Gamiani, or Two Passionate Nights/First part
GAMIANI
FIRST PART
Midnight was striking, and Countess Gamiani's reception rooms were still sparkling with a thousand lights.
The dancers were warming up to the sounds of a bewitching band in round dances and quadrilles. The ladies dresses were marvellous, the jewels a brilliant sight.
The fête had been organized at a vast expense, and the mistress of the house, gracious and smiling for all her guests, seemed happy at her success. One after another came to her to murmur their thanks in complimentary terms and this only added to her contentment.
As usual, I was satisfied to be a mere looker-on, but I had already remarked more than one detail that disinclined me to ascribe to Countess Gamiani all the virtues with which she was usually credited. I had already judged her as a woman of society. The task remained for me to dissect her moral character, to lay bare the region of her heart: and I do not know what strange, uneasy, incomprehensible feeling held me back in this probing of her nature. I felt I should have infinite trouble in penetrating this woman's existence, perhaps because her conduct threw no light on it.
Still in the flower of her youth, with a considerable fortune, pretty enough for most people, this woman without relatives, without close friends, had to a certain extent carved out an individual position for herself. She was apparently spending on herself means that could easily have borne sharing with a partner in life.
Many little scandals had been whispered concerning her, but for lack of proof of any of the rumours, she always remained a mystery.
Some said she was like Balzac's Feodora, a woman having neither heart nor passions: others imagined she had had some cruel disappointment in life, that had left her desirous of shunning any other liaison for fear of betrayal.
I wanted to know the truth; I used every artifice my mind could devise, but all in vain; I could never come to any satisfactory solution of the mystery.
Feeling piqued at my continued failure, I was going away from the scene, when an old roué standing behind me, said loud enough for me to hear: "Pooh, she's a tribade, a Lesbian."
This was like a flash of lightning to me: I immediately thought of a thousand reasons for believing this, there could be no mistake.
A tribade! Ah! this word sounds strangely in ones ears. Then it raises in ones mind I know not what murky images of unheard of sensations, lustful in the extreme. It means voluptuous madness, unbridled vice, a criminal enjoyment that is ever incomplete.
Vainly I strove to thrust these ideas from me; for a time my imagination ran riot. I closed my eyes, only to see the Countess before me, nude, in another woman's arms, her hair undone and streaming around her panting body, always tormented with half-satisfied desire.
My veins seemed filled with liquid fire, my senses reeled, I fell back half unconscious on a sofa.
As I came to myself, I coolly thought out a plan for taking the Countess unawares: I felt I must do that at all costs.
I made up my mind to watch her that night, to conceal myself somewhere in her bedroom. The glass door of her dressing room faced the bed. I knew that. I realised at once the advantage of that spot; and hiding between dresses hung up, so that I could see unseen, I resolved to patiently await the orgy.
I was scarcely safely hidden there, when I saw the Countess enter her bedroom.
She called her maid, a dark-complexioned young girl with a striking figure, and said: "Julia, I shan't want you this evening, go to bed… Ah, if you hear any noise in my room, don't take any notice, I want to be alone."
These words seemed to promise me something dramatic. I congratulated myself on my boldness in hiding there.
Gradually the guests' voices from the drawing room faded away: the Countess was alone with one of her friends, Mademoiselle Fanny B… They were soon both together in the bedroom before my eyes.
II
FANNY
What a nuisance! Its raining in torrents, and not a carriage left.
GAMIANI
I am just as sorry as you are; unfortunately my carriage is being repaired at the coach-builders.
FANNY
My mother will be worrying.
GAMIANI
Never fear, my dear Fanny. I have sent to let your mother know that you are spending the night with me. I can very well put you up.
FANNY
You are really too kind. I'm afraid I shall be troubling you.
GAMIANI
Say rather, you will be giving me great pleasure. It is an adventure that I shall enjoy... I am not going to send you off to sleep in another room, you can stay with me here.
FANNY
Why? I should only keep you from sleeping.
GAMIANI
Oh, you must not stand on ceremony… Come, my dear, let us be like two school-girl friends together.
(A sweet kiss here interrupted these affectionate words.)
I will help you to undress. My maid has gone to bed, but we can do without her.
How beautiful she is made! Happy child to have such a figure.
FANNY
Do you really think its nice?
GAMIANI
Charming!
FANNY
You want to make me vain!
GAMIANI
Oh, marvellous, how snowy white! I am quite jealous!
FANNY
As far as that goes, I don't agree with you, your skin is whiter than mine.
GAMIANI
Not at all, child! But take everything off, the same as I do. Oh what a fuss you make; one would think you were undressing in front of a man. There, look in the glass. Paris himself would award you the apple… Little rascal, she's laughing to see herself so lovely. You deserve a kiss on the forehead, on the cheeks, and on the lips… She is sweetly pretty everywhere, all over.
The Countess' lips and mouth lingered busily at all points of Fanny's body. Fanny was timid, astonished, trembling, but she lay still and let her do what she would, not understanding.
They formed a lovely couple in their sensuality, their grace, their lascivious abandonment, and the shy modesty of the young girl. She looked like a virgin, an angel in the arms of a raging bacchante.
What beauties were displayed to my sight, what a spectacle to excite all my desires I
FANNY
Oh what are you doing? Oh, please, please let me go, madame.
GAMIANI
No, no, Fanny my sweet, my child, my life, my joy I You are too lovely, do you know! I love you, I adore you! I am mad for you!
