whiter, and her breast twice the size of her cousin's; but in Helène was more animation, her form was more sweetly moulded, and her bust was on the model of the Venus de Medici.
By degrees she became bolder, put at ease by her cousin, and we passed several moments in admiring each other; then to bed we went. Nature called loudly, and all we desired was to satisfy its demands. With a coolness that I did not fear would fail me, I made a woman of Hedvige, and when all was o'er she kissed me, saying that the pain was naught compared to the pleasure.
Next came the turn of Helène, who was six years younger than Hedvige; but the finest "fleece"[1] that e'er I saw presented something of an obstacle. This she parted with her two hands, being jealous of her cousin's success; and although she was not initiated into the mysteries of love without woeful pain, her sighs were truly sighs of
- ↑ "Fleece," of course, is an accepted erotic term for pubic hair (Farmer: Slang and its Analogues); c.f. also the French term toison. Helène's hirsute adornment is in keeping with psychological precept that hairiness and sensuality go hand in hand. Havelock Ellis, in his Studies, quotes numerous authorities who are strongly of this opinion, (vol. 5: Erotic Symbolism). Lombroso, he adds, found that prostitutes generally tend to be hairy. In another volume of his studies, Havelock Ellis relates the history of a man for whom a hirsute mons veneris always had a peculiar attraction. "When accosted by prostitutes," says the subject of this history, "I would never go with them unless assured that the mons veneris was very hirsute." That genial old soldier Brantôme (Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies: Translated by A. R. Allison: Paris, Charles Carrington, 1901) says: "I have heard speak of a certain great lady, and I have known her myself and do know her still, who is all shaggy and hairy over the chest, stomach, shoulders and all down the spine, and on her bottom, like a savage.…… The proverb hath it, no person thus hairy is ever rich or wanton; but verily in this case the lady is both speaks of women who "have hair in that part not curly at all, but so long and drooping, you would say they were the moustachios of a Saracen's head. Nathless they do never remove this fleece, but prefer to have it so, seeing there is a saying: 'A grassgrown path and a hairy coynte are both good roads to ride.'……
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