have been a very temporary one; it did not return; she declared
her love for me; and without any express 'proposal' on my part we
walked home that afternoon mutually taking it for granted that we
were engaged. I was happy, and calmly happy; proud and elated.

"Circumstances now made it necessary for me to make money for
myself and I was forced to enter a profession for which I had
never felt any attraction; indeed, I had never considered the
possibility of it, until I became engaged, and saw I must support
myself if I were ever to marry. I worked hard, and rapidly
improved my position.

"I think I am correct in stating that from the day I became
engaged my sexual troubles seemed to have ceased. My thoughts and
passions were centred on one woman. We wrote to one another
twice every week, and as far as I was concerned every thought and
feeling I had I told her, and the receipt of her letters was for
me the event of my life for nearly three years. My anxiety in
connection with my work used up a great deal of my energy, and,
although I looked forward to the time when I should have a woman
at my side every night, my sexual desires were in abeyance. Nor
did I feel any desire or temptation for other women.

"I masturbated, but not frequently. Generally I did it to the
accompaniment of images or scenes associated with my betrothed,
sometimes the act was purely auto-erotic. My leisure time was
devoted to reading.

"On only one occasion did I have intercourse with a woman during
my engagement (three years); it was with a girl whose
acquaintance I had made at the university and who asked me to
come to see her.

"I married at the age of 24. Looking back on the early days of my
married life it is now a matter of surprise to me that I was so
far from exhibiting the transports of passion which since then
have accompanied any intercourse with a new woman. Partly I was
frightened of shocking her; partly my three years of comparative
abstinence had chastened me. It was some weeks before I ever saw
my wife entirely naked; I never touched her parts with my hand
for many months; and after the first few weeks I did not have
intercourse with her frequently.

"Perhaps this was to be expected. The basis of my affection for
her had always been a moral or mental one rather than physical,
although she was a handsome, well-made girl. Besides, money and
other worries kept my thoughts busy, as well as struggles to make
both ends meet.

"Indeed, I may say my sexual nature seemed to be dying out. When
I had been married less than six months I discovered that sexual
intercourse with my wife no longer meant what sexual intercourse
used to mean--no excitement or exaltation or ecstasy. My wife
perhaps contributed to this by her attitude. She confessed
afterward to me that for the first week or so she positively
dreaded bedtime, so physically painful was intercourse to her;
that it was many weeks, if not months, before she experienced the
orgasm. For the first year and more of marriage she could not
endure touching my penis. This at first disappointed me; then
annoyed and finally almost disgusted me.

"Later on, she learned to experience the orgasm. But she was very
undemonstrative during the act, and it was seldom that the orgasm
occurred simultaneously; she took a much longer time.

"I ceased to think about sexual matters. When I had been married
about three years I was aware that, in my case, marriage meant
the loss of all mad ecstasy in the act. I knew that if I had no
work to do, and plenty of money, and temptation came my way, I
should like to have another woman. But there was no particular
woman to enchain my fancy and I did not have time or money or
inclination to hunt for one.

"At times I masturbated. Sometimes I did this to the
accompaniment of homosexual desires or memories of the past. Then
I got my wife to masturbate me.

"About four years after marriage I got a woman from Piccadilly
Circus to do _fellatio_. I had never had this done before. She
did not do it genuinely, but used her fingers.

"As stated above various anxieties, the fact that I could always
satisfy my physical desires, all served to calm me. I was also
interested in my work and had become ambitious to improve my
position and was very energetic.

"On the whole, notwithstanding money worries, the first four or
five years of my married life were the happiest in my life.
Certainly I was very free from sexual desires; and the general
effect of marriage was to make me economical, energetic,
ambitious, and unselfish. I was certainly overworked. I seldom
got to bed before 1 or 2; my meals were irregular; and I became
worried and nervous. At the beginning of my fifth year of married
life I got run down, and had a severe illness, and at one time my
life was in danger, but I had a fairly rapid convalescence.