Vainly the young girl struggled to get away, her cries were smothered in kisses. Pressed, held in a grip, all resistance was useless: the Countess, in her wild embrace, carried her bodily over to her bed and threw her down as though she was a wild beast carrying her prey to her lair.
FANNY
What is the matter with you? Oh, my God, Madam I but that is terrible! I shall scream, leave me alone!… you frighten me!
But to all her desperate cries the only response was kisses, more intense and rapid than before. Both the women grappled till their enlacing arms made of two bodies only one, it seemed.
GAMIANI
Fanny, give yourself to me, be all, all mine! There, I give you all my life! There, that is true pleasure!… how you are trembling, my dear child! Ah, you are giving way at last!
FANNY
GAMIANI
Yes, hold me tighter, don't let me go, my sweet, my loved one I How lovely she is in the delight of her lust I You are coming, you are happy! Oh, God!
It was then really an extraordinary sight to watch.
The Countess with her eyes bloodshot and staring, her hair flying from her head, rushed with twisting body on her victim, who was in turn very moved and excited by the novelty of her sensations. They both gripped each other as if they never could let go. They both bounded up and down; their mutual attacks stifled their cries, their sighs were dissolved in kisses.
The impetuous assaults of the Countess made the bed creak and shake. Fanny was, however, soon vanquished, and let her arms fall exhausted to her side. She was deathly pale, and lay like a lifeless statue of ivory.
The Countess was raving mad. The pleasure had bereft her of her reason, but had not satisfied her. She leapt like a crazy thing into the middle of the room, rolled on the carpet, exciting herself by her own lascivious poses, thrusting her fingers into the seat of her pleasure.
When I saw this I lost my head.
For a moment I had been overwhelmed by disgust and indignation: I thought of appearing before the Countess, and crushing her with scornful words. But my sensual feelings mastered my reason. The flesh triumphed over the mind, thrilled me in every fibre. I was bewildered, crazy. I rushed forward and threw myself on the beautiful nude Fanny, my veins standing out on my forehead, my whole nature on fire.
She had hardly had time to grasp that she was being attacked in some other way, before I felt her supple young body tremble and then heave under me, advancing to meet me, and giving me stroke for stroke.
Our tongues began to meet and cross each other the most passionate kisses. Our very souls seemed to melt into one.
FANNY
Oh! My God, I am being killed…
As she gasped these words, the beautiful body stiffened and fell back as she drenched me with her liquid favours.
"Ah, Fanny," I cried "wait a moment, now its your turn… to receive the shower… ah!
I thought all my life was leaving my veins. What an excess of pleasure! Completely exhausted, buried in Fanny's embraces, I had felt nothing of the Countess' terrible attacks.
Brought to herself by our cries, by our smothered love-words, transported by desire and jealousy, she had thrown herself upon me to tear me away from her little girl-sweetheart.
She shook me, clasped me in her arms, dug her nails into my flesh, bit me wherever she could.
This double contact of the two bodies streaming with pleasure, burning with desire, awakened my amorous feelings still more, goaded them to the highest pitch.
I was being burned up by passion on every side. I stayed firm and victorious, in Fanny's possession: and then, without yielding my position at all, lay in this strange medley of three bodies, I succeeded in firmly seizing the Countess' thighs, and holding them widely opened over my head.
"Gamiani," I cried, "come to me, a III
Gamiani understood what I wanted, and I was able to fully enjoy running my agile and devouring tongue up and down her fiery slit.
Fanny, quite beside herself, lost to her surroundings, lovingly caressed the palpitating breast that moved up and down above her head.
A moment later, the Countess was finished off, avowed herself conquered.
GAMIANI
What fires have you lighted in me? It is too much… Have pity… Oh, what a terrible, lustful sport! You are killing me… God!… I am choking.
Her body fell heavily on one side like a dead thing. Fanny, still more excited than at first, threw her arms round my neck, pressed me to her, embraced me fondly and then crossed her legs over my loins.
FANNY
Oh, my dear fellow, come to me again, give it to me all… don't go too quickly,… there, stop… now go on again… there, ah!… quicker… go on… oh, now I can feel it all through me… I'm coming… swimming in it… I…
Here she lay exhausted and I was almost lifelessly stretched out on her beautiful form. Our lips had melted into an unspeakably long, liquid kiss to which there could be no end. We were speechless, breathless.
At last we recovered consciousness, we rose all three of us, and cast bewildered glances around.
As if ashamed of her abandonment, the Countess hastily threw a dressing gown round her superb figure. Fanny hid herself under the bedclothes and we looked at each other for a moment without a word.
Suddenly Fanny, like a child caught out in some forbidden foolishness burst into tears; the Countess began to scold me.
GAMIANI
"Sir, you ought to be heartily ashamed of yourself for taking two innocent women by surprise… It is a disgraceful trap you have set for us… you make me blush for myself!"
I attempted to defend myself, but she went on:
"Oh sir, you must know that a woman never pardons a man who discovers her weaknesses." I retorted as well as I could that she had inspired a most unhappy passion in my breast, that her coldness had maddened me, and that I could not help it.
"Besides," I added, "can you think for a moment, Gamiani, that I would ever take advantage of a secret that I have discovered more by chance than by design. As long as I live I cannot forget the great pleasures we have known together, but shall always keep the secret to myself. If you think I am to blame, you have only to think that I was frantic with the sight before me, and that I shall only keep the memory of the pleasure that we have enjoyed, and can enjoy again together."
