  Those are the things that try your
mettle, for it’s as easy to be born a gentleman as to say, ‘Come here.’
Well, what are you gaping at now, like a billy-goat in a vetch-field?”




CHAPTER THE FIFTY-EIGHTH.

Giton, who had been standing at my feet, and who had for some time been
holding in his laughter, burst into an uproarious guffaw, at this last
figure of speech, and when Ascyltos’ adversary heard it, he turned his
abuse upon the boy.  “What’s so funny, you curly-headed onion,” he
bellowed, “are the Saturnalia here, I’d like to know?  Is it December
now?

“When did you pay your twentieth?  What’s this to you, you gallows-bird,
you crow’s meat?  I’ll call the anger of Jupiter down on you and that
master of yours, who don’t keep you in better order.  If I didn’t respect
my fellow-freedmen, I’d give you what is coming to you right here on the
spot, as I hope to get my belly full of bread, I would.  We’ll get along
well enough, but those that can’t control you are fools; like master like
man’s a true saying.  I can hardly hold myself in and I’m not hot-headed
by nature, but once let me get a start and I don’t care two cents for my
own mother.  All right, I’ll catch you in the street, you rat, you
toadstool.  May I never grow an inch up or down if I don’t push your
master into a dunghill, and I’ll give you the same medicine, I will, by
Hercules, I will, no matter if you call down Olympian Jupiter himself!
I’ll take care of your eight inch ringlets and your two cent master into
the bargain.  I’ll have my teeth into you, either you’ll cut out the
laughing, or I don’t know myself.  Yes, even if you had a golden beard.
I’ll bring the wrath of Minerva down on you and on the fellow that first
made a come-here out of you.  No, I never learned geometry or criticism
or other foolishness like that, but I know my capital letters and I can
divide any figure by a hundred, be it in asses, pounds or sesterces.
Let’s have a show-down, you and I will make a little bet, here’s my coin;
you’ll soon find out that your father’s money was wasted on your
education, even if you do know a little rhetoric.  How’s this--what part
of us am I?  I come far, I come wide, now guess me!  I’ll give you
another.  What part of us runs but never moves from its place?  What part
of us grows but always grows less?  But you scurry around and are as
flustered and fidgeted as a mouse in a piss-pot.  Shut up and don’t annoy
your betters, who don’t even know that you’ve been born.  Don’t think
that I’m impressed by those boxwood armlets that you did your mistress
out of.  Occupo will back me!  Let’s go into the forum and borrow money,
then you’ll see whether this iron ring means credit!  Bah!  A draggled
fox is a fine sight, ain’t it’?  I hope I never get rich and die decently
so that the people will swear by my death, if I don’t hound you
everywhere with my toga turned inside out.  And the fellow that taught
you such manners did a good job too, a chattering ape, all right, no
schoolmaster.  We were better taught.  ‘Is everything in its place?’ the
master would ask; go straight home and don’t stop and stare at everything
and don’t be impudent to your elders.  Don’t loiter along looking in at
the shops.  No second raters came out of that school.  I’m what you see
me and I thank the gods it’s all due to my own cleverness.”




CHAPTER THE FIFTY-NINTH.

Ascyltos was just starting in to answer this indictment when Trimalchio,
who was delighted with his fellow-freedman’s tirade, broke in, “Cut out
the bickering and let’s have things pleasant here.  Let up on the young
fellow, Hermeros, he’s hot-blooded, so you ought to be more reasonable.
The loser’s always the winner in arguments of this kind.  And as for you,
even when you were a young punk you used to go ‘Co-co co-co,’ like a hen
after a rooster, but you had no pep. Let’s get to better business and
start the fun all over again and watch the Homerists.”  A troupe filed
in, immediately, and clashed spears against shields.  Trimalchio sat
himself up on his cushion and intoned in Latin, from a book, while the
actors, in accordance with their conceited custom, recited their parts in
the Greek language.  There came a pause, presently, and “You don’t any of
you know the plot of the skit they’re putting on, do you?”  he asked,
“Diomedes and Ganymede were two brothers, and Helen was their sister;
Agamemnon ran away with her and palmed off a doe on Diana, in her place,
so Homer tells how the Trojans and Parentines fought among themselves.
Of course Agamemnon was victorious, and gave his daughter Iphigenia, to
Achilles, for a wife: This caused Ajax to go mad, and he’ll soon make the
whole thing plain to you.”  The Homerists raised a shout, as soon as
Trimalchio had done speaking, and, as the whole familia stepped back, a
boiled calf with a helmet on its head was brought in on an enormous
platter.  Ajax followed and rushed upon it with drawn sword, as if he
were insane, he made passes with the flat, and again with the edge, and
then, collecting the slices, he skewered them, and, much to our
astonishment, presented them to us on the point of his sword.




CHAPTER THE SIXTIETH.

But we were not given long in which to admire the elegance of such
service, for all of a sudden the ceiling commenced to creak and then the
whole dining-room shook.  I leaped to my feet in consternation, for fear
some rope-walker would fall down, and the rest of the company raised
their faces, wondering as much as I what new prodigy was to be announced
from on high.  Then lo and behold! the ceiling panels parted and an
enormous hoop, which appeared to have been knocked off a huge cask, was
lowered from the dome above; its perimeter was hung with golden chaplets
and jars of alabaster filled with perfume.  We were asked to accept these
articles as souvenirs.  When my glance returned to the table, I noticed
that a dish containing cakes had been placed upon it, and in the middle
an image of Priapus, made by the baker, and he held apples of all
varieties and bunches of grapes against his breast, in the conventional
manner.  We applied ourselves wholeheartedly to this dessert and our
joviality was suddenly revived by a fresh diversion, for, at the
slightest pressure, all the cakes and fruits would squirt a saffron sauce
upon us, and even spurted unpleasantly into our faces.  Being convinced
that these perfumed dainties had some religious significance, we arose in
a body and shouted, “Hurrah for the Emperor, the father of his country!”
 However, as we perceived that even after this act of veneration, the
others continued helping themselves, we filled our napkins with the
apples.  I was especially keen on this, for I thought I could never put
enough good things into Giton’s lap.  Three slaves entered, in the
meantime, dressed in white tunics well tucked up, and two of them placed
Lares with amulets hanging from their necks, upon the table, while the
third carried round a bowl of wine and cried, “May the gods be
propitious!”  One was called Cerdo--business--, Trimalchio informed us,
the other Lucrio--luck--and the third Felicio--profit--and, when all the
rest had kissed a true likeness of Trimalchio, we were ashamed to pass it
by.




CHAPTER THE SIXTY-FIRST.

After they had all wished each other sound minds and good health,
Trimalchio turned to Niceros.  “You used to be better company at
dinner,” he remarked, “and I don’t know why you should be dumb today,
with never a word to say.  If you wish to make me happy, tell about that
experience you had, I beg of you.”  Delighted at the affability of his
friend, “I hope I lose all my luck if I’m not tickled to death at the
humor I see you in,” Niceros replied.  “All right, let’s go the limit for
a good time, though I’m afraid these scholars’ll laugh at me, but I’ll
tell my tale and they can go as far as they like.  What t’hell do I care
who laughs?  It’s better to be laughed at than laughed down.”  These
words spake the hero, and began the following tale: “We lived in a narrow
street in the house Gavilla now owns, when I was a slave.  There, by the
will of the gods, I fell in love with the wife of Terentius, the
innkeeper; you knew Melissa of Tarentum, that pretty round-checked little
wench.  It was no carnal passion, so hear me, Hercules, it wasn’t; I was
not in love with her physical charms.  No, it was because she was such a
good sport.  I never asked her for a thing and had her deny me; if she
had an as, I had half.  I trusted her with everything I had and never was
done out of anything.  Her husband up and died on the place, one day, so
I tried every way I could to get to her, for you know friends ought to
show up when anyone’s in a pinch.”




CHAPTER THE SIXTY-SECOND.

“It so happened that our master had gone to Capua to attend to some odds
and ends of business and I seized the opportunity, and persuaded a guest
of the house to accompany me as far as the fifth mile-stone.  He was a
soldier, and as brave as the very devil.  We set out about cock-crow, the
moon was shining as bright as midday, and came to where the tombstones
are.  My man stepped aside amongst them, but I sat down, singing, and
commenced to count them up.  When I looked around for my companion, he
had stripped himself and piled his clothes by the side of the road.  My
heart was in my mouth, and I sat there while he pissed a ring around them
and was suddenly turned into a wolf!  Now don’t think I’m joking, I
wouldn’t lie for any amount of money, but as I was saying, he commenced
to howl after he was turned into a wolf, and ran away into the forest.
I didn’t know where I was for a minute or two, then I went to his
clothes, to pick them up, and damned if they hadn’t turned to stone!  Was
ever anyone nearer dead from fright than me?  Then I whipped out my sword
and cut every shadow along the road to bits, till I came to the house of
my mistress.  I looked like a ghost when I went in, and I nearly slipped
my wind.  The sweat was pouring down my crotch, my eyes were staring, and
I could hardly be brought around.  My Melissa wondered why I was out so
late.  “Oh, if you’d only come sooner,” she said, “you could have helped
us: a wolf broke into the folds and attacked the sheep, bleeding them
like a butcher.  But he didn’t get the laugh on me, even if he did get
away, for one of the slaves ran his neck through with a spear!”  I
couldn’t keep my eyes shut any longer when I heard that, and as soon as
it grew light, I rushed back to our Gaius’ house like an innkeeper beaten
out of his bill, and when I came to the place where the clothes had been
turned into stone, there was nothing but a pool of blood!  And moreover,
when I got home, my soldier was lying in bed, like an ox, and a doctor
was dressing his neck!  I knew then that he was a werewolf, and after
that, I couldn’t have eaten a crumb of bread with him, no, not if you had
killed me.  Others can think what they please about this, but as for me,
I hope your geniuses will all get after me if I lie.”




CHAPTER THE SIXTY-THIRD.

We were all dumb with astonishment, when “I take your story for granted,”
 said Trimalchio, “and if you’ll believe me, my hair stood on end, and
all the more, because I know that Niceros never talks nonsense: he’s
always level-headed, not a bit gossipy.  And now I’ll tell you a
hair-raiser myself, though I’m like a jackass on a slippery pavement
compared to him.  When I was a long-haired boy, for I lived a Chian life
from my youth up, my master’s minion died.  He was a jewel, so hear me
Hercules, he was, perfect in every facet.  While his sorrow-stricken
mother was bewailing his loss, and the rest of us were lamenting with
her, the witches suddenly commenced to screech so loud that you would
have thought a hare was being run down by the hounds!  At that time, we
had a Cappadocian slave, tall, very bold, and he had muscle too; he
could hold a mad bull in the air!  He wrapped a mantle around his left
arm, boldly rushed out of doors with drawn sword, and ran a woman
through the middle about here, no harm to what I touch.  We heard a
scream, but as a matter of fact, for I won’t lie to you, we didn’t catch
sight of the witches themselves.  Our simpleton came back presently, and
threw himself upon the bed.  His whole body was black and blue, as if he
had been flogged with whips, and of course the reason of that was she
had touched him with her evil hand!  We shut the door and returned to
our business, but when the mother put her arms around the body of her
son, it turned out that it was only a straw bolster, no heart, no guts,
nothing!  Of course the witches had swooped down upon the lad and put
the straw changeling in his place!  Believe me or not, suit yourselves,
but I say that there are women that know too much, and night-hags, too,
and they turn everything upside down!  And as for the long-haired booby,
he never got back his own natural color and he died, raving mad, a few
days later.”




CHAPTER THE SIXTY-FOURTH.

Though we wondered greatly, we believed none the less implicitly and,
kissing the table, we besought the night-hags to attend to their own
affairs while we were returning home from dinner.  As far as I was
concerned, the lamps already seemed to burn double and the whole
dining-room was going round, when “See here, Plocamus,” Trimalchio spoke
up, “haven’t you anything to tell us?  You haven’t entertained us at all,
have you?  And you used to be fine company, always ready to oblige with a
recitation or a song.  The gods bless us, how the green figs have
fallen!”  “True for you,” the fellow answered, “since I’ve got the gout
my sporting days are over; but in the good old times when I was a young
spark, I nearly sang myself into a consumption.  How I used to dance!
And take my part in a farce, or hold up my end in the barber shops!  Who
could hold a candle to me except, of course, the one and only Apelles?”
 He then put his hand to his mouth and hissed out some foul gibberish or
other, and said afterwards that it was Greek.  Trimalchio himself then
favored us with an impersonation of a man blowing a trumpet, and when he
had finished, he looked around for his minion, whom he called Croesus, a
blear-eyed slave whose teeth were very disagreeably discolored.  He was
playing with a little black bitch, disgustingly fat, wrapping her up in a
leek-green scarf and teasing her with a half-loaf of bread which he had
put on the couch; and when from sheer nausea, she refused it, he crammed
it down her throat.  This sight put Trimalchio in mind of his own dog and
he ordered Scylax, “the guardian of his house and home,” to be brought
in.  An enormous dog was immediately led in upon a chain and, obeying a
kick from the porter, it lay down beside the table. Thereupon Trimalchio
remarked, as he threw it a piece of white bread, “No one in all my house
loves me better than Scylax.”  Enraged at Trimalchio’s praising Scylax so
warmly, the slave put the bitch down upon the floor and sicked her on to
fight.  Scylax, as might have been expected from such a dog, made the
whole room ring with his hideous barking and nearly shook the life out of
the little bitch which the slave called Pearl.  Nor did the uproar end in
a dog fight, a candelabrum was upset upon the table, breaking the glasses
and spattering some of the guests with hot oil.  As Trimalchio did not
wish to seem concerned at the loss, he kissed the boy and ordered him to
climb upon his own back.  The slave did not hesitate but, mounting his
rocking-horse, he beat Trimalchio’s shoulders with his open palms,
yelling with laughter, “Buck! Buck!  How many fingers do I hold up!”
 When Trimalchio had, in a measure, regained his composure, which took but
a little while, he ordered that a huge vessel be filled with mixed wine,
and that drinks be served to all the slaves sitting around our feet,
adding as an afterthought, “If anyone refuses to drink, pour it on his
head: business is business, but now’s the time for fun.”




CHAPTER THE SIXTY-FIFTH.

The dainties that followed this display of affability were of such a
nature that, if any reliance is to be placed in my word, the very mention
of them makes me sick at the stomach.  Instead of thrushes, fattened
chickens were served, one to each of us, and goose eggs with pastry caps
on them, which same Trimalchio earnestly entreated us to eat, informing
us that the chickens had all been boned.  Just at that instant, however,
a lictor knocked at the dining-room door, and a reveler, clad in white
vestments, entered, followed by a large retinue.  Startled at such pomp,
I thought that the Praetor had arrived, so I put my bare feet upon the
floor and started to get up, but Agamemnon laughed at my anxiety and
said, “Keep your seat, you idiot, it’s only Habinnas the sevir; he’s a
stone mason, and if report speaks true, he makes the finest tombstones
imaginable.”  Reassured by this information, I lay back upon my couch and
watched Habinnas’ entrance with great curiosity.  Already drunk and
wearing several wreaths, his forehead smeared with perfume which ran down
into his eyes, he advanced with his hands upon his wife’s shoulders, and,
seating himself in the Praetor’s place, he called for wine and hot water.
Delighted with his good humor, Trimalchio called for a larger goblet for
himself, and asked him, at the same time, how he had been entertained.
“We had everything except yourself, for my heart and soul were here, but
it was fine, it was, by Hercules.  Scissa was giving a Novendial feast
for her slave, whom she freed on his death-bed, and it’s my opinion
she’ll have a large sum to split with the tax gatherers, for the dead man
was rated at 50,000, but everything went off well, even if we did have to
pour half our wine on the bones of the late lamented.”




CHAPTER THE SIXTY-SIXTH.

“But,” demanded Trimalchio, “what did you have for dinner’?”  “I’ll tell
you if I can,” answered he, “for my memory’s so good that I often forget
my own name.  Let’s see, for the first course, we had a hog, crowned with
a wine cup and garnished with cheese cakes and chicken livers cooked well
done, beets, of course, and whole-wheat bread, which I’d rather have
than white, because it puts strength into you, and when I take a crap
afterwards, I don’t have to yell.  Following this, came a course of
tarts, served cold, with excellent Spanish wine poured over warm honey;
I ate several of the tarts and got the honey all over myself.  Then there
were chick-peas and lupines, all the smooth-shelled nuts you wanted, and
an apple apiece, but I got away with two, and here they are, tied up in
my napkin; for I’ll have a row on my hands if I don’t bring some kind of
a present home to my favorite slave.  Oh yes, my wife has just reminded
me, there was a haunch of bear-meat as a side dish, Scintilla ate some of
it without knowing what it was, and she nearly puked up her guts when she
found out.  But as for me, I ate more than a pound of it, for it tasted
exactly like wild boar and, says I, if a bear eats a man, shouldn’t that
be all the more reason for a man to eat a bear?  The last course was soft
cheese, new wine boiled thick, a snail apiece, a helping of tripe, liver
pate, capped eggs, turnips and mustard.  But that’s enough.  Pickled
olives were handed around in a wooden bowl, and some of the party
greedily snatched three handfuls, we had ham, too, but we sent it back.”




CHAPTER THE SIXTY-SEVENTH.

“But why isn’t Fortunata at the table, Gaius?  Tell me.”  “What’s that,”
 Trimalchio replied; “don’t you know her better than that?  She wouldn’t
touch even a drop of water till after the silver was put away and the
leftovers divided among the slaves.”  “I’m going to beat it if she don’t
take her place,” Habinnas threatened, and started to get up; and then,
at a signal, the slaves all called out together “Fortunata,” four times
or more.

She appeared, girded round with a sash of greenish yellow, below which a
cherry-colored tunic could be seen, and she had on twisted anklets and
sandals worked in gold.  Then, wiping her hands upon a handkerchief which
she wore around her neck, she seated herself upon the couch, beside
Scintilla, Habinnas’ wife, and clapping her hands and kissing her, “My
dear,” she gushed, “is it really you?”  Fortunata then removed the
bracelets from her pudgy arms and held them out to the admiring
Scintilla, and by and by she took off her anklets and even her yellow
hair-net, which was twenty-four carats fine, she would have us know!
Trimalchio, who was on the watch, ordered every trinket to be brought to
him.  “You see these things, don’t you?”  he demanded; “they’re what
women fetter us with.  That’s the way us poor suckers are done!  These
ought to weigh six pounds and a half.  I have an arm-band myself, that
don’t weigh a grain under ten pounds; I bought it out of Mercury’s
thousandths, too.”  Finally, for fear he would seem to be lying, he
ordered the scales to be brought in and carried around to prove the
weights.  And Scintilla was no better.  She took off a small golden
vanity case which she wore around her neck, and which she called her
Lucky Box, and took from it two eardrops, which, in her turn, she handed
to Fortunata to be inspected.  “Thanks to the generosity of my husband,”
 she smirked, “no woman has better.”  “What’s that?”  Habinnas demanded.
“You kept on my trail to buy that glass bean for you; if I had a
daughter, I’ll be damned if I wouldn’t cut off her little ears.  We’d
have everything as cheap as dirt if there were no women, but we have to
piss hot and drink cold, the way things are now.”  The women, angry
though they were, were laughing together, in the meantime, and exchanging
drunken kisses, the one running on about her diligence as a housekeeper,
and the other about the infidelities and neglect of her husband.
Habinnas got up stealthily, while they were clinging together in this
fashion and, seizing Fortunata by the feet, he tipped her over backwards
upon the couch.  “Let go!”  she screeched, as her tunic slipped above her
knees; then, after pulling down her clothing, she threw herself into
Scintilla’s lap, and hid, with her handkerchief, a face which was none
the more beautiful for its blushes.




CHAPTER THE SIXTY-EIGHTH.

After a short interval, Trimalchio gave orders for the dessert to be
served, whereupon the slaves took away all the tables and brought in
others, and sprinkled the floor with sawdust mixed with saffron and
vermilion, and also with powdered mica, a thing I had never seen done
before.  When all this was done Trimalchio remarked, “I could rest
content with this course, for you have your second tables, but, if you’ve
something especially nice, why bring it on.”  Meanwhile an Alexandrian
slave boy, who had been serving hot water, commenced to imitate a
nightingale, and when Trimalchio presently called out, “Change your
tune,” we had another surprise, for a slave, sitting at Habinnas’ feet,
egged on, I have no doubt, by his own master, bawled suddenly in a
singsong voice, “Meanwhile AEneas and all of his fleet held his course on
the billowy deep”; never before had my ears been assailed by a sound so
discordant, for in addition to his barbarous pronunciation, and the
raising and lowering of his voice, he interpolated Atellane verses, and,
for the first time in my life, Virgil grated on my nerves.  When he had
to quit, finally, from sheer want of breath, “Did he ever have any
training,” Habinnas exclaimed, “no, not he!  I educated him by sending
him among the grafters at the fair, so when it comes to taking off a
barker or a mule driver, there’s not his equal, and the rogue’s clever,
too, he’s a shoemaker, or a cook, or a baker a regular jack of all
trades.  But he has two faults, and if he didn’t have them, he’d be
beyond all price: he snores and he’s been circumcised.  And that’s the
reason he never can keep his mouth shut and always has an eye open.  I
paid three hundred dinars for him.”




CHAPTER THE SIXTY-NINTH.

“Yes,” Scintilla broke in, “and you’ve not mentioned all of his
accomplishments either; he’s a pimp too, and I’m going to see that he’s
branded,” she snapped.  Trimalchio laughed.  “There’s where the
Cappadocian comes out,” he said; “never cheats himself out of anything
and I admire him for it, so help me Hercules, I do.  No one can show a
dead man a good time.  Don’t be jealous, Scintilla; we’re next to you
women, too, believe me.  As sure as you see me here safe and sound, I
used to play at thrust and parry with Mamma, my mistress, and finally
even my master got suspicious and sent me back to a stewardship; but keep
quiet, tongue, and I’ll give you a cake.”  Taking all this as praise, the
wretched slave pulled a small earthen lamp from a fold in his garment,
and impersonated a trumpeter for half an hour or more, while Habinnas
hummed with him, holding his finger pressed to his lips.  Finally, the
slave stepped out into the middle of the floor and waved his pipes in
imitation of a flute-player; then, with a whip and a smock, he enacted
the part of a mule-driver.  At last Habinnas called him over and kissed
him and said, as he poured a drink for him, “You get better all the time,
Massa.  I’m going to give you a pair of shoes.”  Had not the dessert been
brought in, we would never have gotten to the end of these stupidities.
Thrushes made of pastry and stuffed with nuts and raisins, quinces with
spines sticking out so that they looked like sea-urchins.  All this would
have been endurable enough had it not been for the last dish that was
served; so revolting was this, that we would rather have died of
starvation than to have even touched it.  We thought that a fat goose,
flanked with fish and all kinds of birds, had been served, until
Trimalchio spoke up.  “Everything you see here, my friends,” said he,
“was made from the same stuff.”  With my usual keen insight, I jumped to
the conclusion that I knew what that stuff was and, turning to Agamemnon,
I said, “I shall be greatly surprised, if all those things are not made
out of excrement, or out of mud, at the very least: I saw a like artifice
practiced at Rome during the Saturnalia.”




CHAPTER THE SEVENTIETH.

I had not done speaking, when Trimalchio chimed in, “As I hope to grow
fatter in fortune but not in figure, my cook has made all this out of a
hog!  It would be simply impossible to meet up with a more valuable
fellow: he’d make you a fish out of a sow’s coynte, if that’s what you
wanted, a pigeon out of her lard, a turtle-dove out of her ham, and a hen
out of a knuckle of pork: that’s why I named him Daedalus, in a happy
moment.  I brought him a present of knives, from Rome, because he’s so
smart; they’re made of Noric steel, too.”  He ordered them brought in
immediately, and looked them over, with admiration, even giving us the
chance to try their edges upon our cheeks.  Then all of a sudden two
slaves came in, carrying on as if they had been fighting at the fountain,
at least; each one had a water-jar hanging from a yoke around his neck.
Trimalchio arbitrated their difference, but neither would abide by his
decision, and each one smashed the other’s jar with a club.  Perturbed at
the insolence of these drunken ruffians, we watched both of them
narrowly, while they were fighting, and then, what should come pouring
out of the broken jars but oysters and scallops, which a slave picked up
and passed around in a dish.  The resourceful cook would not permit
himself to be outdone by such refinements, but served us with snails on a
silver gridiron, and sang continually in a tremulous and very discordant
voice.  I am ashamed to have to relate what followed, for, contrary to
all convention, some long-haired boys brought in unguents in a silver
basin and anointed the feet of the reclining guests; but before doing
this, however, they bound our thighs and ankles with garlands of flowers.
They then perfumed the wine-mixing vessel with the same unguent and
poured some of the melted liquid into the lamps.  Fortunata had, by this
time, taken a notion that she wanted to dance, and Scintilla was doing
more hand-clapping than talking, when Trimalchio called out,
“Philargyrus, and you too, Carrio, you can both come to the table;
even if you are green faction fans, and tell your bedfellow, Menophila,
to come too.”  What would you think happened then?  We were nearly
crowded off the couches by the mob of slaves that crowded into the
dining-room and almost filled it full.  As a matter of fact, I noticed
that our friend the cook, who had made a goose out of a hog, was placed
next to me, and he stunk from sauces and pickle.  Not satisfied with a
place at the table, he immediately staged an impersonation of Ephesus the
tragedian, and then he suddenly offered to bet his master that the greens
would take first place in the next circus games.




CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-FIRST.

Trimalchio was hugely tickled at this challenge.  “Slaves are men, my
friends,” he observed, “but that’s not all, they sucked the same milk
that we did, even if hard luck has kept them down; and they’ll drink the
water of freedom if I live: to make a long story short, I’m freeing all
of them in my will.  To Philargyrus, I’m leaving a farm, and his
bedfellow, too.  Carrio will get a tenement house and his twentieth,
and a bed and bedclothes to boot.  I’m making Fortunata my heir and I
commend her to all my friends.  I announce all this in public so that my
household will love me as well now as they will when I’m dead.”  They all
commenced to pay tribute to the generosity of their master, when he,
putting aside his trifling, ordered a copy of his will brought in, which
same he read aloud from beginning to end, to the groaning accompaniment
of the whole household.  Then, looking at Habinnas, “What say you, my
dearest friend,” he entreated; “you’ll construct my monument in keeping
with the plans I’ve given you, won’t you?  I earnestly beg that you carve
a little bitch at the feet of my statue, some wreaths and some jars of
perfume, and all of the fights of Petraites.  Then I’ll be able to live
even after I’m dead, thanks to your kindness.  See to it that it has a
frontage of one hundred feet and a depth of two hundred.  I want fruit
trees of every kind planted around my ashes; and plenty of vines, too,
for it’s all wrong for a man to deck out his house when he’s alive, and
then have no pains taken with the one he must stay in for a longer time,
and that’s the reason I particularly desire that this notice be added:

                       --THIS MONUMENT DOES NOT--
                         --DESCEND TO AN HEIR--

“In any case, I’ll see to it through a clause in my will, that I’m not
insulted when I’m dead.  And for fear the rabble comes running up into my
monument, to crap, I’ll appoint one of my freedmen custodian of my tomb.
I want you to carve ships under full sail on my monument, and me, in my
robes of office, sitting on my tribunal, five gold rings on my fingers,
pouring out coin from a sack for the people, for I gave a dinner and two
dinars for each guest, as you know.  Show a banquet-hall, too, if you
can, and the people in it having a good time.  On my right, you can place
a statue of Fortunata holding a dove and leading a little bitch on a
leash, and my favorite boy, and large jars sealed with gypsum, so the
wine won’t run out; show one broken and a boy crying over it.  Put a
sun-dial in the middle, so that whoever looks to see what time it is must
read my name whether he wants to or not.  As for the inscription, think
this over carefully, and see if you think it’s appropriate:

                   HERE RESTS G POMPEIUS TRIMALCHIO
                     FREEDMAN OF MAECENAS DECREED
                    AUGUSTAL, SEVIR IN HIS ABSENCE
                    HE COULD HAVE BEEN A MEMBER OF
                    EVERY DECURIA OF ROME BUT WOULD
                     NOT CONSCIENTIOUS BRAVE LOYAL
                   HE GREW RICH FROM LITTLE AND LEFT
                    THIRTY MILLION SESTERCES BEHIND
                     HE NEVER HEARD A PHILOSOPHER
                          FAREWELL TRIMALCHIO
                           FAREWELL PASSERBY”




CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-SECOND.

When he had repeated these words, Trimalchio began to weep copiously,
Fortunata was crying already, and so was Habinnas, and at last, the whole
household filled the dining-room with their lamentations, just as if they
were taking part in a funeral.  Even I was beginning to sniffle, when
Trimalchio said, “Let’s live while we can, since we know we’ve all got to
die.  I’d rather see you all happy, anyhow, so let’s take a plunge in the
bath.  You’ll never regret it.  I’ll bet my life on that, it’s as hot as
a furnace!”  “Fine business,” seconded Habinnas, “there’s nothing suits
me better than making two days out of one,” and he got up in his bare
feet to follow Trimalchio, who was clapping his hands.  I looked at
Ascyltos.  “What do you think about this?” I asked.  “The very sight of a
bath will be the death of me.”  “Let’s fall in with his suggestion,” he
replied, “and while they are hunting for the bath we will escape in the
crowd.”  Giton led us out through the porch, when we had reached this
understanding, and we came to a door, where a dog on a chain startled us
so with his barking that Ascyltos immediately fell into the fish-pond.
As for myself, I was tipsy and had been badly frightened by a dog that
was only a painting, and when I tried to haul the swimmer out, I was
dragged into the pool myself.  The porter finally came to our rescue,
quieted the dog by his appearance, and pulled us, shivering, to dry land.
Giton had ransomed himself by a very cunning scheme, for what we had
saved for him, from dinner, he threw to the barking brute, which then
calmed its fury and became engrossed with the food.  But when, with
chattering teeth, we besought the porter to let us out at the door, “If
you think you can leave by the same door you came in at,” he replied,
“you’re mistaken: no guest is ever allowed to go out through the same
door he came in at; some are for entrance, others for exit.”




CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-THIRD.

What were we miserable wretches to do, shut up in this newfangled
labyrinth.  The idea of taking a hot bath had commenced to grow in favor,
so we finally asked the porter to lead us to the place and, throwing off
our clothing, which Giton spread out in the hall to dry, we went in.
It was very small, like a cold water cistern; Trimalchio was standing
upright in it, and one could not escape his disgusting bragging even
here.  He declared that there was nothing nicer than bathing without a
mob around, and that a bakery had formerly occupied this very spot.
Tired out at last, he sat down, but when the echoes of the place tempted
him, he lifted his drunken mouth to the ceiling, and commenced murdering
the songs of Menacrates, at least that is what we were told by those who
understood his language.  Some of the guests joined hands and ran around
the edge of the pool, making the place ring with their boisterous peals
of laughter; others tried to pick rings up from the floor, with their
hands tied behind them, or else, going down upon their knees, tried to
touch the ends of their toes by bending backwards.  We went down into the
pool while the rest were taking part in such amusements.  It was being
heated for Trimalchio.  When the fumes of the wine had been dissipated,
we were conducted into another dining-room where Fortunata had laid out
her own treasures; I noticed, for instance, that there were little bronze
fishermen upon the lamps, the tables were of solid silver, the cups were
porcelain inlaid with gold; before our eyes wine was being strained
through a straining cloth.  “One of my slaves shaves his first beard
today,” Trimalchio remarked, at length, “a promising, honest, thrifty
lad; may he have no bad luck, so let’s get our skins full and stick
around till morning.”




CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-FOURTH.

He had not ceased speaking when a cock crowed!  Alarmed at this omen,
Trimalchio ordered wine thrown under the table and told them to sprinkle
the lamps with it; and he even went so far as to change his ring from his
left hand to his right.  “That trumpeter did not sound off without a
reason,” he remarked; “there’s either a fire in the neighborhood, or else
someone’s going to give up the ghost.  I hope it’s none of us!  Whoever
brings that Jonah in shall have a present.”  He had no sooner made this
promise, than a cock was brought in from somewhere in the neighborhood
and Trimalchio ordered the cook to prepare it for the pot.  That same
versatile genius who had but a short time before made birds and fish out
of a hog, cut it up; it was then consigned to the kettle, and while
Daedalus was taking a long hot drink, Fortunata ground pepper in a
boxwood mill.  When these delicacies had been consumed, Trimalchio looked
the slaves over.  “You haven’t had anything to eat yet, have you?”  he
asked.  “Get out and let another relay come on duty.”  Thereupon a second
relay came in.  “Farewell, Gaius,” cried those going off duty, and “Hail,
Gaius,” cried those coming on.  Our hilarity was somewhat dampened soon
after, for a boy, who was by no means bad looking, came in among the
fresh slaves.  Trimalchio seized him and kissed him lingeringly,
whereupon Fortunata, asserting her rights in the house, began to rail at
Trimalchio, styling him an abomination who set no limits to his lechery,
finally ending by calling him a dog. Trimalchio flew into a rage at her
abuse and threw a wine cup at her head, whereupon she screeched, as if
she had had an eye knocked out and covered her face with her trembling
hands.  Scintilla was frightened, too, and shielded the shuddering woman
with her garment.  An officious slave presently held a cold water pitcher
to her cheek and Fortunata bent over it, sobbing and moaning.  But as for
Trimalchio, “What the hell’s next?”  he gritted out, “this Syrian
dancing-whore don’t remember anything!  I took her off the auction block
and made her a woman among her equals, didn’t I?  And here she puffs
herself up like a frog and pukes in her own nest; she’s a blockhead, all
right, not a woman.  But that’s the way it is, if you’re born in an attic
you can’t sleep in a palace I’ll see that this booted Cassandra’s tamed,
so help me my Genius, I will!  And I could have married ten million, even
if I did only have two cents: you know I’m not lying!  ‘Let me give you a
tip,’ said Agatho, the perfumer to the lady next door, when he pulled me
aside: ‘don’t let your line die out!’  And here I’ve stuck the ax into my
own leg because I was a damned fool and didn’t want to seem fickle.  I’ll
see to it that you’re more careful how you claw me up, sure as you’re
born, I will! That you may realize how seriously I take what you’ve done
to me--Habinnas, I don’t want you to put her statue on my tomb for fear
I’ll be nagged even after I’m dead!  And furthermore, that she may know I
can repay a bad turn, I won’t have her kissing me when I’m laid out!”




CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-FIFTH.

When Trimalchio had launched this thunderbolt, Habinnas commenced to
beg him to control his anger.  “There’s not one of us but goes wrong
sometimes,” argued he; “we’re not gods, we’re men.”  Scintilla also cried
out through her tears, calling him “Gaius,” and entreating him by his
guardian angel to be mollified.  Trimalchio could restrain the tears no
longer.  “Habinnas,” he blubbered, “as you hope to enjoy your money, spit
in my face if I’ve done anything wrong.  I kissed him because he’s very
thrifty, not because he’s a pretty boy.  He can recite his division table
and read a book at sight: he bought himself a Thracian uniform from his
savings from his rations, and a stool and two dippers, with his own
money, too.  He’s worth my attention, ain’t he?  But Fortunata won’t see
it!  Ain’t that the truth, you high-stepping hussy’?  Let me beg you to
make the best of what you’ve got, you shekite, and don’t make me show my
teeth, my little darling, or you’ll find out what my temper’s like!
Believe me, when once I’ve made up my mind, I’m as fixed as a spike in a
beam!  But let’s think of the living.  I hope you’ll all make yourselves
at home, gentlemen: I was in your fix myself once; but rose to what I am
now by my own merit.  It’s the brains that makes the man, all the rest’s
bunk.  I buy well, I sell well, someone else will tell you a different
story, but as for myself, I’m fairly busting with prosperity.  What,
grunting-sow, still bawling?  I’ll see to it that you’ve something to
bawl for, but as I started to say, it was my thrift that brought me to
my fortune.  I was just as tall as that candlestick when I came over from
Asia; every day I used to measure myself by it, and I would smear my lips
with oil so my beard would sprout all the sooner.  I was my master’s
‘mistress’ for fourteen years, for there’s nothing wrong in doing what
your master orders, and I satisfied my mistress, too, during that time,
you know what I mean, but I’ll say no more, for I’m not one of your
braggarts!”




CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-SIXTH.

“At last it came about by the will of the gods that I was master in the
house, and I had the real master under my thumb then.  What is there
left to tell?  I was made co-heir with Caesar and came into a Senator’s
fortune.  But nobody’s ever satisfied with what he’s got, so I embarked
in business.  I won’t keep you long in suspense; I built five ships and
loaded them with wine--worth its weight in gold, it was then--and sent
them to Rome.  You’d think I’d ordered it so, for every last one of them
foundered; it’s a fact, no fairy tale about it, and Neptune swallowed
thirty million sesterces in one day!  You don’t think I lost my pep, do
you?  By Hercules, no!  That was only an appetizer for me, just as if
nothing at all had happened.  I built other and bigger ships, better
found, too, so no one could say I wasn’t game.  A big ship’s a big
venture, you know.  I loaded them up with wine again, bacon, beans,
Capuan perfumes, and slaves: Fortunata did the right thing in this
affair, too, for she sold every piece of jewelry and all her clothes into
the bargain, and put a hundred gold pieces in my hand.  They were the
nest-egg of my fortune.  A thing’s soon done when the gods will it;
I cleared ten million sesterces by that voyage, all velvet, and bought
in all the estates that had belonged to my patron, right away.  I built
myself a house and bought cattle to resell, and whatever I touched grew
just like a honeycomb.  I chucked the game when I got to have an income
greater than all the revenues of my own country, retired from business,
and commenced to back freedmen.  I never liked business anyhow, as far as
that goes, and was just about ready to quit when an astrologer, a Greek
fellow he was, and his name was Serapa, happened to light in our colony,
and he slipped me some information and advised me to quit.  He was hep to
all the secrets of the gods: told me things about myself that I’d
forgotten, and explained everything to me from needle and thread up; knew
me inside out, he did, and only stopped short of telling me what I’d had
for dinner the day before.  You’d have thought he’d lived with me
always!”




CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-SEVENTH.

“Habinnas, you were there, I think, I’ll leave it to you; didn’t he say
--‘You took your wife out of a whore-house’? you’re as lucky in your
friends, too, no one ever repays your favor with another, you own broad
estates, you nourish a viper under your wing, and--why shouldn’t I tell
it--I still have thirty years, four months, and two days to live!  I’ll
also come into another bequest shortly.  That’s what my horoscope tells
me.  If I can extend my boundaries so as to join Apulia, I’ll think I’ve
amounted to something in this life!  I built this house with Mercury on
the job, anyhow; it was a hovel, as you know, it’s a palace now!  Four
dining-rooms, twenty bed-rooms, two marble colonnades, a store-room
upstairs, a bed-room where I sleep myself, a sitting-room for this viper,
a very good room for the porter, a guest-chamber for visitors.  As a
matter of fact, Scaurus, when he was here, would stay nowhere else,
although he has a family place on the seashore.  I’ll show you many other
things, too, in a jiffy; believe me, if you have an as, you’ll be rated
at what you have.  So your humble servant, who was a frog, is now a king.
Stychus, bring out my funereal vestments while we wait, the ones I’ll be
carried out in, some perfume, too, and a draught of the wine in that jar,
I mean the kind I intend to have my bones washed in.”




CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-EIGHTH.

It was not long before Stychus brought a white shroud and a
purple-bordered toga into the dining-room, and Trimalchio requested us
to feel them and see if they were pure wool. Then, with a smile, “Take
care, Stychus, that the mice don’t get at these things and gnaw them, or
the moths either.  I’ll burn you alive if they do.  I want to be carried
out in all my glory so all the people will wish me well.”  Then, opening
a jar of nard, he had us all anointed.  “I hope I’ll enjoy this as well
when I’m dead,” he remarked, “as I do while I’m alive.”  He then ordered
wine to be poured into the punch-bowl. “Pretend,” said he, “that you’re
invited to my funeral feast.”  The thing had grown positively
nauseating, when Trimalchio, beastly drunk by now, bethought himself of
a new and singular diversion and ordered some horn-blowers brought into
the dining-room.  Then, propped up by many cushions, he stretched
himself out upon the couch.  “Let on that I’m dead,” said he, “and say
something nice about me.”  The horn-blowers sounded off a loud funeral
march together, and one in particular, a slave belonging to an
undertaker, made such a fanfare that he roused the whole neighborhood,
and the watch, which was patrolling the vicinity, thinking Trimalchio’s
house was afire, suddenly smashed in the door and rushed in with their
water and axes, as is their right, raising a rumpus all their own.  We
availed ourselves of this happy circumstance and, leaving Agamemnon in
the lurch, we took to our heels, as though we were running away from a
real conflagration.




ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:

Affairs start to go wrong, your friends will stand from under
Doctor’s not good for anything except for a consolation
Everybody’s business is nobody’s business
He can teach you more than he knows himself
Learning’s a fine thing, and a trade won’t starve
Men are lions at home and foxes abroad
No one can show a dead man a good time
The loser’s always the winner in arguments
Too many doctors did away with him
We know that you’re only a fool with a lot of learning
Whenever you learn a thing, it’s yours
Believes, on the spot, every tale
You can spot a louse on someone else





VOLUME 3.--FURTHER ADVENTURES OF ENCOLPIUS AND HIS COMPANIONS


CHAPTER THE SEVENTY-NINTH.

There was no torch to light the way for us, as we wandered around, nor
did the silence of midnight give promise of our meeting any wayfarer with
a light; in addition to this, we were drunk and unfamiliar with the
district, which would confuse one, even in daylight, so for the best part
of a mortal hour we dragged our bleeding feet over all the flints and
pieces of broken tile, till we were extricated, at last, by Giton’s
cleverness.  This prudent youngster had been afraid of going astray on
the day before, so he had taken care to mark all the pillars and columns
with chalk.  These marks stood out distinctly, even through the pitchy
night, and by their brilliant whiteness pointed out the way for us as we
wandered about.  Nevertheless, we had no less cause for being in a sweat
even when we came to our lodging, for the old woman herself had been
sitting and swilling so long with her guests that even if one had set her
afire, she would not have known it.  We would have spent the night on the
door-sill had not Trimalchio’s courier come up in state, with ten wagons;
he hammered on the door for a short time, and then smashed it in, giving
us an entrance through the same breach.  (Hastening to the
sleeping-chamber, I went to bed with my “brother” and, burning with
passion as I was, after such a magnificent dinner, I surrendered myself
wholly to sexual gratification.)

               Oh Goddesses and Gods, that purple night
               How soft the couch!  And we, embracing tight;
               With every wandering kiss our souls would meet!
               Farewell all mortal woes, to die were sweet

But my self-congratulation was premature, for I was overcome with wine,
and when my unsteady hands relaxed their hold, Ascyltos, that
never-failing well-spring of iniquity, stole the boy away from me in the
night and carried him to his own bed, where he wallowed around without
restraint with a “brother” not his own, while the latter, not noticing
the fraud, or pretending not to notice it, went to sleep in a stranger’s
arms, in defiance of all human rights.  Awaking at last, I felt the bed
over and found that it had been despoiled of its treasure: then, by all
that lovers hold dear, I swear I was on the verge of transfixing them
both with my sword and uniting their sleep with death.  At last,
however, I adopted a more rational plan; I spanked Giton into
wakefulness, and, glaring at Ascyltos, “Since you have broken faith by
this outrage,” I gritted out, with a savage frown, “and severed our
friendship, you had better get your things together at once, and pick up
some other bottom for your abominations!”  He raised no objection to
this, but after we had divided everything with scrupulous exactitude,
“Come on now,” he demanded, “and we’ll divide the boy!”




CHAPTER THE EIGHTIETH.

I thought this was a parting joke till he whipped out his sword, with a
murderous hand.  “You’ll not have this prize you’re brooding over, all to
yourself!  Since I’ve been rejected, I’ll have to cut off my share with
this sword.”  I followed suit, on my side, and, wrapping a mantle around
my left arm, I put myself on guard for the duel.  The unhappy boy,
rendered desperate by our unreasoning fury, hugged each of us tightly by
the knee, and in tears he humbly begged that this wretched lodging-house
should not witness a Theban duel, and that we would not pollute--with
mutual bloodshed the sacred rites of a friendship that was, as yet,
unstained.  “If a crime must be committed,” he wailed, “here is my naked
throat, turn your swords this way and press home the points.  I ought to
be the one to die, I broke the sacred pledge of friendship.”  We lowered
our points at these entreaties.  “I’ll settle this dispute,” Ascyltos
spoke up, “let the boy follow whomsoever he himself wishes to follow.
In that way, he, at least, will have perfect freedom in choosing a
‘brother’.”  Imagining that a relationship of such long standing had
passed into a tie of blood, I was not at all uneasy, so I snatched at
this proposition with precipitate eagerness, and submitted the dispute to
the judge.  He did not deliberate long enough to seem even to hesitate,
for he got up and chose Ascyltos for a “brother,” as soon as the last
syllable had passed my lips!  At this decision I was thunder-struck,
and threw myself upon the bed, unarmed and just as I stood.  Had I not
begrudged my enemy such a triumph, I would have laid violent hands upon
myself.  Flushed with success, Ascyltos marched out with his prize, and
abandoned, in a strange town, a comrade in the depths of despair; one
whom, but a little while before, he had loved most unselfishly, one whose
destiny was so like his own.

     As long as is expedient, the name of friendship lives,
     Just as in dicing, Fortune smiles or lowers;
     When good luck beckons, then your friend his gleeful service gives
     But basely flies when ruin o’er you towers.
     The strollers act their farces upon the stage, each one his part,

     The father, son, the rich man, all are here,
     But soon the page is turned upon the comic actor’s art,
     The masque is dropped, the make-ups disappear!




CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-FIRST.

Nevertheless, I did not indulge myself very long in tears, being afraid
that Menelaus, the tutor, might drop in upon me all alone in the
lodging-house, and catch me in the midst of my troubles, so I collected my
baggage and, with a heavy heart, sneaked off to an obscure quarter near
the seashore.  There, I kept to my room for three days.  My mind was
continually haunted by my loneliness and desertion, and I beat my breast,
already sore from blows.  “Why could not the earth have opened and
swallowed me,” I wailed aloud, between the many deep-drawn groans, “or
the sea, which rages even against the guiltless?  Did I flee from
justice, murder my ghost, and cheat the arena, in order that, after so
many proofs of courage, I might be left lying here deserted, a beggar and
an exile, in a lodging-house in a Greek town?  And who condemned me to
this desolation’?  A boy stained by every form of vice, who, by his own
confession, ought to be exiled: free, through vice, expert in vice, whose
favors came through a throw of the dice, who hired himself out as a girl
to those who knew him to be a boy!  And as to the other, what about him?
In place of the manly toga, he donned the woman’s stola when he reached
the age of puberty: he resolved, even from his mother’s womb, never to
become a man; in the slave’s prison he took the woman’s part in the
sexual act, he changed the instrument of his lechery when he
double-crossed me, abandoned the ties of a long-standing friendship,
and, shame upon him, sold everything for a single night’s dalliance,
like any other street-walker!  Now the lovers lie whole nights, locked
in each other’s arms, and I suppose they make a mockery of my desolation
when they are resting up from the exhaustion caused by their mutual
excesses.  But not with impunity!  If I don’t avenge the wrong they have
done me in their guilty blood, I’m no free man!”




CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-SECOND.

I girded on my sword, when I had said these words, and, fortifying my
strength with a heavy meal, so that weakness would not cause me to lose
the battle, I presently sallied forth into the public streets and rushed
through all the arcades, like a maniac.  But while, with my face savagely
convulsed in a frown, I was meditating nothing but bloodshed and
slaughter, and was continually clapping my hand to the hilt of my sword,
which I had consecrated to this, I was observed by a soldier, that is, he
either was a real soldier, or else he was some night-prowling thug, who
challenged me.  “Halt!  Who goes there?  What legion are you from?  Who’s
your centurion?”  “Since when have men in your outfit gone on pass in
white shoes?”  he retorted, when I had lied stoutly about both centurion
and legion.  Both my face and my confusion proved that I had been caught
in a lie, so he ordered me to surrender my arms and to take care that I
did not get into trouble.  I was held up, as a matter of course, and, my
revenge balked, I returned to my lodging-house and, recovering by degrees
from my fright, I began to be grateful to the boldness of the footpad.
It is not wise to place much reliance upon any scheme, because Fortune
has a method of her own.




CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-THIRD.

(Nevertheless, I found it very difficult to stifle my longing for
revenge, and after tossing half the night in anxiety, I arose at dawn
and, in the hope of mitigating my mental sufferings and of forgetting my
wrongs, I took a walk through all the public arcades and) entered a
picture-gallery, which contained a wonderful collection of pictures in
various styles.  I beheld works from the hand of Zeuxis, still undimmed
by the passage of the years, and contemplated, not without a certain awe,
the crude drawings of Protogenes, which equalled the reality of nature
herself; but when I stood before the work of Apelles, the kind which the
Greeks call “Monochromatic,” verily, I almost worshipped, for the
outlines of the figures were drawn with such subtlety of touch, and were
so life-like in their precision, that you would have thought their very
souls were depicted.  Here, an eagle was soaring into the sky bearing the
shepherd of Mount Ida to heaven; there, the comely Hylas was struggling
to escape from the embrace of the lascivious Naiad.  Here, too, was
Apollo, cursing his murderous hand and adorning his unstrung lyre with
the flower just created.  Standing among these lovers, which were only
painted, “It seems that even the gods are wracked by love,” I cried
aloud, as if I were in a wilderness.  “Jupiter could find none to his
taste, even in his own heaven, so he had to sin on earth, but no one was
betrayed by him!  The nymph who ravished Hylas would have controlled her
passion had she thought Hercules was coming to forbid it.  Apollo
recalled the spirit of a boy in the form of a flower, and all the lovers
of Fable enjoyed Love’s embraces without a rival, but I took as a comrade
a friend more cruel than Lycurgus!”  But at that very instant, as I was
telling my troubles to the winds, a white-haired old man entered the
picture-gallery; his face was care-worn, and he seemed, I know not why,
to give promise of something great, although he bestowed so little care
upon his dress that it was easily apparent that he belonged to that class
of literati which the wealthy hold in contempt.  “I am a poet,” he
remarked, when he had approached me and stood at my side, “and one of no
mean ability, I hope, that is, if anything is to be inferred from the
crowns which gratitude can place even upon the heads of the unworthy!
Then why, you demand, are you dressed so shabbily?  For that very reason;
love or art never yet made anyone rich.”

          The trader trusts his fortune to the sea and takes his gains,
             The warrior, for his deeds, is girt with gold;
          The wily sycophant lies drunk on purple counterpanes,
             Young wives must pay debauchees or they’re cold.
          But solitary, shivering, in tatters Genius stands
             Invoking a neglected art, for succor at its hands.




CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-FOURTH.

“It is certainly true that a man is hated when he declares himself an
enemy to all vice, and begins to follow the right road in life, because,
in the first place, his habits are different from those of other people;
for who ever approved of anything to which he took exceptions?  Then,
they whose only ambition is to pile up riches, don’t want to believe that
men can possess anything better than that which they have themselves;
therefore, they use every means in their power to so buffet the lovers
of literature that they will seem in their proper place--below the
moneybags.”  “I know not why it should be so,” (I said with a sigh), “but
Poverty is the sister of Genius.”  (“You have good reason,” the old man
replied, “to deplore the status of men of letters.”  “No,” I answered,
“that was not the reason for my sigh, there is another and far weightier
cause for my grief.”  Then, in accordance with the human propensity of
pouring one’s personal troubles into another’s ears, I explained my
misfortune to him, and dwelt particularly upon Ascyltos’ perfidy.)  “Oh
how I wish that this enemy who is the cause of my enforced continence
could be mollified,” (I cried, with many a groan,) “but he is an old hand
at robbery, and more cunning than the pimps themselves!”  (My frankness
pleased the old man, who attempted to comfort me and, to beguile my
sorrow, he related the particulars of an amorous intrigue in which he
himself had played a part.)




CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-FIFTH.

“When I was attached to the Quaestor’s staff, in Asia, I was quartered
with a family at Pergamus.  I found things very much to my liking there,
not only on account of the refined comfort of my apartments, but also
because of the extreme beauty of my host’s son.  For the latter reason,
I had recourse to strategy, in order that the father should never suspect
me of being a seducer.  So hotly would I flare up, whenever the abuse
of handsome boys was even mentioned at the table, and with such
uncompromising sternness would I protest against having my ears insulted
by such filthy talk, that I came to be looked upon, especially by the
mother, as one of the philosophers.  I was conducting the lad to the
gymnasium before very long, and superintending his conduct, taking
especial care, all the while, that no one who could debauch him should
ever enter the house.  Then there came a holiday, the school was closed,
and our festivities had rendered us too lazy to retire properly, so we
lay down in the dining-room.  It was just about midnight, and I knew he
was awake, so I murmured this vow, in a very low voice, ‘Oh Lady Venus,
could I but kiss this lad, and he not know it, I would give him a pair of
turtle-doves tomorrow!’  On hearing the price offered for this favor, the
boy commenced to snore!  Then, bending over the pretending sleeper, I
snatched a fleeting kiss or two.  Satisfied with this beginning, I arose
early in the morning, brought a fine pair of turtle-doves to the eager
lad, and absolved myself from my vow.”




CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-SIXTH.

“Next night, when the same opportunity presented itself, I changed my
petition, ‘If I can feel him all over with a wanton hand,’ I vowed, ‘and
he not know it, I will give him two of the gamest fighting-cocks, for his
silence.’ The lad nestled closer to me of his own accord, on hearing this
offer, and I truly believe that he was afraid that I was asleep.  I made
short work of his apprehensions on that score, however, by stroking and
fondling his whole body.  I worked myself into a passionate fervor that
was just short of supreme gratification.  Then, when day dawned, I made
him happy with what I had promised him.  When the third night gave me
my chance, I bent close to the ear of the rascal, who pretended to be
asleep.  ‘Immortal gods,’ I whispered, ‘if I can take full and complete
satisfaction of my love, from this sleeping beauty, I will tomorrow
present him with the best Macedonian pacer in the market, in return for
this bliss, provided that he does not know it.’  Never had the lad slept
so soundly!  First I filled my hands with his snowy breasts, then I
pressed a clinging kiss upon his mouth, but I finally focused all my
energies upon one supreme delight!  Early in the morning, he sat up in
bed, awaiting my usual gift.  It is much easier to buy doves and
game-cocks than it is to buy a pacer, as you know, and aside from that,
I was also afraid that so valuable a present might render my motive
subject to suspicion, so, after strolling around for some hours, I
returned to the house, and gave the lad nothing at all except a kiss.
He looked all around, threw his arms about my neck.  ‘Tell me, master,’
he cried, ‘where’s the pacer?’ [‘The difficulty of getting one fine
enough has compelled me to defer the fulfillment of my promise,’ I
replied, ‘but I will make it good in a few days.’ The lad easily
understood the true meaning of my answer, and his countenance betrayed
his secret resentment.)”




CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-SEVENTH.

“(In the meantime,) by breaking this vow, I had cut myself off from the
avenue of access which I had contrived, but I returned to the attack, all
the same, when the opportunity came.  In a few days, a similar occasion
brought about the very same conditions as before, and the instant I heard
his father snoring, I began pleading with the lad to receive me again
into his good graces, that is to say, that he ought to suffer me to
satisfy myself with him, and he in turn could do whatever his own
distended member desired.  He was very angry, however, and would say
nothing at all except, ‘Either you go to sleep, or I’ll call father!’
But no obstacle is so difficult that depravity cannot twist around it and
even while he threatened ‘I’ll call father,’ I slipped into his bed and
took my pleasure in spite of his half-hearted resistance.  Nor was he
displeased with my improper conduct for, although he complained for a
while, that he had been cheated and made a laughing-stock, and that his
companions, to whom he had bragged of his wealthy friend, had made sport
of him.  ‘But you’ll see that I’ll not be like you,’ he whispered; ‘do it
again, if you want to!’  All misunderstandings were forgotten and I was
readmitted into the lad’s good graces.  Then I slipped off to sleep,
after profiting by his complaisance.  But the youth, in the very flower
of maturity, and just at the best age for passive pleasure, was by no
means satisfied with only one repetition, so he roused me out of a heavy
sleep.  ‘Isn’t there something you’d like to do?’ he whispered!  The
pastime had not begun to cloy, as yet, and, somehow or other, what with
panting and sweating and wriggling, he got what he wanted and, worn out
with pleasure, I dropped off to sleep again. Less than an hour had passed
when he began to punch me with his hand. ‘Why are we not busy,’ he
whispered!  I flew into a violent rage at being disturbed so many times,
and threatened him in his own words, ‘Either you go to sleep, or I’ll
call father!’”




CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-EIGHTH.

Heartened up by this story, I began to draw upon his more comprehensive
knowledge as to the ages of the pictures and as to certain of the stories
connected with them, upon which I was not clear; and I likewise inquired
into the causes of the decadence of the present age, in which the most
refined arts had perished, and among them painting, which had not left
even the faintest trace of itself behind. “Greed of money,” he replied,
“has brought about these unaccountable changes.  In the good old times,
when virtue was her own reward, the fine arts flourished, and there was
the keenest rivalry among men for fear that anything which could be of
benefit to future generations should remain long undiscovered.  Then it
was that Democritus expressed the juices of all plants and spent his
whole life in experiments, in order that no curative property should lurk
unknown in stone or shrub.  That he might understand the movements of
heaven and the stars, Eudoxus grew old upon the summit of a lofty
mountain: three times did Chrysippus purge his brain with hellebore,
that his faculties might be equal to invention.  Turn to the sculptors if
you will; Lysippus perished from hunger while in profound meditation upon
the lines of a single statue, and Myron, who almost embodied the souls of
men and beasts in bronze, could not find an heir.  And we, sodden with
wine and women, cannot even appreciate the arts already practiced, we
only criticise the past! We learn only vice, and teach it, too.  What has
become of logic? of astronomy?  Where is the exquisite road to wisdom?
Who even goes into a temple to make a vow, that he may achieve eloquence
or bathe in the fountain of wisdom?  And they do not pray for good health
and a sound mind; before they even set foot upon the threshold of the
temple, one promises a gift if only he may bury a rich relative; another,
if he can but dig up a treasure, and still another, if he is permitted to
amass thirty millions of sesterces in safety!  The Senate itself, the
exponent of all that should be right and just, is in the habit of
promising a thousand pounds of gold to the capitol, and that no one may
question the propriety of praying for money, it even decorates Jupiter
himself with spoils’.  Do not hesitate, therefore, at expressing your
surprise at the deterioration of painting, since, by all the gods and men
alike, a lump of gold is held to be more beautiful than anything ever
created by those crazy little Greek fellows, Apelles and Phydias!”




CHAPTER THE EIGHTY-NINTH.

“But I see that your whole attention is held by that picture which
portrays the destruction of Troy, so I will attempt to unfold the story
in verse:

And now the tenth harvest beheld the beleaguered of Troia

Worn out with anxiety, fearing the honor of Calchas

The prophet, hung wavering deep in the blackest despair.

Apollo commanded!  The forested peaks of Mount Ida

Were felled and dragged down; the hewn timbers were fitted to fashion

A war-horse.  Unfilled is a cavity left, and this cavern,

Roofed over, capacious enough for a camp.  Here lie hidden

The raging impetuous valor of ten years of warfare.

Malignant Greek troops pack the recess, lurk in their own offering.

Alas my poor country!  We thought that their thousand grim war-ships

Were beaten and scattered, our arable lands freed from warfare!

Th’ inscription cut into the horse, and the crafty behavior

Of Sinon, his mind ever powerful for evil, affirmed it.

Delivered from war, now the crowd, carefree, hastens to worship

And pours from the portals.  Their cheeks wet with weeping, the joy

Of their tremulous souls brings to eyes tears which terror

Had banished.  Laocoon, priest unto Neptune, with hair loosed,

An outcry evoked from the mob: he drew back his javelin

And launched it!  The belly of wood was his target.  The weapon

Recoiled, for the fates stayed his hand, and this artifice won us.

His feeble hand nerved he anew, and the lofty sides sounded,

His two-edged ax tried them severely.  The young troops in ambush

Gasped.  And as long as the reverberations re-echoed

The wooden mass breathed out a fear that was not of its own.

Imprisoned, the warriors advance to take Troia a captive

And finish the struggle by strategem new and unheard of.

Behold!  Other portents: Where Tenedos steep breaks the ocean

Where great surging billows dash high; to be broken, and leap back

To form a deep hollow of calm, and resemble the plashing

Of oars, carried far through the silence of night, as when ships pass

And drive through the calm as it smashes against their fir bows.

Then backward we look towards the rocks; the tide carries two serpents

That coil and uncoil as they come, and their breasts, which are swollen

Aside dash the foam, as the bows of tall ships; and the ocean

Is lashed by their tails, their manes, free on the water, as savage

As even their eyes: now a blinding beam kindles the billows,

The sea with their hissing is sibilant!  All stare in terror!

Laocoon’s twin sons in Phrygian raiment are standing

With priests wreathed for sacrifice.  Them did the glistening serpents

Enfold in their coils!  With their little hands shielding their faces,

The boys, neither thinking of self, but each one of his brother!

Fraternal love’s sacrifice!  Death himself slew those poor children

By means of their unselfish fear for each other!  The father,

A helper too feeble, now throws himself prone on their bodies:

The serpents, now glutted with death, coil around him and drag him

To earth!  And the priest, at his altar a victim, lies beating

The ground.  Thus the city of Troy, doomed to sack and destruction,

First lost her own gods by profaning their shrines and their worship.

The full moon now lifted her luminous beam and the small stars

Led forth, with her torch all ablaze; when the Greeks drew the bolts

And poured forth their warriors, on Priam’s sons, buried in darkness

And sodden with wine.  First the leaders made trial of their weapons

Just as the horse, when unhitched from Thessalian neck-yoke,

First tosses his head and his mane, ere to pasture he rushes.

They draw their swords, brandish their shields and rush into the battle.

One slays the wine-drunken Trojans, prolonging their dreams

To death, which ends all.  Still another takes brands from the altars,

And calls upon Troy’s sacred temples to fight against Trojans.”




CHAPTER THE NINTIETH.

Some of the public, who were loafing in the portico, threw stones at the
reciting Eumolpus and he, taking note of this tribute to his genius,
covered his head and bolted out of the temple.  Fearing they might take
me for a poet, too, I followed after him in his flight and came to the
seashore, where we stopped as soon as we were out of range.  “Tell me,”
 I demanded, “what are you going to do about that disease of yours?
You’ve loafed with me less than two hours, and you’ve talked more often
like a poet than you have like a human being!  For this reason, I’m not
at all surprised that the rabble chases you with rocks.  I’m going to
load my pockets with stones, too, and whenever you begin to go out of
your head, I’m going to let blood out of it!”  His expression changed.
“My dear young man,” said he, “today is not the first time I have had
such compliments showered upon me; the audience always applauds me in
this fashion, when I go into the theatre to recite anything, but I’ll
abstain from this sort of diet for the whole day, for fear of having
trouble with you.”  “Good,” I replied, “we’ll dine together if you’ll
swear off crankiness for the day.”  (So saying,) I gave the housekeeper
the orders for our little supper (and we went straight off to the baths.)




CHAPTER THE NINETY-FIRST.

(There) I catch sight of Giton laden with towels and scrapers, leaning,
downhearted and embarrassed, against the wall.  You could see that he did
not serve of his own free will.  Then, that I might assure myself that I
saw aright, “Take pity on me, brother,” he cried, turning towards me a
face lighted up with joy, “there are no arms here, I can speak freely
take me away from that bloody robber, and punish your penitent judge as
severely as you like.  To have perished, should you wish it, will be a
consolation great enough in my misery!”  Fearing some one might overhear
our plans, I bade him hush his complaints and, leaving Eumolpus behind
--for he was reciting a poem in the bath--I pull Giton down a dark and
dirty passage, after me, and fly with all speed to my lodgings.  Arriving
there, I slam the door shut, embrace him convulsively, and press my face
against his which is all wet with tears.  For a long time, neither of us
could find his voice, and as for the lad, his shapely bosom was heaving
continuously with choking sobs.  “Oh the disgraceful inconsistency of it
all,” I cried, “for I love you still, although you abandoned me, and no
scar from that gaping wound is left upon this breast!  What can you say
that will justify you in yielding your love to a stranger?  Did I merit
such an affront’?”  He held his head higher when he found that he was
loved.

          For one to love, and at the same time, blame,
          That were a labor Hercules to tame!
          Conflicting passions yield in Cupid’s name.

(“And furthermore,” I went on), “I was not the one that laid the cause of
our love before another judge, but I will complain no more, I will
remember nothing, if you will prove your penitence by keeping faith.”
 He wiped his face upon his mantle, while I poured out these words, with
groans and tears.  “Encolpius,” said he, “I beseech you, I appeal to your
honest recollection, did I leave you, or did you throw me over?  For my
part, I admit, and openly at that, that I sought, refuge with the
stronger, when I beheld two armed men.”  I kissed that, bosom, so full of
prudence, threw my arms around his neck and pressed him tightly against
my breast, that he might see unmistakably that he had gotten back into my
good graces, and that our friendship lived again in perfect confidence.




CHAPTER THE NINETY-SECOND.

Night had fallen by this time, and the woman to whom I had given my order
had prepared supper, when Eumolpus knocked at the door.  “How many of you
are there?”  I called out, and as I spoke, I peeped cautiously through a
chink in the door to see if Ascyltos had come with him; then, as I
perceived that he was the only guest, I quickly admitted him.  He threw
himself upon the pallet and caught sight of Giton, waiting table,
whereupon, he nodded his head, “I like your Ganymede,” he remarked,
“this day promises a good ending!”  I did not take kindly to such an
inquisitive beginning, fearing that I had let another Ascyltos into my
lodging.  Eumolpus stuck to his purpose.  “I like you better than the
whole bathful,” he remarked, when the lad had served him with wine, then
he thirstily drained the cup dry and swore that never before had he
tasted a wine with such a satisfying tang to it.  “While I was bathing,”
 he went on, “I was almost beaten up for trying to recite a poem to the
people sitting around the basin, and when I had been thrown out of the
baths, just like I was out of the theatre, I hunted through every nook
and cranny of the building, calling ‘Encolpius, Encolpius,’ at the top of
my voice.  A naked youth at the other end, who had lost his clothes, was
bawling just as loudly and no less angrily for Giton!  As for myself, the
slaves took me for a maniac, and mimicked me in the most insolent manner,
but a large crowd gathered around him, clapping its hands in awe-struck
admiration, for so heavy and massive were his private parts, that you
would have thought that the man himself was but an appendage of his own
member!  Oh such a man!  He could do his bit all right!  I haven’t a
doubt but that he could begin on the day before and never finish till the
day after the next!  And he soon found a friend, of course: some Roman
knight or other, I don’t know his name, but he bears a bad reputation, so
they say, threw his own mantle around the wanderer and took him off home
with himself, hoping, I suppose, to have the sole enjoyment of so huge a
prize.  But I couldn’t get my own clothing back from the officious bath
attendant till I found some one who could identify me, which only goes to
show that it is more profitable to rub up the member than it is to polish
the mind!”  While Eumolpus was relating all this, I changed countenance
continually, elated, naturally, at the mishaps of my enemy, and vexed at
his good fortune; but I controlled my tongue nevertheless, as if I knew
nothing about the episode, and read aloud the bill of fare.  (Hardly had
I finished, when our humble meal was served.  The food was plain but
succulent and nutritious, and the famished scholar Eumolpus, fell to
ravenously.)

     Kind Providence unto our needs has tempered its decrees
        And met our wants, our carping plaints to still
     Green herbs, and berries hanging on their rough and brambly sprays
        Suffice our hunger’s gnawing pangs to kill.
     What fool would thirst upon a river’s brink?  Or stand and freeze
        In icy blasts, when near a cozy fire?
     The law sits armed outside the door, adulterers to seize,
        The chaste bride, guiltless, gratifies desire.
     All Nature lavishes her wealth to meet our just demands;
     But, spurred by lust of pride, we stop at naught to gain our ends!

(Our philosopher began to moralize, when he had gorged himself, leveling
many critical shafts at those who hold every-day things in contempt,
esteeming nothing except what is rare.)




CHAPTER THE NINETY-THIRD.

(“To their perverted taste,” he went on,) everything one may have
lawfully is held cheap and the appetite, tickled only by forbidden
indulgences, delights in what is most difficult to obtain.

     The pheasant from Colchis, the wild-fowl from African shores,

     Because they are dainties, the parvenu’s palate adores

     The white-feathered goose, and the duck in his bright-colored plumes

     Must nourish the rabble; they’re common, so them Fashion dooms!

     The wrasse brought from dangerous Syrtis is much more esteemed

     When fishing-boats founder!  And even the mullet is deemed,

     No matter how heavy, a weight on the market!  The whore

     Displaces the wife; and in perfumes, the cinnamon more

     Is esteemed than the rose!  So whatever we have, we despise,

     And whatever we have not, we think a superlative prize!”

“Is this the way in which you keep your promise not to recite a single
verse today?”  I demanded; “bear in mind your promise and spare us, at
least, for we have thrown no rocks at you yet.  If a single one of those
fellows drinking under this very roof were to smell out a poet in their
midst, he would arouse the whole neighborhood and involve all of us in
the same misunderstanding!”  Giton, who was one of the gentlest of lads,
took me to task for having spoken in that manner, denying that I did
rightly in criticising my elders and at the same time forgetting my
duties as host by offering an affront to one whom I had invited out of
kindness.  And much more, full of moderation and propriety, which was in
exquisite keeping with his good looks.




CHAPTER THE NINETY-FOURTH.

“Happy the mother,” cried Eumolpus, “who bore such a son as you!  May
your fortune be in keeping with your merit! Beauty and wisdom are rarely
found mixed!  And that you may not think that all your words are wasted,
know that you have found a lover!  I will fill my verses with your
praise!  I will act as your guardian and your tutor, following you even
when you bid me stay behind!  Nor can Encolpius take offense, he loves
another.”  The soldier who took my sword from me did Eumolpus a good
turn, too; otherwise, the rage which I had felt against Ascyltos would
have been quenched in the blood of Eumolpus. Seeing what was in the wind,
Giton slipped out of the room, pretending he was going after water, and
by this diplomatic retreat he put an end to my fury.  Then, as my anger
cooled, little by little, “Eumolpus,” I said, “rather than have you
entertain designs of such a nature, I would even prefer to have you
spouting poetry!  I am hot-tempered and you are lecherous; see how
uncongenial two such dispositions must be!  Take me for a maniac, humor
my malady: in other words, get out quick!”  Taken completely aback by
this onslaught, Eumolpus crossed the threshold of the room without
stopping to ask the reason for my wrath, and immediately slammed the door
shut, penning me in, as I was not looking for any move of that kind then,
having quickly removed the key, he hurried away in search of Giton.
Finding that I was locked in, I decided to hang myself, and had already
fastened my belt to the bedstead which stood alongside of the wall, and
was engaged in fastening the noose around my neck, when the doors were
unlocked and Eumolpus came in with Giton, recalling me to light when I
was just about to turn the fatal goal-post!  Giton was greatly wrought up
and his grief turned to fury: seizing me with both hands, he threw me
upon the bed.  “If you think, Encolpius,” he shrieked, “that you can
contrive to die before I do, you’re wrong!  I thought of suicide first.
I hunted for a sword in Ascyltos’ house: I would have thrown myself from
a precipice if I had not found you!  You know that Death is never far
from those who seek him, so take your turn and witness the spectacle you
wished to see!”  So saying, he snatched a razor from Eumolpus’ servant,
slashed his throat, once, twice, and fell down at our feet!  I uttered a
loud cry, rushed to him as he fell, and sought the road to death by the
same steel; Giton, however, showed not the faintest trace of any wound,
nor was I conscious of feeling any pain.  The razor, it turned out, was
untempered and dull and was used to imbue boy apprentices with the
confidence of the experienced barber.  Hence it was in a sheath and, for
the reason given above, the servant was not alarmed when the blade was
snatched nor did Eumolpus break in upon this farcical death scene.




CHAPTER THE NINETY-FIFTH.

The landlord made his appearance with a part of our little supper, while
this lover’s comedy was being enacted and, taking in the very disorderly
spectacle which we presented, lying there and wallowing as we were,
“Are you drunk,” he demanded, “or are you runaway slaves, or both?
Who turned up that bed there?  What’s the meaning of all  these sneaking
preparations?  You didn’t want to pay the room-rent, you didn’t, by
Hercules, you didn’t; you wanted to wait till night and run away into the
public streets, but that won’t go here!  This is no widow’s joint, I’ll
show you that; not yet it ain’t!  This place belongs  to Marcus
Manicius!”  “So you threaten, do you’?”  yelled Eumolpus, giving the
fellow a resounding slap in the face.  At this, the latter threw a small
earthenware pitcher, which had been emptied by the draughts of successive
guests, at Eumolpus’ head, and cut open the forehead of his cursing
adversary: then he skipped out of the room.  Infuriated at such an
insult, Eumolpus snatched up a wooden candlestick, ran in pursuit of his
retreating foeman, and avenged his broken head with a shower of blows.
The entire household crowded around, as did a number of drunken lodgers,
but I seized this opportunity of retaliating and locked Eumolpus out,
retorting his own trick upon the quarrelsome fellow, and found myself
without a rival, as it were, able to enjoy my room and my night’s
pleasure as well.  In the meantime, Eumolpus, locked out as he was,
was being very roughly handled by the cooks and scullions of the
establishment; one aimed a spitful of hissing-hot guts at his eyes;
another grabbed a two-tined fork in the pantry and put himself on guard.
But worst of all, a blear-eyed old hag, girded round with a filthy apron,
and wearing wooden clogs which were not mates, dragged in an immense dog
on a chain, and “sicked” him upon Eumolpus, but he beat off all attacks
with his candlestick.




CHAPTER THE NINETY-SIXTH.

We took in the entire performance through a hole in the folding-doors:
this had been made but a short time before, when the handle had been
broken and jerked out, and I wished him joy of his beating.  Giton,
however, forgetting everything except his own compassion, thought we
ought to open the door and succor Eumolpus, in his peril; but being still
angry, I could not restrain my hand; clenching my fist, I rapped his
pitying head with my sharp knuckles.  In tears, he sat upon the bed,
while I applied each eye in turn, to the opening, filling myself up as
with a dainty dish, with Eumolpus’ misfortunes, and gloating over their
prolongation, when Bargates, agent for the building, called from his
dinner, was carried into the midst of the brawl by two chair-men, for he
had the gout.  He carried on for some time against drunkards and fugitive
slaves, in a savage tone and with a barbarous accent, and then, looking
around and catching sight of Eumolpus, “What,” he exclaimed, “are you
here, nay prince of poets? and these damned slaves don’t scatter at once
and stop their brawling!”  (Then, whispering in Eumolpus’ ear,) “My
bedfellow’s got an idea that she’s finer-haired than I am; lampoon her
in a poem, if you think anything of me, and make ‘er ashamed.”




CHAPTER THE NINETY-SEVENTH.

Eumolpus was speaking privately with Bargates, when a crier attended by a
public slave entered the inn, accompanied by a medium-sized crowd of
outsiders.  Waving a torch that gave out more smoke than light, he
announced: “Strayed from the baths, a short time ago, a boy about sixteen
years of age, curly headed, a minion, handsome, answers to the name of
Giton.  One thousand sesterces reward will be paid to anyone bringing him
back or giving information as to his whereabouts.”  Ascyltos, dressed in
a tunic of many colors, stood not far from the crier, holding out a
silver tray upon which was piled the reward, as evidence of good faith.
I ordered Giton to get under the bed immediately, telling him to stick
his hands and feet through the rope netting which supported the mattress,
and, just as Ulysses of old had clung to the ram, so he, stretched out
beneath the mattress, would evade the hands of the hunters.  And Giton
did not hesitate at obeying this order, but fastened his hands in the
netting for a moment, outdoing Ulysses in his own cunning!  For fear of
leaving room for suspicion, I piled covers upon my pallet, leaving the
impression of a single person of my own stature.  Meanwhile Ascyltos, in
company with the magistrate’s servant, had ransacked all the rooms and
had come at last to mine, where he entertained greater hopes of success,
because he found the doors carefully barred.  The public slave loosened
the bolts by inserting the edge of his ax in the chink.  I threw myself
at Ascyltos’ feet, begging him, by the memory of our friendship and our
companionship in suffering, to show me my “brother,” safe and sound, and
furthermore, that my simulated prayers might carry conviction, I added,
“I know very well, Ascyltos, that you have come here seeking  my  life.
If not,  why  the axes?

“Well, fatten your grudge, then!  Here’s my neck!  Pour out that blood
you seek to shed under pretext of a search!”  Ascyltos repelled this
suspicion, affirming that he sought nothing except his own fugitive and
desired the death of neither man nor suppliant, and least of all did he
wish to harm one whom, now that their quarrel was over, he regarded as
his dearest friend.




CHAPTER THE NINETY-EIGHTH.

The public servant, however, was not derelict in the performance of his
duty for, snatching a cane from the innkeeper, he poked underneath the
bed, ransacking every corner, even to the cracks in the wall.  Twisting
his body out of reach, and cautiously drawing a full breath, Giton
pressed his mouth against the very bugs themselves. (The pair had
scarcely left the room) when Eumolpus burst in in great excitement, for
the doors had been broken and could keep no one out. “The thousand
sesterces are mine,” he shouted, “I’ll follow that crier out and tell him
Giton is in your power, and it will serve you right, too!”  Seeing that
his mind was made up, I embraced his knees and besought him not to kill a
dying man.  “You might have some reason for being excited,” I said, “if
you could produce the missing boy, but you cannot, as the thing stands
now, for he escaped into the crowd and I have not even a suspicion as to
where he has gone!  Get the lad back, Eumolpus, for heaven’s sake, even
if you do restore him to Ascyltos!” I had just succeeded in persuading
him to believe all this when Giton, nearly suffocated from holding his
breath, suddenly sneezed three times, and shook the bed.  Eumolpus turned
at the commotion.  “Hello, Giton,” he exclaimed, “glad to see you!”  Then
he turned back the mattress and discovered an Ulysses who even a ravenous
Cyclops might have spared; thereupon, he faced me, “You robber,” said he,
“what does all this mean? You hadn’t the nerve to tell me the truth even
when you were caught!  If the god, that umpires human affairs hadn’t
forced a sign from this boy as he hung there, I would be wandering from
one pot-house to another, like a fool!”  (But) Giton was far more tactful
than I: first of all, he dressed the cut upon Eumolpus’ forehead, with
spider’s web soaked in oil; he then exchanged the poet’s torn clothing
for his own cloak; this done, he embraced the old gentleman, who was
already somewhat mollified, and poulticed him with kisses.  “Dearest of
fathers,” he cried, “we are entirely in your hands!  In yours alone!  If
you love your Giton, do your best to save him.  Would that some cruel
flame might devour me, alone, or that the wintry sea might swallow me,
for I am the cause for all these crimes.  Two enemies would be reconciled
if I should perish!”  (Moved by our troubles, but particularly stirred by
Giton’s caresses, “You are fools,” exclaimed Eumolpus, “you certainly
are: here you are gifted with talents enough to make your fortunes and
you still lead a life of misery, and every day you bring new torments
upon yourselves, as the fruits of your own acts!)”




ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:

Death is never far from those who seek him
Esteeming nothing except what is rare
Love or art never yet made anyone rich
Man is hated when he declares himself an enemy to all vice
Propensity of pouring one’s personal troubles into another’s ear
Whatever we have, we despise





VOLUME 4.--ENCOLPIUS, GITON AND EUMOLPUS ESCAPE BY SEA


CHAPTER THE NINETY-NINTH.

“I have always and everywhere lived such a life that each passing day was
spent as though that light would never return; (that is, in tranquillity!
Put aside those thoughts which worry you, if you wish to follow my lead.
Ascyltos persecutes you here; get out of his way.  I am about to start
for foreign parts, you may come with me.  I have taken a berth on a
vessel which will probably weigh anchor this very night.  I am well known
on board, and we shall be well received.)

          Leave then thy home and seek a foreign shore
          Brave youth; for thee thy destiny holds more:
          To no misfortune yield!  The Danube far
          Shall know thy spirit, and the polar star,
          And placid Nile, and they who dwell in lands
          Where sunrise starts, or they where sunset ends!
          A new Ulysses treads on foreign sands.”

(To me, this advice seemed both sound and practical, because it would
free me from any annoyance by Ascyltos, and because it gave promise of a
happier life.  I was overcome by the kindly sympathy of Eumolpus, and was
especially sorry for the latest injury I had done him.  I began to repent
my jealousy, which had been the cause of so many unpleasant happenings)
and with many tears, I begged and pled with him to admit me into favor,
as lovers cannot control their furious jealousy, and vowing, at the same
time, that I would not by word or deed give him cause for offense in the
future.  And he, like a learned and cultivated gentleman, ought to remove
all irritation from his mind, and leave no trace of it behind.  The snows
belong upon the ground in wild and uncultivated regions, but where the
earth has been beautified by the conquest of the plough, the light snow
melts away while you speak of it.  And so it is with anger in the heart;
in savage minds it lingers long, it glides quickly away from the
cultured.  “That you may experience the truth of what you say,” exclaimed
Eumolpus, “see!  I end my anger with a kiss.  May good luck go with us!
Get your baggage together and follow me, or go on ahead, if you prefer.”
 While he was speaking, a knock sounded at the door, and a sailor with a
bristling beard stood upon the threshold.  “You’re hanging in the wind,
Eumolpus,” said he, “as if you didn’t know that son-of-a-bitch of a
skipper!”  Without further delay we all got up.  Eumolpus ordered his
servant, who had been asleep for some time, to bring his baggage out.
Giton and I pack together whatever we have for the voyage and, after
praying to the stars, we went aboard.




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDREDTH.

(We picked out a retired spot on the poop and Eumolpus dozed off, as it
was not yet daylight.  Neither Giton nor myself could get a wink of
sleep, however.  Anxiously I reflected that I had received Eumolpus as a
comrade, a rival more formidable than Ascyltos, and that thought tortured
me.  But reason soon put my uneasiness to flight.)  “It is unfortunate,”
 (said I to myself,) “that the lad has so taken our friend’s fancy, but
what of it?  Is not nature’s every masterpiece common to all?  The sun
shines upon all alike!  The moon with her innumerable train of stars
lights even the wild beasts to their food.  What can be more beautiful
than water?

“Yet it flows for common use.  Shall love alone, then, be stolen, rather
than be regarded as a prize to be won?  No, indeed I desire no possession
unless the world envies me for possessing it.  A solitary old man can
scarcely become a serious rival; even should he wish to take advantage,
he would lose it through lack of breath.”  When, but without any
confidence, I had arrived at these conclusions, and beguiled my uneasy
spirit, I covered my head with my tunic and began to feign sleep, when
all of a sudden, as though Fortune were bent upon annihilating my peace
of mind, a voice upon the ship’s deck gritted out something like this
--“So he fooled me after all.”--As this voice, which was a man’s, and was
only too familiar, struck my ears, my heart fluttered.  And then a woman,
equally furious, spat out more spitefully still--“If only some god would
put Giton into my hands, what a fine time I would give that runaway.”
 --Stunned by these unexpected words, we both turned pale as death.  I was
completely terrified, and, as though I were enveloped in some turbulent
nightmare, was a long time finding my voice, but at last, with trembling
hands, I tugged at the hem of Eumolpus’ clothing, just as he was sinking
into slumber.  “Father,” I quavered, “on your word of honor, can you tell
me whose ship this is, and whom she has aboard?”  Peeved at being
disturbed, “So,” he snapped, “this was the reason you wished to have us
quartered in the most inaccessible spot on deck, was it?  So we could get
no rest!  What good will it do you when I’ve informed you that Lycas of
Tarentum is master of this ship and that he carries Tryphaena as an exile
to Tarentum?”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIRST.

I shivered, horror-struck, at this thunderbolt and, beating my throat,
“Oh Destiny,” I wailed, “you’ve vanquished me completely, at last!”  As
for Giton, he fell in a faint upon my bosom and remained unconscious for
quite a while, until a sweat finally relieved our tension, whereupon,
hugging Eumolpus around the knees, “Take pity upon the perishing,” I
besought him, “in the name of our common learning, aid us!  Death himself
hangs over us, and he will come as a relief unless you help us!”
 Overwhelmed by this implication, Eumolpus swore by all the gods and
goddesses that he knew nothing of what had happened, nor had he had any
ulterior purpose in mind, but that he had brought his companions upon
this voyage which he himself had long intended taking, with the most
upright intentions and in the best of good faith.  “But,” demanded he,
“what is this ambush?  Who is this Hannibal who sails with us?  Lycas of
Tarentum is a most respectable citizen and the owner, not only of this
ship, which he commands in person, but of landed estates as well as
commercial houses under the management of slaves.  He carries a cargo
consigned to market.  He is the Cyclops, the arch-pirate, to whom we owe
our passage!  And then, besides himself, there is Tryphaena, a most
charming woman, travelling about here and there in search of pleasure.”
 “But,” objected Giton, “they are the very ones we are most anxious to
avoid,” whereupon he explained to the astonished Eumolpus the reasons for
their enmity and for the danger which threatened us.  So muddled did he
become, at what had been told him, that he lost the power of thinking,
and requested each of us to offer his own opinion.  “Just imagine,” said
he, “that we are trapped in the Cyclops’ cave: some way out must be
found, unless we bring about a shipwreck, and free ourselves from all
dangers!”  “Bribe the pilot, if necessary, and persuade him to steer the
ship into some port,” volunteered Giton; “tell him your brother’s nearly
dead from seasickness: your woebegone face and streaming tears will lend
color to your deception, and the pilot may be moved to mercy and grant
your prayer.”  Eumolpus denied the practicability of this.  “It is only
with difficulty,” affirmed he, “that large ships are warped into
landlocked harbors, nor would it appear probable that my brother could
have been taken so desperately in so short a time.  And then, Lycas will
be sure to want to visit a sick passenger, as part of his duties!  You
can see for yourselves what a fine stroke it would be, bringing the
captain to his own runaways!  But, supposing that the ship could be put
off her course, supposing that Lycas did not hold sick-call, how could we
leave the ship in such a manner as not to be stared at by all the rest?
With muffled heads?  With bare?  If muffled, who would not want to lend
the sick man a hand?  If bare, what would it mean if not proscribing
ourselves?”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND SECOND.

“Why would it not be better to take refuge in boldness,” I asked, “slide
down a rope into the ship’s boat, cut the painter, and leave the rest to
luck’?  And furthermore, I would not involve Eumolpus in this adventure,
for what is the good of getting an innocent man into troubles with which
he has no concern?  I shall be well content if chance helps us into the
boat.”  “Not a bad scheme,” Eumolpus agreed, “if it could only be carried
out: but who could help seeing you when you start?  Especially the man at
the helm, who stands watch all night long and observes even the motions
of the stars.  But it could be done in spite of that, when he dozed off
for a second, that is, if you chose some other part of the ship from
which to start: as it is, it must be the stern, you must even slip down
the rudder itself, for that is where the painter that holds the boat in
tow is made fast.  And there is still something else, Encolpius.  I am
surprised that it has not occurred to you that one sailor is on watch,
lying in the boat, night and day.  You couldn’t get rid of that watchman
except by cutting his throat or throwing him overboard by force.  Consult
your own courage as to whether that can be done or not.  And as far as my
coming with you is concerned, I shirk no danger which holds out any hopes
of success, but to throw away life without a reason, as if it were a
thing of no moment, is something which I do not believe that even you
would sanction--see what you think of this: I will wrap you up in two
hide baggage covers, tie you up with thongs, and stow you among my
clothing, as baggage, leaving the ends somewhat open, of course, so you
can breathe and get your food. Then I will raise a hue and cry because my
slaves have thrown themselves into the sea, fearing worse punishment; and
when the ship makes port, I will carry you out as baggage without
exciting the slightest suspicion!” “Oh!  So you would bundle us up like
we were solid,” I sneered; “our bellies wouldn’t make trouble for us, of
course, and we’ll never sneeze nor snore!  And all because a similar
trick turned out successfully before!  Think the matter over!  Being tied
up could be endured for one day, but suppose it might have to be for
longer?  What if we should be becalmed?  What if we were struck by a
storm from the wrong quarter of the heavens?  What could we  do then?
Even clothes will cut through at the wrinkles when they are tied up too
long, and paper in bundles will lose its shape.  Do you imagine that we,
who are young and unused to hardship, could endure the filthy rags and
lashings necessary to such an operation, as statues do?  No!  That’s
settled!  Some other road to safety must be found!  I have thought up a
scheme, see what you think of it!  Eumolpus is a man of letters.  He will
have ink about him, of course.  With this remedy, then, let’s change our
complexions, from hair to toe-nails!  Then, in the guise of Ethiopian
slaves, we shall be ready at hand to wait upon you, light-hearted as
having escaped the torturer, and, with our altered complexions, we can
impose upon our enemies!” “Yes, indeed,”  sneered  Giton, “and be sure
and circumcise us, too, so we will be taken for Jews, pierce our ears so
we will look like Arabs, chalk our faces so that Gaul will take us for
her own sons; as if color alone could change one’s figure!  As if many
other details did not require consideration if a passable imposture is to
result!  Even granting that the stained face can keep its color for some
time, suppose that not a drop of water should spot the skin, suppose that
the garment did not stick to the ink, as it often does, where no gum is
used, tell me!  We can’t make our lips so hideously thick, can we?  We
can’t kink our hair with a curling-iron, can we?  We can’t harrow our
foreheads with scars, can we?  We can’t force our legs out into the form
of a bow or walk with our ankle-bones on the ground, can we?  Can we trim
our beards after the foreign style?  No!  Artificial color dirties the
body without changing it.  Listen to the plan which I have thought out in
my desperation; let’s tie our garments around our heads and throw
ourselves into the deep!”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRD.

“Gods and men forbid that you should make so base an ending of your
lives,” cried Eumolpus.  “No! It will be better to do as I direct.  As
you may gather, from his razor, my servant is a barber: let him shave
your heads and eyebrows, too, and quickly at that!  I will follow after
him, and I will mark my inscription so cleverly upon your foreheads that
you will be mistaken for slaves who have been branded!  The same letters
will serve both to quiet the suspicions of the curious and to conceal,
under semblance of punishment, your real features!”  We did not delay the
execution of this scheme but, sneaking stealthily to the ship’s side, we
submitted our heads and eyebrows to the barber, that he might shave them
clean.  Eumolpus covered our foreheads completely, with large letters
and, with a liberal hand, spread the universally known mark of the
fugitive over the face of each of us.  As luck would have it, one of the
passengers, who was terribly seasick, was hanging over the ship’s side
easing his stomach.  He saw the barber busy at his unseasonable task by
the light of the moon and, cursing the omen which resembled the last
offering of a crew before shipwreck, he threw himself into his bunk.
Pretending not to hear his puking curses, we reverted to our melancholy
train of thought and, settling ourselves down in silence, we passed the
remaining hours of the night in fitful slumber.  (On the following
morning Eumolpus entered Lycas’ cabin as soon as he knew that Tryphaena
was out of bed and, after some conversation upon the happy voyage of
which the fine weather gave promise, Lycas turned to Tryphaena and
remarked:)




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTH.

“Priapus appeared to me in a dream and seemed to say--Know that
Encolpius, whom you seek, has, by me, been led aboard your ship!”
 Tryphaena trembled violently, “You would think we had slept together,”
 she cried, “for a bust of Neptune, which I saw in the gallery at Baiae,
said to me, in my dream--You will find Giton aboard Lycas’ ship!”  “From
which you can see that Epicurus was a man inspired,” remarked Eumolpus;
“he passed sentence upon mocking phantasms of that kind in a very witty
manner.

          Dreams that delude the mind with flitting shades
          By neither powers of air nor gods, are sent:
          Each makes his own!  And when relaxed in sleep
          The members lie, the mind, without restraint
          Can flit, and re-enact by night, the deeds
          That occupied the day.  The warrior fierce,
          Who cities shakes and towns destroys by fire
          Maneuvering armies sees, and javelins,
          And funerals of kings and bloody fields.

          The cringing lawyer dreams of courts and trials,
          The miser hides his hoard, new treasures finds:
          The hunter’s horn and hounds the forests wake,
          The shipwrecked sailor from his hulk is swept.
          Or, washed aboard, just misses perishing.
          Adultresses will bribe, and harlots write
          To lovers: dogs, in dreams their hare still course;
          And old wounds ache most poignantly in dreams!”

“Still, what’s to prevent our searching the ship?” said Lycas, after he
had expiated Tryphaena’s dream, “so that we will not be guilty of
neglecting the revelations of Providence?”  “And who were the rascals who
were being shaved last night by the light of the moon?”  chimed in Hesus,
unexpectedly, for that was the name of the fellow who had caught us at
our furtive transformation in the night.  “A rotten thing to do, I swear!
From what I hear, it’s unlawful for any living man aboard ship to shed
hair or nails, unless the wind has kicked up a heavy sea.”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTH.

Lycas was greatly disturbed by this information, and flew into a rage.
“So someone aboard my ship cut off his hair, did he?”  he bawled, “and at
dead of night, too!  Bring the offenders aft on deck here, and step
lively, so that I can tell whom to punish, from their heads, that the
ship may be freed from the curse!”  “I ordered it done,” Eumolpus broke
in, “and I didn’t order it as an unlucky omen, either, seeing that I had
to be aboard the same vessel: I did it because the scoundrels had long
matted hair, I ordered the filth cleared off the wretches because I did
not wish to even seem to make a prison out of your ship: besides, I did
not want the seared scars of the letters to be hidden in the least, by
the interference of the hair; as they ought to be in plain sight, for
everyone to read, and at full length, too.  In addition to their other
misdemeanors, they blew in my money on a street-walker whom they kept in
common; only last night I dragged them away from her, reeking with wine
and perfumes, as they were, and they still stink of the remnants of my
patrimony!”  Thereupon, forty stripes were ordered for each of us, that
the tutelary genius of the ship might be propitiated.  And they were not
long about it either.  Eager to propitiate the tutelary genius with our
wretched blood, the savage sailors rushed upon us with their rope’s ends.
For my part, I endured three lashes with Spartan fortitude, but at the
very first blow, Giton set up such a howling that his all too familiar
voice reached the ears of Tryphaena; nor was she the only one who was in
a flutter, for, attracted by this familiar voice, all the maids rushed to
where he was being flogged.  Giton had already moderated the ardor of the
sailors by his wonderful beauty, he appealed to his torturers without
uttering a word.  “It’s Giton!  It’s Giton!” the maids all screamed in
unison.  “Hold your hands, you brutes; help, Madame, it’s Giton!”
 Tryphaena turned willing ears, she had recognized that voice herself, and
flew to the boy.  Lycas, who knew me as well as if he had heard my voice,
now ran up; he glanced at neither face nor hands, but directed his eyes
towards parts lower down; courteously he shook hands with them, “How do
you do, Encolpius,” he said.  Let no one be surprised at Ulysses’ nurse
discovering, after twenty years, the scar that established his identity,
since this man, so keenly observant, had, in spite of the most skillful
disguise of every feature and the obliteration of every identifying mark
upon my body, so surely hit upon the sole means of identifying his
fugitive!  Deceived by our appearance, Tryphaena wept bitterly,
believing that the marks upon our foreheads were, in truth, the brands
of prisoners: she asked us gently, into what slave’s prison we had fallen
in our wanderings, and whose cruel hands had inflicted this punishment.
Still, fugitives whose members had gotten them into trouble certainly
deserved some punishment.




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTH.

In a towering passion, Lycas leaped forward, “Oh you silly woman,” he
shouted, “as if those scars were made by the letters on the
branding-iron!  If only they had really blotched up their foreheads with
those inscriptions, it would be some satisfaction to us, at least; but
as it is, we are being imposed upon by an actor’s tricks, and hoaxed by
a fake inscription!”  Tryphaena was disposed to mercy, as all was not
lost for her pleasures, but Lycas remembered the seduction of his wife
and the insults to which he had been subjected in the portico of the
temple of Hercules: “Tryphaena,” he gritted out, his face convulsed with
savage passion, “you are aware, I believe, that the immortal gods have a
hand in human affairs: what did they do but lead these scoundrels aboard
this ship in ignorance of the owner and then warn each of us alike, by a
coincidence of dreams, of what they had done?  Can you then see how it
would be possible to let off those whom a god has, himself, delivered up
to punishment?  I am not a cruel man; what moves me is this: I am afraid
I shall have to endure myself whatever I remit to them!”  At this
superstitious plea Tryphaena veered around;  denying that she would
plead for quarter, she was even anxious to help along the fulfillment of
this retribution, so entirely just: she had herself suffered an insult
no less poignant than had Lycas, for her chastity had been called in
question before a crowd.

     Primeval Fear created Gods on earth when from the sky
     The lightning-flashes rent with flame the ramparts of the world,
     And smitten Athos blazed!  Then, Phoebus, sinking to the earth,
     His course complete, and waning Luna, offerings received.
     The changing seasons of the year the superstition spread
     Throughout the world; and Ignorance and Awe, the toiling boor,
     To Ceres, from his harvest, the first fruits compelled to yield
     And Bacchus with the fruitful vine to crown.  Then Pales came
     Into her own, the shepherd’s gains to share.  Beneath the waves
     Of every sea swims Neptune.  Pallas guards the shops,
     And those impelled by Avarice or Guilt, create new Gods!

(Lycas, as he perceived that Tryphaena was as eager as himself for
revenge, gave orders for our punishment to be renewed and made more
drastic, whereupon Eumolpus endeavored to appease him as follows,)




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTH.

(“Lycas,” said he, “these unfortunates upon whom you intend to wreak your
vengeance, implore your compassion and) have chosen me for this task.
I believe that I am a man, by no means unknown, and they desire that,
somehow, I will effect a reconciliation between them and their former
friends.  Surely you do not imagine that these young men fell into such
a snare by accident, when the very first thing that concerns every
prospective passenger is the name of the captain to whom he intrusts his
safety!  Be reasonable, then; forego your revenge and permit free men to
proceed to their destination without injury.  When penitence manages to
lead their fugitives back, harsh and implacable masters restrain their
cruelty, and we are merciful to enemies who have surrendered.  What could
you ask, or wish for, more?  These well-born and respectable young men
be suppliant before your eyes and, what ought to move you more strongly
still, were once bound to you by the ties of friendship.  If they had
embezzled your money or repaid your faith in them with treachery,
by Hercules, you have ample satisfaction from the punishment already
inflicted!  Look!  Can you read slavery on their foreheads, and see upon
the faces of free men the brand-marks of a punishment which was
self-inflicted!”  Lycas broke in upon this plea for mercy, “Don’t try to
confuse the issue,” he said, “let every detail have its proper attention
and first of all, why did they strip all the hair off their heads,
if they came of their own free will?  A man meditates deceit, not
satisfaction, when he changes his features!  Then again, if they sought
reconciliation through a mediator, why did you do your best to conceal
them while employed in their behalf?  It is easily seen that the
scoundrels fell into the toils by chance and that you are seeking some
device by which you could sidestep the effects of our resentment.  And be
careful that you do not spoil your case by over-confidence when you
attempt to sow prejudice among us by calling them well-born and
respectable!  What should the injured parties do when the guilty run into
their own punishment?  And inasmuch as they were our friends, by that,
they deserve more drastic punishment still, for whoever commits an
assault upon a stranger, is termed a robber; but whoever assaults a
friend, is little better than a parricide!”  “I am well aware,” Eumolpus
replied, to rebut this damning harangue, “that nothing can look blacker
against these poor young men than their cutting off their hair at night.
On this evidence, they would seem to have come aboard by accident, not
voluntarily.  Oh how I wish that the explanation could come to your ears
just as candidly as the thing itself happened!  They wanted to relieve
their heads of that annoying and useless weight before they came aboard,
but the unexpected springing up of the wind prevented the carrying out of
their wishes, and they did not imagine that it mattered where they began
what they had decided to do, because they were unacquainted with either
the omens or the law of seafaring men.”  “But why should they shave
themselves like suppliants?”  demanded Lycas, “unless, of course, they
expected to arouse more sympathy as bald-pates.  What’s the use of
seeking information through a third person, anyway?  You scoundrel, what
have you to say for yourself?  What salamander singed off your eyebrows?
You poisoner, what god did you vow your hair to?  Answer!”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTH.

I was stricken dumb, and trembled from fear of punishment, nor could I
find anything to say, out of countenance as I was and hideous, for to the
disgrace of a shaven poll was added an equal baldness in the matter of
eyebrows; the case against me was only too plain, there was not a thing
to be said or done!  Finally, a damp sponge was passed over my tear-wet
face, and thereupon, the smut dissolved and spread over my whole
countenance, blotting out every feature in a sooty cloud.  Anger turned
into loathing.  Swearing that he would permit no one to humiliate
well-born young men contrary to right and law, Eumolpus checked the
threats of the savage persecutors by word and by deed.  His hired
servant backed him up in his protest, as did first one and then another
of the feeblest of the seasick passengers, whose participation served
rather to inflame the disagreement than to be of help to us.  For myself
I asked no quarter, but I shook my fists in Tryphaena’s face, and told
her in a loud voice that unless she stopped hurting Giton, I would use
every ounce of my strength against her, reprobate woman that she was,
the only person aboard the ship who deserved a flogging.  Lycas was
furiously angry at my hardihood, nor was he less enraged at my
abandoning my own cause, to take up that of another, in so wholehearted
a manner.  Inflamed as she was by this affront, Tryphaena was as furious
as he, so the whole ship’s company was divided into two factions.  On
our side, the hired barber armed himself with a razor and served out the
others to us; on their side, Tryphaena’s retainers prepared to battle
with their bare fists, nor was the scolding of female warriors unheard
in the battle-line.  The pilot was neutral, but he declared that unless
this madness, stirred up by the lechery of a couple of vagabonds, died
down, he would let go the helm! The fury of the combatants continued to
rage none the less fiercely, nevertheless, they fighting for revenge, we
for life.  Many fell on each side, though none were mortally wounded,
and more, bleeding from wounds, retreated, as from a real battle, but
the fury of neither side abated. At last the gallant Giton turned the
menacing razor against his own virile parts, and threatened to cut away
the cause of so many misfortunes.  This was too much for Tryphaena; she
prevented the perpetration of so horrid a crime by the out and out
promise of quarter. Time and time again, I lifted the barber’s blade to
my throat, but I had no more intention of killing myself than had Giton
of doing what he threatened, but he acted out the tragic part more
realistically than I, as it was, because he knew that he held in his
hand the same razor with which he had already cut his throat.  The lines
still stood at the ready, and it was plain to be seen that this would be
no everyday affair, when the pilot, with difficulty, prevailed upon
Tryphaena to undertake the office of herald, and propose a truce; so,
when pledges of good faith had been given and received, in keeping with
the ancient precedent she snatched an olive-branch from the ship’s
figurehead and, holding it out, advanced boldly to parley.

     “What fury,” she exclaims, “turns peace to war?  What evil deed
     Was by these hands committed?  Trojan hero there is none
     Absconding in this ship with bride of Atreus’ cuckold seed
     Nor crazed Medea, stained by life’s blood of her father’s son!
     But passion scorned, becomes a power: alas! who courts his end
     By drawing sword amidst these waves?  Why die before our time?
     Strive not with angry seas to vie and to their fury lend
     Your rage by piling waves upon its savage floods sublime !”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND NINTH.

The woman poured out this rhapsody in a loud excited voice, the
battle-line wavered for an instant, then all hands were recalled to
peace and terminated the war.  Eumolpus, our commander, took advantage
of the psychological moment of their repentance and, after administering
a stinging rebuke to Lycas, signed a treaty of peace which was drawn up
as follows: “It is hereby solemnly agreed on your part, Tryphaena, that
you do forego complaint of any wrong done you by Giton; that you do not
bring up anything that has taken place prior to this date, that you do
not seek to revenge anything that has taken place prior to this date,
that you do not take steps to follow it up in any other manner
whatsoever; that you do not command the boy to perform anything to him
repugnant; that you do neither embrace nor kiss the said Giton; that you
do not enfold said Giton in the sexual embrace, except under immediate
forfeiture of one hundred denarii.  Item, it is hereby agreed on your
part, Lycas, that you do refrain from annoying Encolpius with abusive
word or reproachful look; that you do not seek to ascertain where he
sleep at night; or, if you do so seek, that you forfeit two hundred
denarii immediately for each and every such offense.”  The treaty was
signed upon these terms, and we laid down our arms.  It seemed well to
wipe out the past with kisses, after we had taken oath, for fear any
vestige of rancor should persist in our minds.  Factious hatreds died
out amidst universal good-fellowship, and a banquet, served on the field
of battle, crowned our reconciliation with joviality.  The whole ship
resounded with song and, as a sudden calm had caused her to lose
headway, one tried to harpoon the leaping fish, another hauled in the
struggling catch on baited hooks.  Then some sea-birds alighted upon the
yard-arms and a skillful fowler touched them with his jointed rods: they
were brought down to our hands, stuck fast to the limed segments.  The
breeze caught up the down, but the wing and tail feathers twisted
spirally as they fell into the sea-foam.  Lycas was already beginning to
be on good terms with me, and Tryphaena had just sprinkled Giton with
the last drops in her cup, when Eumolpus, who was himself almost drunk,
was seized with the notion of satirizing bald pates and branded rascals,
but when he had exhausted his chilly wit, he returned at last to his
poetry and recited this little elegy upon hair:

     “Gone are those locks that to thy beauty lent such lustrous charm
     And blighted are the locks of Spring by bitter Winter’s sway;
     Thy naked temples now in baldness mourn their vanished form,
     And glistens now that poor bare crown, its hair all worn away
     Oh!  Faithless inconsistency!  The gods must first resume
     The charms that first they granted youth, that it might lovelier
            bloom!
          Poor wretch, but late thy locks did brighter glister
          Than those of great Apollo or his sister!
          Now, smoother is thy crown than polished grasses
          Or rounded mushrooms when a shower passes!
          In fear thou fliest the laughter-loving lasses.
          That thou may’st know that Death is on his way,
          Know that thy head is partly dead this day!”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TENTH.

It is my opinion that he intended favoring us with more of the same kind
of stuff, sillier than the last, but Tryphaena’s maid led Giton away
below and fitted the lad out in her mistress’ false curls; then producing
some eyebrows from a vanity box, she skillfully traced out the lines of
the lost features and restored him to his proper comeliness.  Recognizing
the real Giton, Tryphaena was moved to tears, and then for the first time
she gave the boy a real love-kiss.  I was overjoyed, now that the lad was
restored to his own handsome self, but I hid my own face all the more
assiduously, realizing that I was disfigured by no ordinary hideousness
since not even Lycas would bestow a word upon me.  The maid rescued me
from this misfortune finally, however, and calling me aside, she decked
me out with a head of hair which was none the less becoming; my face
shone more radiantly still, as a matter of fact, for my curls were
golden!  But in a little while, Eumolpus, mouthpiece of the distressed
and author of the present good understanding, fearing that the general
good humor might flag for lack of amusement, began to indulge in sneers
at the fickleness of women: how easily they fell in love; how readily
they forgot even their own sons!  No woman could be so chaste but that
she could be roused to madness by a chance passion!  Nor had he need to
quote from old tragedies, or to have recourse to names, notorious for
centuries; on the contrary, if we cared to hear it, he would relate an
incident which had occurred within his own memory, whereupon, as we all
turned our faces towards him and gave him our attention, he began as
follows:




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVENTH.

“There was a certain married lady at Ephesus, once upon a time, so noted
for her chastity that she even drew women from the neighboring states to
come to gaze upon her!  When she carried out her husband she was by no
means content to comply with the conventional custom and follow the
funeral cortege with her hair down, beating her naked breast in sight of
the onlookers!  She followed the corpse, even into the tomb; and when the
body had been placed in the vault, in accordance with the Greek custom,
she began to stand vigil over it, weeping day and night!  Neither parents
nor relations could divert her from punishing herself in this manner and
from bringing on death by starvation.  The magistrates, the last resort,
were rebuffed and went away, and the lady, mourned by all as an unusual
example, dragged through the fifth day without nourishment.  A most
faithful maid was in attendance upon the poor woman; she either wept in
company with the afflicted one or replenished the lamp which was placed
in the vault, as the occasion required.  Throughout the whole city there
was but one opinion, men of every calling agreed that here shone the one
solitary example of chastity and of love!  In the meantime the governor
of the province had ordered some robbers crucified near the little vault
in which the lady was bewailing her recent loss.  On the following night,
a soldier who was standing guard over the crosses for fear someone might
drag down one of the bodies for burial, saw a light shining brightly
among the tombs, and heard the sobs of someone grieving.  A weakness
common to mankind made him curious to know who was there and what was
going on, so he descended into the tomb and, catching sight of a most
beautiful woman, he stood still, afraid at first that it was some
apparition or spirit from the infernal regions; but he finally
comprehended the true state of affairs as his eye took in the corpse
lying there, and as he noted the tears and the face lacerated by the
finger-nails, he understood that the lady was unable to endure the loss
of the dear departed.  He then brought his own scanty ration into the
vault and exhorted the sobbing mourner not to persevere in useless grief,
or rend her bosom with unavailing sobs; the same end awaited us all, the
same last resting place: and other platitudes by which anguished minds
are recalled to sanity.  But oblivious to sympathy, she beat and
lacerated her bosom more vehemently than before and, tearing out her
hair, she strewed it upon the breast of the corpse.  Notwithstanding
this, the soldier would not leave off, but persisted in exhorting the
unfortunate lady to eat, until the maid, seduced by the smell of the
wine, I suppose, was herself overcome and stretched out her hand to
receive the bounty of their host.  Refreshed by food and drink, she
then began to attack the obstinacy of her mistress.  ‘What good will it
do you to die of hunger?’ she asked, ‘or to bury yourself alive’?  Or to
surrender an uncondemned spirit before the fates demand it?  ‘Think you
the ashes or sepultured dead can feel aught of thy woe!  Would you recall
the dead from the reluctant fates?  Why not shake off this womanish
weakness and enjoy the blessings of light while you can?  The very corpse
lying there ought to convince you that your duty is to live!’  When
pressed to eat or to live, no one listens unwillingly, and the lady,
thirsty after an abstinence of several days, finally permitted her
obstinacy to be overcome; nor did she take her fill of nourishment
with less avidity than had the maid who had surrendered first.”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWELFTH.

“But to make a long story short, you know the temptations that beset a
full stomach: the soldier laid siege to her virtue with the selfsame
blandishments by which he had persuaded her that she ought to live.  Nor,
to her modest eye, did the young man seem uncouth or wanting in address.
The maid pled in his behalf and kept repeating:

     Why will you fight with a passion that to you is pleasure,
     Remembering not in whose lands you are taking your leisure?

“But why should I keep you longer in suspense?  The lady observed the
same abstinence when it came to this part of her body, and the victorious
soldier won both of his objectives; so they lay together, not only
that night, in which they pledged their vows, but also the next, and even
the third, shutting the doors of the vault, of course, so that anyone,
acquaintance or stranger, coming to the tomb, would be convinced that
this most virtuous of wives had expired upon the body of her husband.  As
for the soldier, so delighted was he with the beauty of his mistress and
the secrecy of the intrigue, that he purchased all the delicacies his pay
permitted and smuggled them into the vault as soon as darkness fell.
Meanwhile, the parents of one of the crucified criminals, observing the
laxness of the watch, dragged the hanging corpse down at night and
performed the last rite.  The soldier was hoodwinked while absent from
his post of duty, and when on the following day he caught sight of one of
the crosses without its corpse, he was in terror of punishment and
explained to the lady what had taken place: He would await no sentence of
court-martial, but would punish his neglect of duty with his own sword!
Let her prepare a place for one about to die, let that fatal vault serve
both the lover and the husband!  ‘Not that,’ cried out the lady, no less
merciful than chaste, ‘the gods forbid that I should look at the same
time upon the corpses of the two men dearest to me; I would rather hang
the dead than slay the living!’ So saying, she gave orders for the body
of her husband to be lifted out of the coffin and fastened upon the
vacant cross!  The soldier availed himself of the expedient suggested by
this very ingenious lady and next day everyone wondered how a dead man
had found his way to the cross!”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEENTH.

The sailors received this tale with roars of laughter, and Tryphaena
blushed not a little and laid her face amorously upon Giton’s neck.  But
Lycas did not laugh; “If that governor had been a just man,” said he,
shaking his head angrily, “he would have ordered the husband’s body taken
down and carried back into the vault, and crucified the woman.”  No doubt
the memory of Hedyle haunted his mind, and the looting of his ship in
that wanton excursion. But the terms of the treaty permitted the
harboring of no old grudges and the joy which filled our hearts left no
room for anger.  Tryphaena was lying in Giton’s lap by this time,
covering his bosom with kisses one minute and rearranging the curls upon
his shaven head the next.  Uneasy and chagrined at this new league, I
took neither food nor drink but looked askance at them both, with grim
eyes.  Every kiss was a wound to me, every artful blandishment which the
wanton woman employed, and I could not make up my mind as to whether I
was more angered at the boy for having supplanted me with my mistress, or
at my mistress for debauching the boy: both were hateful to my sight, and
more galling than my late servitude.  And to make the matter all the more
aggravating, Tryphaena would not even greet me as an acquaintance, whom
she had formerly received as a lover, while Giton did not think me worthy
of a “Here’s-to-you” in ordinary civility, nor even speak to me in the
course of the common conversation; I suppose he was afraid of reopening a
tender scar at the moment when a return to her good graces had commenced
to draw it together.  Tears of vexation dropped upon my breast and the
groan I smothered in a sigh nearly wracked my soul.

          The vulture tearing; at the liver’s deep and vital parts,
          That wracks our breasts and rends our very heartstrings
          Is not that bird the charming poet sings with all his arts;
          ‘T’is jealousy or hate that human hearts stings.

(In spite of my ill-humor, Lycas saw how well my golden curls became me
and, becoming enamoured anew, began winking his wanton eyes at me and)
sought admission to my good graces upon a footing of pleasure, nor did he
put on the arrogance of a master, but spoke as a friend asking a favor;
(long and ardently he tried to gain his ends, but all in vain, till at
last, meeting with a decisive repulse, his passion turned to fury and he
tried to carry the place by storm; but Tryphaena came in unexpectedly and
caught him in his wanton attempt, whereupon he was greatly upset and
hastily adjusted his clothing and bolted out of the cabin.  Tryphaena was
fired with lust at this sight, “What was Lycas up to?”  she demanded.
“What was he after in that ardent assault?”  She compelled me to explain,
burned still more hotly at what she heard, and, recalling memories of our
past familiarities, she desired me to renew our old amour, but I was worn
out with so much venery and slighted her advances.  She was burning up
with desire by this time, and threw her arms around me in a frenzied
embrace, hugging me so tightly that I uttered an involuntary cry of pain.
One of her maids rushed in at this and, thinking that I was attempting to
force from her mistress the very favor which I had refused her, she
sprang at us and tore us apart.  Thoroughly enraged at the disappointment
of her lecherous passion, Tryphaena upbraided me violently, and with many
threats she hurried out to find Lycas for the purpose of exasperating him
further against me and of joining forces with him to be revenged upon me.
Now you must know that I had formerly held a very high place in this
waiting-maid’s esteem, while I was prosecuting my intrigue with her
mistress, and for that reason she took it very hard when she surprised me
with Tryphaena, and sobbed very bitterly. I pressed her earnestly to tell
me the reason for her sobs) {and after pretending to be reluctant she
broke out:} “You will think no more of her than of a common prostitute if
you have a drop of decent blood in your veins!  You will not resort to
that female catamite, if you are a man!” {This disturbed my mind but}
what exercised me most was the fear that Eumolpus would find out what
was going on and, being a very sarcastic individual, might revenge my
supposed injury in some poetic lampoon, (in which event his ardent zeal
would without doubt expose me to ridicule, and I greatly dreaded that.
But while I was debating with myself as to the best means of preventing
him from getting at the facts, who should suddenly come in but the man
himself; and he was not uninformed as to what had taken place, for
Tryphaena had related all the particulars to Giton and had tried to
indemnify herself for my repulse, at the expense of my little friend.
Eumolpus was furiously angry because of all this, and all the more so as
lascivious advances were in open violation of the treaty which had been
signed.  The minute the old fellow laid eyes upon me, he began bewailing
my lot and ordered me to tell him exactly what had happened.  As he was
already well informed, I told him frankly of Lycas’ lecherous attempt and
of Tryphaena’s wanton assault.  When he had heard all the facts,)
Eumolpus swore roundly (that he would certainly avenge us, as the Gods
were just and would not suffer so many villainies to go unpunished.)




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEENTH.

We were still discussing this and other matters when the sea grew rough,
and clouds, gathering from every quarter, obscured with darkness the
light of day.  The panic-stricken sailors ran to their stations and took
in sail before the squall was upon them, but the gale did not drive the
waves in any one direction and the helmsman lost his bearings and did not
know what course to steer. At one moment the wind would set towards
Sicily, but the next, the North Wind, prevailing on the Italian coast,
would drive the unlucky vessel hither and yon; and, what was more
dangerous than all the rain-squalls, a pall of such black density blotted
out the light that the helmsman could not even see as far forward as the
bow.  At last, as the savage fury of the sea grew more malignant, the
trembling Lycas stretched out his hands to me imploringly.  “Save us from
destruction, Encolpius,” he shouted; “restore that sacred robe and holy
rattle to the ship!  Be merciful, for heaven’s sake, just as you used to
be!”  He was still shouting when a windsquall swept him into the sea; the
raging elements whirled him around and around in a terrible maelstrom and
sucked him down.  Tryphaena, on the other hand, was seized by her
faithful servants, placed in a skiff, along with the greater part of her
belongings, and saved from certain death.  Embracing Giton, I wept aloud:
“Did we deserve this from the gods,” I cried, “to be united only in
death?  No! Malignant fortune grudges even that.  Look!  In an instant
the waves will capsize the ship!  Think!  In an instant the sea will
sever this lover’s embrace!  If you ever loved Encolpius truly, kiss him
while yet you may and snatch this last delight from impending
dissolution!”  Even as I was speaking, Giton removed his garment and,
creeping beneath my tunic, he stuck out his head to be kissed; then,
fearing some more spiteful wave might separate us as we clung together,
he passed his belt around us both.  “If nothing else,” he cried, “the sea
will at least bear us longer, joined together, and if, in pity, it casts
us up upon the same shore, some passerby may pile some stones over us,
out of common human kindness, or the last rites will be performed by the
drifting sand, in spite of the angry waves.”  I submit to this last bond
and, as though I were laid out upon my death-bed, await an end no longer
dreaded. Meanwhile, accomplishing the decrees of the Fates, the storm
stripped the ship of all that was left; no mast, no helm, not a rope nor
an oar remained on board her; she was only a derelict, heavy and
water-logged, drifting before the waves.  Some fishermen hastily put off
in their little boats to salvage their booty, but, seeing men alive and
ready to defend their property, they changed their predatory designs into
offers of help.




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEENTH.

Just then, amid that clamor of voices we heard a peculiar noise, and from
beneath the captain’s cabin there came a bellowing as of some wild beast
trying to get out.  We then followed up the sound and discovered
Eumolpus, sitting there scribbling verses upon an immense sheet of
parchment!  Astounded that he could find time to write poetry at death’s
very door, we hauled him out, in spite of his protests, and ordered him
to return to his senses, but he flew into a rage at being interrupted;
“Leave me alone until I finish this sentence,” he bawled; “the poem
labors to its birth.”  Ordering Giton to come to close quarters and help
me drag the bellowing bard ashore, I laid hands upon the lunatic.  When
this job had at last been completed, we came, wet and wretched, to a
fisherman’s hut and refreshed ourselves somewhat with stores from the
wreck, spoiled though they were by salt water, and passed a night that
was almost interminable.  As we were holding a council, next day, to
determine to what part of the country we had best proceed, I suddenly
caught sight of a human body, turning around in a gentle eddy and
floating towards the shore.  Stricken with melancholy, I stood still and
began to brood, with wet eyes, upon the treachery of the sea.  “And
perhaps,” said I, “a wife, safe in some far-away country of the earth,
awaits this man, or a son who little dreams of storms or wrecks; or
perhaps he left behind a father, whom he kissed good-by at parting! Such
is the end of mortal’s plans, such is the outcome of great ambitions!
See how man rides the waves!”  Until now, I had been sorrowing for a mere
stranger, but a wave turned the face, which had undergone no change,
towards the shore, and I recognized Lycas; so evil-tempered and so
unrelenting but a short time before, now cast up almost at my feet!  I
could no longer restrain the tears, at this; I beat my breast again and
yet again, with my hands.  “Where is your evil temper now?”  I cried.
“Where is your unbridled passion?  You be there, a prey to fish and wild
beasts, you who boasted but a little while ago of the strength of your
command.  Now you have not a single plank left of your great ship!  Go
on, mortals; set your hearts upon the fulfillment of great ambitions: Go
on, schemers, and in your wills control for a thousand years the disposal
of the wealth you got by fraud!  Only yesterday this man audited the
accounts of his family estate, yea, even reckoned the day he would arrive
in his native land and settled it in his mind!  Gods and goddesses, how
far he lies from his appointed destination!  But the waves of the sea are
not alone in thus keeping faith with mortal men: The warrior’s weapons
fail him; the citizen is buried beneath the ruins of his own penates,
when engaged in paying his vows to the gods; another falls from his
chariot and dashes out his ardent spirit; the glutton chokes at dinner;
the niggard starves from abstinence.  Give the dice a fair throw and you
will find shipwreck everywhere!  Ah, but one overwhelmed by the waves
obtains no burial!  As though it matters in what manner the body, once it
is dead, is consumed: by fire, by flood, by time!  Do what you will,
these all achieve the same end.  Ah, but the beasts will mangle the body!
As though fire would deal with it any more gently; when we are angry with
our slaves that is the punishment which we consider the most severe.
What folly it is, then, to do everything we can to prevent the grave from
leaving any part of us behind {when the Fates will look out for us, even
against our wills.”} (After these reflections we made ready to pay the
last rites to the corpse,) and Lycas was burned upon a funeral pyre
raised by the hands of enemies, while Eumolpus, fixing his eyes upon the
far distance to gain inspiration, composed an epitaph for the dead man:

                        HIS FATE WAS UNAVOIDABLE

              NO ROCK-HEWN TOMB NOR SCULPTURED MARBLE HIS,

             HIS NOBLE CORPSE FIVE FEET OF EARTH RECEIVED,

              HE RESTS IN PEACE BENEATH THIS HUMBLE MOUND.




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTEENTH.

We set out upon our intended journey, after this last office had been
wholeheartedly performed, and, in a little while, arrived, sweating, at
the top of a mountain, from which we made out, at no great distance, a
town, perched upon the summit of a lofty eminence.  Wanderers as we were,
we had no idea what town it could be, until we learned from a caretaker
that it was Crotona, a very ancient city, and once the first in Italy.
When we earnestly inquired, upon learning this, what men inhabited such
historic ground, and the nature of the business in which they were
principally engaged, now that their wealth had been dissipated by the oft
recurring wars, “My friends,” replied he, “if you are men of business,
change your plans and seek out some other conservative road to a
livelihood, but if you can play the part of men of great culture, always
ready with a lie, you are on the straight road to riches: The study of
literature is held in no estimation in that city, eloquence has no niche
there, economy and decent standards of morality come into no reward of
honor there; you must know that every man whom you will meet in that city
belongs to one of two factions; they either ‘take-in,’ or else they are
‘taken-in.’  No one brings up children in that city, for the reason that
no one who has heirs is invited to dinner or admitted to the games; such
an one is deprived of all enjoyments and must lurk with the rabble.  On
the other hand, those who have never married a wife, or those who have no
near relatives, attain to the very highest honors; in other words, they
are the only ones who are considered soldierly, or the bravest of the
brave, or even good.  You will see a town which resembles the fields in
time of pestilence,” he continued, “in which there is nothing but
carcasses to be torn at and carrion crows tearing at them.”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEENTH.

Eumolpus, who had a deeper insight, turned this state of affairs over in
his mind and declared that he was not displeased with a prospect of that
kind.  I thought the old fellow was joking in the care-free way of poets,
until he complained, “If I could only put up a better front!  I mean that
I wish my clothing was in better taste, that my jewelry was more
expensive; all this would lend color to my deception: I would not carry
this scrip, by Hercules, I would not I would lead you all to great
riches!”  For my part, I undertook to supply whatever my companion in
robbery had need of, provided he would be satisfied with the garment, and
with whatever spoils the villa of Lycurgus had yielded when we robbed it;
as for money against present needs, the Mother of the Gods would see to
that, out of regard to her own good name!  “Well, what’s to prevent our
putting on an extravaganza?” demanded Eumolpus.  “Make me the master if
the business appeals to you.” No one ventured to condemn a scheme by
which he could lose nothing, and so, that the lie would be kept safe
among us all, we swore a solemn oath, the words of which were dictated by
Eumolpus, to endure fire, chains, flogging, death by the sword, and
whatever else Eumolpus might demand of us, just like regular gladiators!
After the oath had been taken, we paid our respects to our master with
pretended servility, and were informed that Eumolpus had lost a son, a
young man of great eloquence and promise, and that it was for this reason
the poor old man had left his native land that he might not see the
companions and clients of his son, nor even his tomb, which was the cause
of his daily tears.  To this misfortune a recent shipwreck had been
added, in which he had lost upwards of two millions of sesterces; not
that he minded the loss but, destitute of a train of servants he could
not keep up his proper dignity!  Furthermore, he had, invested in Africa,
thirty millions of sesterces in estates and bonds; such a horde of his
slaves was scattered over the fields of Numidia that he could have even
sacked Carthage!  We demanded that Eumolpus cough frequently, to further
this scheme, that he have trouble with his stomach and find fault with
all the food when in company, that he keep talking of gold and silver and
estates, the incomes from which were not what they should be, and of the
everlasting unproductiveness of the soil; that he cast up his accounts
daily, that he revise the terms of his will monthly, and, for fear any
detail should be lacking to make the farce complete, he was to use the
wrong names whenever he wished to summon any of us, so that it would be
plain to all that the master had in mind some who were not present.  When
everything had been thus provided for, we offered a prayer to the gods
“that the matter might turn out well and happily,” and took to the road.
But Giton could not bear up under his unaccustomed load, and the hired
servant Corax, a shirker of work, often put down his own load and cursed
our haste, swearing that he would either throw his packs away or run away
with his load.  “What do you take me for, a beast of burden?”  he
grumbled, “or a scow for carrying stone? I hired out to do the work of a
man, not that of a pack-horse, and I’m as free as you are, even if my
father did leave me poor!”  Not satisfied with swearing, he lifted up his
leg from time to time and filled the road with an obscene noise and a
filthy stench.  Giton laughed at his impudence and imitated every
explosion with his lips, {but Eumolpus relapsed into his usual vein, even
in spite of this.}




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEENTH.

“Young men,” said he, “many are they who have been seduced by poetry;
for, the instant a man has composed a verse in feet, and has woven a more
delicate meaning into it by means of circumlocutions, he straightway
concludes that he has scaled Helicon! Take those who are worn out by the
distressing detail of the legal profession, for example: they often seek
sanctuary in the tranquillity of poetry, as a more sheltered haven,
believing themselves able more easily to compose a poem than a rebuttal
charged with scintillating epigrams! But a more highly cultivated mind
loves not this conceited affectation, nor can it either conceive or bring
forth, unless it has been steeped in the vast flood of literature.  Every
word that is what I would call ‘low,’ ought to be avoided, and phrases
far removed from plebeian usage should be chosen.  Let ‘Ye rabble rout
avaunt,’ be your rule.  In addition, care should be exercised in
preventing the epigrams from standing out from the body of the speech;
they should gleam with the brilliancy woven into the fabric.  Homer is an
example, and the lyric poets, and our Roman Virgil, and the exquisite
propriety of Horace. Either the others did not discover the road that
leads to poetry, or, having seen, they feared to tread it.  Whoever
attempts that mighty theme, the civil war, for instance, will sink under
the load unless he is saturated with literature.  Events, past and
passing, ought not to be merely recorded in verse, the historian will
deal with them far better; by means of circumlocutions and the
intervention of the immortals, the free spirit, wracked by the search for
epigrams having a mythological illusion, should plunge headlong and
appear as the prophecy of a mind inspired rather than the attested faith
of scrupulous exactitude in speech.  This hasty composition may please
you, even though it has not yet received its final polishing:”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEENTH.

     “The conquering Roman now held the whole world in his sway,

     The ocean, the land; where the sun shone by day or the moon

     Gleamed by night: but unsated was he.  And the seas

     Were roiled by the weight of his deep-laden keels; if a bay

     Lay hidden beyond, or a land which might yield yellow gold

     ‘Twas held as a foe.  While the struggle for treasure went on

     The fates were preparing the horrors and scourges of war.

     Amusements enjoyed by the vulgar no longer can charm

     Nor pleasures worn threadbare by use of the plebeian mob.

     The bronzes of Corinth are praised by the soldier at sea;

     And glittering gems sought in earth, vie with purple of Tyre;

     Numidia curses her here, there, the exquisite silks

     Of China; Arabia’s people have stripped their own fields.

     Behold other woes and calamities outraging peace!

     Wild beasts, in the forest are hunted, for gold; and remote

     African hammon is covered by beaters, for fear

     Some beast that slays men with his teeth shall escape, for by that

     His value to men is enhanced!  The vessels receive

     Strange ravening monsters; the tiger behind gilded bars

     And pacing his cage is transported to Rome, that his jaws

     May drip with the life blood of men to the plaudits of men

     Oh shame!  To point out our impending destruction; the crime

     Of Persia enacted anew; in his puberty’s bloom

     The man child is kidnapped; surrenders his powers to the knife,

     Is forced to the calling of Venus; delayed and hedged round

     The hurrying passage of life’s finest years is held back

     And Nature seeks Nature but finds herself not.  Everywhere

     These frail-limbed and mincing effeminates, flowing of locks,

     Bedecked with an infinite number of garments of silk

     Whose names ever change, the wantons and lechers to snare,

     Are eagerly welcomed!  From African soil now behold

     The citron-wood tables; their well-burnished surface reflects

     Our Tyrian purples and slaves by the horde, and whose spots

     Resemble the gold that is cheaper than they and ensnare

     Extravagance.  Sterile and ignobly prized is the wood

     But round it is gathered a company sodden with wine;

     And soldiers of fortune whose weapons have rusted, devour

     The spoils of the world.  Art caters to appetite.  Wrasse

     From Sicily brought to their table, alive in his own Sea water.

     The oysters from Lucrine’s shore torn, at the feast

     Are served to make famous the host; and the appetite, cloyed,

     To tempt by extravagance.  Phasis has now been despoiled

     Of birds, its littoral silent, no sound there is heard

     Save only the wind as it rustles among the last leaves.

     Corruption no less vile is seen in the campus of Mars,

     Our quirites are bribed; and for plunder and promise of gain

     Their votes they will alter.  The people is venal; corrupt

     The Senate; support has its price!  And the freedom and worth

     Of age is decayed, scattered largesse now governs their power;

     Corrupted by gold, even dignity lies in the dust.

     Cato defeated and hooted by mobs, but the victor

     Is sadder, ashamed to have taken the rods from a Cato:

     In this lay the shame of the nation and character’s downfall,

     ‘Twas not the defeat of a man!  No!  The power and the glory

     Of Rome were brought low; represented in him was the honor

     Of sturdy Republican Rome.  So, abandoned and wretched,

     The city has purchased dishonor: has purchased herself!

     Despoiled by herself, no avenger to wipe out the stigma

     Twin maelstroms of debt and of usury suck down the commons.

     No home with clear title, no citizen free from a mortgage,

     But as some slow wasting disease all unheralded fastens

     Its hold on the vitals, destroying the vigor of manhood,

     So, fear of the evils impending, impels them to madness.

     Despair turns to violence, luxury’s ravages needs must

     Repaired be by bloodshed, for indigence safely can venture.

     Can art or sane reason rouse wallowing Rome from the offal

     And break the voluptuous slumber in which she is sunken?

     Or must it be fury and war and the blood-lust of daggers?”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTIETH.

     “Three chieftains did fortune bring forth, whom the fury of battles

     Destroyed; and interred, each one under a mountain of weapons;

     The Parthian has Crassus, Pompeius the Great by the waters

     Of Egypt lies.  Julius, ungrateful Rome stained with his life blood.

     And earth has divided their ashes, unable to suffer

     The weight of so many tombs.  These are the wages of glory!

     There lies between Naples and Great Puteoli, a chasm

     Deep cloven, and Cocytus churns there his current; the vapor

     In fury escapes from the gorge with that lethal spray laden.

     No green in the aututun is there, no grass gladdens the meadow,

     The supple twigs never resound with the twittering singing

     Of birds in the Springtime.  But chaos, volcanic black boulders

     Of pumice lie Happy within their drear setting of cypress.

     Amidst these infernal surroundings the ruler of Hades

     Uplifted his head by the funeral flames silhouetted

     And sprinkled with white from the ashes of corpses; and challenged

     Winged Fortune in words such as these: ‘Oh thou fickle controller

     Of things upon earth and in heaven, security’s foeman,

     Oh Chance!  Oh thou lover eternally faithful to change, and

     Possession’s betrayer, dost own thyself crushed by the power

     Of Rome?  Canst not raise up the tottering mass to its downfall

     Its strength the young manhood of Rome now despises, and staggers

     In bearing the booty heaped up by its efforts: behold how

     They lavish their spoils!  Wealth run mad now brings down their
     destruction.

     They build out of gold and their palaces reach to the heavens;

     The sea is expelled by their moles and their pastures are oceans;

     They war against Nature in changing the state of creation.

     They threaten my kingdom!  Earth yawns with their tunnels deep
     driven

     To furnish the stone for their madmen’s foundations; already

     The mountains are hollowed and now but re-echoing caverns;

     While man quarries marble to serve his vainglorious purpose

     The spirits infernal confess that they hope to win Heaven!

     Arise, then, O Chance, change thy countenance peaceful to warlike

     And harry the Romans, consign to my kingdom the fallen.

     Ah, long is it now since my lips were with blood cooled and
     moistened,

     Nor has my Tisiphone bathed her blood-lusting body

     Since Sulla’s sword drank to repletion and earth’s bristling harvest

     Grew ripe upon blood and thrust up to the light of the sunshine!’”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIRST.

     “He spake ...  and attempted to clasp the right hand of Fortuna,

     But ruptured the crust of the earth, deeply cloven, asunder.

     Then from her capricious heart Fortune made answer: ‘O father

     Whom Cocytus’ deepest abysses obey, if to forecast

     The future I may, without fear, thy petition shall prosper;

     For no less consuming the anger that wars in this bosom,

     The flame no less poignant, that burns to my marrow All favors

     I gave to the bulwarks of Rome, now, I hate them. My

     Gifts I repent! The same God who built up their dominion

     Shall bring down destruction upon it. In burning their manhood

     My heart shall delight and its blood-lust shall slake with their
     slaughter.

     Now Philippi’s field I can see strewn with dead of two battles

     And Thessaly’s funeral pyres and Iberia mourning.

     Already the clangor of arms thrills my ears, and rings loudly:

     Thou, Lybian Nile, I can see now thy barriers groaning

     And Actium’s gulf and Apollo’s darts quailing the warriors!

     Then, open thy thirsty dominions and summon fresh spirits;

     For scarce will the ferryman’s strength be sufficient to carry

     The souls of the dead in his skiff: ‘tis a fleet that is needed!

     Thou, Pallid Tisiphone, slake with wide ruin, thy thirsting

     And tear ghastly wounds: mangled earth sinks to hell and the
     spirits.’”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SECOND.

     “But scarce had she finished, when trembled the clouds; and a
     gleaming

     Bright flash of Jove’s lightning transfixed them with flame and was
     gone.

     The Lord of the Shades blanched with fear, at this bolt of his
     brother’s,

     Sank back, and drew closely together the gorge in Earth’s bosom.

     By auspices straightway the slaughter of men and the evils

     Impending are shown by the gods.   Here, the Titan unsightly

     Blood red, veils his face with a twilight; on strife fratricidal

     Already he gazed, thou hadst thought!  There, silvery Cynthia

     Obscuring her face at the full, denied light to the outrage.

     The mountain crests riven by rock-slides roll thundering downward

     And wandering rivers, to rivulets shrunk, writhed no longer

     Familiar marges between.  With the clangor of armor

     The heavens resound; from the stars wafts the thrill of a trumpet

     Sounding the call to arms.  AEtna, now roused to eruption

     Unwonted, darts flashes of flame to the clouds.  Flitting phantoms

     Appear midst the tombs and unburied bones, gibbering menace

     A comet, strange stars in its diadem, leads a procession

     And reddens the skies with its fire.  Showers of blood fall from
     heaven

     These portents the Deity shortly fulfilled!  For now Caesar

     Forsook vacillation and, spurred by the love of revenge, sheathed

     The Gallic sword; brandished the brand that proclaimed civil
     warfare.

     There, high in the Alps, where the crags, by a Greek god once
     trodden,

     Slope down and permit of approach, is a spot ever sacred

     To Hercules’ altar; the winter with frozen snow seals it

     And rears to the heavens a summit eternally hoary,

     As though the sky there had slipped down: no warmth from the
     sunbeams,

     No breath from the Springtime can soften the pile’s wintry rigor

     Nor slacken the frost chains that bind; and its menacing shoulders

     The weight of the world could sustain.  With victorious legions

     These crests Caesar trod and selected a camp.  Gazing downwards

     On Italy’s plains rolling far, from the top of the mountain,

     He lifted both hands to the heavens, his voice rose in prayer:

     ‘Omnipotent Jove, and thou, refuge of Saturn whose glory

     Was brightened by feats of my armies and crowned with my triumphs,

     Bear witness!  Unwillingly summon I Mars to these armies,

     Unwillingly draw I the sword!  But injustice compels me.

     While enemy blood dyes the Rhine and the Alps are held firmly

     Repulsing a second assault of the Gauls on our city,

     She dubs me an outcast!  And Victory makes me an exile!

     To triumphs three score, and defeats of the Germans, my treason

     I trace!  How can they fear my glory or see in my battles

     A menace?  But hirelings, and vile, to whom my Rome is but a

     Stepmother!  Methinks that no craven this sword arm shall hamper

     And take not a stroke in repost.  On to victory, comrades,

     While anger seethes hot.  With the sword we will seek a decision

     The doom lowering down is a peril to all, and the treason.

     My gratitude owe I to you, not alone have I conquered!

     Since punishment waits by our trophies and victory merits

     Disgrace, then let Chance cast the lots.  Raise the standard of
     battle;

     Again take your swords.  Well I know  that my cause is accomplished

     Amidst such armed warriors I know that I cannot be beaten.’

     While yet the words echoed, from heaven the bird of Apollo

     Vouchsafed a good omen and beat with his pinions the ether.

     From out of the left of a gloomy grove strange voices sounded

     And flame flashed thereafter!  The sun gleamed with brighter
     refulgence

     Unwonted, his face in a halo of golden flame shining.”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-THIRD.

     “By omens emboldened, to follow, the battle-flags, Caesar

     Commanded; and boldly led on down the perilous pathway.

     The footing, firm-fettered by frost chains and ice, did not hinder

     At first, but lay silent, the kindly cold masking its grimness;

     But, after the squadrons of cavalry shattered the clouds, bound

     By ice, and the trembling steeds crushed in the mail of the rivers,

     Then, melted the snows!  And soon torrents newborn, from the
     heights of

     The mountains rush down: but these also, as if by commandment

     Grow rigid, and, turn into ice, in their headlong rush downwards!

     Now, that which rushed madly a moment before, must be hacked
     through!

     But now, it was treacherous, baffling their steps and their footing

     Deceiving; and men, horses, arms, fall in heaps, in confusion.

     And see!  Now the clouds, by an icy gale smitten, their burden

     Discharge!  Lo! the gusts of the whirlwind swirl fiercely
     about them;

     The sky in convulsions, with swollen hail buffets them sorely.

     Already the clouds themselves rupture and smother their weapons,

     An avalanche icy roars down like a billow of ocean;

     Earth lay overwhelmed by the drifts of the snow and the planets

     Of heaven are blotted from sight; overwhelmed are the rivers

     That cling to their banks, but unconquered is Caesar!  His javelin

     He leans on and scrunches with firm step a passage the bristling

     Grim ice fields across!  As, spurred on by the lust, of adventure

     Amphitryon’s offspring came striding the Caucasus slopes down;

     Or Jupiter’s menacing mien as, from lofty Olympus

     He leaped, the doomed giants to crush and to scatter their weapons.

     While Caesar in anger the swelling peaks treads down, winged rumor

     In terror flies forth and on beating wings seeks the high summit

     Of Palatine tall: every image she rocks with her message

     Announcing this thunderbolt Roman!  Already, the ocean

     Is tossing his fleets!  Now his cavalry, reeking with German

     Gore, pours from the Alps!  Slaughter, bloodshed, and weapons

     The red panorama of war is unrolled to their vision!

     By terror their hearts are divided: two counsels perplex them!

     One chooses by land to seek flight: to another, the water

     Appeals, and the sea than his own land is safer!  Another

     Will stand to his arms and advantage extort from Fate’s mandate.

     The depth of their fear marks the length of their flight!  In
     confusion

     The people itself--shameful spectacle--driven by terror

     Is led to abandon the city.  Rome glories in fleeing!

     The Quirites from battle blench!  Cowed by the breath of a rumor

     Relinquished their firesides to mourning!  One citizen, palsied

     With terror, his children embraces: another, his penates

     Conceals in his bosom; then, weeping, takes leave of his threshold

     And slaughters the distant invader--with curses!  Their spouses

     Some clasp to their sorrow-wracked bosoms!  Youths carry their
     fathers

     Bowed down with old age, uninured to the bearing of burdens.

     They seize what they dread to lose most.  Inexperience drags all

     Its chattels to camp and to battle: as, when powerful Auster

     Piles up the churned waters and tumbles them: never a yard-arm

     Nor rudder to answer the hand, here, one fashions a life-raft

     Of pine planks, another steers into some bay on a lee shore,

     Another will crack on and run from the gale and to Fortune

     Trust all!  But why sorrow for trifles?  The consuls, with Pompey

     The Great--he, the terror of Pontus, of savage Hydaspes

     Explorer, the reef that wrecked pirates, caused Jove to turn livid,

     When thrice was a triumph decreed him, whom Pontus’ vexed water

     And pacified billows of Bosphorus worshipped!  Disgraceful their

     Flight!  Title and glory forsaking!  Now Fortune capricious

     Looks down on the back of great Pompey retreating in terror!”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FOURTH.

     “So great a misfortune disrupted the concord of heaven

     And gods swelled the rout in their panic!  Behold through creation

     The gentle divinities flee from the ravening earth; in

     Their loathing they turn from humanity, doomed to destruction!

     And first of all, Peace, with her snowy white arms, hides her visage

     Defeated, her helmet beneath and, abandoning earth, flees

     To seek out the realm of implacable Dis, as a refuge

     Meek Faith her companion, and Justice with locks loosely flowing,

     And Concord, in tears, and her raiment in tatters, attend her.

     The minions of Pluto pour forth from the portals of darkness

     That yawn: the serpent-haired Fury, Bellona the Savage,

     Megoera with firebrands, destruction, and treachery, livid

     Death’s likeness!  Among them is Frenzy, as, free, with her lashings

     Snapped short, she now raises her gory head, shielding her features

     Deep scarred by innumerous wounds ‘neath her helmet blood-clotted.

     Her left arm she guards with a battle-scarred shield scored by
     weapons,

     And numberless spear-heads protrude from its surface: her right hand

     A flaming torch brandishes, kindling a flame that will burn up

     The world!  Now the gods are on earth and the skies note their
     absence;

     The planets disordered their orbits attempt!  Into factions

     The heavens divide; first Dione espouses the cause of

     Her Caesar.  Minerva next steps to her side and the great son

     Of Ares, his mighty spear brandishing!  Phoebus espouses

     The cause of Great Pompey: his sister and Mercury also

     And Hercules like unto him in his travels and labors.

     The trumpets call!  Discord her Stygian head lifts to heaven

     Her tresses disheveled, her features with clotted blood covered,

     Tears pour from her bruised eyes, her iron fangs thick coated
     with rust,

     Her tongue distils poison, her features are haloed with serpents,

     Her hideous bosom is visible under her tatters,

     A torch with a blood red flame waves from her tremulous right hand.

     Emerging from Cocytus dark and from Tartarus murky

     She strode to the crests of the Apennines noble, the prospect

     Of earth to survey, spread before her the world panorama

     Its shores and the armies that march on its surface: these words
     then

     Burst out of her bosom malignant: ‘To arms, now, ye nations,

     While anger seethes hot, seize your arms, set the torch to the
     cities,

     Who skulks now is lost; neither woman nor child nor the aged

     Bowed down with their years shall find quarter: the whole world will
     tremble

     And rooftrees themselves shall crash down and take part in the
     struggle.

     Marcellus, hold firm for the law!  And thou, Curio, madden

     The rabble!  Thou, Lentulus, strive not to check valiant Ares!

     Thou, Cesar divine, why delayest thou now thine invasion?

     Why smash not the gates, why not level the walls of the cities,

     Their treasures to pillage?  Thou, Magnus, dost not know the secret

     Of holding the hills of Rome?  Take thou the walls of Dyrrachium,

     Let Thessaly’s harbors be dyed with the blood of the Romans!’

     On earth was obeyed every detail of Discord’s commandment.”


When Eumolpus had, with great volubility, poured out this flood of words,
we came at last to Crotona.  Here we refreshed ourselves at a mean inn,
but on the following day we went in search of more imposing lodgings and
fell in with a crowd of legacy hunters who were very curious as to the
class of society to which we belonged and as to whence we had come.
Thereupon, in accord with our mutual understanding, such ready answers
did we make as to who we might be or whence we had come that we gave them
no cause for doubt.  They immediately fell to wrangling in their desire
to heap their own riches upon Eumolpus and every fortune-hunter solicited
his favor with presents.




ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:

Desire no possession unless the world envies me for possessing
Either ‘take-in,’ or else they are ‘taken-in’
Platitudes by which anguished minds are recalled to sanity
They seize what they dread to lose most





VOLUME 5.--AFFAIRS AT CROTONA



CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIFTH.

For a long time affairs at Crotona ran along in this manner and Eumolpus,
flushed with success so far forgot the former state of his fortunes that
he even bragged to his followers that no one could hold out against any
wish of his, and that any member of his suite who committed a crime
in that city would, through the influence of his friends, get off
unpunished.  But, although I daily crammed my bloated carcass to
overflowing with good things, and began more and more to believe that
Fortune had turned away her face from keeping watch upon me, I frequently
meditated, nevertheless, upon my present state and upon its cause.
“Suppose,” thought I, “some wily legacy hunter should dispatch an agent
to Africa and catch us in our lie?  Or even suppose the hireling servant,
glutted with prosperity, should tip off his cronies or give the whole
scheme away out of spite?  There would be nothing for it but flight and,
in a fresh state of destitution, a recalling of poverty which had been
driven off.  Gods and goddesses, how ill it fares with those living
outside the law; they are always on the lookout for what is coming to
them!”  (Turning these possibilities over in my mind I left the house, in
a state of black melancholy, hoping to revive my spirits in the fresh
air, but scarcely had I set foot upon the public promenade when a girl,
by no means homely, met me, and, calling me Polyaenos, the name I had
assumed since my metamorphosis, informed me that her mistress desired
leave to speak with me.  “You must be mistaken,” I answered, in
confusion, “I am only a servant and a stranger, and am by no means worthy
of such an honor.”)




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIXTH.

(“You yourself,” she replied, “are the one to whom I was sent but,)
because you are well aware of your good looks, you are proud and sell
your favors instead of giving them. What else can those wavy well-combed
locks mean or that face, rouged and covered with cosmetics, or that
languishing, wanton expression in your eyes?  Why that gait, so precise
that not a footstep deviates from its place, unless you wish to show off
your figure in order to sell your favors?  Look at me, I know nothing
about omens and I don’t study the heavens like the astrologers, but I can
read men’s intentions in their faces and I know what a flirt is after
when I see him out for a stroll; so if you’ll sell us what I want there’s
a buyer ready, but if you will do the graceful thing and lend, let us be
under obligations to you for the favor.  And as for your confession that
you are only a common servant, by that you only fan the passion of the
lady who burns for you, for some women will only kindle for canaille and
cannot work up an appetite unless they see some slave or runner with his
clothing girded up: a gladiator arouses one, or a mule-driver all covered
with dust, or some actor posturing in some exhibition on the stage.  My
mistress belongs to this class, she jumps the fourteen rows from the
stage to the gallery and looks for a lover among the gallery gods at the
back.” Puffed up with this delightful chatter.  “Come now, confess, won’t
you,” I queried, “is this lady who loves me yourself?”  The waiting maid
smiled broadly at this blunt speech.  “Don’t have such a high opinion of
yourself,” said she, “I’ve never given in to any servant yet; the gods
forbid that I should ever throw my arms around a gallows-bird.  Let the
married women see to that and kiss the marks of the scourge if they like:
I’ll sit upon nothing below a knight, even if I am only a servant.”  I
could not help marveling, for my part, at such discordant passions, and I
thought it nothing short of a miracle that this servant should possess
the hauteur of the mistress and the mistress the low tastes of the wench!

     Each one will find what suits his taste, one thing is not for all,
     One gathers roses as his share, another thorns enthrall.

After a little more teasing, I requested the maid to conduct her mistress
to a clump of plane trees.  Pleased with this plan, the girl picked up
the skirt of her garment and turned into a laurel grove that bordered the
path.  After a short delay she brought her mistress from her hiding-place
and conducted her to my side; a woman more perfect than any statue.
There are no words with which to describe her form and anything I could
say would fall far short.  Her hair, naturally wavy, flowed completely
over her shoulders; her forehead was low and the roots of her hair were
brushed back from it; her eyebrows, running from the very springs of her
cheeks, almost met at the boundary line between a pair of eyes brighter
than stars shining in a moonless night; her nose was slightly aquiline
and her mouth was such an one as Praxiteles dreamed Diana had.  Her chin,
her neck, her hands, the gleaming whiteness of her feet under a slender
band of gold; she turned Parian marble dull!  Then, for the first time,
Doris’ tried lover thought lightly of Doris!

     Oh Jove, what’s come to pass that thou, thine armor cast away
     Art mute in heaven; and but an idle tale?
     At such a time the horns should sprout, the raging bull hold sway,
     Or they white hair beneath swan’s down conceal
     Here’s Dana’s self!  But touch that lovely form
     Thy limbs will melt beneath thy passions’ storm!




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SEVENTH.

She was delighted and so be witchingly did she smile that I seemed to see
the full moon showing her face from behind a cloud.  Then, punctuating
her words with her fingers, “Dear boy, if you are not too critical to
enjoy a woman of wealth who has but this year known her first man, I
offer you a sister,” said she.  “You have a brother already, I know, for
I didn’t disdain to ask, but what is to prevent your adopting a sister,
too?  I will come in on the same footing only deem my kisses worthy of
recognition and caress me at your own pleasure!”  “Rather let me implore
you by your beauty,” I replied.  “Do not scorn to admit an alien among
your worshipers: If you permit me to kneel before your shrine you will
find me a true votary and, that you may not think I approach this temple
of love without a gift, I make you a present of my brother!”  “What,” she
exclaimed, “would you really sacrifice the only one without whom you
could not live’?  The one upon whose kisses your happiness depends.  Him
whom you love as I would have you love me?”  Such sweetness permeated her
voice as she said this, so entrancing was the sound upon the listening
air that you would have believed the Sirens’ harmonies were floating in
the breeze.  I was struck with wonder and dazzled by I know not what
light that shone upon me, brighter than the whole heaven, but I made
bold to inquire the name of my divinity.  “Why, didn’t my maid tell you
that I am called Circe?”  she replied.  “But I am not the sun-child nor
has my mother ever stayed the revolving world in its course at her
pleasure; but if the Fates bring us two together I will owe heaven a
favor.  I don’t know what it is, but some god’s silent purpose is beneath
this.  Circe loves not Polyaenos without some reason; a great torch is
always flaming when these names meet!  Take me in your arms then, if you
will; there’s no prying stranger to fear, and your ‘brother’ is far away
from this spot!”  So saying, Circe clasped me in arms that were softer
than down and drew me to the ground which was covered with colored
flowers.

     With flowers like these did Mother Earth great Ida’s summit strew
     When Jupiter, his heart aflame, enjoyed his lawful love;
     There glowed the rose, the flowering rush, the violet’s deep blue,
     From out green meadows snow-white lilies laughed.  Then from above,
     This setting summoned Venus to the green and tender sod,
     Bright day smiled kindly on the secret amour of the God.

Side by side upon the grassy plot we lay, exchanging a thousand kisses,
the prelude to more poignant pleasure, (but alas!  My sudden loss of
vigor disappointed Circe!)




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT.

(Infuriated at this affront,) “What’s the matter,” demanded she; “do my
kisses offend you?  Is my breath fetid from fasting?  Is there any evil
smelling perspiration in my armpits?  Or, if it’s nothing of this kind,
are you afraid of Giton?” Under her eyes, I flushed hotly and, if I had
any virility left, I lost it then; my whole body seemed to be inert.  “My
queen,” I cried, “do not mock me in my humiliation.  I am bewitched!”
 (Circe’s anger was far from being appeased by such a trivial excuse;
turning her eyes contemptuously away from me, she looked at her maid,)
“Tell me, Chrysis, and tell me truly, is there anything repulsive about
me?  Anything sluttish?  Have I some natural blemish that disfigures my
beauty?  Don’t deceive your mistress!  I don’t know what’s the matter
with us, but there must be something!”  Then she snatched a mirror from
the silent maid and after scrutinizing all the looks and smiles which
pass between lovers, she shook out her wrinkled earth-stained robe and
flounced off into the temple of Venus (nearby.) And here was I, like a
convicted criminal who had seen some horrible nightmare, asking myself
whether the pleasure out of which I had been cheated was a reality or
only a dream.

               As when, in the sleep-bringing night
               Dreams sport with the wandering eyes,
               And earth, spaded up, yields to light
               Her gold that by day she denies,
               The stealthy hand snatches the spoils;
               The face with cold sweat is suffused
               And Fear grips him tight in her toils
               Lest robbers the secret have used
               And shake out the gold from his breast.
               But, when they depart from his brain,
               These enchantments by which he’s obsessed,
               And Truth comes again with her train
               Restoring perspective and pain,
               The phantasm lives to the last,
               The mind dwells with shades of the past.

(The misfortune seemed to me a dream, but I imagined that I must surely
be under a spell of enchantment and, for a long time, I was so devoid of
strength that I could not get to my feet.  But finally my mental
depression began to abate, little by little my strength came back to me,
and I returned home: arrived there, I feigned illness and threw myself
upon my couch.  A little late: Giton, who had heard of my indisposition,
entered the room in some concern.  As I wished to relieve his mind I
informed him that I had merely sought my pallet to take a rest, telling
him much other gossip but not a word about my mishap as I stood in great
fear of his jealousy and, to lull any suspicion which he might entertain,
I drew him to my side and endeavoured to give him some proofs of my love
but all my panting and sweating were in vain.  He jumped up in a rage and
accused my lack of virility and change of heart, declaring that he had
for a long time suspected that I had been expending my vigor and breath
elsewhere.  “No!  No!  Darling,” I replied, “my love for you has always
been the same, but reason prevails now over love and wantonness.”) “And
for the Socratic continence of your love, I thank you in his name,” (he
replied sarcastically,) “Alcibiades was never more spotless when he left
his master’s bed!”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINTH.

“Believe me, ‘brother,’ when I tell you that I do not know whether I am a
man or not,” (I vainly protested;) “I do not feel like one, if I am!
Dead and buried lies that part in which I was once an Achilles!”  (Giton,
seeing that I was completely enervated, and) fearing that it might give
cause for scandal if he were caught in this quiet place with me, tore
himself away and fled into an inner part of the house.  (He had just gone
when) Chrysis entered the room and handed me her mistress’s tablets, in
which were written the following words:

     CIRCE TO POLYIENOS-GREETING.

     Were I a wanton, I should complain of my disappointment, but as it
     is I am beholden to your impotence, for by it I dallied the longer
     in the shadow of pleasure.  Still, I would like to know how you are
     and whether you got home upon your own legs, for the doctors say
     that one cannot walk without nerves!  Young man, I advise you to
     beware of paralysis for I never in my life saw a patient in such
     great danger; you’re as good as dead, I’m sure!  What if the same
     numbness should attack your hands and knees?  You would have to send
     for the funeral trumpeters!  Still, even if I have been affronted,
     I will not begrudge a prescription to one as sick as you!  Ask Giton
     if you would like to recover.  I am sure you will get back your
     strength if you will sleep without your “brother” for three nights.
     So far as I am concerned, I am not in the least alarmed about
     finding someone to whom I shall be as pleasing as I was to you; my
     mirror and my reputation do not lie.

                                        Farewell (if you can).

“Such things will happen,” said Chrysis, when she saw that I had read
through the entire inditement, “and especially in this city, where the
women can lure the moon from the sky!  But we’ll find a cure for your
trouble.  Just return a diplomatic answer to my mistress and restore her
self-esteem by frank courtesy for, truth to tell, she has never been
herself from the minute she received that affront.”  I gladly followed
the maid’s advice and wrote upon the tablets as follows:




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTIETH.

     POLYAENOS TO CIRCE--GREETING.

     Dear lady, I confess that I have often given cause for offense, for
     I am only a man, and a young one, too, but I never committed a
     deadly crime until today!  You have my confession of guilt, I
     deserve any punishment you may see fit to prescribe.  I betrayed a
     trust, I murdered a man, I violated a temple: demand my punishment
     for these crimes.  Should it be your pleasure to slay me I will come
     to you with my sword; if you are content with a flogging I will run
     naked to my mistress; only bear in mind that it was not myself but
     my tools that failed me.  I was a soldier, and ready, but I had no
     arms.  What threw me into such disorder I do not know, perhaps my
     imagination outran my lagging body, by aspiring to too much it is
     likely that I spent my pleasure in delay; I cannot imagine what the
     trouble was.  You bid me beware of paralysis; as if a disease which
     prevented my enjoying you could grow worse!  But my apology amounts
     briefly to this; if you will grant me an opportunity of repairing my
     fault, I will give you satisfaction.
                                             Farewell

After dismissing Chrysis with these fair promises, I paid careful
attention to my body which had so evilly served me and, omitting the
bath, I annointed myself, in moderation, with unguents and placed myself
upon a more strengthening diet such as onions and snail’s heads without
condiments, and I also drank more sparingly of wine; then, taking a short
walk before settling down to sleep, I went to bed without Giton.  So
anxious was I to please her that I feared the outcome if my “brother” lay
tickling my side.




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIRST.

Finding myself vigorous in mind and body when I arose next morning, I
went down to the same clump of plane trees, though I dreaded the spot as
one of evil omen, and commenced to wait for Chrysis to lead me on my way.
I took a short stroll and had just seated myself where I had sat the day
before, when she came under the trees, leading a little old woman by the
hand.  “Well, Mr. Squeamish,” she chirped, when she had greeted me, “have
you recovered your appetite?”  In the meantime, the old hag:

               A wine-soaked crone with twitching lips

brought out a twisted hank of different colored yarns and put it about my
neck; she then kneaded dust and spittle and, dipping her middle finger
into the mixture, she crossed my forehead with it, in spite of my
protests.

               As long as life remains, there’s hope;
               Thou rustic God, oh hear our prayer,
               Great Priapus, I thee invoke,
               Temper our arms to dare!

When she had made an end of this incantation she ordered me to spit three
times, and three times to drop stones into my bosom, each stone she
wrapped up in purple after she had muttered charms over it; then,
directing her hands to my privates, she commenced to try out my virility.
Quicker than thought the nerves responded to the summons, filling the
crone’s hand with an enormous erection!  Skipping for joy, “Look,
Chrysis, look,” she cried out, “see what a hare I’ve started, for someone
else to course!”  (This done, the old lady handed me over to Chrysis, who
was greatly delighted at the recovery of her mistress’s treasure; she
hastily conducted me straight to the latter, introducing me into a lovely
nook that nature had furnished with everything which could delight the
eye.)

          Shorn of its top, the swaying pine here casts a
          summer shade
          And quivering cypress, and the stately plane
          And berry-laden laurel.  A brook’s wimpling waters strayed
          Lashed into foam, but dancing on again
          And rolling pebbles in their chattering flow.
          ‘Twas Love’s own nook,
          As forest nightingale and urban Procne undertook
          To bear true witness; hovering, the gleaming grass above
          And tender violets; wooing with song, their stolen love.

Fanning herself with a branch of flowering myrtle, she lay, stretched out
with her marble neck resting upon a golden cushion.  When she caught
sight of me she blushed faintly; she recalled yesterday’s affront, I
suppose.  At her invitation, I sat down by her side, as soon as the
others had gone; whereupon she put the branch of myrtle over my face and
emboldened, as if a wall had been raised between us, “Well, Mr.
Paralytic,” she teased, “have you brought all of yourself along today?”
 “Why ask me,” I replied, “why not try me instead?”  and throwing myself
bodily into her arms, I revelled in her kisses with no witchcraft to stop
me.




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SECOND.

The loveliness of her form drew me to her and summoned me to love.  Our
lips were pressed together in a torrent of smacking kisses, our groping
hands had discovered every trick of excitation, and our bodies, clasped
in a mutual embrace, had fused our souls into one, (and then, in the very
midst of these ravishing preliminaries my nerves again played me false
and I was unable to last until the instant of supreme bliss.) Lashed to
fury by these inexcusable affronts, the lady at last ran to avenge
herself and, calling her house servants, she gave orders for me to be
hoisted upon their shoulders and flogged; then, still unsatisfied with
the drastic punishment she had inflicted upon me, she called all the
spinning women and scrubbing wenches in the house and ordered them to
spit upon me.  I covered my face with my hands but I uttered no complaint
as I well knew what I deserved and, overwhelmed with blows and spittle, I
was driven from the house. Proselenos was kicked out too, Chrysis was
beaten, and all the slaves grumbled among themselves and wondered what
had upset their mistress’s good humor.  I took heart after having given
some thought to my misfortunes and, artfully concealing the marks of the
blows for fear that Eumolpus would make merry over my mishaps or, worse
yet, that Giton might be saddened by my disgrace, I did the only thing I
could do to save my self-respect, I pretended that I was sick and went to
bed.  There, I turned the full fury of my resentment against that
recreant which had been the sole cause of all the evil accidents which
had befallen me.

               Three times I grasped the two-edged blade
               The recreant to cut away;
               Three times by Fear my hand was stayed
               And palsied Terror said me nay
               That which I might have done before
               ‘Twas now impossible to do;
               For, cold with Fear, the wretch withdrew
               Into a thousand-wrinkled mare,
               And shrank in shame before my gaze
               Nor would his head uncover more.
               But though the scamp in terror skulked,
               With words I flayed him as he sulked.

Raising myself upon my elbow I rebuked the shirker in some such terms as
these: “What have you to say for yourself, you disgrace to gods and men,”
 I demanded, “for your name must never be mentioned among refined people.
Did I deserve to be lifted up to heaven and then dragged down to hell by
you?  Was it right for you to slander my flourishing and vigorous years
and land me in the shadows and lassitude of decrepit old age?  Give me
some sign, however faint, I beg of you, that you have returned to life!”
 I vented my anger in words such as these.

               His eyes were fixed, and with averted look
               He stood, less moved by any word of mine
               Than weeping willows bending o’er a brook
               Or drooping poppies as at noon they pine.

When I had made an end of this invective, so out of keeping with good
taste, I began to do penance for my soliloquy and blushed furtively
because I had so far forgotten my modesty as to invoke in words that part
of my body which men of dignity do not even recognize.  Then, rubbing my
forehead for a long time, “Why have I committed an indiscretion in
relieving my resentment by natural abuse,” I mused, “what does it amount
to?  Are we not accustomed to swear at every member of the human body,
the belly, throat, or even the head when it aches, as it often does?  Did
not Ulysses wrangle with his own heart?  Do not the tragedians ‘Damn
their eyes’ just as if they could hear?

“Gouty patients swear at their feet, rheumatics at their hands,
blear-eyed
people at their eyes, and do not those who often stub their toes blame
their feet for all their pain?

               “Why will our Catos with their frowning brows
               Condemn a work of fresh simplicity’?
               A cheerful kindness my pure speech endows;
               What people do, I write, to my capacity.
               For who knows not the pleasures Venus gives?
               Who will not in a warm bed tease his members?
               Great Epicurus taught a truth that lives;
               Love and enjoy life!  All the rest is embers.

“Nothing can be more insincere than the silly prejudices of mankind, and
nothing sillier than the morality of bigotry,”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THIRD.

I called Giton when I had finished my meditation: “Tell me, little
brother,” I demanded, “tell me, on your honor: Did Ascyltos stay awake
until he had exacted his will of you, the night he stole you away from
me?  Or was he content to spend the night like a chaste widow?”  Wiping
his eyes the lad, in carefully chosen words took oath that Ascyltos had
used no force against him.  (The truth of the matter is, that I was so
distraught with my own misfortunes that I knew not what I was saying.
“Why recall past memories which can only cause pain,” said I to myself.
I then directed all my energies towards the recovery of my lost manhood.
To achieve this I was ready even to devote myself to the gods;
accordingly, I went out to invoke the aid of Priapus.) {Putting as good a
face upon the matter as I could} I knelt upon the threshold of his shrine
and invoked the God in the following verses:

              “Of Bacchus and the nymphs, companion boon,
               Whom fair Dione set o’er forests wide
               As God: whom Lesbos and green Thasos own
               For deity, whom Lydians, far and wide
               Adore through all the seasons of the year;
               Whose temple in his own Hypaepa placed,
               Thou Dryad’s joy and Bacchus’, hear my prayer!
               To thee I come, by no dark blood disgraced,
               No shrine, in wicked lust have I profaned;
               When I was poor and worn with want, I sinned
               Not by intent, a pauper’s sin’s not banned
               As of another!  Unto thee I pray
               Lift thou the load from off my tortured mind,
               Forgive a light offense!  When fortune smiles
               I’ll not thy glory shun and leave behind
               Thy worship!  Unto thee, a goat that feels
               His primest vigor, father of the flocks
               Shall come!  And suckling pigs, the tender young
               Of some fine grunting sow!  New wine, in crocks
               Shall foam!  Thy grateful praises shall be sung
               By youths who thrice shall dance around thy shrine
               Happy, in youth and full of this year’s wine!”

While I was engaged in this diplomatic effort in behalf of the affected
member, a hideous crone with disheveled hair, and clad in black garments
which were in great disorder, entered the shrine and, laying hands upon
me, led me {thoroughly frightened,} out into the portico.




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FOURTH.

“What witches” (she cried,) “have devoured your manhood?  What filth did
you tread upon at some crossroads, in the dark?  Not even by the boy
could you do your duty but, weak and effeminate, you are worn out like a
cart-horse at a hill, you have lost both labor and sweat!  Not content
with getting yourself into trouble, you have stirred up the wrath of the
gods against me {and I will make you smart for it.”}  She then led me,
unresisting, back into the priestess’s room, pushed me down upon the bed,
snatched a cane that hung upon the door, and gave me another thrashing:
I remained silent and, had the cane not splintered at the first stroke,
thereby diminishing the force of the blow, she might easily have broken
my arms or my head.  I groaned dismally, and especially when she
manipulated my member and, shedding a flood of tears, I covered my head
with my right arm and huddled down upon the pillow.  Nor did she weep
less bitterly:

The sailor, naked from his foundered barque,
Some shipwrecked mariner seeks out to hear his woe;
When hail beats down a farmer’s crop, his cark
Seeks consolation from another, too.
Death levels caste and sufferers unites,
And weeping parents are as one in grief;
We also will beseech the starry heights,
United prayers climb best, is the belief.

She seated herself upon the other side of the bed and in quavering tones
commenced to accuse the delays of old age.  At last the priestess came
in.  “Why,” she cried, “what has brought you into my cell as if you were
visiting a newly made grave?  And on a feast-day, too, when even mourners
ought to smile!”  “OEnothea,” the old hag replied, “this young man here
was born under an unlucky star: he can’t dispose of his goods to either
boy or girl.  Such an unfortunate fellow you never saw.  He has no tool
at all, only a piece of leather soaked in water!  I wish you would tell
me what you think of a man who could get up from Circe’s bed without
having tasted pleasure!”  On hearing these words, OEnothea sat down
between us and, after shaking her head for a while, “I’m the only one
that knows how to cure that disease,” said she, “and for fear you think
I’m talking to hear myself talk, I’ll just have the young fellow sleep
with me for a night, and if I don’t make it as hard as horn!

     All that you see in the world must give heed to my mandates;

     Blossoming earth, when I will it, must languish, a desert.’

     Riches pour forth, when I will it, from crags and grim boulders

     Waters will spurt that will rival the Nile at its flooding

     Seas calm their billows before me, gales silence their howlings,

     Hearing my step!  And the rivers sink into their channels;

     Dragons, Hyrcanian tigers stand fast at my bidding!

     Why should I tell you of small things?  The image of Luna

     Drawn by my spells must descend, and Apollo, atremble

     Backs up his horses and turns from his course at my order!

     Such is the power of my word!  By the rites of a virgin

     Quenched is the raging of bulls; and the sun’s daughter Circe

     Changed and transfigured the crew of the wily Ulysses.

     Proteus changes his form when his good pleasure dictates,

     I, who am skilled in these arts, can the shrubs of Mount Ida

     Plant in the ocean; turn rivers to flow up the mountains!”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIFTH.

At this declaration, which was so awe-inspiring, I shuddered in terror,
and commenced to scrutinize the crone more narrowly.  “Come now,” said
OEnothea, “obey my orders,” and, carefully wiping her hands, she bent
over the cot and kissed me, once, twice!  On the middle of the altar
OEnothea placed an old table, upon which she heaped live coals, then with
melted pitch she repaired a goblet which had become cracked through age.
Next she replaced, in the smoke-stained wall, a peg which had come out
when she took down the wooden goblet.  Then, having donned a mantle, in
the shape of a piece of square-cut cloth, she set a huge kettle upon the
hearth and at the same time speared with a fork a cloth hanging upon the
meathooks, and lifted it down.  It contained some beans which had been
laid away for future use, and a very small and stale piece of pig’s
cheek, scored with a thousand slashes.  When she had untied the string
which fastened the cloth, she poured some of the beans upon the table and
ordered me to shell them quickly and carefully.  I obey her mandate and
with careful fingers separate the beans from the filthy pods which
contain them; but she, accusing my clumsiness, hastily snatched them and,
skillfully tearing off the pods with her teeth, spat them upon the
ground, where they looked like dead flies.  I wondered, then, at the
ingenuity of poverty and its expedients for emergency.  (So ardent a
follower of this virtue did the priestess seem that it was reflected in
everything around her.  Her dwelling, in particular, was a very shrine of
poverty.)

          No Indian ivory set in gold gleamed here,
          No trodden marble glistened here; no earth
          Mocked for its gifts; but Ceres’ festive grove:
          With willow wickerwork ‘twas set around,
          New cups of clay by revolutions shaped
          Of lowly wheel.  For honey soft, a bowl;
          Platters of green bark wickerwork, a jar
          Stained by the lifeblood of the God of Wine;
          The walls around with chaff and spattered clay
          Were covered.  Flanging from protruding nails
          Were slender stalks of the green rush; and then
          Suspended from the smoky beam, the stores
          Of this poor cottage.  Service berries soft,
          Entwined in fragrant wreaths hung down,
          Dried savory and raisins by the bunch.
          An hostess here like she on Attic soil,
          Of Hecate’s pure worship worthy she!
          Whose fame Kallimachos so grandly sang
          ‘Twill live forever through the speaking years.




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SIXTH.

In the meantime, (having shelled the beans,) she took a mouthful of the
meat and with the fork was replacing the pig’s cheek, which was coeval
with herself, upon the meat-hook, when the rotten stool, which she was
using to augment her height, broke down under the old lady’s weight and
let her fall upon the hearth.  The neck of the pot was broken, putting
out the fire, which was just getting a good start, her elbow was burned
by a flaming brand, and her whole face was covered by the ashes raised by
her fall.  I jumped up in dismay and, not without laughing, helped the
old lady to her feet.  She hastily scurried out into the neighborhood to
replenish the fire, for fear anything should delay the sacrifice.  I was
on my way to the door of the cell when lo! and behold! three sacred geese
which were accustomed, I suppose, to demand their feed from the old woman
at midday, made a rush at me and, surrounding me, made me nervous with
their abominable rabid cackling.  One tore at my tunic, another undid the
lacings of my sandals and tugged at them, but one in particular, the
ringleader and moving spirit of this savage attack, did not hesitate to
worry at my leg with his serrated bill.  Unable to see the joke, I
twisted off one of the legs of the little table and, thus armed, began to
belabor the pugnacious brute.  Nor did I rest content with a light blow,
I avenged myself by the death of the goose.

               ‘Twas thus, I ween, the birds of Stymphalus
               To heaven fled, by Herakles impelled;
               The Harpies, too, whose reeking pinions held
               That poison which the feast of Phineus
               Contaminated.  All the air above
               With their unwonted lamentations shook,
               The heavens in uproar and confusion move
               {The Stars, in dread, their orbits then forsook!}

By this time the two remaining geese had picked up the beans which had
been scattered all over the floor and bereft, I suppose, of their leader,
had gone back into the temple; and I, well content with my revenge and my
booty, threw the dead goose behind the cot and bathed the trifling wound
in my leg with vinegar: then, fearing a scolding, I made up my mind to
run away and, collecting together all my belongings, started to leave the
house.  I had not yet stepped over the threshold of the cell, however,
when I caught sight of OEnothea returning with an earthen vessel full of
live coals.  Thereupon I retraced my steps and, throwing off my garments,
I took my stand just inside the door, as if I were awaiting her return.
She banked her fire with broken reeds, piled some pieces of wood on top,
and began to excuse her delay on the ground that her friend would not
permit her to leave until after the customary three drinks had been
taken.  “But what were you up to in my absence?”  she demanded.  “Where
are the beans?”  Thinking that I had done a thing worthy of all praise, I
informed her of the battle in all its details and, that she might not be
downcast any longer, I produced the dead goose in payment for her loss.
When the old lady laid eyes upon that, she raised such a clamor that you
would have thought that the geese had invaded the room again.  Confounded
and thunderstruck at the novelty of my crime, I asked her why she was so
angry and why she pitied the goose rather than myself.




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVENTH.

But, beating her palms together, “You villain, are you so brazen that you
can speak?”  she shrieked.  “Don’t you know what a serious crime you’ve
committed?  You have slaughtered the delight of Priapus, a goose, the
very darling of married women!  And for fear you think that nothing
serious has happened, if the magistrates find this out you’ll go to the
cross!  Until this day my dwelling has been inviolate and you have
polluted it with blood!  You have conducted yourself in such a manner
that any enemy I have can turn me out of the priesthood!”

     She spoke, and from her trembling head she tore the snow-white hair,
          And scratched her cheeks: her eyes shed floods of tears.
     As when a torrent headlong rushes down the valleys drear,
          Its icy fetters gone when Sprint appears,
     And strikes the frozen shackles from rejuvenated earth
          So down her face the tears in torrents swept
          And wracking sobs convulsed her as she wept.

“Please don’t make such a fuss,” I said, “I’ll give you an ostrich in
place of your goose!”  While she sat upon the cot and, to my
stupefaction, bewailed the death of the goose, Proselenos came in with
the materials for the sacrifice.  Seeing the dead goose and inquiring the
cause of her grief, she herself commenced to weep more violently still
and to commiserate me, as if I had slain my own father, instead of a
public goose.  Growing tired of this nonsense at last, “See here,”
 said I, “could I not purchase immunity for a price, even though I had
assaulted you’?  Even though I had murdered a man?  Look here!  I’m
laying down two gold pieces, you can buy both gods and geese with them!”
 “Forgive me, young man,” said OEnothea, when she caught sight of the
gold, “I am anxious upon your account; that is a proof of love, not of
malignity.  Let us take such precautions that not a soul will find this
out.  As for you, pray to the gods to forgive your sacrilege!”

          The rich man can sail in a favoring gale
             And snap out his course at his pleasure;
          A Dance espouse, no Acrisius will rail,
             His credence by hers he will measure;
          Write verse, or declaim; snap the finger of scorn
             At the world, yet still win all his cases,
          The rabble will drink in his words with concern
             When a Cato austere it displaces.
          At law, his “not proven,” or “proved,” he can have
             With Servius or Labeo vieing;
          With gold at command anything he may crave
             Is his without asking or sighing.
          The universe bows at his slightest behest,
             For Jove is a prisoner in his treasure chest.

In the meantime, she scurried around and put a jar of wine under my hands
and, when my fingers had all been spread out evenly, she purified them
with leeks and parsley.  Then, muttering incantations, she threw
hazel-nuts into the wine and drew her conclusions as they sank or
floated; but she did not hoodwink me, for those with empty shells, no
kernel and full of air, would of course float, while those that were
heavy and full of sound kernel would sink to the bottom.  {She then
turned her attention to the goose,} and, cutting open the breast, she
drew out a very fat liver from which she foretold my future.  Then, for
fear any trace of the crime should remain, she cut the whole goose up,
stuck the pieces upon spits, and served up a very delectable dinner for
me, whom, but a moment before, she had herself condemned to death, in
her own words!  Meanwhile, cups of unmixed wine went merrily around (and
the crones greedily devoured the goose which they had but so lately
lamented.  When the last morsel had disappeared, OEnothea, half-drunk by
this time, looked at me and said, “We must now go through with the
mysteries, so that you may get back your virility.”)




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-EIGHTH.

(As she said this OEnothea brought) out a leathern dildo which, when she
had smeared it with oil, ground pepper, and pounded nettle seed, she
commenced to force, little by little, up my anus.  The merciless old
virago then anointed the insides of my thighs with the same decoction;
finally mixing nasturtium juice with elixir of southern wood, she gave my
genitals a bath and, picking up a bunch of green nettles, she commenced
to strike me gently all over my belly below the navel. {The nettles stung
me horribly and I suddenly took to my heels, with the old hags in full
pursuit.}  Although they were befuddled with wine and lust they followed
the right road and chased me through several wards, screaming “Stop
thief.”  I made good my escape, however, although every toe was bleeding
as the result of my headlong flight.  (I got home as quickly as I could
and, worn out with fatigue, I sought my couch, but I could not snatch a
wink of sleep for the evil adventures which had befallen me kept running
through my brain and, brooding upon them, I came to the conclusion that
no one could be so abjectly unfortunate.  “Has Fortune, always inimical
to me, stood in need of the pangs of love, that she might torture me more
cruelly still,” I cried out; “unhappy wretch that I am!  Fortune and Love
have joined forces to bring about my ruin.  Cruel Eros himself had never
dealt leniently with me, loved or lover I am put to the torture!  Take
the case of Chrysis:  she loves me desperately, never leaves off teasing
me, she who despised me as a servant, because, when she was acting as her
mistress’s go-between, I was dressed in the garments of a slave: she, I
say) that same Chrysis, who looked with contempt upon your former lowly
lot, is now bent upon following it up even at the peril of her life; (she
swore that she would never leave my side on the day when she told me of
the violence of her passion: but Circe owns me, heart and soul, all
others I despise.  Who could be lovelier  than  she?)  What  loveliness
had Ariadne or Leda to compare with hers?  What had Helen to compare with
her, what has Venus?  If Paris himself had seen her with her dancing
eyes, when he acted as umpire for the quarreling goddesses, he would have
given up Helen and the goddesses for her!  If I could only steal a kiss,
if only I might put my arms around that divine, that heavenly bosom,
perhaps the virility would come back to this body and the parts, flaccid
from witchcraft would, I believe, come into their own.  Contempt cannot
tire me out: what if I was flogged; I will forget it!  What if I was
thrown out!  I will treat it as a joke!  Only let me be restored to her
good graces!

     At rest on my pallet, night’s silence had scarce settled down

     To soothe me, and eyes heavy-laden with slumber to lull

     When torturing Amor laid hold of me, seizing my hair

     And dragging me, wounding me, ordered a vigil till dawn.

     ‘Oh heart of stone, how canst thou lie here alone?’ said the God,

     ‘Thou joy of a thousand sweet mistresses, how, oh my slave?’

     In disarrayed nightrobe I leap to bare feet and essay

     To follow all paths; but a road can discover by none.

     One moment I hasten; the next it is torture to move,

     It irks me again to turn back, shame forbids me to halt

     And stand in the midst of the road.  Lo! the voices of men,

     The roar of the streets, and the songs of the birds, and the bark

     Of vigilant watch-dogs are hushed!  Alone, I of all

     Society dread both my slumber and couch, and obey

     Great Lord of the Passions, thy mandate which on me was laid.”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-NINTH.

(Such thoughts as these, of lovely Circe’s charms so wrought upon my mind
that) I disordered my bed by embracing the image, as it were, of my
mistress, (but my efforts were all wasted.)  This obstinate (affliction
finally wore out my patience, and I cursed the hostile deity by whom I
was bewitched.  I soon recovered my composure, however, and, deriving
some consolation from thinking of the heroes of old, who had been
persecuted by the anger of the gods, I broke out in these lines:)

     Hostile gods and implacable rate not me alone pursue;

     Herakles once suffered the weight of heaven’s displeasure too

     Driven from the Inachian coast: Laomedon of old

     Sated two of the heavenly host: in Pelias, behold

     Juno’s power to avenge an affront; and Telephus took arms

     Knowing not he must bear the brunt; Ulysses feared the storms

     Angry Neptune decreed as his due.  Now, me to overwhelm

     Outraged Priapus ever pursues on land and Nereus’ realm.

(Tortured by these cares I spent the whole night in anxiety, and at dawn,
Giton, who had found out that I had slept at home, entered the room and
bitterly accused me of leading a licentious life; he said that the whole
household was greatly concerned at what I had been doing, that I was so
rarely present to attend to my duties, and that the intrigue in which I
was engaged would very likely bring about my ruin.  I gathered from this
that he had been well informed as to my affairs, and that someone had
been to the house inquiring for me.  Thereupon,) I began to ply Giton
with questions as to whether anyone had made inquiry for me; “Not today,”
 he replied, “but yesterday a woman came in at the door, not bad looking,
either, and after talking to me for quite a while, and wearing me out
with her far-fetched conversation, finally ended by saying that you
deserved punishment, and that you would receive the scourging of a slave
if the injured party pressed his complaint.”  (This news afflicted me so
bitterly that I levelled fresh recriminations against Fortune, and) I had
not yet finished grumbling when Chrysis came in and, throwing herself
upon me, embraced me passionately.  “I have you,” she cried, “just as I
hoped I would; you are my heart’s desire, my joy, you can never put out
this flame of mine unless you quench it in my blood!”  (I was greatly
embarrassed by this wantonness of Chrysis and had recourse to flattery
in order that I might rid myself of her, as I feared that her passionate
outcries would reach the ears of Eumolpus who, in the arrogance of
success, had put on the manner of the master.  So on this account, I did
everything I could think of to calm Chrysis.  I feigned love, whispered
compliments, in short, so skillfully did I dissimulate that she believed
I was Love’s own captive.  I showed her what pressing peril overhung us
should she be caught in that room with me, as Eumolpus was only too ready
to punish the slightest offense.  On hearing this, she left me hurriedly,
and all the more quickly, as she caught sight of Giton, who had only left
me a little before she had come in, on his way to my room.  She was
scarcely gone when) one of the newly engaged servants rushed in and
informed me that the master was furiously angry with me because of my two
days’ absence from duty; I would do well, therefore, to prepare some
plausible excuse, as it was not likely that his angry passion would be
placated until someone had been flogged.  (Seeing that I was so vexed and
disheartened, Giton said not a word about the woman, contenting himself
with speaking of Eumolpus, and advising me that it would be better to
joke with him than to treat the matter seriously.  I followed this lead
and appeared before the old fellow, with so merry a countenance that,
instead of showing severity, he received me with good humor and rallied
me upon the success of my love affairs, praising the elegance of my
figure which made me such a favorite with the ladies.  “I know very
well,” he went on, “that a lovely woman is dying for love of you,
Encolpius, and this may come in handy for us, so play your part and I’ll
play mine, too!”)




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND FORTIETH.

(He was still speaking, when in came a) matron of the most exclusive
social set, Philumene by name, who had often, when young, extorted many
a legacy by means of her charms, but an old woman now, the flower of her
beauty faded, she threw her son and daughter in the way of childless old
men and through this substitution she contrived to continue her
established policy.  She came to Eumolpus, both to commend her children
to his practical judgment and to entrust herself and her hopes to his
good nature, he being the only one in all the world who could daily
instruct young children in healthy precepts.  In short, she left her
children in Eumolpus’ house in order that they might hear the words that
dropped from his lips, as this was the only legacy she could leave to
them.  Nor did she do otherwise than as she had promised, but left in
his bed chamber a very beautiful daughter and her brother, a lad, and
pretended that she herself was compelled to go out to a temple to offer
up her vows.  Eumolpus, who was so continent that even I was a boy in his
eyes, lost no time in inviting the damsel to sacrifice to the Aversa
Venus; but, as he had told everyone that he was gouty and that his back
was weak, and as he stood in danger of upsetting the whole farce if he
did not carefully live up to the pretence, he therefore, that the
imposture might be kept up, prevailed upon the young lady to seat herself
upon that goodness which had been commended to her, and ordered Corax to
crawl under the bed upon which he himself was lying and after bracing
himself by putting his hands upon the floor, to hoist his master up and
down with his own back.  Corax carried out the order in full and
skillfully seconded the wriggling of the girl with a corresponding
seesaw.  Then, when the crisis was about due, Eumolpus, in a ringing
voice, called out to Corax to increase the cadence.  And thus the old
lecher, suspended between his servant and his mistress, enjoyed himself
just as if he were in a swing.  Time and again Eumolpus repeated this
performance, to the accompaniment of ringing laughter in which he himself
joined.  At last, fearing I might lose an opportunity through lack of
application, I also made advances to the brother who was enjoying the
gymnastics of his sister through the keyhole, to see if he would prove
amenable to assault.  Nor did this well trained lad reject my advances;
but alas!  I discovered that the God was still my enemy.  (However, I was
not so blue over this failure as I had been over those before, and my
virility returned a little later and, suddenly finding myself in better
fettle I cried out,) “Great are the gods who have made me whole again!
In his loving kindness, Mercury, who conducts and reconducts the souls,
has restored to me that which a hostile hand had cut away.  Look!  You
will find that I am more graciously endowed than was Protestilaus or any
other of the heroes of old!”  So saying, I lifted up my tunic and showed
Eumolpus that I was whole.  At first he was startled, then, that he might
believe his own eyes, he handled this pledge of the good will of the gods
with both hands.  (Our good humor was revived by this blessing and we
laughed at the diplomacy of Philumene and at the skill with which her
children plied their calling, little likely to profit them much with us,
however, as it was only in hopes of coming into a legacy that she had
abandoned the boy and girl to us.  Meditating upon this unscrupulous
method of getting around childless old men, I began to take thought of
the present state of our own affairs and made use of the occasion to warn
Eumolpus that he might be bitten in biting the biters.  “Everything that
we do,” I said, “should be dictated by Prudence.) Socrates, {whose
judgment was riper than that} of the gods or of men used to boast that he
had never looked into a tavern nor believed the evidence of his own eyes
in any crowded assembly which was disorderly: so nothing is more in
keeping than always conversing with wisdom.

     Live coals are more readily held in men’s mouths than a secret!

     Whatever you talk of at home will fly forth in an instant,

     Become a swift rumor and beat at the walls of your city.

     Nor is it enough that your confidence thus has been broken,

     As rumor but grows in the telling and strives to embellish.

     The covetous servant who feared to make public his knowledge

     A hole in the ground dug, and therein did whisper his secret

     That told of a king’s hidden ears: this the earth straightway
     echoed,

     And rustling reeds added that Midas was king in the story.

“Every word of this is true,” I insisted, “and no one deserves to get into
trouble more quickly than he who covets the goods of others!  How could
cheats and swindlers live unless they threw purses or little bags
clinking with money into the crowd for bait?  Just as dumb brutes are
enticed by food, human beings are not to be caught unless they have
something in the way of hope at which to nibble!  (That was the reason
that the Crotonians gave us such a satisfactory reception, but) the ship
does not arrive, from Africa, with your money and your slaves, as you
promised.  The patience of the fortune-hunters is worn out and they have
already cut down their liberality so that, either I am mistaken, or else
our usual luck is about to return to punish you!”




CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FIRST.

(“I have thought up a scheme,” replied Eumolpus, “which will embarrass
our fortune-hunting friends sorely,” and as he said this, he drew his
tablets from his wallet and read his last wishes aloud, as follows:)
“All who are down for legacies under my will, my freedmen only excepted,
shall come into what I bequeath them subject to this condition, that they
do cut my body into pieces and devour said pieces in sight of the crowd:
{nor need they be inordinately shocked} for among some peoples, the law
ordaining that the dead shall be devoured by their relatives is still in
force; nay, even the sick are often abused because they render their own
flesh worse!  I admonish my friends, by these presents, lest they refuse
what I command, that they devour my carcass with as great relish as they
damned my soul!”  (Eumolpus had just started reading the first clauses
when several of his most intimate friends entered the room and catching
sight of the tablets in his hand in which was contained his last will and
testament, besought him earnestly to permit them to hear the contents.
He consented immediately and read the entire instrument from first to
last.  But when they had heard that extraordinary stipulation by which
they were under the necessity of devouring his carcass, they were greatly
cast down, but) his reputation for enormous wealth dulled the eyes and
brains of the wretches, (and they were such cringing sycophants that they
dared not complain of the outrage in his hearing.  One there was,
nevertheless, named) Gorgias, who was willing to comply, (provided he did
not have too long to wait!  To this, Eumolpus made answer:) “I have no
fear that your stomach will turn, it will obey orders; if, for one hour
of nausea you promise it a plethora of good things: just shut your eyes
and pretend that it’s not human guts you’ve bolted, but ten million
sesterces!  And beside, we will find some condiment which will disguise
the taste!  No flesh is palatable of itself, it must be seasoned by art
and reconciled to the unwilling stomach.  And, if you desire to fortify
the plan by precedents, the Saguntines ate human flesh when besieged by
Hannibal, and they had no legacy in prospect!  In stress of famine, the
inhabitants of Petelia did the same and gained nothing from the diet
except that they were not hungry!  When Numantia was taken by Scipio,
mothers, with the half-eaten bodies of their babes in their bosoms, were
found!  (Therefore, since it is only the thought of eating human flesh
that makes you squeamish, you must try to overcome your aversion, with
all your heart, so that you may come into the immense legacies I have put
you down for!”  So carelessly did Eumolpus reel off these extravagances
that the fortune-hunters began to lose faith in the validity of his
promises and subjected our words and actions to a closer scrutiny
immediately; their suspicions grew with their experience and they came
to the conclusion that we were out and out grafters, and thereupon those
who had been put to the greatest expense for our entertainment resolved
to seize us and take it out in just revenge; but Chrysis, who was privy
to all their scheming, informed me of the designs which the Crotonians
had hatched; and when I heard this news, I was so terrified that I fled
instantly, with Giton, and left Eumolpus to his fate.  I learned, a few
days later, that the Crotonians, furious because the old fox had lived
so long and so sumptuously at the public expense, had put him to death
in the Massilian manner.  That you may comprehend what this means, know
that) whenever the Massilians were ravaged by the plague, one of the poor
would offer himself to be fed for a whole year upon choice food at public
charge; after which, decked out with olive branches and sacred vestments,
he was led out through the entire city, loaded with imprecations so that
he might take to himself the evils from which the city suffered, and then
thrown headlong (from the cliff.)

THE END



ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:

Death levels caste and sufferers unites
Face, rouged and covered with cosmetics
For one hour of nausea you promise it a plethora of good things
In the arrogance of success, had put on the manner of the master
Live coals are more readily held in men’s mouths than a secret
Putting as good a face upon the matter as I could
Rumor but grows in the telling and strives to embellish
Something in the way of hope at which to nibble
Stained by the lifeblood of the God of Wine
To follow all paths; but a road can discover by none
Whatever you talk of at home will fly forth in an instant





                                  NOTES


PROSTITUTION.

There are two basic instincts in the character of the normal individual;
the will to live, and the will to propagate the species.  It is from the
interplay of these instincts that prostitution took origin, and it is for
this reason that this profession is the oldest in human experience, the
first offspring, as it were, of savagery and of civilization.  When Fate
turns the leaves of the book of universal history, she enters, upon the
page devoted thereto, the record of the birth of each nation in its
chronological order, and under this record appears the scarlet entry to
confront the future historian and arrest his unwilling attention; the
only entry which time and even oblivion can never efface.

If, prior to the time of Augustus Caesar, the Romans had laws designed to
control the social evil, we have no knowledge of them, but there is
nevertheless no lack of evidence to prove that it was only too well known
among them long before that happy age (Livy i, 4; ii, 18); and the
peculiar story of the Bacchanalian cult which was brought to Rome by
foreigners about the second century B.C. (Livy xxxix, 9-17), and the
comedies of Plautus and Terence, in which the pandar and the harlot are
familiar characters.  Cicero, Pro Coelio, chap. xx, says: “If there is
anyone who holds the opinion that young men should be interdicted from
intrigues with the women of the town, he is indeed austere!  That,
ethically, he is in the right, I cannot deny: but nevertheless, he is at
loggerheads not only with the licence of the present age, but even with
the habits of our ancestors and what they permitted themselves.  For when
was this NOT done?  When was it rebuked?  When found fault with?”  The
Floralia, first introduced about 238 B.C., had a powerful influence in
giving impetus to the spread of prostitution.  The account of the origin
of this festival, given by Lactantius, while no credence is to be placed
in it, is very interesting.  “When Flora, through the practice of
prostitution, had come into great wealth, she made the people her heir,
and bequeathed a certain fund, the income of which was to be used to
celebrate her birthday by the exhibition of the games they call the
Floralia” (Instit. Divin.  xx, 6).  In chapter x of the same book, he
describes the manner in which they were celebrated: “They were solemnized
with every form of licentiousness.  For in addition to the freedom of
speech that pours forth every obscenity, the prostitutes, at the
importunities of the rabble, strip off their clothing and act as mimes in
full view of the crowd, and this they continue until full satiety comes
to the shameless lookers-on, holding their attention with their wriggling
buttocks.”  Cato, the censor, objected to the latter part of this
spectacle, but, with all his influence, he was never able to abolish it;
the best he could do was to have the spectacle put off until he had left
the theatre.  Within 40 years after the introduction of this festival,
P. Scipio Africanus, in his speech in defense of Tib. Asellus, said: “If
you elect to defend your profligacy, well and good.  But as a matter of
fact, you have lavished, on one harlot, more money than the total value,
as declared by you to the Census Commissioners, of all the plenishing of
your Sabine farm; if you deny my assertion I ask who dare wager 1,000
sesterces on its untruth?  You have squandered more than a third of the
property you inherited from your father and dissipated it in debauchery”
 (Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, vii, 11).  It was about this time that
the Oppian law came up for repeal.  The stipulations of this law were as
follows: No woman should have in her dress above half an ounce of gold,
nor wear a garment of different colors, nor ride in a carriage in the
city or in any town, or within a mile of it, unless upon occasion of a
public sacrifice.  This sumptuary law was passed during the public
distress consequent upon Hannibal’s invasion of Italy.  It was repealed
eighteen years afterward, upon petition of the Roman ladies, though
strenuously opposed by Cato (Livy 34, 1; Tacitus, Annales, 3, 33).  The
increase of wealth among the Romans, the spoils wrung from their victims
as a portion of the price of defeat, the contact of the legions with the
softer, more civilized, more sensuous races of Greece and Asia Minor,
laid the foundations upon which the social evil was to rise above the
city of the seven hills, and finally crush her.  In the character of the
Roman there was but little of tenderness.  The well-being of the state
caused him his keenest anxiety.  One of the laws of the twelve tables,
the “Coelebes Prohibito,” compelled the citizen of manly vigor to satisfy
the promptings of nature in the arms of a lawful wife, and the tax on
bachelors is as ancient as the times of Furius Camillus.  “There was an
ancient law among the Romans,” says Dion Cassius, lib. xliii, “which
forbade bachelors, after the age of twenty-five, to enjoy equal political
rights with married men.  The old Romans had passed this law in hope
that, in this way, the city of Rome, and the Provinces of the Roman
Empire as well, might be insured an abundant population.”  The increase,
under the Emperors, of the number of laws dealing with sex is an accurate
mirror of conditions as they altered and grew worse.  The “Jus Trium
Librorum,” under the empire, a privilege enjoyed by those who had three
legitimate children, consisting, as it did, of permission to fill
a public office before the twenty-fifth year of one’s age, and in
freedom from personal burdens, must have had its origin in the grave
apprehensions for the future, felt by those in power.  The fact that this
right was sometimes conferred upon those who were not legally entitled
to benefit by it, makes no difference in this inference.  Scions of
patrician families imbibed their lessons from the skilled voluptuaries
of Greece and the Levant and in their intrigues with the wantons of those
climes, they learned to lavish wealth as a fine art.  Upon their return
to Rome they were but ill-pleased with the standard of entertainment
offered by the ruder and less sophisticated native talent; they imported
Greek and Syrian mistresses.  ‘Wealth increased, its message sped in
every direction, and the corruption of the world was drawn into Italy as
by a load-stone.  The Roman matron had learned how to be a mother, the
lesson of love was an unopened book; and, when the foreign hetairai
poured into the city, and the struggle for supremacy began, she soon
became aware of the disadvantage under which she contended.  Her natural
haughtiness had caused her to lose valuable time; pride, and finally
desperation drove her to attempt to outdo her foreign rivals; her native
modesty became a thing of the past, her Roman initiative, unadorned by
sophistication, was often but too successful in outdoing the Greek and
Syrian wantons, but without the appearance of refinement which they
always contrived to give to every caress of passion or avarice.  They
wooed fortune with an abandon that soon made them the objects of contempt
in the eyes of their lords and masters.  “She is chaste whom no man has
solicited,” said Ovid (Amor. i, 8, line 43).  Martial, writing about
ninety years later says: “Sophronius Rufus, long have I been searching
the city through to find if there is ever a maid to say ‘No’; there is
not one.”  (Ep. iv, 71.)  In point of time, a century separates Ovid and
Martial; from a moral standpoint, they are as far apart as the poles.
The revenge, then, taken by Asia, gives a startling insight into the real
meaning of Kipling’s poem, “The female of the species is more deadly than
the male.”  In Livy (xxxiv, 4) we read: (Cato is speaking), “All these
changes, as day by day the fortune of the state is higher and more
prosperous and her empire grows greater, and our conquests extend over
Greece and Asia, lands replete with every allurement of the senses, and
we appropriate treasures that may well be called royal,--all this I dread
the more from my fear that such high fortune may rather master us, than
we master it.”  Within twelve years of the time when this speech was
delivered, we read in the same author (xxxix, 6), “for the beginnings of
foreign luxury were brought into the city by the Asiatic army”; and
Juvenal (Sat. iii, 6), “Quirites, I cannot bear to see Rome a Greek city,
yet how small a fraction of the whole corruption is found in these dregs
of Achaea?  Long since has the Syrian Orontes flowed into the Tiber and
brought along with it the Syrian tongue and manners and cross-stringed
harp and harper and exotic timbrels and girls bidden stand for hire at
the circus.”  Still, from the facts which have come down to us, we cannot
arrive at any definite date at which houses of ill fame and women of the
town came into vogue at Rome.  That they had long been under police
regulation, and compelled to register with the aedile, is evident from a
passage in Tacitus: “for Visitilia, born of a family of praetorian rank,
had publicly notified before the aediles, a permit for fornication,
according to the usage that prevailed among our fathers, who supposed
that sufficient punishment for unchaste women resided in the very nature
of their calling.”  No penalty attached to illicit intercourse or to
prostitution in general, and the reason appears in the passage from
Tacitus, quoted above.  In the case of married women, however, who
contravened the marriage vow there were several penalties.  Among them,
one was of exceptional severity, and was not repealed until the time of
Theodosius: “again he repealed another regulation of the following
nature; if any should have been detected in adultery, by this plan she
was not in any way reformed, but rather utterly given over to an increase
of her ill behaviour.  They used to shut the woman up in a narrow room,
admitting any that would commit fornication with her, and, at the moment
when they were accomplishing their foul deed, to strike bells, that the
sound might make known to all, the injury she was suffering.  The Emperor
hearing this, would suffer it no longer, but ordered the very rooms to be
pulled down” (Paulus Diaconus, Hist. Miscel. xiii, 2).  Rent from a
brothel was a legitimate source of income (Ulpian, Law as to Female
Slaves Making Claim to Heirship).  Procuration also, had to be notified
before the aedile, whose special business it was to see that no Roman
matron became a prostitute.  These aediles had authority to search every
place which had reason to fear anything, but they themselves dared not
engage in any immorality there; Aulus Gellius, Noct.  Attic. iv, 14,
where an action at law is cited, in which the aedile Hostilius had
attempted to force his way into the apartments of Mamilia, a courtesan,
who thereupon, had driven him away with stones.  The result of the trial
is as follows: “the tribunes gave as their decision that the aedile had
been lawfully driven from that place, as being one that he ought not to
have visited with his officer.”  If we compare this passage with Livy,
xl, 35, we find that this took place in the year 180 B C.  Caligula
inaugurated a tax upon prostitutes (vectigal ex capturis), as a state
impost: “he levied new and hitherto unheard of taxes; a proportion of the
fees of prostitutes;--so much as each earned with one man.  A clause was
also added to the law directing that women who had practiced harlotry and
men who had practiced procuration should be rated publicly; and
furthermore, that marriages should be liable to the rate” (Suetonius,
Calig. xi).  Alexander Severus retained this law, but directed that such
revenue be used for the upkeep of the public buildings, that it might not
contaminate the state treasure (Lamprid. Alex. Severus, chap. 24).  This
infamous tax was not abolished until the time of Theodosius, but the real
credit is due to a wealthy patrician, Florentius by name, who strongly
censured this practice, to the Emperor, and offered his own property to
make good the deficit which would appear upon its abrogation (Gibbon,
vol. 2, p. 318, note).  With the regulations and arrangements of the
brothels, however, we have information which is far more accurate.  These
houses (lupanaria, fornices, et cet.) were situated, for the most part,
in the Second District of the City (Adler, Description of the City of
Rome, pp. 144 et seq.), the Coelimontana, particularly in the Suburra
that bordered the town walls, lying in the Carinae,--the valley between
the Coelian and Esquiline Hills.  The Great Market (Macellum Magnum) was
in this district, and many cook-shops, stalls, barber shops, et cet. as
well; the office of the public executioner, the barracks for foreign
soldiers quartered at Rome; this district was one of the busiest and most
densely populated in the entire city.  Such conditions would naturally be
ideal for the owner of a house of ill fame, or for a pandar.  The regular
brothels are described as having been exceedingly dirty, smelling of the
gas generated by the flame of the smoking lamp, and of the other odors
which always haunted these ill ventilated dens.  Horace, Sat. i, 2, 30,
“on the other hand, another will have none at all except she be standing
in the evil smelling cell (of the brothel)”; Petronius, chap. xxii, “worn
out by all his troubles, Ascyltos commenced to nod, and the maid, whom he
had slighted, and, of course, insulted, smeared lamp-black all over his
face”; Priapeia, xiii, 9, “whoever likes may enter here, smeared with the
black soot of the brothel”; Seneca, Cont. i, 2, “you reek still of the
soot of the brothel.”  The more pretentious establishments of the Peace
ward, however, were sumptuously fitted up.  Hair dressers were in
attendance to repair the ravages wrought in the toilette, by frequent
amorous conflicts, and aquarioli, or water boys attended at the door with
bidets for ablution.  Pimps sought custom for these houses and there was
a good understanding between the parasites and the prostitutes.  From the
very nature of their calling, they were the friends and companions of
courtesans.  Such characters could not but be mutually necessary to each
other.  The harlot solicited the acquaintance of the client or parasite,
that she might the more easily obtain and carry on intrigues with the
rich and dissipated.  The parasite was assiduous in his attention to the
courtesan, as procuring through her means, more easy access to his
patrons, and was probably rewarded by them both, for the gratification
which he obtained for the vices of the one and the avarice of the other.
The licensed houses seem to have been of two kinds: those owned and
managed by a pandar, and those in which the latter was merely an agent,
renting rooms and doing everything in his power to supply his renters
with custom.  The former were probably the more respectable.  In these
pretentious houses, the owner kept a secretary, villicus puellarum, or
superintendent of maids; this official assigned a girl her name, fixed
the price to be demanded for her favors, received the money and provided
clothing and other necessities: “you stood with the harlots, you stood
decked out to please the public, wearing the costume the pimp had
furnished you”; Seneca, Controv. i, 2.  Not until this traffic had become
profitable, did procurers and procuresses (for women also carried on this
trade) actually keep girls whom they bought as slaves: “naked she stood
on the shore, at the pleasure of the purchaser; every part of her body
was examined and felt.  Would you hear the result of the sale?  The
pirate sold; the pandar bought, that he might employ her as a
prostitute”; Seneca, Controv. lib. i, 2.  It was also the duty of the
villicus, or cashier, to keep an account of what each girl earned: “give
me the brothel-keeper’s accounts, the fee will suit” (Ibid.)

When an applicant registered with the aedile, she gave her correct name,
her age, place of birth, and the pseudonym under which she intended
practicing her calling.  (Plautus, Poen.)

If the girl was young and apparently respectable, the official sought to
influence her to change her mind; failing in this, he issued her a
license (licentia stupri), ascertained the price she intended exacting
for her favors, and entered her name in his roll.  Once entered there,
the name could never be removed, but must remain for all time an
insurmountable bar to repentance and respectability.  Failure to register
was severely punished upon conviction, and this applied not only to the
girl but to the pandar as well.  The penalty was scourging, and
frequently fine and exile.  Notwithstanding this, however, the number
of clandestine prostitutes at Rome was probably equal to that of the
registered harlots.  As the relations of these unregistered women were,
for the most part, with politicians and prominent citizens it was very
difficult to deal with them effectively: they were protected by their
customers, and they set a price upon their favors which was commensurate
with the jeopardy in which they always stood.  The cells opened upon a
court or portico in the pretentious establishments, and this court was
used as a sort of reception room where the visitors waited with covered
head, until the artist whose ministrations were particularly desired,
as she would of course be familiar with their preferences in matters of
entertainment, was free to receive them.  The houses were easily found by
the stranger, as an appropriate emblem appeared over the door.  This
emblem of Priapus was generally a carved figure, in wood or stone, and
was frequently painted to resemble nature more closely.  The size ranged
from a few inches in length to about two feet.  Numbers of these
beginnings in advertising have been recovered from Pompeii and
Herculaneum, and in one case an entire establishment, even to the
instruments used in gratifying unnatural lusts, was recovered intact.
In praise of our modern standards of morality, it should be said that it
required some study and thought to penetrate the secret of the proper use
of several of these instruments.  The collection is still to be seen in
the Secret Museum at Naples.  The mural decoration was also in proper
keeping with the object for which the house was maintained, and a few
examples of this decoration have been preserved to modern times; their
luster and infamous appeal undimmed by the passage of centuries.

Over the door of each cell was a tablet (titulus) upon which was the name
of the occupant and her price; the reverse bore the word “occupata” and
when the inmate was engaged the tablet was turned so that this word was
out.  This custom is still observed in Spain and Italy.  Plautus, Asin.
iv, i, 9, speaks of a less pretentious house when he says: “let her write
on the door that she is ‘occupata.’”  The cell usually contained a lamp
of bronze or, in the lower dens, of clay, a pallet or cot of some sort,
over which was spread a blanket or patch-work quilt, this latter being
sometimes employed as a curtain, Petronius, chap 7.

The arches under the circus were a favorite location for prostitutes;
ladies of easy virtue were ardent frequenters of the games of the circus
and were always ready at hand to satisfy the inclinations which the
spectacles aroused.  These arcade dens were called “fornices,” from which
comes our generic fornication.  The taverns, inns, lodging houses, cook
shops, bakeries, spelt-mills and like institutions all played a prominent
part in the underworld of Rome.  Let us take them in order:

Lupanaria--Wolf Dens, from lupa, a wolf.  The derivation, according to
Lactantius, is as follows: “for she (Lupa, i. e., Acca Laurentia) was the
wife of Faustulus, and because of the easy rate at which her person was
held at the disposal of all, was called, among the shepherds, ‘Lupa,’
that is, harlot, whence also ‘lupanar,’ a brothel, is so called.”  It may
be added, however, that there is some diversity of opinion upon this
matter.  It will be discussed more fully under the word “lupa.”

Fornix--An arch.  The arcades under the theatres.

Pergulae--Balconies, where harlots were shown.

Stabulae--Inns, but frequently houses of prostitution.

Diversorium--A lodging house; house of assignation.

Tugurium--A hut.  A very low den.

Turturilla--A dove cote; frequently in male part.

Casuaria--Road houses; almost invariably brothels.

Tabernae--Bakery shops.

The taverns were generally regarded by the magistrates as brothels and
the waitresses were so regarded by the law (Codex Theodos. lx, tit. 7,
ed. Ritter; Ulpian liiii, 23, De Ritu Nupt.).  The Barmaid (Copa),
attributed to Virgil, proves that even the proprietress had two strings
to her bow, and Horace, Sat. lib. i, v, 82, in describing his excursion
to Brundisium, narrates his experience, or lack of it, with a waitress in
an inn.  This passage, it should be remarked, is the only one in all his
works in which he is absolutely sincere in what he says of women.  “Here
like a triple fool I waited till midnight for a lying jade till sleep
overcame me, intent on venery; in that filthy vision the dreams spot my
night clothes and my belly, as I lie upon my back.”  In the AEserman
inscription (Mommsen, Inscr.  Regn.  Neap.  5078, which is number 7306 in
Orelli-Henzen) we have another example of the hospitality of these inns,
and a dialogue between the hostess and a transient.  The bill for the
services of a girl amounted to 8 asses.  This inscription is of great
interest to the antiquary, and to the archoeologist.  That bakers were
not slow in organizing the grist mills is shown by a passage from Paulus
Diaconus, xiii, 2: “as time went on, the owners of these turned the
public corn mills into pernicious frauds.  For, as the mill stones were
fixed in places under ground, they set up booths on either side of these
chambers and caused harlots to stand for hire in them, so that by these
means they deceived very many,--some that came for bread, others that
hastened thither for the base gratification of their wantonness.”  From a
passage in Festus, it would seem that this was first put into practice in
Campania:--“harlots were called ‘aelicariae’, ‘spelt-mill girls, in
Campania, being accustomed to ply for gain before the mills of the
spelt-millers.”  “Common strumpets, bakers’ mistresses, refuse the
spelt-mill girls,” says Plautus, i, ii, 54.

There are few languages which are richer in pornographic terminology
than the Latin.

Meretrix--Nomus Marcellus has pointed out the difference between this
class of prostitutes and the prostibula.  “This is the difference between
a meretrix (harlot) and a prostibula (common strumpet): a meretrix is of
a more honorable station and calling; for meretrices are so named a
merendo (from earning wages) because they plied their calling only by
night; prostibulu because they stand before the stabulum (stall) for gain
both by day and night.”

Prostibula--She who stands in front of her cell or stall.

Proseda--She who sits in front of her cell or stall.  She who later
became the Empress Theodora belonged to this class, if any credit is to
be given to Procopius.

Nonariae--She that is forbidden to appear before the ninth hour.

Mimae--Mime players.  They were almost invariably prostitutes.

Cymbalistriae--Cymbal players.  They were almost invariably prostitutes.

Ambubiae--Singing girls.  They were almost invariably prostitutes.

Citharistriae--Harpists.  They were almost invariably prostitutes.

Scortum--A strumpet.  Secrecy is implied, but the word has a broad usage.

Scorta erratica | Clandestine strumpets who were street walkers.
Secuteleia      |

Busturiae--Tomb frequenters and hangers-on at funerals.

Copae--Bar maids.

Delicatae--Kept mistresses.

Famosae--Soiled doves from respectable families.

Doris--Harlots of great beauty.  They wore no clothing.

Lupae--She wolves.  Some authorities affirm that this name was given them
because of a peculiar wolflike cry they uttered, and others assert that
the generic was bestowed upon then because their rapacity rivalled that
of the wolf.  Servius, however, in his commentary on Virgil, has assigned
a much more improper and filthy reason for the name; he alludes to the
manner in which the wolf who mothered Rotnulus and Reinus licked their
bodies with her tongue, and this hint is sufficient to confirm him in his
belief that the lupa; were not less skilled in lingual gymnastics.  See
Lemaire’s Virgil, vol. vi, p. 521; commentary of Servius on AEneid, lib.
viii, 631.

AElicariae--Bakers’ girls.

Noctiluae--Night walkers.

Blitidae--A very low class deriving their name from a cheap drink sold in
the dens they frequented.

Forariae--Country girls who frequented the roads.

Gallinae--Thieving prostitutes, because after the manner of hens,
prostitutes take anything and scatter everything.

Diobolares--Two obol girls.  So called from their price.

Amasiae, also in the diminutive--Girls devoted to Venus.  Their best
expression in modern society would be the “vamps.”

Amatrix--Female lover, frequently in male part.

Amica--Female friend, frequently a tribad.

Quadrantariae--The  lowest  class  of  all.  Their natural charms were no
longer merchantable.  She of whom Catullus speaks in connection with the
lofty souled descendants of Remus was of this stripe.

From many passages in the ancient authors it is evident that harlots
stood naked at the doors of their cells: “I saw some men prowling
stealthily between the rows of name-boards and naked prostitutes,”
 Petronius, chap. 7.  “She entered the brothel, cozy with its
crazy-quilt, and the empty cell--her own.  Then, naked she stands, with
gilded nipples, beneath the tablet of the pretended Lysisca,” Juvenal,
Sat. vi, 121 et seq.  In some cases they had recourse to a gossamer
tissue of silk gauze, as was formerly the custom in Paris, Chicago, and
San Francisco. “The matron has no softer thigh nor has she a more
beautiful leg,” says Horace, Sat. I, ii, “though the setting be one of
pearls and emeralds (with all due respect to thy opinion, Cerinthus),
the togaed plebeian’s is often the finer, and, in addition, the beauties
of figure are not camouflaged; that which is for sale, if honest, is
shown openly, whereas deformity seeks concealment.  It is the custom
among kings that, when buying horses, they inspect them in the open,
lest, as is often the case, a beautiful head is sustained by a tender
hoof and the eager purchaser may be seduced by shapely hocks, a short
head, or an arching neck.  Are these experts right in this?  Thou canst
appraise a figure with the eyes of Lynceus and discover its beauties;
though blinder than Hypoesea herself thou canst see what deformities
there are.  Ah, what a leg!  What arms!  But how thin her buttocks are,
in very truth what a huge nose she has, she’s short-waisted, too, and
her feet are out of proportion!  Of the matron, except for the face,
nothing is open to your scrutiny unless she is a Catia who has dispensed
with her clothing so that she may be felt all over thoroughly, the rest
will be hidden.  But as for the other, no difficulty there!  Through the
Coan silk it is as easy for you to see as if she were naked, whether she
has an unshapely leg, whether her foot is ugly; her waist you can
examine with your eyes.  As for the price exacted, it ranged from a
quadrans to a very high figure.  In the inscription to which reference
has already been made, the price was eight asses.  An episode related in
the life of Apollonius of Tyre furnishes additional information upon
this subject.  The lecher who deflowered a harlot was compelled to pay a
much higher price for alleged undamaged goods than was asked of
subsequent purchasers.

“Master,” cries the girl, throwing herself at his feet, “pity my
maidenhood, do not prostitute this body under so ugly a name.”  The
superintendent of maids replies, “Let the maid here present be dressed up
with every care, let a name-ticket be written for her, and the fellow who
deflowers Tarsia shall pay half a libra; afterwards she shall be at the
service of the public for one solidus per head.”

The passage in Petronius (chap. viii) and that in Juvenal (Sat. vi, 125)
are not to be taken literally.  “Aes” in the latter should be understood
to mean what we would call “the coin,” and not necessarily coin of low
denomination.






PAEDERASTIA.

The origin of this vice (all peoples, savage and civilized, have been
infected with it) is lost in the mists which shroud antiquity.  The Old
Testament contains many allusions to it, and Sodom was destroyed because
a long-suffering deity could not find ten men in the entire city who were
not addicted to its practice.  So saturated was this city of the ancient
world with the vice that the very name of the city or the adjective
denoting citizenship in that city have transmitted the stigma to modern
times.  That the fathers of Israel were quick to perceive the tortuous
ramifications of this vice is proved by a passage in Deuteronomy, chap.
22, verse .5: “the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to a man,
neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are
abominations unto the Lord thy God.”  Here we have the first regulation
against fetishism and the perverted tendencies of gynandry and androgeny.
Inasmuch as our concern with this subject has to do with the Roman world
alone, a lengthy discussion of the early, manifestations of this vice
would be out of place here; nevertheless, a brief sketch should be given
to serve as a foundation to such discussion and to aid sociologists who
will find themselves more and more concerned with the problem in view of
the conditions in European society, induced by the late war.  Their
problem will, however, be more intimately concerned with homosexuality
as it is manifested among women!

From remotest antiquity down to the present time, oriental nations have
been addicted to this practice and it is probably from this source that
the plague spread among the Greeks.  I do not assert that they were
ignorant of this form of indulgence prior to their association with the
Persians, for Nature teaches the sage as well as the savage.  Meier, the
author of the article “Paederastia” in Ersch and Grueber’s encyclopedia
(1837) is of the opinion that the vice had its origin among the
Boeotians, and John Addington Symonds in his essay on Greek Love concurs
in this view.  As the two scholars worked upon the same material from
different angles, and as the English writer was unacquainted with the
German savant’s monograph until after Burton had written his Terminal
Essay, it follows that the conclusions arrived at by these two scholars
must be worthy of credence.  The Greeks contemporary with the Homeric
poems were familiar with paederasty, and there is reason to believe that
it had been known for ages, even then.  Greek Literature, from Homer to
the Anthology teems with references to the vice and so common was it
among them that from that fact it derived its generic; “Greek Love.”  So
malignant is tradition that the Greeks of the present time still suffer
from the stigma, as is well illustrated by the proverb current among
sailors: “Englisha man he catcha da boy, Johnnie da Greek he catcha da
blame.”  The Romans are supposed to have received their first
introduction to paederasty and homosexuality generally, from the
Etruscans or from the Greek colonists in Italy, but Suidas (Tharnyris)
charges the inhabitants of Italy; with the invention of this vice and it
would appear from Athenaeus (Deiphnos. lib. xiii) that the native peoples
of Italy and the Greek colonists as well were addicted to the most
revolting practices with boys.  The case of Laetorius (Valerius Maximus
vi, 1, 11) proves that as early as 320 B. C., the Romans were no
strangers to it and also that it was not common among them, at that time.

As the character of the primitive Roman was essentially different from
that of the contemporary Greek, and as his struggle for existence was
severe in the extreme, there was little moral obliquity during the first
two hundred and fifty years.  The “coelibes prohibeto” of the Twelve
Tables was also a powerful influence in preserving chastity.  By the time
of Plautus, however, the practice of paederasty was much more general, as
is clearly proved by the many references which are found in his comedies
(Cist. iv, sc. 1, line 5) and passim.  By the year 169 B. C., the vice
had so ravaged the populace that the Lex Scantinia was passed to control
it, but legislation has never proved a success in repressing vice and the
effectiveness of this law was no exception to the rule.  Conditions grew
steadily worse with the passage of time and the extension of the Roman
power served to inoculate the legionaries with the vices of their
victims.  The destruction of Corinth may well have avenged itself in
this manner.  The accumulation of wealth and spoils gave the people more
leisure, increased their means of enjoyment, and educated their taste in
luxuries.  The influx of slaves and voluptuaries from the Levant aided in
the dissemination of the vices of the orient among the ruder Romans.  As
the first taste of blood arouses the tiger, so did the limitless power of
the Republic and Empire react to the insinuating precepts of older and
more corrupt civilizations.  The fragments of Lucilius make mention of
the “cinaedi,” in the sense that they were dancers, and in the earlier
ages, they were.  Cicero, in the second Philippic calls Antonius a
catamite; but in Republican Rome, it is to Catullus that we must turn to
find the most decisive evidence of their almost universal inclination to
sodomy.  The first notice of this passage in its proper significance is
found in the Burmann Petronius (ed. 1709): here, in a note on the correct
reading of “intertitulos, nudasque meretrices furtim conspatiantes,” the
ancient reading would seem to have been “internuculos nudasque meretrices
furtim conspatiantes” (and I am not at all certain but that it is to be
preferred).  Burmann cites the passage from Catullus (Epithalamium of
Manlius and Julia); Burmann sees the force of the passage but does not
grasp its deeper meaning.  Marchena seems to have been the first scholar
to read between the lines.  See his third note.

A few years later, John Colin  Dunlop, the author of a History of Roman
Literature which ought to be better known among the teaching fraternity,
drew attention to the same passage.  So striking is his comment that I
will transcribe it in full.  “It,” the poem, “has also been highly
applauded by the commentators; and more than one critic has declared that
it must have been written by the hands of Venus and the Graces.  I wish,
however, they had excepted from their unqualified panegyrics the coarse
imitation of the Fescennine poems, which leaves in our minds a stronger
impression of the prevalence and extent of Roman vices, than any other
passage in the Latin classics.  Martial, and Catullus himself, elsewhere,
have branded their enemies; and Juvenal in bursts of satiric indignation,
has reproached his countrymen with the most shocking crimes.  But here,
in a complimentary poem to a patron and intimate friend, these are
jocularly alluded to as the venial indulgences of his earliest youth”
 (vol. i, p. 453, second edition).

This passage clearly points to the fact that it was the common custom
among the young Roman patricians to have a bed-fellow of the same sex.
Cicero, in speaking of the acquittal of Clodius (Letters to Atticus, lib.
i, 18), says, “having bought up and debauched the tribunal”; charges that
the judges were promised the favors of the young gentlemen and ladies of
Rome, in exchange for their services in the matter of Clodius’ trial.
Manutius, in a note on this passage says, “bought up, because the judges
took their pay and held Clodius innocent and absolved him: debauched,
because certain women and youths of noble birth were introduced by night
to not a few of them (there were 56 judges) as additional compensation
for their attention to duty” (Variorum Notes to Cicero, vol. ii,
pp. 339-340).  In the Priapeia, the wayfarer is warned by Priapus to
refrain from stealing fruit under penalty of being assaulted from the
rear, and the God adds that, should this punishment hold no terrors,
there is still the possibility that his mentule may be used as a club by
the irate landowner.  Again, in Catullus, 100, the Roman paederasty
shows itself “Caelius loves Aufilenus and Quintus loves Aufilena
--madly.”  As we approach the Christian era the picture darkens.
Gibbon (vol. i, p. 313) remarks, in a note, that “of the first fifteen
emperors, Claudius was the only one whose taste in love was entirely
correct,” but Claudius was a moron.

We come now to the bathing establishments.  Their history in every
country is the same, in one respect: the spreading and fostering of
prostitution and paederastia.  Cicero (Pro Coelio) accuses Clodia of
having deliberately chosen the site of her gardens with the purpose of
having a look at the young fellows who came to the Tiber to swim.
Catullus (xxxiii) speaks of the cimaedi who haunt the bathing
establishments: Suetonius (Tib. 43 and 44) records the desperate
expedients to which Tiberius had recourse to regain his exhausted
virility: the scene in Petronius (chap. 92).  Martial (lib. i, 24)

“You invite no man but your bathing companion, Cotta, only the baths
supply you with a guest.  I used to wonder why you never invited me, now
I know that you did not like the look of me naked.”  Juvenal (ix, 32 et
seq.), “Destiny rules over mankind; the parts concealed by the front of
the tunic are controlled by the Fates; when Virro sees you naked and in
burning and frequent letters presses his ardent suit, with lips foaming
with desire; nothing will serve you so well as the unknown measure of a
long member.”  Lampridius (Heliogab. v), “At Rome, his principal concern
was to have emissaries everywhere, charged with seeking out men with huge
members; that they might bring them to him so that he could enjoy their
impressive proportions.”  The quotations given above furnish a sufficient
commentary upon the bathing establishments and the reasons for lighting
them.  In happier times, they were badly lighted as the apertures were
narrow and could admit but little light.  Seneca (Epist. 86) describes
the bath of Scipio: “In this bath of Scipio there were tiny chinks,
rather than windows, cut through the stone wall so as to admit light
without detriment to the shelter afforded; but men nowadays call them
‘baths-for-night-moths.’”  Under the empire, however, the bathing
establishments were open to the eye of the passer-by; lighted, as they
were by immense windows.  Seneca (Epist. 86), “But nowadays, any which
are disposed in such a way as to let the sunlight enter all day long,
through immense windows; men call baths-for-night-moths; if they are not
sunburned as they wash, if they cannot look out on the fields and sea
from the pavement.  Sweet clean baths have been introduced, but the
populace is only the more foul.”  In former times, youth and age were not
permitted to bathe together (Valer. Max.  ii, 7.), women and men used the
same establishments, but at different hours; later, however, promiscuous
bathing was the order of the day and men and women came more and more to
observe that precept, “noscetur e naso quanta sit hasta viro,” which Joan
of Naples had always in mind.  Long-nosed men were followed into the
baths and were the recipients of admiration wherever they were.  As
luxury increased, these establishments were fitted up with cells and
attendants of both sexes, skilled in massage, were always kept upon the
premises, in the double capacity of masseurs and prostitutes (Martial,
iii, 82, 13); (Juvenal, vi, 428), “the artful masseur presses the
clitoris with his fingers and makes the upper part of his mistress thigh
resound under his hands.”  The aquarioli or water boys also included
pandering in their tour of duty (Juvenal, Sat.  vi, 331) “some water
carrier will come, hired for the purpose,” and many Roman ladies had
their own slaves accompany them to the baths to assist in the toilette:
(Martial, vii, 3.4) “a slave girt about the loins with a pouch of black
leather stands by you whenever you are washed all over with warn water,”
 here, the mistress is taking no chances, her rights are as carefully
guarded as though the slave were infibulated in place of having his
generous virility concealed within a leather pouch.  (Claudianus, 18,
106) “he combed his mistress’ hair, and often, when she bathed, naked,
he would bring water, to his lady, in a silver ewer.”  Several of the
emperors attempted to correct these evils by executive order and
legislation, Hadrian (Spartianus, Life of Hadrian, chap. 18) “he assigned
separate baths for the two sexes”; Marcus Aurelius (Capitolinus, Life of
Marcus Antoninus, chap.  23) “he abolished the mixed baths and restrained
the loose habits of the Roman ladies and the young nobles,” and Alexander
Severus (Lampridius, Life of Alex. Severus, chap.  24.) “he forbade the
opening of mixed baths at Rome, a practice which, though previously
prohibited, Heliogabalus had allowed to be observed,” but,
notwithstanding their absolute authority, their efforts along those lines
met with little better success than have those of more recent times.  The
pages of Martial and Juvenal reek with the festering sores of the society
of that period, but Charidemus and Hedylus still dishonor the cities of
the modern world.  Tatian, writing in the second century, says (Orat. ad
Graecos): “paederastia is practiced by the barbarians generally, but is
held in pre-eminent esteem by the Romans, who endeavor to get together
troupes of boys, as it were of brood mares,” and Justin Martyr (Apologia,
1), has this to say: “first, because we behold nearly all men seducing to
fornication, not merely girls, but males also.  And just as our fathers
are spoken of as keeping herds of oxen, or goats, or sheep, or brood
mares, so now they keep boys, solely for the purpose of shameful usage,
treating them as females, or androgynes, and doing unspeakable acts.  To
such a pitch of pollution has the multitude throughout the whole people
come!”  Another sure indication of the prevalence of the vice of sodomy
is to be found in Juvenal, Sat. ii, 12-13, “but your fundament is smooth
and the swollen haemorrhoids are incised, the surgeon grinning the
while,” just as the physician of the nineties grinned when some young
fool came to him with a blennorrhoeal infection!  The ancient jest which
accounts for the shaving of the priest’s crown is an inferential
substantiation of the fact that the evils of antiquity, like the legal
codes, have descended through the generations; survived the middle ages,
and been transmitted to the modern world.  A perusal of the Raggionamente
of Pietro Aretino will confirm this statement, in its first premise, and
the experiences of Sir Richard Burton in the India of Napier, and Harry
Franck’s, in Spain, in the present century, and those of any intelligent
observer in the Orient, today, will but bear out this hypothesis.  The
native population of Manila contains more than its proportion of
catamites, who seek their sponsors in the Botanical Gardens and on the
Luneta.  The native quarters of the Chinese cities have their “houses”
 where boys are kept, just as the Egyptian mignons stood for hire in the
lupanaria at Rome.  A scene in Sylvia Scarlett could be duplicated in any
large city of Europe or America; there is no necessity of appeal to
Krafft-Ebbing or Havelock Ellis.  But there is still another and surer
method of gauging the extent of paederastic perversion at Rome, and that
is the richness of the Latin vocabulary in terms and words bearing upon
this repulsive subject.  There are, in the Latin language, no less than
one hundred and fifteen words and expressions in general usage.

But it is in Martial that we are able to sense the abandoned and
cynical attitude of the Roman public toward this vice: the epigram upon
Cantharus, xi, 46, is an excellent example.  In commentating upon the
meticulous care with which Cantharus avoided being spied upon by
irreverent witnesses, the poet sarcastically remarks that such
precautions would never enter the head of anyone were it merely a
question of having a boy or a woman, and he mentions them in the order
in which they are set forth here.  No one dreads the limelight like the
utter debauchee, as has been remarked by Seneca.  We find a parallel in
the old days in Shanghai, before the depredations of the American
hetairai had aroused the hostility of the American judge, in 1907-8.  Men
of unquestioned respectability and austere asceticism were in the habit
of making periodic trips to this pornographic Mecca for the reason that
they could there be accommodated with the simultaneous ministrations of
two or even three soiled doves of the stripe of her of whom Martial (ix,
69) makes caustic mention:

“I passed the whole night with a lascivious girl whose naughtiness none
could surpass.  Tired of a thousand methods of indulgence, I begged the
boyish favor: she granted my prayers before they were finished, before
even the first words were out of my mouth.  Smiling and blushing, I
besought her for something worse still; she voluptuously promised it at
once.  But to me, she was chaste.  But, AEschylus, she will not be so to
you; take the boon if you want it, but she will attach a condition.”  In
all that could pertain to accomplished skill in their profession, the
“limit was the ceiling,” they were there to serve, and serve they did,
as long as the recipient of their ministrations was willing to pay or as
long as his chits were good.  With them, secrecy was the watchword.
Tiberius, probably more sinned against than sinning (he has had an able
defender in Beasley) is charged, by Suetonius, with the invention of an
amplification and refinement of this vice.  The performers were called
“spinthriae,” a word which signified “bracelet.”  These copulators could
be of both sexes though the true usage of the word allowed but one, and
that the male.  They formed a chain, each link of which was an individual
in sexual contact with one or two other links: in this diversion, the
preference seems to have been in favor of odd numbers (Martial, xii, 44,
5), where the chain consisted of five links, and Ausonius, Epigram 119,
where it consisted of three.




CHAPTER NOTES


CHAPTER 9.  Gladiator obscene:--

The arena of his activities is, however, that of Venus and not Mars.
Petronius is fond of figurative language, and in several other passages,
he has made use of the slang of the arena: (chap.  61 ), “I used to fence
with my mistress herself, until even the master grew Suspicious”; and
again, in chapter 19, he says: “then, too, we were girded higher, and I
had so arranged matters that if we came to close quarters, I myself would
engage Quartilla, Ascyltos the maid, and Giton the girl.”

Dufour, in commentating upon this expression, Histoire de la
Prostitution, vol. III, pp. 92 and 93, remarks: It is necessary to see in
Petronius the abominable role which the “obscene gladiator” played; but
the Latin itself is clear enough to describe all the secrets of the Roman
debauch.  “For some women,” says Petronius, in another passage, “will
only kindle for canaille and cannot work up an appetite unless they see
some slave or runner with his clothing girded up: a gladiator arouses
one, or a mule driver, all covered with dust, or some actor posturing in
some exhibition on the stage.  My mistress belongs to this class, she
jumps the fourteen rows from the stage to the gallery and looks for a
lover among the gallery gods at the back.”

On “cum fortiter faceres,” compare line 25 of the Oxford fragment of the
sixth satire of Juvenal; “hic erit in lecto fortissimus,” which Housman
has rendered “he is a valiant mattress-knight.”




CHAPTER 17.  “In our neighborhood there are so many Gods that it is
easier to meet one of them than it is to find a man.”

Quartilla is here smarting under the sting of some former lover’s
impotence.  Her remark but gives color to the charge that, owing to the
universal depravity of Rome and the smaller cities, men were so worn out
by repeated vicious indulgences that it was no easy matter for a woman to
obtain satisfaction at their hands.

“Galla, thou hast already led to the nuptial couch six or seven
catamites; thou went seduced by their delicate coiffure and combed
beards.  Thou hast tried the loins and the members, resembling soaked
leather, which could not be made to stand by all the efforts of the
wearied hand; the pathic husband and effeminate bed thou desertest, but
still thou fallest into similar couches.  Seek out some one rough and
unpolished as the Curii and Fabii, and savage in his uncouth rudeness;
you will find one, but even this puritanical crew has its catamites.
Galla, it is difficult to marry a real man.”  Martial, vii, 57.

“No faith is to be placed in appearances.  What neighborhood does not
reek with filthy practices’?”  Juvenal, Sat. ii, 8.

“While you have a wife such as a lover hardly dare hope for in his
wildest prayers; rich, well born, chaste, you, Bassus, expend your
energies on boys whom you have procured with your wife’s dowry; and thus
does that penis, purchased for so many thousands, return worn out to its
mistress, nor does it stand when she rouses it by soft accents of love,
and delicate fingers.  Have some sense of shame or let us go into court.
This penis is not yours, Bassus, you have sold it.”  Martial, xii, 99.

“Polytimus is very lecherous on women, Hypnus is slow to admit he is my
Ganymede; Secundus has buttocks fed upon acorns.  Didymus is a catamite
but pretends not to be.  Amphion would have made a capital girl.  My
friend, I would rather have their blandishments, their naughty airs,
their annoying impudence, than a wife with 3,000,000 sesterces.”  Martial
xii, 76.

But the crowning piece of infamy is to be found in Martial’s three
epigrams upon his wife.  They speak as distinctly as does the famous
passage in Catullus’ Epithalamium of Manilius and Julia, or Vibia, as
later editors have it.

“Wife, away, or conform to my habits.  I am no Curius, Numa, or Tatius.
I like to have the hours of night prolonged in luscious cups.  You drink
water and are ever for hurrying from the table with a sombre mien; you
like the dark, I like a lamp to witness my pleasures, and to tire my
loins in the light of dawn.  Drawers and night gowns and long robes cover
you, but for me no girl can be too naked.  For me be kisses like the
cooing doves; your kisses are like those you give your grandmother in
the morning.  You do not condescend to assist in the performance by your
movements or your sighs or your hand; (you behave) as if you were taking
the sacrament.  The Phrygian slaves masturbated themselves behind the
couch whenever Hector’s wife rode St. George; and, however much Ulysses
snored, the chaste Penelope always had her hand there.  You forbid my
sodomising you.  Cornelia granted this favor to Gracchus; Julia to
Pompey, Porcia to Brutus.  Juno was Jupiter’s Ganymede before the Dardan
boy mixed the luscious cup.  If you are so devoted to propriety--be a
Lucretia to your heart’s content all day, I want a Lais at night.”  xi,
105.

“Since your husband’s mode of life and his fidelity are known to you, and
no woman usurps your rights, why are you so foolish as to be annoyed by
his boys, (as if they were his mistresses), with whom love is a transient
and fleeting affair?  I will prove to you that you gain more by the boys
than your lord: they make your husband keep to one woman.  They give what
a wife will not give.  ‘I grant that favor,’ you say, ‘sooner than that
my husband’s love should wander from my bed.’  It is not the same thing.
I want the fig of Chios, not a flavorless fig; and in you this Chian fig
is flavorless.  A woman of sense and a wife ought to know her place.  Let
the boys have what concerns them, and confine yourself to what concerns
you.” xii, 97.

“Wife, you scold me with a harsh voice when I’m caught with a boy, and
inform me that you too have a bottom.  How often has Juno said the same
to the lustful Thunderer?  And yet he sleeps with the tall Ganymede.  The
Tirynthian Hero put down his bow and sodomised Hylas.  Do you think that
Megaera had no buttocks?  Daphne inspired Phoebus with love as she fled,
but that flame was quenched by the OEbalian boy.  However much Briseis
lay with her bottom turned toward him, the son of AEacus found his
beardless friend more congenial to his tastes.  Forbear then, to give
masculine names to what you have, and, wife, think that you have two
vaginas.” xi, 44




CHAPTER 26.  “Quartilla applied a curious eye to a chink, purposely made,
watching their childish dalliance with lascivious attention.”

Martial, xi, 46, makes mention of the fact that patrons of houses of ill
fame had reason to beware of needle holes in the walls, through which
their misbehaviour could be appreciatively scrutinized by outsiders; and
in the passage of our author we find yet another instance of the same
kind.  One is naturally led to recall the “peep-houses” which were a
feature of city life in the nineties.  There was a notorious one in
Chicago, and another in San Francisco.  A beautiful girl, exquisitely
dressed, would entice the unwary stranger into her room: there the couple
would disrobe and the hero was compelled to have recourse to the “right
of capture,” before executing the purpose for which he entered the house.
The entertainment usually cost him nothing beyond a moderate fee and a
couple of bottles of beer, or wine, if he so desired.  The “management”
 secured its profit from a different and more prurient source.  The male
actor in this drama was sublimely ignorant of the fact that the walls
were plentifully supplied with “peep-holes” through which appreciative
onlookers witnessed his Corybantics at one dollar a head.  There would
sometimes be as many as twenty such witnesses at a single performance.




CHAPTER 34.  Silver Skeleton, et seq.

Philosophic dogmas concerning the brevity and uncertainty of life were
ancient even in the time of Herodotus.  They have left their mark upon
our language in the form of more than one proverb, but in none is this
so patent as “the skeleton at the feast.”  In chapter lxxviii of Euterpe,
we have an admirable citation.  In speaking of the Egyptians, he says:
“At their convivial banquets, among the wealthy classes, when they have
finished supper, a man carries round in a coffin the image of a dead body
carved in wood, made as life-like as possible in color and workmanship,
and in size generally about one or two cubits in length; and showing this
to each of the company, he says: ‘Look upon this, then drink and enjoy
yourself; for when dead you will be like this.’  This is the practice
they have at their drinking parties.”  According to Plutarch, (Isis and
Osiris, chapter 17.) the Greeks adopted this Egyptian custom, and there
is, of course, little doubt that the Romans took it from the Greeks.
The aim of this custom was, according to Scaliger, to bring the diners
to enjoy the sweets of life while they were able to feel enjoyment, and
thus to abandon themselves to pleasure before death deprived them of
everything.  The verses which follow bring this out beautifully.  In the
Copa of Virgil we find the following:

“Wine there!  Wine and dice!  Tomorrow’s fears shall fools alone benumb!
By the ear Death pulls me.  ‘Live!’ he whispers softly, ‘Live! I come.’”

The practical philosophy of the indefatigable roues sums itself up in
this sentence uttered by Trimalchio.  The verb “vivere” has taken a
meaning very much broader and less special, than that which it had at
the time when it signified only the material fact of existence.  The
voluptuaries of old Rome were by no means convinced that life without
license was life.  The women of easy virtue, living within the circle
of their friendships, after the fashion best suited to their desires,
understood that verb only after their own interpretation, and the
philologists soon reconciled themselves to the change.  In this sense it
was that Varro employed “vivere,” when he said: “Young women, make haste
to live, you whom adolescence permits to enjoy, to eat, to love, and to
occupy the chariot of Venus (Veneris tenere bigas).”