"My illness was critical, in more senses than one. My
convalescence was accompanied by a remarkable recrudescence of my
sexual feelings. I will trace this in detail: 1. As I got
well--but while still in bed--I found myself experiencing, almost
continually, violent erections. These were at first of an
auto-erotic character, and I masturbated myself, thus gaining
relief to my nerves. 2. I also found my thoughts tending toward
sexual images, and I felt a desire toward my nurse. I first
became conscious of this when I noticed that I experienced an
erection during the time that she was washing me. I mentioned the
matter to my doctor, who told me not to worry, and said the
symptoms were usual in the circumstances. 3. When I got up and
about I found myself desiring very keenly to have intercourse
with my wife. I can almost say that I felt more sexually excited
than I had done for four or five years. As soon, however, as I
had had intercourse with my wife a few times I felt my desire
toward her cease. 4. My thoughts now centered on having a woman
to do _fellatio_, and as soon as I was well enough to go out I
got a prostitute to do this.

"Just before I was ill my wife had a child, which was born with
more than one abnormality. No doubt the shock and worry caused by
this got me into a low state and predisposed me to my illness.
But the consequences were farther reaching still. The child
underwent an operation, and my wife had to take her away into the
country for nearly six weeks, so as to give her better air. I was
left alone in London, for the first time since my marriage. The
worry in connection with the child, and the heavy expense, served
to keep me nervously upset after I had apparently recovered
physically from the illness. Once more I found myself thinking
about women. As an additional factor in the situation I became
friendly with an old college-chum whom I had not seen much of for
many years. He lived the life of a fashionable young bachelor and
was at the time keeping a woman. The only common interest between
us was women. I found myself reverting to the old condition of
rampant lust that had been such a curse to me in my university
days. Some books he lent me had a decided effect. They gave me
erections; and it was on top of the excitement thus engendered
that one day I got a woman to do _fellatio_, as already
mentioned. Moreover, since my illness, I found all my previous
energy and ambition had gone.

"I have stated that I was in London alone with two servants. The
housemaid was a young girl; nice looking, with beautiful eyes and
a sensual expression. She had been with us for about a year. I
cannot remember when I first thought of her in a sexual way. But
one evening I suddenly felt a desire for her. I talked to her; I
found my voice trembling; I let my hand, as if by accident, touch
hers; she did not withdraw it; and in a second I had kissed her.
She did not resist. I took her on my knee, and tried to take
liberties, which she resisted, and I desisted.

"Next day I kissed her again, and put my hand inside her breasts.
The same evening I took her to an exhibition. On the way home, in
a hansom cab, I made her masturbate me. This was followed by a
feeling of great relief, elation, and _pride_.

"Next morning, when she came up to my bedroom to call me, I
kissed and embraced her; she allowed me to take liberties, and,
reassuring her by saying I would use a preventive, I had
intercourse with her. She flinched somewhat. She then told me she
was at her period and that she had never had intercourse with a
man before.

"During the next few weeks I found her an adept pupil, though
always shy and undemonstrative. I took her to a hotel, and
experienced the intensest pleasure I had ever had in undressing
her. I had lately heard about _cunnilingus_. I now did it to her.
I soon found I experienced very great pleasure in this, as did
she. (I had attempted it with my wife, but found it disgusted
me.) I also had intercourse _per anum_. (This again was an act I
had heard about, but had never been able to regard as
pleasurable. But books I had been reading stated it was most
pleasant both to man and woman.) She resisted at first, finding
it hurt her much; it excited me greatly; and when I had done it
in this way several times she herself seemed to like it,
especially if I kept my hand on her clitoris at the same time.

"My relations with the housemaid, with whom I cannot pretend that
I was in love, were only put an end to by satiety, and when I
went away for my holidays I was utterly exhausted. This was,
however, only the first of a series of relationships, at least
one of which deeply stirred my emotional nature. These
experiences, however, it is unnecessary to detail. There have
also been occasional homosexual episodes.

"I think I am now in a much healthier condition than I have been
for some years. (I assume that it is _not_ healthy for all one's
thoughts to be always occupied on sexual subjects.) The
conclusion I come to is that I can live a normal, healthy life,
devoting my thoughts to my work, and finding pleasure in
friendship, in my children, in reading, and in other sources of
amusement, as long as I can have occasional relations with a
young girl--i.e., about once a week. But if this outlet for my
sexual emotions is stopped sexual thoughts obsess my brain; I
become both useless and miserable.