Turning to Fanny, while the Countess turned her head away, and pretended to be very ashamed…
"Mademoiselle, shed no tears for the pleasure you have experienced. Oh! think only of the sweet and happy moments we have just spent together; let them remain in your memory as a happy dream, which belongs to you alone, which no one else will ever know of. I swear to you, I will never spoil the sweet thought of my happiness by revealing it to a third person."
Her anger seemed to calm down, her tears to cease to flow, and we soon found ourselves, without knowing why, all three reunited in the caresses and the kisses of love.
"Oh, my lovely girls, let not any fear or anxiety trouble you more! Let us give ourselves up unreservedly to pleasure, to sensuality… as if this were the last night we have to spend on earth!"
GAMIANI
The die is cast: let us give ourselves up to enjoyment; Come on, Fanny!… kiss me, come you crazy thing… I want to bite you, to suck your tenderest parts, to imbibe you, to draw you out to the marrow of your bones. Alcide mount her, cover her… oh, what a splendid thing you've got… what a fortune that is!
ALCIDE
You are envious of that pleasure, Gamiani, why don't you take it yourself then?
You scorn this form of pleasure, you will be delighted with it when you have tasted it. Don't get up… Bring forward that part of you that I must now attack. Ah; what beauties you display, what a position! Come, Fanny, quick squat down on top of the Countess, and guide my dart, my fiery dart, into her inmost sanctuary. Go ahead, no… that's too quick, too vigorous. Ah, Gamiani, you are trying to get the pleasure too quickly.
The Countess was wriggling like a little devil, paying more attention to Fanny's kisses than to my efforts to satisfy her. Then I took advantage of a movement that upset the equilibrium to throw Fanny over on top of the Countess and to assault her furiously. In an instant we were all three mingled, showering down in one stream of love…
GAMIANI
What a caprice of yours, Alcide, you have suddenly gone over to the enemy… Oh! I freely forgive you, for you have realised that it is useless to waste time on a woman who cannot appreciate. But what can I say? I feel only too sadly that I have divorced from nature. I am all the time dreaming, imagining, feeling excitement from the horrible alone. Nothing that is not extravagant, unnatural, can appeal to me now; I am ever seeking the unattainable. Oh, I assure you it is dreadful to feel as I do! To spoil one's inmost feelings, to be consumed with a desire that is not to be appeased. My diseased imagination is slowly killing me. I am frightfully unhappy.
As she spoke, her every gesture, every changing shade of her facial expression displayed only too well the truth of what she said. It was really pitiable to witness the manner in which this unhappy woman was suffering from her fatal passions.
"This is perhaps only a passing phase with you, dear Gamiani," said I, "you give your mind up too much to bad books."
GAMIANI
Oh, no, no! it is not I…
Listen, you will perhaps pity me, or at least excuse me, if I tell you my true story...
I was brought up in Italy by my aunt who was left a widow when still quite young. When I had reached my fifteenth year, I was awfully ignorant and knew nothing of the world around me except the terrors of our religion.
Entirely devoted to God, I spent my time praying Heaven to spare me the tortures of Hell.
My aunt encouraged these fears without ever soothing them by the least show of kindness towards me...
The only peaceful moments I found were those of the night, when I could sleep. My days were as miserable as those of one condemned to death.
Only rarely did my aunt allow me to visit her in the early morning in her bedroom. Then she took me into bed with her. She drew me to her bosom, she made me lie between her thighs, and suddenly, I remember, used to press me convulsively to her, to throw her limbs around me, her head back, and would laugh hysterically all the while.
I was terribly afraid of her at these times and thought she was subject to fits…
At last one day, after she had been talking a long time with a Franciscan friar, she called me to her, and the reverend father began to address me as follows:
"My child, you are getting a big girl now. The devil, who is always seeking to tempt us, can see you always. Very soon you may begin to feel his attacks. Only if you are pure and immaculate, his darts cannot reach you; if you are without reproach you will remain invulnerable.
By pain and suffering, Our Lord has redeemed the world, by his martyrdom and by your own punishments, you may expiate your own sins.
You must prepare to undergo the martyrdom of the redemption. Ask God to give you the strength and bravery needful: this night you will be put to the test… Go in peace, my daughter."
My aunt had already spoken to me a short time before, of the punishment, of the torture one must suffer in order to obtain pardon for ones sins. When the monk left us, I was quite frightened about what he IV
My aunt woke me up in the middle of the night. She ordered me to strip naked, she washed me from head to foot, and dressed me in a long black gown tight at the neck, but entirely divided all the way down the back.
She was dressed in exactly the same curious fashion, and we left the house together in a carriage.
An hour later, I was with her in a vast hall, hung with black drapery, and lit only by one lamp hanging from the ceiling.
In the middle there was a praying-stool surrounded by cushions. "Kneel down, my dear niece: prepare yourself with prayer to bear with patience and bravery all the punishment that God sees fit to inflict upon you."
I had scarcely had the time to obey her orders, when a secret door was opened: a monk, dressed in black like us approached me, mumbled a few words, and then pulling my frock open and letting the sides down, exposed all the hinder portion of my body.
He sighed and seemed to shudder, and his hand, doubtless because the sight of my white skin excited him, began to wander all over my back, lingered a moment on my bottom, and finished by pressing in lower down.