But a still better example of the extension in the meaning of this word
is to be found in an inscription on the tomb of a lady of pleasure.  This
inscription was composed by a voluptuary of the school of Petronius.

              ALIAE.  RESTITVTAE.  ANIMAE.  DVLCISSIMAE.
             BELLATOR.  AVG.  LIB.  CONIVGI.  CARISSIMAE.
                    AMICI.  DVM.  VIVIMVS.  VIVAMUS.

In this inscription, it is almost impossible to translate the last three
words.  “While we live, let us live,” is inadequate, to say the least.
So far did this doctrine go that latterly it was deemed necessary to have
a special goddess as a patron.  That goddess, if we may rely upon the
authority of Festus, took her name “Vitula” from the word “Vita” or from
the joyous life over which she was to preside.




CHAPTER 36.  “At the corners of the tray we also noted four figures of
Marsyas and from their bladders spouted a highly seasoned sauce upon fish
which were swimming about as if in a tide-race.”

German scholars have adopted the doctrine that Marsyas belonged to that
mythological group which they designate as “Schlauch-silen” or, as we
would say in English, “Wineskin-bearing Silenuses.”  Their hypothesis
seems to be based upon the discovery of two beautiful bas-reliefs of the
age of Vespasian, which were excavated near the Rostra Vetera in the
Forum.  Sir Theodore Martin has a note on these bas-reliefs which I quote
in extenso:

“In the Forum stood a statue of Marsyas, Apollo’s ill-starred rival.  It
probably bore an expression of pain, which Horace humorously ascribes to
dislike of the looks of the Younger Novius, who is conjectured to have
been of the profession and nature of Shylock.  A naked figure carrying a
wineskin, which appears upon each of two fine bas-reliefs of the time of
Vespasian found near the Rostra Vetera in the Forum during the
excavations conducted within the last few years by Signor Pietro Rosa,
and which now stand in the Forum, is said, by archaeologists, to
represent Marsyas.  Why they arrive at this conclusion, except as
arguing, from the spot where these bas-reliefs were found, that they were
meant to perpetuate the remembrance of the old statue of Marsyas, is
certainly not very apparent from anything in the figure itself.”
 Martin’s Horace, vol. 2, pp  145-6.

Hence German philologists render “utriculis” by the German equivalent for
“Wineskins.”

“The Romans,” says Weitzius, “had two sources of water-supply, through
underground channels, and through channels supported by arches.  As
adjuncts to these channels there were cisterns (or castella, as they were
called).  From these reservoirs the water was distributed to the public
through routes more or less circuitous and left the cisterns through
pipes, the diameter of which was reckoned in either twelfths or
sixteenths of a Roman foot.  At the exits of the pipes were placed stones
or stone figures, the water taking exit from these figures either by the
mouth, private parts or elsewhere, and falling either to the ground or
into some stone receptacle such as a basket.  Various names were given
these statuettes: Marsyae, Satyri, Atlantes, Hermae, Chirones, Silani,
Tulii.”

No one who has been through the Secret Museum at Naples will find much
difficulty in recalling a few of these heavily endowed examples to mind,
and our author, in choosing Marsyae, adds a touch of sarcastic realism,
for statues of Marysas were often set up in free cities, symbolical, as
it were, of freedom.  In such a setting as the present, they would be the
very acme of propriety.

“The figures,” says Gonzala de Salas, “formerly placed at fountains, and
from which water took exit either from the mouth or from some other part,
took their forms from the several species of Satyrs.  The learned
Wouweren has commented long and learnedly upon this passage, and his
emendation ‘veretriculis’ caused me to laugh heartily.  And as a matter
of fact, I affirm that such a meaning is easily possible.”  Professor E.
P. Crowell, the first American scholar to edit Petronius, gravely states
in his preface that “the object of this edition is to provide for
class-room use an expurgated text,” and I note that he has tactfully
omitted the “wineskins” from his edition.

In this connection the last sentence in the remarks of Wouweren, alluded
to above, is strangely to the point.  After stating his emendation of
“veretriculis or veretellis” for “utriculis,” he says: “Unless someone
proves that images of Marsyas were fashioned in the likeness of
bag-pipers,” a fine instance of clarity of vision for so dark an age.




CHAPTER 40.  “Drawing his hunting-knife, he plunged it fiercely into the
boar’s side, and some thrushes flew out of the gash.”

In the winter of 1895 a dinner was given in a New York studio.  This
dinner, locally known as the “Girl in the Pie Dinner,” was based upon
Petronius, Martial, and the thirteenth book of Athenaeus.  In the summer
of 1919, I had the questionable pleasure of interviewing the chef-caterer
who got it up, and he was, at the time, engaged in trying to work out
another masterpiece to be given in California.  The studio, one of the
most luxurious in the world, was transformed for the occasion into a
veritable rose grotto, the statuary was Pompeian, and here and there
artistic posters were seen which were nothing if not reminiscent of
Boulevard Clichy and Montmartre in the palmiest days.  Four negro banjo
players and as many jubilee singers titillated the jaded senses of the
guests in a manner achieved by the infamous saxophone syncopating jazz of
the Barbary Coast of our times.  The dinner was over.  The four and one
half bottles of champagne allotted to each Silenus had been consumed, and
a well-defined atmosphere of bored satiety had begun to settle down when
suddenly the old-fashioned lullaby “Four and Twenty Blackbirds” broke
forth from the banjoists and singers.  Four waiters came in bearing a
surprisingly monstrous object, something that resembled an impossibly
large pie.  They, placed it carefully in the center of the table.  The
negro chorus swelled louder and louder--“Four and Twenty Blackbirds Baked
in a Pie.”

The diners, startled into curiosity and then into interest, began to poke
their noses against this gigantic creation of the baker.  In it they
detected a movement not unlike a chick’s feeble pecking against the shell
of an egg.  A quicker movement and the crust ruptured at the top.

A flash of black gauze and delicate flesh showed within.  A cloud of
frightened yellow canaries flew out and perched on the picture frames and
even on the heads and shoulders of the guests.

But the lodestone which drew and held the eyes of all the revellers was
an exquisitely slender, girlish figure amid the broken crust of the pie.
The figure was draped with spangled black gauze, through which the girl’s
marble white limbs gleamed like ivory seen through gauze of gossamer
transparency.  She rose from her crouching posture like a wood nymph
startled by a satyr, glanced from one side to the other, and stepped
timidly forth to the table.




CHAPTER 56.  Contumelia--Contus and Melon (malum).

All translators have rendered “contus” by “pole,” notwithstanding the
fact that the word is used in a very different sense in Priapeia, x, 3:
“traiectus conto sic extendere pedali,” and contrary to the tradition
which lay behind the gift of an apple or the acceptance of one.  The
truth of this may be established by many passages in the ancient writers.

In the “Clouds” of Aristophanes, Just Discourse, in prescribing the rules
and proprieties which should in govern the education and conduct of the
healthy young man says:

“You shall rise up from your seat upon your elders’ approach; you shall
never be pert to your parents or do any other unseemly act under the
pretence of remodelling the image of Modesty.  You will not rush off to
the dancing-girl’s house, lest while you gaze upon her charms, some whore
should pelt you with an apple and ruin your reputation.”

“This were gracious to me as in the story old to the maiden fleet of foot
was the apple golden fashioned which unloosed her girdle long-time girt.”
 Catullus ii.

“I send thee these verses recast from Battiades, lest thou shouldst
credit thy words by chance have slipped from my mind, given o’er to the
wandering winds, as it was with that apple, sent as furtive love token by
the wooer, which out-leaped from the virgin’s chaste bosom: for, placed
by the hapless girl ‘neath her soft vestment, and forgotten--when she
starts at her mother’s approach, out ‘tis shaken: and down it rolls
headlong to the ground, whilst a tell-tale flush mantles the cheek of the
distressed girl.”  Catullus 1xv.

“But I know what is going on, and I intend presently to tell my master;
for I do not want to show myself less grateful than the dogs which bark
in defence of those who feed and take care of them.  An adulterer is
laying siege to the household--a young man from Elis, one of the Olympian
fascinators; he sends neatly folded notes every day to our master’s wife,
together with faded bouquets and half-eaten apples.”  Alciphron, iii, 62.
The words are put into the mouth of a rapacious parasite who feels that
the security of his position in the house is about to be shaken.

“I didn’t mind your kissing Cymbalium half-a-dozen times, you only
disgraced yourself; but--to be always winking at Pyrallis, never to drink
without lifting the cup to her, and then to whisper to the boy, when you
handed it to him, not to fill it for anyone but her--that was too much!
And then--to bite a piece off an apple, and when you saw that Duphilus
was busy talking to Thraso, to lean forward and throw it right into her
lap, without caring whether I saw it or not; and she kissed it and put it
into her bosom under her girdle!  It was scandalous!  Why do you treat me
like this?”  Lucian, Dial.  Hetairae, 12.  These words are spoken by
another apostle of direct speech; a jealous prostitute who is furiously
angry with her lover, and in no mood to mince matters in the slightest.

Aristxnetus, xxv, furnishes yet another excellent illustration.
The prostitute Philanis, in writing to a friend of the same ancient
profession, accuses her sister of alienating her lover’s affections.
I avail myself of Sheridan’s masterly version.

                     PHILANIS TO PETALA.

               As yesterday I went to dine
               With Pamphilus, a swain of mine,
               I took my sister, little heeding
               The net I for myself was spreading
               Though many circumstances led
               To prove she’d mischief in her head.
               For first her dress in every part
               Was studied with the nicest art
               Deck’d out with necklaces and rings,
               And twenty other foolish things;

               And she had curl’d and bound her hair
               With more than ordinary care
               And then, to show her youth the more,
               A light, transparent robe she wore--
               From head to heel she seemed t’admire
               In raptures all her fine attire:
               And often turn’d aside to view
               If others gazed with rapture too.
               At dinner, grown more bold and free,
               She parted Pamphilus and me;
               For veering round unheard, unseen,
               She slily drew her chair between.
               Then with alluring, am’rous smiles
               And nods and other wanton wiles,
               The unsuspecting youth insnared,
               And rivall’d me in his regard.--
               Next she affectedly would sip
               The liquor that had touched his lip.
               He, whose whole thoughts to love incline,
               And heated with th’ enliv’ning wine,
               With interest repaid her glances,
               And answer’d all her kind advances.
               Thus sip they from the goblet’s brink
               Each other’s kisses while they drink;
               Which with the sparkling wine combin’d,
               Quick passage to the heart did find.
               Then Pamphilus an apple broke,
               And at her bosom aim’d the stroke,
               While she the fragment kiss’d and press’d,
               And hid it wanton in her breast.
               But I, be sure, was in amaze,
               To see my sister’s artful ways:
               “These are returns,” I said, “quite fit
               To me, who nursed you when a chit.
               For shame, lay by this envious art;
               Is this to act a sister’s part?”
                But vain were words, entreaties vain,
               The crafty witch secured my swain.
               By heavens, my sister does me wrong;
               But oh! she shall not triumph long.
               Well Venus knows I’m not in fault
               ‘Twas she who gave the first assault
               And since our peace her treach’ry broke,
               Let me return her stroke for stroke.
               She’ll quickly feel, and to her cost,
               Not all their fire my eyes have lost
               And soon with grief shall she resign
               Six of her swains for one of mine.”

The myth of Cydippe and Acontius is still another example, as is the
legend of Atalanta and Hippomenes or Meilanion, to which Suetonius
(Tiberius, chap. 44) has furnished such an unexpected climax.  The
emperor Theodosius ordered the assassination of a gallant who had given
the queen an apple.  As beliefs of this type are an integral part of the
character of the lower orders, I am certain that the passage in Petronius
is not devoid of sarcasm; and if such is the case, “contus” cannot be
rendered “pole.”  The etymology of the word contumely is doubtful but I
am of the opinion that the derivation suggested here is not unsound.  A
recondite rendering of “contus” would surely give a sharper point to the
joke and furnish the riddle with the sting of an epigram.




CHAPTER 116.  “You will see a town that resembles the fields in time of
pestilence.”

In tracing this savage caricature, Petronius had in mind not Crotona
alone; he refers to conditions in the capital of the empire.  The
descriptions which other authors have set down are equally remarkable for
their powerful coloring, and they leave us with an idea of Rome which is
positively astounding in its unbridled luxury.  ‘We will rest content
with offering to our readers the following portrayal, quoted from
Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xiv, chap. 6, and lib.  xxviii, chap.  4. will
not presume to attempt any translation after having read Gibbon’s version
of the combination of these two chapters.

“The greatness of Rome was founded on the rare and almost incredible
alliance of virtue and of fortune.  The long period of her infancy was
employed in a laborious struggle against the tribes of Italy, the
neighbors and enemies of the rising city.  In the strength and ardor of
youth she sustained the storms of war, carried her victorious arms beyond
the seas and the mountains, and brought home triumphal laurels from every
country of the globe.  At length, verging towards old age, and sometimes
conquering by the terror only of her name, she sought the blessings of
ease and tranquillity.  The venerable city, which had trampled on the
necks of the fiercest nations, and established a system of laws, the
perpetual guardians of justice and freedom, was content, like a wise and
wealthy parent, to devolve on the Caesars, her favorite sons, the care of
governing her ample patrimony.  A secure and profound peace, such as had
been once enjoyed in the reign of Numa, succeeded to the tumults of a
republic; while Rome was still adored as the queen of the earth, and the
subject nations still reverenced the name of the people and the majesty
of the senate.  But this native splendor is degraded and sullied by the
conduct of some nobles, who, unmindful of their own dignity, and of that
of their country, assume an unbounded license of vice and folly.  They
contend with each other in the empty vanity of titles and surnames, and
curiously select or invent the most lofty and sonorous appellations
--Reburrus or Fabunius, Pagonius or Tarrasius--which may impress the ears
of the vulgar with astonishment and respect.  From a vain ambition of
perpetuating their memory, they affect to multiply their likeness in
statues of bronze and marble; nor are they satisfied unless those statues
are covered with plates of gold, an honorable distinction, first granted
to Achilius the consul, after he had subdued by his arms and counsels the
power of King Antiochus.  The ostentation of displaying, of magnifying
perhaps, the rent-roll of the estates which they possess in all the
provinces, from the rising to the setting sun, provokes the just
resentment of every man who recollects that their poor and invincible
ancestors were not distinguished from the meanest of the soldiers by the
delicacy of their food or the splendor of their apparel.  But the modern
nobles measure their rank and consequence according to the loftiness of
their chariots and the weighty magnificence of their dress.  Their long
robes of silk and purple float in the wind; and as they are agitated, by
art or accident, they occasionally discover the under-garments, the rich
tunics, embroidered with the figures of various animals.  Followed by a
train of fifty servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move along the
streets with the same impetuous speed as if they travelled with
post-horses, and the example of the senators is boldly imitated by the
matrons and ladies, whose covered carriages are continually driving
round the immense space of the city and suburbs.  Whenever these persons
of high distinction condescend to visit the public baths, they assume,
on their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and appropriate
to their own use the conveniences which were designed for the Roman
people.  If, in these places of mixed and general resort, they meet any
of the infamous ministers of their pleasures, they express their
affection by a tender embrace, while they proudly decline the
salutations of their fellow-citizens, who are not permitted to aspire
above the honor of kissing their hands or their knees.  As soon as they
have indulged themselves in the refreshment of the bath, they resume
their rings and the other ensigns of their dignity, select from their
private wardrobe of the finest linen, such as might suffice for a dozen
persons, the garments the most agreeable to their fancy, and maintain
till their departure the same haughty demeanor which perhaps might have
been excused in the great Marcellus after the conquest of Syracuse.
Sometimes, indeed, these heroes undertake more arduous achievements.
They visit their estates in Italy, and procure themselves, by the toil
of servile hands, the amusements of the chase.  If at any time, but more
especially on a hot day, they have courage to sail in their galleys from
the Lucrine lake to their elegant villas on the seacoast of Puteoli and
the Caieta, they compare their own expeditions to the marches of Caesar
and Alexander. Yet should a fly presume to settle on the silken folds of
their gilded umbrellas, should a sunbeam penetrate through some
unguarded and imperceptible chink, they deplore their intolerable
hardships, and lament in affected language that they were not born in
the land of the Cimmerians, the regions of eternal darkness.  In these
journeys into the country the whole body of the household marches with
their master.  In the same order as the cavalry and infantry, the heavy
and the light armed troops, the advanced guard and the rear, are
marshalled by the skill of their military leaders, so the domestic
officers, who bear a rod as an ensign of authority, distribute and
arrange the numerous train of slaves and attendants.  The baggage and
wardrobe move in the front, and are immediately followed by a multitude
of cooks and inferior ministers employed in the service of the kitchens
and of the table.  The main body is composed of a promiscuous crowd of
slaves, increased by the accidental concourse of idle or dependent
plebeians.  The rear is closed by the favorite band of eunuchs,
distributed from age to youth, according to the order of seniority.
Their numbers and their deformity excite the horror of the indignant
spectators, who are ready to execrate the memory of Semiramis for the
cruel art which she invented of frustrating the purposes of nature, and
of blasting in the bud the hopes of future generations.  In the exercise
of domestic jurisdiction the nobles of Rome express an exquisite
sensibility for any personal injury, and a contemptuous indifference for
the rest of the human species.  When they have called for warm water, if
a slave has been tardy in his obedience, he is instantly chastised with
three hundred lashes; but should the same slave commit a wilful murder,
the master will mildly observe that he is a worthless fellow, but that,
if he repeats the offense, he shall not escape punishment.  Hospitality
was formerly the virtue of the Romans; and every stranger who could
plead either merit or misfortune was relieved or rewarded by their
generosity.  At present, if a foreigner, perhaps of no contemptible
rank, is introduced to one of the proud and wealthy senators, he is
welcomed indeed in the first audience with such warm professions and
such kind inquiries that he retires enchanted with the affability of his
illustrious friend, and full of regret that he had so long delayed his
journey to Rome, the native seat of manners as well as of empire.
Secure of a favorable reception, he repeats his visit the ensuing day,
and is mortified by the discovery that his person, his name, and his
country are already forgotten.  If he still has resolution to persevere,
he is gradually numbered in the train of dependents, and obtains the
permission to pay his assiduous and unprofitable court to a haughty
patron, incapable of gratitude or friendship, who scarcely deigns to
remark his presence, his departure, or his return.  Whenever the rich
prepare a solemn and popular entertainment, whenever they celebrate with
profuse and pernicious luxury their private banquets, the choice of the
guests is the subject of anxious deliberation.  The modest, the sober,
and the learned are seldom preferred; and the nomenclators, who are
commonly swayed by interested motives, have the address to insert in the
list of invitations the obscure names of the most worthless of mankind.
But the frequent and familiar companions of the great are those
parasites who practice the most useful of all arts, the art of flattery;
who eagerly applaud each word and every action of their immortal patron,
gaze with rapture on his marble columns and variegated pavements, and
strenuously praise the pomp and elegance which he is taught to consider
as a part of his personal merit.  At the Roman tables the birds, the
dormice, or the fish, which appear of an uncommon size, are contemplated
with curious attention; a pair of scales is accurately applied to
ascertain their real weight; and, while the more rational guests are
disgusted by the vain and tedious repetition, notaries are summoned to
attest by an authentic record the truth of such a marvellous event.
Another method of introduction into the houses and society of the great
is derived from the profession of gaming, or, as it is more politely
styled, of play.  The confederates are united by a strict and
indissoluble bond of friendship, or rather of conspiracy; a superior
degree of skill in the Tesserarian art is a sure road to wealth and
reputation.  A master of that sublime science who in a supper or an
assembly is placed below a magistrate displays in his countenance the
surprise and indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel when he
was refused the praetorship by the votes of a capricious people.  The
acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the curiosity of the nobles, who
abhor the fatigue and disdain the advantages of study; and the only
books which they peruse are the Satires of Juvenal and the verbose and
fabulous histories of Marius Maximus.  The libraries which they have
inherited from their fathers are secluded, like dreary sepulchres, from
the light of day.  But the costly instruments of the theatre-flutes, and
enormous lyres, and hydraulic organs--are constructed for their use; and
the harmony of vocal and instrumental music is incessantly repeated in
the palaces of Rome.  In those palaces sound is preferred to sense, and
the care of the body to that of the mind.  It is allowed as a salutary
maxim that the light and frivolous suspicion of a contagious malady is
of sufficient weight to excuse the visits of the most intimate friends
and even the servants who are dispatched to make the decent inquiries
are not suffered to return home till they have undergone the ceremony of
a previous ablution.  Yet this selfish and unmanly delicacy occasionally
yields to the more imperious passion of avarice.  The prospect of gain
will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleto; every sentiment of
arrogance and dignity is subdued by the hopes of an inheritance, or even
of a legacy; and a wealthy childless citizen is the most powerful of the
Romans.  The art of obtaining the signature of a favorable testament,
and sometimes of hastening the moment of its execution, is perfectly
understood; and it has happened that in the same house, though in
different apartments, a husband and a wife, with the laudable design of
overreaching each other, have summoned their respective lawyers to
declare at the same time their mutual but contradictory intentions.  The
distress which follows and chastises extravagant luxury often reduces
the great to the use of the most humiliating expedients.  When they
desire to borrow, they employ the base and supplicating style of the
slave in the comedy; but when they are called upon to pay, they assume
the royal and tragic declamation of the grandsons of Hercules.  If the
demand is repeated, they readily procure some trusty sycophant,
instructed to maintain a charge of poison or magic against the insolent
creditor, who is seldom released from prison till he has signed a
discharge for the whole debt.  These vices, which degrade the moral
character of the Romans, are mixed with a puerile superstition that
disgraces their understanding.  They listen with confidence to the
predictions of haruspices, who pretend to read in the entrails of
victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and there are many
who do not presume either to bathe or to dine, or to appear in public,
till they have diligently consulted, according to the rules of
astrology, the situation of Mercury and the aspect of the moon.  It is
singular enough that this vain credulity may often be discovered among
the profane sceptics who impiously doubt or deny the existence of a
celestial power.”




CHAPTER 116.  “They either take in or else they are taken in.”

“Captare” may be defined as to get the upper hand of someone; and
“captari” means to be the dupe of someone, to be the object of interested
flattery; “captator” means a succession of successful undertakings of the
sort referred to above.  Martial, lib. VI, 63, addresses the following
verses to a certain Marianus, whose inheritance had excited the avarice
of one of the intriguers:

               “You know you’re being influenced,
               You know the miser’s mind;
               You know the miser, and you sensed
               His purpose; still, you’re blind.”

Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, lib.  XIV, chap. i, writes in
scathing terms against the infamous practice of paying assiduous court
to old people for the purpose of obtaining a legacy under their wills.
“Later, childlessness conferred advantages in the shape of the greatest
authority and Lower; undue influence became very insidious in its quest
of wealth, and in grasping the joyous things alone, debasing the true
rewards of life; and all the liberal arts operating for the greatest good
were turned to the opposite purpose, and commenced to profit by
sycophantic subservience alone.”

And Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. XVIII, chap. 4, remarks: “Some there are
that grovel before rich men, old men or young, childless or unmarried, or
even wives and children, for the purpose of so influencing their wishes
and them by deft and dextrous finesse.”

That this profession of legacy hunting is not one of the lost arts is
apparent even in our day, for the term “undue influence” is as common in
our courts as Ambrose Bierce’s definition of “husband,” or refined
cruelty, or “injunctions” restraining husbands from disposing of
property, or separate maintenance, or even “heart balm” and the
consequent breach of promise.




CHAPTER 119.  The rite of the Persians:

Castration has been practiced from remote antiquity, and is a feature of
the harem life of the Levant to the present day.  Semiramis is accused of
having been the first to order the emasculation of a troupe of her boy
slaves.

“Whether the first false likeness of men came to the Assyrians through
the ingenuity of Semiramis; for these wanton wretches with high timbered
voices could not have produced themselves, those smooth cheeks could not
reproduce themselves; she gathered their like about her: or, Parthian
luxury forbade with its knife, the shadow of down to appear, and fostered
long that boyish bloom, compelling art-retarded youth to sink to Venus’
calling,” Claudianus, Eutrop. i, 339 seq.

“And last of all, the multitude of eunuchs, ranging in age, from old men
to boys, pale and hideous from the twisted deformity of their features;
so that, go where one will, seeing groups of mutilated men, he will
detest the memory of Semiramis, that ancient queen who was the first to
emasculate young men of tender age; thwarting the intent of Nature, and
forcing her from her course.”  Ammianus Marcellinus, book xiv, chap. vi.

The Old Testament proves that the Hebrew authorities of the time were no
strangers to the abomination, but no mention of eunuchs in Judea itself
is to be found prior to the time of Josiah.  Castration was forbidden the
Jews, Deuteronomy, xxiii, 1, but as this book was probably unknown before
the time of Josiah, we can only conjecture as to the attitude of the
patriarchs in regard to this subject; we are safe, however, in inferring
that it was hostile.  “Periander, son of Cypselus, had sent three hundred
youths of the noblest young men of the Corcyraeans to Alyattes, at
Sardis; for the purpose of emasculation.”  Herodotus, iii, chapter 48.

“Hermotimus, then, was sprung from these Pedasians; and, of all men we
know, revenged himself in the severest manner for an injury he had
received; for, having been captured by an enemy and sold, he was
purchased by one Panionius, a Chian, who gained a livelihood by the most
infamous practices; for whenever he purchased boys remarkable for their
beauty, having castrated them, he used to take them to Sardis and Ephesus
and sell them for large sums; for with the barbarians, eunuchs are more
valued than others, on account of their perfect fidelity.  Panionius,
therefore, had castrated many others, as he made his livelihood by this
means, and among them, this man.

“Hermotimus, however, was not in every respect unfortunate, for he went
to Sardis, along with other presents for the king, and in process of time
was the most esteemed by Xerxes of all his eunuchs.

“When the king was preparing to march his Persian army against Athens,
Hermotimus was at Sardis, having gone down at that time, upon some
business or other, to the Mysian territory which the Chians possess, and
is called Atarneus, he there met with Panionius.  Having recognized him,
he addressed many friendly words to him, first recounting the many
advantages he had acquired by this means, and secondly, promising him how
many favors he would confer upon him in requital, if he would bring his
family and settle there; so that Panionius joyfully accepted the proposal
and brought his wife and children.  But when Hermotimus got him with his
whole family into his power, he addressed him as follows:

“‘O thou, who, of all mankind, hast gained thy living by the most
infamous acts, what harm had either I, or any of mine, done to thee,
or any of thine, that of a man thou hast made me nothing?

“‘Thou didst imagine, surely, that thy machinations would pass unnoticed
by the Gods, who, following righteous laws, have enticed thee, who hath
committed unholy deeds, into my hands, so that thou canst not complain of
the punishment I shall inflict upon thee.’

“When he had thus upbraided him, his sons being brought into his
presence, Panionius was compelled to castrate his own sons, who were four
in number; and, being compelled, he did it; and after he had finished it,
his sons, being compelled, castrated him.  Thus did vengeance and
Hermotimus overtake Panionius.”  Herodotus, viii, ch. 105-6.

Mention of the Galli, the emasculated priests of Cybebe should be made.
Emasculation was a necessary first condition of service in her worship.
(Catullus, Attys.)  The Latin literature of the silver and bronze ages
contains many references to castration.  Juvenal and Martial have
lavished bitter scorn upon this form of degradation, and Suetonius and
Statius inform us that Domitian prohibited the practice, but it is in the
“Amoures” attributed to Lucian that we find a passage so closely akin to
the one forming a basis of this note, that it is inserted in extenso:

“Some pushed their cruelty so far as to outrage Nature with the
sacrilegious knife, and, after depriving men of their virility, found in
them the height of pleasure.  These miserable and unhappy creatures, that
they may the longer serve the purposes of boys, are stunted in their
manhood, and remain a doubtful riddle of a double sex, neither preserving
that boyhood in which they were born, nor possessing that manhood which
should be theirs.  The bloom of their youth withers away in a premature
old age: while yet boys, they suddenly become old, without any interval
of manhood.  For impure sensuality, the mistress of every vice, devising
one shameless pleasure after another, insensibly plunges into
unmentionable debauchery, experienced in every form of brutal lust.”  The
jealous Roman husband’s furious desire to prevent the consequences of his
wife’s incontinence was by no means well served by the use of such
agents; on the contrary, the women themselves profited by the
arrangement.  By means of these eunuchs, they edited the morals of their
maids and hampered the sodomitical hankerings, active or otherwise, of
their husbands: Martial, xii, 54: but when the passions and suspicions of
both heads of the family were mutually aroused, the eunuchs fanned them
into flame and gained the ascendancy in the home.  They even went so far
as to marry: Martial, xi, 82, and Juvenal, i, 22.

In the third century a certain Valesius formed a sect which, following
the example set by Origen, acted literally upon the text of Matthew, v,
28, 30, and Matthew, xix, 12.  Of this sect, Augustine, De Heres. chap.
37, said: “the Valesians castrate themselves and those who partake of
their hospitality, thinking that after this manner, they ought to serve
God.”  That injustice was done upon the wrong member is very evident, yet
in an age so dark, so dominated by austere asceticism, this clean cut
perception of the best interests of suffering humanity, is only to be
rivalled by the French physician in the time of the black plague.  He had
observed that sthenic patients, when bled, died: the superstition and
medical usage of the age prescribed bleeding, and when the fat abbots
came to be bled, he bled them freely and with satisfaction.  Justinian
decreed that anyone guilty of performing the operation which deprived an
individual of virility should be subjected to a similar operation, and
this crime was later punished with death.  In the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries we encounter another and even viler reason for this
practice: that “the voice of such a person” (one castrated in boyhood)
“after arriving at adult age, combines the high range and sweetness of
the female with the power of the male voice,” had long been known, and
Italian singing masters were not slow in putting this hint to practical
use.  The poor sometimes sold their children for this purpose, and the
castrati and soprani are terms well known to the musical historian.

These artificial voices disgraced the Italian stage until literally
driven from it by public hostility, and the punishment of death was the
reward of the individual bold enough to perform such an operation.  The
papal authority excommunicated those guilty of the crime and those upon
whom such an operation had been performed, but received artificial
voices, which were the result of accident, into the Sistine choir.
This pretext served the church well and, until the year 1878, when
the disgrace was wiped out by Pope Leo XIII, the Sistine choir was an
eloquent commentary upon the attitude of an institution placed, as it
were, “between love and duty.”  It should be recorded that this choir, in
its recent visit to the United States, had but one artificial voice, and
its owner was the oldest member of the choir.

Young home-born slaves were bought up by the dealers, castrated, because
of the increased price they brought when in this condition, and sold for
huge sums: Seneca, Controv. x, chap. 4; and kidnapping was frequently
resorted to, just as it is in Africa today.

In Russia there is a sect called the “skoptzi,” whose tenets, in this
respect, are indicated by their name.  This sect is first mentioned in
the person of a certain Adrian, a monk, who came to Russia about the
year 1001.  In 1041, l090 to 1096, 1138 to 1147, 1326, they are noticed,
and in 1721 to 1724 they are prominent.  They call themselves “white
doves” and are divided into smaller congregations which, in their
allegorical terminology, they call “ships”; the leader of each
congregation is called the “pilot” and the female leader, the “pilot’s
mate.”  Their tenets provide for two degrees of emasculation: complete
and incomplete, and, in the case of the former, he who submitted to the
operation had the “royal seal” affixed to him, this being their name for
complete emasculation: in the case of the latter, the neophyte had
reached the “Second Degree of Purity.”  The operation was performed with
a red-hot knife or a hot iron, and this was known as the “baptism by
fire.”

In the case of female converts, the breasts were amputated, either with a
red-hot knife or a pair of red-hot shears (Kudrin trial, Moscow, 1871;
testimony of physicians and examination of the accused) which served the
double purpose of checking haemorrhage, as would a thermo-cautery, and
avoiding infection.  Another method consisted in searing the orifice of
the vagina so that the scar tissue would contract it in such a manner as
to effectually prevent the entrance of the male.

A peculiar attribute of this sect is the character of many of its
members: bankers, civil service officials, navy officers, army officers
and others of the finest professions.  Leroy-Beaulieu, in discussing
their methods of obtaining converts says: “they prefer boys and youths,
whom they strive to convince of the necessity of ‘killing the flesh.’
They sometimes succeed so well, that cases are known of boys of fifteen
or so resorting to self-mutilation, to save themselves from the
temptations of early manhood.  These apostles of purity do not always
scruple to have recourse to violence or deceit.  They ensnare their
victims by equivocal forms of speech, and having thus obtained their
consent virtually upon false pretences, they reveal to the confiding
dupes the real meaning of the engagement they have entered into only at
the last moment, when it is too late for them to escape the murderous
knife.  One evening, two men, one of them young and blooming, the other
old, with sallow and unnaturally smooth face, were conversing, while
sipping their tea, in a house in Moscow.  ‘Virgins will alone stand
before the throne of the Most High,’ said the elder man.  ‘He who looks
on a woman with desire commits adultery in his heart, and adulterers
shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.’  ‘What then should we sinners
doe’ asked the young man.  ‘Knowest thou not,’ replied the elder, ‘the
word of the Lord?  If thy right eye leadeth thee into temptation, pluck
it out and cast it from thee; if thy right hand leadeth thee into
temptation, cut it off and cast it from thee.  What ye must do is to kill
the flesh.  Ye must become like unto the disembodied angels, and that may
be attained only, through being made white as snow.’ ‘And how can we be
made thus white?’ further inquired the young man.  ‘Come and see,’ said
the old man.  ‘He took his companion down many stairs, into a cellar
resplendent with lights.  Some fifteen white robed men and women were
gathered there.  In a corner was a stove, in which blazed a fire.  After
some prayers and dances, very like those in use among the Flagellants,
the old man announced to his companion: ‘now shalt thou learn how sinners
are made white as snow.’ And the young man, before he had time to ask a
single question, was seized and gagged, his eyes were bandaged, he was
stretched out on the ground, and the apostle, with a red-hot knife,
stamped him with the ‘seal of purity.’ This happened to a peasant,
Saltykov by name, and certainly not to him alone.  He fainted away under
the operation, and when he came to himself, he heard the voices of his
chaste sponsors give him the choice between secrecy and death.”

Catherine II signed the first edict against this sect in 1772, but
agitation was more or less constant until the Imperial government began
vigorous prosecutions in 1871, and many were sentenced to hard labor in
Siberia.  When prosecutions were instituted, large numbers emigrated to
Roumania and there took the name of “Lipovans.”  Women, especially one of
the name of Anna Romanovna, have had a great share in the invention and
diffusion of the doctrine.  Not infrequently it is the women who, with
their own hands, transform the men to angels.

In 1871 their number was estimated to be about 3000, in 1874 they
numbered 5444, including 1465 women, and in 1847, 515 men and 240 women
were transported to Siberia.  The sect still holds its own in Russia.
They are millennarians and the messiah will not come for them until their
sect numbers 144,000.

Antiquity knew three varieties of eunuch:
Castrati: Scrotum and testicles were amputated.
Spadones: Testicles were torn out.
Thlibiae: Testicles were destroyed by crushing.




CHAPTER 127.  “Such sweetness permeated her voice as she said this, so
entrancing was the sound upon the listening air that you would have
believed the Sirens’ harmonies were floating in the breeze.”

Many scholars have drawn attention to the ethereal beauty of this
passage.  Probably the finest parallel is to be found in Horace’s ode to
Calliope.  After the invocation to the muse he thinks he hears her
playing:

              “Hark!  Or is this but frenzy’s pleasing dream?
               Through groves I seem to stray
               Of consecrated bay,
               Where voices mingle with the babbling stream,
               And whispering breezes play.”

                                   Sir Theodore Martin’s version.

Another exquisite and illuminating passage occurs in Catullus, 51, given
in Marchena’s fourth note.




CHAPTER 131.  “Then she kneaded dust and spittle and, dipping her middle
finger into the mixture, she crossed my forehead with it.”

Since the Fairy Tale Era of the human race, sputum has been employed to
give potency to charms and to curses.  It was anciently used as anathema
and that use is still in force to this day.  Let the incredulous critic
spit in some one’s face if he doubts my word.

But sputum had also a place in the Greek and Roman rituals.  Trimalchio
spits and throws wine under the table when he hears a cock crowing
unseasonably.  This, in the first century.  Any Jew in Jerusalem hearing
the name of Titus mentioned, spits: this in 1903.  In the ceremony of
naming Roman children spittle had its part to play: it was customary for
the nurse to touch the lips and forehead of the child with spittle.  The
Catholic priest’s ritual, which prescribes that the ears and nostrils of
the infant or neophyte, as the case may be, shall be touched with
spittle, comes, in all probability from Mark, vii, 33, 34, viii, 23, and
John, ix, 6, which, in turn are probably derived from a classical
original.  It should be added that fishermen spit upon their bait before
casting in their hooks.




CHAPTER 131.  Medio sustulit digito:

There is more than a suggestion in the choice of the middle finger, in
this instance.  Among the Romans, the middle finger was known as the
“infamous finger.”

               Infami digito et lustralibus ante salivis
               Expiat, urentes oculos inhibere perita.
                                        Persius, Sat. ii

See also Dio Chrysostom, xxxiii.  “Neither,” says Lampridius, Life of
Heliogabalus, “was he given to demand infamies in words when he could
indicate shamelessness with his fingers,” Chapter 10.  “With tears in his
eyes, Cestos often complains to me, Mamurianus, of being touched by your
finger.  You need not use your finger, merely: take Cestos all to
yourself, if nothing else is wanting in your establishment,”
 Martial, i, 93

To touch the posteriors lewdly with the finger, that is, the middle
finger put forth and the two adjoining fingers bent down, so that the
hand might form a sort of Priapus, was an obscene sign to attract
catamites.  That this position of the fingers was an indecent symbol is
attested by numerous passages in the classical writers.  “He would extend
his hand, bent into an obscene posture, for them to kiss,” Suetonius,
Caligula, 56.  It may be added that one of that emperor’s officers
assassinated him for insulting him in that manner.  When this finger was
thus applied it signified that the person was ready to sodomise him whom
he touched.  The symbol is still used by the lower orders.

“We are informed by our younger companions that gentlemen given to
sodomitical practices are in the habit of frequenting some public place,
such as the Pillars of the County Fire Office, Regent St., and placing
their hands behind them, raising their fingers in a suggestive manner
similar to that mentioned by our epigrammatist.  Should any gentleman
place himself near enough to have his person touched by the playful
fingers of the pleasure-seeker, and evince no repugnance, the latter
turns around and, after a short conversation, the bargain is struck.  In
this epigram, however, Martial threatens the eye and not the anus.”  The
Romans used to point out sodomites and catamites by thus holding out the
middle finger, and so it was used as well in ridicule (or chaff, as we
say) as to denote infamy in the persons who were given to these
practices.

“If anyone calls you a catamite, Sextillus,” says Martial, ii, 28,
“return the compliment and hold out your middle finger to him.”
 According to Ramiresius, this custom was still common in the Spain of his
day (1600), and it still persists in Spanish and Italian countries, as
well as in their colonies.  This position of the fingers was supposed to
represent the buttocks with a priapus inserted up the fundament; it was
called “Iliga,” by the Spaniards.  From this comes the ancient custom of
suspending little priapi from boys’ necks to avert the evil eye.

Aristophanes, in the “Clouds,” says:

SOCRATES: First they will help you to be pleasant in company, and to
know what is meant by OEnoplian rhythm and what by the Dactylic.

STREPSIADES: Of the Dactyl (finger)?  I know that quite well.

SOCRATES: What is it then?

STREPSIADES: Why, ‘tis this finger; formerly, when a child, I used this
one.

(Daktulos means, of course, both Dactyl (name of a metrical foot) and
finger.  Strepsiades presents his middle finger with the other fingers
and thumb bent under in an indecent gesture meant to suggest the penis
and testicles.  It was for this reason that the Romans called this finger
the “unseemly finger.”)

SOCRATES: You are as low minded as you are stupid.

[See also Suetonius: Tiberius, chapter 68.]




CHAPTER 138.  “OEnothea brought out a leathern dildo.”

This instrument, made from glass, wax, leather, or other suitable
material such as ivory or the precious metals (Ezekiel xvi, 17), has been
known from primitive times; and the spread of the cult of Priapus was a
potent factor in making the instrument more common in the western world.
Numerous Greek authors make mention of it: Aristophanes, Lucian,
Herondas, Suidas and others.  That it was only too familiar to the Romans
is shown by their many references to it: Catullus, Martial, the apostle
Paul, Tertullian, and others.

Aristophanes,  Lysistrata:  (Lysistrata  speaking) “And not so much as
the shadow of a lover!  Since the day the Milesians betrayed us, I have
never once caught sight of an eight-inch-long dildo even, to be a
leathern consolation to us poor widows.”  Her complaint is based upon the
fact that all the men were constantly absent upon military duty and the
force of the play lies in her strategic control of a commodity in great
demand among the male members of society.  Quoting again from the same
play: Calonice: “And why do you summon us, Lysistrata dear?  What is it
all about?”  Lysistrata: “About a big affair.”  Calonice: “And is it
thick, too’?”  Lysistrata: “Indeed it is, great and big too.”  Calonice:
“And we are not all on the spot!”  Lysistrata: “Oh!  If it were what you
have in mind, there would never be an absentee.  No, no, it concerns a
thing I have turned about and about, this way and that, for many
sleepless nights.”  When the plot has been explained, viz.: that the
women refuse intercourse to their husbands until after peace has been
declared--Calonice: “But suppose our poor devils of husbands go away and
leave us”’  Lysistrata: “Then, as Pherecrates says, ‘we must flay a
skinned dog,’ that’s all.”

Lucian, Arnoures, says: “but, if it is becoming for men to have
intercourse with men, for the future let women have intercourse with
women.  Come, O new generation, inventor of strange pleasures! as you
have devised new methods to satisfy male lust, grant the same privilege
to women; let them have intercourse with one another like men, girding
themselves with the infamous instruments of lust, an unholy imitation of
a fruitless union.”

Herondas, Mime vi:

KORITTO | Two women friends
METRO   |
A Female Domestic.

Time, about 300 B. C.

Scene, Koritto’s sitting room.

KORITTO: (Metro has just come to call) Take a seat, Metro; (to the slave
girl) Get up and get the lady a chair; I have to tell you to do
everything; you’re such a fool you never do a thing of your own accord.
You’re only a stone in the house, you’re not a bit like a slave except
when you count up your daily allowance of bread: you count the crumbs
when you do that, though, and whenever the tiniest bit happens to fall
upon the floor, the very walls get tired of listening to your grumbling
and boiling over with temper, as you do all day long--now, when we want
to use that chair you’ve found time to dust it off and rub up the polish
--you may thank the lady that I don’t give you a taste of my hand.

METRO: You have as hard a time as I do, Koritto, dear--day and night
these low servants make me gnash my teeth and bark like a dog, just like
they do you.--But I came to see you about--(to the slave girl) get out of
here, get out of my sight, you trouble maker, you’re all ears and tongue
and nothing else, all you do is to sit around Koritto--dear, now please
don’t tell me a fib, who stitched that red dildo of yours?

KORITTO: Metro, where did you see that?

METRO: Why Nossis, the daughter of Erinna, had it three days ago.  Oh but
it was a beauty!

KORITTO: So Nossis had it, did she?  Where did she get it, I wonder?

METRO: I’m afraid you’ll say something if I tell you.

KORITTO: My dear Metro, if anybody hears anything you tell me, from
Koritto’s mouth, I hope I go blind.

METRO: It was given to her by Eubole of Bitas, and she cautioned her not
to let a soul hear of it.

KORITTO: That woman will be my undoing, one of these days; I yielded to
her importunity and gave it to her before I had used it myself, Metro
dear, but to her it was a godsend--, now she takes it and gives it to
some one who ought not to have it.  I bid a long farewell to such a
friend as she; let her look out for another friend instead of me.  As for
Nossis, Adrasteia forgive me.  I don’t want to talk bigger than a lady
should--I wouldn’t give her even a rotten dildo; no, not even if I had a
thousand!

METRO: Please don’t flare up so quickly when you hear something
unpleasant.  A good woman must put up with everything.  It’s all my fault
for gossiping.  My tongue ought to be cut out; honestly it should: but to
get back to the question I asked you a moment ago: who stitched the
dildo?  Tell me if you love me!  What makes you laugh when you look at
me?  What does your coyness mean?  Have you never set eyes on me before?
Don’t fib to me now, Koritto, I beg of you.

KORITTO: Why do you press me so?  Kerdon stitched it.

METRO: Which Kerdon?  Tell me, because there are two Kerdons, one is that
blue-eyed fellow, the neighbor of Myrtaline the daughter of Kylaithis;
but he couldn’t even stitch a plectron to a lyre--the other one, who
lives near the house of Hermodorus, after you have left the street, was
pretty good once, but he’s too old, now; the late lamented Kylaithis--may
her kinsfolk never forget her--used to patronize him.

KORITTO: He’s neither of those you’ve mentioned, Metro; this fellow is
bald headed and short, he comes from Chios or Erythrai, I think--you
would mistake him for another Prexinos, one fig could not look more like
another, but just hear him talk, and you’ll know that he is Kerdon and
not Prexinos.  He does business at home, selling his wares on the sly
because everyone is afraid of the tax gatherers.  My dear!  He does do
such beautiful work!  You would think that what you see is the handiwork
of Athena and not that of Kerdon!  Do you know that he had two of them
when he came here!  And when I got a look at them my eyes nearly burst
from their sockets through desire.  Men never get--I hope we are alone
--their tools so stiff; and not only that, but their smoothness was as
sweet as sleep and their little straps were as soft as wool.  If you went
looking for one you would never find another ladies’ cobbler cleverer
than he!

METRO: Why didn’t you buy the other one, too?

KORITTO: What didn’t I do, Metro dear’?  And what didn’t I do to persuade
him’?  I kissed him, I patted his bald head, I poured out some sweet wine
for him to drink, I fondled him, the only thing I didn’t do was to give
him my body.

METRO: But you should have given him that too, if he asked it.

KORITTO: Yes, and I would have, but Bitas slave girl commenced grinding
in the court, just at the wrong moment; she has reduced our hand mill
nearly to powder by grinding day and night for fear she might have four
obols to pay for having her own sharpened.

METRO: But how did he happen to come to your house, Koritto dear?  You’ll
tell me the truth won’t you, now?

KORITTO: Artemis the daughter of Kandas directed him to me by pointing
out the roof of the tanner’s house as a landmark.

METRO: That Artemis is always discovering something new to help her make
capital out of her skill as a go-between.  But anyhow, when you couldn’t
buy them both you should have asked who ordered the other one.

KORITTO: I begged him to tell me but he swore he wouldn’t, that’s how
much he thought of me, Metro dear.

METRO: You mean that I must go and find Artemis now to learn who the
Kerdon is--good-bye KORITTO.  He (my husband) is hungry by now, so it’s
time I was going.

KORITTO: (To the slave girl) Close the doors, there, chicken keeper, and
count the chickens to see if they’re all there; throw them some grain,
too, for the chicken thieves will steal them out of one’s very lap.




THE CORDAX.

A lascivious dance of the old Greek comedy.  Any person who performed
this dance except upon the stage was considered drunk or dissolute.
That the dance underwent changes for the worse is manifest from the
representation of it found on a marble tazza in the Vatican (Visconti,
Mus.  Pio-Clem.  iv, 29), where it is performed by ten figures, five
Finns and five Bacchanals, but their movements, though extremely lively
and energetic, are not marked by any particular indelicacy.  Many ancient
authors and scholiasts have commented upon the looseness and sex appeal
of this dance.  Meursius, Orchest., article Kordax, has collected the
majority of passages in the classical writers, bearing upon this subject,
but from this disorderly collection it is impossible to arrive at any
definite description of the cordax.  The article in Coelius Rhodiginus.
Var.  Lect.  lib.  iv, is conventional.  The cordax was probably not
unlike the French “chalhut,” danced in the wayside inns, and it has been
preserved in the Spanish “bolero” and the Neapolitan “tarantella.”  When
the Romans adopted the Greek customs, they did not neglect the dances
and it is very likely that the Roman Nuptial Dance, which portrayed the
most secret actions of marriage had its origin in the Greek cordax.  The
craze for dancing became so menacing under Tiberius that the Senate was
compelled to run the dancers and dancing masters out of Rome but the evil
had become so deep rooted that the very precautions by which society was
to be safeguarded served to inflame the passion for the dance and
indulgence became so general and so public that great scandal resulted.
Domitian, who was by no means straight laced, found it necessary to expel
from the Senate those members who danced in public.  The people imitated
the nobles, and, as fast as the dancers were expelled, others from the
highest and lowest ranks of society took their places, and there soon
came to be no distinction, in this matter, between the noblest names of
the patricians and the vilest rabble from the Suburra.  There is no
comparison between the age of Cicero and that of Domitian.  “One could do
a man no graver injury than to call him a dancer,” says Cicero, Pro
Murena, and adds: “a man cannot dance unless he is drunk or insane.”

Probably the most realistic description of the cordax, conventional, of
course, is to be found in Merejkovski’s “Death of the Gods.”  The passage
occurs in chapter vi.  I have permitted myself the liberty of supplying
the omissions and euphemisms in Trench’s otherwise excellent and spirited
version of the novel.  “At this moment hoarse sounds like the roarings of
some subterranean monster came from the market square.  They were the
notes, now plaintive, now lively, of a hydraulic organ.  At the entrance
to a showman’s travelling booth, a blind Christian slave, for four obols
a day, was pumping up the water which produced this extraordinary
harmony.  Agamemnon dragged his companions into the booth, a great tent
with blue awnings sprinkled with silver stars.  A lantern lighted a
black-board on which the order of the program was chalked up in Syriac
and Greek.  It was stifling within, redolent of garlic and lamp oil soot.
In addition to the organ, there struck up the wailing of two harsh
flutes, and an Ethopian, rolling the whites of his eyes, thrummed upon an
Arab drum.  A dancer was skipping and throwing somersaults on a
tightrope, clapping his hands to the time of the music, and singing a
popular song:

                    Hue, huc, convenite nunc
                    Spatalocinaedi!
                    Pedem tendite
                    Cursum addite

“This starveling snub-nosed dancer was old, repulsive, and nastily gay.
Drops of sweat mixed with paint were trickling from his shaven forehead;
his wrinkles, plastered with white lead, looked like the cracks in some
wall when rain has washed away the lime.  The flutes and organ ceased
when he withdrew, and a fifteen-year-old girl ran out upon the stage.
She was to perform the celebrated cordax, so passionately adored by the
mob.  The Fathers of the Church called down anathema upon it, the Roman
laws prohibited it, but all in vain.  The cordax was danced everywhere,
by rich and poor, by senators’ wives and by street dancers, just as it
had been before.

“‘What a beautiful girl,’ whispered Agamemnon enthusiastically.  Thanks
to the fists of his companions, he had reached a place in the front rank
of spectators.  The slender bronze body of the Nubian was draped only
about the hips with an almost airy colorless scarf.  Her hair was wound
on the top of her head, in close fine curls like those of Nubian woven.
Her face was of the severest Egyptian type, recalling that of the Sphinx.

“She began to dance languidly, carelessly, as if already weary.  Above
her head she swung copper bells, castanets or ‘crotals,’--swung them
lazily, so that they tinkled very faintly.  Gradually her movements
became more emphatic, and suddenly under their long lashes, yellow eyes
shone out, clear and bright as the eyes of a leopardess.  She drew her
body up to her full height and the copper castanets began to tinkle with
such challenge in their piercing sound that the whole crowd trembled with
emotion.  Vivid, slender, supple as a serpent, the damsel whirled
rapidly, her nostrils dilated, and a strange cry came crooning from her
throat.  With each impetuous movement, two dark little breasts held tight
by a green silk net, trembled like two ripe fruits in the wind, and their
sharp, thickly painted nipples were like rubies, as they protruded from
the net.

“The crowd was beside itself with passion.  Agamemnon, nearly mad, was
held back by his companions.  Suddenly the girl stopped as if exhausted.
A slight shudder ran through her, from her head down the dark limbs to
her feet.  Deep silence prevailed.  The head of the Nubian was thrown
back as if in a rigid swoon but above it the crotals still tinkled with
an extraordinary languor, a dying vibration, quick and soft as the wing
flutterings of a captured butterfly.  Her eyes grew dim but in their
inner depths glittered two sparks; the face remained severe, impersonal,
but upon the sensuous red lips of that sphinx-like mouth a smile
trembled, faint as the dying sound of the crotals.”




ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:

Double capacity of masseurs and prostitutes
Empress Theodora belonged to this class
High fortune may rather master us, than we master it
Legislation has never proved a success in repressing vice
One could do a man no graver injury than to call him a dancer
Russia there is a sect called the skoptzi
She is chaste whom no man has solicited--Ovid
Tax on bachelors
While we live, let us live





                         SIX NOTES BY MARCHENA.



TO THE ARMY OF THE RHINE.

The conquests of the French have resulted, during this war, in a boon to
knowledge and to letters.  Egypt has furnished us with monuments of its
aboriginal inhabitants, which the ignorance and superstition of the Copts
and Mussulmans kept concealed from civilized countries.  The libraries of
the convents of the various countries have been ransacked by savants and
precious manuscripts have been brought to light.

By no means the least interesting of the acquisitions is a fragment of
Petronius, which we offer to the public, taken from an ancient manuscript
which our soldiers, in conquering St. Gall, have sent to us for
examination.  We have made an important discovery in reading a parchment
which contains the work of St. Gennadius on the Duties of Priests, and
which, judging from the form of the letters employed, we should say was
written in the eleventh century.  A most careful examination led us to
perceive that the work by this saint had been written on pages containing
written letters, which had been almost effaced.  We know that in the dark
ages it was customary to write ecclesiastical works on the manuscripts
containing the best authors of Latinity.

At a cost of much labor we have been able to decipher a morsel which we
give to the public: and of the authenticity of which there can be no
doubt.  We render homage to the brave French army to which we owe this
acquisition.

It is easy to notice that there is a lacuna in that passage of Petronius
in which Encolpius is left with Quartilla, looking through a chink in the
door, at the actions of Giton and little Pannychis.  A few lines below,
it relates, in effect, that he was fatigued by the voluptuous enjoyment
of Quartilla, and in that which remains to us, there is no mention of the
preliminaries to this enjoyment.  The style of the Latin so closely
resembles the original of Petronius that it is impossible to believe that
the fragment was forged.

For the benefit of those who have not read the author, it is well to
state that this Quartilla was a priestess of Priapus, at whose house they
celebrated the mysteries of that god.  Pannychis is a young girl of seven
years who had been handed over to Giton to be deflowered.  This Giton is
the “good friend” of Encolpius, who is supposed to relate the scene.
Encolpius, who had drunk an aphrodisiacal beverage, is occupied with
Quartilla in peeping through the door to see in what manner Giton was
acquitting himself in his role.  At that moment a soldier enters the
house.

Finally an old woman, about whom there is some question in the fragment,
is the same as the one who had unexpectedly conducted Encolpius to the
house of the public women and of whom mention is made in the beginning of
the work.

               Ipsa Venus magico religatum brachia nodo
               Perdocuit, multis non sine verberibus.
                                             Tibullus viii, 5.



I.

               Vous verrez que vous avez affaire a un homme.
               You will learn that you have to deal with a man.

Fighting men have in all times been distinguished on account of the
beauty of their women.  The charming fable of the loves of Venus and
Mars, described by the most ancient of poets, expresses allegorically,
this truth.  All the demi-gods had their amorous adventures; the most
valiant were always the most passionate and the happiest.  Hercules took
the maidenheads of fifty girls, in a single night.  Thesus loved a
thousand beauties, and slept with them.  Jason abandoned Hypsipyle for
Medea, and her, for Creusa.  Achilles, the swift of foot, forgot the
tender Deidamia in the arms of his Briseis.

It has been remarked that the lovers did not have very scrupulous tastes
in their methods of attaining satisfaction from the women they loved.
The most common method was abduction and the women always submitted to
this without a murmur of any sort.  Helen was carried off by Theseus,
after having also been abducted by Paris.  The wife of Atreus was
abducted by Thyestus, and from that arose the implacable hatred between
the two families.  Rape was no less common.  Goddesses themselves and the
favorites of the Gods were at the risk of falling prey to strong mortals.
Pirithous, aided by Theseus, even attempted to snatch Proserpina from the
God of the under-world.  Juno herself was compelled to painful submission
to the pursuit of Ixion, and Thetis succumbed despite herself, to the
assaults of Peleus.  The gift of foretelling the future, with which
Apollo endowed Cassandra, did not insure her against the brutal caresses
of Ajax, son of Oileus.

In the infancy of society, there was never known any other distinction
except between the weak and the strong: the strong commanded and the weak
obeyed.  For that reason, women were regarded in the light of beings
destined by nature, to serve the pleasures and even the caprices of men.
Never did her suitors express a tender thought for Penelope, and, instead
of making love to her, they squandered her property, slept with her
slaves, and took charge of things in her house.

Circe gave herself to Ulysses who desired to slay her, and Calypso, full
blown goddess as she was, was obliged to make his advances for him.  The
fine sentiments that Virgil puts into the mouth of the shade of Creusa,
content with having died while serving against the Greeks, “she was a
Trojan, and she wedded the son of Venus”; the confession with which
Andromache, confronted by the murderer of her first husband, responds to
the question of AEneas; these ideas, I say, and these sentiments,
appertained to the polished century of Augustus and not to the epoch or,
scene of the Trojan War.  Virgil, in his AEneid, had never subscribed to
the precepts of Horace, and of common sense:

          Aut famam sequere, aut sibi convenientia finge
                                             Horace Ars Poet. 119.

From this manner of dealing with women arose another reason for the
possession of beauty by the valiant.  One coveted a woman much as one
would covet a fine flock of sheep, and, in the absence of laws, the one
in possession of either the one or the other of these desirable objects
would soon be dispossessed of them if he was not courageous enough to
guard them against theft.  Wars were as much enterprises for ravishing
women as they were for taking other property, and one should remember
that Agamemnon promised to retire from before Troy if the Trojans would
restore Helen and his riches to Menelaus; things which Paris had
despoiled him of.

Also, there was never any of that thing we call “conjugal honor” among
the Greeks; that idea was far too refined; it was a matter too complex
ever to have entered the heads of these semi-barbarous people.  This is
exemplified in the fact that, after the taking of Troy, Helen, who had,
of her own free will, belonged successively to Paris, and to Deiphobus,
afterwards returned to Menelaus, who never offered her any reproach.
That conduct of Menelaus was so natural that Telemachus, who, in his trip
to Sparta found Helen again with Menelaus, just as she was before her
abduction, did not show the least astonishment.

The books which bear the most remarkable resemblance to each other are
the Bible and Homer, because the people they describe and the men about
whom they speak are forerunners of civilization in pretty much the same
degree.  Sarah was twice snatched from the bosom of Abraham and he was
never displeased with his wife and continued to live on good terms with
her.  David, a newcomer on the throne, hastened to have Michol brought to
him although she had already married another man.

The best proof that, during the time of the Romans the women preferred
soldiers to other men is in the claims to successful enterprises by the
bragging soldier of Plautus.  Pyrgopolinices thought it was only
necessary to pose as a great warrior, to have all the women chasing after
him; therefore, his parasite and his slave spoke of nothing but the
passions be inspired in women.  Tradition has it that among the Samnites,
the bravest men had the choice of the fairest women, and to this custom
is attributed one of the reasons these people were so warlike.

In the times of chivalry the greatest exploits were achieved for the
pleasure of one’s Lady-Love, and there were even such valiant knights, as
Don Quixote, who went about the world proving by force of arms that their
ladies had no peer.  The poverty-stricken troubadours singing
harmoniously about their beautiful women found them flying away in the
arms of knights who had broken lances at tournaments, or had performed
the greatest feats of arms.  In fine, all the peoples of the world have
said with Dryden:

               “None but the brave deserves the fair.”




II.

          Ses camarades se saisissent de moi et de Quartilla.
          His comrades seized hold of Quartilla and me.

The profession of Quartilla corresponded to that which is followed by
our ladies of the Palace Royal.  This Palace Royal is a sort of Babylon,
with this difference; that the former prostitute themselves all the year
round, and that they are not quite so attractive as the Chaldean
beauties.  For the rest, one of the incontestable facts of ancient
history is this prostitution of the women of Babylon in honor of Venus,
and I cannot understand why Voltaire refused to believe it, since
religions have always been responsible for the most abominable actions,
and because religious wars, the horrors of intolerance, the impostures of
priests, the despotism of kings, the degradation and stupidity of the
people, have been the direct fatal effects of religions; and seeing that
the blind fanaticism of martyrs and the brutal cruelty of tyrants is a
hundred times more deplorable than a sacrifice equally agreeable to the
victim and to the one who officiates at the sacrifice; and seeing that
the enjoyment and giving of life is no less holy than the maceration and
caging of innocent animals.

The origin of courtesans is lost in the deepest antiquity.  It appears
that it was one of the patriarchal customs to enjoy them, for Judah slept
with Thamar, widow of his two sons, and who, to seduce him, disguised
herself as a courtesan.  Another courtesan, Rahab, played a great role in
the first wars of the people of the Lord: it was this same Rahab who
married Solomon, father of Boaz, fourth forefather of David, and
thirty-second forefather of Jesus Christ, our divine Savior.  Yet the
eternal sagacity of man has failed to take notice of this profession and
to resent the injustice done it by the scorn of men.  The elected kings
of the people, the man who adopts the word father according to the
flesh, are descendants of a courtesan.

For the rest, it must be admitted that many who follow this noble
profession are unworthy of it and only too well justify the ignominy
which is levelled against the entire class.  You see these miserable
creatures with livid complexions and haggard eyes, with voices of
Stentor, breathing out at the same time the poisons which circulate in
their veins and the liquors with which they are intoxicated; you see on
their blemished and emaciated bodies, the marks of beings more hideous
than they (twenty come to satisfy their brutal passions for every one of
them); you listen to their vile language, you hear their oaths and
revolting expressions: to go to these Megeres is often to encounter
brigands and assassins: what a spectacle!  It is the deformity of vice
in the rags of indigence.

Ah!  But these are not courtesans, they are the dregs of cities.  A
courtesan worthy of the name is a beautiful woman, gracious and amiable,
at whose home gather men of letters and men of the world; the first
magistrates, the greatest captains: and who keeps men of all professions
in a happy state of mind because she is pleasing to them, she inspires in
them a desire for reciprocal pleasure: such an one was Aspasia who, after
having charmed the cultured people of Athens was for a long time the good
companion of Pericles, and contributed much, perhaps, towards making his
century what it was, the age of taste in arts and letters.  Such an
one also was Phryne, Lais, Glycera, and their names will always be
celebrated; such, also, was Ninon d’Enclos, one of the ornaments of
the century of Louis XIV, and Clairon, the first who realized all the
grandeur of her art; such an one art thou, C-----, French Thalia, who
commands attentions, I do not say this by way of apology but to share the
opinion of Alceste.

A courtesan such as I have in mind may have all the public and private
virtues.  One knows the severe probity of Ninon, her generosity, her
taste for the arts, her attachment to her friends.  Epicharis, the soul
of the conspiracy of Piso against the execrable Nero, was a courtesan,
and the severe Tacitus, who cannot be taxed with a partiality for
gallantry, has borne witness to the constancy with which she resisted the
most seductive promises and endured the most terrible tortures, without
revealing any of the details of the conspiracy or any of the names of the
conspirators.

These facts should be recognized above that ascetic moral idea which
consists of the sovereign virtue of abstinence in defiance of nature’s
commands and which places weakness in these matters along with the most
odious crimes.  Can one see without indignation Suetonius’ reproach of
Caesar for his gallantries with Servilia, with Tertia, and other Roman
ladies, as a thing equal to his extortions and his measureless ambitions,
and praising his warlike ardor against peoples who had never furnished
room for complaint to Rome?  The source of these errors was the theory of
emanations.  The first dreamers, who were called philosophers imagined
that matter and light were co-eternal; they supposed that was all one
unformed and tenebrous mass; and from the former they established the
principle of evil and of all imperfection, while they regarded the latter
as sovereign perfection.  Creation, or, one might better say
co-ordination, was only the emanation of light which penetrated chaos,
but the mixture of light and matter was the cause of all the inevitable
imperfections of the universe.  The soul of man was part and parcel of
divinity or of increased light; it would never attain happiness until it
was re-united to the source of all light; but for it, we would be free
from all things we call gross and material, and we would be taken into
the ethereal regions by contemplation and by abstinence from the
pleasures of the flesh.  When these absurdities were adopted for the
regulation of conduct, they necessarily resulted in a fierce morality,
inimical to all the pleasures of life, such, in a word, as that of the
Gymnosophists or, in a lesser measure, of the Trappists.

But despite the gloomy nonsense of certain atrabilious dreamers, the
wonderful era of the Greeks was that of the reign of the courtesans.
It was about the houses of these that revolved the sands of Pactolus,
their fame exceeded that of the first men of Greece.  The rich offerings
that decorated the temples of the Gods were the gifts of these women,
and it must be remembered that most of them were foreigners, originating,
for the most part, in Asia Minor.  It happened that an Athenian
financier, who resembled the rest of his tribe as much as two drops of
water, proposed once to levy an impost upon the courtesans.  As he spoke
eloquently of the incalculable advantages which would accrue to the
Government by this tax, a certain person asked him by whom the courtesans
were paid.  “By the Athenians,” replied our orator, after deliberation.
“Then it would be the Athenians who would pay the impost,” replied the
questioner, and the people of Athens, who had a little more sense than
certain legislative assemblies, hooted the orator down, and there was
never any more question about a tax upon courtesans.

Corinth was famous for the number and beauty of its courtesans, from
which comes the proverb: “It is not given to every man to go to Corinth”;
there they ran the risk of losing their money and ruining their health.
The cause of this great vogue of courtesans in Greece was not the
supposed ugliness of the sex, as the savant Paw imagined, and
contradicted by the unanimous evidence of ancient authors and of modern
travellers; but rather, the retired and solitary life which the women of
the country led.  They lived in separate apartments and never had any
communication with the streets or with the residences of men “the inner
part of the house which was called the women’s apartments,” said
Cornelius Nepos (preface).  Strangers never visited them; they rarely
visited their nearest relations.  This was why marriage between brothers
and sisters was authorized by law and encouraged by usage; the sisters
were exposed to the attacks of their brothers because they lived
separated from them.

With the Romans, as with us, the virtuous women corrupted somewhat the
profession of the courtesans.  The absolute seclusion of women was never
the fashion at Rome and the stories we have on the authority of Valerius
Maximus on the chastity and modesty of the first Roman matrons merit the
same degree of belief as the legend of Romulus and Remus being brought up
by a wolf, the rape of Lucretia or the tragic death of Virginia.  On the
contrary, in Livy, a great admirer of the customs of the early days of
Rome, we find that in those times a great number of Roman women of the
noblest families were convicted of having poisoned their husbands and
condemned to death for this hideous crime: that, by no means shows a very
exquisite and tender conjugal sentiment.  During the period of the second
Punic War with what energy they went about the city seeking the repeal of
the law which took out of their hands the custody of jewels and precious
stones!  A repeal which they obtained despite the opposition of Cato the
Censor.  It appears that the profession of the courtesan was generally
practised by the freed-women; their manner necessarily showed the results
of their education.  But the young sparks of Rome never paid much
attention to them, they preferred to have love affairs with the wives of
their friends.  For one Sallust who ruined himself with freedwomen, there
were five Cupienniuses; “Cupiennius, that admirer of the pudenda garbed
in white,” Hor. Sat. I, ii, 36.  Delia, Lesbia, Ipsythillia, Corinna,
Nemesis, Neeria, Cynthia, Sulpitia, Lycimnia, and almost all the women to
whom, under real or assumed names, Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid,
Horace, and others, addressed their erotic compositions, were Roman
married women.  Horace is the only one who celebrated a freedwoman in
some of his odes.  This is due, however, to his taste for variety and
perhaps also, to his birth, for he himself was the son of a freedwoman.
Ovid’s Art of Love and the Satires of Juvenal reveal the extent to which
gallantry was the fashion at Rome and Cato would never have praised the
conduct of that young man who had recourse to a public house if that had
been an ordinary course of procedure.

In Europe of the middle ages, the priests and abbots helped to some
extent in reviving the profession of the courtesans.  Long before, Saint
Paul had stated in his Epistles that it was permitted to the apostles
of the Lord to take with them everywhere a sister for charity.  The
deaconesses date from the first century of the church.  But the celibacy
of the clergy was not universally and solidly established until about the
eleventh century, under the pontificate of Gregory VII.  During the
preceding century, the celebrated Marozie and Theodore had put their
lovers successively upon the chair of St. Peter, and their sons and
grandsons, as well.  But after the priests had submitted to celibacy they
ostensibly took the concubines of which, alas!  our housekeepers of today
are but feeble vestiges.  The Spanish codes of the middle ages were often
concerned with the rights of the concubines of priests (mancebas de los
clerigos) and these chosen ones of the chosen ones of the Lord invariably
appeared worthy of envy.  Finally the courtesans appeared in all their
magnificence in the Holy City, and modern Rome atoned for the rebuffs and
indignities these women had been compelled to endure in ancient Rome.
The princes of the church showered them with gifts, they threw at their
feet the price of redemption from sin, paid by the faithful, and the age
of Leo X was for Rome a wonderful epoch of fine arts, belles lettres, and
beautiful women.  But a fanatical monk from Lower Germany fell upon this
calm of the church and this happy era of the harlots; since then the
revenues of the sacred college have continued to decrease, the beautiful
courtesans have abandoned the capital of the Christian world, and their
pleasures have fled with them.  And can anyone longer believe in the
perfection of the human race, since the best, the most holy of human
institutions has so visibly degenerated!




III.

     Le Soldat ordonne a embasicetas de m’accabler de ses impurs baisers.

     The soldier ordered the catamite to beslaver me with his stinking
     kisses.

One of the reasons which caused the learned and paradoxical Hardouin to
assert that all the works which have been attributed to the ancients,
with the exception of the Georgics and the Natural History of Pliny, were
the compositions of monks, was doubtless the very frequent repetition of
scenes of love for boys, which one notices in most of these writings:
this savant was a Jesuit.  But this taste is not peculiar to convents; it
is to be found among all peoples and in all climates; its origin is lost
in the night of the centuries; it is common in the most polished nations
and it is common among savage tribes.  Profound philosophers have argued
in favor of it; poets have sung the objects of this sort of love in their
tender and passionate compositions, and these compositions have always
been the delight of posterity.  What stupid or unfeeling reader can read
without emotion that beautiful eclogue of Virgil where Corydon sighs his
hopeless love for the beautiful Alexis?  The most passionate ode of
Horace is that one in which he complains of the harshness of Ligurinus.
The tender Tibullus, deceived by his Marathus, brings tears to all who
have hearts.  The delicate Anacreon, praising his Bathylle, and the
valiant Alceus giving himself up after his labors in war to sing of the
dark eyes and black hair of Lycus .  .  .  “with dark eyes and black hair
beautiful.”  It is not to over-civilized refinements of society which,
according to certain misanthropists, degrade nature and corrupt it, that
this taste is due; it is found among the south sea islanders, and the
evidence of the first Spaniards attests that it was common among the
hordes of American Indians before the discovery of the new world.  Paw
had attempted to explain this as resulting from defects in the formation
of the organs of pleasure among the natives; but a peculiar cause is not
sufficient explanation for a universal effect.

At the time of the Patriarchs, Greek love was so general that in the four
cities, Sodom, Gomorrah, Adama, and Seboim, it was impossible to find ten
men exempt from the contagion; that number would have sufficed, said the
Lord, to withhold the punishment which he inflicted upon those cities.

It should be noted here that most of the assertions about the morals of
the Israelites which are to be found in the Erotica Biblon of Mirabeau
are either false or pure guesswork.  It is a bizarre method of judging
the morals of a people, that of taking their legal code and inferring
that the people were accustomed to break all the laws which are forbidden
by that code.  Nevertheless, that is the method which the author of the
Erotica Biblon adopts for portraying the morals of the Jewish people.
Again, he has not even understood this code; he has believed that the law
against giving one’s seed to the idol Moloch meant giving the human
semen; and he is ignorant of the fact that this seed, as spoken of in the
Bible, means the children and descendants.  Thus it is that the land of
Canaan is promised to the seed of Abraham, and the perpetuity of the
reign on Sion to that of David.  Moloch was a Phoenician deity, the same
one to which, in Carthage, they sacrificed children; the Romans believed
him to be a reincarnation of their Saturn, but Saturn was an Etruscan
divinity who could never have had any connection with the Gods of
Phoenicia.  He (Mirabeau) has translated “those who polluted the temple”
 as meaning those who were guilty of some obscenity in the temple; and he
does not know that the temple was “polluted” by a thousand acts, declared
impure by law, and which were not obscene.  The entrance of a woman into
a sacred place, less than forty days after her accouchement, or the
entrance of a man who had touched an impure animal, constituted a
pollution of the House of the Lord.  When one wishes to make a parade of
erudition he should make some attempt to understand the things which he
pretends to make clear to others.  Or is it that this Mirabeau was merely
careless?

The love of boys was so thoroughly the fashion in Greece that we have
today given it the name “Greek Love.”  Orestes was regarded as the “good
friend” of Pylades and Patroclus as the lover of Achilles.  In this
taste, the Gods set the example for mortals, and the abduction of
Ganymede for the service of the master of thunder, was not the least
cause for annoyance given the chaste but over-prudish Juno.  Lastly,
Hercules was not content with the loves of Omphale and Dejanira, he also
loved the beautiful Hylas, who was brought up by the nymphs.

The Greeks boasted, without blushing, of this love, which they considered
the only passion worthy of men, and they did blush at loving a woman,
intimacy with whom, they said, only rendered her adorers soft and
effeminate.  In the Dialogue of Plato, entitled “The Banquet,” which is
concerned entirely with discussions of the various forms of love, they
dismiss love for women as unworthy of occupying the attention of sensible
men.  One of the speakers, I believe it was Aristophanes, explaining the
cause of this fire which we kindle in the bosoms of our loved ones,
affirms that the first men were doubles which multiplied their force and
their power.  This, they abused and, as punishment, Jupiter struck them
with lightning and separated them.  By their love for each other they
came together again to regain their primitive state.  But the effeminates
sought out only the women because they were only half men, half women;
while those whose tastes were masculine and courageous wanted to become
double men again.

Phedre has put into the mouth of AEsop an explanation of that love which
would certainly not have been relished by the Greeks.  He says that while
Prometheus was occupied with modelling his man and woman, he was invited
to a feast given by Jupiter, to the Gods; he came back intoxicated and,
by mistake, applied the sexual parts of one to the body of the other.

For the rest, the Greeks were all in accord in their profound contempt
for women.  The theatrical writers, especially, who studied more
particularly the general opinions and catered to them in order to obtain
the applause of the public, were distinguished by their bitterness
against the sex.  Euripides maintained that Prometheus deserved to be
chained to Mount Caucasus with the vulture gnawing at his entrails,
because he had fashioned a being so pernicious and hateful as woman.  The
shade of Agamemnon, in the Odyssey advised Ulysses not to put any faith
in Penelope and did not stop talking until he had enumerated the entire
list of the vices of the sex.  The first Latin authors imitated the
Greeks in their invectives against women; the comedies of Plautus,
especially, teem with virulent attacks upon them.

At Rome, however, the great freedom permitted to women, soon brought
about other opinions in regard to them; they often played an important
role in public and private affairs, and the men convinced themselves
that, like men, women were capable of the greatest crimes and of the most
heroic virtues.  The noble stoicism of Arria is not the only example of
courageous virtue displayed by the Roman women at a time when crowned
monsters governed the empire.  The young Paulina opened her veins with
her husband, the philosopher, Seneca; Mallonia preferred to die in
torments rather than give herself up to the odious he-goat of Capri.
Who does not admire the noble independence, the conjugal love, and the
matronly virtues of Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus?

Moreover, men began to avow their love for women, and we have here
occasion to observe the rapid progress of gallantry among the Romans.
However, the love for boys was no less universally in vogue in Rome, and
Cicero charges, in his letters to Atticus, that the judges who had so
scandalously white-washed Clodius of the accusation of having profaned
the mysteries of the “Good Goddess,” had been publicly promised the
favors of the most illustrious women and the finest young men of the
first families.  Caesar himself, in his early youth had yielded to the
embraces of Nicomedes, King of Bithynia; moreover, after his triumph over
the Gauls, on the solemn occasion when it was customary to twit the
victor with all his faults, the soldiers sang: “Caesar subdued the Gauls,
Nicomedes subdued Caesar.  But Caesar who subdued the Gauls, triumphed,
and Nicomedes, who subdued Caesar did not.”  Cato said of him that he was
loved by the King, in his youth and that, when he was older, he loved the
queen and, one day, in the senate, while he was dwelling on I know not
what request of the daughter of Nicomedes, and recounting the benefits
which Rome owed to that monarch, Cicero silenced him by replying: “We
know very well what he has given, and what thou hast given him!”  At
last, during the time when the first triumvirate divided all the power,
a bad joker remarked to Pompey: “I salute thee, O King,” and, addressing
Caesar, “I salute thee, O Queen!”  His enemies maintained that he was the
husband of all the women and the wife of all the husbands.  Catullus, who
detested him, always called him “the bald catamite,” in his epigrams: he
set forth that his friendship with Mamurra was not at all honorable; he
called this Mamurra “pathicus,” a name which they bestowed upon those who
looked for favors among mature men or among men who had passed the stage
of adolescence.

The masters of the empire never showed any hesitancy in trying and even
in overdoing the pleasures which all their subjects permitted themselves.
Alas!  A crown is such a weighty burden!  The road of domination is
strewn with so many briars that one would never be able to pass down it
if he did not take care that they were pressed down under the roses.  The
Roman emperors adopted that plan; they longed for pleasures and they took
the pleasures which offered themselves without delay and in a spirit of
competition.  Caligula was so little accustomed to waiting that, while
occupied in offering a sacrifice to the Gods, and the figure of a priest
having pleased him, he did not take time to finish the sacred ceremonies
before taking his pleasure of him.

A remarkable thing is that among almost all peoples, the baths are the
places where the prostitution of men by their own sex is the most common.
We see in Catullus that the “cinaedi” (catamites), a noun which my chaste
pen refuses to translate into French, haunted the baths incessantly to
carry out their practices.  Among the Orientals, of all modern peoples
who have retained this taste most generally, this same fact holds good.
It was at the bath that Tiberius, impotent through old age and
debauchery, was made young again by the touch little children applied to
his breasts; these children he called “‘little fishes,” they sucked his
withered breasts, his infected mouth, his livid lips, and finally his
virile parts.  Hideous spectacle of a tyrant disgraced by nature and
struggling against her maledictions!  But in vain did he invent new
pleasures, in vain did he take part in these scenes in which groups of
young men by threes and fours assumed all sorts of lascivious postures,
and were at the same time active and passive; the sight of these
indulgences of the “sprintriae” (for that is the name which was given
there) did not enable him to resuscitate his vigor any more than the
glamor of the throne or the servile submission of the senate served to
mitigate his remorse.

But of all the emperors, the ones who carried their taste for young boys
to the greatest lengths were, Nero, Domitian and Hadrian.  The first
publicly wedded the young eunuch Sporus, whom he had had operated upon so
that he might serve him like a young woman.  He paid court to the boy as
he would to a woman and another of his favorites dressed himself up in a
veil and imitated the lamentations which women were accustomed to utter
on nuptial nights.  The second consecrated the month of September to his
favorite and the third loved Antinous passionately and caused him to be
deified after death.

The most ample proof of the universality of the taste for young boys
among the Romans is found in the Epithalamium of Manilius and Julia, by
Catullus, and it might be cause for surprise that this has escaped all
the philologists, were it not a constant thing that men frequently
reading about these centuries fail to perceive the most palpable facts
in their authors, just as they pass over the most striking phenomena of
nature without observing them.  It appears, from this epithalamium, that
young men, before their marriage, had a favorite selected from among
their slaves and that this favorite was charged with the distribution of
nuts among his comrades, on the day, they in turn, treated him with
contempt and hooted him.  Here follows an exact translation of this
curious bit.  The favorite could not refuse the nuts to the slaves when
by giving them it appeared that he owned that his master had put away his
love for hire.

              “Lest longer mute tongue stays that
                 In festal jest, from Fescennine,
               Nor yet deny their nuts to boys,
                 He-Concubine! who learns in fine
                   His lordling’s love is fled.

               Throw nuts to boys thou idle all
                 He-Concubine! wast fain full long
               With nuts to play: now pleased as thrall
                 Be thou to swell Talasios’ throng
                   He-Concubine throw nuts.

               Wont thou as peasant-girls to jape
                 He-whore! Thy Lord’s delight the while:
               Now shall hair-curling chattel scrape
                 Thy cheeks: poor wretch, ah’ poor and vile:--
                   He-Concubine, throw nuts.”

and further on, addressing the husband:

             “‘Tis said from smooth-faced ingle train
               (Anointed bridegroom!) hardly fain
               Hast e’er refrained; now do refrain!
                 O Hymen Hymenaeus io,
                   O Hymen Hymenaeus!

               We know that naught save licit rites
               Be known to thee, but wedded wights
               No more deem lawful such delights.
                 O Hymen Hymenaeus io,
                   O Hymen Hymenaeus.”
                                         (LXI.  Burton, tr.)

The Christian religion strongly prohibits this love; the theologians put
it among the sins which directly offend against the Holy Ghost.  I have
not the honor of knowing just why this thing arouses his anger so much
more than anything else; doubtless there are reasons.  But the wrath of
this honest person has not prevented the Christians from having their
“pathici,” just as they have in countries where they are authorized by
the reigning deities.  We have even noticed that they are the priests of
the Lord and especially the monks who practice this profession most
generally amongst us.  The children of Loyola have acquired well-merited
renown in this matter: when they painted “Pleasure” they never failed to
represent him wearing trousers.  Those disciples of Joseph Calasanz who
took their places in the education of children, followed their footsteps
with zeal and fervor.  Lastly, the cardinals, who have a close
acquaintance with the Holy Ghost, are so prejudiced in favor of Greek
love that they have made it the fashion in the Holy City of Rome; this
leads me to wonder whether the Holy Ghost has changed His mind in regard
to this matter and is no longer shocked by it; or whether the theologians
were not mistaken in assuming an aversion against sodomy which He never
had.  The cardinals who are on such familiar terms with him would know
better than to give all their days over to this pleasure if He really
objected to it.

I shall terminate this over-long note with an extract from a violent
diatribe against this love which Lucian puts into the mouth of Charicles.
He is addressing Callicratidas, a passionate lover of young boys, with
whom he had gone to visit the temple of Venus at Cnidus.

“O Venus, my queen!  to thee I call; lend me your aid while I plead your
cause.  For everything over which you deign to shed, be it ever so
little, the persuasion of your charms, reaches absolute perfection, above
all, erotic discourses need your presence, for you are their lawful
mother.  In your womanhood, defend the cause of woman, and grant to men
to remain men as they have been born.  At the beginning of my discourse,
I call as witness to the truth of my arguments the first mother of all
created things, the source of all generation, the holy Nature of this
universe, who, gathering into one and uniting the elements of the
world--earth, air, fire and water--and mingling them together, gave life
to everything that breathes.  Knowing that we are a compound of
perishable matter, and that the span of life assigned to each of us was
short, she contrived that the death of one should be the birth of
another, and meted out to the dying, by way of compensation, the coming
into being of others, that by mutual succession we might live forever.
But, as it was impossible for anything to be born from a single thing
alone, she created two different sexes, and bestowed upon the male the
power of emitting semen, making the female the receptacle of generation.
Having inspired both with mutual desires, she joined them together,
ordaining, as a sacred law of necessity, that each sex should remain
faithful to its own nature--that the female should not play the male
unnaturally, nor the male degrade himself by usurping the functions of
the female.  Thus intercourse of men with women has preserved the human
race by never-ending succession: no man can boast of having been created
by man alone; two venerable names are held in equal honor, and men
revere their mother equally with their father.  At first, when men were
filled with heroic thoughts, they reverenced those virtues which bring
us nearer to the Gods, obeyed the laws of Nature, and, united to women
of suitable age, became the sires of noble offspring.  But, by degrees,
human life, degenerating from that nobility of sentiment, sank to the
lowest depths of pleasure, and began to carve out strange and corrupt
ways in the search after enjoyment.  Then sensuality, daring all,
violated the laws of Nature herself.  Who was it who first looked upon
the male as female, violating him by force or villainous persuasion?
One sex entered one bed, and men had the shamelessness to look at one
another without a blush for what they did or for what they submitted to,
and, sowing seed, as it were, upon barren rocks, they enjoyed a
short-lived pleasure at the cost of undying shame.

“Some pushed their cruelty so far as to outrage Nature with the
sacrilegious knife, and, after depriving men of their virility, found in
them the height of pleasure.  These miserable and unhappy creatures, that
they may the longer serve the purposes of boys, are stunted in their
manhood, and remain a doubtful riddle of a double sex, neither preserving
that boyhood in which they were born, nor possessing that manhood which
should be theirs.  The bloom of their youth withers away in a premature
old age: while yet boys they suddenly become old, without any interval of
manhood.  For impure sensuality, the mistress of every vice, devising one
shameless pleasure after another, insensibly plunges into unmentionable
debauchery, experienced in every form of brutal lust.  Whereas, if each
would abide by the laws prescribed by Providence, we should be satisfied
with intercourse with women, and our lives would be undefiled by shameful
practices.  Consider the animals, which cannot corrupt by innate
viciousness, how they observe the law of Nature in all its purity.
He-lions do not lust after he-lions, but, in due season, passion excites
them towards the females of their species: the bull that rules the herd
mounts cows, and the ram fills the whole flock of ewes with the seed of
generation.  Again, boars mate with sows, he-wolves with shewolves,
neither the birds that fly through the air, nor the fish that inhabit the
deep, or any living creatures upon earth desire male intercourse, but
amongst them the laws of Nature remain unbroken.  But you men, who boast
idly of your wisdom, but are in reality worthless brutes, what strange
disease provokes you to outrage one another unnaturally?  What blind
folly fills your minds, that you commit the two-fold error of avoiding
what you should pursue, and pursuing what you should avoid?  If each and
all were to pursue such evil courses, the race of human beings would
become extinct on earth.  And here comes in that wonderful Socratic
argument, whereby the minds of boys, as yet unable to reason clearly, are
deceived, for a ripe intellect could not be misled.  These followers of
Socrates pretend to love the soul alone, and, being ashamed to profess
love for the person, call themselves lovers of virtue, whereat I have
often been moved to laughter.  How comes it, O grave philosophers, that
you hold in such slight regard a man who, during a long life, has given
proofs of merit, and of that virtue which old age and white hairs become?
How is it that the affections of the philosophers are all in a flutter
after the young; who cannot yet make up their minds which path of life to
take?  Is there a law, then, that all ugliness is to be condemned as
vice, and that everything that is beautiful is to be extolled without
further examination?  But, according to Homer, the great interpreter of
truth--‘One man is meaner than another in looks, but God crowns his words
with beauty, and his hearers gaze upon him with delight, while he speaks
unfalteringly with winning modesty, and is conspicuous amongst the
assembled folk, who look upon him as a God when he walks through the
city.’  And again he says: ‘Your beauteous form is destitute of
intelligence; the wise Ulysses is praised more highly than the handsome
Nireus.’  How then comes it that the love of wisdom, justice, and the
other virtues, which are the heritage of the full-grown man, possess no
attraction for you, while the beauty of boys excites the most vehement
passion!  What! should one love Phoedrus, remembering Lysias, whom he
betrayed?  Could one love the beauty of Alcibiades, who mutilated the
statues of the Gods, and, in the midst of a debauch, betrayed the
mysteries of the rites of Eleusis?  Who would venture to declare himself
his admirer, after Athens was abandoned, and Decelea fortified by the
enemy--the admirer of one whose sole aim in life was tyranny?  But, as
the divine Plato says, as long as his chin was beardless, he was beloved
by all; but, when he passed from boyhood to manhood, when his imperfect
intelligence had reached its maturity, he was hated by all.  Why, then,
giving modest names to immodest sentiments, do men call personal beauty
virtue, being in reality lovers of youth rather than lovers of wisdom?
However, it is not my intention to speak evil of distinguished men.  But,
to descend from graver topics to the mere question of enjoyment, I will
prove that connection with women is far more enjoyable than connection
with boys.  In the first place, the longer enjoyment lasts, the more
delight it affords; too rapid pleasure passes quickly away, and it is
over before it is thoroughly appreciated; but, if it lasts, it is thereby
enhanced.  Would to heaven that grudging Destiny had allotted us a longer
lease of life, and that we could enjoy perpetual health without any
sorrow to spoil our pleasure; then would our life be one continual feast.
But, since jealous Fortune has grudged us greater blessings, those
enjoyments that last the longest are the sweetest.  Again, a woman, from
puberty to middle age, until the last wrinkles furrow her face, is worth
embracing and fit for intercourse; and, even though the prime of her
beauty be past, her experience can speak more eloquently than the love of
boys.

“I should consider anyone who attempted to have intercourse with a youth
of twenty years to be the slave of unnatural lust.  The limbs of such,
like those of a man, are hard and coarse; their chins, formerly so
smooth, are rough and bristly, and their well-grown thighs are disfigured
with hairs.  As for their other parts, I leave those of you who have
experience to decide.  On the other hand, a woman’s charms are always
enhanced by an attractive complexion, flowing locks, dark as hyacinths,
stream down her back and adorn her shoulders, or fall over her ears and
temples, more luxuriant than the parsley in the fields.  The rest of her
person, without a hair upon it, shines more brilliantly than amber or
Sidonian crystal.  Why should we not pursue those pleasures which are
mutual, which cause equal enjoyment to those who receive and to those who
afford them?  For we are not, like animals, fond of solitary lives, but,
united in social relations, we consider these pleasures sweeter, and
those pains easier to bear, which we share with others.  Hence, a common
table was instituted, the mediator of friendship.  When we minister to
the wants of the belly, we do not drink Thasian wine, or consume costly
food by ourselves alone, but in company: for our pleasures and enjoyments
are increased when shared with others.  In like manner, the intercourse
of men with women causes enjoyment to each in turn, and both are alike
delighted; unless we accept the judgment of Tiresias, who declared that
the woman’s pleasure was twice as great as the man’s.  I think that those
who are not selfish should not consider how they may best secure the
whole enjoyment for themselves, but should share what they have with
others.  Now, in the case of boys, no one would be mad enough to assert
that this is the case; for, while he who enjoys their person reaches the
height of pleasure--at least, according to his way of thinking--the
object of his passion at first feels pain, even to tears, but when, by
repetition, the pain becomes less keen, while he no longer hurts him, he
will feel no pleasure himself.  To mention something still more curious
--as is fitting within the precincts of Venus--you may make the same use
of a woman as of a boy, and thereby open a double avenue to enjoyment;
but the male can never afford the same enjoyment as the female.

“Therefore, if you are convinced by my arguments, let us, men and women,
keep ourselves apart, as if a wall divided us; but, if it is becoming for
men to have intercourse with men, for the future let women have
intercourse with women.  Come, O new generation, inventor of strange
pleasures!  As you have devised new methods to satisfy male lust, grant
the same privilege to women; let them have intercourse with one another
like men, girding themselves with the infamous instruments of lust, an
unholy imitation of a fruitless union; in a word, let our wanton Tribads
reign unchecked, and let our women’s chambers be disgraced by
hermaphrodites.  Far better that a woman, in the madness of her lust,
should usurp the nature of a man, than that man’s noble nature should be
so degraded as to play the woman!”




IV.

          Embasicetas fut bientot au comble de ses voeux.
          The Catamite soon reached the height of his passion.

The theologians class this species of lascivious feeling with pollution
which is complete when it produces a result.  The Holy Scripture tells us
of Onan, son of Judas, grandson of Jacob, and husband of Thamar, who was
slain by the Lord because he spilled his semen, “he poured his semen upon
the ground.”  We may be reproached, perhaps, for citing the Holy Bible
too frequently, but that book contains the knowledge of salvation, and
those who wish to be saved should not fail to study it with assiduity.
That this study has occupied a good part of our life, we admit, and we
have always found that study profitable.  To vigorous minds that
admission may seem ridiculous, but we are writing only for pious souls,
and they will willingly applaud this courageous profession of our piety.

The theologians have also classified onanism and pollution among the sins
against the Holy Ghost, and this being the case, there is no being in the
world who has been sinned against so often.  A medium indulgence in this
sin furnished the pleasure of a queen, the severity of one Lucretia does
not repel a thousand Tarquins.  Men with vivid imaginations create for
themselves a paradise peopled with the most beautiful houris, more
seductive than those of Mahomet; Lycoris had a beautiful body but it was
unfeeling; the imagination of her lover pictured her as falling before
his caresses, he led her by the hand over pressed flowers, through a
thick grove and along limpid streams; in that sweet reverie his life
slipped by.

     Here icy cold fountains, here flower covered meadows, Lycoris;
     Here shady groves; life itself here would I dream out with thee.

                                        Virgil Bucol.  Ecl.  X, 41.

In the minds of the theologians pollution is synonymous with all
pleasures with persons of the opposite or the same sex, which result in a
waste of the elixir of life.  In this sense, love between woman and woman
is pollution and Sappho is a sinner against the Holy Ghost.

(Notwithstanding), however (these caprices of the third person of the
trinity) I cannot see why pleasure should be regulated, or why a woman
who has surveyed all the charms of a young girl of eighteen years should
give herself up to the rude embraces of a man.  What comparisons can be
made between those red lips, that mouth which breathes pleasure for the
first time, those snowy and purplous cheeks whose velvet smoothness is
like the Venus flower, half in bloom, that new-born flesh which
palpitates softly with desire and voluptuousness, that hand which you
press so delicately, those round thighs, those plastic buttocks, that
voice sweet and touching,--what comparison can be made between all this
and pronounced features, rough beard, hard breast, hairy body, and the
strong disagreeable voice of man?  Juvenal has wonderfully expended all
his bile in depicting, as hideous scenes, these mysteries of the Bona
Dea, where the young and beautiful Roman women, far from the eyes of men,
give themselves up to mutual caresses.  Juvenal has painted the eyes of
the Graces with colors which are proper to the Furies; his tableau,
moreover, revolts one instead of doing good.

The only work of Sappho’s which remains to us is an ode written to one of
her loved ones and from it we may judge whether the poetess merited her
reputation.  It has been translated into all languages; Catullus put it
into Latin and Boileau into French.  Here follows an imitation of that of
Catullus:

               Peer of a God meseemeth he,
               Nay passing Gods (and that can be!)
               Who all the while sits facing thee
               Sees thee and hears
               Thy low sweet laughs which (ah me!) daze
               Mine every sense, and as I gaze
               Upon thee (Lesbia!) o’er me strays

               My tongue is dulled, limbs adown
               Flows subtle flame; with sound its own
               Rings either ear, and o’er are strown
               Mine eyes with night.

                                        (LI.  Burton, tr.)

After that we should never again exhort the ministers and moralists to
inveigh against love of women for women; never was the interest of men
found to be so fully in accord with the precepts of divine law.

Here I should like to speak of the brides of the Lord; but I remember
“The Nun” of Diderot, and my pen falls from my hand.  Oh, who would dare
to touch a subject handled by Diderot?




V.

     Giton venait de la deflorer, et de remporter une victoire sanglante.
     Giton the victor had won a not bloodless victory.

All people have regarded virginity as something sacred, and God has so
honored it that he willed that his son be born of a virgin, fecundated,
however, by the Holy Ghost.  Still, it appears problematical whether the
Virgin Mary, complete virgin that she was, did not have the same pleasure
as those who are not virgins, when she received the divine annunciation.
Father Sanchez has discussed the question very fully “whether the Virgin
Mary ‘spent’ in copulation with the Holy-Ghost,” unhappily, he decided in
the negative, and I have too much veneration for Father Sanchez not to
submit to his decision; but because of it, I am vexed with the Virgin
Mary and the Holy Ghost.

Notwithstanding this, the daughters of the people of the Lord were not
content to remain virgins; a state of being which, at bottom has not much
to recommend it.  The daughter of Jephtha before being immolated for the
sake of the Lord, demanded of her father a reprieve of two months in
which to weep for her virginity upon the mountains of Gelboe; it seems it
should not have taken so long had she had nothing to regret.  Ruth had
recourse to the quickest method when she wished to cease being a virgin;
she simply went and lay down upon the bed with Boaz.  The spirit of God
has deemed it worth while to transmit this story to us, for the
instruction of virgins from century to century.

The pagan Gods thought highly of maidenheads, they often took them and
always, they set aside the virgins for themselves.  The Phtyian, from
whose organ Apollo was foreordained to come, proved to be only a virgin;
the spirit of God did not communicate itself to anyone who had ever been
sullied by contact with a mortal.  It was to virgins that the sacred
fires of Vesta were entrusted, and the violation of their virginity was a
capital crime which all Rome regarded as a scourge from wrathful heaven.

The Sybils lived and died virgins; in addressing the Cumaean Sybil,
AEneas never failed to bestow that title upon her.

Most of the immortals have preserved their virginity, Diana, Minerva, et
cet.  But what is the most astonishing is that the companions of Venus
and Amor, the most lovable of all divinities, the Graces, were also
virgins.  Juno became a virgin again every year, by bathing in the waters
of a magic fountain; that must have rendered Jupiter’s duties rather
onerous.

There are some reasons for this passion of mankind for maidenheads.  It
is so wonderful to give the first lessons of voluptuousness to a pure and
innocent heart, to feel under one’s hand the first palpitations of the
virginal breasts which arouses unknown delights, to dry the first tears
of tenderness, to inspire that first mixture of fear and hope, of vague
desires and expectant inquietude; whoever has never had that satisfaction
has missed the most pleasurable of all the delights of love.  But taken
in that sense, virginity is rather a moral inclination, as Buffon says,
than a physical matter, and nothing can justify the barbarous precautions
against amorous theft which were taken by unnatural fathers and jealous
husbands.

In those unhappy countries which are bent under oppression, in those
countries where heaven shows its heat in the beauty of the sex, and
where beauty is only an object of speculation for avid parents; in such
countries, I say, they resort to the most odious methods for preserving
the virginity of the young and beautiful daughters who are destined to be
sold like common cattle.  They put a lock over the organ of pleasure and
never permit it to be opened except when it is strictly necessary for
carrying out those animal functions for which nature destined them.

The locks of chastity were long known in Europe; the Italians are accused
with this terrible invention.  Nevertheless, it is certain that they were
used upon men, at least, in the time of the first Roman emperors.
Juvenal, in his satire against women, VI, says: “If the singers please
them there is no need for locks of chastity for those who have sold their
voices to the praetors, who keep them.”

               Si gaudet cantu, nullius fibula durat
               Vocem vendentis praetoribus.
                                        Sat.  VI, 379.

     If pleased by the song of the singer employed by the praetor
     No fibula long will hold out, free, the actor will greet her.

Christianity, most spiritual, most mystical of ancient religions,
attempts to make out a great case for celibacy.  Its founder never
married, although the Pharisees reproached him for frequenting gay women,
and had, perhaps, some reason for so doing.  Jesus showed a particular
affection for Mary Magdalen, to the point of exciting the jealousy of
Martha, who complained that her sister passed her time in conversation
with Jesus and left her with all the housework to do.  “Mary has chosen
the better part,” said the Savior.  A good Christian must not doubt that
the colloquies were always spiritual.

St. Paul counseled virginity and most of the apostolic fathers practiced
it.  Among others, St. Jerome lived his whole life among women and never
lost his purity.  He answered his enemies who reproached him with his
very great intimacy with the Saintly Sisters, that the irrefutable proof
of his chastity was that he stank.  That stinking of St. Jerome, which is
not a veritable article of faith in the Church, is, however, an object of
pious belief; and my readers will very gladly assent to it.

When the Christian clergy wishes to form a body of doctrines to be
submitted to by all the common people it thinks that by separating its
interests and those of the common people as far as possible it must
tighten those ropes by which it binds its fellow citizens.  Also the Pope
who was the most jealous of ecclesiastical power and the one who abused
it most, Hildebrand, rigorously prohibited the marriage of priests and
enunciated the most terrible warnings against those who did not retain
their celibacy.  However, although neither priests nor monks were
permitted to marry, the epithet “virgins” cannot be justly applied to all
priests and all monks without exception.  Nor shall I repeat here the
naughty pleasantries of Erasmus, of Boccaccio, and all the others,
against the monks; without doubt maliciousness has developed more
“satyrical” traits that they have brought out; beyond that, I have
nothing to say.




VI.

                    Alors une vielle. . . .
                    Finally an old woman . . .

The question here has to do with a procurers or go-between.  That
profession has gradually fallen into discredit by I know not what
fatality, which befalls the most worthy things.  Cervantes the only
philosophic author Spain has produced, wanted that calling to be
venerated in cities above all others.  And truly, when one thinks how
much finesse is necessary to pursue that profession with success, when
one considers that those who practice that truly liberal art are the
repositories of the most important as well as the most sacred secrets,
one would never fail to have the greatest respect for them.  The
tranquillity of homes, the civil state of persons they hold at their
discretion, and still, though they drink in insults, though they endure
abuse, very rarely do these beings, true stoics, compromise those who
have confided in them.

In their Mercury, the ancients realized their beau ideal or archetype
of go-between which they called; in vulgar language “pimp”.  That God,
as go-between for Jupiter, was often involved in the most hazardous
enterprises, such as abducting Io, who was guarded by Argus of the
hundred eyes; Mercury I say, was the God of concord, or eloquence,
and of mystery.  Except to inspire them with friendly feeling and kind
affections, Mercury never went among mortals.  Touched by his wand,
venomous serpents closely embraced him.  Listening to him, Achilles
forgot his pride, extended hospitality to Priam and permitted him to take
away the body of Hector.  The ferocious Carthaginians were softened
through the influence of this God of peace, and received the Trojans in
friendship.  Mercury it was who gathered men into society and substituted
social customs for barbarism.  He invented the lyre and was the master of
Amphion, who opened the walls of Thebes by the charm of his singing.
Mercury or Hermes gave the first man knowledge; but it was enveloped in a
mysterious veil which it was never permitted the profane to penetrate,
which signifies that all that he learned from God, concerning amorous
adventures, should be wrapped in profound silence.  How beautiful all
these allegories are!  And how true!  How insipid life would be without
these mysterious liaisons, by which Nature carries out her designs,
eluding the social ties, without breaking them!  Disciples of Mercury, I
salute you, whatever be your sex; to your discretion, to your persuasive
arts are confided our dearest interests, the peace of mind of husbands,
the happiness of lovers, the reputation of women, the legitimacy of
children.  Without you, this desolated earth would prove to be, in
reality, a vale of tears; the young and beautiful wife united to decrepit
husband, would languish and grow weak, like the lonely flower which the
sun’s rays never touch.  Thus did Mexence bind in thine indissoluble
bands the living and the dead.

Fate, however, has often avenged the go-betweens on account of the
misunderstandings from which they suffer at the hands of the vulgar.
Otho opened the way to the empire of the world by his services as a
go-between for Nero.  And the go-betweens of princes, and even of
princesses, are always found in the finest situations.  Even Otho did not
lose all his rights; Nero exiled him with a commission of honor, “because
he was caught in adultery with his own wife, Poppaea.”  “Uxoris moechus
coeperate esse suae” (Suet.  Otho, chap.  111), said malicious gossip at
Rome.

One evening some friends were gathered at the home of one of our most celebrated writers. Having dined sumptuously, they were discussing murder—apropos of what, I no longer remember probably apropos of nothing. Only men were present: moralists, poets, philosophers and doctors—thus everyone could speak freely, according to his whim, his hobby or his idiosyncrasies, without fear of suddenly seeing that expression of horror and fear which the least startling idea traces upon the horrified face of a notary. I—say notary, much as I might have said lawyer or porter, not disdainfully, of course, but in order to define the average French mind. With a calmness of spirit as perfect as though he were expressing an opinion upon the merits of the cigar he was smoking, a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences said: “Really—I honestly believe that murder is the greatest human preoccupation, and that all our acts stem from it... “ We awaited the pronouncement of an involved theory, but he remained silent. “Absolutely!” said a Darwinian scientist, “and, my friend, you are voicing one of those eternal truths such as the legendary Monsieur de La Palisse discovered every day: since murder is the very bedrock of our social institutions, and consequently the most imperious necessity of civilized life. If it no longer existed, there would be no governments of any kind, by virtue of the admirable fact that crime in general and murder in particular are not only their excuse, but their only reason for being. We should then live in complete anarchy, which is inconceivable. So, instead of seeking to eliminate murder, it is imperative that it be cultivated with intelligence and perseverance. I know no better culture medium than law.” Someone protested. “Here, here!” asked the savant, “aren't we alone, and speaking frankly?” “Please!” said the host, “let us profit thoroughly by the only occasion when we are free to express our personal ideas, for both I, in my books, and you in your turn, may present only lies to the public.” The scientist settled himself once more among the cushions of his armchair, stretched his legs, which were numb from being crossed too long and, his head thrown back, his arms hanging and his stomach soothed by good digestion, puffed smoke−rings at the ceiling: “Besides,” he continued, “murder is largely self−propagating. Actually, it is not the result of this or that passion, nor is it a pathological form of degeneracy. It is a vital instinct which is in us all—which is in all organized beings and dominates them, just as the genetic instinct. And most of the time it is especially true that these two instincts fuse so well, and are so totally interchangeable, that in some way or other they form a single and identical instinct, so that we no longer may tell which of the two urges us to give life, and which to take it—which is murder, and which love. I have been the confidant of an honorable assassin who killed women, not to rob them, but to ravish them. His trick was to manage things so that his sexual climax coincided exactly with the death−spasm of the woman: 'At those moments,' he told me, 'I imagined I was a God, creating a world!”


“Ah,” cried the celebrated writer, “if you are going to seek your examples among professional assassins—” “Hold on,” the scientist replied; “simply that we are all more or less assassins. I like to believe that, intellectually, we have all experienced analogous sensations to a lesser degree. We restrain the innate need of murder and attenuate physical violence by giving it a legalized outlet: industry, colonial trade, war, the hunt or anti−Semitism, because it is dangerous to abandon oneself to it immoderately and outside the law, and since after all the moral satisfaction we derive from it is not worth exposing ourselves to the ordinary consequences of the act—imprisonment( testimony before judges (always tiring and scientifically uninteresting), and, finally, the guillotine—” “You're exaggerating,” interrupted the first speaker. “Murder is a dangerous business only for inelegant murderers—witless and impulsive brutes who lack all psychological understanding. An intelligent and rational man may, with ineffable serenity, commit all the murders he desires. He is assured of immunity. The superiority of his calculations will always prevail against the routine of police investigation and, let us admit it, against the puerility of the criminal investigations with which presiding magistrates enjoy dabbling. In this business, as in all others, it is the small who pay for the great. Come, my friend, surely you admit that the number of crimes which go unprosecuted—” “And tolerated—” “And tolerated—I was about to say that—You will admit that that sum is a thousand times greater than the number of discovered and punished crimes ,about which the papers chatter with such strange prolixity, and with so repugnant a lack of understanding. If you will admit that, then concede that the gendarme is no hobgoblin to the intellectuals of murder—” “Undoubtedly—but that's not the question. You are clouding the issue. I said that murder is a normal and not at all exceptional function of nature and all living beings. So it is exorbitant of society, under pretext of governing men, to have abrogated the exclusive right to kill them, to the detriment of the individuals in whom alone this right resides.” “Quite true!” said an amiable and verbose philosopher whose lectures at the Sorbonne draw a select attendance every week. “Our friend is quite right. As far as I am concerned, I do not believe that a human being exists who is not, basically at least, an assassin. Look! when I am in a drawing room, a church, a station; on the terrasse of a cafe, at the theatre or wherever crowds pass or loiter, I enjoy considering faces from a strictly homicidal point of view. For you may see by the glance, by the back of the neck, the shape of the skull, the jaw bone and zygoma of the cheeks, or by some part of their persons that they bear the stigmata of that psychological calamity known as murder. It is scarcely an aberration of my mind, but I can go nowhere without seeing it flickering beneath eyelids, or without feeling its mysterious contact in the touch of every hand held out to me. Last Sunday I went to a town on the festival day of its patron saint. In the public square, which was decorated with foliage, floral arches, and poles draped with flags, was grouped every kind of amusement common to that sort of public celebration—And beneath the paternal eye of the authorities, a swarm of good people were enjoying themselves. The wooden horses, the roller−coaster and the swings drew a very meager crowd. The organs wheezed their gayest tunes and most bewitching overtures in vain. Other pleasures absorbed this festive throng. Some shot with rifles, pistols, or the good old cross−bow at targets painted like human faces; others hurled balls, knocking over marionettes ranged pathetically on wooden bars. Still others, mallet in hand, pounded upon a spring which animated a French sailor who patriotically transfixed with his bayonet a poor Hova or a mocking Dahomean. Everywhere, under tents or in the little lighted booths, I saw counterfeits of death, parodies of massacre, portrayals of hecatombs. And how happy these good people were!” Everyone realized the philosopher was launched upon his subject, so we settled ourselves as best we could, to withstand the torrent of his theories and anecdotes. He continued: “I notice that these gentle pastimes have for some years been undergoing a considerable development. The joy of killing has become greater and, besides, has become popularized in proportion to the spread of social refinement—for make no mistake, customs do change! Formerly, when we were still uncultivated, the Sabbath shooting−galleries were a monotonously sorry sight to see. They only shot at pipes, and eggshells dancing upon jets of water. In the more sumptuous establishments, they actually had birds, but they were made of plaster. I ask you what fun was there in that? Today, progress has made it legal for every good man to procure himself the delicate and edifying emotion of assassination, for a couple of sous. Into the bargain, you may still win colored plates and rabbits; but, instead of pipes, eggshells, and plaster birds, which smash stupidly without suggesting anything bloody to us, the showman's imagination has substituted figures of men, women and children, carefully jointed and costumed as they should be. Then they have made these figures gesticulate and walk. By means of an ingenious mechanism, they walk happily along, or flee terrified.


You see them appear alone or in groups, in decorative settings, scaling walls, entering dungeons, tumbling out of windows, popping up out of trapdoors... They function just like real beings and move their arms, legs and heads. Some appear to be weeping, some seem to be paupers, some invalids, and there are some dressed in gold like legendary princesses. Really, you can believe that they possess intelligence, a will, a soul—that they are alive! Some even assume pathetic attitudes. You can almost hear them cry: 'Mercy! Don't kill me!' It is an exquisite sensation to imagine you are going to kill things that move, suffer, and implore! Something like a taste of warm blood comes to your mouth when you aim the rifle or the pistol at them. What a thrill when the shot decapitates these make−believe men! What a clamor when the arrow splits their cardboard breasts and lays the little inanimate bodies low, in corpse−like postures! Everybody gets excited, intent, and eggs the others on. You hear nothing but expressions of destruction and death: 'Kill him!' 'Aim at his eye, aim at his heart!' 'He got his!' No matter how indifferent these good people are to the targets and the pipes, they become elated when the mark represents a human being. The clumsy ones grow angry, not with their own awkwardness, but with the marionette they have missed. They call it a coward and overwhelm it with vile insults when it disappears intact behind the door of a dungeon. They challenge it: 'Come on out, you bum!' They begin to fire at it again, until they have killed it. Consider these good people; at that moment they are really assassins, beings moved solely by the desire to kill. The homicidal monster which up to then had slumbered in them, awakens with the illusion that they are going to destroy something living. “For, the little fellow of cardboard, sawdust, or wood which moves back and forth amid the scenery is no longer a toy to them, or a bit of lifeless material. Watching it pass back and forth, they unconsciously endow it with warm blood, sensitive nerves, thought—all those things it is so bitterly sweet to annihilate and so fiercely delicious to see oozing from the wounds you have inflicted. They even go so far as to ascribe political and religious convictions to it, contrary to their own; accusing it of being a Jew, an Englishman, or a German, in order to add a particular hate to this general hatred of life, and thus augment the instinctive pleasure of killing by a personal vengeance, intimately relished.” Here the host interrupted out of politeness to his guests, and with the charitable desire of permitting our philosopher and us a breathing space. He objected, quietly: “You're only talking of brutes—peasants who, I concede, are always inclined toward murder. But it is not possible for you to apply the same observations to cultivated minds, disciplined natures, or cultured individuals every day of whose lives witnesses victories over native instinct and the savage vestiges of atavism.” To which our philosopher eagerly replied: “Allow me—what are the habits, my friend, and the preferred pleasures of those whom you call 'cultivated minds and disciplined natures'? Fencing, dueling, violent sports, the abominable pigeon−shoot, bull fighting, the various manifestations of patriotism, hunting—everything which is in reality only a reversion to the period of old−time barbarity, when man—if we may say so was, as far as moral culture is concerned, on the same plane with the wild beasts he pursued. After all, we need not complain that the hunt has survived all the slightly altered trappings of earlier customs. It is a powerful counter−irritant, through whose agency 'cultivated minds and disciplined natures' are enabled, without too much harm to us, to drain off what destructive energy and bloody passion still remains in them. Without it, instead of coursing deer, finishing off the boar and slaughtering innocent game−birds in the meadows, you may be sure that the 'cultivated minds would turn their packs on our trail. We would be the ones whom the 'disciplined natures' would joyfully mow down with rifle−fire, which they do not fail to do when they obtain the power, through some means or another, and with more determination and—let us frankly admit it—less hypocrisy than the brute peasant. Ah, let us never look forward to the disappearance of game from our fields and forests! It is our safeguard and, after a fashion, our ransom. The day it finally disappears, it will not be long before we take its place, for the exquisite enjoyment of the 'cultivated minds'. The Dreyfus affair affords us an excellent example, and never, I believe, was the passion for murder and the joy of the manhunt so thoroughly and cynically displayed. The pursuit of Monsieur Grimaux through the streets of Nantes remains the most characteristic of the startling incidents and monstrous events to which it gave opportunity daily during the past year. And it accrues to the honor of the 'cultivated minds and disciplined natures', who saw to it that this great savant, to whom we are indebted for the most brilliant researches in chemistry, was overwhelmed with indignities and threats of death. In this connection, we must always remember that the mayor of Clisson, 'a cultivated mind', in a letter which was made public, refused to allow Monsieur Grimaux to enter his town, and regretted that modern laws did not permit him to hang him high and dry—a thing which befell savants in the lovely days of the ancient monarchies. And for that, this excellent mayor was strongly commended by all whom France numbers among those exquisite 'worldly personalities' who, according to our host, win such brilliant victories every day over original instinct and the savage vestiges of atavism. Notice also that it is from among the cultivated minds and disciplined natures that officers are almost exclusively recruited. Men—that is to say—who, neither more nor less wicked nor stupid than others, freely choose a calling—a highly honored calling, moreover—in which every intellectual effort is bent toward committing the most diversified violations upon the human being; and in developing and compiling the most complete, far reaching and certain means of pillage, destruction and death. Aren't there warships to which we have given the perfectly logical and understandable names of Devastation... Fury... Terror? “As for me? Listen to this! I'm positive that I believe I am a normal man, with affections, high sentiments, superior culture and the refinements of civilization and sociability. Well, how often have I heard the imperious voice of murder snarling in me! How often have I felt the desire rising in a surge of blood from the depths of my being to my brain—that bitter, violent and almost invincible desire to kill. Do not believe that this desire arose in a passionate crisis, accompanied a sudden, unreflective rage, or was combined with a keen lust for money. Not at all! This desire is born suddenly—powerful and unjustified in me—for no reason and apropos of nothing... In the street, for example, behind the back of an unknown pedestrian. Yes, there are some backs on the street which cry for the knife. Why?” After this unexpected revelation, the philosopher was silent for a moment, and looked at us all in alarm; then he continued: “No—you see, the moralists have split hairs in vain. The need to kill is born in man with the need to eat, and merges with it... This instinctive need, which is the mainspring of all living organisms, is developed by education instead of being restrained, and is sanctified by religion instead of being denounced. Everything conspires to make it the pivot upon which our admirable society revolves. As soon as man awakens to consciousness, we instill the spirit of murder in his mind. Murder, expanded to the status of a duty, and popularized to the point of heroism, accompanies him through all the stages of his existence. He is made to adore uncouth gods, mad, furious gods who are only gratified by cataclysms and, ferocious maniacs that they are, gorge themselves with human lives and mow down nations like fields of wheat. He is made to respect only heroes, those disgusting brutes saddled with crime and red with human blood. The virtues by which he rises above others, and which win him glory, fortune and love, are based entirely upon murder. In war, he discovers the supreme synthesis of the eternal and everlasting folly of murder—regulated, regimented and obligatory—a national function. Wherever he goes, whatever he does, he will always see that word: murder—immortally inscribed upon the pediment of that vast slaughter−house—humanity. “Then why do you expect this man, in whom the scorn of human life is inculcated from infancy, and whom we consecrate to legalized slaughter—why do you expect him to recoil from murder when he finds in it interest or distraction? In the name of what law could society condemn assassins who, in reality, have only conformed to the homicidal laws which it dictates, and followed the bloody example which it sets them? 'Why is it?' assassins might readily say, 'that you force us to overpower groups of men whom we do not hate, whom we do not even know—then, the more we overwhelm them, the more you overwhelm us with rewards and honors? Then again, trusting in your logic, we destroy people because they hamper us or we detest them, or because we covet their money, their wives, their positions, or simply because we enjoy destroying them: all of which are concise, plausible and human reasons—and along comes the gendarme, the judge and the hangman! 'Here is a revolting injustice which is perfectly senseless!' What could society reply to that, if it had the slightest regard for logic?” A young man who had been silent until then said: “Is this really the explanation of that strange murderous mania by which you maintain we are all originally or willfully tainted? I do not think so and I do not wish to. I prefer to believe that everything about us is mysterious. Furthermore, this satisfies the indolence of my mind, which has a horror of solving social, and human problems which, besides, are never solved. And it strengthens the reasons—the purely poetic reasons by which I am tempted to explain, or rather not to explain, everything which I do not understand. You have just made quite a terrible disclosure, Doctor, and described impressions which, if they were to assume active form, might lead you far a field, and me also; for I have often experienced these impressions, and quite recently, under the following exceptionally banal circumstances. But first permit me to add that I ascribe these abnormal states of mind to the environment in which I was brought up, and the daily influences which affected me, unawares. “You know my father, Doctor Trepan. You know that there is no more sociable or charming man than he. Nor is there one of whom the profession has made a more deliberate assassin. I have often witnessed those marvelous operations which made him famous the world over. There is something truly phenomenal in his disregard for life. Once he had just performed a difficult laparotomy and, examining his patient, who was still under the influence of the chloroform, he suddenly said: “This woman may have an affected pylorus... suppose I also go into that stomach. I have time. Which he did. There was nothing wrong. Then my father started to sew up the needless wound he had made, saying: 'Now, at least, I'm certain.' He was so certain that the patient died the very same night. Another time, in Italy, where he had been summoned for an operation, we were visiting a museum. I was enraptured. 'Ah, poet! poet!' exclaimed my father, who was not interested for a moment in the masterpieces which carried me away with enthusiasm; 'Art! art! Beauty! Do you know what it is? Well, my boy, it is a woman's abdomen, open and all bloody, with the hemostats in place!' But I won't philosophize any more, I'll narrate... From the tale I promised you, you will deduce all the anthropological conclusions of which it admits, if it really admits of any...” This young man had So authoritative a manner and so bitter a tone, that it made us shiver slightly. “I was returning from Lyon,” he continued, “and I was alone in a first−class compartment. I've forgotten what station it was, but a traveler got on. I admit that the irritation of being disturbed when alone can bring about very violent states of mind, and arouse you to peevish behavior. But I experienced nothing of the sort. I was so bored with being alone that the chance arrival of this companion was rather a pleasure to me from the very start. He settled himself across from me, after carefully depositing his few bags in the rack. He was a bulky man, of common appearance, whose greasy ugliness shortly became obnoxious to me. After a few moments, I felt something like an insuperable disgust in looking at him. He was stretched opt heavily on the cushions, his thighs apart, and at every jolt of the train his enormous belly trembled and heaved like a disgusting mass of jelly. As he seemed hot, he took off his collar and sloppily mopped his forehead—a low, wrinkled and bumpy forehead, raggedly framed by a few short, sticky hairs. His face was merely a lumpy mass of fat; his triple chin a slack flap of soft flesh, spread on his chest. To avoid this unpleasant sight I pretended to look at the countryside, and forcibly tore myself away from the presence of this irksome companion. An hour passed. And when curiosity, stronger than my will, had drawn my eyes back to him, I saw that he had fallen into a deep and unprepossessing sleep. He slept, sunk into himself, his head drooping and rolling upon his shoulders, and his huge, bloated hands lay open upon the slopes of his thighs. I noticed that his round eyes bulged beneath creased eyelids, and that a bit of bluish pupil showed through a slit, like an ecchymosis on a scrap of limp veal. What insane idea suddenly flashed through my mind? Truly, I don't know. For though I had been frequently tempted by murder, it lay in me in an embryonic state of desire, and had never as yet assumed the precise form of a gesture or an act. Is it possible that the ignominious ugliness of this man alone was able to crystallize that gesture and that act? No, there is a more profound cause, of which I am ignorant. I arose quietly and approached the sleeper, my hands spread, contracted and violent, as though to strangle him.” With these words, being a story−teller who knew how to get his effects, he paused. Then, evidently satisfied with himself, he continued: “Despite my rather puny appearance, I am gifted with unusual strength, exceptional muscular agility, and extraordinary power of grip, and at that moment a strange heat unleashed the dynamic force of my bodily faculties. My hands alone moved towards this man's neck—by themselves, I assure you—burning and terrible. I felt in me a lightness, an elasticity, an influx of nervous tides, something like the powerful intoxication of sexual desire. Yes, I can't explain what I felt better than to compare it with that. The minute my hands were about to close upon this greasy neck, the man woke up. He awoke with terror in his eyes, and he stuttered: 'What? what? what?' And that was all! I saw that he wanted to say more, but he couldn't! His round eye flickered like a little light sputtering in the wind. Then it remained fixed and motionless upon me, in horror. Without saying a word, without even seeking an excuse or a reason, by which the man would have been reassured, I sat down again across from him and nonchalantly, with an ease of manner which still astonishes me, I unfolded a newspaper which, however, I did not read. Fear grew in the man's eyes with every moment; little by little he recoiled, and I saw his face grow spotted with red, then purple, then it stiffened.


All the way to Paris, the man's stare retained its frightful fixity. When the train stopped, the man did not get off... “ The narrator lit a cigarette in the flame of a candle, and from a cloud of smoke his phlegmatic voice was saying: “Oh, I know well enough. I had killed him! He was dead of cerebral congestion.” This story made us very uneasy, and we looked at each other stupefied. Was the strange young man sincere? Had he tried to mystify us? We awaited an explanation, a commentary or an evasion, but he was silent. Grave and serious, he had resumed smoking, and now he seemed to be thinking of something else. From then on the conversation continued chaotic and lifeless, skimming a thousand frivolous subjects in a languid manner. Then a man with a ravaged face, a bowed back and mournful eyes, whose hair and beard were prematurely grey, arose with difficulty and in a trembling voice, said: “Up to now you nave talked of everything but women, which is really inconceivable in a situation in which they are of primary importance.”


“Fine! Let's talk about them,” agreed the illustrious writer, who now found himself in his favorite environment; for in the literary world he passed for that curious fool called a feminist writer. “It's high time that all these bloody nightmares were infused with a little jollity. Let us talk of woman, my friends, since it is by her and through her that we forget our savage instincts—that we learn to love, and are raised to the supreme conception of pity and the idea!” The man with the ravaged face emitted a rasping, ironical laugh. “Woman, teacher of compassion!” he exclaimed; “Yes, I know the anthem. It is utilized a good deal in a certain type of literature, and in courses in drawing−room philosophy. Why, her entire history, and not only her history, but her role in nature and life contradicts this purely romantic concept. Why do women rush to bloody spectacles with the same frenzy that they fly to the pursuit of passion? Why is it that you see them in the streets, at the theatre, in the court of assizes or beside the guillotine, craning their necks and eagerly straining their eyes to sights of torture, in order to experience, to the swooning−point, the frightful thrill of death? Why does the very name of a great assassin make them tremble to the very depths of their flesh with a sort of delicious horror? All of them, or nearly all, dreamed about Pranzini! Why?” “Nonsense!” exclaimed the illustrious writer. “Prostitutes—” “No,” said the man with the ravaged face, “noblewomen—and bourgeoisies—it's the same thing. Among women there are no moral categories—only social categories. They are women. Among the common people and in the upper and lower middle−class, and right on up to the most elevated social strata, women pounce upon those hideous morgues and abject museums of crime that make up the fiction columns of the Petit Journal. Why? Because great assassins have always been formidable lovers. Their genetic powers equal their criminal powers. They love in the same way they kill! Murder is born of love, and love attains its greatest intensity in murder. There is the same physiological exaltation, there are the same gestures of strangling and biting—and often the same words occur during identical spasms.” He spoke with difficulty, with an air of suffering and as he spoke his eyes became more mournful and the wrinkles in his face were more accentuated. Woman, dispenser of ideality and compassion!” he went on: “Why, the most atrocious crimes are nearly always the work of woman. It is she who conceives them, organizes them, prepares them and directs them. If she does not execute them with her own hands, which are often too weak, you find her moral presence, her ideas, and her sex expressed in their ferocity and implacability. 'Look for the woman!' said the wise criminologist.” “You slander her!” protested the author, who could not conceal a gesture of indignation. “What you offer us as generalizations are the very rare exceptions. Degeneracy... neurosis... neurasthenia... My God! Woman is no more impervious to psychical disease than man—although with her these disturbances assume a charming and touching form, which makes us better understand the delicacy of her exquisite tenderness. No sir, you have fallen into a deplorable error. To the contrary, what we must admire in woman is her great common sense and her great love of life which, as I said before, finds its final expression in compassion.” “Literature, sir, literature! “And the worst possible kind!” “Pessimism, sir! Blasphemy! Stupidity!” “I think both of you are mistaken,” interrupted a physician; “women are far more specialized and complete than you think. Incomparable virtuosi and great artists in grief that they are, they prefer the sight of suffering to that of death, and tears to blood. And it's a wonderfully ambiguous business in which each finds what he is looking for; since everyone draws quite different conclusions. We exalt woman's compassion or curse her cruelty for equally irrefutable reasons, according to whether we are momentarily disposed to owe her gratitude or hatred. So what good are all these fruitless discussions; for in the eternal battle of the sexes, we are always conquered—and we can do nothing about it—and none of us as yet, be he misogynist or feminist, has found a more perfect instrument of pleasure, or any other means of reproduction, than woman.” But the man with the ravaged face made violent gestures of denial: “Listen to me,” he said. “The hazards of existence and what a life I've had—have placed me in the presence of—not a woman—but woman. I have seen her, stripped of the artifices and hypocrisies with which civilization veils her real soul. I have seen her abandoned to her single whim, or, if you prefer, to her sole driving instincts, in an environment where nothing, it is true, can restrain them and, on the contrary, everything conspires to excite them. Neither laws, morals, religious prejudices nor social conventions hid her from me—nothing. It was her true self I saw, in her original ,nudity, among gardens and tortures—blood and flowers! When she appeared to me I had fallen to the lowest point of human abjection—at least, I thought so. Then, before her amorous eyes and her compassionate mouth I cried out with hope, and I believed—yes, I believed that through her I would be saved. Well, it was something fearful! Woman revealed crimes to me that I had not known! shadows into which I had not yet descended. Look at my dead eyes, my inarticulate lips, my hands which tremble—only from what I have seen! But I can no more curse her than I can curse the fire which devours towns and forests, the waters which sink ships, or the tiger which carries his bloody prey in his jaws into the depths of the jungle. Woman possesses the cosmic force of an element, an invincible force of destruction, like nature's. She is, in herself alone, all nature! Being the matrix of life, she is by that very fact the matrix of death—since it is from death that life is perpetually reborn, and since to annihilate death would be to kill life at its only fertile source.” “What does that prove?” said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders. He answered simply: “It proves nothing. Must things be proved in order to be painful or pleasant? They need only be felt...” Then, timidly and—oh, the power of human vanity!—with visible self−satisfaction, the man with the ravaged face took out of his pocket a roll of paper, which he carefully unfolded: “I have written,” he said, “the story of this period of my life. I have hesitated to publish it for a long time, and I still hesitate. I would like to read it to you—you who are men and have no fear of plumbing the blackest of human mysteries. May you be able to withstand its bloody horror! It is called: TORTURE GARDEN...” Our host called for fresh cigars and fresh drinks.
THE MISSION
PART 1

Before relating one of the most frightful episodes of my travels in the Far East, perhaps it will be interesting if I briefly explain under what conditions I was led to undertake them. It is contemporary history. To those who will be tempted to wonder at the anonymity which I have insisted on jealously maintaining in what concerns me in the course of this authentic and distressing story, I will say: “My name matters little; it is the name of a man who has caused great suffering to others as well as to himself—even more to himself than to others—and who, after many shocks suffered in a descent to the very dregs of human desire, is trying to reconstruct a soul for himself in solitude and obscurity. Peace to the ashes of his sin.” Twelve years ago, no longer knowing what to do, and condemned by a series of misfortunes to the cruel expedient of hanging myself or throwing myself into the Seine, I appeared before that court of last resort, the board of legislative elections, in a county in which, more over, I knew no one and had never set foot. It is true that my candidacy was officially supported by the cabinet which, no longer knowing what to do with me, found an ingenious and polite means of relieving itself once and for all of my daily harassing importunities. On this occasion I held a solemn and intimate interview with the Minister, who was my friend and old school−chum. “You see how nice we are to you!” this powerful, this generous friend said to me; “Scarcely have we snatched you from the jaws of justice—and we had a hard time doing it—than we're making you a deputy.” “Tm not nominated yet,” I said peevishly. “True! but you have every chance. Intelligent, of attractive appearance, debonair, and a good fellow when you care to be, you possess the sovereign gift of pleasing. Ladies' men, my boy, are always men of the people. I'll vouch for you. It's a question of properly understanding the situation. The rest is very simple.” And he admonished me: “Above all, rid politics! Don't commit yourself.


Don't fly off the handle! In the district I have chosen for you there is one question that supersedes all others: the beet. The rest doesn't count, and is the prefect's business. You are a purely agricultural candidate—more than that, exclusively a beet−candidate. Don't forget it for a moment. Whatever may happen in die course of the campaign, stand resolutely upon this excellent platform. Do you know anything about beets?” “Good Lord no!” I said, “except, like everybody else, I know you get sugar from them—and alcohol.” “Bravo! That's enough,” applauded the Minister, with friendly and reassuring emphasis. “proceed upon that data. Promise fabulous crops—extraordinary chemical fertilizers—free. Promise railroads, canals, routes for the transportation of this interesting and patriotic vegetable. Announce reductions in taxes, bonuses for the farmers, atrocious duties on competitive products—anything you like! You have carte blanche in this affair, and I'll help you. But don't get involved in personal or generalized polemics which might endanger you and, after your election, imperil the prestige of the Republic. For, between you and me, old man—I don't reproach you with any thing—I merely state facts—you have a rather awkward past.” I was in no mood to laugh. Vexed by this after−thought, which seemed to me unnecessary and unkind, I replied sharply, looking my friend squarely in the face; and he could read the cold, sharp threats that lay in my eyes: You might more truthfully have said, 'We have a past.' It seems to me, my friend, that mine has nothing on yours.” “Oh, as for me!” said the Minister, with an air of superior detachment and smug nonchalance, “it's not the same thing... I, old man—France covers my tracks!” Then, returning to my election, he added: “Now I'll continue. Beets—more beets—and still more beets! Such is your program. And see that you don't deviate from it.” Then he discreetly gave me some money and wished me good luck. I faithfully followed this program which my powerful friend had laid out for me, and I was wrong. I was not elected. I attribute the overwhelming majority which my adversary received, aside from certain dishonest manipulations, to the fact that this wretch was even more ignorant than I, and a more notorious blackguard. Let us notice, in passing, that at the present time a well−displayed swinishness supersedes all valid qualifications, and the more infamous a man is, the more we are inclined to endow him with intellectual force and moral courage. My adversary, who is today one of the indisputable glories of politics, had pilfered on many occasions. And his superiority may be attributed to the fact that instead of concealing his speculations, he boasted of them with the most revolting cynicism. “I've stolen! I've stolen!” he shouted down village streets, in public squares, along the countryside and across the fields. “I've stolen! I've stolen!” he proclaimed in his professions of faith, his bill−posters and confidential circulars. And in cabarets his agents, perched upon casks, spattered with wine and bloated with alcohol, reiterated and bellowed those magic words: “He's stolen! He's stolen!” The working classes in the cities, dazzled no less than the sturdy countrymen, acclaimed this bold man with a frenzy which swelled in direct proportion to die frenzy of his confessions. How could I contend with such a rival, who possessed such qualifications—I, who still had on my conscience (and modestly concealed them), merely the paltry peccadilloes of youth: petty thefts, extortion of money from mistresses, cheating at games, blackmail, anonymous letters, informing and forgery? Oh, the candor of innocent youth! One evening at a mass−meeting I even barely escaped being thrashed by some electors who were furious because, in view of my, opponent's scandalous statements, I had demanded—in addition to better beets—the right to be virtuous, moral and honest, and proclaimed the necessity of cleansing the Republic of the particular filth which dishonored it. They rushed upon me, grasped me by the throat, and my body was lifted and tossed from hand to hand, like a bundle. Luckily I escaped from the consequences of my excess of eloquence with only a swollen cheek, three bruised ribs and six broken teeth.


That is all I carried away from that disastrous adventure into which the protection of the Minister who claimed to be my friend had so unluckily led me. I was incensed. I had all the more right to be incensed since, suddenly, in the thick of the battle, the government had abandoned me, leaving me without support, and with only my beet as an amulet by which to make myself understood and to parley with my adversary. The prefect, at first quite humble, did not hesitate to become very insolent; then he refused me the data upon which my campaign rested, and finally he almost slammed his door in my face. The Minister himself no longer answered my letters, refused to grant me anything I asked him, and the partisan newspapers launched underhand attacks upon me and made derogatory allusions couched in polished and flowery prose, They never went so far as to attack me officially, but it was plain to everyone that I was being dismissed. Ah, I truly believe that no man has ever been so embittered as I! I returned to Paris firmly resolved to raise an issue at the risk of losing everything, and demanded an explanation of the Minister, whom my belligerent attitude immediately reduced to compliance and amiability. “Old man,” he said, “I regret what has happened to you. On my word of honor! You can see for yourself I'm miserable about it. But what could I do? I am not the only man in the cabinet, and—” “You're the only one I know!” I interrupted violently, upsetting piles of papers which lay near me on his desk. “The others don't concern me. The others are none of my business. You're the only one. You've betrayed me—it's vile!” “But damn it, listen a minute, will you!” begged the Minister, “and don't get angry like that before you know—” “I only know one thing, and that's enough for me. You've made a fool of me. Well then—no, no, it won't pass off as easily as you think. It's my turn now.” I walked up and down the office, uttering threats and kicking the chairs. “So! so! you've made a fool of me! Now we're going to have some fun! Then the country will know at last what a Minister is. At the risk of poisoning it, I'll show it—I'll expose the soul of a Minister to it. Idiot! So you didn't realize that you, your career, your secrets, and your portfolio, are at my mercy! So my past troubles you? It shocks your modesty, and Marianne's? Just wait! Tomorrow—yes, tomorrow, everything will be known—” I was choking with rage. The Minister tried to calm me, grasped me by the arm and drew me gently, into the armchair I had just bounded out of in fury. “Calm down!” he said to me, and his voice too on a pleading tone. “Listen to me, please! Come, sit down! Stubborn ass! You won't listen to anything! Here, this is what happened...” He uttered swift, short sentences, choppy and trembling: We reckoned without your opponent. In the campaign he revealed himself a powerful man—a real statesman! You know how restricted the eligible ministerial personnel is. Although the same candidates are always coming up, from time to time we have to show a new face to the Chamber and the country. Well, there is none. Do you know any? Well, we thought your opponent might be one of those faces. He has all the qualities suitable to a provisory Minister—an emergency Minister. Finally, since he was for sale and deliverable right then and there—you understand? It's hard on you, I admit... But the country's welfare, first of all—” “Don't talk nonsense. We're not in the Chamber now, It's not a question of the country's interests, which You don't give a damn about, and neither do I. It's a question of me. Well, thanks to you, I'm on the street. Yesterday the cashier of my gambling−joint insolently refused me a hundred sous. My creditors, banking on my success and furious at my defeat, are hounding me like a hare. I'll be sold out! Today, I haven't even the price of a dinner. And you simply imagine that things can go on like this? Well, have you become senseless—as senseless as a member of the majority?” The Minister smiled. He tapped me familiarly on the knee and said: “I'm entirely willing—but you won't let me speak—I'm entirely willing to grant you a compensation—”


“A reparation!” “A reparation, agreed!” “Complete?” “Complete! Come back in a few days... Doubtless I'll be in a position to offer it to you then. In the meantime here's a hundred louis. It's all I have left of the confidential funds.” Sweetly, with merry cordiality, he added: “A half−a−dozen more guys like you, and there'll be no budget!” This generosity, which had exceeded my expectations, possessed the power instantly to calm my nerves. Still grumbling incessantly, for I did not wish to appear disarmed or satisfied, I pocketed the two bills my friend smilingly held out to me, and I retired with dignity. I spent the following three days in the basest debauchery.


PART 2

Permit me to go back once more into the past. Perhaps it is not immaterial that I tell you who I am and where I come from. It will explain the irony of my fate so much better. I was born in the country, of a lower middle−class family—that honest, thrifty and virtuous middle−class which, they inform us in official bulletins, is the real France. Oh well, I am none the prouder for that. My father was a grain merchant. He was a very crude, uncultured man, and a very astute business man. He had the reputation of being very clever, and this great cleverness consisted of 'roping people in' as he used to say. To cheat about the quality and weight of merchandise; to charge two francs for what cost him two sous and whenever possible, without raising too much of a scandal, to get those two francs twice—such were his principles. For instance, he never delivered oats that he had not first soaked with water. In that way, the swollen grains yielded double measure to the liter or kilogram, especially when a little gravel had been added—a practice which my father always indulged in conscientiously. He also knew how discreetly to distribute in the bags blighted and other noxious seeds thrown off in threshing—and no one could adulterate fresh flour with fermented better than he. For in business, nothing must be wasted, and everything makes weight. My mother, who was even more greedy for dishonest profits, assisted him by her predatory ingenuity and sat stiff and distrustful, watching over the till as one mounts guard before an enemy. A strict Republican and a fiery patriot—he furnished supplies to the army—an intolerant moralist and a good man after all, in the popular sense of the word, my father had no pity and accepted no excuse for the dishonesty of others; especially when it was to his disadvantage. In such cases he could never cease talking about the necessity for honor and virtue. One of his great ideas was that in a well−organized democracy they should be made compulsory—like education, taxes and voting. One day he discovered that a teamster who had been in his service for fifteen years, was robbing him. He immediately had him arrested. At the trial the teamster defended himself as best he could: “But the boss never hesitated to 'rope people in'. Whenever he had played a good trick on a customer, he boasted about it as though he had done a good deed. 'The only thing is to take in the cash,' he used to say, 'no matter where or how you get it. To sell a dead cat for a live horse—that's the secret of business.' Well, I've done just what the boss does with his customers. I've roped him in.” These cynical remarks made a bad impression on the judges. They sentenced the teamster to two years in prison, not only for having pilfered a few kilograms of grain, but chiefly because he had slandered one of the oldest business houses in district... a house founded in 1794, whose long−standing, steadfast, and legendary respectability had been the ornament of the town from generation to generation. I remember that on the evening of this celebrated decision my father had gathered some friends at table: merchants like himself and, like him, rooted in this inaugural principle that to 'rope people in' was the very soul of trade. You can imagine how indignant they were about the defiant attitude of the teamster. They talked of nothing else until midnight; and out of the confusion, epigrams, discussions and little glasses of brandy, I distilled this precept: which was, so to speak, the moral of the episode and at the same time the synthesis of my education: To take something from a person and keep it for one self: that is robbery. To take something from one person and then turn it over to another in exchange for as much money as you can get: that is business. Robbery is so much more stupid, since it is satisfied with a single, frequently dangerous profit; whereas in business it Can be doubled without danger. It was in this moral atmosphere that in some way or other I grew up and developed entirely alone, with no other text than the daily example of my parents. Among the shop keeping classes children are generally left to their own devices, for no one has time to bother with their education. They educate themselves as best they can, at the mercy of their own dispositions and the pernicious influences of that environment, which is generally degrading and confined. Spontaneously, and without the need of any outward pressure, I contributed my own portion of emulation or invention to the family swindles. From the age of ten I had no other concept of life than theft, and I was convinced—oh, quite ingenuously I assure you—that to 'rope people in' constituted the foundation of all social intercourse. College determined the bizarre and tortuous direction I was to give to my own life, for it was there I met the man who was later to become my friend—the celebrated Minister, Eugene Mortain. The son of a wine−merchant, groomed for politics (just as I was for business) by his father, who was the chief electoral representative of the district, vice−president of the Gambettist committees and founder of various leagues, opposition groups and professional syndicates, Eugene bore within him from infancy the soul of 'a born statesman'. Although the recipient of a free scholarship, he immediately overawed us with his obvious superiority in effrontery and rudeness, and also by a solemn and vacuous manner of speaking which did violence to our enthusiasms. Besides, he inherited from his father the profitable and efficacious mania for organization. In a few weeks he had made short work of transforming, the college campus into a meeting place for all sorts of societies and clubs, committees and sub−committees, of which he simultaneously elected himself president, secretary and treasurer. There was the football association, the top association, the leap−frog society, and the walking dub; there was the horizontal−bar committee, the trapeze league, the one−legged race syndicate, etc. Every member of these various associations was obliged to contribute to the general fund—that is to say, our comrade's pockets—monthly dues of five sous which, among other advantages, entitled him to a subscription to the quarterly journal which Eugene Mortain edited as propaganda for the ideas, and the defense of the interests, of the numerous 'autonomous and solitary groups,' as he proclaimed. Evil instincts and appetites which were common to us both immediately bound us together and made of our close partnership a greedy and incessant exploitation of our comrades, who were proud to be syndicated. I soon discovered I was the lesser power in this duplicity, but the realization of this fact made me cling only the aster to the career of this ambitious companion. As compensation for lack of an equal division. I was always assured of being able to pick up a few crumbs... they sufficed me then. Alas! I have never had more than the crumbs of the cakes my friend devoured. I rediscovered Eugene later, during a difficult and distressing episode of my life. By dint of 'roping people in' my father had ended by being roped in himself, and not in the figurative sense which he applied to his customers. An unfortunate stock of provisions which, it appeared, poisoned an entire barracks, was the occasion for this deplorable incident, which crowned the total ruin of our house founded in 1794. My father might perhaps have survived his dishonor, for he was aware of the infinite indulgence of his epoch; but he could not survive his ruin. An attack of apoplexy carried him off one beautiful evening. He died, leaving my mother and me penniless. No longer able to count on him, I was definitely obliged to get myself out of the mess alone and,tearing myself away from the maternal lamentations, I fled to Paris where Eugene Mortain welcomed me with open arms. That worthy was rising little by little. Thanks to parliamentary protection, cleverly exploited, to the agility of his nature and his absolute lack of scruples, he was beginning to be well spoken of in the press, and in political and financial circles. He immediately employed me to do his dirty work, nor was it long before, living as I did in his shadow, I absorbed some of his notoriety, by which I did not know how to profit as I should have. But I was most lacking in the ability to persevere in wrongdoing. Not that I experienced belated qualms of conscience, remorse or fleeting desires for honesty: there is a diabolical streak in me, a relentless and inexplicable perversity which suddenly forces me, without apparent reason, to drop the best conducted of affairs and loosen my hold on the most greedily gripped throats. With practical qualities of the very first order, an acute flair for life, the audacity even to conceive the impossible and an exceptional alacrity in materializing it, I still have not the necessary tenacity of a man of action.

Perhaps beneath the scoundrel that I am, there lies a misled poet? Perhaps a mystifier who enjoys mystifying himself? However, in foreknowledge of the future, and feeling that the day would inevitably come when my friend Eugene would want to get rid of a man who symbolized to him an embarrassing past, I had the cunning to compromise him by circulating derogatory stories, and the foresight to keep in my possession incontrovertible proofs. For fear of a downfall, Eugene was forced perpetually to drag me about after him like a ball and chain. While awaiting the supreme honors towards which the muddy stream of politics was bearing him, here, among other honorable matters, were the nature of his intrigues and the subjects of his preoccupation: Officially, Eugene had a mistress. She was then known as the Countess Borska. Not very young, but still pretty and desirable, now a Pole, now a Russian and frequently an Austrian, she naturally passed for a German spy. Therefore her salon was a hangout for most of our illustrious statesmen. Many political affairs were bandied about there, and amid considerable coquetry, many notable and dubious transactions found their inception. Among the most frequent guests of this salon, a certain Levantine financier, Baron K—, was conspicuous. He was a quiet man, with a wan grey face and dull eyes, who had revolutionized the Stock Exchange by his formidable manipulations. It was known, or at least it was said, that behind this silent and impenetrable mask one of the most powerful Empires of Europe was in operation. It was doubtless a purely romantic concept, for in these corrupt places one never knows which to admire more—their corruption or their insipidity. Nevertheless, Countess Borska and my friend entertained lively hopes of being taken into the confidence of the mysterious baron, and continued to hope all the more energetically as the latter opposed their discreet but definite advances, with an even more discreet and definite reserve. I even believe that he pushed his reserve so far as to give them malicious advice, which resulted in a disastrous transaction for our friends. Then they conceived of letting loose upon the recalcitrant banker a very pretty young woman, who was an intimate friend of their household, and to let me loose at the same time upon the very pretty young woman who, worked upon by them, was quite willing to accept us favorably—the banker for business, and me for pleasure. Their calculation was simple and I grasped it at the very start: introduce me into the place and there I, through the woman, and they through me, would become roasters of the secrets which the baron let slip in moments of tender forgetfulness! This is what might be called high−pressure politics! Alas! that demon of perversity, which visits me at the decisive moment when I ought to act, wished things otherwise, and brought about the clumsy abortion of this lovely project. At the dinner which was to seal this quite Parisian union, I behaved in so unmannerly a fashion to the young woman that after a scandalous scene she left the salon in shame, fury and tears, and went home, widowed of both our loves. The little celebration was cut short, and Eugene took me home in a cab. We went down the Champs Elysees amid a tragic silence. “Where shall I drop you off?” the great man said to me, as we turned the corner of the Rue Royale. “At the dive... on the boulevard,” I sneeringly replied to them, in a hurry to breathe some pure air, in the company of honest people. And suddenly, with a gesture of discouragement, my friend tapped me on the knee and oh, all my life I shall see the sinister expression of his mouth, and his look of hatred!——and he sighed: “Well! Well! No good will ever come of you!” He was right. And that time I could not blame him for it. Eugene Mortain belonged to that school of politicians which, under the famous name of opportunists, Gambetta unleashed upon France like a pack of carnivorous beasts. He aspired to power only for the material pleasures it could procure, and the money which clever men like he knew how to draw from muddy sources. Incidentally, I do not know why I am holding only Gambetta responsible for the historic honor of having gathered and unchained the miserable pack which still endures despite all the Panamas. Gambetta assuredly loved corruption; there lay in that thundering democrat a voluptuary, or rather a lusty dilettante who reveled in the stench of decomposition. But it must be said in his exoneration, and to their glory, that the friends with whom he surrounded himself, and which chance rather than judicious selection had rallied to his short−lived career, were rascals enough to hurl themselves of their own accord, upon that eternal prey, in which so very many jaws had already fleshed their furious teeth. Before attaining to the Chamber, Eugene Mortain had tackled every trade—even the lowest; he had passed through the lowest and shadiest depths of journalism, You cannot choose all your openings—you must take them where you find them. His initiation into Parisian life was spirited and prompt—and, moreover, carefully calculated. I mean that life which flows from the editorial offices to the Parliament, by way of the prefecture of police. Since he was devoured by immediate needs and ruinous appetites, there was no important blackmailing scheme or underhand affair of which our honest Eugene was not in some way or other the mysterious and violent brain. He had negotiated that stroke of genius whereby a great section of the press had been syndicated, in order to expedite the success of his vast undertakings. In this sort of discredited enterprise knew a good many of his calculations to be pure master−pieces, which revealed this little, rapidly cultivated provincial as an astounding psychologist and an admirable organizer of the evil instincts of the outcast. But he had the modesty never to boast of the beauty of his achievements, and the priceless art, by making use of others, of never exposing his own person in hours of danger. With constant craftiness and a perfect knowledge of his fields of operation, he always managed to avoid, by circumnavigation, the dank and muddy swamps of the police correctional, into which so many others clumsily allowed themselves to be engulfed. It is true that my assistance—be it said without fatuity—was not entirely useless to him in many circumstances. He was, into the bargain, a charming fellow; yes, in truth, a charming fellow. He could only be reproached for an awkwardness of demeanor—a persistent vestige of his provincial education—and vulgar details which added to the unpleasant conspicuousness of his too recently acquired wealth. But all these things were only externals which concealed all the better, from casual observers, whatever subtle resources his mind possessed, together with his acute instincts, his shrewd agility, and all the greedy and terrible tenacity of his soul. To rightly appreciate that soul it would have been necessary to see—as I, alas, have seen them so many times!—the two wrinkles which, at certain moments of relaxation, drooped from the corners of his lips and gave a frightful expression to his mouth—Ah yes, he was a charming fellow! “By judicious duels he silenced the malevolent rumors which always surround meteoric personalities. His natural gaiety and good—natured cynicism (which we readily considered an amiable paradox), no less than his lucrative and widely publicized love−affairs, succeeded in acquiring for him a questionable reputation, which was, however, enough for a future statesman who Was yet to go through the mill. He also possessed that marvelous faculty of being able to speak for five hours and on any subject, without ever expressing an idea. His quenchless eloquence poured forth ceaseless and indefatigable—the slow, monotonous, and suicidal torrent of the political vocabulary—and just as fluently upon questions of the merchant marine as on school reform, on finance as well as the beaux arts, on agriculture as well as religion. The parliamentary reporters recognized in him their own universal incompetence, and patterned their written jargon after his spoken gibberish. Obliging when it cost him nothing; generous and even prodigal when it might be very profitable to him; arrogant and servile according to circumstances and individuals; awkwardly skeptical, grossly corrupt, an enthusiast devoid of spontaneity and an unspontaneous wit—he was liked by everyone. Therefore his swift rise surprised and disconcerted no one. It was, to the contrary, favorably received by different political parties, for Eugene was not considered a fierce partisan, he discouraged no hope or ambition, and it was not unknown that, when the time was ripe, an understanding might be reached with him. All that mattered was to set the price. Such was the man and such the 'charming fellow' in whom my last hopes rested, and who actually held my life and death between his fingers. You will notice that in this hastily outlined sketch of my friend I have modestly effaced myself, although I collaborated vigorously, and often by curious methods, in the making of his career. I might tell any number of stories which are not, you may believe, exceptionally edifying. But what good would a complete confession be, since you may guess at all my depravities without any necessity for further display? And then, my role opposite this bold and prudent scamp was always—I do not say insignificant, ah nor laudable, for you would laugh in my face—but it remained almost a secret. Allow me to remain in that scarcely discreet shadow with which I have been pleased to shroud those years of sinister struggle and shady machination. Eugene does not 'acknowledge' me. And I myself, out of what remains of a quite bizarre modesty, occasionally feel an overwhelming repugnance at the thought that I might easily pass for his 'cat's−paw'. Besides, it occasionally happened that for entire months I lost sight of him, and 'gave him the slip', as we say, finding in the gambling−dens, at the Stock Exchange and in the dressing−rooms of kept women, sustenance which I was tired of seeking in politics, and whose quest was more to my taste for laziness and the unexpected. Sometimes, in the grip of a sudden poetic mood, I buried myself in a God−forsaken corner of the country, and in the presence of nature aspired to purity, silence and moral rehabilitation which, alas! never lasted very long. And I returned to Eugene at times of crisis. He did not always welcome me with the cordiality I demanded of him. It was obvious that he would have liked to get rid of me. But with a clean, sharp cut of the check−rein, I recalled him to the reality of our mutual situation. One day I distinctly saw the flame of murder glowing in his eyes. I was not alarmed, but firmly placed my hand upon his shoulder, like a gendarme does to a robber, and I said banteringly: “What of it? What will it get you? My corpse itself will accuse you. Don't be so stupid! I've let you get where you wanted. I've never crossed your ambition. To the contrary, I have worked for you as well as I was able... loyally, isn't it true? Do you think it's pleasant for me to see us—you on top, strutting in the limelight, and me at the bottom, stupidly floundering through the mire? And then, by a flip of the hand, this marvelous career, laboriously built up by us both—” “Oh! by us both... “ hissed Eugene. “Yes, by us both, swine!” I repeated, exasperated by this untimely correction. “Yes, by a flip of the hand... a breath... and you know it—I could destroy that marvelous career. I need only say one word, you cur, to hurl you from power to the workhouse; to make of the Minister you are—ah, so ironically!—the galley slave you might be if justice still existed and I weren't the basest of cowards. Well! I will not make that gesture, and I won't say the word. I leave you to receive the adulation of men and the esteem of foreign courts, because, you see... I find it stupendously amusing. Only, I want my share, you hear!... my share. And what do I ask? What I ask is ridiculous. Nothing—crumbs... although I might demand everything—everything! I beg you—don't exasperate me any further; don't drive me to the wall any longer. Don't force me to create melodramatic scenes. For the day I have had enough of life, enough, of the slime, that slime—your slime, whose intolerable odor I smell about me all the time... well, that day his Excellency Eugene Mortain won't laugh, my boy. I swear it!” Then, with an embarrassed smile, in which the folds around his drooping lips gave his face an expression of beastly fear and impotent lust to kill, Eugene said to me: “But you're crazy to tell me all this... and apropos of what? Have I refused you anything, you sorehead?” And, gaily, with a multiplicity of gesture and grimace which bewildered me, he comically added; “Do you want the Cross of the Legion of Honor, eh?” Yes, truly, he was a charming fellow.
PART 3

Some days after the scene of violence which followed my unfortunate defeat I met Eugene again at a friend's house, the home of that good Mme. G—, where we had both been invited to dine. Our handshake was cordial and you'd have thought nothing unpleasant had passed between us. “I don't see you anymore,” he reproached me, in that tone of noncommittal geniality which in him was only the refinement of hatred. “Have you been ill?” “Certainly not. I travel towards oblivion, that's all.” “Incidentally—have you recovered your senses? I'd like very much to talk to you for five minutes after dinner... if you don't mind.” “Then you've got something new?” I asked with a bitter smile, so he might see that I refused to be dismissed as a matter of little consequence. “I?” he said. “No... nothing... a tentative project. Well, we'll see.” I was ready with an impertinent reply when Mme. G—, an enormous bundle of swaying flowers, dancing feathers and billowing lace, interrupted our


conversation. “Ah, my dear Minister,” she sighed, “when will you ever rid us of these dreadful socialists?” And she carried Eugene off to a group of young women who, by the way they were grouped in a corner of the salon, impressed me with being there for hire, like those nocturnal creatures at a cafe−concert who, with their excessive décolletage and borrowed finery, add the final touch to their tawdry surroundings. Mme. G— had the reputation of playing an important part in Society and the Government, and among the innumerable comedies of Parisian life, the influence attributed to her was not one of the least amusing. The paltry chroniclers of the petty events of that time seriously related (after establishing brilliant parallels in the past), that her salon was the starting−point and the goal of political careers and literary aspirations; and consequently the rendezvous of all the young and ambitious, and the old and likewise. According to them, it was there that contemporary history was made, there the downfall and accession of cabinets was plotted, and there, amid genial intrigues and delicious small−talk,


for it was a salon where people talked—that foreign alliances as well as academic elections were negotiated. It was said that M. Sadi Carnot himself—who then reigned over French hearts—had been given to clever maneuvers in his dealings with this formidable power, and to keep in its good graces he gallantly offered it, for lack of his approbation, the most beautiful flowers of the Elysee gardens and the city hothouses. From having known M. Thiers and M. Guizot, Cavour and the elder Metternich, during the time of her, or their youth—Mme. G— was not very sure of her chronology on that point—this ancient personage retained a prestige with which the Republic loved to adorn itself, as with a perennial grace; and her salon benefited by the posthumous glory which those illustrious names (invoked on all occasions) recalled to the shrunken individualities of the present. Moreover, people went to this select salon as to a county fair; and never have I seen—I who've seen so many a stranger medley of human beings or a more ridiculous social masquerade. There was a host of out casts from the worlds of politics,


journalism, clubs, society, the theatre and the world at large—and women of the same sort—she received them all. No one was deceived by this pseudo−atmosphere, but each one found it incumbent—in order to exalt himself—to glorify a notoriously low environment in which many of us found, not only scarcely mentionable sustenance, but even our only reason for being. Besides, I have an idea that most of the salons so famous in former times where roving political ambitions and unemployed literary pretensions of the most varied species came to commune, resembled this one pretty accurately... No more am I convinced that this one differed essentially from others highly praised in lyrical panegyrics and on all occasions, for their difficulty of access or their exquisite moral standards. The truth is that Mme. G—, stripped of her exaggerated fame and poetic legends and reduced to the real character of her worldly personality, was just a very vulgar−minded old woman, of scant and, in the bargain extremely vicious education. No longer able to cultivate the flower of vice in her own garden, she cultivated it elsewhere with a tranquil


shamelessness. It was difficult to know whether its boldness or its ingenuousness was more to be admired. For professional love−affairs, which she had been obliged to abandon, she had substituted a mania for contriving extramarital unions and separations, which it was her delight and her only sin to follow up, direct, protect and hatch; and thus warm her shriveled old heart by the heat of their forbidden flames. At the home of this great politician, sanctified by Messieurs Thiers and Guizot, by Cavour and the elder Metternich, you were always sure to find kindred souls, impending adultery, lusts under weigh, and passions of all kinds, freshly equipped for the race at any time an invaluable stock−in−trade in the event of sentimental ruptures and dull evenings. Why did I have the idea of going to Mme. G—'s that particular evening? I don't know, for I was quite melancholy and scarcely in the mood for merrymaking. My anger with Eugene was quite appeased, at least momentarily, and a great fatigue—a great disgust, had replaced it: disgust with myself, with others, with everybody. Since that morning I had reflected seriously on my situation,


and despite the Minister's promises with which, moreover, I had decided not to let him off easily—I saw no suitable outcome. I realized that it was quite difficult for my friend to procure me a permanent official situation, something honorably parasitical and officially remunerative, by whose means I might be enabled to end my days in peace—a respectable old man and an irreproachable office−holder. Besides, it is probable that I would have immediately bungled this position; then, from all sides, simultaneous objections would have been raised in the name of public morality and the decency of the Republic, to which the Minister, when questioned, would not have known how to reply. Anything he could offer me through transitory and miserable expedients and sorry juggling of the budget, would only have been a postponement of the inevitable hour of my downfall. And then I could not even count on this minimum of favors and protection forever, any more than Eugene could count upon the everlasting stupidity of the public. Many dangers already threatened the cabinet, and many scandals, to which, now and then, some newspapers, dissatisfied with the graft they


were receiving, were making more and more direct allusions and undermining the personal security of my protector, Eugene only maintained his power by aggressive attacks upon unpopular and defeated parties, and also by cash payments which, as I suspected at the time, and was later demonstrated, he received from outside, in exchange each time for a pound of the country's flesh. I had carefully considered working for the downfall of my comrade, and cleverly worming my way to the side of a likely ministerial leader, and thus, by the aid of this new collaborator, recovering a sort of social virginity. Everything impelled me to it: my nature, my own welfare, and also the violently delicious pleasure of vengeance. But besides the uncertainties and dangers which surrounded this scheme, I had neither the courage to risk another adventure, nor to repeat such maneuvers. I had burned my candle at both ends, and I was weary of these perilous and precarious adventures which had led me—whither? I was experiencing mental fatigue, a paralysis of my energies, and all my faculties were diminishing while still in their prime, sapped by


neurasthenia. Ah, how I regretted not having followed the straight roads of life! At the moment I sincerely hope for nothing better than the mediocre joys of middle−class respectability, and I wished no more, and could bear no more of these sudden jolts of fortune, these choices of misery which had not left me a moment of respite, and had made of my existence a perpetual and tortured anxiety. Then what was to become of me? The future seemed sadder and even more hopeless to me than winter twilight falling in a sickroom. In a little while, after dinner, what new infamy would the infamous Minister propose to me? Into what deeper mire, from which I could never rise, did he want to thrust me, and make me disappear forever? I glanced about for him amid the throng. He was hovering about the women. Nothing about his skull or shoulders indicated that he bore the heavy burden of his crimes. He was carefree and gay. And to see him thus redoubled my rage at the realization of our mutual impotence—his to save me from shame, and mine to fling him into it... ah yes, to fling him into it! Crushed by these multiple, piercing


preoccupations, it was not astounding that I had lost my fervor, and that the beautiful creatures selected and displayed by Mme. G— for the pleasure of her guests, left me cold. During dinner I behaved in an extremely disagreeable fashion, and scarcely spoke to my neighbors whose lovely bosoms gleamed amidst their flowers and jewels. It was believed that my electoral defeat was the cause of this somber mood in one so ordinarily joyful and gallant. “Cheer up!” they said to me. “What the devil, you're still young! You need guts for a political career. Better luck next time.” To these banal consolations, engaging smiles, and inviting bosoms, I obstinately replied: “No... no. Don't talk politics to me. It's infamous! Don't talk to me any more about universal suffrage. It's idiotic! I've had enough. I don't want to hear them mentioned again.” Then Mme. G—, her feathers, flowers and lace suddenly rising before me in variegated and scented waves whispered in my ear with the affected raptures and moist coquetries of an old procuress: “Love is everything, you see. There is never


anything but love! Try love! Listen: just tonight there is a young Romanian here... passionate... ah, a poet, my dear, and a countess! I'm sure she's mad about you. Anyhow, all women are mad about you. I'll introduce you.” I side−stepped this crudely arranged opportunity, and in a sullen and enervated silence persistently awaited the end of this interminable evening. Monopolized by everyone, it was quite late before Eugene could rejoin me. We took advantage of the fact that a celebrated diva was momentarily absorbing everyone's attention, to hide in a sort of little smoking−room which was lit by the discreet glow of a tall floor lamp, draped with rose−colored gauze. The Minister sat down on the couch, lit a cigarette, and while I negligently straddled a chair opposite him and crossed my arms on its back, he seriously said: “I've been thinking a lot about you these last few days.” Doubtless he expected some word of thanks, a friendly gesture, or a movement which might indicate interest or curiosity. I remained motionless, forcing


myself to preserve that air of haughty and almost insolent indifference, with which I had determined to receive the treacherous suggestions of my friend; for, from the beginning of the evening, I had set my heart on these suggestions being treacherous. Insolently, I pretended to look at the portrait of M. Thiers which occupied the top of the panel behind Eugene and was overcast by all the dark shadows which played across its over−varnished surface, with the exception, however, of his white pear shaped topknot which became of itself the unique and complete expression of the obliterated face. Muffled by the closed portieres, the sound of the party came to us like a distant hum. Shaking his head, the Minister went on: “Yes, I've thought of you a great deal. Well! it's difficult... quite difficult.” Again he grew silent, seeming to reflect on important matters. I took pleasure in prolonging the silence in order to enjoy the embarrassment into which this teasing attitude could not fail to throw my friend. Once more I was to see this dear protector before me, ridiculous and unmasked—perhaps suppliant! He remained


calm, however, and did not seem to be in the least concerned with the over—obvious hostility of my bearing. “You don't believe me,” he said, in a firm and tranquil voice. “Yes, I feel you don't believe me. You imagine I only think of fooling you, as I fool the others—isn't that true? Well, you're wrong, my boy. Besides, if this conversation bores you—it's easy enough to break it off.” He pretended to get up. “I didn't say that!” I protested, shifting my glance from M. Thiers' topknot to Eugene's icy face. “I didn't say anything.” “Then listen to me. Shall we talk, once and for all, and in all frankness, about our mutual situation?” “So be it! I'm listening.” Faced with his assurance, little by little I lost my own. Contrary to what I had so egotistically conjectured Eugene was regaining all his authority over me, and I felt him escaping me again. I felt it by that ease of gesture, that almost elegant manner, that firmness of tone and that entire self−possession which he never really displayed except when he was considering his most sinister strokes. At those times


he possessed a sort of forceful seductiveness, a magnetic power which it was difficult to resist, even though you were forewarned, Though I knew him, yet to my misfortune I had often been the victim of his malefic charm, which should never have surprised me again. Well! all my belligerence abandoned me, my hatred relaxed, and despite myself I found I was regaining confidence and so completely forgetting the past, that this man whose inexorable and fetid soul I had tracked to its darkest recesses—I discovered I was considering once more a generous friend, a hero of magnanimity—a savior! Ah, I would like the power to express the accent of force, crime, callousness and ease which he put into his words—and this is what he said to me: “You've seen politics close enough to know that a degree of power exists at which the most infamous man finds himself protected from himself by his own infamy; and even more strongly, against others, by the infamy of others. There is only one trait which is irreparable in a statesman: honesty! Honesty is negative and sterile; it is ignorant of the correct evaluation of appetite and ambition—the only powers


through which you can found anything durable. The proof of this is that idiot Favrot—the only honest man in the Cabinet, and also the only one whose political career is, by common consent, totally and forever lost! Just to let you know, my boy, that a campaign directed against me leaves me absolutely indifferent.” I made a rapid, ambiguous gesture: “Yes—yes... I know... they're talking about my ruin... my impending, downfall... the police.. the Mazas prison! 'Death to the robbers!' Absolutely! What don't they talk about? Well then? It makes me laugh, that's all! And you yourself, under pretext that you think you've been mixed up in some of my affairs of which, let me say in passing, you know only one side—under pretext of withholding—at least, you go shouting it all over—some vague papers about which, my boy, I give that!” Without interrupting himself, he showed me his extinguished cigarette, which he immediately crushed in an ashtray that lay on the little lacquer table beside him. “You yourself... you think you can terrify me into


compliance... blackmail me like an insolvent banker! You're a child! Think a minute. My downfall? Now, can you tell me who would dare, at this time, to assume the responsibility for such a piece of insanity? Who doesn't know that it would involve the cave−in of too many things; too many men whom it is no more possible to reach than I—under penalty of abdication or death? For I wouldn't be the only one to be overthrown. I wouldn't be the only one to wear the ball and chain. The entire Government, the entire Parliament, the entire Republic, whatever it may do, is linked up with what are called my transgressions, my embezzlements, my crimes. They think they've got me, and it's I who have them! Don't worry, I've got a good grip on them.” And he clutched an imaginary throat. The expression of his mouth, with its drooping corners, became hideous, and purple veinlets appeared in his eyeballs, which gave to his glance an implacable suggestion of murder. But he hastily composed himself, lit another cigarette, and went on: “Let them overthrow the Cabinet—agreed! And


I'll help in it. Thanks to the work of that honest Favrot, we're involved in a series of inextricable problem; whose logical solution is simply that they cannot possibly have any. A ministerial crisis is imminent, and an entirely new program. Please notice that I am, or at least I appear to be, alien to these difficulties. My responsibility is only a parliamentary fiction. In the hallways of the Chamber and in certain sections of the press, I am being adroitly separated from my colleagues. Thus, my personal situation of course remains politically clear. Better than that, upheld by the groups whose leaders I've succeeded in interesting in my career, sustained by the big banks and the great companies, I am becoming the one man indispensable to the new regime. I am the chosen President of the forthcoming Council. And it's ate the very moment when my downfall is proclaimed from all sides that I am attaining the peak of my career! I admit that it's comical, my boy, and that they haven't got hold of my hide yet.” Eugene had become sprightly again. The idea that there was no intermediate point for him between


these two poles: the Presidency of the Council or the Mazas prison, exhilarated his spirits. He drew close to me and tapping me on the knee, as he did in moments of relaxation or gaiety, he repeated: “Come... admit it's funny!” “Very funny!” I agreed. “But what place have I in all this?” “You? Well, here it is! You, my friend—must go away—disappear... a year... two years... what's that? You need to be forgotten.” And as I prepared to object: “But damn it all! Is it my fault?” Eugene cried, “If you've stupidly spoiled all the excellent jobs I've laid in your lap? A year—two years—it's soon over. You'll come back with a new virginity and I'll give you everything you want. Till then, nothing—I can do nothing. My word of honor! I can't do a thing.” I was still somewhat furious, but it was in a weak voice that, I cried: “Damn! damn! damn!” Eugene smiled, realizing that my resistance had ended with that outburst. “Come, come!” he said to me good−naturedly, “don't be obstinate. Listen to me. I've thought about it a good deal. You must go away. In your interest, for


your future. I can't think of anything else. Come! Are you... how shall I put it? Are you an embryologist?” He read my reply in the bewildered look I cast him. “No! you are no embryologist. Sad! very sad!” “Why do you ask that? Now what kind of a joke is it?” “Just this—that at this time I might easily obtain considerable funds—oh, relatively!—but at least substantial funds, for a scientific expedition they might be willing to entrust to you.” And without giving me time to reply, in short, humorous sentences accompanied by comical gestures he explained the business to me: “It involves going to India, Ceylon, I believe, to drag the sea, in the gulfs, and study what the scientists call the pelagic ooze, you understand? And among the gastropoda, the corals, the heteropoda, the madrepora, the siphonophora, the holothuroidea and radiolaria—how should I know?—to discover the primordial cell—pay close attention... the protoplasmic initum of organized life, or something like that. It's charming and as you see—very simple.” “Very simple indeed,” I murmured mechanically.


“Yes, but there it is,” concluded this true statesman, “you aren't an embryologist.” And with benevolent sorrow he added: “It's annoying!” My protector reflected a few moments. I was silent, not having had time to recover from the stupor into which this unexpected proposition had plunged me. “My God!” he went on, “there might be another expedition—for we actually have lots of expeditions and don't know what to spend the donor's money on. If I remember rightly, this one would be to go to the Fiji Islands and Tasmania, to study the various systems of penitentiary administration in use there, and their application to our social system. Only it's less amusing and I must warn you the funds are not enormous. And they're still cannibals down there, you know! You think I'm joking, eh? That I'm telling you a fairytale? But, my boy, all expeditions are like that. Ha!” Eugene started to laugh with gentle malice. “There is still the secret police. Ha ha! You might possibly find a good job in that... what do you say?” In difficult circumstances my mental faculties


become active and more acute, my energies are unleashed and I am endowed with a sudden influx of ideas, and a promptness of decision which always astonishes me and has often served me well. “Bah!” I cried, “after all I could easily be an embryologist once in my life. What do I risk? Science won't die of it. It's been through the mill! Done! I accept the expedition to Ceylon.” “And you're right. Bravo!” applauded the Minister; “seeing that embryology, my boy, Darwin, Haeckel... Carl Vogt, after all—it must be a great joke! Ah, my lad you won't be bored down there. Ceylon is marvelous. They say there are extraordinary women there, little lace makers—beautiful—temperamental! It's the earthly paradise! Come to the Ministry tomorrow and we'll wind up the business officially. In the meantime you don't have to shout it from the housetops, because you know I'm playing a dangerous joke which might cost me dearly. Come!” We arose and, while I went back to the salon on the Minister's arm, he said again, with charming irony: “Eh? After all! Suppose you discover the cell?


Who knows? Berthelot would make a face, eh?” This scheme had given me back a little courage and a little gaiety. Not that it pleased me entirely; I would have preferred a general receivership, for instance, to this commission as an illustrious embryologist, or a well−upholstered seat in the State's Council. But you have to compromise, and besides, the adventure was not without its amusing aspect. From a simple political vagabond, such as I had been a few moments before, you cannot, by a wave of the ministerial wand, become an eminent scientist about to violate the mysteries at the very springs of life, without experiencing something of a mystifying pride and a comical grandeur. The soiree, begun miserably, was ending in hilarity. I accosted Mme. G—, who was excitedly organizing love, and promenading adultery from group to group and couple to couple. “And that adorable Romanian countess,” I asked her, “"is she still mad about me?” “Still, my dear...” She took me by the arm. Her feathers were


drooping, her flowers wilted, and her flounces hung limply. “Come along!” she said; “she's in the little Guizot salon, flirting with Princess Onane.” “What! she too?” “But my dear,” replied this great politician, “at her age, and with her poetic nature, it would really be unfortunate if she had not tried everything!”


PART 4

My preparations were soon made. I was lucky in that the young Romanian countess, who had become quite attached to me, was willing to assist me with her advice and, I say it with shame—with her purse too. Besides I had all the luck. My expedition got off to a good start. By an exceptional anomaly of bureaucratic procedure, eight days after that conclusive conversation in Mme. G—'s salons, I obtained the above−mentioned funds without the slightest red tape or delay. They were more generously computed than I had dared to hope, for I was familiar with the swinishness of the government in these matters, and the poor little arbitrary budgets by which they so pitifully gratify scientists on expeditions—real scientists. Undoubtedly, lowed this unusual liberality the fact that, not being a scientist at all, I had more need than anyone else for greater resources, in order to play the part. They had counted on the maintenance of two secretaries and two servants, the costly purchase of


anatomical instruments, microscopes, photographic apparatus, collapsible boats, diving−bells, and even wide−mouthed jars for scientific collections, hunting rifles and cages designed to bring captured animals back alive. Truly, the government does things in grand style, and I could not help but praise it. It goes without saying that I did not buy any of these impedimenta, and that I decided not to take anyone along, counting upon my ingenuity alone to find my way in the midst of these untracked jungles of science and India. I profited by my leisure to inform myself about Ceylon, its customs and landscapes, and to construct an idea of the life I would lead down there in those terrible tropics. Even after eliminating the exaggerated, boastful, and mendacious elements of travelers' tales, I was enchanted by what I read—particularly by this detail, reported by a sober German savant: that in the suburbs of Colombo there exists, amid fairy gardens by the sea, a marvelous villa bungalow, as they say, in which a rich and eccentric Englishman maintains a sort of harem, where all the races of India, from the black


Tamoules to the sinuous bayaderes of Lahore, and the demoniac bacchantes of Benares, are represented by perfect specimens of femininity. I definitely made up my mind to find some means of gaining access to this amateur polygamist, and to confine my studies of comparative embryology to that spot. The Minister, whom I visited to say goodbye and confide my plans, approved all these projects, and quite gaily praised the virtue of my economy. When he left me he spoke with an emotional eloquence, while I, under the torrent of his words, experienced a tenderness—the pure, refreshing and sublime tenderness of a good man. “Go, my friend, and come back to us stronger... come back to us a new man and a glorious savant. Your exile, which I have no doubt you will employ in the accomplishment of great deeds, will replenish your energies for future struggles. It will temper them in the very springs of life, in the cradle of humanity which... of humanity, of which... Go... and if on your return you find—which I cannot believe—if you can, I say, bad memories persisting, difficulties... hostility...


an obstacle to your rightful ambitions... remember that you possess enough little memoranda about the governmental personnel to triumph over it with a high hand. Sursum corda! Count on me, besides. While you are down there, courageous pioneer of progress and a soldier of science... while you are sounding the gulfs and questing the mysterious atolls for France, for our dear France—I shan't forget you, you may well believe me. Cleverly, step by step, through the Agence Havas and in my own newspapers, I shall find a means of creating a commotion about you—our coming young embryologist. I'll devise magnificent and pathetic blurbs—'Our great embryologist'... 'We learn from our young and illustrious savant, whose embryological discoveries, etc.'... 'While he was studying a hitherto unknown holoihurian under twenty fathoms of water, our indefatigable embryologist barely escaped being carried off by a shark... a terrific struggle... etc.' Go, go, my friend, work fearlessly for the glory of the nation. Today a race is not only treat by virtue of its arms; it is great, above all, through its arts... through its sciences. The peaceful conquests of science


serve civilization more than the conquests of... etc., etc... Cedant arma sapientio!” I wept for joy, pride, grandeur and exaltation—the exaltation of my being towards something stupendous, and stupendously beautiful. Projected beyond my ego, I know not whence, I had, at that moment, another soul—an almost divine soul, a creative and sacrificial soul—the soul of some sublime hero in whom the supreme confidence of the nation resides—and all the strongest hopes of humanity. As for the Minister—that bandit Eugene—he could scarcely contain his emotion. He had real enthusiasm in his glance, a sincere quaver in his voice. Two little tears fell from his eyes. He almost crushed my hand in his grip. For several moments both of us were the unconscious and comic toys of our own deception. Ah, when I think of it!


PART 5

Armed with letters of Recommendation to the authorities at Ceylon, I finally embarked at Marseille one splendid afternoon, on the Saghalien. From the moment I set foot on the steamer, I was immediately aware of the value of an official title, and how, by the prestige which attaches to it, a fallen man, such as I was then, rises in the estimation of unknown people and passersby, and consequently in his own. The captain, who 'knew my works', overwhelmed me with attentions—almost with honors. The most comfortable cabin had been reserved for me, and also the best place at table. As the news had rapidly spread among the passengers of the presence on board of a celebrated scientist, everyone went out of his way to pay me his respects. I saw nothing but a glow of admiration on their faces. The women themselves gave evidence of curiosity and good will; some, discreetly, and others, by manifesting a bolder sentiment. One, above all, violently attracted my attention. She was a marvelous creature with heavy copper hair and


green eyes flecked with gold, like those of jungle beasts. She was traveling with three maids—one of whom was Chinese. I inquired about her from the captain. “She's English,” he said to me, “they call her Miss Clara. The most extraordinary woman on earth. Although she's only twenty−eight years old, she's been all over the world already. Just now she lives in China. This is the fourth time I've seen her aboard.” “Rich?” “Oh, very rich! They tell me her father, who's been dead a long time, was an opium dealer in Canton. That's where she was born, in fact. She's a little cracked, I think, but charming.” “Married?” “No.” “And?” Into that conjunction I put a whole battalion of intimate and even impertinent questions. The captain smiled. “That I can't say. I don't think so. I've never noticed anything—here.” Such was the reply of the good mariner who, it


seemed to me, knew a good deal more about it than he wished to say. I did not insist, but I said to myself: “You, my girl... absolutely!” The first passengers with whom I became acquainted were two Chinese of the London Embassy and a Norman gentleman who was on his way to Tonkin. The latter was immediately quite willing to confide in me. He was an ardent hunter. “I'm running away from France,” he told me. “I escape every time I can. Since we've become a republic, France is a lost country. There are too many poachers, and they're the masters. Would you believe that I can't keep any game on my place any more! The poachers kill it for me, and the courts uphold them. It's a bit too much! Without counting the fact that the few they leave croak of God knows what epidemics. So I'm going to Tonkin. What a fine hunting−ground! It's the fourth time, my dear sir, that I'm going to Tonkin.” “Ah, really?” “Yes! In Tonkin every sort of game is abundant. But especially the peacock. What shooting, sir! Besides, it's a dangerous sport; you have to have an


eye for it.” “Doubtless these are ferocious peacocks?” “My God, no. But this is the way it is: Wherever there are deer, there are tigers... and wherever there are tigers, there are peacocks!” “An aphorism?” “You must understand me. Follow carefully... the tiger eats the deer, and—” “The peacock eats the tiger?” I gravely suggested. “Absolutely... that is to say... here is the thing. When the tiger is gorged with the deer, 'he falls asleep; then he awakes, relieves himself and goes away. What does the peacock do? Perched in the neighboring trees, he prudently awaits this departure, then he drops to earth and eats the tiger's dung. And that is the precise moment you must surprise him... “ And with his arms raised as though holding a rifle, he made the gesture of ,aiming at an imaginary peacock: “Ah, what peacocks! you haven't the least idea! For, what you take for peacocks in our aviaries and gardens, aren't even turkeys. They're nothing. My dear sir, I've killed all sorts of things. I've even killed


men. Well! never has the report of a rifle given me so keen an emotion as the times I've fire at peacocks. Peacocks, how can I tell you, sir... are magnificent to kill!” Then, after a silence, he concluded: “Travel—that's the thing! In traveling you see extraordinary things which make you think.” “Doubtless,” I agreed, “but one must be a great observer, like you.” “It's true! I've observed a great deal,” the good gentleman ostentatiously said. “Well, of all the countries I've traveled in—Japan, China; Madagascar, Haiti, and a section of Australia—I know none more entertaining than Tonkin. Now perhaps you think you've seen hens?” “Yes, I believe so—” “Your error, my dear sir, you have never seen hens. You have to go to Tonkin for that, and then you won't see them. They're in the forests, and they hide in the trees. You never see them. Only, I have a trick. I travel upstream in a sampan, with a cock in a cage. I stop at the edge of the forest and hang the cage at the end of a branch. The cock crows. Then from all the depths of the forest, the hens come...


and come. They come in unnumbered bands. And I kill them! I have killed as many as twelve hundred in the same day!” “It's remarkable!” I exclaimed enthusiastically. “Yes, yes. But not as much so as peacocks, however. Ah, the peacocks!” But this gentleman was not only a hunter; he was also a gambler. Long before we were in sight of Naples, the two Chinese, the peacock−killer and I had gotten up a fast game of poker. Thanks to my special knowledge of that game, when we arrived at Port Said, I had relieved these three incomparable gentlemen of their money and tripled the capital I was bearing toward the joys of the tropics, and the Unknown of fictitious embryology.


PART 6

At that time I would have been incapable of the meagerest poetical description—poetry having come to me afterwards, with love. To be sure, I enjoyed the beauties of nature, like everybody else, but they had never overwhelmed me to the point of ecstasy; I enjoyed them, in my way, which was that of a conservative republican. And I said to myself: “Nature, seen from a train window or the porthole of a ship, is always and everywhere herself; her principal characteristic being that she lacks the ability for improvisation. She repeats herself constantly, possessing but a small stock of forms, combinations and aspects, which are found here and there in almost identical arrangements. In her immense and clumsy monotony, she varies only in scarcely perceptible nuances, which are only interesting to trainers of little animals, which I am not—though an embryologist—and to splitters of hairs. Briefly, when you have traveled over a hundred square miles of countryside, no matter where, you have seen everything.” And that little swine Eugene had


exclaimed: “You'll see nature... trees... flowers!” As far as I'm concerned, trees get on my nerves, and I only tolerate flowers in the modiste's shops, and on hats. As for tropical nature—Monte Carlo would have been amply sufficient to my needs as an esthetic connoisseur of landscapes, and my dreams of distant travel. I understand palm trees, cocoanuts, bananas, mangroves, shaddock and pandanus, only if I can gather in their shade all sorts of pretty little women who munch between their lips something better than the betel−nut. Coconut tree: the cocotte−tree. I only like trees of this truly Parisian classification. Ah, what a deaf and blind brute I was then! How could I, with such nauseating cynicism, have blasphemed the infinite beauty of Form, which passes from man to beast, from beast to plant, from the plant to the mountain, the mountain to the cloud, and from the cloud to the pebble, which contains in reflection all the splendors of life! Although it was the month of October, the crossing of the Red Sea was excruciating. The heat


was crushing, and the air so heavy on our European lungs that many times I thought I would die of asphyxiation. During the day we scarcely left the saloon where the great Indian punka, constantly in motion, gave us the evanescent illusion of a fresh breeze; and we passed the nights on the deck where, however, it was no more possible for us to sleep than in our cabins. The Norman gentleman panted like an ailing bull, and thought no more of relating his stories of the hunting in Tonkin. The most boastful and intrepid of the passengers were the most completely knocked out... inert of limb and wheezing like foundered beasts. There was nothing more ridiculous than the sight of these people, prostrate in their variegated pajamas. Only the two Chinese seemed insensible to this flaming temperature; they had changed their behavior no more than their clothes, and spent their time in silent promenades on the deck or playing cards or dice in their cabins. We couldn't get interested in anything. Besides, nothing distracted us from the torture of feeling ourselves cooking slowly and steadily, like a stew.


The steamer was sailing across the gulf: above us, around us, there was nothing but the blue sky and the blue sea—a dark blue—the blue of heated metal here and there reflecting the glow of the forge upon its surface. We could scarcely make out the coasts of Somaliland—that red and distant mass shrouded by the vaporous heat of mountains of burning sand, where no tree or grass grew, and whose shores contained this sinister sea—an immense reservoir of bailing water—in a constantly seething cauldron. I might say that during this crossing I displayed great courage, and succeeded in concealing my actual state of suffering. I attained it through conceit and love. Chance—was it really chance, or the captain?—had given me Miss Clara for a table−mate. An incident at table brought about our almost immediate acquaintance. Besides, my high station and the curiosity of which I was the object, authorized certain lapses from the ordinary conventions of good breeding. As I had learned from the captain, Miss Clara was returning to China after dividing her entire


summer between England, for her business affairs, Germany for her health, and France for her amusements. She confessed to me that Europe disgusted her more and more. She could no longer endure its provincial customs, its ridiculous habits, and its skimpy landscapes. She only felt happy and free in China. She was of a very resolute demeanor, a very extraordinary mode of life, talked sometimes at random and sometimes with a lively feeling for things; of a feverish gaiety pushed to the bizarre, sentimental and philosophic, ignorant and educated, impure and frank and mysterious. Finally, she was given to strange lapses, flights of fancy, incomprehensible caprices and terrible desires, and intrigued me greatly although one must expect everything of an eccentric Englishwoman. And I never doubted from the start I who, in the matter of women, had only known—Parisian cocottes—and what is worse, female politicians and literati—I never doubted that I might easily have conquered this one, and I looked forward to enjoying my trip with her in an unexpected and charming manner. With her reddish hair and gleaming skin, a laugh always ready


to peal forth from her fleshy red lips, she was truly the delight of the ship and like its soul was en route towards mad adventures and the idyllic freedom of virgin countries and the fiery tropics. The Eve of that marvelous paradise—a flower herself—flower of intoxication and the tasty fruit of eternal desire, I could see her wander and skip about amid the flowers and golden fruits of the primordial orchards, no longer in this dress of white poplin, which molded her lithe form and filled out her bosom with pulsating life, like a bud, but in the supernatural splendor of her biblical nudity. I was not slow to recognize the error of my gallant diagnosis, and the fact that Miss Clara) contrary to what I had so egotistically predicted, was impregnably virtuous. Far from being frustrated by this discovery, she appeared all the prettier to me, and I conceived an actual pride in the fact that she, the pure and virtuous, accepted me—vile and debauched as I was—with such simple and gracious confidence. I did not want to listen to the inner voices which were crying; 'This woman lies. This woman is laughing at you. Look, idiot! at those eyes which


have seen everything; that mouth which has kissed everything; those hands which have caressed very thing; that flesh which has so often trembled with all the lusts, and in every possible embrace! Pure? Ha! And those knowing gestures? And that softness and suppleness, and those movements of the body which retain all the gestures of the caress? And that bust, swollen like the calyx of a flower drunk with pollen?' No, in truth, I did not listen to them. And for me it was a deliciously chaste sensation, compounded of tenderness, gratitude and pride—a sensation of moral rehabilitation, to enter further every day into an intimacy with a lovely and virtuous person, whom I decided at the beginning would never be anything to me—nothing but a soul! This idea elevated me and rehabilitated me in my own eyes. Thanks to this pure daily contact, I was gaining—yes, gaining self−respect. All the mire of my past was being transformed to luminous azure, and I glimpsed the future through the tranquil, limpid emerald of continual happiness. Oh, how far from me were Eugene Mortain, Mme. G—, and their like! How all those faces of grinning phantoms were melting by


the minute, more and more, beneath the celestial glance of this lustral creature through whom I was being revealed to myself as a new man, with generosity, tenderness, and impulses I would never have expected of myself. Oh, the ironical tenderness of love! Ah, the comic enthusiasms which lie within the human soul! Often, beside Clara, I believed in the reality and grandeur of my mission, and that I had in me the genius to revolutionize the embryology of the entire universe. One thing leading to another, we soon arrived at mutual confidences. By a series of cleverly calculated lies which, prompted on one hand by vanity and on the other by a quite natural desire not to lower myself in the mind of my friend, I displayed myself entirely to my advantage in my role of scientist, narrated my biological discoveries, my academic successes, and all the hopes which the most illustrious men of science placed in my theory and my trip. Then, abandoning these somewhat arduous heights, I mixed anecdotes of my social life with appreciations of literature and art, half−sound and half−perverse, enough to interest the mind of a


woman without disturbing it. And these light and frivolous conversations to which I forced myself to give a witty turn, endowed my grave scientific personality with a particular and perhaps unique character. I succeeded in conquering Miss Clara during that crossing of the Red Sea. Overcoming my discomfort, I was able to devise ingenious and delicate attentions which assuaged her own discomfort. When the Saghalien touched at Aden to take on coal, she and I were perfect friends—friends blessed by that miraculous friendship which is not troubled by a single glance, and whose lovely lucidity is not tarnished by an ambiguous gesture or a guilty design. Still, the voices in me kept crying: 'But look at those nostrils which breathe in all life with terrific lust. Look at those teeth which so often have bitten into the bleeding fruit of sin.' Heroically, I silenced them. It was a great joy when we entered the waters of the Indian Ocean; after the excruciating and torturing days on the Red Sea, it seemed like a resurrection. A new life, a life of gaiety and activity took possession of the ship, although the temperature was still very warm, the air was delicious to breathe,


like the scent of furs that a woman has just laid aside. A light breeze, apparently impregnated with all the perfumes of the tropical flora, refreshed the body and the mind. And all about us there was a dazzling brilliance. The sky, translucid as a fairy grotto, was of a green gold, streaked with rose; the calm sea, heaving with a powerful rhythm under the breath of the monsoon, lay before us extraordinarily blue, and mottled here and there by great emerald−green whorls. We actually felt the physical caress of the approach of magic continents, the lands of light where life, one mysterious day, had uttered its first infantile cries. And on all our faces, even the Norman gentleman's, there was a little of that sky, that sea, and that light. Miss Clara—it goes without saying—attracted and greatly excited the men; she was always surrounded by a court of passionate adulators. I was not at all jealous, being certain that she considered them all ridiculous, and that she preferred me to all the others, even to the two Chinese with whom she held frequent conversations, but whom she did not look at (as she did me) with that strange look in


which I seemed several times, and with great reluctance, to have discovered moral complicity and a secret meaning. Among the most fervent there was a French explorer who Was going to the Malay Peninsula to study its copper−mines, and an English officer whom we had taken on at Aden, and who was returning to his post at Bombay. They were, each in his own way, heavy but amusing brutes, whom Clara loved to make fun of. The explorer was ceaselessly talking about his recent trek across central Africa. As for the English officer, who was a captain in the artillery, he tried to dazzle Us by describing all his inventions in ballistics. One evening on deck, after dinner, we were all gathered about Clara, who was delightfully lounging in a rocking−chair. Some smoked cigarettes and others dreamed. All of us, at heart, had this same desire for Clara, and all, with the same dream of ardent possession, followed the play of her little feet clad in their small pink mules, which, with the rocking of the chair, extended from the perfumed calyx of her skirts, like the pistils of a flower. We said nothing.


The night was magically balmy and the ship glided voluptuously along on the sea, as though on silk. Clara addressed the explorer: “Well?” she said, in a malicious voice, “you're not joking? You've actually eaten human flesh?” “Yes, certainly!” he replied proudly, and in a tone which established his indisputable superiority over us. “We simply had to... you eat what you can get.” “What does it taste like?” she asked, slightly disgusted. He thought a moment. Then making a vague gesture: “My God!” he said, “how can I explain it? Imagine, adorable lady—imagine pork—pork pickled slightly in nutmeg oil.” Careless and resigned, he added: “It's not very good. Besides, you don't eat it out of gluttony. I prefer a leg of mutton, or a beefsteak.” “Obviously!” consented Clara. And, as though out of politeness she had wished to minimize the horror of this anthropology, she specified: “Because, undoubtedly, you only ate negro flesh!” “Negro!” he exclaimed with a start. “Ugh! Luckily,


dear lady, I was not driven to that harsh necessity. We never lacked for whites, thank God! Our escort was large, and composed chiefly of Europeans. Marseillais, Germans, Italians... a little of everything. When we were too hungry, we slaughtered one of the escort, preferably a German. The German, divine lady, is fatter than the other races, and he provides more. And then, for us other Frenchmen, it was one German less! The Italian is dry and tough—.full of sinews—” “And the Marseillais?” I interrupted. “Ugh!” declared the traveler, tossing his head. “The Marseillais is much too rich; he smells of garlic and also, I don't know why, of grease. I wouldn't say he was appetizing... no... he's edible, that's all.” Turning to Clara with gestures of protestation, he insisted: “But negro flesh—never! I think I would have thrown it up. I know people who have eaten it... they fell sick. The negro is indigestible. There are even some, I assure you, who are poisonous.” But, scrupulously, he corrected himself: “After all, you have to try him once—like


mushrooms, eh? Perhaps the Indian negroes allow themselves to be eaten?” “No!” affirmed the English officer in an abrupt and categorical tone that, in the midst of laughter, closed this culinary discussion which was beginning to turn my stomach. A little discountenanced, the explorer went on: “No matter... despite all these slight annoyances, I am very happy to have left again. In Europe I'm sick... I'm not alive... I don't know where to go. In Europe I feel degraded and imprisoned, like a beast in a cage. Impossible to find elbow−room, extend your arms or open your mouth, without bumping into stupid prejudices and idiotic laws... evil customs. Last year, charming lady, I was walking through a wheat field. I mowed down the blades around me with my cane... it amused me. Surely I have the right to do what pleases me, haven't I? A peasant ran up and started to shout, insult me, order me out of his field. It's unimaginable! What would you have done in my place? I dealt him three vigorous blows on the head with my cane. He fell with a fractured skull. Well, imagine what happened to me—”


“Perhaps you ate him—?” Clara laughingly suggested. “No. They dragged me before some judges or other, who sentenced: me to two months in prison and ten thousand francs fine and damages. For a damned peasant! And they call that civilization! Can you believe it! Well, much obliged—in Africa, if I had been sentenced like that every time I'd kill a negro, or even a white—” “Oh, you've also killed negroes?” said Clara. “Yes, certainly, adorable lady.” “Why—since you don't eat them?” “Well—to civilize them—that is to say, to take their stocks of ivory and resins. And then, what do you expect? If the governments and business houses who entrust colonizing expeditions to us learned that we hadn't killed anyone, what would they say?” “That's true!” agreed the Norman gentleman. “Besides, negroes are wild beasts.—. poachers... tigers. “Negroes? What a mistake, my dear sir. They are gentle and gay... they are like children. Have you ever seen rabbits playing in the meadow in the


evening, at the edge of the woods?” “Certainly!” “They make pretty, frolicsome movements; they shine their fur with their paws and bound about and roll in the mint−leaves. Well, negroes are like young rabbits... it's very charming!” “However, it is certain that they're cannibals?” persisted the gentleman. “Negroes!” protested the explorer. “Not at all! in all the black Countries the whites are the only cannibals. The negroes eat bananas and graze on new grass. I know a scientist who even contends that the negro has a stomach like the ruminants. How can you expect him to eat flesh, especially human flesh?” “Then why kill them?” I objected, for I suddenly felt kind and full of pity. “But I just told you... to civilize them. And it's lots of fun! When, after marching and marching, we arrived in a negro village, they were very frightened! They immediately uttered cries of distress and didn't try to escape—they were so scared—and lay on the ground weeping. We gave them whiskey, for we


always kept a large supply of alcohol in our baggage, and when they were drunk we slaughtered them!” “Bad sportsmanship!” resumed the Norman gentleman with some disgust, for he was doubtless thinking right then of the Tonkin forests, and seeing those marvelous flocks of peacocks flying back and forth. The night trailed brilliantly on; the sky was ablaze; about us the ocean was spread with great sheets of phosphorescent light. And I was sad, longing for Clara, bored with these gross men, bored with myself and our conversation which offended silence and beauty! Suddenly: “Do you know Stanley?” Clara asked the explorer. “Yes, certainly I know him,” he replied. “And what do you think of him?” “Oh, him!” he said, shaking his head. And as though his mind were a prey to frightful memories, he said, in a grave voice: “He goes a bit too far, just the same!” I felt that for some minutes past the captain had wanted to speak. He profited by the moment of


respite which followed this declaration: “I!” he said, “I've done much more than all that. And your little massacres are nothing beside those owing me. I have invented a bullet. It's extraordinary. I call it the Dum−Dum, after the name of the little Hindu village where I had the honor to invent it.” “It kills lots of people? More than the others?” Clara asked. “Oh, dear lady—how can you ask!” he said, laughing. “It's incalculable!” And modestly, however, he added: “However, that's nothing... it's very small! Imagine a little thing... how do you say?... a little nut, that's it! Imagine a very little nut! It's charming.” “And what a pretty name, captain!” said Clara. “Very pretty, in fact,” agreed the captain, obviously flattered, “very poetic!” “You'd say—wouldn't you—you'd say it was the name of a fairy in one of Shakespeare's comedies. The fairy Dum−Dum! It enchants me. A laughing, light and quite blond fairy, hopping, dancing and bounding about amid the heather and the sunbeams. And there you are... Dum−Dum!”


“And there you are!” the officer repeated. “absolutely! Besides, it works quite well, adorable lady... I think the most unique thing about it is that, with it, there aren't, so to speak, any more wounded.” “Ah!” “There are only dead men! That's why it's so really exquisite!” He turned to me, and with an accent of regret in which our mutual patriotism became one, he sighed: “Ah, if you had had it in France at the time of that frightful Commune! What a triumph!” Then, switching abruptly to another line of thought: “I sometimes wonder if it's not a tale out of Edgar Allen Poe or a dream of our Thomas de Quincy. But no, since I myself tested that admirable little Dum−Dum. Here is the story. I stood up twelve Hindus—” “Alive?” “Naturally! The Emperor of Germany is the one who tries his ballistic experiments on corpses. Confess it's absurd and quite inconclusive. I work with people—not only living, but of robust constitution and in perfect health. At least you can


see what you're doing, and where you're going. I am no dreamer. I'm a scientist.” “A thousand pardons, captain! Go right on!” “Well, I had twelve Hindus stood up, one behind the other, in a geometrically straight line... and fired.” “Well?” Clara interrupted. “Well, my charming friend, this little Dum−Dum did marvels. Of the twelve Hindus, not one remained standing! The bullet had gone through their twelve bodies which, after the shot, were only twelve heaps of mangled flesh and bones literally ground to dust. Magic—absolute magic! And I'd never dreamed of such an admirable result.” “Admirable indeed, and smacking of the prodigious.” “Doesn't it?” And, thoughtfully, after some seconds of a stirring silence: “I am looking,” he murmured confidentially, “I am looking for something better... something more final. I am looking for a bullet, a little bullet which will annihilate what it hits, leaving nothing... nothing—nothing! Do you understand?” “How is that? What do you mean, nothing?”


“Oh, very little then!” explained the officer; “scarcely a heap of ashes, or even a light reddish smoke which will immediately vanish. It's possible.” “Automatic incineration, then?” “Absolutely! Have you considered the innumerable advantages of such an invention? In this way I eliminate army surgeons, nurses, ambulances, military hospitals, pensions for the wounded, etc. It would constitute an incalculable economy, a lightening of governmental budgets, not to mention hygiene! What a conquest for hygiene!” “And you might call that the Nib—Nibbulled?” I exclaimed. “Very pretty, very pretty!” applauded the artilleryman who, although he had not at all understood this slangy interruption, started to laugh uproariously, with that honest and frank laugh characteristic of soldiers of all ranks and all nations. When he had calmed down: “I foresee,” he said, “that when France comes to know about this splendid device she will abuse us again in all her newspapers. And it will be the fiercest of your patriots, the very men who shout loudly that


not enough millions are ever spent for war, and who only talk of killing and bombardment—it will be those who will once more make England the target for the execration of civilized races. But damn it all! we aren't logical in our state of universal barbarity. What! they admit that shells are explosive, and they don't want bullets to be! Why not? We live under the laws of war. Well, what constitutes war? It consists of massacring as many men as you can in the least possible time. In order to make It more and more murderous and expeditious, you have to find more and more formidable engines of destruction. It makes for humaneness, and also modern progress. “But captain,” I objected, “what about peoples rights? What do you think of that?” The officer sneered; and lifting his arms to the sky: “People's rights!” he replied, “it's merely the right we possess to massacre people en masse or singly, with shells or bullets—it doesn't matter—provided that people are duly massacred!” One of the Chinese interposed: “We are not savages, however!” he said.


“Not savages? and what else are we, I ask you? We are worse savages than the Australian bushmen, since, possessing the knowledge of our savagery, we persist in it. And since it's by war—that is to say theft, pillage and massacre—that we learn to govern, carryon commerce, arbitrate our differences, avenge our honor... Well! We have only to bear with the inconveniences of this state of brutality in which we nevertheless desire to remain. We are brutes—agreed! Let's act like brutes!” Then, in a gentle and profound voice, Clara said: “Besides, it would be a sacrilege to fight against death. Death is so beautiful!” She arose, white and mysterious beneath the electric deck light. The fine long silk shawl which enveloped her, wrapped her in pale and shifting reflections. “Till tomorrow!” she said. All of us stood around her, assiduously attentive. The officer had taken her hand, and kissed it, and I detested his masculine face, his supple loins, his taut limbs and his forceful demeanor. He apologized to his audience: “Forgive me,” he said, “for having allowed myself


to be carried away by such a subject, and for having forgotten that in the presence of a woman such as you, one should never talk of anything but love.” Clara replied: “But captain, when you speak of death, you also speak of love!” She took my arm, and I escorted her to her cabin where her women were waiting to prepare her for bed. The entire evening I was haunted by massacre and destruction. My sleep was quite feverish that night. Capering about over the red heather and amid the rays of a bloody sun, I saw the blond, laughing and leaping little fairy, Dum−Dum... the little fairy, Dum−Dum, which had the eyes, the mouth and all the unknown and unveiled flesh of Clara.


PART 7

One time my friend and I were leaning side by side against the rail, and looking at the sea and the sky. The day would soon be done. In the sky, great birds—blue kingfishers—were following the ship, balancing themselves with the exquisite movements of a ballerina; on the sea, schools of flying−fish rose at our approach and, gleaming in the sun, dove in farther off to reappear immediately, scudding over the water which was blue as brilliant turquoise that day. Then schools of jellyfish, red jellyfish, green jellyfish, purple, rose and mauve, floated like heaps of flowers on the soft surface, and their colors were so magnificent that every moment Clara uttered cries of admiration as she pointed them out to me. Then, suddenly, she asked: “Tell me. What is the name of these marvelous creatures?” I might have improvised bizarre names or sought scientific nomenclature. I did not even attempt it. Moved by an immediate, spontaneous and violent need of frankness:


“I don't know!” I firmly replied. I felt I was lost, that I was also losing this vague and charming dream which had cradled my hopes and soothed my anxieties—irrevocably losing it; that I was going to fall back even deeper than ever into the inevitable mire of my life as a pariah. I felt all this. But there was something stronger than all that in me, which commanded me to wash myself of all my impostures, all my lies; all this veritable abuse of confidence, by which I had fraudulently achieved, in a cowardly and criminal fashion, the friendship of a person who had had faith in my words. “No, really, I don't know!” I repeated, giving to this simple negation a quality of dramatic exaltation of which it did not admit. “How strangely you say that! Are you crazy? What's the matter with you?” said Clara, astonished at the sound of my voice and the strange incoherence of my gestures. “I don't know... I don't know... I don't know!” And to add more force of conviction to that triple 'I don't know!' I violently struck the rail three times. “What, you don't know? A scientist... a


naturalist?” “I am not a scientist, Miss Clara, I am not a naturalist—I am nothing,” I cried. “A wretch, yes... I am a wretch! I've lied to you, shamefully lied. You must know the sort of man I am. Listen to me...” Panting, agitated, I related my life: Eugene Mortain, Mme. G—, the imposture of my mission, all my filth, all my mire. I took an atrocious delight in accusing myself, making myself viler, more of an outcast and still blacker than I was. When I had finished this distressing tale, I said to my friend, in a flood of tears: “Now it's all over! You will detest me, despise me, like the others, you will turn away from me with disgust. And you will be right, and I won't complain. It's frightful! But I can't live like this any longer. I want no more lies between us.” I wept copiously, and I stuttered incoherent words, like a child. “It's horrible! It's horrible! and I who... for after all... it's true, I swear to you! I who... you understand. A whirlpool, that's it... a whirlpool. I was caught in a whirlpool. I didn't know it. And then your soul... ah, your soul!... your gentle soul... your pure glances...


and your... your dear... yes, after all... you know it well... your dear welcome, it was my salvation... my redemption... my... my. It's horrible... it's horrible! I'm losing all that! It's horrible!” While I was talking and weeping Miss Clara looked at me attentively. Oh, that look! Never—no never, shall I forget the glance that adorable woman fixed upon me—an extraordinary glance, which held at the same time astonishment, joy, pity, and love—yes, love—and malice too, and irony... and everything. A glance which entered into me, penetrated me, probed me and overwhelmed my soul and my flesh. “Well,” she said simply, “that doesn't astonish me very much. And I honestly believe all scientists are like you.” Without taking her eyes off me, she gave her clear and pretty laugh—a laugh like the song of a bird: “I knew one of them,” she went on. “He was a naturalist... of your type. He had been sent by the British government to study the coffee−parasite on the plantations in Ceylon. Well, for three months, he


did not leave Colombo. He spent his time playing poker and getting drunk on champagne.” Still looking at me with a strange, profound and voluptuous look—always focused on me—after some seconds of silence she added, in a tone of commiseration in which it seemed to me I heard all the exultation of forgiveness: “Oh the little swine!” I no longer knew what to say, or whether to laugh or weep again, or whether to kneel at her feet. Timidly, I mumbled: “Then... you're not angry with me? You don't despise me? You forgive me?” “Silly!” she said. “Oh, the little fool!” “Clara! Clara! Is it possible?” I cried, almost fainting for joy. As the dinner−bell had long since rung and there was no longer anyone on that part of the deck, I came closer to Clara, so close that I could feel her loins trembling against me, and her heart beating. And seizing her hands, which she left in mine, while my heart rose tempestuously in me, I cried: “Clara! Clara! do you love me? Ah, I beg you! Do


you love me?” She replied feebly: “I'll tell you that, this evening... in my cabin!” In her eyes I saw the flicker of a green flame, a terrible flame which terrified me. She withdrew her hands from my grasp, a heavy line suddenly crossed her forehead, and with her head bowed, she was silent and looked at the sea. What was she thinking about? I could tell nothing. And, looking out to sea myself, I thought: While I was an honorable man in her eyes, she did not love me. But the minute she understood what I was, when she breathed the true and foul odor of my soul, love was born in her—for she does love me! Well, well! There is nothing real, then, except evil! Evening had come; then, without any twilight, it was night. An ineffable sweetness floated in the air. The ship sailed through boiling phosphorescent foam. Great lights skimmed over the sea. You'd have thought the fairies were rising from the sea, trailing long fiery mantles on the surface, and shaking and hurling great handfuls of golden pearls into the water.


PART 8

One morning, coming out on deck, I could make out, thanks to the transparence of the atmosphere, and as clearly as though I were treading its soil, the enchanted island of Ceylon; that green and red island crowned by the fairylike rosy whiteness of Adam's Peak. We had already been warned of its approach the evening before by the new perfumes of the sea and a mysterious invasion of butterflies which, after accompanying the ship for a few hours, suddenly disappeared. And without desiring anything more, both Clara and I found it exquisite that the island had extended us a welcome through the medium of these dazzling and poetic messengers. I had then reached such a point of sentimental poeticism that the mere sight of a butterfly made all the strings of tenderness and ecstasy vibrate in my breast. But that morning the actual sight of Ceylon caused me great anguish—and more than anguish—terror. What I caught a glimpse of over there beyond the waves, which were then the color


of forget−me−not, was not a territory, not a port, nor the burning curiosity of everything that stirs the ultimately lifted veil of the unknown in man. It was the brutal summons to evil life, the return to my forsaken instincts, the bitter and desolating reawakening of all which, during the crossing, had slumbered in me, and which I had thought dead! It was something more distressing, of which I had never dreamed, and which it was impossible for me not only to understand, but even conceive of its possible reality: the end of the prodigious dream which Clara's love had been for me. For the first time, a woman held me. I was her slave; I desired none but her; I wanted none but her. Nothing any longer existed outside or beyond her. Instead of extinguishing the fire of my love, every day possession fanned its flame. I descended further into the burning gulf of her desire each time, and every day I realized more strongly that my entire life would be exhausted seeking to reach its bottom! How could I accept the fact that, after having been conquered—soul, body and brain—by this irrevocable, indissoluble and martyrizing love, I


would have to immediately give it up? Madness! This love was a part of me, like my own flesh; it had taken the place of my blood and marrow; it possessed me entirely; it was I! To separate me from it meant to separate me from myself; it meant to kill me. Worse still! It meant the extravagant nightmare that my head was in Ceylon, my feet in China, separated by abysses of ocean, and that I would continue to live in these two stumps which could never be reunited! That the very next day I would no longer possess those swooning eyes, those devouring lips, the nightly renewed miracle of that body with its divine contours and savage embraces; and, after long spasms as powerful as sin and as deep as death, that naive stammering, those little laughs, those little tears, those languid little songs of a child or a bird—was it possible! And I would lose all that was more necessary for breathing than my lungs; more necessary for thinking than my brain; more necessary for nourishing my veins with warm blood than my heart! Impossible! I belonged to Clara like the coal belongs to the fire which devours and consumes it. Both to her and me, a separation had


seemed so inconceivable and so insanely fantastic, so totally contrary to the laws of nature and life, that we had never spoken of it. The evening before, our communing hearts had thought of nothing—and without even mentioning it—but the eternity of the voyage, as though the ship which bore us on might carry us thus forever, and never, never arrive anywhere. For to arrive somewhere means to die! Yet, here I was about to get off, plunge into that green and that red, disappear over there in that unknown... more frightfully alone than ever! And here was Clara, soon to be no more than a phantom, then a little grey speck scarcely visible in space... then nothing... nothing... nothing! Ah, anything rather than that! Ah, let the sea engulf us both. The sea was gentle, calm and radiant. It exhaled the perfumes of a Utopian shore, a blossoming orchard and a bed of love, which made me weep. The deck was thronged; nothing but happy faces, eyes strained by waiting and curiosity: “We're entering the bay... we're in the bay!” “I see the shore.” “I see the trees.”


“I see the lighthouse.” “We're here... we're here!” Each of these exclamations fell heavily on my heart. I no longer wanted before me the sight of this island, still distant but so implacably clear—which every turn of the screw brought nearer to me, and turning from it, I gazed at the infinity of the sky into which I prayed I might disappear, like those birds over there, so high, which flew for a moment through the air and disappeared so easily. Clara hastened to join me. Was it from having loved too much? Was it from having wept too long? For her eyelids were darkened, and her eyes with their dark blue rings expressed more than sadness: there was actually an ardent pity in them, both belligerent and commiserative. Beneath her heavy golden−brown hair, her forehead was crossed by a line of shadow; that line which was there in desire, as well as in pain. A strangely intoxicating perfume emanated from her hair. She said to me, simply, this single word: “Already?” “Alas!” I sighed.


She finished adjusting her hat, a little sailor−hat which she fastened with a long gold pin. Her raised arms made her breasts stand out, and I could see their sculptural curves outlined beneath the white blouse which enveloped them. She continued in a voice which trembled slightly: “Had you thought about it?” “No!” Clara bit her lips. “And then?” she said. I did not answer. I had not the strength to answer. My head empty, my heart torn, I should have liked to slip into oblivion. She was moved, very pale, except her mouth which seemed redder, and heavy with kisses. For a long time her eyes questioned me with great intensity. “The ship touches at Colombo two days. Then it leaves again. Did you know it? “Yes! yes!” “And then?” “And then... it's over!” “Can I do something for you?” “Nothing... thanks! for it's all over!”


And stifling my sobs in my throat, I stuttered: “You've been everything to me. You've been more than everything to me! Don't speak to me any more, I beg you! It's too distressing... too uselessly distressing. Don't speak to me any more... for now, everything is over!” “Nothing is ever over,” proclaimed Clara; “nothing, not even death!” A bell rang. Ah, that bell! How it tolled in my heart! How it tolled the death−knell of my heart! The passengers crowded on the deck, shouting, exclaiming, questioning each other, leveling lorgnettes opera−glasses and cameras at the approaching island. The Norman gentleman, pointing out the masses of foliage, was describing the jungles impenetrable to the hunter. And amid the tumult and jostling, indifferent and reflective, their hands crossed in their wide sleeves, the two Chinese continued their slow, grave, daily promenade, like two priests reciting their breviaries. “We're here!” “Hurrah! hurrah! We're here!” “I see the city.'”


“Is that the city?'” “No! that's a coral ledge...” “I can make out the wharf...” “No! No!” “What's that coming, out there on the sea?” Already, in the distance, a little flotilla of barks with their pink sails was coming out to the steamer. The two smokestacks, belching clouds of black smoke, covered the sea with a mourning−pall, and the siren moaned forever... forever. No one paid any attention to us. Clara asked me, in a tone of imperious tenderness: “Well! what's to become of you?” “I don't know! And what difference does it make? I was lost... I met you. You have held me from the brink of the abyss for a few days. Now I'll fall back into it. It was inevitable!” “Why inevitable? You're a child! And you have no confidence in me. Do you really think it was by chance you met me?” After a long silence, she added: “It's so simple! I have powerful friends in China. They could undoubtedly do a lot for you! Would you


like—” I did not give her time to finish: “No, not that!” I begged, resisting feebly. “Anyway—above all, not that! I understand you... Don't say any more.” “You're a child,” Clara repeated, “and talk like they do in Europe, darling. And you have stupid scruples, like in Europe. In China life is free, joyous, complete, unconventional, unprejudiced, lawless... at least for us. No other limits to liberty than yourself... or to love, than the triumphant variety of your desire. Europe and its hypocritical, barbaric civilization is a lie. What else do you do there except lie—lie to yourself and others, lie about everything you recognize in your heart to be true? You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all


joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That's the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world. With us, there's nothing like it... you'll see! In Canton I own a palace amid marvelous gardens, where everything is conducive to a free life, and to love. What are you afraid of? What are you leaving behind? Who cares about you! When you don't love me any more, or when you are too unhappy... you go away. “Clara! Clara!” I implored. She stamped sharply on the deck of the ship: “You don't know me yet,” she said, “you don't know what I am, and you want to leave me already! Do I frighten you? Are you a coward?” “I could not live without you! Without you, I could only die!” “Well, stop trembling... and stop weeping... and come with me!” A light flashed in her green pupils, and in a low, almost raucous voice, she said: “I'll teach you terrible things... divine things... you'll know at last what love really is! I promise you'll descend with me to the very depths of the mystery of


love... and death!” And smiling an evil smile which made a shiver run through my bones, she said again: “Poor baby! You thought yourself a great debauchee... a great rebel! Ah! your little remorse... do you remember! And now your soul is as timid as a little child's!” It was true! I had vainly boasted of being an uncompromising swine, thought myself superior to moral prejudices. I still occasionally heard the voice of duty and honor which, at certain moments of nervous depression, rose from the troubled depths of my conscience. Whose honor? what duty? What a sink of madness is man's mind! In what way would my honor—my honor!—be compromised, in what way would I shirk my duty if I continued my voyage all the way to China, instead of rotting away in Ceylon? Had I actually crawled far enough into the skin of a scientist to imagine that I was going to 'study the pelagic ooze,' or discover 'the cell,' by plunging into the gulfs of the Singhalese coast? This quite grotesque idea, that I had taken my embryological mission seriously, quickly led me back


to the reality of my situation. What! fate or a miracle had willed it that I meet a woman, divinely beautiful, rich, exceptional, and whom I loved and who loved me, and who offered me an extraordinary life, joy in abundance, unique sensations, libertine adventures, luxurious protection... salvation after all... and more than salvation—bliss! And I was going to let it all slip through my fingers! Once more the demon of perversity, that stupid demon to whom lowed all my unhappiness—because I had so stupidly obeyed him—intervened again and advised me hypocritically to resist an un−hoped−for adventure, a fairy−tale come to life, which would never be encountered again and which I ardently desired from the bottom of my heart, and which had actually materialized. No... no! It was too stupid, after all! “You're right,” I said to Clara, ascribing solely to my defeat in love a submission which also included all my instincts of laziness and debauchery; you're right; I wouldn't be worthy of your eyes, your mouth and your heart... of all that paradise and that hell which is YOU, if I hesitated any longer. And then, I could not... I could not lose you. I can conceive of


everything but that. You are right, I belong to you; lead me where you wish. To suffer... to die... it makes no difference! since you—whom I still do not know—are my fate!” “Oh, baby! baby! baby!” said Clara in a singular tone whose true expression I could not unravel—whether it was joy, irony or pity! Then, almost maternally, she admonished me: “Now, don't worry about anything. Try to be happy. Stay here... look at the marvelous island. I'm going to arrange with the commissioner for your new status on board.” “Clara.” “Don't be afraid. I know what to say.” And as I was about to object: “Shush! Aren't you my baby, darling? You must obey. And then, you don't know... “ And she disappeared into the crowd of passengers huddled on deck, many of whom were already carrying their yalises and their lighter baggage. It had been decided that Clara and I would spend the two days in port at Colombo visiting the city and the suburbs, where my friend had stayed and which


she knew thoroughly. The heat there was torrid, so torrid that the coolest places—by comparison—in this atrocious land (where the scientists have located the earthly paradise), such as the gardens on the banks of the strand, seemed to me to be stifling steam rooms. The majority of our traveling−companions did not dare to risk this fiery temperature, which stripped them of the slightest desire to go out and the vaguest desire to move. I can still see them, ridiculous and moaning in the lobby of the hotel, wrapped in moistened and steaming napkins—elegant apparel renewed every quarter of an hour—which transformed the noblest part of their person into a chimney−pipe, crowned with its plume of steam. Slumped into rocking−chairs under the punka, their brains atrophied, their lungs congested, they drank iced drinks prepared for them by the boys who, by the color of their skin and the structure of their bodies, recalled the naive gingerbread men of our Parisian fairs; while other boys of the same hue and the same build kept the mosquitoes away from them by great sweeps of a fan. As for me, I recovered—perhaps a bit too


soon—all my gaiety and all my sprightly wit. My scruples had vanished; I no longer felt in a poetical mood. Relieved of my anxiety about the future, I once more became the man I was when I left Marseille; the stupid and critical Parisian, 'who can't be fooled'; the boulevardier who won't listen to nonsense, and who knows all about nature... even the tropics! To me Colombo seemed a boring and ridiculous city, unpicturesque and lacking in mystery. It was half Protestant, half Buddhist, besotted as a bronze and sullen as a pastor, and with what joy I congratulated myself on having miraculously escaped the profound boredom of its streets, its dead sky and its coarse vegetation. And I made jokes about the cocoanut trees, which I did not fail to compare to frightful plucked feather−dusters, as well as about the great plants which I accused of having been cut out of painted sheet−iron and polished zinc, by malicious workmen. Walking on Slave Island, which is the Bois of the place, or in Pettah, which is its Mouffetard quarter, we only encountered horrible Englishwomen out of an operetta, togged out as


though for a carnival, in light costumes, half−European and half Hindu; and Singhalese still more horrible than the Englishwomen, old at twelve years, wrinkled as prunes, twisted as aged vine−stalks, caved in like ruined straw huts, with gums like bleeding wounds, lips burned by the areca−nut and teeth the color of an old pipe. I sought in vain for the voluptuous women, the negresses with their wise love−techniques, the pert little lace makers of whom that liar Eugene Mortain had spoken, with their eyes so significantly provocative. And with all my heart I pitied the poor scientists they sent here, with their problematic mission of discovering the secret of life. But I realized Clara had no taste for these facile and Coarse jokes, and I found it prudent to attenuate them, not wishing to wound her either in her fervent cult or nature, or shrink in her estimation. On several occasions I had noticed that she listened to me with painful astonishment. “Why are you so gay?” She said to me, “I don't like people to be gay like that, darling. It hurts me. When you're gay it's because you're not in love. Love


is serious, sad and profound.” Which, however, did not prevent her from bursting into laughter apropos of anything or nothing. In this way she encouraged me greatly in a deception which I concocted, and which was this: Among the letters of recommendation I had brought from Paris, there was one to a certain Sir Oscar Terwick who, aside from his other scientific titles, was the president of the Association of Tropical Embryology and British Entomology at Colombo. At the hotel where I sought information, I learned, in fact, that Sir Oscar Terwick was quite a personage, the author of renowned works, and, in a word, a very great scientist. I decided to go to see him. Such a visit could no longer be dangerous to me, and besides, I was not sorry to know and make contact with an actual embryologist. He lived far off in a suburb called Kolpetty, which was, so to speak, the Passy of Colombo. There, in the midst of luxurious gardens, graced by the inevitable cocoanut tree, in spacious and bizarre villas, the rich merchants and notable officials of the city lived. Clara desired to accompany me. She waited for me


in the carriage not far from the savant's house, in a sort of little square shaded by immense teakwood trees. Sir Oscar Terwick received me politely—nothing more. He was a very tall man, very slender, very dry, very red in the face, and his white beard fell to his navel and was cut squarely like a pony's tail. He wore great trousers of yellow silk, and his hairy torso was wrapped in a sort of shawl of light wool. He gravely read the letter I handed him and, after having examined me out of the corner of his eye with a suspicious air—was he suspicious of me or of himself?—he asked me: “You... are... embryologist?” I nodded my head in assent. “All right!” he clucked. And making the gesture of trailing a net in the sea, he went on: “You... are... embryologist? Yes... You... You... comme ca... dans Ie mer... fish... fish... little fish?” “Little fish... absolutely... little fish,” I insisted, repeating the imitative gesture of the scientist. “Dans Ie mer?” “Yes!... yes.”


Tres interessant!... tres joli... tres curious! Yes.” Jabbering like this—and both of us continuing to drag our fanciful nets 'in the sea'—the noted scientist led me to a bamboo console on which three plaster busts were standing, crowned with artificial lotus. Indicating them respectively with his thumb, he presented them to me in so comically serious a tone I almost burst out laughing. “Master Darwin—very great—naturalist... very, very... great!... Yes!” I made a deep bow. “Master Haeckel... ires grand naturaliste... Not as great as he, no!... Mais tres grand! Master Haeckel ici... comme ca... lui... dans Ie mer... little fish.” I bowed again. And he exclaimed in a louder voice, laying his whole hand, red as a crab, upon the third bust: “Master Coqueline! Tres grand naturaliste... du miouseum... comment appelez?... du miouseum. Grevin—Yes!—Grevin! Tres joli—tres curious!” “Very interesting!” I agreed. “Yes!” After which he dismissed me.


I gave Clara a detailed and acted version of this interview. She laughed like a mad woman. “Oh baby!... baby... baby... how funny you are, you little devil!” This was the sole scientific episode of my mission. And I appreciated then what embryology was! The next morning, after a savage night of love, we put to sea again en route to China.
THE GARDEN
PART 1

“Why haven't you spoken to me yet about our dear Annie? Haven't you told her about my arrival? Won't she come today? Is she still as beautiful as ever?” What! Don't you know, darling? Annie is dead.” “Dead!” I exclaimed. “It's not possible. You're teasing me.” I looked at Clara. Divinely calm and pretty, naked in a transparent tunic of yellow silk, she was languidly stretched out on a tiger skin. Her head lay among the cushions, and with her hands, loaded with rings, she played with a long wisp of her flowing hair. A Laos dog with red hair slept beside her, its muzzle resting on her thigh and a paw upon her breast. “What?” Clara went on, “didn't you know? Why, that's funny!” All smiles, and stretching like a supple animal, she explained to me: “It was horrible, my dear! Annie died... died of that frightful scourge called elephantiasis... for everything here is frightful... love... disease... and the


flowers! Never have I wept so much, I assure you. I loved her so much—so much! And she was so beautiful!” She added, with a long and charming sigh: “Never again will we know the bitter taste of her kisses! It's a great misfortune!” “Then it's really true!” I stammered. “But how did it happen?” “I don't know. There are so many mysteries here, so many things that can't be understood. Both of us often used to go out on the river in the evening. I must tell you that there was a bayadere from Benares, in a flower—boat... a bewitching creature, my dear, whom the priests had taught certain cursed rites of the ancient Brahman cults. Perhaps it was that... or something else. One night when we were returning from the river, Annie complained of violent pains in the head and loins, and the next day her body was all covered with little purple spots. Her skin, rosier and finer than the althea flower, was hardening—thickening, swelling, and became an ashy grey. Great tumors and monstrous tubercles arose. It was something frightful. And the disease


which at first had attacked her legs, reached her thighs, her abdomen, her breasts, her face. Oh, her face, her face! Imagine an enormous pouch, a disgusting sack, all grey and striated with brown blood, and which hung and swayed with the least movement she made. Her eyes—her eyes, my darling! You could see no more of them than tiny, reddish, oozing holes. I still wonder if it's possible!” She twined the golden lock of her hair about her fingers. In his sleep the dog's paw had slipped along her silk tunic, entirely uncovering the globe of her breast, whose nipple arose, pink as a young flower. “Yes, I still wonder sometimes whether I'm not dreaming,” she said. “Clara... Clara!” I implored, aghast with horror, “don't tell me any more. I'd like the image of our divine Annie to remain intact in my memory. What can I do now to dispel this nightmare? Ah, Clara! don't say any more; or talk to me about Annie when she was so beautiful... when she was too beautiful!” Clara did not listen to me, but continued: “Annie isolated herself... shut herself up in her house, alone with a Chinese housekeeper who took


care of her. She had sent all her women away, and no longer wanted to see anyone... not even me. She summoned the cleverest practitioners of England. In vain, you may be Sure. The most celebrated sorcerers of Tibet—those who know the magic words and resuscitate the dead declared themselves powerless. You never recover from that disease; but you never die of it. It's frightful! “Then she killed herself. A few drops of poison, and that was the end of the most beautiful of women.” Terror sealed my lips. I looked at Clara, unable to utter a single word. “I learned from that Chinese woman,” Clara continued, “a really curious detail, which fascinated me. You know how much Annie loved pearls. She owned some incomparable specimens... the most marvelous, I believe, that ever existed. You also remember the almost physical joy, the carnal ecstasy, with which she adorned herself with them. Well, when she was sick that passion became a mania with her... a fury, like love! All day long she loved to touch them, caress them and kiss them j she made cushions of them, necklaces, capes,


cloaks. Then this extraordinary thing happened; the pearls died on her skin: first they tarnished, little by little... little by little they grew dim, and no light was reflected in their luster any more and, in a few days, tainted by the disease, they changed into tiny balls of ash. They were dead, dead like people, my darling. Did you know that pearls had souls? I think it's fascinating and delicious. And since then, I think of it every day.” After a short silence, she went on: “And that's not all! Annie often expressed the desire to be carried to the little Parsee cemetery when she died—over there, on the hill of the Blue Dog. She wanted her body to be torn to pieces by the beaks of vultures. You know what strange and violent ideas she had on all subjects? Well, the vultures refused this royal feast she offered them. They flew away from her corpse, uttering frightful cries. We had to cremate her. It was awful!” “But why didn't you write me all that?” I reproached Clara. With slow and charming gestures, Clara smoothed the red—gold of her hair and caressed the red fur of the dog, which had awakened, and she


said carelessly: “Really? Didn't I write you anything about that? Are you sure? Doubtless I'd forgotten. Poor Annie!” Again she spoke: Since that great misfortune, everything here bores me. I am too lonely. I would like to die... to die... I too. Ah, I assure you! And if you hadn't come back, I honestly believe I would be dead already.” She laid her head back on the cushions, bared her breast still more, and with a smile... the strange smile of both a child and a harlot: “Do my breasts still please you? Do you still think me beautiful? Then why were you gone so... so long? Yes... yes... I know... don't say anything more, don't answer... I know. You are a little fool, my darling!” I would have greatly liked to weep; but I couldn't. I would have greatly liked to speak again, but again I was unable. And we were in the garden, under the gilded kiosk, where the glycines hung in clusters, white clusters; and We finished having tea. Sparkling scarabees swarmed among the leaves, cetonia


beetles buzzed and died in the swooning hearts of the roses, and through the open door on the northern side, rising from the pool around which in the soft, mauve shadows, storks were sleeping, we could see the long stems of yellow irises, streaked with purple. Suddenly Clara asked me: “Would you like us to go and feed the Chinese Convicts? It's very curious... very amusing. It's really the only original and fashionable diversion we have here, in this God−forsaken corner of China. Would you like to, darling?” I felt fatigue, my head was heavy, all my being racked by the fever of that frightful climate. Besides, the story of Annie's death had overwhelmed my spirit. And the heat, moreover, was deadly as poison. “I don't know what you asked me, Clara dear, but I haven't recovered from that long trip across plains and plains... forests and forests. And that sun! I fear it more than death! Besides, I wanted so much to be alone with you, and you with me... today.” “That's right! If we were in Europe, and I'd asked you to accompany me to the races or the theatre, you wouldn't have hesitated. But it's so much nicer


than the races.” “Be kind! Tomorrow, if you like?” “Oh, tomorrow!” replied Clara, with an expression of surprise and her air of gentle reproach. “Always tomorrow! Don't you know that it's impossible tomorrow? Tomorrow—why it's strictly forbidden. The doors of the bagnio are closed, even to me. You can only feed the convicts on Wednesday; how is it you didn't know? If we miss this visit today, we'll have to wait a whole long week. How boring it would be! A whole week, think of it! Come, darling booby. Oh, come! I beg you. You could at least do that much for me. She lifted herself up on the cushions. The gaping tunic revealed patches of her ardent rosy flesh below the waist, amid the clouds of the silk. From a gold bonbon dish on a lacquer platter she took a quinine pellet with the tips of her fingers, and commanding me to approach, she put it gently between my lips. “You'll see how exciting it is... so exciting! You have no idea, darling. And how much more I'll love you tonight. How madly I'll love you tonight! Swallow, darling... swallow!”


Somber lights gleamed in her eyes, and as I was still sad and hesitant, to overcome my last objections, she said: “Listen! I've seen robbers hung in England; I've seen bullfights, and anarchists garroted in Spain. In Russia I've seen beautiful young girls whipped to death by soldiers. In Italy I've seen living phantoms—spectres of famine—disinter the bodies of cholera victims and eat them eagerly. I've seen thousands of souls beside a stream in India, stark naked, writhing and dying of the plague. In Berlin one evening I saw a woman I had loved the night before—a splendid creature in pink tights—I saw her devoured by a lion in a cage. All the horrors, all the human tortures—I have seen them. It was very lovely! But I've seen nothing lovelier... you understand?... than the Chinese convicts. It's lovelier than everything! You can't possibly know. I tell you, you can't possibly know. Annie and I never missed a Wednesday. Come, I beg you!” “Since it's so lovely, my dear Clara, and it gives you so much pleasure,” I answered sadly, “let's go and feed the convicts.”


“Really, you want to?” Clara expressed her delight, clapping her hands like a baby whose governess has just given it permission to torture a little dog. Then she jumped up on my knees, affectionate and feline, and threw her bare arms around my neck... and her hair smothered me, blinded my face with golden flames and intoxicating perfumes. “How nice you are... dear... dear darling. Kiss my lips... kiss my neck... kiss my hair... dear little devil!” Her hair possessed so powerful an animal odor and was so electrically stimulating, that its mere contact with my skin instantaneously made me forget fever, fatigue and pain... and I immediately felt heroic ardor and new strength flowing and surging through my veins. “Oh, what fun we'll have, sweetheart. When I go to see the convicts, it makes me dizzy, and thrills run through my entire body, like thrills of passion. It seems to me, you see... it seems to me that I'm sinking to the depths of my being... to the very deepest recesses of my being. Your mouth... give me your mouth... your mouth... your mouth!” Then


nimbly, quickly joyful and shameless, followed by the bounding red dog, she went to the women who dressed her. I was no longer very sad; I was no longer very tired. Clara's kiss, the taste of which I still had on my lips like a magic drop of opium—dulled my pain, relieved the throbbing of my fever, almost completely dispelled the monstrous image of Annie's death. And I looked calmly at the garden. Calmly? The garden descended in gentle slopes, graced everywhere by rare herbs and precious plants. An alley of enormous camphor trees began at the kiosk where I sat, and ended at a red door in the form of a temple, which opened out on the countryside. Between the leafy branches of the gigantic trees which concealed the view on the left, I could see the stream which gleamed like polished silver in the sun. I tried to become interested in the multiple decorations of the garden, in its strange flowers and grotesque vegetation. A man with two indolent panthers in leash, crossed the path. Here, in the center of a lawn, there stood an immense bronze


representing some divinity or other—obscene and cruel. There, cranes with blue plumage and red−throated toucans from tropical America, sacred pheasants, golden—crowned and golden−breasted ducks clad in brilliant purple like ancient warriors, and multicolored wading−birds, sought the shade beside the clumps of foliage. But neither the birds nor the felines, nor the gods, nor the flowers could hold my attention, nor the bizarre palace on my right which, between the dwarf cedars and the bamboos, lifted its bright terraces covered with flowers, and its shady balconies and covered roofs. My thoughts were elsewhere... very, very far away across the seas and the forests. They were centered in me, plunged into myself... in the very depths of my being! Calmly? Scarcely had Clara disappeared behind the foliage of the garden than I was seized with remorse at being there. Why had I returned? What madness and what cowardice had I obeyed? She had said to me one day you remember—on the ship: 'When you are too unhappy, you will go away.' I had believed myself fortified by my infamous past and, in fact, I


was only a worried and feeble child. Unhappy? Ah yes, I had been that—unhappy to the point of the worst possible torture; to the point of a prodigious disgust with myself. And I had gone away! With really vindictive irony I had profited by an English mission passing through Canton to escape from Clara—I was decidedly destined to follow missions. I was going to explore the lesser known regions of Annam. It meant forgetfulness, perhaps... and perhaps death. For two years—two long, cruel years, I had tramped and tramped—and there was neither forgetfulness nor death. Despite fatigue, danger and the accursed fever—I was not able for a day, nor for a minute, to cure myself of the frightful poison that woman had injected into my flesh—that woman to whom I felt myself attached and riveted. And I realized that the very thing that held me to her was the frightful rottenness of her soul and her crimes of love. She was a monster, and I loved her for being a monster! I had believed—had I really?—that her love could uplift me... and here I had descended even lower, to the floor of the tainted gulf out of which, having once inhaled its odor, you never climb again.


Often, in the depths of the forests, haunted by fever after the halts—in my tent—I tried to kill her monstrous and persistent image with opium. And the opium evoked her for me in a more material fashion, and more living, more imperious than ever. Then I wrote her mad, insulting and scurrilous letters—letters in which the most violent loathing was mingled with the most abject adoration. She answered me with charming, naive and plaintive letters which I sometimes found in the cities and post−offices we passed. She confessed to be unhappy over my abandonment... wept, supplicated and called me back. She found no other excuse than this: 'You must understand, my dear—' she wrote, 'that I have no soul for your horrid Europe. I bear in me the soul of old China, which is much more beautiful. Isn't it desolating that you can't grasp that idea?' In this way I learned that she had left Canton, where she could no longer live without me, to go and live with Annie in a city farther south in China, 'which is marvelous'. Ah, how could I have so long resisted the desire to abandon my companions and hasten to that sublime and cursed city, that exquisite and


agonizing hell where Clara breathed and lived, in the midst of fierce and unknown lusts for lack of which I was then dying. And I came back to her, like an assassin returns to the very scene of his crime... Laughter in the foliage, little cries, the bounding of a dog. It was Clara. She was dressed, half as a Chinese, half as a European. A blouse of pale mauve silk, embroidered with faintly gilded flowers, wrapped her in a thousand folds, outlining her lithe body and her rich contours. She had on a great hat of pale straw, in whose depths her face appeared like a pink flower in a slight shadow. And her little feet were clad in yellow leather. When she entered the kiosk, it was like an explosion of perfumes. “This is a queer get−up, isn't it? Oh, the sad, sad man from Europe, who hasn't laughed once since he returned! Don't you think me beautiful?” As I didn't get up from the divan on which I was stretched: “Quick! quick! darling—for we have to make the grand tour. I'll put on my gloves on the way. Come... come along! No, no... not you!” she added, gently, repulsing the dog which was yelping, leaping and


wagging its tail. She called a boy and instructed him to follow us with the provision−basket and the little pitchfork. “Ah,” she explained to me, “it's very amusing! A darling little basket woven by the best basket−maker in China; and the pitchfork... you'll see—a darling little fork whose teeth are platinum inlaid with gold, and the handle is made of green jade... green as the sky at the first flush of dawn... green as poor Annie's eyes! Come now—don't make that awful funereal face, darling... and come quickly... quickly!” And we started to walk in the sun, that horrible sun which blackened the grass, withered the peonies in the garden and bore down on my skull like a heavy laden helmet.


Part 2

The Bagnio is on the other side of the river, whose black and pestilential waters slowly and sinisterly flow between their low banks outside the city limits. To get to it, you have to make a long detour, and cross a bridge on which the Convict Meat Market is held every Wednesday, in the midst of a fashionable throng. Clara had refused to take a palanquin. We went down through the garden situated outside the city walls, on foot, and by a path bordered here and there by brown stones, thick hedges of white roses or clipped privet hedges, we reached the suburbs at the point where the dwindling city almost becomes countryside; where the houses, now shacks, are at great intervals from each other, and are situated in little yards fenced about with bamboo. From there on, there are only blossoming orchards, truck−gardens or empty lots. Men stripped to the waist and wearing bell−shaped hats worked laboriously in the sun planting lilies—those beautiful tiger lilies whose petals resemble the legs of marine


spiders and whose tasty bulbs serve as nourishment for the rich. We passed some wretched sheds where potters were turning their pots, where rag pickers squatting before huge baskets were taking stock of the morning harvest, while a flock of hungry and cackling condors wheeled back and forth above them. Not far off under an enormous fig tree, we saw a gentle and meticulous old man who was bathing birds at the edge of a fountain. Every few minutes we crossed in front of palanquins carrying foreign sailors, already drunk, towards the city. And behind us, sweltering and huddled, sprawling over the high hill, the city with its temples and strange red, green, and yellow houses, lay shimmering in the dazzling light. Clara walked rapidly, unmoved by my fatigue. Heedless of the sun which charged the atmosphere and burned our skin despite our parasols, she walked freely—supple, bold and happy. Occasionally, in a tone of merry reproach, she said to me: “How slow you are, sweetheart. God, you're slow! You're not getting anywhere. If only the doors


of the bagnio aren't open when we get there, and the convicts aren't already gorged! It would be frightful! Oh, how I would detest you!” From time to time she gave me a hamamelis tablet, whose property is to stimulate the respiration; and, her eyes mocking me: “Oh, little woman!... little woman... little, insignificant woman!” Then, half laughing, half angry, she started to run, and I had great difficulty in following her. Several times I had to stop and catch my breath. I felt that my arteries would burst in my chest. And Clara repeated, in her warbling voice: “Little woman! Little, insignificant woman.” The path comes out upon the quay of the stream. Two great steamers were unloading coal and European merchandise; there were a few junks equipped for fishing, and a considerable flotilla of sampans with their parti−colored tents lay at anchor, rocked by the light lapping of the water. There was not a breath of air. This quay was offensive to me. It was dirty arid battered, covered with black dust and strewn with the entrails of fish. The stench, the sound of quarreling,


notes of a flute, and the barking of a dog came to us from within the hovels that flanked it lice−infested tea−houses, cutthroat shops, suspicious work stalls. Laughingly, Clara showed me a sort of little booth where, spread out on caladium leaves, they sold portions of rats and quartered dogs, rotten fish and emaciated chickens smeared with copal, bunches of bananas and bleeding bats, threaded on the same spit. As we went on the stench became more unbearable and the filth thicker. On the stream the boats were jammed and huddled—a mass of sinister prows and miserable sail, torn to rags. A dense population lived here fishermen and pirates—frightful demons of the sea with wizened faces, lips reddened by the betel, and glances which made you shudder. They were playing dice, howling, and fighting; others, more peaceful, were gutting fish which they then strung in garlands and hung out in the sun to dry on ropes. Still others were training monkeys to perform a thousand tricks and obscenities. “Amazing, isn't it?” Clara said to me. “And there are more than thirty thousand who have no other


homes than their boats! The devil only knows how they manage!” She lifted her dress, exposing the lower part of her lithe and agile leg, and for a long time we followed the horrible road, as far as the bridge which, with its bizarre superstructure and five massive arches painted in violent colors, straddled the stream at the mercy of the current and the eddies. Upon the bridge the scene changed, but the odor grew stronger—that odor peculiar to all of China, and which in the cities, forests, and fields, makes you think constantly of decomposition and death. Little shops built like pagodas, tents in the shape of kiosks draped with bright silky materials, immense parasols set up in chariots, baskets on wheels—all were crowded together. In these shops and under these tents and parasols fat merchants with bellies like hippopotami, clad in yellow, blue, and green robes, howling and tapping on gongs to attract customers, were hawking carcasses of all sorts: dead rats, drowned dogs, quartered deer and horses, purulent fowl, all piled pell−mell in broad bronze pans.


