Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated) (244 page)

Nature was more than satisfied; her beauty had lost all its attraction; they kissed again and again; he languidly passed his hands over all her body, from the nape of the neck to the deep dent between those round hills, which seemed covered with fallen snow, giving her a most delightful sensation as he did so; he caressed her breasts, suckled and bit the tiny protruding nipples, while his fingers were often thrust far within the warm flesh hidden under that mass of jet-black hair. She glowed, she breathed, she shivered with pleasure; but Teleny, though performing his work with masterly skill, remained cold at her side.

‘No, I see that you don’t love me; for it is not possible that you — a young man— ‘

She did not finish. Teleny felt the sting of her reproaches, but remained passive; for the phallus is not stiffened bv taunts.

She took the lifeless object in her delicate fingers. She rubbed and manipulated it. She even rolled it between her two soft hands. It remained like a piece of dough. She sighed as piteously as Ovid’s mistress must have done on a like occasion. She did like this woman did some hundreds of years before. She bent down; she took the tip of that inert piece of flesh between her lips — the pulpy lips which looked like a tiny apricot — so round, sappy, and luscious. Soon it was all in her mouth. She sucked it with as much evident pleasure as if she were a famished baby taking her nurse’s breast. As it went in and out, she tickled the prepuce with her expert tongue, touched the tiny lips on her palate.

The phallus, though somewhat harder, remained always limp and nerveless.

“Vbu know our ignorant forefathers believed in the practice called ‘nouer les aiguillettes’ — that is rendering the male incapable of performing the pleasant work for which Nature has destined him. We, the enlightened generation, have discarded such gross superstitions, and still our ignorant forefathers were sometimes right.

 
— What! you do not mean to say that you believe in such tomfoolery?

 
— It might be tomfoolery, as you say; but still it is a fact. Hypnotize a person, and then you will see if you can get the mastery over him or not.

 
— Still, you had not hypnotized Teleny?

 
— No, but our natures seemed to be bound to one another by a secret affinity.

At that moment I felt a secret shame for Teleny. Not being able to understand the working of his brain, she seemed to regard him in the light of a young cock, who, having crowed lustily once or twice at early dawn, has strained his neck to such a pitch that he can only emit hoarse, feeble, gurgling sounds after that.

Moreover, I almost felt sorry for that woman; and I thought, if I were only in her place, how disappointed I should be. And I sighed, repeating almost audibly— ‘Were I but in her stead.’

‘The image which had formed itself within my mind so vividly was all at once reverberated within Rene’s brain and he thought, if instead of this lady’s mouth those lips were my lips... and his phallus at once stiffened and awoke into life; the glands swelled with blood; not only an erection took place, but it almost ejaculated. The countess — for she was a countess — was herself surprised at this sudden change, and stopped, for she had now obtained what she wanted; and she knew that— “Depasser le but, c’est manquer la chose.”

‘Teleny, however, began to fear that if he had his mistress’s face before his eyes, my image might entirely vanish; and that — beautiful as she was — he would never be able to accomplish his work to the end. So he began by covering her with kisses; then deftly turned her over. She yielded without understanding what was required of her. He bent her pliant body on her knees, so that she presented a most beautiful sight to his view.

This splendid sight ravished him to such an extent that by looking at it his hitherto limp tool acquired its full size and stiffness, and in its lusty vigour leapt in such a way that it knocked against his navel.

‘He was even tempted for a moment to introduce it within the small dot of a hole, which if not exactly the den of life is surely that of pleasure; but he forbore. He even resisted the temptation of kissing it, or of darting his tongue into it; but bending over her, and placing himself between her legs, he tried to introduce the glans within the aperture of her two lips, now thick and swollen by dint of much rubbing.

‘Wide apart as her legs were, he first had to open the lips with his fingers on account of the mass of bushy hair that grew all around them; for now the tiny curls had entangled themselves together like tendrils, as if to bar the entrance; therefore, when he had brushed the hair aside, he pressed his tool in it, but the turgid dry flesh arrested him. The clitoris thus pressed danced with delight, so that he took it in his hand, and rubbed and shook it softlvand qentlvon the top part of her lips.

‘She began to shake, to rub herself with delight; she groaned, she sobbed hysterically; and when he felt himself bathed with delicious tears he thrust his instrument far within her body, clasping her tightly around the neck. So, after a few bold strokes, he managed to get in the whole of the rod down to the very root of the column, crushing his hair against hers, so far in the utmost recesses of the womb that it gave her a pleasurable pain as it touched the neck of the vagina.