"It is by this part that woman sins," he uttered in a sepulchral voice "it is by these lower parts that she must suffer!"
He had scarcely pronounced these words, when I felt the terrible strokes of rods, of knotted cords rendered still more terrible by bits of steel wire inserted in their strands.
I clasped the back of the praying stool, I tried my best to stifle my cries, but it was in vain: the pain was too frightful. I rushed out into the hall, crying "Pity, have pity on me! I cannot bear such torture, kill me if you will, but let me be!"
"Miserable little coward," cried my aunt, "you should see what I bear." As she said this, she showed herself courageously quite naked, spread her thighs wide open, and held her bottom lifted up high.
The blows fell pitilesly upon her, and in a moment, her thighs were streaming in blood.
My aunt seemed to be unmoved. From time to time she cried: "Go on, harder! Oh! still harder!"
The sight of this took me out of myself, I felt a superhuman courage, and I shouted that I was ready to bear anything.
My aunt immediately got up, and covered me with hot kisses, meanwhile the monk, tied my hands behind me, and blindfolded my eyes.
What shall I tell you? Only that the torture began to be more unbearable than before: and very soon, quite stupefied by the pain, I lay motionless, I could no longer feel anything.
Only I remember, that through the sound of the blows, I could hear confusedly, as if afar off, the sound of kisses, little cries, of hands smacking on naked limbs. There were also nervous, crazy, maddening little laughs, which I knew later to be the forerunners of amorous joys. Sometimes I recognized my aunt's voice, as she groaned with pleasure, sounding above this unreal harmony, this bloody festival.
It was only later on that I began to understand that this spectacle of my punishment had served to awaken their unholy desires, each one of my stifled groans had stimulated them to amorous extravagances.
At last, probably tired, my executioner stopped thrashing me. Still like one lifeless, I was half dead from fright, I was quite resigned to die. However, I must confess, as I gradually recovered consciousness, I began to feel a most unusual excitement: my whole body was trembling, fire seemed to be running through me.
I began to squirm and writhe about, as if filled with unknown desire, and then, all at once two brawny arms seized me; and something, I knew not what, something long and stiff and warm, came and stood between my thighs, glided lower down and finally was thrust into my deepest parts. Just then, I thought I was being split in two. I gave a frightful cry, but only mocking laughter answered me. Two or three formidable pushes sufficed to lodge this terrible weapon right inside me. My thighs all smothered with blood, seemed to adhere to the thighs of my enemy; it felt as though our two bodies were melting into one. My temples were throbbing, my nerves overstrung to breaking point. The vigorous pushing, and its rapidity, burnt my inside so terribly that I thought red-hot iron was thrust into my vitals.
Soon however, I felt ecstatic, I was beside myself, but fancied I must have ascended to heaven. A creamy, sticky, boiling liquid then ran into me, searched my bones, penetrated to my spinal marrow… Oh, that was too delightful, I melted too, I felt turned to molten lava. I could feel such an active, living, devouring stream pouring from me, I caused more to flow from him also by heaving madly to meet the attacker and fell at last into an abyss of endless sensual delight.
FANNY
Oh! Gamiani, what a description, you set the devil in me loose.
GAMIANI
But that was not all.
The pleasure that had overpowered me soon changed to intolerable agony, I was cruelly ravished. More than twenty monks threw themselves upon my wounded body like hungry cannibals one after the other. My head fell helplessly to one side. My ruined, broken poor little body lay a wreck on the pillows, I lay like a corpse till they carried me away and laid me in my bed.
FANNY
What infamous cruelty!
GAMIANI
Oh, yes, it was infamous and still more horrible than that. I was ill from it, but when I came to myself and was gradually won back to health and strength, I realized the shocking perversity of my aunt and her debauched companions, who were so sunken in vice that nothing stimulated their beastly desires except the sight of fearful torture. I vowed a mortal hatred on them all, and in my heart, filled with a crying lust of vengeance, I held forever an undying hatred of men.
The mere idea of submitting to their touch has always repelled me. I have never consented to serve as a vile toy for any man's lust.
A fiery temperament had been awakened within me, and I had to cool it in some way or other. Nothing cured me of masturbating myself but the clever lessons of the nuns of the Redemptorist Convent.—Their fatal teachings have damned me forever.
Here the Countess broke down, sobbing. Kisses and caresses failed to comfort this poor woman.
To change the subject, I turned to Fanny.
ALCIDE
Now its your turn, you beautiful wondering girl! Now there you are initiated in a single night into many mysteries. Come along now, be a good girl and tell us what you think of it, what feelings the revelation of sensuality has awakened in you.
FANNY
Oh, I must confess, I dare not tell you, I feel shy!
ALCIDE
But your modesty is now a little out of season.
FANNY
No, but after all the Countess has related, what little I could say would not be worth listening to.
ALCIDE
Nonsense, my poor little dove! Go ahead, why feel shy? Are we not confederates in the pleasures of love? We have no longer cause to blush, either of us. We have tried everything, we can relate all we have done.
GAMIANI
Come along, my dear, I’ll give you a kiss, two, a hundred if need be to get you to make up your mind. And look at Alcide… he is quite in love! Look, he is threatening you with his weapon.
FANNY
No, no, leave me alone. Alcide, I have not an atom of strength left. Have pity on me… Gamiani, how terrible you are! Alcide get off… Oh!