“Here, here, this way! Come this way! Look... and choose! You can find no better any place else. There is none rottener.” And, delving into the basins, they brandished vile quarters of sanious meat like flags at the end of long iron−prongs, and with fierce grimaces accentuating the slashes of rouge on their faces painted like masks, amid the maddening reverberation of the gongs and the simultaneous uproar they repeated: “Here, here, this way! Come this way. Look... and choose! You can find no better any place else. There is none rottener.” As soon as we had reached the bridge, Clara said to me: “Now, you see, we're late. It's your fault! Let's hurry!” In fact, a great crowd of Chinese women, and among them some English and Russian women—for there were only a very few men, except for the shopkeepers—was swarming on the bridge. Gowns embroidered with flowers and weird designs, variegated parasols, fans fluttering like birds, laughter, exclamations of joy and squabbling—all


these vibrated, sang and hovered in the sunlight, like a celebration of life and love. “Here, here, this way! Come this way!” Bewildered by the jostling, deafened by the screeching of the merchants and the sonorous vibrations of the gongs. I almost had to fight to make a way through the throng and protect Clara from insults and blows. It was truly a grotesque combat, for I possessed no resistance or strength, and felt myself carried along by this human tumult as easily as a dead tree tumbled about in the furious waters of a torrent. Clara hurled herself into the thick of it with all her strength. She submitted to the brutal contact and, so to speak, the violation of this crowd, with passionate delight. Once she cried gloriously: “Look, sweetheart! My dress is all torn. It's delicious!” We had great difficulty in opening a passage to die booths, which were crowded and besieged as for a pillage. “Look and choose! You can find no better any place else!” “Here, here, this way! Right this way!”


Clara took the darling little pitchfork from the hands of the boy who was following us with her darling little basket, and she prodded about in the pans: “You pick too... pick, sweetheart!” I felt my heart would fail me, because of the appalling odor of the grave which was wafted from these booths... stirred−up pans... all this crowd rushing upon the corpses as though they were flowers. “Clara... Clara!” I implored. “Let's go away, I beg you!” “Oh, how pale you are! And why! Isn't it a lot of fun?” “Clara, dear Clara!” I insisted, “I can't possibly stand this odor any longer.” “But it doesn't smell bad, my love. It smells of death, that's all.” She did not seem to be affected. No grimace of disgust wrinkled her white skin, fresh as a cherry blossom. From the veiled ardor of her eyes, from the fluttering of her nostrils, she seemed to be experiencing thrills of passion. She inhaled the


stench with delight, like a perfume. “Oh, he lovely... lovely piece!” With graceful gestures, she filled the basket with the abominable scraps. And, painfully, through the excited crowd and amid the vile smells, we continued on our way. “Quick! quick!”
PART 3

The Bangniois built on the bank of the river. Its quadrangular walls enclose more than a hundred thousand square meters of land. There isn't a single window, and no other opening than the immense door crowned by red dragons and fortified by heavy iron bars. The watchtowers, square towers surmounted by roofs with upturned edges, mark the four corners of the sinister battlements. Other smaller turrets are spaced between them at regular intervals. At night these towers are lit up like lighthouses, and cast around the bagnio, over the meadows and the stream, a revelatory light. One of the walls dips its solid foundations into the black, fetid, deep water, and is hung with slimy algae. By means of a drawbridge, a low door communicates with the stockade which extends to mid−stream and to whose piles many trade−junks and sampans are moored. Two spearmen, lance in hand, keep watch at the door! On the right of the stockade, a little cruiser, like our river patrol−boats, lies motionless, the mouths of its three cannons trained on the


bagnio. On the left, as far as the eye can see along the river, twenty−five or thirty lines of boats mask the opposite shore with a jumble of variegated hulls, gaudy masts, rigging and grey sails. And from time to time, you can see those massive paddlewheel boats passing, propelled by wretches locked in a cage who painfully work them with their tense stiff arms. Behind the bagnio, and as far as the mountain which girdles the horizon with a somber line, extend rocky, rolling fields, here dirty brown and there the color of dried blood, in which grow only scant acres, bluish thistles and stunted cherry trees that never bloom. Infinite desolation! Overwhelming misery! During eight months of the year the sky is blue—a blue washed with red in which the reflections of a perpetual fire glow—an implacable blue into which no chance cloud ever dares to venture. The sun parches the earth, bakes the rocks, and vitrifies the pebbles which burst underfoot with the crunching of glass and the crackling of flame. No bird defies this aerial furnace. Only invisible organisms live there—clumps of bacilli which, toward evening, when


the bleak mists rise with the chant of the sailors on the sluggish stream, distinctly assume the shapes of fever, pestilence, and death. What a contrast with the other shore, where the fat, rich soil covered, with gardens and orchards, nourishes giant trees and marvelous flowers! On the other side of the bridge we luckily found a palanquin, \which carried us across the scorching fields almost to the bagnio, whose doors were still closed. A squad of police, armed with lances and yellow pennants, with great shields which almost covered them, held back the huge impatient crowd, which was swelling every minute. There were rows of tents where people were drinking tea, munching pretty bonbons and rose—or acacia—petals rolled in a fine scented paste sprinkled with sugar. In others, musicians played the flute and poets recited verses, while the punka, fanning the torrid air, produced a slight breeze which cooled their faces. Strolling merchants sold images, stories of famous crimes, models of torture and martyrdom, prints and ivories, curiously obscene. Clara bought one of the latter, and said to me:


“You can see that the Chinese, who are accused of being barbarians, are, to the contrary, more civilized than we; for they are grounded deeper in the logic of life and the harmony of nature! They do not consider the act of love a shameful thing that should be hidden. To the contrary, they glorify it, hymning all the gestures and caresses; just like the ancients, moreover, for whom the sexual organ, far from being an object of infamy and an image of impurity, was a God! You see how all Occidental art loses by the fact that the magnificent expressions of love have been denied it. With us, eroticism is poor, stupid and frigid. It is always presented in ambiguous attitudes of sin, while here it preserves all its vital scope, all its passionate poetry and the stupendous pulse of all nature. But you are only a European lover... a poor, timid, chilly little soul, in whom Catholicism has stupidly inculcated a fear of nature and a hatred of love. It has warped and perverted the sense of life in you.” “Dear Clara,” I objected, “is it really natural for you to seek sensuality in decomposition, and urge Your desires to greater heights by horrible


spectacles of suffering and death? Isn't that, to the contrary, a perversion of that nature whose cult you invoke, in order perhaps to excuse whatever criminal and monstrous qualities your sensuality involves?” “No!” said Clara, quickly, “since love and death are the same thing! And since decomposition is the eternal resurrection of life... Look—“ Suddenly she interrupted herself, and said: “But why do you tell me that? You're funny!” And with a charming pout, she added: “How provoking that you don't understand anything! How is it you don't feel it? How is it you haven't already felt that it is—I don't even say by love, but by the heightened sensuality which is the perfection of love—that all the intellectual faculties of man awaken and become more acute? And it's by this sensuality alone that you attain the full development of personality. Look! In the act of love, have you ever thought, for instance, of committing a beautiful crime? That is to say, lifting yourself above social prejudices and all the laws—above everything, in fact? And if you haven't thought if it, then why do you bother making love?”


“I haven't the strength to argue,” I stammered, “and it seems to me we are walking in a nightmare. This sun... this crowd... these smells... and your eyes—ah, your torturous and lustful eyes—and your voice... and your penchant for crime... all that terrifies me, and it's all driving me mad!” Clara gave a little mocking laugh. “Poor little pet!” she sighed, comically. “You won't say that tonight, when you're in my arms... and when I love you!” The crowd was growing more and more restless. Bonzes crouched under parasols, laid out long red gowns, like pools of blood, struck frenzied blows on gongs and hurled gross invectives at the passers—by who, to counteract their curses, devoutly threw large pieces of change into metal bowls. Clara led me into a tent all embroidered with peach flowers, made me sit down by her on a pile of cushions, and stroking my forehead with her exciting hand—with her hand which dispensed forgetfulness and intoxication, she said to me: “My God, how long it takes, darling! Every week


it's the same thing. They take so long to open the door. Why don't you speak? Do I frighten you? Are you glad you came? Are you happy to have me caress you, dear beloved little rascal? Oh, your beautiful tired eyes! It's the fever—and it's me too! Say it's me. Do you Want to drink some tea? Do you want another hamamelis tablet?” “I'd rather not stay here longer! I'd rather sleep.” “Sleep! How strange you are. Oh, you'll see how beautiful it is! And what extraordinary... what Unknown... what marvelous desires it instills into Your flesh! We'll come back by the river, in my sampan. And we'll spend the night in a flower−boat. Wouldn't you like to?” She lightly tapped my hands several times with her fan. “But you're not listening to me! Why aren't you listening to me? You're pale and melancholy. And, really, you're not listening to me at all.” She snuggled up against me, sinuous and caressing: “You're not listening to me, wretch,” she went on. “And you don't even caress me! Caress me, darling! Feel how cold and firm my breasts are.” And, in a hollow voice, her eyes darting green, voluptuous and


cruel flames, she spoke like this. “Listen! Eight days ago I saw an extraordinary thing. Oh, dear love, I saw a man whipped for stealing a fish. The judge simply said this: 'One must not always say of a man who carries a fish in his hand: He is a fisherman'! And he sentenced the man to die under the iron rods. For a fish, darling! It took place in the torture−garden. The man was kneeling on the ground—imagine it—and his head rested on a sort of block... a block all black with old blood. His back and loins were bare; a back and loins like old gold! I arrived just at the moment when a soldier, having gripped his queue, which was very long, was knotting it to a ring riveted in a stone slab in the ground. Beside the culprit, another soldier was heating a little... a very little iron switch, at the fire of a forge. And then—pay attention to me! Are you listening? When the switch was red, the soldier whipped the man on the loins. The switch hissed in the air, and it penetrated far into the muscles, which crackled, and a little reddish steam arose... you understand? Then the soldier let the switch cool in the flesh, which bubbled up and closed over it. Then,


when it was cold, he violently jerked it out with a single movement, along with little bleeding bits. And the man hurled frightful cries of agony. Then the soldier began again. He did it fifteen times! And I too, darling—it seemed to me that with every blow, the switch entered my loins. It was fierce and very sweet!” As I was silent: “It was fierce and very sweet,” she repeated. “If you knew how handsome that man was... how strong he was! Muscles like those of a statue. Kiss me, darling... kiss me!” Clara's pupils had rolled back. Between her half closed lids I could see nothing but the whites of her eyes. Again she spoke: “He did not budge. It made little waves on his back. Oh, your lips!” After some seconds of silence, she went on: “Last year, with Annie, I saw something much more astonishing: I saw a man who had attacked his mother and then disemboweled her with a knife. It seemed, besides, that he was crazy. He was sentenced to the torture of the caress. Yes, my


darling. Isn't it wonderful? Strangers aren't allowed to witness that torture, which, besides, is very rare today. But we gave some money to the guard, who hid us behind a screen. Annie and I saw everything! The madman—he didn't seem to be mad—was stretched out on a very low table, his limbs and body were tied by stout ropes, and his mouth was gagged, so he couldn't make movement or utter a cry. A woman with a grave face, not beautiful, not young, and dressed entirely in black, her bare arm circled by a broad gold band, came and kneeled beside the madman. She grasped him and set about her task. Oh darling, darling, if you could have seen! It lasted four hours... four hours, think of it! Four hours of frightful and skilled caresses, during which the woman's hand did not relax a moment, during which her face remained cold and gloomy! The culprit died in a jet of blood, which splattered the entire face of the tormentress. Never have I seen anything so atrocious; and it was so atrocious, my darling, that both Annie and I fainted. I still think of it!” With an air of regret, she added: “On one of her fingers that woman had a huge


ruby which, during the torture, flashed in the sunlight like a little red dancing flame. Annie bought it, but I don't know what became of it. I'd like very much to have it.” Clara was silent, her mind having undoubtedly returned to the bloody image of that abominable memory. Some minutes later a murmur ran through the tents and the crowd. Through my heavy eyelids which despite me had almost closed at the horror of this tale, I saw gown after gown passing, and parasols, and fans, and happy faces, and accursed faces, dancing, whirling, rushing. It was like a burst of immense flowers, like a whirl of fantastic birds. “The doors, darling,” cried Clara, “the doors are being opened! Come, come quickly! And don't be sad any more. Ah, I beg you! Think of all the beautiful things you're going to see, and the ones I told you about!” I got up... and seizing my arm, she dragged me along, I know not where.


PART 4

The door to the Bagnio opened on a wide, dark corridor. Through the corridor, but from beyond, there came to us the sound of a bell, muffled and deadened by the distance. And hearing it, Clara joyfully clapped her hands. “Oh, darling! The bell! The bell! We're in luck. Don't be unhappy any more... don't be ill any more, I beg you!” The crowd was milling so furiously at the entrance of the bagnio that the police had great difficulty in bringing about a little order in the tumult. It was into this crush of cackling, shouting, and suffocating people into this rubbing of cloth against cloth, and jostling, of parasols and fans, that Clara resolutely hurled her self, exalted by the ringing of the bell. I had not thought of asking her why it was ringing like that, or the meaning of its muffled distant tolling, which caused her so much pleasure. “The bell! The bell! The bell! Come!” But we couldn't get very far despite the efforts of the boys carrying baskets who, thrusting out violently


with their elbows, were attempting to make way for their mistresses. Tall porters with grimacing faces, frightfully emaciated, their chests bare and scarred beneath their rags, were holding baskets of meat above their heads, in which the sun was accelerating decomposition and hatching swarm of maggots. They were specters of crime and famine, images of nightmare and massacre, demons materialized from the darkest and most terrifying legends of China. Nearby I saw one whose laugh exposed a slash of saw−toothed mouth with its betel−lacquered teeth, and extended to the edge of his billy−goat beard, sinister and distorted. Some were cursing and cruelly pulling each others queues; others, with the gliding movements of felines, were slipping through the human thicket, picking pockets, cutting purses, snatching jewels and then disappearing with their loot. “The bell! The bell!” repeated Clara. “But what bell?” “You'll see. It's a surprise!” And the smells that arose from the crowd—smells of the latrine and the


slaughter−house, the stink of corpses and the perfumes of living flesh—nauseated me and chilled me to the marrow. I felt the same lethargic sensation I had so often experienced in the forests of Annam, in the evening, when the miasma rose from the deepest leaf—mold and death lurked behind every flower, every leaf, and every blade of grass. At the same time, shoved and jostled from every side, my breath almost failing, I was finally at the point of fainting. “Clara! Clara!” I called. She made me breathe salts, whose cordial power restored me a little. She was unrestrained and delighted in the midst of this crowd whose odor she inhaled, and to whose repugnant embraces she submitted with a sort of swooning lust. She offered her body—all her lithe and vibrant body—to the brutality, the blows, and the clawing. Her white skin was now a glowing pink; her eyes reflected a languid thrill of sensual delight; her lips were swollen, like firm buds ready to blossom. Once more, with a sort of mocking pity, she said to me: “Ah, little woman! little woman... little woman! You'll never be anything but a little, insignificant


woman!” Coming from the dazzling and blinding light of the sun, the corridor which we finally reached seemed at first full of shadow. Then little by little the shadows faded away, and I could get a clear idea of where I was. The passageway was vast and lit from above by windows which only allowed an attenuated light to pass through their opaque glass. The cool and moist air, almost cold, wrapped me from head to foot, like the breath of a woodland spring. The walls sweated like the galleries of a subterranean grotto. Under my feet, burned by the pebbles of the field, the sand which covered the flags of the tunnel possessed the gentle softness of seaside dunes. I breathed the air deeply, with full lungs. Clara said to me: “You see how nice they are to the convicts here. At least they're cool.” “But where are they?” I asked. “l can see nothing but walls on either side.” Clara smiled. “How strange you are! Here you are more impatient than I! Wait... wait a little! In a minute, darling. Listen!”


She halted and pointed out a vague spot in the tunnel, her eyes more brilliant, her nostrils palpitating, her ears attentive to sound, like a doe at bay in the forest. “Do you hear? There they are! Do you hear?” Then, from beyond the murmur of the crowd which thronged the passageway, from beyond the hum of voices, I perceived cries, hollow moans, the dragging of chains, breaths panting like a forge—a strange and prolonged growling of beasts. It seemed to come from the depths of the wall, from below the ground, from the very abyss of death. You could not tell whence. “Do you hear?” Clara went on. “There they are... you'll see them in a minute... let's go! Take my arm. Watch out... there they are! There they are!” We started to walk again, followed by the boy who was attentive to the gestures of his mistress. And the frightful corpse−odor also accompanied us, no longer left us, and was augmented by other odors whose ammoniacal acridity stung our eyes—and throats. The bell still rang down there—far off—slow and soft, muffled, like the cry of a man in agony. For the


third time Clara repeated: “Oh, that bell! He's dying, he's dying, my darling. Perhaps we'll see him!” Suddenly I felt her fingers clenched tensely in my flesh. “Darling! darling! On your right! How horrible!” Swiftly, I turned my head. The infernal procession had begun. In the wall at the right there were vast cells, or rather cages, enclosed by bars and separated from each other by thick stone partitions. The first ten were each occupied by ten condemned men; and all ten offered the same spectacle. Their necks were clasped in a pillory so wide it was impossible to see their bodies, and you'd have thought they were frightful severed living heads placed on tables. Crouched amid their filth, their hands and feet chained, they could neither stretch nor lie down, nor even take a rest. The slightest movement displaced the iron collars about their bare throats and bleeding necks, and made them utter howls of pain, alternately interspersed with fierce insults to us and supplications to the gods. I was mute with horror. Deftly, with pretty shivers and exquisite gestures,


Clara prodded in the boy's basket, and lifted out some small scraps of meat, which she gracefully tossed through the bars of the cage. Ten heads simultaneously turned in their balanced collars; simultaneously, twenty bulging eyeballs cast inflamed glances at the meat—glances of terror and hunger. Then one cry of agony arose from the ten contorted mouths. And, conscious of their impotence, the condemned men did not move again. They remained with their heads slightly inclined as though ready to roll down the slope of the collar, their pale and fleshless features convulsed in a rigid grimace, in a sort of frozen leer. “They can't eat,” Clara explained. “They can't reach the meat. Naturally, in such contraptions, it's understandable. After all, it's not very new. It's the torture of Tantalus, redoubled by the horror of the Chinese imagination, eh? Would you believe there were such unhappy people in the world?” Again she cast through the bars a small bit of carcass which, falling on the edge of one of the collars, made it sway slightly. Hollow groans were the answer to this gesture; a fiercer and more


desperate hatred lit up the twenty eyeballs at the same time. Instinctively, Clara recoiled: “You see,” she continued in a less assured tone, “it amuses them for me to give them meat. It helps these poor devils pass the time... it provides them with a little illusion. Come along... come along!” We passed slowly before the ten cages. Women standing before them shouted, or uttered bursts of laughter, or abandoned themselves to impassioned mimicry. I saw a very blond, Russian woman with a cold, limpid glance, hold out to the sufferers a vile greenish mess, which she alternately extended and withdrew on the tip of her parasol. Baring their fangs like mad dogs, with starving expressions which no longer expressed anything human, they tried to snatch the food which always escaped their sticky, slavering mouths. Curious women watched with attentive and joyful faces all the moves of this cruel game. “What whores!” said Clara, seriously indignant. “Really, there are some women who have no respect for anything. It's shameful!” I asked:


“What crimes have these creatures committed, to suffer such torment?” She replied carelessly: “l don't know. Nothing, perhaps, or doubtless very little. Petty thefts from shopkeepers, I suppose. Besides, they are only common people... wharf−rats... vagabonds... paupers! They don't interest me very much. But there are others. You'll see my poet in a minute. Yes, I have a favorite here, and he's actually a poet! Isn't it funny? Ah, but he's a great poet, you know! He composed an admirable satire against a prince who had robbed the treasury. And he detests the English. “One evening two years ago he was brought to my house. He sang delightful things. But he excelled especially in satire. You'll see him. He's the handsomest... at least if he's not dead already! You see, in this regime nothing is astonishing. What annoys me most is that he doesn't recognize me any more. I talk to him... I sing his poems to him... and he no longer recognizes them. It's really horrible, don't you think? Bah! It s also funny, after all!” She tried to be gay, but her gaiety sounded false. Her face was grave; her nostrils palpitated faster.


She leaned on my arm more heavily, and I felt shivers run all through her body. Then I noticed that in the left wall, opposite each cell, deep niches had been cut which contained painted and sculptured wood which, with the frightful realism peculiar to the art of the Far. East, represented every species of torture in use in China: scenes of decapitation, strangulation, flaying and tearing of flesh... demoniacal and mathematical conceptions which pushed the science of torture to a refinement unknown to our Occidental cruelty, inventive as it is. It was a museum of horror and despair, where no human ferocity had been overlooked, and which every minute of the day ceaselessly recalled to the convicts, by precise imagery, the skilful death to which their executioners destined them. “Don't look at that!” Clara said with a pout of disgust. “They're only painted wood, my love. Look this way, where it's real—Look! There's my poet—right there!” And she halted abruptly before his cage. Pale, fleshless, slashed with a skeletal grin, its


cheek bones bursting the gangrenous skin, its jaws bare beneath the flaps of its trembling lips—a face was pressed against the bars, between two long, bony hands, like the dry feet of a bird. That face, from which every trace of humanity had disappeared forever; those bleeding eyes, and those hands, now scabby claws, terrified me. I backed up with an instinctive movement, to escape the feel of the pestilential breath of that mouth against my skin, and to avoid the scratch of those claws. But Clara quickly led me back before the cage. In its depths, in ominous shadow, five living beings who had once been men, were walking and walking, and turning and turning, their torsos bare, their skulls black with dried, blood−streaked wounds. Panting, barking, howling, they vainly tried to shake the solid stone of the partition by pushing violently against it. Then they started to walk and turn again, with the suppleness of beasts and the obscenities of monkeys. A wide, transverse partition hid the lower part of their bodies, and from the invisible floor of the cell a suffocating, deadly stench arose. “Good−day, poet!” said Clara, addressing the


Face. “I'm nice, eh? I've come to see you once again, poor dear man! Do you recognize me today? No? Why don't you recognize me? I'm still beautiful, and I loved you a whole night!” The Face did not budge. Its eyes never left the meat basket the boy was carrying. And from its throat there came a raucous, bestial sound. “Are you hungry?” Clara continued. “I'll give you something to eat. I've chosen the best piece at the market for you. But, first, would you like me to recite Your poem: The Three Mistresses? Would you? You'll enjoy hearing it.” And she recited: I have three mistresses. The first has a spirit mobile as a bamboo leaf. Her light and Playful spirit is like the feathery blossom of the eulalia. Her eye is like the lotus. And her beast is as firm as the lemon. Her hair, twisted in a single braid, falls over her golden shoulder like a black serpent. Her voice has the sweetness of mountain honey. Her loins are slender and lithe. Her thighs are round as the supple trunk of the


banana−tree. Her gait is that of a young and playful elephant. She loves passion, knows how to give it birth and vary it! I have three mistresses. Clara interrupted herself: “Don't you remember?” she asked, “don't you love my voice any more?” The Face had not budged. It seemed not to hear. Its eyes still devoured the horrible basket, and its tongue clacked in its mouth, wet with saliva. “Come,” said Clara. “Listen again! And you'll eat, since you're so hungry.” And in a slow and rhythmic voice she continued: I have three mistresses. The second has abundant hair which gleams and flows in long silky garlands. Her glance would disturb the God of Love. And make the wagtail blush. The body of that graceful woman flows like a golden vine. Her earrings are encrusted with precious stones. Like a flower jeweled with frost on a cold and


sunny morning. Her clothes are summer gardens. And temples on festival−days. And her firm, full breasts shine like a pair of golden vases Filled with intoxicating liquors and perfumes. I have three mistresses. “Ouah! ouah!” barked the Face, while in the cage the five other condemned creatures echoed the sinister bark, walking and walking, turning and turning... Clara continued: I have three mistresses. The hair of the third is plaited, And rolled about her head. And never has known the sweetness of perfumed oils. That face which mirrors passion is deformed, Her body is like a pig's. You'd say she was always angry. She always scolds and complains. Her breasts and belly exhale a fishy odor. She is ill−favored in her entire person. She eats everything and drinks to excess.


And her wan eyes are always bleary. And her bed is more repugnant than a lapwing's nest. And she is the one I love. And I love her because there is something more mysteriously attractive than beauty: it is corruption. Corruption in which the eternal heat of life resides, In which the eternal renewal of metamorphoses unfolds! I have three mistresses... The poem was ended. Clara was silent. Its eyes avidly fixed upon the basket, the Face had not ceased barking during the recitation of the last stanza. Then, addressing me sadly, Clara said: “You see, he doesn't remember anything any more! He has lost the memory of his verses, like my face. And that mouth I kissed no longer knows the words of mankind! It's really unheard of!” From the basket of meat she chose the best and thickest piece, and her body prettily thrust forward, she held it out at the tip of her pitchfork, to the fleshless Face whose eyes glowed like two little


braziers. “Eat, poor poet!” she said. “Now eat” With the motions of a starved beast, the poet seized the horrible stinking scrap in his claws and carried it to his mouth where, for a moment, I saw it hanging like a piece of filth from the streets, between the fangs of a dog. But immediately, in the shaking cage, there was roaring and pouncing. Nothing could be seen but bare torsos, mingled and clasped to each other, grasped by long, thin arms, torn by jaws and claws, and contorted faces tearing at the meat. I could see nothing more. And I heard the noise of struggle on the floor of the cage, chests panting and wheezing with raucous respiration, the thumping fall of bodies, scuffling of flesh, cracking of bones, the muffled shocks of carnage, and a rattling of throats! From time to time a face appeared above the partition with the prey in its teeth, then disappeared. More barking, more rattling in their throats, and then silence—then nothing! Clara clung to me, trembling. “Ah, my darling... my darling!” I cried to her: “Throw them all the meat. You see they're killing each other.” She clasped me, embraced me.


“Kiss me. Caress me... It's horrible! It's too horrible!” And lifting herself up to my lips, she said, in a fierce kiss: “I can't hear anything. They're dead. Do you think they're all dead?” When we lifted our eyes to the cage again, a fleshless and bloody Face was pressed between the bars and was looking at us steadily, almost proudly. A strip of meat hung from its lips, amid threads of purple slaver. Its chest heaved. Clara applauded, her voice still trembling. “It's he! It's my poet! He's the strongest!” She threw him all the meat in the basket, and with her throat tightening: “I'm stifling,” she said. “And you too—you're all pale, my love. Let's breathe the air in the Torture Garden for a little while.” Slight drops of perspiration beaded her forehead. She wiped them away, and turning to the poet, she spoke, accompanying her words with a slight gesture of her ungloved hand: “I'm happy you were the strongest today! Eat! Eat! I'll come to see you again. Good−bye.”


She dismissed the boy who now was no longer needed. We went up the middle of the corridor with a hurried step, despite the hindrance of the crowd, careful to avoid looking to the right or left. The bell still rang. But its vibrations were diminishing, diminishing so that they were no more than the breath of a breeze, a tiny infant's cry, smothered behind a curtain. “What does that bell mean? Where does it come from?” I asked. “What? Don't you know? Why, it's the bell in the Torture Garden! Imagine... They bind a victim, and they lay him under the bell. Then they ring it wildly until the vibration kills him! And when death is near, they ring it gently, gently, so it doesn't come too soon—like they're doing down there, now! Do you hear?” I was going to speak, but Clara closed my mouth with a tap of her unfolded fan. “Now be quiet! Don't say anything! And listen, my love. And think what a dreadful death they must bring—those vibrations beneath the bell. And come with me. And say nothing... nothing.” When we came out of the corridor, the bell was


no more than the drone of an insect... a rustling of wings, scarcely perceptible in the distance.


PART 5

In the center of the prison, the Torture Garden occupies an immense quadrilateral space, enclosed by walls whose stones can no longer be seen because of a thick covering of tangled shrubs and climbing plants. It was built towards the middle of the last century by Li−Pe−Hang, superintendent of the imperial gardens and the cleverest botanist China ever had. In the stacks of the Musee Guimet you may consult many works which celebrate his fame, and very curious prints in which his most illustrious works are set forth. The wonderful Kew Gardens—the only ones in Europe which satisfy us—owe much to him from a technical point of view, and also from the point of view of floral ornamentation and landscape gardening, but they are still a far cry from the pure beauty of the Chinese model. According to Clara, that exquisite attraction is lacking which is implied by the mingling of torture with horticulture, blood with flowers. The earth, composed of sand and pebbles, like all that barren terrain, was largely dug up and


reworked with virgin soil brought at great expense from the other side of the river. It is related that more than thirty thousand coolies perished of fever in the construction of this gigantic garden, which took twenty−two years. These hecatombs were far from being useless. Mingled with the soil as fertilizer—for they were buried on the spot the dead enriched it by their slow decomposition, and besides, in no other place, even in the heart of the most fantastic tropical jungles, could a land richer in natural mould be found. Its extraordinary fertility, far from being exhausted in the end, still operates today through the excrement of the prisoners, the blood of the tortured, and all the organic debris the crowd deposits there every week which, carefully collected and cleverly rendered with the daily corpses in special retting vats, forms a potent compost for which plants are greedy and which makes them more vigorous and beautiful. Forks of the river, ingeniously diverted through the garden according to the requirements of the vegetation, provide a permanent moisture, and at the same time serve to fill the pools and canals, whose water is thus constantly renewed, and in


which almost extinct zoological forms are conserved—among others, the famous fish with six humps, celebrated by Yu−Sin and our compatriot, the poet Robert de Montesquiou. The Chinese are incomparable gardeners, quite superior to our vulgar horticulturists, who only attempt to destroy the beauty of plants by disrespectful practices and criminal hybridizations. The latter are actual malefactors, and I cannot imagine why very drastic penal laws have not already been passed against them, in the name of all life. I should even be happy to see them mercilessly guillotined, in preference to those anemic assassins whose social 'selectivism' is much more laudable and generous, since, the majority of the time, it only singles out very ugly old ladies and vile bourgeois, who are a perpetual outrage to life. Besides having pushed their infamy to the point of deforming the touching beauty of simple flowers, our gardeners have dared to perpetrate that degrading joke of giving to the fragility of roses, to the star like rays of the clematis, to the heavenly glory of the larkspur, to the heraldic mystery of the iris and to the modesty of


the violet—the names of old generals and disgraced politicians. In our flower−beds it is not rare to encounter an iris, for instance, baptized: General Archinard! There are narcissi—narcissi!—grotesquely designated: The Triumph of President Felix Faure; hollyhocks which, without protesting, accept the ridiculous appellation of: Mourning for Monsieur Thiers; violets—timid, sensitive and exquisite violets, to whom the names of General Skobeleff and Admiral Avellan have not seemed insulting nicknames! Flowers—all beauty, light and joy—all tenderness too, evoking the fierce mustachios and heavy riding−breeches of a soldier, or the parliamentary top−knot of a minister! Flowers mixing with political opinions and serving to spread electoral propaganda! To what aberrations and intellectual degeneration might such blasphemies and attempts at the divinity of things correspond? If it were possible that a being so stripped of a soul felt a hatred for flowers, European, and particularly French, gardeners would amply prove this inconceivably sacrilegious paradox! Being perfect artists and ingenuous poets, the


Chinese have piously preserved the love and holy cult of flowers; one of the very rare and most ancient traditions which has survived their decadence. And since flowers had to be distinguished from each other, they have attributed graceful analogies to them, dreamy images, pure and passionate names which perpetuate and harmonize in our minds the sensations of gentle charm and violent intoxication with which they inspire us. So it is that certain peonies, their favorite flower, are saluted by the Chinese, according to their form or color, by these delicious names, each an entire poem and an entire novel: The Young Girl Who Offers Her Breasts, or: The Water That Sleeps Beneath the Moon, or: The Sunlight in the Forest, or: The First Desire of the Reclining Virgin, or: My Gown Is No Longer All White Because in Tearing It the Son of Heaven Left a Little Rosy Stain; or, even better, this one: I Possessed My Lover in the Garden. And Clara who told me all these charming things, cried indignantly and stamped on the ground with her little feet, shod in yellow leather: “And they treat these divine poets, who call their


flowers I Possessed My Lover in the Garden, like lice and savages!” The Chinese are rightfully proud of the Torture Garden, the most thoroughly beautiful perhaps in all China, where, moreover, marvelous gardens are common. Here are gathered the rarest species of their flora, the most delicate as well as the hardiest, those which come from the snow−line on the mountains, or sprout in the burning furnace of the meadows, and also those, mysterious and fierce, which are hidden in the most impenetrable jungles, and to which popular superstition has given the names of evil genii. From the mangrove to the saxatile azalea, from the horned and biflorous violet to the distillating nepenthe, from the volubilate hibiscus to the stoloniferous helianthus, from the androsace, invisible in its rocky fissure, to the most wildly twining liana, each specie is represented by numerous specimens which, gorged with organic nourishment and treated according to the proper formula by clever gardeners, take on abnormal forms and colorations, whose prodigious intensity we have difficulty in imagining in our gloomy climate and our


uninspired gardens. In the hollow of a valley from which a number of sinuous alleys and paths branch out bordered by flowers in a supple and harmoniously flowing design, a vast pool crossed by the arch of a wooden bridge painted bright green, marks the center of the garden. White water lilies and nelumbos brighten its surface with their trailing leaves and floating corollas—yellow, mauve, white, rose and purple. Tufts of iris lift their slender stalks, on whose tops strange, symbolic birds seem to perch; and plumed rushes, galingales like hair, and giant luzula: mingle their incongruous leafage with the phalliform and vulvoid clusters of the most stupefying arum−lilies. On the edge of the pool, by an inspired calculation, amid the plaited hart's−tongue, globe−flowers and inulre, artistically trimmed glycines rise and arch over the water, which reflects their blue, swaying clusters. And pearl−grey cranes with silky plumes and scarlet wattles, white herons and white storks with Manchurian blue necks, stalk about amid the high grass with indolent grace and sacerdotal majesty.


Here and there on little hillocks and red rocks covered with dwarf ferns, androsace, saxifrage and creeping shrubs, slim and graceful kiosks lift above the bamboos and the dwarf cedars the pointed cones of their gilded roofs, and the delicate ribs of their framework whose extremities curve inward and up with a bold movement. Along the slopes, every species swarms: epimedia issuing from among the stones, with its frail flowers stirring and fluttering like insects; orange hemerocallis offering its calyx of a day to the hawk—moth and white renothera offering its calyx of an hour; fleshy opuntia, eomecons, morrea, and sheets, streams, and brooklets of primroses—those Chinese primroses which are so extremely polymorphous, and of which we possess only poverty−stricken images in our hot−houses. And there were so many charming and bizarre forms, and so many blending colors: and around the kiosks, between the patches of lawn, in the tremulous distance, it was like a rosy, mauve, and white rain, a variegated shimmering, a pearly, pink, and milky pulsation so tender and changing that it is impossible for me to express in words its infinite sweetness and


ineffable idyllic poetry. How had we come there? I knew nothing of it. Under Clara's hand a door had suddenly opened in the walls of the dark corridor. And suddenly, as though by the influence of a fairy wand, I was flooded with celestial light, and before me there were horizons and horizons! I gazed, dazzled; dazzled by the softer light, the gentler sky, dazzled even by the great blue shadows that the trees laid softly upon the grass, like voluptuous rugs; dazzled by the touching magic of the flowers and the floors of peonies that the slight shelter of the reeds shielded from the mortal heat of the sun. On one of the lawns, not far from us, a sprinkler sprayed water in which all the colors of the rainbow played, and through which the grass and flowers took on the translucence of precious stones. I gazed greedily, never tiring. But then I did not see all those details which I reconstructed later; I saw only an ensemble of mysteries and beauties whose sudden and consoling apparition I did not attempt to explain to myself. No more did I wonder whether it was reality that surrounded me, or only a


dream. I wondered about nothing, thought of nothing, said nothing. Clara talked and talked. Doubtless she was still telling me story after story. I wasn't listening to her, nor did I feel her at my side. At that moment, her presence beside me was so far from me! And her voice was so far away, and so strange. Little by little, I finally regained my self−possession, my memories, and a perception of the realities of things, and I understood why and how I happened to be there. Emerging from inferno, still pale from the horror of those faces of the damned, my nostrils still filled with the odor of decomposition and death, and my ears still humming with the howls of torture, the sight of this garden brought me sudden relaxation, after an exaltation and an unreal ascension of my entire being towards a dazzling land of dream. With delight, I drew in great gulps of the new air so impregnated with so many fine and soft aromas. It was the inexpressible joy of awakening after an oppressing nightmare. I tasted that ineffable impression of freedom which a man might feel who, having been buried alive in a frightful charnel house, has just lifted


its stone and been resurrected to the sunlight with his flesh intact, his limbs freed, and his soul reborn. A bench made of bamboo trunks was close by in the shadow of an immense ash whose purple leaves sparkled in the sun, creating the illusion of a dome of rubies. I sat down, or rather, I let myself fall back, for the joy of all this splendid life almost made me faint with an unsuspected passion. And at my left I saw a Buddha, the stone guardian of this garden, squatting on his rock and displaying his tranquil face—his face of sovereign kindness, bathed in azure and sunlight. Sheaves of flowers and baskets of fruit covered the pedestal of the statue with propitiatory and perfumed offerings. A young girl in a yellow dress reached up to the forehead of the inexorable god, and piously crowned it with lotus and lady−slipper. Swallows swooped about, uttering little joyful squeaks. Then I thought−and with what religious enthusiasm and mystic adoration!—of the sublime life of him who, long before our Christ, had preached purity to men, and enunciation, and love. But, hovering over me like sin itself, Clara, her


mouth red, and like the flower of the cydonia, Clara with her green eyes, the grey−green of the young fruit of the almond tree, hastened to lead me back to reality, and, indicating the garden with a broad gesture, she said: “See, my love, what marvelous artists the Chinese are, and how they contrive to make nature an accomplice of the refinement of their cruelty! In our frightful Europe which, for so long a time has not known what beauty is, they torture in secret, in the depths of their jails, or in public squares, among the vile drunken crowds. Here, it's among flowers, amid the prodigious enchantment and prodigious silence of ail the flowers, that the instruments of torture are erected, the stake, the scaffold and the cross. You'll see them right away, so intimately mingled with the splendor of this floral orgy and the harmony of this unique and magical nature, that they seem in some way to merge with her, and be the miraculous flowers of this soil and this light.” And, as I could not suppress a gesture of impatience: “Silly!” said Clara. “Little fool! You don't understand anything!” Her forehead barred by a hard


shadow, she continued: “Come! Have you ever been at a festival when you were sad or ill? Well, then you've felt how much your sadness was irritated and exasperated, as by an insult, by the joyful faces and the beauty of things. It's an intolerable feeling. Think of what it must mean to a victim who is going to die under torture. Think how much the torture is multiplied in his flesh and his soul by all the splendor which surrounds him; and how much more atrocious is his agony, how much more hopelessly atrocious, darling!” “I was thinking of love,” I replied in a tone of reproach, “and here you are talking to me again—forever—about torture!” “Doubtless! since it's the same thing—” She had been standing beside me, her hands on my shoulder. And the red shadow of the ash wrapped her in a fiery glow. She sat down on the bench and continued: “—and, since there are tortures wherever there are men, I can't do anything about it, my baby, and I try to adjust myself to it and enjoy it, for blood is a precious auxiliary of desire. It's the wine of love.”


With the tip of her parasol, she traced some naively indecent figures in the sand, and she said: “I'm sure you think the Chinese crueler than we. No... not at all! We English? Ah, don't mention it! And you French? In your Algeria, in the confines of the desert, I saw this: One day some soldiers captured some Arabs; poor Arabs who had committed no other crime than to try to escape the brutality of their conquerors. The Colonel commanded them to be put to death immediately, without an inquiry, without a trial. And this is what happened: There were thirty of them. They dug thirty holes in the sand, and they buried them up to their necks, naked, with their heads shaved, in the noonday sun. So they wouldn't die too fast they watered them from time to time, like cabbages. At the end of an hour their eyelids were swollen, their eyes bulged from their sockets, their swollen tongues filled their mouths, which gaped frightfully, and their skin cracked and roasted on their skulls. It was unimaginative, I assure you, and even devoid of terror—those thirty dead heads, sticking out of the sand like shapeless rocks! And we! It's still worse! Ah, I remember the strange sensation I felt


when, at Kandy, the gloomy former capital of Ceylon, I went up the steps of the temple where the English had stupidly, without torture, slaughtered the little Modeliar princes who, legends tell us, were so charming... like those skillfully made Chinese ikons, with so hieratically calm and pure of grace, and their golden halos and their long hands pressed together. I felt that what had happened there on those sacred steps, still uncleansed of that blood by eighty years of violent possession—was something more horrible than a human massacre; the destruction of a precious, touching and innocent beauty. The traces of that double European barbarity may be found at every step you take on the ancestral soil of that suffering and always mysterious India. The boulevards of Calcutta, the cool Himalayan villas in Darjeeling, the tribades of Benares and the sumptuous homes of the contractors in Bombay have not been able to efface the impression of mourning and death left everywhere by the atrocity of unskillful massacre, vandalism and senseless destruction. To the contrary, they accentuate it. No matter in what place it appears, civilization displays


that face which bears the double imprint of sterile blood and ruins forever dead. Like Attila, it might say: 'Grass no longer grows where my horse has trod.' Look here, before you and around you! There is not a grain of sand that has not been bathed in blood, and what is that grain of sand itself, if not the dust of death? But how rich this blood is, and how fertile is the dust! Look... the grass is thick... flowers swarm everywhere and love is everywhere!” Clara's face became exalted. A gentle melancholy softened the bar of shadow across her forehead and veiled the green flames of her eyes. She continued: “Ah, how sad and poignant the little dead city Kandy seemed to me that day! In the torrid heat, a heavy silence hovered over it, and vultures circled in the air. Some Hindus came out of the temple, where they had brought flowers to the Buddha. The gentle depth of their eyes, the nobility of their brows, the suffering fragility of their bodies, consumed by fever, the biblical slowness of their gait—all that moved me to the depths of my being. They seemed in exile on their native soil, close to their kindly God, chained


and watched over by Sepoys. And there was no longer anything earthly in their black pupils... nothing more than a dream of corporeal release, awaiting the dazzling light of nirvana. I do not know what feeling of respect for humanity prevented me from kneeling before these sorrowful, venerable fathers of my race—my parricidal race. I merely saluted them humbly, but they passed by without seeing me—without seeing my greeting—without seeing the tears in my eyes and the filial emotion which swelled my breast. And when they had passed by I felt that I hated Europe with a hatred that would never be extinguished.” Suddenly interrupting herself, she said: “But I'm boring you, eh? I don't know why I'm telling you all this. It has no bearing on the subject. I'm crazy!” “No, no, dear Clara,” I replied, kissing her hands. “To the contrary, I love you to talk to me like that. Always talk to me like that!” She continued: “After visiting the poor bare little temple, whose entrance was decorated by a gong—the only vestige of its former wealth—after breathing the odor of the


flowers with which the image of the Buddha was all strewn, I went sadly back to the city. It was deserted. That grotesque and sinister manifestation of Occidental progress, a pastor—the only human being—was prowling about, skirting the walls, a lotus blossom stuck in his mouth. In that blinding sunlight he had preserved—as in the city fogs—his ridiculous clergyman's costume; a soft black felt hat, a long black coat with a tight, greasy collar, and black trousers falling in ugly folds over the massive boots of a drayman. This dingy costume of a Protestant preacher was accompanied by a white parasol, a sort of ridiculous, portable punka, the sole concession the bigot made to the local customs and the Indian sun which the English have not to this day been able to turn into a sooty fog. And I irritably reflected that you can't take a step from the equator to the poles without running into that suspicious face, those rapacious eyes, those claw like hands and that vile mouth, which goes breathing the frightful verses of the Bible, in an odor of stale gin, over the charming divinities and adorable myths of naive religions.”


She grew excited. Her eyes expressed an overwhelming hatred which I would never have expected of them. Forgetting where we were, and her recent criminal enthusiasms and bloody exaltations, she said: “Wherever there is spilt blood to justify, piracy to consecrate, violation to bless, hideous traffic to protect, you are sure to see this British Tartuffe pursuing the work of abominable conquest under the pretext of religious proselytism or scientific study. His cruel and crafty shadow is cast over the wreckage of conquered people, coupled with that of the cutthroat soldier and the usurious Shylock. In the virgin forests where the European is more rightfully feared than the tiger, on the threshold of the humble, devastated hut, between the burning cabins, he appears after the massacre like the hangers−on of an army come to rifle the dead in the evening of a battle. A crony worthy of his rival, the Catholic missionary, who also brings civilization at the flame of a torch, and the point of a saber or a bayonet. Alas, China is invaded and devoured by these two scourges! In a few years nothing will remain of this marvelous country where I


love so much to live!” Suddenly she got up, uttering a cry: “And the bell, my love! I can't hear the bell any more. Ah, my God, he'll be dead! While we were here, talking, they probably took him to the morgue, and we won't see him! It's your fault too... “ She made me get up from the bench. “Quick, quick, darling!” “We're not in a hurry, my dear Clara. We'll always see enough horrors. Speak to me some more as you Were speaking a moment ago, when I loved your voice so much; when I loved your eyes so much!” She grew impatient: “Quick, quick! You don't know what you're saying!” Her eyes had become hard again, her voice panting, her mouth imperiously cruel and sensual. Then it seemed to me that the Buddha's face itself, distorted by the sunlight, became the twisted, sneering face of an executioner. And I saw the young girl who had made her offering, going away down a path between the lawns, in the distance. Her yellow dress was very small, light and gleaming, like a narcissus blossom.


The path we walked on was bordered by peach trees, cherry trees, wild quince and almond trees, some dwarfed and trimmed in bizarre shapes, others free, bushy, and thrusting their long branches laden with flowers in every direction. A little apple tree, whose wood, leaves, and blossoms were bright red, assumed the form of a bulging vase. I also noticed an admirable tree, which is called the birch−leaf pear tree. It rose in a perfect pyramid to a height of six meters, and from its wide base to its sharp cone−shaped tip, it was so covered with flowers that neither its leaves nor branches were visible. Innumerable petals continuously dropped off and others opened, and they fluttered around the pyramid and floated slowly onto the paths and lawns, covering them with the whiteness of snow. And the air in the distance was impregnated with the subtle scents of egrantine and mignonette. Then we skirted clumps of shrubbery decorated with tiny−flowered deutzias in large pink clusters, and those pretty Pekin ligustrums with their shaggy foliage and great feathery panicles of white flowers powdered with sulphur.


At every step there was a fresh delight and a surprise for the eyes, which made me utter cries of admiration. Here there was a vine, whose broad light leaves I had noticed in the mountains of Annam, irregularly indented and denticulated—as denticulated and indented and broad as castor−oil leaves, which enlaced an immense dead tree with its tendrils, climbed to the topmost branches and from there fell in a cascade, a cataract, an avalanche, sheltering from the sun an entire flora, which blossomed out at the base between the leaves, colonnades amid niches formed by its tumbling twigs. There, a stephanotis displayed its paradoxical foliage, preciously wrought like cloisonne, and I marveled at its multiple gradations of color, from peacock−green to steel−blue, from a delicate pink to a barbaric purple, and from a light yellow to a rich brown ochre. Close by, a group of gigantic viburnums, as high as oaks, shook snowy globes at the tip of every branch. From place to place gardeners, kneeling in the grass or perched on red ladders, were training clematis over fine bamboo armatures; others were


twining ipomcea and calystegia about long thin props of black wood. And everywhere on the lawns, lilies lifted their stalks ready to blossom. Trees, bushes, clumps of foliage, isolated or clustered plants, seemed at first to have grown wherever their seed had fallen at random, uncared for, without any other will than nature's, without any other design than that of life itself. It was an error. To the contrary, the location of every plant had been laboriously studied and chosen, either so the colors and forms would complement each other and set each other off, or so as not to interfere with plans, aerial perspectives and floral vistas, and thus multiply sensations by combining patterns. The humblest flower as well as the greatest tree assisted in an unbroken harmony by its very position,' in an ensemble of art whose effect was all the more stirring by the very fact that it gave no appearance of geometrical labor or decorative effort. Everything seemed also to have been arranged by the munificence of nature, for the triumph of peonies. On the gentle slopes, sown like lawns, lay strips


of odorous woodruff and pink crucianella, roses the color known as old rose, and fields of arborescent peonies like sumptuous carpets. Near by there were single blossoms that held out to us their immense calyxes, red, black, copper, orange, and purple. Others, ideally pure, offered the most virginal shades of pink and white. The peonies were actual fairies, miraculous queens of this miraculous garden. They were gathered in glistening masses, or lay singly beside the path, meditative at the foot of the trees and amorous beside the clumps of shrubbery. Wherever the eye wandered, it encountered a peony. On the stone bridges, entirely covered with saxatile plants, whose bold sweep bound the masses of rock together and lay on paths between the kiosks, peonies marched by like a holiday throng. Their brilliant procession scaled the hillocks around which the alleys and paths, bordered by slender silver prickwood and privet trimmed in hedges, climbed, crossed and tangled. I admired a little knoll where, protected by mats on very low, white walls built like snail−shells, there stretched the most precious species of peonies, warped by clever artists


onto an intricate lattice. In the gaps between these walls, perennial peonies bunched on high, bare stems, were spaced in square boxes. And the summit was crowned with thick clusters and massy bushes of the sacred plant which blossoms so rarely in Europe, but flourishes here throughout the year. And at my right, at my left, near by or quite lost in the distance, there lay forever and ever, peonies, peonies, and peonies... Clara had started to walk very rapidly again, almost insensible to all this beauty; she walked, her forehead barred by a hard shadow, her pupils glowing. She seemed carried away by some destructive power. She spoke, and I heard nothing—or very little, of what she said. The words, 'death', 'charm', 'torture', and 'love', which fell ceaselessly from her lips, seemed no more to me than a distant echo, the tiny voice of a scarcely audible bell far, far off, and melting into the glory, triumphs, and serene and stupendous passion of this dazzling life about me. Clara walked and walked, and I walked beside her, and everywhere there was a fresh surprise:


peonies, dreamlike or fantastic bushes, blue prickwood, violently streaked holly, plaited and twisting magnolias, dwarf cedars which were ruffled like a head of hair, aralia and tall grass, giant eulalia, whose ribbon−like leaves hung and swayed like snake−skins flaked with gold. There were also tropical species; unknown trees on whose trunks obscene orchids swayed; the Indian banyan, rooted in the soil by its multiple branches; immense nusas, and in the shade of their leaves, flowers like insects, like birds, such as the fairylike strelitzia, whose yellow petals are wings and flutter ceaselessly. Suddenly Clara halted as though an invisible hand had brutally been laid upon her. Anxious, tense, her nostrils palpitating like a doe's which has just scented the odor of the male on the wind, she inhaled the air about her. A shiver, which I recognized as the forerunner of a spasm, ran through her entire body. Her lips instantly became red and swollen. “Did you smell it?” she said, in an abrupt, hollow voice. “I smell the aroma of the peonies which fills the


garden,” I replied. She stamped on the earth with an impatient foot: “It's not that! Didn't you smell it? Try to remember!” And, her nostrils dilating, her eyes more brilliant, she said: “It smells like when I love you!” Then quickly, she bent over a plant, a thalictrum which lifted a long, branching, light violet stem beside the path. Each auxiliary branch issued from an ivory−like sheath the shape of a yoni, and ended in a cluster of tiny little flowers, thickly bunched and covered with pollen: “This is it! This is it! Oh my darling!” In fact, a powerful phosphoric odor, an odor of semen rose from this plant. Clara plucked its stalk, forced me to breathe the strange odor; then, sprinkling my face with pollen: “Oh, darling! darling!” she said, “what a lovely plant! How it intoxicates me. How it maddens me! Is it strange that there are plants that smell of love? Why not? You don't know? Well, I do! Why are there so many flowers like human organs, if not because nature ceaselessly cries to living beings in all her


forms, and all her perfumes: 'Love each other! love each other! Be like the flowers. There is nothing but love!' Oh, tell me quickly, darling little swine... “ She continued to inhale the odor of the thalictrum and chewed at the cluster, whose pollen stuck to her lips. And abruptly she declared: “I want them in my garden... I want them in my room... in the kiosk... in all the house. Smell, darling, smell! A simple plant, isn't it wonderful! And now, come... come! If only we don't get there too late... to the bell!” With a pout, which was both comical and tragic, she continued: “Why did you linger down there on that bench? Don't look at all these flowers; don't look at them anymore! You'll see them better later—after seeing suffering and death. You'll see how much more beautiful they are, and what ardent passion their perfumes excite! Smell again, darling; and come! And feel my breasts. How firm they are! The silk of my dress excites their nipples... it feels like a hot iron burning them. It's delicious. Come now!” She started to run, her face all yellow with pollen, and the stalk of the thalictrum between her teeth.


Clara did not care to halt before another image of Buddha, whose face, wrinkled and devoured by time, grimaced in the sunlight. A woman was offering it cydonia branches, and these flowers seemed like little children's hearts to me. At the turn of the alley, we passed a litter carried by two men, on which there stirred a bundle of bleeding flesh; a sort of human being, whose skin, cut in strips, trailed on the ground like rags. Although it was impossible to recognize the slightest vestige of humanity in that hideous wound which, moreover, once had been a man. I felt that by some miracle it was still breathing. And drops of blood spotted the pathway. Clara plucked two peonies and laid them silently upon the litter with a trembling hand. With a brutal smile, the porters bared their black gums and their lacquered teeth, and when the litter had passed: “Ah, ah! I see the bell,” said Clara, “I see the bell!” And all about us, and all about the litter disappearing in the distance, there was like a rosy, white, and mauve rain, a variegated shimmering, a pearly, pink, and milky pulsation so tender and changing that it is impossible for me to express in


words its infinite sweetness and ineffable idyllic poetry...


PART 6

We left the curving alley into which other alleys branch on their circuitous way to the center, and which runs along an embankment planted with many rare and precious, shrubs, and took a little path which follows a dip in the land and ends directly at the bell. Paths and alleys were sanded with pulverized brick, which gave to the green of the lawns and foliage an extraordinary intensity and the transparence of an emerald under the light of a chandelier. To the right there were flowering lawns; to the left, more shrubbery. Pink acers rubbed with pale silver, bright gold, bronze or red—copper; mahonia, whose leaves of reddish−brown copper were broad as the leaves of a cocoanut palm; eleagnus, which seemed to have been coated with polychrome lacquer; pyrus, powdered with mica; laurel, on which there twinkled and glittered the thousand facets of a variegated crystal; caladium, whose veins of old gold set off the embroidered silks and Pink lace of the blossom; arbor vitre both blue, mauve, silver and plumed with sickly yellows and


poisonous orange; pale tamarisk, green tamarisk, red tamarisk, whose branches swayed and floated in the air like slender alga: in the sea; cotton−plants, whose tufts took flight and traveled ceaselessly through the air; salix and its joyous swarm of winged seeds; and clerodendron, spreading its large scarlet bells like parasols. In the sunny spaces between these shrubs, anemones, ranunculus and heucliera were sprinkled through the grass; in the shady spots strange cryptograms showed themselves, mosses covered with minute white flowerlets, and lichens like agglomerations of polyps and clumps of madrepores. It was a perpetual enchantment. And in the midst of this floral magic, there arose scaffolds, the apparatus of crucifixion, gibbets with violent decorations and black gallows, on whose tops there leered frightful demon masks; high gallows for simple strangulation, lower gibbets mechanically equipped for the tearing of flesh. On the shafts of these torture columns—as a diabolic refinement—pubescent calystegia, ipomcea from Daoura, lophospermum and colocynth spread their blossoms, and clematis and atragene. Birds piped


their love−songs there. At the foot of one of these gibbets, covered with flowers like the column of a terrace, an executioner was seated, his instrument−case between his feet, cleaning his fine steel implements with silk cloths; his gown was all covered with splattered blood and his hands seemed gloved in red. Around him, as around a corpse, there hummed and whirled swarms of flies. But in this haven of flowers and perfumes, this was neither repugnant nor terrible—it seemed that petals from a neighboring quince tree had rained upon his robe. Besides, he had a peaceful and good−natured belly. His face, in repose, expressed kindliness and even joviality; the joviality of a surgeon who has just brought a difficult operation to a successful finish. As we passed, he lifted his eyes and greeted us politely. Clara spoke to him in English. “It's really too bad you didn't come along an hour earlier,” this good man said, “you'd have seen something very lovely... something that isn't seen every day. An extraordinary job, milady. I rebuilt a man from head to foot, after removing his entire skin. He was so badly built! Ha! ha!”


Trembling with laughter, his belly alternately swelled and sank with a hollow, rumbling sound. A nervous tic lifted the slit of his mouth up to his cheekbone and, at the same time, his lowered eyelids touched the edge of his lips, amid the fat folds of his face. And this grimace, which was a multitude of grimaces, gave his face an expression of comical and macabre cruelty. Clara asked: “Doubtless he's the one we met just now on the litter?” “Ah, you met him?” exclaimed the good man, flattered. “Well, what did you think of him?” “How horrible!” said Clara, in a tranquil voice which belied her exclamation of disgust. Then the executioner explained: “Be was a miserable harbor coolie... nothing at all, milady. He really didn't deserve the honor of so fine a piece of work. It seems he stole a sack of rice from the English... our dear, good friends, the English. When I had taken off his skin, and it hung to his shoulders only by two little buttons, I made him walk, milady! ha! ha! Truly, a great idea! You'd have split your sides. He seemed to be wearing—what do


you call the thing?—ah, yes, indeed! an inverness? Never had the dog been better dressed, nor by a better tailor. But he had bones so hard I chipped my saw on them—this beautiful saw.” A little, whitish, greasy bit remained between the teeth of the saw. With a flip of the nail he made it leap and sent it off into the grass, among the flowerlets. “That's marrow, milady,” said the jolly old fellow. “He didn't have too much of it.” And shaking his head, he added: “They very seldom have much of it, for we work almost exclusively with the lower class.” Then, with an air of tranquil satisfaction: “Yesterday, it was very strange. I made a woman out of a man. He! he! And it was such a good job you couldn't tell the difference, and I myself was fooled looking at him. Tomorrow, if the genii grant me a woman on this gibbet, I'll make a man of her. That's not as easy! Ha, ha!” Under the stimulus of another laugh, his triple chin, the pads of his neck, and his belly trembled like jelly. A single, red, arched line then joined the left corner of his mouth to the seam of his left eyelid,


among the puffs and furrows from which flowed little streams of sweat and tears of laughter. He put the cleansed and gleaming saw into the case and closed it. Its box was lovely and of an excellent lacquer: a flight of wild geese over a nocturnal pool, where the moon silvered the lotus and the iris. At that moment, the shadow of the gallows threw a transverse purple bar across the body of the executioner. “You see, milady,” continued the talkative fellow, “our trade, just like our lovely vases, our beautiful embroidered silks, and lovely lacquers, is disappearing little by little. Today we no longer know what torture really is, although I try to carryon its real tradition. I am swamped, and I can't stay its decadence all by myself. What can you do? Now they recruit executioners from God knows where! No more examinations, no more competitions. Influence and protection alone decide their choice. And what choices, if you only knew! It's shameful! In the olden days, they only entrusted these important functions to actual scientists, men of merit who knew the anatomy of the human body perfectly, who had


diplomas, experience, or natural talent. Today what the hell! The merest shoemaker can presume to fill these honorable and difficult positions. No more hierarchy,. no more traditions! Everything is disappearing, for we live in a chaotic age. There is something rotten in China, milady.” He sighed deeply, and showing us his red hands, and the instrument case gleaming in the grass beside him, he continued his long recital: “However, I do the best I can, as you have seen, to resurrect our abolished prestige. For I'm an old conservative myself, an uncompromising nationalist, and I despise all these practices, all these new methods which the Europeans, and particularly the English, are bringing us under pretext of civilization. I should not care to slander the English, milady; they are honest and very respectable people. But you must admit their influence on our customs has been disastrous. Every day they deprive our China of its unique character. From the point of view of torture alone, milady, they have done us much harm... much harm. It's a great shame!” “They know how, however,” Clara interrupted,


wounded in her national pride by this reproach; for though she really desired to display severity towards her compatriots, whom she detested, she intended to have them respected by all others. The executioner shrugged his shoulders and, compelled by his nervous tic, succeeded in displaying the most provocatively comical grimace that could ever be seen upon a human face. And while, despite our horror, we had great difficulty in suppressing our laughter, he declared peremptorily: “No, milady, they don't know how at all! In this matter, they are actual savages. Look—in India—let's consider India alone—what a vulgar, inartistic business! And how stupidly—yes, stupidly—they've wasted death!” He clasped his bloody hands as in prayer, lifted his eyes to heaven, and in a lugubrious voice which seemed to ring with tears of regret he went on to say: “When you think, milady,” he exclaimed, “of all the wonderful things they might have done down there... and which they haven't done... and which they'll never do! It's unpardonable!” “There, for instance,” Clara protested, “you don't


know what you're talking about.” “May the genii carry me off if I lie!” exclaimed the fat old fellow. And in a slower voice, with didactic gestures, he stated: “In torture, as in everything, the English are not artists; All the admirable qualities you wish, milady, but not that... no, no, no!” “Come now! they've made the whole world weep!” “Bad, milady... very bad,” corrected the executioner. “Art does not consist in killing multitudes... in slaughtering, massacring, and exterminating men in hordes. Really, it's too easy. Art, milady, consists in knowing how to kill, according to the rites of beauty, whose divine secret we Chinese alone possess. Know how to kill! Nothing is rarer, and everything depends on that. Know how to kill! That is to say, how to work the human body like a sculptor works his day or piece of ivory, and evoke the entire sum, every prodigy of suffering it conceals in the depths of its shadows and its mysteries. There! Science is required, variety, taste, imagination... genius, after all. But today, everything


is disappearing. The Occidental snobbery which is invading us, the gunboats, rapid−fire guns, long−range rifles, explosives... what else? Everything which makes death collective, administrative and bureaucratic—all the filth of your progress, in fact—is destroying, little by little, our beautiful traditions of the past. It is only here, in this garden, that they are conserved as well as can be... where we try at least to maintain them as well as possible. But what difficulties! what obstacles! what continual struggles—if you knew! Alas, I feel it won't last much longer. We have been conquered by mediocrity, and the bourgeois spirit is triumphing everywhere—” His face then possessed a singular expression of both melancholy and pride, while his gestures revealed profound lassitude. “And besides,” he said. “I who speak to you, milady—I'm certainly not just anybody. I can boast of having disinterestedly worked all my life to the glory of our great Empire. I have always been first in the competitive examinations in torture—and in many of them. I have invented—believe me—things actually sublime, wonderful tortures which, in another time


and under another dynasty, would have made my fortune and spelled immortality. Well, they scarcely pay any attention to me. I'm not understood. Let us say the word: they despise me. What can you expect? Today talent counts for nothing; it isn't given the slightest recognition. It's discouraging, I assure you! Poor China, once so artistic, so magnificently celebrated! Ah, I really fear it's ripe for conquest!” With a pessimistic and broken−hearted−gesture, he took Clara to witness to this decadence, and his grimaces were utterly untranslatable. “After all—look milady! Isn't it lamentable? I'm the man who invented the torture of the rat. May the genii devour my liver if it wasn't I! Ah, milady, an extraordinary torture, I swear. Originality, picturesqueness, psychology, the science of pain—it had everything in its favor. And the bargain, it was infinitely comical. It was inspired by that ancient Chinese gaiety, so neglected in our day. Ah, how it would have excited everyone's good spirits. What a resource for languishing conversations! Well, they've renounced it. Worse, they'd have nothing to do with it. And yet, the three trials we held before the judges


met with such a colossal success.” As we did not seem to pity him, and these recriminations of an old employee rather annoyed us, the executioner repeated, emphasizing the word: “Colossal... co−los−sal!” “What is this torture of the rat,” Clara asked, “and how does it happen that I don't know about it?” “A masterpiece, milady—a perfect masterpiece!” the fat man insisted in a resounding voice, and his flabby body settled more and more into the grass. “I heard you... and then?” “A masterpiece, in truth! And you see... you don't know about it... nobody knows anything about it. What a pity! How can you expect me not to be humiliated?” “Can you describe it to us?” “Can I! I absolutely can. I'm going to explain it to you, and you'll judge. Follow me carefully... “ And the fat man, sketching shapes in the air with precise gestures, spoke as follows: “You take a condemned man, charming lady, a condemned man, or anybody else—for it isn't necessary for the success of my torture that the


victim be condemned to anything at all—you take a man, as young and strong as possible, whose muscles are quite resistant; in virtue of this principle: the more strength, the more struggle and the more struggle, the more pain! Good. You undress him. Good. And when he is stark naked—yes, milady?—you make him kneel, his back bent, on the earth, where you fasten him with chains riveted to iron collars which bind his neck, his wrists, his calves and ankles. Good! I don't know whether I'm making myself understood? Then in a big pot, whose bottom is pierced with a little hole—a flowerpot, milady!—you place a very fat rat, whom it's wise to have deprived of nourishment for a couple of days, to excite its ferocity. And this pot, inhabited by this rat, you apply hermetically, like an enormous cupping−glass, to the back of the condemned by means of stout thongs attached to a leather girdle about the loins. Ah, hat Now the plot thickens!” He looked maliciously at us out of the corners of his lowered lids, to judge the effect his words were producing. “And then?” said Clara, simply.


“Then, milady, you introduce into the little hole into the pot—guess what!” “How should I know?” The good fellow rubbed his hands, smiled horribly, and then continued: “You introduce an iron rod, heated red−hot at the fire of a forge—a little portable forge which is there beside you. And when the iron rod is introduced, what happens? Ah, ha hat Imagine what must happen, milady—” “Oh, come on, you old gossip!” commanded my companion, and stamped angrily on the sandy path. “There, there!” said the prolix executioner. “A little patience, milady. And let us proceed methodically, if you please. Well, you introduce into the pot's hole, an iron rod, heated red−hot at the fire of a forge. The rat tries to escape the burning of the rod and its dazzling light. It goes mad, cuts capers, leaps and bounds, runs around the walls of the pot, crawls and gallops over the roan's flesh, which it first tickles and then tears with its nails, and bites with its sharp teeth, seeking an exit through the torn and bleeding skin. But there is no exit. During the first


frenzied moments, the rat can find none. And the iron rod, handled cleverly and slowly, still draws near the rat, threatens it, scorches its fur. What do you think of this for a beginning?” He caught his breath for a few seconds, then staidly, authoritatively, he instructed us: “It's great merit lies in the fact that you must know how to prolong this initial operation as much as possible, for the laws of physiology teach us that there is nothing more horrible to the human flesh than the combination of tickling and biting. It may even happen that the victim goes mad from it. He howls and struggles; his body, remaining free between the iron collars, palpitates, heaves and contorts, shaken by agonizing shudders. But his limbs are firmly held by the chains, and the pot, by the thongs. And the movements of the condemned man only augment the rat's fury, to which the intoxication of blood is often added. It's sublime, milady!” “And then?” said Clara, grown slightly pale, in an abrupt, unsteady voice. The executioner clacked his tongue, and


continued: “Finally—for I see you're anxious to know the climax of this wonderful and jolly story; finally threatened by the glowing rod and thanks to the excitation of a few well−chosen burns, the rat ends by finding an exit, milady. Ah, ha ha!” “How horrible!” exclaimed Clara. “Ah, you see... I'm proud of the interest you take in my torture. But wait! The rat penetrates the man's body, widening with claws and teeth the opening he madly digs, as in the earth. And he croaks, stifled, at the same time that the victim who, after a half−hour of ineffable, incomparable torture, ends by succumbing to a hemorrhage—when it isn't from too much suffering or even the congestion caused by a frightful insanity. In all cases, milady, and whatever the final cause of this death—you can be sure it's extremely beautiful!” Satisfied, and with an air of triumphant pride, he concluded: “Isn't it extremely beautiful, milady? Isn't it actually a prodigious invention? an admirable masterpiece, classic after a fashion, and whose


equivalent you may vainly seek in the past? I would not like to be lacking in modesty, milady, but agree that the demons who used to haunt the forests of Yunnam never conceived a like miracle. Well, the judges would have nothing to do with it! There I brought them, you'll admit, something infinitely glorious, something unique in its fashion, capable of inspiring our greatest artists. They didn't want it... they want nothing... nothing at all! The return to the classic tradition terrifies them. Without also counting all sorts of moral obstacles, painful to relate... intrigue, extortion, underhand rivalry, scorn of equity, horror of the beautiful—and what not? you'd have thought, at least, I'm sure, that for such a service they'd have made me a mandarin. Indeed! Nothing, milady—I received nothing! There are the symptoms characteristic of our downfall. Ah, we are a lost people, a dead people! Let the Japanese come; we can no longer resist them. Farewell China!” He was silent. The sun, sinking in the west, the shadow of the gallows then shifted with the sun, and lay stretched across the grass. The lawns became a brighter green; a sort of pink and gold mist rose from


the watered bushes, and the flowers shone more brilliantly, like little variegated stars in the firmament of foliage. A yellow bird carrying a long cotton−twig in its beak, repaired its nest in the depths of the leafage which covered the shaft of the torture column at whose foot the executioner was seated. Now he was dreaming, with a more placid countenance and less violent grimaces, in which cruelty was replaced by melancholy. “Just like the flowers,” he murmured, after a silence. A black cat which had emerged from the bushes, its back arched and its tail hanging, came and rubbed itself against him, purring. He caressed it gently. Then, having noticed a scarabee, the cat stretched out behind a tuft of grass and, its ears erect, its eyes glowing, started to follow the capricious flight of the insect in the air. The executioner, whose patriotic lamentations had been interrupted by the cat, shook his head and continued: “Just like the flowers! We have also lost the sense of flowers, for one thing follows another. We no longer know what flowers are. Would you believe that they are sending us some from Europe—we


who possess the most varied and extraordinary flora on the globe. What aren't they sending us today? Helmets, bicycles, furniture, coffee−mills, wine and flowers! And if you knew the sad stupidities, the sentimental nonsense and decadent follies our poets utter on the subject of flowers. It's frightful! There are some who assert they are perverse! Flowers perverse! In fact, they no longer know what to write. Have you ever heard such monstrous nonsense, milady? Why, flowers are violent, cruel, terrible and splendid... like love!” He picked a ranunculus which gently swayed its golden head above the grass beside him, and with infinite delicacy, slowly and amorously, he turned it between his fat red fingers, from which the dried blood scaled off in places: “Isn't it adorable?” he repeated, looking at it. “It's so little, so fragile, and besides, it's all of nature; all the beauty and power of nature. It contains the world. A puny and relentless organism which goes straight to the goal of its desire! Ah, milady, flowers do not indulge in sentiment. They indulge in passion, nothing but passion. And they make love all the time,


and in every fashion. They think of nothing else; and how right they are! Perverse? Because they obey the only law of life; because they are satisfied with the only need of life, which is love? But consider, milady, the flower is only a reproductive organ. Is there anything healthier, stronger, or more beautiful than that? These marvelous petals, these silks, these velvets... these soft, supple, and caressing materials are the curtains of the alcove, the draperies of the bridal chamber, the perfumed bed where they unite, where they pass their ephemeral and immortal life, swooning with love. What an admirable example for us!” He spread the petals of the flower, counted the stamens laden with pollen, and he spoke again, his eyes swimming in a comical ecstasy: “See, milady; one, two, five, ten, twenty. See how they quiver! Look! Sometimes twenty males are required for the delight of a single female! He! he! he! Sometimes it's the opposite.” One by one he tore off the petals of the flower: “And when they are gorged with love, then the curtains of the bed are torn away, the draperies of


the chamber wither and fall; and the flowers die, because they know well they have nothing more to do. They die, to be reborn later, and once again, to love!” Throwing the stripped peduncle away, he exclaimed: “Make love, milady... make love... like the flowers!” Then abruptly he took up his instrument−case, got up, his queue awry, and saluting us, went away across the lawn, treading with his heavy, swaying body upon the grass blossoming with squill, doronicum and narcissus. For some moments Clara followed him with her eyes, and as we started to walk towards the bell: “Isn't he funny! What a roly−poly!” she said. “He's so good natured.” I stupidly exclaimed in my horror: “How can you say such a thing, my dear Clara? Why, he's a monster! It's even frightful to think such a monster exists among men, somewhere in the world! I feel that from now on I'll always have the nightmare of that horrible face before me, and the horror of that conversation. You hurt me very much, I assure you.” Clara replied quickly:


“And you hurt me too. Why do you pretend the roly−poly is a monster? You don't know anything about it. He loves his art, that's all; like a sculptor loves sculpture, and like a musician loves music. And he talks about it marvelously! It's curious and aggravating that you refuse to get it into your head we are in China, and not, thank God, in Hyde Park or the Bodiniere, among all those dirty bourgeois you adore! As far as you're concerned, the customs of all countries should be identical—and what customs! A lovely idea! Don't you realize it would mean dying of monotony, and the end of travel, my dear!” Then suddenly, in a more decided tone of reproach: “Ah, really, you're not at all nice. Your egoism never relaxes for a second, not even when I request the slightest pleasure of you. It's impossible to even enjoy oneself a little with you; you're never happy with anything. Without counting the fact that thanks to you, we've probably missed the best!” She sighed sadly: “Here's another day lost! I have no luck.” I tried to justify myself and calm her: “No... no,” insisted Clara, “it's very bad. You're


not a man. Even when Annie was alive, it was the same thing. You spoiled all our pleasure—fainting like a little boarding−school girl or a pregnant woman. People like you stay at home. God, how stupid. We go out gaily, happily, to have a good−time, see sublime sights, be thrilled by extraordinary sensations... and then suddenly you're sad, and it's all over! No, no! It's stupid, stupid... it's too stupid!” She hung more heavily on my arm, and she pouted—a pout of annoyance and affection—so exquisite I felt a thrill of desire run through my veins. “And I who do everything you want, like a poor puppy,” she moaned. Then: “I'm sure you think me wicked, because I enjoy things that make you grow pale and tremble. You think me wicked and heartless, don't you?” Without waiting for a reply, she confessed: “But I grow pale too, and I also tremble. Otherwise I wouldn't enjoy myself. Well, do you think me wicked?” “No, dear Clara, you are not wicked... you are—” She quickly interrupted me, offered her lips to me: “I'm not wicked. I don't want you to think me


wicked. I'm a nice little woman... curious, like all women. And you, you're only an old hen! I don't love you any more. Kiss your mama, darling. Kiss hard... harder... harder. No, I don't love you any more—like milksop. Yes, by God, that's it... you're only a darling little insignificant milksop.” Gay, yet serious, smiling, but her forehead barred by the dark fold of shadow she possessed in anger as well as passion, she added: “Say I'm only a woman... a very little woman... a woman as fragile as a flower... as delicate and frail as a bamboo−stalk... and that of the two of us, I'm the man... and that I'm worth ten men like you!” And the desire her flesh provoked in me was augmented by an immense pity for her mad, lost soul. Once more, with a slight hiss of scorn, she said that phrase, which came so often to her lips: “Men! They don't know what love is, nor what death is, which is much more beautiful than love. They don't know anything, and they're always sad, and weep! And faint for no reason, Over nothings! Phht! phht! phht!” Changing her line of thought, like a beetle shifting from one flower to the next, she


suddenly asked: “Is it true what that roly−poly just told us?” “What, dear Clara? And ,what difference does he make to you?” “Just now the roly−poly said that among the flowers, twenty males were sometimes required for the delight of a single female. Is it true?” “Certainly!” “Really true? Really... really true?” “Obviously.” “The roly−poly wasn't making fun of us? Are you sure?” “You're funny! Why do you ask that? Why do you look at me with such strange eyes? Of course it's true.” “Ah!” She remained pensive, her lids closed for a moment. Her breath came hurriedly, her breast almost panted. Then, very low, she murmured, resting her head against my chest: “I'd like to be a flower. I'd like... I'd like to be—everything!” “Clara!” I begged, “my little Clara.” I held her fast


in my arms. I cradled her in my arms. “Wouldn't you? You wouldn't like to? Oh—you'd rather stay a little milksop all your life! Pugh, how naughty!” After a short silence, during which we even heard the red sand of the alley crunch beneath our heavy steps, she continued, in a singing voice: “And I'd also like... when I am dead... I'd like to have very strong perfumes put in my coffin... thalictrum blossoms... and images of sin... beautiful, exciting, naked images, like those that decorate the mats in my room. Or better, I'd like to be buried without a dress or a shroud, in the crypts of the temple of Elephanta, amid all those strange stone bacchantes, who caress and tear each other so furiously. Ah, my darling! I'd like... I'd like to be dead already!” And abruptly: “When you're dead, do your feet touch the wood of the coffin?” “Clara!” I implored. “Why are you always talking of death? And still you don't want me to be sad! I beg you, don't drive me completely mad. Give up these sordid ideas that torment me so and let's go home. For pity's sake, dear Clara, let's go home.”


She did not listen to my plea, and continued in a musical tone which I couldn't tell... no, truthfully, I could not tell whether it expressed emotion or irony, convulsive sobs or hysterical laughter. “If you are with me when I die... darling... listen to me! Please put... yes, that's the thing... please put a pretty little yellow silk cushion between my poor little feet and the wood of the casket. And then, please kill my handsome Laos hound... and stretch him out, still bleeding, beside me... like he himself is accustomed to stretch out, you know, with one paw on my thigh and another on my breast. And then... for a long, long time, please kiss me darling, on my teeth... and my hair. And tell me things... pretty things... things that soothe and excite... things like when you love me. Won't you, my darling? Promise me? Come now, don't make such a funereal face. It isn't dying that's sad; it's living when you're not happy. Swear! Swear that you promise me!” “Clara! Clara! I beg you! Be quiet!” I was undoubtedly at the end of my strength. A flood of tears gushed from my eyes. I wouldn't have been able to tell the reason for these tears, which


were not tears of distress, and which, to the contrary, gave me relief and relaxation. And Clara was deceived in attributing them to herself. It wasn't for her I was weeping, nor for her sin, nor for the pity which her poor, sick soul inspired in me, nor for the image of her death she had just evoked. It was for myself I was weeping, perhaps, for my presence in this garden, for this cursed love in which I felt that everything which then remained to me every generous impulse, every lost desire, and every noble ambition was profaned by the impure breath of these kisses, of which I was ashamed and for which I was also thirsty. Well, no! Why should I lie to myself? physical tears... tears of weakness, fatigue and fever, tears of enervation before sights too cruel for my debilitated senses, before odors too strong for my sense of smell, before the continual oscillation of my carnal desires from impotence to frenzy... the tears of a woman... tears for nothing at all! Certain that it was because of her, because of her dead... because of her stretched out in her coffin I was weeping, and happy in her power over me, Clara became deliciously cajoling:


“Poor little pet!” she sighed. “You're trying! Well then, say the roly−poly was good−natured. Say it to please me and I'll be quiet, and never talk of death again... never again. Come, right now, say it, little pig.” In a cowardly fashion, but also anxious to be finished at last with all these macabre ideas, I did what she asked. With clamorous joy, she fell on my neck, kissed me on the lips, and drying my eyes, exclaimed: “Ah, you're nice! You're a nice baby! A darling little baby, my darling! And I'm a vile woman, a wicked little woman who's always teasing you and making you cry. Well then, the roly−poly is a monster... I detest him. And I don't want you to kill my beautiful Laos hound. And I don't want to die. And I adore you, ah! And then... and then... all this is just to make you laugh, you understand. Don't cry any more, ah, don't cry any more! Now smile! Smile with your lovely eyes, with your mouth which can say such tender things... your mouth, your mouth! And let's walk faster. I love so much to walk very fast, on your arm!”


And head to head we walked, her parasol above us fluttering lightly, brilliantly, and madly, like an enormous butterfly.


PART 7

We were approaching the bell. On the right and left there were immense red and purple flowers and blood−colored peonies, and in the shade, under enormous parasol−shaped leaves, petasites and anthuriums like bleeding tissues seemed ironically to greet us on the way, and point out the path of torture to us. There were other flowers also, flowers of butchery and massacre, tiger−flowers with their gaping mutilated throats, diclytras and their garlands of little red hearts, and fierce labiates with their firm and fleshy pulp the tint of mucus; they were veritable human lips—Clara's lips crying from the tops of their tender stalks: “Come, my dears, come quickly. Where you are going there is still more pain, more torture, more blood flowing and dripping on the earth, more contorted and torn bodies breathing their last on iron tables... more ragged flesh swaying on the gallows−rope, more horror and more hell. Come, my loves, come, lip to lip and hand in hand. And look between the foliage and the lattice−work, look at the


infernal diorama unfolding, and the diabolic festival of death!” Clara was silent, shivering, her teeth clenched, her eyes more glowing and cruel. She was silent and walked, listening to these flower−voices in which she recognized her own, that voice of frightful days and homicidal nights, the voice of cruelty and lust, and also pain, which seemed to come not only from the depths of the earth and the abyss of death, but at the same time from the deeper and blacker depths of her own soul. A strident noise like the creaking of a pulley filled the air. Then there was another sound, very sweet, very pure, like the resonance of a crystal cup which a moth had struck in its evening flight. Then we entered a wide, curving alley, bordered on each side by high latticework which cast shadows riddled with little flecks of light upon the sand. Clara looked eagerly between the lattice and the foliage. And despite myself, despite my sincere determination to henceforth close my eyes to the damnable spectacle, drawn by the strange magnet of horror, overwhelmed by the invincible vertigo of abominable


sights, I too looked between the lattice and the foliage. And this is what we saw: On the plateau of a broad, low hillock, on which the alley ended in a continuous and scarcely perceptible rise, there was a round space, artistically laid out like an arboretum, by skilful gardeners. Enormous, squat, of a dull bronze lugubriously streaked with red, the bell in the center of this space was hung by block and tackle to the top beam of a sort of black wood guillotine whose pillars were ornamented with gilded inscriptions and terrifying masks. Four men, stripped to the waist, their muscles taut and their skin so distended that they were no more than a mass of shapeless lumps, pulled on the rope of the tackle, and their combined and rhythmic efforts could scarcely lift or budge the heavy mass of metal, which at each pull gave off an almost inaudible sound, that sweet, pure, plaintive sound we had just heard, and whose vibrations were lost and died away among the flowers. The clapper, a heavy iron pestle, was then gently oscillating, but no longer touched the sonorous walls of the bell, tired of having sounded a poor devil's death−knell for


so long a time. Under the cupola of the bell, two other men, their torsos rippling with sweat, their loins bare, and girdled with brown wool loin−cloths, were bending over something that could not be seen. Their chests with their protruding ribs and their lean flanks heaved like those of foundered horses. All this could be vaguely seen, a little confused, a little jumbled, broken suddenly by the intervention of a thousand things, and then recomposed in the gaps of the foliage and the interstices in the lattice. “We must hurry... we must hurry!” exclaimed Clara who, in order to walk faster, had closed her parasol and lifted her dress at the hips, with a bold gesture. 'The alley still curved, now flooded with sunlight, now shady, and it changed in appearance every moment, mingling with each floral beauty a more inexorable horror. “Look carefully, my darling,” said Clara. “Look all around. Here we are in the most beautiful and interesting section of the garden. Look! those flowers! oh, those flowers!” She indicated the bizarre plants which grew in a plot of earth where water could be seen gushing from all sides. I approached.


On high stalks, flecked with black and scaly like snake−skins, there were enormous spathes, sort of bell−shaped trumpets the deep violet of putrefaction on the inside, and the greenish yellow of decomposition on the outer, which were like the split thoraxes of dead beasts. From the bottom of these trumpets there issued long sanguinolent spadices, assuming the form of monstrous phalluses. Attracted by the cadaverous odor these horrible plants gave off, flies hovered about in compact swarms and were swallowed by the spathes, which were lined from top to bottom with contractile, silky threads that enlaced them and held them prisoner more surely than a spider's web. And along the stalks, finger−like leaves contracted and twisted like the hands of tortured men. “You see, my darling,” instructed Clara, “these flowers are not the creation of any sickly soul, nor of a raving genius... they are natural. Didn't I tell you nature loved death!” “Nature also creates monsters!” “Monsters, monsters! But there are no monsters! What you call 'monsters' are superior forms, or forms


simply beyond your understanding. Aren't the gods monsters? Isn't a man of genius a monster, like a tiger or a spider, like all individuals who live beyond social lies, in the dazzling and divine immorality of things? Why, I too then—am a monster!” We were then walking, between bamboo palisades, along which there ran honeysuckle, odorous jasmine, trumpet−flowers, arborescent mallow, and climbing hibiscus not yet in bloom. Moonseed embraced a stone column with its innumerable lianas. On the top of the column grimaced the face of a hideous divinity whose ears spread like the wings of a bat, and whose hair ended in flaming horns, incarvillea, hemerocallis, morrea, and larkspur with leafless stems concealed its base with their little pink bells, their scarlet thyrses, their golden calyxes and purple stars. Covered with ulcers and eaten by lice, a mendicant bonze who seemed to be the guardian of this structure, and who was training Touranian mongooses to make perilous leaps, insulted us as soon as we appeared. “Dogs! dogs! dogs!” We had to throw a few pieces of change to this


fanatic, whose invective surpassed all the outrageous obscenities which the indignation of the filthiest mind could conceive. “I know him!” said Clara. “He's like all priests of all religions; he wants to frighten us into giving him a little money, but he's not a bad devil!” From place to place in the recesses of the palisade which concealed verdant halls and beds of flowers, there were wooden benches equipped with chains and bronze collars, iron tables in the shapes of crosses,. blocks, gridirons, gibbets, automatic quartering machines, beds studded with cutting blades and bristling with iron spikes, stationary pillories, wooden horses, wheels, kettles and tanks suspended over extinguished fires—all the apparatus of sacrifice and torture, covered with blood, here dried and blackish, there sticky and red. Puddles of blood filled the hollow parts; long gobs of coagulated blood hung from disjointed machinery. Around these apparatus, the soil actually was wet with blood. Blood still starred the whiteness of the jasmine, marbled the pink coral of the honeysuckle and the mauve passion−flowers, and, bits of human


flesh which had flown under the whips and leather thongs, were stuck here and there to the edges of the petals and leaves. Since I grew faint and grumbled at the sight of these puddles, which expanded and reached the middle of the path, Clara encouraged me in a gentle voice: “This is nothing, yet, my darling... come along!” But it was difficult to proceed. Plants and trees, atmosphere and, earth were alive with flies, intoxicated insects, fierce and quarrelsome beetles, gorged mosquitoes. Around us all the fauna of the cadaver was hatching in myriads in the sun. Filthy maggots swarmed in the red pools, and dropped from the branches in soft clusters. The sand seemed to breathe and walk, lifted by the movement and pullulation of vermicular life. Deafened and blinded, we were halted at every step by these buzzing, multiplying swarms, and I was afraid for Clara—afraid of their deadly stings. And at times we had the horrible impression that our feet were sinking into the soaking earth, as though it had rained blood! “This is nothing yet,” repeated Clara, “come along with me!”


And here, to complete the drama, human faces appeared: squads of workmen who, with a nonchalant step, were coming to clean and repair the instruments of torture, for the hour of execution in the garden was over. They looked at us, doubtless astonished to encounter two people still standing at that time and in that place, two beings still alive, who still had their heads, their legs and arms. Further on, crouching on the earth in the posture of a grotesque china figure, we saw a big−bellied and good−natured potter who was varnishing freshly−baked flower−pots; near him, a weaver with indolent and exacting fingers was plaiting ingenious plant−shelters of supple reeds and rice−straws. A gardener was sharpening his grafting−tool on a grindstone, humming popular airs while an aged woman, chewing a betel−leaf and swaying her head in time, was placidly scouring a sort of iron maw whose sharp teeth still retained on their points some filthy human scraps. We also saw some children killing rats with sticks, and filling baskets with them. And along the palisades, hungry and fierce and dragging the imperial splendor of their tails in the


bloody mud, peacocks—troupes of peacocks, pecked at the blood which had spurted into the hearts of the flowers, and clucking fiercely, snapped up the scraps of flesh stuck to the foliage. The oppressive odor of the slaughter−house which persisted above all the other odors and dominated them, turned our stomachs and made us violently nauseous. Clara herself, fairy of the charnel−house, angel of decomposition and rot, not so well sustained by her nerves, perhaps, had grown slightly pale. Sweat beaded her temples. I saw her eyes roll back and her legs grow weak. “I'm cold!” she said. She gave me a glance of actual distress. Her nostrils, always distended like sails before the winds of death, had closed. I thought she was going to faint. “Clara!” I begged. “You see very well it's impossible. You see there's a degree of horror which even you yourself cannot exceed.” I stretched out my arms to her, but she refused them, and stiffening herself against sickness with all the indomitable energy of her frail organs: “Are you crazy?” she said. “Come, my darling...


faster... let's walk faster.” However, she took out her flask, and smelled its salts. “It's you who are all pale, and you walk like a drunken man. I'm not ill... I feel fine... and I'd like to sing.” She began to sing: Her clothes are summer gardens. And temples... But she had overestimated her strength, and her voice dried up in her throat. I thought this a good occasion to lead her back, persuade her, terrify her, perhaps. Vigorously, I attempted to draw her to me. “Clara! my little Clara! You must not defy your strength; you must not defy your heart. Let's go home, I beg you!” But she protested: “No... no... leave me alone... say nothing... it's nothing. I'm happy!” And quickly, she slipped out of my embrace. “You see! There isn't even any blood on my shoes.” Then, annoyed: “God, these flies are overwhelming! Why are there so many flies here? And these horrid peacocks—why don't they make them shut up?” I tried to chase them away; some persisted in


their bloody gleaning; others flew heavily off and, uttering more strident cries, perched not far from us on the top of the palisade and in the trees, from which their trains hung down like floods of material embroidered with dazzling jewels. “Filthy beasts!” said Clara. Thanks to the salts whose cordial odors she had breathed deeply, thanks especially to her implacable will not to faint, her face had already recovered its rosy tint, and her limbs their supple and vigorous movement. Then, in a firmer voice, she sang: Her clothes are summer gardens. And temples on festival−days. Her firm and swelling breasts, Gleam like a pair of golden vases, Filled with intoxicating liquors and perfumes. I have three mistresses... After a moment of silence, she started to sing in a stronger voice, which drowned out the buzzing of the insects: The hair of the third is plaited, And rolled about her head. And never has known the sweetness of


perfumed oils. That face which mirrors passion is deformed, And her body is like a pig's... And she always scolds and complains. Her breasts and belly exhale a fishy odor And her bed is more repugnant than a lapwing's nest. And she is the one I love. And I love her because there is something more mysteriously attractive than beauty: divine corruption. Corruption in which the eternal heat of life resides. Corruption in which the eternal renewal of metamorphoses unfolds. I have three mistresses. While she was singing, while her voice was floating among the horrors of the garden, a cloud arose, very high, very far away. In the immensity of the sky, it was like a little pink bark, a tiny little bark with silken sails which grew as it progressed in its gentle glide. And when she had finished singing: “Oh, the little cloud!” exclaimed Clara, suddenly joyful again. “Look how pretty it is, all pink against


the azure! Don't you know it? Have you never seen it? Why,. it's a very mysterious little cloud... and perhaps even because it's not a little cloud at all. It appears every day at the same time, from God knows where. And it's always alone, and always pink. It glides and glides and glides. Then it gets thinner, unravels, scatters, dissipates and melts into the firmament. And it's gone! And no one knows where it goes, any more than where it comes from! There are some very learned astronomers here who believe it's a genie. But I believe it's a wandering soul... a poor little bewildered soul, like mine. And speaking to herself, she added:” “What if it's poor Annie's soul?” For several minutes she contemplated the unknown cloud which was already growing pale, and little by little, fading away. “There! there it's melting... melting. It's all over. No more little cloud! It's gone.” She remained silent and fascinated, her eyes lost in the sky. A light breeze had arisen, making a gentle shiver run through the trees, and the sun was less fierce and less overwhelming, its light growing


magnificently copper towards the west and bathing the east in pearl−grey tones of infinite gradation. And the shadows of the kiosks and the great trees and the stone Buddhas lay slenderer, less defined, and altogether blue upon the lawns.


PART 8

We were near the bell. Very tall plum trees with twin blossoms, crowded together, intercepted our view of it. We discerned it from little shadows between the leaves and flowers, little decorative flowers, round and white like daisies. The peacocks had followed us for some distance, brazen and wary at the same time, stretching their necks and trailing the splendid trains of their oscillated tails across the red sand. There were also some all white, their breasts speckled with bloody spots, and their cruel heads crowned with a broad fan−shaped crest, each feather of which, slender and stiff, bore at its tip what looked like a trembling droplet of pink crystal. Iron tables, racks already set up, and sinister gear grew more numerous. In the shadow of a great tamarisk, we perceived a sort of rococo armchair. Its arms were made alternately of a saw and a steel blade, and its back and seat of iron spikes. A scrap of flesh hung from one of these spikes. Lightly, adroitly, Clara lifted it with the tip of her parasol and


tossed it to the hungry peacocks who hurled themselves upon it, striking out fiercely with their beaks. For several moments there was a dazzling scramble, a clash of gems whose marvelous spectacle I loitered to admire despite my disgust. Perched in the neighboring trees, some lophophores, sacred pheasants, and great fighting cocks from the Malay Peninsula with damascene breasts, watched the conflict of the peacocks and cunningly awaited feeding−time. Suddenly a wide gap opened in the wall of plum trees, a sort of light and flowery arch, and the bell was there before us—enormous and terrible before us. Its heavy beams, varnished black and decorated with gold inscriptions and red masks, seemed like the profile of a temple, and gleamed strangely in the sunlight. All around, the earth was covered with a layer of sand which muffled sound, and was surrounded by a wall of flowering plum trees blossoming with those heavy flowers which cover the entire length of their trunks with white bouquets. In the middle of this red and white circle, the bell was sinister to behold. It was somewhat like an abyss in


the air, a hanging void which seemed to rise from earth to sky, and whose bottom, filled with silent shadows, could not be seen. At that moment we understood what the two men were bending over—those men whose emaciated torsos and loins girdled with brown wool had appeared to us under the dome of the bell the moment we entered that part of the garden. They were bending over a corpse and unwrapping the ropes and leather thongs with which it had been firmly trussed. The corpse, the color of ochre clay, was entirely naked, and lay with its face to the ground. It was frightfully convulsed, the muscles bulging, its entire flesh violently disfigured, sunken here and bloated there, as by a tumor. You could see that the tortured man had struggled for a long time, vainly attempting to break his bonds, and that with the desperate and continuous effort both ropes and leather thongs had little by little sunk into his flesh, where they now made swellings of brown blood, coagulated pus, and greenish tissue. With one foot on the corpse, their backs arched, their arms taut as cables, the men were hauling on the bonds


which they could not pull away without tearing out strips of flesh. And a rhythmic grunt issued from their throats, which ended shortly in a raucous whistle. We approached. The peacocks had halted. Augmented by new flocks, they now filled the circular alley and the flowered opening, which they dared not cross. Behind us, we heard their murmuring and subdued shuffling. In fact, it was like a crowd which had come running to the threshold of a temple, a dense, eager, impatient, smothering, and respectful crowd, their necks stretched, their eyes round; haggard and loquacious, watching the performance of a mystery they could not understand. We came still nearer. “You see, my dear,” said Clara, “how curious and unique it all is... and what magnificence! In what other country could you find a like spectacle? A torture−chamber decked out as for a ball; and this dazzling crowd of peacocks, acting as audience, atmosphere, rabble, and setting for the festival! Wouldn't you think we were transported beyond life, amid the imagery and poetry of the very old legends? Aren't you really astounded? It seems to


me I'm always living in a dream here!” Pheasants with radiant plumage and long jeweled necks soared and crossed above us. From place to place, several dared to perch on the tips of flowering stalks. Clara, who was following all the chance forms and colors of these fantastic flights, continued after a few minutes of charmed silence: “Isn't it wonderful, my love, how the Chinese, so scorned by those who do not know them, are actually astounding people. No other race knows how to tame and domesticate nature with such painstaking skill. What unique artists! and what poets! See how that cadaver on the red sand takes on the tints of the old idols. Look at it carefully, for it's extraordinary, You'd think the vibrations of the bell, ringing wildly, had penetrated that body like some hard, compressing substance... that they'd forced the muscles out, made the veins burst, and twisted and ground the bones. A simple sound, so sweet to the ear, so deliciously musical, so touching to the mind, becoming something a thousand times more terrible and painful than all the old roly−poly's complicated instruments! Don't you think it's maddening? No, but


conceive of this prodigious fact—that the very thing that can make amorous virgins walking in the country in the evening cry with ecstasy and divine melancholy, can also make men roar with pain, and kill a miserable human carcass under the most ineffable agony. I say it's genius! Ah, what a wonderful torture!... and so discreet, for it takes place in the shadows, and its horror, when you come to think of it, could not be equaled by any other. Besides, like the torture of the caress, it's very rare today, and you're lucky to have seen it on your first visit to the garden. They tell me the Chinese brought it from Korea, where it's very old, and where, it seems, it's still frequently employed. We'll go to Korea, if you like. The Koreans are inimitably fierce tortures—and they manufacture the most beautiful vases in the world, thick white vases, quite unique, which seem to have been dipped... ah, if you knew!... in baths of seminal fluid!” Then, returning to the corpse: “I'd like to know who this man was! For here they never prescribe the torture of the bell, except for high−class criminals: conspiring princes and high


officials who no longer please the Emperor. It's an aristocratic and almost glorious torture.” She shook my arm: “You don't seem to be carried away by what I'm telling you. And you're not even listening to me! Just think—this bell, ringing and ringing. It's so sweet! When you bear it from a distance, it suggests some mystic sacrament, some joyous mass... baptisms... marriages. And it's the most terrifying of all deaths! I think it's wonderful. And you?” And as I did not answer: “Yes... yes,” she insisted. “Say it's wonderful! I want you to, I want you to! Be nice.” Faced with my persistent silence, she made a little angry movement. “How disagreeable you are!” she said. “You'll never be nice to me! What in the world can cheer you up? Ah, I don't want to love you any more. I have no more desire for you. Tonight you'll sleep alone, in the kiosk. I'll go and find my little Peach Blossom, who's so much nicer than you, and knows more about love than men.” I tried to stammer out something.


“No... no... never mind! It's over! I don't want to talk to you any more. And I'm sorry I didn't bring Peach Blossom. You're unbearable... and you make me sad. You make me stupid. It's odious! Here's a whole day wasted, which I'd planned to spend so thrillingly with you.” Her chatter and her voice irritated me. For some minutes I no longer noticed her beauty. Her eyes, her lips, her neck, her heavy golden hair, and the very ardor of her desire, and the very lustfulness of her sin, everything about her then seemed hideous to me. And from her gaping corsage, from the rosy nudity of her breast, where so often I had breathed, drunk, and feasted on the intoxication of such heady perfume, there arose an exhalation of putrefied flesh, that little mass of putrefied flesh which was her soul. Several times I had been tempted to interrupt her with a violent outburst... shut her mouth with my fists... wring her neck. I felt so savage a hatred rising in me against this woman, that seizing her arm roughly, I cried out in an unrestrained voice: “Shut up! Oh, shut up! Don't ever talk to me again—never! For I'd like to kill you, you devil! I


ought to kill you, and then throw you to the dogs, you beast!” In spite of my excitement, I was afraid of my own words. But to make them irrevocable after all, I repeated them, bruising her arm with my frantic hands: “Beast! beast! beast!” Clara made not the slightest movement to draw back, not even a flutter of the lids. She thrust out her throat and offered her breast. Her face lit up with an unknown and resplendent joy. Simply, slowly, with infinite sweetness, she said: “Well, kill me darling! I'd love to be killed by you, dear little darling!” That was the only flash of rebellion in the long and painful passivity of my submission. It died out as swiftly as it had flared up. Ashamed of the insultingly vile epithet I had just uttered, I released Clara's arm, and all the anger due to my nervous excitation suddenly melted in a great dejection. “Ah, you see,” said Clara, who did not care to take further advantage of my pitiful defeat and her too easy triumph, “you haven't even the courage for that, and it would be beautiful. Poor baby!” And as though nothing had happened between us, she


began to follow the frightful drama of the bell again, with passionate interest. During this short scene the two men had been resting. They seemed exhausted. Emaciated, panting, their ribs bulging beneath their skin; their thighs fleshless, they no longer seemed human. The sweat flowed, as from a spout, from the points of their mustaches, and their sides heaved like those of beasts hard pressed by dogs. But a guard suddenly appeared, whip in hand. He yelled, and with blow after blow, lashed the bony loins of the two wretches, who set to work again, howling. Frightened by the cracking of the whip, the peacocks screamed and flapped their wings. They fled in tumult, a whirling mass in panic−stricken disorder. Then, reassured little by little, they came back one by one, couple by couple, group by group, to take their places under the floral arch, swelling the splendor of their throats still more, and darting even fiercer glances upon the scene of death. The pheasants, red, yellow, blue and green, still wheeling over the white circle, embroidered the luminous ceiling of the sky with dazzling silks and soft


changing patterns. Clara called the guard, and engaged him in a brief conversation in Chinese which she related to me as fast as he replied. “These are the poor devils who rang the bell. Forty−two hours without a drink, without a single rest! Can you imagine it! And how is it they aren't dead too? I know very well the Chinese aren't made like us, and that in fatigue and physical pain they have extraordinary endurance. I too wanted to know how long a Chinese could work without taking nourishment. Twelve days, darling... they only drop at the end of the twelfth day! It's unbelievable! It's true that the work I imposed on him was nothing like this. I had him plow the earth, in the sun.” She'd forgotten my insults and her voice was amorous and caressing again, like when she told me love−stories. She continued: “For you don't question, darling, the violent, continuous, and superhuman effort it takes to set in action and work the clapper of the bell, do you? Even many of the strongest succumb at it. A ruptured artery... a lesion of the loins... and it's all over! They


fall dead suddenly, on the bell! And those who don't die of it in their tracks get diseases from which they never recover. Look how swollen and bloody their hands are from the friction of the rope! Besides, it seems that these are convicts, too. They die in killing, and the two tortures balance each other, see! All the same, you must be kind to these wretches... when the guard goes away, won't you give them a few taels?” And returning to the corpse: “Ah, you know... I know him now. He was a big city banker... was very rich and stole from everyone. But he wasn't sentenced to the torture of the bell for that. The guard doesn't know exactly why. They say he negotiated treacherously with the Japanese. They have to give some reason.” Scarcely had she uttered these words, than we heard some hollow moans, like stifled sobbing. They came from directly in front of us, from behind the white wall along which petals were falling off and slowly dropping onto the red sands. Tears and flowers falling! “It's his family,” Clara explained. “It's there according to the custom, waiting for them to deliver


the body of the tortured man.” At that moment the two exhausted men who, by a miracle of will, were still standing up, were turning the body over. Simultaneously, Clara and I uttered a single cry. And clasped to me, tearing my shoulder with her nails: “Oh, darling! darling! darling!” she cried; an exclamation by which she always expressed the intensity of her emotion at the approach of horror, as well as love. And we looked at the cadaver, and with the same horrified motion stretched our necks toward the cadaver, and we could not tear our eyes away from the cadaver. ' On its convulsed face, on which all the contracted muscles were outlined, frightful grimaces and hideous angles stood out, the twisted mouth revealing the teeth and gums, mimicked the frightful laugh of a madman, a laugh which death had stiffened, fixed and, so to say, modeled into all the folds of the skin. The two staring eyes darted a sightless glance at us, but their expression of the most terrifying insanity remained, and so prodigiously sneering and so fitfully mad was this stare, that never in the cells of an asylum had I been


destined to see its like in the eyes of a living man. Observing all these muscular displacements in the corpse, all these deviations of the tendons, all these projections of the bones, and on the face, this grin and this dementia of the eyes surviving death, I understood how much more horrible than any other torture must be the agony of a man lying forty−two hours in his bonds under the bell. Neither the dismembering knife, nor the red, burning iron, nor the ripping pincers, nor the wedges which spread the joints, crack the articulations, or split the bones like pieces of wood, can work greater ravages on organs of living flesh and fill the brain with more horror than this sound of an invisible and immaterial bell, combining in itself all the known instruments of torture, infuriating all the sensitive and thinking parts of an individual at the same time, and fulfilling the office of more than a hundred executioners. The two men had started to pull on the ropes again, their throats wheezing and their sides heaving more rapidly. But their strength was gone, and flowed from their limbs in rivulets of sweat. They could scarcely stand erect now, and with their stiff


and ankylosed fingers, pull on the leather thongs. “Dogs!” howled the guard. A blow of the whip wrapped their loins and did not even make them tense themselves against the pain. It seemed that, with their nerves unstrung, all feeling had disappeared. Their knees, giving and trembling more and more, now knocked against each other. What muscles remained under the flayed skin contracted in tetanic movements. Suddenly one of them, at the peak of exhaustion, gave a little raucous moan and throwing his arms forward, fell beside the corpse, his face against the earth, spewing a flood of black blood. “Up! coward! Up! dog!” the guard shouted again. Four times the lash hissed and snapped on the man's back. The pheasants perched on the flowering stalks flew off with a great whirring of wings. Behind us, I heard the startled chatter of the peacocks. But the man did not get up. He did not stir again, and the pool of blood grew wider on the sand. The man was dead! Then I dragged Clara away. Her little fingers dug into my skin. I felt very pale, and walked and


stumbled like a drunkard. “It's too much... too much!” I constantly repeated. And, Clara, who followed docilely, also repeated: “Ah, you see, my darling! I knew. Did I lie to you?” We reached an alley which led to the central pond, and the peacocks which had followed us that far left suddenly and scattered with a great noise across the bushes and lawns of the gardens. This very broad alley was bordered on either side by dead trees, immense tamarinds whose great bare branches crisscrossed in stern arabesques against the sky. A niche had been dug in every trunk. The majority were empty, while some enclosed the bodies of men and women, violently distorted and subjected to hideous and shameful tortures. Before the occupied niches, a sort of clerk in a black gown stood gravely, a writing desk swung in front of him, and a register in his hands. “This is the alley of the accused,” Clara told me. “And these people you see standing here are only present to take down the confessions which prolonged suffering might drag from these wretches.


They rarely confess, preferring to die like this rather than prolong their agony in the cages of the bagnio and finally perish under other tortures. Generally the tribunals do not make much use of accusations, except in political crimes. They judge in groups, in batches, willy−nilly. Besides, you see there are not many accused, and the majority of the niches are empty. It's none the less true that the idea is ingenious. I really believe they got it from Greek mythology. It's a horrible adaptation of that charming fable of the hamadryads, imprisoned in their trees. Clara approached a tree where a young woman was breathing her last. She was suspended by her wrists from an iron hook, and the wrists were clasped between two blocks of wood pressed together with great force. A knotted rope of coconut fiber covered with pulverized pimento and mustard and soaked in a salt solution, was wound about her arms. “They keep that rope ort,'“ my friend condescended to remark, “until the arms are swollen to four times their natural size. Then they take it off, and the sores it produces often burst, making hideous wounds. They frequently die of it, but never


recover.” “But if the accused is found innocent?” I asked. “Oh well... “ said Clara. Another woman in another niche had her limbs spread, or rather, torn apart; her neck and arms were clamped in iron collars. Her eyelids, nostrils, lips and other parts were rubbed with red pepper, and two thumbscrews crushed her nipples. Farther on a young man was suspended by means of a rope passed under his armpits; a great block of stone hung from his shoulders, and you could hear the cracking of his joints. Still another, his back arched, balanced by an iron wire which bound his neck to his two big toes, was crouching with sharp−pointed stones in the bend of his knees. The niches in the trunks were becoming empty. Only from place to place there was a man bound, crucified, or hanging, whose eyes were closed and seemed to be asleep—and perhaps was dead. Clara spoke no more, and no longer explained anything. She listened to the heavy flight of the vultures circling above the interlacing branches, and the cawing of crows sailing through the sky in countless flocks. The


lugubrious alley of tamarinds ended on a broad terrace flowering with peonies, from which we descended to the pond. The irises lifted their strangely flowered stalks above the water, their petals the color of old sandstone vases, precious, blood−purple enamels, sinister purples, blue flamed with orange ochre, velvet blacks, and their calilyxes sulphur−colored. Some, immense and twisted, looked like cabalistic characters. The water−lilies and nelumbos spread their great swooning blossoms on the golden water, and looked to me like severed, floating heads. We remained some minutes leaning on the balustrade of the bridge, looking silently at the water. All enormous carp whose golden snout alone could be seen, slept under a leaf, and between the Indian grass and the reeds smaller carp swam back and forth, like evil thoughts in a woman's brain.


PART 9

And so the day is ending. The sky becomes red, striped by broad, surprisingly translucent emerald bands. It is the hour when the flowers take on a mysterious brilliance, a glitter both hard and restrained. They flame everywhere, as though they gave the evening atmosphere its light—all the sunlight with which their pulp has been saturated during the day. Between the heightened green of the lawns and these flaming bands, the paths of pulverized brick seem like streams of incandescent lava. The birds are silent in the branches; the insects have hushed their humming and are dying or asleep. The nocturnal butterflies and bats alone begin to wander in the air. Everywhere, from the sky to the trees, and from the trees to the earth, there is silence. And I also feel it penetrate me, chilling me like death. A flock of cranes descends the slope of the lawn and forms a ring around the pool, not far from us. I can hear the patter of their feet in the tall grass, and the dry clicking of their bills. Then, standing on one leg, motionless, their heads beneath


their wings, they seem like bronze decorations. And the golden−snouted carp which was sleeping under a nelumbo leaf, tacks about in the water, then plunges and disappears, leaving broad circles on the surface which gently sway the closed calyxes of the water−lilies, then broaden and are lost among the tufts of iris whose diabolic flowers, strangely defined, inscribe, under the evening magic, symbolic signs out of the Book of Fate. Above the water an enormous arum−lily spreads the trumpet of its greenish flower mottled with brown spots, and wafts to us the strong odor of a corpse. For a long time the flies swarm persistently and intently about its carrion calyx. Leaning on the railing of the bridge, her forehead barred with shadow, her eyes intent, Clara looks at the water. The reflection of the setting sun glows on the back of her neck. Her flesh is slack and her lips compressed. She is grave and very sad. She looks at the water, but her glance goes further and deeper than the water; it sinks perhaps, towards something more impenetrable and blacker than the bottom of this pond; perhaps it plumbs her soul, the gulf of her


soul which, in eddies of flame and blood, unfolds the monstrous blossoms of its desire. What is she really looking at? What is she thinking of? I do no know. Perhaps thinking of nothing. Somewhat weary, her nerves bruised and torn under the lash of too many sins, she is silent, that is all. Unless by a last effort of cerebration, she is gathering all the memories and images of this horrible day, to offer them as a bouquet of red flowers to her sex. I don't know. I dare not speak to her. She frightens me, and she also troubles me to the very depths of my being, by her immobility and silence. Does she really exist? I wonder, somewhat fearfully. Was she not born of my debauchery and fever? Is she not one of those impossible visions to which nightmares give birth? One of those criminal temptations such as lust stirs in the imagination of those invalids called assassins and murderers? Might she not be nothing more than my soul, escaped from me despite myself and materialized in the form of sin? No... for I can touch her. My hand recognized the admirable, living realities of her body. Through the scant silky material which covers it, her skin burned my fingers. And


Clara did not tremble at their contact; she did not swoon, as she often has, at their caress. I desire her and I hate her. I would like to take her in my arms and embrace her till she smothered, till she was crushed and I could drink her death from her gushing veins. In a voice first threatening and then submissive, I exclaim: “Clara! Clara! Clara!” Clara does not reply, she does not budge. She still looks at the water which is growing darker and darker; but I really do not believe she is looking at the water, nor the red reflection of the sky in the water, nor the flower, nor herself. Then I draw away a little, in order not to see her any longer, or touch her, and I turn towards the disappearing light, towards the light which only remains in the sky as a great ephemeral glow, soon little by little to melt away and go out in the night. Shadow descends on the garden, trailing its blue veils, lightly over the bare lawns, heavily on the sharply outlined bushes. The white flowers on the cherry trees and peach trees, now a lunar white, seem to glide and wander and assume the weird


aspects of phantoms. And the gallows and stakes lift their sinister columns and black framework in the oriental sky, blue as steel. Horror! Above a bush, against the dying purple of the evening, turning and turning on the stakes, slowly turning in the void and swaying like flowers whose stalks would be visible at night, I can see the black silhouettes of five tortured men. “Clara! Clara! Clara!” My voice does not reach her. Clara does not reply, does not budge, does not turn. She remains bending over the water, over the gulf of water. And just as she does not hear me, no more does she hear the moans, cries, and death−rattles of all those dying in the garden. I feel something like a powerful oppression, like an immense fatigue after marching and marching across fever−laden jungles, or by the shores of deadly lakes—and I am flooded by discouragement, so that it seems I shall never be able to escape from myself again. At the same time, my brain is heavy and troubles me. It feels as though an iron band were clasping my temples, tight enough to burst my


skull. Then, little by little, my thoughts abandon the garden, the torture−arenas, the agony beneath the bell, the trees haunted by pain, the bloody and devouring flowers. They are trying to burst through the setting of this charnel−house, penetrate to pure light, knock once more upon the gates of life. Alas, the gates of life never swing open except upon death, never open except upon the palaces and gardens of death. And the universe appears to me like an immense, inexorable torture−garden. Blood everywhere and, where there is most life, horrible tormentors who dig your flesh, saw your bones, and retract your skin with sinister, joyful faces. Ah, yes! the Torture Garden! Passions, appetites, greed, hatred, and lies; law, social institutions, justice, love, glory, heroism, and religion: these are its monstrous flowers and its hideous instruments of eternal human suffering. What I saw today, and what I heard, exists and cries and howls beyond this garden, which is no more than a symbol to me of the entire earth. I have vainly sought a respite in quietude and repose in death, and I can


find them nowhere. I should like, yes, I should like to be reassured, cleanse my soul and brain with old memories, with the memory of friendly, familiar faces. I call Europe and its hypocritical civilization to my aid, and Paris—my joyful, laughing Paris. But it is the face of Eugene Mortain I see grimacing on the shoulders of the fat loquacious executioner who, at the foot of the gallows, in the flowers, was cleaning his saws and scalpels. These are the eyes, the mouth, the limp and pendant cheeks of Mme. G— I see bending over the wooden horses, and her rapacious hands I see touching and caressing the iron jaws, gorged with human flesh. On all those men and women I loved or thought I loved, little indifferent, frivolous souls, the indelible red stain now lies. And these are the judges, soldiers, and priests who everywhere, in the churches, barracks and temples of justice persist in the work of death. And it is in the individual man, and the man−crowd, and it is in the beast, the plant, the element; it is in all nature in fact which, urged on by the cosmic forces of love, rushes to murder, hoping thus to find beyond life satiation for the furious


desires of life which devour it and overflow it in jets of filthy scum! Just now I wondered who Clara was and whether she really existed. Does she exist! Why Clara! Clara is life, the actual presence of life and all of life! “Clara! Clara! Clara!” She does not reply, she does not budge, she does not turn around. A thicker blue and silver mist rises from the lawns and the pond and envelops the bushes, shrouding the gallows. And it seems to me that an odor of blood, an odor of the corpse rises with it—an incense that invisible censers, swung by invisible hands, offer to the deathless glory of death and to the everlasting glory of Clara! On the other bank of the pool, behind me, the gecko begins to sound the hours. Another gecko answers... then another... then, another, at regular intervals. They are like bells calling and conversing as they sing, festal bells of an extraordinarily pure timbre, crystalline and sweetly sonorous, so sweet they suddenly dissipate the nightmare shapes which haunt the garden and: give security to the silence, and the charm of a white dream to the night. These


notes, so clear, so inexpressibly clear, now evoke in me thousands and thousands of nocturnal landscapes, in which my lungs can breathe, and in which my thought quickens. In a few moments I have forgotten that I am beside Clara, that about me the soil and flowers actually are wet with blood, and I see myself wandering across the silvery night in the midst of the fantastic rice−fields of Annam. “Let's go home!” says Clara. This abrupt, aggressive, and weary voice recalls me to reality. Clara is before me. Her crossed legs are outlined beneath the clinging folds of her dress, and she leans on the handle of her parasol. In the twilight, her lips shine like a little light shielded by a pink shade, in a great closed room. As I do not stir, she speaks again: “Well, I'm waiting!” I try to take her arm but She refuses. “No... no. Let's walk side by side.” “The road is long from here to the river. Take my arm, I beg you.” “No... thank you. Be quiet; oh, be quiet!” “Clara! You are not the same.”


“If you want to please me, be quiet. I don't like to be spoken to at this time.” Her voice is dry, cutting and imperious. Now we are leaving. We cross the bridge, she first and I behind her, and we enter little alleys which meander across the lawns. Clara walks with abrupt steps, jerkily, and with difficulty. And such is the invulnerable beauty of her body that these efforts do not break its full, harmonious, and supple lines. Her hips retain a divinely voluptuous swing. Even when her mind is far from love, when it stiffens, writhes and protests against love, it is still love—all the forms, intoxication, and ardors of love which animate it and, so to speak, mould this predestined body. There is not an attitude about her, not a gesture, not a quiver, not a swish of her dress or a wave of her hair, which does not cry love, which does not ooze love, which does not shower love about her upon every being and on everything. The sand of the alley cries out beneath her little feet, and I hear the noise of the sand, like a cry of desire, like a kiss, in which I distinguish, clear and rhythmical, the name which is everywhere—which was in the creaking of the stake


and the death rattle of the dying men, and fills the twilight now with its exquisite, funereal murmur that fades and rises: “Clara! Clara! Clara!” The gecko is silent now, to hear that name more clearly. Everything is silent. The twilight is enchanting, infinitely sweet, and with a caressing coolness which intoxicates. We walk amid perfumes. We brush by marvelous flowers, more marvelous for being scarcely visible, which bow before us and greet us on our way, like mysterious fairies. Nothing remains of the horror of the garden; only its beauty remains, trembles and heightens as the night falls more and more deliciously about us. I feel recovered. It seems my fever is gone. My limbs become lighter, stronger, and more elastic. As I walk along, my fatigue vanishes, and I feel something like a violent need of love rising in me. I have caught up to Clara and I walk beside her... quite near her... excited by her. But Clara's face is no longer sinful, as when she was chewing the thalictrum blossom and passionately peppering her


lips with its bitter pollen. The frozen expression of her face belies all the sensuous ardor of her body. At least, as far as I can see, it really seems that the lust which trembled with so strange a flame in: her eyes and swooned upon her mouth, has disappeared, completely disappeared from her mouth and eyes, together with the bloody images of torture in the garden. In a trembling voice, I ask her: “You're angry at me, Clara? You detest me?” She replies in an irritable voice: “No! no! That's beside the point, my friend. I beg you, please be quiet. You don't know how much you fatigue me!” I insist: “Yes! yes! I can see you detest me... and it's frightful! I feel like weeping!” “God, you annoy me! Be quiet... and weep if it will give you any pleasure. But be quiet!” And as we pass the place where we stopped to talk to the old executioner, hoping by my stupid persistence to bring back a smile to Clara's dead lips, I say: “Do you remember the roly−poly, my love? How funny he was, with his gown covered with blood, and


his instrument−case, and his red fingers, darling... and his theories about the sex of flowers? Do you remember? Sometimes twenty males are required for; the delight of a single female.” This time a shrug of her shoulders is her reply. She does not even deign to be irritated by my words. Then, urged by crude desire, I clumsily try to embrace Clara, and with brutal hands I grasp her breasts. “I want you... here... you hear me?... in this garden... in this silence... at the foot of these gallows.” My voice is panting and a vile slaver flows from my mouth, and together with that slaver, abominable words... the words she loves! With a twist of the loins, Clara releases herself from my clumsy embrace, and in a voice, in which there is anger, irony and also lassitude and enervation: “God! how frightfully boring you are, if you only knew... and ridiculous, my poor friend! What a common goat you are! Leave me alone. In a little while, if you insist, you can work out your dirty desires on the harlots. You're really too ridiculous!”


Ridiculous! Yes, I feel ridiculous... and I become resigned to be quiet. I would not care to tumble into her silence again, like a heavy stone falling in a lake where swans are sleeping under the moon!


PART 10

The sampan, all illuminated with red lanterns, was waiting for us at the wharf of the bagnio. A Chinese woman with a coarse face, dressed in blouse and trousers of black silk, her arms bare and loaded with heavy gold bracelets, her ears hung with big gold hoops, was holding the hawser. Clara jumped into the bark, and I followed her. “Where do you want to go?” the Chinese woman asked in English. Clara answered in a jerky, trembling voice: “Anywhere you wish... it doesn't matter where... on the river. You know very well.” I noticed then that she was very pale. Her pinched nostrils, her drawn features, and her vague eyes expressed great suffering. The Chinese woman nodded her head vaguely at me. “Yes... yes, I know,” she said. Her thick lips were corroded by the betel−nut, and there was a bestial harshness in her glance. As she was still muttering words I did not understand: “Come, Ki−Pai,” commanded Clara in an abrupt


tone, “shut up, and do as I tell you. Besides, the gates of the city are closed.” “The gates of the garden are open—” “Do as I tell you.” Dropping the hawser, the Chinese woman grasped the sculling oar with a vigorous movement and handled it skillfully. We glided over the water. The night was very balmy. We breathed a warm but infinitely fragrant air. The water sang about the prow of the sampan, and the view on the river was like a great festival. On the opposite shore, and on our right and left, variegated lanterns lit up the masts, sails, and crowded decks of the boats. A strange murmur in the air—cries, chants, and music—came from them, as from a holiday crowd. The water was quite black, a dull, velvety black, with occasional dull, ripply gleams and no other bright lights than the shattered red and green reflections of the lanterns that illuminated the sampans with which the stream was literally jammed at this hour. Beyond a somber space in the dark sky, rising between the black masses of the trees, the city lay in the distance with its mounting terraces lit like


an immense red brazier, like a fiery mountain. As we went farther off we could make out, less distinctly, the high walls of the bagnio from which, at every round of the night watchmen, their swaying torches shot blinding triangles of light onto the stream and over the countryside. Clara had disappeared under the canopy which transformed this bark into a sort of cozy boudoir, lined with silk and breathing of love. Violent perfumes burned in a very ancient wrought−iron vase—a naive, synthetic image of an elephant whose four massive, barbaric feet rested on delicate interlacing roses. There were voluptuous prints on the hangings—boldly lustful scenes, executed strangely, cleverly, and magnificently. The frieze of the canopy, a precious piece in colored wood, exactly reproduced a fragment of that mural in the subterranean temple of Elephanta, which the archeologists, in accordance with Brahman traditions, modestly call: The Union of the Rooks. A broad deep mattress of embroidered silk occupied the center of the bark, and from the ceiling there hung a lantern with phallic inserts, a lantern partly


draped with orchids which shed the mysterious twilight of an alcove or a sanctuary over the interior of the sampan. Clara threw herself on the cushions. She was extraordinarily pale, and her body trembled, shaken by nervous spasms. I tried to take her hands, and they were icy. “Clara! Clara!” I implored, “what's the matter with you? What are you suffering from? Speak to me!” She replied in a raucous voice which issued painfully from her contracted throat: “Leave me alone. Don't touch me... don't talk to me. I'm sick.” Her pallor, her bloodless lips, and her rasping voice frightened me. I thought she was going to die. Terrified, I called the Chinese woman to my aid: “Quick! quick! Clara's dying! Clara's dying! Come quick!” But having parted the curtains and shown her chimera's face, Ki−Pai shrugged her shoulders and exclaimed brutally: “That's nothing. She's always like that when she comes back from down there.” And grumbling, she


returned to her oar. Under Ki−Pai's muscular exertions, the bark, lifted in the water, slid more rapidly over the stream. We crossed in front of sampans like our own, from whose canopies with their closed curtains there came songs, the sound of kisses, laughter, and the groans of love, which mingled with the lapping of the water and the distant, almost smothered reverberation of tom−toms and gongs. In a few minutes we had reached the other shore and for a long time glided by black, deserted hulks, and others lit and crowded; low dives, porter's teahouses, flower−boats for sailors and the riffraff of the port. Through portholes and lighted windows I caught fleeting scenes—strange painted faces, lewd dances, wild debauchery, faces of people under the influence of opium. Clara remained insensible to all that was taking place around her, both in the silken bark or on the stream. Her face was pressed into the pillow, and she chewed on it. I tried to make her breathe the smelling−salts. Three times she pushed the flask away with an exhausted, heavy gesture. Her throat bare, her breasts bursting the torn


material of her corsage, her legs tense and vibrant as the strings of a viol, she was breathing with difficulty. I didn't know what to do; I didn't know what to say. And I bent over her, with her agonizing soul, full of its tragic incertitudes and countless troubles. To reassure myself that it was really a passing crisis, that nothing in her had broken the springs of life, I grasped her wrist. Under my hand her pulse beat rapidly, light, and regular as the heart of a little bird or a little child. From time to time a sigh escaped her lips, a long and painful sigh which lifted and swelled her rosy breast. Trembling, I murmured in a low and very gentle voice: “Clara! Clara! Clara!” She did not hear me, did not see me, and her face was hidden in the pillow. Her hat had slipped from her hair whose red−gold, under the glow of the lantern, took on the tones of old mahogany, and projecting from her dress, her feet, clad in yellow leather, still were spotted here and there with bloody mud. “Clara! Clara! Clara!” Nothing but the song of the water and the distant


music and, between the curtains of the canopy, down there, the fiery mountain of the terrible city, and nearer, the red, green, alert, and sinuous reflections diving about in the black stream like slender, luminous eels. There was a slight shock, the Chinese woman called, and we drew up beside a sort of long terrace, the illuminated terrace of a flower−boat clamorous with music and excitement. Ki−Pai moored the bark to some iron hooks in front of a ladder whose red rungs dipped into the water. Two enormous, round lanterns gleamed on top of poles decked with fluttering yellow pennants. “Where are we?” I asked. “We are where she ordered me to bring you,” replied Ki−Pai in a surly tone of voice, “where she spends the night when she comes back from down there.” I suggested: “Wouldn't it be better to take her home, in her condition?” Ki−Pai replied: She's always like that after the bagnio. And then, the town is closed, and to get to the palace through


the gardens is too far now, and too dangerous.” And contemptuously, she added: “She's all right here. She's well known here.” I gave in. “Then help me,” I commanded, “and don't be rough with her.” Very gently, with infinite precaution, Ki−Pai and I took Clara in our arms, who offered no more resistance than a dead woman. Supporting her, or rather, carrying her, we got her out of the bark with difficulty, and helped her up the ladder. She was cold and heavy. Her head was thrown slightly back and her thick and sinuous hair, entirely undone, tumbled about her shoulders in fiery waves. Grasping Ki−Pai's coarse neck with a limp hand, and almost fainting, she uttered vague little moans and blurted out inarticulate little words, like a child. And panting slightly under my friend's weight, I groaned: “If only she doesn't die, my God! If only she doesn't die!” Ki−Pai sneered with her fierce mouth: “Die! She! There's no suffering in her body... only corruption!” We were received at the top of the ladder by two


women whose eyes were made up, and whose golden nakedness gleamed through the light, diaphanous veils which draped them. They had shameful jewels in their hair, jewels on their wrists and fingers, jewels on their ankles and bare feet, and their skin, rubbed with fine essences gave off scents of a garden. One of them clapped her hands joyfully: “Why it's our little friend!” she cried. “I told you she'd come, the darling. She always does. Quick... quick... lay her on the bed, the darling.” She indicated a sort of mattress, or rather litter, stretched out against the wall, and we laid Clara on it. She no longer moved. Under her frightfully open lids, only the whites of her eyes showed. Then the Chinese woman with the painted eyes bent over Clara, and in a deliciously rhythmic voice, as though she were singing, said: “Little, little friend of my breasts and my soul... how beautiful you are like that! You are as beautiful as a young girl dead. However, you are not dead. You are going to revive, little friend of my lips, revive under my caresses and the perfumes of my mouth.” She moistened Clara's forehead with a violent


perfume, and made her inhale the salts: “Yes, yes! dear little soul. You have fainted... and you cannot hear me! and you cannot feel my gentle fingers... but your heart beats, beats, beats. And love gallops in your veins like a young horse... love bounds in your veins like a young tiger.” She turned to me: “You must not be sad, because she has always fainted when she comes here. In a few minutes we'll cry with delight over her happy burning flesh.” And I stood there, inert, silent, my limbs leaden, my chest oppressed as in a nightmare. I had no further sensation of reality. All I had seen—mutilated visions rising from the surrounding shadows and the depths of the stream, then diving in again to reappear soon in fantastic shapes—terrified me. The long terrace hanging in the night, with its red−lacquered balustrades and slender columns supporting the bold slant of its roof, its garlands of lanterns alternating with garlands of flowers, was filled with a chattering, stirring and extraordinarily colorful crowd. A hundred painted glances fastened upon us, a hundred painted−mouths whispered


words I could not hear, but in which I seemed to hear Clara's name ceaselessly repeated perhaps only in my mind: “Clara! Clara! Clara!” And naked bodies, clasped bodies, tattooed arms loaded with gold bracelets, bellies and breasts, all twisted under their diaphanous, flying scarves. And in all this, around all this, above all this, there rose cries, laughter, songs, the notes of a flute, odors of tea and precious woods, the powerful aroma of opium, and breaths heavy with perfume. The intoxication of dream, debauch, torture and crime—all these hands, mouths, breasts, and all this living flesh came hurling upon Clara, to possess her dead flesh! I could not make a move or utter a word. At my side a very young and pretty Chinese girl, almost a child, with eyes both candid and provocative, was hawking strangely indelicate objects in a basket—shameless ivories, rose−colored rubber verges and illustrated books in which the thousand complicated joys of love were painted. “Love! love! who wants love? I have love for


everyone!” However I bent over Clara... “You must bring her to my room,” commanded the Chinese girl with painted eyes. Two powerful men lifted the litter, and mechanically, I followed them. Guided by the courtesan, they went through a wide corridor, sumptuous as a temple. On the right and left, doors opened upon great rooms spread with mats and lit by soft pink lights draped with muslin. Presiding over the thresholds, symbolic animals thrust out enormous and terrible organs, hermaphroditic divinities gave themselves to each other or straddled impassioned monsters. And perfumes burned in precious bronze vases. A silk portiere embroidered with peach blossoms parted and two women's heads were thrust through the opening. Watching us pass by, one of these women said: “Who's dead?” The other replied: “No! No one's dead. Can't you see it's the woman from the Torture Garden.” And Clara's name, whispered from mouth to mouth, from bed to bed, and room to room, soon filled the flower−boat like some monstrous jest. It even seemed to me that the


metal monsters repeated it in their ecstasy, howling it in their delirium of bloody passion. “Clara! Clara! Clara!” Here, I caught a glimpse of a young man stretched out on a bed. A little opium−lamp was burning within reach of his hand. In his strangely dilated eyes there was something like an agonizing ecstasy. Before him, mouth to mouth, and body to body, naked women clasping each other danced sacred dances while musicians, crouched behind a screen, blew into short flutes. There, seated in a circle or lying on the floor−mat in dissolute poses, their debauched faces sadder than the faces of the tortured, other women were waiting. At each door we passed there was moaning—panting voices, gestures of the damned, crushed and twisted bodies—a grimacing anguish sometimes howling under the lash of fierce passions and barbaric abuse. Guarding the entrance to one door, I saw a bronze group the mere arabesque of whose lines made me shudder with horror. An octopus, embracing the body of a virgin with its tentacles, was amorously crushing her. And I felt I was in a place of torture, not a house


of joy and love. The jam in the corridor became so great that for several seconds we were obliged to halt in the threshold of a room—the largest of them all—which differed from the others by its decorations and its sinister red lighting. At first, I only saw the women—a tangle of furious flesh and living scarves—women abandoning themselves to frantic dances and demoniac possession, around a sort of idol whose massive bronze, of a very ancient patina, rose in the center of the room and towered to the ceiling. Then the idol itself became clear, and I recognized it as that terrible idol known as the Idol of the Seven Verges. Three heads armed with red horns, coiffed with hair in twisted flames, crowned a single body, or rather a single belly, based on an enormous, pagan and phallic−form pillar. All around this pillar, at the exact point the monstrous belly ended, seven bronze verges thrust forth, to which the dancing women offered flowers and furious caresses. And the red glow of the room gave diabolic life to the jade balls which served as the Idol's eyes. At the moment we started again I witnessed a frightful spectacle whose


infernal, shuddering horror it is impossible for me to describe. Shouting and howling, seven women suddenly hurled themselves upon the seven bronzes. The Idol, embraced by all this raving flesh, vibrated under the multiple shocks of this possession and the kisses which rang out like the blows of a battering ram on the iron gates of a besieged city. Then there was a maddened clamor about the Idol, an insanity of savage abandon, a storm of bodies so frantically clasped and welded to each other that they assumed the fierce appearance of a massacre, resembling the carnage of those condemned men in their iron cages fighting over Clara's scrap of putrid meat! In that atrocious second I understood that desire can attain the darkest human terror and give an actual idea of hell and its horror. And it seemed to me that all these shocks, all these panting voices, all these groans, all these bites and the Idol itself, had only one word—a single word—to express and belch their rage of insatiability and the torture of their impotence: “Clara!” When we had reached the room and deposited


Clara, still unconscious, on a bed, I once more became aware of myself and where I was. These chants, debauches, sacrifices, devitalizing perfumes and impure contacts which further soiled the sleeping soul of my friend, flooded me with an overwhelming shame even more powerful than my horror. I had great difficulty in chasing away the curious and talkative women who had followed us, not only from the bed on which we had laid Clara, but even from the room where I wanted to be alone with her. I retained only Ki−Pai who, despite her surly airs and coarse remarks, revealed herself to be very devoted to her mistress and displayed great delicacy and tender skill in the care she took of her. Clara's pulse still beat with the same reassuring regularity as though she had been in robust health. Life had not for a moment left this flesh which seemed forever dead. And both Ki−Pai and I were eager for her recovery. Suddenly she began to moan; the muscles of her face contracted, and light nervous spasms shook her throat, her arms and legs. Ki−Pai said: “She will have a terrible crisis. You'll have to hold


her firmly and take good care she doesn't claw her face and tear out her hair with her nails.” I thought she could hear me, and that, knowing me there beside her, the crisis Ki−Pai had predicted would be moderated. I murmured in her ear, attempting to put in my words all the caress of my voice, all the affection of my heart and also all the compassion—ah yes!—all the compassion in the world. “Clara! Clara! It's I. Look at me... listen to me.” But Ki−Pai stopped my mouth. “Be quiet!” she said imperiously. “How can you expect her to hear us? She's still with the evil genii.” Then Clara began to struggle. All her muscles tightened, swelled and contracted frightfully... her articulations cracked, like the joints of a boat disabled in a storm. An expression of horrible suffering, all the more horrible for being silent, masked her face, contorted like the faces of the tortured men under the bell in the garden. Between her half−closed, twitching lids, only a slender bluish trace of her eyes showed. A little froth foamed at her lips. And, breathlessly, I groaned: “My God! my God!


Is it possible? What's going to happen?” Ki−Pai commanded me: “Hold her down... but leave her body free... for the demons must leave her body.” And she added: “It's the end. In a moment she will begin to cry.” We held her wrists, to prevent her from belaboring her face with her nails. And she had such strength I thought she would crush our hands. In a last convulsion her body was arched from her heels to her neck and taut skin quivered. Then, little by little the crisis abated. Her muscles relaxed, and she fell back exhausted on the bed, her eyes full of tears. For several moments she wept and wept. Tears flowed from her eyes, silently and ceaselessly, as from a spring! “It's over,” said Ki−Pai. “You may talk to her.” Her hand was now soft, moist, and burning in my own. Her eyes, still vague and distant, sought to recapture a consciousness of objects and shapes about her. She seemed to be returning from a long and agonizing sleep. “Clara! my little Clara!” I murmured. For a long time she looked at me through her tears with a sad,


hazy look. “You,” she said. “You... ah, yes.” And her voice was like a whisper. “It's I, it's I! Clara. Here I am. Do you recognize me?” She gave a sort of little hiccough, a little sob. And she stammered. “Oh, my darling! my darling! my poor darling!” Resting her head against mine, she begged me: “Don't move. I'm all right like this... I'm pure like this... I'm all white... all white... like an anemone!” I asked her if she was still suffering. “No, no! I'm not suffering... and I'm happy to be here by you, quite little, beside you... quite little, quite little... and all white, white as those little swallows in the Chinese tales... you know... those little swallows.” With great difficulty, she uttered only little words... little words of purity and whiteness. On her lips there were only little flowers, little birds, little stars, little springs... and souls and wings, and heaven... heaven... heaven. Then, interrupting her babbling from time to time, she pressed my hand more strongly and rested, nestling her head against


mine and saying more forcibly: “Oh, my darling! never again, I swear to you! Never again, never again... never again!” Ki−Pai had retired to the corner of the room, and in a low voice was singing a song, one of those songs which put little children to sleep and cradle them in their sleep. “Never again... never again... never again!” repeated Clara, in a slow voice which was lost and melted into the slower and slower song Ki−Pai was singing. And she fell asleep against me, with a calm, clear, and deep sleep—deep as a great, gentle lake under a summer night's moon. Ki−Pai got up gently, noiselessly. “I'm going,” she said. “I'm going to sleep in the sampan. Tomorrow morning, when dawn comes, you will bring my mistress back to the palace. And it will begin all over again! It will always begin all over again!” “Don't say that, Ki−Pai,” I begged. “Just look at her sleeping against me, look at her sleeping so calm and pure a sleep, against me.” The Chinese nodded her grimacing head, and with sad eyes, in


which pity had replaced disgust, she murmured: “I see her sleeping against you, and I tell you.—In eight days I'll accompany you both like this evening, on the river, coming from the Torture Garden. And after eight more years I'll accompany you the same way on the river, if you haven't gone away—and if I'm not dead!” She added: “And if I am dead, some one else will accompany you with my mistress, on the river. And if you have gone away, some one else will accompany my mistress on the river. And nothing will be changed.” “Ki−Pai! Ki−Pai! Why do you say that? Look at her sleeping again. You don't know what you're saying!” “Hush!” she said, placing her finger against her mouth. “Don't talk so loud. Don't move so much. Don't wake her up. At least, when she's asleep she can do no evil, either to others or herself.” Walking carefully on tiptoe, like a nurse, she went to the door and opened it. “Get out! Get out!” It was the voice of Ki−Pai, imperious among the buzzing voices of the women. And I could see nothing but painted eyes, painted


faces, red mouths, tattooed breasts... and I heard the cries and the moans, the dances, sounds of flutes, the resonance of metal, and that name which ran and panted from mouth to mouth and shook the whole flower−boat like a spasm of love. “Clara! Clara! Clara!” The door closed, the noises were muffled, and the faces disappeared. And I was alone in the room where two lamps burned, draped with pink crepe... alone with Clara who was asleep and from time to time, repeated in her sleep, like a little dreaming child: “Never again! Never again!” And as though to belie those words, a bronze which I had not yet noticed, a fiercely sneering bronze ape crouching in the corner of the room extended towards Clara a monstrous phallus. Ah, if only she might never awake! “Clara! Clara! Clara!” 

Dearest Sylvia

We arrived here early this morning after a most melancholy journey. Time alone can remove the painful impressions which the appearance of poor Henry created as we parted. Never shall I forget the picture of despair he exhibited. Do all you can to comfort him, tell him although I obey my mother's and my uncle's wishes, still my heart in every clime will be true to him. Poor Eliza did everything in her power on the road to this place to amuse my wounded feelings, but it was beyond the extent of her artless sophistry to remove the weight that pressed upon my heart. Oh, Sylvia! how cruel is the sacrifice exacted in our obedience to our parents; how happy had I been if this uncle of mine had never existed! My mother, my friend, my lover—all, all I hold dear—sacrificed to the prospect of possessing this uncle's wealth. Heaven knows how fondly I dwelt upon the hopes of shortly becoming the happy wife of your brother, you may guess (but I pray that you may never feel) the anguish caused by such a separation. But it is decided. I can now only supplicate heaven for a speedy return. On our arrival we found the captain of the Indiaman anxiously expecting us. The wind having been fair for some hours, if we had not appeared as we did, he would have sailed without us; truly happy should I have been if he had; and if I had known that a trifling delay on the road would have prevented our departure, I most certainly would have created it.

Adieu, my dear Sylvia, a long adieu. The boat waits to convey us on board at the Momerbank, as the captain calls it Farewell, Sylvia, comfort poor Henry, when I think of him I feel what it is impossible to describe.

Your unhappy friend,

EMILY BARLOW


LETTER 2

Ali, Dey of Algiers, to Muzra, Dey of Tunis

20 September 1814.

Muzra, thy friend greets thee, with thanks for thy late present. I allude to the Grecian maid (for so she was) you sent me with the treasure. The bearer of this dispatch has the care of a pair of beautiful stallions which I lately captured from a tribe of Askulites; they made an inroad into a part of my territories from the desert, but I came upon them by surprise, and properly chastised their presumption: not more than a hundred escaped out of two thousand; indeed I was in no humour to spare them, they having disturbed me in a scene of pleasure, for which mere could be no pardon, but more of this hereafter. The Grecian slave, I rejoice to say again, I found a pure maid; her virginity I sacrificed on the Beiram feast of our Holy Prophet. To cull her sweet flower, I was obliged to infuse an opiate in her coffee. Again, and again, I thank you for the present—her beauties are indeed luxurious; in her soft embraces I find a sure solace from my anxieties of state, but how strange it is, Muzra, that these slaves, whose destinies depend on our will, rarely give that fervent return to our pleasure so absolutely necessary to the full voluptuous energy of enjoyment. It is true nature will always exert its power over the softer sex, and they frequently give way to its excitement, but the pleasure they experience is merely animal. Thus it is with Zena (so I have named your present): even in the height of our ecstasies, a cloud seems to hang on her beauteous countenance, clearly indicating that it is nature, not love, that creates her transport. This knowledge considerably diminishes the enjoyment her beauties afford me, yet still she has become extremely necessary to my pleasures. Although the novelty of her charms has gone by, the certainty of having cropped her virgin rose has created a lasting interest in my bosom, which the dissolving lustre and modest, bashful expression of her eyes daily increases—indeed her charms frequently entice me from the arms of another beauty, whom I may say for these last two months I have continually enjoyed without me least abatement of my ardour—on the contrary, my appetite seems to increase by what I feed on. It is true when I think of the pensive charms of Zena I devote a few hours to her arms, but she only acts like the whetstone to the knife, and sends me back to the embraces of my English slave with redoubled vigour and zest. In my next dispatch I will give you an account of my becoming possessed of this girl, who has so enchanted thy friend's desires. May our Prophet have thee in his holy keeping.

ALI


LETTER 3

Sylvia Carey to Emily Barlow

London, 19 June

Fare thee well, dear Emily, and a safe voyage is the nightly prayer of your now lonely friend. I received your letter of yesterday, and hope you will receive this before you sail. Poor Henry has only been once out of his room since your departure. I will not shock you with an account of his wretchedness, but be assured nothing will be left undone to relieve his sufferings, though I tremble for the result; your mother saw him today, she was much shocked at his dejection; but I trust time will do much, and that you may yet be happy in the possession of each other. The providence that separates may again join. It is useless to despond. Take every opportunity of writing to us, by every ship you meet on your passage! God bless you.

SYLVIA CAREY

(This letter Emily never received, the ship having sailed before it arrived at Portsmouth.)


LETTER 4

Emily Barlow to Sylvia Carey

Algiers, 24 July 1814

Dearest Sylvia—I think I see the expression of surprise you experience on perceiving my letter dated from this place. Oh, God, Sylvia, to what a wretched fate has the intended kindness of my uncle devoted your miserable unfortunate friend. Pity me, Sylvia; pity my wretchedness. You have no doubt heard of the cruel treatment experienced by females who are unfortunate enough to fall into the power of these barbarous Turks, particularly those who have any pretensions to beauty; but it is utterly impossible for you, Sylvia, to conjecture anything like my sufferings since we parted. I shudder with agony when I look back to what I have been forced to undergo. Pity me, my dear friend. My tears blot out the words nearly as quick as I write them. Oh God, Sylvia, I have no longer any claim to chastity. Surely never was poor maid so unfeelingly deprived of her virtue. The very day the accursed pirate brought me to this place did the Dey, with cruel force, in spite of my entreaties, deprive me of my virginity. In vain I resisted with all the strength nature had bestowed on me. It was no use. In vain I made the harem resound with my cries but no help or assistance came to succour your poor friend; at length, wearied out by struggling in defence of my innocence, my strength at last completely failed me, and my powerful ravisher unrelentingly completed my undoing. Oh, Sylvia, your poor friend is now the polluted concubine of this most worthless Turk.

You no doubt are anxious to hear how I came into his power. The story of my ruin is short. The day after I wrote to you from Portsmouth we sailed down the English Channel with most delightful weather, but in losing sight of land I became extremely seasick, so much so that I could not even crawl upon deck. In this state I continued about three weeks. One day I heard a most unusual noise upon deck, and when I sent Eliza to learn the cause of it, a mate told her that the ship was likely to be attacked by Moorish pirates. You may easily guess our terror at this information, which turned out to be all too true, for shortly the discharge of guns with the shouts of the combatants informed us the work of destruction was begun. The firing continued a considerable time without intermission, and when the discharge of our guns was discontinued, the uproar, cries and groans on the deck became too horrid to describe, or to last long. On a sudden everything became quiet, but a rush we heard coming towards the cabin too surely warned us of our approaching captivity. In an instant the door was burst open, and in rushed a crowd of armed Turks covered with blood. Unable longer to sustain the various emotions with which for the last two hours I had been agitated, and still suffering from the remains of my sickness, I fainted in the arms of Eliza. On recovering my senses I found myself in my berth attended by Eliza, from whom I learned we had been captured by an Algerine corsair, who had ordered every attention to be paid me, and she believed the corsair was making for the Straits of Gibraltar.

In short, about a week after passing Gibraltar, the firing of a salute announced we were under the walls of Algiers; during the passage to this place I was not troubled with any visit from the captain, but immediately the vessel was safely anchored, he came to the cabin, and ordered us in good English to get ourselves ready to go ashore in the course of half an hour. Hearing him speak English so well, I took this opportunity of enquiring what his intentions were respecting us, but was struck speechless by his answering that his intention was to make a present of us to the Dey! He added he thought I was particularly worthy of that honour. So profound was my horror at this information, that I in vain essayed for several minutes to speak, and had I not found relief in a flood of tears, most certainly my emotions would have been fatal to me. The brute of a captain observed my tears and coolly remarked, 'Oh! oh! waterworks! Ah! ah!' he continued, laughing aloud, 'if you should happen to be a maid, the Dey will make you cry in another way I guess.' He then returned to the deck. I have since learned that this barbarian is an English renegade.

Poor Eliza appeared as much overcome as myself, for in point of personal attractions few girls could be more well endowed. A strong presentiment of my approaching fate had taken forcible possession of my mind. All Eliza could do or say, brought no relief to my apprehensions. The expiration of this time again brought the captain to the cabin, who, covering us with thick veils, conducted us both on deck. In a few minutes we entered the Watergate of the Dey's harem. It was about half-past six o'clock in the evening of the 12th of this month that I entered this palace, so fatal to my modesty. I had scarcely been in it half an hour ere my virtue received so severe an insult that the complete loss of chastity only could exceed what I suffered. In less than five hours the cruel Dey had thoroughly deprived me of every claim to virginity. But you shall know all, just as it happened. Directly we were in the harem we were rather dragged than led into a most sumptuous chamber, at the far end of which sat the Dey, apparently about forty-five years of age, smoking a peculiar kind of pipe. The captain immediately prostrated himself, and spoke to him in the Turkish language, pointing at the same time to me and Eliza. The Dey surveyed us for a few moments without rising. He then said something to the captain, who rose from his prostrate position, took Eliza by the hand, and led her out of the room. I was about to follow, but was ordered by the captain to remain. Trembling with terror I was forced to obey.

No sooner were the captain and Eliza withdrawn than the Dey rose from the couch, walked leisurely towards me, and laid hold of my hand, which trembled in his grasp. After considering a few moments, he chucked me under the chin and said in good English that Mahomet had been kind in blessing him with so fair a slave as myself. I was not much surprised to hear the Dey speak English, the captain having spoken it so well, but the terror his address gave me cannot be described, and indeed good reason I had for my apprehensions. Directly he had spoken, he began leading me towards the couch, but I instantaneously drew back, on which without further ceremony he caught me around the waist and in spite of the resistance I made, forced me to it; then, seating himself, he drew me to him and forced me to seat myself upon his knees. If it had been in my power to resist, the excess of my confusion alone would have prevented my throwing any effectual obstacle in the way of his proceedings. Directly he had got me thus he threw one of his arms round my neck, and drew my lips to his, closing my mouth with his audacious kisses. Whilst his lips were as it were glued to mine, he forced his tongue into my mouth in a manner which created a sensation it is quite impossible to describe. It was the first liberty of the kind I ever sustained.

You may guess the shock it at first gave me, but you will scarcely credit it when I own that my indignation was not of long continuance. Nature, too powerful nature, had become aroused and assisted his lascivious proceedings, conveying his kisses, brutal as they were, to the inmost recesses of my heart On a sudden, new and wild sensations blended with my shame and rage, which exerted themselves but faintly; in fact, Sylvia, in a few short moments his kisses and his tongue threw my senses into a complete tumult and an unknown fire rushed through every part of me, hurried on by a strange pleasure. All my loud cries dwindled into gentle sighs, and in spite of my inward rage and grief, I could not resist; wanting strength for self-defence, I could only bewail my situation. I told you he had me on his knees, with one of his arms round my neck. Finding how little I resisted, and having me thus with our lips closely joined, his other hand he suddenly thrust under my petticoats. Incensed by this vital insult, I strove to break from his arms, but it was of no use. He held me firm, my cries and reproaches he heeded not! If by my struggles I contrived to free my lips, they were quickly regained again; thus with his hand and his lips he kept me in the greatest disorder, whilst in proportion as it increased I felt my fury and strength diminish. At last a dizzy sensation seized on every sense. I felt his hand rapidly divide my thighs, and quickly one of his fingers penetrated that place which, God knows, no male hand had ever before touched. If anything was wanting to complete my confusion, it was the thrilling sensation I felt, caused by the touches of his finger. What a dreadful moment was this for my virtue! with all the highest notions of the charms of that dear innocence which I was doomed to be so soon deprived of, dreading even in my soul's disorder nothing so much as losing it, how strange then it was that pleasure should not be overcome by such fears. Why did they not instantly snatch me from the pleasure? I wished some help would come to save me from the danger, but I no sooner formed the wish than a kiss and his finger created a contrary emotion, and each following kiss grew more and more pleasing, till at last I almost wished nothing might oppose my absolute defeat. In blushing at what I felt, I blush to write, I longed to feel more. Without an idea what that which I panted for could be, I eagerly awaited the instruction, until the impetuous ardour began to be too powerful for the senses.

Finding that I made no attempt to withdraw my lips from his thrilling pressure, his arm which was around my neck he removed to my waist, thus drawing me more strongly to his bosom; his right arm became closely confined between his body and mine, my hand being placed and held firmly between his thighs. Whilst in this position, I felt something beneath his clothes gradually enlarging and moving against my hand; from the length I felt it against my arm, I judged it to be very long and thick also. If I had wished to remove my hand from its position I could not; and so wonderful was the fascination I felt from the mere touch of this unknown object, I think I could not have removed my hand had it been perfectly at liberty. Without knowing what it was, every throb created in me a tremor unaccountable. I little dreamed the dreadful anguish I was doomed to experience by that which my hand was warming and raising to life.

By this time the Dey had satisfied himself of my being a virgin. Sunk though I was in sensual lethargy, I had not been able to silence an unfortunate monitor within my breast who, though hitherto unsuccessful, was yet reproaching me for my weakness. The Dey, fully perceiving the impression he had made, resolved to take immediate advantage of it. But how shall I describe what I still blush to think of, but it must be done. He withdrew his hand from between my thighs, forced me on my back on the couch, and in an instant turned up my clothes above my navel. Thus all my secret charms became exposed to his view. Exhausted as I was and lost in desire, I could make no further resistance. His hands quickly divided my thighs and he got between them. During my struggles my neckerchief had become loose and disordered. He now entirely removed it, leaving my neck and breast quite bare.

Although I could scarcely keep my eyes open from the tumult of my senses, still I could not help observing as he was on his knees between my thighs that he was divesting himself of his lower garments. For the first time in my life I caught a view of that terrible instrument, that fatal foe to virginity. With unutterable sensations I felt his naked glowing body join mine, again my lips were glued to his, softening me to ruin with his inflamed suctions. In a delirium little short of pleasure, panting with desire, I waited my coming fate. (I really think if at this moment he had completed my seduction, I should not have regretted my loss of virtue; but no, it was decreed that on being deprived of my innocence I should be entirely free of all those soft desires he had so powerfully excited, and that I should suffer during my defloration every anguish a maid can feel, personal as well as mental. But to my unfortunate tale.) The Dey had properly fixed himself to do that which I ought but certainly at that moment did not dread. No, even as his daring hand fixed the head of his terrible instrument where his lascivious fingers had so potently assisted in reducing me to my then passive state, I own I felt it even with pleasure stiffly distending my until that moment untouched modesty. But on the very instant when I had willingly resigned everything to what I then considered my fixed destiny, his eyes, whose lustre and expression I could scarcely sustain of, on a sudden were filled with languor. He seemed as it were abashed, and kissing me with less violence, he grew by degrees even weaker than myself. Suddenly I felt my thighs overflowed by something warm that spurted in torrents from his instrument. At last he sank in my arms in a kind of trance.

The Day's weakness continuing, my confusion began to dissipate so much that by making an effort I found no difficulty in disengaging myself from his arms. I got off the couch. As I grew composed and capable of recollection, the more I became sensible of my shame, together with the dreadful shock my modesty had experienced. A melancholy seized me. I shuddered at what I was likely to encounter judging by what I had already experienced. However, I returned thanks to heaven for my present escape. By this time I had adjusted my dress and the Dey had done the same thing and, coming up to me, he again placed his arm around my waist. Hardly recovered from my first confusion, I trembled for fear the same scene was again commencing, but fortunately I was deceived. He only kissed my cheek in a manner which had nothing displeasing in it, and said, as well as I can recollect, 'Lovely Christian, it is not the pleasure of our Holy prophet that I should at present be indulged in the enjoyment of your beauties, but when I return from a journey I am about to make, I shall no doubt be able to do justice to your charms. Until my return I shall order everything for your pleasure and amusement. But come,' he continued, 'I will conduct you to the apartment I intend you shall occupy.' I now summoned up courage to address him, although I could scarcely look in his face. I told him my exact situation, of my affection for Henry, that no doubt my uncle would pay a very high ransom if I was released without any further attempts against my virtue. This I threw out to tempt his cupidity, supposing, as I always understood the Algerines to be a most rapacious set of men, the hopes of gaining a large sum would induce him to spare me. He listened very patiently to all I advanced. Encouraged by his attention, I proceeded to add entreaties and supplications supported by tears, but on a sudden he drew me to his bosom and kissed away my tears, replying in these decisive words—'It cannot be; it is in vain you plead; your fate is fixed. I would not part with you for all the treasure of the combined world, let alone what one individual could produce. Do not indulge yourself, lovely one, with any vain hopes of ransom, for if the Commander of the Faithful was to order it, I would not part with you. The delicious odour of your virgin flower is reserved for my enjoyment In a few days I shall return, and then, lovely houri, you must resign yourself without reluctance or coyness to my fierce desires, and in return I will teach you such sweet pleasure that you will soon cease to regret having been thrown in my power. How could you for a moment imagine I should be foolish enough to resign beauties such as yours to the arms of a rival, too? to let a favoured Christian pluck your maiden rose. No, sweet virgin, the soft pleasure is surely reserved for me,' and he drew my lips to his; 'it is I that am doomed to cull the flower. To me belongs the delightful task of transforming you into a finished woman, and cropping that delicate treasure, so much sought after, but so seldom found.' My heart entirely failed me at the decided refusal, and he led me trembling to the apartments I was to occupy. They consisted of a suite of three rooms, situated at the end of a long gallery. As we entered he explained to me the use of each room.

The first was the general apartment for eating or receiving company in, the second for dressing, whilst the third and innermost one was the bedroom; this last could be approached only through the other two rooms—at least so it appeared to me. In the bedroom were three large windows. On examination I found them to look out to the sea, which was beating the walls underneath at a great depth. There was no possibility of any approach or escape on that side. Whilst I was gazing at the shipping in the harbour, the Dey seized my hand and gently drew me towards the bed, which was in one of the corners of the room, made of large velvet cushions in the most magnificent style, after the Eastern fashion. The two sides of the wall which formed the angle in which the bed was placed were entirely covered with looking-glass, as was the ceiling above. A sudden trembling seized me on viewing the fatal bed, which the Dey observing, he took me in his arms and kissing me said, 'On my return I shall soon release you from all these tremblings and fear.' He kept his word, but it was much sooner than I expected or than he promised. After he had pointed out all the conveniences of the room, together with their several uses, he gave me a key, informing me it was the key of my sleeping apartment. He then took me in his arms, covering my lips and neck with kisses, and bid me to expect his return in a week, by which time, he said, he had no doubt of my entire submission to his desires. The way these intimations were given was so peculiar and new to me, combining so much of me authority of a master, that it was entirely out of my power to make any reply, and he left me. The first thing I did when he was gone was to inspect me door of the bedroom. To my great joy I found the lock was on the inside and the key being in my possession I felt comparatively safe.

I next examined the room most attentively, and after a strict searching felt convinced there was no other entrance but the door, it being entirely impossible for anyone to approach by the windows. I was much relieved in mind after this inspection.

Just as I had finished my examination, in came four female slaves whom the Dey had appointed to attend me. One of them spoke English. I enquired of her if I could have Eliza, but was informed me Dey considered her too handsome to be an attendant. At present she was considered one of his mistresses, and would remain so if she was found worthy of that honour by being still a maid. This information caused me to sigh for poor Eliza. The slaves now brought all kinds of refreshments, of which I stood much in need.

After dinner I retired to the bedroom, and seated myself on a couch in one of the recesses of the windows; the prospect was beautiful; the sun had just sunk on me western horizon behind the white terraces of the city but still there was sufficient light to discern everything going on in the harbour, and on the mole—indeed the scene was delightful; for a few moments my unfortunate state was forgotten. I was disturbed by the slave who spoke English bringing in a parcel of English books, with a silver bell to ring should I want anything. Whilst she was in the room a discharge of guns took place from the castle and batteries, and she informed me that whenever the Dey left or returned to the city he was always saluted in that way. She further added he was not expected to return for a fortnight. Feeling assured I should not be troubled by the Dey for some time, and finding myself much overcome from what I had undergone, I rang for lights, determined to retire to bed. Directly they understood my intentions, the slaves came round me for the purpose of undressing me, but I commanded them to retire, which they did, after placing everything for my service. I then locked the door, determined on again searching the room; still finding nothing to create any fear, I proceeded to undress myself, but at the very moment I had taken off my chemise, preparatory to putting on night linen, you may guess my terror on hearing a noise by the side of the bed. Ere I could have turned my head I found myself in the arms of the Dey, who was as naked as myself. Oh, God! you cannot imagine my terror and despair at this moment. You see how I was lulled into security that I might become an easy victim. I felt assured the Dey had left Algiers—the firing of the guns, the slave's account, was all trumped up to lull me to my ruin, all invented to throw me off my guard; in short, he allowed me no time for reflection. Defenceless and naked in his arms, I was carried to the bed and thrown down on it. My shrieks must have been heard through the palace but no help was nigh to prevent my ruin. What could a feeble maid like myself effect against so powerful an antagonist? nothing—for in less time than it takes to write it, he forcibly extended my thighs and placed himself between them. Oh, God! even now, when it is all over, and recompensed as I have most certainly been for my sufferings, I tremble at the bare recollection of the dreadful anguish I suffered when he reduced my chastity to a bleeding ruin. I soon found it was useless to struggle or resist, I was a mere child in his arms; as to strength, he moved and placed me just as was convenient to his pleasure. I quickly felt his finger again introducing the head of that terrible engine I had before felt, and which now felt like a pillar of ivory entering me.

Directly he had secured its head within me, he withdrew his hand, placed his arm round my neck, and drew my lips to his. At this moment I was nearly insensible to everything he did, so much were my feelings overcome by fear and shame. But I was not doomed to remain long in this state, for I quickly felt him forcing his way into me, with a fury that caused me to scream with anguish. My petitions, supplications and tears were of no use. I was on the altar, and, butcher-like, he was determined to complete the sacrifice; indeed, my cries seemed only to excite him to the finishing of my ruin, and sucking my lips and breasts with fury, he unrelentingly rooted up all obstacles my virginity offered, tearing and cutting me to pieces, until the complete junction of our bodies announced that the whole of his terrible shaft was buried within me. I could bear the dreadful torment no longer: uttering a piercing cry I sank insensible in the arms of my cruel ravisher. How long I continued in this happy state of insensibility, I know not, but I was brought back to life feeling the same thrilling agony which caused my fainting. Still grasped in his arms, I felt him moving up and down upon me with a force and energy that made me feel every motion of the instrument which I was impaled upon like the cutting of a knife. Every thrust he made was followed by some ejaculation, such as, 'Delicious creature, how tight she is! Holy Mahomet, I thank you. Oh! Ah! who would be without it. There sweet infidel,' as he drove himself up to the hilt in me, with many other words in the Turkish language which I did not understand, until the fury of his thrusts became so cruelly savage that I a second time fainted.

Stretched beyond bearing, as I may say I was, by the instrument of my martyrdom before my second fainting, I now in spite of my suffering could not help being considerably surprised at the very great alteration I experienced, although I most sensibly felt it, but still it had lost most of that fierce stiffness with which it first tore me to pieces. Whilst my mind was thus occupied with reflections on this novel change, my astonishment was augmented by feeling it as it were, by degrees, assuming all its former strength and erection within me, while the Dey was amusing himself with sucking my lips, me nipples of my breasts, and arranging my hair over my shoulders and bosom, in various ways to please his fancy, also moving my face into different positions, as he said, to see which way it appeared the most lovely—until the return of the same cruel distention of the parts painfully informed me his instrument had recovered its fierce condition. The Dey now withdrew it all but the head, which he left between the lips of the sheath, which it had so lately formed for itself, and having with his hand satisfied himself as to its strength for performing the third assault, he withdrew his hand and keeping me firmly to his bosom, at one tremendous thrust drove it up into me, distending the tender, wounded and torn parts, until the mutual mixture of our hair stopped his further progress. He now lay for some time quiet in my arms, to all appearance from his various exclamations swimming in a sea of pleasure, sucking my breast and neck, until they became quite sore; all the time I lay gasping and stretched beyond bearing. Soon again I felt me commencement of his dreadful thrusts—at first, to be sure, they were not quite so fierce; but as his feelings were excited by enjoyment, so did the fury of his movements increase. I could not restrain my cries, and just at the moment his lunges were creating an anguish intolerable, a loud knocking at his door caused the Dey to jump from my arms. So dreadful was the anguish from the sudden way in which the cause of my suffering was withdrawn from me, that I again fainted. When I recovered, I found myself tying in the arms of the Dey, who was anxiously watching over me. He then informed me that the disturbance which had forced him so precipitately to leave my embraces was occasioned by one of his eunuchs coming to inform him of a sudden invasion of part of his territories by some Arabs which rendered it necessary he should immediately proceed to join his troops; but he swore by his Prophet severely to chastise them for disturbing him in a scene of pleasure so truly delicious—so he termed my ruin and shame. After kissing me over and over again, and bestowing various other caresses, he arose and retired through a sliding panel by the bedside, leaving me in the theatre of my undoing overpowered with anguish, more dead than alive. My sufferings, weakness and agitation soon threw me into slumber, in which my ruin and misery were for a time forgotten. Dreadful, indeed, were my sufferings in being deflowered. Never was poor maid so unceremoniously debauched, nor is it possible for anyone to suffer more cruel anguish than I did, in receiving my first lesson from this powerful Turk.

I did not awake from the refreshing sleep I so soundly fell into until late next morning. Upon attempting to rise, I found I was unable, from the dreadful stiffness of the parts that had been so terribly and unmercifully stretched. Unable to rise, I was obliged to remain in the scene of my undoing until the slaves came to awake me. With their assistance I got out of bed. Had you seen the sheets, you would indeed have pitied your poor friend. I found by the care, tenderness and respect with which I was treated that the Dey's orders respecting me must have been very particular.

I learned that he was not expected to return for some time. This news, being unexpected on my part, acted as reprieve would upon a condemned criminal. It, of course, contributed considerably to soothe my wounded feelings; but at the end of a week, just as the flurry of my spirits had in some measure subsided to a degree of composure, I was again thrown into a state of alarm on being informed of his return, as well as his intention to pass that very night with me. I had just retired to bed when the communication was made to me, and his orders were scarcely delivered ere he was in my chamber. The news of his arrival had thrown me into a kind of stupor, from which I did not recover until his fierce kisses brought me to a sense of collection, when I found my second martyrdom was about to commence. You may be assured, from what I have already described of him, that I had nothing to expect from supplication or entreaties; still I did not fail to use them, supported by torrents of tears. These he paid no regard to, but took me in his arms, drawing me to his bosom and calling me foolish and silly to make such opposition to his pleasures. 'Reason a little,' said he, drawing my lips to his, 'consider the indispensable necessity that all loving creatures like yourself are under to lose the sweet flower I so lately gathered from you, which seems to have been so dear to you; consider the great end that nature has created you for, give over these unavailing tears, which only delay your tasting of the sweetest joys. Then you talk about your virtue—pray, can you tell me in what it consists?' cried he, sucking my lips. I could only answer with tears. 'Do you think,' said he, 'if I enjoy you against your will, you are a bit the less virtuous? Or is it possible,' he continued, 'that you are so simple as to believe that virtue depends upon any part of your beautiful body being a little larger or a little less. Of what consideration can it be to Ali whether this part is opened or unopened by man?' and to make me understand the part he meant, he forced his hand between my thighs, where his fiery touches left me in no doubt as to the part he alluded to. He then was proceeding to place me in a situation convenient to satisfy his desires, but because I resisted his attempts, he flew upon me like a tiger, forcibly turned me on my back and divided my thighs; indeed, I found resistance of no avail.

The few days he had been absent seemed to have augmented his desires into a kind of frenzy. I cannot give you anything like a description of my sufferings as he now again forced his dreadful engine into me. The pain I felt was as cruel as when he first deflowered me. The chamber resounded with my shrieks. But he heeded them not; on the contrary, he increased the fury of his thrusts. Three times in the course of a quarter of an hour did I faint in his arms from the dreadful anguish. On recovering I found, during my last insensibility, he had got off me. I cannot tell whether my tears and cries had made any impression on him, or what induced him to get out of bed; but he went to a closet in the room, where I plainly saw him anointing his instrument out of the contents of a small jar. After cleansing his hands, he returned to bed. It was not long ere he again got between my thighs. I lay trembling, expecting the cruel torment; but guess my astonishment when instead of experiencing the thrilling pain which had before always accompanied his penetration I felt him drive it into me up to the very hilt comparatively with no more pain than made me cry out two or three 'Ohs'; but I still felt an extreme tightness accompanied with heated stretching. When I had received him up to the very quick, he tenderly kissed me, and asked if he hurt as much as before. I could not answer such a question, but I believe my blushes must have satisfied him on the point. Indeed, so great was the difference I now felt that I sustained this assault with very little suffering, until nature, unable longer to bear the tumult of pleasure with which the Dey seemed agitated, assisted him, and I for the first time felt with indescribable emotion something warm flowing from him in rapid streams, which deliciously cooled the parts he had so potently warmed. As I felt the last drop ejected from him, he sank on my bosom, without the least sign of animation, stretching himself out to his utmost length, which was the means of drawing his instrument from within me. It hung between my thighs quite bereft of all its power and erection, apparently as lifeless as its owner.

The reason of my escape from his first attack, the night I was brought to the harem, was now sufficiently explained to me. It was not long ere he recovered from his trance. I now perceived a wonderful attention in his behaviour. All his commanding and imperious looks had given way to respectful impassioned regards, although he still did just what he pleased; but there was some change in his manner of acting that I could not in any way account for. Remarkable as I found his attention, it was exceeded by what I soon experienced. Spite of my love for poor Henry, or the repugnance I naturally felt against the Dey as the violator of my chastity—spite of my sufferings in his furious embraces the difference of our religion and ages—can you credit what I felt, even at this early time of my undoing? I blush to write and confess it, but I am obliged to own I felt a voluptuous softness in his kisses, which acted as a balm, soothing me for the pains I had suffered. It is true my lips did not as yet return his pressures, but they submissively received them, inhaling every moment a dissolving poison, which quickly spread through my veins.

By this time I was aware, from the excessive hardness of his instrument, which was now lying on my belly, that it had recovered its wanton life and vigour, and presently the movement of his right hand gave notice I was again about to receive it. But how shall I describe my emotion when, for the first time, I felt it enter me without the smallest particle of pain, with no more difficulty than the mere widening, as he penetrated and stretched each soft furrow, until the whole was completely sheathed and we reached the most complete union without my uttering anything more than a few tremulous sighs—which I could not prevent escaping me in view of the unutterable rapture which the fierce suction created, a sensation which, from being entirely new, was so deliriously indefinable. Do not think me a wanton for thus stating what I experienced. Believe me, I had not the power to resist the soft pleasure he now caused me to taste by the sweet to-and-fro friction of his voluptuous engine.

You, Sylvia, who are yet, I believe, an inexperienced maid, can have no conception of the seductive powers of this wonderful instrument of nature—this terror of virgins, but delight of women. Indeed there can be no description given of the pure delight, I may even say agony of enjoyment, excited by the excessive friction which the rapidity of its thrusts caused. I was soon taught that it was the uncontrolled master key of my feelings. My trembling it quickly banished; my confusion became breathless astonishment, which with the rapidity of lightning changed to a respect for my enjoyer so submissive in its nature that I already looked upon him as the disposer of my future destiny, and my soul became completely and securely resigned to him as he enjoyed my soft body and instructed me in the softest pleasure nature can participate in. My heart, my soul, my very being was melted by his thrilling thrusts, until at last my recollection failed me. I lost sight, and then again sank insensible in his arms, but from a very different cause from my other faintness.

I recovered from this lethargy of pleasure only to be again thrown into the same dissolving state, for the Dey, charmed with my entire submission, seemed determined that nothing should be wanting on his part to make my bliss complete. Being entirely relieved of pain, I swam in the sea of thrilling delight and enjoyment only known to the young maids just released from the pangs of expiring virginity. With these all my pains and fears vanished, together with the remains of my virgin bashfulness, the only thing that could throw any obstacle in the way of this luxurious novelty which so ravishingly filled my soul with ecstasy and astonishment. Although I yet had scarcely summed up courage to look my enjoyer in the face, the warmth of my caresses and tenderness of my kisses, the voluptuous agitation of my whole body, all sufficiently satisfied him how firmly the pleasure had fixed its seductive influence on my senses; and in the midst of our enjoyment, at the very moment he had worked my feelings into a state of delirium indescribable, he suddenly stopped his ravishing, luxurious movements, and kissing me with a softness that rushed thrilling to my heart, said, 'Lovely houri, will you pardon me for the little respect I paid you in teaching you the mysteries of love?' Nearly fainting with the joy I possessed, I languishingly, for the first time, ventured to lift my eyes full in the face of my seducer but, unable to bear the brilliant lustre of his eyes, I hid my blushes in his bosom, where he felt his pardon sealed by a burning kiss. This unequivocal and tender acknowledgement of his power over me rekindled all his nearly satisfied desires, and, drawing my lips to his with a gust of passion time can never obliterate the remembrance of, he made me feel him in a manner so exquisitely touching, by such lovely and timely degrees, that I blessed the happy chance that had thrown me into his powerful arms.

In this manner was a great part of the night spent, until exhausted nature requiring a truce to our conflicts, we unconsciously fell asleep in each other's arms. In the morning I awoke first; the Dey was tying on his back, with one of his arms under his head, the other by his side. There was not the slightest particle of bedclothes on either of us. In my sleep the pillow had got from under my head; on raising myself to replace it, I caught a glimpse of that terrible machine which had so furiously agitated me with pain and pleasure. I assure you, Sylvia, I could not look at it without considerable remains of terror, but my alarm was strongly mixed up with feelings of tenderness and respect I thought my eyes would now be satisfied with inspecting it, but was much disappointed with its present appearance. It hung over his thigh shrunk up into a small size, seemingly perfectly incapable of exciting the various sensations I had so potently felt However, reduced as it was in appearance, it had the same power of fascination over me which is attributed to the serpent's eye over the bird. I could not withdraw mine from it, and so intense was my survey that I did not observe the Dey had awoke, and was enjoying my abstraction of mind.

His laughing at me broke the spell which the sight I was engaged in had worked round my senses. To be caught in this occupation, you may be sure, threw me into infinite confusion; every part of me was covered with blushes, which I strived to hide in the bedclothes; but he took me in his arms, still laughing, covering me with kisses, and told me I had seen everything at a great disadvantage, but I should presently be gratified by a view which would please me. This kind of discourse, instead of diminishing, added to my confusion. But, to crown all, he seized my right hand, and, with gentle compulsion, forced into it what may be termed nature's grand masterpiece. I faintly struggled as I received it, but he was determined I should observe the effect of my hand on his sensible part. At first it was as soft as a piece of sponge, but immediately it felt the warmth of my pressure, it began to throb, then to expand, and in a few moments that which at first I held with ease became a column of ivory, which I declare I could not even grasp. As he drew my hand up and down, it every moment seemed to increase in strength and length, until it attained so magnificent an erection that I could scarcely credit my sight. Is it possible, said I to myself, that so tremendous a pillar could have been buried within me? My other hand, governed by my thoughts, strayed between my thighs to examine the possibility of my entertaining such a guest. This movement of my hand in an instant discovered my thoughts to the Dey, 'What,' said he, drawing me to his bosom, 'do you doubt the possibility? Come, come, I shall soon remove your doubts; besides it is just you should reap the crop your hand has raised. Saying this, he softly turned me on my back, and got between my thighs, which I now willingly extended to receive him. Seeing my hair was in considerable confusion from our overnight's conflict, he leisurely placed it in order, laying the curls on my neck and breasts in the manner he thought most tempting. Having finished this employment, with his right hand he seized my left and, forcing it between his thighs, told me to pilot the vessel, as: he called it, safe into port. You may guess how completely he had subdued and mastered my feelings when I tell you, Sylvia, that I instantly obeyed his directions. When he felt I had lodged it between the lips, he withdrew my hand, and I quickly felt the fierce insertion up to the quick. The narrowness was now no more than what heightened the pleasure of the Dey in the strict embraces of that tender, warm sheath round the instrument that had made it fit for that which it was so luxuriously adapted. After three or four thrusts, which he made, as it were, to satisfy me as to its being entirely engulfed, he directed me to place my legs over his back. I instantly did as he requested. As a reward for my compliance, he drew out his shaft, all but the head, then drove it home into me eight or nine times in rapid succession, until I was stirred beyond bearing by the furious agitation it caused within me. I lay gasping, gorged and crammed to suffocation with rapture, till his short breathings, faltering accents, eyes twinkling with humid fires, and lunges more furious with increased stiffness gave me full notice of the approach of the dissolving period. It came—he died away on my bosom, distilling a flood within me that shot into the innermost recesses of my body, every conduit of which was upon the flow to meet and voluptuously to mix with his melting essence. As our mutual juices met and became one fluid, I sank insensible, drowned in a sea of delight of which words can convey no description.

Thus passed the second night of my undoing. After he had left me in the morning, and reason had resumed its empire, I was fully sensible of my deviation from strict virtue in the return I had made to his pleasure. This for a time filled my mind with melancholy thoughts, but I reflected it was the will of Heaven that my virginity should be reserved for the Dey. It was a thing settled by fate, that he should possess it, and I soon became entirely resigned, ceasing to reproach myself about that which I had no control over. The next day I was introduced to three of his other ladies—one French, one Italian, and one Greek. They were all lovely. The Grecian is named Zena, and I think I never beheld anything so lovely. She appeared about seventeen years of age, fair as a lily, with all the charms and freshness of her age, whilst the modest languish of her fine dark eyes, combined with a settled melancholy, gave an interesting appearance to her countenance which made her look peculiarly attractive. I felt great interest in this young girl, and will give you an outline of her history, and also that of the French and Italian ladies. I shall begin with the Italian, who spoke French equally as well as the Frenchwoman herself, and who related to me the short history of her coming into the possession of the Dey. I shall relate just as she repeated it to me. She was a most lovely woman, gracefully formed, with fine black languishing eyes, capable of creating the greatest interest; but she appeared of delicate health; her voice was tender, her mouth was rather large, but her admirably made lips with regular teeth, quite hid the defect; so fine and beautiful a head of hair I think I never saw; in fact, her person altogether was sufficient to create desire in the bosom of age itself. She related her story in nearly the following words:

'The city of Genoa, where I was born, has been always famed above any town in Europe for the refinement of its gallantry. It is common there for a gentleman to profess himself the humble servant of a handsome woman and to wait upon her to serve in every public place for twenty years together without ever seeing her in private or being entitled to any greater favour than a kind look or a touch of her fair hand. Of all this sighing tribe, the most constant, and the most respectful of all those I knew was Signer Ludovico, my lover. My name is Honoria Grimaldi, I am the only daughter of a senator of that name, and I was esteemed a very great beauty in Genoa, but at the same time quite a prude, and most reserved.' The remark made me laugh, for she had the look of a very great libertine. 'You may smile, but so great was nicety then, in point of love, that although I could not be insensible to the address of Signer Ludovico, yet I could not bring myself to think of marrying my lover, which would have admitted him to freedoms which I thought entirely inconsistent with true modesty—freedoms which then, I assure you, made me shudder to think of.'

I here asked whether the Dey had not rectified her ideas on that point. She blushed and sighed, 'Indeed, Madame, he was not long in effecting that change of opinion. In vain, Madame, did Ludovico speak of the violence of his passion for me. I answered that mine for him was no less so. But it was his mind I loved; I enjoyed that without having to go to bed with him, the very thought of which shocked and alarmed me. My lover was ready to despair at these discourses; he could not but admire such fine sentiments, yet he wished I had not been so perfect. He wrote me a long, melancholy letter. I returned him one for answer in verses, full of sublime expressions about my love, but not a word that tended to satisfy the poor man's impatience. At last he applied himself to my father, and to engage him to use his authority, offered to take me without a portion. My father, who was a plain man, was mighty pleased with this proposal, and made no difficulty to promise him success. Accordingly he very roughly told me that I must be married the next day or go to a nunnery. This dilemma startled me very much. In spite of all my repugnance to the marriage bed, I found something about me extremely averse to a cloister. An absolute separation from Ludovico was what I could not bear; it was even worse than absolute conjunction. In this distress, not knowing what to do, I turned over about a hundred romances in search for precedents. After many struggles with myself, I resolved to surrender upon terms; therefore, I told my lover I consented to be his wife, provided I might be so by degrees, and that after the ceremony was over he should not pretend at once to all the rights and privileges of a husband, but allow my modesty to make a decent and gradual surrender. Ludovico did not much like such a capitulation, but rather than not have me, he was content to pay the last compliment to my delicacy. We were united, and at the end of the first month he was happy to find himself arrived at full enjoyment of my lips.

'Whilst he was thus gaining ground, inch by inch, his father died, and left him a large estate in Corsica. His presence was necessary there, but he could not think of parting with me, so we embarked together, and Ludovico had good hopes that he should not take possession of his estate only, but of my virginity too, at his arrival. Whether it was that Venus, who is said to have been born out of the sea, was more powerful mere than on land, or whether it was from the freedom that is usual on board a ship, but whatever the reason it is sure that during the voyage I indulged him in greater liberties than he ever presumed to take before, for my neck and breasts were moulded by his bold hand. But while he was thus by degrees, as it were, reducing me to his wishes, fortune, who took a pleasure in persecuting him, brought an African corsair in our way, who quickly put an end to our dalliance by making us both slaves. Who can express our affliction and despair at so sudden and ill-timed a captivity? Ludovico saw himself bereft of his virgin bride on the very point of obtaining all his wishes, and I had reason to apprehend from the rough hands I had fallen into that my virginity was likely to be taken from me, whether I resisted or not. But the martyrdom I looked for on the instant was unexpectedly deferred, for the corsair, seeing I was handsome, thought me worthy of the embraces of the Dey, and to him I was presented on our arrival here—unfortunate end to all my pure and heroic sentiments! The time was now arrived when I was doomed to be courted in a manner opposite to that adopted by Ludovico. My being a married woman was known to my captor, and was a fact which, of course, he communicated to the Dey. He naturally supposed me to be a finished woman. When I was brought to him he appeared much struck with my appearance, and instantly ordered everyone out of the apartment; then, rising off the couch he was sitting on, he took my hand and led me towards it. On approaching it to my great astonishment he desired me in good Italian to be seated. I obeyed trembling, and he seated himself by my side. Directly he had seated himself he took hold of one of my hands, and demanded from what part of Italy I came. From the mildness of his speech and manner, I thought I could assume the same authority with him as I had done with Ludovico, so would scarcely answer any of his questions, whereupon the Dey, seeing the more tender and respectful his behaviour was, the more I presumed on his forbearance, suddenly seized me round the waist, and drawing my lips forcibly to his, continued sucking them with such force that he nearly made me faint. The suddenness of the attack threw me into extreme confusion. Ere I recovered from it, the Dey had uncovered my breasts and was handling them just as he pleased, exclaiming every moment, as he pressed and handled them, "By Mahomet, how deliciously formed they are! how firm! how delightfully the nipples pout!" and such-like observations, which covered me with burning blushes.

'By this time I had recovered somewhat from my confusion, observing which the Dey, rising from the coach, said, in a low, determined tone, "How now, audacious slave, do you presume to oppose the will of thy master? Show again the least opposition to my desires and in an instant I shall have thee scourged properly for thy presumption. So mark me, slave!" After this menace he again seated himself and drew me upon his knees, with his arms round my waist. His determined manner of treating me had such an effect that I dared not resist his forcing his hand again into my breasts; but after he had sufficiently satisfied himself with feeling and moulding them, he suddenly turned his hands under my petticoats. His threats were now forgotten; I again strenuously resisted and struggled, whereupon he immediately desisted, and getting off the couch, with a small whistle which hung on his belt, he called in his black eunuchs, to one of whom he gave some orders in the Turkish language; the fellow went out, but quickly returned with a whip, which had about a dozen tails. I was now seized by the two eunuchs, who forced me across the couch with my face downwards; each of the eunuchs held me over the couch by the arm, so that I could not possibly get away. Having me thus secure and unmindful of my tears or entreaties, the Dey lifted up my clothes, and threw them all over my shoulders, leaving everything below my waist as naked as when I was born. Would you believe it, Madame, he began to flog me in so unmerciful a manner that I could not retain my screams, of which he took not the least notice until he thought he had sufficiently punished my first offence. He then left off, and demanded if I would dare to oppose his wishes again. I could not at the moment have answered him, even if death had been the consequence. However, he allowed me very little time, but recommenced his flogging again, saying, "Oh, you are sullen are you? but I shall soon subdue you." Indeed, so painfully did I feel his lashes that at last I was able to cry that I would be submissive to his desires.

'I was directly relieved from the position I was in, and the eunuchs were dismissed, when the Dey, just as if nothing had happened, placed himself by my side; but, seeing I sat extremely uneasily from the soreness of the part he had so unmercifully whipped, he caused me to lie down on my side, laying himself beside me. He then drew me to his bosom and after kissing away my tears, sucking my lips and forcing his tongue into my mouth (which created great disgust in me), presently demanded if I was not married, I shuddered out an affirmative. "Curses on the Christian dog, I say, that has plucked your virginity!" he replied; "by Ali, I would have possessed it." You may be sure, Madame, this made me blush, which made him remark how much my blushes increased my beauty. Again my lips became his prey. "How long have you been joined to the Christian dog?" demanded he, withdrawing his lips to let me answer him. I stammered out, "Only a month." "A month have thy blushes, then, been polluted. Well, I must be content with you as you are. Indeed, you are a feast fit for a monarch. How languishingly delicious is the modest cast of your eyes! Kiss me, trembler!" I dared not disobey, and, covered with blushes, joined my lips to his. He seemed much pleased with my obedience, and continued for some time most passionately kissing me. Whilst thus occupied, he slipped his right hand again under my petticoats and shift. A dreadful trembling seized me, but my fears prevented the least resistance, whilst his burning hand travelled over my most secret charms. Here was a change, Madame, from the respect of poor Ludovico! The smallest favour was not granted to him until after the most urgent persuasions, whilst the Dey took every liberty he thought fit, and I believe thought he was conferring an honour upon me. He had now got his hand between my thighs and, drawing my lips closer to his, he desired me to open them a little wider, that he might have full command of the shrine of pleasure where he said he meant presently to sacrifice. I did not at the moment obey him. "How now," he cried, changing his tone from the soliciting to the commanding, "darest thou neglect my orders?" Oh, Madame, the gradual extension of my thighs plainly spoke my fears. My tears flowed in torrents; my breasts heaved in convulsive agony. For a moment or so the Dey played with the soft down that crowns the mount of pleasure, and then slipped his finger between the lips of the road which until then had never been travelled, little dreaming of the discovery he was about to make. Indeed, on forcing his finger as far as he could into me, with great astonishment he found some difficulty in effecting entry, his efforts making me cry out that he hurt me. Surprised at my cries, he instantly started up, and forcing me on my back, extended my thighs to their utmost width, "Why, by Mahomet, you are a maid!" he cried, as he minutely examined me. "What punishment do you think you deserve for thus deceiving me as to your virginity?" Trembling and panting with shame and fear, I replied that I had not deceived him, as he had only asked how long I had been married, and I had told him the truth. "Then how is it," he demanded, "that your husband has not reaped his rights?" I at last confessed my maiden bashfulness had been the reason. At this the Dey laughed heartily, saying, "Whatever is the cause, holy Mahomet, I thank you for this unexpected treasure, but it shall not hang long on the stock for want of plucking." He then got off the couch, also assisting me to rise off my back; then applying the whistle to his mouth he summoned the same eunuchs, to whom he gave some directions as before. In obedience to his instructions they conducted me into a small room, every side of which was covered with glass: even the door at which I entered I could not discover when shut. In the centre of the room was a low dark-cushioned velvet couch, with one large cushion at the head; it was nothing but a plain broad couch, in the centre of which was fastened, properly extended, a beautiful white damask cloth.

'I was stripped in an instant by the eunuchs of every particle of my dress; they even untied the fillets which fastened up my hair; then, having reduced me to a complete state of nature, they retired, taking away my clothes. So much were my feelings overcome, that I was obliged to seat myself on the couch, or else I must have fallen. I was not doomed to wait long in suspense, for in a few seconds the Dey entered, as naked as myself. You, Madame, no doubt well know how little ceremony, in cases of this kind, he uses. He took me in his arms, after kissing me, and told me he was now come to redress the wrongs I had suffered in the cruel neglect of my husband. "But," he said, "it will soon be repaired; you quickly shall taste such joys as your beauties so well deserve you should partake of. But why these tears and sighs? Is this the way you meet my caresses and kindness? Is this the return you make my generosity in preparing to teach you those pleasure which your husband has neglected. Come, come, let me have no more of this folly!" So drawing me to his bosom, he gently forced me on my back. "There now," he said, "lie down—no, not that way," seeing I was placing myself on my side, "it is on your back you must receive your first instructions. There, that's right; now open your soft thighs!" In an instant he was between them. I found I could not dare disobey. Finding my thighs were not quite extended enough, he soon widened them to his wish. I need not tell you how tremendously large the Dey is; turn in which way I would I could not help seeing in the glass the terrible pillar with which he was preparing to skewer me; quickly discovering the cause of my excessive alarm, whilst he was fixing its head between the lips of my virgin sheath, he tried by every kind of endearment to soothe me, assuring me the pain would be nothing—that my fears were unfounded; besides it was a sacrifice which nature had decreed, and once over the sweetest joys would be my reward; then why these foolish fears? Thus did he soften me to his desires. The head of his instrument was no sooner fixed in the opening than by four or five sudden shoves he contrived to insert the whole of it entirely, so that I could not see any part of it as my face turned towards the glass. At this moment his penetration was not deep enough to make me experience any great pain, but he, well knowing what was coming, forcibly secured one of his arms around my body.

'Everything was now prepared and favourable. My legs were glued to his, and I lay in his arms as it were insensible from despair, shame and confusion. He now began to improve his advantage by forcibly deepening his penetration; his prodigious stiffness and size gave me such dreadful anguish, from the separation of the sides of the soft passage by such a hard substance, that I could not refrain from screaming. Delicate as I was, he found great difficulty; but his Herculean strength in the end broke down all my virgin defences. My piercing cries spoke of my sufferings. In my agony I strove to escape, but the Dey, perfectly used to such attempts, easily foiled them by his able thrusts, and quickly buried his tremendous instrument too far within me to leave me any chance of escape. He now paid no kind of attention to my sufferings, but followed up his movements with fury, until the tender texture altogether gave way to his fierce tearing and rending, and one merciless, violent thrust broke in and carried all before it, sending his weapon, imbued and reeking with the blood of my virginity, up to its utmost length in my body. The piercing shriek I gave proclaimed that I felt it up to the very quick; in short, his victory was complete.

'What my sufferings at first were I need not dwell upon, as no doubt you must have experienced them as painfully as myself, from his extraordinary size. It was also increased from the want of delicacy he used in subduing me. But my suffering did not seem to be any consideration with him, for he gave me no respite in his proceedings, but by enjoyment after enjoyment very soon blunted the sharpness of the pain, and ere he withdrew from me I had sustained four assaults, which from their amorous fury had so stretched and opened me as to ensure I need never again complain on the score of suffering. Being satisfied on this point, he withdrew his shaft, and laying himself for a short time by my side, covered every part of me with burning kisses and caresses, assuring me that my sufferings were ended, and that I should shortly enjoy the pleasure of unmixed and pure delight in a manner that would reward me for all the anguish I had experienced in his fierce embraces. After reposing a short time on my bosom he got up and assisted me off the couch, which bore crimson evidence of my late loss. "Look," he cried, "my sweet slave," fondly pressing me in his arms, "I shall have your name worked in letters of gold on it, and it will then be deposited with a number of others that ornament a room in my harem. By virtue of this you are entitled to many privileges, which will be explained to you. Among others you are forever exempt from any kind of attendance on my wives or chief sultanas, unless you choose to amuse yourself. But the slaves who will attend you will explain all the things which the blushing testimony of your chastity entitles you to." He then placed such a thrilling kiss on my lips that it threw me into the greatest confusion.

'He now called some Turkish slaves, who brought every kind of female clothing. They were not long in completing my toilet. This finished, he conducted me into a magnificent room, where refreshments were laid out During the repast the Dey, by the most assiduous attention, strove to render himself agreeable, but as yet I could scarcely venture to look on him. It was still early in the morning. When we had finished our repast, he tenderly enquired if I felt inclined to refresh myself by taking some repose alone. He could not have proposed anything more agreeable, which must have been evident by the immediate assent I gave to his offer. I was directly supported by him to a sleeping apartment, where, after again and again tenderly kissing me, he left me with a female slave, who soon undressed me; and in a soft slumber, which I soon fell into, my misfortunes were forgotten. My sleep was long and of course refreshing. I was awoken by the slave, who informed me that dinner was nearly ready, I got up and was assisted by her to dress. I then took dinner. After dinner the slave drew my attention to a large quantity of books, in my own language, which the Dey had caused to be sent to me. I found them to consist of our choicest authors. In my sitting-room he had occasioned a grand pianoforte to be placed, also an excellent lute, with a quantity of music, that I might not want amusement. I soon found several large portfolios of all kinds of prints, which alone were an inexhaustible store of amusement. The time imperceptibly passed in inspecting the various things which were placed for my recreation, until the slave reminded me that it was time I retired, as it was the Dey's intention to pass the night with me. What could I do? Resistance was now out of the question; my virtue and modesty had received their mortal wounds. I had, even if I wished, no resource; indeed, nothing was left to me but to submit to my fate. Scarcely knowing where I was going, I was conducted to the bedchamber, and soon was reduced to a proper state to meet the Dey's desires, being placed in bed in a state of panting, blushing confusion, very little different from that state I was in in the morning, when he debauched me. I was not long kept in suspense. I soon found myself in his strong arms. But, oh, how changed I now found him! All the authority of a master which he had so strongly assumed in the morning was now lost in the most passionate and tender regards of a most devoted and even submissive lover—even poor Ludovico could not be more so. I soon found his present proceedings more fatal to my morality than all the favours he had ravished from me by force under the influence of punishment. Indeed, I cannot explain the feeling he soon created. As I lay on his bosom he kissed me in a manner quite new, keeping my mouth to his several minutes, every now and then thrusting in his tongue and sucking mine. All the time he was doing this his hand was travelling over every part of my body with burning touches, creating the greatest disorder. The unopposed enjoyment of my lips, and feeling every secret beauty I possessed had now so heated his spirits, that to prevent the fluid that was boiling within him being improperly lost, it was absolutely necessary there should be no delay in my resigning to him the possession of the gates of pleasure. So for had his pressures and touches heated and inflamed me, that he found no obstacle in turning me on my back and again placing himself between my extended thighs. I scarcely recollect how it was, but I certainly felt at the moment he was fixing his instrument the soft prelude of pleasure illuminating within me. From trembling and fear I already began to desire; and, good God! how can I describe the surprise I felt when with one energetic shove he lodged himself up to the hilt in me without the smallest sensation of pain. Never, oh never shall I forget the delicious transports that followed the stiff insertion; and then, ah me! by what thrilling degrees did he, by his luxurious movements, fiery kisses, and strange touches of his hand in the most private parts of my body, reduce me to a voluptuous state of insensibility. I blush to say so powerfully did his ravishing instrument stir up nature within me, that by mere instinct I returned him kiss for kiss, responsively meeting his fierce thrusts, until the fury of the pleasure and ravishment became so overpowering that, unable longer to support the excitement I so luxuriously felt, I fainted in his arms with pleasure, Ludovico, the flogging, and everything else was entirely driven out of my head. So lively, so repeated were the enjoyments that the Dey caused me to participate in with him, I wondered how nature could have slumbered so long within me. I was lost in astonishment that in all the caresses I received from Ludovico he had not contrived to give the slightest alarm or feeling to nature. I could not help smiling at my ignorance when I considered the ridiculous airs I had assumed to Ludovico about my chastity. The Dey, indeed, had soon discovered my folly, and like a man of sense, took the proper method to subdue me. In this way, in one short night, you see, he put to the rout all my pure modest virgin scruples, rapturously teaching me the nature of love's sacred mysteries, and the great end for which we poor weak females are created.

'During the first month of my captivity, my senses were kept in such a continual flow of rapture that what with sustaining his embraces at night and refreshing myself with sleep during the day, I had little else to do. But by degrees his visits to my apartment became less and less frequent, from the numerous beauties that came into his possession it could not be otherwise, but when I am honoured with embraces, so tender, so kind are his caresses, that I feel sufficiently repaid for his long absence, although I cannot but wish his visits were more frequent. But I am content with my lot. I have now been in the harem nearly two years. This is my short history. Of Ludovico I have never heard anything since we parted, and under all circumstances I think it as well I should not, for it would now be impossible for me to return to him with anything like satisfaction to myself, so firmly has the Dey fixed himself in my affections.'

I have now, dear Sylvia, given you the history of the Italian beauty. I must confess the latter part of her history, which related to the gradual decrease of the Dey's visits, gave me a very uncomfortable sensation at first; but I was afterwards angry with myself for entertaining it a moment, when I considered during the whole time I have been in his possession, three nights out of every week have as yet been spent in his arms. Nor have I observed the least relaxation in either his attentions or desires. But I have been most dreadfully alarmed by something this Italian has communicated, which at first I did not give the least credit to. When we had related to each other our histories, of course we became considerably more intimate and familiar in our conversation. She asked me whether I felt any pleasure when the Dey enjoyed me behind. I told her I did not understand what she meant by behind. She laughed most immoderately at my ignorance, and would scarcely credit what I had asserted, particularly as she knew the Dey was so fond of the other route. I requested her to explain herself. 'Are you not aware,' said she, 'that a woman has two maidenheads to take?' On my replying in the negative, she answered, 'You have, though. Under the altar of Venus is another grotto, a little more obscure, to be sure; but there the Dey will offer up his sacrifices with characteristic energy.' I was all in a tremble at this discourse, and demanded of her if the Dey had ever enjoyed her in that position. 'Most certainly, many times,' was her reply. 'If you doubt what I say, the next time I am favoured with a morning visit by the Dey, you shall judge with your own eyes as to the fact; it can be easily managed, as our suites of rooms are contiguous.'

'Is it possible,' cried I, 'that you receive any pleasure from a conjunction so beastly and unnatural?'

'What innocence, my dear, what childishness!' replied the libertine. 'Do you not know that the men consider every part of us formed entirely for their pleasures; one enjoys us one way, one another, each man according to his lechery. You may rely upon it one of these days the Dey will instruct you in this way and rectify your ideas on the subject.'

This conversation, and other matters which this Italian informed me of and which I could not drive from my thoughts, threw a considerable gloom over my feelings. In the evening the Dey visited me, and immediately saw by my countenance that something had disordered me. After considerable persuasion he contrived to extract what had caused my distress.

'And why should this, dearest Zulima, give you any uneasiness?' said he, tenderly taking me in his arms and kissing me. 'I can see no reason why it should have raised a cloud on this lovely face; nor could I for a moment have supposed, if I had requested my sweet slave to have administered to my joys in that way, there would have been any denial. I hid my face in his bosom, and told him in our country it was considered the most degrading crime that could be committed, that it was punished with death.

'I am aware,' replied he, 'that the English nation consider it a crime, but I was not acquainted with the magnitude of the punishment. But, Zulima' (I forgot to mention before that I received a new name from the Dey, as is customary with all captives), 'your country is the only one in the world that either considers it a crime or punishes it. Besides, Zulima, you are not in England now, nor are you likely ever to go there again. You are mine until one of us shall shake off this mortal form; therefore, you must submit to everything that I conceive will be an addition to my pleasures. Does not the English law direct that the wife shall be obedient to the husband in all lawful desires?'

'Yes,' I replied.

'Well, then, although you are not my wife in fact, still you are, according to our laws, considered the same. To become my married wife you must change your religion. But still you are considered my wife, therefore must submit to my lawful desires. By our laws we are permitted to enjoy our wives or concubines in any way that adds to our luxuries; in other words it is lawful that I may enjoy, and you must resign your second virginity whenever I require you to do so. After all, dear Zulima, how can it possibly be construed into a crime? It is true that the seed which I have so often distilled within you with such dissolving pleasure is given by nature to multiply our species, so to divert its natural course may in some measure be construed as an offence against nature by those who do not give it any consideration. Put the case thus: to divert and cast away seed is a crime. Now it is clear that the seed, even when deposited in its natural receiver, is entirely lost forty-nine times out of fifty. For instance, immediately sufficient seed is injected into the womb, the female conceives; then the mouth of the womb closes, and until the delivery of the child does not open again. If the female is fruitful, and properly enjoyed, she will conceive to a certainty in three months; it is six months more at least ere she will be delivered of her burden; consequently at every embrace the female sustains after conception, the seed that is shot within her is entirely lost or misused. Now what difference can there be as to where the seed is lost if it be lost? Where is the offence or crime? What difference whether the seed is uselessly deposited in the grotto of Venus, or injected in the temple below it? None in the world, lovely slave! My Grecian and Corsican slaves submit to any kind of enjoyment as a matter of duty and submission, in which they are instructed from their infancy. I have two Italians who think it no kind of crime; to my French slave it is a mere bagatelle. I was aware of the prejudices of your nation, and from the joys I found in your embraces did not like even to broach the subject to you.'

'Then,' cried I, throwing my arms round his neck and fondly kissing him, 'let the pleasures you confess I have afforded you save me from what I consider would be the greatest disgrace I could possibly experience.'

'This is folly,' cried the Dey, 'I can make no promise of the kind.'

'But you must,' I replied.

'How?' demanded he. 'You have sworn by your holy Prophet to grant me any favour I choose to request; you recollect your sacred oath?'

'I do certainly.'

'Well, then, the favour I request is that I may be spared the pollution we have been discoursing of.'

'Can Zulima think that any act of Ali would pollute her?' cried he, rising from the couch with great heat and indignation. It was the first unkind word he had used to me since he had me. My heart sank within me whilst he continued, 'It is true I made the oath, and must religiously observe it. I shall leave you to reflect, foolish slave, on your childishness in thus attempting to bind my pleasures by an oath made in a moment when your deceitful blandishments had softened me into a belief that your love and devotion to me was as sincere as your person is beautiful. When you have altered your opinion you can inform the chief eunuch. I may, perhaps, then pardon this insult, and restore you to favour.' He then left me, muttering the word 'pollution', unmindful of my tears, which quickly began to flow at his angry looks.

As he went out of the room my spirits failed me entirely. I sank on the couch overwhelmed with grief, railing against the mischance that brought me acquaintance with this Italian, whom I considered as the cause of my rupture with the Dey. My tears continued for nearly an hour after his departure, which no doubt considerably relieved me. However, I began to comfort myself with the hopes that his anger would not last. But, indeed, I did not properly estimate his character. The next day passed without my seeing him; a second, third, fourth passed in anxious, I may say almost breathless anguish, watching and listening for the approach of his well-known footstep. Guess the cruel suspense I suffered. Habituated to the sweet pleasure of his embraces, my desires began rapidly to overpower the scruples which early precept had instilled in me. My unsatisfied feelings became every hour stronger and stronger, until on the fifth day I was again visited by Honoria, the Italian, who entertained me with a long account of her happiness, having passed two nights running with the Dey; her transports went like daggers to my heart, but gave the decisive turn to my wavering indecision. I instantly resolved to submit to the Dey's desires, and wrote him a letter accordingly.


LETTER 5

Emily to the Dey

Oh, Ali, is it possible that you, who have so often sworn that it made you unhappy to be for a day absent from your Zulima, can it be believed that for a whole week you would thus desert her? Your cruelty makes me suffer more than words can speak. You know I had no intention to give offence in what I uttered at our last interview. How could you leave me in the way you did? Oh, Ali, I am with child; hasten to comfort your miserable slave. You cannot doubt my love. Since the day you overpowered my innocence (the day I consider the happiest of my existence, although truly it was a painful one), how many proofs have you received of my love and devotion? Hasten then to do me justice, I conjure you. Surely I need not remind you of what I lost in becoming yours—my native country, innumerable friends, virtue. Oh, Ali, do not longer punish me; I am all devotion to your every desire, your submissive slave,

ZULIMA


LETTER 6

Ali to his slave Zulima

I have received your letter. I was aware of your being with child. Were it possible to increase my love for you this would be the cause, but lovely as you are, and dote upon you as I do, I am determined to tear myself from your tempting arms until I find your submission perfect You write about your loss of virtue, country and friends by falling into my power. Recollect the pleasure I have taught you and caused you to experience-have they not sufficiently rewarded you for the virginity you brought me? You say you are all devotion and submission to my every desire-be more explicit. Have you made up your mind to absolve me from my oath? Mark me! never more will these arms enfold you until by resigning your second maidenhead I have put it out of your power to dispute with me on this poin.t Write to me more explicitly—say you meant to absolve and submit to my embraces in the way I wish, and then you will meet with a return of my most ardent affection.

ALI

My veins were on fire -I could deny him nothing, and wrote the following note:


LETTER 7

Emily to the Dey

I submit—I absolve you from your oath—fly to the arms of your longing

ZULIMA

Directly he was assured of my wish to absolve him of his oath, he appointed the same day to receive the last proof of my entire submission. In the evening when he entered my chamber I could not help flying to his arms. Unconsciously my eyes were filled with tears; but I did not consider them tears of sorrow, but rather of the pleasure I felt at feeling myself pressed in his arms again. He gave me a long and thrilling kiss, but seeing I was about to reproach him for his neglect, he stopped my mouth by informing me that he could not have his joys dampened by any silly upbraidings, but should instantly proceed, to prevent a repetition of our quarrel, by at once removing its cause; and he began immediately to undress me, which from the nature of my Turkish attire was soon accomplished. From the ardent caresses he placed upon my neck and breasts, and indeed every other part that became exposed, I felt assured the power of my attractions had not diminished. When he had stripped me naked he disrobed himself, then taking me in his arms, placed me on the couch, my stomach underneath, on two round pillows, one of them coming against the lower part of my belly, so as to elevate my bottom considerably.

Having placed me thus, he divided my thighs to their utmost extension, leaving the route he intended to penetrate fairly open to his attack. He now got upon me, and having, as he thought, placed himself securely, he encircled my body round my loins with both his arms, and strove to penetrate the obstacle nature had placed in his way; but so largely is he proportioned that his efforts were at first without effect. Again he attempted, but again failed, and making a desperate lunge, his arrow, instead of piercing where he intended it should, slipped into the shrine of Venus, and before he found out his mistake, to my inexpressible delight it was nearly buried in its proper sanctuary. But he was not to be foiled in that way; he instantly withdrew it and again fixing its head proceeded with great caution and fierceness; in short, he soon got the head entirely fixed. His efforts then became more and more energetic. But he was as happy as the satisfying of his beastly will could make him. He regarded me not, but profiting by his success, soon completed my second undoing; and then, indeed, with mingled emotions of disgust and pain, I sensibly felt the debasement of being the slave of a luxurious Turk.

I was now, indeed, wretched and oppressed with mental anguish, until at last my outraged feeling could no longer sustain the shock. A delirious fever seized me. Bereft of my senses, I know not what further took place at that time. The Dey has since informed me that a considerable time elapsed ere he found out my loss of reason, but immediately he ascertained the state I was in, he was compelled to desist by his religion, for it is sacrilege to touch or injure any person, Turk or Christian, who is deranged. Every advice and medical assistance were immediately procured to restore my senses, which was soon effected; and when my health was again sufficiently reestablished to enable me to receive his visits, again was I compelled in silence to resign myself to his infamous desires, until by repeated engagements I became accustomed to his proceedings. But the only result is, if anything, an augmentation of my disgust and horror. By my submission I was reinstated in his affections, and everything proceeds as usual. But the charm is broken. It is true he can, when he pleases, bewilder my senses in the softest confusion; but when the tumult is over, and my blood cooled from the fermentation he causes-when reason resumes its sway, I feel that the silken cords of affection which bound me so securely to him have been so much loosened that he will never again be able to draw them together so closely as they were before he subdued me to his abominable desires.

My depression of spirits made me quite the laughing stock of the Italian woman and the French woman, who were perfectly acquainted with the cause. They affected to despise my feelings. The only consolation I received was from the Grecian girl, with whom I had become extremely intimate and to whom I was much attached. She was a beautiful girl, tall and slender; her face was rather pale and languid, overcast with a melancholy resignation, but her light-blue eyes were mild and expressive as the soft ray of an autumnal moon tingeing a fading evening sky. With the help of books I had been able to teach her the English language, and her progress in attaining it was almost incredible. We could now converse freely together, and mourn over our misfortunes and captivity. I shall narrate her distressing history in nearly the same words as she stated it to me.

History of Adianti the Grecian Slave

My name is Adianti. I was born in the delightful island of Macaria, where my father was a merchant, called Theodoricus. I am his only child. Like all Greeks or Christians who reside under the power of Turks, my father was obliged to live in a style of the utmost simplicity. It was only by stealth he ventured on any little luxurious indulgence, well knowing that the governor of the district was upon the watch to pounce upon him the moment he made a show of property. Slavery, the most powerful agent in the degradation of mankind, has given to the modern Greeks a melancholy propensity to indulge in all kinds of gloomy presages and forebodings. I was not exempt from the feelings of my countrymen, and my very name, being that of one of the Danaides, whenever I heard it mentioned, always carried an ominous feeling to my heart.

In our neighbourhood resided a youth named Demetrius, the only son of an aged and infirm widow. He was born for a land of freedom, and one might have predicted from his appearance that he was destined to chafe and struggle not a little under the restraints and mortifications which ever fall to the lot of those who show the least spirit of independence. His stature was tall; he carried his head higher than a Bashaw; he was of easy carriage, and his body as straight as a palm; active and graceful in his walk, clear in his eye, and impatient of insult to the last degree. He was eloquent, poetical, romantic, enterprising and a lover of the arts—he could have achieved great things had his lot been cast in a more happy age and country. Were he now living he would be foremost among the heroes who are defending our religion.

An ancient intimacy had subsisted between our families, and we were much together. Demetrius had never exhibited any particular marks of affection for me, yet I cannot deny that I had for some time cherished a growing preference for the handsome, high-spirited companion of my youth. It was the superstitious feeling I have before mentioned that induced me to consult the Oracle of the Sweet Waters as to how my young passion for Demetrius would thrive; and I returned from my enquiry disconsolate and overpowered, as all the answers of the oracle turned out unfavourable to my hopes. Under the dominion of a long cherished superstition, handed down from generation to generation, and sanctioned by the examples of all around, I would as soon have thought of counteracting the declared decrees of providence as of cherishing a hope in opposition to the oracle. You may suppose my agitation on being informed by my father that he was going to the governor to request permission for our marriage. With trembling anxiety I waited the result. Our governor was a Bashaw of three tails who, although a native of Stampalier and originally a Latin Christian, had long ago changed the cross for the crescent Ali Ozman was the Turkish name he assumed. It is usual, in asking a favour of our governors, to accompany it with a present. The one my father carried with him in support of his petition did not exactly please Ozman (for, of course, my father was afraid of exciting suspicions of his wealth by being too liberal), and Ozman received it with contemptuous indifference. Though he had turned Turk, he had enough of the Latin Christian in him to hate one of the Greek church mortally. My father prostrated himself three times as he presented his offering. 'Is thy daughter handsome, Christian dog?' asked Ozman. At this, a French renegade, who had insinuated himself into the confidence of Ozman, whispered to him that I was the fairest virgin in the isle. Ozman considered a few moments, and said with a smile, 'I accept thy present, and permit thy daughter to wed the young Greek on condition that thou grant a feast before the marriage, and bid me be a guest.' My father returned home in a melancholy mood, and gave direction for the preparation of the feast and the reception of the cruel Ozman. From a sudden recollection of the disastrous omen of the oracle, darker and more dreary became my thoughts than they had ever been since the hour I became convinced Demetrius loved me. He also all that day seemed labouring under a depression, and departed early in the evening oppressed by vague forebodings he could not define. The feast was, however, prepared, the company bidden and, after waiting a considerable time for the arrival of Ozman, who did not appear, the ceremony proceeded with Demetrius and myself each choosing a godfather to attend us. At the altar we were met by the aged papa, or Greek priest, who, after blessing two crowns of foliage intertwined with ribbons and laces, placed them on our heads. He then in like manner blessed two rings, one of silver, the other of gold, placing the former on my finger, the latter on that of Demetrius. After these rings had been exchanged and we had taken our vows, the old priest was preparing to distribute the bread and wine which was to conclude the ceremony when a light strain of Turkish music at a distance caught our attention. In a little while Ozman was seen advancing at the head of twenty or thirty of his guards. Demetrius earnestly besought the priest to finish the ceremony before the barbarians should arrive to interrupt it, but the old man trembled so that the wine was spilled and the consecrated bread fell from his hands. In a few moments Ozman and his train entered the church with their scimitars drawn and scattered the bridal train, leaving me, my father, Demetrius and the priest alone at the altar.

'Stop, dog!' cried Ozman. 'I forbid the marriage in the name of the prophet.'

'It is too late,' replied the old priest, meekly.

'Be silent, Christian dog! or I will stop thy howlings,' Ozman cried. 'But what is this I smell—wine? You have been carousing, you swine! You have been swilling of that accursed beverage abhorred by Allah, and denounced by his Prophet. It is enough; seize the virgin and trample into dust all that oppose us.' During the whole of the fateful proceedings my poor father supported himself against the side of the smouldering altar in speechless horror. I could not speak, but my eyes were fixed on Demetrius, whose inflexible silence I but too well understood. The youth was too indignant to speak, but the clenched hands, quivering lips and blazing eye spoke a prologue to opposition and vengeance.

'Seize the virgin!' repeated Ozman, 'she will be only too honoured and happy to escape the pollution of this blaspheming wine bibber.' Ozman advanced as he uttered these insulting words. At that instant Demetrius sprang like lightning upon the foremost of the ravishers, and wrenched the scimitar from his hand before he was aware of his purpose. He rushed on Ozman: the first blow made his scimitar fly ringing into the air, the second was arrested by one of the guards, which saved the life of the tyrant, who exclaimed, almost choking with passion, 'He has struck a Mussulman; he has outraged the law of the Prophet; he has polluted the person of the representative of the Commander of the Faithful. Hew him to the earth! cut him into atoms! scatter his flesh to the beasts of the field! let the dogs feed on the Christian reptile!' The crisis was come; my poor father took courage from despair, and seizing upon Ozman's scimitar, which still lay upon the ground, placed himself besides Demetrius, determined to share his fate and the with him. Guess my indescribable anguish. I was seized by several of the guards, whilst others attacked my father and lover. A desperate conflict ensued. My father fought bravely, but soon fell dead by the side of Demetrius, who had rushed towards the tyrant thinking he had him within his power, but a scimitar from behind had cleaved open his head. He sank on the ground never more to rise. At this dreadful sight my senses forsook me, and I do not know how long I continued insensible, for when I was brought back to life I was in a state of raving delirium, in which I have been informed I continued for many weeks. When I finally recovered, I found myself the property of a slave merchant on board a Turkish vessel which was sailing for Tunis. On arriving there I was sold to the Dey. It was at Tunis I learned how I escaped the brutish lust of the villain Ozman. After the slaughter of my father and lover he had me conveyed to his harem, no doubt for the purpose of sacrificing my chastity to his abominable desires; but from the state I was in it became necessary for a doctor to be sent for, and he, after administering such medicines as brought me to myself, instantly declared me to be in a state of complete insanity. By the laws of Mahomet no one, under penalty of death, can abuse or take any liberty with the person of one of unsound mind. Thus for the moment I escaped ravishment. Shortly afterwards, in consequence of some act of peculation the wretch committed, the Sultan caused him to be strangled and his effects to be sold; being found among his slaves I became the property of the slave merchant, who quickly conveyed me from my country, home and friends, well knowing where my person would find a good market.

It appears such as I am I did not exactly strike the taste of the Dey, for he shortly afterwards sent me as a gift to our present master, who it seems it was decreed should enjoy the virgin treasures which the wicked Ozman dared not deprive me of and the Dey of Tunis neglected or did not think worth his time to take from me. After my first interview with the Dey I clearly saw that my chastity was in considerably more danger than it had been while I was in the power of Ozman, and that I was now without the protection I then enjoyed. After my recovery from the dreadful malady with which I was seized at the cruel butchery of my lover and father, a fixed melancholy settled on me in the place of the disorder. This the Dey on seeing me perceived, and he became anxious to know the cause why one so young and beautiful (as he was pleased to describe me) should be afflicted with such a determined lowness of spirits. In compliance with his urgent wishes, I related the history of my misfortunes. During my narrative he sat by my side and took one of my hands in his. I could clearly feel and see by his agitation how much my story affected him; The tear of sensibility stood trembling in his eye at the relation of my sufferings.

When I had finished he drew me trembling to his bosom, and tenderly kissing my forehead, said he blushed that such a villain as Ozman should disgrace the name of Mussulman. 'Have you no relations that I can return you to?' he demanded. I told him I knew of no relation but my father, and he and Demetrius were dead. 'No wonder,' he continued, your beauties are clouded; the misfortunes felt by one so young have been enough to sink you to the very earth. But cheer up, sweet maid, here you shall be free from all importunity. It is true you are my slave, and by our laws I can, if I think fit, violate your beauties; but no. As yet you have experienced nothing but oppression at our hands. I will try by kindness to deserve the enjoyment of your charms.'

Again he pressed me fondly to his bosom, but instead of kissing me as before, my lips received his pressures until their fierceness threw me into a confusion indescribable; but on seeing me in tears he immediately desisted, assuring me that my modesty had nothing to fear from him. But young and inexperienced as I was, nature assured me I had more to fear from the soft pity and seeming sensibility of the amorous Ali than the villainous proceedings of the ferocious Ozman. Ozman might have debauched me by force it is true, but with Ali I had more than force to guard against—I mean nature, which the persuasive Ali, even on my first interview, had contrived to alarm by his kisses, which (I know not why) I scarcely dared to refuse him, particularly as he always desisted when the fervency of his proceedings gave my modesty reason to complain. But I soon became conscious that at each new interview the liberties he took became more daring, so much so that I had determined to request he would send me home to my native isle as he had offered to do.

The very evening I had come to this resolution he sent word by one of his eunuchs that he would take his coffee with me. He came accordingly. After coffee was served (as was his usual custom) he reclined on the sofa, directing me to place myself by his side. I obeyed, as he never had refused to permit my rising when the fear of his proceedings had alarmed me. This evening I though he seemed particularly tender, but somewhat thoughtful. As usual, my lips became his prey. Without my knowledge he contrived to unbutton my bodice at the bosom, and ere I could oppose it his burning hand had invaded and was moulding one of my breasts. This new proceeding threw me into considerable agitation. I requested him to desist; to take his hand away. He immediately complied, merely demanding whether his caresses gave me uneasiness. Indeed so very kind did he appear that evening, I at last summoned up courage to make my request of being sent home. His kindness I confessed I should never forget I supported my petition with all the artless sophistry I was capable of. Ah, I little knew the value of the favour I was soliciting.

At first he seemed much astonished, and I thought affected, but with pleasure I saw the frown fade from his brow. He called me unkind, ungenerous, to wish to desert him at the very moment he had nearly persuaded himself that his attention and forbearance had created a sentiment in my bosom favourable to his hopes. 'Say, sweet maid,' he cried, fondly kissing me, 'you cannot, will not abandon me.' I hardly know how I resisted his pressure and importunities, but I did, and at last received the joyful assurance from him that I should return to my country-home I had none. But his promise was all deception, for even at the very moment he made it, his plans for my ruin were taking effect. Determined on my enjoyment, he had caused to be infused in the coffee which had been handed to me, a strong sleeping draught. Thus at the very moment I was soliciting for the safety of my virtue, my virgin hour was rapidly expiring, and my eyes were growing heavy with the effect of the opium. In fact, sleep overtook me in his arms, and I did not recover from the stupefying quality of the narcotic drug before my virginity and all hopes of escape were destroyed. I was no sooner asleep than the Dey had me undressed and conveyed to bed, whereupon he quickly followed. I became his unresisting prey. The acuteness of the painful sensations which I am told always accompany the transformation of the maid into the finished woman are unknown to me, for so powerful was the medicine that I continued buried all the night in the most profound insensibility—in fact, during all the time the Dey was in uncontrolled possession of my person; indeed so thoroughly had he prepared me to meet his pleasures when I should recover my senses, that during his first enjoyment of me, when perfectly awake, I felt not the least sensation that could be possibly called painful. You may guess my astonishment and sorrow, on awakening from my deathlike stupor, to find myself naked in the arms of the Dey, who was fast asleep, his head reclining on my bosom. From a certain stiffness I felt in a particular part, the truth crashed upon my mind instantly. I could not refrain from crying aloud, which awoke the Dey. He was not slow in pleading an excuse for what he had done, stating that, burning for my enjoyment, and plainly seeing my invincible modesty would oppose the most strenuous resistance to the completion of his desires, he determined, by rendering me insensible to my seduction, to spare my feelings and blushes.

'How could you suppose, lovely creature,' he cried, passionately, 'that it was possible I could part with charms like yours? Where would you fly to? no one to protect you—no home! your beauties are too great to suffer you long to escape the snares which some brutal renegade like Ozman would set to trap you. Then, sweet slave, pardon my offence; in me you will always find a kind and faithful protector. Come, dry those lovely eyes,' he continued; 'no longer rend my heart with those agonising looks.' In this manner, joined with the softest caresses, did Ali strive to soothe me after giving my first burst of passion its free vent. What he said was very true. I had no home or friend. Where was I to fly to? My state of wretchedness was too apparent. It required very little reflection to convince me the grand ordeal was past, my virginity being his. In short, he soothed me with the soft asseverations of the tenderest love, giving his persuasions with the most lively caresses, until at last by degrees he stemmed the tide of sorrow that flowed over my feelings. Seeing my grief was somewhat pacified, he considered this a fit opportunity to begin to prepare me to submit to his desires. I was entirely unconscious of his intentions. He suddenly turned me on my back, forcibly extended my thighs with one of his knees and in an instant was secure between them; without further ceremony he fixed himself in me, and vigorously making play, his quick thrusts soon sent him in fierce erection to his utmost length into me; indeed, I felt him up to the very quick; I was literally gorged by him. You may suppose my astonishment at finding the insertion of his instrument unaccompanied by the least particle of pain. [I interrupted her by enquiring if she felt not the least suffering.] None whatever, and I can only attribute it to the number of times he must have enjoyed me while I was under the influence of the opiate, for I assure you the pains accompanying the loss of virginity are entirely unknown to me. Nay, on the contrary, I felt not the least inconvenience. So you may guess my emotions at the awful moment when he had driven himself into me, joining as it were our bodies into one by the close junction of the parts. My hands were clenched—my whole body immovable—my teeth, fixed. I was lost to everything but the wonderful instrument that was sheathed within me. I call it wonderful, and I think not improperly; for wonderful must that thing be that in the midst of the most poignant grief can so rapidly dissolve our senses with the softest sensations, spite of inclination, so quickly cause us to forget our early impressions, our first affections, and in the most forlorn and wretched moments of our existence make us taste such voluptuous delight and lustful pleasure! This was my case. At the very moment I thought myself the most wretched of all human beings did the Dey, by his luxurious movements, cause me to experience the most sensual of all enjoyments, which every instant became more and more poignant and dissolving, until I was completely ravished with unutterable delight. I unconsciously grasped him in my arms, unable to conceal the joys I was convulsed with; and soon in my agony of bliss, amounting to little less than delirium, did I feel spouting from him the milk of life, which rushed in delicious streams into my womb, and quickly drew down from me with shuddering ecstasy my maiden tribute of the melting essence. After the first ecstasy, as he lay in my arms, whilst I was still languishing from the joy I had experienced, did he extract from me an unqualified kiss of forgiveness for his deceit and treachery, and on my lips did he seal an oath to Allah never to desert me. I now became passive if not resigned to my fate. Drawing his shaft out of me, and removing himself from between my thighs, he informed me that in the evening when his strength was sufficiently recruited, it was his intention to give me my finishing instructions in love's mysteries; for as yet, though it was evident to him I had enjoyed the pleasure, yet I had much to learn and to do ere (as he said) I could enjoy the ecstasy properly. He then left me. I shall not tire you with an account of how I passed the day; it is sufficient to say that towards evening the female slaves, after having conducted me to the bath, and properly ornamented my hair, and every way prepared me, helped me into bed to await the Dey's coming. He came covered only by a robe, which thrown off left him entirely naked, and he came to bed to me. If I had any repugnance left, this might certainly have removed it entirely. Directly he was laid by my side he first threw off the bedclothes, then untying the ribbons which closed my dress in front, he threw it open, leaving my person naked to his view. He then examined every part of me, covering me as he did so with numberless kisses. Having satisfied his curiosity as to my person, he drew me to his bosom, and desired me to place my lips to his. He then taught me several ways of kissing. The first was merely drawing my lips softly across his, which he called dove-kissing. The second was keeping my lips glued to his, returning his suction until he withdrew his lips: this he called the kiss of enjoyment; and the third was the same with the difference of thrusting his tongue into my mouth—this was described by him as the kiss of desire.

When he thought he had sufficiently taught me the manner of kissing which pleased him, he desired me particularly to remember that whenever he got between my thighs I must immediately extend them to their utmost width, and when I found he had completely entered me, then, and not till then, I was to embrace his body with my arms, and pass my lips softly over his when I felt him beginning to thrust; as he withdrew out of me, I was also to withdraw from him, but not so much as to throw him out; and as he thrust home again, I was also to meet him with all my force, my arms all the time encircling him firmly—all my kisses to be entirely governed by his manner of kissing, and immediately I felt him beginning to discharge himself within me, I was instantly to throw my legs over his back and keep myself immovably fixed in the closest junction with him, until the very last drop was ejected from him; but, above all, he particularly pressed upon me to obey him in everything he directed implicitly, assuring me I should find my reward in obedience. With blushes I promised to obey his desires in every particular. He then got between my thighs, which I extended to his wishes; this I saw gratified him; then, on his knees between them, he desired me to take hold of his instrument, and pass my hand up and down it two or three times. I did as he directed, but could not look him in the face. Ah, I could scarcely grasp the stately pillar! As my hand slipped up and down it, I felt it throb and leap freely. I was struck with astonishment at how I could have entertained so superb and magnificent a shaft! I was not given long to consider about it. He laid himself down on me; with his left hand he unclosed the luscious lips of the mouth of nature, while with the right he bent his mighty instrument—so stiff was its erection that he appeared with difficulty to force it down to the opening—and presently I felt its broad shelving head entering between the lips which the fingers kept extended. When he got in, as if he meant to spin out his pleasure and give it more play, he passed his instrument up so slowly that it appeared an age to me until I had fairly received it into the soft laboratory of love. At last our mossy mounts fairly rubbed against each other. But ah! how silly were the directions he had given me as to not embracing him until this moment! it was out of my power to resist the impulse I felt. If my life had depended upon it I could not have forborne from grasping him to my breast. As to his other directions, I believe I gave him perfect satisfaction. At first I was passive by force, but as he made play, the in-and-out friction soon awakened, touched and roused me to the quick, so that, unable to contain myself, I could not but comply with his motions as quickly as the delicacy of my make and my inexperience would admit of, until the pleasure rose to such a height that it made me wild with ravishing sensations, in fact I threw my legs about at random, entirely lost in the sweet agitation. As to the Dey, his ecstasy declared itself by the increasing quickness and fierceness of his thrusts, his rough grasping of my body, his burning kisses and eyes darting humid fires. As the last moment, the critical moment came, I had barely sufficient recollection to follow my instructions. I instantly entwined my legs over his loins, every part of us was strictly joined, and, oh God! he distilled into me a flood of rapture which was met by me, I scarcely know how, for the transport was so great that I actually fainted in his arms.

When I recovered, the endearing language and tender caresses of the Dey fully spoke his entire satisfaction, and from that moment I became his favourite slave; so I continued until you were brought into the harem. But pray, Madame [she said, tenderly throwing herself into my arms and kissing me], do not think me jealous of your superior attractions, for although in our unfortunate situations the pleasures of the Dey's embraces are an extreme source of consolation as well as gratification, yet I assure you [her beautiful eyes filled with tears as she spoke] no one but Demetrius could ever make me jealous. Demetrius was my true, my only love.


LETTER 8

Emily Barlow to Sylvia Carey (continued)

I had forgot to mention before the unhappy fate of my companion Eliza, whom I never saw after my first introduction to the Dey; she was presented by the Dey to the Dey of Tunis, whose shocking barbarity to his female slaves was the common gossip of our harem. One day the Dey came into my room, and throwing down a letter, told me it contained all the particulars of the ravishment of my friend, adding, 'She has had a little worse treatment than my slaves generally meet with.'

I seized the letter, and you may judge my feelings on reading the following:


LETTER 9

The Dey of Tunis to the Dey of Algiers

A pretty trick you have played me. By Mahomet's beard, it is abominable! to look at her, who would have credited it? such a meek-eyed, timid-looking thing! By Allah, Ali, merely for thrusting my hands into her breasts did she fly at me like a tiger, and my face was instantly furrowed by her cursed nails like unto a field new ploughed. But I wrong you to suppose you could have known what a termagant she was; if you had, you certainly would have communicated the character of your present. I may properly say she was a termagant for she is now tamed. When somewhat recovered from the surprise her sudden attack created, I summoned some of the eunuchs, into whose care I delivered her, determined to defer my revenge until the wounds of my face were healed—and you shall hear how then this vixen was subdued.

In a few days my face was well; my directions that she should be treated with every possible respect in the meantime had quite put her off her guard. One morning the eunuchs conveyed her to my experiment room, where, before she could tell what they were about, her hands were securely fastened together and drawn above her head, through a pulley fixed in the ceiling. I directed her to be pulled up so as not to lift her off the ground, but that she should not be able to throw herself down. When this was effected I entered the room and dismissed the eunuchs. There she stood trembling with rage, but unable to help herself. I now drew a couch towards her, and having seated myself close to her, placed one arm around her waist, and with the other was about to lift up her clothes.

It is impossible to describe the exertions she made to prevent my proceedings, she twisted herself about and writhed and kicked until I was obliged to abandon my attempt for a moment and call in the eunuchs, who quickly (in spite of her kicking) secured each of her feet to a ring placed in the floor, about two feet and a half from each other. This, of course, considerably extended her legs and thighs. She was then secure every way. After dismissing the eunuchs, I again drew the couch close to her, and without further ceremony lifted up her clothes. Oh, Ali, what delicious transport shot through my veins at the voluptuous charms exhibited to my ardent gaze! How lovely was her round mount of love, just above the temple of Venus, superbly covered with beautiful black hair, how soft and smooth as ivory her belly and her swelling, delicately formed thighs! The cygnet down instantly disclosed that she was a maid, for where the bodies have been properly joined in the fierce encounter, the hair (particularly of the female) loses that sleek downy appearance, and by the constant friction the smooth hair becomes rubbed into delightful little curls. But, to put the fact beyond dispute, I thrust my forefinger into the little hole below. Her loud cries, and the difficulty of entering which was found, set the fact beyond dispute. Immediately dropping on my knees, grasping in each hand one of her buttocks, I placed on her virgin toy a most delicious kiss. I then got up and began to undress her. She appeared nearly choked with passion; her tears flowed down her beautiful face in torrents. But her rage was of no use. Proceeding leisurely, first taking off one thing, then another, and with the help of scissors, I quickly rid her of every covering.

Holy Mahomet! What a glorious sight she exhibited: beautiful breasts-finely placed, sufficiently firm to support themselves—shoulders, belly, thighs, legs, everything was deliriously voluptuous! But what most struck my fancy was the beautiful whiteness, roundness and voluptuous swell of firm flesh of her lovely buttocks and thighs. 'Soon,' I said to myself, handling her delicious bum, 'soon shall this lovely whiteness be mixed with a crimson blush!' I placed burning kisses upon every part of her; wherever my lips travelled instantly the part was covered with scarlet blushes. Having directed two rods to be placed on the couch, also a leather whip with broad lashes, I took one of the rods and (shoving the couch out of the way) began gently to lay it on the beautiful posterior of my sobbing captive. At first I did it gently enough—it could have no other effect than just to tickle her; but shortly I began every now and then to lay on a smart lash, which made her wince and cry out. This tickling and cutting I kept up for some time—until the alabaster cheeks of her bum had become suffused with a slight blush—then suddenly I began to give the rod with all my might; then indeed was every lash followed by a cry, or an exclamation for pity, such as 'Oh! spare me, for God's sake! have pity on me! you cut me in pieces!'

'Ah, I cannot bear it! I shall die!' Her winces and the delicious wiggling of her backside increased in proportion to the increase of the force of my lashes and these continued, heedless of her cries, entreaties and complaints, until both the rods and myself were exhausted. To recover breath I drew the couch close to her and seated myself; the entire surface of her beautiful buttocks was covered with welts; every here and there, where the stem of the leaves had caught her, appeared a little spot of crimson blood, which went trickling down the lily thighs. Again and again did I slide my hand over her numerous beauties. Again and again did my forefinger intrude itself into her delicate little hole of pleasure. She could not avoid anything I thought fit to do. Her thighs were stretched wide enough for me to have enjoyed her if I had thought fit, but that was not my immediate intention. I had settled she was to receive the quantity of punishment allotted her before she was deflowered.

Having recovered my breath, I stripped myself, and, seizing the leather whip, began to flog her with such effect that the blood followed every lash. Vain were her cries and supplications—still lash followed lash in rapid succession. I was now in so princely a state of erection that I could have made a hole where there had been none before, let alone drive myself into a place which nature had been so bountiful as to form of stretching material. Quickly summoning the eunuchs, I directed them to lay her on her back on the couch, properly securing an arm on each side to one of the legs of the couch. It was accomplished as quickly as ordered. They retired, leaving me with my exhausted victim to complete the sacrifice. I was not long in rooting up her modesty, deprived as she was of the use of her arms and exhausted by her sufferings. A pillow having been placed under her sufficiently to raise her bottom so as to leave a fair mark for my engine, I threw her legs over my shoulders, and softly (as a tender mother playing with her infant) opened the lips of paradise and love to reveal its coral hue and mossy little grotto—and each fold closed upon the intruding finger, repelling the unwelcome guest. Inconceivable is the delight one feels in these transporting situations! There is nothing on earth so much enhances the joy with me as to know the object that affords me the pleasure detests me, but cannot help from satisfying my desires—her tears and looks of anguish are sources of unutterable joy to me! Being satisfied in every way, by sight, by touch, by every sense, that I was the first possessor, I placed the head of my instrument between the distended lips, grasping her thighs with her legs over my shoulders, then making a formidable thrust, lodged the head entirely in her; she turned her beautiful eyes up to heaven as if looking there for assistance—her exhaustion precluded any opposition; another fierce thrust deepened the insertion; tears in torrents followed my efforts, but she disdained to speak; still I thrust, but no complaint; but growing fiercer, one formidable plunge proved too mighty for her forbearance—she not only screamed, but struggled. However, I was safely in her. Another thrust finished the job; it was done, and nobly done, by Mahomet! Europa was never half so well unvirgined, although love might have had the strength of a bull. After having cooled my burning passion by a copious discharge, I withdrew myself. Crimson tears followed my exit; with a handkerchief I wiped away the precious drops, and falling on my knees between her thighs, placed on the torn and wounded lips a delicious kiss—delicious beyond measure. Only consider, Ali, to know beyond dispute that no one but myself had divided these pouting, fresh, warm, clasping and gaping gates of pleasure! Indeed it was rapturous beyond description. I now thought it time to untie the silken cord that confined the arms of this young vixen. On feeling her arms released, her only motion was to cover her eyes with her hands; there she lay on her back immovable—but for her sobs I could not have told whether she existed. I left her, but ordered the eunuchs to convey her to her apartments, directing the greatest care to be taken of her until my return from an excursion I was about to make to Bona.

I was gone twelve days. During my journey, I had refrained from women, consequently on my return I felt myself in an extremely amorous mood. Not intending to give her modesty (if she had any left) an excuse for resistance, I directed her to be again secured, but this time I had her fastened face downwards to a curious couch made on purpose, at the end of which, by means of a handle, the positions may be elevated or lowered to any height convenient. On lifting up her clothes, to my great joy I found there was not the least remains of the flagellation so liberally administered to her. Her swelling ivory thighs and voluptuous firm buttocks had perfectly recovered their beautiful freshness. I think it is utterly impossible for anyone to possess charms exceeding in beauty the rising plumpness of her lovely limbs! How delightful the touch and squeeze of her bum! After tucking her clothes securely up as high as the small of her back, so that her twisting could not unloosen them, I undressed myself, and arming myself with a magnificent rod, commenced giving her a second lesson in birch discipline. Not intending this bout to make her suffer much, having (as I said) completely broken her spirit when I deflowered her, all that I now intended was to enjoy the luxurious wriggling, plunging and kicking which usually attends a smart flagellation. From the tears that already filled her beautiful eyes, I plainly perceived she expected the same treatment she had before experienced; but she was deceived—for this time I did not lay into her with more strength than was necessary to cover her posterior with a slight carnation blush. But still the delicious struggles and writhes, as the expected cat fell upon her round buttocks, threw me into so luxurious a frenzy that it caused me soon to abandon the rod. By means of the wheel and handle I raised her buttocks until her delicate little hole of pleasure was properly placed to receive me. I directed myself to the entrance. Having thoroughly stretched her on my first attack, three or four thrusts were enough to engulf my fullest length into her; in fact she sustained the insertion without making any great complaint, only a little cry or so. Nothing adds to the enjoyment so much as the active reciprocation of the female when she returns the transport; when that return is not willingly given, its place must be supplied in the best way available. It could hardly be expected that any return would be made by my captive, consequently I was obliged to make the best substitute I could; so, seizing her round the loins as I drove myself into her, grasping her close and drawing her towards me, I made her meet the coming thrusts, thus famously supplying the want of her own free will in the exertions of my pleasures. Master of the place, I gave way with all my energy to the voluptuous joys with which my senses were surrounded. At every fierce insertion my stones slapped against the soft lips of her delicate slit. Everything conspired to excite, to gratify my senses. Driving close into her, I for a moment stopped my furious thrusts to play with the soft silly hair which covered her mount of love; then slipping my hand over her ivory belly up to her breasts, I made her rosy nipples my next prey. Then, Ali, I again commenced my ravishing in-and-out strokes. Oh, how beautiful was the sight in the mirror by my side, as I drew myself out of her, of the rosy lips of her sheath protruding out clasping my instrument as if fearing to lose it! then again, as the column returned up to the quick, to see the crimson edging that surrounded me gradually retreating inwards, until it was entirely lost in the black circles of her mossy hair! In short, Ali, overcome with voluptuous sensations, the crisis seized me. I distilled, as it were, my very soul into her! Satisfied, I now withdrew myself, then releasing her hands, I stripped her of her clothes (all but her shift) and carried her to a more commodious couch, on which I threw her, and placed myself by her side. She had now nothing to lose. Fear, no doubt, prevented her making resistance to my proceedings. The view and touch of so many beauties again fired my blood. I seized her, threw myself upon her, divided her thighs, quickly buried myself in her, and again and again drowned myself in a sea of sensual delight, in which it must be confessed the sweet girl did not to appearances participate. But in my next I hope to give a better account of her.

MUZRA

This letter you may be assured made me feel quite unhappy. While on this subject I will give you the contents of the subsequent letter, written about a week afterwards.


LETTER 10

Muzra to Ali

Ah, Ali, the English slave has indeed been a fatal present to your friend. You will scarcely credit the dreadful recompense she has taken for her lost virginity.