‘For about ten minutes — which to her felt an eternity — she continued panting, throbbing, gasping, groaning, shrieking, roaring, laughing, and crying in the vehemence of her delight.

‘Oh! Oh! I am feeling it again! In — in — quick — quicker! There! there! — enough! — stop!’

But he did not listen to her, and he went on plunging and re-plunging with increasing vigor. Having vainly begged for a truce, she began to move again with renewed life.

Having her a retro, his thoughts were thus concentrated upon me; and the tightness of the orifice in which the penis was sheathed, added to the titiliation produced by the lips of the womb, gave him such an overpowering sensation that he redoubled his strength, and shoved his muscular instrument with such mighty strokes that the frail woman shook under the repeated thumps. Her knees were almost giving way under the brutal force he displayed. When again, all at once, the flood¬gates of the seminal ducts were open, and he squirted a jet of molten liquid down into the innermost recesses of her womb.

A moment of delirium followed; the contraction of all her muscles gripped him and sucked him up eagerly, greedily; and after a short spasmodic convulsion, they both fell senseless side by side, still tightly wedged against one another.

 
— And so ends the Epistle! — Not quite so, for nine months afterwards the Countess gave birth to a fine boy —

 
— Who, of course, looked like his father.

Doesn’t every child look like its father?

 
— Still, this one happened to look neither like the Count nor like Teleny.

 
— Who the deuce did it look like then?

 
— Like myself. The boy looked like me.

 
— Bosh!

 
— Bosh as much as you like. Anyhow, the rickety old Count is very proud of this son of his, having discovered a certain likeness between his only heir and the portrait of one of his ancestors. He is always pointing out this atavism to all his visitors; but whenever he struts about, and begins to expound learnedly over the matter, I am told that the Countess shrugs her shoulders and puckers down her lips contemptuously, as if she were not quite convinced of the fact.

CHAPTER
5

\bu have not told me when you met Teleny, or how your meeting was brought about.

 
— Just have a little patience, and you will know all. You can understand that after I had seen the Countess leave his house at dawn, bearing on her face the expression of the emotions she had felt, I was anxious to get rid of my criminal infatuation.

At times I even persuaded myself that I did not care for Rene any more. Only when I thought that all my love had vanished, he had but to look at me, and I felt it gush back stronger than ever, filling my heart and bereaving me of my reason.

I could find no rest either night or day.

I thereupon made up my mind not to see Teleny again, not to attend any of his concerts; but lovers’ resolutions are like April showers, and at the last minute the slightest excuse was good enough to make me waver and change my decision.

I was, moreover, curious and anxious to know if the Countess or anybody else would go to meet him again, and pass the night with him.

 
— Well, and were these visits repeated?

 
— No, the Count returned unexpectedly; and then both he and the Countess started for Nice.

A short time afterwards, however, as I was always on the watch, I saw Teleny leave the theatre with Briancourt.

There was nothing strange in that. They walked arm-in-arm, and wended their way towards Teleny’s lodgings.

I lingered behind, following them step by step at some distance. I had been jealous of the Countess; I was ten times more so of Briancourt.

‘If he is going to pass every night with a new bed-fellow,’ said I to myself, ‘why did he tell me that his heart was yearning for mine?’

And still, within my soul I felt sure that he loved me; that all these other loves were caprices; that his feelings for me were something more than the pleasure of the senses; that it was real, heart-sprung, genuine love.

Having reached the door of Teleny’s house, both the young men stopped and began to talk.

The street was a solitary one. Only some belated homegoers were every now and then to be seen, trudging sleepily onward. I had stopped at the corner of the street, pretending to read an advertisement, but in reality to follow the movements of the two young men.

All at once I thought they were about to part, for I saw Briancourt stretch out both his hands and grasp Teleny’s. I shivered with gladness. After all, I have wronged Briancourt, was the thought that came into my mind; must every man and woman be in love with the pianist?

My joy, however, was not of long duration, for Briancourt had pulled Teleny towards him, and their lips met in a long kiss, a kiss which for me was gall and wormwood; then, after a few words, the door of Teleny’s house was opened and the two young men went in.