ALCIDE
I give no quarter, by Jove! Either you’re going to tell us the adventures of your maidenhead, or Marcus Gurtius will ride fully armed into the breach!
FANNY
Oh, well, if you force me to, I s'pose I must…
GAMIANI AND ALCIDE
— Yes, yes! begin…
FANNY
Up to my fifteenth year I was quite ignorant of everything. I swear to you its true. I had never even given a thought to any difference between the sexes.
I lived free from care, happy, I suppose, when one day it was terribly hot, and I was alone in my room at home.
I thought how nice it would be to take my things off and to lie quite free and cool, so I undressed and lay on a cool ottoman; I was practically naked… Even now, I feel ashamed to tell you… I stretched out full length, I spread my thighs wide apart, I turned and twisted in every possible posture. And without thinking what I was doing, I must have presented quite an indecent sight.
The leather covering of the ottoman was icy cold. This caused such an agreeable sensation, a sort of voluptuous smoothing of the whole of my body. Oh! how freely I could breathe, surrounded by a warm atmosphere, and the warmth seemed to penetrate me. What a soft, ravishing feeling! I seemed to float in a delightful ecstasy. I felt as though new life were flooding my being, that I had renewed my strength, I had grown taller, that I inhaled a god-like air, that I was blossoming out in the warm rays of a beneficent sunshine.
ALCIDE
You are getting poetical, Fanny.
FANNY
Oh, I am simply describing exactly what I felt.
My eyes wandered gently over my own body, I stroked my neck, I held my bosoms. And then my fingers wandered farther downwards, and pressed in, and stopped there, and in spite of myself I fell into a deep reverie.
The words "love" and "lover" rang, ceaselessly in my ears, with their mysterious sound, that I did not understand.
At last I felt lonely. I forgot that I had my parents, my friends. I felt a shocking emptiness in my heart.
I got up, and looked sadly round me.
I remained pensive for a while, hanging my head in a most melancholic way, my arms hanging down, my hands locked together.
Then as I looked myself over, as I began to touch every little secret part, I wondered if this had not all its meaning, its destined use.
Instinctively I felt that something was lacking, something that I could not define, but that I wanted, and desired with all my soul.
I must have looked insane, for from time to time I gave a little laugh of madness, and my arms were stretched out in an empty embrace as if to hold the object of my desires to my heart. I went so far as to embrace my own body. I touched myself, I stroked myself, I kissed my arms, I felt I could not live without a reality, a living body that I might hold, and caress and love: in my strange hallucination, I caressed myself, with the phantasy that I was attaching myself to another.
Through the windows, far away one could see the trees, the green meadows, and I felt tempted to go out and roll in the grass, or to climb up high in the branches. Then I looked at the sky and thought I should like to fly in the air, to mingle with the vapours, with the clouds, the blue of the ether and the angels.
I felt I should go mad: the blood rushing hotly to my head. No longer knowing what I was doing, I had thrown myself on the sofa and seizing bolsters and cushions, held one tight between my fat young thighs and another in my arms. This one I kissed and caressed, I think I even wasted smiles on it, I was so intoxicated by the tumult of my newly awakened senses.
All at once I stopped, I shuddered, I fancied that I was dissolving into liquid love. "Ah! my Goodness, ah!" I cried. And I got up terribly frightened at myself, I was quite wet through down below.
Not being able to understand in the least what had really happened, I thought I had hurt myself in some way, that I was wounded; I was in a shocking fright. I fell on my knees and prayed that God would forgive me if I had done wrong.
ALCIDE
Sweet innocent little thing! And you did not tell a soul what had frightened you so dreadfully?
FANNY
No, never! I should not have dared to do so, I was still ignorant only an hour ago of the truth; you have taught me the right answer to all my questioning.
ALCIDE
Oh, Fanny! This confession sets the seal of delight on my happiness. My dear little friend, you shall now receive a further proof of my ardour. Gamiani, excite me, so that I may drench this young flower with heavenly dew.
GAMIANI
What fire, what ardour, Fanny, you are already swooning with pleasure… Oh, she is coming… she is really coming…
FANNY
Oh, Alcide, Alcide, I am dying… I…
And the sweetness of the forbidden fruit consumed us with its intoxication, bore us both into celestial regions.
After a few moments of repose, having regained my coolness, my presence of mind, I began to speak as follows:
ALCIDE
I am the child of young and healthy parents. I had a happy childhood, without tears or sickness, so at the age of thirteen. I was already quite manly. The spur of sexual desire began at this early age to made itself felt.
Destined for the Church, brought up in all the rigor of chastity, I fought against the first symptoms of carnal desire with all my childish strength. My flesh began to awaken, tormented me, powerful and imperious, and I thrust it pitilessly back from me.
I resolved to fast most rigorously. At night, during my sleep, nature found its own solution, and I was horribly afraid of the visible result, as though it was my fault. I increased the strictness of my abstinence and my care to avoid all sinful thoughts. This continual internal strife finally brought me to a stupid and idiotic state of mind.
My constrained abstinence caused a sensitiveness or rather an irritation in my nervous system, that I had never suspected before.
I often felt giddy, it seemed to me that everything was turning round and I was spinning round also. If my eyes chanced to fall on a young girl, she appeared instantly to me to be some fairy princess resplendent with a thousand magic lights.