Yes, Ali, nothing but my life would satisfy her. Doubtless her wishes will be gratified, for I feel life ebbing fast from me. As I informed you in my last, I supposed that her spirit was quite subdued; but I little knew the mind I had to contend with, or how terrible a retribution she would exact for my trespass on her charms! But I must quickly finish. Several times I had enjoyed her in the daytime, but had not slept with her. One night, truly fatal for me, I ordered the eunuchs to bring her to my sleeping apartment. Oh, Ali, nothing could exceed the docility, mixed with the timid bashfulness of her behaviour. In the midst of my joys she clasped me in her arms, returning my kisses as ardently as they were given, and appearing to receive as much ecstatic pleasure as she herself gave. But it was all deceit, to lull me to my destruction. Wearied by bliss, I sank by her side into a delightful slumber, from which I was awoken by the piercing of a knife through my bosom. It was daylight; she was leaning over me with a savage joy, brandishing the fatal instrument that had already pierced me. Again it fell on my defenceless bosom. 'That's for my lost virtue!' she cried. Again she struck me, 'That's for my cruel scourging!' And again flourishing it before my eyes, she cried, 'Receive that for the many times you have forced my poor body to submit to your loathsome pollutions.' Again it fell unerring on my breast. I shrieked aloud for help. Two of the eunuchs rushed in. She had sprung out of bed. The first (who attempted to seize her) paid with his life the forfeit of temerity, but the other overpowered her. Weak from the loss of blood, I had still strength enough to order she should not be hurt. My orders were obeyed. To prevent any ill usage to her in case I should not recover, I have sent her back to you. I can dictate no more at present. If I should depart to Paradise, as you respect your friend, let no one injure her. Farewell. May happiness attend you.

MUZRA

I can hardly describe my feelings on reading this last letter. I was pleased to think Eliza has returned, for I am in hopes now of having some of her company. I have asked the Dey to permit her to visit me, and he has promised me that I shall be gratified. The Dey of Tunis is recovering from his wounds, but will not, I presume, want Eliza back again, for fear of her taking further vengeance on him. Adieu, dearest Sylvia.

EMILY BARLOW


LETTER 11

Sylvia Carey to Emily Barlow

Toulon, France

Emily—It is impossible at once to shake off our earliest acquaintance; if it had been you ought not to have expected that I should have taken any notice of your disgusting letters. What offence have I ever given that you should insult me by writing in the language you have? Why annoy me with an account of the libidinous scenes acted between you and the beast whose infamous and lustful acts you so particularly describe? Did I not know the character of your writing well, I should be in hopes I was deceived by some wretch. But no, every part of your writing carries conviction. I have to thank God the letters fell into my hands, else your infamy would have dragged another crime on your guilty head by the death of my unfortunate brother who most certainly would have fallen under the dreadful discovery if he had by accident gone (which he most usually does) to the post office for our letters. Although the letters were directed to me, he would assuredly have opened them had he seen your writing. But thank God this pang has at present been spared him. After you sailed from Portsmouth, Henry's health became daily worse, and the physicians declared that nothing but a warmer climate would save his life. I was therefore determined to pass the summer in the South of France and the neighbourhood of this place was fixed upon for our residence. Your mother determined to accompany us. We made the journey by stages, and on arriving here hired a most delightful cottage, a short walk outside the fortifications of the town, opposite the sea. Here Henry's health has daily improved, and both our parents are in hopes of his entire recovery. The time when he expects to hear from you in India is not yet expired, so at present he is easy on this point. God knows what the result will be when he hears of your debased situation, and the infamous satisfaction it gives you! Your mother is the only person I have dared to communicate the sad tidings to, and we have given particular direction to the postmaster at Toulon not to permit Henry to have any letters directed to either of us. We therefore feel sure that none of your letters can fall into his hands. I cannot describe your mother's grief, which she is obliged to hide from my brother; it is evidently making rapid inroads on her constitution. I am enabled to write to you direct as a vessel is now leaving for the port of Algiers with some missionaries on board for the redemption of slaves; but the nature of your letters has so distracted your mother that she does not know how to proceed, or whether it is your wish to be released from the infamous subjection in which your beastly ravisher seems to hold both your person and senses. If there is a spark of feeling, on your mother's account (or modesty on your own) left, make no delay in letting me know if you wish to escape from the wretch who thus holds you in his thraldom. I subscribe myself still your friend (if you deserve it),

SYLVIA CAREY

This letter was written before the receipt of Emily's last letter.


LETTER 12

The Dey to Abdallah

Abdallah—A short time back several missionaries arrived here from the South of France since their arrival they have been employed in redeeming several worn-out old male slaves, mostly Frenchmen. They have petitioned me to grant them a passage home in the first ship that leaves for the port of Toulon.

For the reason herein explained, I have appointed you to carry them to France. As these holy hypocrites have great influence in their own country, be careful you treat them with the proper respect and attention during their voyage, as their countenance may be serviceable, particularly Father Angelo, who will supply you with every information you want respecting an English family now residing in the neighbourhood of Toulon. In this family is a young woman named Sylvia Carey. This girl, Abdallah, you must contrive to secure and bring back with you to Algiers.

The eunuch who delivers this will give you a private signet, which you may show as soon as you think proper to Father Angelo; it will command his services, and you may rely implicitly upon everything the Christian dog says or does. Mind, Abdallah, I have set my mind on having possession of the girl; do not return without her. Name your own reward, but be careful she is mine.

ALI


LETTER 13

Pedro to Angelo

Angelo—You remember my informing you of the young and lovely daughter of the Marquis of Mezzia having been forced to take the veil in our neighbouring Ursuline Convent. It now appears this beautiful creature has become a sacrifice to the pride of the family; its revenue being comparatively beggarly, no fortune could be given with her in marriage, so there was no choice. Either the brother must have been reduced to the necessity of seeking a support by some profession (or other means equally disgusting to the pride of the old Marquis), or this young innocent must be sacrificed. I need not explain to you, who was so long the confessor of the late Marquis, the poverty and pride of both him and young Mezzia. Paternal feeling or any other social tie which should have protected and supported the beauteous flower, all sank before the imaginary stain that might be inflicted on the honour of the house by curtailing the means of one of its descendants. This quickly decided the proud, unfeeling father and cruel brother, so at the age of seventeen, all her young beauties just ripening into perfection, was the almost broken-hearted Julia Mezzia forced to utter oaths her heart abhorred, devoting her voluptuous charms to the service of religioncharms, Angelina, only fit for the service of vigorous man.

As I before gave you the full particulars of the distressing ceremony, I need not revert to it. But although beauty may be strictly confined by walls and bars, nature will still assume its mighty empire. This lovely virgin has been caught in an attempt to escape from the horrors of a cell for life. She was taken in the act of descending the wall, being betrayed by a sister of the convent, to whom in youthful confidence she had imparted her design. The penalty is death, unless mercy can be purchased for her; but such means as is necessary I do not think the Mezzia family can command, and if they could I shall take care with his Holiness that it has no effect.

You see, Angelo, this blushing rose must be mine. She will be shortly brought to her trial and condemned by the abbess to be buried alive. A report will then be forwarded to the grand vicar, who will procure his Holiness's fiat. It will be my duty to prevent any petitions in her favour being heard. Fare thee well! you will soon hear of my success.

PEDRO, ABBOT OF ST FRANCIS


LETTER 14

Pedro to Angelo

She is mine, soul and body mine. I have the delicious angel safe in my secret apartments in the convent, where uncontrolled I revel and feed upon her thrilling beauties. She came to my fierce embrace a blushing, timid maid. Oh, Angelo, how delicious were the moments spent in unravelling the Gordian knot of her coy chastity! How sweet to the ear was the soft cry that announced the expiration of her virginity. Angelo (believe me when I write it), the very moment I saw the parlour grating close upon the lovely Mezzia on the afternoon she received the veil, a prophetic spirit whispered in mine ear, 'She is mine.' She is mine—only mine—wholly mine. Nearly the whole of last night was I voluptuously encircled by her wary limbs, her young budding breasts rapturously beating against my manly bosom, her glowing cheek fondly pressed to mine, and only removed to resign her balmy lips to my burning kisses. Night of exquisite rapture! May it never be weakened in the tablet of memory! As I predicted, Angelo, for her attempt to escape from the convent, the austere Abbess of St Ursuline immediately called a chapter to try this lovely disgrace to our holy religion. Her friends were notified of her infamous attempt, and in due time the trial took place, in the presence of her father, brother and friends. Sister Sophia, the nun in whom my young pupil had misplaced her confidence, was the principal evidence against her. It appears before she was excluded from the world an attachment had subsisted between her and a young nobleman, whose name was the only thing Julia had not acquainted Sister Sophia with. As he luckily escaped in the confusion of securing Julia, he has nothing to fear. The poor girl had no defence. The detection was too public. What she urged in mitigation of her fault not only incensed the abbess more and more against her, but absolutely caused her father and brother to deny and abandon her to her fate altogether.

She publicly avowed that she was compelled to take the veil by her father and brother, and called on heaven to witness the truth of her assertion and protect her in her distress. Her father and brother fled the convent venting curses on her, and she was condemned by the chapter to be buried alive. Oh, Angelo, how great was my joy at hearing this sentence. You are the only one of the order to whom I have communicated the fact of the existence of a subterraneous passage from my dormitory to the tomb of death in the convent of St Ursuline. Guess with what impatience I waited the result of the case from Rome. The sentence of the chapter being confirmed, the following day was appointed for depositing the victim in the dreadful sepulchre. In the meantime, I descended and conveyed by our subterraneous entrance a comfortable mattress and other conveniences, and I also cleaned out the dungeon of the filth and vermin, so that the tender girl should be able at least to sleep without interruption during the time I intended she should stay there; that you may be sure would be no longer than to make her thankful to surrender her person to my desires when I afforded her an opportunity to escape from death by starvation. I shall not disgust you with an account of the ceremony of forcing this young creature down the marble jaws of the tomb opened in the Ursuline church. Suffice it to say that a rope of sufficient length was fixed firmly round her waist, and, in spite of her struggles and screams, she was carried and held over the dreadful opening and then gradually lowered into the frightful abyss, her cries making the church echo, until the marble slab enclosed her, as it was supposed, from the world forever. I had placed by the side of the mattress sufficient provisions to last her for a day, intending to leave her to reflection for about two or three days; by that time I had no doubt hunger and fear would have so reduced her that to escape from her horrid prison she would quickly submit to any terms I should propose.

On the third day of the incarceration, after vespers, I took my dark lantern and again trod the subterraneous passage. On arriving at the secret entrance of the tomb, I waited a considerable time ere I could ascertain whether she was awake. At last I was assured she slept. With caution I opened the door and silently approached the unconscious sleeper. Removing the shade off the light by degrees, I turned it on her face, fearing to awaken her by letting it flash instantly on her. Poor girl! how evident was the inroad of care and despair on her lovely countenance. She lay her full length on the mattress, her head resting on her right arm, her beautiful tresses playing in confusion over her ivory neck, while the disorder of her veil only half concealed her young, delicious breasts. Her cheeks still retained the traces of recent tears, and her slumbers were disturbed with the horrors of her situation, for unknowingly she uttered, 'Oh, Father, save me!' her whole frame becoming convulsed with the agony even in her dream. I could bear this no longer, but shading my light, coughed loud enough to break the bonds of sleep.

'What noise was that?' exclaimed the poor sufferer. 'I thought I heard someone move. Oh, no, it was the deception of my giddy brain. Alas, there is no hope for a wretch like me!'

I seized this opportunity and slowly uttered the word 'Hope.'

A faint scream, evidently mixed with pleasure, followed my response. After a few second's silence she exclaimed, 'Oh, pray do not play with my wretchedness! If there is anyone near do not drive to despair a miserable girl!'

'Help is nigh,' was my reply. 'But let not joy deceive you with hopes that may not be fulfilled, your release from death depends entirely upon your submission to certain terms.'

'Oh, for heaven's sake name them,' she cried; 'keep me not thus in agonising suspense! say what I am to do to save myself from the dreadful lingering anguish of famine I now so powerfully feel.'

'Listen,' I replied, 'the only terms upon which you can be released from this den of horrors and certain lingering death is the entire submission of your person to enjoyment; this is the only way you can be saved.' At this moment I unshaded my lamp, and let it reflect full on my face. She covered her eyes with her hands, but she did not answer. 'Come,' I cried, 'time wears apace, you must be quick in your resolve, if I leave this dungeon your fate is fixed for ever.' Still there was no answer. I again covered the lamp and solemnly said, 'Well then, farewell,' and moved from her as if I were leaving the tomb.

'Oh, save me,' she cried, believing I was going.

'Well then, you consent to submit to my desires—to every desire or request I choose to make?'

'Oh, yes, everything; save me from death, I will submit to anything.'

'Then you are saved,' I replied, approaching and taking her in my arms. Her soft lips I drew to mine, and sucking her perfumed breath, I sealed our contract. I now told her it was sometimes the case that the abbess would cause the marble covering to be removed from the tomb to point out to any disobedient nuns the punishment that might await them, therefore her clothes must be laid immediately under the opening that they might be seen. Should such event occur, the depth of the tomb would prevent any possibility of ascertaining whether she was in them, else an immediate search might be made in the tomb, and perhaps her retreat eventually discovered, in which case the power of the church would drag her back to her punishment. I again uncovered my lantern and could clearly see her modesty struggling with her fears. Therefore I told her there must be no delay made. 'Come, come,' I cried; 'we must depart this moment, you must yield to the necessity of plucking off your habit.' She trembled, and said she could not think of being naked, with a confusion which made her look on the escape as scarcely a recompense for the shame she must undergo. No doubt she would have debated the proprietary of it, but I peremptorily cut her short by beginning to get rid of her dress by degrees, getting off one thing, then another, until she was wholly stripped of everything. For the trouble I took in her toilet I rewarded myself as I proceeded. I laid her dress at full length on the ground immediately under the opening of the vault, so that it could plainly be perceived from above bearing the appearance of covering a body. I then fixed a handkerchief over the eyes of Julia, and taking her round the waist, led her out of the vault. In a few minutes she was safe in my private apartments, where a table well laid out with every kind of refreshment awaited her. Carrying her to the sofa by the side of the table, I gently laid her on it, and taking off the bandage from her eyes, with a loving kiss assured her of her safety. Although I well knew she must have been suffering considerably from hunger at the time, still I could not refrain from indulging myself with a few moments' toying with her young beauties ere I permitted her to satisfy nature's wants. It is true as I conducted her through the subterraneous passage, every part of her delicate body had been felt by my eager hands, but that you know, Angelo, was in the dark. Now I had her in my arms, every charm was exposed to the broad glare of day. The unrivalled whiteness of her skin was emphasised by the black velvet of the sofa on which she was laid. Quickly my daring hand seized her most secret treasure, regardless of her soft complaints, which my burning kisses reduced to mere murmurs, while my fingers penetrated into the covered way of love. How transporting is the combat between coy modesty and newborn pleasure. How delicious appears the first blushes of shame on the snowy purity of the virgin's bosom. Ah! Angelo, do you not envy my joys? Guess how I dissolved as my lips wandered over her sweet body! How soft were her cries of 'Ah!' and 'Fie!' I discerned a bright falling tear, but it was the tear of pleasure. Then she tried (but in vain) to remove my hand, whilst her closed eyes clearly told the soft languor was gently creeping on her senses. I scarcely know how to account for my not at that moment exacting my recompense for saving her from the jaws of death. But I did not. I suddenly desisted, and raising her from the position I held her in, drew the table towards the couch, desired she would assist herself to what she thought fit and left the apartment. In my bedroom I had some fine chemises, one of which I brought her and assisted her to put on; it was quite large enough, but of course it was no defence to my curious hands, which I could easily slip to any part of her I pleased. However, I did not interrupt her during her repast, but attended to her wants with the greatest care, forcing her to take two or three glasses of mulled wine, which was already prepared. As the cravings of her appetite were assuaged, mine were every minute growing more furious. Seeing she had finished, although she pretended still to be eating, I gently encircled my arm around her neck; I drew this soft, languishing, sighing and nearly fainting beauty to my bosom, then fixing upon her humid lips a long, burning kiss, I nearly sucked her life away. Whilst occupied in this sweet employment, I unloosened the cord which kept my gown tight around me, and told her I then intended to reap the reward for the service I had rendered her.

The poor affrighted maid pleaded hard for a moment's pause and, weeping, strove to persuade me to spare her innocence—a token defence of virtue's laws. But I took her into my arms, and then began the soft contention preparatory to the fiercer fight. How delicious was the glow upon her beauteous neck and bare ivory shoulders, as I forced her on her back on the couch! With what voluptuous modesty did she hang her head as in the full tide of vigour I divided her swelling thighs. Quickly was the unspotted maid placed in that position which I did not permit her to rise from until she had forfeited every claim on that name. How luxuriously did her snowy hillocks rise against my bosom in wild confusion. Luckily she did not know what she was about to suffer. The confusion which seized her on my fingers again entering the cell of Venus for the purpose of introducing myself considerably favoured my proceedings. I felt the head of my weapon between her lips, and with a vigorous thrust strove to penetrate, but so cruelly tore her delicate little entrance that she screamed, tried to escape, and effectually threw me out. Inflamed with lechery and rage at this repulse, I swore by heaven if she again resisted I would convey her back to the tomb. Again I forcibly fixed myself between the lips of her yet untasted first fruits. I saw she was much alarmed at my rage and threats. It had a good effect: her fears lessened her defence. I then took every care to make my attack quite certain, and I began the fight of fierce delight, of pleasure mixed with pain. However enormous the disproportion between the place assailed and the attacking instrument, I soon found it piercing inward; her loud cries announced its victorious progress. Nothing now could appease my fury; the more she implored grace the more I pressed on with vigour. But never was conquest more difficult. Oh, how I was obliged to tear her up in forcing her virgin defences! With what delicious tightness she clasped my rod of Aaron, as it entered the inmost recesses of her till then virgin sanctuary. How voluptuous was the heat of her young body! I was mad with enjoyment! Her young breasts rising and falling in wild confusion attracted my caresses. Guess my state of excitement. I sucked them, and at last bit them with delight. Although Julia was much overcome with her suffering, still she reproachfully turned her lovely eyes swimming with pain and languor on me. At this instant, with a final energetic thrust, I buried myself up to the very hair in her. A shriek proclaimed the change in her state; the ecstasy seized me and I shot into the inmost recesses of the womb of this innocent and beautiful child as copious a flood of burning sperm as ever was fermented under the cloak of a monk; whereupon, oh, marvellous effects of nature, the lovely Mezzia, spite of her cruel sufferings, ceded to my vigorous impressments. The pleasure overcame the pain, and the stretching of her ivory limbs, the quivering of her body, the eager clasping of her delicate arms, clearly spoke that nature's first effusion was distilling within her. When somewhat recovered from my ecstasy, without giving up possession of my prize, I lay on her soft bosom contemplating the numerous beauties fate had thrown into my possession. A profusion of dark brown tresses flowed negligently in luxurious curls to below her slender waist; under her fine-formed brows beamed the brightest eyes of ethereal blue ever created; her nose is Roman; her soft blushing cheeks imitate the rose; her teeth are like oriental pearls, whilst her yielding, pouting lips are most admirably turned. But at that moment these delicious inhalers of our fondest impressments were terribly wounded, so boisterous had been my enjoyment of them. Her face is decidedly Grecian, her bosom, shoulders, and neck resemble the purest ivory. On turning my eyes lower, on her young snowy hillocks, I blushed to see the crimson marks which my teeth had left on those lovely orbs. Softly insinuating my arms round her neck, I drew her blushing face to mine, and after impressing a few soft kisses on her yet bleeding lips, anxiously entreated the sweet girl to pardon my cruelty, assuring her with the tenderest oaths that I knew not what I was about, so much had the maddening transports overpowered me. She replied not. I placed one of her beautiful arms around my neck. She suffered it to remain. Again from her pouting lips did I inhale luxurious sweets.

Although I thought I had distilled my very existence into her, the life-inspiring suction completely reanimated my whole frame. I felt myself in as proud a state of erection within her as when I commenced her defloration; her young breasts heaving quickly, soft sighs, blushes and tremblings, sufficiently told that my prey also felt the return of my vigour. I determined the second enjoyment should amply repay her for all she had suffered, and began my movements with a caution and slowness which made her sigh with voluptuous ecstasy. It was now indeed that I leisurely enjoyed the lingering bliss, as by tender and ravishing degrees I forced myself up to the very quick within her. Scarcely mistress of her feelings, her yielding lips with delicious kisses joined more and more close to mine, blushes deeper and deeper covered her neck and blooming cheeks, her arms closely grasped me. By degrees my thrusts became quicker, but no complaint interrupted my joys. She panted with rapture; her limbs encircled me; she voluptuously heaved to my thrusts, whilst the wanton movements of her body and limbs, her ardent transports, her soft kisses, gave ample testimony of how quick the transition is from coy chastity to unrestrained luxurious enjoyment.

In short, I was as blessed as youth and voluptuous beauty could make me, until forced to retire from her arms to attend to my monastery duties. They were quickly dispatched, and after refreshing myself with a few hours' rest, I returned to my captive with recruited strength for the night's soft enjoyment. A smile of welcome was on her lovely countenance; she was dressed from a wardrobe I had pointed out to her, containing everything fit for her sex, with grateful pleasure I instantly perceived that her toilet had not been made for the mere purpose of covering her person, but every attention had been paid to setting off her numerous charms. The most care had been given to the disposing of her hair, whilst the lawn which covered her broad voluptuous breasts was so temptingly disposed that it was impossible to look upon her without burning desire. She sprang off the couch to meet me; for a moment I held her from me in an ecstasy of astonishment, then drawing her to my bosom, planted on her lips a kiss so long and so thrilling it was some moments ere we recovered from its effects. My passions were instantly in a blaze. I carried her to the side of the couch, placed her on it, and whilst sucking her delicious lips, uncovered her neck and breasts, then seizing her legs lifted them up, and threw up her clothes. A dissolving sentiment struggled with my more amorous desires. I stooped down to examine the voluptuous, glorious view. How luscious was the sight! Every part of her body was ivory whiteness, firmness and delicacy; the whole was perfect, everything charming; the white interspersed with small blue veins showed the transparency of the skin, whilst the darkness of the hair, softer than velvet, formed most beautiful shades, making a delicious contrast with the vermilion lips of her new-stretched love sheath, the brilliant vermilion of the shell evidently heightened with the blood of her defunct virginity. Tired of admiring without enjoyment, I carried my mouth and hand to everything before me, until I could no longer bear myself. Raising myself from my stooping position, I extended her thighs to the utmost, and placed myself standing between them, then letting loose my rod of Aaron, which was no sooner at liberty but it flew up with the same impetuosity with which a tree straightens itself when the cord that keeps it bent towards the ground comes to be cut, with my right hand I directed it towards the pouting slit so that the head was soon in. Laying myself down on her, I drew her lips to mine; again I thrust, I entered. Another thrust buried it deeper; she closed her eyes, but tenderly squeezed me to her bosom; again I pushed; her soft lips rewarded me. Another shove caused her to sigh deliciously—another push made our junction complete. I scarcely knew what I was about; everything now was in active exertion—tongues, lips, bellies, arms, thighs, legs, bottoms, every part in voluptuous motion until our spirits completely abandoned every part of our bodies to convey themselves into the place where pleasures reigned with so furious but still with so delicious a sentiment. I dissolved myself into her at the very moment nature had caused her to give down her tribute to the intoxicating joy. My lovely prey soon came to herself, but it was only to invite me by her numberless charms to plunge her into the same condition. She passed her arms round my neck and sucked my lips with dovelike kisses. I opened my eyes and fixed them on hers; they were filled with dissolving languor; I moved within her, her eyes closed instantly. The tender squeeze of her love sheath round my instrument satisfied me as to the state she was in. Again I thrust. 'Ah!' she sighed, 'the pleasure suffocates me.' I thrust furiously; her limbs gradually stiffened, she gave one more movement in response to the fierce thrusts made into her organ; we both discharged together.

It will be no use, Angelo, to give you any further description of my enjoyment of this adorable child, but the agonising reflection that I must part with my delicious prize nearly drives me to distraction. During cooler moments I have explained to her the necessity of a separation, and pointed out to her the danger of her remaining in this country. The solemn assurance I have given her of her safety from the fangs of the church has tendered to comfort her. But then, Angelo, how can I force myself to part with so voluptuous a creature? Advise and counsel your friend.

PEDRO


LETTER 15

Angelo to Pedro

Holy St Peter, spare me! What in the name of Beelzebub has taken possession of you? How can you force yourself to part with this voluptuous creature? How did your reverence contrive to force yourself from the arms of Camilla, Rosa St Peter, the poor fisherman's daughter Bianca, and the half a dozen other young beauties whom I have conveyed over the sea to the great gratification of the Turks in Algiers and Tunis, but to the much greater gratification of ourselves, by well lining our own pockets with African gold? Write to me again in about a fortnight; let me know if the fever is still hot upon you. I guess about that time you will be somewhat cooler; at all events a month is the utmost time I can afford you for your amusement with your new-found charmer. In six weeks I shall be ready to depart with the cartel for Algiers. You know that under our agreement I ought to have at least a fortnight's enjoyment of the girl on shore. The time spent on the voyage to Algiers is so very short that these young creatures, from sickness, very rarely afford me any pleasure. I wish you could contrive to get a pure maid or two for the Dey of Algiers. I could get almost any price for one, so fond is he of cutting off maidenheads. But I forget myself, you are equally as bad as the Dey himself in that respect, so I must try to procure one myself. Let me know at your earliest leisure when I may expect the young Mezzia.


LETTER 16

Pedro to Angelo

You are correct in your observation, Angelo—uncontrolled possession, in time, surely abates the fiercest passions. It is now three weeks since I relieved the youthful Mezzia of her virginity, every subsequent night having been passed in her delicious arms, the novelty of her beauties begins I find to lose its invigorating effect. But still, Angelo, I dread the arrival of the day I must part with her. She has been particularly inquisitive as to where she is to be sent. I have pacified her by stating she is going to Ireland, part of the kingdom of Great Britain, where the great mass of the population are Catholic. When she heard they were Catholic her fears at first resumed their sway, but were removed when she was solemnly assured that it was out of the power of the clergy there to contemn or punish anyone, convents and incarceration of females being no part of the law of that kingdom.

This day week is appointed for our separation. She has begun to amuse herself by sorting the clothes I have given her in trunks previous to her departure. I have been extremely liberal in my gifts, particularly in the old jewels and ornaments which you know have served for the same purpose so many times. She is very lovely, Angelo, and will fetch a magnificent price, maid or no maid. I suppose it would be of no use attempting to pass her off at Algiers as a virgin? I am afraid the eunuchs belonging to the Dey's seraglio are too well experienced in these matters. Farewell. But I forgot I have informed her that she will be consigned to my sister, the Lady Abbess at the Convent of St Theresa. So you must for a few hours assume your old disguise of the abbess, which will deliver her to your enjoyment without trouble. May the saint you most approve of have you in his holy keeping.

PEDRO


LETTER 17

Angelo to Pedro

I do not wonder at your regret at parting with the young, beautiful Mezzia. She is indeed a bijou. Happy Pedro! indeed I envy you the joys supreme—joys you must have tasted in her arms when with amorous fury you plucked the virgin rose. She arrived here in safety. I had her conveyed unseen into our unknown and private retreat. Of course I assumed the disguise of the lady abbess, your sister, which I think I acted extremely well. The poor innocent had no suspicion of the deception, although the kiss I gave her in receiving her from your messenger was warm enough. I gave her to understand that I was aware of her escape from the tomb, but made not the least hint of any knowledge as to what had passed between you. She appeared extremely low and dejected. I did everything to comfort her. But I must leave off until tomorrow, when you shall hear how I get on with her. After supper I told her, as it was a very lonely part of the convent, we would pass the night together, but that for a short time I should leave her to get the key of the convent from the porter sister; during my absence she might get into bed, which, you know, is quite large enough for two. In seven or eight minutes I returned with a key in my hand, which I laid on the table. She was nearly undressed. I sat down pretending to read a missal, but in fact was wandering over the numerous charms she disclosed at every turn to my ardent (but to her unseen) gaze. At last she got into bed, upon which I drew the curtains and got undressed myself. This I despatched as well as the awkwardness of the dress would let me, and having put on a proper female nightdress, I got into bed, intending to lie still until she was asleep, and then to make myself master of her person whilst she was unconscious of what I was about. But accident gave her up to my enjoyment sooner than I expected.

You may suppose the state I was in, placed by the side of such a delicious creature. In fact I was in the most fierce erection possible when, in turning herself, the unsuspecting girl placed her hand upon my throbbing instrument. You had too well cultivated her to leave her in doubt as to what she had felt. A faint scream satisfied me as to the discovery. It was no use to carry on the deception further with her. I therefore seized her in my arms and stopped her cries with my kisses; in fact she screamed so loud at being suddenly grasped by me that I was almost afraid she might be heard by someone. I quickly reminded her of how much depended on her silence—her life might be the forfeit of her folly, you may rely upon it that whilst trying to quiet her screams I was not otherwise idle. I threw myself on her—her thighs were quickly divided. Her cries subsided but tears flowed. I gave her very little time to reflect whether it was best to alarm the convent, or to suffer in peace. It was not more than fourteen or fifteen seconds from the time of her discovering my sex ere what she had laid her hand on was safely lodged to its full extent in its natural receiver. There can be no doubt she gained by its discovery. How magical is the influence of the distinction of our sex over the feelings of the softer one. Shrieks, cries, tears and resistance accompanied the discovery and my seizing of her, but directly she felt its head dividing her lips of life her resistance ceased, and her cries became hushed; as it penetrated her tears became dried; but when it pierced her up to the quick, soft exclamations, tremulous sighs and a general trembling of the limbs and body only accompanied our complete junction. Nature had already assumed its sway—a few rapid thrusts gave a fillip to pleasure and as my movements became quicker, so did the seduction overpower the little remains of modesty you had left her. In short, she quickly received as much pleasure as she bestowed, if I may judge from the sweetness of her kisses, the ardency of her pressures, with a thousand other little etceteras which cannot be described and are only felt in the high enjoyment. In short, so mutually had the ecstasy operated on us that the dissolving moment seized us at the same time. Oh, Pedro, how ecstatic was her joy as the essence of life was shot up to her vitals! Her delicate arms closely encircled my body, her legs were crossed over my loins holding me as strongly as if grasped by a vice, nor did she loosen her hold until she had extracted the very last drop from me. Then the gradual unclasping of her arms and legs, the conclusive stretching of her body, the delicious trembling shudder, all feelingly spoke how much her senses had been gratified. This was indeed a night of joy for me! I had for a month refrained from sexual intercourse and consequently was in a state to give as well as taste myself the most luxurious transports. If beauty is necessary to renew the vigour after repeated enjoyment, Mezzia possesses every charm to excite the desires enjoyment has cooled. We did not close our eyes during the night, which was spent in a continued round of varied pleasure of the most delicious nature. The sun had risen in the east ere Morpheus placed his heavy finger on our eyelids.

She has asked me the reason for your deceiving her about your sister. I put the best face on it, and informed her it arose from your wish not to alarm her by letting her know she was to be consigned to a friar. I also gave her to understand that I was perfectly acquainted with all that had passed between you and her, and as an excuse for myself boldly told her it was utterly impossible to resist the temptation thrown in my way by fortune of making myself as happy with her as you had been. I only regretted that the time she was doomed to be mine was so short. After three or four days passed with her she became extremely curious in her enquiries as to what kind of place Ireland was. I parried her enquiries by informing her that so much had her charms affected me that I had determined to abandon Italy altogether, and should marry her when we arrived in Ireland (when we do, perhaps I may). The child believed me. Indeed her charms do provoke me exceedingly.

Although every night is spent in her soft embraces, there is not a day passes but I gratify my senses of seeing, feeling and enjoying her with every excitement the sight and touch are capable of giving. In fact I do not recollect a female who had the power of so strongly exciting my passions, nor do I think I ever enjoyed a girl with half the assiduity or rapidity I have her. I consider her superior in her motions to any woman I ever enjoyed, and the heat and tightness of her love sheath give an indescribable voluptuousness to the rapture. Adieu, Pedro. If I do not write to you again before I sail for Algiers, you may not expect to hear from me until I return.

ANGELO


LETTER 18

Emily Barlow to Maria Williams

London, 8 May 1816

Dearest Maria—You requested me in your last letter to write you an account of my life while at Algiers. I thought I could not do better than send you a copy of my letter to Sylvia Carey. I have also sent with them a parcel of letters belonging to Father Angelo, a Roman Catholic priest, who left them by accident on board Abdallah's ship while at Toulon. This priest was employed by the Dey in concert with Abdallah to secure my friend Sylvia, as you will see by the Dey's letter to Abdallah.

I will now continue my history from the time that I received Sylvia's last letter. I had been with child about six months, when the Dey's neglect assured me some fresh worthy engaged his amorous moments. A rumour ran that it was a countrywoman of mine. The Dey was immovable; neither myself nor any of my companions could get the secret out of him, until one day the chief eunuch told me in a confidential manner that if I chose I could see my rival. Although I hated her in my heart for robbing me of that which was dear to me, my curiosity got the better of my feelings, and I accepted his offer. He led me through several rooms I had never been in before, until we came to a large chamber parted in the middle by a curtain. My guide motioned me to look as he drew the curtain apart. The first object that met my eyes was a naked female leaning on a couch, face downward, and the Dey with his noble shaft plunged up to the hilt in her. At this moment the Dey turned his head and discovered me. Surprise nailed me to the spot. He clasped his hands around his lady, raised her from the recumbent position, still keeping his weapon in her, wheeled round and brought her full to my view. Imagine to yourself, dearest Maria, what must have been my emotions on my beholding in his arms my friend Sylvia, she who had added to my anxiety by her unfeeling letter. I uttered a hurried exclamation and fainted.

On my recovery I found myself in bed and Sylvia bending over me. 'Forgive me, dearest Emily,' she exclaimed, 'for the harsh letter I wrote you. Little did I then think that I too should fall a sacrifice to the dear wicked Dey. I now wonder how you could have so eloquently described the very things that have occurred to me. But compose yourself, my dear, the Dey has forbid me giving you any account of myself, as he wishes to narrate it himself.'

The next day I was sitting on the sofa when the Dey entered my apartment. I tried to frown on him, but could not, for he drew his robe on one side and disclosed that delightful instrument that attunes my heart to harmony. I threw myself on my back, and in a moment his highness was in the pinnacle of bliss. Thrice did he return my embraces ere he withdrew; then, seating himself beside me on the couch, he began as follows.

'You no doubt are dying with curiosity to know how your friend came into my possession, but what a silly child you must have been to suppose that I would have permitted you to write letters and receive answers without myself knowing the contents. I had a hearty laugh over what you told your friend, and I assure you I equally enjoyed the answer you received from her, but was determined to pay the minx for calling me a beast if it lay in my power. You recollect she stated she was at Toulon. One of my ships was about to sail for that port. I sent for Captain Abdallah and offered him a liberal reward to abduct the young lady. He found little difficulty in effecting his purpose, and about a month since he returned with this coy lady to Algiers. Whilst he was gone I was much puzzled how I should proceed with her. After canvassing twenty different modes of subduing her to my pleasure, I determined on the following as the most likely to add to my gratification in debauching her. I determined on her arrival to represent a French physician, and make her fly into my arms in that character to avoid me in my real one.

'In pursuance of this scheme I fitted up the slave driver's house at the bottom of the palace gardens in every way proper to represent the house of a medical man of some eminence. For a purpose which I shall by and by explain I caused to be made in the principal sitting-room a secret recess or cupboard, so well contrived that no one could discover it, although at the same time those inside could see and hear quite plainly everything passing in the room. My arrangements were quite finished before she arrived. I had an interview with Abdallah prior to her being brought on shore. When he had received his instructions for his little part in the drama of deception, his description of her gratified me much. I longed for the moment to arrive when her naked beauties were to be offered to my inspection.

'If there is anything that tends to the subjection of a haughty woman, it is the attacking of her modesty at once in the most sensible part. Nothing tends to humble coy chastity so much as our system of the slave market where captives are exposed, naked, and left unreservedly to the sight and feel of whoever chooses to bid for them. The most stubborn beauty will in time inevitably fall under its subduing influence. Next morning she was brought on shore and placed in one of the slave bazaars, under the direction of Abdallah. She was stripped entirely naked, then a silk cloak was given her to wrap herself in, until my eunuch came to examine whether she was worthy of being sent to my serail, as I had first choice. This Abdallah informed her of in her own language. You may guess her state of alarm. In the course of the morning one of my eunuchs, attended by four black slaves, went to the bazaar in state. Abdallah requested her to throw off her cloak; this she refused to do; consequently they were obliged to take it from her by force, as they were also obliged to lay her on her back on a couch so that the eunuch might examine her properly as to her virginity. The four slaves with difficulty held her down whilst the eunuch performed his duty.

'She struggled and screamed without intermission whilst Hassan, the eunuch, made his survey. When he had finished he asked Abdallah, in French, what was demanded for her; he answered (in the same language), twelve purses. Hassan replied that he doubted whether she was a virgin, and that he did not think she would suit the Dey. "But," asked he, "of what country is she?"'

'On being informed she was English, "Oh," he replied, "the Dey has sworn never to have another Englishwoman, since he was obliged to strangle Zulima a few days ago." Theodora (the name I had ordered for her), who understood perfectly every word that was spoken, on hearing of your supposed death, forgot her own troubles and feinted. By proper remedies she was quickly restored to her senses, but every precaution was taken to make her believe no one cared about her swooning.

Hassan refused to purchase her and left the bazaar. This farce was repeated by several of my eunuchs during the day, some objecting to the price, some finding fault with her person—all declining to purchase her, but all examining her and feeling her parts as to her fitness for the station she was doomed to be placed in. It was evident to Abdallah that she began to submit to her destiny, she plainly saw, however it might outrage her modesty, there was no evading the examinations which were scrupulously attended to in that most secret part for which to be touched by man is nearly a death blow to chastity. Of course, I did not permit her to be seen by anyone but my own slaves, in various disguises; all the while the poor girl thought she was in the public market for sale.

'Abdallah now, in her own language, began to abuse her for want of attraction in not finding a quick sale. This was the moment appointed for the performance of my part of the play. I accordingly entered the room like the others, and made her undergo the necessary examinations, first feeling her beautiful ivory breasts, then slipping my hand down over her smooth satin belly till, descending, my fingers mixed with the soft down which covered and beautifully shaded her grotto of love.

'The poor girl I thought would have sunk to the ground whilst undergoing this touching ceremony—indeed she would have had I not supported her; but I proceeded in my search, heedless of her tears. Softly I seized on the delicious lips of her virgin opening, and forced my forefinger half in. I finished my search and asked Abdallah her price. He treated me as if I had been a person of no consequence, and lowered his demand from twelve to eight purses. I bid him seven purses for her, which he refused to take. I told him I could not afford to give more, and then enquired what country she came from. He then informed me from France, at which, pretending to be much astonished, I asked her in French (in which we had been talking all along) whether she had understood what we said if she was a Frenchwoman? As well as her feeling would permit her, she answered in good French that she was English. Nearly choked with tears, she informed me of the manner in which she had been torn from her friends, and submissively entreated me to give the price demanded for her, assuring me I should have it and much more for ransom. I pretended to take great interest in what she said; asked her many questions as to the rank and property of her friends, which she represented, there is no doubt, in their true light. On my expressing doubts if I should get the sum back if I bought her, she assured me over and over again there was no occasion to have the least mistrust, and again and again piteously entreated me to save her from further shame. I at last pretended to be overcome by her tears and supplications and therefore told Abdallah he should have his demand. He appeared quite glad to get rid of her. Under the pretence of ordering a palanquin to convey her to my home, and purchasing some dresses, I went out. Whilst I was absent Abdallah informed her I was a Frenchman, and first physician in Algiers, also deputy consul for that nation, and that she could not have fallen into better hands. On returning I observed with pleasure a considerable alteration for the better in her looks. When she had attired herself in the robes and veil I had brought her, she was conducted to the palanquin, and the maid was soon in the house at the bottom of the garden.

The large room had been fitted up in a very handsome style, suitable to a man of my supposed rank. Among the necessaries, you may suppose convenient couches were not omitted. Adjoining was a smaller room, only partitioned off by a fine silk curtain; this was arranged for sleeping or (more properly speaking) for the purpose of enjoyment. In introducing her to the boudoir I plainly felt the hand of Theodora tremble; no doubt the appearance of the place strongly indicated its use. However, I took no notice of her fears, but told her at present they were the apartments she was to occupy. I pointed out to her where she would find every article of dress, and also informed her I would send one of my women to attend and help her at her toilet, as she might be in some difficulty as to how the garments were worn. She timidly asked me what I meant by one of my women. I explained to her the custom of the country—that it was usual to have as many women here as we could support, who were bought in the same manner as I had purchased her, that I had two slaves of the kind, one of whom should attend and assist her; that it was impossible for me to marry a Mahometan, being myself a Protestant Christian. She looked at me fearfully, and said she hoped no advantage would be taken of her unhappy condition and waited with breathless anxiety my answer. I approached her, and taking one of her hands in mine and encircling her waist with the other, solemnly assured her that her modesty or virtue had nothing to fear from me. "I have bought you for the purpose of returning you to your country and friends, and by this kiss of friendship," said I, drawing her soft lips to mine, "you have nothing to fear." She blushingly submitted her lips to my pressure. I did not encroach upon her good nature, but requested she would make herself as happy as possible and assured her that no time should be lost in communicating with her friends.

'I left her and sent a handsome Circassian girl to assist her in dressing. As the slave could not speak a word except in her native language, there was no fear of her betraying who I was. I told her what she was to do, and to return when she had finished. In about an hour the slave came back, and I returned to the apartment of Theodora. I was indeed struck by the blaze of beauty she exhibited when dressed after our fashion, her coal-black hair, beautifully parted over her noble ivory forehead, peeping out from beneath her headdress. "My God," I cried, "how is it possible the chief eunuch of the Dey could have passed over charms such as you possess?" The name of the Dey brought the recollection of him to her, and she dropped on a couch overcome by her feelings. She entreated me with tears not to name the Dey again to her. Of course, I promised to comply with her wishes, but demanded how it was the name of the Dey affected her so much, a person she could know nothing of. "Ah," she replied, "I know more of him than you are aware, of." On my expressing my surprise and incredulity, she was induced to enter into the history of your falling into my hands. Every now and then I interrupted her revelations with expressions of astonishment, but she did not mention the last letter she had written to you. Then she related what she had heard between Abdallah and Hassan in the morning, and enquired whether I believed there was any truth in it. I assured her it was impossible to tell, but such things the Dey was particular in. It was nothing to him to order a female to be strangled in consequence of the slightest offence. The poor girl was much affected at my corroboration of Hassan's assertion. My respectful behaviour was evidently every moment establishing me in her confidence. After we had dined I informed her that the greater part of the morning was devoted to attending my patients, but tomorrow afternoon should be spent in preparing the necessary correspondence with her friends in France. Towards the evening I asked her if she would walk in the garden towards the sea. I had taken care to give very particular orders that no one should be permitted in there, or on the sea beach at the back of the harem. She took hold of my arm during our walk, and seemed to gain courage and spirits as her fears evidently decreased at my seeming respect. After walking until we were tired, we returned to the house—

A blushing lovely maid she entered it,
But ere she left was quite another thing.

'I did not accompany her to her apartments, but took leave below, respectfully kissing her hand, and assuring her that on the morrow I would get back from my professional pursuits as early as possible, and the remainder of the day should be devoted to her service. She little dreamt of the service I meant.

'I had selected a slave to attend on her who spoke French, so there was no difficulty as to anything she might want. Next day, in the afternoon, on being announced to her I found her comparatively easy in her mind. After the usual compliments I proceeded to business. The writing materials were brought and we set to work opposite the window which commanded a view of the garden and the long walk but left us entirely screened ourselves. Whilst busy on the letter, on a signal given by one of my attendants, which was merely the imitation of the chirping of a bird, I pretended to look accidentally out of the window, and started up with astonishment, saying, "What can he want here?" Getting up so suddenly alarmed Theodora, who with horror instantly recognised Hassan coming up the long walk. "My God," said I aloud to myself, without paying any attention to her, but alive to her state of mind. Her fears immediately acted just as I wished. She sprang forward and clung round my neck, saying, "Oh, save me, save me! It is me he wants; I fear it; I feel it. Oh, in the name of God save me." "I dare not—my life, everything is at stake," I replied. "But stop, perhaps you are alarmed without cause." I rang the bell. The servant who answered was directed to meet Hassan, and if he asked for me to say I was gone to my country house with a female slave. The papers were quickly carried to the private recess ready provided, in which we also hid ourselves. We had not been concealed long ere a considerable noise was heard between Hassan and my servant. Presently they both entered the room wrangling. The servant said, '"You see, he is not here." Hassan replied, "But my orders are peremptory. I am to search for the English slave and bring her to the Dey's harem. I have nearly lost my life for not purchasing her yesterday."

'Here Theodora had sunk on my bosom; it was only with the greatest difficulty I could stop her sobs. But there was no fear of Hassan hearing her, even had she made more noise than she did. However, I took the opportunity of closing her mouth with my lips, softly encouraging her not to give way to her fears, assuring her she would be protected at the risk of my life. Hassan proceeded to search the sleeping apartments, but did not find what he sought. He told my servant that he must proceed after me to my country seat, for his life depended on his success. When he was gone we emerged from our confinement. It was now necessary something should be done. To escape from Algiers was utterly impossible. In the course of five or six hours Hassan would surely return. For some time I appeared utterly lost. How to act I knew not. She still clung to me, bathing me with tears, entreating me to kill her rather than deliver her up to the cruel Dey. Time rapidly slipped away—three hours had already passed—nothing decided on. Every moment her despair was growing stronger. She was in my arms, her head resting on my bosom, my waistcoat moistened with her tears. Suddenly, starting up, I summoned the attendant and demanded if he was a true believer. He replied he was. "Is it written," said I anxiously, "in your Koran, and expressly forbidden by Mahomet, that no true believer should meddle with the wife of another, whether Mussulman or otherwise?" It was his reply, "So has the Prophet written." "Fetch me a Koran." It was brought. The attendant pointed out a verse which I pretended to translate to her. "It is your only chance of escape," I cried. "Become my wife and you escape pollution, and perhaps something more; there is no other way of avoiding the tyrant." Her fears of the Dey quickly decided her fate; she consented.

'I instantly pretended to write a letter to the Protestant minister of the English consul's family, which we both signed—I told her he would not attend unless we both requested it. Everything had been fully prepared. She saw me direct the letter to the English Consul. Everything tended to lull her into security, in about an hour more Ben Izacks, the English Jew diamond merchant whom I had directed to perfect himself in the part of an English priest for the completion of my scheme, arrived with all the assurance of his sect, cleverly disguised to perform the ceremony. The ring was ready, the contract made out, when my bride requested to speak a few words to the clergyman in private. I immediately withdrew with the witnesses who were of course my own slaves, in a few minutes I was summoned by the Jew. I afterwards learned from him that the only question she asked of him was whether he was certain I was a Christian. You may suppose he perfectly satisfied her on that point. Without further delay the ceremony proceeded. Izacks performed his part with proper solemnity. She had just sufficient strength left to pronounce the mystic oath, and at the very instant the ceremony was finished she sank fainting in my arms, unable longer to support the flurry and disorder of her feelings. I instantly dismissed Izacks and the attendants. Alone I supported her into the boudoir, where I intended the consummation should directly take place.

'Assuming now the privileges of a husband, I placed her on the couch, and tenderly clasping her to my bosom soon reaped a rich harvest of soft thrilling kisses. With a trembling sigh the languishing maid opened her heavenly black eyes, but unable to bear my gaze quickly shut them again. I now boldly explained to her the absolute and immediate necessity of her resigning to me the blessing I was entitled to in the enjoyment of her person, for in this country a marriage is a nullity until the husband has consummated it. Should the wretch Hassan return and find we had omitted any part of the ceremony, instant advantage would be taken of it, therefore all we had done would be of no use. Whilst I was thus explaining myself, I was also busily unbuttoning the bodice which covered the beauties of her bosom, every now and then placing on her soft rosy lips the most delicious kisses. She but feebly resisted. How shall I describe her delightful confusion when my hand boldly slid over her panting globes? It is impossible; words cannot do justice to the situation. Although I was using the absolute authority of a husband over her you will recollect that her submission to my proceedings was entirely from fear created by the dread of myself, only in another shape. Ours was not a union of love, but one hastily submitted to by her to save herself from the embraces of an imaginary brutal monster created by her fears and false information alone. Under such circumstances there could of course be very little love on her side, although there might be some little respect for the service I had rendered her—in the supposed risk I was running in offending the Dey by marrying her. Thus, although she had no pretext left on which to oppose every liberty I now took with her beautiful person, still I could plainly see, as I was divesting her voluptuous body of its coverings, how dreadful was the shock her modesty sustained in being obliged to resign herself even to a husband. Modesty may struggle, but it very seldom struggles successfully with me. It was evident from her agitation that her bashfulness would have struggled against my proceedings had she not been fettered by the oath of obedience she had just sworn on the altar of God. If she had even found out the deception which had been practised on her, any opposition would have now been fruitless. Her hour of instruction was arrived. I had determined she should receive her lesson. Although not assisted by any tie on her affections, I of course was perfectly aware how quick is the influence of pleasure on the softer sex. If the land is properly cultivated, it will always produce its crops. So it is with lovely women. Rid them of their virginity, enjoy them properly, and it is wonderful to observe the rapidity with which the seed of pleasure will thrive and yield a rich harvest to the happy cultivator. You may guess I was not long preparing myself or my trembling victim for the mighty business. Clasping my lovely beauty in my arms I easily laid her on the cushion and myself by her side. Her swelling snowy breasts heaved with her laboured breathing, with one arm round her neck, the other hand unresistedly traversed all her beauties, until suddenly forcing my hand between her smooth, polished thighs, I took possession of the port of love. Her tremblings, her sighs, increased rapidly; with bashful modesty she entreated, she prayed me to remove my hand. I promised everything for a kiss. However, the kiss taken, I did not keep my word. My reasons were good. It had not been agreed whether it should be given or taken. By dint of bargaining we agreed on a second, which was to be received by me. Then with my unoccupied hand guiding her trembling delicate arms around my neck, and leaning over her to receive it, the soft, thrilling, delicious kiss was not only received, but perfectly given, in such a manner that love could not have done it better. So much good faith deserved to be rewarded. I immediately withdrew my hand, but I do not know by what accident one of my knees occupied the place I had just vacated. A soft struggle ensued, during which half-breathed words and sighs escaped her—every now and then, "Ah", and "you must not", "pray do not", and so on until I had securely placed myself between her soft swelling thighs. This effected, I found not the smallest difficulty in stretching them at pleasure to their utmost spread. Shame and surprise had now quite overpowered my charming, panting, blushing prize.

'I was not very eager or in great haste to finish my task. I delight in delays when I am certain of coming to the end of the journey. I clearly saw, in spite of her modesty, that my kisses and touches had considerably inflamed her senses, so seizing her left hand with my right, with gentle force I conducted it to the key which I told her was to open the road to the sweetest enjoyments. I entreated her to take it in her hand. She did not reply, but requested me to spare her modesty. "In the name of God," she cried, "have pity on me." Her tears began to flow, but they only added to her beauty, and inflamed me more strongly, so pretending to be much astonished, I reminded her that she was on the conjugal bed, and therefore it was necessary to our common pleasure she should not now show any opposition to my wishes. But it was of no use; she would not be persuaded to take it in her hand. During this contention my member had become furious, and was beating his head against the lips of the port shortly doomed to receive it.

'Finding her modesty was not to be overcome on this point, I desisted, and taking my instrument in my hand, placed the head between the lips and with my finger and thumb contrived to stretch the delicate little opening sufficiently wide to insert the head entirely. As the moment of her martyrdom approached, so by degrees did her confusion and agitation increase. The insertion of the head of my stiff virgin-stretcher caused her delicious ivory breasts to beat against my bosom with the rapidity of lightning, whilst her milk-white neck and shoulders were covered with burning blushes. She would have spoken, but could not give utterance to the words. However, talking just then was of no great consequence, so making a furious thrust I strove to penetrate her virgin sanctuary, but the avenue was too tight to give way to a first attempt. A second thrust, made with circumspection, was a little more successful; a third and fourth deepened my penetration; at last, as I followed up my success with strength and rapidity, the sweet obstacle began to give way, until I had pierced myself halfway into her. How delicious were the varying expressions which her sweet countenance now exhibited. When she first felt the penetration her confusion was so great she could not keep her eyes open, but as ground was gained the confusion began to dissipate, her eyes lost their unconsciousness, astonishment mixed with pain became clearly marked on her lovely countenance and soft cries began to find vent in spite of my fierce kisses. I now made a desperate effort to break through the remaining defences of her coy chastity, but was prevented by the ecstasy seizing me; the seed of life distilled from me like a deluge.

'This stopped my proceedings for some moments, but did not force me to withdraw from her. In fact, though I quite overflowed the part penetrated, still very little of my stiffness or vigour was lost. Her soft lips, the nipples of her well-formed breasts, soon renewed my strength. During the cessation of hostilities she entreated me, if I loved her, to withdraw my furious instrument. "You will kill me," she cried in a most piteous voice. "I certainly shall die; it is impossible to sustain your cruel tearing." "If I love you? Can you doubt it? Have I not risked my life for you?" replied I, tenderly sucking her lips, and thrusting my tongue into her mouth. "No doubt, delicious love, the pain you suffer is cruel, but it is entailed upon your sex and it will quickly subside; nor can you participate in the soft joys of love without undergoing the ordeal; therefore, dear maid, submit with courage, the most voluptuous joys will be your reward." At this moment I began to pierce again with all my force; the overflowing of my seed within her considerably assisted, having oiled the road so much that I felt myself gradually stretching her, but still it must have hurt her dreadfully, as her loud cries testified. Pity for her sufferings caused me to stop a moment, to assure her that it was nearly over. "Feel," I cried, "my sweet life, it is nearly all entered." Agitation with her sufferings, or fear of further anguish, I know not which, induced her to obey. She found the truth of my assertion, my instrument was three parts within her, but there it stuck as if it were too thick to enter further. Whilst her hand was upon it, I made a furious effort—again it penetrated. "Ah!" she cried, "stay your cruel thrusts, you murder me!" but collecting all my strength, and making one tremendous lunge, I sent it gloriously and triumphantly into her to the utmost length. The couch which was the field of battle trembled under the shock. You may judge of my vigour for the very curtains of the apartment shook In vain she entreated me to withdraw the arrow which was pierced up to her very entrails.

'"No," I replied, "it is now all over; you have nothing further to apprehend; from a pure virgin you have become a chaste wife and all that remains to be done is to make the travelling easy to me and pleasurable to you. This, sweet love, can only be effected by judicious and frequent enjoyments. Believe me, from the moment the close union of our bodies proclaimed your maidenhead taken, your sufferings must become less and less acute." My words were supported by actions. Master of the citadel, I assumed all the conqueror's rights. Drawing myself nearly out of her, with one vigorous thrust I plunged back Again and again was the experiment repeated. Her tears flowed, intermixed with cries, sobs and sighs. I desisted not, but whispered, "Courage, courage, my dear love, soon you will feel the softest pleasure." At every fresh thrust the difficulty of entry decreased. Now lost in ravishment indefinable, I grasped her strongly in my arms, and thrust with fury and without care.

'Her cries had subsided. The ecstatic moment again approaching, I drove myself up to the very hilt; it was impossible to enjoy a more voluptuous conjunction, a copious discharge filled the recesses of her womb; her virginity was gone. I sank insensible in her arms, entirely overcome with the most delicious the most perfect of all earthly enjoyments.

'On recovering my senses I was still buried securely in my lovely Theodora; her head was reclining on her right shoulder; with gentle respiration her ivory breasts deliriously heaved against my bosom; her eyes were closed, but the pearly dew still glistened in her dark silken eyelashes. Tenderly encircling her neck with my arms, I kissed off the trembling drops. How exquisite was the gratification of my senses at this moment! Still trembling with the ecstasy of having deflowered as pure and lovely a virgin as ever was stretched on the altar of Venus, how thrilling was the joy when I again drew her soft lips to mine, feeding my senses with the luxurious inhalement of her balmy breath, amidst a shower of dove-like kisses! One of her arms, which lay by my side, I gently placed around my neck. She withdrew it not. Gradually her lovely eyes opened and although I could clearly read in their dissolving expression how great was the pain she felt from the enormous machine buried within her, but still with joy I saw by the expression of her eyes that complete possession of her lovely body had reared the bud of tenderness in the senses of my victim. Although at present its blossom was a painful one, the sweetness of her kisses, the voluptuous heaving of her breasts, that indescribable look which true modesty surely shows at the moment it has received its irreparable shock from powerful man, all tended quickly to renew the vigour I had lost in unloosening her virgin zone. The burning blushes which with rapidity covered her neck and shoulders, the increasing heaving of her breasts, the trembling of her limbs and body, all proclaimed the distention she internally felt, caused by her external beauties. To be in this state and be quiet between the swelling thighs of such a beauty was impossible. I gradually withdrew myself nearly out of her. A loud sigh followed my motion—then in like gradual manner I sheathed myself up to the hair—but again on our close junction a cry escaped her. "Idol of my soul," I cried, "does it hurt you? Fear not; bear up but a short time; your sufferings will cease forever." "Indeed, dear sir," she sobbed, "you hurt me cruelly. I shall die—pray spare me." Again I slowly and gradually withdrew myself and returned my instrument into its delicious sheath; but, instead of driving it up to the hilt until our hair mixed as before, when it was all but an inch and a half in I stopped. Finding the insertion accompanied by a deep sigh only, again and again I repeated the movement, tremulous agitation being the only response. Satisfied as I was that this manner of enjoying her did not hurt her much, still it was impossible to continue it long. The enjoyment of her was too exciting to permit me to have complete command of my feelings from the beginning to the end of enjoyment, consequently her beauties soon worked me up into a fury, an agony of delight, my thrusts keeping pace and becoming fiercer as the excitement increased. The strength of my furious shocks made everything around us tremble by their violence. In the intervals between lunges, as I withdrew myself from her, she renewed her painful cries, loudly vociferating, "Oh, pray, sir, spare me—for heaven's sake stop. I cannot bear it—indeed you tear me to pieces—cruel. Ah! oh, I shall die." Then, "Oh, my God." Then again (her voice subduing into softer supplication), "Oh, dear sir, for pity's sake spare me! dear sir, pray forbear." I murmured it was impossible to desist, I could only stop her complaints by closing her mouth with kisses. She saw from my agitation it was in vain to supplicate, so became resigned to her fate. No doubt she felt some consolation as every moment lessened the pain; sighs began to usurp the place of cries and when she withdrew her lips from mine it was only to regain the breath I had nearly sucked away. At this moment I plainly saw that her nature was touched by my energetic proceedings. The ecstasy again seized me, and for the third time I dissolved myself away within her.

'Thus did I consummate my marriage, and thus did the tender girl forfeit her virginity for her prudery in attacking your feelings. It is true the Rubicon was now passed with her, but I had made up my mind not to undeceive her as to who possessed her maidenhead until she had enjoyed the soft pleasures of coition sufficiently to reward her for the loss, and to make the discovery a matter of no great consequence. Twice more thereafter (making five in the whole) did I make play and force the defunct maid to sustain the assault, each time piercing her up to the quick with the most redoubtable and lively thrusts, and bedewing her burning receiver with the dew of life; then thinking I had effected sufficient for her first instruction, I got up for the purpose of meeting Hassan on his return (as I assured her) but desired she would not disturb herself. After a few more caresses I resigned her to the God of sleep, the only arms but my own or a female's I intend she shall ever repose in.

'Hassan came at the appointed time. Theodora had fallen into a refreshing slumber, out of which I was obliged to disturb her, but desired her not to be alarmed, assuring her no one should injure her. I explained as quickly as possible that the Dey's eunuch was not satisfied with the assertion that our marriage had been consummated, which rendered it necessary she should again submit to be examined. I pacified her as well as I could, assuring her there was no help for it, but this was the last exposure her modesty would suffer. A pearly tear or two dropped from her lovely eyes, but she submitted. I withdrew the clothes whilst Hassan laid hold of her legs by the ankles, gently dividing them; the bottom of her lily thighs and the sheet were covered with crimson drops; the delicious entrance in the grove of Venus, which before she had received my luxurious stretches had so much the appearance of the bud of the rose, now hung flabby, loose and inflamed by the tremendous friction it had suffered, satisfying the beholder in a moment that the hymen had been broken and the deflowering completed. Hassan immediately bowed his head as satisfied and I conducted him out of the boudoir. On my return to her she was still in tears, but I soon dried them. Having ordered dinner, I told her a slave would attend to help her dress, and by the time her toilet was finished the meal would be ready. I sent by the slave a beautiful white satin dress, with diamond eardrops and pearl necklace and with a letter stating it was my wish she would wear these ornaments as a marriage gift.

'I waited her approach in the outer room. She came leaning on a slave. Her appearing to be scarcely able to walk caused me to fly to her support and her head sank on my shoulder unresistingly. I carried her to a couch, where throwing my arms around her, I drew her to my bosom and placing numerous soft kisses on her lips and neck, bestowed on her every endearing tide I could give utterance to. But although she trembled, blushed and sighed, and could hardly keep her eyes open, still, to my great gratification, her lips returned my soft pressures, and altogether there was something in her behaviour that satisfied me I had created an interest in her feelings that was tantamount to reciprocation; indeed every moment had the effect of removing the natural coyness which every girl must feel in the company of the happy possessor of her virginity so shortly after the loss. Dinner was served, of which she partook with apparent satisfaction. During our repast I caught her examining me when she thought I was engaged or did not observe her; her cheeks, neck and shoulders were instantly suffused with blushes on her discovering I had remarked what she was about. I tenderly drew her to my bosom, assuring her there was no reason for her blushes. In short the repast was enjoyed with double zest by me from the numerous nameless delicate pleasures I received from the maidenly confusion caused by the novelty of the situation in the lovely girl. After the banquet was removed it was past sunset. As she lay in my arms her eyes seemed heavy, which induced me to ask if she would retire and snatch an hour or two of repose before I came to pass the night with her, at the same time telling her she must not expect to get much sleep that night. She agreed to avail herself of my offer, on which, summoning the slave to assist her to undress, I supported her to the entrance of the boudoir, there resigning her into the slave's hands and giving instructions to leave all the lamps burning and properly supplied with oil.

'After reposing on a couch for about two hours I undressed myself. On entering the boudoir, I saw that Theodora slept naked from the heat of the weather; in her sleep she had removed nearly all the bedclothes. Her head lay on one of her arms on the pillow, her other arm lying carelessly by her side, whilst the treasures of her lovely breasts and shoulders were unprotected by the slightest covering. Without disturbing her, I laid myself by her side, bringing my mouth as nearly as possibly to hers. Our lips at last touched for a moment. I sucked her balmy breath. Lying thus examining the beauties of her delicate limbs, suddenly I perceived a strange confusion seem to seize upon her. She appeared as if struggling with someone; then she sighed. I caught the flying dream and gave her another soft kiss; still she slept. Her sweet disorder and struggles seemed to increase; she uttered some words, broken and inarticulate. A blush spread itself on her face and bosom; she turned upon her back as if impelled by the agency of someone, her lovely thighs spread of themselves, her breasts heaved rapidly, her whole body was agitated, her arms spread then of a sudden fell, and then she became motionless as death. Certainly she had tasted in a dream all those joys which the waking sense can know. A soft emotion succeed the calm in which she had been absorbed. "Yes, thou lovest me," she sighed, in the most tender accents; then sighed, breathed short, and again said, "Oh, I cannot doubt it."

'More lost in transport even than she, I had not power to move. A moment afterwards she became no less confounded than myself; her soul seemed to give itself up to an ecstasy; again she trembled and seemed convulsed with pleasure. Mahomet, how beautiful she appeared! how infinitely did this confusion become her! I could bear it no longer, but seized her in my arms and thus broke in upon her joys by awakening her—thereafter there remained no more of the illusion that had engrossed her faculties than that tender languishment to which she had abandoned herself with a warmth that rendered her worthy of the pleasures she had possessed. When she opened her eyes, where love itself reigned, the glances she darted appeared still full of the fire that was diffused through her veins; she had not yet lost the impression that had been made in her sleeping fancy. Oh, how touching was her very look. "Theodora," I cried, with rapture, pressing her to my bosom, "lovely, amiable Theodora, how beautiful you appeared just now," kissing her with all the ardour I was capable of expressing. The dream still retained some influence over her waking mind, the memory of her late impulse insensibly increased upon her, and desires to which she had hitherto been a stranger thrilled in her veins.

'Experienced as I am in womankind, my passion for Theodora now not only made me attentive to all her motions but also enabled me to make true conjectures as to their meaning. I saw quite enough to convince me I was not an object of indifference to her, and that now more than ever she regarded me with pleasure. The charming girl, altogether artless and sincere by nature, knew not how to disguise her thoughts; so if she did not tell me all she felt in my favour, it was only because of a shamefacedness. However, I discovered everything I wished to know, since I was alive to a consciousness of something more than her modesty would let her speak. But my kisses and touches, combined with her dream, now began to warm her. She now blushed less at every liberty I took than she had done before at those she apprehended I should take. In fact, in spite of herself she was beginning to partake of my transport. Whilst I was sucking her soft lips my hand slipped between her thighs but although it was between them still she kept them closed. "How is this," I cried, "lovely Theodora; do you refuse to make me happy again?" "Ah," she replied, unthinkingly, "you were but too much so just now, and before you awoke me had all the advantage you could wish." On pressure to explain the seeming mystery her words contained, she held out against my entreaties longer than I expected she would. Kisses and caresses, however, got the better of her in the end, and her reluctance to speak of the subject vanished by degrees. "If I should tell you," she said in a trembling voice, "do not abuse me." I swore I would not, but with transports which instead of removing her apprehension might have assured her it would be impossible for me to keep my promise. Too little skilled in mankind to be sensible of the effect of what she was about to reveal, she at least confessed to me that being in a slumber the moment before I spoke to her, she had seen me in a dream, and through my agency she felt a rapture which before she had notice of. 'Was I between your thighs?' cried I, pressing her strenuously in my arms. Covered with blushes but looking on me with eyes swimming with languor, she tremblingly replied, "Yes." "Ah, then," rejoined I, more inflamed, "You love me more in the idea than you do in my real person?" "That," she said, "would be impossible—I could not love you more; but it is certain I was less ashamed to tell you so." "But what more?" impatiently demanded I. "Oh, ask me not," replied she, hiding her blushes on my bosom; "I cannot enter in particulars; but I was indeed happy without regret." Here she paused for a moment, and then added, "or pain."

'Whilst she was thus explaining the effect of her dream I had extended her thighs, and with my forefinger for a few moments had been tickling the inside of her delicious love-sheath. Her eyes were turned full on me, charged with all the fires of love and soft desire, plainly intimating what her thoughts were. It was impossible longer to restrain my burning impatience, so turning her on her back, I got between her thighs, and laying myself on her, entreated her to say she loved me. She only answered with sighs, more impressive than words. I read in every look and motion what she would have said if not restrained by shame. One arm held her lips to mine, the other hand directed the instrument which in her dream had made her so happy. Faint murmurings and half-stifled sighs combating with the remains of modesty rendered her if possible more beautiful than ever, whilst with energy my vigorous instrument was driven up till it was at the end of its penetration, its progress sending up through her eyes the sparks of the love fire that now blazed in every vein—aye, in every pore in her. She had now taken in love's arrow (from the point to the feather) in that part where, now causing no pain, the lips, which owed their first breathing to my potent instrument, clung as if sensible of gratitude in eager suction around it with a warmth of zest, a compressive energy that gave it in its way the most delicious welcome in nature, every part of her sheath gathering tight around me, and straining as it were to come in for its blissful touch. Buried in her this way, we were both lost in an ecstasy and forgetfulness of ourselves or of what further was requisite to satisfy the demands of nature. We seemed to breathe out our whole souls upon each other's lips.

'We lay motionless through excess of bliss. After languishing for some moments on her bosom, I at length recovered, but the lovely girl could not bear the fierceness of my glances, and moved her head a little on one side, with a sigh breathing nothing but love. "Ah, Theodora," I softly exclaimed, "surely you did not in your dream turn away those swimming eyes, those soft lips?" at the same time trying if it were possible to strain myself further into her. Suddenly her arms encircled my neck, her lips joined mine with soft thrilling pressures, whilst with voluptuous activity she moved her young body to receive my thrusts, murmuring with tenderness, "Does that content you, dear sir?—is it thus?—how else can I act to satisfy you?' I had now no command of myself. Holy Mahomet, how wild was ecstasy. The soft joy had seized upon her senses, her tremblings, heaving, soft shudders, the active movements of her arms and legs, quick breathings, graspings, return of my kisses, all bespoke her dream realised. But nature, unable to support the torrent of pleasure, deserted us both: we sank insensible in each other's arms.

'I need not trouble you or excite your jealousy with any further account of the amorous scenes which took place between us. Long before morn she became (if anything) more submissive to my wishes than you were on your education. In the morning as she lay on my bosom, half asleep, moaning from the lassitude which a fierce enjoyment had just thrown her into, she suddenly sighed out, "Poor Emily!" I instantly comprehended the subject her thoughts were wandering on, particularly as a tear escaped from beneath her beautiful eyelid, rolled over her cheek and fell on my bosom. Pretending great alarm, I anxiously enquired the cause of her sorrow, when in the fullness of her grief she related the whole circumstances of the letter she had received from you, nor did she conceal (as she did in her first relation) the unkind reply she had written, which she now much regretted. "How could I," said she fondly, hiding her face in my bosom, "a poor silly maid as I was then, have any imagination of the transports I have tasted in your arms tonight? But it was very cruel to write to her as I did. Are you sure that the Dey ordered her to be strangled?" "Why," I replied, "there was a report that an English slave had been strangled; but there is no relying on anything we hear as to what takes place in the seraglio, even if it comes from the eunuchs themselves; there is so much deception carried on in respect of the Dey's women." "Indeed?" she sighed. "Yes," I continued, "if by any chance the letter you mention should have fallen into the Dey's hands, there is no danger, trouble or expense that would have deterred him from getting possession of your lovely person, and every artifice would have been used until he had enjoyed your virginity; and if he could not have enjoyed you by your own consent or deceit, he would not scruple in using force for the satisfying of his desires." "How can he expect anyone to love him?" she tenderly enquired. "It is reported," said I, "that very few women can resist him long, so well does he know how to please them. Besides, you do not form a true estimate of the power of man over the passions of women. Yesterday you were an ignorant maid who scarcely knew me! Now how many times during the night have your lips with the sweetest caresses called on your God as a witness to your love of me, whom a few short hours ago you had never seen before? Is it not true,? said I fondly kissing her. "It is," she replied, throwing her arms around my neck "But though at our marriage there was no reason for love on my side, either my gratitude or what you have taught me since yesterday have engendered it, and certainly the Dey would not have made me feel as I do towards you now." This tender avowal again forced my almost unbounded passions; I clasped her with transport to my bosom, our lips joined, our breaths mingled; when gently I turned her on her back, her swelling thighs, now obedient to the intimations of love and nature, willingly extended, resigning up the gateway to the entrance of pleasure. Dividing the pouting lips and entering its velvet tip, the member was quickly wedged into her to its extremity—she had it now to her heart's content—ravished to its utmost capacity by being so. Stretched as she was almost to suffocation on a rack of pleasure, its point stung her so much that catching at length the rage from my furious driving, she went wholly out of her mind, her sense concentrating in that favourite part of her body, the whole of which was so luxuriously filled and employed. There alone she existed, all lost in those delicious transports, those ecstasies of the senses, which her winking eyes, the brightened vermilion of her lips and sighs of pleasure deeply fetched so pathetically expressed. In short she was a machine (like any other piece of machinery) obeying the impulses of the key that so potently set her in motion, till the sense of pleasure foaming to a height triggered the shower that was to allay this hurricane. She kept me faithful company, going off with the old symptoms-a delicious delirium, a tremulous shudder, an "Ah, me, where am I?" and two or three long sighs, followed by the critical, dying, "Oh, oh!" When I got off her, she lay motionless, pleasure-filled—stretched and drenched—quite spent and gasping for breath, without any other sensations of life than in those exquisite vibrations that trembled yet on the strings of delight which had been so ravishingly touched and which nature had too intensely striven with for the senses to be quickly at peace from. 'In this manner did I gratify my senses and take my revenge on the lovely Theodora for the insult paid to me. Thus she became the slave of my pleasures. She little knew the effect of the storm she was raising and how potently she would feel it when it exploded. Having deposited in her womb my burning revenge, I was satisfied, and all that now remained was to undeceive her and to introduce you. It did not require much ingenuity to bring this about. Foreseeing clearly there would be a few pearly tears shed between you, also that I should have to listen to a few tender reproaches from Theodora, this also was no great matter. Having devoted nearly three weeks to the enjoyment of Theodora, yesterday I intended to withdraw the curtain which hung before her eyes. I desired Hassan at a particular hour to bring you to the apartments of Theodora, and when he heard me use a particular expression to let you enter the boudoir. It is scarcely necessary to explain that Theodora was now brought to submit to every, indeed any, wish I could form. On this occasion I had stripped her entirely naked, having nothing but a loose robe on myself. In this state I directed her to lean on the couch with her face downwards, raising her a little by placing a footstool for each foot to stand on at some distance from each other, so that her thighs were properly extended, and the entrance perfectly exposed. The head of my instrument was then fixed in her. At this moment you entered according to my directions, but dress disguised you so much that she did not know you, and Hassan caught you as you fainted. I motioned for him to take you away, then immediately resheathed the weapon in her hungry gap, as I well knew that would suppress all enquiry regarding you for the present. I seized her round the loins and demanded of her if she should like to be placed in that situation with the Dey. She turned round her head, with evident fear of some unknown danger marked in her lovely face, and replied, "Ah, sir, you make me tremble." "Why should you tremble, sweet one? He has been often near you during the last weeks and is at this moment nearer than you suppose." "Oh, where," cried the visibly alarmed girl, "where is he?" "Why up to your very quick," was my reply, and I forced myself into her as far as I could go. "It is the Dey who has enjoyed your virginity, whose wife you suppose yourself to be, and whom you now feel up to the hilt in your vitals." She fainted, but my violent thrusts soon brought her to life. The ecstasy seized me, I discharged myself into her, and withdrawing from her exclaimed, "There, my child, the deception is finished, you now know the beast in all his beastliness. Know, sweet charmer," I exclaimed, "it was that letter of yours that has procured the pleasure you have received in my embraces; the female that just now interrupted us is your friend Emily." To this she uttered a faint scream and fainted again. As I was ready for action I was soon in her again, and a few fierce thrusts quickly brought her to. To be brief, while my instrument was in her I had no difficulty in obtaining her pardon. She entreated permission to fly to you, and I granted her request. The rest you know.'

As the Dey ceased speaking his rampant tool (which I must confess I was handling during his confession) gave tokens of preparation and soon I had the delicious morsel where I fain would have kept it forever. After this the Dey would often amuse himself with us alternately, compelling one of us to guide into the other his instrument and handle his pendant jewels; then he would throw his hand back and insert his finger into the gaping place that awaited its turn. In this way we were frequently (all three) dissolved at the same time in a flood of bliss. This had continued for several weeks, when an awful catastrophe put an end to our enjoyments. The Dey had received a Greek girl from one of his captains. She passively submitted to his embraces, and uttered no complaint until he commenced the attack upon her second maidenhead; then did she seem inspired with the strength of a Hercules. She suddenly seized a knife, which she had concealed under a cushion, grasped his pinnacle of strength, and in less than a thought drew the knife across it and severed it from his body, she then plunged it into her own heart and expired immediately.

Aid was immediately summoned to stop the Dey's bleeding to death, and with the fortitude that ever characterises greatness, he ordered his physician to relieve him of his now useless remaining appendages, his receptacles of the soul-stirring juice, remarking at the same time that life would be hell if he retained the desire after the power was dead. When the Dey had nearly recovered he sent for us, and disclosed to our view the lost members preserved in spirits of wine in glass vases. He affectionately bade us farewell, telling us that a ship would sail for England in a few days, and as he had no further use for us, he would send us back to our native land. His kindness had such an effect on my feelings as to cause a miscarriage. I lay dangerously ill for two weeks, during which time Sylvia attended me with the care of a mother. At length the time of departure arrived. The Dey sent for us, and presented one of his valuable vases to Sylvia and the other to me. It fell to my lot to have the shaft. He also made us several other valuable presents, and bade us farewell, hoping that in our own country we should find partners to supply him. We left him with a heavy heart. We embarked on board the ship and arrived here without accident. Our friends here hushed up matters and reported that we had been at a boarding school in France, instead of the boarding school of the Dey of Algiers. Sylvia afterwards married a baronet, who lost his charge before he effected his entrance, so well did she play the prude. As for myself, you well know what my sentiments are. I will never marry until I am assured that the chosen one possesses sufficient charm and weight not only to erase the Dey's impression from my heart, but also from a more sensitive part. I have a young willing maid who possesses wiles enough to catch any man, and sufficient experience to answer my purpose; out of ten suitors, seven have passed through her ordeal and been found wanting. My hopes at present are centred on an Irish earl, who I have a presentiment will be found worthy of acceptance. When I have changed my name, rest assured you shall know the particulars.

You no doubt wish to know what became of the vases, therefore I must ease your mind on that score. Sylvia has a female friend who keeps a fashionable boarding school in London, and she persuaded me to leave mine with hers in the keeping of this lady, who shows them as a reward for good behaviour to the little lady scholars. Poor girls, how their little mousetraps must gape at the sight!

EMILY BARLOW

THE END 

Madam,

I sit down to give you an undeniable proof of my considering your desires as indispensable orders. Ungracious then as the task may be, I shall recall to view those scandalous stages of my life, out of which I emerg'd, at length, to the enjoyment of every blessing in the power of love, health, and fortune to bestow; whilst yet in the flower of youth, and not too late to employ the leisure afforded me by great ease and affluence, to cultivate an understanding, naturally not a despicable one, and which had, even amidst the whirl of loose pleasures I had been tost in, exerted more observation on the characters and manners of the world than what is common to those of my unhappy profession, who looking on all thought or reflection as their capital enemy, keep it at as great a distance as they can, or destroy it without mercy.

Hating, as I mortally do, all long unnecessary preface, I shall give you good quarter in this, and use no farther apology, than to prepare you for seeing the loose part of my life, wrote with the same liberty that I led it.

Truth! stark, naked truth, is the word; and I will not so much as take the pains to bestow the strip of a gauze wrapper on it, but paint situations such as they actually rose to me in nature, careless of violating those laws of decency that were never made for such unreserved intimacies as ours; and you have too much sense, too much knowledge of the originals themselves, to sniff prudishly and out of character at the pictures of them. The greatest men, those of the first and most leading taste, will not scruple adorning their private closets with nudities, though, in compliance with vulgar prejudices, they may not think them decent decorations of the staircase, or salon.

This, and enough, premised, I go souse into my personal history. My maiden name was Frances Hill. I was born at a small village near Liverpool, in Lancashire, of parents extremely poor, and, I piously believe, extremely honest.

My father, who had received a maim on his limbs that disabled him from following the more laborious branches of country-drudgery, got, by making of nets, a scanty subsistence, which was not much enlarg'd by my mother's keeping a little day-school for the girls in her neighbourhood. They had had several children; but none lived to any age except myself, who had received from nature a constitution perfectly healthy.

My education, till past fourteen, was no better than very vulgar; reading, or rather spelling, an illegible scrawl, and a little ordinary plain work composed the whole system of it; and then all my foundation in virtue was no other than a total ignorance of vice, and the shy timidity general to our sex, in the tender stage of life when objects alarm or frighten more by their novelty than anything else. But then, this is a fear too often cured at the expence of innocence, when Miss, by degrees, begins no longer to look on a man as a creature of prey that will eat her.

My poor mother had divided her time so entirely between her scholars and her little domestic cares, that she had spared very little of it to my instruction, having, from her own innocence from all ill, no hint or thought of guarding me against any.

I was now entering on my fifteenth year, when the worst of ills befell me in the loss of my tender fond parents, who were both carried off by the small-pox, within a few days of each other; my father dying first, and thereby hastening the death of my mother; so that I was now left an unhappy friendless orphan (for my father's coming to settle there was accidental, he being originally a Kentishman). That cruel distemper which had proved so fatal to them, had indeed seized me, but with such mild and favourable symptoms, that I was presently out of danger, and, what I then did not know the value of, was entirely unmark'd. I skip over here an account of the natural grief and affliction which I felt on this melancholy occasion. A little time, and the giddiness of that age dissipated, too soon, my reflections on that irreparable loss; but nothing contributed more to reconcile me to it, than the notions that were immediately put into my head, of going to London, and looking out for a service, in which I was promised all assistance and advice from one Esther Davis, a young woman that had been down to see her friends, and who, after the stay of a few days, was to return to her place.

As I had now nobody left alive in the village who had concern enough about what should become of me to start any objections to this scheme, and the woman who took care of me after my parents; death rather encouraged me to pursue it, I soon came to a resolution of making this launch into the wide world, by repairing to London, in order to seek my fortune, a phrase which, by the bye, has ruined more adventurers of both sexes, from the country, than ever it made or advanced.

Nor did Esther Davis a little comfort and inspirit me to venture with her, by piquing my childish curiosity with the fine sights that were to be seen in London: the Tombs, the Lions, the King, the Royal Family, the fine Plays and Operas, and, in short, all the diversions which fell within her sphere of life to come at; the detail of all which perfectly turn'd the little head of me.

Nor can I remember, without laughing, the innocent admiration, not without a spice of envy, with which we poor girls, whose church-going clothes did not rise above dowlass shifts and stuff gowns, beheld Esther's scowered satin gowns, caps border'd with an inch of lace, taudry ribbons, and shoes belaced with silver: all which we imagined grew in London, and entered for a great deal into my determination of trying to come in for my share of them.

The idea however of having the company of a townswoman with her, was the trivial, and all the motives that engaged Esther to take charge of me during my journey to town, where she told me, after her manner and style, "as how several maids out of the country had made themselves and all their kin for ever: that by preserving their virtue, some had taken so with their masters, that they had married them, and kept them coaches, and lived vastly grand and happy; and some, may-hap, came to be Duchesses; luck was all, and why not I, as well as another?"; with other almanacs to this purpose, which set me a tip-toe to begin this promising journey, and to leave a place which, though my native one, contained no relations that I had reason to regret, and was grown insupportable to me, from the change of the tenderest usage into a cold air of charity, with which I was entertain'd even at the only friend's house that I had the least expectation of care and protection from. She was, however, so just to me, as to manage the turning into money of the little matters that remained to me after the debts and burial charges were accounted for, and, at my departure, put my whole fortune into my hands; which consisted of a very slender wardrobe, pack'd up in a very portable box, and eight guineas, with seventeen shillings in silver; stowed up in a spring-pouch, which was a greater treasure than ever I had yet seen together, and which I could not conceive there was a possibility of running out; and indeed, I was so entirely taken up with the joy of seeing myself mistress of such an immense sum, that I gave very little attention to a world of good advice which was given me with it.

Places, then, being taken for Esther and me in the London waggon, I pass over a very immaterial scene of leavetaking, at which I dropt a few tears betwixt grief and joy; and, for the same reasons of insignificance, skip over all that happened to me on the road, such as the waggoner's looking liquorish on me, the schemes laid for me by some of the passengers, which were defeated by the vigilance of my guardian Esther; who, to do her justice, took a motherly care of me, at the same time that she taxed me for her protection by making me bear all travelling charges, which I defrayed with the utmost cheerfulness, and thought myself much obliged to her into the bargain.

She took indeed great care that we were not over-rated, or imposed on, as well as of managing as frugally as possible; expensiveness was not her vice.

It was pretty late in a summer evening when we reached London-town, in our slow conveyance, though drawn by six at length. As we passed through the greatest streets that led to our inn, the noise of the coaches, the hurry, the crowds of foot passengers, in short, the new scenery of the shops and houses, at once pleased and amazed me.

But guess at my mortification and surprize when we came to the inn, and our things were landed and deliver'd to us, when my fellow traveller and protectress, Esther Davis, who had used me with the utmost tenderness during the journey, and prepared me by no preceding signs for the stunning blow I was to receive, when I say, my only dependence and friend, in this strange place, all of a sudden assumed a strange and cool air towards me, as if she dreaded my becoming a burden to her.

Instead, then, of proffering me the continuance of her assistance and good offices, which I relied upon, and never more wanted, she thought herself, it seems, abundantly acquitted of her engagements to me, by having brought me safe to my journey's end; and seeing nothing in her procedure towards me but what was natural and in order, began to embrace me by way of taking leave, whilst I was so confounded, so struck, that I had not spirit or sense enough so much as to mention my hopes or expectations from her experience, and knowledge of the place she had brought me to.

Whilst I stood thus stupid and mute, which she doubtless attributed to nothing more than a concern at parting, this idea procured me perhaps a slight alleviation of it, in the following harangue: That now we were got safe to London, and that she was obliged to go to her place, she advised me by all means to get into one as soon as possible; that I need not fear getting one; there were more places than parish-churches; that she advised me to go to an intelligence office; that if she heard of any thing stirring, she would find me out and let me know; that in the meantime, I should take a private lodging, and acquaint her where to send to me; that she wish'd me good luck, and hoped I should always have the grace to keep myself honest, and not bring a disgrace on my parentage. With this, she took her leave of me, and left me, as it were, on my own hands, full as lightly as I had been put into hers.

Left thus alone, absolutely destitute and friendless, I began then to feel most bitterly the severity of this separation, the scene of which had passed in a little room in the inn; and no sooner was her back turned, but the affliction I felt at my helpless strange circumstances burst out into a flood of tears, which infinitely relieved the oppression of my heart; though I still remained stupefied, and most perfectly perplex'd how to dispose of myself.

One of the waiters coming in, added yet more to my uncertainty by asking me, in a short way, if I called for anything? to which I replied innocently: "No." But I wished him to tell me where I might get a lodging for that night. He said he would go and speak to his mistress, who accordingly came, and told me drily, without entering in the least into the distress she saw me in, that I might have a bed for a shilling, and that, as she supposed I had some friends in town (here I fetched a deep sigh in vain!) I might provide for myself in the morning.

'Tis incredible what trifling consolations the human mind will seize in its greatest afflictions. The assurance of nothing more than a bed to lie on that night, calmed my agonies; and being asham'd to acquaint the mistress of the inn that I had no friends to apply to in town, I proposed to myself to proceed, the very next morning, to an intelligence office, to which I was furnish'd with written directions on the back of a ballad Esther had given me. There I counted on getting information of any place that such a country girl as I might be fit for, and where I could get into any sort of being, before my little stock should be consumed; and as to a character, Esther had often repeated to me that I might depend on her managing me one; nor, however affected I was at her leaving me thus, did I entirely cease to rely on her, as I began to think, good-naturedly, that her procedure was all in course, and that it was only my ignorance of life that had made me take it in the light I at first did.

Accordingly, the next morning I dress'd myself as clean and as neat as my rustic wardrobe would permit me; and having left my box, with special recommendation, with the landlady, I ventured out by myself, and without any more difficulty than can be supposed of a young country girl, barely fifteen, and to whom every sign or shop was a gazing trap, I got to the wish'd-for intelligence office.

It was kept by an elderly woman, who sat at the receipt of custom, with a book before her in great form and order, and several scrolls, ready made out, of directions for places.

I made up then to this important personage, without lifting up my eyes or observing any of the people round me, who were attending there on the same errand as myself, and dropping her curtsies nine-deep, just made a shift to stammer out my business to her.

Madam having heard me out, with all the gravity and brow of a petty minister of State, and seeing at one glance over my figure what I was, made me no answer, but to ask me the preliminary shilling, on receipt of which she told me places for women were exceedingly scarce, especially as I seemed too slight built for hard work; but that she would look over her book, and see what was to be done for me, desiring me to stay a little till she had dispatched some other customers.

On this I drew back a little, most heartily mortified at a declaration which carried with it a killing uncertainty that my circumstances could not well endure.

Presently, assuming more courage, and seeking some diversion from my uneasy thoughts, I ventured to lift up my head a little, and sent my eyes on a course round the room, wherein they met full tilt with those of a lady (for such my extreme innocence pronounc'd her) sitting in a corner of the room, dress'd in a velvet mantle (nota bene, in the midst of summer), with her bonnet off; squab-fat, red-faced, and at least fifty.

She look'd as if she would devour me with her eyes, staring at me from head to foot, without the least regard to the confusion and blushes her eyeing me so fixedly put me to, and which were to her, no doubt, the strongest recommendation and marks of my being fit for her purpose. After a little time, in which my air, person and whole figure had undergone a strict examination, which I had, on my part, tried to render favourable to me, by primming, drawing up my neck, and setting my best looks, she advanced and spoke to me with the greatest demureness:

"Sweet-heart, do you want a place?"

"Yes, and please you" (with a curtsy down to the ground).

Upon this she acquainted me that she was actually come to the office herself to look out for a servant; that she believed I might do, with a little of her instructions; that she could take my very looks for a sufficient character; that London was a very wicked, vile place; that she hoped I would be tractable, and keep out of bad company; in short, she said all to me that an old experienced practitioner in town could think of, and which was much more than was necessary to take in an artless inexperienced country-maid, who was even afraid of becoming a wanderer about the streets, and therefore gladly jump'd at the first offer of a shelter, especially from so grave and matron-like a lady, for such my flattering fancy assured me this new mistress of mine was; I being actually hired under the nose of the good woman that kept the office, whose shrewd smiles and shrugs I could not help observing, and innocently interpreted them as marks of her being pleased at my getting into place so soon; but, as I afterwards came to know, these beldams understood one another very well, and this was a market where Mrs. Brown, my mistress, frequently attended, on the watch for any fresh goods that might offer there, for the use of her customers, and her own profit.

Madam was, however, so well pleased with her bargain, that fearing, I presume, lest better advice or some accident might occasion my slipping through her fingers, she would officiously take me in a coach to my inn, where, calling herself for my box, it was, I being present, delivered without the least scruple or explanation as to where I was going.

This being over, she bid the coachman drive to a shop in St. Paul's Churchyard, where she bought a pair of gloves, which she gave me, and thence renewed her directions to the coachman to drive to her house in *** street, who accordingly landed us at her door, after I had been cheer'd up and entertain'd by the way with the most plausible flams, without one syllable from which I could conclude anything but that I was, by the greatest good luck, fallen into the hands of the kindest mistress, not to say friend, that the varsal world could afford; and accordingly I enter'd her doors with most compleat confidence and exultation, promising myself that, as soon as I should be a little settled, I would acquaint Esther Davis with my rare good fortune.

You may be sure the good opinion of my place was not lessen'd by the appearance of a very handsome back parlour, into which I was led and which seemed to me magnificently furnished, who had never seen better rooms than the ordinary ones in inns upon the road. There were two gilt pierglasses, and a buffet, on which a few pieces of plates, set out to the most shew, dazzled, and altogether persuaded me that I must be got into a very reputable family.

Here my mistress first began her part, with telling me that I must have good spirits, and learn to be free with her; that she had not taken me to be a common servant, to do domestic drudgery, but to be a kind of companion to her; and that if I would be a good girl, she would do more than twenty mothers for me; to all which I answered only by the profoundest and the awkwardest curtsies, and a few monosyllables, such as "yes! no! to be sure!"

Presently my mistress touch'd the bell, and in came a strapping maid-servant, who had let us in. "Here, Martha," said Mrs. Brown—"I have just hir'd this young woman to look after my linen; so step up and shew her her chamber; and I charge you to use her with as much respect as you would myself, for I have taken a prodigious liking to her, and I do not know what I shall do for her."

Martha, who was an arch-jade, and, being used to this decoy, had her cue perfect, made me a kind of half curtsy, and asked me to walk up with her; and accordingly shew'd me a neat room, two pair of stairs backwards, in which there was a handsome bed, where Martha told me I was to lie with a young gentlewoman, a cousin of my mistress's, who she was sure would be vastly good to me. Then she ran out into such affected encomiums on her good mistress! her sweet mistress! and how happy I was to light upon her! that I could not have bespoke a better; with other the like gross stuff, such as would itself have started suspicions in any but such an unpractised simpleton, who was perfectly new to life, and who took every word she said in the very sense she laid out for me to take it; but she readily saw what a penetration she had to deal with, and measured me very rightly in her manner of whistling to me, so as to make me pleased with my cage, and blind to the wires.

In the midst of these false explanations of the nature of my future service, we were rung for down again, and I was reintroduced into the same parlour, where there was a table laid with three covers; and my mistress had now got with her one of her favourite girls, a notable manager of her house, and whose business it was to prepare and break such young fillies as I was to the mounting-block; and she was accordingly, in that view, allotted me for a bed-fellow; and, to give her the more authority, she had the title of cousin conferr'd on her by the venerable president of this college.

Here I underwent a second survey, which ended in the full approbation of Mrs. Phoebe Ayres, the name of my tutoress elect, to whose care and instructions I was affectionately recommended.

Dinner was now set on table, and in pursuance of treating me as a companion, Mrs. Brown, with a tone to cut off all dispute, soon over-rul'd my most humble and most confused protestations against sitting down with her ladyship, which my very short breeding just suggested to me could not be right, or in the order of things.

At table, the conversation was chiefly kept up by the two madams, and carried on in double-meaning expressions, interrupted every now and then by kind assurance to me, all tending to confirm and fix my satisfaction with my present condition: augment it they could not, so very a novice was I then.

It was here agreed that I should keep myself up and out of sight for a few days, till such cloaths could be procured for me as were fit for the character I was to appear in, of my mistress's companion, observing withal, that on the first impressions of my figure much might depend; and, as they well judged, the prospect of exchanging my country cloaths for London finery, made the clause of confinement digest perfectly well with me. But the truth was, Mrs. Brown did not care that I should be seen or talked to by any, either of her customers, or her does (as they call'd the girls provided for them), till she had secured a good market for my maidenhead, which I had at least all the appearances of having brought into her ladyship's service.

To slip over minutes of no importance to the main of my story, I pass the interval to bed-time, in which I was more and more pleas'd with the views that opened to me, of an easy service under these good people; and after supper being shew'd up to bed, Miss Phoebe, who observed a kind of reluctance in me to strip and go to bed, in my shift, before her, now the maid was withdrawn, came up to me, and beginning with unpinning my handkerchief and gown, soon encouraged me to go on with undressing myself; and, still blushing at now seeing myself naked to my shift, I hurried to get under the bedcloaths out of sight. Phoebe laugh'd and was not long before she placed herself by my side. She was about five and twenty, by her most suspicious account, in which, according to all appearances, she must have sunk at least ten good years; allowance, too, being made for the havoc which a long course of hackneyship and hot waters must have made of her constitution, and which had already brought on, upon the spur, that stale stage in which those of her profession are reduced to think of showing company, instead of seeing it.

No sooner then was this precious substitute of my mistress's laid down, but she, who was never out of her way when any occasion of lewdness presented itself, turned to me, embraced and kiss'd me with great eagerness. This was new, this was odd; but imputing it to nothing but pure kindness, which, for aught I knew, it might be the London way to express in that manner, I was determin'd not to be behind hand with her, and returned her the kiss and embrace, with all the fervour that perfect innocence knew.

Encouraged by this, her hands became extremely free, and wander'd over my whole body, with touches, squeezes, pressures, that rather warm'd and surpriz'd me with their novelty, than they either shock'd or alarm'd me.

The flattering praises she intermingled with these invasions, contributed also not a little to bribe my passiveness; and, knowing no ill, I feared none, especially from one who had prevented all doubt of her womanhood by conducting my hands to a pair of breasts that hung loosely down, in a size and volume that full sufficiently distinguished her sex, to me at least, who had never made any other comparison...

I lay then all tame and passive as she could wish, whilst her freedom raised no other emotions but those of a strange, and, till then, unfelt pleasure. Every part of me was open and exposed to the licentious courses of her hands, which, like a lambent fire, ran over my whole body, and thaw'd all coldness as they went.

My breasts, if it is not too bold a figure to call so two hard, firm, rising hillocks, that just began to shew themselves, or signify anything to the touch, employ'd and amus'd her hands a-while, till, slipping down lower, over a smooth track, she could just feel the soft silky down that had but a few months before put forth and garnish'd the mount-pleasant of those parts, and promised to spread a grateful shelter over the seat of the most exquisite sensation, and which had been, till that instant, the seat of the most insensible innocence. Her fingers play'd and strove to twine in the young tendrils of that moss, which nature has contrived at once for use and ornament.

But, not contented with these outer posts, she now attempts the main spot, and began to twitch, to insinuate, and at length to force an introduction of a finger into the quick itself, in such a manner, that had she not proceeded by insensible gradations that inflamed me beyond the power of modesty to oppose its resistance to their progress, I should have jump'd out of bed and cried for help against such strange assaults.

Instead of which, her lascivious touches had lighted up a new fire that wanton'd through all my veins, but fix'd with violence in that center appointed them by nature, where the first strange hands were now busied in feeling, squeezing, compressing the lips, then opening them again, with a finger between, till an "Oh!" express'd her hurting me, where the narrowness of the unbroken passage refused it entrance to any depth.

In the meantime, the extension of my limbs, languid stretchings, sighs, short heavings, all conspired to assure that experienced wanton that I was more pleased than offended at her proceedings, which she seasoned with repeated kisses and exclamations, such as "Oh! what a charming creature thou art! . . . What a happy man will he be that first makes a woman of you! . . . Oh! that I were a man for your sake! ... with the like broken expressions, interrupted by kisses as fierce and fervent as ever I received from the other sex.

For my part, I was transported, confused, and out of myself; feelings so new were too much for me. My heated and alarm'd senses were in a tumult that robbed me of all liberty of thought; tears of pleasure gush'd from my eyes, and somewhat assuaged the fire that rag'd all over me.

Phoebe, herself, the hackney'd, thorough-bred Phoebe, to whom all modes and devices of pleasure were known and familiar, found, it seems, in this exercise of her art to break young girls, the gratification of one of those arbitrary tastes, for which there is no accounting. Not that she hated men, or did not even prefer them to her own sex; but when she met with such occasions as this was, a satiety of enjoyments in the common road, perhaps too, a secret bias, inclined her to make the most of pleasure, wherever she could find it, without distinction of sexes. In this view, now well assured that she had, by her touches, sufficiently inflamed me for her purpose, she roll'd down the bed-cloaths gently, and I saw myself stretched nak'd, my shift being turned up to my neck, whilst I had no power or sense to oppose it. Even my glowing blushes expressed more desire than modesty, whilst the candle, left (to be sure not undesignedly) burning, threw a full light on my whole body.

"No!" says Phoebe, "you must not, my sweet girl, think to hide all these treasures from me. My sight must be feasted as well as my touch . . . I must devour with my eyes this springing bosom . . . Suffer me to kiss it . . . I have not seen it enough . . . Let me kiss it once more . . . What firm, smooth, white flesh is here! . . . How delicately shaped! . . . Then this delicious down! Oh! let me view the small, dear, tender cleft! . . . This is too much, I cannot bear it! . . . I must . . . I must . . ." Here she took my hand, and in a transport carried it where you will easily guess. But what a difference in the state of the same thing! . . . A spreading thicket of bushy curls marked the full-grown, complete woman. Then the cavity to which she guided my hand easily received it; and as soon as she felt it within her, she moved herself to and fro, with so rapid a friction that I presently withdrew it, wet and clammy, when instantly Phoebe grew more composed, after two or three sighs, and heart-fetched Oh's! and giving me a kiss that seemed to exhale her soul through her lips, she replaced the bed-cloaths over us. What pleasure she had found I will not say; but this I know, that the first sparks of kindling nature, the first ideas of pollution, were caught by me that night; and that the acquaintance and communication with the bad of our own sex, is often as fatal to innocence as all the seductions of the other. But to go on. When Phoebe was restor'd to that calm, which I was far from the enjoyment of myself, she artfully sounded me on all the points necessary to govern the designs of my virtuous mistress on me, and by my answers, drawn from pure undissembled nature, she had no reason but to promise herself all imaginable success, so far as it depended on my ignorance, easiness, and warmth of constitution.

After a sufficient length of dialogue, my bedfellow left me to my rest, and I fell asleep, through pure weariness from the violent emotions I had been led into, when nature (which had been too warmly stir'd and fermented to subside without allaying by some means or other) relieved me by one of those luscious dreams, the transports of which are scarce inferior to those of waking real action.

We breakfasted, and the tea things were scarce removed, when in were brought two bundles of linen and wearing apparel: in short, all the necessaries for rigging me out, as they termed it, completely.

In the morning I awoke about ten, perfectly gay and refreshed. Phoebe was up before me, and asked me in the kindest manner how I did, how I had rested, and if I was ready for breakfast, carefully, at the same time, avoiding to increase the confusion she saw I was in, at looking her in the face, by any hint of the night's bed scene. I told her if she pleased I would get up, and begin any work she would be pleased to set me about. She smil'd; presently the maid brought in the tea-equipage, and I had just huddled my cloaths on, when in waddled my mistress. I expected no less than to be told of, if not chid for, my late rising, when I was agreeably disappointed by her compliments on my pure and fresh looks. I was "a bud of beauty" (this was her style), "and how vastly all the fine men would admire me!" to all which my answer did not, I can assure you, wrong my breeding; they were as simple and silly as they could wish, and, no doubt, flattered them infinitely more than had they proved me enlightened by education and a knowledge of the world.

Imagine to yourself, Madam, how my little coquette heart flutter'd with joy at the sight of a white lute-string, flower'd with silver, scoured indeed, but passed on me for spick-and-span new, a Brussels lace cap, braided shoes, and the rest in proportion, all second-hand finery, and procured instantly for the occasion, by the diligence and industry of the good Mrs. Brown, who had already a chapman for me in the house, before whom my charms were to pass in review; for he had not only, in course, insisted on a previous sight of the premises, but also on immediate surrender to him, in case of his agreeing for me; concluding very wisely that such a place as I was in was of the hottest to trust the keeping of such a perishable commodity in as a maidenhead.

The care of dressing, and tricking me out for the market, was then left to Phoebe, who acquitted herself, if not well, at least perfectly to the satisfaction of every thing but my impatience of seeing myself dress'd. When it was over, and I view'd myself in the glass, I was, no doubt, too natural, too artless, to hide my childish joy at the change; a change, in the real truth, for much the worse, since I must have much better become the neat easy simplicity of my rustic dress than the awkward, untoward, taudry finery that I could not conceal my strangeness to.

Phoebe's compliments, however, in which her own share in dressing me was not forgot, did not a little confirm me in the first notions I had ever entertained concerning my person; which, be it said without vanity, was then tolerable to justify a taste for me, and of which it may not be out of place here to sketch you an unflatter'd picture.

I was tall, yet not too tall for my age, which, as I before remark'd, was barely turned of fifteen; my shape perfectly straight, thin waisted, and light and free, without owing any thing to stays; my hair was a glossy auburn, and as soft as silk, flowing down my neck in natural buckles, and did not a little set off the whiteness of a smooth skin; my face was rather too ruddy, though its features were delicate, and the shape a roundish oval, except where a pit on my chin had far from a disagreeable effect; my eyes were as black as can be imagin'd, and rather languishing than sparkling, except on certain occasions, when I have been told they struck fire fast enough; my teeth, which I ever carefully perserv'd, were small, even and white; my bosom was finely rais'd, and one might then discern rather the promise, than the actual growth, of the round, firm breasts, that in a little time made that promise good. In short, all the points of beauty that are most universally in request, I had, or at least my vanity forbade me to appeal from the decision of our sovereign judges the men, who all, that I ever knew at least, gave it thus highly in my favour; and I met with, even in my own sex, some that were above denying me that justice, whilst others praised me yet more unsuspectedly, by endeavouring to detract from me, in points of person and figure that I obviously excelled in. This is, I own, too strong of self praise; but should I not be ungrateful to nature, and to a form to which I owe such singular blessings of pleasure and fortune, were I to suppress, through and affectation of modesty, the mention of such valuable gifts?

Well then, dress'd I was, and little did it then enter into my head that all this gay attire was no more than decking the victim out for sacrifice, whilst I innocently attributed all to mere friendship and kindness in the sweet good Mrs. Brown; who, I was forgetting to mention, had, under pretence of keeping my money safe, got from me, without the least hesitation, the driblet (so I now call it) which remained to me after the expences of my journey.

After some little time most agreeably spent before the glass, in scarce self-admiration, since my new dress had by much the greatest share in it, I was sent for down to the parlour, where the old lady saluted me, and wished me joy of my new cloaths, which she was not asham'd to say, fitted me as if I had worn nothing but the finest all my life-time; but what was it she could not see me silly enough to swallow? At the same time, she presented me to another cousin of her own creation, an elderly gentleman, who got up, at my entry into the room, and on my dropping a curtsy to him, saluted me, and seemed a little affronted that I had only presented my cheek to him; a mistake, which, if one, he immediately corrected, by glewing his lips to mine, with an ardour which his figure had not at all disposed me to thank him for; his figure, I say, than which nothing could be more shocking or detestable: for ugly, and disagreeable, were terms too gentle to convey a just idea of it.

Imagine to yourself a man rather past threescore, short and ill-made, with a yellow cadaverous hue, great goggling eyes that stared as if he was strangled; and out-mouth from two more properly tusks than teeth, livid-lips, and breath like a jake's: then he had a peculiar ghastliness in his grin that made him perfectly frightful, if not dangerous to women with child; yet, made as he was thus in mock of man, he was so blind to his own staring deformities as to think himself born for pleasing, and that no woman could see him with impunity: in consequence of which idea, he had lavish'd great sums on such wretches as could gain upon themselves to pretend love to his person, whilst to those who had not art or patience to dissemble the horror it inspir'd, he behaved even brutally. Impotence, more than necessity, made him seek in variety the provocative that was wanting to raise him to the pitch of enjoyment, which too he often saw himself baulked of, by the failure of his powers: and this always threw him into a fit of rage, which he wreak'd, as far as he durst, on the innocent objects of his fit of momentary desire.

This then was the monster to which my conscientious benefactress, who had long been his purveyor in this way, had doom'd me, and sent for me down purposely for his examination. Accordingly she made me stand up before him, turn'd me round, unpinn'd my handkerchief, remark'd to him the rise and fall, the turn and whiteness of a bosom just beginning to fill; then made me walk, and took even a handle from the rusticity of my gait, to inflame the inventory of my charms: in short, she omitted no point of jockeyship; to which he only answer'd by gracious nods of approbation, whilst he look'd goats and monkies at me: for I sometimes stole a corner glance at him, and encountering his fiery, eager stare, looked another way from pure horror and affright, which he, doubtless in character, attributed to nothing more than maiden modesty, or at least the affectation of it.

However, I was soon dismiss'd, and reconducted to my room by Phoebe, who stuck close to me, not leaving me alone and at leisure to make such reflections as might naturally rise to any one, not an idiot, on such a scene as I had just gone through; but to my shame be it confess'd, such was my invincible stupidity, or rather portentous innocence, that I did not yet open my eyes to Mrs. Brown's designs, and saw nothing in this titular cousin of hers but a shocking hideous person which did not at all concern me, unless that my respect to all her cousinhood.

Phoebe, however, began to sift the state and pulses of my heart towards this monster, asking me how I should approve of such a fine gentleman for a husband? (fine gentleman, I suppose she called him, from his being daubed with lace). I answered her very naturally, that I had no thoughts of a husband, but that if I was to choose one, it should be among my own degree, sure! So much had my aversion to that wretch's hideous figure indisposed me to all "fine gentlemen," and confounded my ideas, as if those of that rank had been necessarily cast in the same mould that he was! But Phoebe was not to be beat off so, but went on with her endeavours to melt and soften me for the purposes of my reception into that hospitable house: and whilst she talked of the sex in general, she had no reason to despair of a compliance, which more than one reason shewed her would be easily enough obtained of me; but then she had too much experience not to discover that my particular fix'd aversion to that frightful cousin would be a block not so readily to be removed, as suited the consummation of their bargain, and sale of me.

Mother Brown had in the mean time agreed the terms with this liquorish old goat, which I afterwards understood were to be fifty guineas peremptory for the liberty of attempting me, and a hundred more at the compleat gratification of his desires, in the triumph over my virginity: and as for me, I was to be left entirely at the discretion of his liking and generosity. This unrighteous contract being thus settled, he was so eager to be put in possession, that he insisted on being introduc'd to drink tea with me that afternoon, when we were to be left alone; nor would he hearken to the procuress's remonstrances, that I was not sufficiently prepared and ripened for such an attack; that I was too green and untam'd, having been scarce twenty-four hours in the house: it is the character of lust to be impatient, and his vanity arming him against any supposition of other than the common resistance of a maid on those occasions, made him reject all proposals of a delay, and my dreadful trial was thus fix'd, unknown to me, for that very evening.

At dinner, Mrs. Brown and Phoebe did nothing but run riot in praises of this wonderful cousin, and how happy that woman would be that he would favour with his addresses; in short my two gossips exhausted all their rhetoric to persuade me to accept them: "that the gentleman was violently smitten with me at first sight . . . that he would make my fortune if I would be a good girl and not stand in my own light . . . that I should trust his honour . . . that I should be made for ever, and have a chariot to go abroad in . . . ," with all such stuff as was fit to turn the head of such a silly ignorant girl as I then was: but luckily here my aversion had taken already such deep root in me, my heart was so strongly defended from him by my senses, that wanting the art to mask my sentiments, I gave them no hopes of their employer's succeeding, at least very easily, with me. The glass too march'd pretty quick, with a view, I suppose, to make a friend of the warmth of my constitution, in the minutes of the imminent attack.

Thus they kept me pretty long at table, and about six in the evening, after I was retired to my own apartment, and the tea board was set, enters my venerable mistress, follow'd close by that satyr, who came in grinning in a way peculiar to him, and by his odious presence confirm'd me in all the sentiments of detestation which his first appearance had given birth to.

He sat down fronting me, and all tea time kept ogling me in a manner that gave me the utmost pain and confusion, all the marks of which he still explained to be my bashfulness, and not being used to see company.

Tea over, the commoding old lady pleaded urgent business (which indeed was true) to go out, and earnestly desir'd me to entertain her cousin kindly till she came back, both for my own sake and her's; and then with a "Pray, sir, be very good, be very tender of the sweet child," she went out of the room, leaving me staring, with my mouth open, and unprepar'd, by the suddenness of her departure, to oppose it.

We were now alone; and on that idea a sudden fit of trembling seiz'd me. I was so afraid, without a precise notion of why, and what I had to fear, that I sat on the settee, by the fire-side, motionless, and petrified, without life or spirit, not knowing how to look or how to stir.

But long I was not suffered to remain in this state of stupefaction: the monster squatted down by me on the settee, and without farther ceremony or preamble, flings his arms about my neck, and drawing me pretty forcibly towards him, oblig'd me to receive, in spite of my struggles to disengage from him, his pestilential kisses, which quite overcame me. Finding me then next to senseless, and unresisting, he tears off my neck handkerchief, and laid all open there to his eyes and hands: still I endur'd all without flinching, till embolden'd by my sufferance and silence, for I had not the power to speak or cry out, he attempted to lay me down on the settee, and I felt his hand on the lower part of my naked thighs, which were cross'd, and which he endeavoured to unlock . . . Oh then! I was roused out of my passive endurance, and springing from him with an activity he was not prepar'd for, threw myself at his feet, and begg'd him, in the most moving tone, not to be rude, and that he would not hurt me:—"Hurt you, my dear?" says the brute; "I intend you no harm . . . has not the old lady told you that I love you? . . . that I shall do handsomely by you?" "She has indeed, sir," said I; "but I cannot love you, indeed I can not! . . . pray let me alone . . . yes! I will love you dearly if you will let me alone, and go away . . . " But I was talking to the wind; for whether my tears, my attitude, or the disorder of my dress prov'd fresh incentives, or whether he was not under the dominion of desires he could not bridle, but snorting and foaming with lust and rage, he renews his attack, seizes me, and again attempts to extend and fix me on the settee: in which he succeeded so far as to lay me along, and even to toss my petticoats over my head, and lay my thighs bare, which I obstinately kept close, nor could he, though he attempted with his knee to force them open, effect it so as to stand fair for being master of the main avenue; he was unbuttoned, both waistcoat and breeches, yet I only felt the weight of his body upon me, whilst I lay struggling with indignation, and dying with terror; but he stopped all of a sudden, and got off, panting, blowing, cursing, and repeating "old and ugly!" for so I had very naturally called him in the heat of my defence.

The brute had, it seems, as I afterwards understood, brought on, by his eagerness and struggle, the ultimate period of his hot fit of lust, which his power was too short liv'd to carry him through the full execution of; of which my thighs and linen received the effusion.

When it was over he bid me, with a tone of displeasure, get up, saying that he would not do me the honour to think of me any more . . . that the old bitch might look out for another cully . . . that he would not be fool'd so by e'er a country mock modesty in England . . . that he supposed I had left my maidenhead with some hobnail in the country, and was come to dispose of my skin-milk in town, with a volley of the like abuse; which I listened to with more pleasure than ever fond woman did to protestations of love from her darling minion: for, incapable as I was of receiving any addition to my perfect hatred and aversion to him, I look'd on this railing as my security against his renewing his most odious caresses.

Yet, plain as Mrs. Brown's views were now come out, I had not the heart or spirit to open my eyes to them: still I could not part with my dependence on that beldam, so much did I think myself her's, soul and body: or rather, I sought to deceive myself with the continuation of my good opinion of her, and chose to wait the worst at her hands sooner than be turn'd out to starve in the streets, without a penny of money or a friend to apply to: these fears were my folly.

Whilst this confusion of ideas was passing in my head, and I sat pensive by the fire, with my eyes brimming with tears, my neck still bare, and my cap fall'n off in the struggle, so that my hair was in the disorder you may guess, the villain's lust began, I suppose, to be again in flow, at the sight of all that bloom of youth which presented itself to his view, a bloom yet unenjoy'd, and of course not yet indifferent to him.

After some pause, he ask'd me, with a tone of voice mightily softened, whether I would make it up with him before the old lady returned and all should be well; he would restore me his affections, at the same time offering to kiss me and feel my breasts. But now my extreme aversion, my fears, my indignation, all acting upon me, gave me a spirit not natural to me, so that breaking loose from him, I ran to the bell and rang it, before he was aware, with such violence and effect as brought up the maid to know what was the matter, or whether the gentleman wanted any thing; and before he could proceed to greater extremities, she bounc'd into the room, and seeing me stretch'd on the floor, my hair all dishevell'd, my nose gushing out blood, which did not a little tragedize the scene, and my odious persecutor still intent of pushing his brutal point, unmoved by all my cries and distress, she was herself confounded and did not know what to say.

As much, however, as Martha might be prepared and hardened to transactions of this sort, all womanhood must have been out of her heart, could she have seen this unmov'd. Besides that, on the face of things, she imagined that matters had gone greater lengths than they really had, and that the courtesy of the house had been actually consummated on me, and flung me into the condition I was in: in this notion she instantly took my part, and advis'd the gentleman to go down and leave me to recover myself, and "that all would be soon over with me . . . that when Mrs. Brown and Phoebe, who were gone out, were return'd, they would take order for every thing to his satisfaction . . . that nothing would be lost by a little patience with the poor tender thing . . . that for her part she was . . . frighten'd . . . she could not tell what to say to such doings . . . but that she would stay by me till my mistress came home." As the wench said all this in a resolute tone, and the monster himself began to perceive that things would not mend by his staying, he took his hat and went out of the room, murmuring, and pleating his brows like an old ape, so that I was delivered from the horrors of his detestable presence.

As soon as he was gone, Martha very tenderly offered me her assistance in any thing, and would have got me some hartshorn drops, and put me to bed; which last, I at first positively refused, in the fear that the monster might return and take me at that advantage. However, with much persuasion, and assurances that I should not be molested that night, she prevailed on me to lie down; and indeed I was so weakened by my struggles, so dejected by my fearful apprehensions, so terror-struck, that I had not power to sit up, or hardly to give answers to the questions with which the curious Martha ply'd and perplex'd me.

Such too, and so cruel was my fate, that I dreaded the sight of Mrs. Brown, as if I had been the criminal and she the person injur'd; a mistake which you will not think so strange, on distinguishing that neither virtue nor principles had the least share in the defence I had made, but only the particular aversion I had conceiv'd against the first brutal and frightful invader of my tender innocence.

I pass'd then the time till Mrs. Brown's return home, under all the agitations of fear and despair that may easily be guessed. 

There were three of us—Mary, Eliza, and myself. I was approaching fifteen, Mary was about a year younger, and Eliza between twelve and thirteen years of age. Mamma treated us all as children, and was blind to the fact that I was no longer what I had been. Although not tall for my age, nor outwardly presenting a manly appearance, my passions were awakening, and the distinctive feature of my sex, although in repose it looked magnificent enough, was very sufficiently developed when under the influence of feminine excitement.

As yet, I had absolutely no knowledge of the uses of the different organs of sex. My sisters and I all slept in the same room. They together in one bed, I alone in another. When no one was present, we had often mutually examined the different formations of our sexes.

We had discovered that mutual handlings gave a certain amount of pleasing sensation; and, latterly, my eldest sister had discovered that the hooding and unhooding of my doodle, as she called it, instantly caused it to swell up and stiffen as hard as a piece of wood. My feeling of her little pinky slit gave rise in her to nice sensations, but on the slightest attempt to insert even my finger, the pain was too great. We had made so little progress in the attouchements that not the slightest inkling of what could be done in that way dawned upon us. I had begun to develope a slight growth of moss-like curls round the root of my cock; and then, to our surprise, Mary began to show a similar tendency. As yet, Eliza was as bald as her hand, but both were prettily formed, with wonderfully full and fat mounts of Venus. We were perfectly innocent of guile and quite habituated to let each other look at all our naked bodies without the slightest hesitation; and when playing in the garden, if one wanted to relieve the pressure on the bladder, we all squatted down together, and crossed waters, each trying who could piddle fastest. Notwithstanding these symptoms of passion when excited, in a state of calm I might have passed for a boy of ten or eleven.

My father had left us but moderately provided for, and mamma, wishing to live comfortably, preferred giving me lessons along with my sisters at home to sending me to school; but her health beginning to fail, she inserted an advertisement in the Times for a governess. Out of a large number of applicants, a young lady, of the name of Evelyn, was selected. Some ten days afterwards she arrived, and became one of the family.

We did not see much of her the first evening, but after breakfast the following morning, mamma accompanied her to what was considered our school-room, and said, "Now, my dears, I place you under Miss Evelyn's care; you must obey her in all things; she will teach you your lessons, as I am unable to do so any longer." Then, turning to our new governess, "I fear you will find them somewhat spoiled, and unruly; but there is a horse, and Susan will make you excellent birch rods whenever you require them. If you spare their bottoms when they deserve whipping, you will seriously offend me." As mamma said this, I observed Miss Evelyn's eyes appeared to dilate with a sort of joy, and I felt certain that, severely as mamma had often whipped us, if we should now deserve it, Miss Evelyn would administer it much more severely. She looked amiability itself, and was truly beautiful in face and person, twenty-two years of age, full and finely formed, and dressed always with the most studied neatness. She was, in truth, a seductive creature. She made an instantaneous impression on my senses. There was, however, somewhat of a sternness of expression, and a dignity of carriage, which caused at once to fear and respect her. Of course, at first, all went smoothly enough, and seeing that mamma treated me precisely as she did my sisters, I came to be regarded as quite a child by Miss Evelyn. She found that she had to sleep in the same room with my sisters and myself. I fancied that on the first night Miss Evelyn did not approve of this arrangement, but gradually became familiarized with it, and seemed to think no more about it.

When bedtime came, we all kissed mamma and retired early, as usual. Miss Evelyn followed some hours later. When she came in, she carefully locked the door, then looked at me to see if I was asleep. Why, I know not, but I was instinctively prompted to feign sleep. I did so successfully, notwithstanding the passing of the candle before my eyes. So she at once commenced undressing. When her back was turned, I opened my eyes, and greedily devoured her naked charms as they were gradually exhibited before me. The moment she turned round, I was again as if asleep. I have said that my passions had begun to develope themselves, but as yet I did not understand their force or direction. I well remember this first night, when a fine ripe woman gradually removed every particle of dress within a couple of yards of me—the effect of each succeeding charm, from her lovely and beautifully formed bubbies to the taking off her shoes and stockings from her well-formed legs and small feet and ankles, caused my prick to swell and stiffen to a painful extent. When all but her chemise was removed, she stopped to pick up her petticoats that she had allowed to fall to her feet, and in lifting them, raised also her chemise, and exposed to my view a most glorious bottom—dazzlingly white and shining like satin. As the light was full upon it, and she was still in a stooping position, I could see that below her slit she was well covered with dark hair. Turning round, to put her petticoats on a chair, and to take up her night-gown, she slipped her chemise from her arm, and letting it fall to the ground while she lifted the night-gown over her head, I had for some seconds a view of her beautiful belly, thickly covered with dark curly hair over the mount of Venus. So voluptuous was the sight, I almost shuddered, so intense was my excitement. She now sat down on the bed to take off her shoes and stockings. Oh! what beautiful thighs, legs, ankles, and feet she had!

I am now advanced in life, and have had many handsome and well-formed women, but I never saw limbs more voluptuously formed.

In a few minutes the light was extinguished, and a rushing rill flowed into the night vase; very different from the gentle tricklings from myself and sisters as we often squatted down opposite each other and crossed water, laughing at the different sources from which they flowed. My sisters often envied me the power of directing the spurt where I pleased, so little were we from dreaming of the real intent of that projecting little instrument.

I heard the charming creature get into bed, and shortly breath hard. As for me, I could not sleep. I lay awake the greater part of the night, afraid to be restless, lest I should disturb Miss Evelyn and give her reason to think I had been observant of her undressing. When at last I dozed off, it was but to dream of all the charms I has seen.

About a month passed thus. Every night Miss Evelyn became more and more at her ease, and confident of my mere childishness, often gave me glorious and lengthened glimpses of her beautifully developed charms: although it was only about every other night that I could enjoy them, for, as they always produced sleeplessness afterwards, the following night nature assured her rights, and I usually slept profoundly when I would have preferred continued gazing on the charms of my lovely governess. But, doubtless, those exhausting sleeps helped to throw her off her guard, and gave me better opportunities than I should otherwise have had. Once or twice she used the night ware before putting on her night-gown, and I could see the rosy-lipped opening embosomed in exquisite dark curls, pouring out its full measure of water; showing a fine force of nature, and driving me wild with excitement. Yet it is singular that I never once thought of applying to my fingers for relief from the painful stiffness that nearly burst my prick asunder.

Whether mamma had observed my very frequent projection of my trousers, or began to think it better I should not sleep in the same room as Miss Evelyn, I cannot say, but she had my bed removed into her own. However, I was so thoroughly treated as a mere boy by every one in the house, that Miss Evelyn seemed to forget my sex; and there was at all times a freedom of carriage and an abandon in her attitudes that she certainly would not have indulged in if she had felt any restraint from considering herself in the presence of a youth of the age of puberty.

In cold weather I used to sit on a low stool by the fire—Miss Evelyn was seated in front, I had my lesson book on my knee, and she herself would place her beautiful feet on the high school fender, with her work in her lap, while she heard my sisters repeat their lesson, totally unconscious that for half an hour at a time she was exposing her beautiful legs and thighs to my ardent gaze; for sitting much below her, and bending my head as if intent on my lesson, my eyes were below her raised petticoats. Her close and tight-fitting white stockings displayed her well-formed legs, for while confined to the house during our morning lessons she did not wear drawers; so that in the position she sat in, with her knees higher than her feet on the already high fender, and her legs somewhat apart to hold her work in her lap more easily, the whole glorious underswell of both thighs, and the lower part of her fine large bottom, with the pinky slit quite visible, nestled in a rich profusion of dark curls, were fully exposed to my view. The light from the fire glancing under her raised petticoats tinged the whole with a glow, and set me equally in a blaze of desire until I was almost ready to faint. I could have rushed headlong under her petticoats, and kissed and fondled that delicious opening and all its surroundings. Oh, how little she thought of the passion she was raising. Oh! dear Miss Evelyn, how I did love you from the dainty kid slipper and tight glossy silk stocking, up to the glorious swell of the beautiful bubbies, that were so fully exposed to me nearly every night, and the lovely lips of all that I longed to lovingly embrace.

Thus day after day passed away, and Miss Evelyn became to me a goddess, a creature whom, in my heart of hearts, I literally worshiped. When she left the school-room, and I was alone, I kissed that part of the fender her feet had pressed, and the seat on which she sat, and even the air an inch above, imagination placing there her lovely cunt. I craved for something beyond this without knowing exactly what I wanted; for, as yet, I really was utterly ignorant of anything appertaining to the conjunction of the sexes.

One day I had gone up to my sisters' bedroom where the governess slept, that I might throw myself on her bed, and in imagination embrace her beautiful body. I heard some one approaching, and knowing that I had no business there, I hid myself under the bed. The next moment Miss Evelyn herself entered, and locked the door. It was about an hour before dinner. Taking off her dress, and hanging it on the wardrobe, she drew out a piece of furniture, which had been bought for her, the use of which had often puzzled me; she took off the lid, poured water into its basin, and placed a sponge near it. She then took off her gown, drew her petticoats and chemise up to her waist and fastened them there, straddled across it, and seated herself upon it.

I thus had the intoxicating delight of gazing on all her beautiful charms, for when she tucked up her clothes she stood before her glass, presenting to my devouring glance her glorious white bottom in all its fullness, turning to approach the bidet, she equally exposed her lower belly and beautiful mount, with all its wealth of hair. While straddling over the bidet before she sat down, the whole of her pinky-lipped cunt broke on my enraptured sight. Never shall I forget the wild excitement of the moment. It was almost too much for my excited senses; fortunately, when seated, the immediate cause of my almost madness vanished. She sponged herself well between the thighs for about five minutes. She then raised herself off the bidet, and for a moment again displayed the pouting lips of her cunt—then stood fronting me for two or three minutes while she removed, with the rinsed sponge, the trickling drops of water which still gathered on the rich bush of curls around her quim. Thus her belly, mount and thighs, whose massy-fleshed and most voluptuous shape were more fully seen by me than they had heretofore been, and it may easily be conceived into what a state such a deliberate view threw me.

Oh, Miss Evelyn, dear, delicious Miss Evelyn! what would you have thought had you known that I was gazing on all your angelic charms, and that my eager eyes had been straining themselves to penetrate the richness of those charming pouting lips which lay so snugly in that rich mass of dark curling hair. Oh! how I do long to kiss them; for at that time I had no other idea of embracing and still less of penetrating them.

When her ablutions were completed, she sat down and drew off her stockings, displaying her beautiful white calves and charming little feet. I believe it was this first admiration of really exquisitely formed legs, ankles and feet, which were extraordinarily perfect in make, that first awakened my passion for those objects, which have since always exercised a peculiar charm over me. She was also so particularly neat in her shoes—little dark ones—that were bijoux to look at, I often took them up and kissed them, when left in the room. Then her silk stockings, always drawn up tight and fitting like a glove, set off to the greatest advantage the remarkable fine shape of her legs.

Putting on silk for cotton stockings, she took down a low-bodiced dress, finished her toilet, and left the room. I crawled out from under the bed, washed my face and hands in the water of the bidet, and even drank some in my excitement.

Some six weeks had now elapsed since the arrival of Miss Evelyn. The passion that had seized me for her had so far kept me most obedient to her slightest command, or even wish, and, from the same cause, attentive to my lessons, when not distracted by the circumstances already detailed. My example had also had the effect of keeping my sisters much in the same groove, but it was impossible this could last —it was not nature. As long as all went smoothly, Miss Evelyn seemed to be all amiability. We fancied we could do as we liked, and we grew more careless.

Miss Evelyn became more reserved, and cautioned us at first, and then threatened us with the rod. We did not think she would make use of it. Mary grew impertinent, and one afternoon turned sulky over her lessons, and set our teacher at defiance. Miss Evelyn, who had been growing more and more angry, had her rise from her seat. She obeyed with an impudent leer. Seizing her by the arm, Miss Evelyn dragged the struggling girl to the horse. My sister was strong and fought hard, using both teeth and nails, but it was to no purpose. The anger of our governess was fully roused, and raising her in her arms, she carried her forcibly to the horse, placed her on it, held her firmly with one hand while she put the noose round her with the other, which, when drawn, secured her body; other nooses secured each ankle to rings in the floor, keeping her legs apart by the projection of the horse, and also forcing the knees to bend a little, by which the most complete exposure of the bottom, and, in fact, of all her private parts too, was obtained.

Miss Evelyn then left her, and went to mamma for a rod. In a few minutes she returned, evidently flushed with passion, and proceded to tie Mary's petticoats well up to her waist, leaving her bottom and her pinky slit quite bare and exposed directly before my eyes. It was quite two months since I had seen her private parts, and I was well surprised to observe the lips more pouting and swelled out, as well as the symptoms of a mossy covering of the mount much more developed. Indeed, it was in itself more exciting than I had expected, for my thoughts had so long dwelt only on the riper beauties of Miss Evelyn that I had quite ceased to have any toying with Mary.

This full view of all her private parts reawakened former sensations and strengthened them. Miss Evelyn first removed her own scarf, laying bare her plump ivory shoulders, and showing the upper halves of her beautiful bubbies, which were heaving with the excitement of her anger. She bared her fine right arm, and grasping the rod, stepped back and raised her arm; her eyes glistened in a peculiar way. She was indeed beautiful to see.

I shall never forget that moment—it was but a moment. The rod whistled through the air and fell with a cruel cut on poor Mary's plump little bottom. The flesh quivered again, and Mary, who had resolved not to cry, flushed in her face, and bit the damask with which the horse was covered.

Again the arm was raised, and again, with a sharp whistle, it fell on the palpating buttocks below it. Still her stubborn temper bore her up, and although we saw how she winced, not a sound escaped her lips. Drawing back a step, Miss Evelyn again raised her hand and arm, and this time her aim was so true that the longer points of the rod doubled between the buttocks and concentrated themselves between the lips of Mary's privates. So agonising was the pain that she screamed out dreadfully. Again the rod fell precisely on the same spot.

"Oh! oh! oh! Dear Miss Evelyn. I will never, no, never, do so again."

Her shrieks were of no avail. Cut succeeded cut, yell succeeded yell —until the rod was worn to a stump, and poor Mary's bottom was one mass of weals and red as raw beef. It was fearful to see, and yet such is our nature that to see it was, at the same time, exciting. I could not keep my eyes from her pouting quim, the swelling lips of which, under the severity of the punishment it was undergoing, not only seemed to thicken, but actually opened and shut, and evidently throbbed with agony. But all this was highly exciting for me to witness. I then and there resolved to have a closer inspection at a more convenient opportunity, which did not fail me in the end.

Meanwhile, her spirit was completely cowed, or rather, crushed. Indeed, we were all fully frightened, and now knew what we had to expect, if we did not behave ourselves. There was now no fear of any manifestation of temper, and we felt we must indeed obey implicitly whatever our governess chose to order. We instinctively learned to fear her.

A very few days after this memorable whipping, some visitors arrived —a gentleman and lady. The gentleman was an old friend of mamma's, who had lately married, and mamma had asked them to visit her on their wedding tour and spent a short time with us.

The gentleman was a fine-looking man, tall and powerfully built; the lady rather delicate looking, but well shaped, with good breasts and shoulders, small waist, and spreading haunches, well-formed arms, small hands and feet, and very brilliant eyes.

I think it was about three days after their arrival that one afternoon I went into the spare room, which was occupied by these visitors; while there, I heard them coming upstairs. The lady entered first, and I had just time to slip into a closet and draw the door to; it was not quite closed, but nearly so. In a minute the gentleman followed, and gently shutting the door, locked it. Mrs. Benson smiled, and said—

"Well, my love, you are a sad teaser; you let me have no rest. Surely, you had enough last night and this morning without wanting it again so soon?"

"Indeed, I had not," he said, "I never can have enough of your delicious person. So come, we must not be long about it, or our absence will be observed."

He seized her round the waist, and drew her lips to his, and gave her a long, long kiss; squeezing her to him, and moving himself against her. Then seating himself, he pulled her on his knee, and thrust his hand up her petticoats, their mouths being glued together for some time.

"We must be quick, dear," she murmured.

He got up, and lifted her on the edge of the bed, threw her back, and taking her legs under his arms, exposed everything to my view. She had not so much hair on her mount of Venus as Miss Evelyn, but her slit showed more pouting lips, and appeared more open. Judge of my excitement when I saw Mr. Benson unbutton his trousers and pull out an immense cock. Oh, dear, how large it looked; it almost frightened me. With his fingers he placed the head between the lips of Mrs. Benson's sheath, and then letting go his hold, and placing both arms so as to support her legs, he pushed it all right into her to the hilt at once. I was thunderstruck that Mrs. Benson did not shriek with agony, it did seem such a large thing to thrust right into her belly. However, far from screaming with pain, she appeared to enjoy it. Her eyes glistened, her face flushed, and she smiled most graciously on Mr. B. The two appeared very happy. His large cock slipped in and out quite smoothly, and his hands pressed the large glossy buttocks and pulled them to him at each home thrust. This lasted nearly five minutes, when all at once Mr. B. stopped short, and then followed one or two convulsive shoves—he grinning in a very absurd way at her. He remained quiet for a few minutes, and the drew out his cock, all soft, with slimy drops falling from it onto the carpet. Taking a towel, he wiped up the carpet, and wrapping it round his cock, went to the basin and washed it.

Mrs. Benson lay for a few minutes longer all exposed, her quim more open than before, and I could see a white slime oozing from it.

You can hardly imagine the wild excitement this scene occasioned me. First, the grand mystery was at once explained to me, and my ignorant longings now knew to what they tended. After giving me plenty of time to realise all the beauties of her private parts, she slipped down on the floor, adjusted her petticoats, and smoothed the disordered counterpane, and then went to the glass to arrange her hair. This done, she quietly unlocked the door, and Mr. Benson went out. The door was then relocked, and Mrs. B. went to the basin, emptied and filled it, then raised up her petticoats, and bathed the parts between her legs with a sponge, and then rubbed all dry with a towel; all this time exposing everything to my ardent gaze. But, horror of horrors! she after this came straight to the closet and gave a slight scream on discovering me there. I blushed up to the ears, and tried to stammer out an excuse. She stared at me at first in silent amasement; but at last said—

"How came you here, sir, tell me?"

"I was here when you came up; I wanted my football, which was in this closet, and when I heard you coming, I hid myself, I don't know why."

For some minutes she seemed to consider and examine me attentively. She then said—

"Can you be discreet?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am."

"You will never tell any one what you have seen?"

"No ma'am."

"Well, keep this promise, and I shall try what I can do to reward you. Now, go downstairs."

I went to the school-room, but I was greatly agitated, I scarcely knew what I was doing. The scene I had witnessed had complete possession of my thoughts. In years but a boy, the mystery now practically explained to me had awakened all the passions of a man. Instead of studying my lessons, my thoughts wandered to Mrs. B., thrown back on the bed with her fine legs and thighs fully exposed; above all, the sight of the pinky gash, with its fleecy hair at the bottom of her belly, which I had seen for some minutes all open and oozing out the slimy juice that followed the amorous encounter they had been indulging in. It seemed so much more developed than Miss Evelyn's. I felt sure that Miss Evelyn could never take in such a thick long thing as Mr. B. had thrust into his wife, and yet it appeared to go in so easily, and moved about so smoothly, and so evidently to the satisfaction and utmost delight of both, as was proved by their ardent embracings, fond murmurs, and voluptuous movements, especially just before they both ceased together all movement whatever.

Then I thought, how delicious it would be to treat Miss Evelyn in the same way, and to revel with my stiff-standing prick in her delicious quim, which in my mind's eye I saw before me as I had viewed in on her rising from the bidet, when I lay hid under the bed. Then I thought of my sister Mary's smaller, although attractive little quim, and I resolved, as that was the easiest to get hold of, to initiate her in all the newly discovered mysteries. I fully determined that my own first lesson, as well as hers, should be taken on her little fat chubby cunt. Then the recollection of its pouting and throbbing lips under the fearful flagellation she had undergone, began to excite me, and made my cock stand stiff and throb again. All the weeks of excitement I had now constantly been under had produced a wonderful effect on my pego, which had become considerably more developed when in a state of erection. As you may suppose, with such distracting thoughts, I did not get on with my lessons. Miss Evelyn, for some reason or other, was out of humour that morning, and more than once spoke crossly to me for my evident inattention. At length she called me to her, and finding that I had scarcely done anything, she said—

"Now, Charles, I give you ten minutes longer to finish that sum, if not done in that time I shall whip you; you are exhibiting the mere spirit of idleness. I do not know what has come over you, but if persisted in, you shall certainly be punished."

The idea of the beautiful Miss Evelyn whipping my bare bottom did not tend to calm my excitement, on the contrary, it turned my lewd thoughts upon the beauties of her person, which I had so often furtively gazed upon.

It was close upon four o'clock, at which hour we always broke up for a run in the garden for an hour, and during this period I had resolved to begin instructing Mary in the secret mysteries I had so lately been a witness to. But fate had ordered it otherwise, and I was to receive my first practical lesson and be initiated on the person of a riper and more beautiful woman; but of this hereafter. At four o'clock I had done nothing with my task—Miss Evelyn looked grave:

"Mary and Eliza, you may go out, Charles will remain here."

My sisters, simply imagining that I was kept to finish my lessons, ran into the garden. Miss Evelyn turned the key in the door, opened a cupboard, and withdrew a birch rod neatly tied up with blue ribbons. Now my blood coursed through my veins, and my fingers trembled so that I could hardly hold my pencil.

"Put down your slate, Charles, and come to me."

I obeyed, and stood before my beautiful governess, with a strange commixture of fear and desire.

"Unfasten your braces, and pull down your trousers."

I commenced doing this, though but very slowly. Angry at my delay her delicate fingers speedily accomplished the work. My trousers fell to my feet.

"Place yourself across my knees."

Tremblingly, with the same commixture of feeling, I obeyed. Her silk dress was drawn up to prevent its being creased—my naked flesh pressed against her snowy white petticoats. A delicate perfume of violet and vervain assailed my nerves. As I felt her soft and delicate fingers drawing up my shirt, and passing over my bare posteriors, while the warmth of her pulpy form beneath me penetrated my flesh, nature exerted her power, and my prick began to swell out to a most painful extent. I had but little time, however, to notice this before a rapid succession of the most cruel cuts lacerated my bottom.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, Miss Evelyn. I will do the sum if you will only forgive me. Oh, oh, oh, &c."

Holding me firmly with her left arm, Miss Evelyn used the rod most unmercifully. At first, the pain was excruciating, and I roared out as loud as I could, but gradually the pain ceased to be so acute, and was succeeded by the most delicious tickling sensation. My struggles at first had been so violent as to greatly disorder Miss Evelyn's petticoats, and to raise them up so as to expose to my delighted eyes her beautifully formed silk-clad legs up to the knees, and even an inch or two of naked thigh above.

This, together with the intense tickling irritation communicated to my bottom, as well as to the friction of my cock against the person of Miss Evelyn in my struggles, rendered me almost delirious, and I tossed and pushed myself about on her knees in a state of perfect frenzy as the blows continued to be showered down upon my poor bottom. At last the rod was worn to a stump, and I was pushed off her knees. As I rose before her, with my cheeks streaming with tears, my shirt was jutting out considerably in front in an unmistakeable and most prominent manner, and my prick was at the same time throbbing beneath it with convulsive jerks, which I could by no means restrain.

Miss Evelyn glared at the projection in marked astonishment, and her open eyes were fixed upon it as I stood rubbing my bottom and crying, without attempting to move or button up my trousers. She continued for a minute or two to stare at the object of attraction, flushing scarlet up to the forehead, and the she suddenly seemed to recollect herself, drew a heavy breath, and rapidly left room. She did not return until after my sisters came back from the garden, and seemed still confused, and avoided fixing her eye upon me.

In two days afterwards, all disagreeable marks of this very severe whipping had disappeared. On the following day we were invited to pass the afternoon at the grange, a beautiful place about two miles from us. The afternoon was fine and warm; we walked there, and arrived about four o'clock. Mr. and Mrs. Robinson were in the drawing-room, but at once desired us to go in the garden and amuse ourselves with their three daughters, whom we would find there. We went at once, and found them amusing themselves on a swing. Sophia, the eldest, about nineteen, was swinging a sister about two years younger, a very fine, fully developed young woman. Indeed, all three sisters were finer women and more beautiful than the average of young ladies.

Another sister, Agnes, was not seated, but standing on the board between the ropes. Sophia was making both mount as high as possible. They were laughing loudly, when we found them, at the exposure each made—one in advancing, the other retiring. Agnes's light dress of muslin and single petticoat, as she retired and the wind came up from behind, was bulged out in front, and exposed her limbs up to her belly, so that one could see that her mount was already well furnished. The other, in advancing, threw her legs up, and exposed all the underside of her thighs and a part of her bottom, and you could just discern that there was dark hair between the lower thighs and bottom.

As they considered me but a child, I was no check to their mirth and sport. On the contrary, the gave me a long rope to pull down the swing when at its highest, and I sat down on the grass in front for greater convenience. The fine limbs and hairy quims exposed freely before me from moment to moment excited my passions. None of them wore more than one petticoat, and they had no drawers, so that when they mounted to the highest point from me, I had the fullest possible view of all. My cock soon rose to a painful extent, which I really believe was noticed and enjoyed by them, I observed, too, that I was an object of attention to Miss Evelyn, who shortly seated herself in the swing, and allowed me to swing her with the end of the rope. I even fancied that she threw up her legs more than was at all necessary; at all events, she naturally, with the strong feelings I had towards her, excited me more than all the rest.

We were as merry as could be, and we passed a delightful evening until eight o'clock, when it began to rain. As it continued, and became very heavy, Mr. Robinson ordered out the closed carriage to take us home. It was a brougham, only seated for two. Mary took Eliza on her knee, Miss Evelyn took me upon hers. I know not how it happened, but her lovely arm soon passed round my body as if to hold me on her knee, and her hand fell, apparently by accident, exactly on my cock—the touch was electric. In an instant, my member stood stiff and strong beneath her hand. Still Miss Evelyn, who must have felt the movement going on beneath her fingers, did not remove her hand, but rather seemed to press more upon it. In my boyish ignorance, I imagined she was not aware of what was happening. The motion and jolting of the carriage over rough road caused her hand to rub up and down upon my erected and throbbing member. I was almost beside myself, and to conceal my condition I feigned sleep. I let my head fall on Miss Evelyn's shoulder and neck—she allowed this.

Whether she thought I had really fallen asleep I know not, but I was quite sensible that her fingers pressed my swollen and throbbing cock, and I fancied she was measuring its size.

The tight grasp she managed to gain, and the continued jolting of the carriage, brought me up at last to such a pitch state that a greater jolt than usual, repeated two or three times in succession, each followed by a firmer pressure of her charming fingers, caused me such an excess of excitement that I actually swooned away with the most delicious sensation I had ever experienced in my life. I was some time before I knew where I was, or what I was about, and was only made conscious of our arrival at home by Miss Evelyn shaking me to rouse me up. I stumbled up, but though partially stupefied, I fancied Miss Evelyn's eyes shone with a brilliancy I had never before observed, and that there was a bright hectic flush on her cheek. She refused to go into the parlour, but hurried to bed on pretence of a headache.

When I retired to bed, and took off my shirt, I found it all sticky and wet in front.

It was thus I paid down my first tribute to Venus. I thought long over this evident approach to familiarity on the part of Miss Evelyn, and went to sleep with a lively hope of a more private interview with her, when I trusted that her evident passion would initiate me in the pleasures to be derived from her beauteous body.

But again fate intervened, and another, not less beautiful, more experienced, and more inclined for the sport, was to be my charming mistress in love's revels.

Two days after this, Mr. Benson was unexpectedly called away on pressing affairs, which he feared might detain him three weeks. He left Mrs. B. with us. As he had to be driven about nine miles to the town where the coach passed, mamma took the opportunity of going to the town with him. Mrs. B. complained of not being equal to the fatigue, and mamma told Miss Evelyn she would like her company, and as the two girls wanted new shoes, they could go also; I was to remain at home, and mamma desired me to be quiet and attentive to Mrs. Benson, who, observing no one, said to me, with a peculiar look:

"I shall want you to hold my skeins, Charlie, so don't go out of the way, but be ready for me as soon as they are gone."

She then went up to her bedroom, where Mr. B. immediately joined her, no doubt to re-enact the scene I had already witnessed from the closet on a previous day. They were fully half an hour occupied together. At length, all was ready, and off they went, leaving me to a fate I had little dreamt of.

Mrs. B. proposed we should go up to the drawing-room, which looked out to the garden, and was nowhere overlooked. I followed her, and could not help admiring her fine figure as she preceded me in going upstairs. Although pale in complexion, she was well made, and very elegant in her carriage, and sat down on a low easy chair, throwing herself completely back, and crossing one leg over the other, apparently without being aware that she carried her petticoats up with the action, and exhibited the beautiful underleg up to the garter.

I had never forgotten the day, when secreted in the closet, I had seen them completely exposed, and how charming they were. Her present negligent attitude, although far from the same exposure I speak of, was still, with the former recollection running in my head, enough to set my whole blood on fire. I have before remarked what a power beautiful and well-stockinged legs, and ankles and small feet, had upon my nervous system, and so it was now. As I gazed upon her handsome legs, ankles, and feet, I felt my prick swell and throb in a manner that could not fail to be perceptible to Mrs. B, especially as her head lay on a level with that part of my person as I stood before her.

Although she continued knitting, I could see that her eyes were directed to that part of my person, and fixed upon the increasing distention of my trousers. In a few minutes she gave me a skein of worsted to hold, and desired me to kneel in front of her, so as to bring my hands down to the level of the low chair on which she was seated.

I knelt close to the footstool on which her foot rested; it was raised up, and a very slight movement brought it against my person, at first rather below where my throbbing prick was distending my trousers. As she commenced to wind her ball, she gradually pushed her foot further forward, until the toe actually touched the knob of my cock, and occasionally moved it right and left, exciting me beyond measure.

I flushed up to the very ears, and trembled so violently that I thought I should have dropped the skein.

"My dear boy, what is the matter with you, that you blush and tremble so, are you unwell?"

I could not answer, blushed more than ever. The skein at length was finished.

"Charles," she said, "get up, and come here."

I rose and stood by her side.

"What have you got in your trousers that is moving?"

And here her busy fingers commenced unbuttoning them. Released from confinement, out started my prick—stiff as iron, and as large as that of a youth of eighteen. Indeed, I was better hung than one boy selected out of five hundred of that age. Mrs. B., who had pretended to be perfectly astonished, exclaimed—

"Good gracious, what a pego! Why Charles, my darling, you are a man not a boy. What a size to be sure!" and she gently handled it. "Is it often in this state?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"For how long?"

"Ever since Miss Evelyn came."

"And pray, sir, what has Miss Evelyn's coming had to do with it?"

"I—I—I—I—"

"Come now, Charles, be candid with me; what is it you mean where you say Miss Evelyn has caused you to be in such a state, have you shown her this, and has she handled it?"

"Oh! dear no; never, never!"

"Is it her face, her bosom, or her legs that have captivated you?"

"It was her feet and ankles, ma'am, with her beautiful legs, which she sometimes exhibited without knowing."

"And do all ladies' legs and ankles produce this effect upon you?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am, if they are neat and pretty!"

"And what make you so excited now?"

"It was the sight of your beautiful legs just now, and the recollection of what I saw the other day, ma'am," I stammered out, blushing more than ever.

While this conversation was going on, her soft hand grasped my distended prick, and had commenced slowly slipping the loose skin over the swollen head, and allowing it to slip back again.

"I suppose, Charles, after what you saw in the closet, you know what this is meant to do."

I muttered out an indistinct reply that I did, and I hung down my blushing face.

"You have never out it into a lady, have you?"

"Oh! dear no, ma'am."

"Would you like to do so?"

I did not answer, but sheepishly held down my head.

"Did you see what I had in the same place, when you were in the closet?"

I muttered, "Yes, ma'am."

"Would it afford you any pleasure to see it again?"

"Oh, yes; so much!"

Mrs. B. rose, went to the window, drew down the blind, then gently turned the key in the door. Returning to the chair, and drawing well up her dress, petticoats and chemise, she exposed all her person up to the middle of her belly; and sat down stretching herself backwards, and opening her thighs well.

"Well, my dear boy, look at it if you wish."

I was no longer shy. Nature prompted me to an act of gallantry that gratified the lady immensely. Falling on my knees, I glued my lips to the delicious spot, pushing my tongue in as far as I could, and sucked it. It was quite spunky; I had no doubt but that Mr. B. had fucked her two or three times just before leaving. This, however, made no difference to me. The attack was as unexpected as it was delightful to the lady. She placed both hands on my head and pressed my face against her throbbing cunt. She was evidently hotly excited, not only by what I was then doing, but by the scene, the conversation, and the handling of my prick, which she had been indulging in. She wriggled her bottom nervously below me, I continued to greedily lick her moist and juicy cunt.

"Oh! oh! dear Charles, what exquisite delight you are giving me. Oh! oh!"

And she pressed my face more fully into the gaping sheath, and thrusting her bottom up at the same time, spent right into my mouth, over my cheeks, chin, and neck. Her thighs closed convulsively round my head, and for some moments she remained still. I continued to lick away, and swallowed the delicious spunk that still flowed from her. At last she spoke again—

"Oh! you darling Charles, I love you for ever; but get up, it is now my turn to give you a taste of the exquisite pleasure you have given me."

I raised myself, and she drew me to her, and gave me a long kiss, licking her own sperm from off my lips and cheek; and desiring me to thrust my tongue into her mouth, she sucked it deliciously, while her soft hand and gentle fingers had again sought, found, and caressed my stiff-standing prick. She then desired me to lay myself on the floor, with three pillows to raise my head, and lifting up all her petticoats, and striding across me, with her back to my face, she knelt down, then stooping forward, she took my standing prick in her mouth, and at the same time lowering her buttocks, brought her beautiful cunt right over and down upon my mouth, the pillows exactly supporting my head at the proper level, to command a thorough enjoyment of the whole, which now I had completely before my eyes.

In the former sucking my own position hid everything from view beyond the rich mass of hair adorning her splendid mount of Venus, which I found to be much more abundant than it had appeared to me when I had seen it from the closet. When I applied my lips to the delicious gap, I found that she had the most beautiful silky light curls running up to and around her charming pink bottom-hole, and losing themselves in the chink between the buttocks. I applied myself furiously to the delicious gash, and sucked and thrust my tongue in alternately. I could see by the nervous twitching of her buttocks, and the bearing down of her whole bottom on my face, how much she was enjoying it. I, to, was in an extasy of delight. One hand gently frigged the lower portion of my prick, while the other played with my balls, and her beautiful mouth, lips, and tongue sucked, pressed, and tickled the head of my excited prick. The more furiously I sucked her cunt, the more her lips compressed the head of my pego, and her tongue sought to enter the urethra, giving me almost overpowering delight. Such reciprocal efforts soon brought on the extatic crisis, I cried out:

"Oh, lady! oh, dear lady! let me go; I am dying!"

She knew well enough what was coming, but she had her own way, and at the instant that she again poured down upon my mouth and face a plenteous discharge, her own rosy mouth received a torrent of my sperm.

For some minutes we lay mutually breathless and exhausted. Then Mrs. B. rose, shook down her clothes, assisted me to rise, and taking me in her arms, and pressing me lovingly to her bosom, told me I was a dear charming fellow, and had enraptured her beyond measure. She then embraced me fondly, kissing my mouth and eyes, and desiring me to give her my tongue, sucked it so sweetly.

"Now, fasten up your trousers, my darling boy."

When I had done so, the blind was drawn up, and the door unlocked.

We sat down, I by her side with one arm round her lovely neck, and the other clasped in her hand.

"I am sure I can depend upon your prudence, my dear Charles, to keep all this a profound secret from every one. Your mamma thinks you a child, and will suspect nothing. I shall take an opportunity of suggesting that you shall sleep in the small room adjoining my bedroom, and with which there is a door of communication. When every one is gone to bed, I shall open the door, and you shall come and sleep with me, and I will let you enjoy me as you saw Mr. B. do the other day. Will you like that?"

"Oh! above all things, oh, yes. But you must also allow me to kiss that delicious spot again that has just given me such pleasure. Will you not, ma'am?"

"Oh, yes, my darling boy, whenever we can do so safely, and unobserved; but I must impress upon you never to seem very familiar with me before any one, or to take the slightest liberty unless I invite you to do so. Anything of the sort would certainly draw attention, and lead to our detection, and at once put an end to what I mean shall be a delightful connection for you as well as myself."

I, of course, promised the most perfect obedience to her very prudent directions. The ice was broken, and we allowed no ceremony to stand between us. I grew again very excited, and would fain have proceeded at once to try again to fuck her as well as suck her, but she was inexorable, and told me I should only spoil the pleasure we should afterwards have in bed. The day passed like an hour in her charming society.

The carriage brought mamma and party to dinner. Mamma hoped I had behaved well, and been attentive to Mrs. B. in her absence. She answered nothing could be better, and that I was quite a model youth—so gentle and so obedient.

My mother found that she had caught cold, and had febrile symptoms after dinner. Mrs. B. persuaded her to retire to bed, and accompanied her. When in her room, she apparently noticed, for the first time, my little bed. She took the opportunity of suggesting that it would be much better to remove it to the small room, so as to leave my mother in perfect quiet, which my coming to bed might disturb.

This was said in such an innocent natural manner, that no suspicion was excited on the part of mamma or anybody else. Mamma only making the objection that my early rising might by my noise disturb Mrs. B. in the next room.

"Oh, no; I am not so easily disturbed, besides he has been so well behaved all day, that I am sure, if I tell him to be quiet in the morning, he will not fail to do so."

So it was settled, and my bed was at once removed to the little room.

I know not what Miss Evelyn thought of this; at any rate, she made no remark, and I went to bed early. It will easily be conceived that I did not go to sleep. The hours struck one after the other, and no appearance of my amiable instructress. The remembrance of all her charms was ever present to my mind's eye, and I longed once more to dart my tongue into her moist and juicy cunt, as well as to try the new method that was to initiate me into the real secrets of Venus.

The long delay of her coming put me in a perfect fever. I tossed and tumbled in bed; my prick throbbed almost to bursting. Fortunately, I had never frigged myself, and that resource never occured to me, or I might have rendered myself quite incapable of enjoying the raptures my beautiful benefactress afterwards entranced me with. At last I heard voices and footsteps on the stairs. Mrs. B. bid Miss Evelyn good night, and the next minute her door was opened, closed again, and the key turned in the lock. I had taken the precaution to do so with my door. I heard her use the night vase, and then she opened my door, at once coming to my bed side. Seeing me awake and quite flushed, she kissed me, and whispered—

"Have you not been to sleep, Charles?"

"No, ma'am," I answered, in the same subdued tone, "I could not sleep."

"Why, dear boy?"

"Because I was going to sleep with you."

Her lips pressed mine, and her soft hand, thrust under the clothes; sought for and caressed my stiff-standing prick—it was as hard as iron.

"Poor boy, I am afraid you have been suffering. How long has it been in this state?"

"All the evening, ma'am, and I did think you were such a long time in coming."

"Well, Charles, I could not come sooner without causing suspicion—I thought Miss Evelyn was suspicious, so I pretended to have no desire to go to bed; and even when she showed evident symptoms of drowsiness after her long ride, I rallied her upon it, and begged her to sit up with me yet a little; until at last she could hold out no longer, and begged me to let her retire. I grumblingly complied, and she is thrown completely off any scent on our account, as she could never suppose I was impatient as you to come here. I shall undress as fast as possible, and then do my best to relieve you of this painful stiffness. Get up, shut this door, and come to my bed. My room has an inner baize door, and we shall there be certain of not being overheard."

I instantly complied, and she commenced undressing. Every detail of her charming toilet was devoured by my greedy eyes. Her smooth, glossy, and abundant hair, arranged in braids, was neatly fastened in under a coquettish lace cap with pretty blue ribbons. Her chemise de nuit of the finest, almost transparent cambric was edged with fine openwork. She looked devine. The drawers of the commode contained scent bags of that peculiar odour which is generally found to perfume the persons of the most seductive women. In another moment she was in bed, clasping me in her arms.

"Now, Charles, you must be a good boy, and make no noise, and allow me to teach you your first love lesson, see I will lay myself down on my back, thus—do you place yourself on your knees between my out-spread thighs—there, that is a darling—now let me lay hold of your dear instrument. Now lay yourself down on me."

I placed myself on her beautiful smooth and white belly and pressed against the hair of her mount. With her long taper fingers she guided my prick—I trembled in every limb and almost felt sick with excitement—but when I felt the delicious sensation caused by the insertion of my skinned pintle between the smooth warm oily folds of the lady's cunt—I gave but one shove which carried me up so that I swooned away on her belly and milk-white bosom.

When I came to myself I still lay on her belly, enfolded in her lovely arms, my prick sheathed up to the cods in her delicious cunt, which was throbbing in the most extatic way and pressing and closing with every fold on my prick—which had hardly lost any of its pristine stiffness; as my eyes began to discern her features, an exquisite smile played upon my darling companion's lips.

"You sad rogue," she whispered, "you have given me a baby; what have you been doing to make you spend so soon, and in such a quantity, Did you like it?"

"Oh, dearest madam, I have been in heaven—surely no joy can be greater than you have given me."

"But you do not know as yet everything that is to be done, and to how much greater an extent the pleasure may be enhanced by mutual efforts; move your instrument gently in and out—there, that is delicious, but not so fast. Good, is it not nice!"

And she moved in unison with me, meeting each slow thrust down by an equal movement upwards, and squeezing my prick in the most delicious manner internally, as she retired again to meet succeeding thrusts in the same way.

Oh! it was extatic—my prick, swollen to its utmost size, seemed to fill her exquisite vagina, which although capable of easily accommodating the larger prick of Mr. B., appeared to be sufficiently contracted to embrace tightly with its smooth and slippery folds my stiff throbbing prick. So we continued, I shoving myself into her, and she upheaving her beautiful bottom to meet me. My hands removed everywhere, and my mouth sucked her lips and tongue, or wandered over her pulpy breasts sucking their tiny nipples. It was a long bout indeed, prolonged by Mrs. Benson's instructions, and she enjoyed it thoroughly, encouraged me by every endearing epithet, and by the most voluptuous manoeuvres. I was quite beside myself. The consciousness that I was thrusting my most private part into that part of a lady's person which is regarded with such sacred delicacy caused me to experience the most enraptured pleasure. Maddened by the intensity of my feeling I at length quickened my pace. My charming companion did the same, and we together yielded down a most copious and delicious discharge.

Although I retained sufficient rigidity to keep him in his place, Mrs. B. would not allow any further connection with her, and she made me withdraw, and bade me go to sleep like a good boy, and she would give me a further lesson in the morning.

Finding that she was determined on this point, and that she disposed herself to slumber, I felt I was obliged to follow her example, and at last fell fast asleep. It might be about five in the morning, quite light at that time of year, when I awoke, and instead of finding myself, as usual, in my own little bed—I found my arms round the person of a charming woman, whose large plump smooth bottom lay in my lap, pressing against my belly and thigh. I found my prick already in a rampant state, and it at once began throbbing and forcing its way between the delicious cheeks of her immense bottom, seeking the delightful sheath it had so enjoyed the previous part of the night. Whether Mrs. B, was asleep or not, I do not know, but am inclined to think she really was so, from the muttered mistake she made in waking. She was probably dreaming, for she mechanically raised her thighs. I pressed my prick stoutly forward against her luxurious body, knowing that the entrance to the temple of pleasure which had so entranced me the night before lay in that direction. I found more difficulties than I expected, but at length began to penetrate, although the orifice appeared much tighter than on the previous evening. Excited by the difficulties of entrance, I clasped the lady firmly round the waist and pushed forcibly and steadily forward. I felt the folds give way to the iron stiffness of my prick, and one-half of it was fairly embedded in my extremely tight sheath. I put down my hand to press my prick a little downwards to facilitate the further entrance; you may imagine my astonishment when on so doing I found myself in the lady's bottom-hole, instead of her cunt. This at once explained the difficulty of entrance. I was about to withdraw and place it in the proper orifice when a convulsive pressure of the sphincter caused me such exquisite satisfaction by the pressure of the folds on the more sensitive upper half of my prick, which was so delicious, and so much tighter, and more exciting than my previous experience of the cunt that I could not resist the temptation of carrying the experiment to the end. Therefore, thrusting my two fingers into her cunt, I pressed my belly forwards with all my might, and sheathed my prick in her bottom-hole to its full extent. Mrs. B at this awoke, and exclaimed, "Good Heavens! Fred, you hurt me cruelly. I wish you would be content with my cunt, I shall be unable to walk tomorrow. You know it always has that effect. It is downright cruel of you—but since you are in, stay quiet a little, and then continue to frig me with your fingers, as you know that eventually gives me great pleasure."

She calls me Fred, what can she mean? I was, however, too agreeably situated to speculate on anything, but as I was now buried within her bottom-hole, I lay quiet for a few minutes as she had requested; and as her complaints subsided, and I felt a slight reciprocating movement, I, too, moved within her, working at the same time my two fingers in her cunt. By this time she was wide awake, and became conscious of who was her bed-fellow.

"What are you about, Charles?" she exclaimed, "do you know where you are?"

"I did not know I was doing anything wrong."

"Doing wrong, indeed! My, a lady's bottom-hole was never intended for a pego. How came you to put it in there?"

"I cannot tell; I did not do it on purpose. I thought I was going into the same delightful place I was in last night."

All this time I was moving my prick in and out of one aperture, and my fingers were working away in the other. The tightness of the sheath round my prick was delicious beyond anything I could conceive, and I think, from the way the lady conducted herself, she liked it as much as I did. At any rate, she permitted me to go on until I had a delicious discharge; and she herself spent all over my hand.

When the bout was over, she jumped out of bed, went to the basin, and with a sponge purified herself. After which, she said—

"My dear boy, you had better come and wash yourself, too; and take care not to make a mistake of this kind again, as it is sometimes attended with disagreeable consequences."

It was now perfect sunny daylight, and my enchanting mistress looked so lovely in her almost transparent cambric night-shirt that I was emboldened to ask her to let me see her perfectly naked in all her glorious beauty of form. She gratified me at once; but laughingly, pulled off my night-shirt, and said—

"I, too, must have the pleasure not only of contemplating your promising youthful charms, but of embracing your dear form disencumbered of all the superfluities of dress."

We clasped each other in a most enrapturing embrace, and then my lovely and engaging companion allowed me to turn her in every direction so as to see, admire, and devour every charm of her exquisitely formed body. Oh! she was indeed beautiful—shoulders broad, bosom, or rather upper neck, flat, not showing any projection of the collar bone; bubbies firm, well separated and round, with most exquisite rosy nipples not much developed; a perfect waist, small naturally, with charming swelling hips, and an immense bottom—it was almost out of proportion, large, but oh, how beautiful. Then her belly, undulating so enticingly, and swelling out, the lowest part into a very fine and prominent mons Veneris, covered with a thick crop of silky and curly light hair; then the entrance to the grotto of Venus had such delicious pouting lips, rosy, but with hair still thick on each side, which is often not the case even with women who have a sufficient tuft above, how beautiful where it exists as it did in this charming and perfect woman, continuing in beautiful little curls not only down to but around her lovely pinky and puckered little bottom-hole, the delights of which I had already, in this infancy of my love education, tasted and enjoyed. Her two alabaster thighs, worthily supporting by their large well-rounded fleshy forms, the exquisite perfections of the upper body, I have already described. How beautiful, elegant, and elongated her legs were, rising from well-turned ankles and most tiny beautiful feet. Her skin was white as milk, and dazzlingly fair and smooth. To my young eyes she was a perfect goddess of beauty. Even now, in advanced life, I can remember nothing that, as a whole surpassed her, although I have met many with points unsurpassingly beautiful—some carry it in the bosom, some in the general carriage, some in the mount of Venus and bottom together, and some in legs and thighs; but this devine creature, without having the appearance of it when dressed, was, when stripped, perfect in all her parts as well as beautiful in face—caressing and voluptuous by nature, and lending herself, with the most enchanting graces to instruct me in all the mysteries of love, and let me say, of lust also.

We caressed each other with such mutual satisfaction that nature soon drove us to a closer and more active union of the bodies. Fondly embracing one another, we approached the bed, and being equally excited threw ourselves upon it, and, in the exquisite contact of our naked flesh, enjoyed a long, long bout of love, in which my most charming companion exhibited all the resources of amorous enjoyment. Never shall I forget the luxury of that embrace. She checked my natural tendency to rush at once to a completion. I think we must have enjoyed the raptures of that embrace fully half an hour before bringing on the grand finale, in which my active companion showed the extraordinary suppleness of her delicious body by throwing her legs over my back, pushing my bottom forward with her heels, and raising and sinking her bottom in unison with each thrust of my terribly stiff prick, which seemed to swell and become thicker and harder than ever. In retiring from each thrust, her cunt seemed to close upon my prick with the force of a pair of pincers. We both came to the extatic moment at the same time, and both actually screamed with delight; my ardent mistress in her fury of excitement actually bit my shoulder and drew blood; but I felt it not—I was in the seventh heaven of delight, and lay for long almost insensible on her beauteous body, clasped in her loving arms. On coming to our senses:

"Oh, my beloved boy," she said, "never, never, have I experienced such pleasure. You are a perfect angel. I only fear I shall come to love you too much."

We turned on our sides without dislodging the dear instrument of our enjoyment, and my lovely friend prattled on and delighted me with her toying, embracing, and gaiety. My prick had once more swelled up, and I wished to quietly enjoy a fuck in the luxurious position in which we lay; but my lovely friend said—

"That must not be, my dear Charles, I must consider your health. You have already done more than your age warrants, and you must rise and go to your bed to recover, by a sound sleep, your strength."

"But feel how strong I am," and I gave a forcible thrust into her glowing and well-moistened sheath. But, though she certainly was greatly excited, she suddenly turned round and unseated me, and drew away from me, refusing to take it again. As she was quite naked, the movements of her beauteous form were most graceful and enchanting, and one leg being thrown backwards left her lovely cunt full in view, and actually gaping open before me. Seized with the strongest desire to suck and kiss it, as I had done the night before, I begged that at least she would grant me that last favour, as it could not in any way do me harm. To this she readily consented, and lay down on her back, opening her glorious thighs, and with a pillow under her bottom so as to raise up her cunt into a better position for me to gamahuche her, as she called it. Before letting me begin, she said—

"My dear Charles, do you see that little projection at the upper part of my quim, that is my clitoris, and is the site of the most exquisite sensation; you see it is rather hard, even now, but you will find as you titillate it with your tongue or suck it, that it will become harder and more projecting, so apply your lips there."

I did as my lovely mistress desired, and soon found it stiffen and stand up nearly an inch into my mouth.

The convulsive twitches of her buttocks, the pressure forward of her hand on my head, all proved the exquisite felicity my lovely friend was enjoying. I slipped my hand under my chin—the position was awkward, but I managed to thrust my thumb into her cunt. My forefinger was somewhat in the way—but finding it exactly opposite the rosy hole of her bottom, and all being very moist there, I pushed it forward and it easily entered. I could not move my hand very actively, but I continued to gently draw my finger and thumb a little back together, and then thrust forward again. It seemed to add immensely to the pleasure I was giving her; her whole body quivered with excessive excitement. My head was pressed so firmly against her cunt that I had difficulty in breathing, but I managed to keep up the action of tongue and fingers until I brought on the exquisite crisis—her buttocks rose, her hand pressed hard on my head and her two powerful and fleshy thighs closed on my cheeks on each side and fixed me as if in a vice, while she poured down into my mouth and all over my chin, neck, and hand a perfect rush of sperm, and then lay in convulsive movements of enjoyment, hardly knowing what she was doing. As she held me so fast in every way, I continued to lick up the delicious discharge, and continued at the same time to pass my tongue over her clitoris. This, by producing a new excitement, brought her senses round. So relaxing her hold of me with her thighs she said—

"Oh, my darling Charles, come up to my arms that I may kiss you for the exquisite delight you have given me." I did so, but took care, in drawing myself up, to engroove my stiff-standing prick in the well-moistened open cunt that lay raised on a pillow so conveniently in the way.

"Oh, you sad traitor," cried my sweet companion. "No, I cannot, I must not allow it," but I held her tight round the waist, and her position was too favourable for me to be easily unhorsed.

"Ah! you must not, my dear boy. If you will not consider yourself, consider me. I shall be quite exhausted." I shut her mouth with my kisses and tongue, and soon the active movements I was making within her charming vagina exercised their usual influence on her lubricity, so as to make her as eager for the fray as myself.

"Stop, my dear Charles, and you shall have it in a new position, which will give you as much more pleasure as it will me."

"You are not going to cheat me, are you?"

"Oh, no! my darling, I am now as much on fire as you are—withdraw."

I obeyed, half in fear. My fair mistress turned herself round, and getting on her hands and knees, presented to my ardent gaze her magnificent bottom. I thought she meant me to once more put it into the rosy little orifice, and said so.

"Oh! no," she replied, "not there"; but putting her hand under her belly, and projecting it backwards between her thighs, she said—

"Give it me and I will guide it into the proper place."

Before doing so I stooped forward and pushing my face between the glorious cheeks of her bottom, sought and found the lovely little orifice, kissed it, and thrust my tongue in.

"Oh! don't Charles, dear, you tickle me so," then flinching, and squeezing her buttocks together, I had nothing for it but to put my prick in her hand. She immediately guided it to and engulphed it in her burning cunt up to the very hair. I found I apparently got in fully an inch further this way—the position also gave my beautiful instructress more power of pressure on my prick—then her glorious buttocks, heaving under my movements, and exposed in all their immensity, was most exciting and beautiful. I seized her below the waist with a hand upon each hip, pressing her magnificent backside against me each time that I thrust forward. Oh! it was indeed glorious to see. I was beside myself, and furious with the excitement the view of all these charms produced upon me. My charming mistress seemed equally to enjoy it, as was evinced by the splendid movements of her body; till at last overcome by the grand finale, she sank forward on her belly, and I followed on her back, without losing the position of my throbbing prick within her. We both lay for some time incapable of movement, but the internal squeezing and convulsive pressure of her cunt on my softened, but still enlarged prick, were exquisite beyond imagining. At last she begged me to relieve her. Getting out of bed, she sighed deeply, kissed me tenderly, and said, "My dear Charles, we must not be so extravagant in future, it will destroy us both—come, let me see you to your bed." The sight of my lovely mistress standing naked in all the glory of her beauty and perfection of form began to have its usual effect upon my prick, which showed symptoms of raising his head again; she gave it a pat, stooped down, and for a moment plunged its head into her beautiful mouth, then seizing my night-shirt, she threw it over my head and conducted me to my own bed, put me in, tucked me up, and tenderly kissing me, left the room, first unlocking my door and then locking the door of communication between the two rooms. Thus passed the first glorious night of my initiation into all the rites of Venus, and at the hands of a lovely, fresh and beautiful woman, who had only been married long enough to make her a perfect adept in the art. Never, oh never! have I passed such a night. Many and many a fine woman, perfect too in the art of fucking, have I enjoyed, but the novelty and the charm, the variety and the superiority of the teacher, all combined to make this night the ne plus ultra of erotic pleasure.

It need not be said that, exhausted by the numerous encounters I had in love's battlefield, I fell into a deep and sound sleep, until aroused by being rudely shaked up. I opened my eyes in astonishment. It was my sister Mary. She threw her arms round my neck, and kissing me, said—

"You lazy boy, do you know they are all down at breakfast, and you still asleep. What has come over you?"

"Oh!" I said, "I got frightened with a horrible dream, and lay awake so long afterwards that when I did sleep, I overslept myself."

"Well, get up at once," and pulling the clothes quite off me, she laid bare my whole private parts, with my cock, as usual in youth on waking, at full stand.

"Oh! Charlie," said Mary, fixing her eyes upon it in astonishment at its thickness and length. "How your doodle has grown," and she laid hold of it. "Why it is as hard as wood, and see how red its head is." Without her knowing why, it evidently had its natural effect on her sense, and she flushed as she squeezed it.

"Ah! my dear Mary, I have learnt a great secret about that thing, which I will tell you the first time we can be quite alone and secure from interruption. Just now there is no time, but before you go downstairs, let me see how your poor little Fanny is."

We had been used to these infantile expressions when in our ignorance and innocence we had mutual examinations of the difference of our sexes, and my sister was still as ignorant and innocent as ever. So when I said that I had not seen it since it was so ill-treated in the terrible whipping she had received from Miss Evelyn, she at once pulled up all her petticoats for me to look at it.

"Lie back for a moment on the bed."

She complied. I was delighted. The prominence her mons Veneris had assumed, the increased growth of moss-like little curls, and the pouting lips of her tiny slit—all was most promising and charming. I stooped and kissed it, licking her little prominent clitoris with my tongue; it instantly hardened, and she gave a convulsive twitch of her loins.

"Oh! Charlie, how nice it is! What is it you are doing? Oh, how nice! Oh, pray go on."

But I stopped, and said—

"Not at present, my darling sister, but when we can get away together I will do that and something much better, all connected with the great secret I have got to tell you. So run downstairs, and tell them why I had overslept myself, but not a word to anyone about what I have told you. I will be down in a trice."

She went away, saying—

"Oh, Charlie, dear, what you did just now was so nice, and has made me feel so queer; do find an early opportunity of telling me all about it."

Very few minutes sufficed to finish my toilet and bring me to the breakfast table.

"Why, Charlie," broke out my mother, "what is this horrid dream?"

"I can hardly tell you, my dear mother, it was so confused; but I was threatened to be murdered by horrid-looking men, and at last taken to high rocks and thrown down. The agony and fright awoke me, screaming, and all over perspiration. I could not sleep for hours after, even though I hid my head under the clothes."

"Poor child," said Mrs. Benson, who was quietly eating her breakfast. "What a fright you must have had."

"Yes, ma'am, and at the same time, as I awoke with a scream, I was afraid I might have disturbed you, for all at once I remembered I was no longer in mamma's room, but next door to you. I hope I did not wake you?"

"Oh, no, my dear boy; I never heard you, or I should have got up to see what was the matter."

So it passed off, and no further observation was made about it, but I once caught Mrs. Benson's eye, and the expression and a slight nod was a sign of approval of my story. After breakfast we went as usual to the school-room. I thought Miss Evelyn was kinder in her manner to me than usual. She made me stand close to her when saying my lessons, occasionally letting her left arm fall round my neck, while she pointed to my book with the finger of the right, and there was always a certain pressure before raising her arm again. These little caresses were frequently repeated, as if she were wishing either to accustom me or herself to a habit of it, so as, doubtless, gradually to increase them to something more definite. I could not help feeling what a different effect these endearments would have had twenty-four hours earlier; but now, momentarily satisfied passions, and the new love that had seized me for Mrs. B., prevented at first the inevitable cockstand that would otherwise have been produced by these approaches of Miss Evelyn. Not that I had given up all desire to possess her. On the contrary, my last night's instruction only made me more anxious to have Miss Evelyn too. Therefore, I by no means repulsed her present caresses, but looked up innocently in her face, and smiled affectionately. In the afternoon she was more expansive, and drew me to her by her arm round my waist, and pressed me gently to her person, saying how well I was attending to my lessons, and how sorry she was to have been obliged to punish me so severely the week before.

"You will be a good boy in future, will you not, dear Charlie?"

"Oh, yes; as long as you are so kind to me. I love you so much, and you are so beautiful when you speak so kindly to me."

"Oh, you little flatterer."

And she drew me to her lips and gave me a sweet kiss, which I returned with eagerness. I felt my prick had raised itself up to its full extent as these caresses were exchanged, and as Miss Evelyn held me tight pressed against her thigh, she must have felt it throbbing against her. That she did so, I have no doubt, as her face flushed, and she said—

"There, now, that will do, go to your seat."

I obeyed; she rose in an agitated manner, left the room, and was absent for a quarter of an hour. I had no doubt but that she was overcome by her feelings, and I thought to myself she will manage to have me some of these days. I could afford to leave it to her own discretion, as my charming mistress of last night was there to keep me in exercise and cool the effervescence of passion under which I should otherwise have laboured. Nothing particular occured during the day; Mrs. B. was apparently indifferent about me, and never sought to approach or be in any way familiar; I studied her looks and followed her example. Mamma sent me early to bed, as she feared I had not had sleep enough the previous night by reason of my bad dream, and hoped I should have no more of the kind. This time my beautiful mistress found me sound asleep when she came to bed. She did not awake me until she had completed her night toilet, and was all ready to receive me in her arms. I sprung up, and in an instant, without a word being said, had her on her back, and was into her delicious cunt as far as I could drive my stiff-standing prick. My energy and fury seemed to please and stimulate the lady, for she replied to every eager thrust with as eager a spring forward. In such haste matters were very speedily brought to a crisis—with mutual sighs, and "oh's" and "ah's," we sank exhausted, and lay for a very short time, when charming Mrs. B. said—

"Why, Charles, you are quite wild to me; what a hurry you have been in, but it was very nice, and I forgive you, but you must be more rational in future."

"Oh, my beloved mistress, how can I help it; you are so beautiful, and so good to me; I quite adore and love every part of your charming body. I know I was too impetuous, but I must make it up by kissing and fondling the dear source of all my joys."

She did not resist, but let me do as I liked. Pushing myself down the bed, I applied my lips and tongue to her lovely cunt, all wet with our mutual discharge, which was so sweet to the taste that I first began licking between the lips, and the applied myself to her excited clitoris, and with my finger and thumb working as on the previous morning I threw her into an extasy of delight, until again she had a delicious discharge. Then creeping up, I thrust my prick into her well-moistened and velvety cunt—as you may imagine it was rampant as ever after my mouth contact with the exquisite quim I had been sucking.

"Stop, Charles, darling, I will show you another position, where you can lie easily with your dear delightful prick up to the hilt in the sheath you have so charmingly excited. Here, lie down by my right side —on your side."

She lay down on her back, and throwing her right leg over my hips, told me to bend my knees forward and open my legs, or rather lift up my right leg. She placed her left thigh between my thighs, then slightly twisting her bottom up towards me brought the lips of her cunt directly before my prick, which she seized with her delicate fingers, and guided safely into Venus's grotto. I gave one or two shoves, and she a heave or two, to house him comfortably.

"And now," she said, "we will take it reasonably in this way; we can go on, or stay occasionally; embrace, cuddle, or talk, just as we please. Are you quite comfortable?"

"Oh! deliciously so!" I replied, as my hand wandered all over her beautiful belly and bubbies, and then my mouth sucked the last.

"There, darling, that will do for the moment; I want to have some talk with you. First, let me thank you for your very discreet behaviour this day, it quite justifies the confidence I had in you. Your story of the dream was capital, and just suited the purpose. I hope, my dear Charlie, that under my auspices you will become a model lover—your aptitude has already proved in several ways. First and best, with all the appearance of a boy, you are quite a man, and even superior to many. You have already shown great discretion and ready wit, and there is no reason to fear that you will become a general favourite with our sex, who soon find out who is discreet and who is otherwise—discretion is the trump card of success with us. Alas! few of your sex understand this. Let me impress one lesson on you, my dear Charles. You and I cannot continue long on our present footing. My husband will return and carry me away, and although circumstances will throw us at intervals into each other's arms—for you may be sure you will be always welcome to me—yet my very absence will force you to seek other outlets to the passions I have awakened and taught their power. I have one piece of advice to give you as to your conduct to newer lovers—for have them you must, my dear Charles, however much you may fancy yourself now attached to me; with these, let them all for some time imagine that each possesses you for the first time. First of all, it doubles their satisfaction, and so increases your pleasure. Your early discretion causes me to think that you will see all the advantages of this conduct. I may add that if they suppose you have had previous instruction, they, if they are women, will never rest until they have drawn from you the secret of your first instructress. You might, of course, tell some tale of a 'cock and a bull,' but in searching for the truth and cross-questioning you when you are least aware of it, they will lead you into contradictions, and the truth will at last be ferreted out. Now this would be unjust to me, who have risked a good deal to give you the delightful instructions of last night, and, as I hope, of many more. So you see, my dear Charles, in all early cases you must enact the part of an ignoramus seeking for instruction, with vague ideas of how to set about it. I hope, while I am near you," she added, "no such occasion will arise, but I feel certain, with your passions and your power, dear, darling fellow—push away—I!—I!—I feel for cer—certain they will ar—arise."

Thus ended the very wise and excellent advice this charming woman was giving me. Do not imagine that I did not pay great attention, and, indeed, her very reasonable maxims became the guide of my after-life, and I owe to them a success with women rarely otherwise obtained. Her sensible remark had been drawn out to such a length, that my prick had so far rebelled that he had throbbed inside of her delicious cunt so forcibly as to produce a happy movement of her body that interrupted and cut short her words.

"Charlie, my darling, pass your middle finger down and rub it on my clitoris, and then suck the nipple of my bubby next you, and work away with your glorious prick."

I did as desired. She seconded me with an art quite peculiar to herself, and at last we both died away in that love's death which is so overpowering and so delicious. The glorious position we were in rendered it almost impossible to lose ground, spend as often as you please; but if my prick had been one that would have shrunk to nothing, the wonderful power of retaining it within her possessed by my delicious mistress would have prevented the possibility of exit.

In after-nights I have often fallen sound asleep with it entirely engulphed within her, and awoke hours afterwards to find her extraordinary power of retention had held him firm, notwithstanding his having shrunk up to a mere piece of doughy flesh. In this instance, after recovering our senses, I still retained my place, and we recommenced our conversation; my lovely instructress giving me many and most useful hints for my after-life. I have often since dwelt on the wisdom of all she so charmingly taught me, and wondered how so young a woman could have so thorough a knowledge of her sex and the world. I suppose love is a great master and inspired her on this occasion. I may here remark that for forty years afterwards this charming woman and I remained the fastest of friends after being the most ardent of lovers. She was the depository of all my erotic extravagancies, and never showed any jealousy, but really enjoyed the recital of my wildest love combats with others.

Alas! death at last took her from me, and I lost the mainstay of my existence. Forgive this digression, but I am writing long after these events, and sorrows will have their vent. Woe is me!

To return to present joys. We continued talking and toying, until I was again anxious to commence love's combat. My prudent mistress wished me to finish for the time, and to sleep and refresh ourselves for renewed efforts; but youth and strength nerved me for the fight, and being securely fixed, I held her as in a vice, with my thighs around only one of hers that could have allowed her to escape. Passing my finger down on her stiffened clitoris I so excited her that she had no wish but to bring matters to a crisis.

"Stop, my dear," she said, "and we will renew our pleasure in another attitude."

So withdrawing her leg off my loins, she turned on her side, so as to present her glorious buttocks before me, and pressed them into my belly and against my thighs, which seemed to introduce my prick even further than he was within before. Besides, in all these positions, where a woman presents her splendid backside to you, it is always more exciting, and has a greater hold of you than any other way. We did most thoroughly enjoy this splendid fuck, and without withdrawing, both fell into the sweetest imaginable slumber. This was one of those occasions in which, having fallen asleep engulphed, I awoke some five hours later, to find my prick still lightly held within the velvety folds of one of the most delicious cunts ever created for the felicity of man, or, I may say, woman either. You may easily imagine how soon my prick swelled to his wonted size on finding himself still in such charming quarters. I let him lay quite still, barring the involuntary throbs he could not avoid making, and bending my body away from my lovely mistress, I admired her breadth of shoulders, the beauty of her upper arm, the exquisite chute of her loins, the swell of her hips, and the glorious projection and rotundity of her immense buttocks. I slowly and gently pushed in and out of her juicy sheath, until, awakened by the exquisite sensations of my slow movements, all her lubricity was excited, and we ended one of our most delicious encounters, finishing, as usual, with a death-like exhaustion. She declared I had done enough for one night, and jumping out of bed, compelled me to betake myself to my own room, where, I must confess, I very shortly slept as sound as could be, without at the same time oversleeping myself.

Thus passed several successive nights, until the fall of the moon, when one day Mrs. B. complained of headache and feeling unwell. I was very much alarmed, but she took occasion to tell me it was quite natural, and she would explain to me how it was so at night. I was obliged to be content with this. At night, she came and sat on my bed, and told me all the mysteries of the case. How women, not with child, had these bleedings monthly, which, so far from being hurtful, were a relief to the system, and that they happened at the full or the new moon, generally at the former. Further, that all connection with men must cease at such a time. I was in despair, for my prick was stiff enough to burst. However, my kind and darling mistress, to relieve me from the pain of distention, took my prick in her mouth, and performed a new manoeuvre. Wetting her middle finger with her saliva, she thrust it up my bottom-hole, and worked in unison with the suction of the knob, and the frigging of the root of my prick with the other hand. I had a most exquisite and copious discharge, the pleasure being greatly enhanced by the action of the finger up my fundament. My charming mistress swallowed all I could give her, and did not cease sucking until the last drop had exuded from my throbbing prick.

I was obliged to be satisfied with this, and my mistress informed me I could have no more enjoyment for four or five days; which, to my impatience, was like condemning me to as many ages of hope deferred. I observed, while she was kissing me, that her breath had a peculiar odour, and I asked her what she had been eating.

"Why do you ask, my dear boy?"

"Because of the difference of your breath, generally so sweet and fragrant."

She smiled and said it was all from the same cause she had just been explaining to me, and was very generally so with women at that period. I mention this because it was the means of my discovering that Miss Evelyn was exactly in the same state. She had continued her endearing caresses without proceeding much further than I have already described, except more frequently kissing me. She now always did so on first entering the school-room, and also when we were dismissed. I suppose to prevent an observation or inference, she had adopted the same habit with my sisters. On this day, having drawn me with her arm round my waist close to her, when she kissed me I felt the very same odour of breath that I had observed in Mrs. Benson. She too was languid that day and complained of headache. I also observed a dark line under her eyes, and on afterwards observing Mrs. B., saw precisely the same—so I became convinced they were unwell from the same cause. Mrs. B. had told me that most women were so at the full of the moon—which was then the case.

The next day my mother proposed to drive to town, and probably knowing the state of the case, asked Mrs. B. and Miss Evelyn to accompany her, as she thought the airing would be beneficial. They at once accepted—my younger sister cried out, "Oh, mamma, let me go with you also." Mary interposed, and thought she had the best right—but Lizzie said she had spoken first. I managed to give Mary a wink and a shake of the head, which she instantly comprehended, so gracefully giving way, although with apparent reluctance, it was arranged that Eliza should accompany the ladies. I now felt my opportunity was at hand to initiate my darling sister into the delightful mysteries that I had just been myself instructed in.

At eleven o'clock the carriage drove up, and we stood looking after them until they were lost to sight. Then returning into the parlour, Mary threw her arms round my neck, and kissing me, said—

"Oh! I am glad, Charlie, you winked to me, for now you know we can do as we like, and you can tell me all about this secret, and you must kiss my little Fanny as you did before, it was so nice. I have thought of nothing else, but how to have it done again."

"Well, my darling, I shall do all that, and more, but we cannot do so here. I tell you what we will do—we will pretend to go for a long walk in the country, but instead of that, we will pass through the shrubbery into the orchard and hazelwood, and so gain the little remote summer house, of which I have secured the key; there we shall be safe from all observation."

This little summer house was at some distance from the house, and in a lonely corner of the orchard, raised on an artificial mount, so that its windows should command a lovely view beyond the walls of the grounds. It was about ten feet square—was beautifully sheltered, and the ladies in summer took their work there, and occupied it for hours every fine day; so it was furnished with tables and chairs, and on one side a long couch without a back. It had already entered into my idea that this was the spot I should contrive to get to with Mary—little thinking how chance would throw so glorious an opportunity in my way so soon. It was always kept locked to prevent it being used by the servants, gardeners, or others. I knew where the key was kept, and secured it when the ladies were dressing for their drive—so after staying sufficiently long to prevent any suspicion, and saying then we were going for a long walk in the country, so as to prevent them seeking for us at the summer house if any visitors should chance to call, we sallied out, but re-entered the grounds where we could not be observed, and speedily gained the spot we had in view—entered and locked the door. Then I drew down the blinds, threw off my coat and waistcoat, and told Mary to take off her shawl and bonnet, and outer gown.

"But why all this, Charlie, dear?"

"First, my darling—all those are in the way of kissing and toying with your charming little Fanny, and next, I don't want anything to appear tumbled when we go back."

This was enough, and she did everything as I desired, indeed, more, for she took off her petticoat and little corset, saying she would be cooler thus. So, following her example, I took off my trousers, saying she would be better able to see and play with my doodle. When these preliminaries were accomplished, I drew her on my knees—first pulling up her shift and my own shirt, so that our naked flesh should be in contact. Seeing that her chemise fell off from her bosom, I first felt her little bubbies, which were beginning to develope themselves, and had the tiniest little pink nipples that even my lips could hardly get hold of. She had pulled up my shirt to look again at the great change that had occured to my prick—of course, our preliminaries had already excited it to a stiff-standing position.

"Oh, Charlie, what a size it is to be sure; and how nice to pull this skin over its head; look how it runs back again. Oh! how funny!"

It was time to stop this, or she would have soon made me discharge.

"Well, then, what is this great secret, and what has it to do with your doodle and my Fanny?"

"I will tell you, but you must never say a word to a soul—not even to Eliza, she is too young yet."

"Well, go on."

"I was one day seeking something in the closet in Mrs. Benson's room, when I heard them coming, and had only the time to slip into the closet. They entered, locked the door, and Mr. B. laid her on the bed, and lifted up all her petticoats so that I saw her Fanny quite surrounded with hairs, as yours will be by and by. Mr. B, stooped down, and applied his tongue as I did to you the other morning."

"Oh, yes; and it was so nice, Charlie!"

That is exactly what Mrs. B. said when he had done. Then he pulled out his doodle, such a size, much bigger than mine, and whipped it into her Fanny. I was quite frightened, and thought he must have killed her. But no, it went in quite easy; and she hugged and kissed him while he pushed it up and down for some time, till they both stopped all at once. He then drew it out, hanging down all wet, and asked if it had not given her great pleasure. 'Delightful,' she said. 'I have now got used to it, but you know you hurt me, and made me so sore the first time you did it.' After this they left the room, and I got away without being discovered. But I found out what our two things were made for, we will do as they did, so lie down on the couch whilst I kneel at the end, and begin in the way I kissed it the other morning."

"Oh, Charlie, if it is all like that, I shall be so pleased with it."

Down she squatted, drawing up her chemise. My hand wandered all over her charming belly and mount. Then kneeling down, and putting her legs over my shoulders, and my hands under her thighs and bottoms, I applied my tongue at once to her little clitoris, which I found was already stiff, and showing its head at the upper part of her pinky slit. The action of my agile tongue produced an instantaneous effect—her loins and thighs heaved up her bottom to press her little pouting cunt against my face. Mechanically she put her hand on my head, and muttered terms of endearment—

"Oh, darling Charlie, how delicious! Oh! do go on! it is so nice, &c."

I wanted no stimulant, but licked away until, with shortened breath; and greater heavings of her body, she began to stammer—

"Oh! oh! I feel so queer—ah, stop; I am going to faint—I, I, I, can't—can't bear it any longer—oh!—oh!" Her limbs relaxed, and she died away in her first discharge, which was very glutinous and nice, but only scanty in quantity. I let her quiet until she came to; then looking in her face, and smiling, I asked her how she liked it.

"Oh! I was in heaven, dear Charlie, but I thought it was killing me —it was almost too much to bear—nothing could be more delicious."

"Oh, yes!" I replied, "there is something more delicious still, but, I must kiss you in this way again before we try the other; the more moist the inside is the easier I shall get in."

"But, Charlie, you don't mean to say you will ever get in your doodle, now that it has grown so big."

"Well, we will try, and if it hurts you too much we can stop."

So I began again to gamahuche her; this time it took a longer effort to produce the ultimate result; but apparently with still greater effect, and a more copious discharge. Her little cunt being now relaxed, and well moistened with her own discharge and my saliva, and well inclined to receive my prick, I spat upon it and lubricated it from head to root. Then rising from my knees, I stretched myself over Mary's belly, and gently directing my prick, and rubbing it up and down first between the lips, and exciting her clitoris by the same action, I gently and gradually inserted its head between the lips of her charming little cunt. There was less difficulty than might have been expected, the gamahuching and double spending had relaxed the muscles, and her passions being excited also acted on her organs of generation; at all events, I got in the head, and about two inches of its length without her murmuring anything beyond—

"How big it feels—it seems to stretch me so."

All this was exciting me dreadfully, and it was only by the greatest effort that I did not thrust rudely forward. I now felt I was pushing against some obstacle, I thrust hard and hurt her. She cried out, begged me to stop. I was so near the finale that I felt I must go on. So, plunging forward, I rushed, at the impediment, and made her cry out most lustily. Probably another push would have decided my position, but nature could hold out no longer, and I yielded down my erotic tribute to her virginal charms, without having actually deflowered her. So far, perhaps, it was fortunate, because I poured into her a torrent of sperm which was not only balm to her partially wounded hymen, but so relaxed and lubricated the interior of her cunt as greatly to facilitate my after-efforts.

I lay quiet still for some time, and the gradual swelling out and throbbing of my prick reawakened her young passions. She said—

"Charlie, my dear, you said that it would prove delicious in the end, and I can feel it is becoming so. I have no more pain, and you shall go on just as you like."

As my prick stiffened at her endearing words and involuntary pressures, and as I had it completely under control, since I had taken the edge off its immediate appetite by the last discharge, I held it literally well in hand; and as I had lost no ground by withdrawing, I started with the advantage of possession. First I slipped my hand down between our two bellies and began frigging her clitoris, which immediately excited her passions to the highest pitch.

"Oh! Charlie, dear, now push it all in—I do so long for it—and I don't care how it hurts me."

I had been giving short thrusts more to stimulate her passions than to alleviate my own; and as she was totally unaware of what was going to happen, she widened her thighs and heaved up her bottom, expanding her vagina in the act. I gathered my strength together, and as my cock was standing as stiff as iron, I suddenly drove it forward, and felt that I broke through something, and gained two inches more insertion at least. The effect on my poor sister was most painful, she shrieked out lustily; strove hard to unsheath me, wriggled her body in all directions to effect this; but I was too securely engulphed for that, and all her struggles only enabled me the more easily to sheathe him up to the very hairs. So excited was I by her tears and screams, that I was no sooner there than a torrent of sperm burst from me, and I lay like a corpse on her body, but perfectly maintaining the ground I possessed. This death-like quiet lasted some minutes, and, to a certain extent, assuaged the violence of the pain I put poor Mary to. Doubtless, also, the balmy nature of the ample quantity of sperm I had shot up to her womb helped to soothe her suffering. At all events, when we were both able again to converse, she upbraided me with the agony I had caused her, and wished me to get off her at once; but retaining the advantageous possession of her very tight and delicious sheath, I told her all was now over, and we might look forward to nothing but enrapturing pleasure.

Some minutes had elapsed in these remonstrances on one side; and coaxings on the other, when I suddenly felt her charming little cunt actually throb upon and give an involuntary squeeze to my prick, which was still throbbing her. He was far too ready to stand at any time, still more when engulphed in the exquisite young cunt he had just initiated into love's mysteries—bref—he stood stiff as ever, and Mary, at first with a shudder of fright, then with all the energy of awakened passion, began to move her body under me. I held off from any interference, feeling certain that if the desire came naturally to her it would doubly enhance my own pleasure. My foresight did not fail me. Mary's passions became fully aroused, and when so, the trifling soreness passed out of mind, and we actually had a most delicious fuck, in which my prick appeared as if in a vice, and Mary wriggled her backside almost as well as the more artistic movements of Mrs. Benson. All things must come to an end, but this did so amid screams of delight on both sides. This single bout began and finished the education of my darling sister. She hugged and fondled me afterwards, declaring I was quite right in telling her pleasure followed pain; for nothing could exceed the enrapturing nature of the sensation my prick had produced. She thought now that it was not a bit too big, but just made to give the utmost satisfaction. We remained locked in each other's arms, my prick still engulphed in its tight and exciting sheath. We fondled and prattled, until it became again in a state of violent erection, equally stimulating her tight little cunt, so that we were forced to recommence our love encounter. I found that my dear little sister possessed naturally the power of throbbing on or nipping a prick, which the French call casse-noisette. It is a great gift and adds immensely to the man's pleasure, and I should think to the woman's too. In my sister's case it began from the very first complete insertion of my prick and the years that I afterwards continued to fuck her added nothing to this delicious accomplishment, except in the variety of positions in which it could be exercised.

The dear girl was in extasies at the pleasure she had received, and at the pain which seemed to be past. Oh! she was so sweetly caressing that I could not withdraw from her, and we fondled and toyed until again my cock rose to his first vigour, and she nothing loath, began her new and naturally taught gift of bottom upheavings and cunt pressures until again we sank exhausted in the death-like ending of love's battles. On recovering our senses, I was obliged to withdraw and relieve my sister of the dead weight of my body on her person.

It has always struck me as extraordinary how the most delicate women will support a heavy man on their persons, not only without flinching, but even with ease and pleasure—but so it is. On rising and withdrawing, we were both alarmed to see that my prick was all bloody, and that blood and semen were oozing from her cunt. We had no idea this would be the case, and at first I was as frightened as she was. A moment's reflection showed me that it was only the natural result of forcing my way in, and that the pleasure since enjoyed proved it to be of no consequence. I soon convinced and calmed my sister on the point—fortunately the sofa covering was red, and applying my handkerchief, I wiped up all the semen mixture, and, in fact, no marks remained; the same handkerchief wiped all results from Mary's dear little cunt, and as her shift had been kept well up, fortunately no stains appeared upon that.

We now ate some luncheon and drank some wine that we had prudently brought with us. We then began playing and romping together—she wanting always to get hold of my prick, and I to pull her about in every way. It was gloriously warm weather, so I proposed we should off with every thing. In a trice we were as naked as we were born, and flew into each other's arms in a frenzy of delight, then we had a mutual thorough inspection. My darling sister gave every promise of becoming a magnificent woman—her shoulders were already wide—her arms well shaped, although still thin—her waist small—the swell of the hips already well developed—as to her bottom, it stuck out well and hard behind, quite charming to see, and giving promise of very ample dimensions hereafter.

I made her kneel on the low couch, with her head well up and her thighs open; kneeling behind, I gamahuched her until she spent; then rising, shoved my prick into her cunt, in her then position, and had a downright good poke, which she, too, found was a way that gave her extra excitement. We passed thus some hours in mutual delights. I taught her the side fuck which had so charmed me with my delightful instructress, and I found dear Mary even an apter scholar than myself had proved. The afternoon advancing, we dressed, and eradicating all signs of what we had been doing, returned to the house, mutually promising to keep thoroughly secret all that had passed and agreeing that no sign of unusual familiarity should escape us. I strongly advised Mary to get some warm water and bathe her cunt well, for, as may be supposed, I had taken the opportunity of teaching her the true erotic language as applied to the organs of generation of both sexes, and the name of the connection itself, "fucking."

Thus delightfully ended the first lesson in love taught to my sister, and such was my first triumph over a maidenhead, double enhanced by the idea of the close ties of parentage between us. In after-life, I have always found the nearer we are related, the more this idea of incest stimulates our passions and stiffens our pricks, so that if even we be in the wane of life, fresh vigour is imparted by reason of the very fact of our evasion of conventional laws.

We had both returned to the drawing-room for more than an hour before the arrival of the ladies. Dear Mary complained of feeling sore and stiff in every limb. I had advised her to lie down on the sofa and try to sleep. I did the same, and happily we both dozed off, and never awoke until the loud rat-tat of arrival at the house door roused us up. I told Mary to hide all appearance of pain, and only to say, as an excuse for going early to bed, that we had gone further afield than we at first intended, and that she was very tired. We were both sent early to bed, for I was still treated as quite a boy, and I was sound asleep when my charming Mrs. B. woke me up by her warm caresses. I could well have spared them that night, but when did one of my years not respond to the endearments of the woman he loved, and who yielded all to him. She sucked me dry as usual, and I slept soundly till morning.

The next three days passed without anything to record. Mary did not allow her real soreness to appear, but heroically went through her sufferings, for she told me afterwards she felt very severe pains all over, doubtless her whole nervous system had been overexcited, and this was the natural reaction; it was so far fortunate that not a shadow of a chance of our having fresh connection occurred, so she had time to perfectly recover from the ill effects of her first initiation into the erotic raptures. I continued to have the relief each night of the charming mouth of my loved and beautiful instructress. At last, the abominable menses, as she called them, were past and gone. For a full twenty-four hours after, she would not allow me to reassume all the privileges she had previously granted, and admit me to share her bed. She told me this was necessary to prevent any recurrence, and also that in some cases a virulent white discharge occasionally followed for some hours, sufficiently acrid to affect my local health, and "that," she added, "was now too precious in her estimation to risk it in any way." I thought it hard at the time, but it was only another proof of the thoughtful wisdom of this estimable woman. At last, I was again in full possession of her charming person. Oh! how we did revel in all the luxuries and lubricity; almost every night my enchanting friend found some new position to vary and enhance our erotic raptures. One new dose was laying me down flat on my back, then straddling over me, she sank on her knees, and with body erect, lifted up or rather bent back my stiff-standing prick, until he was fairly below her open cunt, then guiding it exactly to the proper entrance, she sank her body slowly down upon it until fully engulphed, hair crushed hair, then as slowly raising again, she drew off until all but the nut was uncovered, to again sink down. In this position we could both see the whole process. At length, becoming too excited, she sank on my bosom, then one arm and hand pressed her splendid buttocks down on my throbbing prick after every elevation of her magnificent backside while my other hand, doubling round behind her, introduced the middle finger up her charming bottom-hole, and worked in and out in unison with both our heaving movements, until stopped by the grand crisis, when death-like langour overcame us both almost at the same moment. I must not forget to mention that from time to time I paid a visit to the small and rosy orifice that lay so near to the more legitimate altar of Venus. It was a variety of enjoyment that my lovely mistress acknowledged to me she at times felt much inclined to enjoy, but only after having the front path of pleasure well fucked and lubricated with sperm, which alone caused the other mucous membrane to feel inclined that way.

I will here insert a characteristic letter from my loved mistress to her intimate and bosom school friend, with the reply thereto. It was several years before they were shown to me, and some time after I had possessed both the charming writers, for we all three became fast friends; indeed, I may call myself or rather my prick, the pivot on which their friendship turned, yet there never was the shade of jealousy on either part, but in these remarks I am anticipating what I may, perhaps, be hereafter tempted to describe more fully. I give these letters now, because they immediately refer to the events I am at present relating. They show the secret working of my loved mistress's mind, and the voluptuous nature of her temperament, and the satisfaction that my delicious initiation had given. Her affectionate and flattering remarks, relating to myself, are greater than I deserved. The following is the first letter addressed to her friend:


MRS. BENSON TO THE HON. MRS. EGERTON.

Dear Carry,

I am about to keep my promise, and give you an account of our honeymoon. You, my dear, must be equally faithful, and reply as frankly as I am now about to write to you.

Two giddier girls than you and I never entered the bonds of matrimony, or more earnestly longed for the sights connected with it. Well, after the usual breakfast, we left by rail for Leamington, where we were to pass our first night. We had a coupé to ourselves; and beyond seating me on his knee, and kissing me, Fred behaved with much decency and propriety. We arrived and dined. The hour between tea and bedtime was sufficiently tedious, as both of us were naturally much preoccupied. My husband wrote a letter to mamma, telling her of our safe arrival, and of his intense happiness. After which he asked me if I would go to bed, in the most matter-of-fact way imaginable. I murmured an affirmative, scarcely knowing what to say. He rang for a candle, and told me he would follow shortly. It seemed like a dream to me. The maid showed me to a room containing a large four-post bedstead, heavily hung with curtains, and provided with old-fashioned furniture.

I seated myself on the edge of the bed and began to meditate. I sat thus, for, I dare say, ten minutes, and then commenced undressing. I had put on my night-gown, and removed everything but my stockings, when I heard footsteps approach the door. I opened, and my husband entered, closed it, and turned the key. Oh! Carry, I did feel so funny. I was undressed in a bedroom with a man, and that man had a right to my person. He seated himself in an armchair, and drew me on his knee. Nothing but my thin night-gown separated my bottom from his bare knee, for he had quite undressed in an adjoining room and had nothing on but his shirt under his dressing-gown, which flew open as he sat down. He drew my lips to his, and kissing me, thrust his tongue between them, while his hand first caressed and squeezed my bosom, which, you know, is pretty full and well developed; it then wandered down upon my thigh, pressed and felt the fleshy form. Little by little he approached my belly, and for a moment pressed my mount. These preliminaries are at all times exciting, but now they made me almost ill, so great was my confusion. Seeing this, he drew up my night-gown, and placed his hand, first on my naked thigh, then on my mount, and you know, Carry dear, what a forest I have got there. He seemed delighted with it. His fingers played with the silky curls, drawing them out to their full length, so long that it appeared to surprise him, and his eyes sparkled, and his face showed much excitement.

"Open your thighs, dearest," he whispered.

I obeyed mechanically, and his middle finger forced itself between the lips of my cunt, and commenced rubbing my clitoris. You know, by experience, what an excitable one it is and to what a size it developes itself when excited. Again Fred seemed delighted with his discovery.

"Does that please you, my darling?"

"Yes," I faltered out.

He thrust his finger up my cunt, then rose up, threw off his dressing-gown, took me in his arms, and lifted me on the bed, placing a pillow under my head. Then letting my legs fall over the sides, he knelt on the floor, and separating my thighs with his arms, stooped and kissed my quim. He did more, he sucked and then licked with his tongue my already excited clitoris. It set me on fire, and I could not avoid showing it by the convulsive twitchings of my loins and buttocks.

"Do you like that, my love?"

"Oh! yes; so much!—so very much!"

I was nearly mad with the excitement he was putting me into. He again stood up, and lifting my legs, his hands pressed them again and again.

"What delicious legs," he exclaimed.

I could see his shirt bulging out. He leant forward, and with his arms under my legs, lifted them well up, and I felt a stiff thick thing pressing against my cunt. His left hand opened the lips, his right hand guided it between them, and a cruel push lodged its great head completely within. Neither you, or I, Carry, were strictly virgins, our fingers and other means had opened our vaginas to a certain extent. We had played too many tricks together to have left our maidenheads quite intact, so that the passage was less difficult than it might have been. Nevertheless, it had never been penetrated by the male organ, and that of my husband was of the largest. I experienced, therefore, a great deal of pain, and cried out—

"Oh, my dear Fred, you hurt me dreadfully, what are you doing?"

"Doing, my darling! why, I am getting into you. Have a little patience, and I will make you mad with pleasure."

Another determined thrust sent him halfway, and then with another, still more violent, he lodged himself up to the hilt within. I screamed with real pain, and struggled to free myself.

"Good heavens, sir, you are killing me; I will not endure such treatment."

He heeded me not, but holding me fast by the thighs commenced shoving in and out furiously. A sensitive woman never receives an insertion of this kind with impunity. The friction began to excite feelings that first deadened the pain of entrance, and then began to awaken the delicious sensations of lubricity. The enjoyment I began to experience was delicious, and I could not refrain from heaving up to meet his thrusts.

"That is right, my angel; was I not correct in saying it would soon turn from pain to pleasure? Do you not enjoy it now?"

"Yes; but you make me feel so funny. I don't know what—it—is."

His increased and rapid movement filled me with delight; I bounded up and down in response to his thrusts, and felt so queer when, all of a sudden, he gasped for breath, stopped, and I felt a greater and stiffer swelling of his instrument, and then a gush of hot liquid dashed against my womb, which continued running for some seconds. This, Carry, was my first experience of what a man can do for us.

Withdrawing his huge affair—for he since admits he is larger than most men—letting go my thighs—he pressed down upon me, and tenderly embraced me, and said that I had behaved admirably; in future there would be no more pain, and from what he had already experienced he felt sure I was made for the fullest enjoyment that husband and wife could indulge in. After a little fondling, he rose, drew off my stockings, and helped me into bed, immediately following me. On throwing back the clothes to enter the bed, he said he must kiss the dear little hairy thing that had given him such pleasure. He kissed and toyed with it admiring the profusion of hair on my mount, the whiteness and beauty of my belly, and then, baring my breasts, admired, kissed, and sucked them. All this not only excited me, but I could see very well it had again caused his affair to stick out. Seeing that I was timidly glancing at it, he seized my hand, and made me lay hold of it, showed me how the skin covered and uncovered its head; then becoming rampageous, he got on my belly and between my thighs, and again introduced his cock to where it had already given such pleasure. He still rather hurt me, and made me smart for a little while, but as the interior was well lubricated by his former discharge, the penetration was easily accomplished. When up to the hilt, and the two hairs were closely joined, he paused and said—

"We will take it less impatiently this time, that my darling Bessie may enter into all the joys of fucking, for that is what we call it my dear; so I shall go slowly to work until my darling's passions awake and urgently call for more rapid movements."

He did so, and gradually produced the most lascivious excitement in my whole body. I writhed beneath him in the utmost extasy, threw my arms round his body, and hugged him to me.

"Oh! you are an angel," he cried, "and made for enjoyment. Throw your legs also over my back—there, that is it—and now I will hasten my movements, and we will die away together."

Oh, the delight he gave me was inexpressibly delicious; his rapid and eager thrusts were as eagerly met by the upheaving of my bottom to reciprocate them. The grand crisis seized us simultaneously, and we sank momentarily exhausted in each other's arms, leaving the dear exciter of such joys soaking within. My dear husband was so pleased, he kissed and fondled me in the sweetest manner, telling me that never woman before had yielded him such intense pleasure, that nature had prompted me to as much enjoyment as if I had been already married a month.

We were locked closely in the warmest embrace; his tenderness and fondling began to have its effect on my passions, and involuntarily I made some internal convulsive twitchings.

"I feel you, my darling, calling on my instrument for renewed efforts; he will soon respond."

And, in fact, I felt it swelling and swelling so deliciously that I could not help continuing the interior pressures, although feeling confusedly ashamed of the notice my husband took of it.

"Don't be afraid, my sweetest love, but give way to whatever your passions dictate, and thus you will best please me, and give to yourself double enjoyment. I mean to initiate you into every secret that the rites of Venus possess, and wish that my loved wife should become a devoted votary, and I will do my best that she may revel in all the luxuries of perfect coition."

We completed this course with even greater abandon than before, and I began to enjoy his embraces beyond anything our imaginations used to suggest. This time he withdrew and lay down by my side, and taking me within both his arms, continued his charming endearments. I never slept that night; I was in a fever of restless excitement. My husband fucked me five times before he dozed off. Towards morning I tossed and tumbled, and could not sleep. Daylight soon came, my restlessness had shaken all the bed clothes off, except a part of the sheet, and turning towards my husband, I perceived that the sheet stuck up over the lower part of his body. Curiosity seized me—I looked at him, and saw he was evidently sleeping. So gently removing the sheet, I beheld the dear instrument of all my last night's joys as well as pains. You know how we used to long to see man's cock when we were at school, and how, when we did sometimes see a boy's limp thing hanging down, we used to wonder what change would come over it, and how. Well, here was an opportunity of examining, at my ease, the wonderful curiosity that had so puzzled us. The last edge of the sheet passing over it touched its ruby head; it throbbed and pulsated to the view. I was afraid this had awakened Fred, but no, he slept as sound as ever. So I gently raised myself on my bottom, and gazed on the dear object I had so longed to see and feel. There it stood up like a pillar, rather bending towards his belly: and what surprised me much was to see a dark strongly wrinkled bag at its roots, with apparently two large balls inside; the hair on its roots spread in dark mass up to his navel, and beautifully bright and curling it was. I approached my lips, and made the action of kissing, without touching it. Whether it felt my warm breath, I know not, but it actually throbbed a response. What a great big thing it was, equally long as it was thick, I did not think I could encircle it with my hand; I longed to try, but was afraid I should waken Fred, and what would he think of me, I blushed at the very idea; but my passions became excited, and too strong to resist the temptation. So first lying gently down again, I very quietly dropped my arm over him and touched his cock, it throbbed at the touch, but Fred slept on. So raising myself again, I very gently laid bold of it. It was as much as I could grasp below the head, but was beyond my grasp at the root; I found it took three of my hands to measure its length from the root to the nut, which stood out in all its redness above. I was almost breathless with excitement, and lost some of my caution. Stooping down, I gently kissed the ruby head, when, before I knew where I was, it was pushed up into my mouth, and my husband's voice said—

"Oh, you dear darling creature! how kind of you to waken me so luxuriously!"

I was horrified at being discovered; and blushing up to the eyes, I hid my face in his bosom.

"Do not be ashamed, my angel, it is now as much yours as mine, and have you not as much right to see, kiss, and handle it? come, don't be ashamed."

However, I could not face him, and when he tried to raise my head I turned my back. He seized me round the waist, and, before I knew where I was, passed a hand between my thighs, and guided his huge cock to the lips of my cunt, and was in me, I thought further than ever, in a moment. It is true the previous toying with his instrument had terribly excited me, and I had felt that my cunt had become very moist, but I had no idea that anything could be accomplished in that position. I was most delightfully undeceived, for not only did it feel tighter in it, but transferring his fingers from guiding his prick, he touched and played with my clitoris, and produced such excessive lubricity that I went off and spent with a scream of delight before he was ready; but continuing with finger and cock to ravish me inside and out, he soon brought me again to such a pitch of lewdness that I was quite ready to spend with him when the grand crisis arrived. Nothing could exceed the pleasure; my internal pressures, he declared, were the most exquisite he had ever experienced. My clitoris, too, he declared was quite unique. You remember how it used to stick out when excited as far as the first thumb joint, and how, when sometimes I played the husband on your belly, you declared that it actually entered between the lips of your cunt, rubbed against your smaller development, and gave you great pleasure, as indeed it gave me. My husband has often examined and sucked it, and admires it beyond measure. At present he did not withdraw, declaring that I held him so tight he did not think he could pull it out if he tried. In fact, it was involuntary on my part, and I could not help clinging to his dear instrument for the life of me.

Oh, how he fondled and embraced me, making me partially turn my body so that he might kiss and tongue me, and then suck my bubbies; his busy finger all the time tickling and frigging my clitoris. I soon felt his cock swelling so deliciously within me, and he shortly recommenced his rapturous pushings in and out. We made a long, long bout of it, and I am sure that I spent twice before joining him at the last moment, when he died away in a shout of joy that I feared must have been heard by the servants in the house, who long before this had been on the move. After this we lay soaking and enjoying it for more than half an hour, when my husband declared he felt as if a wolf was at his stomach, and that he must have some breakfast. He got up and quickly dressed, desiring me to lie still, and he would bring me some breakfast in bed, and that, while it was getting ready, he would order some warm water to bathe myself with. I felt his delicacy, and loved him for it. The water came, I was much refreshed after using it, and got into bed again, but I felt awfully stiff and done up all that and next day.

My darling husband waited on me himself at breakfast, stimulating me to eat freely as a means of restoring my lost strength; which he very soon put to the test again, for he fucked me three times during the day, and each time he gave me greater pleasure than before. He was just as active at night. And the whole three weeks we stayed at Leamington, he never fucked me less than four times a night, declaring that I had become most perfect in the exercise.

We then came here, our old friend, Mrs. Roberts, having kindly insisted upon our paying her a long visit Fred has been called away suddenly and will not return for a month. I am sure you will pity me, as you know my temperament is too hot to keep chaste so long. You remember Charlie Roberts; you would consider him a child, but he is not so. One afternoon Fred followed me into my bedroom, as was usual, and gamahuched and fucked me on the edge of the bed. I was about to leave the room after he was gone, when on opening a closet, in which my dresses were hung, who should I discover but this same Charlie. I was in a fix.

There was no doubt the lad had seen everything. I spoke kindly to him, and he promised secrecy. In order to ensure it, I determined to have his maidenhead. A few days afterwards my husband left me, and the girls with their mamma and the governess went to town with him, leaving Charlie to keep me company. I went upstairs with him to the drawing-room, and seating myself in a low chair, crossed my legs carelessly, exposing them, and letting the garter and part of the bare skin of one thigh be visible. The effect was what I expected. I saw Charlie's eyes fixed on the exposure, he blushed scarlet, and I could distinctly see his cock swell out under his trousers. In a little while I had unbuttoned them, and, oh, Carry, would you imagine it, I found he had the cock of a man. I could scarcely believe my eyes. He is not quite fifteen, and yet he is almost as large as Fred. Here was a godsend, indeed! I drew up my petticoats, and the gallant little fellow instantly fell on his knees, kissed and sucked my cunt. To reward him, I placed him on his back on the couch, and got on the top of him. I took his pego into my mouth, and pressed my cunt against his face, we devoured each other with our luxurious caresses until we both spent copiously. Nothing was lost, we both greedily swallowed all we could get.

At home he is looked upon as still a child, and I had little difficulty in arranging for him to sleep in a little dressing-room adjoining my bedroom, with which there is a door of communication. He was sent early to bed, but when I came I found him still awake, expecting me, and I had the delicious treat of initiating him into the pleasures of fucking. If you ever wish to enjoy par excellence this pleasure, get hold of a vigorous boy who has never had a woman. My good fortune threw into my hands a wonderfully provided youth, whose aptitude, as well as size and powers, it would be very difficult to match. I had already given him several lessons in the enrapturing art when we fell asleep, and now I must mention a little episode, which it would not do to omit.

In the morning I was dreaming of Fred, when I became conscious that something was entering me. I was in that half-dreaming state when it is difficult to be quite certain what is happening, but gradually I became aware that although there was no doubt I was being entered, it was not in the usual way. My husband had frequently of late pushed his prick up my bottom-hole, and as he told me that all husbands did so, I could make no objections. I, therefore, at first took it for granted that Fred, finding my naked bottom in his lap, could not resist the temptation of entering it. I, therefore, humoured him, and so moved my bottom as to facilitate his complete entrance, and began to feel myself the excitement it occasioned, but as I became wider awake, I gradually called to mind that Fred had left me, and that Charlie was my bedfellow. The audacity of the young rogue paralysed me, but his delicious movements had become too nice for me to think of dislodging him. He insisted that he was quite unconscious of his mistake, and that he believed himself buried in the delicious grotto of the night before. It probably was so, for so perfect an ignoramus as he is, although ever so apt a scholar in Venus's rites, he could hardly have imagined there could be any entrance in the smaller orifice. I let him go on, and with his well hung cock in my bottom, and two or three fingers in my cunt, he fucked and frigged me most deliciously, until we both spent in an agony of pleasure. If, Carry, you have not tried this route I strongly recommend you to do so without delay, but you must be well fucked in the first instance, to stimulate a desire in those parts, and your lover must be up to the art of frigging you at the same time, or you can pass your hand under your belly, and rub your clitoris, which was the plan I adopted with Charlie, until I taught him the art of rubbing the clitoris properly. As there is always more excitement when this is done by a male, it is better to have them when one can, but, faute de mieux—one can do it oneself with much additional lascivious satisfaction.

To give you an instance of the precocious aptitude of this dear little fellow, I mounted upon him one morning, keeping my body erect, that we might see the delicious instrument in its action of being engulphed and then withdrawn, a most exciting pose which I recommend you to try, if your husband has not already taught it to you. At last, overcome by the lascivious movements, I sank on his bosom. He pressed my bottom down with one hand, and with the other embracing the nearer buttock, introduced his middle finger up the rosy orifice of my bottom, and frigged me in unison with our ups and downs of fucking, giving me the most delicious additional sensations.

What do you think of that for a tyro? His discretion, too, is extraordinary. The first night after I sent him to his own bed, he overslept himself. I had not thought of that, and had not looked into his little room before descending to breakfast. His sister was sent to call him. He at once excused himself by saying he had had a bad dream, she came down and told us. In a few minutes he followed, and in the most natural way possible, told a tale of fright, declared he had awoke screaming and afterwards had been so frightened that he could not sleep, and turning to me in the most natural way, hoped his scream had not disturbed me. He never came near me, or appeared in any way attracted by me—a discretion worthy of a man of the world. Oh! my dear Carry, I shall make a great deal of this boy. We have had several delicious nights since, and he improves wonderfully. Splendidly as my husband fucks, Charley already beats him. He is quite as often ready, indeed, oftener, and it is I that hold him back, but there is something still so charmingly infantine in his way of caressing me, and then the lascivious idea he is all my own, and that I initiated him in love's mysteries, adds an inexpressible charm to our lascivious encounters. I feel that I shall almost regret my husband's return, as it will force me to give up this delicious indulgence. Not the slightest shadow of suspicion of our doings is excited in the family, thanks to the very guarded and admirable conduct of Charlie, which is above all praise.

Write to me soon, my dear Carry, and be sure you are as candid as this long, long letter is to you, for the life of me I could not make it shorter. I only hope you will give me one as long, and have as much delicious intelligence for me. I know you too well to suppose that you have not found means as I have done, to try what other men are made of, although you can scarcely have had such wonderful luck as mine. Write then, and write without reserve. Our mutual affection is too sincere to allow of any concealment whatever between two such loving and lewd lascivious friends.

Ever your affectionate friend,

E. BENSON.


Such was the long letter my adored mistress wrote at the time to her school companion. It will be seen that their attachment had led to something more than the usual fingerings and caressings of school girls, indeed, had led them on to the lewdest and most lascivious indulgences that two girls could practise in common, and had first excited their passions and given them the delicious power of pleasing coition they were both so perfect in, for, as I before said, about two years after this time, I was the possessor of both and many and many an orgy we three had together, without the shadow of jealousy on any side. It will be seen that Mrs. Egerton, in her reply, even looks forward to the delicious indulgence, which in the end was happily effected and long continued. The following is her reply—


THE HON. MRS. EGERTON TO MRS. BENSON.

How can I ever sufficiently thank my darling Lizzie for her delicious letter, I have devoured its delightful details a dozen times already. I keep it in my bosom, and renew the pleasure of its perusal at every spare moment. Too long? Oh! with such a charming power of description, why did you not cover fifty more pages. Never in my life have I enjoyed such an exquisite description of those dear lascivious encounters. How delighted I am at your good fortune in meeting with such a miracle of a boy as that dear Charlie Roberts. Why, he has every quality of a man, united to the charm of extreme youth. What a splendid man he will become, the very perfection of a lover, and already possessing so lewd and lascivious a lubricity. Oh! how I envy you his possession. What luck for him too, to have fallen into the hands of so delicious a teacher as my beloved Lizzie is. Am I not myself her pupil, and were you not my own delicious instructress in all that one of our sex could teach each the other.

You will remember a long-standing engagement entered into, between us made, when we were both so lewd and so longing for the real knowledge of man, and how we pledged ourselves that if either got possession of a lover, we should manage after a while to share him between us. Your description of Charlie Roberts has brought this pledge most vividly to my recollection. I am sure my dear Lizzie will not be angry or jealous when I avow that I long to participate with her in the possession of that darling boy; and if my Lizzie is as of old, I feel certain she will rather indulge and cultivate this propensity than otherwise. Think how easy it will be for us both to arrange the meeting of all three together, because I wish to possess him in common, certain that it will increase the lascivious pleasure of coition. No one will suspect us when we drive out, two women with one man. It will naturally be supposed that one fears the other, and so there will be no danger. See, here I am at once anticipating future scenes, but it is all owing to the extremely exciting and lascivious details you have so vividly given me.

I have no such delicious scenes to depict as those you have so delightfully described to me. My honeymoon passed off in a much more common-place way than yours. Our marriage, which was performed within a day of your own, went off as such events do. My husband was loving, without being very warm. I felt very much as you describe on going to bed the first night, but the discretion or delicacy of my husband, which I could well have pardoned him for dispensing with, left me time not only to get into bed, but kept me waiting there some time. He entered like yours in his dressing-gown, but immediately put out the light and found his way into bed, as best he could. He crept to my side and embraced me tenderly enough, and began to fondle and kiss me, telling me how dearly he loved me, etc., but for some time he avoided any indecent liberties. I suppose he thought it necessary to gain my confidence and quiet any alarm I might be in. He might have saved himself the trouble, for in reality I was longing for and at the same time somewhat dreading an attack on my maiden charms. At last, little by little, he approached the object of delight, and eventually begging me not to be alarmed, he mounted upon me and effected the object of his desires. He did not hurt me much, not nearly as much as I expected, nor so much as you seem to have suffered. I deemed it politic to affect more suffering than he really inflicted. Towards the end I had slight scintillations of pleasure, but not worth mentioning; it is true my husband is not so well-armed as yours and Charlie appear to be, and he is also much colder in his passions; for instance, he did not attempt to fuck me again, although I would have been gratified if he had done so; perhaps it was considerate towards me in his idea, but, merely embracing me in his arms, he talked himself and me to sleep.

In the morning he again fucked me, this time giving me something like pleasure, but I was altogether disappointed with my night's experience. It was not such as you or I, my dear Lizzie, had pictured to ourselves, in our anticipations of the marriage night. My husband since has never exceeded twice a night, but he has become more exciting, and has generally made me spend twice to his once, first exciting my passions by feeling all my private parts, and frigging my clitoris, so that I generally have lubricated the passage by my own discharge before he attempts to make an entrance. I find he likes this, and so far it pleases me, because only one discharge would leave me in a state of excitement unbearable. He has never attempted any of those lewder and more lascivious methods, of which you have had such delicious experience. Altogether, I cannot but say I am disappointed. My husband is loving, and very anxious that I should improve my mind in every way. You know I was rather more proficient than usual at school in Italian. My husband speaks it fluently, and as we mean to spend a winter at Rome, was anxious that I should have further instruction. He asked me if my school teacher was a good one, but I did not encourage that idea. You may remember our former master was a Count Fortunio, so handsome and so enterprising that you and I had both formed the plan of having him, and had already put over some of the preliminaries when, unfortunately, he was caught with that impudent Miss Peace, with whom, doubtless, he had accomplished everything. Of course, he was instantly changed for another, and we saw no more of him, to the sad disappointment of our then libidinous hopes. My husband proposed advertising for a master, when I had the happy instinct to tell him that schoolmistresses generally applied to Rolandi, of Berner's Street, for language masters, and that, if he would write or call, he would be sure to get every information. That evening, after dinner, as we sat dozing over the fire in the library—very imperfectly lighted—my husband informed me that he had seen Rolandi, who had most strongly recommended a very gentlemanly man, moving in good society, namely, the Count Fortunio. I started in amazement; fortunately, owing to the half-light we were in, my surprise and confusion were unnoticed by my husband. He said that he had been referred to one or two gentlemen of standing as to the Count's character, that he called upon them, and felt satisfied that I could not be in better hands. You may imagine what an effect this information had upon me. All night long I could think of nothing else. What seemed most difficult to me was the hiding from my husband our previous knowledge of each other. I feared the Count would at once recognise me and claim acquaintance, which was what I most wished to avoid; to you, from whom I have no secrets, I may own it immediately occurred to me that this would be an opportunity (for which I had in heart been longing) of obtaining the services of a lover I could trust. How to manage it I knew not, but chance, that favourer of all wrongdoers, stood me in good stead.

My husband had intended to be present to receive the Count. Fortunately, a letter arrived in the morning requiring his instant attendance in the City about the sale of some stock, of which he was trustee. He begged me to see the Count, and arranged as to hours of attendance, &c., the more frequently the better. I felt my embarrassment was at an end; the next thing was to avoid letting the servants, those domestic spies on our conduct, see the first meeting. There was a small room off our drawing-room that had no door but the opening into the drawing-room; this was fitted up as a sort of boudoir writing-room, and my husband had pointed it out as a convenient place for me to take my lessons in. Here, therefore, I posted myself, and awaited the hour of arrival, to which he was punctual. He was announced and I told the servants to show him in. I sat purposely with my back to the entrance, apparently engaged in writing, as if I did not know he had approached, until I heard the door of the drawing-room shut. I then rose, turned, and smilingly held out my hand. He started with surprise, but immediately and gallantly kissed the hand held out to him.

"I hope you are not disappointed in finding who is going to be your pupil."

"Oh, no, certainly not; I did not know you under your married name; but I am so happy to renew an acquaintance which at one time had such charming promise."

"Stop, signor, I am now married, and it is necessary to be very cautious. I do not wish to deny that I am much pleased to renew acquaintance with you, but it must be with great reserve. Sit down by my side, and be reasonable."

"Reasonable! and by the side of one whom I so much loved, and from whom I had such hope. Oh! dear Mrs. Egerton, you are surely not going to treat me as a mere master. You would render me miserable if you did so. How can I help admiring one whom I so fondly loved, and with whom I hoped for such happiness long ago."

Here, having possession of my hand, his other arm was passed round my waist, and he drew me to his lips, and I must own, I reciprocated the ardent kiss he gave me. You remember how handsome he is, and how soft and loving was the expression of his eyes. Well, my dear, to cut matters short, I was so excited that I hardly observed that he had passed his hand up to my petticoats, until I found he had got it on my mount. My passions being excited, and knowing that my husband could not return, and also that he had given strict orders that I was not to be disturbed in my Italian lessons, I gave way unreservedly to the excitement the Count raised. Before I well knew where I was, he was on his knees in front of the low chair on which I was seated. He had thrown up my petticoats, and I felt a long and extremely hard prick rush up my cunt, and begin the most lively action. In fact, he carried me (not unwillingly I must avow) by storm, and made haste to secure the fortress at once, so that I had a very quick fuck, that did not assuage the fire he had raised within me. He has since apologised for his haste, saying that he wished to secure possession of me before I could think of resistance, so as to ensure more facilities of connection hereafter. We had no lesson in language that day, but another bout of love, in which he did his utmost, and with perfect success, to give me the most delicious enjoyment.

In fact, my dear Lizzie, I may say it was the first fuck that thoroughly realised my, or rather our, anticipations of the act. We arranged the line of conduct necessary to be followed so as neither to compromise me or him either. In a short time we had again a delicious fuck. Seated, with outstretched legs, on a chair, he got me to straddle over him, and sink down on his stiff upstanding prick. I have tried this position kneeling, with my husband on his back; but it does not equal the chair fuck. One has so much better a spring from one's feet than from one's knees, besides, the man is brought more face to face, and there is more facility for mutual embracings; but both ways have their charm. I had repeatedly observed that the Count apparently lost his place, and on recovering it, partially penetrated the smaller orifice, which you so picturesquely describe. I thought it accident, and as it hurt, I always put him back, and joked him on his awkwardness. But after I read your dear delightful letter. I became convinced that he had a wish to penetrate there, without the courage to tell me so.

I must confess to you, that our stolen embraces at home had become too unsatisfactory, and the Count had arranged for a private house to be at our disposal. Of an afternoon I drove out shopping, called at Swan and Edgar's in Regent Street, leaving the carriage at the door, walked upstairs, made some trifling purchase, paid for and left it until I should call in an hour; then descending by another staircase, left by the Piccadilly entrance, and taking a cab, joined my expectant lover, where he was waiting for me. There stripping perfectly naked, we enjoyed each other most lasciviously, and practised every act of lubricity. When satiated with our efforts, a second cab conducted me to St. James's passage, in Jermyn Street, from whence I gained on foot Swan and Edgar's in Piccadilly, received my parcel, and rejoined my carriage. Thus no suspicions were excited, either in the household or otherwise.

We have met thrice since your dear delicious letter fired my imagination, and I have seized the occasion to taste the sweets of the neighbouring altar to Venus's legitimate one. After the Count had fucked me twice I turned my back as if wishing it in a way we often enjoyed it, but took care to place my bottom in such a position that the smaller orifice was nearest to his standing prick. Whether he saw my drift I know not, but finding with his finger how conveniently it lay, he plunged boldly forward, and half sheathed himself at the first push. I started with the sudden pain, and should have disengaged myself at once, notwithstanding that I purposely placed myself to receive his prick in my bottom-hole, but with his arms round my waist I was perfectly powerless, and another thrust sent him up to the hilt, but really hurting me most sensitively; I begged him to desist and withdraw, but he said—

"I will remain quite quiet for a time, and you will see that your pain will diminish, and then you will like it."

I could not help myself, and sure enough he was right. Shortly I felt no pain; slipping one hand down, he began to frig my clitoris, and in a little time, finding by the involuntary movements of my loins that my passions were excited, he began to move very slightly and slowly. I soon found a strange excitement seize me, which increased to such a degree that I almost fainted, when my nature gave down its divinest essence. We have since repeated the new experience, but I quite agree with you in thinking that we must be well fucked first.

The Count is a master of his weapon, which, neither quite so long as you describe your husband's nor nearly so thick at the point, is very much so at the root, and as stiff and hard as iron. I assure you, the wild excess of passion he drives me into is indescribable. You shall experience the delight of his fucking, for, with you and me, there must be no difficulty, diversion, nor jealousy. Nay, I shall try to seduce your husband, with a view to cover our delinquencies. I would offer you mine, but, truly, he is not worth having to a woman who can find better, as my dear Lizzie so charmingly does. We have managed matters so prudently that my husband has taken a great fancy to the Count, and he dines frequently at our house.

We have often talked of you. I told him of your marriage, and of a probability of your eventually settling in London. I marked the sparkle of his eyes at the news, but was silent as to your letter and adventures. It is better we should manage the affair between us when you are here.

So you see, after all, I have not come off so badly, although, I must say, tamely in comparison with the delicious adventures of my dear and charming Lizzie. I think, when we meet, we shall be able to get up parties of the most delightful kind. I even hope we may induce the Count to join you and Charlie in a partie carrée; what fun and pleasure we should have, and then the delight of exchanging lovers at each bout. Oh! the very idea has set me on fire; fortunately, I am expecting my lover at every moment. I will close my letter with this lascivious picture, and in hopes of some day realizing it with my loved Lizzie, Whose most affectionate and attached friend,

I shall ever remain,

CARRY EGERTON.


Such were these two charming letters, and I may immediately mention now that the lascivious picture dear Carry drew of a partie carrée—we four the actors—was afterwards realised to the utmost extent of every salacious enjoyment that the most experienced lubricity could suggest.

The Count and I often sandwiched them between us, which they declared to be the ne plus ultra of pleasure, while the upper operator gamahuched the unoccupied quim. Nay, these giddy delicious creatures were not satisfied until they had induced us to alternate the joys of coition with each other; but that was rarely the case. These enchanting women were so exquisitely seductive that, while we had them at our disposal, we sought no other source of delight. But I am digressing, and talking of events that occurred long after the period which I am more particularly describing.

The three weeks' absence of Mr. Benson terminated, alas, far too soon; in fact, time flew so quick that it hardly appeared three days when a letter arrived announcing his return for the next day. My heart was ready to burst, but I managed to make no show or mention when Mrs. B. told the news at breakfast Mrs. B. observed that I turned pale, but no one else remarked anything. We contrived to meet for a short time in the middle of the day, and she embraced me tenderly, with tears in her eyes, and looking so loving that my passions became overexcited, and hers too. Notwithstanding the imprudence of the risk, we there and then had a most delightful and salacious fuck; and at night this charming woman allowed me full liberty to do anything I liked; and as often as nature would support us we revelled in a sea of lubricity. How often I cannot say, although my loved mistress declared that I had spent ten times, I am certain she did oftener than that, for neither closed an eye, nor ceased from the most loving embraces. She exerted all the wonderful powers of seduction for which she was so distinguished. Never mortal man could have passed a more intoxicating night of pleasure. We heard movements in the house before we parted with mutual tears coursing down our cheeks.

It was with difficulty I tore myself from her; indeed, I could not have done so if she had not herself risen, and tenderly embracing me, told me to have courage and hope, for, some how or other, we should manage an occasional interview. Particularly cautioning me to be perfectly on my guard when her husband came, she said it would be better if I kept out of the way until after the first interview was over, as it might he too much for me to see him embrace her. I did as she desired. No one noticed me in the confusion of his arrival.

Mamma had insisted upon my returning to my bed in her room, as she was sure Mr. Benson would require the dressing-room. Mrs. B., from policy, objected, saying that there was no occasion, that I had been so quiet she had never once been conscious of my being there, &c., but mamma had her own way, and I really believe very much to the satisfaction of Mrs. B. herself; for I doubt, if Mr. B. had been aware of my close proximity, whether he would altogether have liked it. Nevertheless, he so completely treated me as little more than a child that I am quite sure he had no suspicion of my having occupied his place so continuously during his absence.

Mr. and Mrs. B. retired shortly after his arrival, doubtless to plunge into all the joys of venery after his long absence, and his wife's supposed privation of them. The idea of that being the case did not so much annoy me as I expected; on the contrary, imagination portrayed them in all the agonies of delight, and actually excited me extremely. All at once, the idea struck me that I might be purposely hid in the closet, behold all their delicious encounters, and when he had left his wife to put herself to rights, and the key was turned upon him, I might then in my turn, fly into my enchanting mistress's arms, and revel in all the joys her well moistened and juicy cunt could give. I determined to propose this to dear Mrs. Benson the first moment I could get her apart from all observation.

I was a little distrait in the school-room that day, but an appeal from Miss Evelyn recalled me to my senses. She asked me what I could be thinking of; I held down my head and blushed. Already an adept in dissimulation, I faltered out that it was of herself and of her endearing caresses the day before, which had made me feel so queer all over. In fact, the previous day she had hugged me rather close to her, and kissed me more lovingly than usual, which really had, at the time, inflamed my desires, and given me great hope of matters coming to a more satisfactory termination with her. She patted my check, and kissed me again, saying I was a naughty boy to have any such thoughts, and I must not indulge in them, or she would not love me any more. But there was a sparkle in her eye, and a flush on her cheek, which showed me she was anything but displeased.

At our usual break-up at four o'clock, I went to the parlour to see if, by chance, I could get a secret word with Mrs. B., but found that she and her husband had again retired. I knew what that meant; it set me too on fire, and I flew to the garden where my sisters had gone to play. I gave Mary a hint, which she readily understood, and proposed a game of hide and seek. To prevent Eliza interrupting us, I took up a stone, which I furtively dropped again, and proposed that Eliza should guess first, in which hand I had got it, and if she guessed wrong she was to be the seeker. Of course, she guessed wrong. So we bound up her eyes, and she was to stand behind a tree and count one hundred before she attempted to look for or seek us. We made a detour, and as fast as we could run reached the summer house, which, as all the ladies were in the house occupied, I knew to be untenanted. We entered and locked the door, in an instant I had Mary down on her back on the sofa, my head between her thighs, and my tongue in her cunt, and then on her clitoris. She was as eager for it as myself. A week had passed since the happy day of giving up her maidenhead to me. She had thoroughly got over all the pains and inconveniences of that day, and was as ready for a renewal of what could only be joys now as I was. She spent in my mouth almost as soon as I began to gamahuche her clitoris. Waiting an instant to lick up and swallow the soft and delicious young discharge, I rose, pulled out my bursting prick, and engulphed it in her well-moistened sheath with one rapturous shove up to the hilt, positively taking away her breath by the energy of the attack. I was almost as rapid in coming to a conclusion as she had been. Nevertheless, she died away a second time, the moment she felt the warm gush of my raging discharge. We lay some minutes rapt in the lascivious lap of lubricity. But in our young and unbroken energies, nature soon reasserted her power. I must give my sister the palm. It was the internal pressures of the inner folds of her deliciously tight cunt that first awakened my vigour. Somewhat more slowly we began another love encounter, which speedily became much more rapid and energetic, ending as usual in an extasy of delight, and closing with actual cries of intense pleasure.

It was well we had completed our second course, for we heard the footsteps of Eliza, who, after in vain searching for us near to where we had left her, had at last sought us in the summer house. I had just time to arrange my trousers and unlock the door when she arrived and burst in upon us. She said it was unfair to go so far away, but we only laughed, and proposed that Mary should now seek us. We were standing outside below the mound, tying on the handkerchief, when Miss Evelyn was seen approaching. She came up and noticed the flush still on Mary's cheeks, but we at once told her that we had been playing at hide and seek, and had had a good run, and that it was now Mary's turn to be the seeker. However, Miss Evelyn said she thought we had had enough exercise for the time, and that it would be better to walk gently about to get cool, as it only wanted a few minutes of the hour for renewing our lessons, so we all demurely returned to the house. A reflection struck me that it would be necessary to initiate my sister Eliza in our secrets, and although she might be too young for the complete insertion of my increasingly large cock, I might gamahuche her while fucking Mary, and give her intense pleasure. In this way we could retire without difficulty to spots where we should be quite in safety, and even when such was not the case, we could employ Eliza as a watch, to give us early notice of any one approaching. It will be seen that this idea was afterwards most successfully carried out to the immense increase of my pleasure.

