Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated) (254 page)

‘Aie, aie!’ said the Spahi, biting his lips; ‘it is a tight fit, but it’s in at last.’

‘Am I hurting you?’

‘It did pain a little, but now it’s all over,’ and he began to groan with pleasure.

The Spahi’s face expressed a mixture of acute pain and intense lechery; all the nerves of his body seemed stretched and quivering, as if under the action of a strong battery; his eyes were half closed, and the pupils had almost disappeared, his clenched teeth were gnashed, as the bottle was, every now and then, thrust a little further in. His phallus, which had been limp and lifeless when he had felt nothing but pain, was again acquiring its full proportions; then all the veins in it began to swell, the nerves to stiffen themselves to their utmost.

‘Do you want to be kissed?’ asked someone, seeing how the rod was shaking.

‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘I feel enough as it is.’

‘What is it like?’

‘A sharp and yet an agreeable irritation from my bum up to my brain.’

In fact his whole body was convulsed, as the bottle went slowly in and out, ripping and almost quartering him.

The hand of the manipulator was convulsed. He gave the bottle a strong shake.

We were all breathless with excitement, seeing the intense pleasure the Spahi was feeling, when all at once, amidst the perfect silence that followed each of the soldier’s groans, a slight shivering sound was heard, which was at once succeeded by a loud scream of pain and terror from the prostrate man, of horror from the other. The bottle had broken; the handle and part of it came out, cutting all the flesh that pressed against it, the other part remained engulfed within the anus.

CHAPTER
8

Time passed —

 
— Of course, time never stops, so it is useless to sav that it passed. Tell me, rather, what became of the poor Spahi?

 
— He died, poor fellow! At first there was a general sauve qui peut from Briancourt’s. Dr. Charles sent for his instruments and extracted the pieces of glass, and I was told that the poor young man suffered the most excruciating pains like a Stoic without uttering a cry or a groan; his courage was indeed worthy of a better cause. The operation finished, Dr. Charles told the sufferer that he ought to be transported to the hospital, for he was afraid that an inflammation might take place in the pierced parts of the intestines.

‘What!’ said he; ‘go to the hospital, and expose myself to the sneers of all the nurses and doctors — never!’

‘But,’ said his friend, ‘should inflammation set in— ‘

‘It would be all up with me?’

‘I am afraid so.’

‘And is it likely that the inflammation will take place?’

‘Alas! more than likely.’

‘And if it does — ?’

Dr. Charles looked serious, but gave no answer.

‘It might be fatal?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I’ll think it over. Anyhow, I must go home — that is, to my lodgings, to put some things to rights.’

In fact, he was accompanied home, and there he begged to be left alone for half an hour.

As soon as he was by himself, he locked the door of the room, took a revolver and shot himself. The cause of the suicide remained a mystery to everybody except ourselves.

This, and another case which happened shortly afterwards, cast a dampness on us all, and for some time put an end to Briancourt’s symposiums.

 
— And what was this other case?

 
— One you have most likely read about, for it was in all the papers at the time it occurred. An elderly gentleman, whose name I have quite forgotten, was silly enough to be caught in the very act of sodomizing a soldier — a lusty young recruit lately arrived from the country. The case made a great ado, for the gentleman occupied a foremost position in society, and was, moreover, not only a person of unblemished reputation, but a most religious man besides.

 
— What! do you think it possible for a truly religious man to be addicted to such a vice?

 
— Of course it is. Vice renders us superstitious; and what is superstition save an obsolete and discarded form of worship. It is the sinner and not the saint that needs a Saviour, an intercessor, and a priest; if you have nothing to atone for, what is the use of religion to you? Religion is no bridle to a passion, which — though termed against nature — is so deeply engrafted in our nature that reason can neither cool nor mask it. The Jesuits are, therefore, the only real priests. Far from damning you, like ranting dissenters do, they have at least a thousand palliations for all the diseases which they cannot cure — a balm for every heavy-laden conscience.

But to return to our story. When the young soldier was asked by the judge how he could thus degrade himself, and sully the uniform he wore,— ‘M. le Juge,’ quoth he, ingenuously, ‘the gentleman was very kind to me. Moreover, being a very influential person, he promised me ‘ un avancement dans le corps’ (an advancement in the body)!