The humour of my body, too copious and ever overheated, ran to my head, and its waves beating against the walls of my brain, caused me a sort of dazzling mirage.
This morbid condition had lasted for several months, when one morning I felt all at once a violent contraction and tension in all my limbs, followed by a terrible and convulsive movement, as if I was going to have an epileptic fit. The sensation of dazzling lights before my eyes returned with renewed force. I thought I could see a black wheel turning before me, it expanded, its rim filled the universe: then from the centre a ball of light shed its rays over all the circumference.
An endless horizon seemed to stretch away around me, a phantasmagoria of rockets and showers of fire seemed to fill the heavens above my head, and then fell in showers of emerald green, sapphire blue and heavenly azure.
The blinding light died away, a velvety deep blue night, soft and dark, but luminous took its place, like the mysterious shimmer of an unseen moon, and then from the extremest point of the boundless distance there came to me a cohort of delicious naked girls, like golden-winged butterflies, magnificent in the splendour of their alabaster nudity.
I rose to meet them, but they escaped from my too eager grasp, laughing and mocking me. For an instant they faded from my sight, then they appeared again, more active, more joyous: charming bouquets of smiling young faces who sent smiles, alluring glances in my direction.
Little by little, the dream of maidens vanished from my sight; it was succeeded by visions of riper girls, women matured to all the passions of love.
Some of them were living and palpitating Venuses; others pale and melancholy as the virgins of Ossian. Their delicate forms, voluptuous in their contours, faded from my view under clouds of vaporous atmosphere; they seemed to die away, weary of waiting for my embrace, they held out their arms, but vanished always from my eager sight.
I was a prey to the most terrible sensual urge, I rose to my feet, my spine and muscles quite rigid, and rubbed my glorious standing priapus up and down like a madman. I spoke out loud to myself of love, of pleasure; in the most frantically indecent terms, I seemed to see Jupiter in his clouds of fire; Juno directing the thunderbolts; I saw all Olympus in the disorder of a genesic fever, an extraordinary mêlée; after that, I was witness to an orgy, a hellish bacchanal feast.
Hundreds of satyrs, with their cloven hoofs and horned heads, ran round in an infernal cave lighted by blue and red torches, and the grotesqueness of their gestures made an indescribably lascivious scene. Some of them there were, on swings, rushing through the air with their far outstanding weapons brandishing their menace, entered the women in their way, penetrating their bodies with their darts, causing them an unutterable pain, as rapid as unexpected. Others, full of mischief, turned a prudish matron over, head downwards, and with insane laughter brought a ram, whose great fiery priapus they directed into her body, driving her crazy with lecherous manœuvres. Still others could be seen with the burning slow-match firing cannon, from which issued monstrous members that were buried with lightning swiftness between the wide-spread thighs of a frenzied she-devil.
The most spiteful of the lot bound a Messalina down by her four limbs and indulged in her sight in the most frightful sexual excesses. The unhappy woman foamed at the mouth, twisted about, raved for a pleasure that was denied her.
Here and there, in every imaginable corner, there were a thousand little sprites, little demons, every one uglier, more lively or more sneaking than the other, who came and went from one to the other, sucking, pinching, biting, dancing in rings, mixing together. Everywhere it was only laughter, screams, convulsions, fits of madness, cries, sighs, faintings from excessively voluptuous feelings.
On a raised platform, the devils of the highest rank were amusing themselves by producing a parody of our religion, and its mysteries.
A nun perfectly naked, kneeling at all her length, her eyes turned up in the most heavenly manner to the top of the nave, was receiving in the most devotional way the white communion from a very honest paintbrush, that a big fellow, with bishop's crozier and mitre, (the latter worn hind side before) was thrusting before her.
A little farther on a female demon was receiving floods of the baptism of life on her forehead, while another, who pretended to be dying, was sent on her long journey with a terrific pouring out of the holy oil.
A master fiend, borne on the shoulders of four others, swung to and fro the most energetic specimen of his satanic and erotic power, and at certain moments he distributed the holy fluid from side to side. Everybody knelt down as he passed. It was called the procession of the holy sacrament.
But suddenly, it strikes one o'clock, and immediately all the demons start calling to one another, join hands and dance round in an enormous circle. The signal is given, they turn round, rise into the air and fly away swift as lightning.
The weaker ones fall down in this mad and giddy flight, this unbridled gallop. Their fall causes others to lose their balance: and there is now but a horrible confusion, a frightful pell-mell of grotesque couplings of hideous love-making, an indescribable chaos of ruined bodies, all soiled with the stains of lust, at last hidden from our sight in a dense cloud of smoke.
GAMIANI
You have a wonderful imagination, Alcide: your dream would look well in a book.
ALCIDE
But listen, I must tell the rest of the story, which is simply the truth, and which really happened. When I came to my senses after this terrible fit, I felt lighter, but weaker. Three women, still young, and attired in only a white dressing gown, were sitting near my bed.
I thought that my fantastic dream was continuing; but I learnt soon afterwards that my physician, understanding what was the matter with me, had resolved to apply the only remedy suited to my case.
First of all I seized a plump white hand, and covered it with kisses. Fresh and rosy lips came and kissed mine, and this delightful contact electrified me: I felt all the passionate ardour of a wandering maniac.
"Oh, beautiful girls!" I cried, "I want to feel happy, divinely happy: I want to die in your arms. Do submit to my transports, to my madness!"