It was a lovely summer evening. After dinner Mr. B., who, doubtless, had no longer any amorous longing, after having twice retired during the day, challenged Miss Evelyn to a game at chess, of which she was a great proficient. Mamma, Mrs. B., and the two girls stepped out into the flower garden, to enjoy the beauty of the evening. Fortunately mamma fancied she felt chilly, and shortly went back again, taking the two girls with her, and setting Mary down to the piano. I seized the happy moment, and drew Mrs. B. to a seat, far removed beyond the hearing of any listeners, but in sight of the windows. There I unfolded to her the plan I had proposed to myself; she smiled at my precocious ingenuity, but added it would not be safe to leave the closet door open, even partially, as by chance Mr. B. might open it, and that would never do; but she might lock me in—or rather I might do so from the inside.

"Ahh! but then I want to see it all—it is so exciting to see Mr. B. working into that divine body of yours."

She laughed heartily at my remark, and said I was a lewd lascivious young rascal—adding:

"But are you not jealous to see another in possession of me?"

I admitted that that was my first impression, but on thinking over it, I had become convinced I should like her and enjoy her all the more lasciviously if I were a witness to their love contests, but I must be able to see them.

"Well! can you not bore a couple of holes an inch and a half apart, below the middle panel and cut a narrow slit from hole to hole? I will take care to place myself in a proper position, and do my best to gratify your premature lubricity. My darling boy, you progress wonderfully, and make me proud of my pupil."

Seeing she took it thus kindly, I said—

"Do tell me, my beloved mistress, how often he has fucked you to-day?"

"Will it please you really, my dear Charlie, to know that?"

"Oh! yes, so much."

"Well, then, six times in the morning, and four before dinner. He was bursting with desire, and could not hold. He spent twice before giving me time to come once, but then you know, my dear Charlie, how actively you had been employing your time all the previous night, you sad rogue that you are."

"Did you enjoy it much, my dear Mrs. B.?"

"Why, if I must tell you, you little curiosity box, I did; you know how powerfully my husband is hung, and loving him as I do, it is impossible to undergo his powerful and lascivious embraces without feeling all one's libidinous passions stirred up within me, but even while in his possession, my dear boy, I thought of your young charms, and the fierce delights we had enjoyed together last night. My husband little imagined it was of you, not him, that I was thinking and stimulating myself to wild upheavings of voluptuous movements, while he was revelling in all the lubricity of his own passions, and fucking me to my heart's content."

"Oh! how delicious! my angelic mistress," I cried, "the pleasure of your vivid description almost makes me faint with desire—oh! that I could possess you at once."

"You must not think of that, my dear darling boy. We must manage it to-morrow; I shall go into the house at once, and occupy your mother's attention, do you get a gimlet and chisel, slip up at once to my bedroom, and prepare a peep-hole for to-morrow; be careful to put it low down, below the projection of the middle panel of the door in which the lock is placed, and take care to remove the pieces of wood you take out. I shall put the key inside of the door. Your sisters always take two hours at the piano after your midday meal, our luncheon is served at the same time. Mr. B. is sure to require my attendance in my room after that, but I shall detain him by some excuse till I observe that you have disappeared, and after giving you sufficient time, we shall follow, and you shall have the extraordinary satisfaction you require; but above all remember—not a movement to betray yourself until my husband leaves and I have locked the door behind him." So saying, she pressed her lovely hand on my stiffly excited member, rose and joined mamma. I lost no time in following her advice, and happily executed all I wanted, and returned unconcernedly to the drawing-room, without my absence having occasioned any remark Next day I got safely to my hiding-room, and had comfortably stowed myself away in such a position that the opening I had made was on a level with my eyes, before they arrived. She, dear creature, anticipating my vista, had merely slipped on a dress, without a corset, and told her husband that he was so insatiate that she was obliged to be ready at a moment's notice to satisfy his inordinate passion, so she had only to take off her gown to be at her ease. "Most admirable, my darling wife, but drop off every thing, and let me contemplate, at my ease, all the beauties of your exquisite body."

No sooner said than done, and my lovely mistress stood in all the glory of her magnificent and beautiful naked form. He kissed and fondled her from head to foot, laid her on the bed and gamahuched her till she squealed again with pleasure. Then pulling out his magnificent prick, he plunged it into her delicious cunt at a single bound, evidently giving her the most exquisite delight, as was evidenced by the instantaneous clasping of him with her arms and legs, and the rapid wriggling of her backside. They soon ran a first course, but Mr. B. remained engulphed in the closely fitting sheath of his salacious wife. She evidently exerted herself more than usual, both for her own pleasure as well as to give satisfaction to me, for once when she turned her head in my direction I caught her eyes, and she smiled, giving a still more vigorous heave than usual, and showing me all her cunt at full stretch with the noble prick in it. I was ready to burst. At last their bout was over for the present; Mr. B. withdrew his prick, all slimy from its sheath, pendant, but still full of size.

Most extraordinary! I would have given a good deal to have dared to rush out, put it in my mouth and suck it dry, I can hardly describe how strongly this desire took possession of me. It was the first promptings of a passion I have since often indulged in, where I have met with companions with whom I could join in orgies of both sexes. Mrs. B. professed to be dead beaten by the constant and frequent renewals of these interviews in addition to night work and lay perfectly still, while he performed his ablutions and readjusted, his habiliments.

"Fasten the door after me." said he, as he ardently pressed her form in his arms and kissed her. She had continued stretched on the bed, exactly facing me, with legs widely extended, so as to show me the whole of her lovely cunt, which I could see still panted under its late excitement. My charming mistress told me it was palpitating not for what had passed, but for what it was waiting for. She rose at last and closed the door, turning the key upon her husband. She then approached the bidet to purify herself, but I bounded from the closet, seized her in my arms, dashed her back on the bed and immediately glued my lips to her glowing and foaming cunt, with all the froth and spending of her husband oozing out. I greedily devoured it, and raised her to such a frenzy of lewdness that she dragged me up and cried, frantically—

"For God's sake fuck me—fuck me!"

Of course my cock was bursting to do so; with one shove he was sheathed to the cods; my loved mistress spent with that alone, so highly was she excited, not only by the preparations, but as she herself acknowledged to me, by the idea of the instantaneous infidelity to her husband, at the moment after he had just fucked her—such is the wild imagination of women when they give way to every libidinous thought. It would have been exactly the same if some equally fortunate lover had been awaiting my retiring from the field. The idea of success in deception is a passion with them, and they would almost sacrifice any thing to obtain it. Before I could arrive at the grand crisis, she was again ready, and we died away in an agony of blissful lubricity—she held me, as usual, so tight that I never thought of withdrawing from the folds of her delicious cunt, but lay still enjoying the never ceasing compressions of its velvety folds, which sometimes really had almost the force of a vice. I was rapidly ready for a second bout, which, like the first, ended in extatic joys, beyond the power of description. My charming mistress thought I ought now to desist, but pleading my forty hours' fast (for, of course, she knew nothing of my fucking Mary), I begged her to allow me to run one more course.

"Then, my darling Charlie, you must let me turn on my side, for I am so heated with your weight and my husband's that I must have some relief, but there is no occasion for you to withdraw, leave me to manage it."

With an art quite her own, she accomplished her object, her splendid buttocks' pressing before my eyes against my belly fired me immediately. My cock swelled and stood firm as ever. Then passing an arm round her body, I used my fingers on her excited and stiffly projecting clitoris. We had a much longer and more voluptuous fuck than before; nothing could exceed the delicious movements of my divine mistress; she twisted her body so, that I could suck one of her bubbies, while I fucked and frigged her; she spent with such a scream of delight that I am sure she must have been heard in the house, had it not been for the inner baize door to the room. She continued throbbing so deliciously on my prick that I began to flatter myself I should obtain a fourth favour, but she suddenly bolted out of my arms and out of bed. Turning round, and taking my whole prick into her mouth, and giving it a voluptuous suck, she said—

"No, my loved boy, we must be prudent if we mean to have a repetition of these most exquisite interviews. You have given me most extatic pleasure, and by moderation, and running no risk in too long indulgence of our passions, we may safely manage to enjoy similar interviews every day. Get into the dressing-room, remain there until I leave my room and pass your door. After I have seen that no one is near, I will cough twice, wait a minute longer, then quietly leave and descend by the back stairs."

All was happily effected, and for the week longer they remained with us, I found means to repeat the charming lesson every day, without raising suspicion in any one's mind.

At last this admirable woman departed. It was with difficulty I could bear the scene, but I gulphed down my feelings as best I could. She had become a universal favourite, and all regretted her leaving, so that my distress was not noticed in the general regret. It was more than two years before fortune favoured me in again meeting with this charming woman. And then we saw very much of each other, both alone and with other congenial spirits, of which, perhaps, I may hereafter write a detail; but at present I have got events to relate that followed fast on her departure.

I have said that Miss Evelyn had been gradually growing more familiar in her manner of partially caressing me. She drew me closer to her, almost invariably placing her arm round my waist, frequently kissing and pressing me against her firm and well-formed bosom. This had frequently an evident effect on my lower person, even while I was kept less excitable by the constant relief my passions were obtaining in the arms of my adored Mrs. B. Now I no longer had that vent, for the little relief I could get at rare intervals from my sister Mary was as nothing, after the constant exercise I had been provided with for a whole month. Ever since I had practised that little deception on Miss Evelyn by attributing to her embraces the evident distraction I was in on the day of Mr. Benson's return, she had increased her pressures of my person, and could not but feel my stiff prick throbbing against her thigh, while she closely pressed my body against it with her arm. I often noted the increased sparkle of her eyes and changes of colour on her face when she kissed me, and I put up my hand and caressed her cheek. At times she would push me suddenly away, and beg me to resume my seat; frequently she would quit the room in an agitated manner, till this led me to suppose that an internal conflict was going on, and that passion urged one course, reason another. Remembering the sage advice given to me by my loved and beautiful mistress, Mrs. B., I resolved to play the part of an innocent ignoramus, and let her own passions develope and produce the result I so longed for. I doubt if I could have held out but for the relief I found in dear Mary's embraces, who, each time we could manage to meet, became more and more attractive, and more capable of giving and receiving pleasure. We had some difficulty in keeping Eliza blind to our doings. At last Mary agreed to initiate her into gamahuching, and to tell her I did so to her when we shut ourselves up together, and that if she would keep the secret, I would do the same to her; but that it was necessary that one should keep watch while the other amused herself with me, for fear Miss Evelyn should chance to come. Mary proceeded to gamahuche her, which delighted Eliza beyond measure; indeed, although a year and a half younger, she speedily showed a developement of passion superior to Mary. At first I only gamahuched her, letting her play with my prick as I did so, but not attempting to instruct her in the art of insertion into her charming little quim, which already showed symptoms of a hairy growth on her well-formed and very prominent mount. When I had done enough in this way, Mary, who had previously been fucked by me, returned, and Eliza took up the watch, while I appeased in Mary's deliciously tight cunt the thirst that gamahuching Eliza had raised.

It was thus I could more coolly await the gradual approximation that Miss Evelyn's evident passion for me was bringing about. That she struggled against it was evident, but passion was gaining the advantage, as was shown by her nervous tremblings and sudden clutches, drawing me up to her parched lips, and sometimes pushing me away with a shudder that shook her frame and paled her lovely cheeks. I fancied that nature had been too much for her on these occasions, and that in reality the sudden clutching was the approach of love's crisis, and that when she shuddered, and suddenly repulsed me, she was discharging. It was evident this could not continue. At last the happy day for which I so longed arrived. Mamma was going to go to the town, and taking my two sisters with her, to get something or other for them. She invited Miss Evelyn to accompany her, but the latter declined, on the excuse of an alleged headache. In truth, the violent nature of the conflict going on between her passions and her prudence had visibly affected her health; she had become pale and anxious-looking, and my mother was somewhat uneasy about her. She told her not to occupy herself too much with my lessons that day, and only give me work for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon, and begged her to take a quiet stroll in the garden, and rest as much as possible.

On leaving us, she cautioned me to be as gentle and obedient as possible, as Miss Evelyn was poorly and out of spirits. Mamma and the girls departed. Miss Evelyn, almost as pale as death, and quite visibly trembling, falteringly begged me to go to our school-room and study the lesson she had given me the previous evening, saying she would join me shortly. I went, but no lesson could I do that day. The evident agitation and apparent illness of Miss Evelyn distressed if not alarmed me; I was still too inexperienced in her mind. It was a phase of woman's nature which I had as yet no knowledge of. I had merely a vague kind of idea that it all tended to the ultimate gratification of my libidinous hopes, and I only held off to a certain extent in obedience to the counsel my loved Mrs. Benson had so wisely impressed upon me, and was waiting in lively, hopes of the result I so ardently wished for.

At last Miss Evelyn joined me, her eyes were swollen and red as if she had been weeping; my own filled with tears when I saw her, and I approached, hesitatingly, and said—

"Oh, my dear governess, I am so grieved to see you look so poorly. Oh, do nothing to-day, and I promise to work twice as hard to-morrow."

At the moment I really felt quite distressed at the sad expression of her features. For an instant she smiled languidly, then, by some compulsion of feeling, she seized me in both arms and drawing me to her bosom, covered me with kisses; her eyes became almost perfectly brilliant.

"Oh, you dear, dear, darling boy, I love you beyond expression. Kiss, oh, kiss me! my darling! and comfort me, because I love you all too well."

Then, again, there was a change, she seemed to fear she had said too much, and turned away her head and tears started to her eyes, but her arms did not relax the embrace in which she held me. I was deeply moved at her evident agitation. I thought she was really ill, and suffering greatly; so I threw my arms round her neck, kissing her tenderly, and weeping myself, tried to comfort her in my inexperienced way, sobbing out—

"Oh, dear, dear Miss Evelyn, do be comforted, I so dearly love you that it makes my heart bleed to see you so unhappy. Oh, let me see you smile, and do try not to cry so. Why are you so unhappy and low spirited? Oh, that I could do anything to make you happy?" And redoubling my endearments, she again turned her lovely face to me. Again there was the unnatural fire in her eyes, and a hectic glow flushed her cheek.

"You darling angel of a boy; it is you that makes me so unhappy."

I started back in surprise.

"I make you unhappy! Oh! Miss Evelyn, how can that be, when I adore the very ground you stand on, and love (sobbing)—love (sob)—love you more than anything in the world."

She seized my head in her two lands, glued her lips to mine, gave me a long, long kiss of love; then, pressing me to her bosom—

"Oh, say that again, my loved, my darling boy; it is the love I feel for you that is breaking my heart, but I can resist it no longer. Will my Charlie love his Evelyn always as he does now?"

"Oh, how could I do otherwise? I have worshipped you from the first moment of your arrival, and have had no other idea. What can I do to prove it—try, oh, try me. I have never breathed a syllable of my love for you, even to yourself, let alone other people."

Her eyes, sparkling with passion, were searching the depths of mine, as if to fathom my thoughts. I, too, began to feel my amorous passions excited by her warm embraces and kisses. She held me tight to her body, and could not help feeling the hard substance that jutted out against her.

"I believe you, my Charlie, and will trust you with my life—with more, with my honour! I can no longer resist my fate. But, oh! Charlie, love me always, for I run a fearful risk in loving you as I do."

She again drew me to her lips, my hands clasped her neck in a close embrace. Her hands wandered—pressed upon my throbbing prick. With trembling and hasty fingers she unbuttoned, or rather tore open, my trousers, and her soft fingers clasped my naked instrument.

"Oh, I shall die, dear Miss Evelyn; what must I do to make you happy?"

My apparent ignorance could not but please her. She sank back on the long low chair on which she was seated, apparently accidentally drawing up her petticoats with her hand in falling back. I threw myself on my knees, and pushing her petticoats further up disclosed the rich, dark, curly beauty of her mount. She covered her burning face with her hand, while, pressing my head forward, I began pressing her beauteous cunt, sucking it without daring to lick her clitoris. She tried to push me away—"No! no! I must not."

But I suppose my proceedings fired her passions still more, for she was quite moist and juicy, and I have no doubt had already had one discharge while embracing me so warmly. She suddenly said—

"Come then, my loved boy, and I will be all in all to you."

Drawing me up—nothing loath—I was soon extended on her belly, with my stiff-standing cock pressing against her cunt. I had still the prudence not to show any knowledge of the act. I sighed deeply—

"Oh! my loved Miss Evelyn, do help me, I know not what to do."

Her hand glided down between us, she guided my glowing instrument between the longing lips of her delicious cunt. I pushed, and buried the head and two inches of its body at the first thrust. The second brought it against an unexpected obstacle, for it never had struck me that Miss Evelyn was a virgin. I pushed hard at it.

"Oh, Charlie, love, be gentle, you are hurting me very much."

Knowing that the best way would be to excite her by short shoves, without at first trying to go further, I did so, and she began to feel all the raging desires that so formidable a prick as mine must excite, when moving between the soft velvety folds of her tight and juicy quim. I held myself in, and continued my proceedings until the convulsive movements of her loins, and the increased pressure of the folds of her cunt, showed me that the crisis was approaching, and she was about to spend. She hugged me close in her arms, and at the moment of spending involuntarily heaved up her bottom. This was the very moment I was with difficulty waiting for. I retired a little and plunged forward with irresistible force. I burst my way through every barrier, up to the very roots of my prick. The attack was as painful as unexpected. Miss Evelyn gave a shriek of agony and swooned away. I at once improved the opportunity, and thrusting in and out with the utmost vigour, broke down every obstacle, and enlarged the opening by side movements as much as possible, while she was insensible to the pain. I then died away myself in an agony of delight. I lay soaking within the delicious sheath until her convulsive shudders and short sobs showed that my now fully deflowered mistress was recovering her senses. The thought of the unexpected victory I had won had already begun to make my cock stand again, although it was still comparatively soft. I could feel an involuntary pressure on it, as she came to a full consciousness of our position. She threw her arms round my neck, gave me a most impassioned kiss, and then sobbed and cried as if her heart would break.

It is a curious idiosyncracy of my nature to be most libidinously excited by a woman's tears, and although I really suffered to see her in such grief, it stiffened my prick to its utmost dimensions. I tried to comfort her with words, but she sobbed, sobbed on. I suddenly thought that a renewal of action might bring about a revulsion of feeling, and began vigorous movements. She sighed deeply, but I could tell by the nervous twitchings of her loins that her passions were being excited. They soon decided the contest. She threw her arms round my waist, and pressed me to her, devouring my mouth with her kisses. Nature prompted her movements, and in a very few minutes we both poured down a plenteous offering on Venus's altar. She shook and trembled as she felt the warm gush within her, and squeezed me with all her might to her bosom. We lay in a trance for some ten minutes, my charming governess fainting with love, and giving my delighted prick the most luscious pressure, which speedily fired him to new efforts. Miss Evelyn herself was most amorously excited, and we again dashed on love's delicious path—to end, as usual, in the death-like swoon of satiated passion. When we came to our senses, my loved mistress, embracing me tenderly, and throwing her eyes up to heaven, said—

"Oh, my dear darling boy, you made me suffer horribly at first, but I have been in heaven since. Oh, how I love and adore you. But we must rise, my Charlie, we may be discovered. We have, in fact, run great risk, as the door has not been fastened."

I rose, and withdrew my prick from her reeking quim, which seemed by its close pressure to let me go with regret. I found it was all bloody.

"Stop, Charles, let me wipe it with my handkerchief, lest it stain your shirt."

She did so, and folding it up and placing it in her bosom, said—

"I shall keep this precious relic as a memorial of the sacrifice I have made to you, my loved boy. Ah! Charlie, you cannot yet understand the value of that sacrifice and the risk of ruin I have run for your sake. I love you as I never loved anyone before, or can ever love again. My honour and happiness are now in your hands, and it is on your discretion they rest. Be careful never to exhibit any liberty of conduct towards me or to mention to anyone what has occurred."

It may readily be imagined I gave her every assurance on that head, and told her I loved her too dearly, and was too grateful for the extatic happiness she had taught me how to enjoy, for any chance of betrayal to take place through my indiscretion. She embraced me tenderly, told me to go straight to the garden, that she must seek some repose after all that had happened, and we should meet again at midday meal.

I did as desired, full of sweet thoughts at the exquisite delights she had afforded me, and already longing for the afternoon school hour to renew the enrapturing union of our souls and bodies. Miss Evelyn did not come down to her luncheon, but had something sent up to her room. However, she joined me in the school-room at two o'clock, as usual. She was very pale, but embraced me tenderly, and was very endearing. Of course, I immediately became excited, and very enterprising, but she gently repulsed me, and requested that I would leave her quiet that day, as she felt not only exhausted, but in pain, and would be all the better for perfect repose. I begged hard to be allowed some slight favours, if not all, but she was inexorable. Finding that I could neither do any lessons nor be quiet, she said—

"Then we must go into the garden, I think the fresh air and a gentle walk will do me good."

It instantly occurred to me that if I could draw her away to the summer house, I should have a better chance of succeeding in again enjoying her delicious embraces. Accordingly, when she went up to her room to put on her bonnet and shawl, I possessed myself of the key, to be prepared for my chance of success.

We walked about the flower garden for a time, Miss Evelyn taking my arm, and most lovingly conversing with me. She walked somewhat stiffly. We sat down for a rest, shortly she felt the heat of the sun too great, so I proposed a walk in the shaded shrubbery. I kept prattling on, so as not to let her see how far I was leading her away, she appeared surprised that we had got so far, when we came in sight of the summer house.

"Oh! Charlie, my dear, I am afraid it will fatigue me too much to walk all the way back without rest and we have not the key."

"Sometimes it is left in the door, I will run and see." Off I bounded, slipped the key in the lock, and ran back to say it was there, she followed me in, and sank on the long backless sofa, which had already served me so often. I begged her to extend herself at length. I placed pillows for her head, and drew a chair for myself near her. She did not appear to have any suspicion of any act on my part, but lay down on her side. She took my hand in hers, and we began a conversation, very interesting, in as much as it was how we should regulate our conduct, so as not to raise any suspicion of our amorous connection, and also of how we should manage to meet from time to time.

"You, dear boy," she said, "I cannot now live without the comfort of your embraces, but you must remember, in my dependent position, discovery would be my ruin. I rely on your silence and discretion, and if I am as dear to you as you, my adored Charlie, are to me, I may safely trust to you." I threw my arms round her neck, and told her I loved her all too dearly, and longed too much to return to her endearing and delicious embraces, for her to have any fear of my committing either her or myself. She fondly embraced and kissed me. I became fired with passion. My hand wandered, her position only enabled her to make a feeble resistance, I reached her beauteously covered mount, she murmured supplications to be left alone, and held her thighs close together.

She was not aware of my knowledge of the parts, so inserting my finger into the upper part of the lips, I reached her clitoris, and began rubbing in and out, purposely, in an awkward way, but taking care to hit the right point.

"Charlie, my Charlie, you must not do that—I—I cannot bear it."

At the same time she threw her arm round my neck and drew me to her lips, which glued themselves to mine. I felt her thighs yield and open. I immediately improved the occasion, and began frigging her with my middle finger up her quim. Her passions became inflamed.

"Come then, my darling boy, to my arms, I cannot resist you longer."

In an instant I was unbuttoned and had my trousers down, and was between her legs almost before she had concluded her sentence. The excitement of my caresses had moistened her juicy cunt, and the head of my prick entered without any difficulty. In my ardour I was about to rush on with a vigorous shove, when she implored me to be more gentle, as she still smarted from our morning encounter. Moderating my movements, and gently insinuating my stiff instrument, I gradually made my way up to its utmost limits, and hardly occasioned even a grimace of pain. Here I stopped, leaving it sheathed up to the root, and making it throb from instant to instant. Then seeking my loved Miss Evelyn's mouth, our lips and tongues met. Her arms round my waist became tighter in their embrace. The delicious folds of her luscious juicy quim began to throb and press on my excited member. Allowing her to become thoroughly excited, I waited until she actually quite unexpectedly yielded down her nature, and spent profusely, to the exquisite pleasure of my saturated organ. I still held all off, to give her time after the delight of that spend, which was probably the first of unalloyed extatic pleasure she enjoyed; for as I was an inactive participator, there was nothing to cause any action on the still raw edges of her broken maidenhead. Her internal pressures were most exquisite. Our embraces with tongues and lips were like the billing and cooing of doves, and very rapidly brought her again to a raging point of desire. I then began with slow and gentle movements, drawing my prick slowly nearly all the way out, and then as slowly driving it up to the hilt. Her previous very copious discharge had so oiled the delicious folds of her cunt, that no pain was felt, only the intense pleasure. At last it became overpowering; her arms were thrown round my waist, and her legs were involuntary cast over my hips. Nature prompted her to the most delicious movements of her bottom; she met my forward thrusts, and responded to them in the most libidinous manner.

"Go on, go on, dear Charlie—faster!—faster!"

I wanted no spur. Fast and furious grew our movements, until at last, with a mutual cry of delight, we sank in each other's arms in the blissful extasy of the most complete enjoyment. It was several minutes before we regained our senses, and both our organs of generation were pulsating, the one within the other, in all the luxury of satiated passion. With her beauteous legs still thrown over mine, she moved her arms to my neck, kissed me voluptuously, and mingled the sweetest accents of gratification with the most endearing caresses and flatteries. I lay, as it were, in the paphian bower of bliss, in a state of exquisite sensations quite impossible to describe. It seemed even a greater pleasure than the more active state of delight we had been to. I could have lain so for hours, but for that excitable prick of mine, whose sensibilities were far too rapidly set in motion by the luscious pressures of that most delightful cunt in which it lay engulphed. It had gradually resumed its pristine firmness, and was now at full stand, throbbing impatiently for further combats. I began to move. Miss Evelyn said—

"Oh, my Charlie, you must cease, my dear boy; we must not only be prudent, but consider your youth and health. Do, oh! do! my dear boy. Oh!—pray cease."

Her words were cut short by the increasing passion that the vigorous movements of my prick occasioned to her whole system. She could resist no longer, but with arms and legs closely embracing me, and devouring me with kisses, she threw herself into the fight, and with body and soul so seconded me that we died away in screams of delight, and sank quite insensible in each other's arms.

It was many minutes before we recovered speech. I still lay entirely embedded in her most exquisite cunt, and would have liked to have continued in her delicious embrace. But Miss Evelyn so imploringly beseeched me to cease for this time, and pointed out how necessary prudency was, if we ever wished to meet again, that I felt compelled to raise myself from her body. But, in doing so, I slid off downwards, and before she could prevent me, I glued my lips to the open pouters below me, and greedily devoured all her delicious discharge, and did not desist until I had so licked her clitoris as to make her spend most copiously again. At first she had tried to resist, saying—

"Charlie, what on earth are you at? You must not, my dear boy, it is dreadful."

But, as I roused her passions, her hand, instead of trying to draw away my head, held it firm and pushed it well against her throbbing and delicious quim, her thighs closed against the sides of my head, and she almost swooned away with the extasy of her discharge. I greedily swallowed it and rising completely, took her in my arms, and placing her on her bottom, sweetly kissed her.

"Oh, what a charming creature you are, my beloved Miss Evelyn, I adore you from the sole of your feet to the crown of your bead."

"But you, my beloved Charlie, have more than justified my imprudence. You have given me a joy which I could never have dreamt of. I am yours, body and soul; do with me as you like. I, too, adore the very ground you tread on."

We continued exchanging the sweetest vows of affection, until, seeing my prick rising to its usual stiffness, she said—

"Oh, my darling, you must put this away; it would be most imprudent to continue any longer. Now, let me button it up."

First stooping and kissing it, she put it into my trousers with some difficulty, buttoned me up, and we strolled towards the house.

Our conversation turned on our chance of fresh encounters. She begged I would not think of attempting anything of the kind next day, and she would try and arrange for the day after, although my sisters were terribly in the way.

I suggested she should keep me in as when she flogged me, nay, indeed, she should flog me in reality if she liked.

She laughed at my idea, but said something might be done in that way as a blind. So I said—

"I will neglect my lesson on purpose to furnish an excuse."

"We shall see—we shall see. Meanwhile, remember to be very prudent."

We reached the house; she retired to her room until mamma returned. Very kind inquiries were made, she said she had suffered severely from headache, but, on the whole, felt better and hoped that a good night's rest would put her all to rights. We all retired early, both mamma and the girls were tired with their drive and shopping. I had resumed my bed in the little dressing-room, and went to sleep with thoughts of my delicious day's doings, to dream of re-enacting them with every amorous excess that the utmost lubricity could suggest.

The next day Miss Evelyn began to resume her former looks—the struggle was at an end. She was very gentle in her manner, and seemed even more affectionate than usual to my sisters, who, fancying she was not very well, were attentive, rather trying to anticipate her wishes than following them.

There was rather a greater appearance of reserve than previously in her manner to me, but when I went up to her to repeat my lessons, there was a warmer clasping of my waist and a suppressed manner that showed she was restraining her desire to press me to her bosom. Her face slightly flushed, and she turned her beautiful eyes upon me with such an endearing expression of affection that I could have thrown myself into her arms but for the check upon my ardour which her own reserve imposed upon me.

Nothing more took place between us that day. At our usual hour of recreation, from four till five, Miss Evelyn retired to her room to repose after the efforts of restraint that she had put upon herself all day, and left us to ourselves. I need not say an immediate resort to the summer house followed. There, first deliciously fucking Mary, and then gamahuching Eliza, with the addition of gently introducing, at the same time, a finger a short distance up her quim, I finished off with another voluptuous fuck with Mary. I thus was enabled to bear the bridle Miss Evelyn put upon the indulgence of my appetite in her person, and was apparently more reasonable than in reality. She again, on the second day, failed to give me the opportunity I so longed for. Thinking she might hesitate, from fear of discovery, and the fact of having no apparently reasonable excuse of being alone with me, I determined to play the idler next day in the afternoon. On being called up, I had done nothing. Miss Evelyn looked grave, but blushed deeply at the same time.

"What do you mean, Charlie, by this idleness? Go, do your lesson, or I shall be obliged to punish you."

She took me by the arm, and gently pressed it as she told me to resume my seat. At four o'clock, of course, my lesson was as far as before from being done.

"Mary and Eliza, you can go into the garden. Charles will remain until he finishes his lesson, or is punished for his idleness."

They left and Miss Evelyn locked the door after them. Then we flew into each other's arms, and indulged in the most endearing caresses for a very few seconds. I had been in a state of most violent erection for some time, so that my hand was up her petticoats immediately. I gently pushed her back on her low long easy chair, and kneeling in front, first thrust my head between her thighs, and taking a glance at her beautifully haired cunt, already all moist and juicy, showing that she was as ready as myself, I gamahuched her until she spent in my mouth, and sucked the delicious liquid most greedily. There was something peculiarly sweet in her spend, and my tongue sought the innermost lining of her delicious quim as far as its limited length would admit, that I might not lose a drop of her exquisite nectar, worthy of the gods. The excitement I occasioned her was almost too much for her to bear, she drew me up, saying—

"Oh! Charlie, my angel of a boy, come, oh, come to my arms." I raised myself up, threw myself into her arms, and in a moment I was engulphed up to the cods in her exquisite and throbbing cunt; she closed upon me with arms and legs, we were both too violently excited to pause for any of the more voluptuous movements of less violent desires, but rushed on in passion's wildest extasy, both far too eager to think of any restraint, and with the utmost vigour on both our parts, we ran our first course with great rapidity. My adored Miss Evelyn had quite got over every feeling of pain, and could not but be delighted with the heat and vigour of my attack. We both died away together, at the extatic moment pouring down a mutual flood of spunk to cool the inflamed members that had the instant before been in such tumultuous action. Darling Miss Evelyn hugged me close to her bosom, and threw her beautiful eyes, screaming with passion, up to the ceiling, as if to thank heaven for the joys she had felt. Our lips then met and glued themselves together in one long, long kiss of love, which quickly lighted up our lust; she was as eager as myself, and we had another vigorous encounter, ending in all the agonies of delight, as before. Then after a longer interval of the most endearing caresses and fond accents of murmured love, we ran our third course, with more abandon—lengthening out our exquisite sensations, by slower and quicker movements and pauses between—in which my beautiful governess began to develope an art in which she shortly became even superior to the more experienced Mrs. Benson, who had so charmingly initiated me into love's mysteries.

There was a peculiar charming and endearing softness in the manner of Miss Evelyn most winning and most exquisitely attractive. It was evidenced even in her mode of handling my prick; without grasping it, her hand appeared to pass over it hardly touching it, but in so exciting a manner that after any number of encounters, she could raise it by her fairy touch in a moment. Our third encounter lasted quite half an hour, and we sank in the death-like luxury of discharge, our whole souls seemed to exude with the exquisite distillation of our seed. We had long before regained our senses. I was still engulphed in her delicious cunt, but she begged me to relieve her of my weight. We rose, she shook her petticoats down, and assisted me to arrange my trousers. I then sat down and took her on my knee. Our lips met in a mutual warm kiss of gratified passion. She thanked me for the joys of paradise I had given her—and for my discretion in procuring an excuse for our meeting. She acknowledged that she had been as impatient as myself, but was obliged to take every precaution against raising the slightest suspicion in the house.

"You must always remember, my darling boy, that for me discovery would be my ruin for ever. I risk every thing to possess you, my beloved boy, I would care little for discovery, if it would not also separate us for ever. That idea, my adored Charlie, is insupportable, I can no longer exist without you." Here she threw her arms round my neck, and burst into tears.

I have already described the effect of tears on my unruly member, which, while I was consoling and vowing eternal attachment to my loved mistress, burst from its bonds and stood out in all its glory. I took her soft and beautiful little hand, and laid it on it. She grasped it tightly, and looking at it, while smiling through her tears, said—

"My Charlie, what a great big thing it is. I wonder how it could ever get into me, without killing me."

"You shall soon see that," said I, and changing places, I laid her down, lifted her petticoats and was into her in a moment. She begged me to proceed slowly, and to lengthen out our pleasures as much as possible. We had a most glorious and truly delicious fuck; my lovely and charming mistress giving me most extatic pleasure by the exquisite pressures of the internal folds of her delicious and lascivious cunt.

We lay enraptured for long after we had spent, and then resumed our sitting position, and arranged every thing in order, as the time for the return of my sisters from their hour of recreation was close at hand.

Our conversation naturally turned upon how we should arrange for our next meeting. Miss Evelyn insisted that we must not think of meeting more than once in three or four days, as otherwise we might raise suspicions fatal to our meeting at all. However reasonable this was, I raised an outcry against such a tantalizing delay, and begged hard for a shorter period between our intervals.

"It cannot be my darling boy, remember discovery would separate us for ever. By prudence, we may long continue these delicious meetings." I suddenly suggested that as I slept alone in the little room, which, when the spare room was unoccupied, was far away from every one, she might steal along at night, when all were asleep, and thus I could enjoy the whole of her exquisite charms, without hindrance. She did not reply, but I could see her eye sparkled, and her cheek flushed as if already in imagination she was revelling untrammelled in all the luxury of voluptuousness such a plan opened out. However, she did not at once accept, but kissing me fondly, called me her dear and ingenious boy, and said she would think over my suggestion. We resumed our lessons on my sisters' return. Miss Evelyn was again four days before she gave me another opportunity of an amorous meeting. It was only my purposed insubordination that obtained me this interview. We again indulged in all the luxuries of carnal enjoyment, as far as could be done, incommoded as we both were by dress and locality. Reverting more strongly than ever to my plan of meeting in my lonely room, I begged so hard that at last she promised to come the night of the following day. I was obliged to put up with this, although I would fain have had her come that very night, but as her passions were evidently gaining stronger possession of her, and she was becoming more loving, and more voluptuous than ever, I felt certain she would not disappoint me on the next night. The delicious idea of revelling in charms I had so often furtively gazed on, kept me away from my sisters next day. Under a plea of headache I went early to bed, and took up some oil, to oil the hinges and lock of the door, to be prepared for my loved mistress. I lay long awake, and was almost in despair of her coming, when I heard the clock strike twelve. All at once I became aware she was at my bedside. She had entered the room with so gentle a step that though on the watch for her, I did not hear her even when she opened the door, shut, and locked it. She had come in her dark-grey cloak, and when at my bedside this was dropped on the floor, she stood in nothing but a very fine and thin chemise. She flung herself in my arms, as I rose to embrace her, and we instantly sank closely clasped in each other's arms. I was far too sharply set to practise any preliminaries. I turned her on her back, and was into her in a moment, with one vigorous thrust, which almost took away her breath, and gave her intense delight. I was too quick for her, however, as I spent in two or three shoves into that delight-giving cunt. But as this hardly allayed the fires of my too ardent desires, the convulsive internal movements of her unsatisfied orbit quickly restored my scarcely reduced member to a renewed vigour. Miss Evelyn being greatly excited by the unsatisfying nature of my first bout, was extremely warm, and throwing her arms and legs around my body, we again rushed headlong into all the fury of fucking, and as my previous spendings had somewhat reduced the power of immediate discharge, I was able to suit my movements exactly to those of my most active companion, and we sank together in all the voluptuousness of satisfied desires, lying long locked in each other's arms, before we were again in a state to renew our combats in love's delicious domain. We spent the interval in whispered vows and fond endearments and embracings of each other's naked charms, both of us admiringly passing our hands over every part of our bodies.

Miss Evelyn at last concentrated all her attention on my well-developed member, which she most endearingly embraced and fondled tenderly, very quickly putting him into an ungovernable state of erection. I was lying on my back, and she partially raised herself to kiss my formidable weapon; so gently putting her upon me, I told her it was her turn to do the work. She laughed, but at once mounted upon me, and bringing her delicious cunt right over my prick, and guiding it to the entrance of love's grotto, she gently sank down upon it and engulphed it until the two hairs pressed against each other. A few slow up and down movements followed, when becoming too libidinous for such temporizing delays, she sank on my belly, and began to show most wonderful activity of loins and bottom. I seconded her to the utmost, and finding she was so excited, I slipped my hand round behind and introduced my middle finger in the rosy and very tight orifice of her glorious backside. I continued to move in and out in unison with her up and down heavings. It seemed to spur her on to more vigorous actions, and in the midst of short gaspings and suppressed sighs, she sank almost senseless on my bosom, I, too, had quickened my action, and shot into her gaping womb a torrent of boiling sperm.

We lay entranced in the raptures of satiated desire for a long time. At last she came to her senses, and fondly kissing me, turned off, and we lay side by side closely embraced.

"Oh! my beloved Charlie, what exquisite delight you have given me; you are the most delicious and loving creature that ever could be created. You kill me with pleasure, but what was that you were doing to my bottom? What put such an idea into your head?"

"I don't know," I replied. "I put my arm round to feel the beautiful globes of your bottom, and found in grasping one that my finger was against a hole, all wet with our previous encounters, and pressing it, found that my finger slipped in; you gave it such a delicious pressure when in that the idea entered into my head that, as it resembled the delicious pressure your enchanting other orifice gives my shaft when embracing you, this orifice would like a similar movement to that which my shaft exercised in your quim. So I did so, and it seemed to add to your excitement, if I may judge by the extraordinary convulsive pressures you gave my finger when you died away in all the agony of our final rapture. Tell me, my beloved Miss Evelyn, did it add to your pleasure as much as I fancied?"

"Well, my darling Charlie, I must own it did, very much to my surprise; it seemed to make the final pleasure almost too exciting to bear, and I can only account it a happy accident leading to an increase to pleasure I already thought beyond the power of nature to surpass. Naughty boy, I feel your great instrument at full stretch again, but you must moderate yourself, my darling, we have done enough for to-night No, no, no! I am not going to let him in again."

Passing her hand down, she turned away its head from the charming entrance of her cunt, and began handling and feeling it in apparent admiration of its length, thickness, and stiffness. Her gentle touch did anything but allay the passion that was rising to fever heat; so sucking one of her bubbies, while I pressed her to me with one arm under her, and embracing her on the other side, I passed my hand between our moist and warm bodies, reached her charming clitoris, already stiff with the excitement of handling my prick. My titillations soon decided her passions, and gently prompting her with the arm under her body, I turned her once more on the top of me. She murmured an objection, but offered no resistance; on the contrary, she herself guided my throbbing and eager prick into the voluptuous sheath that was longing to engulph it. Our movements this time were less hurried and more voluptuous. For some time she kept her body upright, rising and falling from her knees. I put my finger to her clitoris, and added to the extatic pleasure she was so salaciously enjoying. She soon found she must come to more rapid and vigorous movements, and lying down on my belly embraced and kissed me. Toying with our tongues I put an arm round her waist, and held her tight, while her glorious buttocks and most supple loins kept up the most delicious thrust and pressures on my thoroughly engulphed weapon. I again stimulated her to the highest pitch of excited desires by introducing my finger behind, and we both came to the grand crisis in a tumultuous state of enraptured agony, unable to do ought, but from moment to moment convulsively throb in and on our engulphed members. We must have lain thus languidly, and deliciously enjoying all the raptures of the most complete and voluptuous gratification of our passions, for fully thirty minutes before we recovered complete consciousness. Miss Evelyn was first to remember where she was. She sprang up, embraced me tenderly, and said she must leave me at once, she was afraid she had already stayed imprudently long. In fact, it was near five o'clock in the morning. I rose from the bed to fling my arms round her lovely body, to fondle and embrace her exquisite bubbies. With difficulty she tore herself from my arms. I accompanied her to the door, and with a mutual and loving kiss we parted. I to return and rapidly sink into the sweetest slumber after such a delicious night of most voluptuous fucking.

She came again three times in the next six nights; each time we renewed our mutual joys, with ever increasing voluptuous indulgencies. On coming to me for the fifth time, she said—

"Dear Charlie, I have only come to kiss you, and say I cannot stop."

"Cannot stop!" I cried, "and why not, beloved Miss Evelyn?"

"I am not well, but cannot explain more."

I had sprung out of bed, and clasped her in my arms, then passing a hand down to her beauteous and well-covered mons Veneris, I found that she was tied up there in cloth. I immediately remembered how my loved Mrs. Benson had been exactly in the same way. I then also remarked the peculiar odour of breath, but pretending ignorance, I begged to know what had happened to my darling little grotto.

"I cannot tell you more, my dear boy, but it will keep me away from you for four or five nights."

"But why should that be the case; cannot you let me enter that delicious cave of delight only once?"

"No, no, impossible! my dear Charlie, absolutely impossible! It would do me very great harm, and you too. Let us be quiet in that way, and I shall be the sooner well again to come and embrace you as before."

"Oh! but darling, how can I support five nights' absence, I shall go mad with desire and burst—feel how he grows, and is longing for his loved companion."

Her soft and gentle hand caressed it. I thought to succeed by a coup de main, but she was too quick for me.

"No, Charles, I am serious, and you must not try to force me, or I shall never come near you again."

I saw she was in earnest, and flung myself on the bed in a pet.

"Come, my darling Charlie, be reasonable, and I will do my best to give you some satisfaction. Lay yourself on your back—so. I will kneel on the floor at right angles to you, because you must not attempt to touch me down there. That is a dear boy."

So taking my prick in her soft hand, she gently moved it up and down; then, suddenly stopping, took it into her mouth, sucking as much as she could get in, and titillating the knob with her tongue, while one hand frigged at the root of my prick and the other gently handled my two crisped-up cods. She prolonged the pleasure by occasional pauses, and at last, on finding the electric-like sensations coming, she hastened her movement, and I poured a torrent of sperm into her mouth. She continued her delicious sucking until not a drop more was left for her to swallow. This was the first time she ever gamahuched me, but it was not the last by scores of times. Ever after we improved upon the model, and added other endearments. When not under her courses, we mutually gamahuched each other, and she was the first to repeat upon me, with the intensest gratification, the delicious introduction of a finger behind while gamahuching me. At present, when she had thus taken the edge off my carnal appetite, she lovingly embraced me, and left me to my lovely slumbers. Of course, the four days' grace, saving two more passing visits "to keep me cool," as she said, turned all to the advantage of my sisters, whom I fucked and frigged to their utmost gratification and delight.

I thus passed about four months. Miss Evelyn becoming a perfect adept in love's delicious mysteries; but, although I had attempted to enjoy the orifice of the lower temple of Venus, my member was too large, and gave too much pain, to completely succeed, so that I became the faithful worshipper at the more legitimate altar of love. My sisters were gradually developing their forms. Mary particularly so. The hair on her quim had increased to a most charming curling profusion. Her hips spread out, and her bottom, hard and prominent, promised to be very large. Eliza, too, began to show increased bubbies, and an enlarged and mossy mons Veneris.

We were approaching summer, and near the full of the moon, Mary had complained of feeling very low spirited, and very much inclined to cry. I tried to comfort her, and thought success would best attend my efforts if I fucked her. So enticing her down into the garden, we entered the summer house, and I at once proceeded to action. She was rather unwilling, she could not say why, but had an instinctive reluctance. She yielded, however, to my entreaties, and I fucked her without apparently exciting her in the usual way. I consequently withdrew as soon as I had run the first course, and at once discovered what ailed poor Mary. My member was covered with blood. For the first time her courses had come upon her. She was greatly alarmed, but I told her I had beard it was quite natural to young women when they reached a certain age, that she had better tell mamma at once, who would instruct her what to do. I carefully wiped my reddened member, and then retired to my room to purify myself. That very night, on Miss Evelyn coming to me, I found she was exactly in the same state. She gave me my usual relief with her soft hand and caressing lips, and then left me for five nights, as at that time.

I now found myself reduced to my dear little sister Eliza. Up to this time I had never actually fucked her, and her maidenhead was still intact. She was now approaching fourteen, and the down on her charming little cunt was becoming more decided; her bubbies too, under the erotic excitement of my attouchements and gamahuching, had assumed a decided prominence. My finger had somewhat rendered the opening of her little pinky slit more easy of access. So I resolved to complete her carnal education and fuck her thoroughly. The opportunity was perfect; both Miss Evelyn and Mary retired to their rooms to lie down at our usual hour's recreation, Eliza and I at once hied to the summer house, and locked ourselves in. I immediately laid her down on the long couch, and gamahuched her until she spent in my mouth, and then continued until she was again almost mad with desire. I then told her I should initiate her into a new mystery, more delicious than any she had yet experienced, but that the first initiation was always painful.

"Oh! what is it, my dear Charlie, everything you do is so nice, I know I shall like it—what is it?"

"Then you must know, dear Eliza, that this little cunt of yours is made for the express purpose of having a prick put into it; only, as mine is so large, and you are still so small and so young, I was afraid it would give you too much pain to do it sooner; but now, I think, I may get it in, if I do it gently."

"Oh, Charlie, dear, put it in at once, I have often felt I should like it so; but, as you never attempted to do it, I thought it was a mere fancy of mine. Have you ever put it inside Mary's quim?"

"Often; nay, always, my darling."

"Does she like it?"

"She adores it."

"Then put it into me directly, Charlie."

I wanted nothing better, and told her that in order to thoroughly enjoy it, she must strip. In a minute she dropped off everything, while I took off my trousers—coat and waistcoat having been already laid aside. I had brought a towel to lay on the couch below her bottom, to prevent any telltale stains. Laying her down on her back, with her bottom close to the end, her legs gathered up, and her two feet resting on the sofa, with her knees falling outwards (in the very best position for my intended operation), I put a pillow on the floor, on which I knelt, thus bringing my cock a little above her quim to give me a good purchase. I then first gamahuched her well again, until she spent and cried out—

"Oh, put it in, my dear Charlie, I do feel to want it so!"

She was already well moistened by her previous discharges, and by my licking the lips of her cunt, and covering them with saliva, with which I also, at the same time, wetted my prick itself. I then made the point approach the charming pouting and longing lips of her sweet little cunt, and rubbing it first up and down between the lips, proceeded to insert its knob between them. Thanks to the precautions taken, and the excitement I had raised by my previous caresses with tongue and prick, the immediate entrance was effected with greater ease than might have been expected. No sooner was it in about an inch beyond the knob than the passion of excitement I had raised so stimulated the natural lubricity of Eliza's nature that she heaved up her buttocks energetically, letting her knees drop quite down sideways, thus favouring to the utmost my forward thrust made at the moment, so that my prick was sheathed in an instant more than half his length, and but for the obstacle of her maidenhead, which he then met with, would have been entirely engulphed. As it was, it gave her a very sharp pang of pain, which made her shrink back, and utter an—

"Oh! Charlie!"

"Do not fear, I will be gentle, keep still a moment and then you will find the pain pass away, and great pleasure follow."

So we lay still for a time, until I felt those involuntary internal pressures, the true precursors and infallible indicators of rising desires; so commencing a slow and continuous in and out movement, I shortly produced such an excess of pleasure in her delicious orbit, that her movements became almost furious, and nature alone prompted her to second me with as much art as if she had already been long instructed in the delicious movements so calculated to add to the libidinous delights of true enjoyment.

But Eliza was a rare example of a truly salacious and voluptuous nature, and proved herself in that way far in advance of Mary; although she was of a very warm temperament, Eliza's passions were far more excitable, and in the end she became one of the most voluptuous fuckers possible, abandoning herself to all the wildest raptures that the most erotic nature could suggest. Of this, hereafter; at present I had worked her up to the utmost pitch of excited desire; she was in the very act of discharging, and as I withdrew for a final thrust, she heaved up her buttocks in an agony of pleasure, I felt it was now or never, and striking home with all my force, I burst with irresistible strength through every obstacle, and tore my way inwards, until sheathed to my very cods. Poor Eliza! at the very moment she thought herself in the seventh heaven of delight, she experienced the most excruciating agony. She gave a piercing cry and fainted away; her arms fell senseless from my body—her legs would have also fallen, but twining my arms round them, I continued for several successive thrusts to penetrate fully and easily into every recess, for I myself was wound up to a fearful state of excitement. I died away in an excess of joy, sending a torrent of balmy sperm to soften and mitigate the pain of her terribly torn quim. Finding that Eliza could not regain consciousness, I rose somewhat in alarm, and was horrified to see the quantity of blood that followed my withdrawal. It was fortunate my forethought of the towel, as it had not only saved the sofa, but helped to stanch her swollen and bleeding quim, and to wipe the blood from her thighs and bottom. I had effected all this before the dear girl showed the least symptoms of animation. She first sighed, then shivered, and at last opened her eyes, and looked confusedly at me, and asked—

"What has happened to me, Charlie?"

Then observing how she was lying naked, she recovered her complete consciousness of all the circumstances of the case.

"Oh! Charlie, now I know; I thought you had killed me; Charlie, oh! it was so frightfully painful. How could you hurt me so, and just as I thought it was the most heavenly pleasure I had ever experienced in all my life."

"My darling, it is all over now, and it will never hurt again, and we shall both of us have greater pleasure than ever, but not just now; it has been greater pain to you than I thought it would be, and for the present we must not attempt any more." I helped her to rise, but she felt very faint, and I had great difficulty in getting her dressed. She was shocked to see the bloody state of the towel. I told her to put my handkerchief between her thighs, and partly up her slit, to prevent any marks of blood staining her shift. I then laid her down on the sofa, while I ran to get some water from the fountain in the garden. I took a glass and the towel with me. I returned with the water, which greatly refreshed Eliza. I begged her to lie still as long as she could stay. However, when she attempted to walk, she found herself very much incommoded with the smarting pain. I was terribly afraid lest this would be observed when we got to the house, so I suggested she should purposely fall down when in sight of any one, and say she could not move because she had hurt her knee by the fall.

This stratagem succeeded admirably. We were seen approaching by Miss Evelyn, my mother, and Mary. Dear Eliza acted her part admirably, was seen to fall heavily, and screamed. They all rushed out, we lifted her carefully on her legs, and supported her to the house, she complaining of the pain in the knee and ankle. My mother insisted on her going to bed at once, and having embrocations and hot towels applied. Eliza let them do as they liked, and eventually was left to quiet repose, which soon relieved the painful sensations she had undergone. Next day she complained of great stiffness, and walked lame, but thought the hot applications had prevented the swelling, so thus happily passed off all observations of suspicion of the real circumstances of the case. It was not until the third day after that I attempted to make an entrance. Of course, I excited her first to the utmost by a long continued gamahuching. She then let me, but with fear and trembling, introduce my bursting member into the delicate folds of her cunt. As I was very gentle in my movements, the pain was scarcely felt, and when once well sheathed, and the first thrusts given slowly and luxuriously, the whole lubricity of her nature was soon awakened, and by the time I was ready to spend she was as ready to second me, and we died away in a mutual flood of delighted extasy. She held me close, and would not let me withdraw.

"No, Charlie, it took some trouble to get it in, let it stop where it is so deliciously engulphed," and at once anticipating her natural desires, she began the most exquisite pressures upon me, which very shortly brought us both up to the point of demanding more active measures. However, I rather restrained her, and told her we must retard our movements to increase our pleasures, because mere quick repetitions would only exhaust her, without yielding the true extasies of enjoyment. I, therefore, taught her the pleasures of the slow movements, and I worked her up to spending point, without giving way myself. The dear little creature clung to me with the most close and endearing embraces, as if she should force a complete amalgamation of our two bodies, and died away in the sweetest bliss of contented desire, with such a heavenly expression of extasy on her face as made me devour it with kisses. I had great difficulty in restraining myself from precipitately following her example; her delicious movements at the moment of spending, and the close pressures on my prick, were so exciting that resisting them was quite a triumph of control. I succeeded, and lay quite quiet, embalmed in the delicious suction of those exquisite folds of her charming little cunt, which exercised the most delightful pressures as well as suction on my enraptured prick. I left it entirely to her to lie as we were as long as she pleased, or to again begin the dear delightful friction that should once more make us dash on passion's furious course, to end as usual in the ever delicious extasies of the final crisis.

This last bout had been a double one for my sister; she all but swooned away with the rapture my spending in unison with her produced. She declared it was a death of the most delicious extasy, which it was perfectly impossible to describe. She clung to me, kissing me in the most endearing manner, and telling me how happy I had at last made her by completing the insertion of my prick in her cunt. It was worth the suffering of twenty times as much agony to arrive at so exquisite a result as every fuck I now gave her conferred upon her. We adjourned to the flower garden, that we might be seen playing together, and not excite suspicion by our constant disappearance, now that we were only two together. Of course, Mary knew what we were at and probably guessed that I had completed the initiation of Eliza. She smiled, and gave me a significant pressure of the hand, when we met again in the school-room to resume our lessons. For two days more I enjoyed Eliza all to myself; at each new fuck she became more and more perfect in conferring as well as receiving pleasure.

On the third day, Miss Evelyn whispered, "to-night," as she gave me a stolen pressure of the hand. She came, and we indulged in every whim of our fancy. I had further the delicious pleasure of gazing on all her naked beauties, as it was daylight before we parted; I had gamahuched her twice, and fucked her five times. She gave me credit for a long fast, and allowed so much indulgence on that account, but told me I must in future be more moderate, for her sake, if not for my own. She allowed three nights to pass before again coming to me. I cannot say I regretted it, because now that Eliza as initiated, as well as Mary, we indulged in the most delightful orgies of fucking and gamahuching at the same time. At first we used to fuck with one laid on her back to be fucked, while the other backed on her knees over the face of the one being fucked, and was gamahuched by her, while I introduced my finger into the rosy orifice of the bottom before me. But we found the most voluptuous way was for one to lie down on her back, and the other on hands and knees over her. She thus brought her mouth over the cunt of the one lying down, and presented her bottom to me, who knelt behind her. The one below guided my prick into the cunt above her face; she had thus all the satisfaction of seeing our action, while with one hand she tickled my cods, and the other felt my bottom-hole, and inserted a finger. Meanwhile, she was gamahuched and bottom-frigged at the same time by the one I was fucking, and we used all three to die away in agonies of enraptured delight, to recommence with a change of places between the two girls. Sometimes I tried to introduce my prick into the rosy little orifice of Mary's backside, but, although the finger-frigging gave her much additional pleasure while her cunt was operated upon by my virile member, she as yet could not support the insertion of my large prick. I had not even attempted little Lizzie, but one day, when Miss Evelyn and Mary were again under menstruation, and I had dear Lizzie all to myself, she was seized with such an irresistible desire to ease herself, that she had only time to get behind a bush and squat down. I remained waiting for her, when she called to me, to ask if I had any paper. I advanced to give her some. She was in a half-standing position, with her clothes held up to her waist. While giving her the paper, my eyes accidentally fell upon what she had voided. I was struck with its extraordinary thickness. I made no observation at the time, but it raised an idea that preoccupied me much. I had often thought over the pleasure that fucking Mrs. Benson's bum-hole had given me, hence I had tried to initiate both Miss Evelyn and Mary in that delightful route of pleasure, but, as before stated, had been unable to succeed with them from the great developement of my weapon. Thinking that if they could not bear the insertion, there could be no possibility of success with my younger and less developed sister, I had never attempted with Lizzie more than the insertion of one finger. It is true, with her it seemed to produce more excitement than either upon Miss Evelyn or Mary. The sight of the extraordinary dimensions of the matter she had voided now suggested the idea that if her apparently very small and rosy-lipped bottom-hole could allow so large a mass to come out, with gentle efforts my scarcely larger machine might be inserted. I determined to try the initiation into that route of delight the very next day. Remembering that dear Mrs. Benson always made it a rule that she should be first well fucked and gamahuched, and the prick well moistened, I began by exciting dear Lizzie to the utmost. I first fucked her, and made her spend twice to my once; then gamahuched her until she implored me to shove my prick into her. I had managed to introduce my two forefingers at once into her bottom, and had frigged her while sucking her cunt, without apparently giving any pain; on the contrary, from her movements I fancied she felt greater excitement. I took care to enlarge, as much as possible, or rather to stretch her bottom-hole as open as I could with two fingers. It was at the moment of her greatest excitement, when she was pressing me to fuck her at once, that I said—

"My dearest sister, there is still another mystery of sensual voluptuousness that you have as yet not experienced or been initiated into, and I am about to instruct you in it."

"Oh, what is it? dear Charlie; but do anything you like, and as quick as possible."

"Well, then dear, it is this sweet little orifice in your bottom that I am going to introduce my prick into. It may give you some little pain the first time, but by gentleness of movement, and halting from time to time when it hurts too much, we shall get him completely inserted, and then it will be an immense pleasure to both of us."

"Dear, dear Charlie, do as you like, your darling prick can only give me the greatest delight; I am dying to have him into me, I don't care where, as long as I get the dear creature into me. I suppose I must be on my hands and knees."

Upon which she turned with great agility, and presented the two hard and already promising globes of her charming backside. I lost no time in first thrusting my prick up to the hilt in her cunt, to moisten it. It made her shudder again with excess of lust, and she exercised such a pressure upon it that I had some difficulty in withdrawing it. It was so snug and nice therein that was a great temptation to run a course in her cunt at once, but having the other object in view, and knowing that I wanted all its stiffness to succeed, I did summon up courage enough to withdraw; then applying the very plenteous saliva in my mouth that gamahuching her had stimulated, I added it to the already moistened prick, and applying some to her bum-hole, and introducing a well-wetted finger, I put the knob of my formidable prick to the small and smiling orifice that lay before me. The disproportion struck me as so great that I dreaded success would be much too painful for her, but remembering the dimensions of what had come out of it, I boldly proceeded with the operation. I got in over the knob without making her flinch, but, as I proceded to push gently forward, and had got in about two inches, she cried—

"Stop a little, Charlie, it feels so queer—I can't bear it in further."

I stopped where I was, but slipping a hand under her, I applied my finger to her clitoris, holding her bottom tight against me with the other hand round her waist, so as not to lose ground. My agile finger soon worked her passions up, and I felt her bottom give convulsive twitches on my prick. I allowed her to become still more excited, and then gently pushing forward found I was slowly, and almost imperceptibly, gaining ground. My prick was then inserted almost two-thirds of its length, when, thrusting rather too sharply, she again cried out, and, but for the arm that held her fast round the waist, would have unseated me.

"Oh, Charlie, dear, do stop; it seems to choke me, and makes me feel so queer, that I thought I was going to faint."

"I shall lie quite still, now dear Lizzie. It is quite in"—this was a little bit of deception to calm her fears—"and when the pain of insertion passes, which will be the case in a minute, we shall have nothing but pleasure."

So I kept my prick just where he was, but redoubled my frigging her clitoris, and very soon brought her up to spending point, resolved that I would not attempt complete insertion until I felt she was in the raptures of sensual discharge. This quickly came upon her, and it was the delicious movement of her own buttocks that sheathed my prick to the hilt without an effort on my part, and so far from giving her pain, made her positively scream with the intense voluptuousness of her sensation in spending. She could not speak for many minutes, but continued the exquisite pressures of the sphincter muscle on my enraptured prick. But for my determination not to give way, and rather to wait for another bout that would completely initiate dear Lizzie in all the luxury and abandon of this delicious mode, I must have at once vigorously finished my own course. My restraint was well rewarded. The first words my beloved sister uttered were those of almost delirious joy at the extraordinary delight I had given her. Never, never, had any fuck so enraptured her. She turned up her lovely face to me, and tears of sensuality and voluptuousness filled her eyes.

I had hardly begun my titillations on her still excited clitoris, which, by the way, had lately considerably developed itself, when she was as eager for another bout as I was. I held sufficient restraint on myself to practice every salacious movement, that I might give Lizzie such exquisite pleasure as should induce her on future occasions to grant me the use of her charming bottom-hole whenever I should desire. I worked her up to the utmost pitch of the most salacious excitement, and at the moment when she spent, in an agony of shrieking extasy, I poured a perfect flood of spunk right up into her entrails, and we both sank forward, but without unseating me, quite overpowered by the intensity of our delight. When we came to our senses I rose from off her. On withdrawing my prick I found a few traces of blood, but of no moment. I wiped my prick on a handkerchief, and also wiped between the cheeks of dear Lizzie's bottom, for fear any tell-tale marks should be made on her linen. I then helped her up, and she threw her arms round my neck, and sweetly kissing me, thanked me for a new lesson in love, which had overwhelmed her with delight.

Thus ended the first lesson that Lizzie ever received by that route of pleasure, and I may incidentally state that she was peculiarly constituted for giving and receiving the most exquisite pleasure in that way. She afterwards developed into a magnificent woman, with one of the naturally largest and finest backsides I almost ever met with; and she came to love backward fucking to the utmost extent. In after-days, when married, she told me that her husband was a muff, who had no idea of enjoying a woman but in one way. She had often deceived him, and slipped it into her bottom-hole without his ever having any suspicion of the sort of pleasure he had given her.

Three months passed with the rapidity of a dream, while we indulged in these scenes of delicious lubricity and voluptuousness, without ever attracting any observation within the house and, more curious, without Miss Evelyn either discovering or suspecting anything between my sisters and myself—thanks to my natural powers and the unfailing resources of youth. Both she and my sisters thought they each gave me as much as I could get through, and, therefore, neither ever imagined I could seek carnal delights in other arms. So it was but now there happened one or two events which had a considerable effect on the after-tenour of our loves.

A neighbour, a very nice good-looking man, about thirty-five years of age, a gentleman farmer, very well off, had for some time past always waited for us at the church door on Sundays, apparently for a chat with mamma, Miss Evelyn, and us. He treated and evidently considered us as mere children, nor did he appear to fix particular attention to any one.

One Monday my mother received a note from him, to beg she would grant him a short interview on the following day, as he wished for her advice on a subject of much interest to him. Mamma's reply begged him to come at eleven o'clock, when she would be happy to see him.

He came, and was particularly neatly dressed. My mother had been very agitated all the morning, and looked flushed and nervous as the hour drew near; I really believe the old lady fancied it was for an idle avowal to herself that he was coming. Be that however as it may, the object of his visit turned out to be a proposal to Miss Evelyn, with an offer of marriage. He was ready to make such settlements upon her as could not but be satisfactory. He told my mother that before speaking to Miss Evelyn, whom he had loved from her first appearance in the parish, and whose quiet, modest character had daily made a deeper impression, he thought it only his duty to first break the subject to her, and to ask her permission for an interview with Miss Evelyn, and next, if he was acceptable to her, for leave to visit at our house, while courting his wished-for wife. He further stated that he had never ventured to hint the state of his feelings to Miss Evelyn, and prayed my mother to be the kind intermediary in opening the subject to her, and to beg as a favour that she would grant him an interview to state his case in person on the following day, so that he might learn his fate from her own lips. My mother, although probably inwardly a little disappointed, had the interest of Miss Evelyn too much at heart not to take up the matter warmly, and urged, with all the volubility elderly ladies can so well exercise, whenever the marriage of a younger friend is in question, all the benefit that would accrue to her from so advantageous a proposal. Miss Evelyn was really taken quite by surprise, and stammered out some vague expressions of wishing for time to consider.

"Stuff and nonsense, my dear, remember your dependent position, and the advantages this match holds out to you. You must not think or talk of delay. He will be here to-morrow, and I hope his lover eloquence will soon decide the question in his favour."

Poor Miss Evelyn burst into tears and said it was so sudden, and she was so ill-prepared to take any decision. She would, however, think over it very seriously and in the morning be better able to give an answer. My mother seeing that she was much agitated by what she had told her, very kindly said—

"Give the children a holiday this afternoon, and I advise you to keep your own room, and write to your widowed mother, to tell her of the offer, and to ask her advice how you should act."

We thus had many hours to ourselves; I had heard all that had passed, and felt a sad pressure at my heart, when I began to realise the fact that the proposal of Mr. Vincent would, if accepted, lead to our separation, and deprive me of my loved Miss Evelyn. The idea made me very sad, and I showed no alacrity in taking advantage of our extra hours of recreation with my sisters, until Mary began to rally me about my melancholy, and asked what I meant by it. I at once said—

"Don't you see, if Miss Evelyn marries Mr. Vincent we shall get another governess, and can we ever expect to get one who is so kind and excellent a teacher, and who troubles us so little at our games."

"Ah! that is very true, and we should be horribly annoyed if we were watched and interrupted. However, more reason that we should make the most of the present moment, so come along, Charlie, and let us have some real good fucking. We have plenty of time, mamma is not very well. No one will come near us, and there is nothing to hinder our having a jolly time of it, all three stark naked together, so come along."

Her words had already changed the current of my ideas; before she ceased speaking my prick responded, which her quick eye immediately observed, and patting it with her hand, she said—

"Ah! my dear little dummy, I am glad to see you are of my opinion, so come along."

Away we went, and a most glorious afternoon of orgies we spent.

Miss Evelyn came to me at night and threw herself into my arms, in an agony of sobs and tears, and pressing me to her throbbing bosom, she sobbed out—

"Oh! my dear Charlie, I love you so dearly, you have become as necessary to me as life itself. I cannot bear the thought of parting from you, my loved one. You, whom I have initiated into all the delights of mutual love. Oh! the thought of parting is bitter, and breaks my heart. Oh! love me, my own darling boy, and press me to your heart."

I did more, for, as I have before stated, a woman's tears have a never failing effect on the erective nerves of my machine. It was but the commencement of a night of most luxurious enjoyment. Miss Evelyn put no restraint either on herself or me, but indulged in every act of lubricity and voluptuousness were drawing to a close. In fact, when eventually she left me in the morning, and I thought over all she had said, it became evident to me that she had already made up her mind to accept the very advantageous offer made to her. The instinctive intelligence of woman had at once shown to her that such an opportunity was not to be lost for the sake of a mere boy, whom circumstances must naturally soon remove far away from her. At the same time, doubtless, the idea that I was all her own making, for she never had any suspicion of my previous initiation, held a charm over her, to say nothing of the powerful weapon she had so unexpectedly found by her side, and which had so great an influence over her passions. We spent a most luxurious night, and hardly closed our eyes, notwithstanding my afternoon's debauch; such is the power and resources of nature, in a well-constituted youth of fifteen and upwards, that Miss Evelyn had rather to force our embraces, than to stimulate by any artificial excitement my ever ready prick. I won from her a promise to come next night, and let me know what fate was in store for us.

Next day Mr. Vincent was true to his appointment. Mamma received him with Miss Evelyn by her side, and after the usual compliments, rose and apologised for leaving them, as she had household duties to attend to. Miss Evelyn informed me afterwards that Mr. Vincent, on my mother leaving the room, rose from his seat, and approaching her, said, in the most frank gentlemanly manner—

"You are aware, my dear Miss Evelyn, of the object of my visit, and I augur from your kind condescension in giving me this interview that my suit is not disagreeable to you."

Then taking her passive hand, and pressing it to his heart, he continued—

"I have loved you, Miss Evelyn, from the first moment of my seeing you. I feel that my future happiness hangs on your lips, for without your love, my life would now be a blank. I am here to-day to offer you my hand and fortune. If I have not yet your heart, I seek to be allowed to cultivate your society, that I may try to win it."

Then seeing that she was greatly agitated, he begged her to be seated (for she had risen when he approached and took her hand), he led her to a sofa, and seated himself by her side. He pressed for an answer. She said—

"You must be fully aware, Mr. Vincent, that your generous offer has taken me greatly by surprise. I feel most grateful to you for it, but must implore you to allow me to pause, until at least I have heard from my mother, to whom I will communicate the noble offer you have made to me, a poor governess, who cannot but feel grateful to you for condescending to think of her in such a way."

"Ah! say not so, my dear Miss Evelyn, and believe me, it is no sudden impulse that has driven me to your feet, but ardent love, and real admiration of your great beauty and admirable conduct ever since you entered this family."

The dear creature smiled through her tears upon me when she recounted those terms of affection that Mr. Vincent poured out to her.

To be brief—before they parted he won from her that his frequent meetings at church, and elsewhere, had gained him something more than esteem, but hopeless of ever becoming his wife, she had done her utmost to suppress wanner feelings. Oh! woman, thy name is deception! So she sent him away the happiest man in existence. He rode over every day afterwards, and was with Miss Evelyn from four to five; indeed, he was often the cause of our having half an hour's longer recreation. He also frequently dined with us. Miss Evelyn's mother naturally jumped at the offer, and most delightedly gave her consent.

When Mr. Vincent heard of this, be became very urgent in claiming an early day for making him the happiest of men. Miss Evelyn wanted a delay of six weeks, but this raised such an outcry on his part, seconded by my mother, that at last she was driven from six weeks to a month, and then to a fortnight from that date; so all became extremely busy in getting ready marriage dresses, &c. The marriage was to take place from our house, and my mother insisted that she should provide the marriage breakfast. Mrs. Evelyn was invited to our house for a week at the time of the marriage, to keep my mother company. My two sisters and a young sister of Mr. Vincent's were to be the bridesmaids, and a young man, courting Miss Vincent, to be bridegroom's man. So all was thus arranged, and eventually came off most happily. When Mrs. Evelyn arrived she occupied the spare room, where charming Mrs. Benson had so deliciously initiated me in all the pleasures of sensuality and passion.

To return to the day when Mr. Vincent had his first interview, and declared his love and admiration, and ended with the offer of marriage. Before going away, he rang for mamma, thanked her for all her kindness to him, informed her how happy Miss Evelyn had made him in granting permission to prosecute his suit for her hand, &c. Then begging the favour of a chaste kiss, he left all radiant with hope.

The interview had naturally been very trying tor Miss Evelyn, and she was so evidently nervously agitated that my mother begged her to go to her room, and lie down to repose herself, as after so much agitation she must be quite unfit for any school work, and that she herself would hear our lessons that morning and give us an afternoon's holiday in honour of the happy event that had occurred.

We thus, my sisters and I, were thrown again into another prolonged opportunity of fully enjoying ourselves, but, notwithstanding the wonderfully regenerative power that nature had gifted me with, I felt that if I wanted to enjoy again my dear Miss Evelyn, who had promised to be with me that night. I must not only restrain myself from such excess as we had indulged in the previous day, but also manage to get some sleep, of which I had scarcely tasted the night before, so I contented myself with first gamahuching and then fucking each sister; afterwards again gamahuching them, and making them each spend five times, so as to satisfy them without exhausting myself, and then finishing off with a delicious fuck in Lizzie's bottom-hole, while each gamahuched the other. This quite satisfied them, and they allowed me to steal up to my room to sleep, Mary promising to call me in time for tea. I slept the sleep of the just for some three hours, and came to tea perfectly ready for anything that could happen that night. It was well it was so, for now that there could not be any long lapse of time before we must part, Miss Evelyn became a very glutton for pleasure, and every art and position was made use of to stimulate and lengthen out our joys. She came every night, even up to the very night before the marriage, although in the last three nights before the event came off, her mother, Mrs. Evelyn, slept in the spare bedroom with which my room communicated. Nevertheless, we met and carried on our amorous sports with bated breath and suppressed sighs.

We had of late often tried in our moments of greatest excitement to introduce my prick into her delicious tight little bottom-hole. Once, by a sudden manoeuvre, I managed to get in at the moment she was spending, and actually made an entrance as far as about two inches beyond the nut, and I think I should have fully succeeded at that time if my own excitement had not made me spend too soon. This oiled the way, and my prick, having already fucked several times, becoming too limp, the squeeze of her bottom actually forced him out, as if she were voiding herself naturally. I fancied that, at the moment, but for my too excited passion, she would have rather I had completely initiated her. However, the night preceding her marriage, I at last succeeded. We had fucked in every varied way. She was on her knees, with her head on the pillow, and I on my knees, behind her; this was a favourite way of hers, as she declared I got further in, nay, seemed to touch her heart and fill her whole body; besides the frigging her clitoris and the action of my finger in her bottom-hole added greatly to the raptures this position gave her. She had been already well fucked, and we had mutually gamahuched each other, so her whole system was in a most excited and well-moistened state. Taking care to put two fingers at once into her bottom-hole, I worked them so as to stretch it as much as possible, while exciting her with my prick in her cunt, and a finger on her clitoris. Just as she was going into the raptures of spending I dropped from my mouth a quantity of saliva onto her bottom-hole, and as she was pushing her buttocks back to me I suddenly withdrew my prick, and with one vigorous thrust housed him half his length in her delicious bum-hole. She almost cried out aloud at the suddenness of the attack, and would have flinched away but for the grasp of both my hands upon her hips; a more vigorous shove sent me up to the hilt against her beautiful buttocks. She whispered—

"For heaven's sake, dear Charles, do stop a moment, I can't bear it, and must cry out if you do not be quiet for a time at least."

As I was safely fixed, it exactly suited me to remain still, for had I gone on, a push or two would have made me spend. Now fairly engulphed, I wished not only to fully enjoy it myself but, if possible, make her enjoy it too. So remaining quite still, as far as regarded my prick, I stole one hand down to her clitoris, and began to excite that; the other I ran up to her bubbies, and played with the nipples, a thing which I had found out excited her almost as much as playing with her clitoris. Her passions were soon reawakened, and the involuntary twistings of her loins and pressures of her sphincter convinced me that in a very short time I should work her up to the utmost; and so it was, and immensely she enjoyed both her own spend and mine when she felt my hot spunk shooting up into her very entrails. We sunk gently on our sides after this bout, but without unsheathing me; and here embracing, kissing and tonguing each other when she turned her head, and sometimes sucking the nearest nipple to me, we soon once more were in a state to renew our delicious combat; and a second course was run in the delightful callipygian recesses of Venus's second temple of lubricity. This was our last bout, for, alas, it was getting the hour when the house would be all astir. My lovely mistress embraced me most tenderly, and acknowledged that I had at last taught her a new pleasure. She wept as she tore herself from my arms, and I wept too when she left me, as I thought I had now lost her for ever as a mistress, and what a charming one she had been to me!

Morning came, and with it bridesmaids, bridegroom, and man. To church we all went, my sisters perfectly enchanted with the idea of being bridesmaids, and beautifully arrayed in new dresses. They were also still more delighted with some handsome jewelry presented by Mr. Vincent. In their eyes he became the handsomest and finest man they had ever seen. The breakfast went off as usual, and when the bride, who had changed her bridal dress for a neat travelling one, came down, pretty near all were in tears on taking leave of her. She pressed me tenderly to her bosom, and whispered—

"Courage, Charlie, dear."

It was almost too much for me, but I managed to restrain any extreme demonstration of my grief. The carriage door was shut, and off they rattled to spend the honeymoon at Leamington. The friends assembled remained until the evening, and after the sensations of the day, and the fatigues of the previous night, I was glad to get to bed. I cried myself to sleep, thinking that another at that moment was revelling in all the delights of amorous enjoyment of those charms that had been so long in my sole possession.

Thus ended one of the most delightful episodes of my life, and although I, at some rare intervals, from time to time found an opportunity of enjoying my loved mistress, they were flying fucks, very delicious, but very unsatisfactory.

This was the first great incident that had an effect of changing the tenour of our existence for some time, but I will reserve the details of our after-adventures for a second part of these reminiscences of Early Experiences. 

The house was scarcely itself even the day after the marriage. Mrs. Evelyn was still with us, and did not leave until the following day. She and my mother spent most of the day in the summer house, so that our pastimes therein were interrupted. Mary complained of severe headache, which, in fact, was the premonitory symptom of her courses, which declared themselves violently in the evening. I had arranged with my sisters to steal up to their room when all were asleep, as now that we had lost our governess they had it all to themselves. I went, of course, but found only Eliza capable of entering into our sensual enjoyments. I made her come to me in Miss Evelyn's bed, and while fucking her, was thinking all the time of my darling governess; and even when I was fucking her I could only remember the complete insertion of my prick into Miss Evelyn's bum-hole the very night before her marriage, and wondered whether or not her husband had discovered her loss of maidenhead. And yet, I fancied woman's natural cunning would easily deceive him, as millions before him have been deceived. Coupling Mary's attack and Miss Evelyn's choice of the marriage day on the full moon, I could not help imagining that she intended to help her deception by the advent of her menstruation. It will be seen hereafter how far I was correct in my conjecture. I passed a delicious night in the arms of my charming Lizzie, and only stole away just in time not to be observed by the early-rising servants. Mrs. Evelyn departed the next day. My mother, feeling poorly, desired Lizzie to sleep with her, so perforce I had to pass a very quiet night, but which the agitation and excessive venery of the last week rendered very acceptable.

Another week passed without anything particular beyond Mary being able to join Lizzie and me in our orgies. The doctor had recommended my mother to go for a few weeks to the seaside, and she resolved that we should all go for six weeks before engaging a new governess. So we left town for a charming little retired village on the west Welsh coast. It was but a small place, with one street, and some straggling houses here and there, but with a beautiful stretch of sand ending in abrupt rocks. Our lodgings were but small; a sitting-room and bedroom above a shop, and two rooms over that. I slept in the small back room off the sitting-room, my mother had the front upper room, and my two sisters were in the room beside her, with only a thin partition between them, so we found ourselves obliged to seek for some outside place to enjoy the erotic pleasures that had now become necessary to us. Very few visitors ever came near the retired little village. In our explorations we found that at the far end of the sands there were some nice retired spots behind the rocks, which soon became the scenes of our sensual enjoyments. The place was more than a mile from the village, and we could see if any one was coming towards us for the whole distance; but still as we might forget how fast time flies, we prudently established either one or the other of my sisters as a sentinel to give us warning if any one was approaching. So I took them in turn, laid them down, had a mutual gamahuche, and then a fuck; after which the previous watcher took the place of the one just fucked, and the same process was followed in her case. We had done this for three days, and were congratulating ourselves upon having found out so safe a place to indulge all our propensities in. We always spent the mornings with mamma, who kept us so far to our lessons, but after our midday meal, which mamma also made her dinner hour, she retired for a siesta, and we went out for a long walk and something better. I have said we fully enjoyed the first three days without any apparent chance of discovery. On the fourth, while Lizzie was on the watch in front, and Mary and I after a delicious gamahuche had just died away in all the ecstasies of a prolonged fuck up to the moment of discharge, and I was saying to her—

"Did not that feel delicious, and was it not up to the hilt?

"I should think so, with such a rammer as that up her cunt," said a strange voice close to us.

You may easily suppose how we startled with surprise.

"Oh, don't do that, I did not mean to spoil sport," said the same voice.

It was a very gentlemanly man, with a soft quiet voice, and charming amiable expression of countenance, who stood smiling upon us close to our side, with his breeches open, and his standing pego in his hand. So great was our surprise that we never thought of the state we were in. Mary lay with legs spread out, and belly exposed, and cunt gaping open; and I with my breeches down, and my great big cock pendent, it is true, but hardly diminished in thickness. The stranger said again—

"I am not here to spoil sport, on the contrary, to aid you in every way. I accidentally observed you two days ago. I am here, a stranger, like yourselves. I know you to be brother and sisters, and admire you all the more for being above the usual prejudices of that relationship. But you must be aware that as I know all about you, the best way is to let me be a participator in your sport; and then you not only shut my mouth, but it will be the means of vastly adding to all your pleasures, as well as giving me the most intense satisfaction. Now, for instance, your elder sister there, who was about to replace the younger on the watch, will be all the more satisfied, if I first fuck her. Don't be alarmed, my dear," said he, as he observed a sudden move of Mary, who all at once recollected how exposed her whole person was. "I shall do nothing without your full consent, but I am quite sure your brother, who takes you each in turn, will rather be pleased than otherwise, to see you in my arms, or I much mistake his character."

I could not help, internally, thinking how exactly be had hit off my very thought, for I had just been calculating, in my own mind, how much better it would be for us to make him a participator with us, rather than an enemy by a refusal. So I at once averred that as it had turned out, it was likely to add greatly to all our pleasure, and I begged Mary to let him have his way. The natural reluctance of woman to appear too easy of access made her simulate a refusal, but as she still lay on her back, I leant over her, and opening her legs, begged him to kneel between and help himself. He gallantly, on kneeling, first stooped forward, and gave a good lick-up of all her cunt's spunk-covered lips, and then proceeded to gamahuche her, which quickly made her as anxious for his prick as he was to fuck her. As soon as they were fairly at it, I whistled, and beckoned to Lizzie to come up. You may easily imagine her surprise to see Mary in the arms of a strange man; but as the sight had had its usual effect on my sensitive organ, and as it was standing, almost ready to burst, I made her kneel opposite to them, and introduced my prick into her cunt from behind, so that we could both see the delicious fuck going on before us. It redoubled our excitement, and all four of us spent together in cries of rapture. After this bout we sat down to make further acquaintance, which, you may suppose, was not difficult, after such an introduction. Our new friend gave us some hints very useful for future proceedings, meanwhile he was feeling young Lizzie's cunt with one hand, and my prick with the other, very nicely and gently frigging it. He brought me to full stand very quickly, and then made me lie on my back, while he proceeded to admire and praise the extraordinary development which he declared was the greatest for one of my age he had ever met with, and his experience was very extensive. When it was at full stand, he stooped forward, and in the most delicious manner sucked my prick. It was more exciting than when either of my sisters, Miss Evelyn, or Mrs. Benson had gamahuched me. He also inserted a finger in my bottom-hole, and eventually made me spend in his mouth, which he greedily swallowed, nor did he cease sucking until every drop was drawn out of me. This had, of course, excited him, and he said—

"Now, I must have the young one in her turn."

Lizzie, nothing loath, lay down on the grass at once, I conducted his prick into her cunt, and frigged his bottom-hole, while their bout lasted. His prick was one of the middlings, not very long, nor very thick, but of a uniform size throughout, without any large projection of the nut, like mine. He advised us to stop for that day, and to walk towards the village with him, and then when in full sight, but far beyond hearing, we could sit down and concert measures for future pleasures of the most delicious lubricity.

"I see," he said, "that we shall just hit it. I shall greatly add to your pleasures, and you to mine; you have something yet to learn, and I am the very person to instruct you in even higher delights than any of you have yet enjoyed."

We followed him as desired, and, seated on a sand hillock, we held a long conversation, and arranged everything for future indulgencies. We agreed to meet at the rocks next day at our usual hour, he undertaking to be there ahead of us, to see that no lurking stranger should have hidden himself as he had done that day. He would think over the matter in the meantime, and contrive some way of meeting where we could be fully at ease, and strip ourselves naked, so as to enjoy a complete orgie of the most salacious lubricity. He showed us where he was lodged, a small inn a little way out of the village with its front to the road, and behind the stables there was attached to it a small cottage, consisting of a bedroom above, with a dressing-room, or small bedroom if necessary, over the passage; the door opened upon the coast, and there was no other communication with the inn than by going round past the stable yard to the front door. The servant of the inn came round in the morning, and laid his modest breakfast of tea, eggs and toast, and when he was done, cleared away and made his bed, &c. He took his dinner in the inn parlour at the hour the landlord and family dined. Nothing overlooked his windows, and he was sufficiently away from the village not to be easily observed, still less so from the inn; so that on approaching his lodgings from the sands he was almost as safe from observation as if he had lived in a lonely house far distant from any other. I am thus particular in describing his lodgings, as the advantages of the situation afterwards induced us to turn them to a profitable use. Our friend's name was MacCallum, James MacCallum, an offshoot of the great Scotch clan of that name, then in about his thirtieth year, fond of sporting, particularly fishing. His room was surrounded with the necessary implements, and he much frequented Wales from its advantage of possessing so many good trout streams. He it was who gave me a taste for the piscatory art, and I afterwards accompanied him on many a fishing excursion, which often led to new and singular erotic adventures, of which I may, perhaps, hereafter recount a few. His ordinary residence was London, and our present acquaintance led to some most intimate relations of true erotic extravagance, of which more anon.

Meanwhile we met at the rocks on the next day, a Saturday. We found Mr. MacCallum at his post, and all being secure, proceeded to action. It was Mary's turn to take the first watch. Our friend constituted himself master of the ceremonies. He desired me to take off my breeches, and Lizzie to take off her gown and ease her corset, for as yet she wore no stays; then telling me to lie down on my back, he made Lizzie kneel at my head, with her bottom to me, and then to press back so as to bring her charming little cunt over my mouth, her under-petticoat and chemise being well canted over her shoulders. I thus had complete command of her clitoris with my tongue, and she could sink her buttocks quite down on my face, so that I could shove my tongue well up her cunt, and lick up all her spendings when she discharged; and at the same time, while embracing the charming plump hard buttocks with one hand, the other was left free to frig her bum-hole, and stimulate her passions up to the utmost. I have already told you how naturally she had taken to posterior pleasures. While thus engaged, Mr. MacCallum proceeded to gamahuche my prick in the most delicious manner, for he had an art in this delightful accomplishment that far exceeded that of the many by whom I have been gamahuched—of course, he added the postilion, as the French say, by frigging my bottom-hole at the same time. He made me most voluptuously discharge in his mouth at the very instant dear Lizzie was pouring into mine her delicious spendings. We lay enraptured for some time before we could stir. Then rising, I wished to return the compliment Mr. M. had paid my prick, by sucking his. But this he declined, saying—

"I shall teach you all a new pleasure before we part, and my powers are not quite so active as your youth enables you to be, so for the moment we will indulge in close observation and sweet caresses of our members until by gentle titillations I get you two more prepared for the amorous contest—"

He gamahuched Lizzie while handling my prick, and a very short period elapsed before he had us both in such a state of excitement that we were ready for anything he chose to direct. This time he also required me to lie down on my back, but he placed Lizzie on the top of me, and guided my prick himself into her delicious tight little notch. When fully inserted, which was completely accomplished before she quite lay down upon me, he desired us to go slowly to work. For a short time, with his face close to my cods, he watched the in and out movement of my prick, inserting a finger into both Lizzie's bottom and mine. Then rising, he said—

"Stop a little, my dears, but don't withdraw. I am about to give your sister a lesson in the double action of most delicious pleasure."

Then spitting on his prick, and applying a quantity of saliva to the rosy orifice of her bottom, he proceeded to insert his prick—little thinking how fond she was of taking pleasure in this route, and how often she had already enjoyed it. He took every precaution not to hurt her, and to be as gentle as possible, telling her to push out her bottom, and to strain as if she wanted to void something, which he told her would facilitate his entrance, and give her less pain. You may imagine how secretly pleased Lizzie was; she did all he desired—and with great gentleness he succeeded in sheathing his prick up to the close junction of his belly against her buttocks.

"Capital, my dear, you have borne it admirably. I see you will make an apt scholar; now you will have nothing but the most ecstatic raptures from the action of two pricks at once. Now, Charles, it is for you to work, and for your most charming sister to continue only the exquisite pressures she is already at this moment so rapturously conferring on our excited members."

We thus commenced the first lesson we ever had in the double fuck. Dear Lizzie was almost mad with the agonising sensations of rapturous pleasure the double thrusting produced upon her erotic nerves. I, too, felt the rubbing of Mr. M.'s prick so closely upon mine, for the slight membrane dividing the bottom passage from the vagina, by the powerful stretching of the two members between which it was sandwiched, became so thin a division that it really appeared as if there was nothing between our pricks. Such ecstatic excitement brought matters to a speedy conclusion. Lizzie screamed so loudly with her excess of pleasure that it somewhat alarmed Mary, who came running up to see what was the matter. Her surprise was great at the sight she beheld, but we were far too deliriously wrapt in the lap of most salacious luxury and lubricity to be sensible to any interruption. As for Lizzie she was in convulsions of ecstasy, which ended in quite a hysteric attack which rather alarmed us, and made us withdraw from the exquisite sheaths in which we had been engulphed with such rapture. It was some time before dear Lizzie recovered her senses, and then she burst into tears, declaring she had never before known what pleasure meant, and she had been in the seventh heaven of delight, that she could wish for no better death than to die in such agony of pleasure. She then threw herself into Mr. M.'s arms, and kissing him with the utmost fervour, said—

"Oh, you dear man, how I love you for teaching me such a delicious way of loving; you shall have me whenever and wherever you please. I shall love you as much as I do my darling brother Charlie."

She then turned to me and warmly embraced me too. Then, putting on her gown, she proceeded to take up the watch, while Mary remained to be likewise initiated in the luxury of the double fuck. She somewhat dreaded the experiment, but having witnessed the ecstasies of pleasure it had thrown Lizzie into, she was not unwilling to try if it could be accomplished with Mr. MacCallum's somewhat less massive member. He put us through the same preliminary manoeuvres of backing Mary on her knees over my mouth, and while he sucked my prick, he feasted his eyes at the same time on Mary's really finely developed buttocks, giving him promise of great after-pleasure. He even begged me to leave her bottom-hole to his finger so that he frigged the bum-hole of the sister while he sucked the prick of the brother, a combination which afforded him the most racy delight, Mary was greatly excited, and spent most copiously in my mouth, while I quickly followed suit in the mouth of Mr. M., who did not allow a drop to be wasted. When we had reposed ourselves sufficiently, his lascivious touches and caresses and praises of our parts soon sufficiently re-excited us to let him see if we might again proceed to action. As before, I lay down on my back, and Mary, straddling across me, had my prick guided into her longing cunt by the hand of Mr. M. When I was fairly engulphed in her hot and throbbing cunt, she began her exquisite casse-noisette pressures, which talent she possessed in the greatest perfection; then bending down to me I clasped her in my arms, and glued my lips to hers in a loving kiss and tongue embrace. Her bottom presented itself in all its beauty to our worthy master of the ceremonies, who, delighted with its more fully blown beauties than that of the younger sister, paid first due homage to it by fondly kissing it, and thrusting his tongue up the rosy orifice, titillating her excessively, then wetting his prick he applied it to the tender rosebud-like dimple at first without success, Mary telling him she did not think he could possibly succeed.

"Patience and perseverance, my dear girl," said he, "will enable me to get into a mouse; we must try another way; it is that great huge monster of a prick in your cunt that is so blocking up the route as to close almost entirely the way to the more secret temple of salacious delights. Withdraw for a moment."

I did so; upon which he plunged in an instant up to the hilt in her cunt and gave a few shoves to excite her and throw her off her guard, for he told us afterwards, the first difficulty was all owing to Mary's involuntary opposition, by squeezing in her bottom-hole, instead of pushing it out. When he thought he had sufficiently excited her, and made her suppose he was going to continue regularly fucking her, he suddenly withdrew the two fingers he had in her bum-hole, by a jerk substituted his prick, and before Mary was aware, had sheathed it more than halfway into her bottom. She gave a half scream, but his hold of her hips, and my close embrace of her waist, for I all along knew what he was at, prevented her from flinching and throwing him out, which was her first impulse. He said—

"I will keep still, and any unpleasant feeling will go off in a moment."

He stopped for two or three minutes, which I occupied in first rubbing the end of my prick on Mary's clitoris, which was a well-developed one, and when by her nervous movements I found her passions were being roused, I slipped it into her tightened cunt without much difficulty. Mr. M. took the opportunity of finding me penetrating to glide in on his point of attack up to his utmost limit. Mary gasped again, and declared it was choking her. However, by a little more patience, and then by very gentle movements, we gradually worked her up to the utmost state of excitement, and she, as well as both of us, went off in a delirium of enraptured felicity. She lay panting and throbbing between us for nearly a quarter of an hour.

I was already in a state for renewed efforts, but Mr. M. rose, and withdrew his reeking prick from the tight recess in which it had enjoyed such ecstasies, and told us we must be content with that day's work, expressly as he had a plan in his head for the next day, that would require us to have all our erotic powers at command. Then, as before, we approached the village, so as to be seen, but not overheard, so that our going away to more distant places should create no suspicion. Mr. M. then informed us that we could come to his cottage the next afternoon, instead of the rocks; we should be able to undress ourselves in the buff, and have a perfect orgie of salacious delights. We heartily approved of this plan, and after an amusing conversation, we parted to meet the next day on the sands, but in the contrary directions to the rocks, for the purpose of afterwards approaching his cottage from the least observable site.

After dinner the next day we started at our usual hour apparently for our ordinary promenade, but after leaving the village, and allowing most of the people to be safely stowed away in church for the afternoon service, we turned on our steps and made for Mr. M.'s door. He saw us coming, and was ready to admit us, without knocking. We immediately adjourned to the bedroom upstairs, and lost no time in all of us stripping stark naked. After some preliminary admiration of the two girls, whose forms were certainly cast in beauty's mould, we lay down in bed. I and Lizzie mutually gamahuched each other, with the usual accompaniments in the charming orifices of our bottoms. Mr. MacCallum and Mary, for he had taken a great fancy to her and her splendid bottom, followed our example, After we had a happy and most delicious spend, and then mutual embraces and kisses, we put the girls into all conceivable poses, until we were once more ready to go on with something more serious than gamahuching. Mr. M., as usual, acted as master of the ceremonies, and ordered Mary to lie down on her back, then Lizzie reversed upon her, so that she could gamahuche Mary's cunt, and tickle her bum-hole, while Mary was to frig Lizzie's clitoris with one hand, and play with my cods with the other, Mr. M. himself guided my prick into the delicious bottom-hole of Lizzie, and when we were all fixed, and he had frigged my bum-hole with two fingers, he said—

"Now I am going to initiate you, Charlie, into the delight of being alike operator and receiver."

So saying, he moistened his tool and spit in my bum-hole, and proceeded very gently to introduce his prick therein. I have described his cock as not very thick at the point, consequently the first part introduced itself very easily, but when the pillar pushed its way in, and began to stretch the parts, it produced a curious sickening feeling, very like as if I had received a kick on the bottom; so I was obliged to ask him to halt a little. He was too experienced in the art not to fully understand my feelings, and knew well it would go off in a minute or two, if I was left quiet. So pausing until I told him he might now try to get in further, he drew back a little and applying more spittle to the shaft, gently and firmly, and slowly guided his prick up to the hilt, or as far as his belly and my buttocks would allow. Again pausing a little, until feeling by the throbbing of my prick, which produced the same pressure on my bum-hole, that I was warming to the work, he began slow movements of thrusts in and out, which, together with the hot and voluptuous pressures and movements of my own little partner excited both by Mary's finger and my prick, began to fire my passions, and we soon grew very fierce in our movements. Nothing I could ever have imagined equalled the extraordinary and delicious ecstasy that the double action produced upon my erotic nerves. I gasped, I shuddered with the agony of intense pleasure, and at the moment when the grand and rapturous finale approached, I actually brayed exactly like a donkey, which, in after cooler moments, amused all of us. The action of pleasure had come upon all at once, and we sank in an inert mass on those below us. How poor Mary endured it astonished us, but the scene had so excited her that she said it never occurred to her, and she felt nothing. We eventually rose, and after a necessary purification, partook of wine and cake, which Mr. MacCallum, with great foresight, had provided. After that he would not allow us to fuck for some time; and we had a regular romp all about the room, which we enjoyed very much, and nothing was heard but slaps on our bottoms, and the wildest rollicking laughter—until our two cocks, by their stiff-standing, showed that we were again ready to enter on new combats. This time Lizzie lay down, Mary gamahuched her. Mr. M. got into her bum-hole, and I proceeded to attempt to do the same to him, but all to no purpose. I was too heavy hung for his bottom-hole, a very small one for a man. He had every wish to accommodate me, but do what I would, I could not overcome the physical difficulties. So reversing our positions, I lay on my back, Mary straddled over me, my prick was put into her cunt, and stooping down, and presenting her anus, M. succeeded more easily than the day before in getting into her bum-hole. Lizzie standing up with a leg on each side of Mary's and my body, brought her quim up to M.'s mouth, and he luxuriously gamahuched her, while his finger acted postilion in her bottom. The erotic storm raged with great fury for a long time, and then, growing more fast and furious, brought us all standing in ecstasies of the most salacious enjoyment, for us to sink once more into the annihilation of satiated desire. We lay long wrapped in close embrace. Recovering our senses in long-drawn sighs, we again refreshed ourselves with wine and cake, and as our passions were not so quickly reawakened as those of our more excitable companions, we proceeded to gamahuche them, without their exercising a like skill upon our pricks. We then had another romp, and replacing Mary below and Lizzie above, I, this time, fucked her cunt, at her request, as she said it must not be altogether neglected. M., as previously, took me behind, and as there was a greater facility, so there was greater enjoyment, and as our previous exertions had taken off the sharper appetite, we were enabled to draw out our pleasure to a much greater length, until at last we died away in all the agony of such a glorious conjunction of parts. We had one more delicious general fuck before we parted. Lizzie was again fucked by me, and buggered by Mr. M., which she declared she preferred to any other combination, my prick so deliriously gorging her tight little cunt, and making M.'s prick, from the pressure of my larger weapon in the cunt, feel as tight in her bottom as my prick did, when nothing but Mary's finger was in her cunt. We ran our course with even greater luxury and lasciviousness than before. Lizzie actually was hysterical with the force of her enjoyment, and we all sank sideways off poor Mary, and lay long locked in each other's arms. This, for that day, ended our most delightful orgie. We purified ourselves, and then dressed. We parted with many sweet embraces, and promises of renewing the delightful scenes we had just gone through, and, in fact, we often and often repeated them, varying from time to time with a visit to the rocks, lest we should draw observation upon us by constantly going to the cottage.

Our six weeks came to an end so rapidly that we could hardly believe the time had already passed. Mamma one morning informed us we were to leave on the day after the next. You may suppose our disappointment, but there was no help for it. We met that day at the rocks, we were melancholy at the thought of parting with our charming friend, whom we now really loved. We were not near so fiery as usual, but resolved to have one thorough good orgie the next day at the cottage, as a farewell benefit to us all. We met, as agreed on, and put in force every art to augment our pleasures, and every contrivance to excite anew our powers to the utmost. Both M. and I must have spent six to seven times, but the girls being more easily excited in their finer organs of coition, went off in ecstasies some nine or ten times; until fairly exhausted, we had, from want of power, to give up the game, dress and part. We hoped to meet again. The girls wept at parting with our delightful friend, to whom we owed so many delicious orgies. We exchanged addresses, and he promised to come on a fishing excursion to our neighbourhood, where he hoped we should find means of renewing the lascivious sports we had already so much enjoyed. We tore ourselves away from him at last. It will be seen in the sequel, that unforeseen events carried me to London, or rather away from home, before we could meet again; and it was in London, at his own chambers, where we again renewed our charming intercourse, and practised every art of venery.

We returned home, and mamma again advertised for a governess, and stated that she required one of not less than thirty years of age, and with much experience in teaching. Numerous responses were made to the advertisement; but one lady desired to see mamma and her pupils before accepting the place, at the same time forwarding very satisfactory testimonials. Mamma was rather struck with the style of letter, and the unusual demand of previous acquaintance before entering into final arrangements. So she wrote to Miss Frankland, begging her to come and spend three days with us, and if her visit should prove as agreeable to both as her letter had done to mamma, she had no doubt matters might be arranged to their mutual satisfaction. Accordingly, at the expected hour, Miss Frankland arrived. She was, to our then thinking, an elderly lady, rather above thirty years of age than under, of tall and commanding figure, somewhat large, but no superfluous fat, broad shouldered, and wide hipped, with bosoms well separated, but not too prominent. Her hair was coal black, and her eyes equally so, but with the most determined expression, rendered more so by very thick eyebrows, which met in the middle. She showed also a well marked downy moustache, and the small curly hairs below her head, at the back of her neck, literally lost themselves beneath her high-necked dress. She always wore long sleeves, and never showed bare arms. I afterwards found the reason of this was that her arms were so black with thick hair that she was ashamed to let them be seen, although, in reality, beautifully formed and plump. Her mouth was large; it showed animal passion, but at the same time determined firmness of character. You could not call her handsome, but there was altogether an appearance of face, expression, and person that might well be styled a fine woman. As for us, at the period of first seeing her, we only marked the determined character of her countenance, and at once dreaded her becoming our governess, as we felt we should not only have one who would master us, but who would also be severe in every way. Youth is often a better physiognomist than it is credited with. It will be seen in the sequel whether we had judged correctly or not. Suffice it to say that her three days' visit ended in her being perfectly satisfied with the offered position, and mamma being equally satisfied with her. We did not know at the time, but afterwards found out, that she had made it a sine qua non that she should have carte blanche as to the use of the rod. She had observed to mamma that she thought we had been too leniently treated by our late governess, and it would be necessary to exert severe discipline, which, in her own experience, she had always found most efficacious. My mother, who had during the last two months found us rather headstrong and wilful, quite chimed in with her idea, and gave every authority to do quite as she liked, either with her girls or her son.

Terms being so arranged, Miss Frankland required a week to make all her arrangements before definitely taking up her new residence. My mother, thinking we should be well kept in on the arrival of Miss Frankland, left us in uninterrupted liberty until then, you may be sure we improved the occasion, and did our best to make up for the loss of our inestimable and amiable friend, Mr. MacCallum. Not only did we make use of the summer house by day, but every night I stole up to my loved sisters' room, where we tried to emulate the luxurious scenes of lubricity we had lately been so deliriously indulging in at the seaside in Wales. Of course, the week passed far too quickly, and on the appointed day my mother drove into the town to bring Miss Frankland home, on the arrival of the coach. My two sisters accompanied her, as something or other was always wanted for the girls; and as Miss Frankland and her luggage would quite fill the carriage on their return, I was left by myself at home, a most fortunate circumstance, as it turned out.

I was somewhat annoyed at being left alone. But how true it is that "man proposes and God disposes." Had I gone with them I should have missed a most delicious and unexpected treat. I had strolled to the summer house in a sort of despair at the lost opportunity of again fucking my sisters before the arrival of the dreaded governess. I was listlessly gazing out of the window when I suddenly became aware of a lady waving her hand to me from a gig coming down the road which our summer house commanded. In an instant I recognised Mrs. Vincent. To run down the hillock, unbolt the private door, and welcome her to our house, was the work of a moment. I begged her to get out and walk to the house through the grounds, her servant could drive round to the stables and wait there. She did so at once. I never said a word of all being absent until I had her safe in the summer house. Without a word I seized her round the waist, and pressing her back on the couch, quickly unbuttoned my trousers, and pulling up her petticoats, was pushing my stiff prick against her belly before she was almost aware of my intentions.

"My dear Charlie," she cried, "what are you at? We shall be discovered, and it will be my ruin."

"Oh, no, my ever loved Mrs. Vincent; they are all away to town, and we have nothing to fear."

She loved me too well to make further resistance; on the contrary, seconding me with all her accustomed art, we both quickly sunk in all the voluptuous raptures of satisfied desire. I would not quit my position, but kissing her rapturously, I shoved my tongue into her mouth, and stopped her remonstrances. The excitement of meeting her after a two months' separation stimulated my passions to the utmost, and with hardly bated breath I began a fresh career, but with more moderation and greater pains to make her a perfect participant in the raptures I myself was receiving. She thoroughly enjoyed it, and being relieved from any fear of surprise, after my informing her of the absence of all the family, she gave way to all the force of her ardent amorous propensities, enjoyed our delicious fuck thoroughly, and spent at the same time as myself with screams of satiated passion. After this I withdrew. She kissed me most tenderly, and said I was as bad and wild a boy as ever, that she loved me too tenderly ever to refuse me anything I desired, and begged me to sit by her side and talk of old times.

"No," I said, "on the contrary, tell me all about yourself; I have not seen you since your marriage day, and I want to know how the after-part went off. I was in dread lest our embracings should have left traces that would make your husband suspect you were not all he had anticipated."

"You are a strange boy, my dear Charlie, and more of a man in every way than many ten years older than yourself. Who would have thought such ideas would have been running through so young a head. Well, my darling boy, I was somewhat uneasy on that very point myself, and, indeed, had fixed the marriage day when I expected I should be unwell on the very night, but in that I was disappointed; nothing came, and I was driven to act in the best way I could. I kept my legs close together. I got my hand down to that part of my person, and kept squeezing my affair as close as possible. I pressed hard with my fingers on his weapon as he forced an entrance, and all at once gave way with a scream of apparent pain, as he gave an extra thrust, and let him penetrate at once. An inexperienced husband takes much on credit and imagination, I quite satisfied him that he was the first possessor of my person; but, oh! my beloved Charlie, I found I was really ready in the family-way, and you, my dear fellow, are the father of the baby now within my womb."

"What? I! I! the father of your baby? Oh, dear, darling Mrs. Vincent; oh, say that again."

"It is indeed true, my dear Charlie; and the knowledge that I first possessed you, and you me, reconciles me to giving my husband a child that is not his."

"My child! my child!" I cried, and I danced round in a paroxysm of delight at the idea of being a father. It seemed at once to elevate me to manhood, and puffed me up with pride. I rushed upon dear Mrs. V., embraced her most warmly, and pushing her back on the sofa, said—

"I must see how the little angel looks in his cell."

I turned up her petticoats, and exposed all her beauteous belly, already by its swelling showing there was more there than ever went into her mouth. Her cunt too had become more prominent. I stooped, kissed her lovely quim, gave it a good suck, then gamahuched her till she cried out for my prick to fuck her, and a most exquisite and rapturous fuck we had. The thought that I was baptising my own babe with my sperm stimulated my lubricity, and we ran a course of the most libidinous delights until we dissolved away in the most voluptuous death-like exhaustion of satisfied desires.

"Charlie, my darling, you must get up; remember you may injure the dear little creature by too great an excess, so pray rise."

I rose at once, but only to embrace her most tenderly. She complained of feeling somewhat faint, and said we must now go to the house to get some wine. We put ourselves in order, and all radiant at the thoughts of paternity, I strutted along as proud as a peacock, and thinking no small beer of myself. I hardly knew whether I stood on my head or my heels, and was quite extravagant in my conduct. Dear Mrs. V. was obliged seriously to caution me before I could come to a proper reserved behaviour in presence of the servants. She rested about half an hour, and was about to order the gig up to the door, but I implored her to send it round to the road below the summer house, as I should all the longer have the pleasure of being with her. She smiled, and again gave me a pat on the cheek, as much as to say, "I understand you, you rogue," but did as I suggested. So we proceeded through the grounds, and were at the summer house some time before the gig could be harnessed and come round to the road below. I did not wait for that, but embracing darling Mrs. V., wanted to push her down on the sofa.

"No, no, dear Charlie, that will tumble my dress too much, and we shall have no time to put it in order; stop, I will kneel on the low couch, and you will stand behind, I can guide you from below, and you know I always thought you got further in and gave me more pleasure that way than any other."

She knelt down, and I canted her clothes right over her shoulders, and exhibited her fine buttocks, which, now she was in the family-way, had widened out, and were fatter and rounder than ever. First gluttonously kissing them, I brought my prick right against them. Mrs. Vincent projected her hand behind, seized and guided him into her glowing and longing cunt, and he plunged at one bound up to the hilt.

"Gently, Charlie dear," she cried, "remember our dear baby is there, and you must not be too violent."

This at once reduced me to moderation. I had a hand on each hip, and as I slowly glided in, I pressed her splendid buttocks backwards to meet me. I kept my body upright so as to enjoy the lovely sight of the movement of her bottom.

"Put your arm round and feel my clitoris, Charlie, dear."

I did so for a minute, and then whispered—

"It is such delight to gaze on your splendid bum in action, so pray apply your own finger to your clitoris, and let me enjoy the lovely sight."

"Very well, darling."

And I could feel her frigging away most furiously. This enabled me to introduce first one and then two fingers into her most delicious bottom-hole. When I found she was in the greatest state of excitement, I suddenly shifted my prick, and substituted it for my fingers. In her surprise and excitement, she had no time to resist, and I glided in, not too rapidly, quite up as far as I could go. She flinched a little, and called me a bad fellow, but I held her hips too tight to allow of her unseating me, even if she had wished. I begged she would let me go on, for I had never forgotten the delight of doing it this way the night before her marriage. She made no reply, but I could feel redoubled action with her finger on her clitoris; and the muscular twitchings of her loins and sphincter soon convinced me that nothing would please her better than finishing our course where I was—and most delicious it proved. We should have died away in loud cries of agonised delight but for the necessity of prudence, for doubtless the gig was then awaiting but a few yards off. My darling mistress seemed unwilling to let me withdraw; she held my prick in such close and firm embrace, throbbing on it from moment to moment, and so exciting him that she shortly felt he was again stiffening inside of her. She rose on her legs, and by that action unsheathed me. Then, turning round, she threw her arms about my neck, and most tenderly embraced me, thanking me for having given her such exquisite proofs of love.

"But I must go, my dear Charlie, and I hope we shall have occasionally some other delicious opportunity of enjoying such raptures again. Say everything kind to your mother and the girls, and tell them I shall come ever again shortly and see them all."

I saw her into her gig, and watched her until a turn in the road hid her from my sight. I returned to the summer house, and kissed the spot she had last pressed with her lovely body. My soul was filled with love of her, and pride that I was man enough to put a babe into her belly. I strutted about the room, and if any one could have seen me I should doubtless have appeared ridiculous. Mamma, our new governess, and the girls returned to tea. I told them of Mrs. Vincent's visit, and her regret at finding them absent, also of her promise to drive over again on an early day. My mother hoped I had been attentive to her. I said I had, as well as I could, and had got some wine and biscuits, as she complained of not feeling very well, she thought the jolting road had tired her.

It may well be supposed that after the impression our new governess had made upon us, we were very attentive for some time. Indeed, her system of teaching was really excellent, far superior, in that respect, to our former governess. She had a method of interesting you in what she was teaching, and for quite two months we paid such great attention, and made such really extraordinary progress, that she could not help praising us highly to mamma while we were in the room. This was bad policy, because, with the natural thoughtlessness of youth, we fancied ourselves so clever that we became less attentive. This was patiently borne with for some time, probably in consequence of our previous good behaviour. But at last Lizzie was somewhat impudent when blamed rather harshly by Miss Frankland.

"Oh! it has come to that, has it? We shall see." She continued our lessons until four o'clock as usual, and then desired Lizzie to remain where she was; she dismissed Mary and me, locked the door on poor Lizzie, and went away, doubtless for a rod. She soon returned, and locking herself in, most severely whipped poor Lizzie's bottom. She sent her out when it was finished, and Lizzie joined us, weeping bitterly from the pain she was suffering. We laid her on the couch, and turned her petticoats over her head to cool her bottom, which she declared felt as if burning hot coals were spread over it. I kissed the dear red buttocks that were all covered with weals and looked like raw beef, but no blood had been drawn. We fanned her with our handkerchiefs, which she said was a delightful relief. In a very few minutes she began to wriggle her bottom in a state of excitement, and cried out—

"Dear Charlie, do shove your prick into my cunt, it has begun to long for a fuck."

I wanted nothing but this to instantly act, for the sight of her bare bum had already made my cock stand as stiff as iron. She raised herself on her hands and knees, presenting the back entrance to her cunt, and telling me it was there she must have it instantly. I plunged up to the hilt in a moment, for she was as juicy and moist as if she had spent, which it is more than probable was the case. Very few powerful thrusts on my part, seconded by energetic action on hers, and she spent again with a scream of delight, and with a pressure on my cock that almost hurt it. She hardly paused a moment before she cried out—

"Shove on, dear Charlie, push it in further if you can, I am burning with desire."

She wriggled her backside in every way in the most lascivious and delicious manner, and when she felt the crisis approaching, by the increased swelling and hardness of my prick as well as the peculiar electric effect at the moment, she met my flood of sperm with so copious a discharge that it literally spurted out and deluged my cods and thighs. She held me tight, and would not allow me to withdraw until I had myself spent four times and she seven at least. We then rose, her nerves calmed by the repeated doses of hot boiling sperm shot into her interior. She declared that never in all her fucking had she felt such insatiable desire, or more ravishing delight in satisfying it, that she would undergo a dozen such floggings to have the same rapturous enjoyment.

"I am sure," she said, "it was all the effect of the rod, I never felt anything like it before."

Mary all this time had been but a spectator, and a pleased one to see the erotic fury of her sister and my powerful efforts to allay it. It is true we had both had a delicious fuck during the time poor Lizzie was catching it on her backside, and I had just gamahuched her deliciously afterwards as Lizzie came in in such pain.

Miss Frankland had retired to her room, and looked still flushed and somewhat wild looking when she joined us after the usual hour's recreation. As may well be supposed, we were all as attentive as possible. There was one circumstance that evidently pleased Miss Frankland immensely. When Lizzie, in her turn, went up to repeat her lesson, she suddenly threw her arms round Miss Frankland's neck, and with tears running over her cheeks, sobbed out—

"Dear Miss Frankland, pray forgive me, and let me kiss you, for I love you dearly."

There was a bright sparkle of delight in Miss Frankland's eyes. She clasped Lizzie round the waist, and drew her to her lips in a long sweet kiss of love, which seemed as if it would never end. We observed Miss Frankland's colour rise. She at last put Lizzie away, and said she was a dear amiable girl, whom she could not help loving.

"Go to your seat, you are too agitated, my dear, to say your lesson just now; so send Mary up."

Lizzie came back to her seat, but I could not help fancying I saw a complete expression of erotic desire on her countenance. When afterwards we were alone together, she told us that when the governess kissed her, she felt Miss F.'s tongue glide into her mouth, and "tip her the velvet" in a most delicious and exciting manner, and she believed that if they had been alone they must have given each other mutual embraces of a warmer description. This led me to think that Miss Frankland was herself rendered lecherous by the action of even wielding the rod. Lizzie during the whole of the next week did nothing but rave of the excessive excitement that her whipping had put her into, and the extreme felicity she felt in having her salacious lechery satisfied. We were not able to meet every day, for frequently Miss Frankland accompanied us, and joined in the youthful sports we then gave way to. Lizzie continuing to harp on the extraordinary enjoyment the whipping had procured her, after it was over, fired the imagination of Mary, until she was wound up to a pitch of actually longing to be whipped. In such a case it was easy to incur the penalty; she had but wilfully to neglect her studies, and she was sure to get it. This she accordingly did, and it resulted as before. When released, she rushed to the summer house, and without any preliminaries, called upon me to fuck her directly; and a very similar scene followed to that which had occurred when dear Lizzie was whipped. Mary did not, however, give way to the uncontrollable desire to throw herself into Miss Frankland's arms as Lizzie had done. Miss F., as usual, retired to her room after the punishment was over, and was late in coming down, with the same flushed face and excited eye. I became convinced that she herself was salaciously excited by the act, and I began to fancy that with such passions, if I could but excite her in any way, it might be worth my while. When once these lecherous ideas were raised in my imagination, desire soon painted her with every charm of beauty, and I became excessively lewd and anxious to possess her. The more I looked at and scanned the really beauteous proportions of her finely developed form, the more my determination to have her took root, and grew strong within me.

About this time Miss Frankland, who had become a great favourite with mamma, obtained permission to take possession of the spare bedroom, with an understanding that she was to cede it to any visitor who might come. Of course, this circumstance made my desire to get into her good graces doubly strong, inasmuch as the opportunity of sleeping with her afterwards could be so easily effected. I determined to watch her when retiring to bed, and try to get a view of her naked form. For this purpose I removed the stopping of moistened bread I had put in the hole I made to see Mr. Benson fucking his wife. I lay awake, until she came to bed. I saw her undress, but only caught sight of her naked bubbies, over her chemise. As I have said, they were not large, but widely separated, with a fine flat neck up to the throat. I mean that she showed no collar bone, which is a great beauty in woman. She had evidently been quite naked, and had used the bidet, but the extent of the slit in the door did not allow me to command the part of the room where she had used it. I remedied this defect next day, and the following night was rewarded with a most glorious sight. You may well suppose that I did not let sleep overcome me, but was at my post as soon as ever I heard her enter her room. I was on my knees in a moment, at my peephole, and saw her deliberately undress to her chemise. She then arranged all her magnificent head of hair, brushing it out as far and further than her arms would extend; and after well brushing and combing it, she plaited and rolled it up, in a great big rouleau behind, then washing her hands, she drew out the bidet, poured water into it, and then divested herself of her shift. She was standing in front of the dressing-table, with two candles shining on her, so that when she lifted her shift over her head; I had a well-lighted full view of her wonderfully covered belly. She was all over hair; it was as black as coal, and shone as if polished in all its beautiful curls. I am now an old man, but never have I seen the equal to that dear woman in a hairy belly. It was quite up to her navel, and several inches down the inside of her thighs, besides running thickly in the chinks of her bottom, and with two bunches where the beautiful back dimple is usually situated, as thick, and even thicker than ordinary women have in on their mounts. In addition to this, there was a beautiful little line of curls that ran up her belly, as far as between her bubbies, to say nothing of the very hairy thighs, legs, and arms. I never saw a more deliciously hairy woman, and she was all that such excessive growth of hair denoted—passionate and lecherous to a degree, when once she had confidence in her companion, to let her feelings have vent. Of course, I am now describing my after-experience; at the moment I was only dazzled by the extraordinary richness and quantity of that exquisite ornament—hair—not only in splendid quantity on the head, but in a profusion such as I had never then and have not since witnessed. I was struck dumb with astonishment and admiration. She laved her hairy cunt, and all the adjacent parts, then wiped herself dry, put on her night-gown, extinguished her light, and, of course, got into bed. So did I but only to toss and tumble, and at last, in troubled sleep, to dream of that most gloriously covered cunt, and to imagine myself revelling therein. So great was my excitement that I had the first wet dream I ever experienced. It is needless to say, it was under the dreaming idea that I was enjoying to the utmost that wonder cunt.

I was quite exhausted by morning with such a restless night, and was not only very distrait, but was really so fatigued that I could not attend to my lessons. Of course Miss Frankland noticed this, and being unaware of the cause, attributed it to wilful idleness and bravado of her authority. She spoke very gravely and seriously to me, and told me if I did not improve my conduct by next day it would be her painful duty to punish me with severity.

"I expect to see you exhibit very different conduct tomorrow, otherwise you will drive me to do that which I would much rather not."

It rained hard that afternoon, and we had to amuse ourselves within doors. On retiring for the night, I determined to watch again for Miss Frankland, but my want of rest the previous night overpowered me, and I fell fast asleep until far in the night. I rose and crept to my peep-hole, but all was dark. I could hear Miss Frankland breathing heavily. The thought at once struck me that I might safely steal up to my sisters' room, as they were now alone, since Miss F. had the previous night removed to the spare bedroom, where she was now fast asleep. So softly opening my door, and leaving it ajar, I crept along the passage, gained my sisters' room, and gently awakening them, jumped in between them, to their great joy and satisfaction. We immediately began with a gamahuche, I taking Mary's cunt, while Lizzie crossed her legs over her head, and was gamahuched by Mary, whose finger was at the same time acting postilion to her charming bottom-hole, while I had the exquisite prospect before me of their operations. As soon as ever Mary spent I made Lizzie lie down on her back, with her head towards the bottom of the bed, Mary knelt over her in the opposite direction, presenting her very full backside, which was daily developing larger proportions. I plunged into her cunt, plugging her little rosy bum-hole at the same time with my middle finger, while Lizzie did as much for me, at the same time rubbing Mary's clitoris with the fleshy end of the thumb, while Mary, at the same time she herself was fucked and frigged in two places, was employed in gamahuching Lizzie, and frigging her bottom-hole with two fingers, Lizzie declaring that one finger felt as nothing. We lengthened out our delicious proceedings until excess of excitement compelled us to give way to all the fury of our feelings, and we managed to spend all together with such rapturous and lascivious delight as rendered us quite powerless for some time. We then had a delicious cuddle, the girls having each one hand on my prick and the other on my buttocks. When we had once more worked ourselves up to fucking heat, we reversed the previous position, and I fucked Lizzie. Mary was gamahuched and bottom-fingered by Lizzie, while she employed herself with Lizzie's clitoris and my bum-hole. Lizzie was far hotter and more salacious than any of us, and spent copiously on my delighted prick, which enjoyed excessively the warm bath of glutinous liquid that was poured down upon it. I gave a few slow-drawn thrusts in and out, to moisten well its whole shaft, and removing my two fingers from her delicious bottom-hole, and wetting it with my saliva, I withdrew my prick from the reeking sheath of her cunt, and to her great delight slowly housed it in her longing and exquisitely delicious bottom-hole, keeping it quiet there for some time, so as not to spend before Lizzie was ready. I enjoyed the delicious throbbing of her body, which at last becoming too exciting, I stooped over her, passed a hand under her belly, replaced Mary's fingers, rubbing her clitoris while Mary frigged her cunt with two fingers thrust into it. We thus quickly brought matters to an end, and died off in all the ecstasies of satiated lust. As daylight was beginning to dawn, I tore myself from their loving embraces, gained my room in safety, and slept the sleep of the just until late in the morning.

My orgie with my sisters had so far satisfied my animal passions that I rather began to dread the severity I knew Miss Frankland would use if I came under her hand. This made me so far attentive next day as to satisfy her; and as it was a fine afternoon she came out to walk in the garden, while we innocently amused ourselves. That evening I kept awake, and again enjoyed the superb display of Miss Frankland's wonderfully hairy cunt, all the lower part of her body was as black as a chimney sweeper's. The sight awakened every lustful feeling within me. I felt I must possess her, and determined to brave the severest infliction she could give me with the rod. I somehow, instinctively, arrived at the conclusion that this extraordinary profusion of hair could only grow where nature had implanted the hottest animal passions, and had but to greatly excite them to turn their lust to my advantage. I determined that to-morrow I should bring things to a crisis, and that I might be equal to every effort I went to my bed, and did not attempt to steal up to my sisters' room. Next day nothing could be made of me in the morning; Miss Frankland sternly warned me that if such conduct was pursued after dinner nothing should save my skin from a severe scourging. However, my mind was made up, and I went in "for the whole hog," as our vulgar Yankee cousins say. I was more idle and insubordinate than ever. Miss F. looked thunder; at four o'clock she ordered me to stay, and the girls to go. She then locked the door, took out from the desk a formidable rod, and told me to approach her. I did so—really half in fear, for she could look dreadfully fierce and determined, in which case I came up to her side.

"Now, Charles," she said, "your conduct, for two or three days past, has been such as I cannot put up with. Your mother has given me full power to punish any of you severely, if I think you deserve it; you are getting to be of an age that I hoped you would have so acted as to give me no cause of offence, but I am sorry to see my hopes are disappointed. I am now about to punish you, submit to it quietly, or it will be all the worse for you. Unbutton and put down your trousers."

I felt I must submit, but when brought to this point I really so much dreaded her that there was not the slightest erection in poor cockey.

While I was undoing my trousers, I observed that Miss Frankland had quite lifted up her outer frock, and had sat down, evidently intending to flog me across her knee. Both being ready, she told me to put the footstool by her side and kneel upon it, then desiring me to bend forward over her knees she put one hand over my body to hold me down; then uncovering my bottom, and taking the rod, which was by her side, she raised her arm and gave me a fearful cut, which made me not only flinch, but cry out most lustily. Blow followed blow, causing at first great agony, that made me cry again in good earnest; then the very continuance of the blows seemed to deaden the parts until I hardly felt them. This was succeeded by a titillation and lascivious excitement which speedily brought my prick out in the fullest vigour. I then began to push it against Miss Frankland's thigh, and to wriggle myself nearly off her knees. Seemingly to prevent this, she passed her left arm quite round my body, bringing her hand under my belly, and, apparently by accident, against my prick, which she grasped, and I could feel her hand pass both up and down it as if she was measuring its length and thickness, continuing all the time to shower down blow after blow on my devoted backside. As she held a firm grasp on my prick, I pretended to be evading the blows, while in reality I was thrusting it in and out of her hand with the utmost energy and excitement, which speedily brought on the delightful crisis, and with a cry of rapture I gave down a copious discharge into her hand, and sank almost senseless on her lap. I pretended complete loss of consciousness, which she believing, she gently felt, and even frigged a little, my prick, pressing me the while close to her body, and then I felt a shudder run through her whole frame. I have no doubt she was in a paroxysm of lust, and had spent, I gave her time to recover a little, and then pretending to come to my senses, but in a confused state of ideas, said—

"Oh, what has happened? I have been in heaven!"

Then raising myself, and apparently only just recognising Miss Frankland, I threw my arms round her neck, and exclaimed—

"Dear Miss Frankland, do flog me again if it will produce again such ecstasies as I never before experienced."

Her face was flushed, her eye shone with all the fire of libidinous passion. My prick had hardly lost its stiffness when I spent, and was now projecting out firmer than ever.

"Why, Charles, I thought you a mere boy, while you are quite a man with such a thing as this."

"Oh!" I cried, "do continue to hold it, you give me such pleasure!"

"Has anyone else ever held it in this way?"

"No, I never felt anything like it before."

"But don't you know what this is meant to do?"

"Oh, yes, it is what I piddle from."

She laughed, and asked if it was often in its present state of stiffness.

"Every morning when I awake it is so, and it hurts me very much until I piddle."

"And has no one ever taught you any other use of it?"

"No, what use can it be of?"

"You dear innocent boy, if I could trust you, I would teach you a secret that this dear thing would greatly enjoy. But can I trust you?"

"Oh, certainly, dear Miss Frankland, I know what you mean now, to repeat the delicious sensations you gave me a few minutes ago. Oh, do, do! do it again, it was far too nice for me ever to tell anybody, as long as you will do it for me."

"Well, Charles, I will trust you. Do you know that women are differently formed from you?"

"Yes, I used to sleep in mamma's room, and I have often been surprised to see that she piddled from a long hole, and had not got a doodle like I have to piddle from."

"My dear innocent Charlie, that long hole was made to take in this dear fellow here that is throbbing almost to bursting in my hand, and if you promise me faithfully never to tell any one, I will teach you how it is done."

You may be sure my protestations of secrecy were most earnest.

"Look here then, my dear boy, and see what I have got between my legs."

She laid herself back on the long chair, drew up her petticoats, and exhibited to my charmed gaze the wondrous wealth of hair she possessed. Opening her legs, I saw the wide-spread rosy lips showing themselves in beautiful contrast to the coal-black hair that grew in the greatest profusion all round the lower lips, and extended also some five or six inches down the side of each thigh. But what at the moment most astonished me, and drew all my attention, was to see a deep red clitoris standing out from the upper part of her cunt quite stiff, and as long and as thick as the middle finger of a man. I very nearly betrayed myself at the sight, but, fortunately, was able to keep up the character of apparent ignorance I had hitherto shown, and said—"You, also, have got a little doodle to piddle with?"

She laughed, and said—

"It is very different from yours. Give me yours here, that I may kiss it."

She fondled it for a second or two, and then could not resist the impulse to take it into her mouth and suck it.

"Oh, what pleasure! I shall die!"

"Not yet, dear boy; kneel down there, and I shall instruct you in the real secret of pleasure."

But, before she could do anything, I threw my head down, crying out—

"I must give this pretty little fellow a taste of the pleasure you have just given mine."

And in an instant I had the delicious thing up to the root in my mouth, sucking furiously at it. Her twistings, and up and down action of her loins, showed how rapturously I was exciting her, in fact, I brought on the crisis, when she pressed my head down hard upon it, and closed her thighs on each side of my head, as she poured over my chin and breast a perfect torrent of sperm. A minute after she seized my arms, and drew me up on her belly, then slipping her hand down between us, she seized my prick and guided him, nothing loath, into her burning hot and foaming cunt. She placed her hands on my buttocks, and pressing me right up to the hilt, began a movement which she told me how to second, that in a very short time brought down an exquisite spend from me. The idea that she was giving me the first lesson in love, and of being the first possessor of my person, seemed to excite her lust to the utmost, and she immediately followed my discharge with another, so copious that it spurted all over my thighs. Her force of pressure on my prick in her agonies of enjoyment was so great as nearly to hurt me. I never knew any one but her with such strength of pressure of cunt on the prick. She has often actually brought tears into my eyes, so powerful was her grip that it made me really feel as if in a vice. She lay back with closed eyes and panting bosom in a rapturous trance of lascivious lubricity, her throbbing cunt holding me tightly pressed between its palpitating folds in the most delicious imprisonment, and from time to time grasping my prick with a pressure that very shortly restored it to its fullest vigour and stiffness. She was as hot as fire and responded immediately to the renewed life she found stirring within me. She gave way to her salacious lust with, if anything, a more passionate excess than the first time. My superb weapon seemed to stir up within her a force of lubricity that nothing could seem to satisfy. Her hands clutched my buttocks convulsively, and seemed to wish to force my whole body into her wildly excited cunt. With such vigour was the action carried on that the grand crisis soon arrived, most rapturous to both, and almost maddening to Miss Frankland. The heavings of her body and gaspings for breath were quite hysterical, while, with one of those real vice-like pressures, I felt as if she were nipping my prick in two. It was not a mere throbbing pressure, but a long continued convulsive squeeze, as if her cunt had been seized like the jaws of the mouth with lock-jaw, and could not open. It was nearly ten minutes before she recovered her senses. She seized my head between her hands, kissed me most lovingly, declared I was the dearest creature that ever lived, that she had never before had any one who had so satisfied her, and filled her with inexpressible rapture, &c. This fondling had again brought up my prick to full stand. Miss Frankland said—

"Dear Charlie, we must be prudent, as the time is drawing near for your sisters' return."

But there was no stopping, the exquisite pleasure of her splendid interior cunt pressures was irresistible. My movements speedily determined matters in my favour. Miss Frankland's temperament was far too warm not to quickly set her passions to the highest fucking heat; and again we had a most exquisite fuck, lengthened out more luxuriously by the more urgent fires of desire having been moderated by the three previous discharges. With more abandon we both sank in the death-like ecstasies of the delicious melting away in all the luxury of contented and voluptuous discharges. Miss Frankland lay for some short time luxuriously closing in my delighted prick, but raising her body, she said—

"Charles, we must cease for the present."

And, pushing me away, I was forced to withdraw; but her dear cunt seemed as reluctant as myself, and held my prick so tight that I had to pull hard to draw it out, and, at last, he left with a noise like drawing a cork from a well-corked bottle. Before I rose, or she could hinder me, I threw myself down and glued my lips to her reeking cunt, and greedily licked up the foaming sperm that had surged out of her well-gorged quim. She with difficulty drew away her body, but as I rose she clasped me to her bosom and kissed me most fervently, and licked her own sperm off my richly covered lips. Begging me to button up, and putting herself to rights, she desired me to sit down by her side. She wiped my mouth with her handkerchief, arranged my disordered neck-tie, collar, and hair. We then embraced most tenderly, and she thanked me for the immense gratification I had given her; she praised my parts as being of extraordinary development and more satisfying than any she had yet had any experience of. This was the second time she referred to other experiences. I took no notice of this all the time, as if I was supposed to be too ignorant or innocent to think any harm of it, but I determined in some excess of passion to get her to give me a recital of some of her previous experiences.

Before my sisters came in, she said—

"I shall try and arrange some means for our meeting unobserved to-morrow. Meanwhile, you must sit as if you had been severely punished, and I shall assert that you had done everything to resist my authority, for which I had punished you further by not allowing you to leave the school-room."

I said not a word to Miss F. about the ease of meeting by merely opening the door of communication between our rooms. I was afraid to make her suspicious of a former use of it. But I determined, when she came to bed, to rap at the door and beg her to open it, and I had no doubt she would be as delighted as myself to find with what facility she could indulge to the utmost every libidinous passion which her lascivious nature could suggest. My sisters returned, and appeared disappointed that I had not been able to join them, as they had anticipated a glorious fuck or two each, after the whipping had excited me as it did them. They told me afterwards they had been obliged to content themselves with a double mutual gamahuche, but it did not make up for my absence.

While they were all engaged after tea, I slipped up to Miss Frankland's room to see that the key was in the lock of the door between our two rooms. I opened it, oiled the hinges, and locked it again from her side. I also, with a view to sometimes slipping up to my sisters' room, oiled my own and their doors, hinges, and locks, as now that the ice was broken with Miss Frankland, it would be necessary to be doubly careful not to excite suspicion of my visits to my sisters. Having finished everything to my satisfaction, I joined them in the drawing-room, and while my sisters were playing duets on the piano to mamma, I challenged Miss Frankland to a game of chess. She, of course, was a far superior player to me, but our legs meeting under the chess table, her little charming foot sought mine, rested on it, and pressed it from time to time. This distraction of her ideas enabled me to win two games successively. My mother sent the girls to bed, and told me to follow their example, but as I did not wish to lie long waiting for Miss Frankland's appearance in her bedroom, I pleaded for relaxation in the hour of retiring, to enable Miss Frankland to regain her chance of beating me, at the same time pressing her foot as a sign to her to second my request. She took the hint, though she had no idea of the object. Mamma came near us to look over our game. This induced Miss Frankland to play with more caution and thought, and she won three games in succession, making her the final winner. Mamma now said I must go to bed, as it was very late for me. She still treated me as a child. I, however, had gained my object in obtaining nearly two hours' delay in going to bed, so that I had not long to wait before I heard Miss Frankland enter her room. I determined to let her finish her toilet before I called her attention to me. I watched through my peep-hole, and could now calmly and leisurely see all the beauties of her well-developed form, and the rich wealth of hair she possessed. She went through all her ablutions as usual. I observed she also used a syringe to thoroughly purify the inside of her glorious cunt. When she had dried herself, and was about to pull on her chemise, I rapped on the door of communication, and in a loud whisper called her attention to me.

"Are you there, Charlie?"

"Yes, pray unlock the door and open it, that I may come to you."

She actually had not yet discovered that the door, locked and bolted on her side, communicated with my bedroom, but her delight at the discovery was greater than her surprise. I flew into her arms, and was hugged to her bosom, and covered with kisses. But as my prick was in a bursting state of erection, I drew her to the bed, upon which we both threw ourselves, she on her back, and I above, and in an instant I was engulphed up to the cods in her glorious and glowing cunt, and we ran an eager course of rapturous thrustings, until nature could stand no more, and we sank in all the delights of a most delicious mutual spend. I lay soaking in bliss for some time, and after fondling each other, Miss Frankland said—,

"Get up, dear Charlie, and let us get into bed."

For we had been in too great haste to do otherwise than tumble on the top to it. My charming bed-fellow also rose for a necessary purpose, which I had interrupted when I knocked at the door. She sat down on the pot de chambre, and a mighty rush of water followed. I cried—

"Oh, do let me see you piddle from your beautiful fanny."

I still kept up my character of innocence, and used none but infantine words in reference to our organs of generation.

She laughed, but pulled up her shift, and raised her thighs above the pot, so advancing the light, I had the delicious sight of her wide-stretched cunt, pouring out a stream of piddle with great force. Her position brought out all the beauties of the vast wide-spread mass of black curly hair that thickly covered all the lower part of her magnificent quim, ran down each thigh, up between her buttocks, and opening out on her back, had two bunches just below the two beautiful dimples that were so charmingly developed below her waist. There was as much hair there as most women have on their mons Veneris. Her whole body had fine straight silky hair on it, very thick on the shoulders, arms and legs, with a beautiful creamy skin showing below. She was the hairiest woman I ever saw, which, doubtless, arose from or was the cause of her extraordinary lustful and luxurious temperament. The sight I was indulging in brought out my pego in full bloom; as we both rose she saw it sticking out under my shirt.

"Off with all that, and let me gaze on your charming young perfections."

I did as she desired, begged her to do the same, and there she stood, in all the glory of her superb form. We encircled each other's naked bodies, and then turned each other round to gaze on all the exciting charms displayed to each other.

"Come, my darling boy, and let me kiss and fondle you all over."

She laid me on my back, reversed herself above me, and taking my prick in her mouth, after first feeling it most gently, and praising its large proportions, again declaring it was the finest she had ever seen, she began to gamahuche me with a skill such as I had never before experienced, and gave me the most exquisite and most luxurious delight. For my part, seeing her wonderful clitoris, stiff standing out of the bright red lips of her luscious cunt, I took it bodily into my mouth, sucked it, and rolled my tongue about it, to the evident delight of my salacious companion. Her buttocks rose and fell, and the lips of her cunt immediately before my eyes opened, or closely pressed the lips together, showing the delicious nature of her enjoyment. I felt her put her hand to my bottom and insert her finger, and begin frigging me there. I let her see how it pleased me. She stopped a moment, to beg me to do the same to her, anticipating my earnest desire to do so. I lost no time in following her example. The parts adjacent were well lubricated by our previous indulgence, and first inserting two fingers into her deliciously juicy cunt to moisten them, I slipped one of them into her charming bottom-hole, and finding great ease of space, slipped the second in as well. My other hand and arm embraced and caressed her magnificent backside, which rose and fell on my face with unwearied speed, as my finger frigged her bottom-hole in unison with her movements, and my mouth more closely sucked her stiffly excited clitoris.

Her whole body became convulsed with erotic movements, showing what force of lubricity our mutual embracings were most rapturously exciting. I, too, grew wild with desire, and was equally energetic in my movements, and would have thrust my prick down her throat but for her hand, which grasped the lower part of the shaft. The rapturous crisis came at last and laid us prostrate with soul-killing ecstasies. We each retained the dear object of our mutual caresses within our lips and our fingers remained within the delightful recesses that had so much contributed to the excessive raptures we had enjoyed. We lay for some time in this sweet languid enjoyment. Miss Frankland then rose from off me, saying—

"My darling boy, we must now get into bed." We did so, quite naked as we were, closely embracing, and covering each other with kisses and caresses, murmuring soft terms of endearment, and in whispered accents told of the ecstatic joys each had given the other. Our hands wandered over every charm. Miss Frankland had an art of gently passing her fingers over my prick that had the instant effect of raising him into the fullest vigour. It was the most exquisite method of feeling my cock I ever experienced. She seemed scarcely to touch it, but drew her fingers along its length, from foot to head, with a delicacy of touch I have never found equalled by any other woman. The effect was magical, and invariable, no matter how many times I might have fucked her before. With her hot temperament, and excessive lubricity, it was almost a necessary art. She was one of those libidinous natures that could well employ several men at once. At my happy age, she found ready to her hand one who could respond to her every desire in every way, so happily does nature second youth and health that she never found me wanting, when called on. There was no excess of lubricity we did not afterwards practise. We satisfied our passions in every way in which they could be indulged, nor did we hesitate at any thing which imagination could fancy would stimulate them. She was surprised at my aptitude, and rejoiced and congratulated herself on having found so powerful and charming a satisfier of her libidinous nature. How delighted she was to think she was the first to cull the sweets of my innocence, and how happy to find so apt a scholar, who in one sweet lesson became a master of the art. The more I gained experience of the charming sex, the more I appreciated the wisdom of the counsels of my really first and ever loved mistress, dear, charming, lovely Mrs. Benson. How truly she had foretold that all who might hereafter think that they were giving me the first lesson in love would doubly, trebly, a hundred fold enjoy the sweet intercourse from such self-deception. Here was my fiery Miss Frankland, who had had considerable experience in the amatory world, pluming herself upon instructing an innocent youth in all the mysteries of the passions for the first time. It evidently added immensely to her excitement. Indeed, in our after-conversation, she avowed that as it was the first time she had ever taken the maidenhead of a youth, so it had been the greatest degree of excitement she had ever experienced. I might fancy her delight at finding combined with such a satisfaction a wonderfully well-hung youth, and who proved so apt, and so equal to every luxurious whim that the most erotic lust could suggest. But I digress. At present, her magic touch had brought me up to bursting point, she threw a leg over me, and raising her body, said she would help herself this time. Guiding my prick to the wanton lips that were longing for him, she sank slowly down on the stiff pole on which she was so delightedly impaling herself, until our hairs were crushed beneath her weight, and nothing more could be engulphed. She again rose, until the edge of the nut showed itself at the mouth of her cunt, and then as slowly sheathed it again. She continued this exquisite movement for some time, to our delicious mutual enjoyment, then falling down on my belly, and telling me to pass my arm round her bottom and finger her as before, she glued herself to my lips, our tongues interlaced, and shot in and out of our luxurious mouths; our movement grew fast and furious, until we again sank in all the luxury of the last grand crisis. It was the very act of voluptuous rapture, and we lay lost to every sense but that of erotic ecstasy and satisfied lust. When we recovered our senses, she lay down by my side, cuddling me most closely, and toying and prattling, until she thought we had paused long enough. She slid her hand down to my prick, and very quickly, by her delicious and delicate handling of it, renewed its full vigour. Throwing her right leg over me, while lying on her back, she heaved up her body into a position half turned to my belly, I lying on my side; she then bid me embrace her other thigh between mine, then guiding cockey to the entrance, she gave a push backwards, to meet my forward thrust, when it was instantly sheathed to the hilt.

"Now, my darling boy, in this way we can lengthen out our pleasures as long as we please; you can make me spend oftener than yourself, which will satisfy my very lustful nature, and not over exhaust your young powers."

Giving one or two delicious side wriggles to her bottom, and nestling her backside close to my belly, she told me to pass my left arm under her waist that I might embrace her left bubby and finger its nipple, a proceeding which she told me was as exciting as playing with her clitoris—then turning her head, our tongues interlaced; she put my right hand down to her stiff-projecting clitoris, which I continued to frig just as I might have done to a boy's cock. Keeping up a slow in and out movement with my prick, excited by so many points of lascivious friction, she spent most copiously before I was prepared to join her. Her head sank back in the ecstasy of her discharge, drawing away from me, and leaving my mouth free. I instantly dropped it upon her other firm and elastic bubby, at which I sucked away, pushing my prick as far as possible into her cunt, and leaving it there, without movement, to enjoy the rapture-giving pressures of her delicious cunt, slowly passing my hand up and down her still sufficiently indured clitoris. She lay for some time in the luxurious enjoyment of the position, then once more sucking my lips, she thanked me over and over again for the pleasure I had given her, heightened as it was by knowing that it had not exhausted me. I began to move slowly in and out, keeping up my movements at the other points of excitement. She was ready on the instant to second me, and as she meant this time that we should spend together she left nothing to desire. Her movements were of the most exciting and stimulating description, and we were not long before the ecstatic moment arrived, and we sank in the lap of luxury, pouring forth streams of ecstatic bliss. We lay close locked in the most delicious embrace, only conscious of unutterable joy. It was some time before we could venture to break this exquisite trance of enjoyment. It was followed by the sweetest toyings and prattlings, until again my delighted prick, stimulated by the internal pressures of the luxurious sheath in which it had remained engulphed, again awoke her scarce-slumbering passions to dash on pleasure's heavenly course. Again she spent before me with, if anything, increased rapture, and, after a pause, renewing her lascivious movements in response to my own, we sank in a perfect death-like swoon of thoroughly satiated lust, and gradually and imperceptibly fell into the deepest slumber for many hours, locked as we were in each other's arms. Her wonderfully retentive power of cunt held my happy prick a willing prisoner through our long sleep. I awoke first, to find it standing stiff within the charmed circle which even in her sleep was deliciously grasping it with its nervous folds. I passed my hand down to her clitoris, and began fucking her. She heaved her bottom up and down, and murmured some incoherent words, being evidently still under the influence of sleep, and probably dreaming of some former events, for in her half expressed murmurings, I could make out something—

"Henry—my only—ever loved one—meet again—oh! how ineffable—how exquisitely delicious. Do push it in—more faster—beloved of my soul."

She clasped me with a hug, as if she would make but one body of us both, and spent with a scream of agonized delight, pouring down and spurting out a perfect torrent of boiling spunk all over my cods and thighs.

"Dearest, beloved Henry, it is too much," she uttered, and fainted away.

I lay quite still, and determined not to speak until she should come to herself. It was evident her dreams had brought back some former loved and happy man and no doubt the fact of my being in possession, in full fuck, had made her believe in the reality of her sleeping thoughts. She was quite a quarter of an hour before recovering her senses; daylight had broken, and she looked round in a sort of alarm, and exclaimed—

"Where am I?"

Then her eye catching my face—

"Oh! my darling Charlie, it is you! I have been dreaming of being far away, and, I suppose, the fact of your dear weapon throbbing within me made me think of former events. Well, the dream had its pleasures, if only in a dream."

"It was no dream, my dear Miss Frankland, or at least, only partially so, as far as regarded your loved Henry—for that was the name you applied to me, and most deliciously did you embrace me under the idea, and die away in an excess of pleasure I quite envied; but you alarmed me by really fainting afterwards. I am so pleased to have turned a mere vision of the night into ecstatic reality, and I am not at all jealous of your former lover, because had you not had any, you would, probably, never have loved me. Oh, no! I should never be jealous of you my dear mistress. I would even like to see you in all the ecstasies of passion, in the arms of another, provided that I should share in your delights."

She listened in an astonishment, acknowledged that she had imagined herself in the arms of one she had greatly loved, and had thought the whole affair was a dream, and was not conscious of its absolute reality as to her being fucked.

"Well, I must have mine now, feel how it is bursting for relief."

"Yes, yes, the dear fellow, push him away, my Charlie, and you will see, I shall enjoy the real Charlie quite as much as the dreamt-of Henry—of whom I shall some day speak to you. You are worthy of him and of me—and I fear I shall love you as I do him, far too dearly."

Then lending herself to the work we were at, she did, indeed, exert all her lascivious power, and we enjoyed such a fuck as seldom falls to mortals here below. We lay prostrate and panting with satisfied lust, until prompted by the urgency of natural wants we were both obliged to rise and relieve ourselves. My darling mistress then used her bidet and told me to lave my parts in the basin, as it was not only cool and refreshing, but also reinvigorating. After which as it was now broad daylight, she allowed me to pose her, and turn her in every position, that I might admire and handle every part of her superb form. Her bottom was larger and harder than any I had yet seen, and, indeed, excepting one, of which, dear reader you will presently hear something, it was about the finest in form and size of any I ever met with. Of course, this handling was not effected without producing erotic excitement in both parties. Miss Frankland had occupied herself as much with me as I had done with her, and her beautifully large clitoris was showing its head in full stand out from among the vast mass of bushy curls surrounding it. I proposed we should have a mutual suck on the floor, with her bottom to the light, that I might have a full view of all her glorious parts. She humoured my fancy, and pulling a couple of pillows off the bed to prop up my head, she stepped across my body, and kneeling down, took my prick in her mouth, and brought her splendid backside and lascivious cunt down to my face. I first glued my lips to the open cunt, thrust my chin in, and then my tongue, as far as I could reach, licking the luscious moisture which our previous handlings had excited; it was as sweet and delicious as cream. This stimulated her very much, and she closed the sides of her cunt upon my tongue so closely as to give it a good squeeze. I never saw a woman but her, who had such a wonderful power in that way. My nose actually felt it was reciprocating the pressures of the cunt, so I changed the venue, and slipped my tongue into her bottom-hole, evidently to her excessive delight. But things were approaching a crisis, and she cried to me to take her clitoris in my mouth, and substitute fingers in both the other orifices. This I quickly did, while she sucked and postillioned me, handling the root of my prick, and my buttocks with the delicious gentle titillations in which she had such skill, until, in an excess of joy, we both poured a tribute of sperm into each other's mouths, and both greedily swallowed it. After this we got into bed again, to have one loving cuddle before parting. Of course, it ended in raising such a storm of desire as a fuck could only allay—she said—

"My loved Charlie, this must really be the last."

I told her it had so excited me to see her splendid bum before my eyes when we were on the floor that I should like to kneel behind and put it in that way. I really meant into her cunt, but she thought I meant her bottom-hole, and said—

"Well, you are a strange boy, what on earth made you think you could put that great big thing of yours into my bottom-hole; but, to tell you the truth, after being well fucked, I rather like it that way, so you shall try, but you must be gentle in getting in."

I said, "I did not know I could do it that way with my prick, I meant to put it into your cunt from behind, but now, from what you say, I should like to try what the other is like."

You see, I was keeping up my apparent ignorance. She turned on her face, and keeping her head on the pillow, drew up her knees to her belly and exposed to the greatest advantage her glorious backside. I knelt behind, but previous to beginning, I glued my lips to the delicious orifice, and shoved my tongue in as far as I could, and deliriously excited her. Then approaching my stiff-standing prick, and thrusting it into her cunt up to the roots two or three times, so as thoroughly to lubricate it, I withdrew and placed it before the smaller temple of lust; then, by a gentle uniform pressure, I gradually and almost imperceptibly glided in to the utmost extent. She pushed her bottom out, and, I could feel, was straining as if to void something, which is the real method to accelerate the entrance of a prick in that enchanting channel with the least difficulty and pain. We then commenced a slow movement—she wanted me to stoop forward and place my arm round her body, and frig her clitoris, but I begged her to do it herself, and allow me the luxury of looking on the delightful wriggling of her superb backside, and also the sight of my own prick surging in and then withdrawing. She humoured me, and we had a most exquisite fuck. Her bottom-hole had hardly so tight a pressure as she could exercise with her cunt, but, nevertheless, it held me in very firmly, and had a peculiar heat which was most exciting. We both died off together, she so completely overcome with ecstatic delight that her body sank flat on the bed, drawing me with her, without unsheathing my weapon. We lay for a short period, she convulsively shuddering from time to time with the intense degree of excitement this delicious route had produced upon her. At last she begged me to rise and relieve her. As we must now separate, I rose. She assisted me in my ablutions, put on my night-shirt, conducted me to my bed, fondly kissed and thanked me for the exquisite night of every species of delight I had conferred upon her, promising a repetition the following night. She left me and locked the door of communication, but previously unlocked mine, in case I should oversleep myself.

Thus ended the first delightful night I ever passed with that most charming and deliciously lascivious woman—the first of many scores that followed, but in none of which were her raptures more intense, if as much. She ever after dwelt on the night when she had been the happy means of initiating me into all love's mysteries, for she never knew of my previous experiences, and always plumed and prided herself on being my first instructress.

The next day I was somewhat somnolent, of which you may be sure Miss Frankland took no notice. She retired to her own room when we went for our recreation. My sisters scolded me for not coming to them the previous night, but I told them that Miss F. had continued to move about her room for so long a time that I had fallen fast asleep, and even then had not had enough, as they might have observed how sleepy I had been all day. However, to satisfy them, I gamahuched them both, and fucked them both while each was giving the other a second gamahuche, so that then each spent three times to my twice. I thus kept in my forces for the renewed delights I anticipated at night. I went to bed early and slept soundly at once, having no anxiety about keeping awake, feeling certain that Miss F. would awaken me as soon as she was ready to take me to her arms. She came, and we passed another most delicious night of every salacious and libidinous enjoyment. A third night followed, which differed only in the lascivious proposition of Miss Frankland to deflower my bottom-hole with her wonderfully prominent and elongated clitoris, little dreaming that there, too, she had been anticipated by our loved and charming friend MacCallum. She had, however, all the imaginary pleasure of first possession. As you may well suppose, I did not attempt in any way to enlighten her ignorance thereon. We had gamahuched each other, I had fucked her twice in the cunt and once in her bottom-hole, when the fancy seized her to bugger me with her clitoris. Of course, I made no objection; on the contrary, sucking it up to a proper stiffness, I placed myself on my hands and knees in the most favourable position to satisfy her erotic fancy. She first slipped her tongue into my bottom-hole, then spit upon her clitoris, and then anointed my aperture with the delicious slime of her well-fucked cunt, and then with the utmost ease pushed the dear thing up to its utmost limits. I humoured her in every way, wriggling my bottom sideways, which she declared was a vast improvement on her back and forward movements. She passed her arm round my belly, and with that exquisitely delightful touch on my prick for which she was so distinguished, she excited me to the utmost, making my sphincter ani respond to the throbbings of my exquisitely delighted prick, and equally exciting her lascivious passions with the idea of first possession of that narrow abode of voluptuousness. She could feel by the electric excitement of my prick how near I was to spending, and quickening the action of hand and clitoris, we both died away together in all the raptures that such an extra exciting conjunction could produce.

Several nights thus passed in the indulgence of every form of the most lascivious enjoyment. We used to amuse our moments of relaxation in trying who could suggest any new position or varied manner of effecting the delicious junction of our bodies. On one occasion, recurring to the state of excitement her flogging had thrown me into, I asked her, as if I did not know the fact very well already, if the application of the rod on the bottom of a woman, or the mere act of being flogged, at all excited her sex. She told me both acted with great force on her erotic nerves. She thought, from experience, that being whipped caused the greatest excitement and produced the greatest longing to be fucked.

"Then," said I, "do you think it had erotically excited my sisters?"

"Certainly, especially your sister Eliza. I do not know whether you noticed her sudden impulse to embrace and kiss me after her return to school work the day I flogged her; that was a stray erotic impulse, and had we been alone, I could not have avoided responding to it in a way that would have delighted her, and initiated her into some of the delicious mysteries of venery. Nay, I think, but for my happy discovery of your great and delightful merits, I should have sought for and found an opportunity of being alone with that dear girl, for you must know we can lasciviously embrace our own sex with immense mutual pleasure, and although not equal to that which this noble fellow"—(taking hold of my prick)—"inspires, is not without its merit, and even as a little variety from time to time is very enticing."

"Then, I suppose, you still have some hankerings after the virgin charms of dear Lizzie?"

"I have, and what is more, I believe both Mary's and her passions have already developed themselves. I have sometimes fancied I heard suppressed sighs and gentle movements going on in their beds, and I shrewdly suspect they were practising masturbation on each other. I did not interfere, and after what has passed between you and me, I will tell you that I had a little plan in my head to let them proceed to such lengths that when I chose to make the discovery they would be at my mercy. I then could initiate them in every lascivious and voluptuous delight that woman can have with woman. The happy discovery of your excellences, and the perfect facility my change of room has given for meeting without the slightest chance of discovery, has for the present driven that idea out of my head. I am, however, indebted to it for the change of room, as I asked for it solely to leave the two girls the utmost liberty to indulge in their voluptuous mutual enjoyments, certain that it would increase and give them every desire for the further instruction I could impart to them."

"I suppose you would have fucked them with this dear stiff little thing?" said I.

"Oh, yes, you darling, but you have so excited me talking about it, that you must fuck me directly."

We indulged in a most exciting fuck, and when recovered from the confusion of ideas the delightful crisis always produces, we resumed our conversation on the interesting subject of my sisters. I observed that she had not lately flogged them again.

"All your fault; I am now so satisfied with you that I no longer seek for relief to pent-up desires in that way."

"Tell me, dear Miss Frankland, did flogging my sisters excite you much?"

"It did, even to spending; but the fear of proceeding further with them at that time rendered me ferocious. The very severity I used was as it were in revenge for stopping short of other salacious embraces, but if once I had gone so far as to make them partakers of my lubricity, I should never have flogged them again so severely, but only to such a gentle extent as would raise their passions to an uncomfortable pitch, rendering them slaves to my burning lust. Even now I have, from time to time, a desire to do so, especially with dear Eliza, as I think she had far more of venereal lust in her nature than Mary. You would not object, dear Charlie?"

"Not in the least, if you will only give me the voluptuous satisfaction of hearing all the details from your lips afterwards; it would stimulate us both to additional raptures, and spur our desires to renewed combats."

"I don't think it wants much to do that; your glorious prick is as hard as iron."

"It was the lascivious idea of your enjoying Lizzie that made it get up, but I must fuck you again or it will burst."

"I, too, my dear boy, am inflamed at the idea; put it in behind this time; I have a great letch in that way at this moment."

I did as I was directed, and so great was the agony of delight when we died away that she sank on the bed dragging me after her, and we lay almost insensible, soaking in bliss for quite half an hour. We did not again renew our conversation that night, but I determined to push her forward to carry out her idea, and also to give Lizzie a hint to second her wishes in every way, without giving her any idea of what had passed between Lizzie and me, and being equally reserved as to my nightly connection with Miss Frankland.

The following night we passed again in all the amatory delights we could imagine. After our deep midnight sleep, which always took place locked in each other's arms, and poor cockey held firm as if in a vice, I awoke her first, and found my prick stiff-standing in her cunt, which was involuntarily pressing it in the delicious interior folds. I began moving gently, until she was so excited as to quite wake up, when she joined me in all the raptures of a delicious and voluptuous fresh morning fuck. We then rose to satisfy natural wants, and cool our excited nerves by a copious ablution. As we were returning to bed, I observed that Miss Frankland took something out of her wardrobe wrapped up in a handkerchief, and placed it under her pillow with a certain air of mystery. I said nothing. After purifying ourselves we always indulged in a voluptuous gamahuche; after which Miss Frankland generally asked, as a favour, that I should finish off in culo. I loved her delicious bottom-hole too dearly ever to refuse. She placed herself as usual on her knees, thighs well drawn up, and head down, so as to make the most of her glorious backside. After I had followed the usual preamble of thrusting in and out of her luscious and juicy cunt so as to lubricate my prick well, I then introduced it, always with the slow and gradual pressure, until it was sheathed to the hilt, when we generally paused some minutes to reciprocate mutual throbs and pressures. In this lascivious pause I saw her hand steal under the pillow, and draw out the handkerchief and put it under her belly. I shortly found a considerable substance entering her cunt, and making my quarters still more tight and narrow. I began to move, and found the substance in the other entrance keeping time to my movements. I had a tight hold of her projecting clitoris, which I had frigged up to a stiff-standing point. I slipped my hand down and found she was dildoing herself with what proved to be a very handsome dildo, in not very formidable proportions.

"That's right, my darling," I cried, "why did you not do it openly, you ought to know that my greatest wish is for you to enjoy these salacious meetings in every possible voluptuous manner; frig on then, my beloved, and be sure that if it adds to your delight it adds to mine."

"Thank you, my darling Charlie, shove away, I am in the seventh heaven of delight in having as good as two pricks working in me at once."

She would have explained more, but her words were cut short by the ecstasies the double fuck produced, and she spent copiously before me, on finding which I held back, and was rewarded by making her spend eventually with the utmost excess of delight twice to my once. By this time it was broad daylight, and too late in the morning to enter into any conversation on the new partner in our amatory combats, which was reserved for the next meeting.

This did not occur so soon as we expected, for that day Miss Frankland's flowers declared themselves. It was a fortunate thing for me that she had them at the period of the new moon, and as Mary had them at the full, it enabled me to dedicate a night or two to my beloved sisters, who considered I had been neglecting them of late. I said I had not felt very well, and that I began to think that our excessive fucking was becoming too much for me; that they must remember I was one to two, and I felt if I continued to overexert myself I should break down and fail altogether.

"That would never do, dear Charlie, and it is very true you do twice our work and more, because we don't pour down such a torrent as you do when we spend; you must take care of yourself, we will not be so exacting in future, but cool ourselves first by a mutual gamahuche between Lizzie and me."

I thus arranged a certain amount of cessation of fucking in that quarter that I might dedicate the more to the far more exciting powers of the delicious and salacious Miss Frankland.

I had always remained in my own bed until I heard her heavy breathing, denoting that she slept, before I dared to leave my own room to go to my sisters. The desire of racking me off, as dear charming Mrs. Benson used to call it, might have seized her, and my absence would have discovered all.

However, she had, no doubt, considered that it would be all to her advantage that I should be left perfectly quiet to recruit my system, after the heavy drain on my amatory resources which she had kept up for the previous fortnight. She never sought in any way to excite me until a day and a night after the cessation of her menses. She told me it was much better to have done with it entirely at once, rather than by erotic excitement keep up the discharge for a week or more.

"And it is not, my dear Charlie, from any want of randy lust on my part, for, especially at first, there is an extreme desire to be well laboured by the biggest prick one could find in existence; the natural irritation of the parts seem to be increased by the way in which the sensual system is affected in that quarter. Former experience has taught me that it is much better to bear this, than by seeking for erotic excitement to keep up the natural discharge for twice as long as it would otherwise endure. Besides which, there would have been a danger of affecting your dear health. Sometimes conjunctions, at such a period, produce a urethral irritation very prejudicial to a man, and such as might deprive me of the delight of your embraces for some weeks. So you see, my own beloved boy, that in every way it is prudent to avoid any amorous excitement at such a period, however hard nature may press for venereal relief. Some women hazard all this, and for a momentary gratification, run risks perfectly unwarrantable, not only for themselves, but above all for their lovers. I, too, my darling, have had my day of imprudence, and knowing the result, I should be both cruel and stupidly insensate to let you run the risk of what already occurred."

As she recounted those sage counsels, I could not but remember my loved Mrs. Benson, whose advice had been of such service to me, and here was another loved mistress instructing me in further matters connected with the sex. It certainly was a stroke of great good fortune for me to have met at so early an age two such admirable women, not only most amorous and lascivious, but instructing me in the real knowledge of their sex, and the world, at the very time that they were indulging my every lascivious desire, as well as their own. Mistresses of their art, no mystery in love's catalogue of excitements, and of means of gratifying the same, was unknown to them. But they knew, too, how to inculcate wisdom for future conduct. I owe every amatory success of my after-life to the admirable teachings of these two charming and estimable women.

The next night, after we had sacrificed sufficiently often to Venus to enable us more calmly to resume the delightful discussion on the various ways of pampering and exciting the passions, I turned the conversation on flogging; for to take you, dear reader, into my confidence, I was seized with an uncontrollable letch to flog the superb bottom of my loved mistress. I had often seen it palpitating under the vigorous attacks of my stiff-standing pego, while belabouring either of the delicious entrances to the temples of lust. I had often given her glorious bottom good sound slaps of the hand, but I longed to apply to it in earnest a good birch rod, see it flush to a raw meat hue, and then to shove my prick with the utmost force into either or both of the delicious orifices. I thought the best way of arriving at this desired object was to recur to her own description of a less severe flogging exciting the passions with pain; and as she had also admitted that it excited her equally to be flogger or flogee, I proposed that she should exercise a gentle discipline on my bottom, to try its efficacy. She jumped at the idea, but there was no rod in her room, perforce the ceremony was put off until the next night. On that occasion, she advised me first to indulge in every excess of lubricity, and when nature should begin to flag, then the real efficacy of the rod would be experienced. She aided me with the utmost skill in every act of most voluptuous and luxurious venery, and we mutually poured down six tributes to our blessed Mother Venus, with very little cessation, for we both wished to feel somewhat exhausted, before trying the effects of the birching system. We lay quiet for a short time, and then dear Miss Frankland began exciting me, but only in an ordinary way. My prick had already been too well satiated with the previous encounters to respond at once to the calls made on it.

"Ah," said she, in her sweetest way, "I see we want the rod here. Prepare yourself, sir, and take care to make no resistance, or it will be the worse for your bottom."

Following her cue, I began to implore pity, to promise I would behave better in short time, etc., etc. But she was inexorable, and ordered me to lie across her knees. Then, taking me round the waist, she gave a smart cut or two, really sharp, that made me for the moment wince.

"Take care, sir, you are resisting, and you know your punishment will be severe, if you so continue."

"Forgive me, mistress dear, and I will never do so again."

"We shall see."

Cut three, sharp, though not so severe. I did not flinch. "Ah! that is something like a good boy, now we shall have no difficulty."

She began a series of less and less severe blows, until it ended in a gentle irritable titillation which very shortly began to show its effects by the stiffness of my pego—fiercely shoving against the naked thigh of my loved castigator, who, passing a hand round my body, laid hold of it, delighted to find how efficacious her proceedings had been. Pretending to be quite exhausted, she sank back on the bed, and said she could do no more. I sprang upon her, and we had two more coups without withdrawing, with the greatest excess of voluptuousness. It was now my turn, and as she let me slip out of her delicious cunt, I took that up as a cause of dissatisfaction.

"What! you naughty girl," I cried, "is that the way you treat your master, bundling him out of his room in that manner; here, give me the rod, I must make your bottom pay for your ill conduct—here, kneel on this footstool, and lay your body over my thighs, no resistance, or it will be the worse for you."

"Oh! pray, sir, do forgive me this time," and she knelt at my side, and pretended to cry. I forced her down, and she presented her glorious backside, in all its splendour of rotundity and size, before my delighted gaze. I seized her round the waist, and first gloated my sight with all the full and lascivious charms, not only displayed, but in my power, and I armed with a splendid rod. I gave her two or three sharp cuts, which made her beauteous buttocks wriggle, but called forth no remonstrances; but as I continued, in all the rage of lust the exercise excited, to flog away most severely, she begged me to be somewhat more gentle. But I flogged on with increased vigour, until she began to writhe under the severity of the punishment I was inflicting. She struggled fiercely, at last, to be free, but she was completely in my power, and I did not spare her until I saw that, changing from severe pain, her feelings were turning to a storm of lechery and lust. She became frantic with excitement, and screamed out—

"Cease, darling Charlie, and fuck me directly. I am dying for it."

I threw down the rod, jumped on the bed, and drew up her loins, so that she was placed in a kneeling position; she herself seized my bursting prick, and carried it to the lips of her cunt, where he instantly engulphed himself to the hilt. Her movements became lascivious beyond expression, and were urged with a vigour, which brought down in a very short time a torrent of sperm from both of us. We were too much excited to stop short, and almost without a pause, a second course was run still more voluptuously. She was not even then satisfied, but making me lie on my back, she reversed herself upon me, and we commenced a mutual gamahuche. I succeeded in making her spend again, and she was able to bring my pego up to a standing point.

"Now, Charlie, dear, we must finish off behind."

So getting again on her hands and knees, she guided my willing prick to the narrower abode of felicity. After first steeping it for a moment in the moisture of her foaming and reeking cunt, I thrust it into her bottom-hole. I seized hold of her clitoris, she had her dildo all ready, and working it herself with one hand, we ran a last course of most lustful and lecherous enjoyment, which ended in such killing raptures that we both sank all but insensible on the bed. Exhausted as we were by the wild excesses we had indulged in, we fell, without moving or regaining our senses, into a deep and profound slumber, until almost too late in the morning, so that I had to regain my room the moment we awoke, without attempting any further amorous toyings. Thus ended my first experiences as a flogger. The sensation was so new, and the temptation to lay on with a vengeance was so great, that I had gone beyond all reasonable bounds in inflicting such a severe punishment on the glorious bum of my beloved Miss Frankland. I must, however, do her the justice to say that she comprehended and excused the feelings under which I acted, only begging me, on any future occasion not to let them carry me away so far as they had done on this. We several times renewed this bum flogging, but with more moderate inflictions—sufficient to highly excite without actually punishing the patient, whichever of us it might be.

We often after this made flogging the theme of our discussions, and I gradually led on to the idea she had expressed of Lizzie's evidently amorous disposition. She still affirmed that such was her conviction. I then suggested that it would be worth her while to try and gratify it, as well for Lizzie's sake as for the satisfaction of her own letch in that way.

"I suppose you could easily find a pretext if you desired to do so?"

"Yes, easily enough, the idea excites me, and I shall indulge it."

I do not remember what the pretext was, but Lizzie was kept in next afternoon at four o'clock—Mary and I proceeded to the summer house. I knew we should not be interrupted by Lizzie, and that I need not hold in for her satisfaction. So I gave Mary all the benefit of our being alone, and we had four most exquisite and refined indulgencies in every attitude admitted of by the legitimate entrance to love's temple. For, as yet, I had never been able to gain an entrance to the narrower orifice, which was too small for my formidable weapon to penetrate. It is odd how easily Lizzie accommodated me in her delicious bottom-hole, while Mary, older and more womanly in form, was as yet unable to make room for me in that strait path of bliss. When night came I was all curiosity to know how my dear mistress had carried on matters with Lizzie. She told me that Lizzie had been somewhat nervous at first, but she had spoken kindly to her, told her how her amiable and loving conduct after her first whipping had won her affection; that she did not mean to be so severe as on the former occasion, but that discipline must be kept up.

"So come, my dear girl, drop off your frock, as I shall mine, that the bundle of clothes may be out of the way, as well as to avoid their being creased."

Seeing that Lizzie still trembled a little after she had dropped her gown, she took her in her arms, and kissing her lovingly, desired her not to be afraid—she would not punish her much.

"Lift up all your things, my dear, and let me see if any marks of the former punishment remain."

Lizzie had a very prominent and very promising bottom. Miss Frankland felt it all over, and admired loudly its form and firmness, declaring it was quite beautiful to look at, and how womanly it was growing.

"Turn round, and let me see if you are as womanly in front. Upon my word, a well-formed mount with a charming mossy covering."

Her hand wandering over her form excited Lizzie, whose face flushed and eyes glistened with rising desires. Miss Frankland herself became moved, but proceeded at once to lay her across her lap, and began with gentle switches, just sufficiently sharp to attract the blood in that direction, which, of course, acted with double force on all the already excited erotic organs, and Lizzie began to wriggle her bum in all the lasciviousness of lust under the excited gaze of Miss Frankland, who, seeing how matters were going on in her favour, increased the force of her blows, but only sufficiently to still more lecherously excite her patient—until, driven to an excess of lust, she cried out—

"Oh, my loved Miss Frankland, I am dying with pleasure, do embrace and caress me."

Miss Frankland lifted her up, and drew her to her bosom and lips, and, while sucking her tongue, slipped her hand down and found Lizzie's quim wet with her flowing spunk, and her little clitoris stiff with the erotic passion that was consuming her. She frigged her until she spent again, while their tongues were in each other's mouth. As Lizzie spent, Miss F. shoved a finger up her cunt, which, of course, met with no resistance, but as Lizzie possessed in perfection the art of nipping, she was sufficiently tight to leave a doubt of anything but finger-fucking.

"Ah, you little puss, you have been playing with this before now, tell me the truth?"

"I will tell you everything, if you will only play with me again. Ever since you flogged Mary and myself, we have both been so often burning down there, and have found out that feeling it, and pushing fingers in, was so nice, although at first we often hurt ourselves. But you do it so much better than Mary—oh, do, do it again, dear Miss Frankland!"

"I shall do it much better, my darling, with what I have got down there—look here!"

And, lifting up her petticoat and chemise, she exposed, to the absolute astonishment of Lizzie, her extraordinary mass of hair, and her fiery red clitoris glowing and sticking out of its black mass of curls.

"How beautiful!" cried Lizzie. "I declare, you have got a doodle, for which I have been so longing; I must kiss it."

Stooping down, she took it in her mouth, and sucked it.

"Stop, dear Lizzie, we shall both enjoy it."

Taking the cushion from the chair, she lay down on her back on the floor, telling Lizzie to turn her face the other way, and to kneel down across her body, so that both their mouths could adapt themselves to each other's quim.

Lizzie told me afterwards that she took care to show no previous knowledge, but to let Miss Frankland apparently initiate her into all the ceremonies of gamahuching.

Miss Frankland glued her lips to dear Lizzie's charming quim, while Lizzie took her extraordinary clitoris into her mouth. After a few ardent caresses Miss Frankland pushed a finger up Lizzie's bottom-hole, then paused an instant to tell Lizzie not only to follow her example in that respect, but to use her other hand in her quim while sucking her clitoris. Then, both adapting themselves as prescribed, they gamahuched on, until both could no longer move from the excessive raptures produced by their profuse discharge. After this first bout Lizzie became curious to see all the wonderful hair-covered organ and limbs of Miss Frankland, who gratified her to the utmost extent of her wishes. Nor did she leave this inspection entirely to Lizzie, but reciprocated it. Undoing her dress above, she uncovered the charming budding beauties of Lizzie's bubbies, and began sucking the nipples. Their mutual caresses and handlings very quickly refired these hot and lecherous women. After a little renewed gamahuching, until both were wild with excitement, Miss Frankland proposed to put her clitoris into Lizzie's quim; told her to kneel down, and kneeling behind her, she sheathed it with ease in the hot and juicy folds of Lizzie's beautiful cunt. Passing her hand under Lizzie's belly, she frigged her clitoris until again nature gave down her delicious tribute, and they sank in all the voluptuous languor that follows. A third time they renewed their salacious and lascivious raptures, then resumed their dresses so as to be ready to receive us. Miss Frankland begged Lizzie to keep her counsel and not reveal, even to Mary, what had passed. But Lizzie urged Miss F. to admit Mary into the new mysteries she had just herself been taught, and said she could assure her that Mary had a far more beautiful body than hers, and would like it quite as well as she did.

"Well, my dear, I shall think of it, and find an occasion to flog her, as I have done you."

"Oh, that will be jolly!" cried Lizzie. "She will like it just as much as I do; it is so nice, you must flog me every day, dear Miss Frankland. I loved you from the first, I adore you now."

They embraced most lovingly, but our return put an end for the present to any further conversation.

These details were accompanied and interrupted by two or three delicious and most voluptuous fucks, without once withdrawing my burning prick from her equally heated and throbbing cunt—for her description of these proceedings was most exciting. When she had finished, I withdrew, that we might gamahuche each other, and lick up all the delicious spunk in which her juicy cunt abounded. We then renewed our combats, sacrificing to holy Mother Venus in both orifices. Then we slept as only easy-conscienced people like ourselves could sleep; and, like giants refreshed by slumber, renewed our devotions on every altar before separating in the morning.

Two days later Mary was initiated by Miss Frankland in a like manner to Lizzie, while Lizzie and I made the most of our time in the summer house. Excited by her naive description of her scene with Miss Frankland, we indulged in every salacious device that we could cram into the hour's absence, which, by the way, we lengthened out by more than a quarter of an hour, for which Miss Frankland thanked me at night. Her scene with Mary had been one of even greater lubricity, in consequence of Mary at once lending herself to everything, and acknowledging that she knew from Lizzie what she had to expect. Besides, Mary's more developed form and something about her greatly excited Miss F., and she was quite amorous upon her. She had done so much in the way of spending, that after I had gamahuched and fucked her two entrances three times, she required the stimulus of the rod to bring her up to the highest point of lascivious lubricity. And, to tell the truth, I afterwards required and received it myself. Thus our voluptuous passions acted one on the other, and we passed an exhausting night in every excess and refinement of venery, in which Miss Frankland's dildoes, for she had two, of different sizes, played no small part in both our persons.

Now that the ice was broken, I easily persuaded Miss F. to have occasionally first one and then the other of my sisters to sleep with her, alleging that an occasional early night's rest would recruit my powers, and that when she dismissed her bedfellow in the morning, I could finish her off in force; she could thus initiate them in mutual floggings, and in the use of dildo. Of course, I need not say that my ultimate object was to succeed in our making it a general orgie. In this indeed it ended, but not exactly as I had intended. That mattered not, as long as the desired object was attained. I had the delightful opportunity, too, of watching through my peep-hole many of the delicious scenes of lubricity enacted, and when driven to the fiercest excess of passion, I used to withdraw, steal up to the unoccupied sister, and vent my raging lust in every indulgence with her.

This had been carried on for about a fortnight, one or other of the girls sleeping every other night with Miss Frankland. Lizzie, it appeared, had often professed to long to see a real cock, and had managed to worm out of Miss F. that she had enjoyment of mine. The little hussey importuned Miss F. to let her see me fucking her, saying that she could easily hide behind the curtains, and I would never know. Miss F., whose passions were at the utmost tension of desire, consented, and placing Lizzie where she could see without being seen, opened my door, but found an empty bed. She at first suspected that I had gone to one of the female servants, but thought she would make sure and see if Mary was not the object. So she stole softly upstairs, and found us in the act of enjoying a double gamahuche, which as it was early morning light, she could see without difficulty. She had the kindness to let us enjoy it to the end, and then dragging me off, said—

"Oh! Charles! this is dreadful! Why could you not be content with me?—have I ever refused you? Do you know this would be the ruin of all of us if ever it should become known? You are too young to know the dreadful consequences of discovery."

Here she burst out in a torrent of tears—it was evident from real fear of the sad results that might ensue, and not from any feeling of jealousy. I threw myself into her arms, and as she had herself acknowledged our intimacy, I had less difficulty in alluding to it. I caressed and fondled her, and told her there was no fear of discovery—less now than ever—as we would be all interested alike in keeping our secret; she would cover my intimacy with my sisters, and they would cover my intimacy with her. All at once she said—

"How long has this been going on?—tell me truly."

I had long prepared myself for such a question, and at once replied that after the description of the libidinous scenes that had taken place between her and them, and her exquisite account of their young charms, I got so lecherous upon them that I had sought Mary out while she was engaged with Lizzie, and Lizzie when Mary was with her; they were both too much delighted to refuse me anything, and we had now enjoyed each other about a dozen times. I had previously told my sisters to support any story I might recount to Miss F. Lizzie had stolen up after she found Miss Frankland had passed through my room, and now both confirmed the tale told. We surrounded Miss Frankland, caressing her in every way. My pego got terribly excited. Drawing up my nightshirt, I said—

"Let this dear fellow make peace between us, and become equally dear to all. I know, my loved mistress, that my sisters are longing to see him exercised on your glorious person, and buried in your delicious hairy cunt, so let me offer up sacrifice to its juicy charms. Lizzie has just said you sought me for the purpose—see, the dear clitoris is raising its head—let Mary lie down under you to suck your clitoris, and see my prick close above her eyes in vigorous action filling your exquisite cunt. You can gamahuche her and Lizzie can look on behind, witness the glorious sight, and act postillion to my bottom-hole."

"Well, my beloved children, the die is cast, it is no use crying after spilt milk, so let us make the best of it. I never could resist the eloquent look of this loved and long thick thing, that was made for giving poor woman all she could crave for."

So arranging our relative positions as I had prescribed, we ran a course of the most luxurious and salacious enjoyment imaginable. Lizzie, who had taken possession of one of the dildoes, manipulated herself, while watching every voluptuous movement of our bodies, and we all managed to spend most rapturously together. We could not afford to do more at that moment, as time was creeping on, and the household would soon be astir. Miss Frankland regained with me my room, her own door being locked, and kissing me tenderly, said I was a bad boy, but she supposed it must eventually have come to this, so it was well it was sooner than later.

Thus passed our first general orgie, which was the precursor of many much more luxuriously and salaciously libidinous, and which I shall more minutely describe as events progress.

Miss Frankland would not allow us to have a general orgie the next night. She was now aware of our summer house doings—only of late begun, as she supposed—for my story had been too plausibly off-hand not to deceive her, especially as she had felt convinced by all that occurred on our first fucking that she had had the delightful pleasure of taking my maidenhead. She was quite satisfied on that head. But she now suspected that what I had just begun I should be too glad to repeat. She accompanied us to the garden in our recreation hour, so that nothing erotic took place. We sat down all together after a little running about, and Miss F. opened to us a rule of conduct we must in future pursue. She said—

"However delightful it would be for you all, as well as for myself, to meet every night, it would in the first instance become a dangerous habit, dangerous because of engendering carelessness in the necessary precautions against discovery; and next, and above all, because it would be the destruction of our loved and darling Charlie, who could not possibly long continue such excessive venery as three loved objects at once would constantly require of him."

Seeing my inclination to interrupt her, and declare that I felt quite equal to it, she stopped me, and told us I was too young to know what such excessive indulgence would lead to; that we must trust to her experience and be guided by her, and we should all find the advantage of it. Three times a week was the utmost she could allow, when we should be all together. The other nights she would take care that I committed no excess. Such were the sage counsels of this admirable woman, and such in future became the programme of our proceedings. I rebelled and kicked against what I thought at the time too great a restriction, but I eventually became convinced that greater pleasure followed the enforced delays. Of course I slept with Miss Frankland on what might be called our off nights, but she soon established a custom of restraining my spendings to twice a night, allowing me to excite and make her spend as often as I pleased. I was difficult to manage at first, but eventually settled down in great regularity to the rules she dictated, and, indeed, enforced. I soon found out the wisdom of her proceeding, for often afterwards my lagging efforts required the spur of the rod to be applied in earnest for the completion of our orgies.

The second night after the discovery of my intercourse with my sisters was the first of meeting all four together, in Miss Frankland's room. We had been sent, as usual, early to bed, and Miss F. had privately recommended us to go quietly to sleep as soon as possible, and not to be under any anxiety, as she herself would go for the girls, after all the household had retired. As for me, it was the plan I had always adopted, as it enabled me to reap the greater amount of enjoyment, and its longer continuance, by the rest I had previously secured. Winter had passed away, and summer came round again. It was a lovely, warm, moonlight night. As soon as we were all assembled, stripping to the buff was the order of the night; then followed charming embraces and mutual posings, so as each should admire the beauties of all. Hands wandered everywhere over every charm, chiefly concentrating on the wonderful and finely developed form of the fascinating Frankland, whose richness of coal-black hair was so deliciously exciting. It soon became necessary to calm the first effervescence of our passions, which we always did by a general gamahuche. Miss Frankland, who had taken an extraordinary letch for Mary, paired off with her, while Lizzie and I accommodated each other. Miss Frankland, who had provided herself with a store of dildoes, furnished us all with one, differing in size, according to the intention of their application. As Mary's bottom-hole as yet could only accommodate a moderate size, Miss F. kept the smallest for her particular use, the others were indiscriminately used. Thus armed, we proceeded to enter on all the voluptuous excesses of gamahuching in every form, lengthening out our pleasures as much and as long as possible, that we might pass the whole night in the most libidinous raptures. When the ecstatic moment overtook us, our mouths had to cease their operations to give vent to the expressions of the rapturous nature of our feelings. We lay panting for some time before being able to rise and resume our mutual caresses. Now that we had taken off the edge of our lustful appetite, we prepared more calmly for further and more voluptuous combinations. The upper coverings of the bed were entirely removed, so that it presented nearly a square field of combat for love's encounters, admirably adapted for its purpose. We held a council as to our next movements, and finally decided to begin as follows: Mary to lie down on her back, Lizzie reversed above her, Miss Frankland was to indulge in her letch for Lizzie, which was that of fucking her bottom-hole with her extraordinary clitoris, while I was to fuck Miss Frankland's cunt, and postillion her smaller orifice with two fingers, Lizzie was to postillion Mary with her finger, while gamahuching her, Mary to apply the smaller dildo to my bottom-hole, and frig Lizzie's cunt with a larger one. It was also agreed we should run two courses in this voluptuous group, varying only in the substitution of my prick in Miss Frankland's bottom-hole, instead of her cunt, in which was to be placed one of the dildoes. We were none of us to press matters to a speedy termination, but to make the most of the exquisite conjunction of our parts. We enjoyed a most salacious and voluptuous fuck, and so managed matters as all should spend together in perfect raptures of lubricity and lust. Notwithstanding the pleasure of the final discharge, we managed, as previously agreed, to hold our mutual positions, our parts palpitating with repeated throbbings on or in the delicious quarters with which they were conjoined. These soon reawakened our passions, which we as yet had done but little to calm, and when sufficiently heated, the slight change agreed upon was effected, and I plunged up to the hilt in the glorious and hairy bottom-hole of the divine Frankland, who gave almost a scream of delight as she felt my huge pego rushing up into her burning entrails. We had to pause some minutes to allow her excitement to subside to a certain extent, or she would have discharged after two or three thrusts of my potent weapon. We then proceeded more leisurely, and after drawing out our enjoyment in the most salacious and voluptuous manner, the ecstatic moment seized us all together, with such an excess of wild enjoyment that with screams of almost agonised delight, we poured into or upon each other whole torrents of hot boiling sperm, and sank almost insensible into a confused heap of naked forms. We were a long time in recovering our senses. Then disentangling ourselves, we rose and laved our parts in cold water, not only to purify ourselves, but as a stimulant to further exertions in all the wildest excesses of lubricity that any of us could fancy. But we always managed so as to make Miss F. think that she was the author of any new salacious idea or suggestion. In fact she nearly was so in every case, for her experience in every letch, and its gratification in every form of libidinous refinement, was great and we owed to her many new and delicious combinations in our salacious orgies. After partaking of wine and cake, which Miss F. had taken care to secure, we indulged in some delicious romping and pulling about of the rich curls and hairy coverings of nearly all Miss Frankland's superb form. The girls above all admired the magnitude, hardness, and beauty of her truly magnificent buttocks, and what with one now and then sucking her bubbies, and at other times toying with her already standing clitoris, we soon brought her to such a state of excitement that, seizing hold of Mary, she got her on the table and gamahuched her, while Lizzie, creeping under, sucked her clitoris, and I pushed my prick from behind into her cunt. We brought on a delicious spend, and the glorious creature died away in excess of pleasure along with Mary, while I had not yet arrived at the climax. So I contented myself with making my prick throb to her delicious squeezings, until the fatigue of the position required us to break up the pose. She was so far calmed that she could now propose and discuss after-proceedings, and what our next form of enjoyment should be. As Mary had had an extra spend with Miss Frankland, Lizzie was now placed on her knees, with her head well down. I thrust my prick into her longing cunt. Miss Frankland standing up, strode across Lizzie's body in front of me, here I introduced first a smaller dildo up her bottom-hole and then a larger one up her cunt, both up to the cod pieces. She then pushed forward her belly and put her stiff-standing clitoris into my mouth, and placed her two hands on my head. I then passed one hand under her open legs, and seizing both dildoes in one hand, proceeded to work them up and down both holes at once, in unison with my suction of her clitoris, and my fucking movements in Lizzie's cunt, who at the same time was frigging her own clitoris with her fingers. Mary, armed with two dildoes, applied one to my bottom-hole, while she fucked herself with the other. In this way we ran a most exciting and delicious course. Miss F., in the ecstatic moments, seemed as if she would have pressed my head into her belly. She was so charmed with the voluptuous delights this pose had given that she cried out we must not change until another course was run. Lizzie said she must change from front to back, and begged Mary to hand her a dildo with which she might frig herself. The women were ready directly, but my pego was longer in answering the call, so Miss Frankland told Mary to apply the birch rod skilfully.

This she did with great art, working the dildo, which was still in her cunt while so occupied. The effect was almost electrical, and my glorious rampant prick filled dear Lizzie's delicious and longing bottom-hole to her utmost delight. Miss F. begged Mary to give her a gentle stimulus with the rod. Nothing could better have pleased Mary, for she afterwards admitted she had long had the greatest letch to flog that glorious and immense backside. With such stimulants as these this course proved one of the most salacious and voluptuous we had yet had, and the ecstatic ending was accompanied with screams of delight, as we died away in the deathlike swoon of rapturous and satiated desires. We again rose to purify and refresh ourselves, and for some time after lay closely embraced on the bed. As Mary had not yet had my prick in her cunt, Miss F. proposed that I should fuck her, that Lizzie should kneel close behind us, she could fuck Lizzie's bottom-hole with her clitoris, and work one dildo up my bottom, while she worked a second in her own. No sooner said that done. Lizzie's head was shoved almost below Mary's belly, so as to bring Miss F. close enough to me to operate as she desired, and we ran another delicious course with such extreme pleasure that all sank sideways down on the bed and dropped into a sound slumber. We did not awaken until so late that we only had time to lave ourselves in cold water, finish off with a general gamahuche, and then regain our separate rooms. On this last occasion Miss Frankland said she must gamahuche me, as she delighted to break her fast on cream. The joke amused the two girls amazingly.

It was about this time Mrs. Vincent gave birth to a fine boy. I have not spoken of her since our first interview after her marriage in the summer house, when all had gone into the town to bring out Miss Frankland. We had only had two stolen interviews since that time, which I have not mentioned, because they were too hasty, and with too little comfort to have been thoroughly enjoyed; then she became too heavy with child to afford me any further opportunity. Mamma wrote a congratulating letter to Mr. Vincent, wishing him joy of the advent of a son and heir, little dreaming that her own son was the father thereof. This brought a visit from Mr. Vincent to beg that mamma would kindly become godmother to the little fellow. My mother at once assented, and asked who the godfathers were. He said an uncle, from whom they had expectations, had consented to be one, but he was at a loss to know whom to ask as second.

"Why not ask Charlie, he was always very fond of your wife as his governess, and he, too, has an uncle from whom we hope some day to receive something handsome."

"That is a very good idea of yours, Mrs. Roberts, and if you will kindly send for Charles I shall put it to him, and if he consents, it saves me all further trouble."

I was sent for, and, you may be sure, accepted immediately, thanking Mr. Vincent for the honour he did me, and hoping that Mrs. Vincent would be equally agreeable that I should be godfather, although so young.

"Leave that to me, my dear wife is so much attached to me that my wish is her law, so do not make yourself uneasy on that head."

It may well be supposed I was not at all uneasy, but quite certain that it was the very thing Mrs. V. would have proposed if she had not been withheld by prudence. We heard afterwards from Mr. V. that she had simulated objections on account of my youth, but the very first moment she could say a word to me in private it was to tell me what delight it had given her that her husband should have fulfilled in the matter the very wish nearest and dearest to her heart.

The ceremony eventually came off as had been proposed, but it was at very rare intervals that I could find an opportunity of renewing our old combats in the field of Venus. Meanwhile I had no reason to regret this as far as indulgence of my erotic passions went, because, for nearly two years, that is until I had passed my eighteenth birthday, I continued to enjoy uninterrupted bliss in the arms of the luxurious and fascinating Miss Frankland, or in orgies with her and my sisters, which culminated in every excess of venery capable of being enjoyed by three women and one youth. In fact, we all indulged rather too freely, if I may judge from the fact that, at least to Miss Frankland and myself, the rod had almost become a necessity, and occasionally even my sisters admitted it gave them a fillip. Under the able tutorship of Miss Frankland we became the most perfect adepts in every voluptuous indulgence of lubricity. But I must also give her the credit of never neglecting our education. Indeed, I may say it gained by the intimate union of our bodies. For that estimable woman impressed upon us that to keep her friendship and confidence we must do justice to her teaching. I have already said her system of instruction was very superior to anything we had previously known, and now that she had won our unbounded love and affection, there was nothing we were not ready to do in school to second her efforts for our mutual improvement. She had very superior attainments—spoke French and German like a native, had sufficient knowledge of Latin and Greek to ground me well in them, and her knowledge of music was very superior. I have hardly ever heard anyone with a more charming touch on the piano. In the two years that followed our first orgie we made really astonishing progress. We all spoke French very fairly, had a pretty good knowledge of German, especially Mary, who really spoke it well; as for myself I was well up in French, fairly so in German, and with a very good ground work of Latin and Greek.

It was about this time that an event happened which completely changed the order of my life. My mother had hinted that I had some expectations from an uncle. These were very vague. He was my father's brother, but they had never agreed, and we were almost strangers to each other. He died, and one day we were all surprised, not to say delighted, to hear from his executor, a Mr. Nixon, a rich merchant in London, that my uncle had left my mother four hundred pounds a year as long as she did not marry again, but at her death the said annuity was to be divided between my two sisters, independent of any coverture. The residue and bulk of the property was settled on me, under trust to Mr. Nixon until I was of age, with a request that I should be brought up to the law and entered as a barrister in the Inner Temple. Further, a sum of five hundred pounds was allowed for a new outfit, in every way becoming to all of us. Mr. Nixon announced that in a fortnight he would take the opportunity of being in our neighbourhood to come over and make the necessary arrangements consequent upon the altered state of affairs. He added that the residue of the property would yield about one thousand pounds a year, and that, therefore, my education must be looked to more closely than it probably had been. Here was, indeed, a change. My father had left the house and grounds, and something like six hundred pounds a year in the funds, entirely to my mother as long as she remained a widow, or until her death. Afterwards one hundred and fifty pounds per annum to each of my sisters, and the house and residue to me—a moderate income requiring other efforts to make it comfortable to one's upbringing. Here I was now the heir eventually to something like fifteen hundred pounds a year, two country houses, and a very fair house besides attached to my uncle's house. You may easily imagine the joy of the whole family when from somewhat pinched economy, we found ourselves in easy circumstances, with at once quite double our previous income. We indulged in somewhat wild dreams of what all this might produce; but mamma brought us to our senses by informing us that until I was of age Mr. Nixon would entirely control our destinies, and that it was more than probable he would insist upon sending me to a public school. This news dashed all our hopes to pieces with a vengeance, because it was precisely on our greater freedom that we had been counting, and now there was every probability our delightful intercourse and delicious orgies would come to an abrupt termination. We exchanged sad and crestfallen looks on hearing this from mamma, and met in a very disconsolate humour that night in Miss Frankland's room; but that charming and estimable woman cheered us up with the hope that if a temporary separation did occur, it would only lead to our safer and more perfect reunion hereafter.

"And, to tell you the truth," she said, "my dear Charlie, we have been of late too much for you, and your health and constitution will benefit by a forced inactivity, for I have observed some symptoms about you lately that prove we three have taxed you too hard. I have no doubt I shall be retained as governess to your sisters, and leave me alone to keep them to a point that will not disappoint you when we meet again, which must always occur at intervals of not longer than six months."

To our loving minds six months seemed an age. At the same time Miss F.'s remarks had, to a certain extent, reassured us, and although we could not enter into our orgie with the usual fury and letch, nevertheless we managed to pass a night sufficiently rapturous in the enjoyment of our libidinous passions, which many would have thought excessive.

In due course Mr. Nixon made his appearance. He was a pleasant-looking elderly gentleman, and a complete man of the world. Finding that I had been educated entirely at home under governesses, he fancied I must be a milk-and-watery ignorant youth, and had already hinted as much to mamma—who, having told me, put me on my mettle. Mr. Nixon sent for me into the parlour alone, and began an agreeable conversation apparently leading to nothing, probably with a view not to render me nervous and timid, gradually turning the conversation upon educational subjects. He was agreeably surprised to find the progress I had made, not only in historical and geographical subjects, but in languages, and above all was surprised at my knowledge of Latin and Greek. He was particular in asking if some clergyman had not lent his aid to the governess. After dinner, during which he paid great attention to Miss Frankland, he warmly complimented her on her system of teaching and its extraordinary success. At the same time he observed that, as his dear old friend had desired that his nephew should become a barrister, it would be necessary he should be sent to some clergyman taking a few boys, and then to King's College, London, before entering a barrister's chambers. Miss Frankland at once admitted the justice of the remark, and hoped that Charles would not shame her teaching.

"Quite the contrary, I assure you, Miss Frankland. I have been struck with the admirable ground work you have established, and especially the advantages you have given him of the knowledge of modern languages. I am so much pleased that I intend to beg of Mrs. Roberts to keep you as the able governess of the girls until they are so much older as to require a little knowledge of the world which a metropolitan ladies' school is sure to impart."

All this was said with a certain deference of manner to Miss Frankland, that I felt certain the old gentleman was greatly struck with her person, as well as her system of teaching. But of this it is probable my readers will learn more hereafter.

My mother, hearing of the intention of sending me to some clergyman, immediately suggested that her own brother-in-law, the Rev. Mr. Brownlow, rector of Leeds, in Kent, a retired village close to the castle of that name, would be a suitable person. He was a gentleman who had taken honours at Cambridge, and was in the habit of receiving one, two or even three young gentlemen, but never more, to prepare them for the universities. At that moment she knew by a letter from her sister that he had a vacancy. His name, she said, stood high as an instructor, as Mr. Nixon would find on inquiry; and as Charles had never been away from home, it would be a great satisfaction to her to know that he was under the care of her own sister. Mr. Nixon said he perfectly agreed to her suggestion, provided, as to which he had no doubt, his inquiries justified his sending me there. He left us with a promise of an early decision, and, indeed, before the week had passed we received his full concurrence to my mother's suggestion. So my aunt was written to, and it being the period of the holidays, Mr. and Mrs. Brownlow were asked to come over and spend a week, and then I could return with them to Kent. We had not seen aunt or uncle since we were little children, and only remembered her as a very tall immense person. The distance had prevented personal intercourse, and we only knew of them by interchanges of hams, Canterbury brawn, and oysters at Christmas time. As they replied by return of post, saying they would be with us in two or three days following their letter, you may be sure Miss Frankland and all of us made the most of what was to be the last of our mutual orgies for the time. No restrictions were put upon us, and every night was dedicated to the god of lust and voluptuousness.

At last the fatal day arrived. My mother and the two girls went into the town to fetch uncle and aunt out, leaving Miss Frankland and me to our studies. You may well suppose it was the prosody of love and not that of grammar that occupied us. There was a tenderness of manner, and a loving kindness and fondling, which I had not before observed in Miss Frankland, and which I should have thought alien to her character. Embracing me tenderly, and pressing me lovingly to her bosom, she burst into a flood of tears, and sobbed as if her heart would break as her head sank on my shoulder. I tried to comfort her in the best way I could, and as my kind reader knows, a woman's tears always had a most potent effect on my prick, I placed it in her hand, she hysterically laughed amidst her crying, but instantly sank her head down to the loved object, embraced, sucked, and frigged it until I poured a flood of boiling sperm into her mouth, which she greedily swallowed, and continued sucking until not a drop was left. Then rising once more to caress and embrace me, she said—

"Yes, my own beloved boy, that was indeed a means to stop my tears, I not only adore it, but have come to love you, my darling, more than I ever loved anything in my life—you are my own scholar, bodily and mentally. I shall miss you greatly, and I bitterly regret our parting; but we shall meet again, although never with such freedom and ease as we have done. You will spend your holidays at home, and we shall make the most of them. I can feel the dear object already to be made the most of again, and so it shall, dear fellow, so come to its own nest."

These last fond words were addressed to my prick, which, already rampant again, was claiming attention. We went at it, hammer and tongs. Recruited at luncheon, we renewed the raptures of lubricity as that estimable woman alone knew how to indulge them. We were the less reasonable, as it had been decided by us the night before that I was to find out the habits of the coming couple before I should venture on leaving my room to slip up to theirs, and thus I had a night of relaxation before me.

At five o'clock the carriage drove up, and uncle and aunt were welcomed to our house. My uncle was a tall, portly, unctuous-looking clergyman, quite a gentleman in his manners, and with a very agreeable voice. My aunt, who was some fifteen years my uncle's junior, was very tall for her sex, a fine portly figure, broad shouldered, large bubbies well apart, a small waist for her size, immense hips and evidently buttocks to more than match. She was very stout, but stood firm upon her pins, and walked with great elasticity of step, showing there was a good deal in her, or rather she could take a good deal out of anybody. She had a profusion of fair hair, with thick eyebrows, that promised abundance elsewhere. Her eyes were of a deep blue that could look very far into you. She had a very pleasing expression, a small mouth, and very white teeth. Her complexion was exceedingly fair, her arms immense, but beautifully formed, hands and feet small, fat and plump. She looked thirty-five, but was nearly forty, and was altogether a most desirable woman to look at, on a large scale. She embraced me tenderly, which I did not fail to return, and complimented me and the whole family on our late good fortune. The first introduction was altogether most agreeable, and I already began to imagine I might not be so badly off after all.

We were allowed to sit up rather later than usual, and as my aunt was fatigued with her day and night's journey, they were glad to follow our example almost immediately. I had only just time to get undressed, when I heard them enter the room which Miss Frankland had vacated the previous day. This had previously been arranged, and she now slept in my sisters' room, as formerly, until we should depart. I quickly blew out my light, for fear they should observe it shining through the chinks I had made. Kneeling down, I began to watch the proceedings. The first thing my aunt did was to squat on the pot just opposite my peep-hole, and as she held up her dress well, I could see that she had a most prominent mons Veneris, thickly covered with very fair ringlets. Her power of piss was something wonderful, it was like a cataract in force and quantity, and at once made my mutinous prick stand at the mighty rush of waters that could be so plainly heard. As she rose, and before she dropped her dress, I saw her splendid proportions of limb, the like of which had never before met my eyes. Alas! it was but a passing glimpse. However, I determined to watch on, hoping to see a further display in the course of undressing. She took off all her upper clothes, until nothing but her stays and chemise remained. I could now mark the real grandeur of her proportions. The stays kept in the waist, and allowed the splendour of her hips and buttocks to stand out in all their glory. Never in my life have I seen a finer backside than my aunt had got. I am now speaking from a vast amount of after-inspection and adoration, but in its covered magnificence in which I at this moment viewed it, it appeared the finest backside I have ever met with, and was in fact the one I alluded to some time back, when I observed that Miss Frankland 's was the finest but one I ever saw. It is true, her stoutness added greatly to its prominence, but though stout, even very stout, it was not a stoutness you could call fat. For in after-intimacy, which became of the very closest and most voluptuous nature, I was never able to pinch her in any muscular part. She had the hardest, as well as the biggest, backside I ever met with. I am quite sure that when she was standing upright, a child might have stood on the immense projections of her buttocks. Her thighs were positively monstrous in their mighty proportions, as hard as iron, exquisitely moulded, and of a fairness and smoothness that rivalled ivory, which, in another respect, they much resembled, namely, in feeling cold to the touch. Her legs were worthy of the glorious frame they supported, and finished off with a pair of charming, clean-run ankles, and very small feet for her size. As her chemise was short sleeved, the grand magnificence and beauty of form of her splendid arms and neck, where the bubbies came out in all their perfection and brilliancy of skin, were fully displayed. As may be supposed, not a bone was to be traced in her upper neck, but all was dazzling in colour and flesh, which is such a beauty in woman. When a woman shows her gaunt collar bones, it is a proof of bad breeding, and a common nature. Aunt's truly grand bubbies rose magnificently over her bodice, which I thought at the time was their support, but this glorious woman required nothing of the sort, for when perfectly stripped, her bubbies stood out firm and projecting in all their grandeur, and they were of the largest, worthy of all her other fully developed charms. Her belly alone was somewhat too prominent, when standing up, but as she never had had children, it did not at all hang flabbily, and ended in one of the most prominent and largely developed montis Veneris I have ever met with, profusely covered with the fairest of curls, which did not prevent her lovely creamy skin from shining through them. She was well provided with hair on that part, but after the extraordinary hairy covering that Miss Frankland possessed, and with which I had so often toyed, all other women appeared as nothing in that way. My aunt, after donning a night-robe, sat down to her toilet, and proceeded to let down her massive bunch of tresses. Here, she was, indeed, richly gifted, her hair was all her own, in the utmost profusion, and, tall as she was, fell much below her buttocks, and was so thick that she could let it spread over both back and front, and completely cover her nakedness. Titian must have had such another magnificent head of hair for one of his models, for it exactly resembled, except in being somewhat of a fairer hue, his celebrated Magdalen, in the Pitti Palace, at Florence, where she is represented covered only with the rich profusion of her ringlets. Such was my aunt, and often and often afterwards has she indulged all my fancies, by showing herself off in every voluptuous attitude with this, the greatest ornament of woman, flowing in the utmost profusion over her glorious and mighty charms. Meanwhile, the doctor had undressed, but it may well be supposed perfectly unnoticed by me. I had better game in view. He, too, had donned a robe de chambre, and sat down by his wife to have a chat over the occurrences of the day. Of course, their conversation very naturally turned upon myself. They began by congratulating themselves that the good fortune of the family was partly reflected on them by the circumstances of my being put under the doctor's care. The lady remarked how doubly fortunate it was, as the little scandal that had happened had, for some time, prevented their having any pupils at all. The doctor said—

"Never mind that, my love, this little fellow will soon be the decoy duck for others; he seems a nice, gentle lad, but I shall seek to have some talk with him to-morrow, and see what he is made of; boys, under women's instructions, are generally mere milk-sops."

"I don't think you will find it so in this case," added my aunt. "I am not a bad judge of character, and I feel certain that Miss Frankland is too stern and firm of purpose not to have bent any boy's will to her bidding; I fear, on the contrary, she has, if anything, been too severe with him, for my sister told me that she had full power to wield the rod, but, after one or two severe bouts, she completely mastered them, and that their progress was really very great, and most satisfactory, as Mr. Nixon, Charles's guardian, who had examined him, had reported most favourably thereon. But he appears to be insignificant, and undersized, thin as a whipping post, pale, and somewhat sickly-looking, he appears much younger than he is, and seems hardly fitted for what you and I would delight in. Eh! dear doctor?"

I did not understand at this time what her allusion meant, but it was followed by the doctor stooping forwards, kissing her, and, I have no doubt, tongueing her too. He first thrust a hand below her beauteous bubbies, and then pulling up her chemise, began foraging between her legs. She put down her hair brush; and laid hold of his cock, but quickly said—

"Don't excite me, my dear, you see this poor fellow can do nothing without a rod, and we have none here, so be quiet and go to bed, that is a good boy."

Obeying her, he rose, threw off his robe, put on a nightcap, and tumbled into bed, and was sound asleep before his magnificent spouse had finished her toilet. When it was concluded, she took off her stays, and drew her chemise over her head, I doubt if it could have fallen over her enormous buttocks. She then walked across the room in my direction, stark naked as nature made her, and strikingly magnificent in the firmness of her tread, and the glorious uprightness of her truly superb grandeur of form. I was positively awestruck. I could imagine her to be Juno in all her glory before Jupiter, and well he might be tempted to stray to the forbidden path of love, if Juno had such a backside as the enormous and glorious one my aunt possessed. She again squatted down, naked as she was, and poured out another torrent into the pot. I felt overpowered at the sight, and staggered back to my bed, and for the first time in my life felt constrained to rack off by self-pollution the excess of lust the gazing on such superhuman beauties had engendered. I could hardly refrain from shouting out to relieve my till then suppressed excitement, especially when nature gave way, and there spurted forth a jet of sperm, actually from the bed against the door towards which I had pointed my prick while wildly frigging it, and in imagination shoving it into aunt—anywhere; for if ever the saying that "there was plenty of good fucking about all these parts" was applicable to any one, it was supremely so in my glorious aunt's case. Any one might shove his prick against any part of her body, and spend at once from excess of lust, at her very beauty and splendour of form and exquisite colour and fineness of skin. Never, never have I met her equal. Her power of fuck, too, was on a par with the immensity of size, and of a quality to please the most fastidious, or the most lustful. Such were the first experiences that I had of my aunt's person, and as my narrative extends, the reader will become more intimate with her person and proceedings. I sank to sleep, to dream of possessing her in every way, rivalling Jupiter with Juno, and Mars with Venus, mere visions of the night, but which were in after-days converted into sweet realisations of the most voluptuous and rapturous nature.

The next day, at our hour of recreation, Miss Frankland walked out with us, and seeking a retired part of the grounds, while the girls amused themselves, I recounted to Miss F. all I had seen and heard. She at once came to the conclusion that I was destined to fall into the arms of my aunt.

"I am so far pleased, my dear Charlie, that it will be into those of an extraordinary fine woman; you must, after your present experiences with me, have had some one to go to, and certainly you could not have a finer. There will, evidently, be every facility, for I read those hints, which have puzzled you, as intimating any thing but reserve once you are admitted into the inner arcana of their lives, or I am much mistaken. There is one point I must strongly caution you about, and your general prudence and great good sense will make you appreciate its importance. Your aunt is evidently much experienced in erotic pleasures. If at once she found in you the extraordinary adept you are, she would never cease tormenting you until she discovered who had been your instructress. Now it must be evident to you that if she thought you and I were intimate in that way, she might draw evil inferences with regard to your sisters, or if not going so far as to think we had equally corrupted them, it is probable enough she might seek to remove me from their society. So you see, my darling boy, though it may be very difficult to do, you must, for all our sakes, determine to appear quite innocent and ignorant of every thing connected with indulgence in amorous passions. You must not let yourself appear excited, but leave her to take all the initiatory steps, and I much mistake if she will not be extremely ready to do so, but all the more so if she finds you apparently innocent. However much you now know of love's proceedings, you must keep a guarded check upon your feelings, so as not to let your knowledge become apparent in the smallest degree. She will, eventually, be twice as well pleased if she fancies she has had your first fruits. Before you leave I shall give you some short hints as to how to conduct yourself."

All this time I was getting rampageous, so begging her to stoop forward upon a stump, I tilted up her petticoats and fucked her from behind, frigging her delicious clitoris, and making her spend at the same time as myself. It was a hasty fly, but very sweet nevertheless, for we were both conscious that it was necessary to make the most of the short time I had yet to remain at home. I mentioned my aunt's remark about having no rod at hand, and it was agreed that Miss Frankland should put one on an upper shelf of her wardrobe, and accidently leave the key in the door. As this wardrobe remained in the room uncle and aunt were sleeping in, woman's curiosity was sure to induce an examination of it. This answered a double purpose, for Miss F. so arranged things that some excellent books full of little bits of paper inserted here and there, at highly moral or religious passages, led both uncle and aunt to have a very high idea of her moral character—for these were works that apparently could only be for her own private reading.

The rod was placed, and the bait laid next day. Meanwhile, that afternoon, the doctor called me aside, and put me through a conversational sort of examination. I was studiously modest, but being very fairly grounded by the admirable system of teaching pursued by Miss Frankland, I not only satisfied him, but he took occasion to compliment Miss Frankland very highly for the admirable groundwork she had laid. I fancied also, as he continued in conversation with her, that he grew more kindly and unctuous, as if the spirit of lust was infusing itself in his veins, as he continued to converse with and gaze on that most engaging and lust-creating creature.

That night I watched, as before, their preparations for sleep, and heard their conversation. This time the doctor was profuse in his praise of me, but aunt thought I was timid and lifeless; there seemed no spirit about me, as there ought to be, she added, at his age, but this education by females makes girls of boys. I thought to myself, I guess, I shall very soon undeceive you on that point, my dear aunt. The doctor went quietly to bed; aunt stripped and used the bidet, giving me a most exciting and voluptuous view of all her full-blown charms. No sooner was her light out, and she in bed, than I slipped out and crept up to my sisters' room, where three randy cunts were impatiently awaiting my advent with an equally randy and inflamed pego. We indulged in every complicated combination of lust and lubricity, and never ceased until daylight forced my unwilling retreat. Before leaving, as the rod was to be put in the wardrobe, and the key left in the door, it was arranged that the next night the girls, and Miss F., too, if she could, were to endeavour to sleep soundly before I came. For if our stratagem succeeded, I should remain to see the result which would probably occupy more than an hour or two, and I would awaken them by applying Moses's rod to their water courses as doubtless I would be in a rampageous state, if our expectations of the doctor's and aunt's tendencies that way were realised.

I kept myself awake until aunt and uncle came to bed, and then I immediately placed myself en vedette. At first no notice was taken of the key being in the lock. Aunt continued her operations, and uncle became somewhat more tentative than usual, when aunt, finding by placing her hand on his prick that it was mere useless desire, rose and scolded him. He grew more emboldened, and followed her up, wishing to feel her splendid cunt. It so happened she had drawn back as far as the wardrobe itself, until the key actually hurt her back.

"Ah what have we here?" she cried, and then turning round, said that as the key had been left in the lock, there could be no harm in looking in. Her husband became as curious as she. Of course, the first things they saw were the prearranged books. They were seized upon with avidity probably with the expectation of finding something smutty, but to their surprise, and especially that of the doctor, it was quite the reverse.

"Well, I should never have thought this; do you know, my dear, I had begun to suspect that, under a demure exterior, there was lurking an enormous deal of animal passion in that Miss Frankland, but if so, these works prove that it is under complete regulation. More's the pity, for she is made for the real enjoyment of the passions."

"Oh you have been speculating in that quarter, have you, you old lecher?"

"Well, my dear, you know we have both liberty to stray now and then, and you, yourself, have not a little availed yourself on our mutual understanding."

"Now, doctor, you are too bad; do I not quite overlook all your weakness for the younger members of your own sex, and do I not lend myself to your fantasies in that way, when chance deprives you of any opportunity of pederasty?"

"Well, well, my love, I was not upbraiding you, you are too dear and too kind to me to permit of any thing beyond a joking allusion; but what have we here? A birch rod! by all that is holy."

Reaching up to the high shelf, he drew down the rod. At first they suspected Miss Frankland operating on herself, but the perfectly untouched state of the rod proved that it was there in reserve only, and had not yet been used.

"What a lucky chance," cried my aunt. "I shall now be able to birch you into something like a fit state to fuck me—and you shall birch me afterwards, if it will only produce a second fuck, back or front, whichever you like."

"You are an angel, my darling wife, and I shall try to content both orifices; it is an abominable shame that with such a gloriously made magnificent woman as God has given me in your noble form, I should ever require any other stimulant than a glance at your exquisitely exciting proportions; but I suppose it is age that weakens our sensibilities."

"You are right, my dear John, for I, who used to think your dear old cock was enough for me, find I require the excitement of younger ones to give me the real excess of pleasure my constitution demands; it would be a shame if I did not humour all your little caprices, when you so readily throw opportunities in my way. I only wish this nephew of mine had been more worthy of us, we should have made him a glorious bonne bouche between us, equally to his satisfaction as to ours."

"Well, my dear, the air of Kent, and more manly treatment, may yet develop his somewhat stinted growth, and under your tuition, he may yet prove not so bad an object as you seem to think, at all events, he may serve as a pis aller, until a better turns up; but you must proceed with caution, for he seems as modest as a maid."

"My dear John, your modest ones always make the best, when once broken in. I only wish his physique had been more to my liking, but we shall see, we shall see; meanwhile let us both strip to the buff, and proceed to make the most of this happy discovery of the rod—the very thing we most wanted and wished for."

Aunt rapidly twisted up her magnificent tresses, and as rapidly stripped to the skin; the doctor likewise. I assure you he was a well-made, muscular, portly, handsome man, with a large well-filled pair of cods. His pego still hung down his head, but had a certain amount of size, doubtless stimulated by the exciting nature of their conversation and reminiscences. His skin and his cock were beautifully white, and the ball of his prick of a tempting scarlet. I felt at the moment that, if I dared, I would have bolted into the room, and sucked it into such a stiffness as would have instantly satisfied the insatiable cunt of my glorious aunt. This was a delight to be left for a future day, when I allowed the doctor all the credit and pleasure of persuading me to do that which I was burning with desire to do. But I digress. No sooner were both fully prepared than my aunt, in a stern voice, ordered the doctor to approach.

"Come here, sir, I must whip you, you have not done your duty as you ought lately, and you are a very naughty boy."

The doctor, putting on the air of a schoolboy, begged to be excused this time, but his inexorable mistress was not to be moved, and seizing him by the arm, pulled him over her broad and massive thighs, and with one arm round his waist, seized his cock in her hand, and began whacking away at his backside in such real earnest and, apparently, with all the force of her powerful arm, that I began to think the doctor must cry out in earnest. But he took it all without a murmur, only wriggling his fat and smooth buttocks about in a way that rather inferred satisfaction than suffering. Presently my aunt, who, doubtless, knew by the grip of his prick that matters had arrived at the point her own passions had most at heart, lifted him up, and said—

"Now I must put you in pickle, but as your great red buttocks are too large to be pickled, I shall pickle your prick instead. So come here, sir, and let me put this rampant fellow into my pickle tub, where, I promise, the salt brine will soon bring down his pride."

I suppose this was the sort of childish yet lascivious talk which pleased them both, for uncle, who had risen, and who now presented a much finer weapon than I had given him credit for, pretended to fear this further punishment, and begged and entreated to be let off—he had been punished enough, &c., &c. Aunt, however, leading him by the prick to the bed, threw herself on the edge, and lying back, drew up her enormous thighs almost to her belly, and showed to my gloating gaze her tremendous salmon-coloured gash, all covered with spunk, for the operation had made her spend profusely. I never saw so large a cunt, nor such an extensive triangle as lay on the side of each lip between it and the commencement of the buttocks, beautifully covered with the fairest curls.

"There, sir, is your place of punishment, stoop and kiss it before I imprison your indecent cock within it."

The doctor, nothing loath, stooped and gamahuched her so well that her mighty backside wriggled beneath his head, and made every thing in the room jingle; her hand pressed his head until I thought it would have been pushed in altogether. At last, she spent with a shout of delight. He hastily gobbled it all up, and rising, without more ado, thrust his stiff-standing weapon up to the hilt, I might almost say cods and all, in her longing and magnificent cunt. Here, he soaked for some minutes, and I could see by the convulsive movements of her backside how much aunt was enjoying it. They soon became bent on more active movements, for throwing her splendid legs over his back, she began an up and down movement, much more active than I could in any way have given her credit for. They went at it in real earnest for a longer time than I expected, but when the mighty crisis came, it was with an energy, and passionate struggles worthy of the strength and substance of the two love wrestlers. I could see her cunt all foam again around the roots of the increased size of uncle's very respectable prick, and then they lay in apparent apathy for full twenty minutes, but one could see by the convulsive throbs of their whole bodies what delicious transports of rapture they were enjoying. Uncle was the first to rise, but only to stoop and to greedily lick up all the foaming spunk which the wide-spread entrance to her glorious cunt exhibited. This being done, she, too, rose, and throwing her arms round the doctor's neck, drew his mouth to hers, and seemed to suck his slimy lips, and gain for herself as much as she could of the delicious spunk the doctor had been revelling in. This lasted some minutes. Then my aunt turned him down on the bed, and took a long suck at his prick, now hanging limp, but still of a goodly thickness. Then she thanked him for the great satisfaction he had given her, and declared it was almost as good as the first days of their union. Then after toying and cuddling on the bed for a time, she said they must now proceed to a little further castigation, on her bottom this time, as he had promised to give her a double dose.

"Yes, my love, but you know you promised I should take my choice of which temple I should make my sacrifice at."

"My own John, you know, that after being once well fucked, the hinder hole is my preference, that is understood."

They accordingly rose, and uncle, furnishing himself with the rod, desired aunt to kneel on the edge of the bed, and present her magnificent backside projecting out fair for his birching. This she immediately did, and being directly before my eyes, I had a full front view of her gloriously large wide-open cunt, and all the pinky brown aureola around her charming bottom-hole, over which the little fair ringlets showed in great beauty. I need not say that my own John Thomas was in all the pride and panoply of prickdom, and ready to burst with excitement. My uncle took the rod in hand as soon as aunt was in position, and placing himself on one side, while his left hand passed under her belly to frig her clitoris, he had his right hand free to inflict any amount of whipping. And, I must say, neither one nor the other spared the rod; they laid it on right soundly, but drew forth no word or sign of complaint. My aunt soon began to wriggle her stupendous backside, in a way to show how very exciting the birching was to her. Her exquisitely creamy white skin began to see the scarlet of the blood rushing to the surface under the infliction received. The redder it became, so did the evident palpitating movement of her two resplendent orbs increase, until uncle, too, showed how the glorious sight was stimulating his less easily excited system, by the stiffening and uprising of his pego. Aunt's hand slipped down to it, and being well acquainted with its habits, pronounced it to be as equally ready as herself. Turning her body lengthways, but still on her knees, the doctor scrambled up behind her, and first stooping, licked up the foam on her cunt, for she had already spent once; and then, rolling his tongue about the beautiful indentation leading to her delicious bottom-hole, he thrust it in as far as he could there. Then rising on his knees, he first plunged his jolly good prick into her cunt for two or three shoves, and then drawing it out well lubricated, presented its point to her exquisite bottom-hole, and plunged it up to the hilt at a single thrust. Aunt gave a cry and shudder of delight as she felt it penetrate to her very entrails. The doctor, satisfied for the moment, lay soaking in the exquisite pressure that aunt's sphincter ani was applying to his happy prick. He looked down upon her glorious buttocks, handling them with evident pleasure. I saw aunt's hand steal down to her cunt, and could observe that she was actively frigging her clitoris. She shortly cried out to uncle not to be so idle, but to commence the delicious movements she expected from him.

He did—they did; and such a scene of excitement it was to see so magnificent a woman with such a mighty backside in all the agonies of enjoyment that I could hold out no longer, but seizing my bursting prick in my hand, two or three rapid movements up and down, and tight graspings of the shaft, brought on the ecstatic rapture of so lascivious a spend that I actually fainted and fell heavily on the floor. It was fortunate that aunt and uncle were so hotly engaged that an earthquake might have shook the house without their being conscious of it. So as I only fell from my knees it never disturbed one moment of their pleasure. I must have been some minutes without consciousness, for when I came to my senses, and was able to resume my inspection, I found their crisis was past, but that uncle still lay soaking in the narrow cell he so delightfully occupied. He was gazing with evident pleasure on the still palpitating buttocks of the divine backside immediately below him. Neither was in any hurry, but they dwelt for a considerable space of time in this repose of lubricity. At last, his cock, reduced in bulk, slipped out of its close quarters. Then, rising, and helping aunt out of bed, they warmly embraced each other, kissed and tongued, and aunt thanked him for a most rapturous fuck. Aunt then sat down on her bidet, and uncle used the wash basin. After purifying themselves, and aunt showing all the extraordinary fine development of her glorious form, they put on their night-dresses, blew out the lights, and tumbled into bed. I immediately hastened to gain my sisters' room, with my cock standing stiffer than ever. I entered gently—they were all asleep. My two sisters lay reversed, with their heads between each pair of thighs; they had evidently fallen asleep after a mutual gamahuche in the very attitude in which they had spent. Miss Frankland had apparently waited for me, but feeling drowsy, had thrust her very fine hairy backside right out of bed, ready to attract my attention the moment I should come. So gently approaching, and bringing the light to bear on the beautiful sight, I spit upon and lubricated the end of my prick, and very gently introduced him into her ever delicious cunt. I managed to fully engulph it before applying my finger to her bottom-hole, and my other hand to her clitoris. She had already in her sleep involuntarily squeezed me with her usual force. Then, suddenly applying all my energies, I began an active movement, which instantly awoke her. She was as ready for the sport as I was, and in a very few minutes we ran a most rapturous course of intense delight, and spent with an energy which proved the strength of the excitement I had been under. As I was standing by the bedside, and she lying on it with her fine bottom projecting beyond the edge, it was not a position to remain long in; besides, I was still dressed. So, withdrawing, I undressed myself. My sisters had slept through all this, so first preparing everything for an excessive orgie, by getting out dildoes and birch rods, we awoke the two darlings, who, rising, stripped to the buff. The three dear creatures were all curiosity to know what had kept me so long—more than two hours and a half, and what had been done.

I recounted all the proceedings, except in so far as they had talked of initiating me, for neither Miss Frankland nor I wished my sisters to be acquainted with that matter. They laughed heartily, and little Lizzie said she must act aunt, first flog me and be fucked; then be flogged by me, and have my darling prick up her bottom-hole to follow. We laughed and humoured her, and that scene came off with considerable eclat. Miss Frankland fucking Mary, for whom she had a great letch, in the cunt first, and in the bottom, after my example on Lizzie, in the second place. Lizzie and I then laved our parts and prepared for fresh encounters, and we then began a more regular course of the most lascivious lubricity, in which dildoes and rods played conspicuous parts, both becoming necessary under the excessive indulgencies of these last few nights. I stole to my room long after daylight, and slept soundly for an hour or two. You may be sure our lessons were of the lightest in these few days that were left us, and I was allowed to doze off during school hours.

Miss Frankland again walked with me alone in the garden, to give me, as she thought, last lessons in the way I should act with aunt, who she now felt more certain than ever would very soon attack and carry my person when she reached home and had the place and time all to herself. I listened with apparently great attention; as the reader knows, I was already an adept in the art she wished to indoctrinate—thanks to the admirable advice of my ever charming real first instructress, the lovely Mrs. Benson. But I could not help thinking how completely these two admirable women had the same wisdom and knowledge of the world with which they were so anxious that I, too, should become conversant.

The next night the doctor and aunt went quietly to bed, the doctor declaring that his previous night's doings would prevent any more that night. So I only had one more gaze at all aunt's magnificent beauties, which had a never failing effect on my excitable weapon, and which she sent away when her light was put out in a perfectly fit state for the work that awaited him in my sisters' room. I came upon them sooner than expected, and found the three rolled into one body, two gamahuching each other, and Miss Frankland 's clitoris in Mary's bum-hole. For a wonder they did not hear me as I gently opened the door, and I patiently waited till the lascivious crisis brought down a delicious spend from them all. When clapping my hands applaudingly, I cried—

"Bravo! bravo! encore!"

I was so far glad, for to confess the truth the pace was telling, and I began to require more and more of the rod. However, we had but this and the next night at our disposal, and the knowledge that we must soon cease our delicious orgies nerved us all to increased efforts.

Again our passions raged furiously, and broke out in spurts of foaming sperm. Every desire our lascivious lubricity could suggest was carried out to increase our pleasures or renew our exhausted resources, until time warned us again to separate.

The next day there was no school time—it was spent in packing and preparing for departure. My poor mother took it much to heart—she was a most affectionate creature, as innocent as a babe. I often wondered where we three got all the natural wantonness of our characters, for mamma had nothing of it. I suppose it must have come from our grandparents, as aunt had it in the fullest degree, and was almost the equal of the adorable Miss Frankland, who only excelled her in having Greek blood in her veins, which, doubtless, accounted for the extreme heat of her lubricity. Some day I will recount the chief events of her romantic story, which she herself, in after-time, fully related to me. The day was a sad one for us all, even sadder than the next, the actual day of departure. As often happens, the anticipation of evils is greater than the reality when they come.

That night my aunt and the doctor had another whipping bout, but this time she only succeeded in getting a single course out of the doctor. As before when all was over, I slipped away to pass the last delicious night with the dear creatures with whom I had now carried on the most rapturous orgies for more than two years past. My sisters were rapidly developing into remarkably handsome fine young women, especially Mary, who, having the advantage of a year and a half over Lizzie, was naturally more filled out and formed, although Lizzie promised in the end to be, and in fact became, the finest woman, and had also by far the hotter temperament of the two. We passed the night in orgies the most refined, interspersed with tears of regret at our parting, and soft endearments leading to perfect furies of lubricity, until I was nearly fainting with exhaustion. We tore ourselves asunder with difficulty, and the three angelic creatures held their door open, and with streaming eyes watched my receding form; twice, on looking back, I could not help returning again and again to throw myself into their arms for a last loving embrace; but like all things human it came to an end, and I reached my bed and sobbed myself to sleep.

It is needless to dwell on our parting next day. My mother accompanied us to the town where we were to take a coach. It drove up. My poor mother could hardly utter her blessing and farewell, and I saw the tears coursing down her venerable cheeks as she waved her handkerchief before the coach turned the corner that shut us from her view. Of course my heart was full, whose could be otherwise when quitting home for the first time. My aunt put her arm round my waist, and laid my head on her ample bosom, and comforted me as well as she could; but a full heart must vent itself. Fortunately, we had the inside all to ourselves. My aunt was very tender, and so was the doctor. I soon sobbed myself to sleep; even in the bitter grief of the moment I had some slight comfort in the idea of pressing those glorious orbs. My aunt frequently kissed me, and I returned it with full pouting lips, which I fancied rather pleased her. I slept until the coach stopped for supper, ate heartily, and, as may be supposed after my late week of hard work, soon again slept like a top.

I did not awake until it was broad daylight, and, like all heavy sleepers, was awake and sensible of what was going on before opening my eyes. I became conscious that a hand was gently pressing and apparently taking the size of my standing pego, which the pressure of water on my bladder had occasioned to be in an erection of the hardest. I lay quite still, continuing to breathe heavily, but unable to prevent sundry throbbings of my pego, occasioned by the soft hand of my aunt, who was gently following its form from the outside of my trousers. It appeared she had only just commenced her manipulations, not having previously observed the bulging out of its large dimensions under my trousers. She pressed her knee against that of the doctor opposite, who I presume, was dozing off, and in a whisper I heard her draw his attention to my extraordinary development.

"Feel it, my dear, but very gently, so as not to waken him, it is the largest prick I have ever felt, and altogether beats the late Captain of Grenadiers you used to be so jealous of."

The doctor did feel, and I think aunt would have unbuttoned my trousers, had not the coach suddenly pulled up at the inn we were to breakfast at. So perforce they shook me up. I acted the suddenly awakened sleeper very well. As soon as we were out of the coach, I whispered to the doctor—

"If you please, uncle, I want to piddle very bad."

"Come here, my dear boy."

And taking me behind some wagons in the innyard, where we would not be seen, he said—

"Here, we can both piss down this grating."

And, forsooth, to encourage me, pulled out his own standing pego. I saw what he wanted, and out with my own in all its length and strength.

"Good heavens, Charles, what an immense cock you have got—does it often stand like that?"

"Yes, uncle, every morning it hurts me so until I piddle—it gets worse and worse, and bigger and bigger—it was not half so big a year ago. I don't know what to do to cure myself of this hardness, which is very painful."

"Ah, well, I must speak to your aunt, perhaps she can help you. Have you ever spoken to anybody else about it?"

"Oh, dear no! I should have been quite ashamed; but when I saw you also had the same hardness, I was very glad to ask your advice, dear uncle."

"Quite right. Always consult me about that part of your body, whatever you may feel."

We breakfasted, and I could see, on regaining the coach, that uncle and aunt had a satisfactory exchange of words on the subject. We got to the Rectory in Kent in time for dinner, at which I was the object of great and devoted attention of both, especially of my aunt.

Our previous long journey made an early retreat to bed a necessity for all of us. They both conducted me with much empressement to my bedroom, a very comfortable one, having a communication at one end with a corridor, and, on the right-hand side entering, another door communicating with my uncle's dressing-and bath-room, and these opening into their bedroom, which had a similar dressing-room on the other side fitted up with wardrobes for female gear, and dedicated to my aunt's sole use. I was left to a quiet night's rest, which I most thoroughly enjoyed, and slept profoundly until late in the morning. I was awakened by my uncle drawing all the clothes off me. Of course, I was rampant, as usual. He gazed for a moment or two without speaking at my enormous cock at full stand. He then said it was nine o'clock, and breakfast was ready, that he had not liked to disturb me sooner, as I was in so sound a slumber, but now it was time for me to get up.

"I see," he added, "that your doodle, as you call it, has got the hardness you spoke of yesterday."

Then he laid hold of it, and gently squeezed it—it filled his grasp. He evidently enjoyed the pleasure of handling it, but contented himself with saying that my aunt must see to giving me some remedy the next day, when she should come and inspect it in the morning, so as to see how hard it was, and how it hurt me.

I replied that it would be very kind of aunt, but what would she think of my showing my doodle to her; mamma had told me, when I slept in her room, always to piddle in a corner, and never let anyone see it.

He laughed at my apparent simplicity, and said—

"Your mamma was quite right as to people in general, but it is quite a different thing with your aunt, whose close relationship authorises her doing what she can to relieve her dear nephew, in whom we both take such an interest; besides, I suppose your mamma never saw it in this size and hardness?"

He was gently handling it all the time of our conversation.

"Oh, no! mamma never saw it but at night, when it was quite shrunk up, and that is nearly a year ago, when I used to sleep in her room; it is since then it has grown so large and hurts so much, and throbs so violently as it is doing now in your hand. It makes me feel so queer, dear uncle, and I shall be so much obliged to dear auntie if she will but give me a remedy to relieve the pain I suffer."

He laughed again, and said—

"I shall speak to your aunt, and we shall see—we shall see; but get up now, we shall find your aunt waiting for us. So make haste and dress; come down stairs, you will find us in the dining-room."

He left me, and I could hear him laughing to himself, as he walked along the corridor, doubtless at my apparent innocent simplicity. I saw at once that I should be called upon to show myself a man next day; but I already felt the advantage of the advice both my admirable mistresses had given me, as to making all new conquests believe that they had my first fruits. I determined to adhere to the game I was playing, and I foresaw that the pleasure of supporting such a thing would greatly enhance the delight aunt would naturally take in being fucked by my really monstrous cock. I was soon down to breakfast, and was most warmly embraced by my gloriously beautiful aunt, who, in a graceful dishabille, looked more charming than ever. She hugged me for more than a minute in her arms, and devoured me with kisses. I have no doubt the doctor had recounted our interview, and by the sparkle of her eye, and the flush on her face, as she so closely embraced me, she showed that already her passions were excited, and she was longing for the hour in which she could indulge them. However, all that day, they were kept under restraint. The doctor had some parish business to attend to, and aunt leaving me for an hour after breakfast, while she attended to some necessary household affairs, afterwards took me all over the house and grounds, and then we had a walk through the village. The house was one of those snug rectory houses situated in their own grounds which abound in England, but few have so glorious a prospect as was seen from the front of the house. Leeds, in Kent, is situated on the ridge of hills running east and west, and commanding views over the rich and beautiful weald of Kent. The rectory faced the south, and the ground falling rapidly beyond the garden left a splendid landscape in full view. Although close to the village and the church, both were planted out by a thick belt of evergreen trees, which extended to north and east, sheltering the house and grounds from every adverse wind. The house itself was very commodious, but unassuming. The south front had a large projecting half-circle, with three windows in it and a window on each side of the half-circle; this formed the drawing-room below and my uncle's bedroom, and two dressing-rooms above. To the right, looking at the house, there was a wing with an open-arched passage leading to a greenhouse and vinery, while above ran a suite of three rooms, each with one good-sized window overlooking the garden. These were the three rooms kept for the same number of young gentlemen who might be taken in for preparation for the University—a number the doctor never exceeded. Of these rooms I was at present the only occupant. They were built so as to be shut off from all the rest of the house by a door on the landing, leading into the corridor, from which a door communicated with the doctor's dressing-room, and with each of the three rooms. At the end was a water-closet for general use. I have already mentioned the first of these rooms had a second door of communication with the doctor's dressing-room, and this was appropriated to me. Below these rooms, but looking north, and communicating with the village by a covered way and having a playground into which it looked, was the school-room, taking up about half the space of the rooms above. Beyond the covered way to the village was a quiet garden square, into which the doctor's study looked. This study was separated by a passage from the school-room, and had double baize doors both on the house and school-room sides. It was in fact the doctor's sanctum sanctorum, of which more will be told in the sequel. In this manner the school-room part of the house was quite shut off from the rest, and was nowhere overlooked. To return to the habitable part. The west front contained a small library, opening from the drawing-room, and beyond a comfortable dining-room, communicating with the kitchen and offices, which overlooked the courtyard of the entrance to the house, above these were the domestics' bedrooms, &c. The entrance was from the north into a handsome entrance-hall, with a good broad staircase leading to the upper landing, which, turning westward, led to three extra bedrooms above the library and dining-room. It was thus a very convenient house and well-adapted for a clergyman adding scholastic duties to his other ministrations. I forgot to say that the first bedroom, in the west wing, had a door of communication with my aunt's dressing-room, which I afterwards found had often served for amorous propensities by making it the bedroom of some favoured lover. The grounds were charmingly laid out with a profusion of flowers. There was a perfectly shaded walk in the east shrubbery leading from the greenhouse down to a most charming summer house overlooking the very finest prospect, and perfectly secure from all observation. It was furnished very appropriately for amorous purposes, the couches being low, broad, and with patent spring-cushions. In the sequel it was the scene of many a bout of lubricity. My aunt took me through all that I have described. When we arrived at the summer house, I could see that it was with difficulty she restrained her great desire to possess me; I would most willingly have rushed into her longing arms, and fucked her to her heart's content, but prudence withheld. I had undertaken to act a part, and must go through with it. No doubt aunt was withheld by a similar motive. She and the doctor had resolved that nothing to alarm my modesty—heaven save the mark!—was to be attempted till the next morning. So with a deep sigh she led me away from the summer house into the village, where we met the doctor, and returned to luncheon. After luncheon the doctor took me for a walk again through the picturesque village along the ridge of hills, to enjoy the beautiful views of Leeds Castle, the doctor giving me very many interesting historical details connected with it. After a most pleasant and lengthened walk we returned in time to dress for dinner. I found that one of the rules of the house was that no matter, whether alone or with company the doctor invariably insisted on regular evening costume at dinner-time. This has many advantages. In the first place it gives at least half an hour's occupation, an object in itself worth something to persons living in the country, and then it gives a cachet or rather chic to your dinner party, however small it may be, and is in itself a certain amount of restraint on excessive exuberance of spirits, and thus may be considered as a disciplinary element of education tending to keep up that reserve and self-restraint characteristic of Englishmen.

Beyond a marked attention to me in every way, our dinner and evening passed without anything worthy of record. I was evidently high in their favour, probably for the reason that both began to have great hopes that I would serve their purpose in every way. We retired early to rest, and I thus obtained three nights of uninterrupted rest, recruiting me after all the excesses I had indulged in before quitting home. It was so far fortunate, that I was thus ready to satisfy the strong passions of my aunt, who was insatiable when once her lust was let loose. I awoke earlier than on the previous morning, and shortly afterwards, hearing a movement in the doctor's dressing-room, I feigned sleep. It was as I expected, the doctor coming to me in company with my aunt. They approached my bedside. I had laid myself on my back purposely to allow the thin summer-covering to be lifted up and bulged out by my stiff-standing pego. I heard the doctor whisper to aunt, to draw her attention to it. She gently slipped her hand under the clothes, and grasped it in her soft fat fingers, upon which it throbbed so violently that I thought it politic to waken at once. My aunt was not at all put out, but held it still in her hand with a gentle pressure. She said—

"My dear nephew, your uncle has brought me to see if I cannot relieve the extreme hardness and pain you feel in this immense thing of yours. Let me see it."

She now threw off the coverlet, and brought to light my large prick in all the glory of the stiffest stand.

"My word! what a monster!" she cried.

Her eyes sparkled, and her face flushed as the sight met her full gaze. The doctor approached, and also handled it with evident delight.

"My dear, will you be able to put it into your natural warm bath? It is so very large!"

"Oh! I have not the slightest doubt but that I shall be able to soothe and deliver it of all pain—poor fellow, how it throbs! Does it hurt much, dear Charles?"

"Oh, yes; your hand seems to make it even harder than before, but, at the same time makes me feel so very queer, as if I were going to faint. Do relieve me, dear auntie, the doctor says you can if you like."

"I will do so, certainly, my dear boy; but the method is a great secret, known only to your uncle and myself; and you must assure me you will never mention it to any one, or tell how I cured you. It is only my strong affection for you that makes me anxious to do anything I can to relieve you. Do you promise to be discreet?"

"My dear aunt, you may be sure I shall be too much obliged to you ever to think of revealing your great kindness. Do, pray, do it at once; I feel so queer, and I am bursting with pain."

"Well, then, make room for me beside you, and I shall lie down; the doctor will cover us up, and I shall soon reduce the stiffness."

She got into bed, lay down on her back, pulled the sheet over us, laying bare her splendid belly, and, at the same time, opening her magnificent limbs and desiring me to get upon her, telling me she had a sheath in her body, which, when my hard doodle was put within, would soon relieve it of its stiffness. I got awkwardly upon her. She seized my standing prick, and placing its knob between the already very moist lips, told me to push it in as far as it would go. It glided into its delicious sheath up to the cod piece in a moment.

"Oh, heavens!" I cried, "how nice! Dear, dear, auntie, what shall I do now, I feel as if I were going to die."

My apparent innocence seemed to add to her pleasure. She threw the sheet that covered us on one side, and with arms and legs clasped round my body, begged me to move my bottom up and down, so as to make my doodle go in and out. I followed her directions, and she seconded me with rare art, squeezing my instrument with wonderful pressures as I withdrew and she retired, to meet again the up and down shock with the most lascivious delight. I felt the hand of the doctor embracing my testicles and gently pressing them. I became aware that the crisis was approaching, and shoved home with a cry of rapture, but remembering my part, I exclaimed—

"Oh, I am dying, dear aunt; oh! oh! stop! stop! I—can't—can't—bear it." I sank away, but could hear aunt murmuring—

"Dear, darling, delicious boy, I never had such a glorious prick in me, or a better fuck before. I fear the dear child has fainted from the excess of pleasure, and the newness of the sensation, but his glorious prick still throbs deliciously within me—only feel its root, doctor, how stiff it is."

I felt the doctor grasping it, making it throb violently as he did so.

"The dear boy is as stiff as ever. You will get another fuck out of him the moment he comes to himself. I am glad of that, for it is delightful to see you at it, especially with so splendid a prick operating upon you—it is the greatest treat you have ever given me in that way."

"I don't wonder at that, my dear, for I never met with such a fine prick in my life before, and little thought my nephew could have had such a splendid one in his trousers when we first saw him. Oh, I am lewder than ever, and am spen—spen—spending. Oh!—oh!"

And she poured down another copious hot flow on my enraptured prick. I let her revel in the ecstasies of her second lascivious discharge until I found that her libidinous passions were again excited and longing for more active operations. I pretended not to know where I was, and began a faltering—

"Oh, where am I? What has happened? I have been in paradise!"

Lifting up my head, I apparently recognised aunt in surprise—

"Oh, dear; how came I here? Oh, remember, auntie, you promised to relieve my hardness, and it seemed so nice, but I feel it is harder than ever; you will try and relieve me again, won't you, dear auntie?"

"Certainly, my dear nephew, you must do as you did at first, move in and out, and I shall second you; and perhaps we shall succeed this time better than before."