Time passed, and I lived happily with Teleny — for who would not have been happy with him, handsome, good, and clever as he was? His playing now was so genial, so exuberant with lusty life, so beaming with sensual happiness, that he was daily becoming a greater favorite, and all the ladies were more than ever in love with him; but what did I care, was he not wholly mine?

 
— What! you were not jealous?

 
— How could I be jealous, when he never gave me the slightest cause. I had the key of his house, and could go there at any moment of the day or night. If he ever left town I invariably accompanied him. No, I was sure of his love, and therefore of his fidelity, as he likewise had perfect faith in me.

He had, however, one great defect — he was an artist, and had an artist’s lavishness in the composition of his character. Although he now gained enough to live comfortably, his concerts did not yet afford him the means to live in the princely way he did. I often lectured him on that score; he invariably promised me not to throw away his money, but alas! there was in the web of his nature some of the yarn of which my namesake’s mistress — Manon Lescaut — was made.

Knowing that he had debts, and that he was often worried with duns, I begged him several times to give me his accounts, that I might settle all his bills, and allow him to begin life afresh. He would not have me even speak of such a thing.

‘I know myself,’ he said, ‘better than you do; if I accept once, I’ll do so again, and what will be the upshot? I’ll end by being kept by you.’

‘And where is the great harm?’ was my reply. ‘Do you think I’d love you less for it?’

‘Oh! no; you perhaps might love me even more on account of the money I cost you — for we are often fond of a friend according to what we do for him — but I might be induced to love you less; gratitude is such an unbearable burden to human nature. I am your lover, it is true, but do not let me sink lower than that, Camille,’ he said, with a wistful eagerness.

‘See! since I knew you, have I not tried to make ends meet? Some day or other I might even manage to pay off old debts; so do not tempt me any more.’

Thereupon, taking me in his arms, he covered me with kisses.

How handsome he was just then! I think I can see him, leaning on a dark-blue satin cushion, with his arms under his head, as you are leaning now, for you have many of his feline, graceful ways.

We had become inseparable, for our love seemed to wax stronger every day, and with us ‘fire never drove out fire,’ but, on the contrary, it grew on what it fed; so I lived far more with him than at home.

My office did not take up much of my time, and I only remained there just long enough to attend to my business, and also to leave him some moments to practice. The remainder of the day we were together.

At the theatre we occupied the same box, alone, or with my mother. Neither of us accepted, as was soon known, any invitation to whatsoever entertainment where the other was not also a guest. At the public promenades we either walked, rode or drove together. In fact, had our union been blessed by the Church, it could not have been a closer one. Let the moralist after that explain to me the harm we did, or the law-giver that would apply to us the penalty inflicted to the worst of criminals, the wrong we did to society.

Although we did not dress alike, still — being almost of the same build, of about the same age, as well as of identical tastes — the people, who saw us always arm-in-arm, ended by not being able to think of the one apart from the other.

Our friendship had become almost proverbial, and ‘No Rene without Camille’ had become a kind of by-word.

 
— But you, that had been so terrorized by the anonymous note, did you not fear that people might begin to suspect the real nature of your attachment?

 
— That fear had quite passed away. Does the shame of a divorce-court keep the adulteress from meeting her lover? Do the impending terrors of the law keep the thief from stealing? My conscience had been lulled by happiness into a calm repose; moreover, the knowledge I had acquired at Briancourt’s gatherings, that I was not the only member of our cankered society who loved in the Socratic fashion, and that men of the highest intelligence, of the kindest heart, and of the purest aesthetic feelings, were — like myself — sodomists, quieted me. It is not the pains of hell we dread, but rather the low society we might meet there below.

The ladies now had, I believe, begun to suspect that our excessive friendship was of too loving a nature; and as I have heard since, we had been nicknamed the angels of Sodom — hinting, thereby, that these heavenly messengers had not escaped their doom. But what did I care if some tribades suspected us of sharing their own frailties.

 
— And your mother?