When I had seen them disappear, tears of rage, of anguish, of disappointment started from my eyes, I ground my teeth, I bit my lips to the blood, I stamped my feet, I ran on like a madman, I stopped for a moment before the closed door, and vented my anger in thumping the feelingless wood. At last, hearing footsteps approaching, I went on. I walked about the streets for half the night, then fagged out mentally and bodily, I returned home at early dawn.

 
— And your mother?

 
— My mother was not in town just then, she was at — , where I shall tell you her adventures some other time, for I can assure you they are worth hearing.

On the morrow, I took a firm resolution not to go to Teleny’s concerts any more, not to follow him about, but to forget him entirely. I should have left town, but I thought I had found out another means of getting rid of this horrible infatuation.

Our chambermaid having lately got married, my mother had taken into her service — for reasons best known to herself — a country wench of sixteen or thereabouts, but who, strange to say, looked far younger than she really was, for as a rule those village girls look far older than their years. Although I did not find her good looking, still, everybody seemed smitten by her charms. I cannot say she had anything rustic or countrified about her, for that would awake at once in your mind a vague idea of something awkward or ungainly, while she was as pert as a sparrow, and as graceful as a kitten; still, she had a strong country freshness — nay, I might almost say, tartness — about her like that of a strawberry or a raspberry that grows in mossy thickets.

Seeing her in her town-dress you always fancied you had once met her in picturesque rags, with a bit of red kerchief on her shoulders, and with the savage grace of a young doe standing under leafy boughs, surrounded by eglantine and briers, ready to dart off at the slightest sound.

She had the slender lithesomeness of a young boy, and might well have been taken for one, had it not been for the budding, round, and firm breasts, that swelled out her dress.

Although she seemed slyly conscious that not one of her movements was lost on the bystanders, still she not only seemed heedless of anyone’s admiration, but was even quite vexed if it were expressed either by words or bvsiqns.

Woe to the poor fellow who could not keep his feelings within bounds; she soon made him feel that if she had the beauty and freshness of the dog-rose, she also had its sharp thorns.

Of all the men she had ever known, I was the only one that had never taken the slightest notice of her. For my part, she simply — like all women — left me perfectly indifferent. I was therefore the only man she liked. Her cat-like grace, however, her slightly hoydenish ways, which gave her the appearance of a Ganymede, pleased me, and although I knew very well that I felt no love nor even the slightest attraction for her, still I believed that I might learn to like and perhaps be fond of her. Could I but have felt some sensuality towards her, I think I would even have gone so far as to marry her, rather than become a sodomite, and have an unfaithful man who did not care for me, as my lover.

Anyhow, I asked myself, might I not feel some slight pleasure with her, just enough to quiet my senses, to lull my maddened brain to rest?

And yet which was the greater evil of the two, the one of seducing a poor girl to ruin her, and making her the mother of a poor unhappy child, or that of yielding to the passion which was shattering my body and my mind?

Our honorable society winks at the first peccadillo, and shudders with horror at the second, and as our society is composed of honorable men, I suppose the honorable men which make up our virtuous society are right.

What private reasons they have to make them think in this way, I really do not know.

In the exasperated state in which I was, life was intolerable, I could not bear it any longer.

Weary and worn out by a sleepless night, with my blood parched by excitement and by absinthe, I returned home, took a cold bath, dressed, and called the girl into my room.

When she saw my jaded look, my pale face, my hollow eyes, she stared at me, then —

‘Are you ill, sir?’ she asked.

‘Yes; I am not well.’

‘And where were you last night?’

‘Where?’ I asked scornfully.

‘Yes; you did not come home,’ said she, defiantly.

I answered her with a nervous laugh.

I understood that a nature like hers had to be mastered all of a sudden rather than tamed by degrees. I therefore caught her within my arms and pressed my lips upon hers. She tried to free herself, but rather like a defenseless bird fluttering with its wings than like a cat thrusting out its claws from inside its velvet paws.

She writhed within my arms, rubbing her breasts against my chest, her thighs against my legs. Nevertheless, I kept her crushed against my body, kissing her mouth, pressing my burning lips against her own, breathing her fresh and healthy breath.

It was the first time she had ever been kissed on her mouth, and, as she told me afterwards, the sensation shook her whole frame like a strong electric current.

I saw, in fact, that her head was reeling, and her eyes swimming with the emotion which my kisses produced on her nervous constitution.

When I wanted to thrust my tongue into her mouth, her maidenly coyness revolted; she resisted and would not have it. It seemed, said she, as if a piece of burning iron had been thrust into her mouth, and it made her feel as though she were committing a most heinous crime.

