Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated) (243 page)

And she looked at him with longing, passionate eyes.

‘Still you think me light, don’t you? I am an adulteress!’

And thereupon she shuddered, and hid her face in her hands.

He looked at her for a moment pitifully, then he took down her hands gently, and kissed her.

‘You do not know how I have tried to resist you, but I could not. I am on fire. My blood is no longer blood, but some burning love-philter. I cannot help myself,’ said she, lifting up her head defiantly as if she were facing the whole world, ‘here I am, do with me what you like, only tell me that you love me, that you love no other woman but me, swear it.’

‘I swear,’ he said languidly, ‘that I love no other woman.’

She did not understand the meaning of his words.

‘But tell it to me again, say it often, it is so sweet to hear it repeated from the lips of those we dote on,’ said she, with passionate eagerness.

‘I assure you that I have never cared for any woman so much as I do for you.’

‘Cared?’ said she, disappointed.

‘Loved, I mean.’

‘And you can swear it?’

‘On the cross if you like,’ he added, smiling.

‘And you do not think badly of me because I am here? Well, you are the only one for whom I have ever been unfaithful to my husband; though God knows if he be faithful — my husband; God knows if he be faithful to me. Still my love does not atone for my sin, does it?’

Teleny did not give her any answer for an instant, he looked at her with dreamy eyes, then shuddered as if awaking from a trance.

‘Sin,’ he said, ‘is the only thing worth living for.’

She looked at him rather astonished, but then she kissed him again and again and answered: ‘Well, yes, you are perhaps right; it is so, the fruit of the forbidden tree was pleasant to the sight, to the taste, and to the smell.’

They sat down on a divan. When they were clasped again in each other’s arms he slipped his hand somewhat timidly and almost unwillingly under her skirts.

She caught hold of his hand, and arrested it.

‘No, Rene, I beg of you! Could we not love each other with a Platonic love? Is that not enough?’

‘Is it enough for you?’ said he, almost superciliously.

She pressed her lips again upon his, and almost relinquished her grasp. The hand went stealthily up along the leg, stopped a moment on the knees, caressing them; but the legs closely pressed together prevented it from slipping between them, and thus reaching the higher story. It crept up, nevertheless, caressing the thighs through the fine linen underclothing, and thus, by stolen marches, it reached its aim. The hand then slipped between the opening of the drawers, and began to feel the soft skin. She tried to stop him.

‘No, no!’ she said; ‘please don’t; you are tickling me.’

He then took courage, and plunged his fingers boldly in the fine curly locks of the fleece that covered all her middle parts.

She continued to hold her thighs tightly closed together, especially when the naughty fingers began to graze the edge of the moist lips. At that touch, however, her strength gave way; the nerves relaxed and allowed the tip of a finger to worm its way within the slit — nay, the tiny berry protruded out to welcome it.

After a few moments she breathed more strongly. She encircled his breast with her arms, kissed him, and then hid her head on his shoulder.

‘Oh, what a rapture I feel!’ she cried. ‘What a magnetic fluid you possess to make me feel I as do!’

He did not give her any answer; but, unbuttoning his trousers, he took hold of her dainty little hand. He endeavored to introduce it within the gap. She tried to resist, but weakly, and as if asking but to yield. She soon gave way, and boldly caught hold of his phallus, now stiff and hard, moving lustily by its own inward strength.

After a few moments of pleasant manipulation, their lips pressed together, he lightly, and almost against her knowledge, pressed her down on the couch, lifted up her legs, pulled up her skirts without for a moment taking his tongue out of her mouth or stopping his tickling of her tingling clitoris already wet with its own tears. Then — sustaining his weight on his elbows — he got his legs between her thighs. That her excitement increased could be easily seen by the shivering of the lips which he had no need to open as he pressed down upon her, for they parted of themselves to give entrance to the little blind God of Love.