Of course, I was less gauche, and she more energetic. I felt the doctor insert a moistened finger up my fundament, and move it in unison with our thrusts. Aunt cried out to me to go on faster and faster, and we soon came to the grand crisis, dying away together in sobs and sighs of delighted enjoyment. I again sank on her noble panting bosom, really overcome with the rapture-giving delights of that most delicious cunt. On lifting my love-humid eyes to the face of my aunt, she seized my head in both hands, and drew my lips to her in a long, long kiss of satisfied lust, and thrust her tongue into my mouth, which I immediately sucked. She then begged me to give her mine. After tongueing together for a minute or two she asked if my doodle was in less pain, and if its hardness was reduced.

"A little, dear auntie, but I feel it is getting hard again—you must try once more, if you please—oh! it is so nice!"

And my prick throbbed up and stiffened to prove the truth of my words. But the doctor here interrupted us by saying that he must have his own stiffness reduced, at the same time presenting his really fine prick at full stand before our faces.

"You must get up, my dear boy, and your aunt will allay your new hardness in another way, in which she will be able to relieve both our hardnesses together."

Reluctantly I rose, withdrawing my reeking prick at more than half stand. Looking down as I rose on the truly large and magnificent foaming gash from which I had just withdrawn, I cried—

"Oh, dear aunt, what a wonderful sight it is; I must kiss it for the efforts it has made to relieve me."

I threw my head down upon it, kissed it, licked its wide open lips all foaming with fuck as they were, thrusting my tongue in as far as it would go. This evidently gave aunt great delight. But the doctor drew me off, told me to lie down on my back, and made aunt straddle over me. She took hold of my now completely standing prick, bent it back, and directing it aright, sank upon it until her ample bush of hair lay crushed on mine. She rose up and down two or three times in a slow delicious movement, and then bending forward, glued her lips to mine while I threw my arms round her glorious body.

I could feel the doctor getting up between my legs on his knees, and then felt his prick was rubbing against the lips of the cunt fully distended round my large pego, doubtless for the purpose of lubricating it before thrusting it into aunt's magnificent backside. I felt the rubbing of his prick against mine through the thin partition, as he glided slowly up into her entrails. We then began our joint movements, but aunt beat us both, and spent twice before joining in our final finish, which was ushered in by loud cries of delight from all three as the death-like ecstasy seized us, and we sank in that half unconscious state of supreme bliss. It was some time before any of us spoke a word. The doctor rose first, and without drawing his prick from the delicious orifice in which it had been engulphed, showed by the way it hung down its pendant head, that aunt had at all events allayed its stiffness. He desired aunt to rise also, but I felt by her throbbing cunt, and the pressure she put on my prick, as she rose from it, so that it came out with a loud flop, that she would fain once more have done me the service of allaying any stiffness that might re-arise. However, it was much limper than before, although still of a goodly thickness. When she got on her legs, she stooped forward, kissed it, took it in her mouth, and most lovingly sucked it, saying how delighted she would be to relieve me whenever it was troublesome. They begged me to get up and dress, and we should meet at breakfast. They then withdrew, to complete their own toilets. I lay for some minutes in the dreamy delight of thinking over the delicious event that had just taken place, and amused at the last remark of my aunt, which seemed to infer that she thought I was innocent of the real meaning of the performances that had just taken place. I determined to act as if it were so.

We met at breakfast, aunt kissed me most lovingly. I thanked her for her great kindness in relieving me from pain in so delicious a manner, and told her I could not help loving her more than I had ever loved any one before, and said I hoped she would kindly relieve me every morning, for I always suffered at that time from the painful hardness, though I should never be sorry for that, as long as she would so kindly allay it. I put my hands quite in a childish way on each cheek, and held up my mouth for a kiss, which was given to me in the lewdest way. She called me her dear boy, and told me that she would always help me as she had done that morning, as long as she found I was discreet, and never told how she did so. You may be sure that my promises were most earnestly reiterated. So we kissed again, and sat down to an excellent breakfast with sharpened appetites from our early exercise, and did full justice to the viands set before us. The doctor gave me a book of history, and desired me to read for a couple of hours, and said that at luncheon we would talk over the subject of my reading. I studied attentively for the time prescribed, and then aunt came to ask me to walk in the grounds with her. Insensibly or not, she led me to the summer house, and sat down on a low ottoman. I sat down beside her. She drew me to her, kissed me, and clasped me to her bosom, murmuring terms of endearment, and pressing me to her glorious bubbies. Of course, my unruly member fired up at once. To prevent her imagining it was lasciviousness that prompted me, I said—

"Oh, my dear aunt, I do so want to piddle, my doodle at once gets as hard as wood if I at all restrain the inclination to do so, just feel how stiff it has become; will you let me go and piddle?"

"My dear boy, I will go with you, and unbutton your trousers for you."

We went among the trees. Her busy fingers undid my trousers, and helped to bring forward my lordly cock in its glory. Fortunately, I did want to piddle, and aunt held it up as I did so, her eyes sparkling with lust as she handled it, and her face flushed with her excited passions. She remarked what an astonishing size it was, gently rubbing it up and down. Of course, it became more rampant than ever. Throwing my arms round her stooping neck, I asked her if she could not again relieve the excessive hardness and pain it was in.

"To be sure, my dear boy. Come here again into the summer house, where we cannot be observed."

We entered. She put a cushion on the floor for my knees, threw herself on her back, and lifted all her petticoats well over her belly, exposing her very hairy cunt, and its splendid pinky gash, already moist from her excitement. I threw myself on my knees, and stooping down, said—

"I must kiss the dear reliever of my pains."

I kissed and tongued, until my aunt begged me to raise my body, and come upon her, that she might quickly put me out of pain. I rose, and slipped my stiff member up to the hilt in her longing cunt almost taking away her breath by the suddenness and completeness of the insertion. Her legs and arms were round me in a moment, and at it we went hammer and tongs, until we quickly spent with cries of delight, and sank in momentary oblivion, soon to recover our full sensations, and dash again on passion's furious course, this time aunt pouring down her hot boiling discharge before me, and again when she felt the torrent of my sperm shooting up to the top of her womb. Our final crisis was even more ecstatic than the first time, and we lay longer in the soft languor of the after-sensations. The excessively voluptuous nature of her inward pressures soon re-illuminated all my libidinous desires, and refired my prick with renewed force. We soaked for a short time, each indulging in the delicious inward throbbings, until our lust could stand no longer such mere preliminary work, and stimulated anew, we rushed with freshened passions into the fray. The fiery nature of my lustful aunt paid down two tributes to Priapus to my one. This time our sensations were so ecstatic in spending that we really lost all consciousness, and lay for long locked in the closest embrace. I could feel that we were both becoming re-excited, but my aunt begged me to rise, saying that was enough for the present, the stiffness was allayed, and my weight was too much for her to endure longer. I rose, but again buried my face in the wide gash of that glorious cunt, and before rising completely, I licked up the delicious foam, and even ventured to give, as it were, an accidental lick to her little knob of a clitoris, for she was not much distinguished in that way; she shivered with excitement, when I touched it, and even pressed my head down upon it, when she felt the pleasure pressure.

"My dear boy, what exquisite delight you give me! Continue for a little to keep moving your tongue on that hard projection."

I did so. Her splendid backside wriggled below in the fullest enjoyment. She rapidly came to the ecstatic ending, nearly thrusting my whole face into her vast orbit, and spurting out a very torrent of sperm, all over my face and neck. She seized me by the shoulders to draw me up, that she might kiss me. My prick had regained its full vigour, and could not fail to slip in of itself into that most lascivious and gaping cunt when it reached the entrance. My aunt started at such an unexpected result, but was too much gratified to hesitate for an instant. Throwing legs and arms around me, her supple loins were in immediate action. I myself was equally in a state of wild lubricity, so that our course was even more rapid than at first, and we both spent and sank together in the delicious after-languor as soon as the ecstatic joy of the first rush of the exquisite discharge was over. My aunt, who could not but be most highly gratified, still kept up the appearance of relieving me, she desired me to rise, and said we must go, as luncheon time was at hand.

"But, my darling nephew, you must yourself endeavour to keep down your hardness, and not allow it to become stiff so often—you will injure me with your violence."

"Oh, my darling aunt, you give me relief with such exquisite pleasure that my doodle seems to harden only for the purpose of your relieving it—see how it is again bulging out of my trousers," for she had buttoned it up. She put her hand upon it, and squeezed it, but said, with a deep sigh—

"Come along, come along, or I do not know what might happen."

She drew me away, but by the manner in which she squeezed my arm, I could feel she was herself still greatly excited. Her prudence alone enabled her to resist further indulgence, as she seemed to think I was still unaware of the real nature of our proceedings. We found the doctor waiting for us at the luncheon table. He guessed by the flushed face of my aunt the nature of our late employment, and asked if I had been again troubled with my unnatural hardness.

"Yes, poor fellow," said my aunt, "it appears that whenever he wants to piddle, and cannot do so at once, it troubles him in that way, and I have had some difficulty in allaying it. I succeeded at last, but I have told my dear nephew that he must endeavour himself to restrain it in the daytime, as it is not always in my power to relieve him."

"Quite right, my love; my dear Charles, you must endeavour to follow the wishes of your of aunt."

Of course I promised, and with such a look of innocence that I could see they exchanged smiles at it. We sat down to luncheon. Afterwards the doctor, seating himself by my side, began a conversation on the historical subject I had been studying. Our conversation became really very interesting. The doctor was a man of great erudition, and of varied knowledge, and had a manner, special to himself, of making almost any subject most interesting. Hours flew by, and it was only when aunt entered about five o'clock, to take a cup of tea, as was her wont, that we were aware how time had flown. The doctor praised my knowledge of history, and the pertinency of the questions I had put to him, in a manner highly flattering to me, and I could see that I had risen much in his estimation, quite apart from any erotic influences. He proposed a constitutional walk before dinner, and much interested me by his instructive conversation during it. Our dinner was most agreeable. In the drawing-room aunt, a most admirable performer on the piano, enchanted us with her skill and taste. The doctor challenged me to a game at chess. He was, of course, far superior to me, but he praised my style of play, saying I should become a great proficient with time and practice. We retired, as usual, about half-past ten, the doctor seeing me to my room, and promising to bring aunt in the morning to see if I was still troubled with that painful hardness. I thanked him warmly, but with much simplicity, as if quite unaware of the real nature of the application of the remedy. He left me to my repose. The quiet nights of sound sleep made my day efforts pass off without any exhaustion, and I felt my erotic powers increasing in force.

I slept soundly, and so long that I was only awakened by the caressing hand of my aunt on my stiff-standing pego. She had gently lifted off all the coverings, and I lay quite exposed to eye and touch.

"Oh, my darling aunt! how kind of you to come this early to relieve that troublesome thing."

I held out my arms. She stooped down to kiss me. I clasped her to my bosom. Our lips met, and our tongues darted fiery lust into our bodies. She threw herself down by my side, I was onto her in a moment. The doctor took hold of my pego, and guided it into the delicious orbit of his wife. Dear aunt begged me to do as I did yesterday, if I wanted relief. Our action became fast and furious. Her legs and arms wound round me in loving pressures. Her active backside wriggled in delight. The doctor had introduced first one finger, and then two, into my fundament, and added greatly to the fury of my lust, so that I spent in an agony of pleasure, as quickly as the fiery lust of my aunt produced her hot and plentiful discharge. I sank on her charming bosom, panting with the force and fury of our coition, but like all very fast fucking, my virile member hardly flinched from his first vigour, and a very few of aunt's exquisitely delicious internal pressures sufficed to bring him up to the fullest stiffness. We were about to plunge again with renewed ardour into all love's wildest excitement, but the doctor insisted upon our first changing places, that he, too, might have his hardness allayed. Our change of position was instantly accomplished, and dear aunt, after impaling herself on my upright member, sank on my bosom and was clasped in my longing arms. The doctor scrambled up behind her, and lost no time in sheathing himself in her fine and beautiful bottom-hole, and then we ran a double course of delight, dear aunt taking the lead as usual, and deluging us with her hot and delicious discharges before we were ready to pour into her a double dose of delight, which again made her spend with fury and cries of rapturous enjoyment, in which we both joined, and then sank in love's exquisite inanimation. On recovering ourselves the doctor withdrew, but I was already as stiff as before. Aunt began a most effective and delicious movement above me, which soon brought on another grand finale, and we died away in mutual delight. I could feel that the doctor was gently handling my cods, both during and after our last combat. When, by our mutual throbbings, he saw that we were about to become fit to enter on another career, he begged his wife to rise from off me. But the idea of losing her and her extra pressures made my prick immediately resume an erect position, so that when she rose from off it, it was shown in a completely standing state.

"What! again, Charles?" said the doctor. "Your member is sadly unruly. My dear, you must again try to allay it, but put yourself this time on your knees, and we shall see if that position be better adapted for the purpose of relieving this immense object."

He was gently and admiringly handling it all the time. His wife was quite aware of his object, and, indeed, so was I. Our last bout had helped to restiffen his prick, and although not yet quite rampant, it was evident that when my bottom was in full view, and so placed as to be got at with facility, it would be quite as stiff as necessary. When his wife had knelt down, and by lowering her head had exposed all the wondrous grandeur of the most superb backside that ever met my eyes, my prick bounded with joy. The doctor still grasping it, and feeling it throb so wildly, saw that his game was sure. He pointed out all the beauty of aunt's second orbit of love, and told me it was in that he had allayed his own hardness, and as the other orifice had not succeeded in quieting me, he recommended my entering within the narrow path of ecstasy. I professed no surprise, but seemed to take it quite as a matter of course in the simplest innocence of manner. Uncle continued to handle my tool as I mounted on my knees behind aunt. Guiding the almost bursting weapon into the delicious cunt in the first place, to be lubricated there, and then telling me to withdraw it, he directed it to the smaller orifice, and desired me to push gently and smoothly in. It glided in slowly up to the meeting of my belly against the enormous buttocks of that sublime backside. There I paused for a minute or two within the throbbing sheath. Aunt had pushed her bottom well out, and by the action of apparently voiding, had facilitated the entrance. She winced once or twice, but on the whole, as she told me afterwards, took in my enormous tool with less difficulty than she expected. After a few slow movements, during with I caressed and devoured with admiration the glorious orbs beneath my dearest gaze, uncle desired me to lean forward and embrace my aunt's splendid bosom. As soon as I did this, and began slowly to thrust in and out of the delicious sheath in which I was so rapturously engulphed, I felt uncle's hands wandering over my buttocks, followed by the introduction of two fingers into my anus. My throbbings on them showed how much he pleased me. He asked if it added to the pleasure I was enjoying.

"Oh, yes, dear uncle, immensely."

"Then," said he, "as I, too, am suffering from hardness, I shall try to allay it in your bottom, as you are doing in my wife's; don't be afraid, if I hurt you I shall stop."

"Do just as you like, dear uncle, both you and aunt are so kind as to do all you can to relieve my pain, and I should be very ungrateful if I did not do all in my power to relieve you."

"You are a darling boy, and I shall love you dearly."

He knelt behind me, and spitting on his cock, presented it at my bum-hole, and pressing gently forward, soon sheathed it to the utmost depth. He did not hurt me at all, as I was too much used to be dildoed there to have felt any difficulty of approach, but I deemed it politic to beg him to be gentle from time to time, as if it were a virgin vale he was entering. He fancied as much, and that was just as good. When once he was fully within, after a few throbs, which were felt most deliciously on his delighted prick, we proceeded to more active work. Aunt, in the meantime, by more pressure on my prick, and by frigging her own clitoris, which I was quite aware she was doing, had spent profusely; and, as the case with all the mucous membranes of the body which sympathise with the cunt's discharge, her bottom-hole became quite moist and deliciously heated. The doctor and I then went at it with fiery force, and soon gave down nature's tribute, and mutually poured a flood of sperm up the entrails we were respectively belabouring.

We lay for some time after in all the luxury of soaking in the delicious apertures. I fell to nothing, and reluctantly withdrew. I had again become rampant, and keeping myself more erect, with a hand on either immense hip, I devoured with greedy eyes all the glories beneath my gaze. Fired by such a truly magnificent sight as these huge buttocks were, when in an entire state of wriggle, I again spent with cries of agonised delight, and in all the ecstasy of fully satiated lust, sank almost insensible on the broad and beautiful back of my aunt, who herself had spent several times, squealing like a rabbit, and eventually falling flat on her belly overcome with exhausted lust, drawing me with her still held a willing prisoner in her glorious and exquisite bottom-hole. We lay entranced for some time, until the doctor, who, during our last bout, had purified himself, told us we must now get up. With difficulty I tore myself from out of that delicious sheath, and rose with my cock at last pendant. The doctor congratulated me on the success of the last move. His wife lay still panting with all the delight of satisfied desire, and we had to help her up. She threw herself into my arms, and hugged me close to her heaving bosom, kissed me tenderly, and hoped she had relieved me of all pain. I was her own darling boy, and she would always be truly happy in relieving me of that inconvenience whenever it troubled me. I was internally amused at their continuing to keep up this idea, but I humoured them, and appeared the most innocent simpleton, notwithstanding all that had occurred. The day passed much as the previous one. After two hours' reading, aunt again proposed a walk, which, of course, ended at the summer house, where again a pressure of water brought on the painful hardness, which aunt succeeded in allaying after four most exquisite bouts of love, varied by a thoroughly good double gamahuche between the last two acts. Aunt must have spent at least ten times, and appeared thoroughly contented, but continued to attribute it to her gratification at having relieved me of my painful hardness. Again I passed hours in instructive conversation with my learned uncle and after a similar evening to the last, retired at our usual hour.

Next morning I was awakened by uncle alone, who told me that my aunt was somewhat poorly, and could not come.

"I am sorry it is so, for this little fellow is as hard as usual."

"Oh, I am so sorry dear aunt is poorly, both on her account and my own. What shall I do, dear uncle? It is so hard and painful."

"Well, my dear boy, I must try to allay it myself. I love you too dearly to leave you in this state. I am not so good at allaying this painful attack as your aunt, but as you know you were successfully relieved in her bottom, and I in yours, yesterday, we shall try to-day if I can accommodate this huge fellow, of which I have some doubts. Take off your night-shirt as I do mine, it will be more commodious."

In an instant we were both stark naked. We threw ourselves into one another's arms and lovingly kissed each other. Our tongues met in a delicious sucking—our hands took each a prick, and we had a most exciting and loving embrace. The doctor then took my prick in his mouth, sucked it a little, and well lubricated it with his saliva, spitting on the lower part of the shaft and rubbing it round with his finger. He then knelt, and presenting a really beautifully rounded bottom of the fairest hue, he pushed it out, showing a light brown corrugated bum-hole, most tempting to look at. He desired me to wet it with my saliva. I stooped and applied my mouth and tongue to the appetising morsel, and thrust my tongue in as far as it would go—to his evident delight, leaving it well moistened. I then brought my prick to the entrance; he shoved his backside well out, and acted as if he desired to void himself. A firm but slow pressure quickly engulphed the knob. The doctor desired me to rest a moment, and drop some spittle on the shaft. Again it was firmly pushed forward, and gradually it won its way up, the belly against the buttocks, without much flinching on the doctor's part. After resting a while, he desired me to bend forward and feel his cock while I should move backwards and forwards in the sheath until I was relieved. I had a most delicious fuck. The doctor's bottom-hole was quite hot internally. His pressures with the sphincter were exquisitely delicious, and he had acquired the charming side wriggle so exquisite in quim fucking. Of course this was an old letch of his, which his position as schoolmaster had given him so many opportunities of indulging in, and the still greater pleasure of initiating others in it. At this very moment he was delighted with his delusion about me in that respect. Of course I never undeceived him, and he had all the extra delight of the idea. My younger and hotter passions had made me spend before he could; so after indulging me in a delicious soak after the ecstasy of the discharge, he drew my attention to the rigidity of his own member, which, he said, I must now allow him to allay in turn.

"Of course, my dear uncle, I am too sensible of your great kindness in relieving me to hesitate about giving you the same relief."

I now withdrew. He rose for a mutual loving embrace, and then I stooped, and taking his fine milk-white prick with its lovely vermilion knob into my mouth, most deliciously sucked it, making my tongue tickle the entrance to the urethra, to his infinite delight. He murmured out soft terms of endearment; then getting exceedingly lewd, he begged me to kneel down as he had done. He then kissed and gamahuched my bottom-hole, making my prick stand and throb again with delight. Then spitting on his prick he quickly sheathed it in my glowing backside. After pausing to enjoy the exquisite pleasure of complete insertion, he stooped, and passing a hand round my belly laid hold of my stiff-standing prick with one hand, while he gently pressed the ballocks with the other. We then proceeded to active measures. He soon made me spend, which I did with loud cries of delight, giving him the most exquisite pleasure by the pressures the act of spending made me exercise on his pleased prick. He soon resumed his thrusts, and eventually we both spent together in the most ecstatic joy. I sank forward on the bed, dragging the doctor with me still imbedded in the rapture-giving aperture of my backside. We lay long in all the enchantment of delight. At last he withdrew completely reduced, but was surprised to see me still in a rampant state. When I got up he took my prick in his hand, praised its noble proportions, and again stooping, took it in his mouth, frigging the lower shaft with one hand; he then introduced two fingers into my bottom-hole, continued his suction and movement on my prick in unison with the working of his fingers up my bum-hole, and in this manner quickly produced a delicious discharge in his mouth. I had placed my hands mechanically on his head, and I nearly choked him as I thrust my prick halfway down his throat as I spent. He greedily swallowed every drop, and then rising, embraced me lovingly, telling me I had given him the greatest treat in the world, and he loved me dearly. After this he invited me into his dressing-room, and we both entered the bath together and mutually laved each other. Then dressing we joined aunt at breakfast. She had not the least air d'une malade, but with a sly smile hoped the doctor had proved as efficient as herself.

"Oh, yes, my dear aunt, and I am so much obliged to both of you for your solicitude to relieve the pain I suffer in the morning, but it seems to me that it more frequently and more severely attacks me than ever. I only hope I shall not tire out your kindness by such frequent appeals to your aid."

"Oh, my darling nephew, do not imagine anything of the sort. We are but too happy to be of any service to you."

This was accompanied with a knowing smile cast at each other, caused by my apparent uncommon simplicity, but which they were evidently glad to see. We sat down and enjoyed a capital breakfast.

The day passed quite as the two preceding ones. Aunt asked me to walk with her, and as before ended by leading me to the summer house, where, after relieving my distress symptoms, as she called them, three times, and finding that the relief was still inefficacious, she proposed to try if by adopting my uncle's position she could not be more successful. So kneeling on the low ottoman, and throwing her clothes over her back, she exposed all the glories of that most splendid backside, and dazzled my sight with its huge magnificence and ivory-like surface, perfectly milk-white, the pureness of which was equally perceptible through the rich light curly hair that spread bush-like between her legs, and wandering beautifully upwards between the cheeks of the enormous orbs, stole round the charming corrugated aperture that I was about to penetrate, the rosy circle of which appeared all too small to admit my very large virile member. I threw myself on my knees, and first licking out the wide open lips of her wonderously fine cunt, and taking care to pay my respects to the small knob of her indurated clitoris, I transferred all my attention to the smaller and most charming orifice. After kissing it most lovingly, I thrust my tongue in as far as it would go, and rolled it about to her infinite delight, while with my left hand below I kept pressing and frigging at her excited clitoris. She wriggled her glorious backside in all the agonies of the delicious excitement until she spent most profusely, actually hurting my tongue with the tightness of the squeeze her sphincter muscle gave as she poured down her plentiful discharge over my chin and neck. In her grand excitement, and wild with the fury of her lust, she cried out—

"Oh! fuck me, my darling, and shove your glorious prick into my bottom-hole. Oh! fuck—fuck—fuck me directly!"

Inwardly delighted at this natural outbreak of her passions, naming matters by their more appropriate terms, I replied by acts, without any words at the moment. It may well be imagined I was myself in the most rampant fury of desire. So bringing my raging prick up to her magnificently large cunt, all foaming as it was with her recent discharge, I plunged with a furious bound up to the codpiece at once. She met my forward lunge with a backward push and a cry of delighted satisfaction. I moved a few times in and out, so that my prick was white with the foam of her delicious cunt. Then suddenly withdrawing, I presented it at the entrance of the more secret temple of Venus, and more gently pushed it home, she helping me with outthrust buttocks and outward straining of the entrance, so that I most charmingly glided slowly into the glowing furnace that was awaiting with such lascivious desire to engulph and devour my longed-for prick. For, as I have before observed, my dear aunt was gluttonous of a bottom-fuck, after being so fucked in cunt as I had already served her. It was so deliriously tight and hot that I lay in the exquisite rapture of complete insertion for some minutes. I had seen my aunt's arm move in a manner to convince me she was frigging her own clitoris, in fact, the movement of her hand frigging herself was felt by my codpiece. I let her continue, until finding by the involuntary wriggling of her bottom that she was about again to spend, I aided her with my prick, and had hardly made many moves before she poured down another tribute of lust, with a squeal of delight, and with such pressure on my prick as nearly drove him at once to a similar discharge. I did my best, and succeeded in not following suit. My aunt was insatiable, and I was glad to let her spend as often as possible, and I so managed matters that she spent again before joining me in the final crisis, which seized us together, and we died away in joyous cries of thoroughly, though but momentarily, satisfied desire. I sank on that magnificent back, as the languor that follows the ecstatic moment overtook me, but it was only for a short time. The exquisite internal pressures that my amorous and glorious aunt was exercising on my delighted prick were too exciting not to rapidly produce a reaction; nonetheless rapidly that it was in such a delicious retreat as the pleasure-giving aperture of that gloriously exciting backside. I was lying down on her broad back, so passing one hand round to her large but firm bubby, I took its nipple between my fingers. The other hand sought the knob of her still stiff clitoris. I excited both while making a very gentle move with my hardly fully standing prick. I felt at once how this gratified her, indeed, she often afterwards assured me that such frigging, with the movement of the softened prick gently working within her, was most exciting, and almost better than when it was in full force. I soon made her spend again. Another of her delights was to have a stiff prick shove away into her the instant after she had spent, when she herself was at the moment incapable of action on her part. She in after-days proved that her greatest pleasure was to have a fresh-standing prick near, to take the place of one that had made her spend, and had spent itself, and have it thrust into her with all the vigour and lust the sight of the previous fucking had inspired and fired it with. At this moment, as I had not spent, it was the exact counterpart her libidinous imagination could have desired. I fucked and frigged on until we both gave down in cries of joy our united tribute to Venus. We both sank this time down on the couch in utter forgetfulness of all but the ecstatic bliss with which we were overcome. We long lay soaking in all the delightful sensations my adorable aunt's convulsive clutchings of my prick with her delicious close pressures excited. At last she begged me to withdraw, although she could feel me now re-stiffening under the delights of that exquisite interior. I would fain have recommenced.

"You must not, my dear boy, it is more than nature can support, and I must consider your youth; you have delighted me even beyond previous delights—rise then my love, and let me embrace, thank, and love you as I shall always do."

I rose, and we threw ourselves into each other's arms, lovingly kissing and tongueing each other. Aunt then buttoned me up, first kissing and taking a mouthful of my prick for a moment between her lips, and then putting him away, calling it "my pretty doodle." I seized the expression, and said—

"Dear aunt, you called it my prick just now, and begged me to fuck you, and to shove it well into your cunt. Are these the real names for my doodle and your Fanny, and what does "fuck" mean, my darling aunt? Do tell me, dear auntie? and teach me the language I ought to use when you are so kindly relieving me of the pains of my now so frequent hardness. I don't know whether you have observed it, dear auntie, but I never enter this summer house with you, but it becomes painfully hard at once; to be sure you give me such exquisite pleasure in relieving me that I could wish to have constant hardnesses as long as you were near to calm them. Is this natural, dear aunt, or a disease? Pray tell me, and teach me all the endearing terms you so lavish upon me while I am reducing my hardnesses."

My apparent simplicity evidently pleased her. She probably thought, too, that as I must sooner or later really thoroughly understand the nature of our intercourse, it would be much better she should, as it were, make a confidant of me, and attach me more securely to herself. She begged me to be seated and she fully explained everything to me. Of course I was even better acquainted than herself with all she communicated, but I confirmed the idea she evidently entertained of her being my first instructress by various naive remarks on all she was telling me. Of course I proved an apt scholar, and by my close-put questions brought out all her own knowledge, and left nothing for me to learn. At the end, I said—

"Do all women have such a delightful sheath—cunt I mean—between their legs as you have, dear aunt?"

"Yes, my darling; but you must never stray to others; you will find none so fond of you, or I may add, without vanity, so capable of satisfying this dear fellow; but come, I see it will be dangerous to allow him to stay here longer."

She rose, but I quickly unbuttoned and produced my prick in an almost grander state than ever. I begged of her to let me have one more "fuck" now that I knew what it all really meant. I put it into her hand. Her own previous descriptive lesson had aroused her lasciviousness. She fondly grasped it, and stooping down, kissed it, saying she could not resist its eloquent look. Throwing herself back on the couch, with her clothes up, her feet on the edge, and her legs apart, her glorious cunt lay open in its moist magnificence. I threw myself on my knees and gamahuched her until she spent: and now, knowing her greatest letch, I instantly brought my bursting prick up to her foaming cunt, plunged in and began a furious movement, accompanying it with all the most endearing bawdy phrases she had just, as she thought, taught me.

"Oh, my most gloriously cunted aunt, do I fuck you? Wriggle your arse faster—that's it! Do you feel my prick up to the hilt in your delicious cunt? Oh! what pleasure you do give me!"

She replied as broadly. Passing her hand down she pressed my cods, and asked if thus squeezing my ballocks added to my pleasure.

"Oh, yes, my love, your cunt, your arse, your bubbies, are all delicious. Oh, I never before knew there could be such additional pleasure to our fucking as using these endearing words produce."

We were both so excited by the bawdy terms we so profusely used that we went off in the utmost excess of ecstasy, and died away thoroughly satiated with our libidinous and most lasciviously delicious fuck. It was time to finish. So sliding off her, I again buried my face in her delicious gaping and foaming cunt, my mouth, lips, nose, and cheeks were covered with sperm; she drew me to her lips and licked it all off. Then repairing our disordered dress we returned to the house, and found the doctor impatiently awaiting us. Our flushed and excited faces at once showed that we had been indulging in the greatest excess. He joked aunt upon her skill in allaying such frequent attacks as I now appeared subject to.

Aunt informed him that she had inadvertently in her lust made use of expressions which had betrayed so much to me that she had found it necessary to leave me nothing more to learn, and I was now fully aware of the true nature of our connection; after luncheon he himself might further enlighten me, for she was certain that complete confidence would be the best policy to pursue; it must come about, sooner or later, and it was far better it should come from him than that I should learn it elsewhere. He said she was quite right, and that he would further instruct me after luncheon, so we set to work on the viands before us, to which I did ample justice.

I was thus, as they supposed, newly initiated in the mysteries of the coition of the sexes. I shall reserve further details of our more intimate and expansive experiences for the third volume of this true Romance of Lust, and still of Early Experiences. 

After the luncheon, which closed the last volume, a churchwarden occupied uncle for about an hour. When he had left off, uncle proposed a walk in the garden. I could see at once what this was meant to lead to, as he almost immediately turned in the direction of the summer house. When we got there he sat down on the couch, and begged me to sit beside him. He opened the subject at once by saying—

"My dear Charlie, I am very much pleased that your aunt has opened your eyes to the real nature of our actions with you, which your simple innocence had imagined to be a mere kindly relief to the overgorged vessels of your virile member. Accident might have made you acquainted with this through some less interested channel, and you might have innocently betrayed your future position. I believe you to possess a large fund of good sense and discretion, and the advice I shall give you as to the conduct to pursue in future will not only be received with confidence as meant for your future good, but listened to attentively and acted upon. The world, my dear boy, and by that I mean Society in general, condemns the practices we have lately been indulging in with you. Their narrow prejudices ignore the fact that nature alone prompts to these delightful acts, and that the great God of nature gifted us with the powers necessary for their performance. But, as the world has chosen to brand them with its censure, men of prudence, like myself, whilst apparently conforming outwardly to such stupid prejudices, know how in secret to fully enjoy them. I am blessed in your darling aunt with a wife who fully understands and humours my desires. She is rarely splendid in the glorious beauties of her body, and in temperament hot as the most erotic of our sex could desire. Even in your ignorance you must have felt the wonderful power of conferring carnal ecstatic pleasure she possesses, and have heard how, in the energy of her passion, she allowed her lust to betray her into the use of grossly bawdy terms, but which, as they have enlightened you when best prepared to receive such knowledge, is rather fortunate than otherwise. I speak thus frankly to you, my dear boy, because I have found you of a rare facility in giving and receiving erotic pleasures, and of a temperament worthy of the descent from the same stock as your aunt. You are worthy of each other, and formed to enjoy to the utmost each other's carnal delights, and I bless my happy star that has brought you both under my own roof. Henceforth there must be no secrets between us. It was at my earnest wish that your aunt relieved you; and, of course I had my own object in view. In the first place I require some extra excitement to be able myself to indulge in these delightful combats in love's domain. You and your aunt's copulations were to me more exciting than you can imagine. You will have observed, too, what is the real quarter to which, when excited, I pay my devoirs. Glorious as is the backside of your incomparable aunt, your young charms, virgin in that respect, excited me still more. I began by gentle touches, and then tried the insertion of my finger, when I saw you were far too busy operating within the orbit of your lustful and lusty aunt to observe or even feel what I was doing. I found a facility about your bottom as perfect for enjoyment as your truly magnificent prick or cock was fitted for operating in its way. It was then I suggested to your aunt to mount upon you, and afterwards made you aware that your aunt possessed another aperture which could equally well allay what you then looked upon as a source of pain. My object was to lead you to the same point. Your innocent docility lent itself with easy simplicity to all my desires. I saw that you entered readily into your aunt's glorious bum-hole, and allowed me to work with two fingers in your own. Finding that it rather gave you pleasure than otherwise, I proposed to abate my own stiffness in your bottom. Your affectionate docility enabled me to obtain unfailing ecstasy. Your after-fucking of me, while I was in my wife's bottom, conferred the utmost erotic bliss upon me, as you have experienced when operating and being operated upon. These—these are the moments of a felicity your stupid prejudiced worldlings know nothing of; and these are the pleasures which, now that we have initiated you into all their secret mysteries, we will enjoy to the utmost. To the true votaries of these love orgies grossness of language is a stimulant to passion.

Fuck-frig—bugger—cunt—prick—ballocks—bubbies—arse-hole—are all sacred words only to be pronounced when in the exercise of love's mysteries. At all other times a guarded decency of word, act, and gesture is imperative, as enhancing the delight of an unbridled vocabulary in the voluptuary of raging lust. I shall from time to time inculcate sage precepts on this point—enough for the present. Let us now indulge in mutual embraces."

So ending, he took me in his arms and glued his lips to mine. Our tongues met. Both our hands wandered, his on my prick, which immediately responded to the touch, my hand was placed on his prick, but which was only at half-cock. I rapidly unbuttoned, and brought it forth, then stooping I took it in my mouth, and sucked it and fingered the root with my hand. Then passing my other hand below, I sought to penetrate with my finger into the interior of his fundament. He rose to a standing position to enable me to enter his anus more easily. His prick quickly standing fiercely showed how much I excited him. I ceased not until he was in an agony of pleasure—forcing my head down on his prick until it entered almost completely into my mouth, and shooting his sperm right down my throat. I continued to suck and frig him until I produced somewhat of a restiffening of his prick. He begged me to rise, that he might take mine in his mouth, desiring me at the same time to take off my trousers and lie down on the couch. I did so. He knelt at my side, and first handling and examining it with loudly expressed admiration of my noble weapon, he took its head in his mouth, and then with his hand on its lower shaft, and finger up my fundament, brought on a similar crisis as that I had produced on himself. He just as greedily swallowed all. I had allowed my hand to fall down by the side of the couch, where it encountered his prick, which had resumed its pristine vigour.

"Come my dear uncle," said I, "and let us put it into its favourite corner."

I rose, and kneeling, turned my backside full in his face. He stooped, caressed, kissed, and tongued the rosy orifice. With the plentiful saliva with which the operation of sucking my prick had filled his mouth, he moistened my bum-hole and his own prick, and then easily glided up to the hilt within my delighted backside. Resting for a while in all the ecstasies of insertion, which I heightened by my internal pressures, he seized my prick which had stood again at once at the pleasing sensation occasioned by the introduction of his prick in my bottom. Thus frigging my prick and fucking my arse, with occasional pauses to lengthen out our pleasures, he at last brought matters to a most exquisite termination, and died away in cries of joy as we poured forth a mutual torrent of sperm. Uncle continued soaking in all the blissful after-sensations, which I did everything in my power to enhance by the delight-giving pressures of my sphincter muscle. When he withdrew and rose to his legs, he helped me up, and drew me to his bosom, and we had a long kiss of gratified desire, tongueing each other the while, and handling our ballocks with mutual gratification. My uncle was profuse in his praises of my docility and aptitude, declaring that his pederastic enjoyment of my person excelled all he had ever experienced in his long practice of the habit, and my delicious sideways wriggle was superior to the very fine bum-fucking his adorable wife had the art of giving him: then there was the further excitement of handling the very finest prick he had ever met with.

"It is no flattery to you, my dear Charles," he said, "but mere justice to its superb dimensions and admirable power."

Here he stopped, and sucked anew its reeking head, getting a few more drops out. We then purified ourselves—a basin with water was kept in a small cupboard purposely for such occasion, for I afterwards learned the place had been the scene of innumerable contests of the same kind with aunt and other boys. Having readjusted our disordered habiliments, we left the grounds, and took a long quiet walk in the fields; the good doctor inculcating admirable advice to me, whom he considered an innocent tyro in love's ways. Nevertheless, all he taught me only strengthened my high opinion of the wisdom of dear Mrs. Benson, and the adorable Frankland, whose opinion of what was likely to happen to me at the rectory had been so quickly realised. We returned in time to dress for dinner. The evening passed as the previous ones. I was conducted to my room, and left alone to recruit my forces by a quiet night's rest. I may here incidentally mention that it was a rule of uncle and aunt, very rarely departed from, to send their favourites to their lonely couches as a means of restoring their powers, and reinvigorating them for daylight encounters—both the dear creatures loving to have the fullest daylight on all the charms of their participants in pleasure, at the same time yielding an equally undisguised inspection of their own. This was their principle reason, but they also considered it advisable as a restorative, and a useful precaution not to overstrain the energies of the youths they both so much enjoyed. My late experiences at home had already taught me the advantage and utility of a quiet night's rest after frequent contests in the fields of Venus and Juno.

I slept on this occasion with a deep and continuous slumber, until I was awakened by my uncle, who came to summon me to the arms of his wife, who, in the splendour of her full-blown charms awaited me in her own bed, naked as the day she was born. Her arms outstretched, she invited me to the full enjoyment of her glorious person. The doctor drew my night-shirt over my head, and in a moment I was locked in the close embrace of that superb creature. We were both too hot to wait for further preliminaries, but went at it in furious haste, and rapidly paid our first tribute to the god of love. The doctor had acted postillion to both of us, with a finger up each anus. The exquisite pressures of my aunt's cunt reinvigorated me almost without a pause, and we proceeded at once to run a second course. Uncle got three fingers into her divine bottom-hole, as her legs were thrown over my waist, and her immense buttocks well thrown up enabled him to have full play between the cheeks of her backside. This double operation made the dear lascivious creature spend again in a very few movements, and giving her hardly time to finish her discharge, I fucked on with double force, and with prick as hard as wood, as fast I could work. This furious onset, which was the most exciting thing she knew of, rapidly caused a third discharge. To prevent my own prick from spending too quickly, I held somewhat back; then again we went at it fast and furious, and the dear lustful creature, with cries of joy, spent again with me, and fainted from excess of pleasure; but her glorious cunt continued to throb on my delighted prick, as if it would nip it off by the roots. I never met with so lusciously large a cunt, or one with a greater power of pressure. She could quite hold even an exhausted prick a complete prisoner in these most delicious and velvety folds. Great as was the power of Miss Frankland's cunt in that way, aunt beat her. I may here mention an occurrence that took place some time after this period. It was during a rare opportunity from an accidental absence of the doctor, when I was sleeping with my gloriously beautiful aunt. I had fucked her to her heart's content before we slept, and again on waking, in full daylight, after which we rose to relieve our natural wants. I laid myself down on the floor, that I might completely see my dear aunt piddle from her splendid cunt. It was a glorious sight, which instantly fired my passions and was at once followed by a fuck on the floor, my aunt's enormous backside being quite cushion enough, and we enjoyed the novelty of the thing amazingly. She was loud in her praises of my indefatigable prick, which, with its vigour and superb dimensions, was beyond all she had ever seen or felt, and just fitted her large and luscious cunt, which had never before been so well filled. This remark reminded me of a desire I had long had to have a thorough investigation of that immense and splendid object. I expressed a wish to that effect.

"My darling boy, anything you like, you could not have a better opportunity, my legs point to the window, so you have the fullest sight—look, feel, frig, fuck, or bugger, all is at your free disposition—only give me a pillow from the bed, as the floor is too hard for me to continue so long as you are likely to be."

I jumped up and gave her two pillows. Then laying her limbs wide open, with knees bent, the magnificence of that luscious cunt lay in all its grandeur before me. I have before described what a large, but splendidly proportioned woman she was—small feet, and clear-run ankles, large, but admirably turned calves, very small knees, above which rose the very finest and fleshiest of thighs, worthy supporters of what I have already described as the largest and finest backside my eyes ever lighted on. Immense hips, and wonderfully and naturally small waist, above which were her superb, large, fine, and firm bubbies that stood out when naked, as hard and firm as those of the youngest of women; a charming neck, and well-posed head with most pleasing and beautiful features crowned the whole. Her arms were superb, and equal in proportion to her other grand and splendid limbs. The flesh was of the most delicious creamy white, without a spot or a blemish. The hair of the head, plentiful in the extreme, and so long and thick that when undone it fell all around her and below her superb buttocks, so that she could shake it out all round, and completely hide her nakedness. Often and often has she allowed me to pose her in every way, and shake it out all over her, and well she might, for no matter how often I might have fucked her previously, it was sure to produce at least three more encounters, one of which was always in her backside, a most favourite way with her and which she declared was by far the most pleasurable provided the other aperture had been previously well fucked. With such a taste, of course, her greatest pleasure was to have two pricks in her at once, the ne plus ultra of erotic satisfaction. To return to the inspection I was about to describe, which was really the first at my full disposition, for although I had often gamahuched, felt and seen the beautiful object, it was when my passions were excited, and when the gratification of lust alone prompted me, a state of mind opposed to close observation of natural beauties. Now, repeated tributes to the god of lust had cooled my ardour for the moment, and left me to the perfect enjoyment of the sight before me, with the temper to inspect its full-blown beauties in the minutest way. I have said before that my aunt had one of the broadest, most prominent, and most beautiful mounts of Venus that I ever saw. It was thickly covered with beautiful silky fair curls, which did not hinder you from seeing her exquisite skin below. The sweep round, to pass between her thighs, was bold and graceful. In the middle was a well defined semi-circular depression, from whence the large, thick and beautifully pouting lips of her cunt commenced, which in her present position lay partially open. You could just see where the clitoris lay snug. I have already observed that this was not largely developed, nor were the inner labia of her cunt at all projecting, indeed, they were not visible, unless her legs, with bent knees, were stretched apart, as at present. On each side of these luscious pouting lips, and the long immense pinky gash, was a triangle of considerable space, such, in fact, as is only to be seen in a woman of the splendidly large proportions of my aunt; this was covered as much as her mount with fair silky curls, which ran down to her beautiful corrugated and rosy bottom-hole. Nothing could be finer or more beautiful than the sight, as she thus lay fully exposing every part in the broadest daylight. After handling and admiring all, I laid the lips well back and apart, and there they kept open. Nothing could be more charming than the interior of that most enchanting cunt, of an exquisite salmon-pink in colour, nothing was out of order. The clitoris, which bulged out in excitement from my touches of all the parts around, lay first in the upper partition of the pouting lips; then became below, slightly open, a charming entrance to the urethra, larger than usual, to allow the mighty rush of waters to pour from it when piddling; below this was the opening of the vagina, which I parted with my fingers, and could see even to the corrugated sides of that exquisite pleasure-giving sheath; then followed some sinuosity of pinky flesh, whose duty it was to stretch to allow the largest prick to penetrate. Half-an-inch beyond was the rosy orifice of her bottom. Such was the exquisite scene before my delighted eyes. I proceeded with my internal examination. Thrusting in three fingers of each hand, I forced open by literal pressure the lips, until I could see to a depth of four or five inches. It was a most beautiful sight. The sheath appeared to have ribs running round it about half-an-inch apart, and I could see they were the means of causing the exquisite pressures her cunt could so ecstatically exercise. Indeed, excited by my attouchements, I could see them contracting and relaxing. It was, doubtless, these ribs that seemed to exercise a sort of peristaltic motion on the prick, when reposing at full stand in that glorious cunt. I was able so widely to open this splendid vagina that I thought I would try to get my hand altogether in. Projecting my fingers forward, with the first and fourth drawn under the middle ones and the thumb between, I pushed them forward, and as the whole cunt was reeking with my last discharge, and was well lubricated, I glided on; there was a little difficulty at the knuckles, but I exerted a slight, gentle pressure, and in all went. Aunt winced a little, and asked what I was doing. I told her.

"It is all in, my darling?"

"Yes, Auntie."

She closed upon it, and squeezed it quite hard.

"Oh, how nice!" she exclaimed, "push it further in."

I advanced, and could feel the end of her womb, which appeared like three points to fingers and the thumb drawn together, and looked at endways is something like what it felt—of course, without the nails. Aunt asked me if I could double my fist where it was. I had no difficulty, as the part yielded to the greater bulk. Aunt cried out—

"My darling boy, that is delicious; push it further in."

I did so, and began working within her, backwards and forwards. She wriggled her splendid backside in ecstasy, and before I had made a dozen movements, poured down upon my hand and arm a torrent of almost boiling liquid, and went off with a cry of enjoyment. Her arms and legs relaxed, and she lay quite still in the utmost after-enjoyment, but with a pressure on my arm and fist quite wonderful. Knowing how she liked the movement to be continued at such a moment, I worked in and out slowly. She soon recovered, and again seconded my movements, and again went off in all the fury of lust, accompanied with shouts of excitement, urging faster movements, and again went off in all the fury of her most libidinous nature, and spent most profusely. All this had now brought me into as furious a state as herself. I wanted to withdraw and substitute my prick, not only from the state of excitement I was in, but also to experience the effects of such a well-stretched cunt upon my lesser-sized weapon. But so tight did my aunt hold my imprisoned hand that I could not withdraw. I begged her to let it go, as I wanted to fuck her instantly, but she prayed me to give her one more of such exquisite manoeuvres, it was a joy beyond anything she had ever before experienced, so she begged her darling boy to join. On I went as she desired, and a more exciting picture of furious lust never met my sight. I helped her final discharge by thrusting two fingers in her bum-hole. Never shall I forget the grip she gave my arm and fingers when she spent. It was positively painful, and showed the enormous force of passionate lust. She went off in such a fury of excitement that I thought she had fainted outright. But her pressures continued all the time. It was long before she recovered her senses, and my arm was aching, and my prick bursting. At last she exclaimed—

"Oh! where am I? I have been in paradise."

"Dear aunt," I cried, "do let me out. I am bursting to fuck you, and I can't get my arm out, if you don't relax your grip of my wrist."

"I can't help it, my dear boy, it is involuntary, put your other hand on my mount, and pull steadily, but not with a jerk."

I did so, and really it required considerable force to withdraw it, notwithstanding I had previously unclenched my hand. I jumped immediately upon her, and at one bound plunged into that vast cavity, up to the cods. It immediately closed upon me, and tight as she usually held me, she really appeared to do so this time tighter than ever, so wonderfully gifted was that longest, highest, and most luscious cunt I ever fucked. You may easily imagine the rapid ending of such raging lust. I spent with cries more like the braying of a donkey than any other sound, and then lay like one dead on that glorious belly, with head reposing between the firm and splendid bubbies, aunt clasping me to her bosom, panting with all it had just granted. We lay long in ecstatic trance of the delicious after-sensations. Our mutual internal throbbings gradually re-excited all our passions. With renewed ardour I quickly made my lascivious and libidinous aunt spend again on my delighted prick, which kept ramming at her during the swoon-like pause which spending produced; she had taught me this was exquisite delight to her. She soon resumed the full swing of her lust, but suddenly stopping, said—

"Charlie, my darling, withdraw, and shove it in behind." She quickly turned round, with great agility, prompted by the excess of her desires. I was behind her in an instant, and as my prick was reeking with the fuck she had just so plentifully bedewed it with, and the divine lower orifice had also received its tricklings, I had no difficulty in pushing firmly but not too forcibly right up to the meeting of her stupendous buttocks and my belly. She sighed deeply with delight, when she felt me fully imbedded, and began the delicious side wriggle, while I remained for some minutes quiet, that I might enjoy the superb beauty of those mighty orbs, in all their play of passion. Aunt grew furious with lust. Her hand was actively frigging both clitoris and cunt. She called out to me to shove on; two or three thrusts on my part, and the dear, lecherous creature again poured down her nature. I paused to restrain my own discharge, but made my prick throb within its most exquisite sheath, which never ceased responding most deliriously. It was but for a minute or two, when my own fierce passion drove me to very energetic action. My delighted aunt seconded my movements, fast and furious grew our sport, until, with cries of the wildest lust, we both spent deliciously together. I sank on her glorious bottom and back, and by embracing her superb bubbies with both hands, until her exquisite pressures again renewed my forces, and drove me on to another delightful career, in which again the hot lust of my aunt drew down from her several discharges to my one. At last we sank both together, in all the joys of fully satiated desire. Again I lay for some time on that broad and beauteous back, until aunt said I must withdraw, as she had great natural want. I instantly withdrew, out he came with a loud plop, followed immediately by a tremendous succession of farts. Aunt professed to be quite horrified, but I only burst into a loud fit of laughter and told the dear creature to fart, piss, or shit, whenever she felt inclined, I should only love her the better. She said she must at once do the latter, and was running off to the water closet as soon as she could hurry on some clothes. But I drew out the chamber, and begged her to sit down there at once. It would give me pleasure and excite me as well. She was too hard pressed to hesitate, so sitting down, she had a "hell of a let-fly" as a military friend of mine used to say. I stooped over her back, caressed her bubbies and when she turned up her delighted face, our lips were glued together in a loving kiss, while my nose sniffed the really delicious odour that came from her. When she had done, she begged me to hand her a towel to wipe herself.

"No, no, my darling aunt, nothing of the sort; stoop down forward on to your knees, and I will lick the delicious orifice clean with my tongue."

She laughed, kissed me, and told me I was a darling boy, just after her own heart, but hardly expected I had already acquired the tastes of my uncle, the rector, whose letch lay in that practice. She let herself down on her knees as her sublime arse raised itself from the pot, and stooping her head low down, presented her immense buttocks before me, with the chink between well stretched open. I move the pot on one side, threw myself on hands and knees, and eagerly kissing the exquisite orifice, greedily licked it clean, and thrusting my tongue well within, rolled it about, to the great delight of dear aunt, whose passions were instantly aroused, and her divine backside began to wriggle. I shoved my thumb up her cunt, and frigged until she spent. Meanwhile my own unruly member had become distended to his full size, and was throbbing with desire. So raising my body erect, I brought him again to the rosy orifice I had just been tongueing, and to my aunt's infinite delight, again housed him as far as he could go, and again began active operations, which I continued until aunt's lasciviousness again made her spend. I paused a little after this, or otherwise I should have gone off myself. Stooping over the glorious bottom, I replaced her hand with my own, and began frigging her clitoris, till her passions, again excited, made her begin ecstatic movements, in which I joined until the grand crisis seized us both together, ushered in with cries of joy. We spent, and sank down sideways on the floor in quite a death swoon of ecstatic and satisfied lust. Here we lay quite exhausted for some time. At last aunt let me out, and begged me to rise.

"I must purify you, my darling boy, as you did me." And seizing my limp prick in her mouth she sucked it clean, until she began to feel symptoms of the resurrection of the flesh. She hastily rose, and said—

"No, Charlie, you have done far too much to-night. I must see you to your bed, that you may get at least a couple of hours sleep."

She took up my night-shirt, threw it over me, led me to my bedroom, tenderly embraced me, and thanked me for such a night of pleasure as she had never in all her life enjoyed the equal. Then locking me in, she retired to her own bed. It may well be supposed that after such exertions, I slept the sleep of the just for many hours. My aunt had frequently come to look at me, but seeing me in so sound a slumber, would not have me disturbed—a politic proceeding, as it resulted in a fuller indulgence in the summer house that day than would have happened if my powers had not been restored by refreshing sleep.

This kind of life had been going on for nearly three weeks. The doctor became less easy to move. One morning I had fucked my aunt twice; the doctor's prick at the end of the second had stiffened to about half stand. I took it into my mouth, which, with handling his ballocks and postillioning his bottom-hole, brought him up to the-full standard. He proposed to bugger aunt while I did the same kind office to himself. A caprice seized me, and I proposed, on the contrary, that we should both fuck aunt's capacious cunt at once. Aunt, for form's sake, cried out against it, but the idea tickled the fancy of my uncle, who would not only enjoy all the beauties of my aunt's glorious backside in motion, but could postillion her as well. So I lay down on my back, aunt mounted me, and presented her splendid bum to the attack of her excited husband. He first thrust his prick up to the hilt in her luscious and well-bedewed cunt; when well lubricated, he withdrew, to allow me to make my place in full possession, then bringing his stiff-standing prick against the root of mine, pressing it well down, he gently shoved forward, and gradually sheathed himself within the well-stretched and capacious orbit of my aunt, who winced a little in pretended pain, but who, by the grip she immediately gave to the double fuck within her, showed how much gratified she was. After a pause of enjoyment, I gave the signal for exact joint movements, both pulling out gently, and sliding slowly in again. Two or three thrusts, aided by the doctor's finger in her bottom-hole, sufficed to make dear leacherous aunt spend profusely. We increased our speed, but still not fast, which quickly re-awakened all aunt's lust. Before we ourselves were ready, the dear lascivious creature again poured down her nature, boiling hot, on our delighted pricks. This produced such excitement upon us that we could no longer restrain our own desire to come to the ecstatic conclusion. Our movements became more rapid. We each felt the electric-like sensation of the approaching crisis. Aunt doubly felt the influence of our increasing speed and hardness, and was as ready as ourselves to pour down the tribute to the goddess of love or lust, holy Mother Venus. The novelty, the pressure, and the excess of pleasure declared itself in the loud cries of the last crisis, as we all died away in the enrapturing sensations produced by the intense satisfaction our desires had experienced. We lay long wrapped in the after-ecstasy; aunt's delicious internal movements began again. The doctor's prick had shrunk to a merry piece of inanimate dough, and he withdrew, begging us at the same time to change our position, and let him enjoy seeing me attack my aunt in rear. This inflamed me at once. Aunt rolled from off me. I took my place behind, and we ran a most delicious course, rendered much more excitable to me by the introduction of uncle's two fingers up my fundament, which kept time with my action in the delicious aperture of my aunt's most superb and glorious backside, the movements of which beneath my delighted gaze had not been the least stimulating part of the enjoyment. The crisis was most ecstatic, and I sank exhausted on her broad buttocks and beautiful back, to clasp her lovingly in my arms and sob out bawdy terms of the warmest endearment. The doctor, who had very much enjoyed the sight, but who pointed out the sadly downcast state of his prick, which had been in no wise excited by the scene, said to his wife—

"My darling, we must have recourse to the grand remedy, I will also initiate dear Charlie into a new mystery of love, of which he can have no idea."

I guessed at once what he meant, but professing extreme ignorance, I begged him to tell me what it was. Aunt rose and said—

"My darling, your uncle requires his blood to be excited by flogging his buttocks with a birch rod."

"How odd," said I, "I never felt anything but the severest pain when I was flogged, and I took precious good care not to deserve it again. How then can it excite?"

"You shall see, my dear."

She opened her wardrobe and produced a formidable rod of fine fresh-cut birch twigs. The doctor begged me to lie down on my back—he got over me, and we commenced sucking each other's pricks. Mine stood at once, as the doctor, in addition to sucking, thrust a couple of fingers up my bottom-hole, and frigged away as fast as he sucked. The doctor's buttocks were left at the mercy of aunt, who flogged away at them with no gentle hand. I spent before the doctor could quite get his prick to standing point, but the copious torrent I poured into his mouth, and his after-suction on my prick, in addition to the red raw state of his buttocks, at last brought him up to full stand. He wanted to put it into me when ready, but aunt said that as flogger she had herself become greatly excited, and must have it herself.

"While this dear prick," throwing herself on it, and sucking it, "shall fuck me at the same time."

I was quite ready, and she straddled across me, and guided my now longing prick into her luscious cunt. She soon stopped, and we tongued each other while the doctor was mounting to the assault on her delicious bottom-hole. As soon as he was housed, we began another charming course, in which aunt, as usual, spent frequently before our less lecherous natures were ready to join in one general and exquisite discharge. We went off in furies of delighted lust, and then sank exhausted in the delicious after-sensation. We long lay in the sweet inanition and luxury of satiated lust. At last we disconnected ourselves, rose, and laved each other with cold water, more as a restorative than as a purification. Aunt and I had two bouts after—one in front and one behind. The doctor would not allow a fresh application of the birch, as he said it would only produce so great an exhaustion as would require days to restore. I retired after this, but ever afterwards the doctor was regularly birched before he could even copulate once. Sometimes he required to flog my aunt's glorious bum to excite his fading powers, declaring that it was almost as exciting as being flogged. He even gave it me gently, although I hardly ever required it, but I professed my surprise at its efficiency.

The holidays were at an end, but I was as yet the only boarder. There were, however, some twenty or thirty youths from the neighbourhood, who were day scholars at the doctor's school. Among these the doctor had his pick in the flogging way, but he never allowed them to know anything of our other proceedings, or to imagine that the birching which took place was otherwise than as a punishment for faults or inattention. However, I was generally the chosen companion of these whippings, in which I acted as horse, or holder of the boy to be flogged. Of course I took good care to expose as much as possible their lovely cocks, as well as their plump bottoms, and as this excited me as well as the doctor, it often ended, after the culprit was dismissed, in my flogging the doctor, followed by a mutual rack off in each other's bottoms.

There was one fine, plump, girlish-looking youth, named Dale, who was here for the first half. He had not as yet been brought up for punishment, although the doctor had confided to me the letch he had taken to flog his fine fat bottom. One day, Master Dale brought a sealed note from his widowed mother, who lived about a mile from the village, in a charming cottage ornee. The doctor read the note. By chance I was looking at him, and saw a smile of joy light up his features.

"Come here, Master Dale," said he in a mild and gentle voice, "your mother tells me that you have behaved in a most shameful manner to your pretty young cousin, who is residing with your mamma."

Master Dale blushed scarlet, for he was not aware until now that any one had been a witness to the scene that had taken place between him and his pretty cousin.

This was what had passed. The cousin, a lovely girl of fifteen, was in a secluded spot in the garden, near an arbour, the preceding afternoon. She was bending down, tying up a flower close to the ground, which made her stoop to such a degree that she could only reach it with ease by having her legs wide apart. Her back was towards the walk by which young Dale was advancing. As he approached unheard by her, he could not fail to see peeping out between the stretched open expanse of snowy drawers the inner part of her well-rounded globes of dimpled ivory. Her shift had somehow worked upwards, and revealed all the charms of her delicate young bum and plump white thighs. The sight inflamed the youth beyond measure. He crept up noiselessly quite close to her, and, stooping down until his head was below the level of her raised petticoat, he feasted his eyes for some time with the lovely prospect before him, her little virgin rosebud slit, its pink and pouting lips, plump little mount already delicately shaded with a curly foliage that promised soon to be much more dense, together with the swell of her lovely young thighs and calves. All this was quite unsuspected by the object of his admiration, who was absorbed in her garden operations. At length, however, the excited youth could not resist the temptation of applying his soft warm hand to the parts he was admiring, which made Miss scream slightly—she thinking it was some insect up her petticoats—exclaiming—

"Oh, dear! oh, dear!"

But turning her head round, she discovered the delinquent.

"Forgive me, Ellen dear, but really you exposed so very pretty a sight while stooping that upon my word I could not help it."

Now girls are curious as well as boys, perhaps more so; and if the truth must be told, Miss had for some time past longed for an opportunity to become better acquainted with things in general, and, therefore, thought here was a chance not to be thrown away. So, after some little show of resistance on her part, for decency's sake, it was agreed between them that he should have a good look at hers, if he would afterwards show her his. Miss Ellen had never seen a male "diddle," as she and her young playfellows called it, not even that of a boy, and she was all excitement and expectation to feel with her own hand the "funny thing," for so a communicative servant-maid had described it, who at the same time had fully explained the theory of its use, which made Miss long to obtain some practical knowledge also. So to the arbour they both adjourned. Miss Ellen first lay back upon the seat, while the young rogue unfastened her drawers, and pulling them down, feasted his eyes with a full view of her virgin charms as long as he pleased, for Miss Ellen was a lecherous little maid, who really felt a precocious pleasure in being thus exposed to the close observation and admiration of one of the opposite sex, although for form's sake she covered her blushing face with her delicate little hands. He touched it, pressed it, rubbed it with his finger. Her thighs trembled and opened. Taught by nature, he imprinted a burning kiss on the lovely little quim before him. She sighed, and mechanically put her hand on his head and pressed it closer to her naked skin. Guided by his feelings, he indulged in movements of his lips and pressures which speedily excited the amorous little maid to such an extent as to make her give down with a deep and trembling sigh the first tribute of her virgin cunt. Feeling the warm liquid oozing from the pouting orifice on his closely pressed lips, he could not help tasting it with his tongue. This reawakened very quickly the sensibilities of the lecherous little thing, and awoke her to the desire to practise a like pleasure with his cock. So reminding him of his promise, she made him stand up before her, while she undid his trousers with her fairy fingers, all trembling with excitement, and drew out his stiff affair, which already gave promise of a very respectable future, now swollen to a size it had never before known. Delighted at the sight of so bewitching a plaything, she made him lie down as she had done, and kneeling beside him, with cheeks glowing with excitement, she closely examined every part of the rampant little member. Strange to say, no hand, hardly even its owner's, had as yet invaded its virgin precincts, and it had not yet had its ruby head fully uncovered, although he was upwards of fifteen. The delight caused by the touch of her warm hand pressing and encircling his stiffened cock was most exquisite. She was not long, however, before she became curious to see what could possibly be underneath the skin that covered its rounded head. In her toying she sought to draw the skin back over the head, a slight cry of pain from him caused her to stop. But when, be she young or be she old, is a woman's curiosity to be baulked. She had managed to draw it back a short way, and now it suddenly occurred to her that by the help of a little moisture her object might be accomplished without hurting the dear fellow. By an impulse of passion she stooped and took the rosy head into her delicious little mouth, closing her coral lips around it, and lubricating it with her tongue, to the intense gratification of the youth, who involuntarily wriggled his body about voluptuously, and could not help raising it up to her mouth. This movement, combined with the pressure of the lips, perfectly succeeded, without further pain, in completely unhooding the charming little cock she was so deliciously embracing in the soft folds of her lips. She lifted up her head to see the result. The tight foreskin had closed below the nut, and left the now fiery red head bursting with excitement, and visibly throbbing with intensity of passion. Her joy and delight at this full revelation of the "funny thing," as she continued to call it, now knew no bounds. She drove him nearly frantic with her ardent caresses—she again drew the covering over the vermillion head, and still finding that it did not easily return again, she thrust her head down upon it, and with lips, mouth, and tongue began again her attempt to unhood it. Poor Dale was brought up to the wildest state of excitement, his hands involuntarily pressed down her head, his body rose to meet it, and at that ravishing instant the grand crisis seized him, and, with a cry of delight, he shot forth his first tribute to Venus within the delicious mouth in which he was enclosed. The ecstatic gush poured down the throat of the dear girl, and she gulped it all down by the mere effort to avoid choking. Poor Dale's hands fell down insensibly from her head, which she instantly withdrew, and gazed on the youth. To her great surprise she beheld the so lately rampant weapon drooping its head and withdrawing within its shell, while some few drops of a milky white creamy like liquid were slowly oozing from the small orifice off its head. While she gazed it reduced itself to a mere shadow of its former state, and the foreskin slowly covered again the so lately fiery and bursting head. She was lost in wonder, and was about to express her surprise at the strangeness of the whole affair, but they now became aware that footsteps were approaching. Fortunately for them, as they thought, the noise of the gravel underfoot was distinguishable at such a distance that they had time to arrange their clothes, and when Dale's mother appeared at the arbour, she found them, on entering, quietly seated and talking together; and thanks to the youth's discharge in his cousin's sweet mouth, without any tell-tale flushings of his face. Little did they suspect she had already seen all.

This then was Master Dale's misconduct, and this it was that had been fully and minutely detailed in the note sent by this mother to the doctor, with a request that he should punish him well in whatever way he should think proper. The note further begged to know the terms for his becoming a boarder with the doctor, as she could no longer have him residing in her house with her orphan niece, whose guardian she was. You may easily imagine the double delight of the doctor. Another boarder, a point of some consequence to him after a previous scandal which, although hushed up, had deprived him of house pupils; and now with two, he foresaw a quick return to his full number; and then his delight at having to flog young Dale, and the erotic pleasure of drawing from him the exciting description of their young loves and voluptuous actions.

"Now Master Dale," said the doctor, "you and I have an account to settle, follow me."

And without a word further he led him into his private room, where, as was generally understood in the school, he birched the worst offenders. Arrived in the room alone with the young culprit, he locked the door, and taking a large cutting birch rod from a closet, sat down on a sofa. He called the youth to him and told him to unbutton and let down his trousers, and tuck up his shirt well under his waistcoat. This being done, the doctor said—

"Now, Master Dale, we shall see if this birch will cool your itching for feeling your pretty cousin's private parts."

Poor Dale had never yet been punished more severely than by the hand of his mamma, and certainly trembled at the sight of the formidable birch rod threatening his now bare bottom; yet, notwithstanding his fears, the allusion to the pretty private parts of his cousin so fired his imagination that his cock instantly stiffened and stood out, to the infinite delight of the doctor, who augured therefrom a future further felicity. Keeping him standing close beside him, and enjoying the sight of his youthful charms so deliciously exposed immediately before his eyes, he proceeded—

"So, Master Dale, you have, it seems, been gratifying yourself with looking and feeling between the legs and thighs of a pretty young girl of fifteen, your cousin, is she not?"

"Yes, sir," sobbed out the youth.

The doctor's gaze was fixed upon the stiff and rampant member of the youth, watching the throbbings produced by every allusion to the luscious scene of the day before.

"Now, come, tell me all about it," said he, putting his arm round the sobbing boy's waist, and making him stand still closer beside him. "Was she such a very pretty girl?"

Another throb of the rampant member.

"Yes, sir."

"And you saw all her legs, thighs, plump little bottom, rosy pouting little slit"—(throb—throb—throb)—"moist with the dew of excitement and amorous play eh?"

The little machine seemed ready to burst at the thought of it.

"And did it have the same effect as I see it now has on this? Dear me, how naughty it is."

And here the lecherous doctor took the rampant little cock in his hand and pressed it.

"And what did she do to this, did she touch it so?" squeezing it gently.

"Yes, sir," stammered out the youth, who was getting greatly excited.

"And so?" said the doctor, passing his hand gently and caressingly up and down the stiffened and throbbing little cock.

"Yes, sir."

"And so, too, I'll be bound," pushing back the foreskin off the head, and as quickly replacing it, several times.

"Ye—es. Oh! sir; oh! oh!"

The boy's feelings, as the doctor swiftly frigged his cock, began to be exquisite. The doctor could not resist the temptation of bringing things to a crisis. Clasping the youth tightly with one arm, he continued his toying with the plaything in a quick exciting manner, apparently without reflecting upon what he was about, uttering, at intervals—

"Dear me," and "how naughty it was of you; but how pretty she must have been to tempt you to do so, was it not?"

The lovely youth was now in paradise. In the exquisite sensations of pleasure he felt he was losing all consciousness when the doctor suddenly stopped short and said—

"This is indeed, a pretty piece of business, seducing your young cousin; you must be cured of such doings in future by means of a good flogging with an excellent birch rod, and on this your saucy bottom."

Here he let fall the arm that had clasped the boy's waist, and let his hand wander over the plump, hard, and lovely orbs. The doctor now took up the rod which he had previously dropped to occupy his hand with the charming young prick he had just been so deliciously frigging. Shaking the rod angrily at the now trembling youth, he exclaimed, in a fierce voice—

"Now, you young rascal, down, down on your knees, and beg to be flogged."

The poor boy was forced, trembling, to obey. This over, the doctor commanded the delinquent to lie down across the sofa. Reluctantly he complied, but at last he straddled across it with his snow-white plump backside fully bared to view, and a fair mark to the threatening rod. He looked like a young Adonis displaying his beauties to a satyr. The doctor was greatly excited at the lovely prospect, and gloated his eyes on the beautiful display, and, then and there, there sprang up a determination to fully enjoy the ravishing of these virgin charms before many weeks were over. Lifting the rod on high, he cried out—

"Now, you young villain, I'll teach you to look up young ladies' petticoats again, I warrant."

Clasping him tight round the waist, the rod descended smartly on the lovely hillocks of the boy's charming backside.

"There! there!" cried the doctor at each blow.

"Oh! sir, oh! Do pray forgive me!" screamed the beautiful youth, as he felt the stinging strokes descend on his hitherto virgin posteriors.

"Oh sir. Oh! sir. I'll never do so any more. Oh! sir. I won't indeed. Oh! pray, sir, have mercy."

The doctor, whose erotic passions were fully aroused, was deaf to all his entreaties, and kept on flogging harder and harder, and faster and faster while the poor boy's bottom bounded and tossed upon the sofa; but he was kept in a firm position by the strong arm of the doctor, who, to hold him the faster, had laid hold of the stiff cock still at full stand.

"No, no," said he, "you shall not escape my cuts, I assure you," cutting at the lovely delicate buttocks with all his might.

"Oh! oh! sir; mercy, mercy; I can't bear it."

"You must bear it, you young rascal you shall have no mercy until I have made your bottom bleed for your crime."

The poor youth, from the pain he was suffering, bounded up and down on the sofa as he felt the stinging blows descend upon his bottom. This action caused his standing cock to rub up and down in the doctor's warm hand, who seemed to have accidently laid hold of it. The effect was such that the poor youth hardly knew whether he felt most pleasure or pain, for while his posteriors were of a burning heat, the warmth flew to the opposite part, which was so deliciously clasped in the doctor's caressing hand. He ground his teeth with pleasure and pain, he ceased to cry out, but sobbed and moaned with the excess of indefinable feelings. The doctor never ceased lecturing him, dwelling continually on the beauties of his lovely young cousin and the scene in the arbour. He thought but of her, of her lovely pink little slit so sweetly shaded with soft downy short curls; how she had so charmingly caressed his cock, until he felt a heave and a shudder, another, a sensation as if he was going to expire, a short cry, a catching of his breath. Wildly and vigorously he thrust his member down on the doctor's warm hand, he shut his eyes, he felt not the rod, although the doctor redoubled the strokes with all the force of his arm, and drew blood at every cut. A bound, a convulsive start, and he felt as if his lifeblood were coming from him—out it spurted in large drops on the sofa and on the doctor's hand. The youth had with difficulty shed another tribute to Venus. For a moment or two he felt as if in paradise, but a sharp cut from the rod quickly aroused him. He was soon fully alive again to its tortures.

"Why, you young rascal, what is this you have been doing on my best sofa, eh, sir?" said the doctor.

Another sharp stroke demanded a reply.

"I, sir. Oh! sir; indeed I—that is—indeed, I don't know."

"No lies or evasions here, sir, for they will not avail you. Your bottom shall pay for this nastiness. Why, what is it? What can it be? I never saw the like of this in my life, I declare," and he examined it with his eyeglass, saying more to the same effect.

Poor Master Dale was, we know, quite in the dark as to what it could be, or how it came there.

"Has this ever occurred to you before," asked the doctor.

"Yes, sir, yesterday, when my cousin was caressing it in her mouth," replied the frightened youth, "but I really don't know how it happened, and did not mean any harm."

"Oh, indeed!" said the doctor, "your mother did not mention that, did she see you?"

"No, sir, it happened just as she was coming through the shrubbery, and was all over before she reached the arbour."

"And so your cousin took it into her mouth, why did she do that?"

"She was curious to see what was under the skin of its head, and finding it would not go back without hurting me, she put it into her mouth to wet it and make it go back easier, which it did for the first time; she pulled it forward again, and again put it into her mouth to push the skin back with her lips, when I felt funny all over, and something came out of me into her mouth."

"Indeed! Well, you must tell me all about that another time. This flogging will be enough for the present, but I shall punish you for your nastiness some other time. Put up your trousers, in a day or two I shall want you in this room to pay for your dirty conduct."

The poor boy retired, sobbing hysterically.

The second day after this the doctor sent for Master Dale, who, in the meantime, had occupied the bedroom next to mine. The doctor was in his private room in his dressing-gown, long and flowing, so that for the moment it concealed the fact that he had nothing but his shirt on below it. He received Master Dale somewhat sternly, saying—

"Now, sir, for your punishment for your last nasty misconduct."

"Oh, sir," said the frightened and trembling youth, "I really could not help it," and he began to cry. "Oh! pray, sir, don't flog me so hard again."

"The more trouble that you give me, the harder will be the flogging. Now take off your jacket and waistcoat."

The youth did so.

"Now come close to me."

The doctor then lowered down Dale's trousers, and raising his shirt, contemplated with great pleasure the pretty belly of the lovely boy, and then turning him round, under pretence of seeing if the weals of the last flogging were still visible, he gazed on his white firm backside and swelling thighs, examining the marks still left from the previous punishment. He then turned him round, and inspected the pretty little cock, which, under the mortal fear he was in, hung down its head in a limp and pitiable state.

"And so this is the little offender," said he, applying his hand to it, and squeezing and pressing it gently. "What a naughty little thing it is!"

The youth could not avoid showing the pleasure these lascivious caresses gave him, and smiled.

"Oh, don't smile, sir, this is no laughing matter. Look at the marks of the mess you made on my sofa," pointing to it. "I can't have my furniture spoiled in this manner, so if your little cock is to be naughty again, I must flog you upon my knees, but first come here; take off these trousers, which hanging about the legs are only in the way—there. Now sit down on my knee, and tell me all about this naughty little thing."

He drew aside his robe, so that the boy's bare bottom came in naked contact with his brawny naked thighs, and the youth could feel the doctor's prick swelling up, although that part was still covered with his shirt. The doctor, taking hold of the youth's now standing prick, asked if it had ever behaved so badly before the scene with his pretty young cousin.

"No sir, never. I never thought of it until I got sight of her bare bottom and other parts by accident."

The doctor continued his toyings, caressing the young balls, and feeling all over the plump and firm backside.

"Why, he is going to be naughty again!" said the doctor, as the youth's prick throbbed under his exciting touches. "I must flog your bottom for all this, for it is very naughty and improper. Why, you seem to take a pleasure in it."

"Oh, sir, I never felt anything so delightful," said Master Dale.

"The more reason I should punish you, but remember, you bad boy, if you are to do that dirty thing again, you must do it on my knee, and not on the sofa."

The doctor then took the birch in hand, and with his arm round the boy's waist, drew him to him, but before laying him across his knee, he slipped the boy's shirt over his head, leaving him stark naked in all the glorious fairness of skin and beauty of form. The doctor's eyes gloated over the charming sight, but becoming too excited to pause longer, he drew up his own shirt, displaying his fine pego at full stretch. He bent the boy's warm body over his brawny thighs, and with his arm pressed his glowing form against his own rampant pego—Dale's young stiffened cock rubbing against the naked thigh he lay on. The doctor now raised the rod, and said—

"Now, sir, for your punishment, I must flog this round, hard, little bottom, till it reddens again."

Whack, whack, went the birch rod, but with much less force than on the previous occasion, but still sufficiently stinging to cause the youth to move up and down, rubbing his cock against the doctor's thighs, and causing him such ecstasies as hardly to allow him to feel the blows. His warm soft flesh, too, rubbing against the doctor's large, stiff tool, soon put them both in a delirium of delight. The doctor then changed his position, and drew the boy more over his belly, so that his great prick could get between the boy's thighs, rubbing under his balls in the trough between the buttocks, while the boy's cock rubbed against the doctor's belly.

"Now," said the doctor, "I have got you fast, and must teach you not to play such naughty tricks in future."

Whack—whack, again went the rod, causing the most delicious movements of the boy's backside upon the doctor's excited prick, and not less upon his own, which was rubbing against the doctor's belly, giving fresh pleasure at each repetition of the blow. But neither of them had spent yet. The boy's bottom was now red with a glowing heat, and his cock was in a state of intense excitement, and the doctor's tool was as stiff and randy as possible. The doctor now ceased his flogging, and squeezing the boy tight against his person, said—

"Well, you have not done that naughty thing to-day—the flogging has done you good."

The lovely boy looked up and smiled. He had felt the doctor's large prick working away between his thighs, and pressing against the cleft of his buttocks. As the doctor relaxed his hold, the boy turned half round, thus releasing it from its confinement. Looking down, he beheld the large stiff monster imbedded in a forest of dark curly hair, presenting a startling contrast to his own small member, which was as yet hardly fledged with a silky down around it.

"Ah!" said the doctor, who observed the flush of excitement the sight of his superior prick gave the boy, "what a shame it is of you to compel me to flog you in this manner, without my trousers. I must give you a lecture—so sit on my knee, thus," placing him so that his lovely bottom should press against the huge prick. Taking the boy's cock in his hand, he said—

"How stiff it is."

"Yes, sir, I can't help it."

"Well, you must not play such naughty tricks. I can't allow it. You are too young yet."

The doctor worked the skin of the sweet boy's cock up and down.

"Was that the way your pretty cousin played with it?"

"Yes, sir, and then she took it in her mouth."

"And did you like to have it done to you, you bad boy?"

"Oh! yes, sir, it is such pleasure."

"Does it really give you so much pleasure?"

"Yes indeed, it was most delicious."

"Dear me, I must try if it would do so to me, take hold of my cock and rub it up and down, as she did, that I may know how it feels."

The dear boy had already longed to do so, but had been afraid to say so. He now seized with avidity the noble prick, so stiffly standing beside him. He could hardly grasp it in his hand, and worked the skin up and down in the most delicious manner. The doctor was in ecstasies.

"Oh, you naughty boy, to teach your master such bad things."

"Is it not very nice, sir?" said the charming youth, as the doctor's buttocks responded to every stroke of his hand.

"Well, it is, indeed, very nice, I could not have believed it; but if ever I catch you at it again, you may be sure I shall flog you."

And the doctor responded to every rub upon his prick with another rub upon the boy's cock, until almost at the same moment a most delicious mutual spend was the result of their lascivious toyings.

"Now," said the doctor, "put on your clothes, and remember you must avoid such naughty tricks in future, or your bottom will pay for it."

The doctor made me aware of this, and arranged for a meeting of us three, under the pretence of inattention which I was to simulate and draw young Dale into some fault that would require punishment. It was also arranged that I was to initiate him still more into the secret pleasures of mutual satisfaction, so as to prepare him for still greater gratification to the lecherous doctor, who liked nothing better than "teaching the young idea how to shoot."

Accordingly, after passing a delicious night with my lovely and glorious aunt and the doctor, in which we practised every delightful method of enjoyment, and in which the doctor stimulated himself by recalling and describing the exciting interview with the innocent youth, I left them, and entered young Dale's room. He had insensibly kicked off all the clothes, and lay on his back exposed, with his promising young cock at full stand, throbbing from time to time; and by the involuntary movements of his body, and the smile on his face, he was evidently realising, in his sleep, the scene he had enacted with his pretty young cousin. He was quite charming to look at, his young and throbbing prick was deliciously fair, and you could see the blue veins coursing through it, the top was only partially uncovered, the point of the head showing its vermillion tip in fine contrast to the creamy white and crossed blue veins of the stiffened shaft. His balls were as yet not fully developed, but such as they were, they formed a closely drawn up little bag, crimped and wrinkled, and felt as hard as stones. I gently handled them, which made him heave his bottom in evident ecstasy. It was all so beautiful and enticing, and I could not resist stooping down, and taking the delicious morsel in my mouth. Pressing the glorious head with my lips, I thrust, to his infinite delight, the foreskin back, his buttocks instinctively rose to meet my voluptuous and lascivious proceeding. He awoke on the instant, but in that dreamy state that made him think he was only realising the previous dream. His hands embraced my head, and pressed it down closer on the delicious prick which already touched the back of my mouth. He cried out in an ecstasy of delight.

"Oh, my darling Ellen, what a joy you are giving me. Oh! oh! it is greater than I can bear."

I felt by the electric stiffening of his young cock that the crisis was close at hand. I tickled his tightened balls with my hand, and pressed a finger hard against his bottom-hole, but without entering more than the depth of the nail, at the very instant that he poured his young tribute into my longing mouth. I immediately swallowed the greater portion, lubricating the still throbbing shaft with a part. For some minutes he lay on his back, with closed eyes, in all the after-enjoyment, heightened by the continued suction of his still throbbing prick, which I kept up for a short time. At last he opened his eyes. It was broad daylight, and when I lifted my head, his eyes seemed almost to start out of their sockets in a sort of incredulous surprise, at finding it was not his dear young Ellen, but me, his school companion. For a minute or two he was speechless with consternation, until taking hold of his fast receding little cock, I asked if I had not given him quite as much pleasure as his darling Ellen had previously done.

"Is it you? and Ellen! how do you know anything about my cousin?"

"Your cousin, is she? I did not know that, but when I came in, you were dreaming of her, and muttering in your sleep the delight she gave you by sucking your prick; so I thought I would give you the true pleasure of the thing, and thus realise your dream; besides, I, myself, not only love to suck a prick, but also to have my own sucked, and I could neither resist the opportunity, nor fail to be delighted that you should already have practical knowledge of its enjoyment—did I not give you the greatest pleasure?"

"Oh, yes; it was most delicious, and then I thought it was my pretty cousin, even after I awoke, which made it doubly delightful, for I had no idea it would be so nice with another boy."

"Why not? see this charming little fellow is already raising himself up again at the mere thought; look how its head is showing its ruby face, and how it throbs. Ah! I must suck it again—it is so delicious."

I threw myself upon it, and devoured it at once, rapidly moving my head up and down, and titillating the orifice of the urethra with my tongue. I quickly drove him half mad with excitement. My mouth was full of saliva. I slobbered some out on my fingers, and lubricated all about the aperture of his charming backside, and then, as he became still more furious in the upward lunges of his bottom, and downward pressures of his hands on my head, I thrust my middle finger up his fundament, and worked away, frigging it in unison with the movements of my mouth. I drove him half frantic with pleasure, the ecstasy again seized him, and with a cry of agonised delight, and a convulsive shudder, he poured a still more copious draught of love's essence into my mouth, which, as before, I greedily swallowed. He lay panting in ecstatic joy for a much longer period than before, with convulsive upward thrusts of his still half-stiffened prick within my mouth, which still continued its pressures and suctions to his infinite delight. At last I rose. He held out his arms. I precipitated myself into them; our lips met in sweet embrace. I thrust my tongue into his mouth, and solicited him to do the same, and we had some delicious tongueing, nature having at once achieved his love education. We were closely entwined in a loving embrace. I had become terribly excited notwithstanding the hard work I had undergone during the night, and my prick stood stiff as iron pressing against his belly. Suddenly the thought occurred to him that he ought to gratify me in like manner as I had done him. He proposed it, and begged me to turn from off him, and lie on my back. I immediately complied, and pulling up my shirt, displayed my immense splitter in all its glory.

"Good heavens!" he cried, "what an enormous cock! Why, it is bigger than the doctor's."

"Oh! you have seen the doctor's, have you?" He blushed, and acknowledged it. I drew from him an account of their proceedings, which I already knew, but I was at the same time delighted to have surprised the acknowledgment from himself, in his wonder at seeing my large proportions. I made him show me all he had done to the doctor, and the doctor to him; as all this was paving the way for future proceedings with the doctor—in fact, the innocent youth was already playing into our hands. His admiration of and handling my prick was meanwhile exciting me up to the greatest pitch. As I had continued questioning him regarding his proceedings with the doctor, he could only play with my prick in his hands. Now that matters were getting too warm for further discussion, he stooped down, but could only get the head and a small portion of the upper part of the shaft into his mouth. His lips closed beneath the gland in the most exquisite manner. I begged him to grasp the lower part of the shaft with one hand, and to thrust a finger of the other up my bottom-hole, which I had already lubricated by spitting on my fingers and conveying the saliva in the desired direction. He obeyed with the docility of an apt apprentice—and thus working in unison, quickly brought on the ecstatic crisis. I seized his head in my hands, and, at the final discharge thrust it down on my delighted prick, as I poured out a perfect torrent of sperm, nearly choking the poor youth with the length of prick I thrust into his mouth. He was obliged to withdraw for an instant to take breath, but I was pleased to see that he instantly resumed his delicious sucking of my prick, which he continued to do until it gradually shrunk up to very diminished proportions. I then drew him upon me, and we had another sweet embrace of lips and tongues, and then, side by side, we held a long converse on erotic matters. He told me all the tale of his affair with his cousin, and, although I was already well acquainted with it, I was glad to draw all the particulars from himself. I had seen the note his mother wrote to the doctor. The minuteness and undisguised description she had therein given struck me as very strange, and I augured that she herself must be a lewd and lecherous person, to have done more than merely hint at the affair, instead of dwelling, doubtless in erotic delight, on such details. So I pumped him as to what sort of woman his mamma was. His description showed that she was a fine, full grown woman, old, in his opinion, but in reality in the prime of life, between thirty-five and forty. He had not scanned her proportions with any erotic thought and did not seem to attach the idea of the woman to her—only that of the mother. But I drew out of him that she was broad in the shoulders, full in the bosom, with a small waist, small feet, and small hands, a very fine head of hair, and fine eyes—evidently a desirable woman. Already I had set my imagination in play, and began to hope I might some day work my way into her favour. It will be found how well I succeeded, as these true memories will describe when I arrive at the period of my success with her. For the present I had advanced the erotic education of the dear youth considerably, and thus prepared him for further initiation at the hands of the doctor and his glorious and magnificent cara sposa, who had already determined to enjoy his first fruits in cunny land. We had a similar enjoyment, carried somewhat further the next morning, in which we practised more fully the frigging of the bottom, and discussed the pleasure it produced. I was gradually leading him on. That morning I purposely arranged that we should be late in entering the school-room. The doctor sternly reprimanded us, and told us we must attend him in his private room after twelve o'clock. Poor Dale turned pale as he heard this, dreading the punishment to come of which his experience was so recent and so severe.

At twelve we, apparently ruefully, entered the doctor's sanctum sanctorum. He had preceded us by some few minutes, and had already donned his long dressing-gown, by which I was certain that he had at the same time doffed his pantaloons.

"Now then, boys, you must prepare for your punishment, I cannot allow this evidently wilful inattention. Off with your clothes except your shirts and stockings."

We hesitatingly stripped; poor Harry Dale weeping at the thought of the dreaded punishment. I deemed it prudent also to draw a long face. The doctor spread a towel over his sofa, saying we had such naughty cocks that we were constantly dirtying his sofa. He then desired us to kneel on it with our heads down, and our tails well up. He then rolled up our shirts, and tucked them in above the small of our backs, in doing which he indulged in various lascivious touchings, which excited us as well as himself, and all our three cocks were at full stand. Harry Dale turned his head to gaze at mine, and could not resist putting his hand upon it, and gently pressing its large stiff shaft. Young Dale's smaller, but very beautiful member, which was daily developing itself in a striking manner, also excited me, and I reciprocated his caresses.

"This will never do," said the doctor, "I must flog this evil spirit out of you."

He threw off his dressing-gown to be more at his ease, he said, and taking rod in hand, applied it gently in turns to each of our projecting bottoms. It was not for punishment but for excitement that he operated upon us. He quickly threw our bottoms all in a glow, and our excitement became intense, and we wriggled our bums in evident delight. This was the point the doctor wished to attain, that he might arrive at his desired object, which was the possession of young Dale's bottom-hole.

"Stop, stop, my dear boys, I see you are at your naughty tricks again, but there must be no spending yet; get up. We must all strip to the buff, and I shall show you how they used to flog me when I was at school. Stand up, Charles."

I did so, and the doctor for an instant handled, in evident delight, my huge stiff-standing pego, drawing young Dale's attention to its much larger dimensions than his own.

"Now, lean half forward on the sofa. Dale, put your arms round his waist, and stow away this charming rampant little fellow between the cheeks of Charles' buttocks. Charles, do you spit on your hand, and moisten between the cheeks, and then press with your hand his throbbing young prick against the cleft."

I did as directed. Young Dale felt so deliciously sheathed that he thrust his cock well forward.

"Now," said the doctor, "you are properly horsed, as we used to say, and now, for a little more flogging of these fine hard, rosy mounts," and he lasciviously caressed them before applying the rod.

Whack—whack—whack—fell the strokes, sufficiently sharply to make Master Dale wince and wriggle his bottom to and fro. Quickly the exciting pleasure overcame all pain, and his lust rising, he thrust furiously in the artificial channel he was operating in. I now shortened the grasp of my hand on his shaft, and pressing it somewhat upwards, raising my buttocks at the same time, I directed it so fairly upon the aperture that at the next push it entered fully two inches within; then again favouring his return stroke, he completely sheathed himself up to the meeting of his belly against my buttocks. I gave him a pressure which had an instant effect, and he began to thrust fast and furiously, evidently enjoying it to the utmost. I let him feel the full enjoyment of his new quarters, only telling him to lay hold of my cock and frig me; and then I cried out to the doctor—

"Flog him well, sir, he has thrust his cock into my bottom-hole."

This was the very thing the doctor most wished for. So he continued his flogging only to such an extent as to still more inflame the lust of the now lecherously excited boy, who shortly brought on the final crisis and died away in delight as he shot his first tribute within the divine temple of Priapus. At the moment of the crisis coming on, the doctor had ceased his flogging and wetting two fingers gradually introduced them into the bottom-hole of young Dale, and frigged him in unison with his movements into me, so that the ecstasy was almost more than the poor boy could bear. He lay almost inanimate on my back, but his still throbbing half-standing cock responded to the inward pressures I was exercising upon it. The doctor had ceased his flogging to admit and caress the well-formed posterior of the charming boy. Becoming greatly excited, he drew him off me, and closely embraced him, but professing at the same time to be greatly shocked; his prick, meanwhile, gloriously stiff, pressed hard against young Dale's belly. The doctor then relaxing his hold, young Dale gazed, with pleased enjoyment, on the size and stiffness of the doctor's cock, and, by an impulse of passion, took it in hand, knelt before him, and put it into his mouth, and sucked it lasciviously. The doctor placed his hands on Dale's head, and pressed it down for a minute or two, and then begged the dear youth to rise, as he did not yet wish to spend—thanking him for the exquisite pleasure he had given him.

"Now," said he, "it is your turn to flog, so Charlie, you must be horsed upon me, and Harry Dale shall take a first lesson in the art of flogging upon your posteriors."

The pose was arranged as before. My formidable weapon was placed between the cheeks of the doctor's fine fat backside. His hand pressed my cock as I had done to Dale's. Dale took the rod in hand, and at the very first cut made me wince, for the young rogue laid on with a will. The doctor had applied a good quantity of saliva to the end of my prick, and thrusting out his buttocks, he quickly guided it into the longing orifice, in which I vigorously sheathed myself to the utmost extent. I seized his cock and squeezed it gently, but he begged me not to make him spend, but to enjoy myself to the utmost, crying out, at the same time to young Dale—

"Flog him well, Harry, for he has thrust his great tool up my bottom-hole; it is wonderful how it ever could get in."

Indeed so little could young Dale believe in the possibility of such a thing that he stopped flogging to assure himself of the fact, by both touch and sight. I drew my prick out and in that he might be perfectly satisfied of the truth, and the doctor wriggled his backside to and fro to show what pleasure it gave him. Of course, all this was preliminary to the grand attack he meant afterwards to make on the virgin aperture in young Dale's bottom. After Harry had assured himself of the fact, he pitched into my poor bottom with redoubled vigour, which, though it greatly excited me at the moment, made my poor bum smart for days afterwards. I quickly sent a torrent of sperm far into the entrails of the doctor, to his great delight, but he tenaciously avoided spending lest his powers should fail to overcome the natural obstacle of a virgin bottom-hole, especially in one so young as Dale. Consequently, after retaining me for some few moments in the delightful pressures of the internal folds, he allowed me to withdraw, all reeking with my own sperm. It was now the doctor's turn to be flogged by me, while he was horsed on Harry's loins. As Harry had already found out what pleasure a bottom-hole gave to the plugger of it, and had also seen how the doctor seemed to enjoy, and so easily engulphed, the much larger weapon I possessed, he had no idea there could be any pain accompanying it, and consequently he lent himself entirely to every direction that was given him. He placed himself in the easiest position, stuck his bottom well out, stretching wide the channel between the orbs, and exposing a charming little rosy aperture most tempting to the sight; indeed, the doctor instantly knelt to pay his devotions to it, devouring it with kisses, and thrusting his lecherous tongue within its tight little folds, taking the opportunity to thoroughly lubricate it with his spittle. This preliminary, followed by a little frigging with his middle finger, which produced nothing but pleasurable sensations in the dear youth, completely captivated him. The doctor wisely informed him that the first attack was sure to be somewhat painful, but that if he felt it so, he was not to draw away his body, but simply to complain, and the doctor would instantly remain quiet without withdrawing, and he would then find that the strange sensation would rapidly pass off, and allow a further progress, which would be again arrested if the pain was renewed. In this way he would eventually find that the pleasure would become indescribably delicious, as he had seen how both Charlie and himself had enjoyed it. Poor Dale assured the doctor he might proceed at once, and he would be perfectly docile. So the doctor first asking me to suck his cock a little to moisten it well, put the charming youth in the best position, telling him to strain as if he wished to void himself, then applying his well-lubricated pego to the rosy orifice, by gentle pressure, he succeeded, with hardly a twinge of pain to the dear boy, in housing the head and about two inches of the shaft within the delicious receptacle. Here the pain became so great that young Dale would have withdrawn himself away from the doctor had the latter not taken the precaution to seize him by the two hips, and hold him as if in a vice, but without attempting a further insertion then.

"Keep still, my dear boy, and I will not move, and you will find in a minute or two that the strange sensation will pass away."

Turning his head to me, he said—

"Charlie, gently frig the dear boy."

I immediately did so, which rapidly had the effect of exciting him up to a pitch that made him forget all pain, and he even thrust his bottom further back, and as I had taken the opportunity of the pause to drop some more spittle on the lower shaft, a further gentle pressure forced it in almost up to the hilt. Here, again, young Dale cried out to stop, it was so painful.

The doctor paused again. I continued caressing his now inflamed and stiffened prick. His convulsive twitches, caused by my lascivious caresses, were followed by involuntary wrigglings, which of themselves completed the entire insertion of the doctor's excited prick. He still continued quiet, allowing the passions of the youth to become still more excited. Then gradually and gently withdrawing, and as gently again thrusting within, he went on until the youth's movements betrayed the raging lust that possessed him—then the doctor increased his pace. I frigged on fast and furious, and in a few minutes they both died away in wild excess of the most ecstatic joy. As to Dale, his gaspings and wild cries of delight proved that the final joys were almost too great for him to bear. The doctor had drooped his head upon his chest, and closed his eyes, in all the gratification of having ravished the first fruits of this charming youth's beauteous bottom, and I could see by his momentary convulsive thrusts, and the pressures of his hands on Dale's hips to draw the bottom more completely against his belly, as well as by the broken sighs that heaved his bosom, how exquisitely he was enjoying his triumph. Gradually his cock reduced its dimensions, but even when quite down and soft, it left the tight sheath it was in with a "plop" showing how well and close those delicious folds had embraced it. The doctor would not allow young Dale to rise until he had embraced and kissed the lovely bottom that had just yielded him such intense satisfaction. Then, drawing the youth to his bosom, he embraced him most tenderly, and thanked him for the heroic manner in which he had borne the attack, and told him he would never suffer so much in after-attacks as he had done in this first taking of the virginity of his bottom-hole.

It was thus this dear youth was initiated into our mysteries, and henceforward he became an apt disciple, and by being introduced into our interior circle, added much to the variety and enjoyment of our orgies. For, as may well be supposed, my glorious and most lecherous aunt thoroughly enjoyed the taking of his first tribute in the legitimate temple of holy Mother Venus. I was present on the occasion, which was supposed to be unknown to the doctor. The first coup was on her belly, the sight of which and her truly magnificent cunt wildly excited Dale, and his cock stood stiffer and really bigger than ever. It was quite surprising how rapidly it developed when once he got thoroughly into hardness. He fucked aunt twice, spending as rapidly as she herself, lecherous as she was at all times. I acted postillion to them both. I stopped further combats until I too could enter the field. So aunt mounted upon him, and falling forward lent her divine backside to all my fantasies. Twice we ran a course without changing. Then aunt herself claimed my big prick for the contentment of her randy cunt. We quickly changed positions. I, on my back, received dear aunt's delicious cunt on my stiff-and-hard-as-wood-standing pego. She straddled over me, and sank her luscious orbit down upon me until our two hairs were crushed between us. Here, by rising and falling, she had another delicious discharge before bending down to be embraced by my loving arms. She then presented her most glorious bottom to the wonder and admiration of dear Harry, who had been caressing and kissing it, and at the critical moment had thrust a frigging finger in, and turning his head in front had greatly increased the pleasure of my loved and lecherous aunt by sucking the large nipple of her wondrously fine bubby. When once she was fairly down on my belly, Harry scrambled up behind, and quickly inserted his already fine but still comparatively small prick, which, of course, found ready entrance where my splitter had previously opened and greased the way; but he gave a cry, almost of pain, or at least of surprise, on finding the sudden grip which my aunt, with her wonderful power of pressure, instantly gave him. At it we went, fast and furious, until again the grand crisis overtook my lascivious aunt, who spent deliriously. We boys both paused a second or two to allow her to enjoy her discharge to the utmost; then recommencing with increased vigour and speed, we soon both discharged at one and the same time our freights into the delighted vessels that were conferring such exquisite enjoyment upon us. Aunt, too, did not fail to join us at the ecstatic moment. We lay for many minutes panting in all the after-sensations of the most exquisite joys humanity can revel in. We kept it up for several hours, aunt sucking young Dale's toothsome prick while I gamahuched and postillioned her to her infinite satisfaction. In this way, and with repeated changes from one receptacle to the other but always both occupied at once, we at last gained a reprieve, and retired to well-deserved repose. The doctor, who had kept out of the way on this our first bout with my glorious aunt, afterwards apparently surprised us together, and, after giving us and receiving a pretty sharp flogging, he joined in all the ecstasies of our orgies. He especially delighted in being into my bottom while I fucked his wife, and he himself had the double pleasure of having young Dale's fast growing pego into his bottom at the same time. It was some time longer before I succeeded in completely sheathing my huge prick in the delicious bottom-hole of the dear youth, but at last I succeeded to the utmost extent of my wishes, and although I continued to hurt him for some weeks after the first attack, he could at last entertain me with perfect ease, and we were thus enabled to play successively into each other's bottoms, and every one of us enjoyed the exquisite delight of fucking and being fucked at the same time.

As we grew more lasciviously intimate, I often turned the conversation on his mother and cousin. At last I told him, I thought from his description that his mother would be a good fuck, and that if ever I had the opportunity I might cover his attack on his cousin by fucking his mother; only we must lead her to believe that she took my virginity. The idea pleased him. He began to think his mother must be a desirable woman for me, as I was so largely hung; and then the opportunity that I would give him to enjoy his longing for his cousin was an inducement to second my views to the utmost. Towards the close of the half-year his birthday occurred, and his mother could not do less than have him home for the day. She felt that her niece would be in greater security when Harry begged she would allow him to bring with him the doctor's nephew—myself, to wit—telling her that we had become very close friends as well as schoolfellows. I had previously told him I should play the complete innocent, but should take care some time or the other during the day to put myself in such a position that his mother should get a glimpse of my prick, so that if not immediately successful, I might pave the way for future success. His birthday fell on a Saturday. We were only asked to spend the day, with the intention of returning in the evening. Accordingly, on the happy day we made our appearance after breakfast. I have before said that his mother lived in a very pretty cottage ornee, about a mile and a half from the parsonage. We were most kindly received by her. She first lovingly embraced her son, wishing him many happy returns of the day, declaring that he was much improved, &c. She then turned to me, and gracefully and kindly bade me welcome. The niece was a charming girl, just budding into womanhood. She blushed greatly in welcoming her cousin, and bashfully did the same to me. We spent the earlier hours in conversation; the mother having much to ask and to hear from her son, from whom she had never before been separated. I had thus time to scan her well. She was a fine, broad built, well standing up woman, with broad shoulders, and hips that gave promise of good form beneath. Without being beautiful, her face was a well formed oval, with really fine eyes, to which her son's description had hardly done justice. It appeared to me that a good deal of suppressed passion lurked in their expression, and I already began to think she would be a real bonne bouche if once we could come to close quarters. After luncheon we strolled in the garden. The leaves had already fallen, but the afternoon was bright and warm for the end of November. I told young Dale to keep close to his mother, and not show any wish to stray away with his cousin—feeling certain that if she became anxious about their movements I should have no chance to play off my little game. All went as I could wish, we threw his mother off her guard, and she then began to show closer attention to me. I acted the ingenuous and innocent youth to perfection, but at the same time, in thinking of her charms, I let my prick get up to half-stand, so as to show its large proportions under my trousers. I very soon perceived that it had struck her notice, and her attention became concentrated upon me. She questioned me a good deal, and especially sought to find out if peculiar intimacy existed between her son and me. I played the innocent, and professed that the utmost intimacy existed; but when she tried to find out if it had gone to what she really meant, I gave such an innocent character to our intimacy that she was quite convinced of my thorough ignorance of all erotic tendencies, and she became more endearing in her manner of addressing me.

Harry and I had previously agreed that after I addressed to him some particular frivolous remark, he should seize the first occasion near a shrubbery to go on more ahead, and alarm his mamma by turning round a corner. Our stratagem succeeded. She immediately hastened to follow them. As soon as she had turned the corner I drew out my tool, now at full stand, and placed myself so that when she returned she should see it fully developed, while I would take care not apparently to see her, but be intent upon piddling. To the utmost of my wish it fell out. She had told her son to stop and returned to join me. My eyes being turned downwards did not let her become aware that I was watching for her, but I could see the bottom of her petticoats as she turned the corner, and also that she came to a sudden stop, which must have been at the moment she caught sight of the noble proportions before her. I took care to pass my hand once or twice backwards or forwards while pissing, and then shook my prick deliberately, and exposed the whole length and breadth of it for a minute or two before buttoning it up, during which I could see she stood perfectly still, rooted to where she had first stopped. After I had buttoned up, I stooped down, apparently to tie my shoe, but in fact to give time for it to be supposed I had not seen her previous approach. So when I rose up she was already at my side. There was a flush on her cheek and a fire in her eye that showed the bait was swallowed. My role was to play the perfect innocent, and appear quite unconscious of her having seen me.

She took my arm, and I could feel that her hand trembled. She led me along, hastily at first, until we joined her son and niece. After that she became uncommonly endearing in her manner to me, making such remarks as she thought would show her that I was not so innocent as I looked, if my replies had jumped with her expectations. But I was in reality too experienced not to pay her off in kind, and ended in making her believe that she had a perfect virgin to deal with. We walked on, she was evidently much preoccupied, becoming at times quite silent for a minute or two, and then, gently pressing my arm, she would make some endearingly flattering remark, at which I would look lovingly but innocently up to her face to thank her for her kind opinion. On these occasions her eyes sparkled in a peculiar manner, and her colour went and came. After a while, her hand left my arm and rested on the opposite shoulder, in a half embrace, which became warmer and warmer, her conversation became more affectionate. She was profuse in her congratulations that her son had found so charming a schoolfellow; and here she halted, and turning half in front of me, said that she felt that she could love me as if I were indeed her own dear son; and, stooping slightly, she sought a kiss of maternal affection. I threw my arms round her neck, and our lips met in a long and loving kiss—very warm on her side, but a simple though affectionate kiss on mine.

"Oh!" I said, "how happy I shall be to call you my mamma, and I will love you as if you were it, it is so good of you to allow me to do so. This half-year has been the first time in my life that I ever was separated from my mother—and, although my dear aunt is as kind as possible to me, still I can't call her mamma. My guardian won't allow me to go home for the Christmas holidays, but now I shall have a dear, kind new mamma to make me happy." Here I again raised my lips for an embrace, which was given with even more than the previous warmth. Her arm had fallen to my waist, and she pressed me with energy to her bosom, which I could feel was unexpectedly firm, and even hard. I had great difficulty in keeping my unruly member down, that she might think I took her warm embraces as nothing more than affectionate friendship. I succeeded, however, and this, of course, more than ever convinced her of my entire ignorance of carnal desires. As I closely embraced her, and glued my lips to hers, she became greatly agitated, trembled visibly, sighed convulsively, and then pushed me from her, and seemed suddenly to recover herself, seized my arm, and hurried on after her son. For, as may well be supposed she had purposely loitered behind to allow them to get out of sight, before she indulged her uncontrollable desire to embrace me. She spoke not a word until we came in sight of them, apparently sauntering along, innocently enough. But Harry afterwards told me that having seen how his mother had halted to gaze at my prick, which he knew beforehand I meant she should see, he had watched us through the shrubbery, and afterwards had noticed her warmth of manner to me, and the loitering of her walk. He had turned a corner some distance ahead of us, and was out of sight when his mother stopped to embrace me, as described above. He guessed she would be in no hurry to follow him. So rapidly advancing with his cousin, he got some way before us, and choosing a place where he could see us through the bushes when we did follow, he sat down on a garden seat, and drew his cousin on his lap, asking her if she did not regret their hasty separation after their last delicious interview, and telling her his mother had seen them, which was the cause of his being sent as a boarder to the doctor. She was much surprised to hear this, as her aunt had never breathed a word of it to her; and she had been greatly distressed at his being sent away from home. Of course his hands were not idle; but first unbuttoning his trousers, he put his cock, now much increased in size, into her hand. She at once observed how much larger it had become, and began to caress it. He meanwhile was busy frigging her little clitoris. He found that she was already quite moist, and he had hardly frigged her a minute, when a sigh and an "Oh! how much more pleasure you give me than my aunt does." She spent profusely, grasping his prick with painful tenacity. Her breath was taken away for some minutes. When she recovered a little, and was gazing lovingly with half-closed eyes upon him, he at once recurred to her unexpected confession.

"When does my mother do this to you?"

"Ever since you were sent away; your mother took me to sleep with her, as she said, she felt so lonely after you left. For some time she used to embrace me very lovingly, and hold me close pressed to her bosom. As I always went to bed before her, I was generally sound asleep when she joined me. I used at first to wonder how when I awoke in the early morning my chemise was drawn up close to my neck, and your mother's was in the same state, and our two naked bodies closely united by the embracing arms of your mother. I even one morning found that my hand was held by hers against that part which you are now feeling so nicely. She had fallen asleep in this position, but I could feel that she was as moist there as you have just made me. I could not help feeling it was very nice, and gently removing her hand, I began to feel all over her in that part and, do you know Harry, she is all covered with such thick and curly hair there. In groping about, I felt the lips pouting and thick, and on trying I found I could get my fingers in. I pushed on, I got up to the knuckles, when I felt it give such a convulsive pressure upon them, and her body was projected towards me with a heave of her bottom, then drawn back, and pushed forward again, while her arms pressed me closer to her, and she commenced some loving expressions in her sleep. I felt something grow hard against my thumb, it was just what you have been feeling.—'Oh! go on,' she cried."

"I renewed my tickling operations again, and I made her spend," Harry continued. "As she came to her senses, I gamahuched her; I thrust my tongue up her sweet little cunt, and licked up all the delicious spendings. As I rose, with prick erect and standing stiff out of my trousers, she seized it in her mouth, and, with very little sucking, made me spend to excess, and the dear girl swallowed it with all the luxury of the utmost voluptuousness. We had no time for more at that moment, as I caught sight of mamma's dress through the trees. I buttoned up hastily, and we strolled along, as if nothing had happened. It was in our after-walk, when we had allayed mamma's suspicion, that my dear Ellen continued her confessions."

The stiff thing pressing against her thumb was mamma's clitoris, which, by her account, is wonderfully developed. She, knowing from her former experience with me that it was the point of most exquisite enjoyment, turned her finger upon it, and began awkwardly playing with it. It was at this moment that the greater excitement awoke mamma, who finding to her surprise what Ellen was doing, seized her hand, and pressing and rubbing it with more art against her clitoris, continued its action with exclamations of delight, declaring that Ellen was her dear precious loved girl, and then with a positive cry of delight, spent profusely over Ellen's hand. After panting for some time in perfect bliss, she turned and took Ellen in her arms, kissing her most warmly, and thrusting her tongue into Ellen's mouth, and then demanding hers in return. After much embracing, mamma asked her how she came to do what she found her doing when she awoke. Ellen described how she found her hand held against it, and then two naked bodies pressed against each other—that she was surprised at this, and wondered how it came so; that on moving her hand she felt mamma give a throb down there, and a push of her body forward, which made her finger slip easily in, this still more surprised her, as she had tried often if her fingers could get into her own, but it hurt her so much that she had given it up as impossible; and now she had found one where all her fingers, up to the knuckles, slipped in quite easily; the inside movements, and the heavings of her aunt's body, showed that it gave her pleasure. In continuing her movements she had felt a hard body at the upper part pressing against the side of her hand; she withdrew her fingers to feel this strange thing, and in doing so aunt awoke.

"And you know the rest, dear auntie, I was so glad that I had given you so much pleasure."

"Dear, dear girl!" her aunt replied, "I shall love you more dearly than ever; yes, and you, too, shall have the utmost pleasure. I have long wished to initiate you into the secrets of womanhood, but thought you too young to be able to keep secret such intimacy as we may indulge in. Often in your sleep with your lovely naked charms exposed to me, and pressed against my own lascivious person, have I enjoyed you, and even made use of your own hand all unconscious in sleep, to excite me to a still greater pitch; last night I had enjoyed you to the utmost, kissing your lovely budding and hidden charms, and must have unconsciously dropped off to sleep with my hand still pressing yours against my secret charm. But now I must initiate you into the same joys, even in a more exquisite way."

"Upon this she begged me to throw off my chemise, while she did the same. We stood up to do this, and your mother took the opportunity to pose me in every way, admiring and kissing me all over. I did the same to her, and I can assure you, dear Harry, your mother is far better made that I am, both in the bosom and the bottom, and with such firm thighs and legs, and her affair is so well developed and pouting, and with such silky curls all around it. I can feel you passing your fingers through the curls of mine; but though it has more than it had when last you felt and caressed it, it is nothing to dear auntie's. When she had much excited me, and was evidently herself greatly so, she desired me to lie across the bed on my back, and to draw my knees up so as to let my feet rest on the edge. She then placed a footstool in front, and kneeling upon it, after first feeling and caressing me down there, she glued her lips to it, and after sucking a while began to play with her tongue upon what you have been so deliciously rubbing. She licked me most exquisitely, and soon made me die away in ecstasy of delight. She sucked it for some time after, while I lay in a languid state of joy. When at last she rose, she threw herself on the bed, and our two naked bodies became closely united in the most loving embrace. Her lips were wet with the moisture that had escaped from me, its peculiar aromatic odour m'enivrait and I could not help licking the creamy juice from off her lips.

"'Oh, my beloved aunt,' I cried, 'you have given me the joy of paradise, I must try and do as much for you.'

"'My darling Ellen, you will make me positively adore you. I now only regret that I had not sooner taken you into my confidence, as I at once perceive I might have done so in perfect safety. Yes, my darling, you shall indeed try, and I shall instruct you as we advance how to obtain the greatest amount of pleasure from our libidinous and lascivious enjoyments, delights that are without risk, and from which we shall have no anxieties as to fatal results, which are the consequence of connection with the opposite sex, who only make use of us for their own sensual enjoyment, and abandon us at the very moment they ought to console and cherish us the most.'

"Dear aunt, again embracing me tenderly, threw herself in the same position I had previously lay in. I knelt on the cushion as she had done. But before proceeding to do as she had done to me, I could not help pausing to gaze with delight on her natural charms. Oh! dear Harry, you cannot imagine the beauty of that part of your mamma. Her stomach is of the purest white, smooth and firm, round and beautiful. Below a crease commences a large plumped out swelling seen through the fair and thick silky curls that so much adorn it, then grandly rounded sinks down between her thighs, and the beautifully pouting lips rise richly tempting through the thickest of hair, that goes far beyond between the large rounded orbs that project behind. At the upper part of the lips, where they form a deep indented half-circle, I could distinguish a stiff projecting object, as long and thicker than my thumb. I now know that this is the centre of exquisite joy. Your mother had since taught me to call it her clitoris, and says that although seldom so strongly developed as in her case, it exists in every woman and becomes stiff and excited as the final crisis of joy approaches. I glued my lips around this charming object, and sucked it, and played with my tongue around its point. Your mother, in an ecstasy of delight, wriggled her bottom below me, and with both hands pressing my head down on the excited point, gave utterance to the most loving and sensual expressions. She begged me to pass the flat of my hand under my chin, and introduce my thumb within the lips below, where I was sucking, and move it backwards and forwards as much as I could. I did so, and immediately found that it added greatly to your mother's delight. Faster and faster grew her movements, until, with a cry of delight, a firm pressure of my hand against her affair, and still firmer pressure on my thumb, she suddenly ceased all movement, her hands relaxed their hold of my head, the stiffness left her clitoris, and beyond convulsive graspings of the interior of her affair upon my thumb, she lay for some time inanimate. At last she recovered her senses, she seized me under the arms, and drew me upon her belly, her hands pressed my bottom down close upon her person, until I found that my affair was nestled in the rich profusion of curls that so finely adorned hers. She thrust her tongue into my mouth, and sucked off all the rich creamy substance that had flowed from her in such abundance. She blessed the happy chance that had led her to give me her confidence; told me that for long she had only enjoyed the unsatisfactory delight of lonely self-gratification, and said that now we should revel in mutual delight of every sensual indulgence that woman can have with woman. We lay for some time enjoying such delicious communings, until compelled to rise by the lateness of the hour. We have since practised every method of enjoyment given to two of the same sex. Your mother has often introduced her stiff excited clitoris within the lips of my affair as far as it would go, but I have always longed, my dear Harry, for you to penetrate still further with that larger and longer thing you have got, although what I have seen to-day of its increased size has made me greatly fear it can never get in."

Thus ended her ingenuous description. Harry, of course, promised that he would never hurt her, that those parts were made to yield, that, doubtless, his mother's large clitoris had hurt her at first, but had given her great pleasure afterwards.

Yes, that was so, and it was that that gave her courage, and if they could only get the opportunity she would allow him to do anything he pleased.

It may well be supposed this account of Ellen's intercourse with her aunt fired my imagination and made me resolve to have her. Indeed, I began to conceive that there would be no occasion for me to make any effort, that all would be done by dear mamma herself. We had returned to the house after this agitated walk. Mamma was evidently greatly preoccupied, but at length she appeared to have come to a final determination, for she told Ellen to go up to her room, and begged us two boys, as she called us, to go out and amuse ourselves for an hour. It was during this interval that Harry narrated his interesting conversation with his cousin. Her lively description had set his imagination on fire, and he now declared his regret that it was not to be he who would enjoy his lasciviously sensual mother. Neither of us had any doubt but that she would now find an opportunity of enjoying me. If we had, our doubts were solved on re-entering the house. Mamma first, for form's sake, kissing her son, and then far more warmly kissing me, informed us that she had written to the doctor that we had been such good boys that she would feel greatly obliged if he would allow her son to remain with her until Monday, and also leave his nephew to keep him company and prevent any of his former misbehaviour which, she was happy to say, he appeared to have forgotten, but still it would be better he should have the safeguard of so intelligent and discreet a friend as she was glad to see he had found in the doctor's nephew. My uncle, without knowing exactly what to make of this note, had consented. Hence her joy in being able to communicate the pleasing intelligence—doubly so to me, as I immediately augured the downfall of my assumed virginity. Dear mamma was all radiant with joy, and conveyed me at once to where she intended I should sleep. I marked that it was in an out of the way room, easy of access, but not likely to be interfered with by passers-by.

"And here, my dear son, for you know in future you are always to call me mamma, I hope you will find yourself comfortable, and that you will not be alarmed because you are in an out of the way part of the house, but in case you should, before I go to bed, I shall come to see that you are comfortably asleep."

Here she kissed and embraced me warmly. I repaid her most affectionately, but apparently in all innocence. She sighed, as I thought with regret, that she could not at that moment go further, and then led me away.

The afternoon, the dinner, and the evening passed away without anything worthy of remark, except that mamma was frequently absent and preoccupied. She sat by me on the sofa while Ellen played to us; her hand sought mine, and frequently squeezed it affectionately. Harry sat by Ellen, which enabled me often to raise my head and pout my lips for a kiss in a boyish way. It was never refused. She dwelt on my mouth sensuously with half-opened lips, but apparently afraid to tip me the velvet of her tongue. She frequently gave a shudder and trembled, and was evidently greatly excited. In the course of the afternoon, Harry and I had had an opportunity of exchanging ideas. I told him I was certain his mother would come to me that night, and he might be sure if she did that she would remain till daylight. I advised him to watch her, and when he saw her leave her bedroom to come to me, then he could slip into his cousin's room, and effect his purpose, but to be sure to retire at the first dawn. I said that if that time his mother wanted to leave me, I would keep her another quarter of an hour to enable him to put matters to rights with his cousin, and regain his own room. I advised him also to put a towel under his cousin's bottom, as he was sure to make her bleed, and he must take it away in the morning to prevent any traces of what he had done being perceived by his mother, and to tell Ellen to feign deep sleep on his mother's return, and to appear quite unconscious in the morning of her aunt having been absent. A little before ten o'clock mamma thought it time for her children, as she called us, to go to bed. Her son and niece both kissed her, and I, too, claimed a kiss of my new mamma. It was taken and returned in quite a passionate way, her lips seemed loath to leave mine, and her arms encircled me in a very loving embrace. "Dear mamma," I said, "I shall love you ever dearly."

"My darling boy, I already love you as if you were indeed my son."

She sent the others to their bedrooms, but escorted me herself to mine. I could see that she trembled greatly, and was evidently glad to put down the candlestick. She turned down the bedclothes for me, hoped I would sleep well, and, with considerable agitation, again embraced me most passionately. I could feel that her tongue would fain have thrust itself between my lips. I had great difficulty in restraining myself, but somehow I managed to do so. She at last left me, saying she would give a look in to see that I was comfortable before she herself went to bed. I told her it was very kind of her, but that there was no necessity for her doing so, as I always went to sleep like a top the moment I lay down.

"I am glad of that, my dear child, but nevertheless I will look in, lest the strange bed should prevent your sleeping."

And again she hugged me passionately against her firm and well-formed bosom, kissing me with a long, long kiss. Quitting me with a deep sigh, at last she said good night, and shut the door, apparently going away. But I fancied that she stopped short, and that I could hear her gently stealing back, probably in the hope of seeing me undress, and of catching a view of my huge pego. So I determined she should have her curiosity indulged. I hurried off my clothes, and before putting on one of Harry's night-shirts, which had been laid on the bed for me, I took up the chamber pot, and turned fronting the key hole, stark naked, and cock in hand. It was at half-cock, but when I had piddled I made it throb and raise its head, and gave it a rub or two, and a shake very deliberately, so that she might be still more bent on possessing it. I took up the night-shirt, and turning to the light, was very awkward in getting it on, so as to give time for a good sight of my prick at full stand against my belly. I then blew out the light, and tumbled into bed very quickly. I listened attentively, and could hear a deep half-suppressed sigh, and then footsteps stealing quietly away. I lay awake cogitating as to how I should receive her, whether to feign profound sleep, and so let her take all the initiative, or whether to pretend that the novelty of the bed, and thinking over her affectionate kindness to me had kept me awake. I decided upon pretending to be sound asleep, chiefly that I might see how she would carry out her designs, and also as allowing me to play the surprised one.

In little more than half an hour after all had retired to rest I saw the glimmer of light through the key hole. I had studied a pose that would facilitate matters. I lay on my back, the clothes partially thrown off my breast, and the hand next to the side on which she must approach, placed above my head. Of course my cock was at full stand and as I had thrown off the heavy counterpane, it easily lifted up, and bulged out the sheet and light blanket. I closed my eyes, and breathed heavily. The door was gently opened, and she entered. She turned to close it, and I gave a peep through a half-opened eye, and saw that she had only on a loose robe de chambre, which was thrown open in turning, so that I could see there was nothing but her shift below. I even caught sight of her beautiful bosom, which at once caused my prick to throb almost to bursting, so that when she came to my side, it stood up most manfully. She paused, evidently intent on the sight. She then held the light towards me, and spoke in an undertone, asking me if I was awake. Of course I only breathed the heavier, and lay with my mouth half open, as if in the very deepest first slumber. She then turned her attention to the bulging-out substance, and ventured to touch it gently; then, growing bolder, she still more gently grasped it from above the clothes, and then turned the light on my face, but I gave not a sign. She then put the candle down, and, taking a chair, sat down close to the bed. Here she again spoke to me in a subdued tone. Finding no cessation of the deep breathing, she gently insinuated her hand below the already favourably turned-down bedclothes, and with great care slipped it down to my prick, which she grasped softly. I could now feel her whole body tremble, her breath came fast and short. She passed her hand gently up from the root to the head, its size evidently greatly exciting her. When she grasped the head, it gave a powerful throb. She eased her hand, and, I felt certain, turned to see if it had disturbed me. But I slept on profoundly. She seemed to gain more confidence, for both hands were now applied, and it was evident she had assumed a kneeling posture, the better to favour her designs. I could feel her pass one hand over the other, until she found the head was still partially above the third grasp. I heard her give an involuntary exclamation of surprise at its size. Her curiosity growing by what it fed on, she now commenced with the utmost caution gently to remove the bed-clothes, that she might see, as well as feel. When this was accomplished, she rose and brought the light, again passed it before my eyes, and then moved it down towards my prick. Being sure she was now far too deeply engaged to turn her eyes towards mine, I half opened them, and beheld her bending close over the great object of attraction. I heard her exclaim half aloud—

"How wonderful! I never could have imagined such a thing, and in such an innocent boy, too. Oh! I must possess-yes—I must possess it."

Here she grasped it more forcibly than before. Then, rising, she put the candle on the pot stand, which she removed to the foot of the bed. Then taking my prick in both hands, she gently rubbed it up and down, and even stooped and fondly kissed the nut. It throbbed more violently than ever at this, and I thought it time to start, and appear to awake. She instantly quitted her hold of it, and stood up, but was too agitated to think of covering me. I opened my eyes in apparent great surprise, but recognising mamma, I said—

"Oh! is that you, dear mamma? I was dreaming such a nice dream about you. Oh, do kiss me," purposely not seeming to know that my person was all naked.

She stooped and kissed me tenderly, saying—

"My dear, darling boy. I came to see if you were comfortable, and found you lying uncovered, and with this extraordinary thing sticking up."

She had seized it with her left hand, as she stooped to kiss me. On the instant, I determined to play off the same game that had succeeded so well with my aunt.

"My dear mamma, I should not have dared to speak to you about that, but it does give me much pain, by becoming so hard that it throbs, as you may feel, at the least touch. I don't know what to do; and it makes me feel so queer too, especially at the gentle pressures you have just given it; dear mamma, can you tell me how I can cure it, and I will love you so dearly."

Here she stooped and kissed me very luxuriously, actually thrusting her tongue into my mouth. I sucked it, and told her how sweet it was. But my prick becoming perfectly outrageous, I implored her to tell me what I could do to relieve it. She looked at me long and intently, blushing and turning pale by turns.

"Yes, my dear boy, I could relieve you, but it is a secret that I hardly dare confide in one so young."

"Oh! you may trust me, my dear mamma, you know I am becoming a young man, and men must know how to keep secrets, or they would be despised, besides, so dear and loving a mamma as you are to me would doubly make me keep secret anything you confide to me on those terms."

"I will trust you, my darling boy, but you will at once see by what I shall do, how completely I sacrifice myself to do you good."

Upon this, she threw off her robe, and sprang into bed by my side.

"Oh! how nice of you, dear mamma," said I, as I took her in my arms, and kissed her lovingly. "Feel, mamma, how much harder it is, so tell me at once how I am to relieve it."

"Well, my dear child, we women are made to relieve such stiffnesses as this; we possess a sheath to put it in, and then it gradually softens."

"Oh! where—where—dearest mamma, do tell me?"

She took my hand and put it down on her cunt, already quite wet with the excitement she had been in.

"There, feel that, do you not find an opening?"

"Oh, yes, but how am I to get in there—won't it hurt you?"

"I will show you."

She turned on her back, opened her legs, and desired me to mount on her belly, with my legs between hers, then guiding my rampant pego, and rubbing its great head up and down the lips to moisten it, she told me to push gently downwards, for it was so large that I would otherwise hurt her. Playing the novice to perfection, I awkwardly but gently soon thrust it in, up to the codpiece. She uttered an "Oh! oh!" when it was fairly hilted; then throwing her legs over my loins, and her arms round my waist, she begged me to move my bottom backwards and forwards, always thrusting it in as far as I could. Three or four pushes finished me off, in the great excitement I was under. She, too, died away with a great convulsive sigh. I took care to cry out—

"Oh! my dear mamma—oh! stop. I am dying—I—I—am dy—dy—ing."

Her convulsive internal pressures were delicious, and quickly roused my prick up again. She also had come to, and had glued her lips to mine—giving her own, and then asking in return for my tongue to suck.

"Oh! what heavenly joys, my dear mamma, you did, indeed, reduce its hardness, but just feel—it has got hard again, you must reduce it once more."

"My beloved boy, I shall always be ready to do so, but it must be the most sacred secret between us, or I should never be able to do it again."

You may well suppose my protestations were of the strongest. At it we went again, and again, and again. Mamma declared that I was a most apt scholar. Four times did I pour into her foaming and fiery cunt torrents of sperm. At last she insisted upon my withdrawing, saying it would injure my health to indulge any more. So I withdrew, and we embraced each other most lovingly. I now expressed a wish to see the wonderful place that had given me the ecstasies of paradise. She lent herself with admirable grace and ease to my boyish curiosity, and even threw off her shift, making me do the same, that she too might admire the undisguised beauties of my form. There was no pretence in the great admiration I expressed for her really superb form, but I expressed it in a naive and innocent way, that made her laugh heartily, and confirmed her idea that she was not only the first naked woman I had seen, but that she was the first I ever knew, or who had taught me what sensual pleasure meant, and great was her delight in thinking she had taken my virginity, and been the first to initiate me in love's delightful mysteries. Of course, I did everything I could in order to carry on the deception she was so much pleased with, and I may add this was the last time I ever did so, for daily becoming more of a man, I took things by the forelock at once, and rarely failed to succeed. We got up, and she turned herself round in every way for me to see the rare beauties of her person—herself explaining to me where she was well made—bosom, buttocks, belly so white and smooth, without a wrinkle, although she had had a son. She was, indeed, one of those rare cases where nothing remains to tell of such an event. Her bosom, without being so large as aunt's, was gloriously white and firm, with such pink nipples, larger than in a maid, but sticking out hard and inviting a suck. Then her cunt—for she laid herself on her back, opened her legs, and allowed me the closest inspection. I have already alluded to her clitoris, as described by Ellen to Harry; it was charmingly developed, about half the length of Miss Frankland's, and not so thick. As I felt her cunt and introduced my fingers to hold it open, she got excited, and Master Clitoris raised his head, and came out of his corner in full stand. I professed great surprise to find she had a little doodle of her own. I purposely used the boyish expression. I began to play with it.

"Oh!" I said, "I must kiss it."

I did so, and began to suck it. She got dreadfully lewd, and seizing upon my now-again-standing prick, drew me upon her, and introduced once more my master weapon. With greater slowness until the final crisis drew near, we had another delicious fuck. She was a woman of very warm passions, and the long pent-up seclusion she had kept herself in with regard to our sex being once broken, now that the flood-gates were opened, there was no resisting the torrent of her lascivious passions. Twice again did we fuck without withdrawing. Then, after hugging and thanking me for the ecstasies I threw her into, she rose for a natural purpose, and advised me to do the same, and we would then both lave ourselves with cold water to restore our nerves. She laved me and I her. She then insisted on my lying down on my back, while she admired what she called the masterpiece of Nature. From seeing and feeling, she soon came to sucking. Up he got in a moment. Playing the ignoramus, I asked if it was not possible that we could both enjoy that pleasure at once.

"Oh, yes, my dear boy. I am so delighted to find that this pleases you! Lie on your back, I shall get over you in the reverse way, and while I suck this enormous jewel, whose head I can hardly get into my mouth, you shall do as you like with my notch."

"Is that what you call it, dear mamma?"

"That is one name, and it has many others, but you men generally call it cunt, as we call yours prick, it is just as well you should know their ordinary names, as children only call them Fanny and Doodle."

"Prick and cunt—oh! I shan't forget, so let me have that beautiful cunt to suck."

We had a mutual gamahuche, and both greedily swallowed the double result, and continued our caresses of both parts, until they were again in full vigour, and inspired with a desire for more solid enjoyments.

"My darling boy, you are so apt and excellent a scholar that I must show you there are several ways of allaying the stiffness of this dear fellow, who seems as desirous as ever to have his hardness taken out of him. I shall show you how my husband liked best to enjoy me."

She scrambled up on her knees, and presented her very fine bottom, told me to kneel behind and give her my prick in her hand, which she thrust out backwards between her thighs. I did so. She told me it would appear to get further in this way, and, in fact, it did. After it was all in until thighs and buttocks met, she told me to admire, praise, and handle the splendid cheeks of her bottom, and said that such praise greatly excited her. Of course I did so, admiring not only their size and fairness, but also the beautiful curly silk meshes that ran between the cheeks, covered her beautifully pink bottom-hole, charmingly puckered as it was, and ran up to the flat of her back. After I had so excited her, she begged me to lean forward, and to handle one bubby while I should play with her clitoris with the other hand. I did all this tolerably well, but with somewhat of awkwardness. She said I would soon be perfect. We ran again two courses before she fell forward dragging me down without withdrawing, and then turning on our sides, still intertwined we fell off into a deep slumber, and did not awaken till daylight. Mamma jumped out of bed, unseating me by the act. She was alarmed lest the hour should be late enough for the household to be up. I tried hard to persuade her to reduce once more the hardness which had again seized me as she might see and feel for herself.

"No, my dear boy, we must not be imprudent, my niece may have awakened and grown anxious at my absence, and she may rise to seek me; so good-bye, my darling, go to sleep again."

She embraced me tenderly, but I could not prevail upon her to go further, although she promised to seek an opportunity during the day, and to give me as much as I liked the next night. She left me, and I pondered over the lucky chance that had put so desirable and fine a woman into my arms, and also congratulated myself on the stratagem by which I had fully convinced her that she was my first instructress in the art of love, a circumstance ever dear to the ardent imagination of the darling sex. I easily fell asleep again, wondering how Harry in the meantime had got on with his cousin. My dear mamma would not allow me to be disturbed. She had entered my room once or twice, and found me sleeping soundly.

At last she again entered, just as I had satisfied a natural want for which I had risen. To rush to her, to embrace her tenderly, to fasten the door, and compel her, not much against her will, to come towards the bed, to beg her to lie on her belly on the bedside, to cant her petticoats up, to kneel and gamahuche her cunt from behind until she begged me to rise and fuck her, was but the work of a minute or two. And then my stiff-standing pego, aided by the mouthful of thick saliva occasioned by the gamahuche, was directed at her cunt, and driven home as far as the buttocks or her fine backside would allow. My prick being fairly sheathed, I paused for a moment to handle and praise the beauty of her posterior orbs. Then, stooping, I nibbled at her bubbies with one hand, and frigged her clitoris with the other. Sharp set, with my long rest and refreshing sleep, I rapidly ran a first course, but not quicker than the lascivious nature of dear mamma, who joined me in a copious discharge with the most ecstatic joy, and the most delicious inward pressures. For she was a perfect and most accomplished actor in the combats of love, and in her own way was worthy of my glorious aunt and my loved Miss Frankland, and as thoroughly accomplished as they in all the abandon of lust and lubricity, although at the moment I had only proved things in an ordinary way. Her exquisite internal suctions almost prevented the slightest relaxation in my delighted pego, and after a minute or two of indulgence in the after joy, I began again almost before dear mamma had recovered her senses, when she tried to tear herself away. But before she knew where she was I had succeeded in again firing her ardent and lascivious nature, and she became as eager for a second course as myself. This was naturally longer than the first fiery one. I raised myself upright on my knees, contemplated with the utmost delight the uncommon active play of her loins, and the exquisite side wriggling of her very fine backside. I loudly praised her delicious manoeuvres, and seconded them to the utmost, until getting more and more excited, fast and furious grew our movements. I bent down to second her by frigging her clitoris, and the final crisis seized us both with its agony of joy, and I sank almost insensible on her back. We lay for a short time lost to every thing, until mamma, remembering the risk we ran of discovery, begged me to withdraw, and let her go away. She rose and threw herself into my arms, glueing her lips to mine with a most loving kiss. Then stooping, she gave my now pendant prick a most delicious suck, making her tongue play into and around the mouth of the urethra. This was so delicious that the delighted member instantly showed its appreciation of the pleasure by starting up in full swing. Mamma gave it a pat, and said he was a most charming and delicious boy, who did not know how to behave himself. Again she kissed me, and tore herself away, but I could easily see the regret was as great on her side as mine. She told me her son had been as lazy as I was, and said that breakfast was waiting for us both. I quickly finished my toilet and found them all at the breakfast table.

Ellen blushed deeply when she saw me. A glance from Harry assured me he had succeeded, and that Ellen not only knew what I had been about, but also that I knew what she had been doing. Hence her high colour when she saw me. I smiled, and nodded to her knowingly, and as she had observed the intelligent glance that passed between Harry and me, it did not tend to put her at her ease.

Mamma, of course, knew nothing of what had passed in her bed while she was with me, and was all affectionate attention to the whole party, but with a marked tendency to pay me more particular attention. Our breakfast was late, so we had to hurry ourselves for church. Mamma drove Ellen in a small pony phaeton, while Harry and I took a short cut across the fields.

Harry told me how he had watched his mother and had quietly approached my door, and as the bed was exactly opposite the key hole, had seen and enjoyed her proceedings, especially as he knew that I only pretended sleep.

"By Jove," he said, "what a fine woman mother is! I could not tear myself away, and remained until you both went at it again, stark naked. My mother's beautiful hairy cunt, fine bubbies and backside, nearly drove me mad with desire. I could have violated her if she had been alone. And, then, her energy in fucking was superb. I could hold out no longer, but rushed to dear Ellen's side. She was asleep. I took her in my arms, and awoke her by feeling her delicious young cunt. She opened her eyes, and thinking it was mamma she turned round to repay the compliment, and started on having hold of my pego."

"'Why! Harry dear, how came you here? We shall be caught by mamma.'

"'Oh, no, my love, mamma is better engaged, and has slipped away to Charlie's room to get done to her what I am going to do to you.'

"She was too much alarmed to believe me, and I was obliged to bring her to your door. I first peeped, and saw you were still at it. Mamma's legs and arms thrown around you allowed me to see your great big thing rushing in and out, and driving home with immense vigour. I whispered to Ellen to peep. While she did so, stooping, I sat down on the floor and gamahuched her. She spent almost immediately, and was so excited that it quite filled my mouth. I rose on my legs, and bringing my prick against her cunt, made an entrance as far as over the nut, but was myself so excited with all I was doing, and all I had previously seen, that I went off in an agony of delight and with a suppressed cry, which must have been heard by you and mamma if you had not been so busily engaged. Ellen had been so excited and so intent on the to her new scene enacting before her eyes, that she had never ceased gazing on it, and left me to do whatever I pleased, but my cry alarmed her, especially as in my last forward push I had sent her head with some noise against the door. She rose, and so unseated me from the slight hold I had got of her cunt. She turned round to embrace me most excitedly, and whispered that we must go elsewhere. I took her round the waist, and we quickly regained mamma's bed. The light enabled me to find a towel. I told Ellen it was to prevent any moisture betraying our acts. She was far too excited and wishful for the article to make the slightest resistance, or even pretence of refusal. I begged her to throw off her shift, as she had seen both Charlie and mamma were quite naked. She at once complied, being now as eager for the fray as myself. I, too, threw off my night-shirt. For a moment we embraced each other's naked bodies. My cock was as stiff as iron. She lewdly laid hold of it, while I handled her charming young cunt. I helped her onto the bed, she at once lay down on her back, and threw open her legs as she had seen mamma do. I stopped and gave her cunt, all oozing with her own and my spunk, a warm kiss, and with a lick or two on her budding clitoris, I fired her even to greater excess than she had yet been in.

"'Oh, come to my arms, my dear Harry, and let us do as they were so delightedly doing.'

"She had noted with what rapture mamma was enjoying you, and she had noted, too, what a much larger cock yours was than mine; so she had naturally reasoned that if one so big gave her aunt so much delight, my smaller one could not possibly hurt her, hence her eagerness to have me at once. I did not baulk her, but throwing myself between her widespread thighs, I soon brought the point of my prick to the longing lips of her little virgin cunt. I rubbed it up and down in between the pouting and self-opened lips, partly to moisten it, and partly to still more excite her lust. I then gently pressed it forward, and introduced just its head, and drawing it in and out, made her beg me to go further. I did so, slowly, until I found there was an impediment. I knew that I must burst through this and that it would hurt her, so I continued withdrawing and re-entering without going further until she became so voraciously lewd as to throw her legs around my loins and heave her bottom up to meet my thrusts. I seized the fortunate moment and with one downright violent thrust burst through every barrier and buried my prick in her up to the very hilt. The attack and its result was so unexpected by Ellen that when she felt the knife-like thrust of agony she gave a shriek of pain, and made an immediate effort to throw me off. I was too firmly seated for any other result of her struggles than the still more complete rupture of her maidenhead, which my forward thrust had partially effected. I lay for some time quite tranquil, and when her immediate pain wore off I commenced a gentle in and out movement, which, without exactly exciting her, produced a pleasing sensation. I then went on faster and faster until the crisis came upon me, and I shot into her a torrent of boiling sperm that by its balmy nature mollified the previous smarting; so that when I had recovered from the delicious ecstasies of my first success, and my prick gradually resumed its former vigour, I found by the somewhat increased pressure upon it that her passions were re-awakening. Three times did I fuck her before I withdrew, the last one appeared to give her more pleasure, but still she complained of a smarting pain as I passed over and over the shattered hymen. I advised her to rise and lave herself as a relief, and to wash away the stains of blood from her thighs. The towel was a fortunate thought on your part, but, in fact, I had followed in all my movements the sage counsels you had given me from the experience you had had in taking the virginities of Mrs. Vincent and your two sisters, or I should otherwise probably have bungled the matter, although my experience with your magnificent aunt had naturally put me up to all the art of fucking. I had some difficulty in persuading Ellen to let me put it in again, as she declared she had endured perfect agony when I broke through her maidenhead. However, I gamahuched her well, got her passions up, moistened the shaft well, and was very gentle in entering and in my first movements. I spent without making her do so. But the well-greased sheath now allowing more easy movements, she gave down her nature with considerable pleasure as I spent the second time. Still there was fear and restraint—fear lest mamma might come back—so I thought it advisable to retire to my own room, being quite certain that now the road is open her lascivious nature will not be long in enabling her to enjoy the sport to the utmost. By the way, she could not help wondering how mamma could take in your immense pego; why, she said, it was as thick as her wrist and much longer than her hand, and yet it seemed to slip into mamma with ease and pleasure, 'while yours, dear Harry, which is not thicker than my two forefingers, and hardly much longer, has given me such pain.' I assured her it was only for the first night, and that if she would bathe it with warm water two or three times during the day, and put up a little glycerine as far as where it hurt, which her finger could easily reach, she would find that to-morrow night there would no longer be any pain felt, and she would enjoy it as much as she had seen mamma do. With this advice I left her to her repose, and gained my own room unobserved."

After this we concerted together as to what we should say to the doctor, who was sure to question us. Mrs. Dale's cottage was not in our parish, but she had driven over to our church, partly to throw off all suspicion from the doctor's mind, and also to thank him for allowing us to stay with her.

We, therefore, knew that we should have to go to the rectory and stay for luncheon. We agreed that we should not on this occasion take the doctor into our confidence, but that we should tell him we had purposely been very quiet and discreet, so as to throw Harry's mother off her guard. That Ellen slept with her, so that it became doubly necessary to gain her confidence. This being arranged before we reached church, we entered. After service we all adjourned to the rectory. The doctor escorted Mrs. Dale, Harry, Ellen, and I my aunt. Aunt, pressing my arm, asked me if I had had Mrs. D., as she seemed a fine woman worth having.

"Oh, dear no. I have had no opportunity, even if she would have consented. I have been playing the ingenuous youth to help Harry with his cousin. I thought we had somewhat thrown her off her guard, but she was still jealous and watched him closely. Ellen slept with her, which rendered things more difficult for Harry. She has closely examined me as to the sort of intimacy existing between us. I threw such an air of candour and innocence over my replies that she was quite delighted Harry had met with such a companion. I fully expect she will break out in praises of my modest and discreet conduct."

Indeed, so it turned out, and Mrs. Dale did it with such an air of candour that aunt was quite convinced nothing as yet had occurred between us. While the ladies discussed the dresses and bonnets of all who had appeared in church, uncle took Harry and me for a walk in the garden until luncheon was ready. Here he began, as aunt had done, to question us as to our proceedings, and the reason for Mrs. D. asking permission for us to stay. The same replies that had satisfied aunt satisfied him that nothing as yet had taken place beyond my gaining the confidence of Mrs. D.

"My dear Charlie," said uncle, "you have only now to manage somehow or other to let her see your great big cock without apparently your being aware of it, and I will warrant, from my knowledge of woman's nature, that she will find a way to have you, only mind you play the innocent, and be very awkward, and let her appear to teach you, which will give double pleasure and prevent any questioning as to how you have gained your instruction, if she thought you instructed."

I smiled inwardly at these sage directions, and thought how completely all persons knowing in the ways of the world gave the same advice. But little did uncle then think that I had acted up to the very letter what he was advising for my future conduct. We re-entered the house on luncheon bell ringing. Mrs. Dale complimented the doctor on the advance her son had made both in manners and instruction, and quite naturally congratulated herself on his finding so very modest and gentlemanly a companion in the doctor's nephew—myself to wit.

Returning home, Ellen begged she might be allowed to walk, doubtless calculating on having Harry for a companion. But mamma, while agreeing to her request, was still sufficiently on her guard to take Harry in the phaeton, and leave me to escort Ellen. Here was a chance! Ellen blushed, but took my arm as we left the rectory. Uncle gave me a knowing look, and a glance at Ellen, as we parted, as much as to say, I guess what will happen. We walked away steadily enough until the first hedge hid us. I stopped, and embraced Ellen tenderly, saying how glad I was to be able to congratulate her on the happy chance her aunt had given her, by coming to me for the night. She was a good deal confused at thinking that I should know how she passed the night. I rallied her upon this, told her that no secret existed between Harry and me, and that, in fact, if I had not lent myself to the game, she would not have had the opportunity for the great pleasure she must have had in Harry's arms. I knew she had not had much, but I wished to draw her on, and to make her open out as to her feelings, being determined to make the most of any confidence on her part. She replied that, indeed, she had done nothing but suffer, and would not have allowed Harry to do what he did if she had known the pain it would give her, she had been deceived by seeing how much aunt had seemed to enjoy what was so greatly superior in size to what Harry had. I smiled at her allusion to the size of my pego, and knowing that her curiosity must be creating in her a desire to see it, I told her it was well for her, in the first instance, to have had the smaller weapon to penetrate her, and that now she would never again suffer, even by the introduction of so large a one as mine.

"Oh, but when I think of the immense size of yours, I could never dare to allow you to try, although aunt did seem to enjoy it, when you pushed it in with such force."

"My dear Ellen, it was the size alone that tempted mamma, and if I had not been larger than Harry, I doubt if ever she would have come to me at night."

"But how could she dare to do so?"

"Curiosity to enjoy an unusually large cock, my dear."

"Did you know she was coming?"

"Yes, and no. I saw that her passions were excited, when I had once accidentally allowed her to see my large proportions."

"Yes, Harry told me what you were about, but I hardly expected aunt would have dared to come to you—how did it happen?"

"Well, if you will promise never to let your aunt know that I have told, I shall tell you. She came and found me apparently asleep, first felt me, and seeing I did not awake, carefully uncovered me, looked at, handled and kissed it, upon which, as my cock was nearly bursting, and I could stand it no longer, I awoke, and innocently complained of the stiffness I suffered from in that part, and begged her to tell me if there was any means of relieving it. She told me there was, but it was a great secret she hardly dared trust me with—and even if she could do so, she was afraid of a great long thing like that, three of her hands long below the head! but that if I promised secrecy, she would try. Then she lay down and taught me how to put it in, and I know you afterwards enjoyed the sight of our being in full action, quite naked—did you not enjoy it, dear Ellen?"

"Well, dear Charlie, it was very exciting, and made me feel queer all over; but is it really three hands and a head long?"

I was delighted at the question, as it showed me she was ready for what I intended should be done. Curiosity once excited was sure to go to the utmost length, if it had the opportunity. I had purposely been hurrying on to gain a dense copse through which our path lay, and I knew there was a snug glade, where we would be in perfect security. It was the dinner hour of the peasantry, and no one else was likely to come that way. Just as we entered the copse, she had put her last question. I told her I would show her, if she would step a few yards beyond the foot path. She objected, for form's sake saying—

"What would Harry say?"

"There is no occasion for him to know anything about it, but even if he did, has he not himself shown you mamma and me in full enjoyment of her sweet charms; but, unless you tell him you may be sure I never shall, it will not take a minute, and as we have already walked very fast, we have plenty of time, and our absence will not be observed."

With professed reluctance she allowed me to lead her where I wished. Having arrived at the favourable spot, I sat down on a gentle slope, and begged her to sit down beside me. As you may well suppose, my prick was rampant, and almost bursting open my trousers, so that as soon as I unbuttoned, out it flew in all its splendour. She gave a half scream of surprise as she gazed upon its large proportions, and declared it looked larger than when she had seen it with aunt. Her face flushed, and her eyes sparkled as she gazed, but she seemed half frightened to touch it. I took her hand and placed it on it. She immediately grasped it convulsively, but sighed deeply. I had lain back on the grass that it might stand out boldly before her and I told her to try if it was not three hands and a head long. She immediately passed one hand over the other from the root, and said it was really monstrous, and she wondered how aunt could have got it into her.

"Oh, my darling, I hope some day you will find that you can take it all in with the utmost delight, but I should not think of trying until you have had some more practice with Harry."

Meanwhile she was handling it with great excitement, and while saying she was sure I could never succeed with her, she was evidently longing to be able to take it in. I saw I must work her up more—so I said—

"Dear Ellen, you know what pleasure it gave you and Harry to play with each other with your mouths, it is now your turn to let me see your dear little thing—and then you must lie over me reversed, so that we may enjoy ourselves with tongues and mouths."

She let me at once pull up her petticoats, but said she feared that even for that she was still too sore from Harry's work last night. I asked if she had bathed it in warm water and put glycerine up. "Oh, yes."

At first it smarted, but before going to church, she had done it three times, and no longer felt any pain, but still was afraid of my finger going up. I was introducing it at the moment. It passed in its full length without hurting her.

"Now, pull up your petticoats well, and lie down on me, while I do the same with this charming little cunt; my tongue can only give it the utmost pleasure."

She herself was now so much excited that she was ready enough to comply with my desires. She got upon me, her petticoats well canted over her back. She glued her lips to my prick, and sucked and frigged it with an energy that proved how highly her passions were fired. Her cunt was already in a foam of spendings, which I first licked up. Then sucking her tiny clitoris, stiffly projecting slightly out, I thrust my middle finger up her cunt, and by the wriggling of her backside, saw how much she enjoyed it. Introducing a second finger to moisten it, I withdrew both, and, turning my hand sideways, made each finger enter a separate aperture. She was already nearly in the grand crisis; it came upon her before I was ready. She poured a greater discharge into my mouth than I thought the young thing could have spent. It took her breath away, and she released her suction of my prick for a minute. But on my begging her to continue sucking, she did so with increased energy, and I poured out a torrent of sperm that shot down her throat and nearly choked her, but the dear girl never let go for all that, and sucked away until not only was there not a drop left, but by her delicious titillations she had brought my prick up to its utmost vigour again. I, too, had reawakened her passions. She wanted to renew the sport in this way again, but I begged her to allow me to rub the head of my prick up and down between the well-moistened lips of her cunt, and then to spend with the point, or at most the head, within it. She asked if she could trust me to stop if it hurt her.

"Of course, my darling," I said, "nothing shall be done, or rather everything shall cease the moment you tell me to stop."

Half afraid, yet wishing to try, she changed her position to a kneeling one. I canted her petticoats well over her back, and first kissing and handling her hard and plump buttocks, which promised a future perfection, I stooped and again licked her charming pouting cunt with all its budding fair young curls. Then applying my surcharged mouthful of saliva to my already well-moistened prick, I lubricated it completely from point to root, and then applied it to the half-opened lips. Rubbing it up and down here, and over the clitoris, I excited her to the greatest pitch.

"Oh! Charlie dear," she cried, "try if its head will go in now, and I will try to bear it."

I was only too glad of the permission, and very rapidly got it in over the nut, but it was very tight. I drew it half out again, and then, on repeating this five or six times, found I was imperceptibly gaining ground.

"Oh! dear Charles, it is delicious! Try on, gently."

I did so, and had got rather more than half way in when she went off in an agony of delight, deliciously pouring her warm liquid over my enchanted prick, giving, at the same time, such a push backwards, which, meeting a firm, though gentle forward movement on my part, joined with the natural relaxation following her discharge, drove me up to the hilt in the very tightest little cunt it has ever been my good fortune to sheath myself in. I seemed to fill every cranny, and to have stretched every part to its utmost distention. My aunt with her great cunt had a power of pressure that seemed almost to nip off your prick, Miss Frankland, too, was great in that way. But this was more like a very well made first-rate kid glove, two sizes too small for your fingers, yet giving way without bursting, and fitting every irregularity of the nail or finger; just so her little cunt fitted my prick exactly like a glove, and it was truly most ecstatic. A gentle withdrawing, and then as gentle resheathing, so excited me that I shot a torrent of sperm up into her very womb. She gave quite a cry of ecstasy, and I could feel the tight sheath exercising a running movement along the whole length of my prick, and still more tightly closing all round it—if that were possible. It was so exquisitely delicious that both of us were almost instantly in readiness for another course.

She asked if I was all in.

"Oh, yes, my dear, do you think you could have taken any more?"

"Oh, no, it appears to fill me to bursting, and to be up to my very heart. I could not have supported more, but could hardly believe I had it all, as I did not think it possible, and was afraid there was more to come."

"Did it give you any pleasure?"

"Oh, yes; and does so still—push on, dear Charlie, and don't spare me, it is heavenly."

She wriggled and heaved her backside. I seized her by each hip and favoured her side movements by, as it were, drawing her off and on; faster and faster we moved, until at last the crisis seized us both together. Her head sank with a deep sigh, or rather cry of ecstasy. She would have fallen forward on her belly, but that my grip of her hips held her bottom close up to my belly, with my prick thrust into the innermost end of her cunt, until I felt the three points of the opening of her womb, like the nailless ends of three fingers grasping, as it were, the very point of my prick, and opening themselves to receive the whole discharge of my sperm within its innermost recesses. Nothing could be more delicious, and as I held her fast, I was myself in a state of perfect ecstasy. At last addressing some endearing expressions, and getting no reply, I found that the dear girl had quite fainted away, and was insensible in every respect except in the continued convulsive throbs of her delicious tight cunt. However, finding that she did not recover her senses, I gently withdrew my still stiff prick. Very little sperm followed the withdrawal. I wiped her cunt dry with my handkerchief, and was glad to see there was no blood stains. I laid her gently down on her back, ran to a little stream, and taking two handfuls of water, came back, threw some on the still throbbing cunt, and sprinkled her face with the drops that still adhered to my palms. This had the desired effect; she opened her eyes, raised herself on her bottom, and threw her arms round my neck as I knelt by her side. Telling me I had made her taste of the joys of heaven, she kissed me, and then burst into a hysterical flood of tears. I comforted her as best I could and asked why she wept.

"I don't know, dear Charles, but the last time made me feel both sick and faint just after you had given me such ecstasy as I never dreamt was possible. I believe I then fainted, and even now, I don't know why but I feel quite hysterical."

I kissed her tenderly, begged her to rise and come to the spring, where she could drink and said if she sat down on her feet I would bathe and cool her dear little cunt, which would probably put all to rights. She did so, and was quickly quite restored to herself again. She said she supposed it was my enormous size.

"But it did not hurt me, dear Charles, it only gave me too much pleasure; but you will do it to me another time whenever we have any opportunity, will you not, dear Charlie?"

I assured her I should always be too glad to do so, but that we must neither let her aunt nor Harry know of our proceedings. This being arranged, and she having quite recovered from the pallor her fainting fit had caused, we resumed our course homeward, and so hurried on that Harry, who had come to meet us found us getting over the stile of the last field, and was even disappointed that we had got so far, for we were now in sight of the cottage. He had hoped to find us much further back, and that I might have favoured his having a go at his cousin before reaching home. Ellen squeezed my arm. I said it was just as well as it was, for any imprudence might have awakened his mother's suspicions, and prevented a night of pleasure, which would be far better than any uncomfortable field affair.

When we arrived at home, mamma thought that Ellen looked fatigued, and advised her to go and lie down on her bed, and take an hour's siesta. She told us boys we had better do the same, as she had some private matters to attend to. Harry and I saw immediately what was meant, and we betook ourselves to our respective rooms, I to expect mamma, who did not fail to come, and Harry to watch her, and then made the most of the opportunity with his cousin. I quickly undressed, and when mamma came I found she had divested herself of stays and undergarments; so when she undid her gown, and let fall her shift, she stood in all the naked glory of her beautiful form. I flew to embrace her most lovingly. Both our hands wandered and being both in full heat, we were at it in a moment fast and furious. I drove on, admirably seconded by dear mamma, and we quickly both gave down at the same instant a most delicious libation on the altar of Venus, and then died away in all the after-enjoyment. We lay for nearly a quarter of an hour soaking in the delicious bliss of satisfied desire. Mamma, on coming to her senses, kissed me most tenderly, and declared she had never believed it possible that she could have had such exquisite delight.

"But then, my dear Charles, I never dreamt that any man, let alone a boy like you, could be so magnificently hung. Oh, it is also such joy to me to think I have first taught you the real joys of coition, and tasted the first sweets of that most glorious weapon. My dear Charlie, I must contemplate its beauties in this full light; withdraw the dear fellow and turn on your back."

I did so. She rose, and turning in the reverse position, brought her lovely foaming cunt right down on my mouth. I sucked up all the delicious foam oozing from the aperture. Then drawing into my mouth her half-stiffened clitoris, which was then pendant like a little boy's cock, I soon sucked it into its utmost rigidity, frigging her rich pouting cunt with two fingers, the while. She, on her part, was not idle, first playing with my prick, covering and uncovering its head, which soon made it stand up in all of its glory. She was profuse and loud in its praises. Then getting too excited for mere admiration, she took it in her mouth and sucked it, and manipulated it with one hand, fingering my codpiece with the other. I then found her fingers were feeling and tickling my bottom-hole. She took her mouth from off my prick, and paused a moment; then again applied her finger to my fundament, and made it gently penetrate as far as it would go. The previous pause had evidently been for the purpose of moistening her finger with her saliva that it might slip in easily. I was delighted to find that she had come to this, but pretending ignorance, I stopped my proceedings to ask her what she was doing to my bottom, which could give me such exquisite delight.

"It is my finger, my dear Charles, my late husband was always delighted with my doing this, and used also to add greatly to my pleasure by doing the same to me."

"Shall I do so to you, dear mamma?"

"Oh, yes, my darling boy; moisten your finger first and then do it in my bottom-hole, as you have been doing it in my cunt."

"But I think I can do both at the same time, they are so close together."

"You are a delightful darling; do so, and it will be double pleasure to me."

So I immediately commenced to postillion her to her and my extreme gratification. We soon spent with the utmost delight, and both swallowed all we could get, continuing our suctions until the passions of both were again excited. I now declared I must fuck her again in the kneeling position, in which she had before given me such exquisite pleasure. As she drew a little higher up, I flung my arms round her fine backside, and glued my lips to her bottom-hole, and thrust my tongue in and out.

"Oh, Charles, dear, what are you doing? Oh! how delightful."

And she wriggled her backside over my mouth in a most voluptuous and lascivious way.

"Oh, rise my darling, and fuck me; you have made me so very lewd."

I drew myself up on my knees behind her, and was into her with wild ferocity that made her cry out with joy as she felt the mighty instrument rush within her. I stooped and frigged her clitoris at her desire, but wishing to contemplate the glorious movement of her backside I begged her to frig herself that I might be able to do so. Seizing hold of her lips, I drew her splendid bottom off and on my stiff and glowing prick with such immense delight to her that she went off and spent profusely, the hot stream bathing my delighted prick. But having already fucked Ellen so shortly before, and having spent twice at the present time, I remained for a while quiet, with mamma's exquisite cunt deliriously throbbing round it to the infinite enjoyment of my cock. I stooped and nibbled with my fingers at one of her nipples. I played with and frigged her very fine clitoris, which was soon in stiff-standing excitement again. Being cool myself, I soon worked her up into the wildest state of excitement by my frigging and the throbbings of my prick, aided with occasional long slowly drawn-out movements, and then as slowly regaining ground until within the last three inches, when it was thrust vigourously forward, and kept there for her convulsive pressures on it. I kept this up until she was almost wild with lust, and cried out for more vigorous movements. I did not immediately comply, but continued my exciting proceedings until she bit the pillow in the madness of her lust. Then I drove on fast and furious, amid cries of delight and ecstasy on her part, until the grand crisis overtook us both at the same instant in a perfect fury and agony of delight. I had previously left the frigging to herself, and had seized her lips and enjoyed the glorious sight of the furious contortions of her bottom under the excessive lubricity of her wildly excited lasciviousness. She died away in such excess of ecstasy that she would have fallen on her belly but for the grip I had upon her hips, and the pressure with which I drew back her glorious bottom against my belly. I threw back my head in the agony of delight, and brayed like a donkey as I had done once before when fucking the luscious Frankland, and felt the three pointed entrance to her womb close upon and nibble at the point of my prick so delightfully, just as dear Ellen's had done in the wood. As I came to my senses I spoke to dear mamma, and found that she too had fainted away, and was quite insensible to everything but the convulsive inner movements of her delicious cunt. I withdrew and laid her gently down on her side, bringing a tumbler of water, a sponge, and towel, I opened her splendid thighs, sponged and bathed her cunt, which showed but little of the torrent of sperm I had just poured into it. I then sprinkled her face, and she came to with a deep sigh. Her first utterance was to bless me for the joy I had given her, which was in fact too much, and then she burst into tears and became quite hysterical. I thought it odd that I should have produced the same effect upon her more accustomed and more developed organs as I had done on dear Ellen. I comforted her in my boyish way, and asked how it was that the effect should have been different from anything she had previously experienced with me.

"Ah! my dear boy," she said, with a deep sigh, "you have caused me such extreme sensations that I fear you must have got me with child, you seemed to penetrate my very womb, and to excite me far beyond anything I ever previously remember."

"My loved mamma, can I possibly get a child?"

"Get a child, indeed!" she replied. "Yes, a dozen, with such a great monster of a cock, that so excites us poor women."

I embraced her most tenderly, and said I was so happy to think I should be the father of a child of hers.

"Alas! my dear boy, it may be joy to you, but what a sorrow it will be to me if such should be the case; think how I should lose position in the world if it should be known, and even if by going abroad I could hide my shame from the public, still what shifts and contrivances I should be put to to ensure secrecy; but never mind, my darling, I would run twice such risk to enjoy your person, and secure your affection; you must ever cherish and love me, my Charlie, for I risk good name and fame for you; but now I must be gone, or we shall be sought for; try and sleep a little, my dear boy, for I am sure you need it after your exertions, and remember you must gain strength to renew them this night."

She kissed me lovingly, rose, put on her things and left me to repose. But I could not help thinking of what she had said about fearing that that peculiar fuck in which she had fainted portended fructification. If so, I thought dear Ellen will probably be in the same predicament, for the result was precisely the same with her. I may here observe that mamma's fears became certainties, both in her case and Ellen's.

Eventually they both left the country together, when staying would have brought on discovery. And, curiously enough, they were both delivered of daughters on the same day. Of both I was the happy father, although Harry had the credit of Ellen's child, but she herself always asserted to me that it was the delicious fuck in the wood that did the mischief. And from the peculiar effect produced on both mothers on that day, I never had any doubt of the real paternity, besides, the child grew up my very image. Mamma's daughter was superbly developed when she became a young woman. She had even a larger clitoris than Miss Frankland, with which she absolutely deflowered her sister's cousin at the age of fourteen. I may also incidentally observe that at the age of fifteen I had both their maidenheads, as far as the male sex was concerned. And Harry and I often fucked them together in every way; and my darling daughter with her long and large clitoris has often fucked my bottom, while I was doing the same to her sister, with Harry below fucking her whom he believed to be his daughter. But this belongs to my latter experiences, and has nothing to do with the present period of my life, though, perhaps, I may be tempted hereafter to enter into all the details of my middle age and later experiences.

Dear reader, pardon me this digression. To resume, I slept soundly for an hour, then rose, and strolled in the garden with Harry, who related to me how he had taken advantage of mamma's occupation to steal into Ellen's room. She had been much afraid, the sly pussey, to allow him to enter again, but when once he got within, and she found it did not hurt her, but the contrary, she got extremely lewd, and they had two splendid fucks. Then stealing along to my door to peep as to how we were getting on, we so excited them again that he had another from behind, while she stooped and peeped all the time, for it was when I was fucking mamma from behind, on my knees, and they concluded it would be our last for the present. When they had brought matters to a finish they separated, and mamma had found Ellen fast asleep.

"But, by Jove, Charlie," said Harry, "how splendid mother fucks, I quite envied you, and I shall never rest until I get into her myself; how gloriously she wriggles her backside, and how lusciously she enjoys fucking; to be sure such a mighty prick as yours is enough to stir up every passion; it astonished, and I think made Ellen more lewd, although she is sure she could never take in such a monster."

I smiled at thinking how easily the very youngest of the fair sex deceives us, but I took care not to let Harry know my opinion.

We re-entered for dinner, and spent a pleasant evening, which was the forerunner to the delights of the night. Mamma came as soon as she thought Ellen fast asleep, which Ellen took very good care should soon be the case. In a moment, she was quite naked, and clasped to my equally naked body. I had been expecting her, and thinking over the delights of our last fuck, so that I was rampant before her arrival. She was equally eager for the fray, and at it we went hammer and tongs, and soon brought the first bout to a close, in mutual "ah's!" and "oh's!" of delight. We soaked for some time in the delicious enjoyment. Then mamma scolded both herself and me for our precipitation, saying that we threw away all the luxury and abandon of fucking when we went at it in such haste; it was in that way mere animal instinct, and wanted all the lascivious delight of lubricity and skill in fucking. She said, now that the edge was taken off our appetites, we must begin again with a mutual gamahuche. She rose first to piddle, and allowed me to see the rush of water from her delicious cunt. Then lighting two more candles, she placed two at the foot of the bed, and two at the head, by which we should both have the advantage of seeing all we were caressing. Then I lay down on my back, and she mounted on me, in reverse, thus bringing her bottom down over my face. I thrust my tongue up her cunt, and licked up the delicious spunk oozing down from the inside. Her piddle had washed all away from the pouting lips. Then taking her charming clitoris in my mouth, I sucked it up to its greatest stiffness. I had thrust three fingers into her cunt, and when I found she had thrust hers into my bottom, I transferred them all into her beautiful pink bum-hole. They were very greasy from my sperm coming down upon them when in her cunt, and as she favoured their entrance by pushing out her bottom, all three slipped in, without, apparently, her thinking it was more than one. I was delighted to see how easily it stretched out, for this gave me great ground to hope that I should be able to manage to get my large pego within, which I was fully resolved upon doing, but it required a little artfulness to do so without raising her suspicions that it was no new road to me. She brought matters to a conclusion much as before, and when re-excited, mamma proposed to teach me a new way, which was by her mounting on me, and staking herself on my standing pego. Like others before her, she did not stoop down upon me until she had made herself spend where she was, while I saved myself for further fucking.

When she died off, she sank on my bosom. I clasped her waist with one arm, sucked the bubby nearest my mouth, and reaching round my other arm, I brought my hand over her bottom to the delightful orifice, first moistening my finger with her spending which was oozing out between the lips of her cunt and my standing prick. I thrust my finger into her bottom-hole, and worked it in and out, to her infinite satisfaction. She cried out in the excess of her lewdness—

"Oh! my dear boy, that is just as my dear husband used to do, and it gave me great pleasure, but not near so much as you do, for your dear prick is twice as large as his was, and fills me with an excess of pleasure which was never approached with him."

All this led up to a superb and lascivious fuck, in which we both died away in mutual ecstasy, with cries of voluptuousness, and then lay soaking in delight until her weight forced me to beg her to turn on her side. We then had a long sweet chat of love. Turning the talk on her suspicions of having got with child at the morning prayers, I remarked that she had had only one child by her husband, and as he had lived many years after Harry's birth, and from what she said, she had continued to be enjoyed by him, it was, therefore, not probable she would now be got in the family-way.

"That appears probable, my dear boy, but then he took precaution not to get any more children."

"But what precautions could he take, and how did he do so?"

"You are a curious boy, but I shall tell you. He used to continue long at it, making me spend two or three times before he did, and then when he felt it coming he used to withdraw, and his prick being all moist, he would slip it into my bottom, and spend there as soon as ever he got the head of it inside."

"And did that give you any pleasure, mamma?"

"He had excited me, and made me spend several times before he did so; and beyond slight irritation I did not feel much pleasure, as he was generally so near the crisis that he could scarce do more than get its head in when off he went.

"Did he ever get it in altogether—and then did it give you pleasure?"

"Sometimes he did when he had drawn it out of my cunt too soon; in such cases he used to pause until by rubbing my clitoris he got me into a renewed state of lewdness, and then the pleasure was peculiar and great."

"Oh, my dear, mamma, you must let me too fuck you in that way, and then you know we shall get no children."

"My darling Charlie, it is impossible that this great big thing could ever get into that orifice, my late husband's was not half your size, and he had great difficulty unless I had already spent three or four times and relaxed all those parts. I should not dare to let you attempt it."

"Oh, yes my darling mamma, you will let me just get its point in and spend there. I should so like to try. We will fuck two or three times first, and then after the third time I shall frig you till you spend first, and so I shall be ready just to put in the point for you to try how it feels."

"But, my dear boy, the least throb on my part will push it out, unless it is in over the nut, and only look what a size it is. I can hardly grasp it, and although it is so velvety it is quite hard. Oh, the dear fellow, let me kiss it, and then do you fuck me again, my darling."

She bent her body, gave me a delicious suck, then throwing herself on her back, and opening her beautiful thighs, invited me to mount her. Before doing so I also bent and sucked her charming and well-developed clitoris, until she squealed again with pleasure, and begged me to put it to her. I threw myself on her belly, and with one vigorous shove drove my rampant prick up to the hilt, making her all shake again. She was so hotly wound up that she spent with the single shove, and poured a flood of hot liquid over my delighted prick. I, too, would have gone off in two more thrusts had she not thrown her arms and legs around me, and slipping her hands over my buttocks, held me tight pressed against the pouting and greedy lips of her salacious cunt as if she would shove in ballocks, buttocks and all, if it were possible. So keeping it tightly thrust in up to the lowest hair, which lay all crushed between us, I let her indulge in all the delight of perfect conjunction, responding to her delicious throbbing cunt with powerful throbs of my own highly excited prick. For more than a quarter of an hour did she lie panting and convulsively sobbing in the perfect ecstasy of enjoyment. At last she drew my mouth down to hers, and thrust her sweet tongue into my mouth; I sucked it, and her hands relaxing the pressure of my buttocks, against her cunt, I began a slow in and out movement that soon renewed her utmost lubricity. Most actively and divinely did she second me with an art quite her own. Fast and furious grew our movements, until, like all things human, they came to an end in a death-like agony of delight, in which my very soul seemed to take flight, and we lay all unconscious, for I don't know how long, enjoying all those exquisite after-delights which a prick soaking in the cunt of a beautiful and lewd woman so enchantingly confers. When we recovered, we rolled over sideways, and still intertwined and conjoined in the sweet priapic bonds, we lay billing and cooing with all those soft loving murmurings and bitings so befitting such moments. At last both were again ready, and longing for the fight. I proposed the delicious kneeling position. She saw at once my object, and said I was a little traitor, who wanted to surprise her bottom-hole.

"But, my darling boy, it is really impossible."

I embraced, flattered, cajoled, and implored her until at last she promised that if I would engage on honour not to go further, she would try and support the entrance of my prick as far as over the nut, but that I must really withdraw it if it was too painful for her. So these preliminaries being arranged, she got into position. First stooping to lick out her delicious cunt, and give a suck or two at her charming clitoris, I brought my eager prick to the pouting and longing lips of her delicious cunt, and after two or three rubs, thrust it in with a rush that made my belly smack against her glorious backside. We then lay quiet, throbbing mutually in the luxury of voluptuousness. I passed a hand under her belly, and frigging her clitoris quickly, made her come in an ecstasy of delight. I only gave her time for one or two throbs of my prick, and knowing that nothing so much delights a lecherous woman as quick movements almost immediately after spending, I commenced rapid series of thrusts, shoving my prick well up to the hilt every time, and talking grossly all the while, such as—

"Does not that shove make you quiver? There you have it to the ballocks in your lascivious and delicious cunt," &c.

She grew madly lewd, called me her own dear delightful fucker.

"Yes, yes; I feel it is up to the root. I have it well in, my dear boy. Your dear, great big prick, it kills me—kills—kills me—with—joy. Oh! oh! oh!"

She squealed again with all the lewdness of the most delicious spend. She had hardly gone off, and was yet in all the throes of delight when I, too, feeling I could hold out no longer, suddenly withdrew the reeking shaft, and bringing it to bear against the corrugated and beautiful orifice of her bottom, attempted to introduce it.

Notwithstanding the fury of my excitement, I was sufficiently gentle to push in without force, and sheathed it over the nut without difficulty or drawing a murmur from dear mamma, who fulfilled her promise, and did her utmost to help me by pushing out her big bum, and offering no resistance with her sphincter muscles. I was so highly wound up that even if I had promised to be content with the insertion of the head, I could not have gone on further, as the access seized me with such killing sweetness that I melted away, shooting a torrent of sperm far up into her entrails, and then losing all power of even the slightest further thrusts. I suppose it was the long holding back to let mamma spend two or three times that had wrought me up to such a high pitch of nervous excitement that when I spent I seemed to lose all power of further advance. This was the first time I ever felt this momentary impuissance, but it was by no means the last; it generally follows the holding back your spending powers in the fuck that leads to it. The delicious throbbings of dear mamma's luscious cunt, which were repeated in her arms, soon reawakened my momentarily dormant powers. My prick had gone down more than usual, so that it was only a soft half stiffness that ensued, but enough to enable me to give it a forward movement, and it slipped almost imperceptibly in quite as far as he could go before dear mamma had recovered from the ecstasy of her last discharge. As she came to, I continued convulsively catching my breath, as if I were still in that exquisite sensation of half consciousness. I felt her pass her hand between her thighs, and heard her murmur—

"Why, I declare he is up to the hilt!"

Her gentle touch on my cods, which she took in her hand and fondly caressed, made my prick stiffen sensibly. She felt this, and caressed them more until she made it stand as stiff as ever, still imbedded to the utmost in that delicious bottom, which by its increased throbbings, seemed rather to welcome the stranger than repulse him. I pretended now to recover my full consciousness, and cried out—

"Oh, where am I? I have never known such heavenly joy."

She raised her face up from the pillow—

"Why, you naughty boy, you have actually gone in up to the hilt; ah, you have broken your promise; but I forgive you, only don't move yet."

I assured her I did not know how it got there, as I had spent and lost consciousness as soon as ever his head was within.

Here I throbbed, and was met by as delicious a pressure. I passed my hand round her belly, and found her clitoris stiff and excited. I rubbed with the fingers of the other hand at one of her hard projecting nipples. She soon grew madly lewd, and began a side wriggle on my rampant prick. I lay still, determined to let her passions demand movement of my part. I had not to wait long. She begged me to try a gentle movement, I obeyed, and slowly withdrew but a short way, and as slowly returned. Soon her lubricity got beyond all bounds. She begged me to draw out further and somewhat quicker—then quicker and quicker, until we both were in an excess of furious lust, which knew no bounds. We rushed on to the final crisis with mutual cries of agonised delight; indeed, mamma squealed so loud that I afterwards thought she must have been heard. Her pleasure was of the wildest, and when I poured a flood of sperm up her entrails at the very moment she herself was spending, we both fell forward and fainted away. I was too much lost in ecstatic joy myself to observe this, but lay long a tightly held prisoner engulphed in that most exquisite joygiving aperture. At last I became aware that mamma had really fainted. So drawing my prick out with somewhat of a good pull, for he was most tightly held, and came out with a flop, I rose and brought some water to mamma. I sprinkled her face, and she opened her eyes, which beamed the intensest love upon me. Her lips murmured something, I put the tumbler to her mouth, she drank with avidity. Then looking at me again with the most loving expression, she said—

"My darling boy, you will kill me with delight. Never—oh, never—have I known such joy. It was too much for me, and I fear I am also injuring you. We must be more moderate in future. Help me up, for I must rise. Your last coup requires me to absent myself for a few minutes."

She rose, threw her robe over her shoulders, and left the room to go to the water closet. I hoped that she would not go into her own room and discover how matters were going on there. Fortunately she was afraid of awakening Ellen, and so prevent our continuing bedfellows for the rest of the night. She returned. I had purified myself in the meantime, and now acted as her femme de chambre, and laved all the parts.

"My dear boy, we must not do this again for some time, do you know I have passed blood, and was very sore when relieving myself."

We got again into bed. She would not allow of any further fuckings, but tenderly embracing me, and putting my head on her bosom, we soon fell asleep. She awoke me at dawn with kissing me and feeling my stiff-standing pego. She laid herself on her back, and we had two most delicious fucks without withdrawing. I knew that if I did withdraw she would take herself off. Nevertheless, she took most kindly to the second, as it would be our last until we had another opportunity of meeting. She exerted all her wonderful skill and her movements were of astounding agility. She twined herself round me almost serpent-like. Our mouths and tongues were equally engaged, and the final crisis was beyond description exquisite. I tried hard for a third course, but we had already prolonged our sports to so dangerous an hour, for we could hear them opening the lower window shutters, that she gave me a sweet kiss of thanks and tore herself away. I lay thinking over the joys of that ecstatic night, and then rose and dressed quickly, as we were to breakfast and then walk home, where we were expected at nine o'clock. However, after breakfast, mamma drew me into her sanctum, a house store-room, to give me some directions. Of course, no sooner was she there, than pushing her towards the table, I canted up her petticoats over back, and gave her a good fuck, getting in from behind. She yielded with a good grace, notwithstanding her protestations that it was not for that she had come, as if it had been for anything else! Oh! woman, woman! how thou seekest to deceive, even when gaining the very object thou hast in view.

Harry told me they had peeped in and seen what we were at but he was not so ready as me, and had not been able to go and do likewise.

We loitered all too long, and did not get back to school until after ten o'clock. The doctor sternly ordered us to attend him in his sanctum at twelve o'clock. We knew what that meant—a good flogging, and then the doctor enjoying the account of our successes. At twelve o'clock we entered the doctor's room, who followed us immediately after. He scolded us sternly for being late, and said he meant to flog us both well for our idleness and, he had no doubt, debauchery. We knew immediately that he meant to lay on. From time to time he was fond of really seriously flogging some one and we now saw that such was his present intention, although we also knew it would end in an orgie, after we had excited him sufficiently by recounting the details of the fucking which he no doubt felt certain had taken place. He made us all strip, and choosing to take Harry first he made me the horse to flog him on. When all was ready, he began by some real sharp cuts on Harry's backside, and then commenced his remarks.

"So, young gentleman, you have been seducing your cousin, have you?"—whack—whack—whack—"and then making that the excuse for neglecting your school." Whack, whack, whack. "I thought I had formerly whipped out all idea about fucking your cousin." Whack, whack, whack.

Poor Harry writhed in real pain.

"Oh, sir, I'll never do it again without your leave."

"My leave indeed!" Whack, whack, whack.

The doctor now laid on for some time most unmercifully until the revolution of pain turned to lubricity, and Harry's cock began to stand, rapping fiercely at my bottom as he writhed under the sharp infliction of the rod. Upon seeing the expected effect, the doctor relaxed his severity, and changing the rod to his other hand, afterwards only tickled the bottom to keep up the excitement. Taking hold of the standing prick, he said—

"So this is the article that has been doing all the mischief."

He frigged it a little, stooped and gave it a suck.

"Ah, yes, I find it still tastes of cunt, and smells the true odour of it; so you have been at it this morning again. Let me hear how it happened."

Here Harry was let go. The doctor seated himself, Harry stood before him, while the doctor in delight, handled his stiff-standing pego.

"Now, let me hear."

"Well, sir, when Charlie occupied mamma—"

"Oh, that is it, is it?" cried the doctor, "we shall have all that out of him, by and by, go on."

"I slipped into Ellen. She made some difficulty for fear mamma should catch us; but I took her and showed her through the key hole, how she was having Charlie into her. Ellen was astonished at Charlie's immense size, and seeing how easily and delightedly mamma accommodated him, she thought that my smaller size could not hurt her, and she let me do it. But I made her scream and bleed when I got in far enough to reach her maidenhead. She tried to shake me off, but I was too firmly seated for that, and I fucked her then, and again before I withdrew. I laved her cunt and applied some glycerine, and this morning did it again without hurting her any more. And she liked it so much that afterwards she would kiss and suck it, and made me spend in her mouth, and then got me up again for a final go."

"Upon my honour, a very pretty affair," cried the doctor. "Now suck my prick, as she sucked yours."

This Harry did, till the doctor was rampant. He then made him cease, but ordered me to mount on Harry's back. I knew I should catch it sharp, as the doctor was just excited enough to wish to be more so. And preciously he gave it me—interpolating questions as to how I had accomplished my wicked ends. I told him it was his own advice to me to let her see my prick, which I did, and the bait took.

Whack—whack—whack.

"And did you act this innocent sin?"

"Oh, yes! do spare me, sir, and don't lay on so hard."

Whack—whack—whack.

"Spare you, indeed! and how did she fuck?"

"Oh, most splendidly, sir."

Whack—whack—whack.

"How often did you do it?"

"I hardly know, sir; we were at it all night, and again this morning."

"Did she suck your prick?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

Whack—whack—whack.

"What did she think of it?"

"She said it was the finest she had ever seen, and that I must keep it for her only."

"Well, that will do, now suck my prick, as she did yours."

He was soon excited up to the top of his bent. He made Harry take the rod, and belabour his backside, and I had to stoop over the table, while he fucked and frigged me, repeating all the time the account we had given him of our fucking. After he spent, he dismissed us, having gained his object. Shortly before our Christmas holidays commenced, dear Mrs. Dale informed me, while sleeping with her one Saturday night, that she found from the stoppage of certain things, she was in the family-way by this sad rogue of a fellow, taking my large though at the moment soft and inert instrument into her caressing hand.

"Oh, my darling mamma, is it so indeed?"

My prick rose to bursting point at the very idea, and in an instant I was on her, and we ran a most delicious course, in which both died away in rapturous insensibility. Being thus cooled, mamma began to discuss the probabilities, and what ought to be done, if it should turn out as she feared. She explained to me that as yet she could not speak with certainty, but remembering the fainting on the first night, and the cessation of her monthlies, the nature of which she explained to me, little dreaming that I was perfectly au fait of the whole matter, she had every reason to dread that her fears where too well founded. This would make it necessary for her to go abroad, when she would be so far advanced as to be likely to draw observation. But she said it would not do to distress ourselves about that until we were more certain of the event. However, the very idea nerved me to renewed efforts, and again, and again, we rushed into all the ecstasies of passion in every form and way, especially did I gamahuche and suck up her precious balm, and in like manner she, too, sucked me until exhausted nature laid us both in the lap of Morpheus. We renewed our delightful pastimes when morning light awoke us after our refreshing slumbers. Several times during the Sunday we adjourned to mamma's bedroom for the same purpose, and again had a glorious night of it before separating on the Monday morning. The following Sunday, after another Saturday night of bliss, we all went over to church, which heavy rain had prevented on the previous week, and after service went to the rectory for luncheon. Here, in course of conversation, Mrs. Dale mentioned that business would require her presence in London for some days, and that she proposed starting on the following Thursday, which was the day after our breaking up for the holidays. She said also that she would take her son with her to London. The doctor here observed that he, too, must go to London, to see a gentleman who had some idea of sending his son to the rectory, and if Mrs. Dale could defer the departure until Saturday, it would be very agreeable to him to be her companion on the journey. This was readily acceded to, and my dear aunt, who guessed to what this tended, and who had herself taken a great fancy to Ellen, and longed to embrace her young charms and gamahuche her, chimed in with a proposal that as the dear girl would thus be left quite alone, she would be most happy if she would accept her invitation to occupy the bedroom that opened out of her own room during Mrs. Dale's absence. The latter, who little dreamt of my connection with her dear niece, and thought that the protection of my aunt would be a safeguard to her, jumped at the invitation, and expressed her gratification and thanks for so kind a consideration on my aunt's part. I have not alluded to Harry all this time, but of course, whenever his mother and I were occupied in amorous alliance, he was equally engaged in the same delicious pastime with Ellen. And, I may add, that once or twice I had seized a favourable opportunity of gratifying the little lecherous creature with what she called a feast of my noble prick. She, of course, was delighted at my aunt's proposition as she at once foresaw how she would have me all to herself for more than a week. A single glance from her explained all this; and when, on leaving, she found an opportunity of taking my hand, her pressure of it was most eloquent. So all parties were delighted, for Harry, when we got together alone said—"By Jove, Charlie, I am so jolly glad; I'll bet you anything I'll fuck my mother before I come back. You know how I long to be in the delicious cunt that bore me; the moment I heard she meant to take me with her, my cock stood ready to burst."

My uncle, too, who also longed to fuck Mrs. Dale, had his intentions in that direction favoured by the arrangement concluded. The following night, when I was in bed with aunt and him, in the interval of a charming little orgie, and after fucking me while I was in aunt's bottom, and for the moment he could do no more, the conversation turned on the coming journey. He expressed the pleasure he felt at the opportunity it gave him of indulging in a long desired object. The lecherous old fellow also alluded to a future opportunity it would give him of enjoying the younger charms of the niece.

"Of course, you and my dear wife between you will break her in to allow of any action on my part; and, by the way, my dear, I would suggest that you should surprise Charlie in the act, and tear them asunder in pretended rage—that Charlie should seize you, and say he would make you by force a participator in the act, on the pretence of shutting you up for finding fault: you must break from his arms, and fly to your own bed, he must catch you as you try to enter it, and push his great big cock into you, on which you must cry for help, and call upon Ellen to come to your succour; she will come, but I do not judge her right, if she will not rather assist Charlie, by holding you, than otherwise. You must afterwards appear much offended; but it may be safely left to the influence of Charlie's great prick to reconcile you to the incest, then relaxing, as if gained over by it, you can join in their sports."

Thus this admirable man, with his great knowledge of the world and sex, gave us excellent advice, which, as I shall state in the sequel, we followed pretty exactly. Meanwhile aunt, excited by expectation, had taken my prick in her mouth, and sucked it into firmness, then mounting upon me, she began such an exciting action, wriggling her magnificent backside, that it fired my uncle anew. Finding his prick stood sufficiently stiff, he knelt between my legs, and greatly to the satisfaction of my darling aunt, gave her the double pleasure of two pricks fucking her at the same time, one before and the other behind.

My guardian had desired that I should continue with my uncle during the holidays, and I was to leave him altogether at the end of the next half. I did not know his object at the time, but I found that he himself went down to my mother, and stayed for a fortnight, paying great attention to Miss Frankland. He announced his wish that my sisters should go to a first-rate finishing school in London in the summer, and seeing Miss Frankland look somewhat disappointed, he sought an interview with her, and laid himself and his fortune at her feet; expressing a wish that if she accepted him, their marriage should take place on her separation from her pupils. This was too good an offer to be refused, and after the usual grimace of being perfectly unprepared for such a proposal, and desiring to have a day or two to consider it, she accepted the offer. I at once anticipated immense gratification from this connection. I should naturally, when in London, have every opportunity of enjoying that adorable creature, and it will be seen in the fourth volume of these memoirs, to what delicious orgies this connection led. You may be sure that my loved mistress, the adorable Benson, and the no less lascivious Egerton, would welcome so glorious a creature as Miss Frankland, at that time become Mrs. Nixon, and how the Count's eyes glistened, when he beheld her in all the majesty of her superb and hairy form; how the two women gamahuched her splendid clitoris, and how the Count and I strove which should most fully satisfy her lascivious and lustful passions. But all this will be seen in its proper place in the sequel.

Meanwhile the day arrived for the departure of uncle and Mrs. Dale, with Harry. As the coach passed through our village, Mrs. Dale drove over bringing Ellen with her, to leave her at the rectory, as arranged. All the proprieties were duly observed. They departed, Harry going outside, with only the doctor and Mrs. Dale in the interior, I squeezed my uncle's hand, and gave him a knowing look, which he returned, with a meaning wink—and off they went. When we returned to the house, and aunt took Ellen up to the room adjoining her own, with which there was a door of communication, and which, I have before observed, had been made use of by uncle on more than one occasion. When they came downstairs, with kind consideration, for she could see by the protrusion in my trousers the state I was in, aunt said—

"My dear, I have some household duties to arrange, so you must excuse me; meanwhile Charlie will show you our grounds, and amuse you for an hour or two. When luncheon is ready I shall order the large bell to be rung for you."

Ellen had not yet removed her bonnet, and taking up her shawl, we sallied out. You may be sure we lost no time in reaching the summer house, already known to you as arranged for and dedicated to the service of Venus. A fire was always kept laid, which I immediately lighted, but as it was a bright sunny day, and the place looked south, it was not at all cold. While I was occupied at the fire, Ellen threw off her bonnet and shawl, and undid her belt—she wore no stays. I seized her in my arms, and gently laid her on the couch—her petticoats were freely canted up, showing her beautiful belly and now more fully fledged cunt. I stooped and gamahuched her at once. She was so excited that in two minutes she sighed deeply, pressed my head down to the lips of her cunt, and gave down her sweet and balmy sperm. I myself was already so rampant that not waiting to lick it up, I brought my huge pego to the charming orifice, and plunged in one effort up to the hilt, quite taking away her breath. But she recovered herself in an instant, and with all the energy of her younger lubricity, quickly brought us both to the grand final ecstasy in which soul and body seem to die away in a joy too great for poor humanity to bear. We remained locked in each other's embrace, and lost to all around for some time. On coming to our senses I rose, and said we must go to work more lasciviously the next time. The fire having burnt up, and the room being small, it was already of a pleasant temperature. So begging Ellen to strip, I threw off my own clothes, and we quickly stood in all the beauty of nature, admiring each other. Some delicious preliminaries preceded our next encounter, which we procrastinated till passion could no longer be restrained, and again we died away in all the raptures of satisfied lust, and sank once more into the soft languor of the after-enjoyment. Next we had a mutual gamahuche, and then a final fuck for the present, as it was time to dress and be ready when called to luncheon. As soon as our toilets were finished, I took her on my knee, and told her how I should steal along to her bedroom at night, so that she must not lock her door. I told her also that we must be as quiet as possible, as aunt slept in the next room. She was delighted with the prospect of having me all to herself for the whole night, naively telling me that I gave her so much more pleasure than Harry did, that I seemed to fill her whole body with a joy almost too intense, and now that she was to have me every night, she hoped her aunt would stay away for a month. Here the dear creature threw her arms round my neck, and kissing me, thrust her sweet little tongue into my mouth. You may be sure I reciprocated, and putting a hand up her petticoats, and a finger up her charming little cunt, was just about to turn her on the sofa, when my aunt opened the door, and stopped further proceedings. She pretended not to see Ellen's confusion, hoped I had amused her, and told us to return to the house, as luncheon was ready. We, of course, obeyed. With sharpened appetites, produced by our late warm exercise, we indulged in a plenteous meal, aunt taking care to ply me with Champagne, for which, as may well be imagined, she had her object. She afterwards ordered me to my room, to do the daily task the doctor had set for me and which, as she said, she was to see to the doing of—giving me a sly wink.

"Ellen, my dear," she added, "you must keep up your practice at the piano daily, for an hour and a half at least."

She thus separated us. I went to my room, lay down, and fell fast asleep, but in about half an hour, was awakened by the warm embrace of my glorious and wantonly lustful aunt. She stooped down, and taking my limp prick in her mouth, rapidly sucked it into its accustomed firmness. As soon as that was accomplished, she begged me to rise and undress. She herself had come only in a loose morning dressing-gown, which she instantly threw off, and jumped on my bed, where she lay stark naked, in all the splendid development of her superb form. I was naked in a jiffey, but knowing she would want some extensive fucking, I threw myself upon her cunt, and gamahuched her until she spent twice before I mounted upon her, and introduced my large tool into her longing cunt. Here, also, I played with her, and did not spend myself until she had twice given down her own contribution. This encounter was on her belly, with her magnificent legs twisted above my loins for a fulcrum to her splendid action, for few women could equal her in the delicious wriggle of her glorious backside. After we had soaked for some time in all the ecstasies of the after-languor. I withdrew, to place her on her hands and knees for the next bout, but took advantage of her position to gamahuche her again into spending twice before I withdrew my insidious tongue. Then turning round, and gazing in rapture on that most noble and massive bottom, which, as I have before remarked, I never saw equalled by any woman, I stooped, and closely embraced and kissed its divine orifice, tickling her into wild excitement by thrusting my tongue therein, so much so that she begged me to fuck her at once. I mounted behind, her hand passed under her belly and guided me into her throbbing hot and longing cunt. I gave one violent lunge, and sent my prick at the first thrust up to the hilt. This so excited the dear creature that in one or two delicious wriggles on my stationary prick, and with a pressure that seemed as if it would nip it off, she spent profusely, squealing all the time like a rabbit. I was very glad to give her so many discharges, without myself being forced to spend, for I wished to be able to do my duty by Ellen at night. Aunt lay for several minutes panting and throbbing on my prick most deliciously, until I could no longer bear to be inactive, although the pleasure of looking down on the glorious and palpitating orbs below me had given me the greatest satisfaction. But now stooping down upon her, I passed one hand under to excite her clitoris, and with the other took hold of one of her beautiful large and hard bubbies, and began manipulating its nipples—a proceeding most powerfully exciting to dear auntie. It awoke all her lust and the dear lascivious creature again spent before I was ready to follow suit. The pause that followed allowed my excitement to subside a little, and enabled me to hold out until her lust recovered its wonted energy. She again, with her pressures and movements, soon compelled me to more rapid action, but this time I determined to enjoy the exquisite delights of her delicious bottom-hole. So when she became very hot, I suddenly withdrew, and, happily, hitting at once on the delicious orifice, plunged at the first thrust up to the cods, taking dear aunt's breath away, but she instantly recovered, and loving sodomy to her heart's core, I could not have done anything better suited to her libidinous passions. It was glorious to see the energy with which she met and responded to my thrusts, her superb buttocks working with surprising energy, and giving me, at each stroke, when I buried my prick to the hilt, the most exciting pressures. Both being so lustfully excited, matters were not long in coming to the final ecstasy. I felt as if my whole soul was poured into her, when with loud cries of the liveliest enjoyment, I spent with fury, in the very heart of her entrails. She was perfectly overcome with delight, and sank senseless on her belly, dragging me down with her, for her grip by the sphincter was too strong to let anything out that was within. We both became insensible to everything but the delicious death-like languor of the after-enjoyment. We lay long in this trance of joy, and when dear auntie came to her senses, she begged me to rise, as she must go downstairs. I did so, and when she rose from the bed, she took me in her loving arms, and kissing me tenderly, thanked me for the enormous pleasure I had given her, and said no one in the world was my equal, and that I ought to thank her much, that she allowed any one else to participate in my exquisite power of fuck. She gathered up her gown, and left me to dress. I soon was downstairs, and found Ellen, who looked as if she expected me to find an opportunity to fuck her at once. But after the encounters I had already had, both with her and with aunt, though I had kept myself from excess with the latter, I felt no inclination to press matters again to a conclusion, especially seeing that I intended passing the night with her. So assuring her we should be likely to be caught if imprudent and so lose all chance of night work, she was satisfied to be quiet and reasonable. Aunt coming in, we spent the afternoon in pleasant conversation, and a walk together in the garden. After dinner I fell sound asleep on the sofa. The two women, each with the same object, left me to my deep repose, and only awoke me when it was time for all to retire. Thus refreshed, I was all ready for the night's work before me. I allowed half an hour to elapse, that all the house might to be in their bedrooms, and then, with merely a loose dressing-gown on, I stole along to dear Ellen's room, opened the door and entered. She was already in bed, impatient for my arrival; she had left both lights burning, as well as a cheerful blaze from a good fire. I dropped my robe, and was in an instant stark naked, and in her longing arms. Under our mutual impatience, our first was a rapid course. Then followed a long enjoyment of the after-languor, and then a more prolonged and rapturous embrace. After soaking in bliss for some time, we rose, and I posed her before the fire, gazing delightedly on all her young charms. The hair on her cunt had become much more developed than before, her bosom too was filled out, even her hips and bottom seemed enlarged, doubtless owing to the fucking she had had since I first knew her, which naturally hastened her ripening into womanhood. I grew very excited by this inspection of her increasing charms, and determined to have a fuck on the rug before the fire. In order to enjoy it the more, I drew forward a cheval glass, projected it forward, and lying down, directed her to move it until I was satisfied I could see all the play of her bottom in the position I meant to fuck her. So lying down on my back, I made her stride across my head and settle down on her knees, and bringing forward her delicious little cunt over my mouth, I gamahuched her until she had twice given down her balmy essence. Then she shifted her position lower down, until just above my prick, which by this time was rampant with desire. I guided its point to the rosy-lipped orbit, and bringing her own weight to bear upon it, she sank delightfully impaled upon the upright stake. I made her rise and fall a few times, that I might enjoy the sight of its entrance and exit. Then gently drawing her down upon me, I folded one arm round her slender waist, and turning my head, found that the cheval glass, inclined forward, reflected as it were from above her beautiful bottom and back, and of course her cunt stretched to the utmost with my huge prick, and above it the sweet little corrugated pink aperture of her bottom. With my free arm I embraced one hip, and bringing my hand round, moistened it with the plenteous spunk of her cunt, and insinuated a finger into the smaller abode of bliss. Her excitement grew furious, and knew no bounds. The action of her backside was glorious to see reflected in its active risings and fallings. I let her do all the work, which enabled me to hold back my own, until she approached a second discharge, when the heat of her cunt seemed to fire me with additional powers, and the action of both our backsides became fast and furious, and soon brought down the ecstatic discharge, which instantly laid us low, panting with all the wild passions we had just allayed. We lay long locked in each other's arms in the ecstasy of blissful enjoyment. Then rising, we embraced tenderly, and retook us to bed. I would have excited her and myself to another effort, but she begged off, saying that she felt quite exhausted and overcome with the day and night's work we had already enjoyed. Indeed, I did not wonder at it, for I had made her spend seven or eight times more than myself. Nor did I regret her resolution, as I knew the morning would bring my aunt into the field, and then the two would try my powers to the utmost.

We slept profoundly, and morning was already advanced before we awoke. From a displaced chair I saw that aunt had been in to look at us, so I knew she was on the watch. I threw the clothes off dear Ellen that I might gaze on all her young charms. The want of covering awoke her. She lovingly looked up at me, and throwing her arms round my neck as I bent over her, drew my head down to hers, and impressed a loving kiss on my lips. Our tongues interlaced—a hand slipped down and encircled my rampant and throbbing prick. I turned, and placing my knees between her legs, was about to penetrate love's bower when the door leading to my aunt's room flew open. My aunt entered, gave a scream of surprise—well acted—and cried out—

"Good gracious! What do I see? Who would have thought it—"

And, apparently to save Ellen, she rushed forward, seized me by the arm, and with a certain degree of willingness on my part, drew me out of bed, saying—

"I am horrified beyond measure. How dare you commit such a sin and crime as to seduce a young girl under my care? Cover yourself up, sir, directly, and go to your own room."

I boldly declared I would do no such thing; on the contrary, as she had spoiled my sport with Ellen, I was determined she should pay for it herself.

"How dare you talk to me, you dreadful boy?"

"Not dreadful at all, dear aunt, look at this poor dumb thing, and see how he longs to be into you."

Upon this I seized her in my arms as if to throw her on the bed. She made a pretended struggle, during which she gave a tender squeeze to my rampant prick. Then, breaking from me, she fled to her own room, pretending to endeavour to shut the door in my face but taking care to give way and hasten towards her bed. I caught hold of her as she bent forward as if to get into it, and canting up her chemise, the only article of dress she wore, I was into her longing and luscious cunt from behind up to the hilt in one thrust. She gave a subdued scream, and called to Ellen to come and prevent me from violating her. Ellen came, but wisely would only look on while I worked away manfully.

"Ellen, why don't you pull him away—he is ravishing me—and oh, horror!—committing incest."

She pretended to struggle greatly, but cleverly did so to her own profit, by wriggling her backside so as to send me further up into her cunt.

"Oh, Ellen, Ellen, do help me."

"Ah, no," said Ellen, "I shall let him do it, and then you cannot tell upon me."

My aunt seemed greatly distressed at this, and actually managed to shed tears, then buried her face in the bed as if in despair, but all the time most actively seconding me. As the crisis drew near, she raised her head, and said—

"Heaven pardon me, this mere simple schoolboy is exciting me to such pleasure as I never before felt."

She then gave way to all her lubricity, and we brought matters to a crisis in the utmost ecstasy of enjoyment. Aunt's head sank on the bed, while the rapturous inward pressures of her cunt soon began to raise my prick to its pristine vigour. She felt its throbs and responded to them, but no doubt thinking that an immediate repetition would betray our previous intimacy, she turned her face and body suddenly round, and completely unseated me, my prick coming out with a plop. She began again to weep, women can do so at pleasure, and to scold me for the dreadful crime I had committed; to do so to her was incest—here followed sob upon sob. I threw my arms round her neck, and kissing her tears away, laid all the blame on that rampant fellow—taking her hand and placing it on my still stiff prick. She drew her hand away quickly, but not before she had given it a gentle squeeze. She told me I was a dreadful boy, and that I must go away and leave her and Ellen to think over what could be done in such an awful dilemma.

Here Ellen came forward, and tenderly kissing her begged her not to send me away.

"I do so love him, dear madam, and I do so long to have him now—it was so exciting to see him having you, that I shall die if you don't let me have him now."

"Dreadful! dreadful!" said aunt. "Why, I thought I was just in time to save you."

"Oh, no, he had slept with me all night, and has often had me before, but he was not the first who had me, so that there was no violation nor seduction."

"Then you must have seduced him, you wicked minx, for a more innocent boy never was known."

Poor Ellen, confounded at the accusation, repelled it as untrue, and said she knew well enough who seduced me.

Aunt for the moment felt this as a home thrust, for be it remembered, she fancied she had had my maidenhead.

"What do you mean by that? I insist upon you speaking out."

Ellen gave way and said it was Mrs. Dale who first had me.

"She had accidentally seen how powerfully Charlie was armed, and then could not resist teaching him how to use his weapon. I saw them doing it, and hence I longed for it myself. Look, dear madam, what a noble one it is. I am sure, if you had known of it, you could not yourself have resisted having it, try it, try it once more, and I am sure you will forgive us, and share our joys."

I seconded this good advice. Aunt seemed to be afraid of me, and jumped into bed. While she was on her hands and knees I also jumped up, and catching her round the waist, held her fast until I could also kneel behind her and bring my prick into play. With all her apparent attempt at resistance everything was done in such a way as to facilitate rather than prevent matters going forward. Of course I was in her in a moment, and then remained quiet for a few minutes to let her enjoy her inward pressures for which she was so famous. She had buried her head in the pillow, crying out—

"It is dreadful!—it is dreadful!"

Ellen came and leant over the bed embracing her, and telling her not to resist, but to take it in freely, and then she was sure it would give her the utmost pleasure.

"It is that which horrifies me, my dear, I never felt anything so exquisite in my life before, but then think of the sin—with my own nephew! it is quite an incestuous connection."

"What does that matter, dear aunt? for I shall call you aunt too, you are so loveable and so beautiful. Oh, it was such a pleasure to see him doing it to you and you are so gloriously fine a woman, I longed to be a man to have you."

She had embraced aunt's splendid bubbies, than which nothing could more please her, and now she begged to be allowed to suck one. Aunt gave way, and was delighted. She slipped the hand next to Ellen down to her charming cunt—Ellen opened her legs—Aunt's fingers began frigging her.

"Ah, my dear, how I loved to embrace my own sex at your age, our tongues acted instead of men, and I could still delight in a fine fresh one like this, it would almost reconcile me to what this bad wicked boy is doing."

"Oh, that would be charming!—do let us do it at once. Charlie can withdraw for a moment while I get under you, and while you lick me I can excite you and see the glorious work above me."

"You tempt me much, my dear girl, but what would your aunt say if she knew?"

"But she never will know," said Ellen, who was all the time arranging herself on the bed.

Aunt moved aside to allow Ellen to get under her, who then begged aunt to throw off her chemise that both their bodies might be in close contact. Aunt was longing to do so, yet made some grimaces about it. She at length complied, and striding across Ellen, threw herself with avidity on the delicious young cunt below, and began to gamahuche her a mart. I instantly resumed my position. Ellen guided my prick into aunt's burning cunt, then frigged aunt's clitoris, and worked a finger in my fundament, while aunt was so delightfully gamahuching her. We all rapidly came to the grand finale, with an excess of lubricity rarely equalled. We were all somewhat exhausted by this bout, and, as it was getting late, we rose. Aunt pretended to forgive my violating her for the pleasure I afterwards afforded her. She embraced Ellen tenderly, and said she had so enjoyed her person she hoped to renew such a delight. Then taking hold of my prick she kissed it and sucked it until it stood upright, and said—

"I don't wonder, my dear, at your having it when once you had seen it, and I envy Mrs. Dale the pleasure of having first enjoyed such a monstrous thing. If I had known he was so wondrously provided, I doubt if I could have resisted the temptation to teach him how to make use of it myself—my only wonder is how such a little thing as you have got could ever take it in."

Ellen laughed, and said that her cousin Harry had opened the way, or she doubted if ever she could have admitted it, but I was so gentle while getting in, and when once in, it filled up every crevice so deliciously, that she should grieve much if she were refused access to it in future.

"So, dear aunt, I hope you will let him do it to us both. I can do to you what you have just done to me, because before we had him and Harry, aunt and I used to amuse ourselves in that way. Aunt is immense in that particular, she could put it a little way into me, and gave me great pleasure, and she said that I sucked it better than either her late husband or any of half-a-dozen schoolfellows who used to amuse each other; so, dear aunt, you must let me do it to you while Charlie is in me, and then you will do it to me while he is in you. Only fancy how nice it will be."

"Oh, you dear little coaxer, you are enough to seduce an angel."

So all was arranged that Ellen should come from her room and I from mine, and meet in aunt's bed at night. We did so meet, and a most glorious eight days we spent. I showed aunt that I could get into Ellen's bottom-hole, and thereby gave her immense pleasure, and with more reason the same result would occur with her. She gave an apparently reluctant consent, and, that done, there was no bridle to the utmost lubricity that the most wanton lust could devise. Aunt took immensely to Ellen, and gamahuched her à mort, while the other repaid her in kind. I did not regret this for it relieved me from too excessive work. Thus we passed a most delightful eight days before the absent ones joined us. Both uncle and Harry had succeeded in their desires. From each I had the fullest details, but as their stories would in some particulars repeat themselves, I shall relate the events in a connected narrative.

Uncle and Mrs. Dale had the inside of the coach to themselves, Harry riding outside. Uncle began by praising Harry; and then reverting to the time he was first sent to the rectory, and the note Mrs. Dale sent with him; he asked, not without a knowing smile, if the intimacy she had formerly feared had been at all renewed, because he had observed that Harry appeared worn and pale on his return on the Mondays, and was dull and stupid that day. Mrs. Dale seemed somewhat alarmed at hearing of this, probably she began to think that something might have occurred between the cousins while she was busied with me, uncle observed her uneasiness, and, guessing the cause, said—

"My dear Mrs. Dale, if anything has taken place, and anything comes of it, I am a man of the world, and you may rely upon my assistance and discretion to take such steps as may tend to keep it from the knowledge of the world."

She thanked him, and said she would be glad to accept his aid if any unfortunate event should have happened—but she hoped not.

Uncle saw that her fears were excited, so he held onto the subject, so at last she avowed the she feared there might have occurred some passages between the two cousins, for she had foolishly trusted that all thought of that had gone out of their heads, and she might not have taken such precautions as she ought to have done.

"Well, my dear madame, my services are at your disposal in case of any necessity, I am not in reality strait-laced, although, in my position, I am obliged to appear so. I feel certain that my experience would be able to suggest the best way of hushing up the scandal if such should be likely to occur."

Mrs. Dale was profuse in thanks, and the doctor became warmer in his discourse, saying that for such a woman as herself, whom he had long admired and coveted, he would do anything.

"For, my dear madam, though I am in the church, something of the old Adam still adheres to me, and the sight and touch of one who has so charmed me as you have done makes a young man of me again."

Here his arm glided round her charming little waist. He drew her to him, and with some coyness and words of refusal, she yielded her lips to his embrace. His other hand, lifting up her petticoats, sought to feel her beauteous cunt. Again resistance of hand and tongue, but a yielding for all that, and the doctor soon got possession of her lovely cunt. Finding her large and fine clitoris in a state of stiffness, he knew that her passions were excited. So opening her legs, he got between them down on his knees, and as he previously unbuttoned his trousers in readiness and the fresh cunt stimulating his powers, he pulled out his prick fully erected, and quickly established himself up to the hilt within, the lady up to the last declaring she could not allow him, but wriggling her bottom to perfection as soon as she felt the doctor's very fine prick working within her. She then hugged and seconded him, kissing and tongueing to his heart's desire. They soon brought things to the ecstatic conclusion, to the great satisfaction of both parties.

Of course, after this there was no difficulty in arranging for a comfortable meeting in London. Indeed, it was resolved that they should lodge in the same house and have contiguous apartments. On their arrival in town they put up at one of those large lodging houses in Norfolk Street, Strand, and were fortunate in finding the first-floor bedrooms vacant. The house was a double one, or rather two houses opening into each other. The doctor's bedroom was in the front, and a former door of communication with the back room was locked on one side and bolted on the other. Mrs. Dale took the back room, from whence opened a small room with a bed in it, where Harry was lodged. The doctor had thus easy access when the lady chose to withdraw the bolt on her side. After consultation it was thought more advisable that she should go into the doctor's room, so that Harry might not by any possibility, hear any love exclamations that might happen to escape them in the excess of their amorous amusements. Of course, the doctor, who knew all about Harry's great desire to fuck his mother, and that he meant to do so by one way or another in London, communicated his intention of having Mrs. Dale into sleep with him that night, and, therefore, begged Harry to defer his attempt until after the first night, and then the doctor would aid him in his efforts.

The wily doctor fully intended, after Harry had perfectly succeeded, to become the future companion of their incestuous intercourse. Harry's bedroom door had one of those old-fashioned brass locks that were screwed onto the inside of the door, with a brass covering for the bolt at the side—not morticed as is now usual. Mrs. Dale locked her son in after he retired to bed. Harry noticed the circumstance and smiled to think how easily he could foil her but as he had promised the doctor to make no attempt on his mother that night, he went to bed and slept soundly. Next day he provided himself with a turn-screw and a small phial of sweet oil. When mamma was busy at cards, he slipped upstairs and easily unscrewed the brass receiver of the bolt, he oiled the screws and worked them in and out until they went freely and then screwed the covering on again, and felt secure of entering mamma's room whenever he pleased. It had been combined between the doctor and him that by means of gamahuching and frigging, mamma should be put into a state of great excitement without allowing her to be satisfied, so that her passions might be in favour of being fucked, no matter by what prick. For this purpose the doctor was to keep her with him till dawn. At night Harry watched through the key hole, and when he saw his mother pass into the doctor's room, he at once unscrewed the covering, shot back the bolt, and screwed the cover on again. He was thus all ready for any event, and if his mother was astonished at his entrance, he could say he found the door open, and she must have forgotten to lock it. Thus prepared he went to bed and slept soundly. He was awake before seven o'clock, and gently opening the door a little, he could see by the opposite open door, and the light in the doctor's room, that mamma had not yet left him. He drew on his woollen socks, and sitting where the light flashed through the key hole, awaited his mamma's return, which occurred very shortly after. The shutting off the light by closing the door of communication told him that she had returned to her own room. He heard her sit down on the pot, and the force of the flow of water proved how healthy she was. He heard her rustle into bed. Then throwing off his dressing-gown and socks he opened the door and approached his mother's bed. Being awake, she instantly saw him in the half-daylight that came from the unshuttered window.

"Harry! What on earth brings you here, and how did you open the door?"

"I heard you moving, dear mamma, I could not sleep for the cold. I got up and tried the door, it was not locked, you must have omitted to turn the bolt, but I should have rapped and called to you, if it had not been open. I want you to let me get warm in your nice warm bed, and you will cuddle your poor Harry—will you not, dear mamma?"

"If you will be quiet, and speak lower, for the doctor may hear you, you may come in, and if you turn your back, I will warm you."

Harry lost no time in lying down by her side, and being really very cold, and even shivering, he was glad enough to do as she bid him, and turn his back, and cuddle his bottom into his mother's belly. She said—

"Poor boy, he is indeed cold, now go to sleep in mamma's arms."

Of course, he had no such intentions. Speedily getting warm, he turned his face to mamma, and whispered, in the same tone she used—

"Oh, how I love my beautiful mamma."

Pressing his belly against hers, and letting her feel his prick standing against her mons Veneris.

"Harry! What do you mean by embracing me in that way—don't you know I am your mother, sir?"

He had seized with one hand her beautiful firm bubbies, and was evidently in full amorous excitement, as she could feel by the stiff pego pushing against her mount of Venus.

"My darling mamma, if you knew how much I love you and how I have longed to embrace your beautiful body."

"Go along, you impudent boy, do you not know it would be sinful to indulge in such sentiments with your mother—leave me directly."

"Oh, no, mamma, I can't, indeed, my own mamma. I mean to possess you, what harm can there be in returning to whence I came."

Here he transferred his hand from her bubby to her splendid mons Veneris, and showed what his words meant. She pretended to be very angry, and endeavoured to push him away, but he held her round the waist with his other arm too well.

"Desist this instant, or I shall cry out."

She really appeared very angry but, nevertheless, did not excite a whisper during all the colloquy before or after. Harry now thought of his best argument.

"Why do you attempt to repulse me in this way, dear mamma? Why should you not let me enjoy your person as much as you like Charlie to do it?"

She gave a start at this home thrust.

"What do you say, you naughty boy? and where did you hear such a falsehood as that? is that one of your friend Charlie's inventions, after all the kindness I have shown him?"

"My darling mamma, Charlie never opened his lips to me on the subject. I speak from what I saw with my own eyes."

"What do you mean? Tell me directly."

"Well, my loved mamma, do you remember the first Saturday night that Charlie and I slept at home: after retiring to my room, I was obliged to go downstairs to the water closet, where I went in my stockings, and without a light, not to disturb you. I was coming up again, when a sudden flash of light shone out in the upper passage. Mounting the stairs, and when my head was on a level with the upper floor, I saw you going towards Charlie's room. I went into my own, but left the door open to see when you would return; finding you did not come back, I crept softly along the passage, until I came to the turning that led to Charlie's room. The light shone through the key hole. I quietly approached. You know the bed exactly faces the door—and there, my darling mamma, I saw you initiate Charlie into what was to him a previously unknown pleasure. Oh! my beloved mother, the sight of your naked charms, of the delicious way in which you were giving him his first lesson in love, maddened me with desire. I was almost tempted to come in upon you and violate you, if you would not consent. It was in that state I remembered that Ellen was asleep in your bed. I ran there, and throwing off the little I had on, I lay down beside her, and began feeling her private parts. She awoke and said—

"'Dear aunt, do you wish me to do the same to you?'

"Her hand passed down to my erect member, she gave a cry of astonishment. I whispered it was only me.

"'Oh! you must leave me directly. Aunt can only have gone to the water closet, and will be back directly.'

"She was not to be pacified until I convinced her that there was no chance of your speedy return, so I was obliged to bring her along to Charles's door; we saw you quite naked, rising and falling on the enormous weapon that Charles has. I never before saw it erect and could scarcely believe my eyes; nor was it less wonderful the way in which you so charmingly took it in. It greatly excited Ellen, as well as me. We returned to your room—the fire still burned. I laid her down on the rug before it, and took her maidenhead. She had seen how Charlie's monstrous affair went easily into you, and felt how much less mine was, so she never dreamt of it hurting her, and she let me get fairly within the lips; then, while making her spend, I suddenly thrust it through all impediments, and the affair was done; she gave a scream, as it hurt her, but I had shut the door and none of you heard it. I let her sleep after this, and did not do it again till morning. The next night we again watched your delicious proceeding. Ellen was less sore, and we repeated your example several times. She continues to this day to wonder at the enormous size of Charlie's tool, and is surprised at your taking it in so easily. But, oh, my mother, how my passions have been excited by your glorious charms. What is Ellen compared with you? She did very well to relieve my agony of desire to possess you, when I knew you were better occupied, and that I could not do so—but that is all. It is you, and you alone, my beloved mother, whom I adore, and I wildly long to possess this dear and magnificent cunt beneath my hand." Mrs. Dale was perfectly flabbergasted at this recital. "You abominable boy, how dared you to follow me, and be a spy upon your mother, and to make it known to Ellen, too; doubtless you have been boasting of it, and telling others."

"No, indeed, mamma, Ellen and I were on oath that we would never reveal to any mortal the delicious sight we had seen—so you see, darling mamma, that you can fully trust your own boy. Oh, do let me do it; feel how my poor thing throbs."

Here I must give you Harry's own account of what took place.

"I took her hand with very little resistance, and I could feel her fingers gently clasped my prick, before she withdrew her hand.

"'But no—it cannot be—it would be incest."

"She twisted her body round, so that her magnificent bottom came against my belly. As she turned, I slipped my hand down, and laid hold of her shift, so that in turning, it left her bottom bare, and sticking out against me. I lost not an instant, and before she had quite settled down, I brought my stiff-standing pego against her delicious cunt from behind, and as it was reeking from her previous spendings produced by the rector's gamahuching, I plunged it at one shove as far as her buttocks against my belly would allow, at the same time dropping my hand from her waist to her cunt, so that when she sprang forward, as if to turn me out, I met her clitoris, it was quite stiff, showing her to be really in a state of amorous excitement. This attack on the clitoris made her as quickly move back, which double movement thoroughly engulphed me. I lost no time in proceeding to the most active movements in and out. This was too much for her, she could not resist entering into the encounter with all the force of her passions, and we ran a very rapid course, ending in the most ecstatic delight, and with sighs of joy we lay clasped together in all the delicious after-languor. I could feel by her exquisite internal pressures that her lust was not yet alleviated, and this nerved me to fresh efforts. After a feigned resistance, dear mamma passed her hand behind her, and putting it on my buttocks, assisted in sending me further in at each home thrust. We were longer this bout, and enjoyed it more. After the usual indulgence in the after-joy, she turned, and embracing me tenderly said—

"'Oh, my dear child, this is very wrong, but very delicious. You must be very discreet, my dear Harry, for if it were known it would disgrace us both for ever.'

"'My sweet mamma, do not fear; have you ever seen anything like indiscretion in the last six weeks, although I was madly longing for you? Oh, kiss me, my beloved mother.'

"The sweetest of kisses followed, our tongues met, her hand wandered; already she found my pego standing.

"'My darling, I must kiss it, it is so much more developed than I could have expected, and as hard as iron.'

"'Not as large as Charlie's, mamma.'

"'That is true, my dear; but it is the stiffness, and not the size, that gives the real pleasure. Of course, when both are combined, as with Charlie, they are irresistible.'

"Meanwhile I was feeling her cunt: her clitoris, which you know is largely developed, stood stiff.

"'Mamma, darling, what a size this is. Ellen told me you could put it into her.'

"'Oh! the bad girl, to tell tales out of school.'

"'Never mind, mamma, I must suck it while you play with mine.'

"I turned on my back with my heels up—mamma lay down upon my belly reversed. I sucked her clitty while frigging her cunt, and she sucked my prick until we both spent, and each licked or sucked all the balmy sperm that issued from the other. We continued our caresses until my prick showed its readiness for another encounter. Mamma took me on her belly this time, and as soon as I was engulphed, threw her legs over my loins, and, by the most lascivious actions, contributed to our enjoyment. Her glorious bottom heaved in unison with mine, our tongues were interlaced, and at last with sweet murmurs of delight, we died away in each other's arms in the most luxurious ecstasy of thoroughly gratified desire. We lay long insensible of all around, throbbing in pressures of lascivious delight, which would have soon led to another love bout, but that mamma whispered it would be imprudent to continue, for the sun was up, and breakfast time had arrived. I withdrew from the sweet cunt with great regret, and in slipping out of bed brought my mouth down to it, and gave it a loving kiss and suck, played with the magnificent covering of bushy ringlets, and then tore myself away with difficulty. Thus ended my first possession of my adored and glorious mother, which was followed by night upon night of the most lascivious enjoyment. I returned to my room, and was dressed and downstairs before her. The doctor took an opportunity to inform me that she had excused herself from joining him the next night on the pretence of not feeling well, but in reality it was to have me all to herself for the whole night; and a most delicious night it was. She displayed and exercised her libidinous passions to the utmost. Never before had I such a treat. It was, perhaps, the closeness of the relationship that added to the excitement, but it appeared to me that she beat even the doctor's splendid wife. Oh, she was so loving, too. The way she fondled me in her arms and caressed me was irresistible. I can't tell how often we did it—we were at it all night. The next night, under pretence of fearing to exhaust me, she forced me to retire to my room after two fucks, and locked me in. I had previously been informed by the doctor that he had bespoken her for that night, and he begged me to fuck her first, that the pleasure of gamahuching her might be enhanced. I, therefore, did not do more than make a feigned resistance to her when she told me I must go to my own bed. She said she would let me have one embrace before she rose in the morning but that one was converted into two exquisite spends. The next night the doctor wished to repose, as he purposed surprising me in the morning. I laid myself out for this, and when mamma was asleep I rose as if to piddle. I unbolted the door and shook up the doctor, and then returned to bed. I had agreed with him to make more noise than usual in the final ecstasy; he was to wait long enough to allow of the after-enjoyment, as if he was taking time to clothe himself a little, and was then to come in with a light. My mother still slept. It was about four o'clock in the morning. I began feeling her glorious buttocks, and, sliding under the clothes, turned her legs apart—she insensibly slipped upon her back, I took her charming clitoris between my lips, and soon sucked it into stiffness. The excitement awoke her—she had dreamed I was fucking her—and so was hot and randy. She drew me upon her bosom, threw the clothes off, and her glorious limbs clasped my loins—her two hands pressed on my buttocks, as if to drive me further home, and we ran a most delicious course, I feigned to be even still more excited than I really was, and almost brayed at the ecstatic moment of ejection. Mamma herself was too far gone in delight to notice the loudness of my braying. She lay panting and throbbing on my prick, almost in a state of insensibility to aught else beside. Her eyes were closed, so that she did not observe the entrance of the light carried by the doctor. It was not until he was standing by the bedside, and made an exclamation of surprise, that she was aware of his presence.

"She gave a scream—though not very loud—and covered her eyes with her hand. I scrambled off her. The doctor, with great politeness, begged her pardon for his intrusion, but hearing what appeared to him an unearthly noise, he had feared she was taken ill.

"Here the usual resource of woman—tears—fell plentifully from mamma. The doctor most affectionately begged her to calm herself.

"'My dear madam,' said he. 'I do not in any way blame you for this. I am a man of the world, and I know that incest is practised to a far greater extent than is at all imagined, and to prove that it in no way offends me, I may at once tell you that it was my own mother who initiated me into these delightful mysteries. I see that this dear boy looks terribly frightened at my being a witness to the delight he must have had; but to put him at his ease, we may as well inform him that we, too, have indulged in that delicious game. I may add that this is not the first time I have joined in orgies with more than one man or woman, and nothing gives me more pleasure than to embrace one reeking from the arms of another, especially if I have been a witness to the previous encounter. See, my dear madam, how this dear instrument stands stiff in proof of what I say, and to insure my silence dear Harry must not object to my enjoying you after and before him.'

"So saying he dropt off his trousers and jumped into bed. He was met with feeble remonstrances from my mother at doing it before her son: but I assured her that I rather preferred to see her at work, as she knew, than otherwise, especially as she evidently enjoyed it so much. So the doctor forthwith mounted her. There could be no doubt that she enjoyed it equally with him. My cock stood at the sight. I put it into her hand, and she squeezed it lovingly—then stooping I sucked one nipple, and you know how this excites her, and slipped a hand behind the doctor, and after gently tickling his ballocks, acted postillion to his bottom-hole. They ran a most exciting course and died away in mutual raptures. No sooner did he turn off than I jumped up into his place, and in one moment was up to the cods in that overflowing cunt. Mamma feebly expostulated, but the doctor begged her to let him have the pleasure of witnessing the vigour of the youth. I knew that in heart mamma was delighted, for all women especially enjoy having a fresh prick into them immediately after a previous one has been withdrawn."

This is quite true—witness my own dear Benson in our early days; her greatest delight was to have me the instant B. retired, and she avowed that nothing could give her greater pleasure. I knew a lady in after-life whom I and three others used to have together, and no sooner was one off than another was on and sometimes two at once. She used to tell us how she deceived her husband. When at Florence she had eight lovers, and she had had them all on the same night without any of them knowing of the others. She managed it in this way. She made them come—two at ten o'clock, two at half-past ten, two at eleven, and two at half-past eleven. They were put in four different rooms with convenient sofas. She ran to No. 1 in a merely loose robe, which was instantly thrown off. She was a magnificently made creature, the sight of whose charms would inflame any one. She rapidly got two goes from the first without withdrawing. Then saying that her husband would be seeking her if she did not leave him, she rang for her German valet, who used to fuck her himself, and who afterwards confirmed her story to me, who showed my gentleman out of the room. Off she ran to No. 2, told him she had only got away by letting her husband have a go, and that he thought she had only gone to the water closet so he must do one good and leave her. Of course the cunt full of fuck only excited him the more, and he very soon racked off to her great satisfaction, and was dismissed, leaving the rooms vacant for the two at eleven. As there was not five minutes to spare she ran to No. 3, where another lover was waiting. The same pretence was made as to the last, but as he was largely hung, she got two coups from him and then packed him off, and in the same way ran to the others, always with the same story, getting two coups out of three running, who were the best fuckers, and waiting with the last until he could do no more.

The same lady told me that once while living at Dieppe her husband ran over to England for a few days. During his absence she had four young men to supper every night, and made them all fuck her on the sofa squabs laid on the floor, accommodating one in her bottom at the same time. During the day her landlord, a married man, used to come in and rack her off besides. At one time she was left alone at Mannheim, where she made acquaintance with an officer, who introduced a second, and a third, until she knew eight in all. She had the whole lot once to supper, and they all fucked her three times each. She was a wonderfully fine woman, and could take no end of fucking. Her father had initiated her at twelve years of age. She was of Greek origin, and actually was hairy and menstruated at that early age. But all women are rakes in their hearts, and numbers never encumber them.

During Harry's encounter with his mother, the doctor stood beside them, and handled Harry's ballocks and acted postillion to him. Mamma took to it most kindly. The sight again inflamed the doctor, the incestuous idea enhancing the excitement. As Harry withdrew, he begged Mrs. Dale to get on her hands and knees, to let him put it in from behind. He would rather have gone in behind but did not think she was as yet quite prepared to allow that. He only said that the movement below his eyes of such a fine bottom as hers added to the excitement. He further proposed that she should kneel over Harry's body reversed, so that she might gamahuche him, and he frig her beautiful clitoris.

"You mean to kill me between you," she said, but all the same complied. She sucked Harry's prick and he spent in her mouth, which she swallowed with great gusto, spending herself at the same moment in advance of the doctor. Harry kept frigging her clitoris with one hand, while the other was frigging the doctor's bottom-hole. It was a long bout, she made Harry spend twice in her mouth, while she spent thrice to the doctor's once, all dying away together in the final fuck. They lay long lost to everything, and when they recovered, they separated and retired to their own rooms.

The ice being thus broken, the remaining days were passed in the most refined lasciviousness. The doctor had his way with her bottom, and asked her leave to have Harry's after Harry had had his mother's bottom-hole, while the doctor was fucking her, and had fucked the doctor upon another occasion, the doctor crying out—"Hi, hi, hi!" as if it hurt him, and he was losing his maidenhead. He professed immense satisfaction, when she let him have Harry, declaring that he could not tell whether having her both ways, having Harry, or being had himself, was the greatest pleasure. Mamma declared that to have both apertures filled at the same moment was the most delicious. It was then the doctor said he would try. So fucking mamma in a kneeling position he presented his great backside to Harry and was well fucked. It was after this complete initiation that they returned home, and after such proceedings, the transition to a general entry into our orgies was easily arranged. As they were to arrive to a late dinner, it was resolved that Mrs. Dale should stay the night, and we would see what that would bring forth. They arrived accordingly. Mrs. Dale went to Ellen's room, taking Ellen with her to help her at her toilet. Here ensued an explanation between them. Mrs. Dale felt that there must be an explicit avowal on both sides. She admitted to Ellen that Harry had come to her bed, and only succeeded in his horrible purpose by telling her how he and Ellen had seen her operations with Charlie, and had followed her example.

"And now, my dear Ellen, as there must be no secrets between us, tell me if you and Charlie have got together."

"Well, yes, we have. You know I had seen how immense he was, and yet with what pleasure you took him in. So curiosity made me give way one day that we were in the summer house, and he slept with me afterwards."

"Does the doctor's wife suspect?"

"Oh, yes, she knows all about it. I forgot to bolt the door one night; in the morning Charlie made too much noise. She came in, merely in her chemise, ran up and pulled him off me, without imagining she ran any risk herself. Charlie seized her in his arms, and swore he would do as much to her, to prevent her telling. She was horrified, and fled to her own room, but had not time to shut him out; he forced the door open, she ran to her bed, intending to ring for the servant, he caught her as she had one knee up on the bed, and was into her from behind before she could accomplish her purpose. She cried out to me, to come and pull him away. I went, but told her Charlie was right, as it would prevent her splitting upon us. I rather think that Charlie's large proportions gave her much pleasure, for she soon ceased to struggle, indeed she had her back to him, and his strong arms round her waist prevented her using her hands. She cried much afterwards, and talked about the greatness of the crime. She had then got into bed. Charlie followed, to coax and console her, and, of course, got into her again. I thought she enjoyed the second, for her bottom heaved to meet him. She afterwards accused him of the crime of seducing a young lady, her guest, but I stopped that, by avowing that my cousin had had me previously. Then she accused me of seducing Charlie, and here, I must implore your pardon, for I let out inadvertently that you had initiated him, for I had seen you having him."

"Oh, you bad girl, how could you be so cruel and imprudent?"

"Well, dear aunt, there is no great harm done. Charlie's aunt was soon quite appeased and regularly joined us after this. She is as fond, if not fonder, of gamahuching me as you used to be; she has grown greedy for Charlie's immense cock, envies your having had the first of him, and says that if she had known of his wonderful proportions, she could not have resisted initiating him herself. She hopes that, through my means, she will become more intimate with you. I have told her of your beautiful clitoris. She dotes on the gamahuche, and vows that she will never be happy till she has done it to you."

This explanation was a great relief to the widow, who knew she was all right with the doctor, and now foresaw that it would be all right with his wife also and they would have complete freedom to indulge in the wildest lubricity. So having dressed, they descended to dinner. The doctor had explained all their London doings to his wife, so that after dinner the three ladies exchanged confidence. Aunt was so eager to see and suck Mrs. Dale's large clitoris that they adjourned to aunt's bedroom, where the doctor discovered them in the midst of their operations. Mrs. Dale was stretched on her back, with extended thighs—aunt, with her head pressed by Mrs. Dale's hands down on her cunt, was sucking at the splendid clitoris, and working some fingers in and out her cunt. They were too intent on their pleasure to notice his entrance. Aunt's petticoats were above her hips, as she knelt. The old boy's cock stood, he advanced, knelt down, got between her legs, and fucked her as she was, begging her to continue her lascivious operations on Mrs. Dale. When he had finished, he congratulated both ladies on the intimate friendship established between them, said it was the best wish of his heart. He assured Mrs. Dale that his wife was the best woman in the world, and never grudged him a little variety.

"So I have acknowledged my infidelity with you, and it appears my nephew has been taking my place, in my absence. She tells me you instructed Charlie, and that he is monstrous when in erection, as big again as me, or as a certain Grenadier Captain, once a favourite of my wife's. I am curious to see it. She tells me also that he has been sleeping with your charming niece Ellen, who, I must confess, has raised in me a great desire to possess her. Now, my dear madam, if you will consent to invite Charlie to sleep with you and Ellen, I could come in, after you have each had a turn or two out of Charlie, and take Ellen, while you would have Charlie all to yourself. My wife won't object, and I hope you will give your consent."

"Well, my dear doctor, after what has occurred between us, I can refuse you nothing, but I think dear Harry should have some comfort. I suppose, my dear madam, that the doctor has told you of my son surprising and violating me. Your husband reconciled me to his caresses, and I can assure you that without the enormous size of Charlie, he has a charming way that may please any woman. From what the doctor says, you are free from prejudices, why should you be left out in the cold, while we are all enjoying ourselves, why should you not go to his bedroom, and see what he is made of. I, his mother, can strongly recommend him to your favour."

So it was arranged.

During the evening, Mrs. Dale whispered to me to come to them after the domestics had gone to bed. I went and fucked them both three times, twice in front and once behind, the one who was being fucked always gamahuching the other. When I began to tail off, Mrs. Dale arose, unbolted the door of communication with uncle's room, and invited him to Ellen's arms, who was very glad to have a little further experience of another man's prick. Uncle gallantly gamahuched her before fucking her, then begged to see my wonderful prick, pretended to be perfectly astonished at its monstrous dimensions, and wondered how Ellen's little cunt could ever have taken it in. It was a tight fit certainly, but the dear creature liked it none the worse for that. Before fucking Ellen, he begged Mrs. Dale to let him guide my large prick into her. After enjoying our first movements, and being excited into sufficient consistency, he proceeded to fuck dear Ellen; even he had some difficulty in entering, notwithstanding the libations I had previously poured into her, but being once fairly hilted, he declared it was one of the tightest little cunts it had ever been his good fortune to fuck. After this, we proceeded each our way, and with a longer interval, brought matters to the exquisite conclusion, panting and throbbing for some time afterwards.

The doctor now retired, and we arranged ourselves for repose. We were awakened in the morning by the entrance of aunt and Harry. He flew to his mamma's arms, who lay down on Ellen to gamahuche her while Harry was fucking her. Aunt and I coupled in the old-fashioned way. Uncle entered while we were in full operation, and seeing the tempting backside of Harry, scrambled up behind and fucked his bottom. After we had done, aunt pretended to be shocked at his attack on a boy's bottom—a woman's was a different thing.

"Well, then, my dear, get upon Charlie the next time, and I shall fuck your truly magnificent bottom."

And he drew Mrs. Dale's attention to the glorious proportions, not only of aunt's bottom, but of her body, and all her limbs.

"Oh, it is indeed glorious," said she. "I must, my dear madam, gamahuche you. I have not forgotten the exquisite pleasure you gave me in that way."

"Willingly," cried my aunt, "provided you give me your clitoris to occupy me."

"Certainly, that will suit me admirably; but you must lie upon me, that I may have the pleasure of gazing on that magnificent bottom, and caressing the immense rotundities of your buttocks."

Oh, it was a glorious sight to see these two wanton lascivious women in the full enjoyment of each other. It set us all on fire, and the moment they had done I slaked the fire within me in the capacious but tight cunt of my aunt, while uncle fucked her bottom-hole. Mrs. Dale lay under Ellen, while Harry fucked Ellen from behind, and Ellen gamahuched her aunt, who herself guided her son's prick into Ellen's cunt, and tickled her clitoris, at the same time acting postillion to her son's bottom-hole.

Oh! it was a splendid bout—we were all so excited and it was also the first meeting of us all in one orgie. We all died away in a perfect heaven of ecstasy, and lay long in the after-enjoyment. Our previous night's work made this the last for the time, and we all separated to seek some welcome repose before breakfast time.

Mrs. Dale remained our visitor for three days, during which we met in the doctor's bedroom every night, and renewed our delicious orgies. Mrs. Dale carried off her son and niece, and I promised to come over to her cottage on the following Saturday, when Harry and I took turn and turn about with the two dear creatures, sometimes fucking one between us two at once. When the school resumed its work, Mrs. Dale and Ellen always dined at the rectory on Sunday and slept there, when we made a general orgie in the old style.

This continued until our midsummer holidays, when I was to leave the rectory for King's College. Mrs. Dale's and Ellen's pregnancies, daily becoming nearer to the period of parturition, were getting more difficult to conceal. We had long discussions with uncle as to what was best to be done. It was at last arranged that they should leave the cottage as if for a tour on the continent, but in reality should only go to Paris, and take apartments in the house of a good accoucheuse in the environs, and remain quiet there till the period of delivery. It was not necessary for them to go before we broke up, and the doctor and Harry and I could accompany them, and after I had seen my guardian on my return to London, I had no doubt of getting his leave, and the necessary means to visit the continent up to the middle of October, when the classes would begin. It all fell out as arranged. Nothing of the pregnancy was visible, thanks to the full robes worn.

We accomplished our journey, found a capital accoucheuse in a beautiful neighbourhood, with a large garden. Harry, uncle, and aunt remained with them, while I returned to London. I saw my guardian, who, after putting me through an examination, expressed himself much pleased with my progress, said the visit to the continent would expand my mind, and that he would furnish me with the means. He recommended that I should visit my mother first for a fortnight, and announced that at about the end of that time the girls would come up to London to enter a first-rate finishing school. He further told me he had proposed to and had been accepted by Miss Frankland, and they were to be married at the same time; my sisters were to be bridesmaids, and I could be present at the marriage before going abroad. All this being arranged, I ran down home. My mother was delighted to see me, and thought me grown and much improved. It is needless to say how glad my sisters and Miss Frankland were to see me. They had had no fucking except by tongue or dildo, so you may imagine the fury with which they set upon me the first two or three nights. We resumed all our lascivious operations of former days. My sisters had developed into splendid women, the youngest still the most libidinous. Dear Miss Frankland, on my congratulating her on her intended marriage, lovingly told me that it was the prospect of being near me that had reconciled her to it. We spent a most delicious fortnight, which passed like a day.

I found an opportunity of fucking my old governess, Mrs. Vincent that was. My son was a fine little fellow, toddling about and talking already. His mother loved me as much as ever, and was become a finer developed woman, more amorous and lecherous than she used to be. She said no one could be kinder or more loving than her husband, and she had never been unfaithful to him but with me, whom, as her own formation, she must always love, and would never refuse me anything I asked when it could be safely done. At the sole opportunity I had I fucked her three times without drawing, and finished with a bottom-fuck. I may here mention that a little girl followed for nine months from that period, which she always assured me was mine.

My mother, the girls, and Miss Frankland all came up with me to London. The marriage went off with eclat. My guardian made very handsome presents to my sisters, and gave me a gold watch, chain, and seals, together with a handsome cheque for my travelling expenses. He and his bride, whom I fucked just before she went to church, departed for Scotland, to return by the English lakes, for their honeymoon trip. A few days afterwards, having had two or three nights excellent fucking with my sisters, mamma and I conducted them to their school, and left them with tearful adieux. My mother was to remain in town for a week until uncle and aunt's return, when she intended to accompany her sister to the rectory and remain there until I returned from the continent. I was quickly again in Paris. We took rooms near the two darlings, where uncle and aunt remained for the week they had yet to stay. We took mamma and Ellen several times to the play, and they slept with us every night. Uncle and aunt left at the end of the week, but we kept on the apartments for the dear women to come to us, fucking them as much as we could. It seemed as if their pregnancy stimulated their lubricity, for we could hardly satisfy them. We had at least always to take them on hands and knees, although neither of them ever showed much in front—their babes lying just between—but, by Jove, their hips expanded splendidly. Dear mamma measured a yard across, and her backside projected almost as much as my aunt's. She loved to be fucked in her bottom-hole to the last. We actually had them both up to the night before the day they were each confined. Nothing could be more favourable than their time. As I formerly stated, each had a little daughter.

On the ninth day afterwards they were both able to rise, but as it would have been very prejudicial to renew our intercourse before another three weeks had elapsed, Harry and I went off for a walking excursion in Switzerland, which we traversed in all directions, with continual delight at the glorious scenery. We did not touch a single woman. When very sharp set we fucked each other, but very little even of that, so that we renovated our constitutions and returned in robust health, ready to do justice to the charms of the two darlings, who had impatiently awaited our arrival.

It is needless to repeat the description of the delicious fucking with which they welcomed us. They appeared more lovely than ever, especially Ellen, who had developed into womanhood. We made arrangements to leave the two darling children in the hands of a healthy wet nurse, and set out on an expedition down the Loire to Tours, Bordeaux, and the Pyrenees, returned at the end of September by Montpellier, Nismes, Avignon, and Lyons.

The two babes were in excellent health. Arrangements were made for their remaining with their foster mother for a year, and we all returned to London together.

We had three nights' delicious fucking before they returned to the country, and promises were made that they would come to town from time to time to renew our orgies. My mother and aunt came up to see me settled in my lodgings, which were taken in Norfolk Street, and I was entered at King's College.

I passed a delicious night with aunt before she left; and ran down with my mother to see her safe home. On my return I found my guardian had returned. I called to pay my respects to his wife. I found her alone, and we managed her first piece of adultery, which, as you may suppose, was not the last. But as this third volume is already a long one, I shall here close it.

The fourth will introduce us to London, and renew the delicious intercourse with Mrs. Benson, as well as with my guardian's wife, and our dear friend MacCallum, as well as many other friends. 

I concluded my last volume by saying that I had taken lodgings in Norfolk Street, Strand, for the convenience of being near King's College. It was at the house of a Mrs. Nichols, tall, powerfully built, masculine, but a kind and motherly looking widow of fifty-two--an attentive and bustling landlady, looking herself to the better cooking, and having a plain cook, who was also a general servant, to help her downstairs, and two nieces to do the waiting and attendance on her lodgers upstairs. The younger was there alone when I entered the lodgings; her elder sister had had what they called a "misfortune," and was then in the country until she could be unburthened of it. She was expected back in about six weeks. Meanwhile, as the winter was not the season, I was the only lodger, and the younger had only me to attend to; her name was Jane; she was but a little thing, but very well made, good bubbies and bottom, which I soon discovered were firm and hard, projecting fully on both sides. She was fairly good looking, but with a singular innocent manner of freedom about her that made me imagine she had as yet had no chance of a "misfortune." In a week we became intimate, and after often praising her pretty face and figure, I snatched a kiss now and then, which at first she resented with an attractive yet innocent sort of sauciness. It was in her struggles on these occasions that I became aware of the firm and hard bosom and bottom.