So saying, I threw off the bedclothes that covered me, and stretched all my length on the bed. A pillow placed under my loins held me in the most advantageous position. My priapus was standing, superb and radiant!
"Thou, o piquant brunette, with the firm white bosom, sit at the foot of my bed, and stretch thy legs wide apart next to mine. That's right, now take my feet and place them on thy breasts, rub them gently against thy pretty rosebuds of love. How lovely! Ah, thou art a delightful creature. And thou! 0 blue-eyed blonde, thou shalt be my queen. Come and sit astride on the throne. Take the burning sceptre in one hand, and hide it deep in thy empire… Ah, not so quickly. Wait… go gently, with up and down movements like a cavalier at a gentle trot. Make the pleasure last. And thou, so tall, so pretty, with thy ravishingly beautiful figure, come and sit down over my head……"
"So, that is splendid, thou hast divined what I wanted. Open thy thighs quite wide… A little more, so that my eyes may see thee, my mouth devour thee, my tongue penetrate thee at ease. And what art thou doing, standing up so straight? Bend over me, so that I may kiss thy neck."
"Thou art all mine," cried the brunette, showing the tip of her active tongue, pointed and sharp like a Venetian dagger. "Come, let me eat thy eyes, thy mouth. Oh, I love thee so! Oh, naughty lover… put thy hand there… there… go on, gently, slowly……"
And we were soon all moving in different ways, all exciting and increasing the pleasure.
This animated scene, these lascivious motions, these extraordinary poses, enchant my eager eyes. Little cries and sighs are heard and mingle very soon: my veins V
This overstraining however, finished me. My head fell helplessly to one side, I was exhausted. "Enough, enough," I cried. "Oh, my feet! what a terribly lascivious tickling! You are hurting me… You are driving me crazy: my toes stretch out and then clench together… Oh!"
I felt the climax approaching for the third time. I pushed away with furious energy. My three beautiful companions all went off into unconsciousness and ecstasy at the same moment and fell together into my arms, beside themselves in the orgasm, and I felt they had drenched me. Were these the joys of heaven or of hell? They were like endless torrents of fire and flame.
GAMIANI
What pleasures you have enjoyed, Alcide. Oh how I envy you! And what about Fanny? I think she has gone to sleep.
FANNY
Leave me now, Gamiani, take your hand away, it is so heavy on me… I am overwhelmed… dead… My God, what a night! Let us sleep… I……
The poor child yawned, turned round and nestled down in the bed like a tiny baby.
I wanted to bring her back to life, but the Countess said: "No, no, I know just what she must be feeling. Of course I am of a quite different temperament. I feel such irritation within me… It torments me, and I am burnt up with desire. Ah, if you only knew how I long for it. I want to have it more and more till it kills me. Your two bodies that I can feel against mine, your talking, our amorous fury, all that excites me, takes me out of myself. Hell is in my mind, fire in my body. I don't know what new device to invent; it is terrible!
ALCIDE
What are you going to do, Gamiani? Are you getting up?
GAMIANI
I cannot lie still, I am on fire… I should like… but do something to tire me, to wear me out! Squeeze me, beat me… Oh, to think that I cannot come!
The Countess' teeth were chattering loudly, her eyes rolled from side to side, she was dreadful to look at, she seemed to be writhing internally, her every muscle was twitching.
Fanny was so shocked and alarmed that she got up. As for me, I was expecting to see her go off into hysterics. In vain I covered her most delicate parts with kisses; my hands were weary of torturing this unconquerable harpie, her secreting canals were closed or emptied. I began to pass blood, but the orgasm, did not occur.
GAMIANI
I shall leave you now, go to sleep!
As she spoke, Gamiani sprang out of bed, opened a door and disappeared from our sight.
ALCIDE
What is it she really wants, do you know, Fanny?
FANNY
Hush, Alcide, listen, what cries! She is killing herself... Oh, God, the door is locked! Ah, she has gone into Julie's room. Wait a moment, there is a little window over it, and from thence we shall be able to see everything. Let us bring the sofa over there and two chairs; now get up and let us look.
And what a sight met our eyes! By the changing flicker of a small candle, the Countess, with her eyes rolled up to the whites, foam on her lips, semen all down her thighs, was rolling about and groaning, on a broad rug made of cats' skins.[1]
She was rubbing her back with the greatest agility on the rug. Now and again, the Countess threw her legs up in the air, almost standing thus on her head, showing us all her back; and then fell back with a forced and nervous laugh.
GAMIANI
"Julie, come to me, my head is spinning Ah, you damned fool. I want to bite you."
Julie was naked also, but heavily built and very strong. She seized the Countess' hands and feet and bound them together With cords.
As the excess of passion was driving her mad, her convulsions made me very anxious.
Julie, who seemed absolutely indifferent, was dancing and jumping about like a lunatic, exciting herself at will, and at length having felt the great pleasure of spending, lay back on the armchair. The Countess watched all these movements, and because she could not do the same, could not taste the same delightful intoxication, fell into a renewed rage, twice as terrible as the first. She thought she was a female Prometheus, having her heart torn out by a hundred vultures at once.
GAMIANI
Medor! Medor! Come here, take me!
At the sound of his name, an enormous mastiff rushed out from his kennel, and immediately began to lick her clitoris, the tip of which was standing out between her hairs, red and swollen.