With one thrust he introduced himself within the precincts of Love’s temple; with another, the rod was halfway in; with the third he reached the very bottom of the den of pleasure; for, though she was no longer in the first days of earliest youth, still she had hardly reached her prime, and her flesh was not only firm, but she was so tight that he was fairly clasped and sucked by those pulpy lips; so, after moving up and down a few times, thrusting himself always further, he crushed her down with his full weight; for both his hands were either handling her breasts, or else, having slipped them under her, he was opening her buttocks; and men, lifting her firmly upon him, he thrust a finger in her backside hole, thus wedging her on both sides, making her feel a more intense pleasure by thus sodomising her.

‘After a few seconds of this little game he began to breathe strongly — to pant. The milky fluid that had for days accumulated itself now rushed out in thick jets, coursing up into her very womb. She, thus flooded, showed her hysteric enjoyment by her screams, her tears, her sighs. Finally, all strength gave way; arms and legs stiffened themselves; she fell lifeless on the couch; whilst he remained stretched over her at the risk of giving the count, her husband, an heir of gypsy blood.

‘He soon recovered his strength, and rose. She was then recalled to her senses, but only to melt into a flood of tears.

‘A bumper of champagne brought them both, however, to a less gloomy sense of life. A few partridge sandwiches, some lobster patties, a caviar salad, with a few more glasses of champagne, together with many matrons glaces, and a punch made of maraschino, pineapple juice and whisky, drunk out of the same goblet, soon finished by dispelling their gloominess.

‘Why should we not put ourselves at our ease, my dear?’ said he. I’ll set you the example, shall I?’

‘By all means.’

‘Thereupon Teleny took off his white tie, that stiff and uncomfortable useless appendage invented by fashion only to torture mankind, yclept a shirt collar, then his coat and waistcoat, and he remained only in his shirt and trousers.

‘Now, my dear, allow me to act as your maid.

‘The beautiful woman at first refused, but yielded after some kisses; and, little by little, nothing was left of all her clothing but an almost transparent crepe de Chine chemise, dark steel-blue silk stockings, and satin slippers.

‘Teleny covered her bare neck and arms with kisses, pressed his cheeks against the thick, black hair of her armpits, and tickled her as he did so. This little titiNation was felt all over her body, and the slit between her legs opened again in such a way that the delicate little clitoris, like a red hawthorn berry, peeped out as if to see what was going on. He held her for a moment crushed against his chest, and his merle — as the Italians call it — flying out of his cage, he thrust it into the opening ready to receive it.

‘She pushed lustily against him, but he had to keep her up, for her legs were almost giving away, so great was the pleasure she felt. He therefore stretched her down on the panther rug at his feet without unclasping her.

‘All sense of shyness was now overcome. He pulled off his clothes, and pressed down with all his strength. She — to receive his instrument far deep in her sheath — clasped him with her legs in such a way that he could hardly move. He was, therefore, only able to rub himself against her; but that was more than enough, for after a few violent shakes of their buttocks, legs pressed, and breasts crushed, the burning liquid which he injected within her body gave her a spasmodic pleasure, and she fell senseless on the panther skin while he rolled, motionless, by her side.

Till then I felt that my image had always been present before his eyes, although he was enjoying this handsome woman — so beautiful, for she had hardly yet reached the bloom of ripe womanhood; but now the pleasure she had given him had made him quite forget me. I therefore hated him. For a moment I felt that I should like to be a wild beast — to drive my nails into his flesh, to torture him like a cat does a mouse, and to tear him into pieces.

What right had he to love anybody but myself? Did I love a single being in this world as I loved him? Could I feel pleasure with anyone else?

No, my love was not a maudlin sentimentality, it was the maddening passion that overpowers the body and shatters the brain!

If he could love women, why did he then make love to me, obliging me to love him, making me a contemptible being in my own eyes?