Up to this time my flirtations were without ulterior object, but the reality of the attractions of these hidden charms raised my lustful passions. I gradually increased my flatteries and caresses, squeezed her bubbies, when I sometimes drew her on my knee and was kissing her, and as at first she resisted my drawing her to my knee, I took occasion to lay hold of her buttocks, which I found more developed than I could have supposed. Gradually her resistance to these little liberties ceased and she would quietly sit on my knee and return the kiss I gave. Her dress was a little open in front, so from feeling her bubbies outside, I gradually got to feeling their naked beauties inside. I now thought I could attempt greater familiarities, so one day when seated on my knee with one arm round her waist, I pressed her to my lips, and while so engaged, whipt my free arm up her petticoats, and before she had become aware of the movement, had got my hand upon her mount, a very nicely haired one. She started up to a standing position, but as I held her close clasped round the waist she could not get away, and her new position enabled me the easier to get my hand between her thighs and thus to feel her charming pouting little cunt. I began attempting to frig her clitoris, but stooping she drew her cunt away, and looking at me with a droll innocent expression of alarm, and with a perfect unconsciousness of the import of her words, cried,--"Oh! take care what you are at. You don't know how a lodger this last summer suffered for seizing me in that way and hurting me very much. I screamed out, aunt came up, and, do you know, he had £50 to pay for his impudence."

I could not but smile at the extraordinary innocence of the girl.

"But I do not hurt you, dear Jane," said I, "and don't mean to do so."

"That was what he said, but he went on in a most horrible way, and not only hurt me very much, but made me bleed."

"It would not be with his hand, you see I only gently press this soft hairy little thing. I am sure that don't hurt you."

"Oh, no! if that was all I should not mind it, it was when he pushed me on the sofa, and pressed upon me, that he hurt me terribly, and you must take care what you are about, or you, too, will have to pay £50."

There was a curious air of innocence in all this; it was evident to me the fellow had got into her, and broken her hymen with violence, and then her screams had prevented his finishing his work. Her manner convinced me that she was really not aware of the consequences, or rather had not as yet really had her sexual passions aroused.

"Well, my dear Jane, I neither intend to hurt you or make myself liable to pay £50, but you will not refuse me the pleasure of feeling this nice little hairy nest, you see how gentle I am."

"Well, if you will do me no more hurt than that I shan't refuse you, because you are a nice kind young gentleman, and very different from the other rough fellow, who never chattered with me and made me laugh as you do--but you must not push your fingers up there, it was something he pushed up there that hurt me so."

I withdrew my finger, and as, at my request, she had opened her thighs a little, I felt and caressed her very nice little cunt, and with a finger pressed externally above her clitoris, I could see that she flushed and shivered on feeling me there. However, I did no more than gently press and feel all her hairy mount and fat pouting cunt; she said I must let her go, or her aunt would be coming up.

The first step was now gained. Gradually I progressed further and further; felt her charming bare arse as she stood before me, got her to let me see the beautiful curls she had got on her cunt, then came to kissing it, until at last she opened her thighs and let me tongue it, to her most exquisite delight. I made her spend for the first time in her life, and soon she came to me for it. I had gradually introduced a finger up her cunt while licking her clitoris and exciting her so much that she was unconscious of my doing it; then two fingers, and after she had spent deliriously, I made them perform an imitation of a throb, which made her jump and ask what I was doing. I asked if she did not feel that my fingers were inside of her sweet Fanny.

"You don't say so. It was there I was so hurt."

"But I do not hurt you, dear Jane?"

"Oh, dear no, it makes me feel queer, but it is very nice."

"Well, now you know that I have two fingers inside, I will use my tongue again against your charming little clitoris, and work the fingers in and out."

I did so, and she soon spent in an agony of delight, pressing my head down hard on her cunt, and crying--"Oh! oh! it is too great a pleasure!" and then died off, half insensible. Another time I repeated this she told me not to forget to use my fingers. Having made her spend twice I took her on my knee, and told her that I possessed an instrument that would give her far more pleasure than tongue or finger.

"Indeed?" said she, "where is it? I should so like to see it."

"You won't tell."

"Oh, no!"

So pulling out my stiff-standing prick, she stared in amazement. She had really never seen a prick, although it was evidently a prick that had deflowered her, for with my fingers I had explored her cunt, and found no hymen there. I put her hand upon it, she involuntarily grasped it firmly.

"This enormous thing could never get into my body, look, it is thicker than all your fingers put together, and only two fingers feel so tight."

"Yes, darling, but this dear little thing stretches, and was made to receive this big thing."

I was exciting her clitoris with my finger, she grew evidently lasciviously inclined, so saying, "Just let me try, and if it hurts you I will stop; you know I am always gentle with you."

"So you are, my dear fellow, but take care not to hurt me." She lay down on the bed, as I desired, with feet up and knees laid open. I spat on my prick, and wetted the knob and upper shaft well, then bringing it to her cunt, well moistened by my saliva in gamahuching her, I held open the lips with the fingers of my left hand, and half buried its knob before getting to the real entrance.

"Don't flinch, dearest, I shall not hurt." And I got it well over the knob, and buried it one inch further.

"Stop!" she cried, "it seems as if it would burst me open, it so stretches me."

"But it does not hurt you, dearest?" I had immediately stopped before asking the question.

"No not exactly, but I feel as if something was in my throat."

"Rest a little, and that will go off." I slipped a finger down on her clitoris, and as I frigged it she grew more and more excited, giving delicious cunt pressures on my prick, it gradually made its way by the gentle pushing I continued to make without other movements. It was more than half in when she spent, this not only lubricated the interior, but the inner muscles relaxing, a gentle shove forward housed it to the hilt, and then I lay quiet until she recovered from the half fainting state her last discharge had produced; soon the increased pressures of the inner folds showed that her passions were awakening afresh. She opened her eyes and, looking lovingly, said I had given her great pleasure, but she felt as if something enormous was stretching her inside to the utmost. Had I got it all in?

"Yes, dearest, and now it will be able to give you greater pleasure than before." I began a slow withdrawal and return, frigging her clitoris at the same time, for I was standing between her legs. She soon grew wild with excitement, nature prompting her, her arse rose and fell almost as well as if she was mistress of the art. The novel combination of prick and finger quickly brought on the ecstatic crisis. I, too, was wild with lust, and we spent together, ending in an annihilation of all our senses by the extreme ecstasy of the final overpowering crisis. We lay panting for some time in all the after-joys. Dear Jane begged me to give her some water, as she felt quite faint. I withdrew, still almost in a standing state, got her some water, helped her up, seated her on the sofa and kissed her lovingly as I thanked her for the exquisite joy she had given me. She threw her arms round my neck, and with tears in her eyes told me I had taught her the joys of heaven, and she should always love me, and I must always love her, for now she could not live without me. I kissed and dried her eyes, and told her we should in future enjoy it even more when she got accustomed to it.

"Let me see the dear thing that gave me such pleasure."

I pulled it out, but it was no longer at the stand; and this surprised her. I explained the necessity of its being so, but said she would quickly see it rise and swell to the former size if she continued to handle it so nicely. It rose almost before I could say as much. She fondled it, and even stooped and kissed its ruby head. We should quickly have got to another bout of fucking if the ringing of the call bell had not brought us to a sense of its imprudence; so after arranging her hair and dress, she hastily descended with some of the breakfast things.

Of course, so good a beginning led to constant renewals and Jane quickly became extremely amorous, and under my instruction a first-rate fucker.

As all my dear friends were not in London, I was fortunate in having such a _bonne bouche_ to comfort me. My sisters passed every Sunday with me, and both got some good fucking out of me in every way, without raising any suspicions in the house.

A month after I had taken up my residence at Mrs. Nichols's, Jane's sister arrived. She was a much finer woman than Jane, broad shouldered, wide-spread bosom, which, in after-days, I found had not suffered by her "misfortune," but then she had not suckled it. Her hips were widely projected, and she was grand and magnificent in her arse. Naturally of a very hot temperament, when once she had tasted the magnificent weapon I was possessed of, she grew most lasciviously lustful, and was one of the best fuckers I ever met with. Her power of nip almost equalled by beloved aunt's. Jane was fair, Ann was dark, with black locks and black hairy cunt--a very long cunt, with a small tight hole in it, and above it a wide-spread projecting mount, splendidly furnished with hair. Her clitoris was hard and thick, but with little projection. She also became madly fond of arse-fucking, and particularly liked me to spend therein. This was partly to prevent any consequences leading to a second "misfortune."

On her first arrival Jane was much afraid she would discover our connection and we took every precaution, although I, in my heart, wished this might occur, for as she occasionally waited on me, I grew lecherous upon one whose charms, even covered, excited me greatly. I always flattered and praised her magnificence of figure whenever she came alone to me, but as Jane generally was running in and out, I did not attempt further action. One morning I overheard Mrs. Nichols tell Jane to put on her bonnet and go to Oxford Street on some errand; I knew thus that Ann would attend on me, and there would be no chance of interruption from Jane, so I determined to come at once to the point. We had become on friendly, chatty terms, and when she had laid breakfast I asked her to help me on with my coat, which done, I thanked her and with one arm round her waist drew her to me and kissed her. "Hallo!" said she, "that is something new," but did not attempt to withdraw, so giving her another kiss, I told her what a glorious woman she was, and how she excited me--just see. I held one of her hands, and before she was aware, placed it on my huge prick, that bulged out of my trousers as if it would burst its way through.

She could not help squeezing it, while she cried--"Goodness, gracious! what an enormous thing you have got!"

Her face flushed, her eyes sparkled with the fire of lust that stirred her whole soul. She tried to grasp it.

"Stop," said I, "and I will put it in its natural state into your hand."

So pulling it out, she seized it at once, and most lasciviously gazed upon it, pressing it gently. She evidently was growing lewder and lewder, so I at once proposed to fuck her, and thinking it best to be frank, and put her at her ease, I told her that I knew she had had a "misfortune," but if she would let me fuck her I should be on honour to withdraw before spending, and thus avoid all chance of putting her belly up.

She had become so randy that she felt, as she afterwards told me, she could not refuse so splendid a prick of a size she had often dreamt of, and longed for.

"Can I trust you?" said she.

"Safely, my dear."

"Then you may have me--let me embrace that dear object."

Stooping, she kissed it most voluptuously, shivering at the same time in the ecstasy of a spend produced by the mere sight and touch. She gave one or two "oh's," and drawing me to the bed by my prick, threw herself back, pulling her petticoats up at the same time. Then I beheld her splendid cunt in all its magnificence of size and hairiness. I sank on my knees and glued my lips to the oozing entrance, for she was one who spent most profusely, her cunt had the true delicious odour, and her spunk was thick and glutinous for a woman.

I tongued her clitoris, driving her voluptuously wild. So she cried--

"Oh! do put that glorious prick into me, but remember your promise."

I brought it up to that wide-spread, large-lipped, and immense cunt. I fully expected that big as I was I should slip in over head and shoulders with the greatest ease. So you may imagine my surprise to find the tightest and smallest of entrances to the inner vagina I almost ever met with, it was really with greater difficulty I effected an entrance than I had with her little sister, whose cunt presented no such voluptuous grandeur. It was as tight a fit as Ellen's was to me on our first coition. Tight as it was, it gave her nothing but the most exquisite pleasure, she was thoroughly up to her work, and was really one of the most voluptuous and lascivious fuckers I have ever met with, excellent as my experience has been. I made her, with fucking and frigging, spend six times before I suddenly withdrew my prick, and pressing its shaft against her wet lips, and my own belly, spent deliciously outside. Shortly after it rose again, and this time after making her spend as often as before, for she was most voluptuously lustful, when I withdrew, she suddenly got from under me, and seizing its shaft with one hand, stooped and took its knob between her lips, and quickly made me pour a flood of sperm into her mouth, which she eagerly swallowed and sucked on to my great delight.

We should have had a third bout but for the necessity of her going down to her aunt.

I breakfasted, then rang to take away. Again we had a delicious fuck, and a third when she came to make the bed and empty the slops. This third time I begged her to kneel on the sofa, and let me see her gloriously grand arse, and when I had to retire I would show her a way that would continue both our pleasure. So after fucking her from behind, and making her spend far oftener than me, I withdrew, and pushing it up between the lips over the clitoris, with my hand round her waist, I pressed it tightly against her cunt and clitoris, and continued to wriggle my arse, made her spend again as I poured a flood all up over her belly. She declared it was almost as good as if inside.

After this very shortly I proposed to push its nose into her bottom-hole, and just spend within.

With reluctance at first, it ended in her not only liking the point there, but deliciously enjoying my whole prick within, and eventually it was always the receptacle of a first discharge induced by fucking, and a second fuck completely carried on in that more secret altar of lust. She became a first-rate _enculeuse_.

It soon happened that both sisters knew of the other enjoying me, and it ended in their slipping down from their attic, where both slept in the same bed, to my room, and we had most delicious fucking and double gamahuching.

Ann was by far the finest and the most lascivious fuck, but little Jane had a certain charm of youth and also of freshness, which got her a fair share of my favours.

We carried this on for several weeks until use made us careless and noisy.

The aunt, when no lodgers occupied the room, slept overhead, and, probably being sleepless one morning, when it was early daylight, heard our voices, came down and surprised me in the very act of fucking Ann and gamahuching Jane, who stood above her and presented her cunt to my lecherous tongue. A loud exclamation from their aunt roused us up at once.

"Get to bed, you dreadful hussies."

They fled without a moment's hesitation.

Mrs. Nichols then began to remonstrate with me on the infamy of my conduct. I approached the door apparently to get my shirt, for I was stark naked, but in fact to shut and lock my door, and then to turn on Mrs. Nichols, who apparently had quite forgotten she had only her short shift on, which not only allowed the full display of very fine, firm, and ample bubbles, but not falling below the middle of her thighs, showed remarkably well made legs and small knees, with the swelling of immense thighs just indicated.

My stiff-standing prick in full vigour, and if anything, still more stimulated by the unexpected beauties shown by Mrs. Nichols, I turned upon her and seizing her round the waist from behind, pushed her forward, and before she could recover herself I had hauled up her "cutty sark," seen a most magnificent arse, and into her cunt--not without somewhat painful violence, before she could recover from the surprise of the attack.

She screamed out murder, but there was no one who could hear but the girls, and they knew better than to interrupt me. I kept fucking away in spite of cries, and passing an arm round her body, with my finger I got to her clitoris, which sprang out into considerable proportions. My big prick and the frigging of her clitoris produced their natural result. In spite of herself she grew full of lust. I felt her cunt pressures, and knew how her passions were rising. Speedily, in place of resisting, she began to cry, "Oh, oh," and breathe hard, and then most gloriously wriggled her splendid arse, and as I spent she too was taken in the delicious ecstasy of the final crisis. She lay throbbing on my delighted prick until it stood as stiff as before. I began a slow movement, she made no resistance, except crying out, "Oh! dear, oh! dear," as if in spite of regrets, she could not help enjoying it; indeed, at last she said--

"Oh! what a man you are, Mr. Roberts; it is very wrong of you to do this, but I cannot resist enjoying it myself. It is years since I did such a thing, but as you have done it, it makes me wish you should do it again. Let us change position."

"Very well, but you must throw off this tiresome chemise, or I won't withdraw."

As her lust was so excited, she made no objection, so withdrawing we stood up; she drew her shift over her head, and displayed a far more splendid form, with an exquisitely fair and dimpled skin, than I could have thought possible.

"My dear Mrs. Nichols, what a fine perfect form you have got, let me embrace you in my arms."

She was nothing loath, flattered by my praise. She laid hold of my cock with one hand, and closely clasped me with the other arm, while I threw an arm and hand round on her truly magnificent arse, and with my other hand pressed on a wonderful pair of bubbles as hard and firm as any maid of eighteen. Our mouths met in a loving kiss, our tongues exchanged endearments. She said--

"You have made me very wicked, let me have this enormous and dear fellow again."

I said I must first gaze on all her beauties, especially on her gorgeous and enormous bottom. She turned herself round in every way, delighted to find that I so ardently admired her.

She then lay down on her back, and spread wide her legs, and called to me to mount and put it in.

"First I must kiss this beautiful cunt, and suck this superb clitoris."

Her mount was covered with closely curled brown silky locks; her cunt was large with grand thick lips and well-haired sides. Her clitoris stood out quite three inches, red and stiff. I took it in my mouth, sucked it, and frigged her cunt with two fingers, which went in with the greatest ease, but were nipped tightly the moment the entrance was gained, and I frigged and sucked until she spent madly with absolute screams of delight. I continued to suck and excite her, which quickly made her cry out--

"Oh, darling boy, come and shove your glorious prick into my longing cunt."

I sprang up and buried him until our two hairs were crushed between us. She held me tight for a minute without moving, then went off like a wild _Bacchante_, and uttered voluptuous bawdy expressions.

"Shove your delicious prick further and harder. Oh, you are killing me with delight."

She was a perfect mistress of the art, gave me exquisite pleasure, and, I may add, proved afterwards a woman of infinite variety, and became one of my most devoted admirers. Our intrigue continued for years, while her age, as is the case with good wine, only appeared to improve her. Her husband was not a bad fucker, but having only a small prick, had never stimulated her lust as my big splitter had done.

We had on this first occasion three other good fucks, which she seemed to enjoy more and more.

As I had previously fucked the girls pretty well, my prick at last refused to rise and perform. We had to stop fucking, but I gamahuched her once more after again posing her, and admiring her really wonderfully well made and well-preserved body. She had a good suck at my cock, without bringing him up again.

At last we separated, but not before she made a promise that she would sleep with me that night, and a glorious night we had. I had the more difficult task of reconciling her to my having her nieces. I used to have them one night, and sleep with her the next.

Ann, as I have said, was one of the lewdest and most lascivious women I had ever known. I had told them of the beauty of their aunt's whole person, and of her wonderful clitoris, and how she liked me to gamahuche it. This awakened the tribadic passions of Ann to gamahuche her aunt.

I, at last, persuaded her to let Ann join us, and both were afterwards extremely glad I had done so, for both were thorough tribades, and lasciviously enjoyed each other, while being fucked by me in turns. Mrs. Nichols too, once she got used to arse-fucking, delighted in it, and we had the wildest orgies together.

Meanwhile, my very dear friend MacCallum had returned to town. He lived in the outskirts, but had taken a small set of chambers at Lyon's Inn, a sitting-room and bedroom, where he had a complete library of bawdy books and pictures to excite to new efforts passions palled with excess. It was here I took my sisters, and every Sunday we four, stripped to the buff, indulged in every excess the wildest lust could prompt.

At Christmas, uncle, aunt, the Dales, and Ellen all came to town, and taking the same rooms with others that uncle and Mrs. Dale and her son had formerly down in Norfolk Street, we had the most glorious orgies.

I confessed that I had debauched my sisters during the weary months I had been left alone with them, and advised their initiation into our society. Uncle greedily snatched at the idea, so did aunt and Harry Dale, but his mother and Ellen rather discouraged it. However, the majority had it, and aunt went to the school, and took them away for the holidays. I had instructed them to keep up the idea of a late initiation by me, and how much they liked it when done, carefully avoiding the least reference to former freedoms.

They afforded a very effective aid to the wild variety of our orgies. Uncle especially affected them, and was never tired of fucking, sucking or gamahuching their splendid charms. Aunt, whose lech was for fresh young women, was unbounded in her admiration and tribadic use of their bodies.

I made a confident of Harry Dale about our re-unions at MacCallum's, and, with the latter's leave, introduced him to our orgies in the Inn.

MacCallum took greatly to the fine tight arse of young Dale. He also wished to have Ellen introduced. I took occasion to break the matter to her, and in the end she made a delicious addition to those private orgies. In March Mrs. Benson, Mrs. Egerton, and husbands came up to town.

I had written to the Benson, and got a note from her the moment she arrived. I called immediately, and finding her alone, her husband having gone to the city, was received with delight. After flying into each other's arms, nature was too fierce for any amorous preliminaries. A sofa received our ardent bodies, and before one could think, legs were opened, cunt invaded, and a most rapid fuck, too rapid for luxury, was run off. Then while recovering from our first delirium of pleasure, we had time for a few words of mutual praise and admiration of improvements in both; but it was not until I had fucked her four times, and made her spend at least twice as often, that we found time to enter into close converse upon past events.

I had known by letter of the intrigue with the Count, Mrs. Egerton, and herself, and now heard, from her own mouth, more exciting details. She told me how Mrs. Egerton was eager to possess my unusually great prick, adding--

"By the way, she must be alone at this hour. Come along, we may have some fun to-day."

I had not seen Mrs. Egerton for many years, in fact, for long before I had fucked Mrs. Benson. We went. Her reception was all I could wish.

Mrs. Benson told us to lose no time, but to run off at least an introductory embrace when the field was so clear. Mrs. Egerton made no objection; the Benson acted mistress of the ceremonies, pulled out my prick and lifted the Egerton's petticoats, turning both sides to view, and making the Egerton handle and admire the nobleness of my prick, then telling her to kneel and present her fat arse to my lustful gaze, guided my longing prick into her really delicious cunt; and a most excellent fuck we had, which, as Mrs. Benson said, would put us at our ease in an interview she had planned for next day, in which the Count was to join us, and telling me I should have to show my mettle to rival the Count.

We met next day at a quiet house in Percy Street, Tottenham Court Road. The ladies had gone to the Soho Bazaar, leaving their carriage in Soho Square, going out by another entrance in a back street, and driving up in a cab to us in Percy Street.

At an evening call I had made, to be introduced to Mr. Egerton, I had met and been introduced to the Count. We had walked home as far as his apartments, in Berners Street, and arranged to meet in Percy Street, before the arrival of our beautiful and dear friends. Thus we were impatiently awaiting their coming when they arrived.

It is needless to say no sooner had they entered, and the mere embrace and kiss of welcome been given, than they retired to another room, opening into the one where we 'were, to take off all encumbrances to the wildest lust, while we, too, disencumbered ourselves of all our clothes. We were quicker than they were, and the Count was in the act of handling and admiring the grandeur of my prick when the two beautiful creatures entered in nature's only robe, and well might we exclaim--

"Woman, when unadorned is adorned the most," for two more beautiful women or more perfectly lovely in shape could hardly be seen. Women, too, as voluptuous and lascivious in their passions as any of their sex could be, and it was now our delight to enjoy and satisfy their ardent lust by fucking them in every way, as well as for the first time giving them the joy of having two real pricks in them at once. The charming Benson, as my original initiator in love's mysteries, claimed my first embrace, the Count fucking Mrs. Egerton. We were so placed that each could see the other, and thus enjoy the excitement of the scene. The dear creatures spent thrice to our once.

Then the Egerton claimed me while the Count refilled the cunt I had just quitted.

Again we made them spend thrice to our once. They preferred these preliminary encounters to the more lascivious excesses we were about to enter upon as exciting and preparing their passions for more voluptuous embraces.

Both the dear creatures loved a prick _in culo_ from time to time, but as yet they had not had the opportunity of having a prick in each aperture at once.

The Egerton, to whom my prick was as yet a novelty, said she must have it in her cunt while the Count planted his lesser but very fine prick in her arse.

The Count's prick was quite as long, or nearly so, as mine, and even thicker close to the roots, but tapered up to a small pointed knob, so that for the _enculage_ he had greater facility, than my huge-knobbed affair, whose head was as thick as any part of it. This difference of formation made the dear creatures both prefer my prick in front while the Count attacked them in the rear. They generally each got two, with me below and the Count above. But, although it was at first somewhat painful when my huge prick took the rearward side with the Count in front, they soon got accustomed to it, although invariably beginning, after our preliminary fucking, with the Count first _in culo_.

The Egerton, as I said before, made her first trial of two pricks fucking her at once, by having me below her. I had laid down on my back, she straddled over me, the Benson claimed the place of conductress to the instruments of pleasure, and, first giving a suck to my prick, she guided it into the delicious cunt of her friend, who sank down upon my stiff-standing prick, deliciously impaling herself thereon, and went off in a voluptuous discharge on feeling its huge head engulphed to the utmost; she rose and fell upon it in an upright position, until she had spent a second time, and had brought up her passion to the wildest rage of lust, then falling into my longing arms, she called out to the Count to shove his prick at once into her arse.

The Benson had, meanwhile, sucked and moistened the Count's fine prick, making him as eager as the Egerton to be into her beautiful arsehole. The Benson conducted it to the divine entrance of that rapture-giving receptacle, which he entered at first with little difficulty, but as the thickening of his prick by its further entrance began to stretch the tender folds between our two pricks, the Egerton cried out for a momentary pause, as it was producing the strange sensation that one prick alone produces in the earlier stage of sodomitic embraces.

The Benson came to her aid by desiring the Count to withdraw about half the distance he had gained and having whipt up some warm soapsuds she well wetted his lower shaft and then he more easily recovered lost ground, and gained a complete lodgement within the tremendously stretched affair, for as I have said, the lower part of his shaft was thicker than I could grasp.

The Egerton felt as if the two apertures were about to be torn into one, and cried out for a few minutes' cessation.

We both lay still, beyond the involuntary throbbing of our pricks, pressed as they were against each other, for the at-all-times-thin membrane dividing cunt from arsehole was now stretched to the fineness of gold leaf, and to our sensations did not appear to exist at all.

These double throbbings soon stirred up all the wild lubricity of the Egerton's nature, first showing itself in the responsive inward pressures of the delicate widely stretched folds of both receptacles, then increasing in fiery lust, she cried out for us to begin gently our first movements. We drew in and out in unison together, at first slowly, but the Egerton finding that we were producing the most excessive delight to her double-gorged receptacles, cried out--

"Oh! oh! It is heavenly; fuck faster, you angelic fuckers. I--Oh! faster, faster. Oh! oh! it is too much."

She spent in such an agony of ecstasy as to faint clean away.

We were not aware of this, not having ourselves spent as we had only paused to let her enjoy her most heavenly discharge to the utmost. Then, first with throbs, and then with in and outward movements, we soon recovered her from her trance of excessive joy. Her passions were more violently stirred than before. She wriggled her arse convulsively sideways, she raved in the grossest bawdy terms, and so excited us that we all three came to the final crisis in wild cries of the grossest lust, and died away in an agony of bliss, so overpowering that we lay, almost insensible, soaking in the sacred vases in which were compressed our well-satisfied pricks. Meanwhile the Benson, wildly excited by the scene enacted below her eyes, sought relief by kneeling beyond my head, for we always fucked on the floor with mattresses spread widely around; she then backed her splendid arse over my head, and brought her cunt to my mouth, and I had gamahuched her continuously until my own delicious spending annihilated all power of movement for the time being.

The Egerton, in the agony of her pleasure at the moment of the last spend, had fastened her teeth on the glorious arse of the Benson before her, and bit so hard as actually to draw blood and make the Benson spring forward with a sudden start and cry. But we were all too lost in the ecstatic joys to even hear the cry of pain she uttered.

At last the Egerton gave signs of returning life. The Benson had risen and was eager for her turn, but Mrs. Egerton implored that she might have once again a taste of these more than heavenly joys while both pricks were still engulfed within her and thus avoid the pain of entrance.

This was so reasonable that the Benson yielded with a good grace.

The Count, to indemnify her, begged her to stride over our two bodies, so as to bring her delicious cunt to his mouth, which, as he was kneeling, was just at the proper level; so he gamahuched, and embracing her splendid arse, postillioned her at the same time; thus we were a chain of delight.

This bout was drawn out to great length.

The Egerton must have spent half-a-dozen times, and when we both at last jammed our pricks up in the ferocity of lust, making all three give down life's essence in an almost killing ecstasy, she really fainted quite away, and so alarmed us that we withdrew to use such remedies as were at hand to bring her to; even then she was quite hysterical. We laid her in the bed; she was relieved by a copious flood of tears, which she assured us were those of joy at the exquisite and overpowering delights we had conferred upon her. She begged us now to gratify the Benson with the same ecstatic joys we had bestowed upon her, and she would be a quiet, and delighted spectator of our doings.

It was now my own loved Mrs. Benson's turn to experience the inexpressible delights of the double junction. From her love of my splendid splitter, of which she had taken the first sweets, and which had been initiated in her deliciously adulterous cunt into the divine mysteries of love, and the still more sacred and secret joys of the second altar dedicated to the worship of Priapean unutterably sensual raptures; from this circumstance and the constant use of the rear receptacle practised by her husband, whose prick was a very fine one, the initiation into the _double jouissance_ was less nervously effected than with the less used arsehole of the more delicate Egerton, but at the same time two such pricks operating at once made her wince a little before we were fairly engulphed to the cods, the banging together of which in their close proximity added greatly to the stimulating of our lust.

The sweet Benson lent herself most readily to the work, and seconded us by her art in wriggling her arse and the delicious cunt and sphincter pressures; enjoying herself at once and more rapidly than the Egerton, she got four delicious discharges before our somewhat more sluggish senses would allow us to come to the grand final crisis, which seemed to stimulate the divine Benson to a point of raving lust, which showed itself in cries of the grossest bawdy; shouting to us to shove our pricks in further and faster, calling us all the loudest blackguard names she could put her tongue to--absolutely roaring as the final discharge seized her in the very same instant that we poured floods of sperm into both interiors, she then sank, annihilated by the excess of the voluptuous delights conferred upon her, but lay throbbing and pulsating in all the after-joys of the utmost venereal satisfaction. We lay long in this delicious inanition of such voluptuous excesses.

The darling Benson exercised her delicious "nippers" in both orifices, which soon had their expected effect, and shortly the flesh gave symptoms of its "resurrection" to mundane joys, after having passed through the heavenly delights of Paradise, truly rising from the most delicious graves in which they were lying so exquisitely buried. Like her lovely predecessor she was eager for more, and if it were possible our second course was superior to the first, at all events it was longer drawn out, for the previous draughts on our slackening appendages made the further delivery an effort requiring longer pumping, and thus swelled the amount of pleasure by lengthening the process before arriving at the grand final crisis.

The Benson, much more ungovernable in her passion than we were, must have spent six or seven times in our last effort, and died away in, if anything, greater abandon than in our first course, and eventually sank completely overcome by the entire satisfaction of her raging lust for the time being. We, too, both wanted a respite, so we all rose.

The two dear creatures when once on their legs found instant necessity to evacuate their rear receptacles of the double cargo taken in, and disappeared for a few minutes.

We all purified ourselves and well laved everything with ice cold water to reanimate them the sooner. We then sat down to a stimulating refreshment, in which we at least all drank a bottle of Champagne apiece, in the midst of delightful and exciting bawdy wit and obscene stories, in which our darling _fouteuses_ showed a witty proficiency.

In half an hour we began to take up our positions. It was my turn to take them in the rear, but both begged off for that day. The pause for refreshment had given time to make them feel sore after the great stretching they had undergone for the first time, so my turn was delayed for three days, that being the usual delay in their orgies to prevent suspicion by too frequent absences, but not excluding any opportunity that might occur for a rack-off in the mean time. So we only each fucked them once and closed our exquisite orgy for that day; parting with every expression of fully satisfied desires, and the warmest kisses and embraces.

The Count and I walked to his apartments to refresh ourselves there with hot tumblers of toddy; whiskey being a great favourite of his, and, in his opinion, the best restorative after our exhausting efforts with the two insatiable creatures.

He congratulated himself on my accession to these orgies, as being a great relief to the burden he had had in satisfying both in both ways when all alone with them.

However, the Count was an indefatigable and an unwearied fucker, but two such insatiable cunts often had tried his powers to the utmost, and was more than he liked to do at the interview, so he had found whiskey toddy a remedy at once efficacious and agreeable. I myself with my private excesses at home was glad to know so pleasant a restorative. The Count and I became the most intimate and attached friends; through him I perfected myself in Italian, and not many years after this, passed some happy months with him in Italy after he had been amnestied, returned to his country and recovered part of his once large property, but of that hereafter.

I called next day on my adored Benson, who had developed into a glorious woman, more lovely and lustful than ever.

We had but a moment to ourselves, and could not use it for amatory purposes but as we both had much to relate we agreed to meet at our house in Percy Street the next day.

This house was taken furnished for love purposes only, and merely an old woman was kept to take care of and arrange matters when we were gone; it was held in the Count's name but paid for by the two fair users of it. They had latch keys each, and the place was kept ready for everyday use.

The dear libidinous Benson avowed that she used it for other lovers unknown to the Count or the Egerton; paying the old woman liberally, she had all her own way.

We met there the next day, rushing into each other's arms, and then assisting in the undressing we had three exquisite fucks, during which the delighted Benson spent seven times, and then we could have a long and uninterrupted talk over old times, and my after-doings. I told her all, and how the Vincent, my elder sister, Miss Frankland, my aunt, and Mrs. Dale had all thought me an innocent, receiving his first lesson in their delicious cunts, and how true and wise had been her sage counsels. She listened in wonder and delight, drew from me descriptive pictures of our conjunctions and thrice interrupted my narrative to have a delicious fuck to calm the excitement raised by the lascivious descriptions of my acts with all those most glorious women. I told her also of my intrigue at my lodgings with the two sisters and the Count.

My description of the latter set her off in raging lust, and produced another most excellent fuck. But afterwards she told me I must find other quarters in some place where Mrs. Egerton and she, or either of them, could call and receive comfort without observation.

I told her I was inscribed for chambers in the Inner Temple, which I had reason to believe I should get in a week or two. This much pleased her, and it will be seen that I succeeded in getting just such a set as exactly suited the great object in view, approachable without being under the observation of others; commodious and agreeable, where all that the dear Benson wished to be added to our set were brought together, and the wildest orgies of the most insatiable lust were carried on.

My description of my aunt, of Mrs. Dale, and especially of Miss Frankland, now Mrs. Nixon, excited all the tribadic passions for which the dear Benson was so famous.

Her clitoris, which was formerly prominent, was more so now, and she dearly loved to gamahuche her own sex. In that way she took a great fancy to my sisters, especially Eliza, who had all the same instincts very decidedly pronounced. So we had the prospect of the most consummate orgies in 'near view, and most gloriously in the end we realised our wildest expectations.

In men we were more restricted; the Count would only consent to have Harry Dale and my uncle in any orgy of which he formed part. He was nervously timid about his sodomistic tendencies being known to many, and only yielded on account of the relationship and the closer ties of Harry Dale and myself, who eventually shared my chambers, and we lived together, so that perforce he was obliged to put up with his presence.

He soon came to delight in having Harry's prick in his bottom when fucking others at our orgies. It will thus be seen that the Count's timid exclusiveness shut out from these family orgies my dear and esteemed friend and master MacCallum More. However, in a certain sense, it was an advantage, as we had at least the pick of the young ones, in my two sisters and Ellen, who wanted very little persuasion to join our Lyon's Inn orgies. And our excellent friend had some of his own set, both male and female, to meet us either with one, two or all, for we could not always manage to have the whole of the dear creatures together. En revanche, dear MacCallum had several youthful ganymedes, whose tight young bottom-holes were a great solace when cunts were altogether absent.

We thus had two distinct and separate sets of orgies, which had all the natural effect of novelty, and by exciting comparison, making us turn from one to the other with renewed passions and power of enjoyment.

As my sisters could only come on Sundays, that was our exclusive day, and we made an entire day of it, but I, in the end, persuaded Ann to join our orgies with MacCallum, and she proved a first-rate addition in every way.

I have already stated that she was of a most libidinous temperament, and developed into one of the most lascivious and lustful of women one could possibly find, and as she had rare beauties and splendour of form, she was made to raise the most raging lust in man or woman, for she, too, was as fond of tribadic indulgencies as my aunt or the delicious Frankland. Her position as a servant prevented our introducing her to Ellen or my sisters. As a matter of worldly prudency it was best not to trust her with the knowledge of their complying with all our lustful demands on their charming persons.

The Count, myself, and our two charming lovers met on the appointed day to renew our delicious orgies. After both of us had fucked each dear creature came the _double jouissance_.

We took the adorable Benson first, that the scene of our erotic sports might stir the lust of the darling Egerton to a greater heat. It was my turn to lay my offering on the secret altar of Priapus, while the Count filled her cunt with delight.

As I have before said, the arsehole of the Benson was much more used that that of the Egerton, whose husband never dreamt of such a horror, as she would call it. Mr. Benson, on the contrary, delighted in it, and seldom passed a night without paying his devoirs to that delicious aperture. So, although it was but the second time she had indulged in the _double jouissance_, yet her lust enabled her to take in with greater ease my big prick in her arsehole, with the Count's fine prick in front, than when our parts were reversed. She revelled in the wild fury of raging lust, created by the glorious ecstasy of having a prick in each aperture--screamed with wild cries of heavenly joy, spent furiously, and eventually died away in an overpowering and indescribable felicity. She soon recovered her senses, and begged for another bout before withdrawing. Of course there was immediate compliance and another more soul-killing encounter was run off with the usual death-like termination.

I had continuously gamahuched the Egerton who straddled over the two bodies below her, and brought her delicious cunt to my mouth, while my arms encircled her beautifully formed and cream-like coloured buttocks, at the same time acting postillion with two fingers to increase her lustful gratification.

We purified ourselves after this, and drank some Champagne, then standing stiff at the prospect of now possessing the lovely body of the Egerton, we took up the same position as before, the Count under, in cunt, the Egerton above, with her deliciously fair arse exposed to my embraces first, and my big prick afterwards.

The adored Benson gave it a suck first, and well wetting the knob, guided it to the narrow entrance of love's secret bower. Its head was soon housed, and although still creating strange feelings, the previous day's attack had made the entrance more facile.

With little halting we drove on to the first delicious discharge. The second bout was all divine pleasure, and ever after the delicious Egerton enjoyed it completely.

These delicious orgies with these two lovely women were indulged in on every third day.

I became a favourite with both their husbands, thanks to a kind of sheepish innocence that I had the power of putting on.

At the same time as my education had been well attended to and as I myself was fond of study, attentive to my college instruction, and anxious for a knowledge of foreign languages, I had become fairly proficient in German and Spanish, and well read in French and Italian. The latter was perfected by the Count's friendship, as we were much together and spoke nothing else. Perhaps it was this which led to a greater friendship for me on the part of Mr. Egerton, who was an excellent Italian scholar. His wife's intrigue with the Count had also perfected her, so that when we all four dined together Italian was the only language spoken among us.

The dear Benson, too, was a perfect mistress of the Count's tongue, as well she might, having it so often in her mouth; and as it is a soft language that lends itself to love and lust, it became ours in all our orgies.

The delicious Frankland, now Mrs. Nixon, returned to town with the spring. By that time I was established in my chambers in the Inner Temple, and had them simply furnished, but with every accessory for love's combats in couples, or in the wildest orgies. The adorable Benson inaugurated and dedicated them to the service of holy mother Venus and her son Cupid, as well as the more lustful Eros.

The Egerton and the Count afterwards came to consecrate them to the worship of Priapus, and we had a most delicious orgy on that sacred celebration.

It was on this occasion that those two wild lustful creatures insisted on seeing the Count and me in conjunction together. The Benson guided me into the Count's bottom, while he was in the bottom of the Egerton, and the Egerton conducted the Count into my bottom while I was luxuriating in the delicious arsehole of my adored Benson. It satisfied a longing desire on their parts to see man with man, and did not displease either the Count or myself, who, in our secret hearts, had each wished to possess the other.

The Count was a powerful and very hairy man, and had an especially very full hairy arsehole, which to me was wildly exciting.

In that I differed from my dear friend MacCallum, who loved bare-arsed youths with no hair there, telling me that coarse hairy arsed men rather disgusted him, and although in his wide sodomitic experience he had had such, it was with a certain repugnance that went against the grain.

In that I differed from him entirely, the hairier and the coarser a man's arsehole was the more it excited me. In that respect the Count was exactly to my taste. He was very hairy all up the chink of his arse, and had a very coarse skin and an almost black arsehole, so deep a brown it was, the very sight of which always drove me mad with lust.

He as much loved me from another cause. His great letch was to frig a fine prick while buggering the possessor, hence, as he had never met with so fine a one as mine, he was insatiably fond of being into me and frigging me at the same time.

We thus had two points of private attraction, that made us become the closest of friends, but we did not let any of our dear female participants know of the mutual joys of which they were not participants.

The superb Frankland, now my guardian's wife, also came alone to my chambers, and we had a renewal of all our wildest experiences. She told me it was such a comfort to her, for although her husband, Mr. Nixon, was very loving, and did all he could, still it was nothing but exciting her to long for others, especially for my own huge prick, of which she never knew but that she had been the first initiator of it into love's delicious recess in either sacred grove.

So fresh and eager as she was for the fray you may easily imagine the wild excess we indulged in, sucking, gamahuching, fucking, and buggering. I cannot tell how often in every way her exciting and glorious body carried me away to an excess beyond anything I could have thought myself capable of.

When fairly exhausted, and we could uninterruptedly talk over all that had occurred since I had left my mother's house, she heard in full detail, for the first time, all my adventures.

I had given her, at the time of her marriage, a hint of how matters had gone, yet without any details, which now she was voracious to hear. I told her of my aunt's and uncle's apparent seduction of me, nor did I hide our goings-on with young Dale, and my after-possession of Ellen and his mother, who was the last to believe herself my seducer, for as I told the delicious Frankland (I can never bear to call her Nixon), I had followed her sage advice, and up to the Dale had played off the innocent game with perfect success; but now that I was a man I threw all that overboard.

"Indeed," said she, "and who have you been throwing it overboard with."

I laughed at her ready taking of me up, and then went on to a full confession of all my intrigues.

She did not like my having taken up with the two servants, the nieces of my late landlady, thinking it derogatory in one endowed with a prick that any lady would be too glad to possess, but she was very much struck with my description of the superb body and wonderful lubricity of the Nichols.

It excited her much, especially when I told her that she had given me the idea of her near approach in body and wantonness to herself.

It will be seen hereafter to what a closer alliance with the Nichols this led. Pressing her enquiries, I acknowledged my intrigue with the Benson, Egerton, and Count. This evidently excited her lust, as I could see by the wild sparkle of her eye. It led to an immediate and delicious fuck, and when recovered from its ecstatic finish, to closer and more searching enquiry as to how I got into such intimacy, but I had expected this somewhat jealous scrutiny, and was quite prepared for it. I led her to believe they had been here nearly all the winter. I told her my mother had desired me to call and see the Ben-sons as friends of hers. I had done so. The Bensons quickly observed how largely I was furnished, very soon gave me encouragement, of which I did not want much after the late intercourse I had had with herself, aunt, and Mrs. Dale.

Thus matters came quickly to their natural conclusion. She was perfectly astonished at my powerful weapon, and as she and her dearest friend already shared lovers, I was quickly introduced to her friend Mrs. Egerton, and they had me together, and let me into the secret of their intrigue with the Count, which was followed by my initiation into their orgies.

My praises of these two ladies, and my saying how glorious it would be for her to make a fifth, and my description of the exquisite body and the tribadic tendencies of Mrs. Benson, fired her wild imagination, and woke up all her tribadic lusts, and it ended in her begging me to give a luncheon at my chambers to the Benson and the Egerton, that she might be introduced to them, more especially as they really moved in a society somewhat higher than Mr. Nixon's connections, although, in point of wealth, the Nixons were far superior.

The little luncheon came off most agreeably. The ladies all took to each other most warmly; seeing which, I boldly broke the ice, and telling the Benson and Egerton that dear Mrs. Nixon was my first initiator in love's mysteries, and as had both of them, the wisest thing we could do would be to throw away all restraint and have a jollification all round. To set them at their ease--for there was a momentary hesitation--I pulled out my prick at full stand, and said--

"There's a prick worthy of all your exquisite cunts, and one, too, that has enjoyed them all, and been enjoyed by every one of you. So throw away all hesitation and let him enjoy you all again. Who is to have it first?"

They laughed, and all approached and handled it, interchanging their opinions upon its being the very finest one that any of them had ever seen.

"Ah, now," said I, "that is just the thing, you are at once put at ease, then let us do it with ease; strip is the word, and let us have it luxuriously."

They laughed, kissed each other, and said the dear fellow must have his way, and all at once proceeded to undress. The glorious and wonderfully hairy body of the Frankland perfectly astonished them, and raised their tribadic passions to fever heat, especially the Benson, who threw herself on that glorious form in an ecstasy of delight, more especially as the Frankland's passions being excited, her long red clitoris stood out from the dense black mass of hair which covered not only her belly and mount, but all down and around her cunt. Nothing would satisfy the Benson but an immediate mutual gamahuche, for, with true tribadic instinct, these two beautiful and libidinous women divined their mutual letch for that particular lascivious inclination, and at once proceeded, one on the top of the other, to wildly gamahuche each other. The Egerton and myself seized the opportunity of having a delicious fuck together, which we brought to a conclusion before the others had satisfied their immediate desires.

The Frankland, who at first was under, was now above, and as she knelt and pushed out her stupendous arse to bring her cunt over the Benson's mouth, the sight of its hairy arsehole roused my desire to fuck it, and my cock responded instantly, so kneeling behind her, I introduced it to the well-known receptacle, and to her infinite additional delight, sodomised her to perfection. This was another means of putting them all at ease, and I fucked and buggered them all until neither handling nor suction could get my prick to raise his head again.

You may easily imagine after this how delighted they were to make the glorious Frankland a participator in our orgies with the Count. Nor shall I forget the wild gaze of surprise and lust when the Count first beheld the splendid and hairy form of the glorious Frankland when she entered the room in all the dazzling splendour of her perfect nakedness. These two natures were made for each other, both salacious to a degree, both vigorous in body and untiring in the most libidinous excesses of the wildest lust. Both hairy to a degree, showing the meaning of that vast display all over both their bodies. They were instantly attracted to each other, flew into the closest of embraces, and sinking on the floor where they met, two strokes were racked off before they came to a state of more moderation, amenable to our general operations. It had been all the same an exciting scene to us.

The Benson was madly stimulated by the sight of the Frankland's superb body; her long red clitoris, not satisfied with the double rack-off with the Count, appeared only to be more excited, and stirred the whole soul of the adorable Benson. She threw herself in reverse upon the Frankland before she had time to raise herself, seized with her mouth the wonderful clitoris, called upon me to fuck her from behind, and then with fingers up arsehole and cunt worked furiously. The dear Frankland responded on the fine clitoris of the Benson, and postillioned me at the same time. We ran off two bouts in this delicious position, and then with more regulated passions rose to form more general combinations.

The Count had fucked the Egerton while we were engaged above the divine Frankland. Our first pose was suggested by the Egerton, who had been as yet less fucked than any. She had been also greatly taken with the glories of the Frankland's superb body, and especially struck with her extraordinary clitoris, and had taken the curious letch of wishing to have it in her bottom-hole while riding St. George on my big prick. We all laughed at her odd choice, but agreed at once, especially the Frankland, whose greatest letch was to fuck very fair young women with her long and capable clitoris. A fairer creature than the lovely Egerton could not be found. The Frankland admitted that in her inmost heart she had longed thus to have the Egerton from the moment she had first seen her, and her delight and surprise at finding the dear Egerton had equally desired to possess her, fired her fierce lust with increased desire. I lay down, the Egerton straddled over, and feeling the delight of my huge prick when completely imbedded, she spent profusely with only two rebounds. Then sinking on my belly she presented her lovely arse to the lascivious embraces of the salacious Frankland, whose first act was to stoop, embrace, kiss, and tongue the beautiful little pinky aperture, wetting it with her saliva, she brought her fine long clitoris, stiff as a prick, and plunged within. The letch that both had taken for the same indulgence lent enchantment to the act, and their wild imaginations created an excess of joy that the smaller size of the Frank-land's clitoris, in comparison with the dimensions of our longer pricks, might not have led one to suppose possible.

Twice we indulged in this excess, the women going off half a dozen times to my once.

I had aided the Frankland by using a double dildo, which at once filled both apertures. This excellent instrument was an invention of the Frankland, which she had suggested to a Parisian dildo maker, and had had it made in two or three sizes. It became very useful in our orgies, as from disparity of numbers an odd couple were left out, when the _double jouissance_ was in operation, and then the two outsiders, with tongues and dildoes, could gamahuche with great satisfaction.

During our tribadic junction, with the Egerton fucked by the Frankland in the arse, the Count had first fucked and then sodomised the Benson to their mutual satisfaction. We all rose, purified, and refreshed with wine and biscuits, while discussing what our next move should be. The Count had not yet had the Frankland _in culo_, and suggested, as it was her introductory meeting, that the greater honours should be conferred on her on this happy occasion, so I was to fuck her while he enjoyed her in the rear quarters. The Egerton and the Benson should use double dildoes to each other, or in any other way amuse themselves.

This was a most exquisite encounter, and with such unutterable enjoyment that we hardly paused between the first and second, and it was not until we had deluged thrice both interiors that we withdrew. The delighted Frankland had never ceased spending, but so vigorous a nature could easily have taken twice as much; but the other dear creatures had now to be conciliated.

The Count next took the Benson in cunt while I blocked the rear aperture, and the Frankland once more enculed the Egerton, who dildoed herself in cunt at the same time; all of us running two courses. We then rose, purified, and refreshed. When our pricks were ready it was the Egerton who took me in front and the Count behind, and the Benson, who had grown lewd on the Frankland's clitoris, was sodomised by her and dildoed by herself. The Egerton still suffered a little in the double stretching, so that we ran but one exquisite bout, enabling us, whose powers began to fail to be re-excited, to finish with the _double jouissance_ in the glorious body of the Frankland.

We carried this on until the midsummer holidays, when at their desire I introduced the Benson, Egerton, Frankland, and the Count to my uncle, aunt, Mrs. Dale, Ellen, and Harry, and we had some glorious orgies in my chambers.

The splendour of my aunt's arse captivated the Frankland and the Count. The latter soon got into young Dale's arse, which he did one day when arriving for the very purpose half an hour before the appointed time of all meeting. I was present, and was so excited at the sight that I seized upon the Count's arse and delightedly astonished him by giving the double enjoyment.

It was after this, as Harry remained to live with me, that he was introduced to our general orgies, and thus we occupied all the dear creatures at once, and most voluptuous and lascivious meetings we all enjoyed, the Count occasionally giving us a private visit.

Meanwhile Ellen had been put to the same finishing school where my sisters already were, with permission to go out with them on the Sundays, when we always had a delicious orgy at our dear friend MacCallum's. He, like the Count, had taken a peculiar fancy for the tight young arsehole of Harry Dale, without altogether deserting the women, especially my sister Eliza, whose delight in rear sports was supreme, and she never would be fucked but when she had a prick in each aperture, preferring mine in her cunt with either Dale or MacCallum operating in the rear.

Knowing the hours when I could not be interrupted by any of my lady friends, I did not neglect the superb Nichols, but had her and Ann to come together for an hour and a half, from half-past nine to eleven a.m., and most delicious fucking I had with both. I had equally initiated them into the mysteries of rear delights, and both took it with great gusto. Upon finding this I gradually descanted on the exquisite delights of the _double jouissance_ with two male pricks, filling with ecstasies indescribable the two apertures at once.

When once I had excited their desires on this point, I mentioned my dear friend MacCallum More, as one in whom we could all confide, and with some little hesitation obtained their consent to introduce him. I had already mentioned the matter to him; told him he might think the Nichols too old, but she was gloriously superb in body, and so extraordinarily well preserved that her body was twenty years younger than her face and her lust and fucking powers were far superior to a woman of twenty-five. Besides, I hinted that he might persuade Ann, and perhaps her sister Jane, to join our Lyon's Inn revels.

We met by appointment on a given morning. I advised MacCallum to come sooner, and when the women came, under the pretence of his not being able to join us that morning, I would get them stript, and when all was ready he should appear in buff, and so break any _mauvaise honte_ they might have at first undressing before him.

He was wonderfully struck with the superb body of the Nichols, and, as the stranger, we gave him his choice. He clasped her in his nervous arms, devoured her with kisses, and incontinently laying her down on the mattressed floor, proceeded to fuck her in the good old English fashion, with legs and arms around her body. Ann and I gazed for a little on the splendid action of her aunt's arse, and the evident way in which she milked the teat as it withdrew each time he heaved his arse to re-enter with exciting vigour. We could hold no longer and each ran a course of ecstatic delight ending in all the frenzy of lust to die inanimate the next instant.

Our charming partners had spent repeatedly during our encounter. They wanted an immediate renewal, but MacCallum suggested a change of partners and of position, that is to say, fucking them on their knees with their splendidly developed buttocks turned up but taking them in the cunt.

This change was rapidly effected. We placed ourselves in such a position that each could see all the action of the other. It was a splendid fuck, and as our edge was taken off we drew it out a considerable length, giving the dear recipients the opportunity of spending four or five times to our once.

After recovering from the soaking after-joys of this delicious encounter, we had some champagne and some smutty talk, as well as outspoken praise of their splendid power of fuck; feeling their cunts and they our pricks, till renovated and renewed, we arranged for further action. As it was their introductory lesson in the double enjoyment, the splendid Nichols had, of course, first choice. She chose me for cunt, and to his intense delight, our dear friend for the rear attack. Ann was to straddle over her aunt and me, and be gamahuched both in cunt and arsehole by our friend. We had no difficulty in hilting ourselves to the cods in both apertures, but so excited was the Nichols that with the mere throbbings of our pricks on completely housing ourselves, she spent, squealing like a rabbit. We gave her time to fully enjoy it, and then commenced a slow, regulated movement, which quickly drove the Nichols into a state of furiously raving lust, and again she spent in an almost killing agony of delight, screaming with excess of ecstasy. Again we paused to allow of the utmost enjoyment, but renewed when her delicious cunt and arse pressures announced a return of craving appetite. These pauses enabled us to bring on seven overpouring discharges on her part, until she was quite exhausted, especially when we both came together in an excess of joy that ended in perfect inanition, on recovering from which we relieved the Nichols of the double cargo within her.

She had already almost strangled me with her embraces in the unutterable joys I had procured her. Rolling off on her side she drew MacCallum also to her, to embrace him for the intense gratification he had afforded her. We again refreshed the inward man after a purification and laving with cold water, as a restorative. Then Ann took up her position in her turn, for she, too, wished to try the novel experiment with the smaller prick in her arsehole.

The Nichols felt exhausted for the moment, so lay on the sofa and enjoyed the sight of our three persons in all the delirium of raging lust and sodomy. The experiment enchanted Ann as it had overpoweringly enchanted her aunt. She, too, spent seven or eight times before joining us in our soul-killing discharge. The Nichols had laid still for about two thirds of the time this bout continued, she then rose to straddle across Ann and me, and was about to present her magnificently large cunt to be gamahuched by MacCallum, but he begged her to turn her bottom to him and heave it well up, while resting her hands on Ann's shoulders. He then could first contemplate and handle her huge superb buttocks, then transferring his hands to her clitoris and cunt, he licked and tongued the grand aperture of her arse--rough, brown, and corrugated, just my taste.

We had a most glorious bout, ending in all the ecstatic joys of spending and after-delights. Ann was as greatly gratified with the _double jouissance_ as her aunt had been before. We again laved and refreshed, and closed this most delicious orgy with MacCallum first in the Nichols' cunt, with my big and doted-on prick in her arse, which, now she was used to it, pleased her more than ever.

In the same order we double-fucked Ann, although she expressed her greater gratification of MacCallum in her arse and my splitter in her cunt. Again we gamahuched them both, as time would not allow of our resurrection, then they left us.

My guardian, at his marriage, had bought a house in Portland Place, but the lease of its then tenant only expired on the 20th March this spring, and before being occupied it had to be entirely new painted and decorated, so that July was nearly at an end before they could comfortably take up their residence in it. Meanwhile they had apartments at a hotel near Hyde Park corner.

When once they were completely housed, which was not the case until the middle of August, my guardian desired his wife to send the carriage for the girls every Sunday morning. Hearing that Ellen was their intimate friend, she became included in the invitation. This put an end to our Sunday orgies in our friend MacCallum's chambers, much to our mutual regret.

As far as Harry and I were concerned the ever thoughtful and delicious Frankland came to our aid. Pretending that the girls must need walking exercise, she always after luncheon proposed they should walk down to their brother's chambers in the Temple, take him and Harry as their further companions up to Kensington Gardens or the "Zoo," and bring all back to dinner.

As my guardian always took a siesta on Sundays after luncheon, for being too old to fuck his wife every night, Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, when he had nothing in the way of business to trouble him, was dedicated to two or three hours of extra dalliance with his adored wife. She told me he was very amorous upon her, could not do much fucking, indeed, she thought his efforts that way were even more than he ought to do at his age, but he was never tired of gamahuching her and posing her in every attitude when stark naked; of course she lent herself to every wish of the old man, and had, even after great persuasion, which only her love and attachment to him could have even made her consent, allowed him the honours of her beautiful arse-hole. This requiring, as he said, an extra firmness of prick, she further did him the extra favour of toying and sucking his prick up to the utmost stiffness. So she had made him absolutely adore her, and she could turn him round her little finger. Her word and will was law, so she could do as she liked.

She told me on several occasions that she thought he was exerting his erotic powers to too great an extent, and that she did all she could to moderate his excitement, but all to no purpose; he was infatuated with the glorious charms of her body, or what is called cunt-struck, perhaps the strongest passion that can seize on man and dangerous for a man of advanced years. Well, his Sunday afternoon's siesta was long, and left the Frankland at liberty to come to my rooms with my sisters, where strip was the word, and fucking in every variety followed.

I soon found we must have other help; the pace I was going at was beginning to tell, so with the consent of the darling Frankland I made a confidant of the Count, and asked him to join our Sunday's orgy. You may imagine with what joy he accepted, for apart from his delight in seeing me in incestuous connection with my sisters, their young charms, especially Eliza's, had great attraction for him, and then the Frankland, so similar in lust and temperament. We had thus most delicious orgies every Sunday afternoon, until the end of October of the following year, when my sisters had finished their schooling, and I, too, had left college, entered at the Middle Temple, and had been for three months in a conveyancer's office, reading up previous to being called to the bar.

It was then that Mr. Nixon's health gave symptoms of serious disturbance, and his doctor recommended him to pass the winter in a warmer climate. His wife suggested the advantage travelling would be both to the girls and myself; she had only to express the wish to have us all together, and we were warmly invited to join them.

We passed through Switzerland, Milan, and Florence to Rome, where we took up our residence for four months.

The Egertons and Bensons happily spent the same winter at Rome.

My rooms were in an adjoining palace to where Mr. and Mrs. Nixon and my sisters resided, there not being accommodation for me. I thus had a charming entresol of five rooms all to myself; one of which looked on and over the Tiber, and was in no way overlooked. To this room we constantly resorted for orgies.

The Egertons had passed some winters in Rome, and she had two or three clerical lovers, and these had introduced two others to the Benson on her former visits, and all had been accustomed to general orgies. You may imagine the delight of these priestly debauchees when they found themselves introduced to our circle of three fresh cunts, and such splendid ones, and all without any mock-modest prejudices but up to every excess of lubricity. So to five women we thus had six men, and eventually a very handsome young priest, debauched by the others, joined our party, and we carried on the wildest and most extravagant orgies of every excess the most raging lust could devise. We made chains of pricks in arseholes, the women between with dildoes strapped round their waist, and shoved into the arsehole of the man before them, while his prick was into the arsehole of the woman in his front.

These holy fathers had immense resources in the way of infinite variety, stimulating to excesses of debauchery that very soon brought the rod into requisition.

We all from time to time enjoyed the double coition, the women invariably so at every meeting.

These holy fathers had all very fine pricks, but none so large as mine, and many of them loved to have my prick in their arses when opportunity offered. In such delights the winter passed rapidly away.

In the spring Mr. Nixon's health seemed very precarious, and we moved to Naples, where from necessity our extreme indulgence in venereal excesses was much curtailed.

In May we returned to England, but poor Mr. Nixon was evidently fucked out. The Frankland told me that the more his health failed the more lewd he seemed to grow. His passion for gamahuching her cunt had increased, and even his prick seemed to gather new life as life ebbed away, for hardly a night passed without his fucking her, at night in the cunt, and at morning, in full daylight, kneeling and feeling her splendid arse, he took her in the rear aperture. He and she too felt it was killing him, but his infatuation was overpowering, and he declared if it did kill him he could not die a happier death. In fact a month after we returned he had an apoplectic fit actually when his prick was spending in her arsehole. He lived but a month afterwards. He left all his property to his wife absolutely, with legacies of £2,500 to each of my sisters, and £1,000 to me.

This sad event cast a gloom for some time over all our pleasures.

The Frankland took my sisters to reside with her, but all went down to spend the first three months of mourning quietly with my mother. She, too, took ill when we were with her, and died before the three months were up. This drew me down to home, now mine, and the dear Frankland continued to stay with us for two months longer, and then left for London. We three orphans remained for all that winter in our old home, settling a variety of things.

My sisters now with their succession to some £600 apiece, the £1,000 left them by our uncle, and the £2,500 by Mr. Nixon, and the £400 which I promised them as a marriage present, and with their great beauty of form and face, for both had grown into remarkably fine young women, became very eligible matches.

Many country families sought us out after the first three months of our mourning, and several offers were made to the girls. They were both somewhat fastidious after the life they had led, but eventually both were married. Mary to a very nice fellow, who proved, as she told me, a first-rate fucker. He got her with child, and they had a son, a fine boy, in the tenth month of their marriage. She was very happy, now and then coming to see me, and getting a jolly good fuck from my renovated prick, for now that he was lying fallow, my somewhat exhausted system was getting quite recruited.

Alas! poor Mary lost her husband by cholera in the second year of their marriage. He had a handsome estate, and left her well off, and sole guardian to his son, who grew up a very fine fellow, and when at puberty became the solace of his widowed mother, who had initiated him into all love's mysteries.

Eliza was not quite so fortunate as her sister in her husband; he was a good sort of man who, one would have thought, would just have suited the hot temperament of Eliza, well and powerfully built, and with an air of being a man of erotic passions; but he turned out to be of a languid unimpassioned nature, who could not imagine any other manner than simply mounting on a woman's belly and fucking her once a night, and with no conception of using either preliminaries or aids to her passions. So that he left poor Eliza only in a state of excitement instead of giving any satisfaction to her lascivious nature. She did, eventually, work him up to good night and good morning, but for her full satisfaction she used too seek elsewhere, and even to content herself with the embraces of a man servant, who, if not good looking, proved to have a splendid and powerful prick, and nearly daily gave her comfort. She also occasionally came to me, when she had both apertures well exercised, and left me much comforted.

She never had any children, and so managed her intrigues as never to be found out.

I returned to London in the spring, and was called to the bar.

I went the western circuit for odd assizes, and then abandoned the bar as a profession.

Harry Dale, with more perseverance, as well as greater necessity for exertion, continued in the profession, was duly called to the bar, and eventually became a rising and successful barrister, and at this period of our old age is now a distinguished judge.

But to return to our earlier days.

Harry and I carried on our intrigue with the Nichols and Ann, aided by our dear friend MacCallum. Also from time to time with the Benson, Egerton, and Count, to which generally the darling Frankland brought her exquisite charms to intoxicate us with pleasure.

This delightful reunion was sadly affected by the loss of the Count, who received an amnesty--I think I before have said he was a political exile--returned to his own country, and we never again had his delightful aid in our sadly shortened orgies.

The Count and I met in a future year at his old castle on the hills of Pied, of which I shall have much more to say on a later occasion.

It was a sad loss, especially for the Egerton, who dearly loved the Count. He had been her first lover, indeed, her initiator in the real mysteries of Venus. It will be remembered that her husband was one of those old insensible natures that think it is only necessary to hastily "piss their tallow," as Falstaff says, as quickly as they can, and leave a poor woman just sufficiently excited to be madly anxious for a thorough good fucking. It is these insensate cold-blooded husbands who raise, without satisfying, their wife's erotic passions, and drive them perforce to seek salacious comfort in other arms.

Oh! how many women if only fucked with some regard to their own naturally lewd feeling, would have never committed adultery or made a scandal. Many are the women who have told me, with tears in their eyes, of the cold insensible conduct of their husbands, who, never fucking them but when their sluggish natures felt the want, then turning upon them without the slightest preparatory handling or embracing, mount, shove it in, give a few in-and-out movements, spend, and then withdraw, just as they have done enough to excite their poor wives' passions without satisfying them, and thus leaving them a prey to inordinate longing that forces them to seek the relief to their passions the selfish brutes of husbands had only raised without allaying.

I remember an intrigue I had with an Italian Countess. Her husband, a tall and very capable man, was an extreme bigot, who thought it deadly sin to indulge in any caresses or carnal excitement, or even for his wife to expose any naked flesh to raise concupiscent ideas, so she had to have her nightgown closed up to her throat, with long sleeves and skirts, in the centre a slit through which he performed his duty when in want of relief to himself. He never kissed or embraced her body at any time, but lay like a log by her side, with his back turned to her. When his own passions prompted him to fuck, which was very seldom, he was naturally quite ready and rapidly finished his coup. He used to turn to her, waken her up with a shake, cry out, "Marietta, porgemi il vaso generative" (Marietta, reach me the generative vase), upon which she stretched herself on her back, he got on her without lifting her petticoats or feeling her cunt, but opening the slit, pointed his prick to her cunt, thrust it up to the hilt, and being himself in want of spermatic relief, in a very few strokes spent, just staying in long enough to "piss all his tallow," and then withdraw, turning his back again to sleep, leaving his wife just sufficiently excited to have enjoyed it, and thus left her madly longing for the satisfaction he did not afford. She said he was quite capable, too, of giving satisfaction if his bigotry had allowed him. We used to fuck at a tremendous rate, and I always commenced with a "Marietta, Marietta, porgemi il vaso generative," and then proceeded to fuck and laugh like mad.

Of course, irritated as her hot passions were by her booby of a husband, she resorted, not only to me, but to whomsoever she could get to satisfy the cravings of her irritated cunt.

The Bensons and Egertons again left in the autumn for Rome.

The Frankland, not yet out of her year's widowhood, did not go much into society, and we saw much more of her than before. She came at least three times a week to my chambers, when Harry and I gave her the comfort she so much required; first each fucking her singly twice over, and then three double-pleasure fucks, with change about in the apertures: finishing off with a mouth fuck from one or the other, and a double gamahuche.

About once a week the amorous and delicious-fucking Nichols with Ann would come of a morning, when we managed to send both away satisfied for the day.

When winter drove our friend MacCallum home from his fishing, we renewed some excellent orgies at his chambers, where Ann, and afterwards Jane, occasionally came. By the way, Jane's arse had developed in an extraordinary manner, and became one of the most exciting delights of our orgies at MacCallum's. He also now joined in our morning encounters with the Nichols and her niece.

At Christmas time the Frankland, Harry, and I all went down by invitation to the Rectory, where uncle welcomed with great delight the glorious and exciting Frankland. Mrs. Dale and Ellen joined our party. Dear aunt positively devoured me with her caresses, and before I was shown up to my room, had drawn me into her little room downstairs, had a suck at my prick, leant her body on the table, stuck out her immense arse, and had me into her cunt for a rapid rack-off; but this only excited me to an immediate renewal, for the touch and sight of her splendid buttocks instantly produced a stiffness, she herself in the middle of my movements in front, drawing my prick out of her cunt and guiding it into the inviting entrance to the secret altar of Juno and of Venus Callipyge. Both courses were run off at a gallop, and were a momentary allaying of the insatiable salacity of my most lewd and lascivious aunt. She then next conducted the Frankland, I can never call her Nixon, into her bedroom, under pretence of showing her to it. She no sooner had her there than up went her petticoats, and aunt glued her lips to the wonderful clitoris of the divine Frankland, and using fingers up both apertures, made the Frankland quickly give down her first offering to the obscene god.

As soon as aunt's tribadic rage to possess the Frankland was thus abated for the moment, she allowed Mrs. Nixon to remove bonnet and shawl, but then as quickly demanded and obtained a double gamahuche. The Frankland the more readily consenting as she knew aunt had taken the keen edge off my lecherous appetite, and she would revel in the thick raging sperm I had shot into both orifices. These preliminaries settled, we were able to be much more tranquil all the afternoon.

The Dale and Ellen came to dinner; I slipt into their room when all were dressing for dinner, and had a delicious rack-off in both their lecherous and longing cunts. Uncle had equally enjoyed the tight favourite arsehole of Harry Dale, he having conducted him to the well-known summer house for that purpose as soon as we arrived.

We could all thus peaceably enjoy the good things set before us, and during our wine after dinner exchange accounts of all events that had passed since last we met, and they were varied, for Mr. Nixon's death and legacies to my sisters and myself were subjects of congratulation, while the death of my mother was, on the contrary, one of condolence and sympathy.

By ten o'clock we all broke up, but with the whispered request to all to repair to aunt's bedroom half an hour after the household had retired. We were all too interested in the delicious orgy there to take place to fail. Blazing fires in both that and the adjoining room had been kept up all the afternoon; plenty of lights were burning so as to illuminate all sides at once. We all met in mere night wrappers, and as soon as we were assembled and the word given "off," they were thrown aside, and we all stood in nature's lovely nakedness. Aunt, in her eager and lascivious inspirations, flung herself on my naked body, drew me to the bed, and had me into her longing and delicious cunt at once, and with legs and arms thrown round me, was instantly pressing furiously forward, notwithstanding the remonstrance of my uncle, who wished to arrange a general plan of operations so as to include all at once. Aunt's voluptuous eagerness produced a rapid discharge on her part. Seeing this, while she was in the momentary ecstasy of spending, he was enabled to drag me from her arms, fortunately before I had weakened my powers by spending for a fourth time that day. Aunt, too, was now in a condition to listen to reason, and bring her ideas of our after-combinations into play.

As we had brought the Count with us for a week's stay, we were just four cocks to four hens; so we could couple in the first instance on an exact equality, it being necessary by previous good fucking to bring the women's passions up to a boiling heat of lust to make them enter into our greater excesses with all the wild energy of the most salacious lubricity. Aunt had taken a great fancy to the Count when up at midsummer.

Uncle was most lecherous on the glorious Frankland. I took most readily to the luscious and lascivious Dale, who was equally eager to repossess the prick which she firmly believed she had initiated into all the joys of cunt, and a most delicious fuck we had, she spending furiously and frequently to my once.

Harry was equally pleased to pair off with his loved cousin, whose maidenhead he had undoubtedly taken.

The women would gladly have had each fucker run a second course without drawing. But both aunt and uncle opposed this, as both more exhausting and less variety. So aunt chose me, uncle took the exciting young cunt of Ellen, Harry turned on to his mother's cunt, from whence he had originally come into the world, and the Count got the glorious Frankland, of whom he was never tired. This course was more prolonged by the men than the first, with the object of somewhat allaying the insatiable lust of the women by making them spend infinitely oftener than their fuckers.

We so managed matters that we all came together or nearly so, and the women followed suit at the last final crisis, which was ushered in with wild cries of lust, and then a sudden overpowering silence fell on all as they lay panting in all the after-joys that follow the ecstatic discharge of life's essence.

We rose for a general embrace of our naked bodies, then a romp, and a mutual slapping of arses and seizing of pricks and cunts, a very exciting game, which soon brought evidences of renewed vigour in all except poor uncle, who required a longer pause and an extra excitement before he could indulge in a third encounter.

The Count took the delicious arsehole of the Frankland, who begged for me as her fucker. Aunt got Mrs. Dale under for a double gamahuche, while Harry crammed his prick up aunt's arse. Uncle enjoyed a delicious gamahuche with Ellen, who sucked his limp prick all the time without any success.

This was a delicious bout for us all, and ended in heavenly raptures.

Our second double couplings were: myself in my aunt's cunt, which incest stimulated uncle to a stand, and he took to his wife's arse while her nephew incestuously fucked her cunt. The Count took to the delicious and most exciting tight cunt of the Dale, while her son shoved his prick into his mother's arse, to her unspeakable satisfaction. Ellen and the Frankland amused themselves with tribadic extravagances.

This bout was long drawn out, and afforded inexpressible ecstasies to all concerned. And after the wild cries and most bawdy oaths that instantly preceded the final ecstasy, the dead silence and long after-enjoyments were drawn out to a greater length than before. After which we all rose and purified, and then took refreshment of wine and cake, while discussing our next arrangement of couples.

Uncle had, fortunately for him, managed not to spend in the last bout; he, therefore, was still capable of entering an arsehole, and he chose the delicious arse of the Frankland to receive this final offering, for after that he was done for that night. I was below engulphed in the exquisite cunt of the Frankland. The Count fucked Ellen while Harry was into her behind. Aunt and Mrs. Dale mutually gamahuched and dildoed each other. This, too, was a long-drawn-out affair and ended in perfectly convulsive ecstasies and cries of the wildest sensuality that our most salacious passions could prompt.

I then took my aunt's arse while the lecherous Dale was underneath gamahuching and dildoing her, and by putting the Dale close to the edge of the bed, the Count stood between her legs, which were thrown over his shoulders, and thus he fucked her, having taken a letch to fuck her cunt, which was an exquisite one for fucking: her power of nip being nearly equal to the Frankland, and only beaten by aunt's extraordinary power in that way. We thus formed a group of four enchained in love's wildest sports together.

The Frankland was gamahuched by uncle while having Harry's prick in her arse, Ellen acting postillion to Harry's arse while frigging herself with a dildo.

The closing bout of the night was the Count into aunt's arse, my prick into the Frankland's arse, Harry enjoying an old-fashioned fuck with his mother, and Ellen under aunt to dildo and be gamahuched and dildoed by aunt. We drew this bout out to an interminable length, and lay for nearly half an hour in the annihilation of the delicious after-joys. At last we rose, purified, and then restoring our exhausted frames with Champagne, embraced and sought well-earned sleep in our separate chambers.

I slept the sleep of the just, and awoke late to find aunt sucking my stiff-standing prick at the very instant it was filling her mouth with a deluge of creamy spunk. She sucked up to the get all out, and in doing so brought him up to the scratch again, so jumping out of my low bed I made her kneel on it, stick out her enormous arse, and licked her reeking cunt until I could stand it no longer. Then bringing my huge prick I plunged in a single vigorous thrust up to the very top of her cunt, and made her squeal and spend with that alone. Pausing to let her enjoy it, I recommenced and ran a delicious course in that most exquisite cunt, and would have done so a second time, after a pause of ecstasy, if Harry Dale had not rushed into the room to say that all were impatiently awaiting me to sit down to breakfast. Aunt just stayed to give a final suck to my prick, and then vanished.

I hastened to wash and dress, having sent Harry off to beg they would not wait for me.

On joining them the sly jokes they cut at my apparent laziness proved that they knew of the cause of detention. I looked at dear aunt, and at once saw by the air of gratification on her dear plump face, that she herself had been boasting of her exploit, for it was all her own doing.

Being Sunday, we all went decorously to church. The doctor gave us a very unctuous sermon on the goodness of virtue and chastity. It was a really fine sermon, and delivered with an unction that forbade the possibility of supposing that the preacher could be in reality the very reverse of his doctrine. It much pleased some of the country families, and one or two with their wives waited for the doctor leaving the church, to compliment him on his eloquence and admirable teaching. The flattered doctor ended by inviting two rather distant residents to luncheon at the Rectory, so that we formed a numerous party, all on our best behaviour. It was quite edifying to hear the pious and virtuous remarks of the admirable Frankland, and the no less virtuous and correct Dale. It gained them the entree into the exclusive set of both these high country families, and eventually led to an excellent marriage for the dear little Ellen. So much for the success of dissimulation. Vice playing the part of virtue, and succeeding to perfection. So goes the world. One thing is certain, that on this occasion it enforced chastity, in one sense at least, that we had no opportunity of practising vice that afternoon. The charming Frankland-Nixon made a great impression on the wives as well as husbands, to be sure it was well known that she was a very wealthy widow, and they may have had some design of securing her for a son, nephew, or at least having the chance at it. She thanked them with that grace and charming ease of manner which so distinguished her and made her so captivating, excusing herself from visiting, during the first year of her widowhood, anywhere but among family friends, and as her late husband was Charles Roberts's and his sisters' guardian, she considered his family as almost her own. They hoped to have the pleasure of seeing her some future day.

The whole visit passed off very pleasantly, and left us only an hour for a stroll in the garden and time to dress for dinner. It will be recollected that the doctor was a great exacter of full evening dress at dinner, as tending to keep up proper appearances.

We met at the accustomed hour at night in aunt's room, in the full dress of Adam and Eve before they munched the apple.

This night was dedicated chiefly to sacrifices to Venus Apostrophia, for the doctor commenced by having the Count while he was fucking his wife, and when able to get his fine old cock in for another go, would only again have it in my arse, while I was doing the same to aunt's glorious immensity with the Count below fucking her.

That was the end of poor uncle's powers for that night, but he gamahuched all the women at the finish of their encounters with us three men. We gave them all the _double jouissance_, while those unoccupied carried on their own little game with tongue or dildo.

It was again a night of most exquisite enjoyment.

The following and remaining nights of our visit brought into requisition the rod before uncle could get his dear old prick to stand, and myself tailed off on the next Sunday night, the last of our visit, so that uncle seeing what he called the laziness of my prick, seized the rod, and gave me as sound a flogging as ever he had done in my schoolboy days. The fact was that he had been longing to renew on my arse his letch for giving a really severe whipping. He had already by dint of the same punishment fucked the arses of the Count and the divine Frankland, and was now so excited anew that his prick stood as stiff as ever it did; and my red excoriated arse excited and renewed his very fine prick; but first I insisted upon moving to aunt's arse, who at the moment was having a last fuck from the Count, and this incestuous group closed our orgies on this occasion, for we left for town the next day.

After breakfast in the morning I slipt into the Dale's room, and had a parting fuck both with her and Ellen. Harry came in while we were at work, Ellen under the Dale gamahuching her, and I above administering a rear adieu. Harry stopped us for a moment until he could withdraw Ellen and take her place, that he might have a parting fuck with his loved mother, who thus had the two pricks she most loved in the world into her together. We drew our pleasure out to the utmost length our lust would allow of and spent in the most ecstatic joy that poor human nature could support.

Aunt had gone to the Count's bedroom at the very time we were meeting in Mrs. Dale's. Notwithstanding which, her insatiable cunt made her draw me into her sanctum downstairs for a final fuck at the last moment of our parting.

Harry Dale staying behind to pass a week at home with his mother, the adorable Frankland, the Count and I returned to town together. On the journey up we agreed to dine at Very's in Regent Street, and have a comparatively quiet night all together at my chambers, which we did, luxuriating in having the glorious naked body of the delicious Frankland between us. After we had each bedewed both her front and rear orifices with our life's balmy essence, we slept soundly till morning, when we renewed our double offerings on those glorious and delicious altars, then breakfasted.

This was the last occasion but one of our having the Count, whose time for departure to his own country was drawing near.

He left that day on a visit to a family in Scotland, whose son and heir was really the fruit of his loins.

On his return some fortnight later we again passed a night with our exquisite friend the Frankland, and being both fresh from the country, we administered so many delicious coups to both apertures as quite contented her salacious love of prick. We parted next day with our loved friend the Count, but not for the last time, as I shall relate in its proper place--a delightful visit we paid to him in his old ancestral castle, and an after-rencontre with him and his sister in Turin.

I saw my loved Frankland to her home and left town myself the same afternoon for my home in the country, to arrange for various repairs and alterations required on the property.

I took my dear friend MacCallum with me. We spent a pleasant ten days, varied with a visit first from one of my sisters and then from the other, for two nights each, and jolly nights we spent fucking in every way.

Mary's belly was up, but she declared it only made fucking more delicious than ever to her, still more with the _double jouissance_, in which she preferred the smaller prick of MacCallum to mine in her arse.

When Eliza came she stayed a third night, and taxed our powers to the utmost; she was such a glutton for fuck on this occasion, declaring that her husband's want of power, as well as tact, left her more lewd after his fucking her than she was before, so that she had been forced by the excess of her unsatisfied lust produced by her husband to have recourse to the fine prick of her footman, a powerful young fellow, otherwise very plain, and not likely to inspire jealousy to any husband, but with whom she rarely could do more than get a rack-off in a hurry, which was far from satisfaction sufficient for her hot passions. It was this that made her revel with such insatiable desires in the possession of our almost untiring pricks. Differing from Mary in her love of rear-fucking, it was my big prick she loved best to have in her arse, while MacCallum's lesser shaft satisfied her less exacting cunt. She was certainly one of the lewdest creatures ever made, wildly lascivious and full of variety. She had the most engaging ways with her, and could raise a prick from the dead. She was a worthy pupil of the Frankland, and had all the love and longing for prick, and cunt too, that our deliciously insatiable aunt was so famous for. She grew older, and becoming one of the most desirable women, I never tired of fucking her in both orifices whenever the opportunity presented itself.

I returned to town just in time to have a parting orgy with the Count and the Frankland in my chambers, which I before said was a night of the wildest orgies.

MacCallum was called to the country by the illness of some of his family, and was absent for six months, so I was left with Harry to have occasional orgies together with the Frankland three times a week, and with the Nichols and Ann or Jane once a week by way of variety, but as they only came for a morning visit, these were not exhausting encounters, so that we lay comparatively in fallow, till the return of the Benson and Egerton, when they and the lovely Frankland taxed us to the utmost twice or thrice a week.

Thus time progressed. The Frankland had been a widow for nearly two years when she proposed to travel for two or three years without returning in the interval to England. She wished me to accompany her, and made a most surprising and unexpected proposition to me.

She said, "Charlie, my own darling, I love you more dearly than ever. It is true I am considerably older than you, but you are now twenty-five years of age, and, therefore, a full-grown man. I wish to endow you with all my great wealth, and I offer you my hand in marriage. Do not suppose I want to monopolize this dear prick." (We were in bed naked, and had just concluded a most exquisite fuck.) "No, with our love of variety we will still seek it out, but as husband and wife we can do so with perfect ease and safety; whereas if not married and travelling together we should be compromised at every city we stop at. What say you, my darling Charlie?" Here she threw herself on my bosom with loving eyes upraised to mine.

"Say, beloved of my soul! Why, look how the very idea has raised my prick to instant life. If anything in the world could delight me more than another it is your generous noble offer. To dedicate my life to the woman I love more than any other is a joy greater than I can express. I thank you from my soul, adorable creature as you are. Oh! come to my arms as my future wife and let us revel in the glorious idea."

Such was the way in which this happiness was conferred on me, which endured for long years, although, alas, my widowed heart now all hopelessly ever regrets that most lovable of women and best of wives. Oh, what happiness it was as long as I possessed her.

We were married in a few days after this by special license.

The Benson and the Egerton were present and Harry Dale was my best man. We adjourned to her house, now ours, to breakfast. They also stayed to dinner and slept at our house, that we might celebrate our marriage with a parting orgy, for we announced to our friends that in marrying, so far from renouncing our orgies, we meant our union to promote ever varying ones, and that on our return we would renew the exquisite ones we had so often enjoyed with them.

Harry and I did all we could on that happy occasion to satisfy three of the finest women in the world, whose delicious power of fucking was never surpassed and rarely equalled.

Oh! we had such a delicious night. As to the women, their amorous gamahuching of each other was ever renewed, and was most exciting to see.

After breakfast that morning they stopped to see us off, and threw old slippers after us for luck.

We posted down to aunt's for a day and a night on our way to the continent.

They were, of course, delighted with my marriage as bringing great wealth into the family, indeed, my darling presented aunt with a cheque for £1000.

Mrs. Dale and Ellen came over, and we had another delicious night's orgy, in which all exerted themselves to the utmost.

We parted from dear aunt and uncle, Mrs. Dale and Ellen, after luncheon, and posted down to Dover; slept at Birmingham's Hotel, where we had our real first night's fucking all to ourselves, enjoyed it in moderation but in every endearment that two lovers could devise.

We crossed to Calais next day.

The sea was smooth at first, but we found it after passing the Foreland very rough. My dear wife suffered severely; fortunately I myself never felt better, and was thus able to devote every attention to the dear sufferer. It left her even after we landed with nausea and a severe headache, so that night at Devaux's Hotel we slept each in one of the separate beds in the same room, as is usual in French hotels, and indeed in continental hotels in general.

My darling wife was far from feeling well next morning, but fancied that posting on to Abbeville would rather tend to recovery than otherwise. We accomplished this easily between breakfast and dinner, found a very comfortable hotel with very fair cooking and excellent wines. My wife enjoyed her dinner, and felt something like herself after it. We slept together by bringing the two beds side by side, but only took a single fuck before sleeping, and next morning a double one.

We spent the day at Abbeville, wandering through its quaint streets and seeing its fine unfinished cathedral. The following day we posted to Amiens, visiting its very beautiful cathedral, posted the following day to Beauvais, again slept, passed next day there, and on the following day posted up to Paris, and drove to Meurice's Hotel in the rue de Rivoli.

We had previously written for a set of rooms _au premier_, overlooking the Tuileries Gardens, with orders to have dinner ready at a given hour. We arrived just in time to change our travelling costume and to sit down to a luxurious dinner. Here, as we had ordered, our bedroom contained a proper large bed for both to sleep in. This hotel being much used by the English was furnished with French taste but English comfort.

The dilatory manner of our journey, the agreeable breaks we had made at different interesting towns had quite restored my beloved wife to all her accustomed health, energy, and lubricity. The comfort of the bed, the stimulating cheer, and the excellent wine also nerved me to meet her utmost lasciviousness, and we had a night such as we used to have when I first had her in my mother's spare bedroom.

We recalled those happy days, and revelled in every lascivious act of the hottest lust. My adored wife excelled herself, and I myself was fully up to the mark; we fucked ourselves to sleep, with prick left soaking in her deliciously tightest of cunts, so that on awaking in full daylight I found my cock stiff standing in her cunt, which was giving it most delicious pressures, quite involuntarily, for the darling was not yet awake. I roused her by gentle movements, and the frigging of her long delicious clitoris, so that she awoke to joys of which we never tired. On this occasion natural wants compelled a temporary withdrawal to relieve our distended bladders. We found that it was already past ten o'clock, so she smacked my bare bottom and sent me off to my dressing-room, that both might get ready for breakfast, for which our appetites were already craving. I slipt on a dressing-gown, went into our sitting-room, rang for a waiter, and ordered breakfast to be got ready immediately, so that by the time we were dressed it was on the table all smoking hot, and we sat down and did full justice to it.

We spent several days in visiting the wonders of Paris.

I had heard of a famous bawd residing at No. 60, rue Richelieu, and another, Madame Leriche, in the rue de Marc, where they had rooms, from which, through cleverly arranged peep-holes, any operation in the next room could be distinctly seen.

Madame Leriche's girls were instructed to get the finest men they could see in the street, to bring them in, and there to pretend to be so struck with their beauty that they would not be content without having them quite naked, stripping themselves also. When quite naked they caressed their pricks, waltzed round the room, taking care to stop exactly opposite each hidden opening, and there caress, handle, and show the standing prick to any looker-on, eventually fucking in such a position as all peepers could fully see and enjoy.

The fun of the thing was the perfect unconsciousness of the men as to the purpose of all these gyrations. They took it proudly as a homage to their virility, and the power of their charms over their new conquest, and were doubly lustful in consequence, little imagining it was all a well-acted scene, got up for an exhibition to please others, and show all their virile gifts. Sometimes both man and girl were very attractive, and I used to fuck my loved Florence while in the act of peeping.

The place where we sat to see was a small narrow room, with just space for a couch on one side and two chairs at the end, next to each peep-hole. Three other similar narrow rooms looked into the same operating room.

One day we had an exciting fuck from the exhibition of a very fine man fucking his girl with a splendid prick. We were kneeling on the couch with my prick soaking in the quietude of the after-joy. We heard a scuffling with suppressed bawdy exclamations on the other side of the thin partition next to us. We, too, had made use of bawdiness. I had whispered to Florence how deliciously tight her hairy cunt was, and how splendidly her enormous arse moved below my eyes as I fucked her.

We now discovered that the couple next to us had overheard us, for we could just hear her ask if her arse's movement and size pleased him as much as their neighbour's seemed to have done.

"Oh, yes, my angel, you wriggle your immense arse to perfection, and your cunt is almost too tight."

"Then fuck on with your splendid prick as hard as our neighbours were at it." A happy thought seized me. I put my finger to my lip to give the hint to Florence, slipped out into the passage and peeped through the keyhole, which commanded the whole of the narrow room. I beheld a handsome man fucking a superbly stout woman, kneeling with her head down low, but towards the door. Her arse uncovered and held aloft was a remarkably fine one, wriggling indeed to perfection.

I slipped back, described it to my dear wife, and suggested our speaking to them through the partition as soon as they were done, to avow that we had heard all their goings-on, as they had ours, and to propose that we should form a _partie carrée_.

Florence jumped at the idea, just as their sighs and shaking of their couch against the partition announced the grand final crisis.

We allowed them some minutes for the after-satisfaction; we then heard the lady beg him to do it again as she felt his cock was stiffening within her cunt.

"No wonder," said he, "when your delicious tight cunt is giving me such exquisite pressures."

We thought this a happy moment, as they were both in a state of lasciviousness; so tapping at the partition, and raising my voice just sufficient to be clearly heard, I said--

"You have been following our example, and seem as lustful as we are, suppose we join parties and exchange partners. I am sure you must be two desirable persons, and you will find us worth knowing. It will be a novelty exciting to all, and will lead or not, as it may be, to a further acquaintance or just a momentary caprice. What say you?"

A pause and a whisper was followed by--

"Eh! bien, nous acceptons."

"Come to us, for I am half undressed," cried the gentleman.

We rose and went in unto them, even in a biblical sense. My slight peep had given me an idea of two handsome persons, but a full view proved them to be eminently so. He was still up to the hilt from behind. She lifted her head to look at us on entering, but left her splendid arse exposed, and did not for the moment alter her position. We handled and pressed it. The gentleman feeling my wife's arse cried out to his dearie--

"Here's an arse equal to yours."

Meanwhile, as I stood by her side feeling hers, she slipped her hand into my flap, and in answer to his exclamation, said--

"There's a prick bigger than yours. Oh, I see we shall all be delighted."

She rose and pulled out my standing prick to show it to her husband, for like us they turned out to be a most salacious couple of married people.

My wife laid hold of the husband's prick, and declared it to be a very fine one, and a delicious variety which was always charming.

I proposed, as the room and couch could only accommodate one couple, that I should take his wife into our room, and leave mine with him, and as the two couches were close to the partition between, we could excite each other by our mutual sighs and bawdy exclamations. This was at once agreed to.

We all of us stripped to the buff; my new companion was magnificently made--very much of my aunt's figure, with a splendid arse, although not so enormously developed as dear aunt's. Her cunt was delicious, a grand mons Veneris, sweetly haired with silky curls; her pouting cunt had the true odour, and was very tight, and her pressures and action left nothing to desire.

I gamahuched her first--her clitoris was well defined and stiff. Her bubbies were superb, and stood firmly apart, face charming with lovely and lovable blue eyes, full of the sparkle of lust; lips red and moist, inviting a tongue.

We indulged in delicious preliminaries; she had a good look at my prick, declared she had thought her husband's could not be beaten, but admitted mine was longer and larger. She sucked its head. Then lying back on the couch she begged me to mount on her belly, as she liked to commence in that pose. I mounted upon her, got my prick gradually up to the crushing of the two hairs, and then alternately tongue-ing her sweet mouth or sucking a nipple of her lovely bosom, ran a most delicious course, making her spend thrice to my once.

Our other equally occupied couple had evidently got a course ahead of us, and were changing into the position in which we had first fucked our wives.

We, too, followed in the same attitude, and really the fine arse of my _fouteuse_, her naturally small waist, seen to perfection in this position, and her noble shoulders beyond could hardly be excelled, and were most inviting and inciting. I plunged with one fierce thrust up her reeking cunt, and by the very violence of my attack made her spend on finding it up to the cods, giving me at the same time a cunt pressure almost equal to my loved wife's.

She was so delightful a fucker that I fucked her thrice more before drawing out of that exquisite receptacle.

On comparing notes afterwards I learnt that my wife's fucker had just done as much, and though not so cunt-satisfying a prick as mine, the variety and novelty gave it an extra charm that more than made up for any diminution of size.

We were thus all mutually delighted with our change of partners. An acquaintance begun so delightfully led to a warm friendship and a constant interchange of these most agreeable refinements, including every variety of the gamahuche and _la double jouissance_ to all parties.

We all went together to witness some rear-operations between two men, for which the old bawd's house, No. 60, rue de Rivoli, was quietly known to be the rendezvous. I made a first visit alone to see if it would be worth our while; had an interview with the old bawd, a bold masculine woman of a certain age, who must have been very desirable in her younger years, for even now many who frequented her house finished off in her fully developed charms. Her habit being, as I was told, to come in to the man after one of the girls had left him to purify herself, and herself to lave his prick from mere love and excitement of handling a prick, and from long practice she had an art of doing it in a way to raise another perpendicular, which led to its being allayed in the full-blown charms of the bawd herself.

I was shown into her sanctum, and there I told her that I knew she could arrange an exhibition of sodomy. I said that I only wanted to see the operation, as it appeared to me impossible, and I should like the two fellows to be well hung and good looking, if such she could procure.

"I have the very thing for you under my hand if you cart wait a quarter of an hour."

As that exactly suited my purpose I said I would.

She rose, rang the bell, and when a tap came to the door, went out and gave some orders. When she came back she said to me, "I have some very fine girls, all entirely without prejudices, would you like to have one up? I have them of all ages, from twelve to twenty-five; and also one or two handsome boys to have in company with them, to excite the slower powers of elderly men or those who like such additions."

I thanked her, but told her my only object at present was to see an actual scene of sodomy. So to occupy me she opened a small cupboard, and took out some bawdy books, admirably illustrated. The examination of these was exciting; her experienced eye detected the effect in the distention of my trousers, the extent of which seemed so to astonish her that she laid her hand upon it, gave an exclamation of surprise at its size, and said she must see so noble a prick, unbuttoned my trousers, and pulled it out. She handled it charmingly and looked so lewd that I don't know what might have happened, for I had already slipped a hand up to an enormous big and hard arse, when a tap came to the door, and a voice announced simply that all was ready. This at once recalled me to myself, although the bawd would willingly have made me before adjourning to the other room.

She said, "What a pity not to let me have this magnificent prick into me. I wish the fellows had not come so soon, I am certain I could have got it if we had not been interrupted, and I can tell you you would have found me as good a fuck yet as the finest young woman you could meet with."

I laughed, and to quiet her, said, "We may have that another time, for you are a very fine and desirable woman." With this placebo she rose and accompanied me to the room where the two men awaited us. They were two tall, good-looking young men, evidently _garçons de cafés_, a class much addicted to this letch, and acting as paid minions to those wanting them.

They naturally concluded that such was my object. They were already stript, and both their very fair pricks were nearly at full stand. They each turned themselves round, and asked which arse I wished to operate on, and which prick was to operate upon me.

The old bawd, whose interest it was to induce me to have them, handled their pricks with great gusto, and pointed out the firmness and attractiveness of their arses, bid me feel how hard they were, as well as the stiffness of their pricks and the rough crispness of their ballocks.

I felt them, and would gladly have had them both, but I knew they had an infamous habit of _chantage_, that is of denouncing to their gang well-to-do men who were got within their meshes, and go where he would in Europe he was sure to be waited on and money screwed out of him by threatening to denounce his practices; so shaking my head and refusing to let the old bawd pull out my prick, which might then have become too unruly, I firmly told her she knew I only came there to see what the operation was like, and had no idea of having my own person handled by them.

A mutual glance of disappointment was exchanged between the bawd and them, but they put themselves at my disposal, and asked which was to be the recipient and which the operator. I pointed out the largest prick as the operator. They drew a sofa into the best light, and one knelt on it, presenting a very tempting arsehole to his fellow minion; after moistening it and spitting on it, the old bawd, with apparent relish, guided the prick of the other to the aperture, and it glided with all ease into the well-accustomed receptacle.

I was seated by their side with my eyes on a level and close to the point of junction. A very exciting scene, for he went up to his cods, and fucked right earnestly while the recipient wriggled his arse to perfection, and seemed really to enjoy it. They spent with cries of joy in great delight, it excited me very much, and the observant old bawd could see my prick bounding within the confinement of my trousers.

Hoping to overcome my reluctance to take part in the programme, she stimulated them to change places, and the recipient became the operator, and the other the recipient. I was awfully lewd, but resisted even that; after they had done I gave them a Napoleon apiece in excess of the price paid to the bawd, and left them to dress, and retired with the bawd to make other arrangements.

On shutting the door and entering the corridor I perceived at once some doors opening upon small rooms adjoining the operating room, I guessed their destination; on attempting to open one the bawd seized my arm in great alarm, and said--

"You must not go there."

I smiled and said, "Oh, I understand, come along."

When once more in her sanctum I said, "I see you have had peepers watching the operations, so it is well I resisted any complicity in the action, but the discovery that you have the peep-holes already simplifies my object. I have come here to report upon the effect of this scene of sodomy. A friend who dares not do as much requires such a stimulant to enable him to fuck a woman he much desires to have, and who is my mistress. Now it so happens I want very much to fuck his mistress, and we have made a compact that if this scene is likely to excite him, we are to come to your peep-holes, and while he is thus enabled to fuck my woman I shall fuck his. I am thus explicit that you may know our real object. I suppose that now the witnesses to our operations to-day have left, so let me see the rooms that I may judge how far they will suit and which will most favour our object."

The old bawd complied directly, but still longing to have my big prick into her, pulled her petticoats up to her navel, showing an enormous mons Veneris, thickly haired, and turning round a still finer arse, said, would I not like to assuage my excited prick in one or other of her really splendid attractions.

I said not at present, thank you. And tightening my trousers over it, showed her that it had quite drooped its head, and was no longer in the humour.

She undertook to raise it very quickly, but I politely declined, on the play of want of time, to thoroughly enjoy so splendid a woman.

With a sigh of disappointment, for the size of my prick had evidently raised her lewdness to fiery zest, she led the way. Two or three of the peeping rooms were too small for four, but one was arranged for a _partie carrée_. I made an arrangement for the second day from then, and requested, if possible, to have four buggers together, to do it in various positions, and once at least in a chain of three pricks into the arses before them at the same time; I paid in advance half of the high price we were to pay, and fixed the hour of one o'clock in the afternoon, in order to have plenty of daylight to see and thoroughly enjoy all the excitement.

I left but allowed the old bawd just on going away to take out my prick and give it a suck by the way of allaying a little the great desire she had for it. She doubtless expected to raise such a heat as would compel my passions to satisfy her, but I had now sufficient command of it to keep it down.

Our grand scene of sodomistic encounters took place as arranged, the De Grandvits, as our new friends were called, and ourselves, with a basket containing two bottles of champagne, biscuits, and glasses, betook ourselves to No. 60, and were installed in the chosen chamber some five minutes before the arrival of the sodomites. We saw them undress, slap each other's arses, and feel each other's pricks to get them in fighting order.

The old bawd was there and lent an effective helping hand where wanted. They all declared it would much assist their operations if she would strip and let them see her flitting round and aiding in their efforts.

She knew herself to be much more attractive in body than face, and complied directly, and really added much to the excitement of the scene.

They began by coupling in threes, so that one after the other held the delicious position of middle man--be fucked and fucking. The spare fourth fucking the old bawd, much to her gratification and ours.

The first outsider was now placed in the middle, and the previous recipient became his attacker in the rear, while the previous rear-fucker became the recipient of the outsider. The late middle man, instead of fucking the bawd, buggered her to her apparent satisfaction.

This was just what I wanted, for we had not as yet in our _parties carrées_ with the De Grandvits indulged even in bottom-fucking the women, but this, as we afterwards found, was equally indulged in private by them as well as ourselves. Now we enjoyed the sight of the old bawd wriggling in delight with loudly uttered exclamations of pleasure at having her bottom well fucked, for it was the largest prick of the four and a very fine one that was into her arse.

We had already racked off in the cunts of each other's wives at the first display.

"Let us try that," whispered my wife to De Grandvit, "it appears to give the old woman vast delight."

It was what De Grandvit had been longing for in his inward soul. At the proposition of my adored wife his cock sprung into its utmost stiffness. She knelt on a chair before a peep-hole. De Grandvit brought his fine prick, which he had moistened with his spittle, up to her delicious hairy arsehole and with very little effort housed it to the hilt.

At the whispered wish of my darling Florence he did not press to a rapid conclusion, but drew the fuck out to a most exciting length, and to an ecstatic ending in which they had great difficulty in suppressing exclamations of the delight afforded.

I had followed the lead given, the delicious big arsed De Grandvit had, like her husband, a long previous wish to be so fucked, and from practice of that divine coition had no difficulty in taking in with vast pleasure my bigger prick.

We both ran two exquisite courses in their delicious arse-holes, and then separated that all might see the grand finale of the four sodomites each in the arse before him, and the fourth front man into the immense and magnificent arse of the old bawd. This ended their exhibition.

I should add that all in turn had either fucked or buggered the old bawd to her infinite gratification both in person and nurse for she claimed afterwards and received a good additional douceur for the extra sight of her own fine body, naked and in double action.

When they were dressed she got out the liqueur bottle and gave them all a dram and a biscuit. We, too, partook of our champagne and biscuits while discussing the charms of the scenes just witnessed.

My darling wife chimed in with the remark of how much more the middle man had seemed to enjoy it than the two outsiders.

I added a remark that I had heard that such a position was the _ne plus ultra_ of delight.

"Then why should we not try it?" said the glorious De Grandvit.

"I quite agree with you," said the husband.

"Who shall begin?" I thought, as the idea of trying it was first suggested by his wife, she ought to have her own idea first realised in her magnificent person. I would fuck her while he went into her arse.

This was immediately adopted. I lay down on my back, the delicious De Grandvit mounted on me, rose and fell, and spent before she stooped on my belly and presented her splendid arse to her impatient husband, who for some minutes knelt prick in hand behind her. With gentle care and well-moistened prick he got housed at last in his wife's delicious arsehole, and then slowly at first, but more energetically afterwards, we ran a most exquisite course.

As no one was now in the adjoining chamber, no restraint was put upon our lascivious exclamations. The De Grandvit was in such a delirium of ecstasy that she screamed again and died away in absolute annihilation of all sense but that of the utmost satisfied lust.

My darling wife had straddled across us and been gamahuched deliciously by De Grandvit while _enculant_ his wife. We next changed the venue; he fucked my wife while I plunged into her glorious arse; the De Grandvit straddled across the others, was gamahuched by me as her husband had gamahuched my wife. This course, too, was run in an ecstasy of enjoyment to all concerned, and ended our orgy on that occasion. We arranged our dresses, finished our champagne, called up the old bawd, satisfied her demands, and thanked her for the exciting scene she had procured us. On asking her, she admitted that the other peeping rooms had been occupied by couples, and that one elderly gentleman had had two of her page boys to operate and be operated upon while the scene before him excited him to the necessary extent to take a part in it himself. He had just left, having stayed to listen to our proceedings and had told her the two gentlemen had in consequence of the scene witnessed initiated the women into the _double jouissance_, and the excitement of listening and hearing had enabled him once more to get into the handsomest boy, and have the other in him.

She hinted that we ought to come again, and have the boys in, for she said the gentlemen, that is ourselves, would find an immense additional pleasure in letting the boys penetrate their bottoms while they were into their ladies in both apertures.

We laughed, and said we should consider her offer, but for the present we were fucked out.

We did not forget the bawd's proposal of having a boy to fuck us while _enculant_ the dear women. A hint to my darling wife brought this out at our next meeting. After the dear creatures had both enjoyed the _double jouissance_, my wife said to Madame De Grandvit--

"We are really quite selfish, here are our two loved husbands giving us the unutterable joys of the double junction, and yet not enjoying it themselves. You remember how the old woman at No. 60 spoke of the raptures the addition of her boys would be to the bottoms of our husbands while administering the double coition to us. Why should they not try the same on themselves, and give us the delight of seeing them in all the ecstasies their double embrace confers upon us? We know how they delight in being postillioned, which shows how much they would like the real thing if they dared avow it. It is for us to break down the barriers of prejudice and false shame. Here, Charlie, let me dedicate your bottom to the lust of our dear friend De Grandvit."

My beloved wife was at the moment handling the prick of De Grandvit, and whose full-standing stiffness showed he was ready to face any difficulty.

I pretended a fear of its size being too great to allow of entrance into that narrow path of bliss without great pain to the recipient.

"You can never know that till you try," cried my darling wife.

In all this she was only acting a part prompted by myself, for I was most anxious not only to have De Grandvit into my own arse, but was longing to be into his great, coarse, hairy, corrugated deep-brown arsehole. In this I differed greatly from our dear friend MacCallum, who loved the delicate unfledged arseholes of youths, while to me it was necessary to be the very reverse of the fair sex, whose arseholes in general are of a delicate pink with puckered-up charming little orifices, which, of course, have their charm; but when with men to me it was twice as exciting to find them like my dear friend the Count's, quite contrary to those of the fair sex. Dark-brown, roughly corrugated, and coarse hairs all round them were the arseholes that raised all my lust, and made sodomy a delicious contrast to merely fucking the arse-holes of women; such an arsehole as I most loved to fuck was M. De Grandvit's.

I had suggested to my wife to tempt him with mine for the sole object of getting into his. He bit at the bait, so I shoved my prick into his wife's arse, my wife conducted his prick into my delighted bottom. I made some affected grimaces, but of course took him in with the greatest ease. My darling wife had acted postillion to him, and had frigged his wife with her other hand, so we ran a delicious course of the wildest lust.

As we had already served out our wives too many fucks one trial was sufficient for the moment. De Grandvit was in ecstasies at the delight I had afforded him, especially as he appeared to be revenging the affront I gave to him by being into his wife _in culo_.

My adored wife, with her happy art of handling and exciting a prick, nonetheless willingly that she was getting it up to go into her own hungry and delicious arsehole, soon brought De Grandvit to the necessary stiffness.

I wanted no other stimulant than the expected satisfaction of a letch I had long had to be into his fine, rough, hairy arsehole. As soon as he was fairly hilted in my adored wife's splendid bottom, his better half took my prick in hand, put it into her mouth to suck and moisten it, and then guided it into that narrow abode of bliss I so longed to possess. It really was the first time De Grandvit's arsehole had ever been penetrated by a prick, although he had long wished for such an experience; there was therefore some real grimacing, for mine was not a prick of the ordinary dimensions, that might penetrate any arsehole, but a prick of the biggest, so I was obliged to be very gentle and make frequent halts.

My darling wife was obliged to exert all her delicious means of keeping his fine prick in her arse at full stand by cunt pressures and her delicate handling of his ballocks; at last I was fully engulphed, and pausing until all strange feelings had subsided, a gentle movement and my darling wife's admirable seconding enabled us to end the course in the wildest ecstasies of the most delicious delight, and to sink on the broad back of my splendid wife, completely annihilated by the most exquisite joys of satiated lust.

Once this delicious practice had been indulged in, you may be sure it did not end with a single experience, but as thereafter the _bonne bouche_ or finish of all our after-orgies.

My beloved wife, whose eye for a capable man was infallible, had observed a genteel, tall, good-looking young German waiter in the hotel, who looked superior to his place. He turned out to be the son of a wealthy hotel proprietor at Frankfort, who had sent his son to Meurice's in a sort of apprenticeship, to learn how a large Parisian hotel was managed. In such a situation they receive no wages and have even in general to pay a premium for the privilege--this practice, which is general with German innkeepers, accounts for the number of genteel-looking waiters that are met with in the large hotels of great capitals, and who are found to be of superior education and information when spoken to in a friendly and familiar manner.

This was eminently the case with our friend Carl. My wife had taken rather a fancy to him, not at first erotic, but observing that after she had talked to him familiarly that he began to be very deferential to her and with a certain manner that she, with the instinct of a woman, saw at once arose from amorous admiration. Casting her eye downwards she detected the effect produced in his trousers whenever she was kindly civil to him. She increased her familiar conversation, which evidently allayed any fear he might have had, and she could soon see by the increased bulging out of his trousers, not only that he was growing more lewd upon her, but that he was evidently very well furnished.

Learning that he was the son of a wealthy father, well educated, only now placed in the position of a servant, in order to know, by obeying, how to command, and also to gain the experience which large and well-frequented hotels alone could teach how best to conduct his own hotel hereafter.

She told me all about it, and thought he might be moulded to our purposes. Even if not she had taken a caprice to him so that in any case it would be a gratification to her to possess him.

So I lent myself to aid her by purposely absenting myself either at breakfast or luncheon, under pretext of going to take one or the other with bachelor friends.

As Carl was told off to especially attend upon us, and no other servant ever came near unless rung for, my wife had easy opportunity, and with her practised skill in seduction, had him into her on the second day.

He proved an admirable stallion; grew passionately lewd on the splendid person of my wife, and became in fact cunt-struck upon her, probably the strongest bond that can entangle a man. It becomes an infatuation that makes him the slave of the cunt that has attracted him. There are few men of hot temperament who have not experienced this overmastering infatuation, and they know that even supposing the object becomes perfectly unworthy, unfaithful, abusive, and with every vice indulged openly before them, they may wince, they may thoroughly despise her, but the chain holds them fast in adamantine bonds, which neither the persuasion of friends nor their own knowledge of the perfect unworthiness of the object can tear asunder.

Such became the fate of Carl, and my wife moulded him, with all her wily skill, to our lascivious purposes. When once under her enchantment, I made a run over to England on some urgent matters--purposely leaving the field open--my wife completed her conquest, had had him in every way, had postillioned him, and wormed out of him that at college he had indulged in sodomitical practices with young students like himself; but knowing how prejudicial it would be to him in his profession, he had weaned himself from the habit with men, but dearly loved the _enculage_ with women, and doubly adored my wife when he found her extraordinary and exquisite talent in that way. She also, after much apparent hesitation, in answer to his eager and continual questioning, omitted that her husband was much addicted to worshipping her bottom, and had taught her its divine use. She even cautioned him against any imprudence on my return, for she said she had her suspicions that I had a letch for men, and if I discovered their liaison, would be apt to avenge myself that way.

"Oh, if he would still allow me to possess your enchanting person he might make what use he pleased of me."

This was the point aimed at from the beginning. My wife wrote to me, and we arranged that I should announce my return for a certain morning, and that she should have Carl to sleep with her the previous night.

I arrived in the middle of the night, walked into the room, found him in bed, played the angry husband, swore I must have revenge, and that as he had cuckolded me I must avenge the affront in being into his person.

He objected, for form's sake, but said he would yield to anything if I would not drive him away from the adorable Madame.

"That will depend upon the manner in which you satisfy my desires."

"Oh, do what you like, dear sir, if only you will allow me to love Madame."

"We shall see, we shall see; let me look at your prick. Oh, a good size, even when down. Let me see it at full stand."

My wife here interfered, and said Carl was so good that she was sure he would prove a satisfaction to me. She took his prick in hand, and with her art of handling a prick, had it at full stand in a minute and asked me if she could possibly have refused so handsome a prick as that. And, indeed, it was a very fine one.

Carl was a very fair young man, with a most beautiful and satiny skin. His prick was exquisitely white, and the blue veins showed themselves coursing through in a most tempting way--it was seven and a half inches long, by quite six in circumference, was thick up to the vermilion nut, although gently diminishing from the roots, the glans was smaller than the shaft close up to it; a hollow, like what you sometimes see in the neck of a bottle, ran all round the edge of the nut, and thus made it a head to the shaft. My wife declared that its shape gave her great pleasure in both orifices. It certainly was a very attractive prick, and now that it was at full stand I made him lie on his back on the bed, took it in my mouth, sucked and frigged it until he spent in an agony of delight.

I then made him turn over on his belly, that I might admire his ivory-like buttocks, which I caressed and kissed in every way. My wife slipping her hand under his belly soon recovered the stiffness of his prick. I now desired him to kneel that I might be into his bottom.

His exquisitely white buttocks, marble-like in polish, hardness, and coldness to the touch, were most attractive to women as well as to me.

While thus kneeling with head low, and the chink between the buttocks well spread open, his exquisite small, pink, corrugated arsehole with almost invisible fair, short ringlets around it was truly lovely and exciting.

As a rule, I like to fuck a rough, hairy-arsed man, but I can all the same appreciate the delight in such an exquisite arse-hole as Carl possessed. To me also it had the attraction of its first possession. When thus first fully displayed to my delighted eye, I flung myself on my knees, kissed and tongued the exquisite and delicious orifice, and speedily got furiously lewd upon it; and rarely have I fucked an arse more deliciously incentive to sodomy.

"Oh, poor fellow," cried my wife, "you must let this fine object (his prick) be housed in me first, and then he will less feel the introduction of your large instrument."

I immediately consented, on which he cried out in delight--

"Oh do what you like with me, as long as your adorable lady will permit me to possess her."

"Well," said I, "see, her cunt is reeking with your spunk, so I will first bathe my prick therein, to make it go easier into your arse."

We took up kneeling positions. He filled the delighted cunt of my wife, and presented his really beautiful arse to my raging lust. I humoured the entrance a little, but once within over the nut, I plunged recklessly forward, somewhat too roughly, for it made him wince, and he would have escaped from me if he had not been doubly imprisoned. The pause I gave him after being fully engulphed calmed the strange sensation, and we gradually increased our movements until both died away in excessive delight, especially to him, for it was his first experience of _la double jouissance_, and it gave him such exquisite enjoyment that he begged me not to withdraw, but to run a second course. My darling wife thinking it would increase his lewdness if she changed his prick from her cunt to the more divine orifice, withdrew it, and placed it in the grove sacred to the secret rites of Priapus.

He enjoyed the ecstasies of paradise on this last occasion, and we all fell on the bed completely overcome by the soul-killing joys of the discharge, and lay soaking in all the after-pleasure for some time, until my darling wife begged us to relieve her of our overpowering weight. We rose and purified ourselves, and then I posed him standing up, admiring the really fine proportions and beauty of his handsome fair form. I sucked his prick until it stood, and then told him he must give me the pleasures of the middle, which he was so highly praising as the utmost exquisite enjoyment he had ever experienced.

My darling wife was delighted. She got on her knees. I entered her delicious cunt in the first bout, and I quickly housed Carl's prick in my arse.

We ran an exquisite course, and then a second with only a change of my prick to Florence's arse instead of cunt. Carl was after this obliged to leave us, as the morning was getting on.

I sent him away the happiest of men by telling him as long as he placed his arse at my disposal, he should have my wife always at the same time.

Thus we had secured another fine prick to our general orgies. We told the Grandvits of our fortunate _trouvaille_.

Monsieur made some difficulty about his being a servant, and the fear of discovery of our orgies through his indiscretion; but hearing that he was much superior to a servant he consented to his introduction.

After they had seen and admired him, they expressed their extreme satisfaction at the result of his joining us--for both Madame and Grandvit loved to have him into all their orifices. We could now fuck both women at once, and the double pleasure could be given to either sex without there being any outsider.

Every third night they slept in our hotel, and that night we never ceased conjunctions in every variety, with pauses for refreshment, purification, pleasant bawdy talk, fun, and frolic. For a month longer this delicious existence lasted, and then it was time for us to proceed southward. We parted from the Grandvits with much regret, but promised to return in the spring and visit them at their country house. I may here add that we did so, and enjoyed our visit to the utmost; and, in the second year of our absence, they accompanied us into Germany, where at last we left dear Carl. He had begged us to let him go as my valet with us to Italy.

His intended stay in Paris was within a month of its termination; he wrote to his father that the opportunity of travelling through Italy under the offer we had made was too advantageous to be lost. His father consented, and thus for eighteen months he was our constant companion and participator in all our lascivious conjunctions.

Carl accompanied us to London on our first return home, and resided with us for three months. I told the Benson and the Egerton of our good fortune in discovering him, and the exquisite addition to our party of us and the De Grandvits he had been.

They were instantly alive to the delight of possessing him.

I had continued the occupation of my chambers in the Temple, in which Harry Dale still resided; it was there we erected our altar to the Apostrophian Venus, and held our orgies.

Carl delighted our old friends, who were never tired of having him one way or another, while Harry or I administered to the _double jouissance_.

A new prick to a woman is like a fresh cunt to a man, and for the time gives additional zest to the lust which rages in us. So it is with the darling Benson and the lovely Egerton. They revelled in the possession of Carl. They knew they could only have him but a short time, and they made the most of him.

My beloved wife, with that kindly consideration for every one which distinguished her, quite abandoned Carl to these two dear insatiable cunts, and contented herself with presiding over our orgies, dictating new and exciting poses to our two friends, leaving Carl and me to their embraces, and consoling herself with a fuck now and then from Harry Dale, when we two were simply fucking each his dame. She told them, "I can have Carl and Charlie whenever I like at home, so must leave them to you for the three months that Carl can only give us."

We met thrice a week. My wife used to drive to the dear creatures and take them up, the husbands being much gratified at the affection shown by my wife to them, and never having the slightest suspicion of the object my wife had in taking them out. As to our own servants they knew the chambers belonged to their master, and they knew we lunched there, but they never imagined their mistress would take ladies to share in their master's embraces. So that we carried on our intrigue in perfect safety and impunity.

It was a sad day when we left with Carl, who never again returned to England. Our darling companions had become much attached to him, and parted with close embraces, and with bitter tears bade him adieu.

We parted from him at Frankfort, where his father, retiring to a country life, left him proprietor of a capital hotel, to which in after-years we often resorted when going to and from the German spas, and always stayed some days to renew the orgies we all so loved. His love for my adored wife's cunt endured for ten or twelve years, when an advantageous marriage softened it, perhaps more through the jealousy of his wife who, suspecting, caused us to desist from using his hotel. He had also got a family of a boy and two girls growing up, which completely ended our acquaintance.

To return to the time of our conducting him to Frankfort with the Grandvits, they afterwards accompanied us in a tour in Switzerland, but left us at Sion, when we turned our steps across the Simplon to Italy.

We were invited by our friend the Count to visit him for a month at his old castle in the hills of San Giovanni, overlooking all the ground of Bonaparte's earlier battles in his first Italian campaign.

We followed the right bank of Lake Maggiore to Arona and Allessandria, and thence by Acqui gained the castle of the Count on the hill above. It was situated in the midst of glorious scenery. From the summit of a hill near the glorious line of the _Alps_ could be seen Monte Rosa, Mont Blanc, Mont Cenis, Monte Giovi, and thence round the Apennines, while the Gap leading to Savona gave a view of the sea, the southern suburb of Genoa, and the line of coast leading to Spezia.

It was a glorious view, and we often directed our steps to the summit from whence it was seen during our month's stay with our loved and delightful host.

His old castle was only partially ruinous, but quite habitable. However, his father had built a comfortable house in the garden, at the base of the rock.

The castle crowned a perfect perpendicular detached mass of rock, half round which rushed a mountain torrent, the approach being a very steep zigzag with now ruinous defences, a very steep and difficult ascent. It is true from a low entranced cave at the foot a secret stair led up from the garden, of which I shall have more to say in relating some incidents of the Count's earlier history, as confessed to us in our close and intimate intercourse.

We were warmly welcomed by our dear friend, who, leading us to our rooms, had a rack-off of his waste steam in the ever delicious cunt of my loved wife, who, it will be recollected, had a great penchant for the Count, when she used to prefer him at our Percy Street orgies. When the Count retired, I plunged my excited prick into the balmy bath he had prepared for me in my wife's cunt, fucking her fast and furiously the instant he retired, a change she loved above all things; this calmed us for the moment, and enabled our waiting for night.

We had expected to find a young sister of the Count with him but at our orgy at night he told us that since his return home he had had this sister, and that in fact at that moment she was staying with an accoucheuse at Turin, and he expected to hear of her delivery by every post. We congratulated him on finding so delicious a bit of incest to his hand on his return to his country.

"Ah!" said he, "it is much more delicious than you think."

"Indeed, how is that?"

"She is my own daughter as well as sister."

"What a delicious idea!" cried I, "what a cockstand, and what a fuck it must have been to you! But you must have had your own mother to bring about such a delicious result. Do let us hear all about it, my dear Count, it will excite us all to renewed efforts, as incest always does."

This conversation occurred during a long pause we had made in our first night's orgy when quietly seated after purification, restoring our powers with Champagne and some slight refreshments prepared by our host for the occasion. We had already had three hours of the most delicious fucking in every possible combination, being all, especially the Count, fresh and in excellent order for a thorough excess. So we all were glad of a respite, and listened to the exciting story of the Count's delicious double incest. As we did not hear all at that sitting, I will finish an account of our doings, and then give a connected narrative or sketch of that strange intrigue, and some other of his earlier escapades, merely adding that his account of his affair with his mother set us all off in such an excitement of lust, followed by such an excess of fucking in bouts of _double jouissance_, in which not only my adored and most lascivious wife came in for her full share, but both the Count and myself enjoyed the double bliss in our turn. We carried on to such an excess that we were quite knocked up, and were so overpowered with sleep the next evening that by common consent we quietly went to bed, and deferred till morning any fresh deeds in the fields of love and lust.

We found this so refreshing to our powers of fucking that we regularly adopted the system of lying fallow the earlier portion of every other night.

We passed a most agreeable time with walks and rides through the lovely scenery, and explorations of the old castles.

The Count himself had two, but the one immediately above his house was by far the most interesting and was the original seat of his ancestors, wild robber barons of their day; and a black deed was reported in the traditions of the peasantry around.

The castle, although in a valley between the hills, stood on a high perpendicular isolated rock some hundred-and fifty feet above its base; it was crowned with a very high building to make up for want of space at the foundation, and had besides a very lofty and bold round tower, rising high enough above the sides of the valley to serve as a lookout beyond them. The habitable part was reached from the main gate by a steep stair, at one of the landings was a trap door opening upon a profoundly deep shaft; tradition said that this was a trap for personal enemies, who, on pretence of reconciliation were invited to the castle; on passing over the trap it opened, and they were precipitated to the bottom. It was the common tradition of the peasantry that wheels with scythes attached chopped them to pieces at the bottom.

It is a curious fact, and one showing how tradition may preserve a truth where least expected. Our friend the Count for six months lay hidden in the secret recesses of this old castle at the time a price was set on his head for treason. This had led him to all sorts of explorations, in which he had discovered many hiding places.

Knowing of this tradition about the cutting up of bodies at the bottom of this deep shaft he got his two younger brothers to let him down by a long cord, and really found the remains of machinery and wheels with rusty blades attached.

After he had finally escaped, a more regular search was made, and it was discovered that a communication with the torrent on a former higher level had let the water pass underneath the castle, and turn a water wheel which cut up the bodies and made them float away by the outlet. Human skulls and bones were found, singularly verifying the truth of tradition.

At the time the Count was a fugitive hiding therein, the old apartments were used as a granary to store the rent in kind of his father's tenantry. As there were suspicions of his having taken refuge here, the place had been two or three times ransacked by the police without their discovering him--thanks to the ingenious hiding places he had discovered.., But for this very reason every precaution had to be taken, and no beds, bedding, or plates, knives, chairs, or tables were there; he slept on the corn, spread three feet thick on the floor, or sat on it when tired. His mother, with provisions under her petticoats, would saunter in the garden, and, when unobserved, slip into the low cavern and ascend by the secret stairs, and seated on the corn by his side, would wait until he had done, to take everything away, and leave not a trace of any one being provisioned up there. These details are explanatory of what follows. The Count had been one of the Royal Guard for two years at Turin, and being a handsome young fellow, had as much fucking at command as he could wish for. When shut up for months in his asylum the passions that had been kept under by constant gratification began to torment him; from the loopholes of the castle he could see the peasant women working on the mountainside, and, in stooping, showing their legs even up to the bare skin, and this used to drive him mad with desire. He did not frig himself, but at night stole down to the garden, secured a large pumpkin or two, took them up to his retreat, cut small holes in their sides, and then thrust his stiff-standing prick into them, forcing the hole to the size of his prick, and then working the pumpkin with both hands till he spent deliciously; he used to get six or seven fucks in these artificial cunts, then throw away the finished one on the torrent side of the castle. This was so far a relief, but his lust grew fiercer every day, and on one occasion became uncontrollable.

His mother, who had married at fifteen, was now a fine ripe woman in her thirty-sixth year. One day, after setting down the things she had brought up, she lifted her outer gown that she might not show she had been sitting on corn; the Count was already seated much below her body on the low corn. His mother accidentally on this occasion drew up all her clothes, showing the whole of her fine arse, and in stooping backwards to seat herself all her fine hairy and gaping cunt was visible to his lower sight. This was too much for the Count, in a moment his prick sprang to the fiercest stand, he instantly unbuttoned his trousers; his mother finding she had brought her bare arse onto the corn, leant over on the side opposite to her son to tuck her petticoats under her arse, but the Count seized her round the waist with one arm, with his body pressed on her already bent body, forced her quite down on her side and was into her cunt up to the hilt, he thrust it up so fiercely as not only to make her shriek with surprise, but also with pain. She struggled to be free, but was held down with all the energy of his ferocious lust. Very few thrusts in and out were required to bring down the first rush of his sperm; this lubricated her cunt, his prick never, yielded, but stood as stiff as ever, and with hardly an instant's pause he recommenced a more delicious action than the previous one. His mother, however, was much distressed in mind at the first horror of the incest, but being a ripe woman of hot lubricity, could not feel a fine prick deliciously belabouring her cunt without having her lust excited in spite of herself. As all pain of the unprepared forcing of her cunt had passed away, and the plentiful rush of her son's spunk lubricated all the passage, she soon could not control her passions, and seconded him with an art which left nothing to desire. His long deprivation fired him to unusual efforts, and he fucked her five times before he withdrew.

When she sat up she said, "Oh! Ferdinand, what have you done! How could you do so? Violate your own mother. It is dreadful."

The poor Count, seeing her much distressed, burst into tears, threw his arms round her neck, and weeping told her he could not help it.

She patted his head, and said. "Poor fellow, poor fellow."

On this he lifted his head to kiss her. She, too, wept, and they mingled tears and caresses together; this almost instantly restored his prick to its pristine stiffness. He bent his mother back on the corn, and although she resisted a little, and said it was too dreadful his wanting to commit such a sin again, she opened her legs when he got over her, and did not prevent his pulling up her petticoats.

He was into her this-time-well-moistened and really longing cunt, for her passions were now become lascivious.

Thrice more did he fuck her, each time more delicious than the others, and in all seconded by the most splendid action of his mother's arse, and the most exciting pressures of the inner folds of her really delicious cunt.

At last she left him, but after so delightful a commencement every day saw a renewal of these delicious encounters.

His mother proved an adept in every resource of lust. Being a splendidly made woman, and salacious in the extreme, when once she had given way to her lubricity, she indulged in every whim of lust. She always, after a few days' fucking, came very lightly dressed, with no stays or other encumbrances, so that they used to strip and fuck at ease in every way. The Count assured us that much as he had since enjoyed some of the finest women, never had one given greater pleasure than his delicious, lewd, and salacious mother, doubtless the fact of it being incest added to the usual gratification given by a ripe, well-made, luscious-cunted woman.

After the first week of their delicious encounters, his mother said to him, "My dear Ferdinand, we are very imprudent, you may get me with child if we do not adopt precautions. Your father does not wish to have any more children, and takes care not to get them."

"How does he prevent it, my dear mamma?"

"Well dearest, he goes slowly to work, and while he has it in me rubs his finger on the point where you are now feeling (he was gently rubbing up her clitoris, a well-developed one) until he has made me enjoy it several times, and when he finds he is about to discharge he suddenly withdraws it, and pushes the head of it into my bottom and spends there. You must do the same, but you must not put all this long thick fellow in. Oh! come to my arms, my son, you have excited me until I must have it immediately."

Upon which the Count mounted and fucked so deliciously that with arms and legs round his body and loins, devil a bit would she allow him to withdraw, but spent with him most ecstatically, and quickly called for more, so that it was not until the third time of his being about to spend, that throwing her fine legs high in the air, and bringing her arse with a heave well up, and taking his prick out with her hand, she guided it to the delicious smaller orifice, and as all was reeking with the previous discharge, slipped it in, not the head only, but the whole shaft. She cried out, "Not so far, not so far," but as he began shoving in and out she quickly got excited, and wriggled her arse with all her accustomed skill, and spent deliciously again as he shot his spunk right up into her incestuous entrails.

He passed a hand between their bodies to press a finger on her clitoris, this made her cunt throb, which was felt by his prick, and quickly sent him up upon another delicious enjoyment of the tight recess of obscene lust, and a second most exquisite and luscious course was run, equally to his mother's as to his satisfaction. Then he withdrew to relieve her body of the weight she had so long sustained, they mutually embraced their naked bodies, and sweetly conversed on the exquisite joys they had just participated in. His mother declared his father gave her nothing like the lascivious joys she received from his dear son. They toyed and kissed until, handling his prick with skill, she got two more delicious fucks, one in each receptacle, and parted for the day.

By the second month she discovered that what she dreaded had happened. Her son had got her with child; she wept when she communicated this unfortunate result, but the Count, like me, always stood fiercely at a woman's tears. Several splendid fucks followed, all in the cunt--the mischief was done, and precautions were no longer necessary.

His mother abandoned herself to him with a greater excess of lust than she had ever yet done, and fucked with an excellence, vigour, and energy that drew from him eight discharges in a wonderfully short time. The fact of his having put a baby into her appeared to stimulate both their passions. She declared she never in her life had enjoyed fucking more. They used the grossest bawdy terms in their intercourse, as if it was one barrier more broken down between them, and made their incestuous love more exciting and a greater destruction of all natural ties between them.

Before parting they consulted about how best to fix the parentage on her husband.

He was a man of fifty-five, and, therefore, past the ardour of passion--taking even his fucking coolly--and, therefore, more difficult to hoodwink.

She knew that he awoke with a cockstand, although that did not always lead to a fuck. Upon this they founded their hopes, and at last arranged she should drug his coffee, and when still asleep in the morning she should handle his prick, get him up, turn her bum, put it into her cunt, work him gently, make him spend which would awake him, hold him in, pretend she herself was in the acme of delight, but on coming to her senses, upbraid him with having spent inside.

This all happened as planned, he did awake on spending, but his wife exerted such unusually delicious pressures upon his delighted prick, that he got so excited as to fuck her in and she took care he should spend inside a second time-'she pretended to be carried away by passion as much as he was. But remonstrating afterwards upon the imprudence of what he had done, especially in having so excited her that she could not help spending at the instant he did, which made it more dangerous. She did not know how it was but she had never before seemed to receive such pleasure from him as he had given her that morning.

"Well, my darling, it is a curious coincidence, but you never seemed to me more delicious or more lasciviously excellent in your fucking than you did just now. As it is but once let us take more care in future, and hope nothing will come of this little and delightful imprudence."

But of course there did, as the Count related to us, and seven months after this morning fucking my mother gave birth to a daughter. "I had already been in exile for five months when this event came off, I had letters from my mother after she got about and for some years afterwards, telling me that my sister was a beautiful child, and growing up _the image of her father_, underlining those words for me, to put the true construction on them. Poor darling mamma, she died four years ago, and my father followed her two years later. I never saw either of them again.

"Before I escaped from Italy I had passed five months in the constant possession of my beloved mother. As her pregnancy advanced her salacious avidity for my embraces seemed to increase. She was insatiable, but with such variety of charm and art that I never failed to answer to her call. Every refinement and excess of the wildest and grossest lust was practised by us.

"My father possessed a small collection of the grossest bawdy books; my adored and salacious mother purloined from time to time the lewdest, we read and excited ourselves in the realisation of the wildest and grossest scenes therein depicted.

"My mother was an instance of a woman getting once out of bounds and then stopping short of no excess, and became boundlessly corrupt. There was no horror we two could possibly commit that we did not indulge in.

"My father, when once the pregnancy was undoubted, was less reticent of his fucks. My mother at my request used to stimulate him to fuck her just before coming up to me, so that I used to shove my prick into the paternal sperm, sometimes in her cunt, and sometimes in her arse, and eventually used to lick it up before fucking her either way. The incest of her son upon the immediate fuck of her husband was, she said, the most stimulating to her excessive lust of anything I could possibly do.

"My father was obliged to go to Turin for ten days; it was the time of new moon, when nights were dark. My mother used to put on a dark cloak and come up to me; we lay down on her cloak, and, stark naked, gave ourselves up to the wildest lust until dawn, when mother slipt away to the house and left me well inclined to sleep until she returned with my food.

"Oh! it was a happy time, its combinations of solitude and incest, combined with my lusty youth, for I was only nineteen years old at that time, made me be constantly at her call, and she never went away before her excessive lust had been satisfied for the moment. Had circumstances permitted her to stay with me longer than she usually did, she would have got more frequent fucks out of me; at night, when she could come, she got ten and sometimes eleven discharges from me, and probably herself spent twice as often. I was indefatigable.

"In all her after-letters to me she constantly avowed grief that she had lost her most loved son; that she was inconsolable, punning on the con in the word, which is French for 'cunt.'

"Various allusions of that sort were in all her loving letters. Often and often when I have been slack in fucking a woman, and my prick not answering when called on, I had only to conjure up some of these scenes with my mother when my cock would spring to the stand instantly, to the immense satisfaction of my momentary _fouteuse_, and it is so yet, a thought of her reanimates it at once."

Here my adored wife slipped her hand under his dressing gown, and found his prick standing fiercely, she seized it, and pretending to be his mother, cried out--

"Come, oh, come! my beloved Ferdinand, into your own loving mother's arms."

She fell back on the couch, he got between her legs, kneeling on the floor, having thrown off his robe, exhibiting his fine hairy arse--one of those I so dearly loved. The sight fired my salacious prick, so kneeling behind, I guided it into his arsehole, and while he fucked my adored wife, I sodomised his superb arse. We ran two delicious courses, then my wife took me in her cunt, while the Count buggered his supposed mother, for that stimulating idea was kept up. A second fuck followed in the same pose, with both her apertures filled to satiety.

This concluded that delicious orgy; we had a half night's rest the following night, as usual, to recruit, that we might better enjoy a perfect excess on the subsequent night.

It was in this way we kept up our powers, and only near the end of our visit had we any occasion to apply the birch, and that to no great excess.

It was in the middle of the second night that the Count continued his recital of the result of the intrigue with his mother. His sister-child, for she was both, was born in his first year's exile. Beyond his mother's description of her, that she was growing up a beautiful girl, the image of her father, meaning her son, the Count, he had no other intelligence of her. She had just turned eleven when her mother died; for two years after that sad event she kept house for her father.

He then dying, the second brother took possession of the property. As the state had deprived him of all civil rights, the property was given up to the brother. On his return, after being amnestied, the Count had to go to law with his brother to get back his property. His sister-daughter, who had been unhappy with her brother's wife, gladly left them to keep house with the Count. She was then in her seventeenth year, splendidly developed in bosom and bottom, lovely and lustful deep-brown eyes, the very image of her father, although she only knew him as her brother. The recollection of the fierce joys he had had with his own and her mother, drove him wild with lust to possess the incestuous fruit of his intrigue with his own mother. He used of an evening after dinner to have her sit on his knee while he related his adventures abroad, intermingled with kissing and toying. He praised her splendid bubbles and felt them; he said he could not believe that her immense prominence behind was real unless he felt the bare skin. With little resistance this was permitted once, then indulged in, until from less to more he got to feeling and frigging her cunt, while he put his own standing prick into her caressing hand. There could be but one end of this. He took her maidenhead, and then she crept into his bed every night. He initiated her into every excess of venery, and ended by getting her with child. It was concealed as long as possible, and then, on pretence of a visit to a friend at Turin, to see some fetes, he conducted her to an _accoucheuse_, and left her there until her parturition was over.

I may here mention that just five weeks after that event came off we met them at Turin, on our way home from Venice. She was a beautiful girl. The Count introduced us as old friends, with whom every thing could be done in common.

We stopped a fortnight, and initiated her into all the mysteries and extravagancies of the wildest lust, and she proved apt a scholar that she almost equalled in action and enjoyment the greater experience of my beloved wife.

The Count had taken apartments at Turin for the winter, and finding his sister-daughter so facile a pupil he intended getting up a _partie carrée_ to continue these delightful orgies. His child was a lovely fruit of double incest, and gave promise of being a lovely woman. Her mount was charmingly plump, and the pouting lips of her delicious little cunt were already lust-exciting. The Count hoped he would be able to fuck her when old enough and promised me a participation when the time came.

I may here add he had her always to bed with him, and his sister-mother every morning, and in the bath with him.

She grew up admirably developed. From between seven and eight years old he gamahuched her delighted cunt; at eight began rubbing his prick on her clitoris, and by nine had gradually stretched it that he could enter nearly his whole length, and spend there.

We long knew each other, and he always said he was practising the lesson my adored wife Florence had instructed him in, when relating to us the incidents of her earlier days, and of her gradual violation by her own father.

I shall defer this story that I may at once describe the after-fate of this beautiful child, whom I and my wife have since often enjoyed between us, when she was entrusted to us by her father.

After a visit to us in England he left her to perfect her English for six months with us. We certainly perfected her erotic education while she perfected herself in English by her own ready talent for language, for although only in her sixteenth year, she spoke five languages perfectly, besides all the local dialects of Italy, which differ greatly from each other. Her stay with us was much prolonged, for at the time she was about to leave us she proved to be with child by me. In due course of time she was safely delivered of a daughter.

Her father, who came over to take her home after the advent, ceded the dear little object of my connection with her mother to my wife's prayers.

We had no children of our own, and she would adopt her. The Count, who in his heart was delighted at the proposition, left her with us. He afterwards had a son by this beautiful and charming daughter and granddaughter of his at one and the same time.

It is now long years ago, and that son legally adopted is now Count in succession after his father's death.

We paid many visits during these years to each other, during which the Count related to us some of the episodes in his life, which I give in his own words--

"You ask me to relate my first experiences. My earliest initiation into the secret mysteries of love's recess was rather a curious one, and one which ended very disagreeably for the fair nun who sought to teach me the gentle art of love.

"You must know that after Bonaparte's first conquest of Northern Italy, when he had turned the Alps by the Savona depression, and by the battles of Montenotte and others in that neighbourhood, gained the interior plains and carried all before him, Piedmont was annexed, and after the then French fashion, all church property was seized. Monks and nuns were turned loose in the world, with a promise of small pensions which never were paid. A nun of a convent in our neighbourhood was one thus thrown on the world. To sustain life she opened a little school for boys and girls of tender age. The neighbouring gentry, willing to assist a worthy creature reduced to poverty by no fault of her own, sent their children to her for primary instruction; my mother had taken a great fancy to Sister Bridget, as she was called, and I was sent to her school. I had just entered into my twelfth year, but was a fine grown boy of my age, and I can remember that my prick when standing in the morning had already shown proofs of fair development, which gave promise of its future prominence I think I was the biggest boy in the school, all the others being two or three years my juniors. I was in perfect ignorance as to the relation between the different sexes. The nun seemed to have taken a fancy to me, she used to embrace me with her arms, and kiss me with very pouting lips, and I could feel that she seemed to suck in my breath. She made me stand very close to her in repeating my lessons, her arms or elbows, apparently by accident, were always pressed against the spot where my, at first insensible, prick lay hid. Without knowing how it came about, these sort of accidental pressures at last excited it to stand, which she, no doubt on the watch, was delighted to perceive. Seeing how she could now excite it to the point she wished to arrive at, she said aloud one day--'Fernandino, you must stay to repeat that lesson after the school rises. You want a little extra instruction which I cannot give you while occupied with all the class.' I thought this a kindness on her part, but her object was very different. When all had gone and we were left alone, she desired me to come nearer, the elbow played its usual game, my cock stood, she pressed harder against it, then cried out, 'Dear me! what is that hard thing in your trousers? let me see.' She unbuttoned them, put in her soft hand, and drew out my prick. 'How curious that is. Is it always so?' 'No, not always.' 'When how comes it so now?' 'I don't know, but sometimes in moving to show me my lesson your elbow touches it, and it gets into that state.' All this time she was handling my prick in the gentlest and most exciting manner, indeed she very quickly produced the spasmodic joys of heaven thus brought down to mortal man, of course with only the nervous result. This was all that was attempted the first time, when she told me to button up, saying that it was a very bad thing to encourage that habit, and I must be prudent and not let others know of its being improperly hard and stiff.

"This sort of thing continued for a day or two. Finding I had said nothing about it to any one, she proceeded to effect her grand object. I was kept in as before. She excited me as usual, and soon had it out stiff-standing. 'Now,' said she, 'I will initiate you into love's mysteries. I see you are discreet and can be trusted; lie down on your back on this school form.' I did so. She lifted my shirt, my trousers were already down on my legs, she felt the shaft and appendages, then kneeling by my side she sucked it deliciously until it felt as if it would burst. She then rose and straddled over the low form and my body, pulled her petticoats up to her navel, and to my great surprise showed an immense thick mass of hair, covering the whole of her lower belly. Guiding my prick to the entrance of her cunt, she gradually engulphed the little object by letting her body descend upon it. I felt a certain smarting of pain in her first movements, and my prick partially softened, but quickly regained all its stiffness by the pleasure she gave me by her up and down movements on it. I went off as before in a paroxysm of choking delight; she, too, spent, for I was conscious of a stream of warm liquid flowing on my cock. She tightly held me where I was, and by cunt pressures quickly brought it up to full stiffness again, and a second delightful paroxysm followed.

"After this I fairly shrank to nothing, and dropped out. On rising I saw that there was a wetness streaked with blood all over my cock and cods; boylike, the sight of blood frightened me, and I began to cry, she wiped it all off, and skinned back my prick to wipe under it but here the raw surface made it painful, and even drew a show of blood; previously my foreskin had been attached to the projecting edge of the nut, her action of sinking on it had torn it off and forced it down on the shaft, doubtless this is the maidenhead of a boy, and hence the first smarting pain and the slight loss of blood that followed. She tried to detain me that she might get some warm water, which she told me would put it all to rights. I was too frightened, and ran off home crying all the way, and like a stupid lubberly boy, sought my mother and told her all what Sister Bridget had done and showed how sore she had made my cock. My mother, enraged, ran at once to the school, where in a back room Sister Bridget resided-berated her well, and in her anger let it all out, so that the poor woman, lost all her scholars, and was reduced to perfect poverty. However, a young Count in the neighbourhood, who had been long trying to have her, now persuaded her to accept his protection; she had the wisdom to make him settle indefeasibly a pension upon her, so as to be safe from future abandonment. I, of course, soon regretted the stupidity of my conduct. As soon as cured of the slight soreness of my cock, my imagination recurred to the pleasure her handling and sucking had given me, and the delicious paroxysms she had produced, but, alas! all too late. However, now I was awakened to the true use of a prick, and our women servants and the peasant girls in the neighbourhood, who knew of my affair with the nun, gave me encouragement, and I fucked them right and left, in the fields, under the bushes, in stables or lofts, and carried on this for a year; but at last I was discovered by my father, and sent off to college at Savona. Colleges in Italy have schools attached for younger students like your King's College, in London.

"Here I found a youngster but six months older than me, the son of a friend of my family. I told him the story of my affair with the nun. We used to get leave to go to the water closet from different masters, so as not to be supposed to go together by design. From feeling our cocks and frigging ourselves until we spent, which we both now could do, my friend suggested that I should put it into his bottom, which a young usher in his first school had taught him to do. He was a plump, good-looking lad, with wonderfully large buttocks, and with an arsehole which from the usher's practice, whose cock was full grown, was so widened and sunk in that it really looked more like a vulva than an arsehole. By this time my cock was nearly as large as it is now, notwithstanding it entered up to the hilt without difficulty, and I used to fuck him most deliciously. It is a curious fact that he liked to be the recipient, and to be frigged by me at the same time. Although he got into my arsehole a few times it was merely from curiosity; his letch was to be fucked and frigged. While at college together this quite satisfied us, and we never sought the dangerous intercourse of the strumpets of the town, and so avoided the horrible diseases that so many of our fellow students suffered from, many for all their lives after. For years this agreeable intercourse lasted, and was only cut short by my exile.

"Meanwhile, on my return home for the vacation, I had not forgotten Sister Bridget, and longed intensely to renew my acquaintance with her. I easily discovered her abode; meeting her one day she scowled at me, and turned off in another direction. But I found out she had a favourite walk in a lonely direction. I hid myself until she approached too near to get away, seized her hand, implored her to forgive the folly of a mere boy, who had ever regretted his ignorant stupidity, but who was now a man, and longed to prove his devotion to her. Here I had unbuttoned my trousers with the other hand, and pulled out a very fair prick, at full stand.

"'There!' cried I, 'see how the recollection of the paradise I lost grieves him to the heart, let the poor dumb creature plead for me.'

"I placed the hand I held upon it, she grasped it tightly--

"'O! Fernandino, I always loved you, and but for your indiscretion should have had you all myself for months.' I threw my arms round her neck, our mouths met in a loving kiss, her tongue darted fire into my soul. I drew her, a willing participator, into some side bushes. She sank on the ground, her legs fell apart; I lifted her petticoats, her rich fleece and palpitating cunt were irresistible, I flung myself upon her, I gamahuched her until she spent twice, and then fucked her three times before I withdrew. I would willingly have continued the delicious junction, but that she implored me for prudence' sake to rise. We parted, but not before arranging for other meetings, which took place in woods and barns, wherever most convenient. Her protector going for a week to Turin during one of my vacations, I was admitted to her room at night by climbing the roof of an outhouse, and then stark naked we indulged in every excess. She was hot and lewd to the utmost, a splendidly made woman, with an insatiable cunt when once our sports began. She was, as I before mentioned, most hairy, had a well-developed clitoris, and fucked with as much pleasure in the rear attack as in her tight delicious throbbing cunt. She loved above all things to gamahuche a prick, sucked it most charmingly, but with greater art licked around the hollow below the nut, and down the under side of the prick, with an occasional lick of the ballocks, all in so exciting a manner that no matter how often I had fucked her, she was sure to get another and another. This charming intrigue continued until I went to Turin.

"During my connection with Sister Bridget I learnt the whole history of her convent life. She was forced to take the veil by her family, much against her will, for she even then felt the prickly sensation of desire, making her cunt throb at the idea of coition with the male sex. She quickly found a friend with similar desires, but more experience, who first taught her all the art of tribadism, and then confessed to having connection with the youngest father confessor. This priest came once a week to confess the nuns, to confess their liaison, and to let him inflict what penalty he liked. He told her he would flog her, and then punish her where she sinned, which, in fact, meant putting his prick into her cunt when in a kneeling position. This sort of thing was done to see if she took it in with gusto, and when it was found that was the case, their hour of confession was a scene of every excess, stark naked, for neither wore aught but the frock of monk or nun. This delicious indulgence lasted until the dissolution of the convent, and you know the rest."

Another recital of the Count much amused us. The Count was admitted at seventeen into the Royal Guard, where each private was born a gentleman, and held the rank of sub-lieutenant in the army. Here he had many intrigues, and took the maidenhead of a charming and beautifully made girl, who was being brought up for the stage as an opera dancer, for which she showed early capacity. She proved a great success when brought forward. She dearly loved our friend, and was supposed to be faithful to him, although she had developed excessive wantonness and lubricity under his able tuition. His flight and exile separated them.

Years afterwards he met a lovely, magnificent, fully developed woman, splendidly attired, walking in the Regent's Park, He did not recognise her, but was looking at her with longing eyes, when suddenly she seized him by the arm, and exclaimed in the patois of Piedmont, "Ces tu si! Buzaron." (Is that thou thyself, Buzaron). This latter word is a familiar expression of carnal affection, but, literally, is "big bugger."

Their intercourse became of the warmest, she was now a first-rate _danseuse_, very highly paid.

The Count had first had her, she really loved him, and in London stuck faithfully to him, for love alone, for she never would accept even the smallest present. She, of course, had plenty of splendid offers from noblemen, but as long as the Count would have her she was faithful to him. When, which a knowing woman's tact senses, she saw a falling off, she released him, and, although never refusing her person to him, took to others as well. She was a very lovely bird, and used to relate the erotic experiences of her previous years. Many of these were most amusing, but one in especial showed the ardent nature of her temperament. She had accepted, when dancing at Genoa, an eligible offer from the Lisbon Opera proprietors, and had to take passage on an Italian brig; she was the only passenger, and her berth was in the same open cabin as that of the captain and mate. On the second day out the captain showed signs of wishing to have her. She was already longing for a fuck, to which she had been daily habituated on shore, so she lent herself most willingly to his desires; from him to the mate, and eventually to all the ship's company, without any jealousy of captain or mate; for the system in those days made captain and crew all equally interested in the success of the voyage from the terms of their agreement.

The captain, mate and carpenter were owners of the vessel. The crew of a boatswain and four picked men received food, mostly dried fish, but no wages. They were entitled to a certain share of the profits of the voyage, and thus were interested in its success, and on very different terms of intimacy with the captain to what ordinary sailors could be.

The voyage lasted six weeks, and during all that time she had every man in the ship into her every day, and from fair front-fucking had eventually satisfied them in both apertures, and often had had one in each orifice, and sucked a third to spending point, which she deliciously swallowed; she had even taken the _premisses_ of the little twelve-year-old cabin boy, and she declared that she never enjoyed so complete a satisfaction of her excessive lascivious lust as in that happy voyage of six weeks' duration.


The Count, who had split his sides with laughter as she recounted this extraordinary indulgence in every enjoyment of lust, related in the amusing patois of Piedmont, told us that notwithstanding such excessive indulgence in both orifices, and by pricks, many of which were of immense dimensions, not the slightest appearance of such ample stretching could be detected on the closest examination, and that in either orifice she could almost nip your prick off. One of those exceptional constitutions and splendid forms that no excess injures, and who are ready for any number of pricks and reducing them all to inanition, while she remained as ready as ever to recommence the utmost excess of lust as soon as any one set had exhausted themselves.

As a sequel to the Count's confessions, I shall here give my adored wife's account of her early life in the form of a narrative, for when it was told to me it was interrupted by various lustful encounters produced by the lascivious and exciting nature of her revelations.

She was the daughter of a Greek mother, married to a high clergyman of the Church of England, a man of great erudition, who had taken the highest honours at Oxford. When Fellow of his college he was tutor to a great nobleman's son, had travelled for years with him, and hence his wide acquaintance with the languages of modern Europe. In Greece he had fallen over head and ears in love with her mother, had tried to seduce her, and, failing that, married her. He was a man of most lustful propensities, her mother was of a beauty most attractive and exciting to such a man, having lustrous and most lustful eyes, extraordinary wealth of hair, which when undone reached to her heels; thick and meeting eyebrows, and a well-defined moustache, all enough to drive a sensualist like her father mad. So failing all other means to have her, he married her, and, as far as she could afterwards learn from him, was in all voluptuously lewd, carnal acquirements, every thing the wildest imagination of lust could desire. It was from her mother she inherited all that deliciously haired body, and from both parents her intensely lascivious passions. She lost her mother just as she had attained her eighth year. During her mother's life she had generally crept into their bed in the mornings to have a cuddle, and had often been a witness to the fucking of her mother by her father, and had, at other times, played with his prick until it stood, and even made him spend with her toyings. She owned to a sense of sensual gratification in this, but at that early age without any idea of the possibility of its being put into her. She always accompanied papa to his bath, and he invariably dried her and finished by kissing her mount and her cunt, and without tongueing it.

After her mother's death he always had her to sleep the whole night with him, and when in her ninth year he had commenced by gamahuching her clitoris, which even at that early age he declared gave promise of exceeding in projection the fine one with which her mother had been provided.

In this manner he soon awakened all the latent lubricity of her nature. Afraid to force an entrance at that early age, after exciting both her and himself, he used to rub his great prick between the lips of her cunt, and against her clitoris, until worked up to spending point, when he transferred his prick to her mouth, and spent therein, he having taught her to practise that voluptuous and delicious method.

It was naturally impossible to stop short _dans un tel beau chemin_, and it ended by his first getting the knob of his prick into her small tight slit and spending there, gradually forcing his way further and further in, until she, driven mad by such excitement, felt the utmost desire to have it into the deepest recess of her longing cunt, and begged him to shove it in harder and further.

With such a spur to his passions, unable to control himself, he burst through all obstacles, and completely deflowered her, giving her greater agony than she expected, which was subsequently completely alleviated and converted into the most exquisite sensations. Once he had fairly fucked her, he continued to do so constantly until the age of puberty, which declared itself by the coming-on of her monthly courses even before she was twelve years of age. Already an extensive moss-bed of sable silky short curls adorned her mount and body.

At this period her father told her he must take precautions against getting her with child; at first he drew out and spent in her mouth, which she dearly loved, but becoming lewd on her bottom-hole, which he constantly fingered, he declared it was too much derangement of position to get it into her mouth, and suggested merely driving the knob into the arse-hole, and spending therein, which he could do by her merely heaving up her arsehole as high as her cunt had been, and so entering without any change of position on his or her part. Of course it soon came from the knob only to the utmost length of his prick in her arse, and gradually she came so to like it that often the entire encounter of three or four coups was delivered in her arsehole to her infinite satisfaction; and thus her father enjoyed the first fruits of every aperture in her body.

He it was that instructed her so deeply in classic literature as well as modern languages, but always choosing such lewd works to carry out her education, such as Meursius and Suetonius in Latin, Athenaeus with his supper conversations in Greek, especially drawing her attention to his chapter on boy love, Boccaccio and Casti in Italian, the uncastrated editions, the adventures of Casanova, and the hundreds of other French bawdy books, with the most exciting illustrations of all these works and many others besides. The lecture on them always led to good fucking in one aperture or the other, practising the particular description that excited their lewdness.

He thus depraved her mind that she soon longed for other experiences than all he could give, and she cast about for an _aide-du-con_. This she first found in their young and handsome footman, who proved not only discreet, but completely up to his work, and uncommonly well furnished.

They occupied in every voluptuous excess the hours papa had to attend to the extensive and rich parish of which he was the rector. I must tell the rest in her own words; she said--

"Continued immunity in our excesses led to excessive in-cautiousness, and caused the discovery of our intrigue by my father, who appeared shocked and distressed at the discovery, but he was quickly reconciled, as it ended in his having the youth himself, and his introduction into our incestuous orgies, in which he both fucked and was fucked by my father when not giving me the exquisite delight of having both together. And for five or six years I had but these two charming satisfiers of my lust.

"At this period a beautiful youth of fourteen, the son of a younger brother of my father, and, consequently, my first cousin, came to live with us. He was an orphan, left by his mother under the guardianship of my father. I was some three years his senior and he took to me as an elder sister, was very loving in that character only, and used to embrace and kiss me most affectionately. I, for my own part, soon began to have other feelings.

"On his first arrival, in grief at the loss of his only surviving parent, he feared to go to bed alone, so I used to accompany him, and help to undress him. He was all innocence, his mother, up to her recent death, had done the same, so he had no _mauvaise honte_, and I helped off his shirt and helped on his night-gown, and even witnessed his diddling before he got into bed, which I tucked him in and kissed him before leaving.

"Of course with my then complete knowledge and practice of every art of lust, I could not but look for and discover all his secret charms, then always in a state of repose, but promising a future development. I grew lewd upon him one morning, after an orgy with papa and the footman, who had not altogether satisfied me. I was tempted to go along to my cousin Henry, to waken and cuddle him, knowing that he would probably awaken with a cockstand, as usual with youths, and even men.

"I slipt along, and at once saw, as I expected, for only partially covered with the sheet, the prominence of his prick was unmistakable. I gently removed the sheet, and was delighted to see that his instrument, insignificant enough when down, was of a very respectable volume when erect, and quite capable of giving any woman perfect satisfaction from its excessive hardness. I gently took it in my hand to feel it, it throbbed at the touch, and felt like a piece of wood in hardness, with a velvet covering.

"I got into his bed by his side without awakening him, taking care to pull up my chemise so as to let him feel the contact of my bare skin. I pulled the sheet over us, took him in my arms, and woke him with a kiss.

"He was surprised and delighted at finding me by his side, but as yet had no idea but that of cuddling and caressing me. In throwing my arms around him I had taken care to pull his night-gown up to his loins, so that his naked body pressed against mine as we embraced.

"In apparent surprise I cried out what is that pressing so hard against my body; at the same time moving my hand and laying hold of it. It throbbed violently to the touch. I threw the sheet off to see what it could be.

"'Dear me,' said I, 'how is this? What a change! it was not like that when I put you to bed last night. How has it become in this strange state?'

"'It is so, dear cousin, when I want to pee in the morning, and goes down afterwards.'

"'Then jump up and pee, and I want to do the same.'

"He took the pot and piddled. I took another and piddled, standing with legs wide apart, and holding the chamber pot partly between and partly under my thighs, so that he could perfectly see the whole of my cunt, and the flow of water from it.

"He stared with astonishment; it was really the first time he had any knowledge that women were differently formed down there than he was.

"'How funny,' cried he, 'you piddle from a chink, and have no doodle. I should like to see it nearer.'

"I told him I should lie down on my back on the bed, and he could look as much as he pleased, but he must never tell any body what he would see, because it was a great secret.

"He promised, of course. I lay down on my back, having first thrown off my chemise, stretched wide my legs, told him he would see better if he knelt between my legs, some slight distance from the object to be seen.

"He got up and began a close examination, admiring the immense quantity of hair I had already got, opened the lips, caressed what he called the little doodle, my clitoris, which was rampant with lewdness. I told him to feel inside with his middle finger; he pushed it up--I nipped it, to his astonishment, so that he could hardly withdraw it. Nature, unknown to him, acted her part; his cock, which had gone down after piddling, stood stiffer than ever. I laid hold of it, and said--

"'How comes this, Henry? You can't want to piddle again.'

"'No, no, but I feel queer all over, I don't know why, and it seems to have raised my doodle as you see.'

"'If you will keep it secret I will show how it comes about.'

"He promised that he would never, never, tell any thing I should teach him. So I said--

"'Come to my arms, lie down on my belly, and I will teach you. There that is it.'

"His cock beat fiercely against my cunt. I passed my hand down, guided it into my longing cunt, then placing my hands on his buttocks pressed down and forced his charming shaft up to the hairs of my longing cunt, foaming with my father's and the footman's sperm, so that he slipped in with the greatest ease; but no sooner was he hilted than one of my exquisite cunt-pressures made him cry out with unexpected pleasure, while I spent with the delicious conviction that I was enjoying the first fruits of a beautiful youth. I told him how to move in and out, nature did the rest the moment he knew what to do. A very few thrusts brought down his first tribute on the altar in the exquisite recess of Venus, the voluptuous goddess of love. I joined in the delicious discharge.

"Once experiencing the joys of coition the dear boy fucked me five times before I could get him to withdraw, and it was only the fear of discovery that induced him at last to get off me. We had a delicious cuddle, and I promised to come every morning I could do so with safety. Impressing upon him the absolute necessity of secrecy and caution, if he wished to have any repetition of the delightful lesson I had given him, I returned to my room gratified beyond measure in having taken a maiden tribute. Women who have the luck of such good fortune alone know the exquisite delight of initiating a virgin prick into love's mysteries and our longing cunts.

"We carried on this delicious intercourse for months before it was discovered, but use begets want of caution, and my father at last discovered it. Poor Henry thought himself happily excused by allowing my wanton parent to take possession of his bottom while fucking me. My warm embraces enabling him to support the great and curious pain and pleasure attending a first penetration of that delicious narrow aperture, dedicated to the obscene god. It ended in his complete initiation into our orgies with the footman. His addition to the orgy enabling more complex and lustful combinations than two men and a woman alone could indulge in.

"My father, who lived quite up to his income, died and left me with a very small capital at his death, which happened after the coming of age of my cousin Henry, to whom I had become violently attached. Indeed, it was my first love, and had all the devotion and ardour of that passion. He had a small independence, and we lived together for two years after my father's death, secretly sleeping together.

"The interference of relatives who, without suspecting our real sensual intercourse, preached upon what the world would say, &c., induced me to undertake a governesship, for which the great instruction I had received from my papa more than fully qualified me. I saw the reasonableness of this, and also thought it was more likely to strengthen Henry's love than otherwise. But the parting was a great trial. He had grown a fine man, with a superb prick, although far inferior to this monster," laying hold of mine at the moment standing stiff and wanting but her touch to make me bend her back and fuck her off hand, so exciting had been her recital.

She resumed after this episode, by saying her system of teaching was eminently successful. From time to time she was comforted by interviews with her loved Henry, besides satisfying the lust of both the father and sons of the families she lived with, teaching and taking the maidenheads of several youths, but in none receiving the gratification her loved Henry had given her, until, as she flatteringly said, she had the good fortune to enter our family and find such a jewel as I possessed.

She had occasionally found girls of such a warm temperament that she was induced to initiate them into the art of gamahuchery. It was in this character of instructress that she had first used the rod to the bottoms of her pupils, and it was seeing the erotic effect produced on them as recipients that first gave her the letch of being herself birched. After this she had had a vast variety of youths, fathers of families, and old worn-out patients, whom she birched into action.

From one situation to another she had arrived at ours; since which time I knew all her doings.

The Count's son and my daughter meanwhile grew up to puberty. We watched their progress with great interest. They were both initiated in all love's delicious mysteries by their respective parents.

My lovely little Florentia, for we christened her in my adored wife's name Italianized, which became familiarly Entee, was a great comfort to us. From childhood she always came to cuddle us in bed before we rose. She was so beautifully made that we used to strip her naked and kiss her whole body, which always gained my dear wife an extra fuck, especially after she reached her tenth year, when her form was rapidly developing into puberty. Being from infancy familiar and accustomed to be always stript by us, she had no shyness; indeed she became so exciting that often I grew rampant and fucked my dear wife while she was present. She grew to like to see us do it, and used to play with my big cock, and bring him up to the scratch. It ended as it was sure to end, in my gradually toying with her from one excitement to another, until she was completely fucked in her thirteenth year.

Ten years after that epoch I lost my beloved wife, and would have been quite inconsolable but for the sympathizing endearments of this darling child, who became so necessary to my existence that twelve months after my adored wife's decease I married her. She was a perfect Italian beauty, and no one supposed she was other than an orphan adopted by my late wife.

Now, in my old age, she is the comfort of my life and the mother of my beautiful son, whom we have named Charley Nixon, in memory of both my first adored wife and my guardian, through whom he will inherit great wealth. The dear little fellow is now eighteen years of age, handsome, well grown, and very well furnished, although not so monstrous in that way as his father. His dear mother has initiated him in every delight, and he has all the fire of lust that his old father had before him. He often comes to us at night, indeed, it is the only thing that enables me from time to time to get a cockstand and a fuck at his mother. To see them in all the agonies of lust, fucking furiously before my delighted eyes, so excites me now and then, for, alas, it has come to be a gratification few and far between. But occasionally to suck up his young sperm after the excitement of their love combat produces a stiffness for my beautiful wife to mount upon me and then have our charming son to put his prick into her bottom for this, too, is necessary to my failing vigour, and the contact of his vigorous young prick against the thin filmy substance separating us feels as nothing. I am long in spending, and his delighted mother gets two and sometime three delicious discharges in her arse before my lazy prick deluges her cunt with my incestuous sperm.

We are thus a happy family, bound by the strong ties of double incestuous lust. It is necessary to have these loved objects to fall back upon, for alas! all the earlier partakers of my prick are now dead and gone. Aunt and uncle, the Dales, the Nichols, my beloved Benson, and her friends the Egertons.

I have already mentioned the Count's death, and both my sisters have left me alone, and I should have been a dreary and solitary old man but for my beloved wife and son, who solace me and replace the void in my heart I should otherwise have so sadly felt.


I shall here end this long tale of my erotic life.

A curious event has happened lately, the divorce of a Mr. Cavendish from his wife for adultery with the young Count de la Rouchefoucalt. The details brought before the court were of the most scandalous nature, especially the letters exchanged between them when the Count had to go to Rome, where he was attaché to the French Embassy. When the husband's counsel handed up the letters with the sworn notary's translation, he remarked that he thought they were too horribly scandalous to be read in court. The judge scanned a few of them, and, addressing the counsel said--

"I am perfectly of your opinion, my learned brother, I shall take them home and make a point of them in my address to the jury."

It will be seen that they were of such a nature that doubtless the old judge, who was no other than my dear old chum Harry Dale, gave his wife two or three extra fucks on the strength of the lust produced by those exciting and extraordinary lascivious letters from a young man of only twenty-one years of age, showing quite as early an initiation into all the luxury of the utmost depravity as any of my own details of my early experiences with my darling old aunt.

Some of the letters are a string of imaginary events as to how far they could carry their imaginations. The Count constantly alludes to the inferiority of his descriptions to those given in her replies. Alas! as he possesses those exciting replies of the lady, they cannot be got at, but from his descriptions, and the remarks on certain gross familiarities, it's evident she was gifted with as lascivious and lustful a temperament as either my aunt or the divine Frankland.

A chance threw these interesting letters into my possession, and I can assure the reader they are the veritable sworn translations of the letters found in Mrs. Cavendish's davenport when it was broken open by her husband, and produced on the trial. The Count had evidently dreaded such an event, and it will be seen he constantly implores her to destroy his letters as soon as read. But, with the infatuation of her sex, she kept them to furnish the sole evidence by which she lost her place in society and became a lost woman. It is added that she was a woman of forty-five, and the mother of several children, but it is these randy voluptuous matrons who have the most attractions to a young man who feels flattered and is proud of, as he thinks, conquering a woman in a good position in society. It is evident enough that she was no tyro in every depravity of lust, and probably had passed through many hands before he gained her. He appears to have been really cunt-struck, which, as I have before observed, is one of the strongest infatuations that a man can have.


END OF VOLUME IV.


ADDENDA


LETTERS

PRODUCED IN THE DIVORCE-CASE

CAVENDISH

_v_.

CAVENDISH AND ROCHEFOUCAULT.


Rome, _Saturday_

_August 6th, 1859, 10 o'clock_.

I tried last night, my angel, to write you a half sheet, but it was as much as I could do to read your letter a second time, and it was only by making a great effort that I was able to write a few lines. However, this morning I will try and continue, in order to reward you, not for that one which you have deprived me of from pique, but for those bewitching ones which I have lately received.

I have just received your letter 17, begun August 3rd, 11 o'clock at night, and bless you for the idea of addressing it to Pal. B., it is infinitely preferable, and there is no fear of any risk ("indiscretion" in original) either now or later.

I am delighted when I think of the pleasure you derived from what I sent you the other day. I only decided upon it in fear and trembling. I do not understand what you mean by letter direct to Albert. If you do not send it per Embassy bag I should not have it here till Monday; you would have done much better to have put it in the parcel. All last night I slept very badly, no doubt in consequence of a presentiment I had that I should not receive a half sheet, and that you were annoyed at my going to Albano, and I thought of a mass of things as disagreeable as they are painful. Of your birthday, for instance, the 1st of October, which will be an opportunity for II * [* II stands for her husband] to make you a present in return for the set of studs which you gave him on his birthday, when you, no doubt, will give him something.

As to your brown cloak which II gave you, &c. &c., I request that on your birthday when he makes you his usual present, whatever it may be, you accept it and say, "I thank you," and, without even looking at it, put it upon the table, immediately speak of something else, and when he has left the room, put it away out of sight without ever speaking of it again, or appearing to know what has become of it.

I have just been interrupted for an hour and a half by M. de Fiennes--very agreeable is it not? You must forgive me if I am unable to write to you at length; what I have said to you above is for the future, but the past is over since he has those studs. I forbid you to give him something in future, unless you cannot possibly do otherwise; and, in that case, you must give cigarettes or anything which does not last. I will see what is to be done about your shawl, was it not II who gave it to you? Thanks, my treasure, to walk so far from II; it is so good of you to give up to me that walk, which I hate when you take it with him.

Ah! new projects again, but let us hope these will be the last, how I pity you. You were so well you told me two days ago, and now you are already obligated to take some powders--it is II system. Nice health you seem to have; you have good reason for believing that the regimen you have hitherto followed is a good one, it succeeds so well! Poor darling I can comprehend how uncomfortable these frequent agitations must make you. I suffer from them so often myself.

I will make you some drawings later. I have not the time to-day. Those uncertainties of your mother are terrible. Oh, yes, I am in despair at that departure, particularly before my lot is decided, and knowing, as I do, that you are unhappy. But, my child, do not fear to let it be known in every direction that you cannot endure II, and that you have taken a disgust to him. Do not hesitate to give the true reasons when you refuse to do anything, simply, "Yes, or No, the hand, but with ........... it is not necessary. I can dispense with it, nothing of that sort is necessary." And then, when that has produced the desired effect, add, "We can only live under the same roof upon those conditions, for sooner would I go away altogether than that it should be otherwise." Speak in this manner; it won't answer very well at first perhaps; but he will soon get accustomed to it, "How do you do?" in the morning, and "Good night," at night. Then gradually get into the way of saying "Mr. C." when talking of, or speaking to him. You may be told it is not the custom. Answer you don't care, it is not the custom to be such an idiot as he is. Ah, you are too sad, poor child, all that is charming, and all our superstitions. Moreover, one must think of what has been, not of what will be, and compare it with what is. The progress is very delightful and consoling.

Do not be unhappy about my horse, he did not go very well, and then I do not care about driving in a carriage when you are on foot.

I have made two drawings, one prettier than the other, and I have had a copious emission.

Mrs. S. has made no tentative overtures towards me. She is often that way inclined, and with everybody. Be calm then; but, after all, you are perfectly so, only you pretend to be otherwise. God bless you for speaking so often of your pretty rose-coloured silk stockings. I like them so much, and adore you for wearing _them_, although it is not the custom, above all in the day time. Doubtless it is very coquettish, pretty, and wondrously exciting. Even only to think of them gives me an erection. And that rice powder! how divine you must look. It is to be hoped that the powder in your hair will not give ideas to II and embolden him--take care. Thanks for thinking so often of me, my idolized angel. Adieu, my good, my best treasure, I love and embrace you tenderly. I will have my revenge, for I, too, had prepared a half sheet, but will not send it till to-morrow.


Rome, _Saturday, for Sunday's Post_

_August 6th, 1859, 2 o'clock_.

I wish to give you a little surprise, my own dear little darling, in sending you this letter, which you will receive with a half sheet upon which you had not reckoned on Tuesday morning, so as to supply the place of Sunday's post. It was to give you this little surprise, and in no way of retaliation, that I did not send a half sheet in my letter of this morning. It was very unkind of you not to send yours upon the pretext that I was at Albano, but you will have been ashamed of it since. Besides, even supposing that I had been there, I should not have committed any indiscretion with your envelopes, which are so excellent, and, if one had felt inclined to do so, your letter was sufficient to make me indifferent to it. I suspect you of not having prepared what is necessary, I shall be sure to see if it be so; to-morrow's letter ought to contain two. I continue your letter 17, and I perceive with rapture that you have had a thick cream-like emission of enjoyment. How delicious it would be in my tea. How I should like to send you some like it also. It is a good thing that my letter to the little girl was successful. Will you tell Madame de Delmar that I am sorry to hear that she is suffering, particularly as her ordinarily detestable disposition only becomes more thick and more execrable. Suppress this latter part if you think it better.

Ah! you think that Madame Salvi has played her cards well and in what way, I ask? You are too bad, too implacable. I do not like that in you. I have told you that your suspicions wounded me, and I think you can believe me when I tell you that I have completely changed my conduct in that respect. Besides, what can I possibly do. I am very uncomfortable here. The Abdol don't want me; besides, the Duke has given me to understand that I ought occasionally to go and see his wife, and the Borgh bother me with all their children.

Thanks, my good angel, for the letter Des Pierre. If it be decided that you leave, I shall go for a few days to Civita--sad and mournful consolation. Why do you tell me that you will go barefooted when I go to see you. I am quite of your opinion that your feet are only too delicious. The costume rather disgusted me than otherwise, without, however, producing any effect upon me. To-morrow I shall pay the Duchess de Grano a visit, and since it seems to put you out, shall not return again to Albano.

Heaven knows that the pleasure is not great, and that I care very little for it. The other day I did not even find it any cooler there. The Duchess of St. Alban's leaves on the 20th for Schwalback and England on account of the apprehensions about war--another subject of uneasiness for me--such is life. I can go and live with the Duchess de Grano and Salvi. No one would say anything about the one, and not much about the other, whatever you yourself might say, but that annoys me exceedingly, and disgusts me, and I dare not do so with you. You might, however, have been my ambassadress, see what it is to be so seductive, so graceful, so pretty, so kind and gentle. Just fancy, dearest, that I have not answered Madame Rudiger. I must really do so to-day. She is a person one must be careful with.

I have always this phrase before my eyes. "I prepared a divine half sheet yesterday evening, but dare not send it!" Very agreeable, and very kind of you! well, I do not complain.

They have been so heavenly during the last three days, and mine are so shameful. How nice it is for me to think that I should have sufficient influence over you to get you to sit perfectly naked at my table. Long ago might you have had that influence over me, and even have enforced requirements more depraved, and more degrading than that if you had wished it, and with what rapture! Adieu, my angel, what a happiness to give you this trifling pleasure.


When I shall have undressed my adorable little mistress it will be nine o'clock, she will be mad with desire, delirious from passion and rapturous exactions (exigencies), her maddening look exciting me in the highest degree will arouse all the strength I possess, and enable me to exhaust her so completely that she herself will attain the height of happiness; the greater the refinement and delicacy of my caresses the greater will be your happiness, the more languishing will your eyes become, the more will your pretty mouth unclose itself, the more will your tongue become agitated, the more will your bosoms, firm and soft as velvet, become distended, and their nipples grow large, red, and appetizing; then will your arms grow weaker and then will your angelic legs open themselves in a voluptuous manner, and then seeing ourselves reflected on all sides in the mirrors, shall I take you in my arms in order to excite you (_branler_, frig) with my hand, whilst your little rosy fingers will similarly excite me with vigour, and I shall suck your divine nipples with passion. When the agitation of your little legs, of your lovely little bottom (_derrière_), of your head, and those murmurs of pleasure (_rugissements_) prove to me that you are at the point of emission, I shall stop and carry you to a piece of furniture made to sustain your head, your back, your bottom, and your legs, and having near your cunt (_con_) an opening sufficiently wide to allow my body to pass erect between your legs; then shall I fuck (_enfiler_) you with frenzy with my enormous and long member, which will penetrate to the mouth of your womb; being squeezed by your pretty legs, which will bring me closer to you, I shall wriggle (_remuerai_) my strong pretty member, which you love, with more vigour than ever; my private parts (_organes mâles_, testicles) will touch your little bottom, and this contact will provoke such an abundant flow of the essence of love in your little cunt that I shall be as if I were in a bath.

How I fear to leave off there! But we shall see. Do not write to me by the night post, it is useless! It is true that when I am near you in a carriage I have difficulty in remaining quiet. Oh, no, do not alarm me by your insatiability, mine is much greater than yours, there is not the slightest comparison to be drawn between us in a physical point of view, but as far as our moral nature and heart is concerned we can rival each other, and I am very happy on that account.

1:40. I was most annoyingly interrupted by the luncheon bell, and afterwards I played a game of Fourreau (a game all the fashion at Verteuil), and here I am again. I have just refused to accompany my father and mother in a drive in the neighbourhood, so that I shall be able to write to you more at length, unless, indeed, I write to Fallenay.


You tell me that you like the little costume, but that is all you say, and you give me no details as to the colours, the length and shape. I will believe my treasure, my jewel, that your bosoms will be white, swollen and soft as velvet, and it is very nice of you to tell me that my hands will have difficulty in holding them and putting their ruby lips to my mouth.

You are quite right in saying that you will develop my virility, it is you who have made my member what it is now. I repeat, on my word of honour, perhaps you will not like to hear these details, but, nevertheless, I shall say it, you are the first woman in the world who has stimulated that essence which flows from my prick (_queue_), which your kisses have rendered so pretty, and it is you who have plucked the flower of my virginity. Never have I had (_baisé_) any other woman, and whatever may be the misfortunes to which I may be destined, it will always be an immense and ineffable happiness to me to think that I have given and lost it through the luscious draughts you offer (_par tes délices_). It is, and it will be, perhaps, the greatest blessing, and the only consolation of my life. But before God it is a great one, and my enjoyment has not been such as one can expect to find in this world. I do not believe that he who had the madness to rob you of yours was as pure as myself, and as for voluptuous pleasures, if there be any greater than that which I know, I promise you never to learn or seek it, although I don't require this at your hands. I do not wish to have any other woman spoken of, they all disgust me, even to look at them. You know it, and you know that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in you to disgust me, but all that belongs to you maddens me, and I love and adore all; it has become a madness, and you know it; for when you are kind you give at least the idea by letter of that which you would not do if you had the slightest doubt.

You know that I have sucked you between the legs at those delicious moments when you made water, or when you had your monthly courses, and that my happiness will be complete when you will allow me, and when circumstances will allow you, to let me lick (_passer la langue_) at that ineffable moment when your little love of a jewel of a bottom has just relieved itself. In you every thing appears different and pure, the purity which reigns in your every feature, the excess of refinement which exists in your whole body, your hands, your feet, your legs, your cunt, your bottom, the hairs of your private parts, all is appetizing, and I know that the same purity exists in all my own desires for you. As much as the odour of women is repugnant to me in general, the more do I like it in you. I beg of you to preserve that intoxicating perfume... but you are too clean, you wash yourself too much. I have often told you so in vain. When you will be quite my own, I shall forbid you to do so too often, at most once a day. My tongue and my saliva shall do the rest.

If it is necessary let the doctor cauterize you (_toucher_), that is to say with his instrument, and mind he does not fall in love with you; I bet he has never before seen anything so seducing, so pretty, or so perfect. It is to be hoped that the irritation does not proceed from the size of my member.

You did quite right to go to the play, and I regret sincerely to have spoilt the pleasure you had in going, it shall not happen again.

As to the place George had, that is perfectly indifferent to me.

Ah! you think that the portrait was done afterwards. You are not sure of it, but it is a matter of no moment, my much loved one. I shall not be the less happy to have the photograph if you are good enough to give it to me, not too much in miniature. I shall be very grateful for it.

If I said that Galitzin was clever, I was wrong; he has a kind heart, and is very fond of me. Now that he has lost his mother, I shall be more kind to him. He is a person one can depend upon; his letters are silly productions. Those Russians have always the imagination easily excited.

Yes, my father has always the same answer. Thanks for your obliging offer of gloves, my mother must settle about it.


I shall still have lavished the following caresses upon you, angel of my delight, were I a little calmer. I had a dream, such as it was, about it last night, and only remember it just now by way of explanation of my mad excitement of this morning. I saw you as I was asleep, you were by my side frigging me with your fingers of love, and you heard me say to you, "I see you there." You are as lovely as Venus, your lusciousness and lasciviousness are at their very height, your body is completely perfumed with your urine, in which I forced you to bath yourself for my enjoyment, so that I might lick you. You have painted the most seductive parts of your person. Your shoulders are white, your rosy bosoms reveal themselves through a rose-coloured gauze, trimmed with bows of the same hue. Your thighs, as well as your navel and your heavenly bottom, are revealed through a heavenly gauze, your legs are clad in rose-coloured stockings. The sperm flows; but how much I needed it! This is true, for my testicles were swollen in an alarming manner.


Oh, my child, my pretty little mistress, if you only knew how much I suffer from the excessive heat, and the privation in which I live! Without exaggeration, my testicles are enormous. My member is as large, straight, and stiff as my arm. I am mad from desire for you. I had the unhappy idea of going to bed again. My mind was full of a dream I had had, and of which you were, of course, the subject. Then I thought of the caresses which you would have been obliged to submit to, and at last, in consequence of your yesterday's half sheet, so pretty at the beginning and at the end, but yet quite beside the question, and found myself engaged in the act of rubbing myself with frenzy, and of stroking myself and of frigging my prick (_la pine_) until I was exhausted, before I could discharge the merest drop; that was too much for me, and now I desire you like a mad man. If a delicious half sheet does not arrive by the Embassy bag, I know not what will become of me. I have had an emission. I am saved. I shall feel myself so relieved. You have forbidden my going with other women. You are determined that I shall not have a discharge with any one but yourself, and that I have fucked (_baisé_) no one but you. Oh! how I must love you.


It is two o'clock in the morning, I have violated and well worked you, kissed, frigged, licked, and sucked you obliged you to yield to my desires, the most debauched, the most shamelessly degrading during the whole of the afternoon. All the afternoon, too, I have got you to suck my member and my testicles. I have made you pass your tongue between my toes and under my arms. I have compelled you to paint your body, to drink my urine. I was almost on the point of getting you sucked and licked by a pretty Lorette, perfectly naked, between your legs, and to make you piss into her cunt in order to make the depravation more debased than ever. I have had discharges from jealously. I have discharged at least forty times; and when, after having left you to go to my club, I returned home, and finding you fast asleep from exhaustion, I awakened you and insisted upon your frigging me with your rosy fingers, all the while licking my several parts. You implore me. You are wearied, but I am intractable. You must do it in order to excite you as much as I am myself excited. I suck your breast with frenzy. The sucking that I have given your bosoms, and the fear you have lest I should fetch a young girl to violate you with her breasts in your cunt, filling your womb with her milk, excite your senses, and then you hear a voice whose sound alone so pleasingly tickles your womb, saying to you, "My pretty mistress, I implore you to abandon your (?) to me. I will love you so fondly. I will be too kind and gentle, I am so handsome, I will do all you can possibly wish. I know so well how to have and suck a woman, my member is enormous, it is beautiful, rose-coloured, large, long, hard and vigorous. Yield yourself to me."

Tell me if you like this one.


When you are ready you will call me so that I may come and say my daily "How do you do?" You will begin by taking my----out of my trousers, then half opening your gown, you will lift up your pretty chemise with one hand, and will pass your other arm, soft as satin, round my neck. I shall embrace you tenderly, then I shall lick your snow-white shoulders, your bosoms, which seem to be bursting from the imprisonment of your rose-coloured stays embroidered with lace. I shall lick between your legs, over your divine little bottom, your nymph-like thighs being at that moment on my knees; then you will place your angelic little feet, with your stockings on, one after the other in my mouth. After this you will send me into the dining-room, in order to get rid of the servants, and, by this time, filled with an amorous and impassioned languor, each of your movements breathing forth the frenzy and voluptuousness of passion, you will come and join me. There will be only one chair, and the table will be laid for only one person. We shall each of us have only one hand free, I the right, and you the left; then you will sit upon my left leg, which you have found the means to make naked; you will have unfastened your gown in such a way that it will hang down behind, and your right hand will caress and stroke my enormous prick, which you will have taken between your legs without putting it into your angelic cunt, whilst my left arm will wind itself round your lovely waist in order to bring you still nearer to me.

After breakfast, which will have lasted till half-past twelve, and which will have given you strength, we will go into the little rose-coloured boudoir. I shall place myself in a low narrow chair, and as I shall be very much excited by your enchanting looks, my enormous member will come out of its own accord from its prison, and you will sit astraddle upon me, introducing, with the greatest difficulty, my pretty and vigorous prick into your pretty girl-like cunt, when wriggling about from sheer enjoyment you will stop its movements every time I tell you I am on the point of discharging, so as to increase my desires and my transports of happiness. Then in half an hour's time you will get up and place yourself upon the sofa, whilst I, at your desire, shall dip off all my clothes; then you will get up from the sofa and take off your dressing-gown only keeping on what you have underneath. In my turn I will stretch myself on the sofa, getting every moment more delirious with passion, for your dress, betraying the delicious outlines of your figure, without revealing them entirely, will render me almost beside myself, and will make my prick so long and so stiff that you will hardly be able to sit on its point without being fucked, in spite of its size, which will force from you sighs and murmurs of rapture. At last, when once seated, fucked by my manly and powerful prick, you will throw yourself backwards. I should lean my enraptured legs against your bosoms, in order that you might lick my feet, while you would pass your amorous and divine legs, softer, whiter, and more rose-tinted every day, over the whole breadth of my chest, placing your tiny goddess-like feet in my mouth. As our desires would augment at every moment, you would allow me, would even ask me to take off your garters, your pretty stockings, and your slippers, in order to procure me the luxury of licking every part of your body there, and of realising in the most perfect manner the intense enjoyment arising from the contact of the most delicate, the most woman-like, the most voluptuous member of your body. My hands would frig your little love of a member, my manly prick would kiss your celestial womb, and my thighs would caress your delicious bottom. When I have worked you in this way for hours, ceasing every moment you were on the point of emission, I should, as I withdrew my member, let you at last discharge, and then an immense stream of love would flow into my mouth, which suddenly and as if by enchantment would find itself in the place of my member while your bosoms would be covered with that white essence of which you are the only source in my eyes (I had never known it before Homburg), and which would escape from my amorous member.

Every day after dinner, reclining voluptuously on a couch, you would snatch a few moments of repose while I was taking off all my clothes. When I had finished, and when I, filled with love, had shown myself to your contemplation, you would give up to me your place upon the sofa, and assuming the most seductive, the most coquettish, and the most graceful attitudes, would come and play with my member, whose vigour would arise solely from the sight of your pretty costume, which, I am convinced, would render you more delicious than the most graceful fairy. You would love me so deeply that I should cease to have any power of will, you would have exhausted me, sucking me completely dry, nothing would remain in my prick, which would be more full of desire, more enormous, and stiffer at every moment. My languishing eyes, gentle as love itself, surrounded by large dark blue circles caused by your look, your tongue, your bosom, your cunt, your member, your heavenly little bottom, your legs, your fingers, and your angelic little feet would tell you how complete was my happiness, my intoxication, my ecstasy, and my faint, exhausted but happy voice would give you the same assurance, would murmur with rapture in your ears--"Oh how I love you, my lady love, my divine little virgin, caress me yet once more, again, still again, it is a dream. Thank you, oh, thank you and yet again. Oh I am in heaven, do not pause, I implore you, suck me harder than ever; lick me well; oh! what rapture; ask me what you will, it shall be yours. You are my mistress, no other but you in the whole world can transport me in this way. Frig me with your knees. Oh! oh! oh! I am going to discharge," and my half-opened mouth would prove to you my enjoyment, and the thirst I had for the bliss you could confer.

Then, more full of passion than ever woman lover had ever been, and enraptured as you listened to my voice, so completely beneath your sway, listening only to your own love, you would raise your little coquettish petticoat, and pressing dear little loves of calves more closely together, for you could be on your knees, resting upon my little blue veins, you would frig me in this manner, with greater vigour than ever sitting down every now and then upon your fine little heels, in order the better to release my beautiful prick, perfectly straight and rudely swollen and inflamed with passionate desires, from between your divine thighs, as soft as satin, and as white as snow, to better introduce the wet tips of your lovely and velvet like bosoms into the seductive little hole of my member, whilst my knees raised slightly behind would gently caress your bottom, so as to give you some little satisfaction in your turn; and at last, unable any longer to retard the moment of emission, you would bend forward, resting upon both your hands, to increase my desire, and keeping yourself back a little distance from me, while your petticoats would now cover my head, and act almost like an electrical conductor upon me, you would intoxicate me with the perfume exhaled from your legs, from your member, from your cunt, from your bottom, and lastly, you would slack my thirst and complete the celestial transport by pissing, with eager rapture, between my burning lips some of that woman's nectar which you would alone possess, and which, emanating from you alone in the world, is worthy of the gods. It would be half-past eight.

You cannot form any idea of my excitement at this moment. I hope you will like this, and will answer me prettily. Am I sufficiently in love? And do you believe there will be another woman in the whole world beside yourself for whom I shall have any desire? Oh, how wild is the longing that I have for you at this moment; and this nectar I have spoken of, from whom else could I care for it, could I endure it even, whilst from you what mad delight! Tell me, do you believe this? You know it perfectly well, I am sure; these are not mere words. Tell me that you will piss into my mouth again when I ask you. I am now going to try to sleep, but what chance of doing so with this love that consumes me. I must await your pretty letter of to-morrow morning, for it is that alone which will excite the flow and stream.


At half-past eight you would like to conform to the usages of this room of mirrors, and as your desires have become greatly inflamed by my own state, and by the soft and sensual temperament of our bodies, you would ask me to undress you, in order that, being completely naked, I might the more easily overwhelm you with my most passionate caresses. I should then strip you of every thing, except that in order that your feet might not come into immediate contact with the looking glasses upon which we should be walking, I would slip on your feet a pair of tiny little slippers, with little silk soles, at a distance they would hardly be visible.

Some one is coming. Adieu till to-morrow.

And larger and stouter than that of my little darling, and so indifferently shod with shoes. (Their boots are pretty.)

Adieu, my angel, I finish this so as to be enabled to add a few lines to the picture--it is late. I love you with all my soul, with love, respect, and adoration. Nothing yet has been heard about de L. R. It is very bad weather, and my father is still no better.


I would take you for a drive either in a pretty barouche or in a phaeton, your toilette would be beautiful but simple. I would only insist upon your wearing a veil, for my love and happiness would render me somewhat egoistical with regard to others. We should not be serious all the time of our drive, for at every instant I should steal a kiss, and your feet would be resting on mine.

We should return home about half-past five to dress for dinner. You would change every thing, and without paying any attention to what our servants might think, I should put on a loose pair of trousers, prettier than what I had worn this morning but, like them, opening in the front. As for you, my own love, I should insist upon your dressing yourself as a ravishingly pretty little _danseuse_, with some little difference, however, in my favour. Your hair would be in curls, falling all round your head, upon your beautiful naked shoulders. You would crown them with a pretty garland of flowers, such as I like for Aimée. You should wear a light-coloured muslin dress, very low and very short, up to the knees, your arms bare, and the skirts exceedingly full (the body of which would be transparent, and refine and reveal the divine shape of your angelic bosoms), your legs, perfectly naked, would be visible amongst a mass of folds of muslin, and would be covered by little open-work stockings of rose-coloured silk, fastened at the instep by bows, like the dress, and on your tiny virgin feet you would have little satin shoes, without soles. To pass into the dining room, so as to avoid catching cold, and also prevent the servants revelling in the sight of my treasure, you would envelope yourself from head to foot in a long veil. During dinner I would try to remain tolerably quiet so that you might eat and strengthen yourself for the evening, which would be a fatiguing one. Our servants would have directions not to enter until we rang; during each course you would open your veil, and turning towards me (for you would be on my right hand), you would place your pretty legs across mine; immediately my manly prick, which your love would render daily more and more delicious, would display its vivacity, and you would caress it with your lovely satin-like calves, your chair enabling you to do this, being tolerably large, with only one arm on the right, while mine would be much lower, that would not fatigue you much, and this is what you would say to me, "Am I not bewitching and delicious? Do you not think me voluptuous? and regard me as your mistress, holding you under my entire subjection? I am very happy to please you this way." And I should answer, "Yes, I am your slave; you give me the greatest enjoyment that can be had; there is not a woman in the world who possesses the attractions you have; you make me do anything, you are the queen of voluptuousness, of enjoyment. No one knows how to make love as you do." At last at the dessert you would glide gently upon my lap, allowing your petticoats to flow behind. I should suck your bosoms, for as the servants would be getting their own dinners, I should have thrown your veil quite off, and you would then appear enveloped in all your many charms. Then I should give you your dessert, which would consist of a biscuit moistened with that white essence which you alone in the whole world have known and know how to produce in me, and for my reward you would allow me to make my wine for dessert. I would then place my wine-glass between your legs, opened voluptuously wide, and you would let that delicious urine flow into it. The intoxication that this fragrant liquor would produce would be the signal for my most passionate caresses.

You would begin by placing yourself astride me, and I should thrust with the greatest difficulty my virile member between your legs. In this position we should leave the dining-room, I carrying you along by the stiffness of my member, while every step I took would make you wild with excess of enjoyment. We should go into a pretty boudoir, the floor of which would be completely covered with looking glasses, and filled with furniture intended by their shape and softness to augment the voluptuousness of our embraces. No costume whatever would be put on in this room. Nudity alone would have a right to remain there. There would be pieces of furniture to excite the senses and whereon to recline, others enabling us to suck each of our members, to lick, to frig, to kiss, to enjoy, to complete our performance, to discharge, to fuck, in one word, to supplement and promote the extremest refinements of the most celestial and most perfect of all enjoyments.


The continuation on some future occasion My fear of exciting you will depend somewhat upon my letter of this evening or to-morrow, and particularly upon the frank and sincere reply for which I ask you for the day after to-morrow.

Send me back the beginning.

You cannot have the faintest idea of my dread when one of these sheets is on its way.

Why do you trouble yourself to pay so much attention to style and writing-that takes time. I never read mine over, and that is so much time gained.


ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE LETTER WRITTEN BY THE COUNT ALMOST ENTIRELY IN CYPHER


Here is the response of my heart, my beloved adored one.

Thou shall have it as soon as I shall dare to send it to you.

Thou shalt belong to me entirely one day, perhaps in eighteen months, and then here is the existence which you shalt have the grief to be compelled to lead.

In the apartment which I depicted to you the other day, and with the toilette that I require of my beloved lady, my lady mistress is to render herself every day between eleven o'clock and noon.

She will find there thy loving husband, all fresh and in every respect desirable (_gentil_), clothed in a dressing-gown of very light texture.

From noon until three o'clock this is the programme.

At noon thou wilt stretch thyself on thy easy chair, thou wilt loosen a little thy girdle and open thy pretty dressing-gown. I on my bent knees at your side shall lick you with my tongue, while my arm shall encircle thy divine waist and thy two naked arms shall encircle my neck; afterwards softly widening thy virgin legs thou will cast aside all that which hides from the eyes, and you will place me between those divine legs.

Successively I shall lick with voluptuousness thy neck, thy shoulders, under thy arms, thy breasts. I shall suck with force those chaste little bosoms, which by their swelling would desire to escape from the pretty little rose-coloured stays; then passing to thy intoxicating cunt, I should suck it with such an amount of frenzy that thou wouldst discharge for the first time in my mouth.

This done it will have so much excited me that, taking thy place, it will become your turn to mount between my legs, and licking all my chest thou wilt finish by frigging with passion my prick, which will become longer and straighter than ever.

As soon as thou shalt feel the enjoyment coming thou wilt cease, in order to lick the parts adjoining.

At one o'clock thou wilt want to make water, then my mouth adhering between thy legs, thou wilt allow me to swallow all, then lying down again on thy little belly, I shall lick with fury thy bottom so voluptuous, and thy delicious legs.

Afterwards it will be thy turn to continue thy caresses upon me.

At two o'clock both of us elevated in a supreme degree, lifting up thy little chemise in front we shall do the business, that is to say, that surrounding me with vigour with thy legs, thou wilt make efforts in order to fuck thyself (_enfiler_), but my member will be to such a degree enormous that we shall have all the trouble in the world (the delights corresponding to the efforts). At last, once entered thou wilt procure, by my movements and my pauses, such enjoyments that I shall hear you uttering the softest murmurs of thy voice, and so that thou wilt wriggle thyself on my ravished prick which will still further augment thy transports.

Thou wilt enjoy thyself thus three times. At the third time I shall suck thy breasts with such passion that thy eyes depicting a heavenly languor and a divine abandonment, thou wilt empty out upon me thy delirium-causing seminal fluid.

That will last until half-past two o'clock, then we shall sleep together thus until three o'clock, and at three o'clock thou wilt go to dress thyself in order to go out or to receive visits.

Behold, the following part shall come to you if the commencement pleases you.

Mem. The commission herein is returnable in Paris, 24th June, 1866. 

I, the man, will not take up the time of my readers by detailing the circumstances under which Alice, the maid, roused in me the desire for vengeance which resulted in the way I adopted and which I am about to relate. Suffice it then to say that Alice cruelly and unjustifiably jilted me! In my bitterness of spirit, I swore that if I ever had an opportunity of getting hold of her, I would make her voluptuous person recompense me for my disappointment and that I would snatch from her by force the bridegroom's privileges that I so ardently coveted. But I had to dissemble! Alice and I had many mutual friends to whom this rupture was unknown; we were therefore constantly meeting each other, and if I gave her the slightest hint of my intentions towards her, it would be fatal to the very doubtful chances of success that I had! And so successfully did I conceal my real feelings under a cloak of generous acceptance of her action that she had not the faintest idea (as she afterwards admitted to me) that I was playing a part.

But, as the proverb says, everything comes to the man who can wait. For some considerable time, it seemed as if it would be wise on my part to abandon my desire for vengeance, as the circumstances of our daily lives were such as did not promise the remotest chance of my getting possession of Alice under conditions of either place or time suitable for the accomplishment of my purpose. Nevertheless, I controlled my patience and hoped for the best, enduring as well as I could the torture of unsatisfied desire and increasing lust.

It then happened that I had occasion to change my residence, and in my search for fresh quarters, I came across a modest suite of a sitting-room and two bedrooms which would by themselves have suited me excellently; but with them, the landlord desired to let what he termed a box or lumber-room. I demurred to this addition, but as he remained firm, I asked to see the room. It was most peculiar both as regards access and appearance. The former was by a short passage from the landing, furnished with remarkably well-fitting doors at each end. The room was nearly square, of a good size and lofty, but the walls were unbroken, save by the one entrance, light and air being derived from a skylight, or rather lantern, which occupied the greater part of the roof and was supported by four strong and stout wooden pillars. Further, the walls were thickly padded, while iron rings were let into them at regular distances all round in two rows, one close to the floor and the other about a height of eight feet; from the roof beams dangled rope pulleys in pairs between the pillars, while the two recesses on the entrance side, caused by the projection of the passage into the room, looked as if they had at one time been separated from the rest of the room by bars, almost as if they were cells. So strange indeed was the appearance of the whole room that I asked its history, and was informed that the house had been built as a private lunatic asylum at the time when the now unfashionable square in which it stood was one of the centres of fashion, and that this was the old 'mad-room' in which violent patients were confined, the bolts, rings and pulleys being used to restrain them when very violent, while the padding and the double doors made the room absolutely soundproof and prevented the ravings of the inmates from annoying the neighbours. The landlord added that the soundproof quality was no fiction as the room had frequently been tested by incredulous visitors.

Like lightning the thought flashed through my brain. Was not this room the very place for the consummation of my scheme of revenge? If I succeeded in luring Alice into it, she would be completely at my mercy, for her screams for help would not be heard and would only increase my pleasure, while the bolts, rings, pulleys, etc., supplemented with a little suitable furniture, would enable me to secure her in any way I wished and to hold her fixed while I amused myself with her. Delighted with the idea, I agreed to include the room in my suite. Quietly, but with deep forethought and planning, I got certain furniture made which, while in outward appearance most innocent, as well as most comfortable, was in truth full of hidden mechanisms planned for the special discomfiture of any woman or girl that I might wish to hold in physical control. I had the floor covered with thick Persian carpets and rugs, and the two alcoves converted into nominal photographic laboratories, but in a way that made them suitable for lavatories and dressing-rooms. When completed, the 'Snuggery' (as I christened it) was in appearance a distinctly pretty and comfortable room, while in reality it was nothing more or less than a disguised torture chamber!

And now came the difficult part of my scheme.

How to entrap Alice? Unfortunately she was not residing in London but a little way out. She lived with a married sister, and never seemed to come to town except in her sister's company. My difficulty was therefore how to get Alice by herself for a sufficiently long time to accomplish my designs, and sorely I cudgelled my brains over this problem!

The sisters frequently visited town at irregular intervals as dictated by the contingencies of social duties or shopping. True to my policy of l'entente cordiale, I had welcomed them to my rooms for rest and refreshment and had encouraged them to use my quarters; and partly because of the propinquity of the rooms to Regent Street, partly because of the very dainty meals I invariably placed before them, but mainly because of the soothing restfulness induced by the absolute quiet of the Snuggery after the roar and turmoil of the streets, it soon became their regular practice to honour me with their company for luncheon or tea whenever they came to town and had no special engagement. I need hardly add that secretly I hoped these visits might bring me an opportunity of executing my revenge, but for some months I seemed doomed to disappointment. I used to suffer the tortures of Tantalus when I saw Alice unsuspectingly braving me in the very room I had prepared for her violation, within actual reach of me and of hidden machinery that would place her at my disposal, did I set it working, were it not for her sister's presence! In fact, so keenly did I feel the position that I began to plan the capture of both sisters together, to include Marion in the punishment designed for Alice, and the idea in itself was not unpleasing, as Marion was a fine specimen of female flesh and blood of a larger and more stately type than Alice (who was 'petite'), and one could do much worse than have her at one's disposal for an hour or two to feel and fuck! So seriously did I entertain this project, that I got an armchair made in such a way that the releasing of a secret catch would set free mechanisms that would be actuated by the weight of the occupant and would cause the arms to fold inwards and firmly imprison the sitter. Furnished with luxurious upholstery and the catch fixed, it made the most inviting of chairs, and from its first appearance, Alice took possession of it, in happy ignorance that it was intended to hold her firmly imprisoned while I tackled and secured Marion!

Before, however, I resorted to this desperate measure, my patience was rewarded! And this is how it happened.

One evening, the familiar note came to say the sisters were coming to town on the next day and would come for lunch. A little before the appointed hour Alice, to my surprise, appeared alone! She said that, after the note had been posted, Marion became ill and had been very poorly all night and so could not come to town, though better. The shopping engagement was one of considerable importance to Alice, and therefore she had come up alone; she had called to explain matters to me, but would not stop to lunch, she would get a cup of tea and a bun somewhere.

Against this desertion of me, I vigorously protested, but I doubt if I would have induced her to stay had not a smart shower of rain come on. This made her hesitate about going out into it with the dress she was wearing, as it would be ruined, and finally she consented to have lunch and leave immediately afterwards.

While she was away in the spare bedroom used by the sisters on their visits, I was in a veritable turmoil of excitement! Alice in my rooms by herself! It seemed too good to be true! But I remembered I yet had to get her into the Snuggery; she was absolutely safe from my designs everywhere but there! But it was imperative that she should be in no way alarmed, and so, with a strong effort, I controlled my panting excitement, and by the time Alice rejoined me in the dining-room I was my usual self.

Lunch was quickly served. At first, Alice seemed a little nervous and constrained, but by tactful conversation, I soon set her at ease and she then chatted away naturally and merrily. I had craftily placed her with her back to the window so that she should not note signs that a bad storm was brewing: and soon, with satisfaction, I saw that the weather was getting worse and worse! But it might at any moment begin to clear away, and so the sooner I could get her into my Snuggery, the better for me - and the worse for her! So, by every means in my power, I hurried on the procedure of lunch.

Alice was leisurely finishing her coffee when a rattle of rain against the window panes, followed by an ominous growl of thunder, made her start from her chair and go to the casement. 'Oh! Just look at the rain!' she exclaimed in dismay, 'how very unfortunate!'

I joined her at the window: 'By Jove, it is bad!' I replied, then added, 'and it looks like lasting. I hope that you have no important engagement for the afternoon that will keep you much in the open?' As I spoke, there came a vivid flash of lightning closely followed by a peal of thunder, which sent Alice staggering backwards with a scared face.

'Oh!' she exclaimed, evidently frightened; then, after a pause, 'I am a horrid little coward about thunderstorms: they just terrify me!'

'Won't you then take refuge in the Snuggery?' I asked with a host's look of concern. 'I don't think you will see the lightning there and you certainly won't hear the thunder, as the room is soundproof. Shall we go there?' and I opened the door invitingly.

Alice hesitated. Was her guardian angel trying to give her a premonitory hint of what her fate would be if she accepted my seemingly innocent suggestion? But at that moment came another flash of lightning, blinding in its intensity, and almost simultaneously a roar of thunder. This settled the question in my favour! 'Yes, yes!' she exclaimed, then ran out. I closely following her, my heart beating exultingly! Quickly she passed through the double doors into the Snuggery, the trap I had so carefully set for her! Noiselessly I bolted the outer door, then closed the inner one. Alice was now mine! mine!! At last I had entrapped her! Now my vengeance was about to be consummated! Now her chaste virgin self was to be submitted to my lust and compelled to satisfy my erotic desires! She was utterly at my mercy, and promptly I proceeded to work my cruel will on her! 

One evening some friends were gathered at the home of one of our most celebrated writers. Having dined sumptuously, they were discussing murder—apropos of what, I no longer remember probably apropos of nothing. Only men were present: moralists, poets, philosophers and doctors—thus everyone could speak freely, according to his whim, his hobby or his idiosyncrasies, without fear of suddenly seeing that expression of horror and fear which the least startling idea traces upon the horrified face of a notary. I—say notary, much as I might have said lawyer or porter, not disdainfully, of course, but in order to define the average French mind. With a calmness of spirit as perfect as though he were expressing an opinion upon the merits of the cigar he was smoking, a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences said: “Really—I honestly believe that murder is the greatest human preoccupation, and that all our acts stem from it... “ We awaited the pronouncement of an involved theory, but he remained silent. “Absolutely!” said a Darwinian scientist, “and, my friend, you are voicing one of those eternal truths such as the legendary Monsieur de La Palisse discovered every day: since murder is the very bedrock of our social institutions, and consequently the most imperious necessity of civilized life. If it no longer existed, there would be no governments of any kind, by virtue of the admirable fact that crime in general and murder in particular are not only their excuse, but their only reason for being. We should then live in complete anarchy, which is inconceivable. So, instead of seeking to eliminate murder, it is imperative that it be cultivated with intelligence and perseverance. I know no better culture medium than law.” Someone protested. “Here, here!” asked the savant, “aren't we alone, and speaking frankly?” “Please!” said the host, “let us profit thoroughly by the only occasion when we are free to express our personal ideas, for both I, in my books, and you in your turn, may present only lies to the public.” The scientist settled himself once more among the cushions of his armchair, stretched his legs, which were numb from being crossed too long and, his head thrown back, his arms hanging and his stomach soothed by good digestion, puffed smoke−rings at the ceiling: “Besides,” he continued, “murder is largely self−propagating. Actually, it is not the result of this or that passion, nor is it a pathological form of degeneracy. It is a vital instinct which is in us all—which is in all organized beings and dominates them, just as the genetic instinct. And most of the time it is especially true that these two instincts fuse so well, and are so totally interchangeable, that in some way or other they form a single and identical instinct, so that we no longer may tell which of the two urges us to give life, and which to take it—which is murder, and which love. I have been the confidant of an honorable assassin who killed women, not to rob them, but to ravish them. His trick was to manage things so that his sexual climax coincided exactly with the death−spasm of the woman: 'At those moments,' he told me, 'I imagined I was a God, creating a world!”


“Ah,” cried the celebrated writer, “if you are going to seek your examples among professional assassins—” “Hold on,” the scientist replied; “simply that we are all more or less assassins. I like to believe that, intellectually, we have all experienced analogous sensations to a lesser degree. We restrain the innate need of murder and attenuate physical violence by giving it a legalized outlet: industry, colonial trade, war, the hunt or anti−Semitism, because it is dangerous to abandon oneself to it immoderately and outside the law, and since after all the moral satisfaction we derive from it is not worth exposing ourselves to the ordinary consequences of the act—imprisonment( testimony before judges (always tiring and scientifically uninteresting), and, finally, the guillotine—” “You're exaggerating,” interrupted the first speaker. “Murder is a dangerous business only for inelegant murderers—witless and impulsive brutes who lack all psychological understanding. An intelligent and rational man may, with ineffable serenity, commit all the murders he desires. He is assured of immunity. The superiority of his calculations will always prevail against the routine of police investigation and, let us admit it, against the puerility of the criminal investigations with which presiding magistrates enjoy dabbling. In this business, as in all others, it is the small who pay for the great. Come, my friend, surely you admit that the number of crimes which go unprosecuted—” “And tolerated—” “And tolerated—I was about to say that—You will admit that that sum is a thousand times greater than the number of discovered and punished crimes ,about which the papers chatter with such strange prolixity, and with so repugnant a lack of understanding. If you will admit that, then concede that the gendarme is no hobgoblin to the intellectuals of murder—” “Undoubtedly—but that's not the question. You are clouding the issue. I said that murder is a normal and not at all exceptional function of nature and all living beings. So it is exorbitant of society, under pretext of governing men, to have abrogated the exclusive right to kill them, to the detriment of the individuals in whom alone this right resides.” “Quite true!” said an amiable and verbose philosopher whose lectures at the Sorbonne draw a select attendance every week. “Our friend is quite right. As far as I am concerned, I do not believe that a human being exists who is not, basically at least, an assassin. Look! when I am in a drawing room, a church, a station; on the terrasse of a cafe, at the theatre or wherever crowds pass or loiter, I enjoy considering faces from a strictly homicidal point of view. For you may see by the glance, by the back of the neck, the shape of the skull, the jaw bone and zygoma of the cheeks, or by some part of their persons that they bear the stigmata of that psychological calamity known as murder. It is scarcely an aberration of my mind, but I can go nowhere without seeing it flickering beneath eyelids, or without feeling its mysterious contact in the touch of every hand held out to me. Last Sunday I went to a town on the festival day of its patron saint. In the public square, which was decorated with foliage, floral arches, and poles draped with flags, was grouped every kind of amusement common to that sort of public celebration—And beneath the paternal eye of the authorities, a swarm of good people were enjoying themselves. The wooden horses, the roller−coaster and the swings drew a very meager crowd. The organs wheezed their gayest tunes and most bewitching overtures in vain. Other pleasures absorbed this festive throng. Some shot with rifles, pistols, or the good old cross−bow at targets painted like human faces; others hurled balls, knocking over marionettes ranged pathetically on wooden bars. Still others, mallet in hand, pounded upon a spring which animated a French sailor who patriotically transfixed with his bayonet a poor Hova or a mocking Dahomean. Everywhere, under tents or in the little lighted booths, I saw counterfeits of death, parodies of massacre, portrayals of hecatombs. And how happy these good people were!” Everyone realized the philosopher was launched upon his subject, so we settled ourselves as best we could, to withstand the torrent of his theories and anecdotes. He continued: “I notice that these gentle pastimes have for some years been undergoing a considerable development. The joy of killing has become greater and, besides, has become popularized in proportion to the spread of social refinement—for make no mistake, customs do change! Formerly, when we were still uncultivated, the Sabbath shooting−galleries were a monotonously sorry sight to see. They only shot at pipes, and eggshells dancing upon jets of water. In the more sumptuous establishments, they actually had birds, but they were made of plaster. I ask you what fun was there in that? Today, progress has made it legal for every good man to procure himself the delicate and edifying emotion of assassination, for a couple of sous. Into the bargain, you may still win colored plates and rabbits; but, instead of pipes, eggshells, and plaster birds, which smash stupidly without suggesting anything bloody to us, the showman's imagination has substituted figures of men, women and children, carefully jointed and costumed as they should be. Then they have made these figures gesticulate and walk. By means of an ingenious mechanism, they walk happily along, or flee terrified.


You see them appear alone or in groups, in decorative settings, scaling walls, entering dungeons, tumbling out of windows, popping up out of trapdoors... They function just like real beings and move their arms, legs and heads. Some appear to be weeping, some seem to be paupers, some invalids, and there are some dressed in gold like legendary princesses. Really, you can believe that they possess intelligence, a will, a soul—that they are alive! Some even assume pathetic attitudes. You can almost hear them cry: 'Mercy! Don't kill me!' It is an exquisite sensation to imagine you are going to kill things that move, suffer, and implore! Something like a taste of warm blood comes to your mouth when you aim the rifle or the pistol at them. What a thrill when the shot decapitates these make−believe men! What a clamor when the arrow splits their cardboard breasts and lays the little inanimate bodies low, in corpse−like postures! Everybody gets excited, intent, and eggs the others on. You hear nothing but expressions of destruction and death: 'Kill him!' 'Aim at his eye, aim at his heart!' 'He got his!' No matter how indifferent these good people are to the targets and the pipes, they become elated when the mark represents a human being. The clumsy ones grow angry, not with their own awkwardness, but with the marionette they have missed. They call it a coward and overwhelm it with vile insults when it disappears intact behind the door of a dungeon. They challenge it: 'Come on out, you bum!' They begin to fire at it again, until they have killed it. Consider these good people; at that moment they are really assassins, beings moved solely by the desire to kill. The homicidal monster which up to then had slumbered in them, awakens with the illusion that they are going to destroy something living. “For, the little fellow of cardboard, sawdust, or wood which moves back and forth amid the scenery is no longer a toy to them, or a bit of lifeless material. Watching it pass back and forth, they unconsciously endow it with warm blood, sensitive nerves, thought—all those things it is so bitterly sweet to annihilate and so fiercely delicious to see oozing from the wounds you have inflicted. They even go so far as to ascribe political and religious convictions to it, contrary to their own; accusing it of being a Jew, an Englishman, or a German, in order to add a particular hate to this general hatred of life, and thus augment the instinctive pleasure of killing by a personal vengeance, intimately relished.” Here the host interrupted out of politeness to his guests, and with the charitable desire of permitting our philosopher and us a breathing space. He objected, quietly: “You're only talking of brutes—peasants who, I concede, are always inclined toward murder. But it is not possible for you to apply the same observations to cultivated minds, disciplined natures, or cultured individuals every day of whose lives witnesses victories over native instinct and the savage vestiges of atavism.” To which our philosopher eagerly replied: “Allow me—what are the habits, my friend, and the preferred pleasures of those whom you call 'cultivated minds and disciplined natures'? Fencing, dueling, violent sports, the abominable pigeon−shoot, bull fighting, the various manifestations of patriotism, hunting—everything which is in reality only a reversion to the period of old−time barbarity, when man—if we may say so was, as far as moral culture is concerned, on the same plane with the wild beasts he pursued. After all, we need not complain that the hunt has survived all the slightly altered trappings of earlier customs. It is a powerful counter−irritant, through whose agency 'cultivated minds and disciplined natures' are enabled, without too much harm to us, to drain off what destructive energy and bloody passion still remains in them. Without it, instead of coursing deer, finishing off the boar and slaughtering innocent game−birds in the meadows, you may be sure that the 'cultivated minds would turn their packs on our trail. We would be the ones whom the 'disciplined natures' would joyfully mow down with rifle−fire, which they do not fail to do when they obtain the power, through some means or another, and with more determination and—let us frankly admit it—less hypocrisy than the brute peasant. Ah, let us never look forward to the disappearance of game from our fields and forests! It is our safeguard and, after a fashion, our ransom. The day it finally disappears, it will not be long before we take its place, for the exquisite enjoyment of the 'cultivated minds'. The Dreyfus affair affords us an excellent example, and never, I believe, was the passion for murder and the joy of the manhunt so thoroughly and cynically displayed. The pursuit of Monsieur Grimaux through the streets of Nantes remains the most characteristic of the startling incidents and monstrous events to which it gave opportunity daily during the past year. And it accrues to the honor of the 'cultivated minds and disciplined natures', who saw to it that this great savant, to whom we are indebted for the most brilliant researches in chemistry, was overwhelmed with indignities and threats of death. In this connection, we must always remember that the mayor of Clisson, 'a cultivated mind', in a letter which was made public, refused to allow Monsieur Grimaux to enter his town, and regretted that modern laws did not permit him to hang him high and dry—a thing which befell savants in the lovely days of the ancient monarchies. And for that, this excellent mayor was strongly commended by all whom France numbers among those exquisite 'worldly personalities' who, according to our host, win such brilliant victories every day over original instinct and the savage vestiges of atavism. Notice also that it is from among the cultivated minds and disciplined natures that officers are almost exclusively recruited. Men—that is to say—who, neither more nor less wicked nor stupid than others, freely choose a calling—a highly honored calling, moreover—in which every intellectual effort is bent toward committing the most diversified violations upon the human being; and in developing and compiling the most complete, far reaching and certain means of pillage, destruction and death. Aren't there warships to which we have given the perfectly logical and understandable names of Devastation... Fury... Terror? “As for me? Listen to this! I'm positive that I believe I am a normal man, with affections, high sentiments, superior culture and the refinements of civilization and sociability. Well, how often have I heard the imperious voice of murder snarling in me! How often have I felt the desire rising in a surge of blood from the depths of my being to my brain—that bitter, violent and almost invincible desire to kill. Do not believe that this desire arose in a passionate crisis, accompanied a sudden, unreflective rage, or was combined with a keen lust for money. Not at all! This desire is born suddenly—powerful and unjustified in me—for no reason and apropos of nothing... In the street, for example, behind the back of an unknown pedestrian. Yes, there are some backs on the street which cry for the knife. Why?” After this unexpected revelation, the philosopher was silent for a moment, and looked at us all in alarm; then he continued: “No—you see, the moralists have split hairs in vain. The need to kill is born in man with the need to eat, and merges with it... This instinctive need, which is the mainspring of all living organisms, is developed by education instead of being restrained, and is sanctified by religion instead of being denounced. Everything conspires to make it the pivot upon which our admirable society revolves. As soon as man awakens to consciousness, we instill the spirit of murder in his mind. Murder, expanded to the status of a duty, and popularized to the point of heroism, accompanies him through all the stages of his existence. He is made to adore uncouth gods, mad, furious gods who are only gratified by cataclysms and, ferocious maniacs that they are, gorge themselves with human lives and mow down nations like fields of wheat. He is made to respect only heroes, those disgusting brutes saddled with crime and red with human blood. The virtues by which he rises above others, and which win him glory, fortune and love, are based entirely upon murder. In war, he discovers the supreme synthesis of the eternal and everlasting folly of murder—regulated, regimented and obligatory—a national function. Wherever he goes, whatever he does, he will always see that word: murder—immortally inscribed upon the pediment of that vast slaughter−house—humanity. “Then why do you expect this man, in whom the scorn of human life is inculcated from infancy, and whom we consecrate to legalized slaughter—why do you expect him to recoil from murder when he finds in it interest or distraction? In the name of what law could society condemn assassins who, in reality, have only conformed to the homicidal laws which it dictates, and followed the bloody example which it sets them? 'Why is it?' assassins might readily say, 'that you force us to overpower groups of men whom we do not hate, whom we do not even know—then, the more we overwhelm them, the more you overwhelm us with rewards and honors? Then again, trusting in your logic, we destroy people because they hamper us or we detest them, or because we covet their money, their wives, their positions, or simply because we enjoy destroying them: all of which are concise, plausible and human reasons—and along comes the gendarme, the judge and the hangman! 'Here is a revolting injustice which is perfectly senseless!' What could society reply to that, if it had the slightest regard for logic?” A young man who had been silent until then said: “Is this really the explanation of that strange murderous mania by which you maintain we are all originally or willfully tainted? I do not think so and I do not wish to. I prefer to believe that everything about us is mysterious. Furthermore, this satisfies the indolence of my mind, which has a horror of solving social, and human problems which, besides, are never solved. And it strengthens the reasons—the purely poetic reasons by which I am tempted to explain, or rather not to explain, everything which I do not understand. You have just made quite a terrible disclosure, Doctor, and described impressions which, if they were to assume active form, might lead you far a field, and me also; for I have often experienced these impressions, and quite recently, under the following exceptionally banal circumstances. But first permit me to add that I ascribe these abnormal states of mind to the environment in which I was brought up, and the daily influences which affected me, unawares. “You know my father, Doctor Trepan. You know that there is no more sociable or charming man than he. Nor is there one of whom the profession has made a more deliberate assassin. I have often witnessed those marvelous operations which made him famous the world over. There is something truly phenomenal in his disregard for life. Once he had just performed a difficult laparotomy and, examining his patient, who was still under the influence of the chloroform, he suddenly said: “This woman may have an affected pylorus... suppose I also go into that stomach. I have time. Which he did. There was nothing wrong. Then my father started to sew up the needless wound he had made, saying: 'Now, at least, I'm certain.' He was so certain that the patient died the very same night. Another time, in Italy, where he had been summoned for an operation, we were visiting a museum. I was enraptured. 'Ah, poet! poet!' exclaimed my father, who was not interested for a moment in the masterpieces which carried me away with enthusiasm; 'Art! art! Beauty! Do you know what it is? Well, my boy, it is a woman's abdomen, open and all bloody, with the hemostats in place!' But I won't philosophize any more, I'll narrate... From the tale I promised you, you will deduce all the anthropological conclusions of which it admits, if it really admits of any...” This young man had So authoritative a manner and so bitter a tone, that it made us shiver slightly. “I was returning from Lyon,” he continued, “and I was alone in a first−class compartment. I've forgotten what station it was, but a traveler got on. I admit that the irritation of being disturbed when alone can bring about very violent states of mind, and arouse you to peevish behavior. But I experienced nothing of the sort. I was so bored with being alone that the chance arrival of this companion was rather a pleasure to me from the very start. He settled himself across from me, after carefully depositing his few bags in the rack. He was a bulky man, of common appearance, whose greasy ugliness shortly became obnoxious to me. After a few moments, I felt something like an insuperable disgust in looking at him. He was stretched opt heavily on the cushions, his thighs apart, and at every jolt of the train his enormous belly trembled and heaved like a disgusting mass of jelly. As he seemed hot, he took off his collar and sloppily mopped his forehead—a low, wrinkled and bumpy forehead, raggedly framed by a few short, sticky hairs. His face was merely a lumpy mass of fat; his triple chin a slack flap of soft flesh, spread on his chest. To avoid this unpleasant sight I pretended to look at the countryside, and forcibly tore myself away from the presence of this irksome companion. An hour passed. And when curiosity, stronger than my will, had drawn my eyes back to him, I saw that he had fallen into a deep and unprepossessing sleep. He slept, sunk into himself, his head drooping and rolling upon his shoulders, and his huge, bloated hands lay open upon the slopes of his thighs. I noticed that his round eyes bulged beneath creased eyelids, and that a bit of bluish pupil showed through a slit, like an ecchymosis on a scrap of limp veal. What insane idea suddenly flashed through my mind? Truly, I don't know. For though I had been frequently tempted by murder, it lay in me in an embryonic state of desire, and had never as yet assumed the precise form of a gesture or an act. Is it possible that the ignominious ugliness of this man alone was able to crystallize that gesture and that act? No, there is a more profound cause, of which I am ignorant. I arose quietly and approached the sleeper, my hands spread, contracted and violent, as though to strangle him.” With these words, being a story−teller who knew how to get his effects, he paused. Then, evidently satisfied with himself, he continued: “Despite my rather puny appearance, I am gifted with unusual strength, exceptional muscular agility, and extraordinary power of grip, and at that moment a strange heat unleashed the dynamic force of my bodily faculties. My hands alone moved towards this man's neck—by themselves, I assure you—burning and terrible. I felt in me a lightness, an elasticity, an influx of nervous tides, something like the powerful intoxication of sexual desire. Yes, I can't explain what I felt better than to compare it with that. The minute my hands were about to close upon this greasy neck, the man woke up. He awoke with terror in his eyes, and he stuttered: 'What? what? what?' And that was all! I saw that he wanted to say more, but he couldn't! His round eye flickered like a little light sputtering in the wind. Then it remained fixed and motionless upon me, in horror. Without saying a word, without even seeking an excuse or a reason, by which the man would have been reassured, I sat down again across from him and nonchalantly, with an ease of manner which still astonishes me, I unfolded a newspaper which, however, I did not read. Fear grew in the man's eyes with every moment; little by little he recoiled, and I saw his face grow spotted with red, then purple, then it stiffened.


All the way to Paris, the man's stare retained its frightful fixity. When the train stopped, the man did not get off... “ The narrator lit a cigarette in the flame of a candle, and from a cloud of smoke his phlegmatic voice was saying: “Oh, I know well enough. I had killed him! He was dead of cerebral congestion.” This story made us very uneasy, and we looked at each other stupefied. Was the strange young man sincere? Had he tried to mystify us? We awaited an explanation, a commentary or an evasion, but he was silent. Grave and serious, he had resumed smoking, and now he seemed to be thinking of something else. From then on the conversation continued chaotic and lifeless, skimming a thousand frivolous subjects in a languid manner. Then a man with a ravaged face, a bowed back and mournful eyes, whose hair and beard were prematurely grey, arose with difficulty and in a trembling voice, said: “Up to now you nave talked of everything but women, which is really inconceivable in a situation in which they are of primary importance.”


“Fine! Let's talk about them,” agreed the illustrious writer, who now found himself in his favorite environment; for in the literary world he passed for that curious fool called a feminist writer. “It's high time that all these bloody nightmares were infused with a little jollity. Let us talk of woman, my friends, since it is by her and through her that we forget our savage instincts—that we learn to love, and are raised to the supreme conception of pity and the idea!” The man with the ravaged face emitted a rasping, ironical laugh. “Woman, teacher of compassion!” he exclaimed; “Yes, I know the anthem. It is utilized a good deal in a certain type of literature, and in courses in drawing−room philosophy. Why, her entire history, and not only her history, but her role in nature and life contradicts this purely romantic concept. Why do women rush to bloody spectacles with the same frenzy that they fly to the pursuit of passion? Why is it that you see them in the streets, at the theatre, in the court of assizes or beside the guillotine, craning their necks and eagerly straining their eyes to sights of torture, in order to experience, to the swooning−point, the frightful thrill of death? Why does the very name of a great assassin make them tremble to the very depths of their flesh with a sort of delicious horror? All of them, or nearly all, dreamed about Pranzini! Why?” “Nonsense!” exclaimed the illustrious writer. “Prostitutes—” “No,” said the man with the ravaged face, “noblewomen—and bourgeoisies—it's the same thing. Among women there are no moral categories—only social categories. They are women. Among the common people and in the upper and lower middle−class, and right on up to the most elevated social strata, women pounce upon those hideous morgues and abject museums of crime that make up the fiction columns of the Petit Journal. Why? Because great assassins have always been formidable lovers. Their genetic powers equal their criminal powers. They love in the same way they kill! Murder is born of love, and love attains its greatest intensity in murder. There is the same physiological exaltation, there are the same gestures of strangling and biting—and often the same words occur during identical spasms.” He spoke with difficulty, with an air of suffering and as he spoke his eyes became more mournful and the wrinkles in his face were more accentuated. Woman, dispenser of ideality and compassion!” he went on: “Why, the most atrocious crimes are nearly always the work of woman. It is she who conceives them, organizes them, prepares them and directs them. If she does not execute them with her own hands, which are often too weak, you find her moral presence, her ideas, and her sex expressed in their ferocity and implacability. 'Look for the woman!' said the wise criminologist.” “You slander her!” protested the author, who could not conceal a gesture of indignation. “What you offer us as generalizations are the very rare exceptions. Degeneracy... neurosis... neurasthenia... My God! Woman is no more impervious to psychical disease than man—although with her these disturbances assume a charming and touching form, which makes us better understand the delicacy of her exquisite tenderness. No sir, you have fallen into a deplorable error. To the contrary, what we must admire in woman is her great common sense and her great love of life which, as I said before, finds its final expression in compassion.” “Literature, sir, literature! “And the worst possible kind!” “Pessimism, sir! Blasphemy! Stupidity!” “I think both of you are mistaken,” interrupted a physician; “women are far more specialized and complete than you think. Incomparable virtuosi and great artists in grief that they are, they prefer the sight of suffering to that of death, and tears to blood. And it's a wonderfully ambiguous business in which each finds what he is looking for; since everyone draws quite different conclusions. We exalt woman's compassion or curse her cruelty for equally irrefutable reasons, according to whether we are momentarily disposed to owe her gratitude or hatred. So what good are all these fruitless discussions; for in the eternal battle of the sexes, we are always conquered—and we can do nothing about it—and none of us as yet, be he misogynist or feminist, has found a more perfect instrument of pleasure, or any other means of reproduction, than woman.” But the man with the ravaged face made violent gestures of denial: “Listen to me,” he said. “The hazards of existence and what a life I've had—have placed me in the presence of—not a woman—but woman. I have seen her, stripped of the artifices and hypocrisies with which civilization veils her real soul. I have seen her abandoned to her single whim, or, if you prefer, to her sole driving instincts, in an environment where nothing, it is true, can restrain them and, on the contrary, everything conspires to excite them. Neither laws, morals, religious prejudices nor social conventions hid her from me—nothing. It was her true self I saw, in her original ,nudity, among gardens and tortures—blood and flowers! When she appeared to me I had fallen to the lowest point of human abjection—at least, I thought so. Then, before her amorous eyes and her compassionate mouth I cried out with hope, and I believed—yes, I believed that through her I would be saved. Well, it was something fearful! Woman revealed crimes to me that I had not known! shadows into which I had not yet descended. Look at my dead eyes, my inarticulate lips, my hands which tremble—only from what I have seen! But I can no more curse her than I can curse the fire which devours towns and forests, the waters which sink ships, or the tiger which carries his bloody prey in his jaws into the depths of the jungle. Woman possesses the cosmic force of an element, an invincible force of destruction, like nature's. She is, in herself alone, all nature! Being the matrix of life, she is by that very fact the matrix of death—since it is from death that life is perpetually reborn, and since to annihilate death would be to kill life at its only fertile source.” “What does that prove?” said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders. He answered simply: “It proves nothing. Must things be proved in order to be painful or pleasant? They need only be felt...” Then, timidly and—oh, the power of human vanity!—with visible self−satisfaction, the man with the ravaged face took out of his pocket a roll of paper, which he carefully unfolded: “I have written,” he said, “the story of this period of my life. I have hesitated to publish it for a long time, and I still hesitate. I would like to read it to you—you who are men and have no fear of plumbing the blackest of human mysteries. May you be able to withstand its bloody horror! It is called: TORTURE GARDEN...” Our host called for fresh cigars and fresh drinks.
THE MISSION
PART 1

Before relating one of the most frightful episodes of my travels in the Far East, perhaps it will be interesting if I briefly explain under what conditions I was led to undertake them. It is contemporary history. To those who will be tempted to wonder at the anonymity which I have insisted on jealously maintaining in what concerns me in the course of this authentic and distressing story, I will say: “My name matters little; it is the name of a man who has caused great suffering to others as well as to himself—even more to himself than to others—and who, after many shocks suffered in a descent to the very dregs of human desire, is trying to reconstruct a soul for himself in solitude and obscurity. Peace to the ashes of his sin.” Twelve years ago, no longer knowing what to do, and condemned by a series of misfortunes to the cruel expedient of hanging myself or throwing myself into the Seine, I appeared before that court of last resort, the board of legislative elections, in a county in which, more over, I knew no one and had never set foot. It is true that my candidacy was officially supported by the cabinet which, no longer knowing what to do with me, found an ingenious and polite means of relieving itself once and for all of my daily harassing importunities. On this occasion I held a solemn and intimate interview with the Minister, who was my friend and old school−chum. “You see how nice we are to you!” this powerful, this generous friend said to me; “Scarcely have we snatched you from the jaws of justice—and we had a hard time doing it—than we're making you a deputy.” “Tm not nominated yet,” I said peevishly. “True! but you have every chance. Intelligent, of attractive appearance, debonair, and a good fellow when you care to be, you possess the sovereign gift of pleasing. Ladies' men, my boy, are always men of the people. I'll vouch for you. It's a question of properly understanding the situation. The rest is very simple.” And he admonished me: “Above all, rid politics! Don't commit yourself.


Don't fly off the handle! In the district I have chosen for you there is one question that supersedes all others: the beet. The rest doesn't count, and is the prefect's business. You are a purely agricultural candidate—more than that, exclusively a beet−candidate. Don't forget it for a moment. Whatever may happen in die course of the campaign, stand resolutely upon this excellent platform. Do you know anything about beets?” “Good Lord no!” I said, “except, like everybody else, I know you get sugar from them—and alcohol.” “Bravo! That's enough,” applauded the Minister, with friendly and reassuring emphasis. “proceed upon that data. Promise fabulous crops—extraordinary chemical fertilizers—free. Promise railroads, canals, routes for the transportation of this interesting and patriotic vegetable. Announce reductions in taxes, bonuses for the farmers, atrocious duties on competitive products—anything you like! You have carte blanche in this affair, and I'll help you. But don't get involved in personal or generalized polemics which might endanger you and, after your election, imperil the prestige of the Republic. For, between you and me, old man—I don't reproach you with any thing—I merely state facts—you have a rather awkward past.” I was in no mood to laugh. Vexed by this after−thought, which seemed to me unnecessary and unkind, I replied sharply, looking my friend squarely in the face; and he could read the cold, sharp threats that lay in my eyes: You might more truthfully have said, 'We have a past.' It seems to me, my friend, that mine has nothing on yours.” “Oh, as for me!” said the Minister, with an air of superior detachment and smug nonchalance, “it's not the same thing... I, old man—France covers my tracks!” Then, returning to my election, he added: “Now I'll continue. Beets—more beets—and still more beets! Such is your program. And see that you don't deviate from it.” Then he discreetly gave me some money and wished me good luck. I faithfully followed this program which my powerful friend had laid out for me, and I was wrong. I was not elected. I attribute the overwhelming majority which my adversary received, aside from certain dishonest manipulations, to the fact that this wretch was even more ignorant than I, and a more notorious blackguard. Let us notice, in passing, that at the present time a well−displayed swinishness supersedes all valid qualifications, and the more infamous a man is, the more we are inclined to endow him with intellectual force and moral courage. My adversary, who is today one of the indisputable glories of politics, had pilfered on many occasions. And his superiority may be attributed to the fact that instead of concealing his speculations, he boasted of them with the most revolting cynicism. “I've stolen! I've stolen!” he shouted down village streets, in public squares, along the countryside and across the fields. “I've stolen! I've stolen!” he proclaimed in his professions of faith, his bill−posters and confidential circulars. And in cabarets his agents, perched upon casks, spattered with wine and bloated with alcohol, reiterated and bellowed those magic words: “He's stolen! He's stolen!” The working classes in the cities, dazzled no less than the sturdy countrymen, acclaimed this bold man with a frenzy which swelled in direct proportion to die frenzy of his confessions. How could I contend with such a rival, who possessed such qualifications—I, who still had on my conscience (and modestly concealed them), merely the paltry peccadilloes of youth: petty thefts, extortion of money from mistresses, cheating at games, blackmail, anonymous letters, informing and forgery? Oh, the candor of innocent youth! One evening at a mass−meeting I even barely escaped being thrashed by some electors who were furious because, in view of my, opponent's scandalous statements, I had demanded—in addition to better beets—the right to be virtuous, moral and honest, and proclaimed the necessity of cleansing the Republic of the particular filth which dishonored it. They rushed upon me, grasped me by the throat, and my body was lifted and tossed from hand to hand, like a bundle. Luckily I escaped from the consequences of my excess of eloquence with only a swollen cheek, three bruised ribs and six broken teeth.


That is all I carried away from that disastrous adventure into which the protection of the Minister who claimed to be my friend had so unluckily led me. I was incensed. I had all the more right to be incensed since, suddenly, in the thick of the battle, the government had abandoned me, leaving me without support, and with only my beet as an amulet by which to make myself understood and to parley with my adversary. The prefect, at first quite humble, did not hesitate to become very insolent; then he refused me the data upon which my campaign rested, and finally he almost slammed his door in my face. The Minister himself no longer answered my letters, refused to grant me anything I asked him, and the partisan newspapers launched underhand attacks upon me and made derogatory allusions couched in polished and flowery prose, They never went so far as to attack me officially, but it was plain to everyone that I was being dismissed. Ah, I truly believe that no man has ever been so embittered as I! I returned to Paris firmly resolved to raise an issue at the risk of losing everything, and demanded an explanation of the Minister, whom my belligerent attitude immediately reduced to compliance and amiability. “Old man,” he said, “I regret what has happened to you. On my word of honor! You can see for yourself I'm miserable about it. But what could I do? I am not the only man in the cabinet, and—” “You're the only one I know!” I interrupted violently, upsetting piles of papers which lay near me on his desk. “The others don't concern me. The others are none of my business. You're the only one. You've betrayed me—it's vile!” “But damn it, listen a minute, will you!” begged the Minister, “and don't get angry like that before you know—” “I only know one thing, and that's enough for me. You've made a fool of me. Well then—no, no, it won't pass off as easily as you think. It's my turn now.” I walked up and down the office, uttering threats and kicking the chairs. “So! so! you've made a fool of me! Now we're going to have some fun! Then the country will know at last what a Minister is. At the risk of poisoning it, I'll show it—I'll expose the soul of a Minister to it. Idiot! So you didn't realize that you, your career, your secrets, and your portfolio, are at my mercy! So my past troubles you? It shocks your modesty, and Marianne's? Just wait! Tomorrow—yes, tomorrow, everything will be known—” I was choking with rage. The Minister tried to calm me, grasped me by the arm and drew me gently, into the armchair I had just bounded out of in fury. “Calm down!” he said to me, and his voice too on a pleading tone. “Listen to me, please! Come, sit down! Stubborn ass! You won't listen to anything! Here, this is what happened...” He uttered swift, short sentences, choppy and trembling: We reckoned without your opponent. In the campaign he revealed himself a powerful man—a real statesman! You know how restricted the eligible ministerial personnel is. Although the same candidates are always coming up, from time to time we have to show a new face to the Chamber and the country. Well, there is none. Do you know any? Well, we thought your opponent might be one of those faces. He has all the qualities suitable to a provisory Minister—an emergency Minister. Finally, since he was for sale and deliverable right then and there—you understand? It's hard on you, I admit... But the country's welfare, first of all—” “Don't talk nonsense. We're not in the Chamber now, It's not a question of the country's interests, which You don't give a damn about, and neither do I. It's a question of me. Well, thanks to you, I'm on the street. Yesterday the cashier of my gambling−joint insolently refused me a hundred sous. My creditors, banking on my success and furious at my defeat, are hounding me like a hare. I'll be sold out! Today, I haven't even the price of a dinner. And you simply imagine that things can go on like this? Well, have you become senseless—as senseless as a member of the majority?” The Minister smiled. He tapped me familiarly on the knee and said: “I'm entirely willing—but you won't let me speak—I'm entirely willing to grant you a compensation—”


“A reparation!” “A reparation, agreed!” “Complete?” “Complete! Come back in a few days... Doubtless I'll be in a position to offer it to you then. In the meantime here's a hundred louis. It's all I have left of the confidential funds.” Sweetly, with merry cordiality, he added: “A half−a−dozen more guys like you, and there'll be no budget!” This generosity, which had exceeded my expectations, possessed the power instantly to calm my nerves. Still grumbling incessantly, for I did not wish to appear disarmed or satisfied, I pocketed the two bills my friend smilingly held out to me, and I retired with dignity. I spent the following three days in the basest debauchery.