‘No, no,’ cried she, ‘you are smothering me. “Vbu are killing me, leave me, I cannot breathe, leave me or I’ll call for help.’

But I persisted and soon my tongue down to its very root was in her mouth. I then lifted her up in my arms, for she was as light as a feather, and I stretched her upon the bed. There the fluttering bird was no longer a defenseless dove, but rather a falcon with claws and sharp beak, struggling with might and main, scratching and biting my hands, threatening to pull out my eyes, thumping me with all her strength.

Nothing is a greater incentive to pleasure than a fight. A short tussle with some tingling slaps and a few cuffs will set anv man aqlow, while a sound flagellation will rouse the blood of the most sluggish old man, better than any aphrodisiac.

The struggle excited her as much as it did me, and yet no sooner had I stretched her down, than she managed forthwith to roll down all in a bundle on the floor; but I was up to her tricks and over her. She managed, however, to slip like an eel from under me, and with a bound like a young kid, made for the door. I had, however, locked it.

A new scuffle ensued, I was now bent upon having her. Had she yielded tamely, I should have ordered her out of the room, but resistance rendered her desirable.

I clasped her within my arms, she writhed and sighed, and every part of our bodies came into strong contact. Then I thrust my leg between hers, our arms were entwined and her breasts were palpitating against my chest. During all this time she belabored me with blows, and each one as it fell seemed to set both her blood and mine on fire.

I had thrown off my coat. The buttons of my waistcoat and trousers were all giving way, my shirt-collar had been torn off, my shirt was soon in rags, my arms were bleeding in several places. Her eyes were glistening like those of a lynx, her lips were pouted with lust, she now seemed to struggle not to defend her maidenhood, but rather for the pleasure the fight gave her.

As I pressed my mouth on hers, I felt her whole body quiver with delight, nay once — and once only — I felt the tip of her tongue thrust slightly within my mouth, and then she seemed maddened with pleasure. She was in fact like a young Maenad in her first initiation.

I actually began to desire her, and yet I felt sorry to sacrifice her at once on love’s altar, for this little game was worth being rehearsed more than once.

I lifted her again in my arms and put her on the bed.

How pretty she looked as I held her down. Her curly and wavy hair dishevelled by the fight was strewn in locks all over the pillows. Her dark lively eyes, with their short but thick lashes were twinkling with an almost phosphorescent fire, her face all aglow, was bedabbled with my blood, her parted, panting lips would have made the soft phallus of some old worn-out monsignore leap with renewed life.

I had pinioned her down and for a moment stood over her, admiring her. My glances seemed to irritate her, and she struggled once more to be free.

The hooks and eyes of her dress had given way, so that there was just a glimpse of fair flesh, gilt by many a glowing harvest sun, and of two swelling breasts, to be seen; and you know how much more exciting this glimpse is than the wanton display of all the flesh exhibited at balls, theatres, and brothels.

I tore away all obstacles. I thrust one hand into her bosom, and I tried to slip the other one under her dress; but her skirts were so tightly twisted between her legs, and these were so firmly entwined together, that there was no getting them apart.

After manv stifled cries, that seemed more like the twittering of some wounded bird, after much tugging and tearing on my side, scratching and biting on hers, my hand finally reached her naked knees; then it slipped up to the thighs. She was not stout, but as firm and as muscular as an acrobat. My hand reached the parting of the two legs; finally, I felt the slight down that covers Venus’ mount.

It was useless to try and thrust my forefinger between the lips. I rubbed her a little. She screamed for mercy. The lips parted slightly. I tried to get my finger in.

‘You are hurting me; you are scratching me,’ she cried.

Finally her legs relaxed, her dress was up, and she burst into tears — tears of fear, shame, and vexation!

My finger then stopped; and as I withdrew it I felt that it was also wet with tears — tears which were by no means briny ones.

‘Come, don’t be frightened!’ said I, taking her head between my hands, and kissing her repeatedly. ‘I was only joking. I do not mean to harm you. There, you can get up! You can go, if you like. I surely will not detain you against your free will.’

And thereupon I thrust my hand within her bosom, and began to pinch the tiny nipple, in size no bigger than a luscious wild strawberry, of which she seemed to have all the fragrance. She shook with excitement and delight as I did so.

‘No,’ she said, without attempting to get up, ‘I am in your power. You can do with me what you like. I can’t help myself any longer. Only remember, if you ruin me, I shall kill myself.’