The Countess shouted : Hi, Hi I, still more loudly as the pleasure was becoming more intense. One might thus easily register the degrees of tickling felt by this ungovernable Calymantha.
GAMIANI
Milk, milk! Give me milk!
I was wondering what this cry of agony meant, such a formidable cry of distress; when Julie reappeared, armed with an enormous dildoe filled with hot milk, that had a spring arrangement for spurting the milk ten paces away. With two leather straps, she adapted this ingenious instrument to the right spot on her body. The most bountifully hung stallion, in all his youthful strength, certainly never displayed a more splendid yard, at all events as regards size. I could not imagine it was possible to introduce this great member, when to my great surprise five or six powerful thrusts, that drew cries of piercing agony from Gamiani, sufficed to push this terrible weapon home to the hilt.
The Countess was suffering hellish torture: she lay stiff and still like the marble statue of Cassandra by Cassini.
Julie was sliding it in and out with great regularity and art, when Medor, mad at being shoved away, came up behind Julie, whose opened backside displayed a most delicious piece of meat, mounted her suddenly, and got it into her so thoroughly that Julie sank down exhausted in a shower of delight.
Such pleasure must indeed be most intense, for it was impossible to imagine a woman enjoying anything so vastly as she did.
Meanwhile the Countess was swearing vigorously at her own pleasure being interrupted, feeling herself tricked out of coming.
But Julie soon came round again, and quickly began with still more vigorous pushing. As the Countess raised her bottom with a jerk to meet one of her strokes, with her eyes closed and mouth open, Julie saw that the critical instant had arrived, so she pressed the spring.
GAMIANI
"Oh, Oh!… stop… I am melting away… hi… hi… I am spending…"
What hellish lubricity! I had not the strength to move from my post of observation. My mind was wandering, my eyes were fascinated.
These furious transports, these brutal fits of lascivity made me giddy. My blood was boiling with voluptuousness, debauchery, and I was raging with lust like a beast.
An extraordinary change had also come over Fanny's expression. Her eyes were fixed and staring, her arms stiff and nervously clutching me. Her half-parted lips and clenched teeth plainly showed that she too, was longing for this maddening sensuality that approaches frenzy, that is satisfied with nothing but the greatest excesses.
We had scarcely reached our bed again, than we sprang at each other like two wild animals. Our bodies met everywhere, every part of one that rubbed against or pressed the other seemed charged with the strongest electric current. Then in the midst of convulsive embraces, mad cries, passionate sucking and biting all over, we had a frightful coupling of flesh and bone, rapid, excited, all-devouring, but which brought forth only blood from us.
At last we fell asleep from exhaustion, and after five hours of restoring sleep, I was the first to wake.
Brilliant sunshine was streaming in at the windows. The sun's glad rays were piercing the curtains, and playing in golden shimmer, on the rich carpets, the silk hangings.
This enchanting dawn of a new day, coming after a night of riotous debauch, restored me to myself; I thought, how lovely it was to escape from a frightful nightmare. And by my side a sweet creature was lying with a soft white breast, so silky and gentle, so young, so pink and white, that it seemed a sin to touch it even with my lips.
Oh, what a delicious creature was Fanny, as she was lying there, in the arms of Morpheus, half-nude, on a broad oriental divan; she was the idyllic realisation of my most precious dreams.
Her pretty head was lying half resting on one rounded arm, her profile rejoiced my sight, for it was pure and classical like one of Raphael's paintings: her body possessed the purest and most exquisite of outlines.
It was indeed the highest form of voluptuous pleasure to think that these charms were all mine, and it was almost a pity to reflect that after having been virgin for fifteen summers, they had been despoiled in a single night.
Her freshness, her grace, her youth, had all been plunged by the orgy into the filth and the mud of a soulless existence.
This soul of hers, so naïve and tender, this soul that had up to the present been watched over by angels, was to be henceforth the sport of the demons of impurity; no more illusions, no more dreams, no first love, no more sweet surprises: all the poetic dawn of a young girl's life for ever ruined…
The poor child awoke at last, almost smiling. She thought she was going to find her usual awakening, her innocent thoughts, her purity; but alas! She saw me, and she realised she was no longer in her own room, no longer in her own bed. Oh, her grief hurt me to witness. She melted into tears. I gazed at her, deeply touched. I was frankly ashamed of my conduct. I held her tightly in my arms, and passionately drank every one of her tears.
I no longer felt the overpowering senseless intoxication of the unbridled senses, only my heart went out to her, and she could read my ardent, sincere love in my shining eyes.
Fanny listened, mute, astonished, enchanted; she drank in my words, my very breath, my glances. Every instant she pressed me to her, she seemed to be saying "Yes, yes, I am all thine, all thine." Just as she had given up her body innocent and pure to me, so now she gave her soul, confident, intoxicated with the new sensation of love. I thought to take her soul from her in one wonderful kiss, but it was hers I received in return. It was heavenly and that was the end.
At last we rose.
I desired to see the Countess again. She was a disgusting sight, sprawled out, her body stained and soiled, her face unrecognizable. Like a besotted woman thrown out on the highway, she seemed to be sleeping off her drunkenness of lust.
—"Oh, Fanny, let us go," I cried… "let us hurry away from this disgraceful place."
END OF THE FIRST PART.
- ↑ The skin of the cat as we know, is remarkably exciting, due no doubt, to the large quantity of electricity which it contains. The women of Lesbos invariably used same in their saturnales.