PART 2

Permit me to go back once more into the past. Perhaps it is not immaterial that I tell you who I am and where I come from. It will explain the irony of my fate so much better. I was born in the country, of a lower middle−class family—that honest, thrifty and virtuous middle−class which, they inform us in official bulletins, is the real France. Oh well, I am none the prouder for that. My father was a grain merchant. He was a very crude, uncultured man, and a very astute business man. He had the reputation of being very clever, and this great cleverness consisted of 'roping people in' as he used to say. To cheat about the quality and weight of merchandise; to charge two francs for what cost him two sous and whenever possible, without raising too much of a scandal, to get those two francs twice—such were his principles. For instance, he never delivered oats that he had not first soaked with water. In that way, the swollen grains yielded double measure to the liter or kilogram, especially when a little gravel had been added—a practice which my father always indulged in conscientiously. He also knew how discreetly to distribute in the bags blighted and other noxious seeds thrown off in threshing—and no one could adulterate fresh flour with fermented better than he. For in business, nothing must be wasted, and everything makes weight. My mother, who was even more greedy for dishonest profits, assisted him by her predatory ingenuity and sat stiff and distrustful, watching over the till as one mounts guard before an enemy. A strict Republican and a fiery patriot—he furnished supplies to the army—an intolerant moralist and a good man after all, in the popular sense of the word, my father had no pity and accepted no excuse for the dishonesty of others; especially when it was to his disadvantage. In such cases he could never cease talking about the necessity for honor and virtue. One of his great ideas was that in a well−organized democracy they should be made compulsory—like education, taxes and voting. One day he discovered that a teamster who had been in his service for fifteen years, was robbing him. He immediately had him arrested. At the trial the teamster defended himself as best he could: “But the boss never hesitated to 'rope people in'. Whenever he had played a good trick on a customer, he boasted about it as though he had done a good deed. 'The only thing is to take in the cash,' he used to say, 'no matter where or how you get it. To sell a dead cat for a live horse—that's the secret of business.' Well, I've done just what the boss does with his customers. I've roped him in.” These cynical remarks made a bad impression on the judges. They sentenced the teamster to two years in prison, not only for having pilfered a few kilograms of grain, but chiefly because he had slandered one of the oldest business houses in district... a house founded in 1794, whose long−standing, steadfast, and legendary respectability had been the ornament of the town from generation to generation. I remember that on the evening of this celebrated decision my father had gathered some friends at table: merchants like himself and, like him, rooted in this inaugural principle that to 'rope people in' was the very soul of trade. You can imagine how indignant they were about the defiant attitude of the teamster. They talked of nothing else until midnight; and out of the confusion, epigrams, discussions and little glasses of brandy, I distilled this precept: which was, so to speak, the moral of the episode and at the same time the synthesis of my education: To take something from a person and keep it for one self: that is robbery. To take something from one person and then turn it over to another in exchange for as much money as you can get: that is business. Robbery is so much more stupid, since it is satisfied with a single, frequently dangerous profit; whereas in business it Can be doubled without danger. It was in this moral atmosphere that in some way or other I grew up and developed entirely alone, with no other text than the daily example of my parents. Among the shop keeping classes children are generally left to their own devices, for no one has time to bother with their education. They educate themselves as best they can, at the mercy of their own dispositions and the pernicious influences of that environment, which is generally degrading and confined. Spontaneously, and without the need of any outward pressure, I contributed my own portion of emulation or invention to the family swindles. From the age of ten I had no other concept of life than theft, and I was convinced—oh, quite ingenuously I assure you—that to 'rope people in' constituted the foundation of all social intercourse. College determined the bizarre and tortuous direction I was to give to my own life, for it was there I met the man who was later to become my friend—the celebrated Minister, Eugene Mortain. The son of a wine−merchant, groomed for politics (just as I was for business) by his father, who was the chief electoral representative of the district, vice−president of the Gambettist committees and founder of various leagues, opposition groups and professional syndicates, Eugene bore within him from infancy the soul of 'a born statesman'. Although the recipient of a free scholarship, he immediately overawed us with his obvious superiority in effrontery and rudeness, and also by a solemn and vacuous manner of speaking which did violence to our enthusiasms. Besides, he inherited from his father the profitable and efficacious mania for organization. In a few weeks he had made short work of transforming, the college campus into a meeting place for all sorts of societies and clubs, committees and sub−committees, of which he simultaneously elected himself president, secretary and treasurer. There was the football association, the top association, the leap−frog society, and the walking dub; there was the horizontal−bar committee, the trapeze league, the one−legged race syndicate, etc. Every member of these various associations was obliged to contribute to the general fund—that is to say, our comrade's pockets—monthly dues of five sous which, among other advantages, entitled him to a subscription to the quarterly journal which Eugene Mortain edited as propaganda for the ideas, and the defense of the interests, of the numerous 'autonomous and solitary groups,' as he proclaimed. Evil instincts and appetites which were common to us both immediately bound us together and made of our close partnership a greedy and incessant exploitation of our comrades, who were proud to be syndicated. I soon discovered I was the lesser power in this duplicity, but the realization of this fact made me cling only the aster to the career of this ambitious companion. As compensation for lack of an equal division. I was always assured of being able to pick up a few crumbs... they sufficed me then. Alas! I have never had more than the crumbs of the cakes my friend devoured. I rediscovered Eugene later, during a difficult and distressing episode of my life. By dint of 'roping people in' my father had ended by being roped in himself, and not in the figurative sense which he applied to his customers. An unfortunate stock of provisions which, it appeared, poisoned an entire barracks, was the occasion for this deplorable incident, which crowned the total ruin of our house founded in 1794. My father might perhaps have survived his dishonor, for he was aware of the infinite indulgence of his epoch; but he could not survive his ruin. An attack of apoplexy carried him off one beautiful evening. He died, leaving my mother and me penniless. No longer able to count on him, I was definitely obliged to get myself out of the mess alone and,tearing myself away from the maternal lamentations, I fled to Paris where Eugene Mortain welcomed me with open arms. That worthy was rising little by little. Thanks to parliamentary protection, cleverly exploited, to the agility of his nature and his absolute lack of scruples, he was beginning to be well spoken of in the press, and in political and financial circles. He immediately employed me to do his dirty work, nor was it long before, living as I did in his shadow, I absorbed some of his notoriety, by which I did not know how to profit as I should have. But I was most lacking in the ability to persevere in wrongdoing. Not that I experienced belated qualms of conscience, remorse or fleeting desires for honesty: there is a diabolical streak in me, a relentless and inexplicable perversity which suddenly forces me, without apparent reason, to drop the best conducted of affairs and loosen my hold on the most greedily gripped throats. With practical qualities of the very first order, an acute flair for life, the audacity even to conceive the impossible and an exceptional alacrity in materializing it, I still have not the necessary tenacity of a man of action.

Perhaps beneath the scoundrel that I am, there lies a misled poet? Perhaps a mystifier who enjoys mystifying himself? However, in foreknowledge of the future, and feeling that the day would inevitably come when my friend Eugene would want to get rid of a man who symbolized to him an embarrassing past, I had the cunning to compromise him by circulating derogatory stories, and the foresight to keep in my possession incontrovertible proofs. For fear of a downfall, Eugene was forced perpetually to drag me about after him like a ball and chain. While awaiting the supreme honors towards which the muddy stream of politics was bearing him, here, among other honorable matters, were the nature of his intrigues and the subjects of his preoccupation: Officially, Eugene had a mistress. She was then known as the Countess Borska. Not very young, but still pretty and desirable, now a Pole, now a Russian and frequently an Austrian, she naturally passed for a German spy. Therefore her salon was a hangout for most of our illustrious statesmen. Many political affairs were bandied about there, and amid considerable coquetry, many notable and dubious transactions found their inception. Among the most frequent guests of this salon, a certain Levantine financier, Baron K—, was conspicuous. He was a quiet man, with a wan grey face and dull eyes, who had revolutionized the Stock Exchange by his formidable manipulations. It was known, or at least it was said, that behind this silent and impenetrable mask one of the most powerful Empires of Europe was in operation. It was doubtless a purely romantic concept, for in these corrupt places one never knows which to admire more—their corruption or their insipidity. Nevertheless, Countess Borska and my friend entertained lively hopes of being taken into the confidence of the mysterious baron, and continued to hope all the more energetically as the latter opposed their discreet but definite advances, with an even more discreet and definite reserve. I even believe that he pushed his reserve so far as to give them malicious advice, which resulted in a disastrous transaction for our friends. Then they conceived of letting loose upon the recalcitrant banker a very pretty young woman, who was an intimate friend of their household, and to let me loose at the same time upon the very pretty young woman who, worked upon by them, was quite willing to accept us favorably—the banker for business, and me for pleasure. Their calculation was simple and I grasped it at the very start: introduce me into the place and there I, through the woman, and they through me, would become roasters of the secrets which the baron let slip in moments of tender forgetfulness! This is what might be called high−pressure politics! Alas! that demon of perversity, which visits me at the decisive moment when I ought to act, wished things otherwise, and brought about the clumsy abortion of this lovely project. At the dinner which was to seal this quite Parisian union, I behaved in so unmannerly a fashion to the young woman that after a scandalous scene she left the salon in shame, fury and tears, and went home, widowed of both our loves. The little celebration was cut short, and Eugene took me home in a cab. We went down the Champs Elysees amid a tragic silence. “Where shall I drop you off?” the great man said to me, as we turned the corner of the Rue Royale. “At the dive... on the boulevard,” I sneeringly replied to them, in a hurry to breathe some pure air, in the company of honest people. And suddenly, with a gesture of discouragement, my friend tapped me on the knee and oh, all my life I shall see the sinister expression of his mouth, and his look of hatred!——and he sighed: “Well! Well! No good will ever come of you!” He was right. And that time I could not blame him for it. Eugene Mortain belonged to that school of politicians which, under the famous name of opportunists, Gambetta unleashed upon France like a pack of carnivorous beasts. He aspired to power only for the material pleasures it could procure, and the money which clever men like he knew how to draw from muddy sources. Incidentally, I do not know why I am holding only Gambetta responsible for the historic honor of having gathered and unchained the miserable pack which still endures despite all the Panamas. Gambetta assuredly loved corruption; there lay in that thundering democrat a voluptuary, or rather a lusty dilettante who reveled in the stench of decomposition. But it must be said in his exoneration, and to their glory, that the friends with whom he surrounded himself, and which chance rather than judicious selection had rallied to his short−lived career, were rascals enough to hurl themselves of their own accord, upon that eternal prey, in which so very many jaws had already fleshed their furious teeth. Before attaining to the Chamber, Eugene Mortain had tackled every trade—even the lowest; he had passed through the lowest and shadiest depths of journalism, You cannot choose all your openings—you must take them where you find them. His initiation into Parisian life was spirited and prompt—and, moreover, carefully calculated. I mean that life which flows from the editorial offices to the Parliament, by way of the prefecture of police. Since he was devoured by immediate needs and ruinous appetites, there was no important blackmailing scheme or underhand affair of which our honest Eugene was not in some way or other the mysterious and violent brain. He had negotiated that stroke of genius whereby a great section of the press had been syndicated, in order to expedite the success of his vast undertakings. In this sort of discredited enterprise knew a good many of his calculations to be pure master−pieces, which revealed this little, rapidly cultivated provincial as an astounding psychologist and an admirable organizer of the evil instincts of the outcast. But he had the modesty never to boast of the beauty of his achievements, and the priceless art, by making use of others, of never exposing his own person in hours of danger. With constant craftiness and a perfect knowledge of his fields of operation, he always managed to avoid, by circumnavigation, the dank and muddy swamps of the police correctional, into which so many others clumsily allowed themselves to be engulfed. It is true that my assistance—be it said without fatuity—was not entirely useless to him in many circumstances. He was, into the bargain, a charming fellow; yes, in truth, a charming fellow. He could only be reproached for an awkwardness of demeanor—a persistent vestige of his provincial education—and vulgar details which added to the unpleasant conspicuousness of his too recently acquired wealth. But all these things were only externals which concealed all the better, from casual observers, whatever subtle resources his mind possessed, together with his acute instincts, his shrewd agility, and all the greedy and terrible tenacity of his soul. To rightly appreciate that soul it would have been necessary to see—as I, alas, have seen them so many times!—the two wrinkles which, at certain moments of relaxation, drooped from the corners of his lips and gave a frightful expression to his mouth—Ah yes, he was a charming fellow! “By judicious duels he silenced the malevolent rumors which always surround meteoric personalities. His natural gaiety and good—natured cynicism (which we readily considered an amiable paradox), no less than his lucrative and widely publicized love−affairs, succeeded in acquiring for him a questionable reputation, which was, however, enough for a future statesman who Was yet to go through the mill. He also possessed that marvelous faculty of being able to speak for five hours and on any subject, without ever expressing an idea. His quenchless eloquence poured forth ceaseless and indefatigable—the slow, monotonous, and suicidal torrent of the political vocabulary—and just as fluently upon questions of the merchant marine as on school reform, on finance as well as the beaux arts, on agriculture as well as religion. The parliamentary reporters recognized in him their own universal incompetence, and patterned their written jargon after his spoken gibberish. Obliging when it cost him nothing; generous and even prodigal when it might be very profitable to him; arrogant and servile according to circumstances and individuals; awkwardly skeptical, grossly corrupt, an enthusiast devoid of spontaneity and an unspontaneous wit—he was liked by everyone. Therefore his swift rise surprised and disconcerted no one. It was, to the contrary, favorably received by different political parties, for Eugene was not considered a fierce partisan, he discouraged no hope or ambition, and it was not unknown that, when the time was ripe, an understanding might be reached with him. All that mattered was to set the price. Such was the man and such the 'charming fellow' in whom my last hopes rested, and who actually held my life and death between his fingers. You will notice that in this hastily outlined sketch of my friend I have modestly effaced myself, although I collaborated vigorously, and often by curious methods, in the making of his career. I might tell any number of stories which are not, you may believe, exceptionally edifying. But what good would a complete confession be, since you may guess at all my depravities without any necessity for further display? And then, my role opposite this bold and prudent scamp was always—I do not say insignificant, ah nor laudable, for you would laugh in my face—but it remained almost a secret. Allow me to remain in that scarcely discreet shadow with which I have been pleased to shroud those years of sinister struggle and shady machination. Eugene does not 'acknowledge' me. And I myself, out of what remains of a quite bizarre modesty, occasionally feel an overwhelming repugnance at the thought that I might easily pass for his 'cat's−paw'. Besides, it occasionally happened that for entire months I lost sight of him, and 'gave him the slip', as we say, finding in the gambling−dens, at the Stock Exchange and in the dressing−rooms of kept women, sustenance which I was tired of seeking in politics, and whose quest was more to my taste for laziness and the unexpected. Sometimes, in the grip of a sudden poetic mood, I buried myself in a God−forsaken corner of the country, and in the presence of nature aspired to purity, silence and moral rehabilitation which, alas! never lasted very long. And I returned to Eugene at times of crisis. He did not always welcome me with the cordiality I demanded of him. It was obvious that he would have liked to get rid of me. But with a clean, sharp cut of the check−rein, I recalled him to the reality of our mutual situation. One day I distinctly saw the flame of murder glowing in his eyes. I was not alarmed, but firmly placed my hand upon his shoulder, like a gendarme does to a robber, and I said banteringly: “What of it? What will it get you? My corpse itself will accuse you. Don't be so stupid! I've let you get where you wanted. I've never crossed your ambition. To the contrary, I have worked for you as well as I was able... loyally, isn't it true? Do you think it's pleasant for me to see us—you on top, strutting in the limelight, and me at the bottom, stupidly floundering through the mire? And then, by a flip of the hand, this marvelous career, laboriously built up by us both—” “Oh! by us both... “ hissed Eugene. “Yes, by us both, swine!” I repeated, exasperated by this untimely correction. “Yes, by a flip of the hand... a breath... and you know it—I could destroy that marvelous career. I need only say one word, you cur, to hurl you from power to the workhouse; to make of the Minister you are—ah, so ironically!—the galley slave you might be if justice still existed and I weren't the basest of cowards. Well! I will not make that gesture, and I won't say the word. I leave you to receive the adulation of men and the esteem of foreign courts, because, you see... I find it stupendously amusing. Only, I want my share, you hear!... my share. And what do I ask? What I ask is ridiculous. Nothing—crumbs... although I might demand everything—everything! I beg you—don't exasperate me any further; don't drive me to the wall any longer. Don't force me to create melodramatic scenes. For the day I have had enough of life, enough, of the slime, that slime—your slime, whose intolerable odor I smell about me all the time... well, that day his Excellency Eugene Mortain won't laugh, my boy. I swear it!” Then, with an embarrassed smile, in which the folds around his drooping lips gave his face an expression of beastly fear and impotent lust to kill, Eugene said to me: “But you're crazy to tell me all this... and apropos of what? Have I refused you anything, you sorehead?” And, gaily, with a multiplicity of gesture and grimace which bewildered me, he comically added; “Do you want the Cross of the Legion of Honor, eh?” Yes, truly, he was a charming fellow.
PART 3

Some days after the scene of violence which followed my unfortunate defeat I met Eugene again at a friend's house, the home of that good Mme. G—, where we had both been invited to dine. Our handshake was cordial and you'd have thought nothing unpleasant had passed between us. “I don't see you anymore,” he reproached me, in that tone of noncommittal geniality which in him was only the refinement of hatred. “Have you been ill?” “Certainly not. I travel towards oblivion, that's all.” “Incidentally—have you recovered your senses? I'd like very much to talk to you for five minutes after dinner... if you don't mind.” “Then you've got something new?” I asked with a bitter smile, so he might see that I refused to be dismissed as a matter of little consequence. “I?” he said. “No... nothing... a tentative project. Well, we'll see.” I was ready with an impertinent reply when Mme. G—, an enormous bundle of swaying flowers, dancing feathers and billowing lace, interrupted our


conversation. “Ah, my dear Minister,” she sighed, “when will you ever rid us of these dreadful socialists?” And she carried Eugene off to a group of young women who, by the way they were grouped in a corner of the salon, impressed me with being there for hire, like those nocturnal creatures at a cafe−concert who, with their excessive décolletage and borrowed finery, add the final touch to their tawdry surroundings. Mme. G— had the reputation of playing an important part in Society and the Government, and among the innumerable comedies of Parisian life, the influence attributed to her was not one of the least amusing. The paltry chroniclers of the petty events of that time seriously related (after establishing brilliant parallels in the past), that her salon was the starting−point and the goal of political careers and literary aspirations; and consequently the rendezvous of all the young and ambitious, and the old and likewise. According to them, it was there that contemporary history was made, there the downfall and accession of cabinets was plotted, and there, amid genial intrigues and delicious small−talk,


for it was a salon where people talked—that foreign alliances as well as academic elections were negotiated. It was said that M. Sadi Carnot himself—who then reigned over French hearts—had been given to clever maneuvers in his dealings with this formidable power, and to keep in its good graces he gallantly offered it, for lack of his approbation, the most beautiful flowers of the Elysee gardens and the city hothouses. From having known M. Thiers and M. Guizot, Cavour and the elder Metternich, during the time of her, or their youth—Mme. G— was not very sure of her chronology on that point—this ancient personage retained a prestige with which the Republic loved to adorn itself, as with a perennial grace; and her salon benefited by the posthumous glory which those illustrious names (invoked on all occasions) recalled to the shrunken individualities of the present. Moreover, people went to this select salon as to a county fair; and never have I seen—I who've seen so many a stranger medley of human beings or a more ridiculous social masquerade. There was a host of out casts from the worlds of politics,


journalism, clubs, society, the theatre and the world at large—and women of the same sort—she received them all. No one was deceived by this pseudo−atmosphere, but each one found it incumbent—in order to exalt himself—to glorify a notoriously low environment in which many of us found, not only scarcely mentionable sustenance, but even our only reason for being. Besides, I have an idea that most of the salons so famous in former times where roving political ambitions and unemployed literary pretensions of the most varied species came to commune, resembled this one pretty accurately... No more am I convinced that this one differed essentially from others highly praised in lyrical panegyrics and on all occasions, for their difficulty of access or their exquisite moral standards. The truth is that Mme. G—, stripped of her exaggerated fame and poetic legends and reduced to the real character of her worldly personality, was just a very vulgar−minded old woman, of scant and, in the bargain extremely vicious education. No longer able to cultivate the flower of vice in her own garden, she cultivated it elsewhere with a tranquil


shamelessness. It was difficult to know whether its boldness or its ingenuousness was more to be admired. For professional love−affairs, which she had been obliged to abandon, she had substituted a mania for contriving extramarital unions and separations, which it was her delight and her only sin to follow up, direct, protect and hatch; and thus warm her shriveled old heart by the heat of their forbidden flames. At the home of this great politician, sanctified by Messieurs Thiers and Guizot, by Cavour and the elder Metternich, you were always sure to find kindred souls, impending adultery, lusts under weigh, and passions of all kinds, freshly equipped for the race at any time an invaluable stock−in−trade in the event of sentimental ruptures and dull evenings. Why did I have the idea of going to Mme. G—'s that particular evening? I don't know, for I was quite melancholy and scarcely in the mood for merrymaking. My anger with Eugene was quite appeased, at least momentarily, and a great fatigue—a great disgust, had replaced it: disgust with myself, with others, with everybody. Since that morning I had reflected seriously on my situation,


and despite the Minister's promises with which, moreover, I had decided not to let him off easily—I saw no suitable outcome. I realized that it was quite difficult for my friend to procure me a permanent official situation, something honorably parasitical and officially remunerative, by whose means I might be enabled to end my days in peace—a respectable old man and an irreproachable office−holder. Besides, it is probable that I would have immediately bungled this position; then, from all sides, simultaneous objections would have been raised in the name of public morality and the decency of the Republic, to which the Minister, when questioned, would not have known how to reply. Anything he could offer me through transitory and miserable expedients and sorry juggling of the budget, would only have been a postponement of the inevitable hour of my downfall. And then I could not even count on this minimum of favors and protection forever, any more than Eugene could count upon the everlasting stupidity of the public. Many dangers already threatened the cabinet, and many scandals, to which, now and then, some newspapers, dissatisfied with the graft they


were receiving, were making more and more direct allusions and undermining the personal security of my protector, Eugene only maintained his power by aggressive attacks upon unpopular and defeated parties, and also by cash payments which, as I suspected at the time, and was later demonstrated, he received from outside, in exchange each time for a pound of the country's flesh. I had carefully considered working for the downfall of my comrade, and cleverly worming my way to the side of a likely ministerial leader, and thus, by the aid of this new collaborator, recovering a sort of social virginity. Everything impelled me to it: my nature, my own welfare, and also the violently delicious pleasure of vengeance. But besides the uncertainties and dangers which surrounded this scheme, I had neither the courage to risk another adventure, nor to repeat such maneuvers. I had burned my candle at both ends, and I was weary of these perilous and precarious adventures which had led me—whither? I was experiencing mental fatigue, a paralysis of my energies, and all my faculties were diminishing while still in their prime, sapped by


neurasthenia. Ah, how I regretted not having followed the straight roads of life! At the moment I sincerely hope for nothing better than the mediocre joys of middle−class respectability, and I wished no more, and could bear no more of these sudden jolts of fortune, these choices of misery which had not left me a moment of respite, and had made of my existence a perpetual and tortured anxiety. Then what was to become of me? The future seemed sadder and even more hopeless to me than winter twilight falling in a sickroom. In a little while, after dinner, what new infamy would the infamous Minister propose to me? Into what deeper mire, from which I could never rise, did he want to thrust me, and make me disappear forever? I glanced about for him amid the throng. He was hovering about the women. Nothing about his skull or shoulders indicated that he bore the heavy burden of his crimes. He was carefree and gay. And to see him thus redoubled my rage at the realization of our mutual impotence—his to save me from shame, and mine to fling him into it... ah yes, to fling him into it! Crushed by these multiple, piercing


preoccupations, it was not astounding that I had lost my fervor, and that the beautiful creatures selected and displayed by Mme. G— for the pleasure of her guests, left me cold. During dinner I behaved in an extremely disagreeable fashion, and scarcely spoke to my neighbors whose lovely bosoms gleamed amidst their flowers and jewels. It was believed that my electoral defeat was the cause of this somber mood in one so ordinarily joyful and gallant. “Cheer up!” they said to me. “What the devil, you're still young! You need guts for a political career. Better luck next time.” To these banal consolations, engaging smiles, and inviting bosoms, I obstinately replied: “No... no. Don't talk politics to me. It's infamous! Don't talk to me any more about universal suffrage. It's idiotic! I've had enough. I don't want to hear them mentioned again.” Then Mme. G—, her feathers, flowers and lace suddenly rising before me in variegated and scented waves whispered in my ear with the affected raptures and moist coquetries of an old procuress: “Love is everything, you see. There is never


anything but love! Try love! Listen: just tonight there is a young Romanian here... passionate... ah, a poet, my dear, and a countess! I'm sure she's mad about you. Anyhow, all women are mad about you. I'll introduce you.” I side−stepped this crudely arranged opportunity, and in a sullen and enervated silence persistently awaited the end of this interminable evening. Monopolized by everyone, it was quite late before Eugene could rejoin me. We took advantage of the fact that a celebrated diva was momentarily absorbing everyone's attention, to hide in a sort of little smoking−room which was lit by the discreet glow of a tall floor lamp, draped with rose−colored gauze. The Minister sat down on the couch, lit a cigarette, and while I negligently straddled a chair opposite him and crossed my arms on its back, he seriously said: “I've been thinking a lot about you these last few days.” Doubtless he expected some word of thanks, a friendly gesture, or a movement which might indicate interest or curiosity. I remained motionless, forcing


myself to preserve that air of haughty and almost insolent indifference, with which I had determined to receive the treacherous suggestions of my friend; for, from the beginning of the evening, I had set my heart on these suggestions being treacherous. Insolently, I pretended to look at the portrait of M. Thiers which occupied the top of the panel behind Eugene and was overcast by all the dark shadows which played across its over−varnished surface, with the exception, however, of his white pear shaped topknot which became of itself the unique and complete expression of the obliterated face. Muffled by the closed portieres, the sound of the party came to us like a distant hum. Shaking his head, the Minister went on: “Yes, I've thought of you a great deal. Well! it's difficult... quite difficult.” Again he grew silent, seeming to reflect on important matters. I took pleasure in prolonging the silence in order to enjoy the embarrassment into which this teasing attitude could not fail to throw my friend. Once more I was to see this dear protector before me, ridiculous and unmasked—perhaps suppliant! He remained


calm, however, and did not seem to be in the least concerned with the over—obvious hostility of my bearing. “You don't believe me,” he said, in a firm and tranquil voice. “Yes, I feel you don't believe me. You imagine I only think of fooling you, as I fool the others—isn't that true? Well, you're wrong, my boy. Besides, if this conversation bores you—it's easy enough to break it off.” He pretended to get up. “I didn't say that!” I protested, shifting my glance from M. Thiers' topknot to Eugene's icy face. “I didn't say anything.” “Then listen to me. Shall we talk, once and for all, and in all frankness, about our mutual situation?” “So be it! I'm listening.” Faced with his assurance, little by little I lost my own. Contrary to what I had so egotistically conjectured Eugene was regaining all his authority over me, and I felt him escaping me again. I felt it by that ease of gesture, that almost elegant manner, that firmness of tone and that entire self−possession which he never really displayed except when he was considering his most sinister strokes. At those times


he possessed a sort of forceful seductiveness, a magnetic power which it was difficult to resist, even though you were forewarned, Though I knew him, yet to my misfortune I had often been the victim of his malefic charm, which should never have surprised me again. Well! all my belligerence abandoned me, my hatred relaxed, and despite myself I found I was regaining confidence and so completely forgetting the past, that this man whose inexorable and fetid soul I had tracked to its darkest recesses—I discovered I was considering once more a generous friend, a hero of magnanimity—a savior! Ah, I would like the power to express the accent of force, crime, callousness and ease which he put into his words—and this is what he said to me: “You've seen politics close enough to know that a degree of power exists at which the most infamous man finds himself protected from himself by his own infamy; and even more strongly, against others, by the infamy of others. There is only one trait which is irreparable in a statesman: honesty! Honesty is negative and sterile; it is ignorant of the correct evaluation of appetite and ambition—the only powers


through which you can found anything durable. The proof of this is that idiot Favrot—the only honest man in the Cabinet, and also the only one whose political career is, by common consent, totally and forever lost! Just to let you know, my boy, that a campaign directed against me leaves me absolutely indifferent.” I made a rapid, ambiguous gesture: “Yes—yes... I know... they're talking about my ruin... my impending, downfall... the police.. the Mazas prison! 'Death to the robbers!' Absolutely! What don't they talk about? Well then? It makes me laugh, that's all! And you yourself, under pretext that you think you've been mixed up in some of my affairs of which, let me say in passing, you know only one side—under pretext of withholding—at least, you go shouting it all over—some vague papers about which, my boy, I give that!” Without interrupting himself, he showed me his extinguished cigarette, which he immediately crushed in an ashtray that lay on the little lacquer table beside him. “You yourself... you think you can terrify me into


compliance... blackmail me like an insolvent banker! You're a child! Think a minute. My downfall? Now, can you tell me who would dare, at this time, to assume the responsibility for such a piece of insanity? Who doesn't know that it would involve the cave−in of too many things; too many men whom it is no more possible to reach than I—under penalty of abdication or death? For I wouldn't be the only one to be overthrown. I wouldn't be the only one to wear the ball and chain. The entire Government, the entire Parliament, the entire Republic, whatever it may do, is linked up with what are called my transgressions, my embezzlements, my crimes. They think they've got me, and it's I who have them! Don't worry, I've got a good grip on them.” And he clutched an imaginary throat. The expression of his mouth, with its drooping corners, became hideous, and purple veinlets appeared in his eyeballs, which gave to his glance an implacable suggestion of murder. But he hastily composed himself, lit another cigarette, and went on: “Let them overthrow the Cabinet—agreed! And


I'll help in it. Thanks to the work of that honest Favrot, we're involved in a series of inextricable problem; whose logical solution is simply that they cannot possibly have any. A ministerial crisis is imminent, and an entirely new program. Please notice that I am, or at least I appear to be, alien to these difficulties. My responsibility is only a parliamentary fiction. In the hallways of the Chamber and in certain sections of the press, I am being adroitly separated from my colleagues. Thus, my personal situation of course remains politically clear. Better than that, upheld by the groups whose leaders I've succeeded in interesting in my career, sustained by the big banks and the great companies, I am becoming the one man indispensable to the new regime. I am the chosen President of the forthcoming Council. And it's ate the very moment when my downfall is proclaimed from all sides that I am attaining the peak of my career! I admit that it's comical, my boy, and that they haven't got hold of my hide yet.” Eugene had become sprightly again. The idea that there was no intermediate point for him between


these two poles: the Presidency of the Council or the Mazas prison, exhilarated his spirits. He drew close to me and tapping me on the knee, as he did in moments of relaxation or gaiety, he repeated: “Come... admit it's funny!” “Very funny!” I agreed. “But what place have I in all this?” “You? Well, here it is! You, my friend—must go away—disappear... a year... two years... what's that? You need to be forgotten.” And as I prepared to object: “But damn it all! Is it my fault?” Eugene cried, “If you've stupidly spoiled all the excellent jobs I've laid in your lap? A year—two years—it's soon over. You'll come back with a new virginity and I'll give you everything you want. Till then, nothing—I can do nothing. My word of honor! I can't do a thing.” I was still somewhat furious, but it was in a weak voice that, I cried: “Damn! damn! damn!” Eugene smiled, realizing that my resistance had ended with that outburst. “Come, come!” he said to me good−naturedly, “don't be obstinate. Listen to me. I've thought about it a good deal. You must go away. In your interest, for


your future. I can't think of anything else. Come! Are you... how shall I put it? Are you an embryologist?” He read my reply in the bewildered look I cast him. “No! you are no embryologist. Sad! very sad!” “Why do you ask that? Now what kind of a joke is it?” “Just this—that at this time I might easily obtain considerable funds—oh, relatively!—but at least substantial funds, for a scientific expedition they might be willing to entrust to you.” And without giving me time to reply, in short, humorous sentences accompanied by comical gestures he explained the business to me: “It involves going to India, Ceylon, I believe, to drag the sea, in the gulfs, and study what the scientists call the pelagic ooze, you understand? And among the gastropoda, the corals, the heteropoda, the madrepora, the siphonophora, the holothuroidea and radiolaria—how should I know?—to discover the primordial cell—pay close attention... the protoplasmic initum of organized life, or something like that. It's charming and as you see—very simple.” “Very simple indeed,” I murmured mechanically.


“Yes, but there it is,” concluded this true statesman, “you aren't an embryologist.” And with benevolent sorrow he added: “It's annoying!” My protector reflected a few moments. I was silent, not having had time to recover from the stupor into which this unexpected proposition had plunged me. “My God!” he went on, “there might be another expedition—for we actually have lots of expeditions and don't know what to spend the donor's money on. If I remember rightly, this one would be to go to the Fiji Islands and Tasmania, to study the various systems of penitentiary administration in use there, and their application to our social system. Only it's less amusing and I must warn you the funds are not enormous. And they're still cannibals down there, you know! You think I'm joking, eh? That I'm telling you a fairytale? But, my boy, all expeditions are like that. Ha!” Eugene started to laugh with gentle malice. “There is still the secret police. Ha ha! You might possibly find a good job in that... what do you say?” In difficult circumstances my mental faculties


become active and more acute, my energies are unleashed and I am endowed with a sudden influx of ideas, and a promptness of decision which always astonishes me and has often served me well. “Bah!” I cried, “after all I could easily be an embryologist once in my life. What do I risk? Science won't die of it. It's been through the mill! Done! I accept the expedition to Ceylon.” “And you're right. Bravo!” applauded the Minister; “seeing that embryology, my boy, Darwin, Haeckel... Carl Vogt, after all—it must be a great joke! Ah, my lad you won't be bored down there. Ceylon is marvelous. They say there are extraordinary women there, little lace makers—beautiful—temperamental! It's the earthly paradise! Come to the Ministry tomorrow and we'll wind up the business officially. In the meantime you don't have to shout it from the housetops, because you know I'm playing a dangerous joke which might cost me dearly. Come!” We arose and, while I went back to the salon on the Minister's arm, he said again, with charming irony: “Eh? After all! Suppose you discover the cell?


Who knows? Berthelot would make a face, eh?” This scheme had given me back a little courage and a little gaiety. Not that it pleased me entirely; I would have preferred a general receivership, for instance, to this commission as an illustrious embryologist, or a well−upholstered seat in the State's Council. But you have to compromise, and besides, the adventure was not without its amusing aspect. From a simple political vagabond, such as I had been a few moments before, you cannot, by a wave of the ministerial wand, become an eminent scientist about to violate the mysteries at the very springs of life, without experiencing something of a mystifying pride and a comical grandeur. The soiree, begun miserably, was ending in hilarity. I accosted Mme. G—, who was excitedly organizing love, and promenading adultery from group to group and couple to couple. “And that adorable Romanian countess,” I asked her, “"is she still mad about me?” “Still, my dear...” She took me by the arm. Her feathers were


drooping, her flowers wilted, and her flounces hung limply. “Come along!” she said; “she's in the little Guizot salon, flirting with Princess Onane.” “What! she too?” “But my dear,” replied this great politician, “at her age, and with her poetic nature, it would really be unfortunate if she had not tried everything!”


PART 4

My preparations were soon made. I was lucky in that the young Romanian countess, who had become quite attached to me, was willing to assist me with her advice and, I say it with shame—with her purse too. Besides I had all the luck. My expedition got off to a good start. By an exceptional anomaly of bureaucratic procedure, eight days after that conclusive conversation in Mme. G—'s salons, I obtained the above−mentioned funds without the slightest red tape or delay. They were more generously computed than I had dared to hope, for I was familiar with the swinishness of the government in these matters, and the poor little arbitrary budgets by which they so pitifully gratify scientists on expeditions—real scientists. Undoubtedly, lowed this unusual liberality the fact that, not being a scientist at all, I had more need than anyone else for greater resources, in order to play the part. They had counted on the maintenance of two secretaries and two servants, the costly purchase of


anatomical instruments, microscopes, photographic apparatus, collapsible boats, diving−bells, and even wide−mouthed jars for scientific collections, hunting rifles and cages designed to bring captured animals back alive. Truly, the government does things in grand style, and I could not help but praise it. It goes without saying that I did not buy any of these impedimenta, and that I decided not to take anyone along, counting upon my ingenuity alone to find my way in the midst of these untracked jungles of science and India. I profited by my leisure to inform myself about Ceylon, its customs and landscapes, and to construct an idea of the life I would lead down there in those terrible tropics. Even after eliminating the exaggerated, boastful, and mendacious elements of travelers' tales, I was enchanted by what I read—particularly by this detail, reported by a sober German savant: that in the suburbs of Colombo there exists, amid fairy gardens by the sea, a marvelous villa bungalow, as they say, in which a rich and eccentric Englishman maintains a sort of harem, where all the races of India, from the black


Tamoules to the sinuous bayaderes of Lahore, and the demoniac bacchantes of Benares, are represented by perfect specimens of femininity. I definitely made up my mind to find some means of gaining access to this amateur polygamist, and to confine my studies of comparative embryology to that spot. The Minister, whom I visited to say goodbye and confide my plans, approved all these projects, and quite gaily praised the virtue of my economy. When he left me he spoke with an emotional eloquence, while I, under the torrent of his words, experienced a tenderness—the pure, refreshing and sublime tenderness of a good man. “Go, my friend, and come back to us stronger... come back to us a new man and a glorious savant. Your exile, which I have no doubt you will employ in the accomplishment of great deeds, will replenish your energies for future struggles. It will temper them in the very springs of life, in the cradle of humanity which... of humanity, of which... Go... and if on your return you find—which I cannot believe—if you can, I say, bad memories persisting, difficulties... hostility...


an obstacle to your rightful ambitions... remember that you possess enough little memoranda about the governmental personnel to triumph over it with a high hand. Sursum corda! Count on me, besides. While you are down there, courageous pioneer of progress and a soldier of science... while you are sounding the gulfs and questing the mysterious atolls for France, for our dear France—I shan't forget you, you may well believe me. Cleverly, step by step, through the Agence Havas and in my own newspapers, I shall find a means of creating a commotion about you—our coming young embryologist. I'll devise magnificent and pathetic blurbs—'Our great embryologist'... 'We learn from our young and illustrious savant, whose embryological discoveries, etc.'... 'While he was studying a hitherto unknown holoihurian under twenty fathoms of water, our indefatigable embryologist barely escaped being carried off by a shark... a terrific struggle... etc.' Go, go, my friend, work fearlessly for the glory of the nation. Today a race is not only treat by virtue of its arms; it is great, above all, through its arts... through its sciences. The peaceful conquests of science


serve civilization more than the conquests of... etc., etc... Cedant arma sapientio!” I wept for joy, pride, grandeur and exaltation—the exaltation of my being towards something stupendous, and stupendously beautiful. Projected beyond my ego, I know not whence, I had, at that moment, another soul—an almost divine soul, a creative and sacrificial soul—the soul of some sublime hero in whom the supreme confidence of the nation resides—and all the strongest hopes of humanity. As for the Minister—that bandit Eugene—he could scarcely contain his emotion. He had real enthusiasm in his glance, a sincere quaver in his voice. Two little tears fell from his eyes. He almost crushed my hand in his grip. For several moments both of us were the unconscious and comic toys of our own deception. Ah, when I think of it!


PART 5

Armed with letters of Recommendation to the authorities at Ceylon, I finally embarked at Marseille one splendid afternoon, on the Saghalien. From the moment I set foot on the steamer, I was immediately aware of the value of an official title, and how, by the prestige which attaches to it, a fallen man, such as I was then, rises in the estimation of unknown people and passersby, and consequently in his own. The captain, who 'knew my works', overwhelmed me with attentions—almost with honors. The most comfortable cabin had been reserved for me, and also the best place at table. As the news had rapidly spread among the passengers of the presence on board of a celebrated scientist, everyone went out of his way to pay me his respects. I saw nothing but a glow of admiration on their faces. The women themselves gave evidence of curiosity and good will; some, discreetly, and others, by manifesting a bolder sentiment. One, above all, violently attracted my attention. She was a marvelous creature with heavy copper hair and


green eyes flecked with gold, like those of jungle beasts. She was traveling with three maids—one of whom was Chinese. I inquired about her from the captain. “She's English,” he said to me, “they call her Miss Clara. The most extraordinary woman on earth. Although she's only twenty−eight years old, she's been all over the world already. Just now she lives in China. This is the fourth time I've seen her aboard.” “Rich?” “Oh, very rich! They tell me her father, who's been dead a long time, was an opium dealer in Canton. That's where she was born, in fact. She's a little cracked, I think, but charming.” “Married?” “No.” “And?” Into that conjunction I put a whole battalion of intimate and even impertinent questions. The captain smiled. “That I can't say. I don't think so. I've never noticed anything—here.” Such was the reply of the good mariner who, it


seemed to me, knew a good deal more about it than he wished to say. I did not insist, but I said to myself: “You, my girl... absolutely!” The first passengers with whom I became acquainted were two Chinese of the London Embassy and a Norman gentleman who was on his way to Tonkin. The latter was immediately quite willing to confide in me. He was an ardent hunter. “I'm running away from France,” he told me. “I escape every time I can. Since we've become a republic, France is a lost country. There are too many poachers, and they're the masters. Would you believe that I can't keep any game on my place any more! The poachers kill it for me, and the courts uphold them. It's a bit too much! Without counting the fact that the few they leave croak of God knows what epidemics. So I'm going to Tonkin. What a fine hunting−ground! It's the fourth time, my dear sir, that I'm going to Tonkin.” “Ah, really?” “Yes! In Tonkin every sort of game is abundant. But especially the peacock. What shooting, sir! Besides, it's a dangerous sport; you have to have an


eye for it.” “Doubtless these are ferocious peacocks?” “My God, no. But this is the way it is: Wherever there are deer, there are tigers... and wherever there are tigers, there are peacocks!” “An aphorism?” “You must understand me. Follow carefully... the tiger eats the deer, and—” “The peacock eats the tiger?” I gravely suggested. “Absolutely... that is to say... here is the thing. When the tiger is gorged with the deer, 'he falls asleep; then he awakes, relieves himself and goes away. What does the peacock do? Perched in the neighboring trees, he prudently awaits this departure, then he drops to earth and eats the tiger's dung. And that is the precise moment you must surprise him... “ And with his arms raised as though holding a rifle, he made the gesture of ,aiming at an imaginary peacock: “Ah, what peacocks! you haven't the least idea! For, what you take for peacocks in our aviaries and gardens, aren't even turkeys. They're nothing. My dear sir, I've killed all sorts of things. I've even killed


men. Well! never has the report of a rifle given me so keen an emotion as the times I've fire at peacocks. Peacocks, how can I tell you, sir... are magnificent to kill!” Then, after a silence, he concluded: “Travel—that's the thing! In traveling you see extraordinary things which make you think.” “Doubtless,” I agreed, “but one must be a great observer, like you.” “It's true! I've observed a great deal,” the good gentleman ostentatiously said. “Well, of all the countries I've traveled in—Japan, China; Madagascar, Haiti, and a section of Australia—I know none more entertaining than Tonkin. Now perhaps you think you've seen hens?” “Yes, I believe so—” “Your error, my dear sir, you have never seen hens. You have to go to Tonkin for that, and then you won't see them. They're in the forests, and they hide in the trees. You never see them. Only, I have a trick. I travel upstream in a sampan, with a cock in a cage. I stop at the edge of the forest and hang the cage at the end of a branch. The cock crows. Then from all the depths of the forest, the hens come...


and come. They come in unnumbered bands. And I kill them! I have killed as many as twelve hundred in the same day!” “It's remarkable!” I exclaimed enthusiastically. “Yes, yes. But not as much so as peacocks, however. Ah, the peacocks!” But this gentleman was not only a hunter; he was also a gambler. Long before we were in sight of Naples, the two Chinese, the peacock−killer and I had gotten up a fast game of poker. Thanks to my special knowledge of that game, when we arrived at Port Said, I had relieved these three incomparable gentlemen of their money and tripled the capital I was bearing toward the joys of the tropics, and the Unknown of fictitious embryology.


PART 6

At that time I would have been incapable of the meagerest poetical description—poetry having come to me afterwards, with love. To be sure, I enjoyed the beauties of nature, like everybody else, but they had never overwhelmed me to the point of ecstasy; I enjoyed them, in my way, which was that of a conservative republican. And I said to myself: “Nature, seen from a train window or the porthole of a ship, is always and everywhere herself; her principal characteristic being that she lacks the ability for improvisation. She repeats herself constantly, possessing but a small stock of forms, combinations and aspects, which are found here and there in almost identical arrangements. In her immense and clumsy monotony, she varies only in scarcely perceptible nuances, which are only interesting to trainers of little animals, which I am not—though an embryologist—and to splitters of hairs. Briefly, when you have traveled over a hundred square miles of countryside, no matter where, you have seen everything.” And that little swine Eugene had


exclaimed: “You'll see nature... trees... flowers!” As far as I'm concerned, trees get on my nerves, and I only tolerate flowers in the modiste's shops, and on hats. As for tropical nature—Monte Carlo would have been amply sufficient to my needs as an esthetic connoisseur of landscapes, and my dreams of distant travel. I understand palm trees, cocoanuts, bananas, mangroves, shaddock and pandanus, only if I can gather in their shade all sorts of pretty little women who munch between their lips something better than the betel−nut. Coconut tree: the cocotte−tree. I only like trees of this truly Parisian classification. Ah, what a deaf and blind brute I was then! How could I, with such nauseating cynicism, have blasphemed the infinite beauty of Form, which passes from man to beast, from beast to plant, from the plant to the mountain, the mountain to the cloud, and from the cloud to the pebble, which contains in reflection all the splendors of life! Although it was the month of October, the crossing of the Red Sea was excruciating. The heat


was crushing, and the air so heavy on our European lungs that many times I thought I would die of asphyxiation. During the day we scarcely left the saloon where the great Indian punka, constantly in motion, gave us the evanescent illusion of a fresh breeze; and we passed the nights on the deck where, however, it was no more possible for us to sleep than in our cabins. The Norman gentleman panted like an ailing bull, and thought no more of relating his stories of the hunting in Tonkin. The most boastful and intrepid of the passengers were the most completely knocked out... inert of limb and wheezing like foundered beasts. There was nothing more ridiculous than the sight of these people, prostrate in their variegated pajamas. Only the two Chinese seemed insensible to this flaming temperature; they had changed their behavior no more than their clothes, and spent their time in silent promenades on the deck or playing cards or dice in their cabins. We couldn't get interested in anything. Besides, nothing distracted us from the torture of feeling ourselves cooking slowly and steadily, like a stew.


The steamer was sailing across the gulf: above us, around us, there was nothing but the blue sky and the blue sea—a dark blue—the blue of heated metal here and there reflecting the glow of the forge upon its surface. We could scarcely make out the coasts of Somaliland—that red and distant mass shrouded by the vaporous heat of mountains of burning sand, where no tree or grass grew, and whose shores contained this sinister sea—an immense reservoir of bailing water—in a constantly seething cauldron. I might say that during this crossing I displayed great courage, and succeeded in concealing my actual state of suffering. I attained it through conceit and love. Chance—was it really chance, or the captain?—had given me Miss Clara for a table−mate. An incident at table brought about our almost immediate acquaintance. Besides, my high station and the curiosity of which I was the object, authorized certain lapses from the ordinary conventions of good breeding. As I had learned from the captain, Miss Clara was returning to China after dividing her entire


summer between England, for her business affairs, Germany for her health, and France for her amusements. She confessed to me that Europe disgusted her more and more. She could no longer endure its provincial customs, its ridiculous habits, and its skimpy landscapes. She only felt happy and free in China. She was of a very resolute demeanor, a very extraordinary mode of life, talked sometimes at random and sometimes with a lively feeling for things; of a feverish gaiety pushed to the bizarre, sentimental and philosophic, ignorant and educated, impure and frank and mysterious. Finally, she was given to strange lapses, flights of fancy, incomprehensible caprices and terrible desires, and intrigued me greatly although one must expect everything of an eccentric Englishwoman. And I never doubted from the start I who, in the matter of women, had only known—Parisian cocottes—and what is worse, female politicians and literati—I never doubted that I might easily have conquered this one, and I looked forward to enjoying my trip with her in an unexpected and charming manner. With her reddish hair and gleaming skin, a laugh always ready


to peal forth from her fleshy red lips, she was truly the delight of the ship and like its soul was en route towards mad adventures and the idyllic freedom of virgin countries and the fiery tropics. The Eve of that marvelous paradise—a flower herself—flower of intoxication and the tasty fruit of eternal desire, I could see her wander and skip about amid the flowers and golden fruits of the primordial orchards, no longer in this dress of white poplin, which molded her lithe form and filled out her bosom with pulsating life, like a bud, but in the supernatural splendor of her biblical nudity. I was not slow to recognize the error of my gallant diagnosis, and the fact that Miss Clara) contrary to what I had so egotistically predicted, was impregnably virtuous. Far from being frustrated by this discovery, she appeared all the prettier to me, and I conceived an actual pride in the fact that she, the pure and virtuous, accepted me—vile and debauched as I was—with such simple and gracious confidence. I did not want to listen to the inner voices which were crying; 'This woman lies. This woman is laughing at you. Look, idiot! at those eyes which


have seen everything; that mouth which has kissed everything; those hands which have caressed very thing; that flesh which has so often trembled with all the lusts, and in every possible embrace! Pure? Ha! And those knowing gestures? And that softness and suppleness, and those movements of the body which retain all the gestures of the caress? And that bust, swollen like the calyx of a flower drunk with pollen?' No, in truth, I did not listen to them. And for me it was a deliciously chaste sensation, compounded of tenderness, gratitude and pride—a sensation of moral rehabilitation, to enter further every day into an intimacy with a lovely and virtuous person, whom I decided at the beginning would never be anything to me—nothing but a soul! This idea elevated me and rehabilitated me in my own eyes. Thanks to this pure daily contact, I was gaining—yes, gaining self−respect. All the mire of my past was being transformed to luminous azure, and I glimpsed the future through the tranquil, limpid emerald of continual happiness. Oh, how far from me were Eugene Mortain, Mme. G—, and their like! How all those faces of grinning phantoms were melting by


the minute, more and more, beneath the celestial glance of this lustral creature through whom I was being revealed to myself as a new man, with generosity, tenderness, and impulses I would never have expected of myself. Oh, the ironical tenderness of love! Ah, the comic enthusiasms which lie within the human soul! Often, beside Clara, I believed in the reality and grandeur of my mission, and that I had in me the genius to revolutionize the embryology of the entire universe. One thing leading to another, we soon arrived at mutual confidences. By a series of cleverly calculated lies which, prompted on one hand by vanity and on the other by a quite natural desire not to lower myself in the mind of my friend, I displayed myself entirely to my advantage in my role of scientist, narrated my biological discoveries, my academic successes, and all the hopes which the most illustrious men of science placed in my theory and my trip. Then, abandoning these somewhat arduous heights, I mixed anecdotes of my social life with appreciations of literature and art, half−sound and half−perverse, enough to interest the mind of a


woman without disturbing it. And these light and frivolous conversations to which I forced myself to give a witty turn, endowed my grave scientific personality with a particular and perhaps unique character. I succeeded in conquering Miss Clara during that crossing of the Red Sea. Overcoming my discomfort, I was able to devise ingenious and delicate attentions which assuaged her own discomfort. When the Saghalien touched at Aden to take on coal, she and I were perfect friends—friends blessed by that miraculous friendship which is not troubled by a single glance, and whose lovely lucidity is not tarnished by an ambiguous gesture or a guilty design. Still, the voices in me kept crying: 'But look at those nostrils which breathe in all life with terrific lust. Look at those teeth which so often have bitten into the bleeding fruit of sin.' Heroically, I silenced them. It was a great joy when we entered the waters of the Indian Ocean; after the excruciating and torturing days on the Red Sea, it seemed like a resurrection. A new life, a life of gaiety and activity took possession of the ship, although the temperature was still very warm, the air was delicious to breathe,


like the scent of furs that a woman has just laid aside. A light breeze, apparently impregnated with all the perfumes of the tropical flora, refreshed the body and the mind. And all about us there was a dazzling brilliance. The sky, translucid as a fairy grotto, was of a green gold, streaked with rose; the calm sea, heaving with a powerful rhythm under the breath of the monsoon, lay before us extraordinarily blue, and mottled here and there by great emerald−green whorls. We actually felt the physical caress of the approach of magic continents, the lands of light where life, one mysterious day, had uttered its first infantile cries. And on all our faces, even the Norman gentleman's, there was a little of that sky, that sea, and that light. Miss Clara—it goes without saying—attracted and greatly excited the men; she was always surrounded by a court of passionate adulators. I was not at all jealous, being certain that she considered them all ridiculous, and that she preferred me to all the others, even to the two Chinese with whom she held frequent conversations, but whom she did not look at (as she did me) with that strange look in


which I seemed several times, and with great reluctance, to have discovered moral complicity and a secret meaning. Among the most fervent there was a French explorer who Was going to the Malay Peninsula to study its copper−mines, and an English officer whom we had taken on at Aden, and who was returning to his post at Bombay. They were, each in his own way, heavy but amusing brutes, whom Clara loved to make fun of. The explorer was ceaselessly talking about his recent trek across central Africa. As for the English officer, who was a captain in the artillery, he tried to dazzle Us by describing all his inventions in ballistics. One evening on deck, after dinner, we were all gathered about Clara, who was delightfully lounging in a rocking−chair. Some smoked cigarettes and others dreamed. All of us, at heart, had this same desire for Clara, and all, with the same dream of ardent possession, followed the play of her little feet clad in their small pink mules, which, with the rocking of the chair, extended from the perfumed calyx of her skirts, like the pistils of a flower. We said nothing.


The night was magically balmy and the ship glided voluptuously along on the sea, as though on silk. Clara addressed the explorer: “Well?” she said, in a malicious voice, “you're not joking? You've actually eaten human flesh?” “Yes, certainly!” he replied proudly, and in a tone which established his indisputable superiority over us. “We simply had to... you eat what you can get.” “What does it taste like?” she asked, slightly disgusted. He thought a moment. Then making a vague gesture: “My God!” he said, “how can I explain it? Imagine, adorable lady—imagine pork—pork pickled slightly in nutmeg oil.” Careless and resigned, he added: “It's not very good. Besides, you don't eat it out of gluttony. I prefer a leg of mutton, or a beefsteak.” “Obviously!” consented Clara. And, as though out of politeness she had wished to minimize the horror of this anthropology, she specified: “Because, undoubtedly, you only ate negro flesh!” “Negro!” he exclaimed with a start. “Ugh! Luckily,


dear lady, I was not driven to that harsh necessity. We never lacked for whites, thank God! Our escort was large, and composed chiefly of Europeans. Marseillais, Germans, Italians... a little of everything. When we were too hungry, we slaughtered one of the escort, preferably a German. The German, divine lady, is fatter than the other races, and he provides more. And then, for us other Frenchmen, it was one German less! The Italian is dry and tough—.full of sinews—” “And the Marseillais?” I interrupted. “Ugh!” declared the traveler, tossing his head. “The Marseillais is much too rich; he smells of garlic and also, I don't know why, of grease. I wouldn't say he was appetizing... no... he's edible, that's all.” Turning to Clara with gestures of protestation, he insisted: “But negro flesh—never! I think I would have thrown it up. I know people who have eaten it... they fell sick. The negro is indigestible. There are even some, I assure you, who are poisonous.” But, scrupulously, he corrected himself: “After all, you have to try him once—like


mushrooms, eh? Perhaps the Indian negroes allow themselves to be eaten?” “No!” affirmed the English officer in an abrupt and categorical tone that, in the midst of laughter, closed this culinary discussion which was beginning to turn my stomach. A little discountenanced, the explorer went on: “No matter... despite all these slight annoyances, I am very happy to have left again. In Europe I'm sick... I'm not alive... I don't know where to go. In Europe I feel degraded and imprisoned, like a beast in a cage. Impossible to find elbow−room, extend your arms or open your mouth, without bumping into stupid prejudices and idiotic laws... evil customs. Last year, charming lady, I was walking through a wheat field. I mowed down the blades around me with my cane... it amused me. Surely I have the right to do what pleases me, haven't I? A peasant ran up and started to shout, insult me, order me out of his field. It's unimaginable! What would you have done in my place? I dealt him three vigorous blows on the head with my cane. He fell with a fractured skull. Well, imagine what happened to me—”


“Perhaps you ate him—?” Clara laughingly suggested. “No. They dragged me before some judges or other, who sentenced: me to two months in prison and ten thousand francs fine and damages. For a damned peasant! And they call that civilization! Can you believe it! Well, much obliged—in Africa, if I had been sentenced like that every time I'd kill a negro, or even a white—” “Oh, you've also killed negroes?” said Clara. “Yes, certainly, adorable lady.” “Why—since you don't eat them?” “Well—to civilize them—that is to say, to take their stocks of ivory and resins. And then, what do you expect? If the governments and business houses who entrust colonizing expeditions to us learned that we hadn't killed anyone, what would they say?” “That's true!” agreed the Norman gentleman. “Besides, negroes are wild beasts.—. poachers... tigers. “Negroes? What a mistake, my dear sir. They are gentle and gay... they are like children. Have you ever seen rabbits playing in the meadow in the


evening, at the edge of the woods?” “Certainly!” “They make pretty, frolicsome movements; they shine their fur with their paws and bound about and roll in the mint−leaves. Well, negroes are like young rabbits... it's very charming!” “However, it is certain that they're cannibals?” persisted the gentleman. “Negroes!” protested the explorer. “Not at all! in all the black Countries the whites are the only cannibals. The negroes eat bananas and graze on new grass. I know a scientist who even contends that the negro has a stomach like the ruminants. How can you expect him to eat flesh, especially human flesh?” “Then why kill them?” I objected, for I suddenly felt kind and full of pity. “But I just told you... to civilize them. And it's lots of fun! When, after marching and marching, we arrived in a negro village, they were very frightened! They immediately uttered cries of distress and didn't try to escape—they were so scared—and lay on the ground weeping. We gave them whiskey, for we


always kept a large supply of alcohol in our baggage, and when they were drunk we slaughtered them!” “Bad sportsmanship!” resumed the Norman gentleman with some disgust, for he was doubtless thinking right then of the Tonkin forests, and seeing those marvelous flocks of peacocks flying back and forth. The night trailed brilliantly on; the sky was ablaze; about us the ocean was spread with great sheets of phosphorescent light. And I was sad, longing for Clara, bored with these gross men, bored with myself and our conversation which offended silence and beauty! Suddenly: “Do you know Stanley?” Clara asked the explorer. “Yes, certainly I know him,” he replied. “And what do you think of him?” “Oh, him!” he said, shaking his head. And as though his mind were a prey to frightful memories, he said, in a grave voice: “He goes a bit too far, just the same!” I felt that for some minutes past the captain had wanted to speak. He profited by the moment of


respite which followed this declaration: “I!” he said, “I've done much more than all that. And your little massacres are nothing beside those owing me. I have invented a bullet. It's extraordinary. I call it the Dum−Dum, after the name of the little Hindu village where I had the honor to invent it.” “It kills lots of people? More than the others?” Clara asked. “Oh, dear lady—how can you ask!” he said, laughing. “It's incalculable!” And modestly, however, he added: “However, that's nothing... it's very small! Imagine a little thing... how do you say?... a little nut, that's it! Imagine a very little nut! It's charming.” “And what a pretty name, captain!” said Clara. “Very pretty, in fact,” agreed the captain, obviously flattered, “very poetic!” “You'd say—wouldn't you—you'd say it was the name of a fairy in one of Shakespeare's comedies. The fairy Dum−Dum! It enchants me. A laughing, light and quite blond fairy, hopping, dancing and bounding about amid the heather and the sunbeams. And there you are... Dum−Dum!”


“And there you are!” the officer repeated. “absolutely! Besides, it works quite well, adorable lady... I think the most unique thing about it is that, with it, there aren't, so to speak, any more wounded.” “Ah!” “There are only dead men! That's why it's so really exquisite!” He turned to me, and with an accent of regret in which our mutual patriotism became one, he sighed: “Ah, if you had had it in France at the time of that frightful Commune! What a triumph!” Then, switching abruptly to another line of thought: “I sometimes wonder if it's not a tale out of Edgar Allen Poe or a dream of our Thomas de Quincy. But no, since I myself tested that admirable little Dum−Dum. Here is the story. I stood up twelve Hindus—” “Alive?” “Naturally! The Emperor of Germany is the one who tries his ballistic experiments on corpses. Confess it's absurd and quite inconclusive. I work with people—not only living, but of robust constitution and in perfect health. At least you can


see what you're doing, and where you're going. I am no dreamer. I'm a scientist.” “A thousand pardons, captain! Go right on!” “Well, I had twelve Hindus stood up, one behind the other, in a geometrically straight line... and fired.” “Well?” Clara interrupted. “Well, my charming friend, this little Dum−Dum did marvels. Of the twelve Hindus, not one remained standing! The bullet had gone through their twelve bodies which, after the shot, were only twelve heaps of mangled flesh and bones literally ground to dust. Magic—absolute magic! And I'd never dreamed of such an admirable result.” “Admirable indeed, and smacking of the prodigious.” “Doesn't it?” And, thoughtfully, after some seconds of a stirring silence: “I am looking,” he murmured confidentially, “I am looking for something better... something more final. I am looking for a bullet, a little bullet which will annihilate what it hits, leaving nothing... nothing—nothing! Do you understand?” “How is that? What do you mean, nothing?”


“Oh, very little then!” explained the officer; “scarcely a heap of ashes, or even a light reddish smoke which will immediately vanish. It's possible.” “Automatic incineration, then?” “Absolutely! Have you considered the innumerable advantages of such an invention? In this way I eliminate army surgeons, nurses, ambulances, military hospitals, pensions for the wounded, etc. It would constitute an incalculable economy, a lightening of governmental budgets, not to mention hygiene! What a conquest for hygiene!” “And you might call that the Nib—Nibbulled?” I exclaimed. “Very pretty, very pretty!” applauded the artilleryman who, although he had not at all understood this slangy interruption, started to laugh uproariously, with that honest and frank laugh characteristic of soldiers of all ranks and all nations. When he had calmed down: “I foresee,” he said, “that when France comes to know about this splendid device she will abuse us again in all her newspapers. And it will be the fiercest of your patriots, the very men who shout loudly that


not enough millions are ever spent for war, and who only talk of killing and bombardment—it will be those who will once more make England the target for the execration of civilized races. But damn it all! we aren't logical in our state of universal barbarity. What! they admit that shells are explosive, and they don't want bullets to be! Why not? We live under the laws of war. Well, what constitutes war? It consists of massacring as many men as you can in the least possible time. In order to make It more and more murderous and expeditious, you have to find more and more formidable engines of destruction. It makes for humaneness, and also modern progress. “But captain,” I objected, “what about peoples rights? What do you think of that?” The officer sneered; and lifting his arms to the sky: “People's rights!” he replied, “it's merely the right we possess to massacre people en masse or singly, with shells or bullets—it doesn't matter—provided that people are duly massacred!” One of the Chinese interposed: “We are not savages, however!” he said.


“Not savages? and what else are we, I ask you? We are worse savages than the Australian bushmen, since, possessing the knowledge of our savagery, we persist in it. And since it's by war—that is to say theft, pillage and massacre—that we learn to govern, carryon commerce, arbitrate our differences, avenge our honor... Well! We have only to bear with the inconveniences of this state of brutality in which we nevertheless desire to remain. We are brutes—agreed! Let's act like brutes!” Then, in a gentle and profound voice, Clara said: “Besides, it would be a sacrilege to fight against death. Death is so beautiful!” She arose, white and mysterious beneath the electric deck light. The fine long silk shawl which enveloped her, wrapped her in pale and shifting reflections. “Till tomorrow!” she said. All of us stood around her, assiduously attentive. The officer had taken her hand, and kissed it, and I detested his masculine face, his supple loins, his taut limbs and his forceful demeanor. He apologized to his audience: “Forgive me,” he said, “for having allowed myself


to be carried away by such a subject, and for having forgotten that in the presence of a woman such as you, one should never talk of anything but love.” Clara replied: “But captain, when you speak of death, you also speak of love!” She took my arm, and I escorted her to her cabin where her women were waiting to prepare her for bed. The entire evening I was haunted by massacre and destruction. My sleep was quite feverish that night. Capering about over the red heather and amid the rays of a bloody sun, I saw the blond, laughing and leaping little fairy, Dum−Dum... the little fairy, Dum−Dum, which had the eyes, the mouth and all the unknown and unveiled flesh of Clara.


PART 7

One time my friend and I were leaning side by side against the rail, and looking at the sea and the sky. The day would soon be done. In the sky, great birds—blue kingfishers—were following the ship, balancing themselves with the exquisite movements of a ballerina; on the sea, schools of flying−fish rose at our approach and, gleaming in the sun, dove in farther off to reappear immediately, scudding over the water which was blue as brilliant turquoise that day. Then schools of jellyfish, red jellyfish, green jellyfish, purple, rose and mauve, floated like heaps of flowers on the soft surface, and their colors were so magnificent that every moment Clara uttered cries of admiration as she pointed them out to me. Then, suddenly, she asked: “Tell me. What is the name of these marvelous creatures?” I might have improvised bizarre names or sought scientific nomenclature. I did not even attempt it. Moved by an immediate, spontaneous and violent need of frankness:


“I don't know!” I firmly replied. I felt I was lost, that I was also losing this vague and charming dream which had cradled my hopes and soothed my anxieties—irrevocably losing it; that I was going to fall back even deeper than ever into the inevitable mire of my life as a pariah. I felt all this. But there was something stronger than all that in me, which commanded me to wash myself of all my impostures, all my lies; all this veritable abuse of confidence, by which I had fraudulently achieved, in a cowardly and criminal fashion, the friendship of a person who had had faith in my words. “No, really, I don't know!” I repeated, giving to this simple negation a quality of dramatic exaltation of which it did not admit. “How strangely you say that! Are you crazy? What's the matter with you?” said Clara, astonished at the sound of my voice and the strange incoherence of my gestures. “I don't know... I don't know... I don't know!” And to add more force of conviction to that triple 'I don't know!' I violently struck the rail three times. “What, you don't know? A scientist... a


naturalist?” “I am not a scientist, Miss Clara, I am not a naturalist—I am nothing,” I cried. “A wretch, yes... I am a wretch! I've lied to you, shamefully lied. You must know the sort of man I am. Listen to me...” Panting, agitated, I related my life: Eugene Mortain, Mme. G—, the imposture of my mission, all my filth, all my mire. I took an atrocious delight in accusing myself, making myself viler, more of an outcast and still blacker than I was. When I had finished this distressing tale, I said to my friend, in a flood of tears: “Now it's all over! You will detest me, despise me, like the others, you will turn away from me with disgust. And you will be right, and I won't complain. It's frightful! But I can't live like this any longer. I want no more lies between us.” I wept copiously, and I stuttered incoherent words, like a child. “It's horrible! It's horrible! and I who... for after all... it's true, I swear to you! I who... you understand. A whirlpool, that's it... a whirlpool. I was caught in a whirlpool. I didn't know it. And then your soul... ah, your soul!... your gentle soul... your pure glances...


and your... your dear... yes, after all... you know it well... your dear welcome, it was my salvation... my redemption... my... my. It's horrible... it's horrible! I'm losing all that! It's horrible!” While I was talking and weeping Miss Clara looked at me attentively. Oh, that look! Never—no never, shall I forget the glance that adorable woman fixed upon me—an extraordinary glance, which held at the same time astonishment, joy, pity, and love—yes, love—and malice too, and irony... and everything. A glance which entered into me, penetrated me, probed me and overwhelmed my soul and my flesh. “Well,” she said simply, “that doesn't astonish me very much. And I honestly believe all scientists are like you.” Without taking her eyes off me, she gave her clear and pretty laugh—a laugh like the song of a bird: “I knew one of them,” she went on. “He was a naturalist... of your type. He had been sent by the British government to study the coffee−parasite on the plantations in Ceylon. Well, for three months, he


did not leave Colombo. He spent his time playing poker and getting drunk on champagne.” Still looking at me with a strange, profound and voluptuous look—always focused on me—after some seconds of silence she added, in a tone of commiseration in which it seemed to me I heard all the exultation of forgiveness: “Oh the little swine!” I no longer knew what to say, or whether to laugh or weep again, or whether to kneel at her feet. Timidly, I mumbled: “Then... you're not angry with me? You don't despise me? You forgive me?” “Silly!” she said. “Oh, the little fool!” “Clara! Clara! Is it possible?” I cried, almost fainting for joy. As the dinner−bell had long since rung and there was no longer anyone on that part of the deck, I came closer to Clara, so close that I could feel her loins trembling against me, and her heart beating. And seizing her hands, which she left in mine, while my heart rose tempestuously in me, I cried: “Clara! Clara! do you love me? Ah, I beg you! Do


you love me?” She replied feebly: “I'll tell you that, this evening... in my cabin!” In her eyes I saw the flicker of a green flame, a terrible flame which terrified me. She withdrew her hands from my grasp, a heavy line suddenly crossed her forehead, and with her head bowed, she was silent and looked at the sea. What was she thinking about? I could tell nothing. And, looking out to sea myself, I thought: While I was an honorable man in her eyes, she did not love me. But the minute she understood what I was, when she breathed the true and foul odor of my soul, love was born in her—for she does love me! Well, well! There is nothing real, then, except evil! Evening had come; then, without any twilight, it was night. An ineffable sweetness floated in the air. The ship sailed through boiling phosphorescent foam. Great lights skimmed over the sea. You'd have thought the fairies were rising from the sea, trailing long fiery mantles on the surface, and shaking and hurling great handfuls of golden pearls into the water.


PART 8

One morning, coming out on deck, I could make out, thanks to the transparence of the atmosphere, and as clearly as though I were treading its soil, the enchanted island of Ceylon; that green and red island crowned by the fairylike rosy whiteness of Adam's Peak. We had already been warned of its approach the evening before by the new perfumes of the sea and a mysterious invasion of butterflies which, after accompanying the ship for a few hours, suddenly disappeared. And without desiring anything more, both Clara and I found it exquisite that the island had extended us a welcome through the medium of these dazzling and poetic messengers. I had then reached such a point of sentimental poeticism that the mere sight of a butterfly made all the strings of tenderness and ecstasy vibrate in my breast. But that morning the actual sight of Ceylon caused me great anguish—and more than anguish—terror. What I caught a glimpse of over there beyond the waves, which were then the color


of forget−me−not, was not a territory, not a port, nor the burning curiosity of everything that stirs the ultimately lifted veil of the unknown in man. It was the brutal summons to evil life, the return to my forsaken instincts, the bitter and desolating reawakening of all which, during the crossing, had slumbered in me, and which I had thought dead! It was something more distressing, of which I had never dreamed, and which it was impossible for me not only to understand, but even conceive of its possible reality: the end of the prodigious dream which Clara's love had been for me. For the first time, a woman held me. I was her slave; I desired none but her; I wanted none but her. Nothing any longer existed outside or beyond her. Instead of extinguishing the fire of my love, every day possession fanned its flame. I descended further into the burning gulf of her desire each time, and every day I realized more strongly that my entire life would be exhausted seeking to reach its bottom! How could I accept the fact that, after having been conquered—soul, body and brain—by this irrevocable, indissoluble and martyrizing love, I


would have to immediately give it up? Madness! This love was a part of me, like my own flesh; it had taken the place of my blood and marrow; it possessed me entirely; it was I! To separate me from it meant to separate me from myself; it meant to kill me. Worse still! It meant the extravagant nightmare that my head was in Ceylon, my feet in China, separated by abysses of ocean, and that I would continue to live in these two stumps which could never be reunited! That the very next day I would no longer possess those swooning eyes, those devouring lips, the nightly renewed miracle of that body with its divine contours and savage embraces; and, after long spasms as powerful as sin and as deep as death, that naive stammering, those little laughs, those little tears, those languid little songs of a child or a bird—was it possible! And I would lose all that was more necessary for breathing than my lungs; more necessary for thinking than my brain; more necessary for nourishing my veins with warm blood than my heart! Impossible! I belonged to Clara like the coal belongs to the fire which devours and consumes it. Both to her and me, a separation had


seemed so inconceivable and so insanely fantastic, so totally contrary to the laws of nature and life, that we had never spoken of it. The evening before, our communing hearts had thought of nothing—and without even mentioning it—but the eternity of the voyage, as though the ship which bore us on might carry us thus forever, and never, never arrive anywhere. For to arrive somewhere means to die! Yet, here I was about to get off, plunge into that green and that red, disappear over there in that unknown... more frightfully alone than ever! And here was Clara, soon to be no more than a phantom, then a little grey speck scarcely visible in space... then nothing... nothing... nothing! Ah, anything rather than that! Ah, let the sea engulf us both. The sea was gentle, calm and radiant. It exhaled the perfumes of a Utopian shore, a blossoming orchard and a bed of love, which made me weep. The deck was thronged; nothing but happy faces, eyes strained by waiting and curiosity: “We're entering the bay... we're in the bay!” “I see the shore.” “I see the trees.”


“I see the lighthouse.” “We're here... we're here!” Each of these exclamations fell heavily on my heart. I no longer wanted before me the sight of this island, still distant but so implacably clear—which every turn of the screw brought nearer to me, and turning from it, I gazed at the infinity of the sky into which I prayed I might disappear, like those birds over there, so high, which flew for a moment through the air and disappeared so easily. Clara hastened to join me. Was it from having loved too much? Was it from having wept too long? For her eyelids were darkened, and her eyes with their dark blue rings expressed more than sadness: there was actually an ardent pity in them, both belligerent and commiserative. Beneath her heavy golden−brown hair, her forehead was crossed by a line of shadow; that line which was there in desire, as well as in pain. A strangely intoxicating perfume emanated from her hair. She said to me, simply, this single word: “Already?” “Alas!” I sighed.


She finished adjusting her hat, a little sailor−hat which she fastened with a long gold pin. Her raised arms made her breasts stand out, and I could see their sculptural curves outlined beneath the white blouse which enveloped them. She continued in a voice which trembled slightly: “Had you thought about it?” “No!” Clara bit her lips. “And then?” she said. I did not answer. I had not the strength to answer. My head empty, my heart torn, I should have liked to slip into oblivion. She was moved, very pale, except her mouth which seemed redder, and heavy with kisses. For a long time her eyes questioned me with great intensity. “The ship touches at Colombo two days. Then it leaves again. Did you know it? “Yes! yes!” “And then?” “And then... it's over!” “Can I do something for you?” “Nothing... thanks! for it's all over!”


And stifling my sobs in my throat, I stuttered: “You've been everything to me. You've been more than everything to me! Don't speak to me any more, I beg you! It's too distressing... too uselessly distressing. Don't speak to me any more... for now, everything is over!” “Nothing is ever over,” proclaimed Clara; “nothing, not even death!” A bell rang. Ah, that bell! How it tolled in my heart! How it tolled the death−knell of my heart! The passengers crowded on the deck, shouting, exclaiming, questioning each other, leveling lorgnettes opera−glasses and cameras at the approaching island. The Norman gentleman, pointing out the masses of foliage, was describing the jungles impenetrable to the hunter. And amid the tumult and jostling, indifferent and reflective, their hands crossed in their wide sleeves, the two Chinese continued their slow, grave, daily promenade, like two priests reciting their breviaries. “We're here!” “Hurrah! hurrah! We're here!” “I see the city.'”


“Is that the city?'” “No! that's a coral ledge...” “I can make out the wharf...” “No! No!” “What's that coming, out there on the sea?” Already, in the distance, a little flotilla of barks with their pink sails was coming out to the steamer. The two smokestacks, belching clouds of black smoke, covered the sea with a mourning−pall, and the siren moaned forever... forever. No one paid any attention to us. Clara asked me, in a tone of imperious tenderness: “Well! what's to become of you?” “I don't know! And what difference does it make? I was lost... I met you. You have held me from the brink of the abyss for a few days. Now I'll fall back into it. It was inevitable!” “Why inevitable? You're a child! And you have no confidence in me. Do you really think it was by chance you met me?” After a long silence, she added: “It's so simple! I have powerful friends in China. They could undoubtedly do a lot for you! Would you


like—” I did not give her time to finish: “No, not that!” I begged, resisting feebly. “Anyway—above all, not that! I understand you... Don't say any more.” “You're a child,” Clara repeated, “and talk like they do in Europe, darling. And you have stupid scruples, like in Europe. In China life is free, joyous, complete, unconventional, unprejudiced, lawless... at least for us. No other limits to liberty than yourself... or to love, than the triumphant variety of your desire. Europe and its hypocritical, barbaric civilization is a lie. What else do you do there except lie—lie to yourself and others, lie about everything you recognize in your heart to be true? You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise, condemn, and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad, troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all


joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That's the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world. With us, there's nothing like it... you'll see! In Canton I own a palace amid marvelous gardens, where everything is conducive to a free life, and to love. What are you afraid of? What are you leaving behind? Who cares about you! When you don't love me any more, or when you are too unhappy... you go away. “Clara! Clara!” I implored. She stamped sharply on the deck of the ship: “You don't know me yet,” she said, “you don't know what I am, and you want to leave me already! Do I frighten you? Are you a coward?” “I could not live without you! Without you, I could only die!” “Well, stop trembling... and stop weeping... and come with me!” A light flashed in her green pupils, and in a low, almost raucous voice, she said: “I'll teach you terrible things... divine things... you'll know at last what love really is! I promise you'll descend with me to the very depths of the mystery of


love... and death!” And smiling an evil smile which made a shiver run through my bones, she said again: “Poor baby! You thought yourself a great debauchee... a great rebel! Ah! your little remorse... do you remember! And now your soul is as timid as a little child's!” It was true! I had vainly boasted of being an uncompromising swine, thought myself superior to moral prejudices. I still occasionally heard the voice of duty and honor which, at certain moments of nervous depression, rose from the troubled depths of my conscience. Whose honor? what duty? What a sink of madness is man's mind! In what way would my honor—my honor!—be compromised, in what way would I shirk my duty if I continued my voyage all the way to China, instead of rotting away in Ceylon? Had I actually crawled far enough into the skin of a scientist to imagine that I was going to 'study the pelagic ooze,' or discover 'the cell,' by plunging into the gulfs of the Singhalese coast? This quite grotesque idea, that I had taken my embryological mission seriously, quickly led me back


to the reality of my situation. What! fate or a miracle had willed it that I meet a woman, divinely beautiful, rich, exceptional, and whom I loved and who loved me, and who offered me an extraordinary life, joy in abundance, unique sensations, libertine adventures, luxurious protection... salvation after all... and more than salvation—bliss! And I was going to let it all slip through my fingers! Once more the demon of perversity, that stupid demon to whom lowed all my unhappiness—because I had so stupidly obeyed him—intervened again and advised me hypocritically to resist an un−hoped−for adventure, a fairy−tale come to life, which would never be encountered again and which I ardently desired from the bottom of my heart, and which had actually materialized. No... no! It was too stupid, after all! “You're right,” I said to Clara, ascribing solely to my defeat in love a submission which also included all my instincts of laziness and debauchery; you're right; I wouldn't be worthy of your eyes, your mouth and your heart... of all that paradise and that hell which is YOU, if I hesitated any longer. And then, I could not... I could not lose you. I can conceive of


everything but that. You are right, I belong to you; lead me where you wish. To suffer... to die... it makes no difference! since you—whom I still do not know—are my fate!” “Oh, baby! baby! baby!” said Clara in a singular tone whose true expression I could not unravel—whether it was joy, irony or pity! Then, almost maternally, she admonished me: “Now, don't worry about anything. Try to be happy. Stay here... look at the marvelous island. I'm going to arrange with the commissioner for your new status on board.” “Clara.” “Don't be afraid. I know what to say.” And as I was about to object: “Shush! Aren't you my baby, darling? You must obey. And then, you don't know... “ And she disappeared into the crowd of passengers huddled on deck, many of whom were already carrying their yalises and their lighter baggage. It had been decided that Clara and I would spend the two days in port at Colombo visiting the city and the suburbs, where my friend had stayed and which


she knew thoroughly. The heat there was torrid, so torrid that the coolest places—by comparison—in this atrocious land (where the scientists have located the earthly paradise), such as the gardens on the banks of the strand, seemed to me to be stifling steam rooms. The majority of our traveling−companions did not dare to risk this fiery temperature, which stripped them of the slightest desire to go out and the vaguest desire to move. I can still see them, ridiculous and moaning in the lobby of the hotel, wrapped in moistened and steaming napkins—elegant apparel renewed every quarter of an hour—which transformed the noblest part of their person into a chimney−pipe, crowned with its plume of steam. Slumped into rocking−chairs under the punka, their brains atrophied, their lungs congested, they drank iced drinks prepared for them by the boys who, by the color of their skin and the structure of their bodies, recalled the naive gingerbread men of our Parisian fairs; while other boys of the same hue and the same build kept the mosquitoes away from them by great sweeps of a fan. As for me, I recovered—perhaps a bit too


soon—all my gaiety and all my sprightly wit. My scruples had vanished; I no longer felt in a poetical mood. Relieved of my anxiety about the future, I once more became the man I was when I left Marseille; the stupid and critical Parisian, 'who can't be fooled'; the boulevardier who won't listen to nonsense, and who knows all about nature... even the tropics! To me Colombo seemed a boring and ridiculous city, unpicturesque and lacking in mystery. It was half Protestant, half Buddhist, besotted as a bronze and sullen as a pastor, and with what joy I congratulated myself on having miraculously escaped the profound boredom of its streets, its dead sky and its coarse vegetation. And I made jokes about the cocoanut trees, which I did not fail to compare to frightful plucked feather−dusters, as well as about the great plants which I accused of having been cut out of painted sheet−iron and polished zinc, by malicious workmen. Walking on Slave Island, which is the Bois of the place, or in Pettah, which is its Mouffetard quarter, we only encountered horrible Englishwomen out of an operetta, togged out as


though for a carnival, in light costumes, half−European and half Hindu; and Singhalese still more horrible than the Englishwomen, old at twelve years, wrinkled as prunes, twisted as aged vine−stalks, caved in like ruined straw huts, with gums like bleeding wounds, lips burned by the areca−nut and teeth the color of an old pipe. I sought in vain for the voluptuous women, the negresses with their wise love−techniques, the pert little lace makers of whom that liar Eugene Mortain had spoken, with their eyes so significantly provocative. And with all my heart I pitied the poor scientists they sent here, with their problematic mission of discovering the secret of life. But I realized Clara had no taste for these facile and Coarse jokes, and I found it prudent to attenuate them, not wishing to wound her either in her fervent cult or nature, or shrink in her estimation. On several occasions I had noticed that she listened to me with painful astonishment. “Why are you so gay?” She said to me, “I don't like people to be gay like that, darling. It hurts me. When you're gay it's because you're not in love. Love


is serious, sad and profound.” Which, however, did not prevent her from bursting into laughter apropos of anything or nothing. In this way she encouraged me greatly in a deception which I concocted, and which was this: Among the letters of recommendation I had brought from Paris, there was one to a certain Sir Oscar Terwick who, aside from his other scientific titles, was the president of the Association of Tropical Embryology and British Entomology at Colombo. At the hotel where I sought information, I learned, in fact, that Sir Oscar Terwick was quite a personage, the author of renowned works, and, in a word, a very great scientist. I decided to go to see him. Such a visit could no longer be dangerous to me, and besides, I was not sorry to know and make contact with an actual embryologist. He lived far off in a suburb called Kolpetty, which was, so to speak, the Passy of Colombo. There, in the midst of luxurious gardens, graced by the inevitable cocoanut tree, in spacious and bizarre villas, the rich merchants and notable officials of the city lived. Clara desired to accompany me. She waited for me


in the carriage not far from the savant's house, in a sort of little square shaded by immense teakwood trees. Sir Oscar Terwick received me politely—nothing more. He was a very tall man, very slender, very dry, very red in the face, and his white beard fell to his navel and was cut squarely like a pony's tail. He wore great trousers of yellow silk, and his hairy torso was wrapped in a sort of shawl of light wool. He gravely read the letter I handed him and, after having examined me out of the corner of his eye with a suspicious air—was he suspicious of me or of himself?—he asked me: “You... are... embryologist?” I nodded my head in assent. “All right!” he clucked. And making the gesture of trailing a net in the sea, he went on: “You... are... embryologist? Yes... You... You... comme ca... dans Ie mer... fish... fish... little fish?” “Little fish... absolutely... little fish,” I insisted, repeating the imitative gesture of the scientist. “Dans Ie mer?” “Yes!... yes.”


Tres interessant!... tres joli... tres curious! Yes.” Jabbering like this—and both of us continuing to drag our fanciful nets 'in the sea'—the noted scientist led me to a bamboo console on which three plaster busts were standing, crowned with artificial lotus. Indicating them respectively with his thumb, he presented them to me in so comically serious a tone I almost burst out laughing. “Master Darwin—very great—naturalist... very, very... great!... Yes!” I made a deep bow. “Master Haeckel... ires grand naturaliste... Not as great as he, no!... Mais tres grand! Master Haeckel ici... comme ca... lui... dans Ie mer... little fish.” I bowed again. And he exclaimed in a louder voice, laying his whole hand, red as a crab, upon the third bust: “Master Coqueline! Tres grand naturaliste... du miouseum... comment appelez?... du miouseum. Grevin—Yes!—Grevin! Tres joli—tres curious!” “Very interesting!” I agreed. “Yes!” After which he dismissed me.


I gave Clara a detailed and acted version of this interview. She laughed like a mad woman. “Oh baby!... baby... baby... how funny you are, you little devil!” This was the sole scientific episode of my mission. And I appreciated then what embryology was! The next morning, after a savage night of love, we put to sea again en route to China.
THE GARDEN
PART 1

“Why haven't you spoken to me yet about our dear Annie? Haven't you told her about my arrival? Won't she come today? Is she still as beautiful as ever?” What! Don't you know, darling? Annie is dead.” “Dead!” I exclaimed. “It's not possible. You're teasing me.” I looked at Clara. Divinely calm and pretty, naked in a transparent tunic of yellow silk, she was languidly stretched out on a tiger skin. Her head lay among the cushions, and with her hands, loaded with rings, she played with a long wisp of her flowing hair. A Laos dog with red hair slept beside her, its muzzle resting on her thigh and a paw upon her breast. “What?” Clara went on, “didn't you know? Why, that's funny!” All smiles, and stretching like a supple animal, she explained to me: “It was horrible, my dear! Annie died... died of that frightful scourge called elephantiasis... for everything here is frightful... love... disease... and the


flowers! Never have I wept so much, I assure you. I loved her so much—so much! And she was so beautiful!” She added, with a long and charming sigh: “Never again will we know the bitter taste of her kisses! It's a great misfortune!” “Then it's really true!” I stammered. “But how did it happen?” “I don't know. There are so many mysteries here, so many things that can't be understood. Both of us often used to go out on the river in the evening. I must tell you that there was a bayadere from Benares, in a flower—boat... a bewitching creature, my dear, whom the priests had taught certain cursed rites of the ancient Brahman cults. Perhaps it was that... or something else. One night when we were returning from the river, Annie complained of violent pains in the head and loins, and the next day her body was all covered with little purple spots. Her skin, rosier and finer than the althea flower, was hardening—thickening, swelling, and became an ashy grey. Great tumors and monstrous tubercles arose. It was something frightful. And the disease


which at first had attacked her legs, reached her thighs, her abdomen, her breasts, her face. Oh, her face, her face! Imagine an enormous pouch, a disgusting sack, all grey and striated with brown blood, and which hung and swayed with the least movement she made. Her eyes—her eyes, my darling! You could see no more of them than tiny, reddish, oozing holes. I still wonder if it's possible!” She twined the golden lock of her hair about her fingers. In his sleep the dog's paw had slipped along her silk tunic, entirely uncovering the globe of her breast, whose nipple arose, pink as a young flower. “Yes, I still wonder sometimes whether I'm not dreaming,” she said. “Clara... Clara!” I implored, aghast with horror, “don't tell me any more. I'd like the image of our divine Annie to remain intact in my memory. What can I do now to dispel this nightmare? Ah, Clara! don't say any more; or talk to me about Annie when she was so beautiful... when she was too beautiful!” Clara did not listen to me, but continued: “Annie isolated herself... shut herself up in her house, alone with a Chinese housekeeper who took


care of her. She had sent all her women away, and no longer wanted to see anyone... not even me. She summoned the cleverest practitioners of England. In vain, you may be Sure. The most celebrated sorcerers of Tibet—those who know the magic words and resuscitate the dead declared themselves powerless. You never recover from that disease; but you never die of it. It's frightful! “Then she killed herself. A few drops of poison, and that was the end of the most beautiful of women.” Terror sealed my lips. I looked at Clara, unable to utter a single word. “I learned from that Chinese woman,” Clara continued, “a really curious detail, which fascinated me. You know how much Annie loved pearls. She owned some incomparable specimens... the most marvelous, I believe, that ever existed. You also remember the almost physical joy, the carnal ecstasy, with which she adorned herself with them. Well, when she was sick that passion became a mania with her... a fury, like love! All day long she loved to touch them, caress them and kiss them j she made cushions of them, necklaces, capes,


cloaks. Then this extraordinary thing happened; the pearls died on her skin: first they tarnished, little by little... little by little they grew dim, and no light was reflected in their luster any more and, in a few days, tainted by the disease, they changed into tiny balls of ash. They were dead, dead like people, my darling. Did you know that pearls had souls? I think it's fascinating and delicious. And since then, I think of it every day.” After a short silence, she went on: “And that's not all! Annie often expressed the desire to be carried to the little Parsee cemetery when she died—over there, on the hill of the Blue Dog. She wanted her body to be torn to pieces by the beaks of vultures. You know what strange and violent ideas she had on all subjects? Well, the vultures refused this royal feast she offered them. They flew away from her corpse, uttering frightful cries. We had to cremate her. It was awful!” “But why didn't you write me all that?” I reproached Clara. With slow and charming gestures, Clara smoothed the red—gold of her hair and caressed the red fur of the dog, which had awakened, and she


said carelessly: “Really? Didn't I write you anything about that? Are you sure? Doubtless I'd forgotten. Poor Annie!” Again she spoke: Since that great misfortune, everything here bores me. I am too lonely. I would like to die... to die... I too. Ah, I assure you! And if you hadn't come back, I honestly believe I would be dead already.” She laid her head back on the cushions, bared her breast still more, and with a smile... the strange smile of both a child and a harlot: “Do my breasts still please you? Do you still think me beautiful? Then why were you gone so... so long? Yes... yes... I know... don't say anything more, don't answer... I know. You are a little fool, my darling!” I would have greatly liked to weep; but I couldn't. I would have greatly liked to speak again, but again I was unable. And we were in the garden, under the gilded kiosk, where the glycines hung in clusters, white clusters; and We finished having tea. Sparkling scarabees swarmed among the leaves, cetonia


beetles buzzed and died in the swooning hearts of the roses, and through the open door on the northern side, rising from the pool around which in the soft, mauve shadows, storks were sleeping, we could see the long stems of yellow irises, streaked with purple. Suddenly Clara asked me: “Would you like us to go and feed the Chinese Convicts? It's very curious... very amusing. It's really the only original and fashionable diversion we have here, in this God−forsaken corner of China. Would you like to, darling?” I felt fatigue, my head was heavy, all my being racked by the fever of that frightful climate. Besides, the story of Annie's death had overwhelmed my spirit. And the heat, moreover, was deadly as poison. “I don't know what you asked me, Clara dear, but I haven't recovered from that long trip across plains and plains... forests and forests. And that sun! I fear it more than death! Besides, I wanted so much to be alone with you, and you with me... today.” “That's right! If we were in Europe, and I'd asked you to accompany me to the races or the theatre, you wouldn't have hesitated. But it's so much nicer


than the races.” “Be kind! Tomorrow, if you like?” “Oh, tomorrow!” replied Clara, with an expression of surprise and her air of gentle reproach. “Always tomorrow! Don't you know that it's impossible tomorrow? Tomorrow—why it's strictly forbidden. The doors of the bagnio are closed, even to me. You can only feed the convicts on Wednesday; how is it you didn't know? If we miss this visit today, we'll have to wait a whole long week. How boring it would be! A whole week, think of it! Come, darling booby. Oh, come! I beg you. You could at least do that much for me. She lifted herself up on the cushions. The gaping tunic revealed patches of her ardent rosy flesh below the waist, amid the clouds of the silk. From a gold bonbon dish on a lacquer platter she took a quinine pellet with the tips of her fingers, and commanding me to approach, she put it gently between my lips. “You'll see how exciting it is... so exciting! You have no idea, darling. And how much more I'll love you tonight. How madly I'll love you tonight! Swallow, darling... swallow!”


Somber lights gleamed in her eyes, and as I was still sad and hesitant, to overcome my last objections, she said: “Listen! I've seen robbers hung in England; I've seen bullfights, and anarchists garroted in Spain. In Russia I've seen beautiful young girls whipped to death by soldiers. In Italy I've seen living phantoms—spectres of famine—disinter the bodies of cholera victims and eat them eagerly. I've seen thousands of souls beside a stream in India, stark naked, writhing and dying of the plague. In Berlin one evening I saw a woman I had loved the night before—a splendid creature in pink tights—I saw her devoured by a lion in a cage. All the horrors, all the human tortures—I have seen them. It was very lovely! But I've seen nothing lovelier... you understand?... than the Chinese convicts. It's lovelier than everything! You can't possibly know. I tell you, you can't possibly know. Annie and I never missed a Wednesday. Come, I beg you!” “Since it's so lovely, my dear Clara, and it gives you so much pleasure,” I answered sadly, “let's go and feed the convicts.”


“Really, you want to?” Clara expressed her delight, clapping her hands like a baby whose governess has just given it permission to torture a little dog. Then she jumped up on my knees, affectionate and feline, and threw her bare arms around my neck... and her hair smothered me, blinded my face with golden flames and intoxicating perfumes. “How nice you are... dear... dear darling. Kiss my lips... kiss my neck... kiss my hair... dear little devil!” Her hair possessed so powerful an animal odor and was so electrically stimulating, that its mere contact with my skin instantaneously made me forget fever, fatigue and pain... and I immediately felt heroic ardor and new strength flowing and surging through my veins. “Oh, what fun we'll have, sweetheart. When I go to see the convicts, it makes me dizzy, and thrills run through my entire body, like thrills of passion. It seems to me, you see... it seems to me that I'm sinking to the depths of my being... to the very deepest recesses of my being. Your mouth... give me your mouth... your mouth... your mouth!” Then


nimbly, quickly joyful and shameless, followed by the bounding red dog, she went to the women who dressed her. I was no longer very sad; I was no longer very tired. Clara's kiss, the taste of which I still had on my lips like a magic drop of opium—dulled my pain, relieved the throbbing of my fever, almost completely dispelled the monstrous image of Annie's death. And I looked calmly at the garden. Calmly? The garden descended in gentle slopes, graced everywhere by rare herbs and precious plants. An alley of enormous camphor trees began at the kiosk where I sat, and ended at a red door in the form of a temple, which opened out on the countryside. Between the leafy branches of the gigantic trees which concealed the view on the left, I could see the stream which gleamed like polished silver in the sun. I tried to become interested in the multiple decorations of the garden, in its strange flowers and grotesque vegetation. A man with two indolent panthers in leash, crossed the path. Here, in the center of a lawn, there stood an immense bronze


representing some divinity or other—obscene and cruel. There, cranes with blue plumage and red−throated toucans from tropical America, sacred pheasants, golden—crowned and golden−breasted ducks clad in brilliant purple like ancient warriors, and multicolored wading−birds, sought the shade beside the clumps of foliage. But neither the birds nor the felines, nor the gods, nor the flowers could hold my attention, nor the bizarre palace on my right which, between the dwarf cedars and the bamboos, lifted its bright terraces covered with flowers, and its shady balconies and covered roofs. My thoughts were elsewhere... very, very far away across the seas and the forests. They were centered in me, plunged into myself... in the very depths of my being! Calmly? Scarcely had Clara disappeared behind the foliage of the garden than I was seized with remorse at being there. Why had I returned? What madness and what cowardice had I obeyed? She had said to me one day you remember—on the ship: 'When you are too unhappy, you will go away.' I had believed myself fortified by my infamous past and, in fact, I


was only a worried and feeble child. Unhappy? Ah yes, I had been that—unhappy to the point of the worst possible torture; to the point of a prodigious disgust with myself. And I had gone away! With really vindictive irony I had profited by an English mission passing through Canton to escape from Clara—I was decidedly destined to follow missions. I was going to explore the lesser known regions of Annam. It meant forgetfulness, perhaps... and perhaps death. For two years—two long, cruel years, I had tramped and tramped—and there was neither forgetfulness nor death. Despite fatigue, danger and the accursed fever—I was not able for a day, nor for a minute, to cure myself of the frightful poison that woman had injected into my flesh—that woman to whom I felt myself attached and riveted. And I realized that the very thing that held me to her was the frightful rottenness of her soul and her crimes of love. She was a monster, and I loved her for being a monster! I had believed—had I really?—that her love could uplift me... and here I had descended even lower, to the floor of the tainted gulf out of which, having once inhaled its odor, you never climb again.


Often, in the depths of the forests, haunted by fever after the halts—in my tent—I tried to kill her monstrous and persistent image with opium. And the opium evoked her for me in a more material fashion, and more living, more imperious than ever. Then I wrote her mad, insulting and scurrilous letters—letters in which the most violent loathing was mingled with the most abject adoration. She answered me with charming, naive and plaintive letters which I sometimes found in the cities and post−offices we passed. She confessed to be unhappy over my abandonment... wept, supplicated and called me back. She found no other excuse than this: 'You must understand, my dear—' she wrote, 'that I have no soul for your horrid Europe. I bear in me the soul of old China, which is much more beautiful. Isn't it desolating that you can't grasp that idea?' In this way I learned that she had left Canton, where she could no longer live without me, to go and live with Annie in a city farther south in China, 'which is marvelous'. Ah, how could I have so long resisted the desire to abandon my companions and hasten to that sublime and cursed city, that exquisite and


agonizing hell where Clara breathed and lived, in the midst of fierce and unknown lusts for lack of which I was then dying. And I came back to her, like an assassin returns to the very scene of his crime... Laughter in the foliage, little cries, the bounding of a dog. It was Clara. She was dressed, half as a Chinese, half as a European. A blouse of pale mauve silk, embroidered with faintly gilded flowers, wrapped her in a thousand folds, outlining her lithe body and her rich contours. She had on a great hat of pale straw, in whose depths her face appeared like a pink flower in a slight shadow. And her little feet were clad in yellow leather. When she entered the kiosk, it was like an explosion of perfumes. “This is a queer get−up, isn't it? Oh, the sad, sad man from Europe, who hasn't laughed once since he returned! Don't you think me beautiful?” As I didn't get up from the divan on which I was stretched: “Quick! quick! darling—for we have to make the grand tour. I'll put on my gloves on the way. Come... come along! No, no... not you!” she added, gently, repulsing the dog which was yelping, leaping and


wagging its tail. She called a boy and instructed him to follow us with the provision−basket and the little pitchfork. “Ah,” she explained to me, “it's very amusing! A darling little basket woven by the best basket−maker in China; and the pitchfork... you'll see—a darling little fork whose teeth are platinum inlaid with gold, and the handle is made of green jade... green as the sky at the first flush of dawn... green as poor Annie's eyes! Come now—don't make that awful funereal face, darling... and come quickly... quickly!” And we started to walk in the sun, that horrible sun which blackened the grass, withered the peonies in the garden and bore down on my skull like a heavy laden helmet.


Part 2

The Bagnio is on the other side of the river, whose black and pestilential waters slowly and sinisterly flow between their low banks outside the city limits. To get to it, you have to make a long detour, and cross a bridge on which the Convict Meat Market is held every Wednesday, in the midst of a fashionable throng. Clara had refused to take a palanquin. We went down through the garden situated outside the city walls, on foot, and by a path bordered here and there by brown stones, thick hedges of white roses or clipped privet hedges, we reached the suburbs at the point where the dwindling city almost becomes countryside; where the houses, now shacks, are at great intervals from each other, and are situated in little yards fenced about with bamboo. From there on, there are only blossoming orchards, truck−gardens or empty lots. Men stripped to the waist and wearing bell−shaped hats worked laboriously in the sun planting lilies—those beautiful tiger lilies whose petals resemble the legs of marine


spiders and whose tasty bulbs serve as nourishment for the rich. We passed some wretched sheds where potters were turning their pots, where rag pickers squatting before huge baskets were taking stock of the morning harvest, while a flock of hungry and cackling condors wheeled back and forth above them. Not far off under an enormous fig tree, we saw a gentle and meticulous old man who was bathing birds at the edge of a fountain. Every few minutes we crossed in front of palanquins carrying foreign sailors, already drunk, towards the city. And behind us, sweltering and huddled, sprawling over the high hill, the city with its temples and strange red, green, and yellow houses, lay shimmering in the dazzling light. Clara walked rapidly, unmoved by my fatigue. Heedless of the sun which charged the atmosphere and burned our skin despite our parasols, she walked freely—supple, bold and happy. Occasionally, in a tone of merry reproach, she said to me: “How slow you are, sweetheart. God, you're slow! You're not getting anywhere. If only the doors


of the bagnio aren't open when we get there, and the convicts aren't already gorged! It would be frightful! Oh, how I would detest you!” From time to time she gave me a hamamelis tablet, whose property is to stimulate the respiration; and, her eyes mocking me: “Oh, little woman!... little woman... little, insignificant woman!” Then, half laughing, half angry, she started to run, and I had great difficulty in following her. Several times I had to stop and catch my breath. I felt that my arteries would burst in my chest. And Clara repeated, in her warbling voice: “Little woman! Little, insignificant woman.” The path comes out upon the quay of the stream. Two great steamers were unloading coal and European merchandise; there were a few junks equipped for fishing, and a considerable flotilla of sampans with their parti−colored tents lay at anchor, rocked by the light lapping of the water. There was not a breath of air. This quay was offensive to me. It was dirty arid battered, covered with black dust and strewn with the entrails of fish. The stench, the sound of quarreling,


notes of a flute, and the barking of a dog came to us from within the hovels that flanked it lice−infested tea−houses, cutthroat shops, suspicious work stalls. Laughingly, Clara showed me a sort of little booth where, spread out on caladium leaves, they sold portions of rats and quartered dogs, rotten fish and emaciated chickens smeared with copal, bunches of bananas and bleeding bats, threaded on the same spit. As we went on the stench became more unbearable and the filth thicker. On the stream the boats were jammed and huddled—a mass of sinister prows and miserable sail, torn to rags. A dense population lived here fishermen and pirates—frightful demons of the sea with wizened faces, lips reddened by the betel, and glances which made you shudder. They were playing dice, howling, and fighting; others, more peaceful, were gutting fish which they then strung in garlands and hung out in the sun to dry on ropes. Still others were training monkeys to perform a thousand tricks and obscenities. “Amazing, isn't it?” Clara said to me. “And there are more than thirty thousand who have no other


homes than their boats! The devil only knows how they manage!” She lifted her dress, exposing the lower part of her lithe and agile leg, and for a long time we followed the horrible road, as far as the bridge which, with its bizarre superstructure and five massive arches painted in violent colors, straddled the stream at the mercy of the current and the eddies. Upon the bridge the scene changed, but the odor grew stronger—that odor peculiar to all of China, and which in the cities, forests, and fields, makes you think constantly of decomposition and death. Little shops built like pagodas, tents in the shape of kiosks draped with bright silky materials, immense parasols set up in chariots, baskets on wheels—all were crowded together. In these shops and under these tents and parasols fat merchants with bellies like hippopotami, clad in yellow, blue, and green robes, howling and tapping on gongs to attract customers, were hawking carcasses of all sorts: dead rats, drowned dogs, quartered deer and horses, purulent fowl, all piled pell−mell in broad bronze pans.


“Here, here, this way! Come this way! Look... and choose! You can find no better any place else. There is none rottener.” And, delving into the basins, they brandished vile quarters of sanious meat like flags at the end of long iron−prongs, and with fierce grimaces accentuating the slashes of rouge on their faces painted like masks, amid the maddening reverberation of the gongs and the simultaneous uproar they repeated: “Here, here, this way! Come this way. Look... and choose! You can find no better any place else. There is none rottener.” As soon as we had reached the bridge, Clara said to me: “Now, you see, we're late. It's your fault! Let's hurry!” In fact, a great crowd of Chinese women, and among them some English and Russian women—for there were only a very few men, except for the shopkeepers—was swarming on the bridge. Gowns embroidered with flowers and weird designs, variegated parasols, fans fluttering like birds, laughter, exclamations of joy and squabbling—all


these vibrated, sang and hovered in the sunlight, like a celebration of life and love. “Here, here, this way! Come this way!” Bewildered by the jostling, deafened by the screeching of the merchants and the sonorous vibrations of the gongs. I almost had to fight to make a way through the throng and protect Clara from insults and blows. It was truly a grotesque combat, for I possessed no resistance or strength, and felt myself carried along by this human tumult as easily as a dead tree tumbled about in the furious waters of a torrent. Clara hurled herself into the thick of it with all her strength. She submitted to the brutal contact and, so to speak, the violation of this crowd, with passionate delight. Once she cried gloriously: “Look, sweetheart! My dress is all torn. It's delicious!” We had great difficulty in opening a passage to die booths, which were crowded and besieged as for a pillage. “Look and choose! You can find no better any place else!” “Here, here, this way! Right this way!”


Clara took the darling little pitchfork from the hands of the boy who was following us with her darling little basket, and she prodded about in the pans: “You pick too... pick, sweetheart!” I felt my heart would fail me, because of the appalling odor of the grave which was wafted from these booths... stirred−up pans... all this crowd rushing upon the corpses as though they were flowers. “Clara... Clara!” I implored. “Let's go away, I beg you!” “Oh, how pale you are! And why! Isn't it a lot of fun?” “Clara, dear Clara!” I insisted, “I can't possibly stand this odor any longer.” “But it doesn't smell bad, my love. It smells of death, that's all.” She did not seem to be affected. No grimace of disgust wrinkled her white skin, fresh as a cherry blossom. From the veiled ardor of her eyes, from the fluttering of her nostrils, she seemed to be experiencing thrills of passion. She inhaled the


stench with delight, like a perfume. “Oh, he lovely... lovely piece!” With graceful gestures, she filled the basket with the abominable scraps. And, painfully, through the excited crowd and amid the vile smells, we continued on our way. “Quick! quick!”
PART 3

The Bangniois built on the bank of the river. Its quadrangular walls enclose more than a hundred thousand square meters of land. There isn't a single window, and no other opening than the immense door crowned by red dragons and fortified by heavy iron bars. The watchtowers, square towers surmounted by roofs with upturned edges, mark the four corners of the sinister battlements. Other smaller turrets are spaced between them at regular intervals. At night these towers are lit up like lighthouses, and cast around the bagnio, over the meadows and the stream, a revelatory light. One of the walls dips its solid foundations into the black, fetid, deep water, and is hung with slimy algae. By means of a drawbridge, a low door communicates with the stockade which extends to mid−stream and to whose piles many trade−junks and sampans are moored. Two spearmen, lance in hand, keep watch at the door! On the right of the stockade, a little cruiser, like our river patrol−boats, lies motionless, the mouths of its three cannons trained on the


bagnio. On the left, as far as the eye can see along the river, twenty−five or thirty lines of boats mask the opposite shore with a jumble of variegated hulls, gaudy masts, rigging and grey sails. And from time to time, you can see those massive paddlewheel boats passing, propelled by wretches locked in a cage who painfully work them with their tense stiff arms. Behind the bagnio, and as far as the mountain which girdles the horizon with a somber line, extend rocky, rolling fields, here dirty brown and there the color of dried blood, in which grow only scant acres, bluish thistles and stunted cherry trees that never bloom. Infinite desolation! Overwhelming misery! During eight months of the year the sky is blue—a blue washed with red in which the reflections of a perpetual fire glow—an implacable blue into which no chance cloud ever dares to venture. The sun parches the earth, bakes the rocks, and vitrifies the pebbles which burst underfoot with the crunching of glass and the crackling of flame. No bird defies this aerial furnace. Only invisible organisms live there—clumps of bacilli which, toward evening, when


the bleak mists rise with the chant of the sailors on the sluggish stream, distinctly assume the shapes of fever, pestilence, and death. What a contrast with the other shore, where the fat, rich soil covered, with gardens and orchards, nourishes giant trees and marvelous flowers! On the other side of the bridge we luckily found a palanquin, \which carried us across the scorching fields almost to the bagnio, whose doors were still closed. A squad of police, armed with lances and yellow pennants, with great shields which almost covered them, held back the huge impatient crowd, which was swelling every minute. There were rows of tents where people were drinking tea, munching pretty bonbons and rose—or acacia—petals rolled in a fine scented paste sprinkled with sugar. In others, musicians played the flute and poets recited verses, while the punka, fanning the torrid air, produced a slight breeze which cooled their faces. Strolling merchants sold images, stories of famous crimes, models of torture and martyrdom, prints and ivories, curiously obscene. Clara bought one of the latter, and said to me:


“You can see that the Chinese, who are accused of being barbarians, are, to the contrary, more civilized than we; for they are grounded deeper in the logic of life and the harmony of nature! They do not consider the act of love a shameful thing that should be hidden. To the contrary, they glorify it, hymning all the gestures and caresses; just like the ancients, moreover, for whom the sexual organ, far from being an object of infamy and an image of impurity, was a God! You see how all Occidental art loses by the fact that the magnificent expressions of love have been denied it. With us, eroticism is poor, stupid and frigid. It is always presented in ambiguous attitudes of sin, while here it preserves all its vital scope, all its passionate poetry and the stupendous pulse of all nature. But you are only a European lover... a poor, timid, chilly little soul, in whom Catholicism has stupidly inculcated a fear of nature and a hatred of love. It has warped and perverted the sense of life in you.” “Dear Clara,” I objected, “is it really natural for you to seek sensuality in decomposition, and urge Your desires to greater heights by horrible


spectacles of suffering and death? Isn't that, to the contrary, a perversion of that nature whose cult you invoke, in order perhaps to excuse whatever criminal and monstrous qualities your sensuality involves?” “No!” said Clara, quickly, “since love and death are the same thing! And since decomposition is the eternal resurrection of life... Look—“ Suddenly she interrupted herself, and said: “But why do you tell me that? You're funny!” And with a charming pout, she added: “How provoking that you don't understand anything! How is it you don't feel it? How is it you haven't already felt that it is—I don't even say by love, but by the heightened sensuality which is the perfection of love—that all the intellectual faculties of man awaken and become more acute? And it's by this sensuality alone that you attain the full development of personality. Look! In the act of love, have you ever thought, for instance, of committing a beautiful crime? That is to say, lifting yourself above social prejudices and all the laws—above everything, in fact? And if you haven't thought if it, then why do you bother making love?”


“I haven't the strength to argue,” I stammered, “and it seems to me we are walking in a nightmare. This sun... this crowd... these smells... and your eyes—ah, your torturous and lustful eyes—and your voice... and your penchant for crime... all that terrifies me, and it's all driving me mad!” Clara gave a little mocking laugh. “Poor little pet!” she sighed, comically. “You won't say that tonight, when you're in my arms... and when I love you!” The crowd was growing more and more restless. Bonzes crouched under parasols, laid out long red gowns, like pools of blood, struck frenzied blows on gongs and hurled gross invectives at the passers—by who, to counteract their curses, devoutly threw large pieces of change into metal bowls. Clara led me into a tent all embroidered with peach flowers, made me sit down by her on a pile of cushions, and stroking my forehead with her exciting hand—with her hand which dispensed forgetfulness and intoxication, she said to me: “My God, how long it takes, darling! Every week


it's the same thing. They take so long to open the door. Why don't you speak? Do I frighten you? Are you glad you came? Are you happy to have me caress you, dear beloved little rascal? Oh, your beautiful tired eyes! It's the fever—and it's me too! Say it's me. Do you Want to drink some tea? Do you want another hamamelis tablet?” “I'd rather not stay here longer! I'd rather sleep.” “Sleep! How strange you are. Oh, you'll see how beautiful it is! And what extraordinary... what Unknown... what marvelous desires it instills into Your flesh! We'll come back by the river, in my sampan. And we'll spend the night in a flower−boat. Wouldn't you like to?” She lightly tapped my hands several times with her fan. “But you're not listening to me! Why aren't you listening to me? You're pale and melancholy. And, really, you're not listening to me at all.” She snuggled up against me, sinuous and caressing: “You're not listening to me, wretch,” she went on. “And you don't even caress me! Caress me, darling! Feel how cold and firm my breasts are.” And, in a hollow voice, her eyes darting green, voluptuous and


cruel flames, she spoke like this. “Listen! Eight days ago I saw an extraordinary thing. Oh, dear love, I saw a man whipped for stealing a fish. The judge simply said this: 'One must not always say of a man who carries a fish in his hand: He is a fisherman'! And he sentenced the man to die under the iron rods. For a fish, darling! It took place in the torture−garden. The man was kneeling on the ground—imagine it—and his head rested on a sort of block... a block all black with old blood. His back and loins were bare; a back and loins like old gold! I arrived just at the moment when a soldier, having gripped his queue, which was very long, was knotting it to a ring riveted in a stone slab in the ground. Beside the culprit, another soldier was heating a little... a very little iron switch, at the fire of a forge. And then—pay attention to me! Are you listening? When the switch was red, the soldier whipped the man on the loins. The switch hissed in the air, and it penetrated far into the muscles, which crackled, and a little reddish steam arose... you understand? Then the soldier let the switch cool in the flesh, which bubbled up and closed over it. Then,


when it was cold, he violently jerked it out with a single movement, along with little bleeding bits. And the man hurled frightful cries of agony. Then the soldier began again. He did it fifteen times! And I too, darling—it seemed to me that with every blow, the switch entered my loins. It was fierce and very sweet!” As I was silent: “It was fierce and very sweet,” she repeated. “If you knew how handsome that man was... how strong he was! Muscles like those of a statue. Kiss me, darling... kiss me!” Clara's pupils had rolled back. Between her half closed lids I could see nothing but the whites of her eyes. Again she spoke: “He did not budge. It made little waves on his back. Oh, your lips!” After some seconds of silence, she went on: “Last year, with Annie, I saw something much more astonishing: I saw a man who had attacked his mother and then disemboweled her with a knife. It seemed, besides, that he was crazy. He was sentenced to the torture of the caress. Yes, my


darling. Isn't it wonderful? Strangers aren't allowed to witness that torture, which, besides, is very rare today. But we gave some money to the guard, who hid us behind a screen. Annie and I saw everything! The madman—he didn't seem to be mad—was stretched out on a very low table, his limbs and body were tied by stout ropes, and his mouth was gagged, so he couldn't make movement or utter a cry. A woman with a grave face, not beautiful, not young, and dressed entirely in black, her bare arm circled by a broad gold band, came and kneeled beside the madman. She grasped him and set about her task. Oh darling, darling, if you could have seen! It lasted four hours... four hours, think of it! Four hours of frightful and skilled caresses, during which the woman's hand did not relax a moment, during which her face remained cold and gloomy! The culprit died in a jet of blood, which splattered the entire face of the tormentress. Never have I seen anything so atrocious; and it was so atrocious, my darling, that both Annie and I fainted. I still think of it!” With an air of regret, she added: “On one of her fingers that woman had a huge


ruby which, during the torture, flashed in the sunlight like a little red dancing flame. Annie bought it, but I don't know what became of it. I'd like very much to have it.” Clara was silent, her mind having undoubtedly returned to the bloody image of that abominable memory. Some minutes later a murmur ran through the tents and the crowd. Through my heavy eyelids which despite me had almost closed at the horror of this tale, I saw gown after gown passing, and parasols, and fans, and happy faces, and accursed faces, dancing, whirling, rushing. It was like a burst of immense flowers, like a whirl of fantastic birds. “The doors, darling,” cried Clara, “the doors are being opened! Come, come quickly! And don't be sad any more. Ah, I beg you! Think of all the beautiful things you're going to see, and the ones I told you about!” I got up... and seizing my arm, she dragged me along, I know not where.


PART 4

The door to the Bagnio opened on a wide, dark corridor. Through the corridor, but from beyond, there came to us the sound of a bell, muffled and deadened by the distance. And hearing it, Clara joyfully clapped her hands. “Oh, darling! The bell! The bell! We're in luck. Don't be unhappy any more... don't be ill any more, I beg you!” The crowd was milling so furiously at the entrance of the bagnio that the police had great difficulty in bringing about a little order in the tumult. It was into this crush of cackling, shouting, and suffocating people into this rubbing of cloth against cloth, and jostling, of parasols and fans, that Clara resolutely hurled her self, exalted by the ringing of the bell. I had not thought of asking her why it was ringing like that, or the meaning of its muffled distant tolling, which caused her so much pleasure. “The bell! The bell! The bell! Come!” But we couldn't get very far despite the efforts of the boys carrying baskets who, thrusting out violently


with their elbows, were attempting to make way for their mistresses. Tall porters with grimacing faces, frightfully emaciated, their chests bare and scarred beneath their rags, were holding baskets of meat above their heads, in which the sun was accelerating decomposition and hatching swarm of maggots. They were specters of crime and famine, images of nightmare and massacre, demons materialized from the darkest and most terrifying legends of China. Nearby I saw one whose laugh exposed a slash of saw−toothed mouth with its betel−lacquered teeth, and extended to the edge of his billy−goat beard, sinister and distorted. Some were cursing and cruelly pulling each others queues; others, with the gliding movements of felines, were slipping through the human thicket, picking pockets, cutting purses, snatching jewels and then disappearing with their loot. “The bell! The bell!” repeated Clara. “But what bell?” “You'll see. It's a surprise!” And the smells that arose from the crowd—smells of the latrine and the


slaughter−house, the stink of corpses and the perfumes of living flesh—nauseated me and chilled me to the marrow. I felt the same lethargic sensation I had so often experienced in the forests of Annam, in the evening, when the miasma rose from the deepest leaf—mold and death lurked behind every flower, every leaf, and every blade of grass. At the same time, shoved and jostled from every side, my breath almost failing, I was finally at the point of fainting. “Clara! Clara!” I called. She made me breathe salts, whose cordial power restored me a little. She was unrestrained and delighted in the midst of this crowd whose odor she inhaled, and to whose repugnant embraces she submitted with a sort of swooning lust. She offered her body—all her lithe and vibrant body—to the brutality, the blows, and the clawing. Her white skin was now a glowing pink; her eyes reflected a languid thrill of sensual delight; her lips were swollen, like firm buds ready to blossom. Once more, with a sort of mocking pity, she said to me: “Ah, little woman! little woman... little woman! You'll never be anything but a little, insignificant


woman!” Coming from the dazzling and blinding light of the sun, the corridor which we finally reached seemed at first full of shadow. Then little by little the shadows faded away, and I could get a clear idea of where I was. The passageway was vast and lit from above by windows which only allowed an attenuated light to pass through their opaque glass. The cool and moist air, almost cold, wrapped me from head to foot, like the breath of a woodland spring. The walls sweated like the galleries of a subterranean grotto. Under my feet, burned by the pebbles of the field, the sand which covered the flags of the tunnel possessed the gentle softness of seaside dunes. I breathed the air deeply, with full lungs. Clara said to me: “You see how nice they are to the convicts here. At least they're cool.” “But where are they?” I asked. “l can see nothing but walls on either side.” Clara smiled. “How strange you are! Here you are more impatient than I! Wait... wait a little! In a minute, darling. Listen!”


She halted and pointed out a vague spot in the tunnel, her eyes more brilliant, her nostrils palpitating, her ears attentive to sound, like a doe at bay in the forest. “Do you hear? There they are! Do you hear?” Then, from beyond the murmur of the crowd which thronged the passageway, from beyond the hum of voices, I perceived cries, hollow moans, the dragging of chains, breaths panting like a forge—a strange and prolonged growling of beasts. It seemed to come from the depths of the wall, from below the ground, from the very abyss of death. You could not tell whence. “Do you hear?” Clara went on. “There they are... you'll see them in a minute... let's go! Take my arm. Watch out... there they are! There they are!” We started to walk again, followed by the boy who was attentive to the gestures of his mistress. And the frightful corpse−odor also accompanied us, no longer left us, and was augmented by other odors whose ammoniacal acridity stung our eyes—and throats. The bell still rang down there—far off—slow and soft, muffled, like the cry of a man in agony. For the


third time Clara repeated: “Oh, that bell! He's dying, he's dying, my darling. Perhaps we'll see him!” Suddenly I felt her fingers clenched tensely in my flesh. “Darling! darling! On your right! How horrible!” Swiftly, I turned my head. The infernal procession had begun. In the wall at the right there were vast cells, or rather cages, enclosed by bars and separated from each other by thick stone partitions. The first ten were each occupied by ten condemned men; and all ten offered the same spectacle. Their necks were clasped in a pillory so wide it was impossible to see their bodies, and you'd have thought they were frightful severed living heads placed on tables. Crouched amid their filth, their hands and feet chained, they could neither stretch nor lie down, nor even take a rest. The slightest movement displaced the iron collars about their bare throats and bleeding necks, and made them utter howls of pain, alternately interspersed with fierce insults to us and supplications to the gods. I was mute with horror. Deftly, with pretty shivers and exquisite gestures,


Clara prodded in the boy's basket, and lifted out some small scraps of meat, which she gracefully tossed through the bars of the cage. Ten heads simultaneously turned in their balanced collars; simultaneously, twenty bulging eyeballs cast inflamed glances at the meat—glances of terror and hunger. Then one cry of agony arose from the ten contorted mouths. And, conscious of their impotence, the condemned men did not move again. They remained with their heads slightly inclined as though ready to roll down the slope of the collar, their pale and fleshless features convulsed in a rigid grimace, in a sort of frozen leer. “They can't eat,” Clara explained. “They can't reach the meat. Naturally, in such contraptions, it's understandable. After all, it's not very new. It's the torture of Tantalus, redoubled by the horror of the Chinese imagination, eh? Would you believe there were such unhappy people in the world?” Again she cast through the bars a small bit of carcass which, falling on the edge of one of the collars, made it sway slightly. Hollow groans were the answer to this gesture; a fiercer and more


desperate hatred lit up the twenty eyeballs at the same time. Instinctively, Clara recoiled: “You see,” she continued in a less assured tone, “it amuses them for me to give them meat. It helps these poor devils pass the time... it provides them with a little illusion. Come along... come along!” We passed slowly before the ten cages. Women standing before them shouted, or uttered bursts of laughter, or abandoned themselves to impassioned mimicry. I saw a very blond, Russian woman with a cold, limpid glance, hold out to the sufferers a vile greenish mess, which she alternately extended and withdrew on the tip of her parasol. Baring their fangs like mad dogs, with starving expressions which no longer expressed anything human, they tried to snatch the food which always escaped their sticky, slavering mouths. Curious women watched with attentive and joyful faces all the moves of this cruel game. “What whores!” said Clara, seriously indignant. “Really, there are some women who have no respect for anything. It's shameful!” I asked:


“What crimes have these creatures committed, to suffer such torment?” She replied carelessly: “l don't know. Nothing, perhaps, or doubtless very little. Petty thefts from shopkeepers, I suppose. Besides, they are only common people... wharf−rats... vagabonds... paupers! They don't interest me very much. But there are others. You'll see my poet in a minute. Yes, I have a favorite here, and he's actually a poet! Isn't it funny? Ah, but he's a great poet, you know! He composed an admirable satire against a prince who had robbed the treasury. And he detests the English. “One evening two years ago he was brought to my house. He sang delightful things. But he excelled especially in satire. You'll see him. He's the handsomest... at least if he's not dead already! You see, in this regime nothing is astonishing. What annoys me most is that he doesn't recognize me any more. I talk to him... I sing his poems to him... and he no longer recognizes them. It's really horrible, don't you think? Bah! It s also funny, after all!” She tried to be gay, but her gaiety sounded false. Her face was grave; her nostrils palpitated faster.


She leaned on my arm more heavily, and I felt shivers run all through her body. Then I noticed that in the left wall, opposite each cell, deep niches had been cut which contained painted and sculptured wood which, with the frightful realism peculiar to the art of the Far. East, represented every species of torture in use in China: scenes of decapitation, strangulation, flaying and tearing of flesh... demoniacal and mathematical conceptions which pushed the science of torture to a refinement unknown to our Occidental cruelty, inventive as it is. It was a museum of horror and despair, where no human ferocity had been overlooked, and which every minute of the day ceaselessly recalled to the convicts, by precise imagery, the skilful death to which their executioners destined them. “Don't look at that!” Clara said with a pout of disgust. “They're only painted wood, my love. Look this way, where it's real—Look! There's my poet—right there!” And she halted abruptly before his cage. Pale, fleshless, slashed with a skeletal grin, its


cheek bones bursting the gangrenous skin, its jaws bare beneath the flaps of its trembling lips—a face was pressed against the bars, between two long, bony hands, like the dry feet of a bird. That face, from which every trace of humanity had disappeared forever; those bleeding eyes, and those hands, now scabby claws, terrified me. I backed up with an instinctive movement, to escape the feel of the pestilential breath of that mouth against my skin, and to avoid the scratch of those claws. But Clara quickly led me back before the cage. In its depths, in ominous shadow, five living beings who had once been men, were walking and walking, and turning and turning, their torsos bare, their skulls black with dried, blood−streaked wounds. Panting, barking, howling, they vainly tried to shake the solid stone of the partition by pushing violently against it. Then they started to walk and turn again, with the suppleness of beasts and the obscenities of monkeys. A wide, transverse partition hid the lower part of their bodies, and from the invisible floor of the cell a suffocating, deadly stench arose. “Good−day, poet!” said Clara, addressing the


Face. “I'm nice, eh? I've come to see you once again, poor dear man! Do you recognize me today? No? Why don't you recognize me? I'm still beautiful, and I loved you a whole night!” The Face did not budge. Its eyes never left the meat basket the boy was carrying. And from its throat there came a raucous, bestial sound. “Are you hungry?” Clara continued. “I'll give you something to eat. I've chosen the best piece at the market for you. But, first, would you like me to recite Your poem: The Three Mistresses? Would you? You'll enjoy hearing it.” And she recited: I have three mistresses. The first has a spirit mobile as a bamboo leaf. Her light and Playful spirit is like the feathery blossom of the eulalia. Her eye is like the lotus. And her beast is as firm as the lemon. Her hair, twisted in a single braid, falls over her golden shoulder like a black serpent. Her voice has the sweetness of mountain honey. Her loins are slender and lithe. Her thighs are round as the supple trunk of the


banana−tree. Her gait is that of a young and playful elephant. She loves passion, knows how to give it birth and vary it! I have three mistresses. Clara interrupted herself: “Don't you remember?” she asked, “don't you love my voice any more?” The Face had not budged. It seemed not to hear. Its eyes still devoured the horrible basket, and its tongue clacked in its mouth, wet with saliva. “Come,” said Clara. “Listen again! And you'll eat, since you're so hungry.” And in a slow and rhythmic voice she continued: I have three mistresses. The second has abundant hair which gleams and flows in long silky garlands. Her glance would disturb the God of Love. And make the wagtail blush. The body of that graceful woman flows like a golden vine. Her earrings are encrusted with precious stones. Like a flower jeweled with frost on a cold and


sunny morning. Her clothes are summer gardens. And temples on festival−days. And her firm, full breasts shine like a pair of golden vases Filled with intoxicating liquors and perfumes. I have three mistresses. “Ouah! ouah!” barked the Face, while in the cage the five other condemned creatures echoed the sinister bark, walking and walking, turning and turning... Clara continued: I have three mistresses. The hair of the third is plaited, And rolled about her head. And never has known the sweetness of perfumed oils. That face which mirrors passion is deformed, Her body is like a pig's. You'd say she was always angry. She always scolds and complains. Her breasts and belly exhale a fishy odor. She is ill−favored in her entire person. She eats everything and drinks to excess.


And her wan eyes are always bleary. And her bed is more repugnant than a lapwing's nest. And she is the one I love. And I love her because there is something more mysteriously attractive than beauty: it is corruption. Corruption in which the eternal heat of life resides, In which the eternal renewal of metamorphoses unfolds! I have three mistresses... The poem was ended. Clara was silent. Its eyes avidly fixed upon the basket, the Face had not ceased barking during the recitation of the last stanza. Then, addressing me sadly, Clara said: “You see, he doesn't remember anything any more! He has lost the memory of his verses, like my face. And that mouth I kissed no longer knows the words of mankind! It's really unheard of!” From the basket of meat she chose the best and thickest piece, and her body prettily thrust forward, she held it out at the tip of her pitchfork, to the fleshless Face whose eyes glowed like two little


braziers. “Eat, poor poet!” she said. “Now eat” With the motions of a starved beast, the poet seized the horrible stinking scrap in his claws and carried it to his mouth where, for a moment, I saw it hanging like a piece of filth from the streets, between the fangs of a dog. But immediately, in the shaking cage, there was roaring and pouncing. Nothing could be seen but bare torsos, mingled and clasped to each other, grasped by long, thin arms, torn by jaws and claws, and contorted faces tearing at the meat. I could see nothing more. And I heard the noise of struggle on the floor of the cage, chests panting and wheezing with raucous respiration, the thumping fall of bodies, scuffling of flesh, cracking of bones, the muffled shocks of carnage, and a rattling of throats! From time to time a face appeared above the partition with the prey in its teeth, then disappeared. More barking, more rattling in their throats, and then silence—then nothing! Clara clung to me, trembling. “Ah, my darling... my darling!” I cried to her: “Throw them all the meat. You see they're killing each other.” She clasped me, embraced me.


“Kiss me. Caress me... It's horrible! It's too horrible!” And lifting herself up to my lips, she said, in a fierce kiss: “I can't hear anything. They're dead. Do you think they're all dead?” When we lifted our eyes to the cage again, a fleshless and bloody Face was pressed between the bars and was looking at us steadily, almost proudly. A strip of meat hung from its lips, amid threads of purple slaver. Its chest heaved. Clara applauded, her voice still trembling. “It's he! It's my poet! He's the strongest!” She threw him all the meat in the basket, and with her throat tightening: “I'm stifling,” she said. “And you too—you're all pale, my love. Let's breathe the air in the Torture Garden for a little while.” Slight drops of perspiration beaded her forehead. She wiped them away, and turning to the poet, she spoke, accompanying her words with a slight gesture of her ungloved hand: “I'm happy you were the strongest today! Eat! Eat! I'll come to see you again. Good−bye.”


She dismissed the boy who now was no longer needed. We went up the middle of the corridor with a hurried step, despite the hindrance of the crowd, careful to avoid looking to the right or left. The bell still rang. But its vibrations were diminishing, diminishing so that they were no more than the breath of a breeze, a tiny infant's cry, smothered behind a curtain. “What does that bell mean? Where does it come from?” I asked. “What? Don't you know? Why, it's the bell in the Torture Garden! Imagine... They bind a victim, and they lay him under the bell. Then they ring it wildly until the vibration kills him! And when death is near, they ring it gently, gently, so it doesn't come too soon—like they're doing down there, now! Do you hear?” I was going to speak, but Clara closed my mouth with a tap of her unfolded fan. “Now be quiet! Don't say anything! And listen, my love. And think what a dreadful death they must bring—those vibrations beneath the bell. And come with me. And say nothing... nothing.” When we came out of the corridor, the bell was


no more than the drone of an insect... a rustling of wings, scarcely perceptible in the distance.


PART 5

In the center of the prison, the Torture Garden occupies an immense quadrilateral space, enclosed by walls whose stones can no longer be seen because of a thick covering of tangled shrubs and climbing plants. It was built towards the middle of the last century by Li−Pe−Hang, superintendent of the imperial gardens and the cleverest botanist China ever had. In the stacks of the Musee Guimet you may consult many works which celebrate his fame, and very curious prints in which his most illustrious works are set forth. The wonderful Kew Gardens—the only ones in Europe which satisfy us—owe much to him from a technical point of view, and also from the point of view of floral ornamentation and landscape gardening, but they are still a far cry from the pure beauty of the Chinese model. According to Clara, that exquisite attraction is lacking which is implied by the mingling of torture with horticulture, blood with flowers. The earth, composed of sand and pebbles, like all that barren terrain, was largely dug up and


reworked with virgin soil brought at great expense from the other side of the river. It is related that more than thirty thousand coolies perished of fever in the construction of this gigantic garden, which took twenty−two years. These hecatombs were far from being useless. Mingled with the soil as fertilizer—for they were buried on the spot the dead enriched it by their slow decomposition, and besides, in no other place, even in the heart of the most fantastic tropical jungles, could a land richer in natural mould be found. Its extraordinary fertility, far from being exhausted in the end, still operates today through the excrement of the prisoners, the blood of the tortured, and all the organic debris the crowd deposits there every week which, carefully collected and cleverly rendered with the daily corpses in special retting vats, forms a potent compost for which plants are greedy and which makes them more vigorous and beautiful. Forks of the river, ingeniously diverted through the garden according to the requirements of the vegetation, provide a permanent moisture, and at the same time serve to fill the pools and canals, whose water is thus constantly renewed, and in


which almost extinct zoological forms are conserved—among others, the famous fish with six humps, celebrated by Yu−Sin and our compatriot, the poet Robert de Montesquiou. The Chinese are incomparable gardeners, quite superior to our vulgar horticulturists, who only attempt to destroy the beauty of plants by disrespectful practices and criminal hybridizations. The latter are actual malefactors, and I cannot imagine why very drastic penal laws have not already been passed against them, in the name of all life. I should even be happy to see them mercilessly guillotined, in preference to those anemic assassins whose social 'selectivism' is much more laudable and generous, since, the majority of the time, it only singles out very ugly old ladies and vile bourgeois, who are a perpetual outrage to life. Besides having pushed their infamy to the point of deforming the touching beauty of simple flowers, our gardeners have dared to perpetrate that degrading joke of giving to the fragility of roses, to the star like rays of the clematis, to the heavenly glory of the larkspur, to the heraldic mystery of the iris and to the modesty of


the violet—the names of old generals and disgraced politicians. In our flower−beds it is not rare to encounter an iris, for instance, baptized: General Archinard! There are narcissi—narcissi!—grotesquely designated: The Triumph of President Felix Faure; hollyhocks which, without protesting, accept the ridiculous appellation of: Mourning for Monsieur Thiers; violets—timid, sensitive and exquisite violets, to whom the names of General Skobeleff and Admiral Avellan have not seemed insulting nicknames! Flowers—all beauty, light and joy—all tenderness too, evoking the fierce mustachios and heavy riding−breeches of a soldier, or the parliamentary top−knot of a minister! Flowers mixing with political opinions and serving to spread electoral propaganda! To what aberrations and intellectual degeneration might such blasphemies and attempts at the divinity of things correspond? If it were possible that a being so stripped of a soul felt a hatred for flowers, European, and particularly French, gardeners would amply prove this inconceivably sacrilegious paradox! Being perfect artists and ingenuous poets, the


Chinese have piously preserved the love and holy cult of flowers; one of the very rare and most ancient traditions which has survived their decadence. And since flowers had to be distinguished from each other, they have attributed graceful analogies to them, dreamy images, pure and passionate names which perpetuate and harmonize in our minds the sensations of gentle charm and violent intoxication with which they inspire us. So it is that certain peonies, their favorite flower, are saluted by the Chinese, according to their form or color, by these delicious names, each an entire poem and an entire novel: The Young Girl Who Offers Her Breasts, or: The Water That Sleeps Beneath the Moon, or: The Sunlight in the Forest, or: The First Desire of the Reclining Virgin, or: My Gown Is No Longer All White Because in Tearing It the Son of Heaven Left a Little Rosy Stain; or, even better, this one: I Possessed My Lover in the Garden. And Clara who told me all these charming things, cried indignantly and stamped on the ground with her little feet, shod in yellow leather: “And they treat these divine poets, who call their


flowers I Possessed My Lover in the Garden, like lice and savages!” The Chinese are rightfully proud of the Torture Garden, the most thoroughly beautiful perhaps in all China, where, moreover, marvelous gardens are common. Here are gathered the rarest species of their flora, the most delicate as well as the hardiest, those which come from the snow−line on the mountains, or sprout in the burning furnace of the meadows, and also those, mysterious and fierce, which are hidden in the most impenetrable jungles, and to which popular superstition has given the names of evil genii. From the mangrove to the saxatile azalea, from the horned and biflorous violet to the distillating nepenthe, from the volubilate hibiscus to the stoloniferous helianthus, from the androsace, invisible in its rocky fissure, to the most wildly twining liana, each specie is represented by numerous specimens which, gorged with organic nourishment and treated according to the proper formula by clever gardeners, take on abnormal forms and colorations, whose prodigious intensity we have difficulty in imagining in our gloomy climate and our


uninspired gardens. In the hollow of a valley from which a number of sinuous alleys and paths branch out bordered by flowers in a supple and harmoniously flowing design, a vast pool crossed by the arch of a wooden bridge painted bright green, marks the center of the garden. White water lilies and nelumbos brighten its surface with their trailing leaves and floating corollas—yellow, mauve, white, rose and purple. Tufts of iris lift their slender stalks, on whose tops strange, symbolic birds seem to perch; and plumed rushes, galingales like hair, and giant luzula: mingle their incongruous leafage with the phalliform and vulvoid clusters of the most stupefying arum−lilies. On the edge of the pool, by an inspired calculation, amid the plaited hart's−tongue, globe−flowers and inulre, artistically trimmed glycines rise and arch over the water, which reflects their blue, swaying clusters. And pearl−grey cranes with silky plumes and scarlet wattles, white herons and white storks with Manchurian blue necks, stalk about amid the high grass with indolent grace and sacerdotal majesty.


Here and there on little hillocks and red rocks covered with dwarf ferns, androsace, saxifrage and creeping shrubs, slim and graceful kiosks lift above the bamboos and the dwarf cedars the pointed cones of their gilded roofs, and the delicate ribs of their framework whose extremities curve inward and up with a bold movement. Along the slopes, every species swarms: epimedia issuing from among the stones, with its frail flowers stirring and fluttering like insects; orange hemerocallis offering its calyx of a day to the hawk—moth and white renothera offering its calyx of an hour; fleshy opuntia, eomecons, morrea, and sheets, streams, and brooklets of primroses—those Chinese primroses which are so extremely polymorphous, and of which we possess only poverty−stricken images in our hot−houses. And there were so many charming and bizarre forms, and so many blending colors: and around the kiosks, between the patches of lawn, in the tremulous distance, it was like a rosy, mauve, and white rain, a variegated shimmering, a pearly, pink, and milky pulsation so tender and changing that it is impossible for me to express in words its infinite sweetness and


ineffable idyllic poetry. How had we come there? I knew nothing of it. Under Clara's hand a door had suddenly opened in the walls of the dark corridor. And suddenly, as though by the influence of a fairy wand, I was flooded with celestial light, and before me there were horizons and horizons! I gazed, dazzled; dazzled by the softer light, the gentler sky, dazzled even by the great blue shadows that the trees laid softly upon the grass, like voluptuous rugs; dazzled by the touching magic of the flowers and the floors of peonies that the slight shelter of the reeds shielded from the mortal heat of the sun. On one of the lawns, not far from us, a sprinkler sprayed water in which all the colors of the rainbow played, and through which the grass and flowers took on the translucence of precious stones. I gazed greedily, never tiring. But then I did not see all those details which I reconstructed later; I saw only an ensemble of mysteries and beauties whose sudden and consoling apparition I did not attempt to explain to myself. No more did I wonder whether it was reality that surrounded me, or only a


dream. I wondered about nothing, thought of nothing, said nothing. Clara talked and talked. Doubtless she was still telling me story after story. I wasn't listening to her, nor did I feel her at my side. At that moment, her presence beside me was so far from me! And her voice was so far away, and so strange. Little by little, I finally regained my self−possession, my memories, and a perception of the realities of things, and I understood why and how I happened to be there. Emerging from inferno, still pale from the horror of those faces of the damned, my nostrils still filled with the odor of decomposition and death, and my ears still humming with the howls of torture, the sight of this garden brought me sudden relaxation, after an exaltation and an unreal ascension of my entire being towards a dazzling land of dream. With delight, I drew in great gulps of the new air so impregnated with so many fine and soft aromas. It was the inexpressible joy of awakening after an oppressing nightmare. I tasted that ineffable impression of freedom which a man might feel who, having been buried alive in a frightful charnel house, has just lifted


its stone and been resurrected to the sunlight with his flesh intact, his limbs freed, and his soul reborn. A bench made of bamboo trunks was close by in the shadow of an immense ash whose purple leaves sparkled in the sun, creating the illusion of a dome of rubies. I sat down, or rather, I let myself fall back, for the joy of all this splendid life almost made me faint with an unsuspected passion. And at my left I saw a Buddha, the stone guardian of this garden, squatting on his rock and displaying his tranquil face—his face of sovereign kindness, bathed in azure and sunlight. Sheaves of flowers and baskets of fruit covered the pedestal of the statue with propitiatory and perfumed offerings. A young girl in a yellow dress reached up to the forehead of the inexorable god, and piously crowned it with lotus and lady−slipper. Swallows swooped about, uttering little joyful squeaks. Then I thought−and with what religious enthusiasm and mystic adoration!—of the sublime life of him who, long before our Christ, had preached purity to men, and enunciation, and love. But, hovering over me like sin itself, Clara, her


mouth red, and like the flower of the cydonia, Clara with her green eyes, the grey−green of the young fruit of the almond tree, hastened to lead me back to reality, and, indicating the garden with a broad gesture, she said: “See, my love, what marvelous artists the Chinese are, and how they contrive to make nature an accomplice of the refinement of their cruelty! In our frightful Europe which, for so long a time has not known what beauty is, they torture in secret, in the depths of their jails, or in public squares, among the vile drunken crowds. Here, it's among flowers, amid the prodigious enchantment and prodigious silence of ail the flowers, that the instruments of torture are erected, the stake, the scaffold and the cross. You'll see them right away, so intimately mingled with the splendor of this floral orgy and the harmony of this unique and magical nature, that they seem in some way to merge with her, and be the miraculous flowers of this soil and this light.” And, as I could not suppress a gesture of impatience: “Silly!” said Clara. “Little fool! You don't understand anything!” Her forehead barred by a hard


shadow, she continued: “Come! Have you ever been at a festival when you were sad or ill? Well, then you've felt how much your sadness was irritated and exasperated, as by an insult, by the joyful faces and the beauty of things. It's an intolerable feeling. Think of what it must mean to a victim who is going to die under torture. Think how much the torture is multiplied in his flesh and his soul by all the splendor which surrounds him; and how much more atrocious is his agony, how much more hopelessly atrocious, darling!” “I was thinking of love,” I replied in a tone of reproach, “and here you are talking to me again—forever—about torture!” “Doubtless! since it's the same thing—” She had been standing beside me, her hands on my shoulder. And the red shadow of the ash wrapped her in a fiery glow. She sat down on the bench and continued: “—and, since there are tortures wherever there are men, I can't do anything about it, my baby, and I try to adjust myself to it and enjoy it, for blood is a precious auxiliary of desire. It's the wine of love.”


With the tip of her parasol, she traced some naively indecent figures in the sand, and she said: “I'm sure you think the Chinese crueler than we. No... not at all! We English? Ah, don't mention it! And you French? In your Algeria, in the confines of the desert, I saw this: One day some soldiers captured some Arabs; poor Arabs who had committed no other crime than to try to escape the brutality of their conquerors. The Colonel commanded them to be put to death immediately, without an inquiry, without a trial. And this is what happened: There were thirty of them. They dug thirty holes in the sand, and they buried them up to their necks, naked, with their heads shaved, in the noonday sun. So they wouldn't die too fast they watered them from time to time, like cabbages. At the end of an hour their eyelids were swollen, their eyes bulged from their sockets, their swollen tongues filled their mouths, which gaped frightfully, and their skin cracked and roasted on their skulls. It was unimaginative, I assure you, and even devoid of terror—those thirty dead heads, sticking out of the sand like shapeless rocks! And we! It's still worse! Ah, I remember the strange sensation I felt


when, at Kandy, the gloomy former capital of Ceylon, I went up the steps of the temple where the English had stupidly, without torture, slaughtered the little Modeliar princes who, legends tell us, were so charming... like those skillfully made Chinese ikons, with so hieratically calm and pure of grace, and their golden halos and their long hands pressed together. I felt that what had happened there on those sacred steps, still uncleansed of that blood by eighty years of violent possession—was something more horrible than a human massacre; the destruction of a precious, touching and innocent beauty. The traces of that double European barbarity may be found at every step you take on the ancestral soil of that suffering and always mysterious India. The boulevards of Calcutta, the cool Himalayan villas in Darjeeling, the tribades of Benares and the sumptuous homes of the contractors in Bombay have not been able to efface the impression of mourning and death left everywhere by the atrocity of unskillful massacre, vandalism and senseless destruction. To the contrary, they accentuate it. No matter in what place it appears, civilization displays


that face which bears the double imprint of sterile blood and ruins forever dead. Like Attila, it might say: 'Grass no longer grows where my horse has trod.' Look here, before you and around you! There is not a grain of sand that has not been bathed in blood, and what is that grain of sand itself, if not the dust of death? But how rich this blood is, and how fertile is the dust! Look... the grass is thick... flowers swarm everywhere and love is everywhere!” Clara's face became exalted. A gentle melancholy softened the bar of shadow across her forehead and veiled the green flames of her eyes. She continued: “Ah, how sad and poignant the little dead city Kandy seemed to me that day! In the torrid heat, a heavy silence hovered over it, and vultures circled in the air. Some Hindus came out of the temple, where they had brought flowers to the Buddha. The gentle depth of their eyes, the nobility of their brows, the suffering fragility of their bodies, consumed by fever, the biblical slowness of their gait—all that moved me to the depths of my being. They seemed in exile on their native soil, close to their kindly God, chained


and watched over by Sepoys. And there was no longer anything earthly in their black pupils... nothing more than a dream of corporeal release, awaiting the dazzling light of nirvana. I do not know what feeling of respect for humanity prevented me from kneeling before these sorrowful, venerable fathers of my race—my parricidal race. I merely saluted them humbly, but they passed by without seeing me—without seeing my greeting—without seeing the tears in my eyes and the filial emotion which swelled my breast. And when they had passed by I felt that I hated Europe with a hatred that would never be extinguished.” Suddenly interrupting herself, she said: “But I'm boring you, eh? I don't know why I'm telling you all this. It has no bearing on the subject. I'm crazy!” “No, no, dear Clara,” I replied, kissing her hands. “To the contrary, I love you to talk to me like that. Always talk to me like that!” She continued: “After visiting the poor bare little temple, whose entrance was decorated by a gong—the only vestige of its former wealth—after breathing the odor of the


flowers with which the image of the Buddha was all strewn, I went sadly back to the city. It was deserted. That grotesque and sinister manifestation of Occidental progress, a pastor—the only human being—was prowling about, skirting the walls, a lotus blossom stuck in his mouth. In that blinding sunlight he had preserved—as in the city fogs—his ridiculous clergyman's costume; a soft black felt hat, a long black coat with a tight, greasy collar, and black trousers falling in ugly folds over the massive boots of a drayman. This dingy costume of a Protestant preacher was accompanied by a white parasol, a sort of ridiculous, portable punka, the sole concession the bigot made to the local customs and the Indian sun which the English have not to this day been able to turn into a sooty fog. And I irritably reflected that you can't take a step from the equator to the poles without running into that suspicious face, those rapacious eyes, those claw like hands and that vile mouth, which goes breathing the frightful verses of the Bible, in an odor of stale gin, over the charming divinities and adorable myths of naive religions.”


She grew excited. Her eyes expressed an overwhelming hatred which I would never have expected of them. Forgetting where we were, and her recent criminal enthusiasms and bloody exaltations, she said: “Wherever there is spilt blood to justify, piracy to consecrate, violation to bless, hideous traffic to protect, you are sure to see this British Tartuffe pursuing the work of abominable conquest under the pretext of religious proselytism or scientific study. His cruel and crafty shadow is cast over the wreckage of conquered people, coupled with that of the cutthroat soldier and the usurious Shylock. In the virgin forests where the European is more rightfully feared than the tiger, on the threshold of the humble, devastated hut, between the burning cabins, he appears after the massacre like the hangers−on of an army come to rifle the dead in the evening of a battle. A crony worthy of his rival, the Catholic missionary, who also brings civilization at the flame of a torch, and the point of a saber or a bayonet. Alas, China is invaded and devoured by these two scourges! In a few years nothing will remain of this marvelous country where I


love so much to live!” Suddenly she got up, uttering a cry: “And the bell, my love! I can't hear the bell any more. Ah, my God, he'll be dead! While we were here, talking, they probably took him to the morgue, and we won't see him! It's your fault too... “ She made me get up from the bench. “Quick, quick, darling!” “We're not in a hurry, my dear Clara. We'll always see enough horrors. Speak to me some more as you Were speaking a moment ago, when I loved your voice so much; when I loved your eyes so much!” She grew impatient: “Quick, quick! You don't know what you're saying!” Her eyes had become hard again, her voice panting, her mouth imperiously cruel and sensual. Then it seemed to me that the Buddha's face itself, distorted by the sunlight, became the twisted, sneering face of an executioner. And I saw the young girl who had made her offering, going away down a path between the lawns, in the distance. Her yellow dress was very small, light and gleaming, like a narcissus blossom.


The path we walked on was bordered by peach trees, cherry trees, wild quince and almond trees, some dwarfed and trimmed in bizarre shapes, others free, bushy, and thrusting their long branches laden with flowers in every direction. A little apple tree, whose wood, leaves, and blossoms were bright red, assumed the form of a bulging vase. I also noticed an admirable tree, which is called the birch−leaf pear tree. It rose in a perfect pyramid to a height of six meters, and from its wide base to its sharp cone−shaped tip, it was so covered with flowers that neither its leaves nor branches were visible. Innumerable petals continuously dropped off and others opened, and they fluttered around the pyramid and floated slowly onto the paths and lawns, covering them with the whiteness of snow. And the air in the distance was impregnated with the subtle scents of egrantine and mignonette. Then we skirted clumps of shrubbery decorated with tiny−flowered deutzias in large pink clusters, and those pretty Pekin ligustrums with their shaggy foliage and great feathery panicles of white flowers powdered with sulphur.


At every step there was a fresh delight and a surprise for the eyes, which made me utter cries of admiration. Here there was a vine, whose broad light leaves I had noticed in the mountains of Annam, irregularly indented and denticulated—as denticulated and indented and broad as castor−oil leaves, which enlaced an immense dead tree with its tendrils, climbed to the topmost branches and from there fell in a cascade, a cataract, an avalanche, sheltering from the sun an entire flora, which blossomed out at the base between the leaves, colonnades amid niches formed by its tumbling twigs. There, a stephanotis displayed its paradoxical foliage, preciously wrought like cloisonne, and I marveled at its multiple gradations of color, from peacock−green to steel−blue, from a delicate pink to a barbaric purple, and from a light yellow to a rich brown ochre. Close by, a group of gigantic viburnums, as high as oaks, shook snowy globes at the tip of every branch. From place to place gardeners, kneeling in the grass or perched on red ladders, were training clematis over fine bamboo armatures; others were


twining ipomcea and calystegia about long thin props of black wood. And everywhere on the lawns, lilies lifted their stalks ready to blossom. Trees, bushes, clumps of foliage, isolated or clustered plants, seemed at first to have grown wherever their seed had fallen at random, uncared for, without any other will than nature's, without any other design than that of life itself. It was an error. To the contrary, the location of every plant had been laboriously studied and chosen, either so the colors and forms would complement each other and set each other off, or so as not to interfere with plans, aerial perspectives and floral vistas, and thus multiply sensations by combining patterns. The humblest flower as well as the greatest tree assisted in an unbroken harmony by its very position,' in an ensemble of art whose effect was all the more stirring by the very fact that it gave no appearance of geometrical labor or decorative effort. Everything seemed also to have been arranged by the munificence of nature, for the triumph of peonies. On the gentle slopes, sown like lawns, lay strips


of odorous woodruff and pink crucianella, roses the color known as old rose, and fields of arborescent peonies like sumptuous carpets. Near by there were single blossoms that held out to us their immense calyxes, red, black, copper, orange, and purple. Others, ideally pure, offered the most virginal shades of pink and white. The peonies were actual fairies, miraculous queens of this miraculous garden. They were gathered in glistening masses, or lay singly beside the path, meditative at the foot of the trees and amorous beside the clumps of shrubbery. Wherever the eye wandered, it encountered a peony. On the stone bridges, entirely covered with saxatile plants, whose bold sweep bound the masses of rock together and lay on paths between the kiosks, peonies marched by like a holiday throng. Their brilliant procession scaled the hillocks around which the alleys and paths, bordered by slender silver prickwood and privet trimmed in hedges, climbed, crossed and tangled. I admired a little knoll where, protected by mats on very low, white walls built like snail−shells, there stretched the most precious species of peonies, warped by clever artists


onto an intricate lattice. In the gaps between these walls, perennial peonies bunched on high, bare stems, were spaced in square boxes. And the summit was crowned with thick clusters and massy bushes of the sacred plant which blossoms so rarely in Europe, but flourishes here throughout the year. And at my right, at my left, near by or quite lost in the distance, there lay forever and ever, peonies, peonies, and peonies... Clara had started to walk very rapidly again, almost insensible to all this beauty; she walked, her forehead barred by a hard shadow, her pupils glowing. She seemed carried away by some destructive power. She spoke, and I heard nothing—or very little, of what she said. The words, 'death', 'charm', 'torture', and 'love', which fell ceaselessly from her lips, seemed no more to me than a distant echo, the tiny voice of a scarcely audible bell far, far off, and melting into the glory, triumphs, and serene and stupendous passion of this dazzling life about me. Clara walked and walked, and I walked beside her, and everywhere there was a fresh surprise:


peonies, dreamlike or fantastic bushes, blue prickwood, violently streaked holly, plaited and twisting magnolias, dwarf cedars which were ruffled like a head of hair, aralia and tall grass, giant eulalia, whose ribbon−like leaves hung and swayed like snake−skins flaked with gold. There were also tropical species; unknown trees on whose trunks obscene orchids swayed; the Indian banyan, rooted in the soil by its multiple branches; immense nusas, and in the shade of their leaves, flowers like insects, like birds, such as the fairylike strelitzia, whose yellow petals are wings and flutter ceaselessly. Suddenly Clara halted as though an invisible hand had brutally been laid upon her. Anxious, tense, her nostrils palpitating like a doe's which has just scented the odor of the male on the wind, she inhaled the air about her. A shiver, which I recognized as the forerunner of a spasm, ran through her entire body. Her lips instantly became red and swollen. “Did you smell it?” she said, in an abrupt, hollow voice. “I smell the aroma of the peonies which fills the


garden,” I replied. She stamped on the earth with an impatient foot: “It's not that! Didn't you smell it? Try to remember!” And, her nostrils dilating, her eyes more brilliant, she said: “It smells like when I love you!” Then quickly, she bent over a plant, a thalictrum which lifted a long, branching, light violet stem beside the path. Each auxiliary branch issued from an ivory−like sheath the shape of a yoni, and ended in a cluster of tiny little flowers, thickly bunched and covered with pollen: “This is it! This is it! Oh my darling!” In fact, a powerful phosphoric odor, an odor of semen rose from this plant. Clara plucked its stalk, forced me to breathe the strange odor; then, sprinkling my face with pollen: “Oh, darling! darling!” she said, “what a lovely plant! How it intoxicates me. How it maddens me! Is it strange that there are plants that smell of love? Why not? You don't know? Well, I do! Why are there so many flowers like human organs, if not because nature ceaselessly cries to living beings in all her


forms, and all her perfumes: 'Love each other! love each other! Be like the flowers. There is nothing but love!' Oh, tell me quickly, darling little swine... “ She continued to inhale the odor of the thalictrum and chewed at the cluster, whose pollen stuck to her lips. And abruptly she declared: “I want them in my garden... I want them in my room... in the kiosk... in all the house. Smell, darling, smell! A simple plant, isn't it wonderful! And now, come... come! If only we don't get there too late... to the bell!” With a pout, which was both comical and tragic, she continued: “Why did you linger down there on that bench? Don't look at all these flowers; don't look at them anymore! You'll see them better later—after seeing suffering and death. You'll see how much more beautiful they are, and what ardent passion their perfumes excite! Smell again, darling; and come! And feel my breasts. How firm they are! The silk of my dress excites their nipples... it feels like a hot iron burning them. It's delicious. Come now!” She started to run, her face all yellow with pollen, and the stalk of the thalictrum between her teeth.


Clara did not care to halt before another image of Buddha, whose face, wrinkled and devoured by time, grimaced in the sunlight. A woman was offering it cydonia branches, and these flowers seemed like little children's hearts to me. At the turn of the alley, we passed a litter carried by two men, on which there stirred a bundle of bleeding flesh; a sort of human being, whose skin, cut in strips, trailed on the ground like rags. Although it was impossible to recognize the slightest vestige of humanity in that hideous wound which, moreover, once had been a man. I felt that by some miracle it was still breathing. And drops of blood spotted the pathway. Clara plucked two peonies and laid them silently upon the litter with a trembling hand. With a brutal smile, the porters bared their black gums and their lacquered teeth, and when the litter had passed: “Ah, ah! I see the bell,” said Clara, “I see the bell!” And all about us, and all about the litter disappearing in the distance, there was like a rosy, white, and mauve rain, a variegated shimmering, a pearly, pink, and milky pulsation so tender and changing that it is impossible for me to express in


words its infinite sweetness and ineffable idyllic poetry...


PART 6

We left the curving alley into which other alleys branch on their circuitous way to the center, and which runs along an embankment planted with many rare and precious, shrubs, and took a little path which follows a dip in the land and ends directly at the bell. Paths and alleys were sanded with pulverized brick, which gave to the green of the lawns and foliage an extraordinary intensity and the transparence of an emerald under the light of a chandelier. To the right there were flowering lawns; to the left, more shrubbery. Pink acers rubbed with pale silver, bright gold, bronze or red—copper; mahonia, whose leaves of reddish−brown copper were broad as the leaves of a cocoanut palm; eleagnus, which seemed to have been coated with polychrome lacquer; pyrus, powdered with mica; laurel, on which there twinkled and glittered the thousand facets of a variegated crystal; caladium, whose veins of old gold set off the embroidered silks and Pink lace of the blossom; arbor vitre both blue, mauve, silver and plumed with sickly yellows and


poisonous orange; pale tamarisk, green tamarisk, red tamarisk, whose branches swayed and floated in the air like slender alga: in the sea; cotton−plants, whose tufts took flight and traveled ceaselessly through the air; salix and its joyous swarm of winged seeds; and clerodendron, spreading its large scarlet bells like parasols. In the sunny spaces between these shrubs, anemones, ranunculus and heucliera were sprinkled through the grass; in the shady spots strange cryptograms showed themselves, mosses covered with minute white flowerlets, and lichens like agglomerations of polyps and clumps of madrepores. It was a perpetual enchantment. And in the midst of this floral magic, there arose scaffolds, the apparatus of crucifixion, gibbets with violent decorations and black gallows, on whose tops there leered frightful demon masks; high gallows for simple strangulation, lower gibbets mechanically equipped for the tearing of flesh. On the shafts of these torture columns—as a diabolic refinement—pubescent calystegia, ipomcea from Daoura, lophospermum and colocynth spread their blossoms, and clematis and atragene. Birds piped


their love−songs there. At the foot of one of these gibbets, covered with flowers like the column of a terrace, an executioner was seated, his instrument−case between his feet, cleaning his fine steel implements with silk cloths; his gown was all covered with splattered blood and his hands seemed gloved in red. Around him, as around a corpse, there hummed and whirled swarms of flies. But in this haven of flowers and perfumes, this was neither repugnant nor terrible—it seemed that petals from a neighboring quince tree had rained upon his robe. Besides, he had a peaceful and good−natured belly. His face, in repose, expressed kindliness and even joviality; the joviality of a surgeon who has just brought a difficult operation to a successful finish. As we passed, he lifted his eyes and greeted us politely. Clara spoke to him in English. “It's really too bad you didn't come along an hour earlier,” this good man said, “you'd have seen something very lovely... something that isn't seen every day. An extraordinary job, milady. I rebuilt a man from head to foot, after removing his entire skin. He was so badly built! Ha! ha!”


Trembling with laughter, his belly alternately swelled and sank with a hollow, rumbling sound. A nervous tic lifted the slit of his mouth up to his cheekbone and, at the same time, his lowered eyelids touched the edge of his lips, amid the fat folds of his face. And this grimace, which was a multitude of grimaces, gave his face an expression of comical and macabre cruelty. Clara asked: “Doubtless he's the one we met just now on the litter?” “Ah, you met him?” exclaimed the good man, flattered. “Well, what did you think of him?” “How horrible!” said Clara, in a tranquil voice which belied her exclamation of disgust. Then the executioner explained: “Be was a miserable harbor coolie... nothing at all, milady. He really didn't deserve the honor of so fine a piece of work. It seems he stole a sack of rice from the English... our dear, good friends, the English. When I had taken off his skin, and it hung to his shoulders only by two little buttons, I made him walk, milady! ha! ha! Truly, a great idea! You'd have split your sides. He seemed to be wearing—what do


you call the thing?—ah, yes, indeed! an inverness? Never had the dog been better dressed, nor by a better tailor. But he had bones so hard I chipped my saw on them—this beautiful saw.” A little, whitish, greasy bit remained between the teeth of the saw. With a flip of the nail he made it leap and sent it off into the grass, among the flowerlets. “That's marrow, milady,” said the jolly old fellow. “He didn't have too much of it.” And shaking his head, he added: “They very seldom have much of it, for we work almost exclusively with the lower class.” Then, with an air of tranquil satisfaction: “Yesterday, it was very strange. I made a woman out of a man. He! he! And it was such a good job you couldn't tell the difference, and I myself was fooled looking at him. Tomorrow, if the genii grant me a woman on this gibbet, I'll make a man of her. That's not as easy! Ha, ha!” Under the stimulus of another laugh, his triple chin, the pads of his neck, and his belly trembled like jelly. A single, red, arched line then joined the left corner of his mouth to the seam of his left eyelid,


among the puffs and furrows from which flowed little streams of sweat and tears of laughter. He put the cleansed and gleaming saw into the case and closed it. Its box was lovely and of an excellent lacquer: a flight of wild geese over a nocturnal pool, where the moon silvered the lotus and the iris. At that moment, the shadow of the gallows threw a transverse purple bar across the body of the executioner. “You see, milady,” continued the talkative fellow, “our trade, just like our lovely vases, our beautiful embroidered silks, and lovely lacquers, is disappearing little by little. Today we no longer know what torture really is, although I try to carryon its real tradition. I am swamped, and I can't stay its decadence all by myself. What can you do? Now they recruit executioners from God knows where! No more examinations, no more competitions. Influence and protection alone decide their choice. And what choices, if you only knew! It's shameful! In the olden days, they only entrusted these important functions to actual scientists, men of merit who knew the anatomy of the human body perfectly, who had


diplomas, experience, or natural talent. Today what the hell! The merest shoemaker can presume to fill these honorable and difficult positions. No more hierarchy,. no more traditions! Everything is disappearing, for we live in a chaotic age. There is something rotten in China, milady.” He sighed deeply, and showing us his red hands, and the instrument case gleaming in the grass beside him, he continued his long recital: “However, I do the best I can, as you have seen, to resurrect our abolished prestige. For I'm an old conservative myself, an uncompromising nationalist, and I despise all these practices, all these new methods which the Europeans, and particularly the English, are bringing us under pretext of civilization. I should not care to slander the English, milady; they are honest and very respectable people. But you must admit their influence on our customs has been disastrous. Every day they deprive our China of its unique character. From the point of view of torture alone, milady, they have done us much harm... much harm. It's a great shame!” “They know how, however,” Clara interrupted,


wounded in her national pride by this reproach; for though she really desired to display severity towards her compatriots, whom she detested, she intended to have them respected by all others. The executioner shrugged his shoulders and, compelled by his nervous tic, succeeded in displaying the most provocatively comical grimace that could ever be seen upon a human face. And while, despite our horror, we had great difficulty in suppressing our laughter, he declared peremptorily: “No, milady, they don't know how at all! In this matter, they are actual savages. Look—in India—let's consider India alone—what a vulgar, inartistic business! And how stupidly—yes, stupidly—they've wasted death!” He clasped his bloody hands as in prayer, lifted his eyes to heaven, and in a lugubrious voice which seemed to ring with tears of regret he went on to say: “When you think, milady,” he exclaimed, “of all the wonderful things they might have done down there... and which they haven't done... and which they'll never do! It's unpardonable!” “There, for instance,” Clara protested, “you don't


know what you're talking about.” “May the genii carry me off if I lie!” exclaimed the fat old fellow. And in a slower voice, with didactic gestures, he stated: “In torture, as in everything, the English are not artists; All the admirable qualities you wish, milady, but not that... no, no, no!” “Come now! they've made the whole world weep!” “Bad, milady... very bad,” corrected the executioner. “Art does not consist in killing multitudes... in slaughtering, massacring, and exterminating men in hordes. Really, it's too easy. Art, milady, consists in knowing how to kill, according to the rites of beauty, whose divine secret we Chinese alone possess. Know how to kill! Nothing is rarer, and everything depends on that. Know how to kill! That is to say, how to work the human body like a sculptor works his day or piece of ivory, and evoke the entire sum, every prodigy of suffering it conceals in the depths of its shadows and its mysteries. There! Science is required, variety, taste, imagination... genius, after all. But today, everything


is disappearing. The Occidental snobbery which is invading us, the gunboats, rapid−fire guns, long−range rifles, explosives... what else? Everything which makes death collective, administrative and bureaucratic—all the filth of your progress, in fact—is destroying, little by little, our beautiful traditions of the past. It is only here, in this garden, that they are conserved as well as can be... where we try at least to maintain them as well as possible. But what difficulties! what obstacles! what continual struggles—if you knew! Alas, I feel it won't last much longer. We have been conquered by mediocrity, and the bourgeois spirit is triumphing everywhere—” His face then possessed a singular expression of both melancholy and pride, while his gestures revealed profound lassitude. “And besides,” he said. “I who speak to you, milady—I'm certainly not just anybody. I can boast of having disinterestedly worked all my life to the glory of our great Empire. I have always been first in the competitive examinations in torture—and in many of them. I have invented—believe me—things actually sublime, wonderful tortures which, in another time


and under another dynasty, would have made my fortune and spelled immortality. Well, they scarcely pay any attention to me. I'm not understood. Let us say the word: they despise me. What can you expect? Today talent counts for nothing; it isn't given the slightest recognition. It's discouraging, I assure you! Poor China, once so artistic, so magnificently celebrated! Ah, I really fear it's ripe for conquest!” With a pessimistic and broken−hearted−gesture, he took Clara to witness to this decadence, and his grimaces were utterly untranslatable. “After all—look milady! Isn't it lamentable? I'm the man who invented the torture of the rat. May the genii devour my liver if it wasn't I! Ah, milady, an extraordinary torture, I swear. Originality, picturesqueness, psychology, the science of pain—it had everything in its favor. And the bargain, it was infinitely comical. It was inspired by that ancient Chinese gaiety, so neglected in our day. Ah, how it would have excited everyone's good spirits. What a resource for languishing conversations! Well, they've renounced it. Worse, they'd have nothing to do with it. And yet, the three trials we held before the judges


met with such a colossal success.” As we did not seem to pity him, and these recriminations of an old employee rather annoyed us, the executioner repeated, emphasizing the word: “Colossal... co−los−sal!” “What is this torture of the rat,” Clara asked, “and how does it happen that I don't know about it?” “A masterpiece, milady—a perfect masterpiece!” the fat man insisted in a resounding voice, and his flabby body settled more and more into the grass. “I heard you... and then?” “A masterpiece, in truth! And you see... you don't know about it... nobody knows anything about it. What a pity! How can you expect me not to be humiliated?” “Can you describe it to us?” “Can I! I absolutely can. I'm going to explain it to you, and you'll judge. Follow me carefully... “ And the fat man, sketching shapes in the air with precise gestures, spoke as follows: “You take a condemned man, charming lady, a condemned man, or anybody else—for it isn't necessary for the success of my torture that the


victim be condemned to anything at all—you take a man, as young and strong as possible, whose muscles are quite resistant; in virtue of this principle: the more strength, the more struggle and the more struggle, the more pain! Good. You undress him. Good. And when he is stark naked—yes, milady?—you make him kneel, his back bent, on the earth, where you fasten him with chains riveted to iron collars which bind his neck, his wrists, his calves and ankles. Good! I don't know whether I'm making myself understood? Then in a big pot, whose bottom is pierced with a little hole—a flowerpot, milady!—you place a very fat rat, whom it's wise to have deprived of nourishment for a couple of days, to excite its ferocity. And this pot, inhabited by this rat, you apply hermetically, like an enormous cupping−glass, to the back of the condemned by means of stout thongs attached to a leather girdle about the loins. Ah, hat Now the plot thickens!” He looked maliciously at us out of the corners of his lowered lids, to judge the effect his words were producing. “And then?” said Clara, simply.


“Then, milady, you introduce into the little hole into the pot—guess what!” “How should I know?” The good fellow rubbed his hands, smiled horribly, and then continued: “You introduce an iron rod, heated red−hot at the fire of a forge—a little portable forge which is there beside you. And when the iron rod is introduced, what happens? Ah, ha hat Imagine what must happen, milady—” “Oh, come on, you old gossip!” commanded my companion, and stamped angrily on the sandy path. “There, there!” said the prolix executioner. “A little patience, milady. And let us proceed methodically, if you please. Well, you introduce into the pot's hole, an iron rod, heated red−hot at the fire of a forge. The rat tries to escape the burning of the rod and its dazzling light. It goes mad, cuts capers, leaps and bounds, runs around the walls of the pot, crawls and gallops over the roan's flesh, which it first tickles and then tears with its nails, and bites with its sharp teeth, seeking an exit through the torn and bleeding skin. But there is no exit. During the first


frenzied moments, the rat can find none. And the iron rod, handled cleverly and slowly, still draws near the rat, threatens it, scorches its fur. What do you think of this for a beginning?” He caught his breath for a few seconds, then staidly, authoritatively, he instructed us: “It's great merit lies in the fact that you must know how to prolong this initial operation as much as possible, for the laws of physiology teach us that there is nothing more horrible to the human flesh than the combination of tickling and biting. It may even happen that the victim goes mad from it. He howls and struggles; his body, remaining free between the iron collars, palpitates, heaves and contorts, shaken by agonizing shudders. But his limbs are firmly held by the chains, and the pot, by the thongs. And the movements of the condemned man only augment the rat's fury, to which the intoxication of blood is often added. It's sublime, milady!” “And then?” said Clara, grown slightly pale, in an abrupt, unsteady voice. The executioner clacked his tongue, and


continued: “Finally—for I see you're anxious to know the climax of this wonderful and jolly story; finally threatened by the glowing rod and thanks to the excitation of a few well−chosen burns, the rat ends by finding an exit, milady. Ah, ha ha!” “How horrible!” exclaimed Clara. “Ah, you see... I'm proud of the interest you take in my torture. But wait! The rat penetrates the man's body, widening with claws and teeth the opening he madly digs, as in the earth. And he croaks, stifled, at the same time that the victim who, after a half−hour of ineffable, incomparable torture, ends by succumbing to a hemorrhage—when it isn't from too much suffering or even the congestion caused by a frightful insanity. In all cases, milady, and whatever the final cause of this death—you can be sure it's extremely beautiful!” Satisfied, and with an air of triumphant pride, he concluded: “Isn't it extremely beautiful, milady? Isn't it actually a prodigious invention? an admirable masterpiece, classic after a fashion, and whose


equivalent you may vainly seek in the past? I would not like to be lacking in modesty, milady, but agree that the demons who used to haunt the forests of Yunnam never conceived a like miracle. Well, the judges would have nothing to do with it! There I brought them, you'll admit, something infinitely glorious, something unique in its fashion, capable of inspiring our greatest artists. They didn't want it... they want nothing... nothing at all! The return to the classic tradition terrifies them. Without also counting all sorts of moral obstacles, painful to relate... intrigue, extortion, underhand rivalry, scorn of equity, horror of the beautiful—and what not? you'd have thought, at least, I'm sure, that for such a service they'd have made me a mandarin. Indeed! Nothing, milady—I received nothing! There are the symptoms characteristic of our downfall. Ah, we are a lost people, a dead people! Let the Japanese come; we can no longer resist them. Farewell China!” He was silent. The sun, sinking in the west, the shadow of the gallows then shifted with the sun, and lay stretched across the grass. The lawns became a brighter green; a sort of pink and gold mist rose from


the watered bushes, and the flowers shone more brilliantly, like little variegated stars in the firmament of foliage. A yellow bird carrying a long cotton−twig in its beak, repaired its nest in the depths of the leafage which covered the shaft of the torture column at whose foot the executioner was seated. Now he was dreaming, with a more placid countenance and less violent grimaces, in which cruelty was replaced by melancholy. “Just like the flowers,” he murmured, after a silence. A black cat which had emerged from the bushes, its back arched and its tail hanging, came and rubbed itself against him, purring. He caressed it gently. Then, having noticed a scarabee, the cat stretched out behind a tuft of grass and, its ears erect, its eyes glowing, started to follow the capricious flight of the insect in the air. The executioner, whose patriotic lamentations had been interrupted by the cat, shook his head and continued: “Just like the flowers! We have also lost the sense of flowers, for one thing follows another. We no longer know what flowers are. Would you believe that they are sending us some from Europe—we


who possess the most varied and extraordinary flora on the globe. What aren't they sending us today? Helmets, bicycles, furniture, coffee−mills, wine and flowers! And if you knew the sad stupidities, the sentimental nonsense and decadent follies our poets utter on the subject of flowers. It's frightful! There are some who assert they are perverse! Flowers perverse! In fact, they no longer know what to write. Have you ever heard such monstrous nonsense, milady? Why, flowers are violent, cruel, terrible and splendid... like love!” He picked a ranunculus which gently swayed its golden head above the grass beside him, and with infinite delicacy, slowly and amorously, he turned it between his fat red fingers, from which the dried blood scaled off in places: “Isn't it adorable?” he repeated, looking at it. “It's so little, so fragile, and besides, it's all of nature; all the beauty and power of nature. It contains the world. A puny and relentless organism which goes straight to the goal of its desire! Ah, milady, flowers do not indulge in sentiment. They indulge in passion, nothing but passion. And they make love all the time,


and in every fashion. They think of nothing else; and how right they are! Perverse? Because they obey the only law of life; because they are satisfied with the only need of life, which is love? But consider, milady, the flower is only a reproductive organ. Is there anything healthier, stronger, or more beautiful than that? These marvelous petals, these silks, these velvets... these soft, supple, and caressing materials are the curtains of the alcove, the draperies of the bridal chamber, the perfumed bed where they unite, where they pass their ephemeral and immortal life, swooning with love. What an admirable example for us!” He spread the petals of the flower, counted the stamens laden with pollen, and he spoke again, his eyes swimming in a comical ecstasy: “See, milady; one, two, five, ten, twenty. See how they quiver! Look! Sometimes twenty males are required for the delight of a single female! He! he! he! Sometimes it's the opposite.” One by one he tore off the petals of the flower: “And when they are gorged with love, then the curtains of the bed are torn away, the draperies of


the chamber wither and fall; and the flowers die, because they know well they have nothing more to do. They die, to be reborn later, and once again, to love!” Throwing the stripped peduncle away, he exclaimed: “Make love, milady... make love... like the flowers!” Then abruptly he took up his instrument−case, got up, his queue awry, and saluting us, went away across the lawn, treading with his heavy, swaying body upon the grass blossoming with squill, doronicum and narcissus. For some moments Clara followed him with her eyes, and as we started to walk towards the bell: “Isn't he funny! What a roly−poly!” she said. “He's so good natured.” I stupidly exclaimed in my horror: “How can you say such a thing, my dear Clara? Why, he's a monster! It's even frightful to think such a monster exists among men, somewhere in the world! I feel that from now on I'll always have the nightmare of that horrible face before me, and the horror of that conversation. You hurt me very much, I assure you.” Clara replied quickly:


“And you hurt me too. Why do you pretend the roly−poly is a monster? You don't know anything about it. He loves his art, that's all; like a sculptor loves sculpture, and like a musician loves music. And he talks about it marvelously! It's curious and aggravating that you refuse to get it into your head we are in China, and not, thank God, in Hyde Park or the Bodiniere, among all those dirty bourgeois you adore! As far as you're concerned, the customs of all countries should be identical—and what customs! A lovely idea! Don't you realize it would mean dying of monotony, and the end of travel, my dear!” Then suddenly, in a more decided tone of reproach: “Ah, really, you're not at all nice. Your egoism never relaxes for a second, not even when I request the slightest pleasure of you. It's impossible to even enjoy oneself a little with you; you're never happy with anything. Without counting the fact that thanks to you, we've probably missed the best!” She sighed sadly: “Here's another day lost! I have no luck.” I tried to justify myself and calm her: “No... no,” insisted Clara, “it's very bad. You're


not a man. Even when Annie was alive, it was the same thing. You spoiled all our pleasure—fainting like a little boarding−school girl or a pregnant woman. People like you stay at home. God, how stupid. We go out gaily, happily, to have a good−time, see sublime sights, be thrilled by extraordinary sensations... and then suddenly you're sad, and it's all over! No, no! It's stupid, stupid... it's too stupid!” She hung more heavily on my arm, and she pouted—a pout of annoyance and affection—so exquisite I felt a thrill of desire run through my veins. “And I who do everything you want, like a poor puppy,” she moaned. Then: “I'm sure you think me wicked, because I enjoy things that make you grow pale and tremble. You think me wicked and heartless, don't you?” Without waiting for a reply, she confessed: “But I grow pale too, and I also tremble. Otherwise I wouldn't enjoy myself. Well, do you think me wicked?” “No, dear Clara, you are not wicked... you are—” She quickly interrupted me, offered her lips to me: “I'm not wicked. I don't want you to think me


wicked. I'm a nice little woman... curious, like all women. And you, you're only an old hen! I don't love you any more. Kiss your mama, darling. Kiss hard... harder... harder. No, I don't love you any more—like milksop. Yes, by God, that's it... you're only a darling little insignificant milksop.” Gay, yet serious, smiling, but her forehead barred by the dark fold of shadow she possessed in anger as well as passion, she added: “Say I'm only a woman... a very little woman... a woman as fragile as a flower... as delicate and frail as a bamboo−stalk... and that of the two of us, I'm the man... and that I'm worth ten men like you!” And the desire her flesh provoked in me was augmented by an immense pity for her mad, lost soul. Once more, with a slight hiss of scorn, she said that phrase, which came so often to her lips: “Men! They don't know what love is, nor what death is, which is much more beautiful than love. They don't know anything, and they're always sad, and weep! And faint for no reason, Over nothings! Phht! phht! phht!” Changing her line of thought, like a beetle shifting from one flower to the next, she


suddenly asked: “Is it true what that roly−poly just told us?” “What, dear Clara? And ,what difference does he make to you?” “Just now the roly−poly said that among the flowers, twenty males were sometimes required for the delight of a single female. Is it true?” “Certainly!” “Really true? Really... really true?” “Obviously.” “The roly−poly wasn't making fun of us? Are you sure?” “You're funny! Why do you ask that? Why do you look at me with such strange eyes? Of course it's true.” “Ah!” She remained pensive, her lids closed for a moment. Her breath came hurriedly, her breast almost panted. Then, very low, she murmured, resting her head against my chest: “I'd like to be a flower. I'd like... I'd like to be—everything!” “Clara!” I begged, “my little Clara.” I held her fast


in my arms. I cradled her in my arms. “Wouldn't you? You wouldn't like to? Oh—you'd rather stay a little milksop all your life! Pugh, how naughty!” After a short silence, during which we even heard the red sand of the alley crunch beneath our heavy steps, she continued, in a singing voice: “And I'd also like... when I am dead... I'd like to have very strong perfumes put in my coffin... thalictrum blossoms... and images of sin... beautiful, exciting, naked images, like those that decorate the mats in my room. Or better, I'd like to be buried without a dress or a shroud, in the crypts of the temple of Elephanta, amid all those strange stone bacchantes, who caress and tear each other so furiously. Ah, my darling! I'd like... I'd like to be dead already!” And abruptly: “When you're dead, do your feet touch the wood of the coffin?” “Clara!” I implored. “Why are you always talking of death? And still you don't want me to be sad! I beg you, don't drive me completely mad. Give up these sordid ideas that torment me so and let's go home. For pity's sake, dear Clara, let's go home.”


She did not listen to my plea, and continued in a musical tone which I couldn't tell... no, truthfully, I could not tell whether it expressed emotion or irony, convulsive sobs or hysterical laughter. “If you are with me when I die... darling... listen to me! Please put... yes, that's the thing... please put a pretty little yellow silk cushion between my poor little feet and the wood of the casket. And then, please kill my handsome Laos hound... and stretch him out, still bleeding, beside me... like he himself is accustomed to stretch out, you know, with one paw on my thigh and another on my breast. And then... for a long, long time, please kiss me darling, on my teeth... and my hair. And tell me things... pretty things... things that soothe and excite... things like when you love me. Won't you, my darling? Promise me? Come now, don't make such a funereal face. It isn't dying that's sad; it's living when you're not happy. Swear! Swear that you promise me!” “Clara! Clara! I beg you! Be quiet!” I was undoubtedly at the end of my strength. A flood of tears gushed from my eyes. I wouldn't have been able to tell the reason for these tears, which


were not tears of distress, and which, to the contrary, gave me relief and relaxation. And Clara was deceived in attributing them to herself. It wasn't for her I was weeping, nor for her sin, nor for the pity which her poor, sick soul inspired in me, nor for the image of her death she had just evoked. It was for myself I was weeping, perhaps, for my presence in this garden, for this cursed love in which I felt that everything which then remained to me every generous impulse, every lost desire, and every noble ambition was profaned by the impure breath of these kisses, of which I was ashamed and for which I was also thirsty. Well, no! Why should I lie to myself? physical tears... tears of weakness, fatigue and fever, tears of enervation before sights too cruel for my debilitated senses, before odors too strong for my sense of smell, before the continual oscillation of my carnal desires from impotence to frenzy... the tears of a woman... tears for nothing at all! Certain that it was because of her, because of her dead... because of her stretched out in her coffin I was weeping, and happy in her power over me, Clara became deliciously cajoling:


“Poor little pet!” she sighed. “You're trying! Well then, say the roly−poly was good−natured. Say it to please me and I'll be quiet, and never talk of death again... never again. Come, right now, say it, little pig.” In a cowardly fashion, but also anxious to be finished at last with all these macabre ideas, I did what she asked. With clamorous joy, she fell on my neck, kissed me on the lips, and drying my eyes, exclaimed: “Ah, you're nice! You're a nice baby! A darling little baby, my darling! And I'm a vile woman, a wicked little woman who's always teasing you and making you cry. Well then, the roly−poly is a monster... I detest him. And I don't want you to kill my beautiful Laos hound. And I don't want to die. And I adore you, ah! And then... and then... all this is just to make you laugh, you understand. Don't cry any more, ah, don't cry any more! Now smile! Smile with your lovely eyes, with your mouth which can say such tender things... your mouth, your mouth! And let's walk faster. I love so much to walk very fast, on your arm!”


And head to head we walked, her parasol above us fluttering lightly, brilliantly, and madly, like an enormous butterfly.


PART 7

We were approaching the bell. On the right and left there were immense red and purple flowers and blood−colored peonies, and in the shade, under enormous parasol−shaped leaves, petasites and anthuriums like bleeding tissues seemed ironically to greet us on the way, and point out the path of torture to us. There were other flowers also, flowers of butchery and massacre, tiger−flowers with their gaping mutilated throats, diclytras and their garlands of little red hearts, and fierce labiates with their firm and fleshy pulp the tint of mucus; they were veritable human lips—Clara's lips crying from the tops of their tender stalks: “Come, my dears, come quickly. Where you are going there is still more pain, more torture, more blood flowing and dripping on the earth, more contorted and torn bodies breathing their last on iron tables... more ragged flesh swaying on the gallows−rope, more horror and more hell. Come, my loves, come, lip to lip and hand in hand. And look between the foliage and the lattice−work, look at the


infernal diorama unfolding, and the diabolic festival of death!” Clara was silent, shivering, her teeth clenched, her eyes more glowing and cruel. She was silent and walked, listening to these flower−voices in which she recognized her own, that voice of frightful days and homicidal nights, the voice of cruelty and lust, and also pain, which seemed to come not only from the depths of the earth and the abyss of death, but at the same time from the deeper and blacker depths of her own soul. A strident noise like the creaking of a pulley filled the air. Then there was another sound, very sweet, very pure, like the resonance of a crystal cup which a moth had struck in its evening flight. Then we entered a wide, curving alley, bordered on each side by high latticework which cast shadows riddled with little flecks of light upon the sand. Clara looked eagerly between the lattice and the foliage. And despite myself, despite my sincere determination to henceforth close my eyes to the damnable spectacle, drawn by the strange magnet of horror, overwhelmed by the invincible vertigo of abominable


sights, I too looked between the lattice and the foliage. And this is what we saw: On the plateau of a broad, low hillock, on which the alley ended in a continuous and scarcely perceptible rise, there was a round space, artistically laid out like an arboretum, by skilful gardeners. Enormous, squat, of a dull bronze lugubriously streaked with red, the bell in the center of this space was hung by block and tackle to the top beam of a sort of black wood guillotine whose pillars were ornamented with gilded inscriptions and terrifying masks. Four men, stripped to the waist, their muscles taut and their skin so distended that they were no more than a mass of shapeless lumps, pulled on the rope of the tackle, and their combined and rhythmic efforts could scarcely lift or budge the heavy mass of metal, which at each pull gave off an almost inaudible sound, that sweet, pure, plaintive sound we had just heard, and whose vibrations were lost and died away among the flowers. The clapper, a heavy iron pestle, was then gently oscillating, but no longer touched the sonorous walls of the bell, tired of having sounded a poor devil's death−knell for


so long a time. Under the cupola of the bell, two other men, their torsos rippling with sweat, their loins bare, and girdled with brown wool loin−cloths, were bending over something that could not be seen. Their chests with their protruding ribs and their lean flanks heaved like those of foundered horses. All this could be vaguely seen, a little confused, a little jumbled, broken suddenly by the intervention of a thousand things, and then recomposed in the gaps of the foliage and the interstices in the lattice. “We must hurry... we must hurry!” exclaimed Clara who, in order to walk faster, had closed her parasol and lifted her dress at the hips, with a bold gesture. 'The alley still curved, now flooded with sunlight, now shady, and it changed in appearance every moment, mingling with each floral beauty a more inexorable horror. “Look carefully, my darling,” said Clara. “Look all around. Here we are in the most beautiful and interesting section of the garden. Look! those flowers! oh, those flowers!” She indicated the bizarre plants which grew in a plot of earth where water could be seen gushing from all sides. I approached.


On high stalks, flecked with black and scaly like snake−skins, there were enormous spathes, sort of bell−shaped trumpets the deep violet of putrefaction on the inside, and the greenish yellow of decomposition on the outer, which were like the split thoraxes of dead beasts. From the bottom of these trumpets there issued long sanguinolent spadices, assuming the form of monstrous phalluses. Attracted by the cadaverous odor these horrible plants gave off, flies hovered about in compact swarms and were swallowed by the spathes, which were lined from top to bottom with contractile, silky threads that enlaced them and held them prisoner more surely than a spider's web. And along the stalks, finger−like leaves contracted and twisted like the hands of tortured men. “You see, my darling,” instructed Clara, “these flowers are not the creation of any sickly soul, nor of a raving genius... they are natural. Didn't I tell you nature loved death!” “Nature also creates monsters!” “Monsters, monsters! But there are no monsters! What you call 'monsters' are superior forms, or forms


simply beyond your understanding. Aren't the gods monsters? Isn't a man of genius a monster, like a tiger or a spider, like all individuals who live beyond social lies, in the dazzling and divine immorality of things? Why, I too then—am a monster!” We were then walking, between bamboo palisades, along which there ran honeysuckle, odorous jasmine, trumpet−flowers, arborescent mallow, and climbing hibiscus not yet in bloom. Moonseed embraced a stone column with its innumerable lianas. On the top of the column grimaced the face of a hideous divinity whose ears spread like the wings of a bat, and whose hair ended in flaming horns, incarvillea, hemerocallis, morrea, and larkspur with leafless stems concealed its base with their little pink bells, their scarlet thyrses, their golden calyxes and purple stars. Covered with ulcers and eaten by lice, a mendicant bonze who seemed to be the guardian of this structure, and who was training Touranian mongooses to make perilous leaps, insulted us as soon as we appeared. “Dogs! dogs! dogs!” We had to throw a few pieces of change to this


fanatic, whose invective surpassed all the outrageous obscenities which the indignation of the filthiest mind could conceive. “I know him!” said Clara. “He's like all priests of all religions; he wants to frighten us into giving him a little money, but he's not a bad devil!” From place to place in the recesses of the palisade which concealed verdant halls and beds of flowers, there were wooden benches equipped with chains and bronze collars, iron tables in the shapes of crosses,. blocks, gridirons, gibbets, automatic quartering machines, beds studded with cutting blades and bristling with iron spikes, stationary pillories, wooden horses, wheels, kettles and tanks suspended over extinguished fires—all the apparatus of sacrifice and torture, covered with blood, here dried and blackish, there sticky and red. Puddles of blood filled the hollow parts; long gobs of coagulated blood hung from disjointed machinery. Around these apparatus, the soil actually was wet with blood. Blood still starred the whiteness of the jasmine, marbled the pink coral of the honeysuckle and the mauve passion−flowers, and, bits of human


flesh which had flown under the whips and leather thongs, were stuck here and there to the edges of the petals and leaves. Since I grew faint and grumbled at the sight of these puddles, which expanded and reached the middle of the path, Clara encouraged me in a gentle voice: “This is nothing, yet, my darling... come along!” But it was difficult to proceed. Plants and trees, atmosphere and, earth were alive with flies, intoxicated insects, fierce and quarrelsome beetles, gorged mosquitoes. Around us all the fauna of the cadaver was hatching in myriads in the sun. Filthy maggots swarmed in the red pools, and dropped from the branches in soft clusters. The sand seemed to breathe and walk, lifted by the movement and pullulation of vermicular life. Deafened and blinded, we were halted at every step by these buzzing, multiplying swarms, and I was afraid for Clara—afraid of their deadly stings. And at times we had the horrible impression that our feet were sinking into the soaking earth, as though it had rained blood! “This is nothing yet,” repeated Clara, “come along with me!”


And here, to complete the drama, human faces appeared: squads of workmen who, with a nonchalant step, were coming to clean and repair the instruments of torture, for the hour of execution in the garden was over. They looked at us, doubtless astonished to encounter two people still standing at that time and in that place, two beings still alive, who still had their heads, their legs and arms. Further on, crouching on the earth in the posture of a grotesque china figure, we saw a big−bellied and good−natured potter who was varnishing freshly−baked flower−pots; near him, a weaver with indolent and exacting fingers was plaiting ingenious plant−shelters of supple reeds and rice−straws. A gardener was sharpening his grafting−tool on a grindstone, humming popular airs while an aged woman, chewing a betel−leaf and swaying her head in time, was placidly scouring a sort of iron maw whose sharp teeth still retained on their points some filthy human scraps. We also saw some children killing rats with sticks, and filling baskets with them. And along the palisades, hungry and fierce and dragging the imperial splendor of their tails in the


bloody mud, peacocks—troupes of peacocks, pecked at the blood which had spurted into the hearts of the flowers, and clucking fiercely, snapped up the scraps of flesh stuck to the foliage. The oppressive odor of the slaughter−house which persisted above all the other odors and dominated them, turned our stomachs and made us violently nauseous. Clara herself, fairy of the charnel−house, angel of decomposition and rot, not so well sustained by her nerves, perhaps, had grown slightly pale. Sweat beaded her temples. I saw her eyes roll back and her legs grow weak. “I'm cold!” she said. She gave me a glance of actual distress. Her nostrils, always distended like sails before the winds of death, had closed. I thought she was going to faint. “Clara!” I begged. “You see very well it's impossible. You see there's a degree of horror which even you yourself cannot exceed.” I stretched out my arms to her, but she refused them, and stiffening herself against sickness with all the indomitable energy of her frail organs: “Are you crazy?” she said. “Come, my darling...


faster... let's walk faster.” However, she took out her flask, and smelled its salts. “It's you who are all pale, and you walk like a drunken man. I'm not ill... I feel fine... and I'd like to sing.” She began to sing: Her clothes are summer gardens. And temples... But she had overestimated her strength, and her voice dried up in her throat. I thought this a good occasion to lead her back, persuade her, terrify her, perhaps. Vigorously, I attempted to draw her to me. “Clara! my little Clara! You must not defy your strength; you must not defy your heart. Let's go home, I beg you!” But she protested: “No... no... leave me alone... say nothing... it's nothing. I'm happy!” And quickly, she slipped out of my embrace. “You see! There isn't even any blood on my shoes.” Then, annoyed: “God, these flies are overwhelming! Why are there so many flies here? And these horrid peacocks—why don't they make them shut up?” I tried to chase them away; some persisted in


their bloody gleaning; others flew heavily off and, uttering more strident cries, perched not far from us on the top of the palisade and in the trees, from which their trains hung down like floods of material embroidered with dazzling jewels. “Filthy beasts!” said Clara. Thanks to the salts whose cordial odors she had breathed deeply, thanks especially to her implacable will not to faint, her face had already recovered its rosy tint, and her limbs their supple and vigorous movement. Then, in a firmer voice, she sang: Her clothes are summer gardens. And temples on festival−days. Her firm and swelling breasts, Gleam like a pair of golden vases, Filled with intoxicating liquors and perfumes. I have three mistresses... After a moment of silence, she started to sing in a stronger voice, which drowned out the buzzing of the insects: The hair of the third is plaited, And rolled about her head. And never has known the sweetness of


perfumed oils. That face which mirrors passion is deformed, And her body is like a pig's... And she always scolds and complains. Her breasts and belly exhale a fishy odor And her bed is more repugnant than a lapwing's nest. And she is the one I love. And I love her because there is something more mysteriously attractive than beauty: divine corruption. Corruption in which the eternal heat of life resides. Corruption in which the eternal renewal of metamorphoses unfolds. I have three mistresses. While she was singing, while her voice was floating among the horrors of the garden, a cloud arose, very high, very far away. In the immensity of the sky, it was like a little pink bark, a tiny little bark with silken sails which grew as it progressed in its gentle glide. And when she had finished singing: “Oh, the little cloud!” exclaimed Clara, suddenly joyful again. “Look how pretty it is, all pink against


the azure! Don't you know it? Have you never seen it? Why,. it's a very mysterious little cloud... and perhaps even because it's not a little cloud at all. It appears every day at the same time, from God knows where. And it's always alone, and always pink. It glides and glides and glides. Then it gets thinner, unravels, scatters, dissipates and melts into the firmament. And it's gone! And no one knows where it goes, any more than where it comes from! There are some very learned astronomers here who believe it's a genie. But I believe it's a wandering soul... a poor little bewildered soul, like mine. And speaking to herself, she added:” “What if it's poor Annie's soul?” For several minutes she contemplated the unknown cloud which was already growing pale, and little by little, fading away. “There! there it's melting... melting. It's all over. No more little cloud! It's gone.” She remained silent and fascinated, her eyes lost in the sky. A light breeze had arisen, making a gentle shiver run through the trees, and the sun was less fierce and less overwhelming, its light growing


magnificently copper towards the west and bathing the east in pearl−grey tones of infinite gradation. And the shadows of the kiosks and the great trees and the stone Buddhas lay slenderer, less defined, and altogether blue upon the lawns.


PART 8

We were near the bell. Very tall plum trees with twin blossoms, crowded together, intercepted our view of it. We discerned it from little shadows between the leaves and flowers, little decorative flowers, round and white like daisies. The peacocks had followed us for some distance, brazen and wary at the same time, stretching their necks and trailing the splendid trains of their oscillated tails across the red sand. There were also some all white, their breasts speckled with bloody spots, and their cruel heads crowned with a broad fan−shaped crest, each feather of which, slender and stiff, bore at its tip what looked like a trembling droplet of pink crystal. Iron tables, racks already set up, and sinister gear grew more numerous. In the shadow of a great tamarisk, we perceived a sort of rococo armchair. Its arms were made alternately of a saw and a steel blade, and its back and seat of iron spikes. A scrap of flesh hung from one of these spikes. Lightly, adroitly, Clara lifted it with the tip of her parasol and


tossed it to the hungry peacocks who hurled themselves upon it, striking out fiercely with their beaks. For several moments there was a dazzling scramble, a clash of gems whose marvelous spectacle I loitered to admire despite my disgust. Perched in the neighboring trees, some lophophores, sacred pheasants, and great fighting cocks from the Malay Peninsula with damascene breasts, watched the conflict of the peacocks and cunningly awaited feeding−time. Suddenly a wide gap opened in the wall of plum trees, a sort of light and flowery arch, and the bell was there before us—enormous and terrible before us. Its heavy beams, varnished black and decorated with gold inscriptions and red masks, seemed like the profile of a temple, and gleamed strangely in the sunlight. All around, the earth was covered with a layer of sand which muffled sound, and was surrounded by a wall of flowering plum trees blossoming with those heavy flowers which cover the entire length of their trunks with white bouquets. In the middle of this red and white circle, the bell was sinister to behold. It was somewhat like an abyss in


the air, a hanging void which seemed to rise from earth to sky, and whose bottom, filled with silent shadows, could not be seen. At that moment we understood what the two men were bending over—those men whose emaciated torsos and loins girdled with brown wool had appeared to us under the dome of the bell the moment we entered that part of the garden. They were bending over a corpse and unwrapping the ropes and leather thongs with which it had been firmly trussed. The corpse, the color of ochre clay, was entirely naked, and lay with its face to the ground. It was frightfully convulsed, the muscles bulging, its entire flesh violently disfigured, sunken here and bloated there, as by a tumor. You could see that the tortured man had struggled for a long time, vainly attempting to break his bonds, and that with the desperate and continuous effort both ropes and leather thongs had little by little sunk into his flesh, where they now made swellings of brown blood, coagulated pus, and greenish tissue. With one foot on the corpse, their backs arched, their arms taut as cables, the men were hauling on the bonds


which they could not pull away without tearing out strips of flesh. And a rhythmic grunt issued from their throats, which ended shortly in a raucous whistle. We approached. The peacocks had halted. Augmented by new flocks, they now filled the circular alley and the flowered opening, which they dared not cross. Behind us, we heard their murmuring and subdued shuffling. In fact, it was like a crowd which had come running to the threshold of a temple, a dense, eager, impatient, smothering, and respectful crowd, their necks stretched, their eyes round; haggard and loquacious, watching the performance of a mystery they could not understand. We came still nearer. “You see, my dear,” said Clara, “how curious and unique it all is... and what magnificence! In what other country could you find a like spectacle? A torture−chamber decked out as for a ball; and this dazzling crowd of peacocks, acting as audience, atmosphere, rabble, and setting for the festival! Wouldn't you think we were transported beyond life, amid the imagery and poetry of the very old legends? Aren't you really astounded? It seems to


me I'm always living in a dream here!” Pheasants with radiant plumage and long jeweled necks soared and crossed above us. From place to place, several dared to perch on the tips of flowering stalks. Clara, who was following all the chance forms and colors of these fantastic flights, continued after a few minutes of charmed silence: “Isn't it wonderful, my love, how the Chinese, so scorned by those who do not know them, are actually astounding people. No other race knows how to tame and domesticate nature with such painstaking skill. What unique artists! and what poets! See how that cadaver on the red sand takes on the tints of the old idols. Look at it carefully, for it's extraordinary, You'd think the vibrations of the bell, ringing wildly, had penetrated that body like some hard, compressing substance... that they'd forced the muscles out, made the veins burst, and twisted and ground the bones. A simple sound, so sweet to the ear, so deliciously musical, so touching to the mind, becoming something a thousand times more terrible and painful than all the old roly−poly's complicated instruments! Don't you think it's maddening? No, but


conceive of this prodigious fact—that the very thing that can make amorous virgins walking in the country in the evening cry with ecstasy and divine melancholy, can also make men roar with pain, and kill a miserable human carcass under the most ineffable agony. I say it's genius! Ah, what a wonderful torture!... and so discreet, for it takes place in the shadows, and its horror, when you come to think of it, could not be equaled by any other. Besides, like the torture of the caress, it's very rare today, and you're lucky to have seen it on your first visit to the garden. They tell me the Chinese brought it from Korea, where it's very old, and where, it seems, it's still frequently employed. We'll go to Korea, if you like. The Koreans are inimitably fierce tortures—and they manufacture the most beautiful vases in the world, thick white vases, quite unique, which seem to have been dipped... ah, if you knew!... in baths of seminal fluid!” Then, returning to the corpse: “I'd like to know who this man was! For here they never prescribe the torture of the bell, except for high−class criminals: conspiring princes and high


officials who no longer please the Emperor. It's an aristocratic and almost glorious torture.” She shook my arm: “You don't seem to be carried away by what I'm telling you. And you're not even listening to me! Just think—this bell, ringing and ringing. It's so sweet! When you bear it from a distance, it suggests some mystic sacrament, some joyous mass... baptisms... marriages. And it's the most terrifying of all deaths! I think it's wonderful. And you?” And as I did not answer: “Yes... yes,” she insisted. “Say it's wonderful! I want you to, I want you to! Be nice.” Faced with my persistent silence, she made a little angry movement. “How disagreeable you are!” she said. “You'll never be nice to me! What in the world can cheer you up? Ah, I don't want to love you any more. I have no more desire for you. Tonight you'll sleep alone, in the kiosk. I'll go and find my little Peach Blossom, who's so much nicer than you, and knows more about love than men.” I tried to stammer out something.


“No... no... never mind! It's over! I don't want to talk to you any more. And I'm sorry I didn't bring Peach Blossom. You're unbearable... and you make me sad. You make me stupid. It's odious! Here's a whole day wasted, which I'd planned to spend so thrillingly with you.” Her chatter and her voice irritated me. For some minutes I no longer noticed her beauty. Her eyes, her lips, her neck, her heavy golden hair, and the very ardor of her desire, and the very lustfulness of her sin, everything about her then seemed hideous to me. And from her gaping corsage, from the rosy nudity of her breast, where so often I had breathed, drunk, and feasted on the intoxication of such heady perfume, there arose an exhalation of putrefied flesh, that little mass of putrefied flesh which was her soul. Several times I had been tempted to interrupt her with a violent outburst... shut her mouth with my fists... wring her neck. I felt so savage a hatred rising in me against this woman, that seizing her arm roughly, I cried out in an unrestrained voice: “Shut up! Oh, shut up! Don't ever talk to me again—never! For I'd like to kill you, you devil! I


ought to kill you, and then throw you to the dogs, you beast!” In spite of my excitement, I was afraid of my own words. But to make them irrevocable after all, I repeated them, bruising her arm with my frantic hands: “Beast! beast! beast!” Clara made not the slightest movement to draw back, not even a flutter of the lids. She thrust out her throat and offered her breast. Her face lit up with an unknown and resplendent joy. Simply, slowly, with infinite sweetness, she said: “Well, kill me darling! I'd love to be killed by you, dear little darling!” That was the only flash of rebellion in the long and painful passivity of my submission. It died out as swiftly as it had flared up. Ashamed of the insultingly vile epithet I had just uttered, I released Clara's arm, and all the anger due to my nervous excitation suddenly melted in a great dejection. “Ah, you see,” said Clara, who did not care to take further advantage of my pitiful defeat and her too easy triumph, “you haven't even the courage for that, and it would be beautiful. Poor baby!” And as though nothing had happened between us, she


began to follow the frightful drama of the bell again, with passionate interest. During this short scene the two men had been resting. They seemed exhausted. Emaciated, panting, their ribs bulging beneath their skin; their thighs fleshless, they no longer seemed human. The sweat flowed, as from a spout, from the points of their mustaches, and their sides heaved like those of beasts hard pressed by dogs. But a guard suddenly appeared, whip in hand. He yelled, and with blow after blow, lashed the bony loins of the two wretches, who set to work again, howling. Frightened by the cracking of the whip, the peacocks screamed and flapped their wings. They fled in tumult, a whirling mass in panic−stricken disorder. Then, reassured little by little, they came back one by one, couple by couple, group by group, to take their places under the floral arch, swelling the splendor of their throats still more, and darting even fiercer glances upon the scene of death. The pheasants, red, yellow, blue and green, still wheeling over the white circle, embroidered the luminous ceiling of the sky with dazzling silks and soft


changing patterns. Clara called the guard, and engaged him in a brief conversation in Chinese which she related to me as fast as he replied. “These are the poor devils who rang the bell. Forty−two hours without a drink, without a single rest! Can you imagine it! And how is it they aren't dead too? I know very well the Chinese aren't made like us, and that in fatigue and physical pain they have extraordinary endurance. I too wanted to know how long a Chinese could work without taking nourishment. Twelve days, darling... they only drop at the end of the twelfth day! It's unbelievable! It's true that the work I imposed on him was nothing like this. I had him plow the earth, in the sun.” She'd forgotten my insults and her voice was amorous and caressing again, like when she told me love−stories. She continued: “For you don't question, darling, the violent, continuous, and superhuman effort it takes to set in action and work the clapper of the bell, do you? Even many of the strongest succumb at it. A ruptured artery... a lesion of the loins... and it's all over! They


fall dead suddenly, on the bell! And those who don't die of it in their tracks get diseases from which they never recover. Look how swollen and bloody their hands are from the friction of the rope! Besides, it seems that these are convicts, too. They die in killing, and the two tortures balance each other, see! All the same, you must be kind to these wretches... when the guard goes away, won't you give them a few taels?” And returning to the corpse: “Ah, you know... I know him now. He was a big city banker... was very rich and stole from everyone. But he wasn't sentenced to the torture of the bell for that. The guard doesn't know exactly why. They say he negotiated treacherously with the Japanese. They have to give some reason.” Scarcely had she uttered these words, than we heard some hollow moans, like stifled sobbing. They came from directly in front of us, from behind the white wall along which petals were falling off and slowly dropping onto the red sands. Tears and flowers falling! “It's his family,” Clara explained. “It's there according to the custom, waiting for them to deliver


the body of the tortured man.” At that moment the two exhausted men who, by a miracle of will, were still standing up, were turning the body over. Simultaneously, Clara and I uttered a single cry. And clasped to me, tearing my shoulder with her nails: “Oh, darling! darling! darling!” she cried; an exclamation by which she always expressed the intensity of her emotion at the approach of horror, as well as love. And we looked at the cadaver, and with the same horrified motion stretched our necks toward the cadaver, and we could not tear our eyes away from the cadaver. ' On its convulsed face, on which all the contracted muscles were outlined, frightful grimaces and hideous angles stood out, the twisted mouth revealing the teeth and gums, mimicked the frightful laugh of a madman, a laugh which death had stiffened, fixed and, so to say, modeled into all the folds of the skin. The two staring eyes darted a sightless glance at us, but their expression of the most terrifying insanity remained, and so prodigiously sneering and so fitfully mad was this stare, that never in the cells of an asylum had I been


destined to see its like in the eyes of a living man. Observing all these muscular displacements in the corpse, all these deviations of the tendons, all these projections of the bones, and on the face, this grin and this dementia of the eyes surviving death, I understood how much more horrible than any other torture must be the agony of a man lying forty−two hours in his bonds under the bell. Neither the dismembering knife, nor the red, burning iron, nor the ripping pincers, nor the wedges which spread the joints, crack the articulations, or split the bones like pieces of wood, can work greater ravages on organs of living flesh and fill the brain with more horror than this sound of an invisible and immaterial bell, combining in itself all the known instruments of torture, infuriating all the sensitive and thinking parts of an individual at the same time, and fulfilling the office of more than a hundred executioners. The two men had started to pull on the ropes again, their throats wheezing and their sides heaving more rapidly. But their strength was gone, and flowed from their limbs in rivulets of sweat. They could scarcely stand erect now, and with their stiff


and ankylosed fingers, pull on the leather thongs. “Dogs!” howled the guard. A blow of the whip wrapped their loins and did not even make them tense themselves against the pain. It seemed that, with their nerves unstrung, all feeling had disappeared. Their knees, giving and trembling more and more, now knocked against each other. What muscles remained under the flayed skin contracted in tetanic movements. Suddenly one of them, at the peak of exhaustion, gave a little raucous moan and throwing his arms forward, fell beside the corpse, his face against the earth, spewing a flood of black blood. “Up! coward! Up! dog!” the guard shouted again. Four times the lash hissed and snapped on the man's back. The pheasants perched on the flowering stalks flew off with a great whirring of wings. Behind us, I heard the startled chatter of the peacocks. But the man did not get up. He did not stir again, and the pool of blood grew wider on the sand. The man was dead! Then I dragged Clara away. Her little fingers dug into my skin. I felt very pale, and walked and


stumbled like a drunkard. “It's too much... too much!” I constantly repeated. And, Clara, who followed docilely, also repeated: “Ah, you see, my darling! I knew. Did I lie to you?” We reached an alley which led to the central pond, and the peacocks which had followed us that far left suddenly and scattered with a great noise across the bushes and lawns of the gardens. This very broad alley was bordered on either side by dead trees, immense tamarinds whose great bare branches crisscrossed in stern arabesques against the sky. A niche had been dug in every trunk. The majority were empty, while some enclosed the bodies of men and women, violently distorted and subjected to hideous and shameful tortures. Before the occupied niches, a sort of clerk in a black gown stood gravely, a writing desk swung in front of him, and a register in his hands. “This is the alley of the accused,” Clara told me. “And these people you see standing here are only present to take down the confessions which prolonged suffering might drag from these wretches.


They rarely confess, preferring to die like this rather than prolong their agony in the cages of the bagnio and finally perish under other tortures. Generally the tribunals do not make much use of accusations, except in political crimes. They judge in groups, in batches, willy−nilly. Besides, you see there are not many accused, and the majority of the niches are empty. It's none the less true that the idea is ingenious. I really believe they got it from Greek mythology. It's a horrible adaptation of that charming fable of the hamadryads, imprisoned in their trees. Clara approached a tree where a young woman was breathing her last. She was suspended by her wrists from an iron hook, and the wrists were clasped between two blocks of wood pressed together with great force. A knotted rope of coconut fiber covered with pulverized pimento and mustard and soaked in a salt solution, was wound about her arms. “They keep that rope ort,'“ my friend condescended to remark, “until the arms are swollen to four times their natural size. Then they take it off, and the sores it produces often burst, making hideous wounds. They frequently die of it, but never


recover.” “But if the accused is found innocent?” I asked. “Oh well... “ said Clara. Another woman in another niche had her limbs spread, or rather, torn apart; her neck and arms were clamped in iron collars. Her eyelids, nostrils, lips and other parts were rubbed with red pepper, and two thumbscrews crushed her nipples. Farther on a young man was suspended by means of a rope passed under his armpits; a great block of stone hung from his shoulders, and you could hear the cracking of his joints. Still another, his back arched, balanced by an iron wire which bound his neck to his two big toes, was crouching with sharp−pointed stones in the bend of his knees. The niches in the trunks were becoming empty. Only from place to place there was a man bound, crucified, or hanging, whose eyes were closed and seemed to be asleep—and perhaps was dead. Clara spoke no more, and no longer explained anything. She listened to the heavy flight of the vultures circling above the interlacing branches, and the cawing of crows sailing through the sky in countless flocks. The


lugubrious alley of tamarinds ended on a broad terrace flowering with peonies, from which we descended to the pond. The irises lifted their strangely flowered stalks above the water, their petals the color of old sandstone vases, precious, blood−purple enamels, sinister purples, blue flamed with orange ochre, velvet blacks, and their calilyxes sulphur−colored. Some, immense and twisted, looked like cabalistic characters. The water−lilies and nelumbos spread their great swooning blossoms on the golden water, and looked to me like severed, floating heads. We remained some minutes leaning on the balustrade of the bridge, looking silently at the water. All enormous carp whose golden snout alone could be seen, slept under a leaf, and between the Indian grass and the reeds smaller carp swam back and forth, like evil thoughts in a woman's brain.


PART 9

And so the day is ending. The sky becomes red, striped by broad, surprisingly translucent emerald bands. It is the hour when the flowers take on a mysterious brilliance, a glitter both hard and restrained. They flame everywhere, as though they gave the evening atmosphere its light—all the sunlight with which their pulp has been saturated during the day. Between the heightened green of the lawns and these flaming bands, the paths of pulverized brick seem like streams of incandescent lava. The birds are silent in the branches; the insects have hushed their humming and are dying or asleep. The nocturnal butterflies and bats alone begin to wander in the air. Everywhere, from the sky to the trees, and from the trees to the earth, there is silence. And I also feel it penetrate me, chilling me like death. A flock of cranes descends the slope of the lawn and forms a ring around the pool, not far from us. I can hear the patter of their feet in the tall grass, and the dry clicking of their bills. Then, standing on one leg, motionless, their heads beneath


their wings, they seem like bronze decorations. And the golden−snouted carp which was sleeping under a nelumbo leaf, tacks about in the water, then plunges and disappears, leaving broad circles on the surface which gently sway the closed calyxes of the water−lilies, then broaden and are lost among the tufts of iris whose diabolic flowers, strangely defined, inscribe, under the evening magic, symbolic signs out of the Book of Fate. Above the water an enormous arum−lily spreads the trumpet of its greenish flower mottled with brown spots, and wafts to us the strong odor of a corpse. For a long time the flies swarm persistently and intently about its carrion calyx. Leaning on the railing of the bridge, her forehead barred with shadow, her eyes intent, Clara looks at the water. The reflection of the setting sun glows on the back of her neck. Her flesh is slack and her lips compressed. She is grave and very sad. She looks at the water, but her glance goes further and deeper than the water; it sinks perhaps, towards something more impenetrable and blacker than the bottom of this pond; perhaps it plumbs her soul, the gulf of her


soul which, in eddies of flame and blood, unfolds the monstrous blossoms of its desire. What is she really looking at? What is she thinking of? I do no know. Perhaps thinking of nothing. Somewhat weary, her nerves bruised and torn under the lash of too many sins, she is silent, that is all. Unless by a last effort of cerebration, she is gathering all the memories and images of this horrible day, to offer them as a bouquet of red flowers to her sex. I don't know. I dare not speak to her. She frightens me, and she also troubles me to the very depths of my being, by her immobility and silence. Does she really exist? I wonder, somewhat fearfully. Was she not born of my debauchery and fever? Is she not one of those impossible visions to which nightmares give birth? One of those criminal temptations such as lust stirs in the imagination of those invalids called assassins and murderers? Might she not be nothing more than my soul, escaped from me despite myself and materialized in the form of sin? No... for I can touch her. My hand recognized the admirable, living realities of her body. Through the scant silky material which covers it, her skin burned my fingers. And


Clara did not tremble at their contact; she did not swoon, as she often has, at their caress. I desire her and I hate her. I would like to take her in my arms and embrace her till she smothered, till she was crushed and I could drink her death from her gushing veins. In a voice first threatening and then submissive, I exclaim: “Clara! Clara! Clara!” Clara does not reply, she does not budge. She still looks at the water which is growing darker and darker; but I really do not believe she is looking at the water, nor the red reflection of the sky in the water, nor the flower, nor herself. Then I draw away a little, in order not to see her any longer, or touch her, and I turn towards the disappearing light, towards the light which only remains in the sky as a great ephemeral glow, soon little by little to melt away and go out in the night. Shadow descends on the garden, trailing its blue veils, lightly over the bare lawns, heavily on the sharply outlined bushes. The white flowers on the cherry trees and peach trees, now a lunar white, seem to glide and wander and assume the weird


aspects of phantoms. And the gallows and stakes lift their sinister columns and black framework in the oriental sky, blue as steel. Horror! Above a bush, against the dying purple of the evening, turning and turning on the stakes, slowly turning in the void and swaying like flowers whose stalks would be visible at night, I can see the black silhouettes of five tortured men. “Clara! Clara! Clara!” My voice does not reach her. Clara does not reply, does not budge, does not turn. She remains bending over the water, over the gulf of water. And just as she does not hear me, no more does she hear the moans, cries, and death−rattles of all those dying in the garden. I feel something like a powerful oppression, like an immense fatigue after marching and marching across fever−laden jungles, or by the shores of deadly lakes—and I am flooded by discouragement, so that it seems I shall never be able to escape from myself again. At the same time, my brain is heavy and troubles me. It feels as though an iron band were clasping my temples, tight enough to burst my


skull. Then, little by little, my thoughts abandon the garden, the torture−arenas, the agony beneath the bell, the trees haunted by pain, the bloody and devouring flowers. They are trying to burst through the setting of this charnel−house, penetrate to pure light, knock once more upon the gates of life. Alas, the gates of life never swing open except upon death, never open except upon the palaces and gardens of death. And the universe appears to me like an immense, inexorable torture−garden. Blood everywhere and, where there is most life, horrible tormentors who dig your flesh, saw your bones, and retract your skin with sinister, joyful faces. Ah, yes! the Torture Garden! Passions, appetites, greed, hatred, and lies; law, social institutions, justice, love, glory, heroism, and religion: these are its monstrous flowers and its hideous instruments of eternal human suffering. What I saw today, and what I heard, exists and cries and howls beyond this garden, which is no more than a symbol to me of the entire earth. I have vainly sought a respite in quietude and repose in death, and I can


find them nowhere. I should like, yes, I should like to be reassured, cleanse my soul and brain with old memories, with the memory of friendly, familiar faces. I call Europe and its hypocritical civilization to my aid, and Paris—my joyful, laughing Paris. But it is the face of Eugene Mortain I see grimacing on the shoulders of the fat loquacious executioner who, at the foot of the gallows, in the flowers, was cleaning his saws and scalpels. These are the eyes, the mouth, the limp and pendant cheeks of Mme. G— I see bending over the wooden horses, and her rapacious hands I see touching and caressing the iron jaws, gorged with human flesh. On all those men and women I loved or thought I loved, little indifferent, frivolous souls, the indelible red stain now lies. And these are the judges, soldiers, and priests who everywhere, in the churches, barracks and temples of justice persist in the work of death. And it is in the individual man, and the man−crowd, and it is in the beast, the plant, the element; it is in all nature in fact which, urged on by the cosmic forces of love, rushes to murder, hoping thus to find beyond life satiation for the furious


desires of life which devour it and overflow it in jets of filthy scum! Just now I wondered who Clara was and whether she really existed. Does she exist! Why Clara! Clara is life, the actual presence of life and all of life! “Clara! Clara! Clara!” She does not reply, she does not budge, she does not turn around. A thicker blue and silver mist rises from the lawns and the pond and envelops the bushes, shrouding the gallows. And it seems to me that an odor of blood, an odor of the corpse rises with it—an incense that invisible censers, swung by invisible hands, offer to the deathless glory of death and to the everlasting glory of Clara! On the other bank of the pool, behind me, the gecko begins to sound the hours. Another gecko answers... then another... then, another, at regular intervals. They are like bells calling and conversing as they sing, festal bells of an extraordinarily pure timbre, crystalline and sweetly sonorous, so sweet they suddenly dissipate the nightmare shapes which haunt the garden and: give security to the silence, and the charm of a white dream to the night. These


notes, so clear, so inexpressibly clear, now evoke in me thousands and thousands of nocturnal landscapes, in which my lungs can breathe, and in which my thought quickens. In a few moments I have forgotten that I am beside Clara, that about me the soil and flowers actually are wet with blood, and I see myself wandering across the silvery night in the midst of the fantastic rice−fields of Annam. “Let's go home!” says Clara. This abrupt, aggressive, and weary voice recalls me to reality. Clara is before me. Her crossed legs are outlined beneath the clinging folds of her dress, and she leans on the handle of her parasol. In the twilight, her lips shine like a little light shielded by a pink shade, in a great closed room. As I do not stir, she speaks again: “Well, I'm waiting!” I try to take her arm but She refuses. “No... no. Let's walk side by side.” “The road is long from here to the river. Take my arm, I beg you.” “No... thank you. Be quiet; oh, be quiet!” “Clara! You are not the same.”


“If you want to please me, be quiet. I don't like to be spoken to at this time.” Her voice is dry, cutting and imperious. Now we are leaving. We cross the bridge, she first and I behind her, and we enter little alleys which meander across the lawns. Clara walks with abrupt steps, jerkily, and with difficulty. And such is the invulnerable beauty of her body that these efforts do not break its full, harmonious, and supple lines. Her hips retain a divinely voluptuous swing. Even when her mind is far from love, when it stiffens, writhes and protests against love, it is still love—all the forms, intoxication, and ardors of love which animate it and, so to speak, mould this predestined body. There is not an attitude about her, not a gesture, not a quiver, not a swish of her dress or a wave of her hair, which does not cry love, which does not ooze love, which does not shower love about her upon every being and on everything. The sand of the alley cries out beneath her little feet, and I hear the noise of the sand, like a cry of desire, like a kiss, in which I distinguish, clear and rhythmical, the name which is everywhere—which was in the creaking of the stake


and the death rattle of the dying men, and fills the twilight now with its exquisite, funereal murmur that fades and rises: “Clara! Clara! Clara!” The gecko is silent now, to hear that name more clearly. Everything is silent. The twilight is enchanting, infinitely sweet, and with a caressing coolness which intoxicates. We walk amid perfumes. We brush by marvelous flowers, more marvelous for being scarcely visible, which bow before us and greet us on our way, like mysterious fairies. Nothing remains of the horror of the garden; only its beauty remains, trembles and heightens as the night falls more and more deliciously about us. I feel recovered. It seems my fever is gone. My limbs become lighter, stronger, and more elastic. As I walk along, my fatigue vanishes, and I feel something like a violent need of love rising in me. I have caught up to Clara and I walk beside her... quite near her... excited by her. But Clara's face is no longer sinful, as when she was chewing the thalictrum blossom and passionately peppering her


lips with its bitter pollen. The frozen expression of her face belies all the sensuous ardor of her body. At least, as far as I can see, it really seems that the lust which trembled with so strange a flame in: her eyes and swooned upon her mouth, has disappeared, completely disappeared from her mouth and eyes, together with the bloody images of torture in the garden. In a trembling voice, I ask her: “You're angry at me, Clara? You detest me?” She replies in an irritable voice: “No! no! That's beside the point, my friend. I beg you, please be quiet. You don't know how much you fatigue me!” I insist: “Yes! yes! I can see you detest me... and it's frightful! I feel like weeping!” “God, you annoy me! Be quiet... and weep if it will give you any pleasure. But be quiet!” And as we pass the place where we stopped to talk to the old executioner, hoping by my stupid persistence to bring back a smile to Clara's dead lips, I say: “Do you remember the roly−poly, my love? How funny he was, with his gown covered with blood, and


his instrument−case, and his red fingers, darling... and his theories about the sex of flowers? Do you remember? Sometimes twenty males are required for; the delight of a single female.” This time a shrug of her shoulders is her reply. She does not even deign to be irritated by my words. Then, urged by crude desire, I clumsily try to embrace Clara, and with brutal hands I grasp her breasts. “I want you... here... you hear me?... in this garden... in this silence... at the foot of these gallows.” My voice is panting and a vile slaver flows from my mouth, and together with that slaver, abominable words... the words she loves! With a twist of the loins, Clara releases herself from my clumsy embrace, and in a voice, in which there is anger, irony and also lassitude and enervation: “God! how frightfully boring you are, if you only knew... and ridiculous, my poor friend! What a common goat you are! Leave me alone. In a little while, if you insist, you can work out your dirty desires on the harlots. You're really too ridiculous!”


Ridiculous! Yes, I feel ridiculous... and I become resigned to be quiet. I would not care to tumble into her silence again, like a heavy stone falling in a lake where swans are sleeping under the moon!


PART 10

The sampan, all illuminated with red lanterns, was waiting for us at the wharf of the bagnio. A Chinese woman with a coarse face, dressed in blouse and trousers of black silk, her arms bare and loaded with heavy gold bracelets, her ears hung with big gold hoops, was holding the hawser. Clara jumped into the bark, and I followed her. “Where do you want to go?” the Chinese woman asked in English. Clara answered in a jerky, trembling voice: “Anywhere you wish... it doesn't matter where... on the river. You know very well.” I noticed then that she was very pale. Her pinched nostrils, her drawn features, and her vague eyes expressed great suffering. The Chinese woman nodded her head vaguely at me. “Yes... yes, I know,” she said. Her thick lips were corroded by the betel−nut, and there was a bestial harshness in her glance. As she was still muttering words I did not understand: “Come, Ki−Pai,” commanded Clara in an abrupt


tone, “shut up, and do as I tell you. Besides, the gates of the city are closed.” “The gates of the garden are open—” “Do as I tell you.” Dropping the hawser, the Chinese woman grasped the sculling oar with a vigorous movement and handled it skillfully. We glided over the water. The night was very balmy. We breathed a warm but infinitely fragrant air. The water sang about the prow of the sampan, and the view on the river was like a great festival. On the opposite shore, and on our right and left, variegated lanterns lit up the masts, sails, and crowded decks of the boats. A strange murmur in the air—cries, chants, and music—came from them, as from a holiday crowd. The water was quite black, a dull, velvety black, with occasional dull, ripply gleams and no other bright lights than the shattered red and green reflections of the lanterns that illuminated the sampans with which the stream was literally jammed at this hour. Beyond a somber space in the dark sky, rising between the black masses of the trees, the city lay in the distance with its mounting terraces lit like


an immense red brazier, like a fiery mountain. As we went farther off we could make out, less distinctly, the high walls of the bagnio from which, at every round of the night watchmen, their swaying torches shot blinding triangles of light onto the stream and over the countryside. Clara had disappeared under the canopy which transformed this bark into a sort of cozy boudoir, lined with silk and breathing of love. Violent perfumes burned in a very ancient wrought−iron vase—a naive, synthetic image of an elephant whose four massive, barbaric feet rested on delicate interlacing roses. There were voluptuous prints on the hangings—boldly lustful scenes, executed strangely, cleverly, and magnificently. The frieze of the canopy, a precious piece in colored wood, exactly reproduced a fragment of that mural in the subterranean temple of Elephanta, which the archeologists, in accordance with Brahman traditions, modestly call: The Union of the Rooks. A broad deep mattress of embroidered silk occupied the center of the bark, and from the ceiling there hung a lantern with phallic inserts, a lantern partly


draped with orchids which shed the mysterious twilight of an alcove or a sanctuary over the interior of the sampan. Clara threw herself on the cushions. She was extraordinarily pale, and her body trembled, shaken by nervous spasms. I tried to take her hands, and they were icy. “Clara! Clara!” I implored, “what's the matter with you? What are you suffering from? Speak to me!” She replied in a raucous voice which issued painfully from her contracted throat: “Leave me alone. Don't touch me... don't talk to me. I'm sick.” Her pallor, her bloodless lips, and her rasping voice frightened me. I thought she was going to die. Terrified, I called the Chinese woman to my aid: “Quick! quick! Clara's dying! Clara's dying! Come quick!” But having parted the curtains and shown her chimera's face, Ki−Pai shrugged her shoulders and exclaimed brutally: “That's nothing. She's always like that when she comes back from down there.” And grumbling, she


returned to her oar. Under Ki−Pai's muscular exertions, the bark, lifted in the water, slid more rapidly over the stream. We crossed in front of sampans like our own, from whose canopies with their closed curtains there came songs, the sound of kisses, laughter, and the groans of love, which mingled with the lapping of the water and the distant, almost smothered reverberation of tom−toms and gongs. In a few minutes we had reached the other shore and for a long time glided by black, deserted hulks, and others lit and crowded; low dives, porter's teahouses, flower−boats for sailors and the riffraff of the port. Through portholes and lighted windows I caught fleeting scenes—strange painted faces, lewd dances, wild debauchery, faces of people under the influence of opium. Clara remained insensible to all that was taking place around her, both in the silken bark or on the stream. Her face was pressed into the pillow, and she chewed on it. I tried to make her breathe the smelling−salts. Three times she pushed the flask away with an exhausted, heavy gesture. Her throat bare, her breasts bursting the torn


material of her corsage, her legs tense and vibrant as the strings of a viol, she was breathing with difficulty. I didn't know what to do; I didn't know what to say. And I bent over her, with her agonizing soul, full of its tragic incertitudes and countless troubles. To reassure myself that it was really a passing crisis, that nothing in her had broken the springs of life, I grasped her wrist. Under my hand her pulse beat rapidly, light, and regular as the heart of a little bird or a little child. From time to time a sigh escaped her lips, a long and painful sigh which lifted and swelled her rosy breast. Trembling, I murmured in a low and very gentle voice: “Clara! Clara! Clara!” She did not hear me, did not see me, and her face was hidden in the pillow. Her hat had slipped from her hair whose red−gold, under the glow of the lantern, took on the tones of old mahogany, and projecting from her dress, her feet, clad in yellow leather, still were spotted here and there with bloody mud. “Clara! Clara! Clara!” Nothing but the song of the water and the distant


music and, between the curtains of the canopy, down there, the fiery mountain of the terrible city, and nearer, the red, green, alert, and sinuous reflections diving about in the black stream like slender, luminous eels. There was a slight shock, the Chinese woman called, and we drew up beside a sort of long terrace, the illuminated terrace of a flower−boat clamorous with music and excitement. Ki−Pai moored the bark to some iron hooks in front of a ladder whose red rungs dipped into the water. Two enormous, round lanterns gleamed on top of poles decked with fluttering yellow pennants. “Where are we?” I asked. “We are where she ordered me to bring you,” replied Ki−Pai in a surly tone of voice, “where she spends the night when she comes back from down there.” I suggested: “Wouldn't it be better to take her home, in her condition?” Ki−Pai replied: She's always like that after the bagnio. And then, the town is closed, and to get to the palace through


the gardens is too far now, and too dangerous.” And contemptuously, she added: “She's all right here. She's well known here.” I gave in. “Then help me,” I commanded, “and don't be rough with her.” Very gently, with infinite precaution, Ki−Pai and I took Clara in our arms, who offered no more resistance than a dead woman. Supporting her, or rather, carrying her, we got her out of the bark with difficulty, and helped her up the ladder. She was cold and heavy. Her head was thrown slightly back and her thick and sinuous hair, entirely undone, tumbled about her shoulders in fiery waves. Grasping Ki−Pai's coarse neck with a limp hand, and almost fainting, she uttered vague little moans and blurted out inarticulate little words, like a child. And panting slightly under my friend's weight, I groaned: “If only she doesn't die, my God! If only she doesn't die!” Ki−Pai sneered with her fierce mouth: “Die! She! There's no suffering in her body... only corruption!” We were received at the top of the ladder by two


women whose eyes were made up, and whose golden nakedness gleamed through the light, diaphanous veils which draped them. They had shameful jewels in their hair, jewels on their wrists and fingers, jewels on their ankles and bare feet, and their skin, rubbed with fine essences gave off scents of a garden. One of them clapped her hands joyfully: “Why it's our little friend!” she cried. “I told you she'd come, the darling. She always does. Quick... quick... lay her on the bed, the darling.” She indicated a sort of mattress, or rather litter, stretched out against the wall, and we laid Clara on it. She no longer moved. Under her frightfully open lids, only the whites of her eyes showed. Then the Chinese woman with the painted eyes bent over Clara, and in a deliciously rhythmic voice, as though she were singing, said: “Little, little friend of my breasts and my soul... how beautiful you are like that! You are as beautiful as a young girl dead. However, you are not dead. You are going to revive, little friend of my lips, revive under my caresses and the perfumes of my mouth.” She moistened Clara's forehead with a violent


perfume, and made her inhale the salts: “Yes, yes! dear little soul. You have fainted... and you cannot hear me! and you cannot feel my gentle fingers... but your heart beats, beats, beats. And love gallops in your veins like a young horse... love bounds in your veins like a young tiger.” She turned to me: “You must not be sad, because she has always fainted when she comes here. In a few minutes we'll cry with delight over her happy burning flesh.” And I stood there, inert, silent, my limbs leaden, my chest oppressed as in a nightmare. I had no further sensation of reality. All I had seen—mutilated visions rising from the surrounding shadows and the depths of the stream, then diving in again to reappear soon in fantastic shapes—terrified me. The long terrace hanging in the night, with its red−lacquered balustrades and slender columns supporting the bold slant of its roof, its garlands of lanterns alternating with garlands of flowers, was filled with a chattering, stirring and extraordinarily colorful crowd. A hundred painted glances fastened upon us, a hundred painted−mouths whispered


words I could not hear, but in which I seemed to hear Clara's name ceaselessly repeated perhaps only in my mind: “Clara! Clara! Clara!” And naked bodies, clasped bodies, tattooed arms loaded with gold bracelets, bellies and breasts, all twisted under their diaphanous, flying scarves. And in all this, around all this, above all this, there rose cries, laughter, songs, the notes of a flute, odors of tea and precious woods, the powerful aroma of opium, and breaths heavy with perfume. The intoxication of dream, debauch, torture and crime—all these hands, mouths, breasts, and all this living flesh came hurling upon Clara, to possess her dead flesh! I could not make a move or utter a word. At my side a very young and pretty Chinese girl, almost a child, with eyes both candid and provocative, was hawking strangely indelicate objects in a basket—shameless ivories, rose−colored rubber verges and illustrated books in which the thousand complicated joys of love were painted. “Love! love! who wants love? I have love for


everyone!” However I bent over Clara... “You must bring her to my room,” commanded the Chinese girl with painted eyes. Two powerful men lifted the litter, and mechanically, I followed them. Guided by the courtesan, they went through a wide corridor, sumptuous as a temple. On the right and left, doors opened upon great rooms spread with mats and lit by soft pink lights draped with muslin. Presiding over the thresholds, symbolic animals thrust out enormous and terrible organs, hermaphroditic divinities gave themselves to each other or straddled impassioned monsters. And perfumes burned in precious bronze vases. A silk portiere embroidered with peach blossoms parted and two women's heads were thrust through the opening. Watching us pass by, one of these women said: “Who's dead?” The other replied: “No! No one's dead. Can't you see it's the woman from the Torture Garden.” And Clara's name, whispered from mouth to mouth, from bed to bed, and room to room, soon filled the flower−boat like some monstrous jest. It even seemed to me that the


metal monsters repeated it in their ecstasy, howling it in their delirium of bloody passion. “Clara! Clara! Clara!” Here, I caught a glimpse of a young man stretched out on a bed. A little opium−lamp was burning within reach of his hand. In his strangely dilated eyes there was something like an agonizing ecstasy. Before him, mouth to mouth, and body to body, naked women clasping each other danced sacred dances while musicians, crouched behind a screen, blew into short flutes. There, seated in a circle or lying on the floor−mat in dissolute poses, their debauched faces sadder than the faces of the tortured, other women were waiting. At each door we passed there was moaning—panting voices, gestures of the damned, crushed and twisted bodies—a grimacing anguish sometimes howling under the lash of fierce passions and barbaric abuse. Guarding the entrance to one door, I saw a bronze group the mere arabesque of whose lines made me shudder with horror. An octopus, embracing the body of a virgin with its tentacles, was amorously crushing her. And I felt I was in a place of torture, not a house


of joy and love. The jam in the corridor became so great that for several seconds we were obliged to halt in the threshold of a room—the largest of them all—which differed from the others by its decorations and its sinister red lighting. At first, I only saw the women—a tangle of furious flesh and living scarves—women abandoning themselves to frantic dances and demoniac possession, around a sort of idol whose massive bronze, of a very ancient patina, rose in the center of the room and towered to the ceiling. Then the idol itself became clear, and I recognized it as that terrible idol known as the Idol of the Seven Verges. Three heads armed with red horns, coiffed with hair in twisted flames, crowned a single body, or rather a single belly, based on an enormous, pagan and phallic−form pillar. All around this pillar, at the exact point the monstrous belly ended, seven bronze verges thrust forth, to which the dancing women offered flowers and furious caresses. And the red glow of the room gave diabolic life to the jade balls which served as the Idol's eyes. At the moment we started again I witnessed a frightful spectacle whose


infernal, shuddering horror it is impossible for me to describe. Shouting and howling, seven women suddenly hurled themselves upon the seven bronzes. The Idol, embraced by all this raving flesh, vibrated under the multiple shocks of this possession and the kisses which rang out like the blows of a battering ram on the iron gates of a besieged city. Then there was a maddened clamor about the Idol, an insanity of savage abandon, a storm of bodies so frantically clasped and welded to each other that they assumed the fierce appearance of a massacre, resembling the carnage of those condemned men in their iron cages fighting over Clara's scrap of putrid meat! In that atrocious second I understood that desire can attain the darkest human terror and give an actual idea of hell and its horror. And it seemed to me that all these shocks, all these panting voices, all these groans, all these bites and the Idol itself, had only one word—a single word—to express and belch their rage of insatiability and the torture of their impotence: “Clara!” When we had reached the room and deposited


Clara, still unconscious, on a bed, I once more became aware of myself and where I was. These chants, debauches, sacrifices, devitalizing perfumes and impure contacts which further soiled the sleeping soul of my friend, flooded me with an overwhelming shame even more powerful than my horror. I had great difficulty in chasing away the curious and talkative women who had followed us, not only from the bed on which we had laid Clara, but even from the room where I wanted to be alone with her. I retained only Ki−Pai who, despite her surly airs and coarse remarks, revealed herself to be very devoted to her mistress and displayed great delicacy and tender skill in the care she took of her. Clara's pulse still beat with the same reassuring regularity as though she had been in robust health. Life had not for a moment left this flesh which seemed forever dead. And both Ki−Pai and I were eager for her recovery. Suddenly she began to moan; the muscles of her face contracted, and light nervous spasms shook her throat, her arms and legs. Ki−Pai said: “She will have a terrible crisis. You'll have to hold


her firmly and take good care she doesn't claw her face and tear out her hair with her nails.” I thought she could hear me, and that, knowing me there beside her, the crisis Ki−Pai had predicted would be moderated. I murmured in her ear, attempting to put in my words all the caress of my voice, all the affection of my heart and also all the compassion—ah yes!—all the compassion in the world. “Clara! Clara! It's I. Look at me... listen to me.” But Ki−Pai stopped my mouth. “Be quiet!” she said imperiously. “How can you expect her to hear us? She's still with the evil genii.” Then Clara began to struggle. All her muscles tightened, swelled and contracted frightfully... her articulations cracked, like the joints of a boat disabled in a storm. An expression of horrible suffering, all the more horrible for being silent, masked her face, contorted like the faces of the tortured men under the bell in the garden. Between her half−closed, twitching lids, only a slender bluish trace of her eyes showed. A little froth foamed at her lips. And, breathlessly, I groaned: “My God! my God!


Is it possible? What's going to happen?” Ki−Pai commanded me: “Hold her down... but leave her body free... for the demons must leave her body.” And she added: “It's the end. In a moment she will begin to cry.” We held her wrists, to prevent her from belaboring her face with her nails. And she had such strength I thought she would crush our hands. In a last convulsion her body was arched from her heels to her neck and taut skin quivered. Then, little by little the crisis abated. Her muscles relaxed, and she fell back exhausted on the bed, her eyes full of tears. For several moments she wept and wept. Tears flowed from her eyes, silently and ceaselessly, as from a spring! “It's over,” said Ki−Pai. “You may talk to her.” Her hand was now soft, moist, and burning in my own. Her eyes, still vague and distant, sought to recapture a consciousness of objects and shapes about her. She seemed to be returning from a long and agonizing sleep. “Clara! my little Clara!” I murmured. For a long time she looked at me through her tears with a sad,


hazy look. “You,” she said. “You... ah, yes.” And her voice was like a whisper. “It's I, it's I! Clara. Here I am. Do you recognize me?” She gave a sort of little hiccough, a little sob. And she stammered. “Oh, my darling! my darling! my poor darling!” Resting her head against mine, she begged me: “Don't move. I'm all right like this... I'm pure like this... I'm all white... all white... like an anemone!” I asked her if she was still suffering. “No, no! I'm not suffering... and I'm happy to be here by you, quite little, beside you... quite little, quite little... and all white, white as those little swallows in the Chinese tales... you know... those little swallows.” With great difficulty, she uttered only little words... little words of purity and whiteness. On her lips there were only little flowers, little birds, little stars, little springs... and souls and wings, and heaven... heaven... heaven. Then, interrupting her babbling from time to time, she pressed my hand more strongly and rested, nestling her head against


mine and saying more forcibly: “Oh, my darling! never again, I swear to you! Never again, never again... never again!” Ki−Pai had retired to the corner of the room, and in a low voice was singing a song, one of those songs which put little children to sleep and cradle them in their sleep. “Never again... never again... never again!” repeated Clara, in a slow voice which was lost and melted into the slower and slower song Ki−Pai was singing. And she fell asleep against me, with a calm, clear, and deep sleep—deep as a great, gentle lake under a summer night's moon. Ki−Pai got up gently, noiselessly. “I'm going,” she said. “I'm going to sleep in the sampan. Tomorrow morning, when dawn comes, you will bring my mistress back to the palace. And it will begin all over again! It will always begin all over again!” “Don't say that, Ki−Pai,” I begged. “Just look at her sleeping against me, look at her sleeping so calm and pure a sleep, against me.” The Chinese nodded her grimacing head, and with sad eyes, in


which pity had replaced disgust, she murmured: “I see her sleeping against you, and I tell you.—In eight days I'll accompany you both like this evening, on the river, coming from the Torture Garden. And after eight more years I'll accompany you the same way on the river, if you haven't gone away—and if I'm not dead!” She added: “And if I am dead, some one else will accompany you with my mistress, on the river. And if you have gone away, some one else will accompany my mistress on the river. And nothing will be changed.” “Ki−Pai! Ki−Pai! Why do you say that? Look at her sleeping again. You don't know what you're saying!” “Hush!” she said, placing her finger against her mouth. “Don't talk so loud. Don't move so much. Don't wake her up. At least, when she's asleep she can do no evil, either to others or herself.” Walking carefully on tiptoe, like a nurse, she went to the door and opened it. “Get out! Get out!” It was the voice of Ki−Pai, imperious among the buzzing voices of the women. And I could see nothing but painted eyes, painted


faces, red mouths, tattooed breasts... and I heard the cries and the moans, the dances, sounds of flutes, the resonance of metal, and that name which ran and panted from mouth to mouth and shook the whole flower−boat like a spasm of love. “Clara! Clara! Clara!” The door closed, the noises were muffled, and the faces disappeared. And I was alone in the room where two lamps burned, draped with pink crepe... alone with Clara who was asleep and from time to time, repeated in her sleep, like a little dreaming child: “Never again! Never again!” And as though to belie those words, a bronze which I had not yet noticed, a fiercely sneering bronze ape crouching in the corner of the room extended towards Clara a monstrous phallus. Ah, if only she might never awake! “Clara! Clara! Clara!” 