 
— She was actually suspected of being Rene’s mistress. I was amused by it; the idea was so very absurd.

 
— But had she not any inkling of your love for your friend?

 
— \bu know the husband is always the last to suspect his wife’s infidelity. She was surprised to see the change wrought in me. She even asked me how it was that I had learned to like the man I had snubbed and treated with such disdain; and then she added:

‘You see you must never be prejudiced, and judge people without knowing them.’

A circumstance, however, which happened at that time forcibly diverted my mother’s attention away from Teleny.

A young ballet-girl, whose attention I had apparently attracted at a masked ball, either feeling a certain liking for me, or else thinking me an easy prey, wrote a most loving epistle to me, and invited me to call upon her.

Not knowing how to refuse the honor she was conferring upon me, and at the same time never liking to treat any woman scornfully, I sent her a huge basket of flowers and a book explaining their meaning.

She understood that my love was bestowed elsewhere; still, in return for my present, I received a fine large photograph of her. I then called on her to thank her, and thus we soon got to be very good friends, but only friends and nothing more.

As I had left the letter and the portrait in my room, my mother, who certainly saw the one, must likewise have seen the other, too. That is why she never gave my liaison with the musician a single thought.

In her conversation there were, every now and then, either slight innuendoes or broad hints about the folly of men who ruin themselves for the corps de ballet, or about the bad taste of those who marry their own and other people’s mistresses, but that was all.

She knew that I was my own master, therefore she did not meddle with my own private life, but left me to do exactly what I liked. If I had a faux menage somewhere or other, so much the better or so much the worse for me. She was glad that I had the good taste to respect les convenances, and not to make a public affair of it. Only a man of forty-five who had made up his mind not to marry can brave public opinion, and keep a mistress ostentatiously.

Moreover, it has occurred to me that, as she did not wish me to look too closely into the aim of her frequent little journeys, she left me full liberty to act at my own discretion.

 
— She was still a young woman at that time, was she not?

 
— That entirely depends upon what you call a young woman. She was about thirty-seven or thirty-eight, and was exceedingly young- looking for her age. She has always been spoken of as a most beautiful and desirable woman.

. She was very handsome. Tall, with splendid arms and shoulders, a well-poised and erect head, you could not have helped remarking her whithersoever she went. Her eyes were large and of an invariable and impassable calmness that nothing ever seemed to ruffle; her eyebrows, which almost met, were level and thick; her hair dark, naturally wavy, and in massy clusters; her forehead, low and broad; her nose, straight and small. All this combined to give something classically grave and statuesque to her whole countenance.

Her mouth, however, was her best feature; not only was it perfect in its outline, but her almost pouting lips were so cherry-like, sappy, and luscious, that you longed to taste them. Such a mouth must have played the deuce with the men of strong desires who looked upon it — nay, it must have acted like a love-philter, a- wakening the eager fire of lust even in the most sluggish hearts. In fact, few were the trousers that did not swell out in my mother’s presence, notwithstanding all their owner’s efforts not to show the tattoo which was being beaten within them; and this, I should think, is the finest compliment that can be paid to a woman’s beauty, for it is a natural not a maudlin one.

Her manners, however, had that repose, and her gait that calmness, which not only stamp the caste of Vere de Vere but which characterize an Italian peasant and a French grande dame, though never met with in the German aristocracy. She seemed born to reign as a queen of drawing-rooms, and therefore accepted as her due, and without the slightest show of pleasure, not only all the flattering articles of the fashionable papers, but also the respectful homage of a host of distant admirers, not one of whom would have dared to attempt a flirtation with her. To everybody she was like Juno, an irreproachable woman who might have been either a volcano or an iceberg.

 
— And may I ask what she was?

 
— A lady who received and paid innumerable visits, and who seemed always to preside everywhere — at the dinner-parties she gave, and also at those she accepted — therefore the paragon of a lady patroness. A shopkeeper once observed, ‘It is a red-letter day when Madame des Grieux stops before our windows, for she not only attracts the gentlemen’s attention, but also that of the ladies, who often buy what has caught her artistic eye.’

She had, besides, that excellent thing in woman:

Her voice was ever soft, Gentle and low;