In the paroxysm of my excitement I writhed, I bit my lips till they bled. I dug my nails into my flesh; I cried out with jealousy and shame. I wanted but little to have made me jump out of the cab, and go and ring at the door of his house.

This state of things lasted for a few moments, and then I began to wonder what he was doing, and the fit of hallucination came over me again. I saw him awakening from the slumber into which he had fallen when overpowered by enjoyment.

As he awoke he looked at her. Now I could see her plainly, for I believe that she was only visible to me through his medium.

 
— But you fell asleep, and dreamt all this whilst you were in the cab, did you not?

 
— Oh, no! All happened as I am telling you. I related my whole vision to him some time afterwards, and he acknowledged that everything had occurred exactly as I had seen it.

 
— But how could this be?

 
— There was, as I told you before, a strong transmission of thoughts between us. This is by no means a remarkable coincidence. You smile and look incredulous; well follow the doings of the Psychical Society, and this vision will certainly not astonish you any more.

 
— Well, never mind, go on.

 
— As Teleny awoke, he looked at his mistress lying on the panther-skin at his side.

She was as sound asleep as anyone would be after a banquet, intoxicated by strong drink; or as a baby, that having sucked its fill, stretches itself qlutted bv the side of its mother’s breast. It was the heavy sleep of lusty life, not the placid stillness of cold death. The blood — like the sap of a young tree in spring — mounted to her parted, pouting lips, through which a warm scented breath escaped at cadenced intervals, emitting that slight murmur which the child hears as he listens in a shell — the sound of slumbering life.

The breasts — as if swollen with milk — stood up, and the erect nipples seemed to be asking for those caresses she was so fond of; over all her body there was a shivering of insatiable desire.

Her thighs were bare, and the thick curly hair that covered her middle parts, as black as jet, was sprinkled over with pearly drops of mi Iky dew.

Such a sight would have awakened an eager, irrepressible desire in Joseph himself, the only chaste Israelite of whom we have ever heard; and yet Teleny, leaning on his elbow, was gazing at her with all the loathsomeness we feel when we look at a kitchen table covered with the offal of the meat, the hashed scraps, the dregs of the wines which have supplied the banquet that has just glutted us.

He looked at her with the scorn which a man has for the woman who has just ministered to his pleasure, and who has degraded herself and him. Moreover, as he felt unjust towards her, he hated her, and not himself.

I felt again that he did not love her, but me, though she had made him for a few moments forget me.

She seemed to feel his cold glances upon her, for she shivered, and, thinking she was asleep in bed, she tried to cover herself up; and her hand, fumbling for the sheet, pulled up her chemise, only uncovering herself more by that action. She awoke as she did so, and caught Telen^s reproachful glances.

She looked around, frightened. She tried to cover herself as much as she could; and then, entwining one of her arms round the young man’s neck —

‘Do not look at me like that,’ she said. ‘Am I so loathsome to you? Oh! I see it. “Vbu despise me.’ And her eyes filled with tears. ‘\bu are right. Why did I yield? Why did I not resist the love that was torturing me? Alas! it was not you; but I who sought you, who made love to you; and now you feel for me nothing but disgust. Tell me, is it so? You love another woman! No! — tell me you don’t!’

‘I don’t,’ said Teleny earnestly.

‘Yes, but swear.’

‘I have already sworn before, or at least offered to do so. What is the use of swearing, if you don’t believe me?’

Though all lust was gone, Teleny felt a heartfelt pity for that handsome young woman who, maddened by love for him, had put into jeopardy her whole existence to throw herself into his arms.

Who is the man that is not flattered by the love he inspires in a high-born, wealthy, and handsome young woman, who forgets her marriage to enjoy a few moments of bliss in his arms? But then, why do women generally love men who often care so little for them?

Teleny did his best to comfort her, to tell her over and over again that he cared for no woman, to assure her that he would be eternally faithful to her for her sacrifice; but pity is not love, nor is affection the eagerness of desire.