"I have never regretted my marriage. Not only do I feel that life
without a wife and home and children would be miserable, but I
entertain feelings of great affection toward my wife. We are well
suited to one another; she is a woman of character and
intelligence; she looks after my home well, is a sensible and
devoted mother, and understands me. I have never met a woman I
would have sooner married. We have many tastes and likings in
common, and--what is not possible with most women--I can, as a
rule, speak to her about my feelings and find a listener who
understands.

"On the other hand, all passion and sentiment have died out. It
seems to me that this is inevitable. Perhaps it is a good thing
this should be so. If men and women remained in the state of
erotic excitement they are in when they marry, the business and
work of the world would go hang. Unfortunately, in my case this
very erotic excitement is the chief thing in life that appeals to
me!

"The factors that in my case have produced this death of passion
and sentiment are as follows:--

"1. Familiarity. When one is continually in the company of a
person all novelty dies out. In the case of husband and wife, the
husband sees his wife every day; at all times and seasons;
dressed, undressed; ill; good tempered, bad tempered. He sees her
wash and perform other functions; he sees her naked whenever he
likes; he can have intercourse with her whenever he feels
inclined. How can love (as I use the expression--i.e., sexual
passion) continue?

"2. Satiety. I am of a 'hot,' sensual disposition, inclined to
excess, as far as my health and nerves are concerned. The
appetite gets jaded.

"3. Absence of strong sexual reciprocity on the part of my wife.
I have referred to this above. She likes intercourse, but she is
never outwardly demonstrative. She has naturally a chaste mind.
She never is guilty of those little indecencies which affect some
men a great deal. She does not like talking of these things; and
she tells me that if I died, she would never want to have
intercourse again with anyone. At times, especially recently, she
has even asked me to have intercourse with her, or to masturbate
her; but it is seldom that the orgasm occurs contemporaneously.
In this respect she is different from other women I knew, in whom
the mere fact that the orgasm was occurring in me at once
produced it in them. At the same time I doubt whether even strong
sexual reciprocity would have retained my passion for long.

"4. During the early years of our married life money worries
caused at times disagreements, reproaches and quarrels. Passion
and sentiment are fragile and cannot stand these things.

"5. The fact that I had already had other women diminished the
feeling of awe with which many regard the sexual act and the
violation of sexual conventions.

"6. Loss of beauty. Loss of figure is, I fear, inseparable from
childbearing especially if the woman works hard. We have always
had servants, still my wife has always worked hard, at sewing,
etc.

"I have stated that I entertain feelings of respect and
admiration for my wife. But I almost _loathe_ the idea of
intercourse with her. I would sooner masturbate, and think of
another woman than have intercourse with her. It causes nausea in
me to touch her private parts. Yet with other women it affords me
mad pleasure to kiss them, every part of their bodies. But my
wife still feels for me the love she had when we first married.
There lies the tragedy."

The following narrative is a continuation of History XII in the previous
volume:--

HISTORY III.--I had become good looking. For a time I knew what
it was to have loving looks from every woman I met, and being
saner and healthier I would seem to be moving in a divine
atmosphere of color and fragrance, pearly teeth and bright eyes.
Even the old women with daughters looked at me amiably--married
women with challenge and maidens with Paradise in their eyes.

"I was standing one morning at St. Peter's corner, with two young
friends, when a girl went by, coming over from the Roman Catholic
cathedral. When she had passed she looked back, with that
imperious swing that is almost a command, at me, as my friends
distinctly admitted. They advised me to follow her; I did so, and
she turned a pretty, blushing face and pair of dark gray eyes,
with just the kind of eyebrows I liked: brown, very level, rather
thick, but long. Her teeth and mouth were perfect, and she spoke
with a slight Irish brogue. She let me do all the talking while
she took my measure. God knows what she saw in me! I spoke in an
affected manner, I remember, imitating some swell character I had
seen on the stage a night or two before, but I was wise enough
not to talk too much and to behave myself. She promised to meet
me again and made the appointment. She was a school-teacher and
engaged to be married to some one else. She meant to amuse
herself her own way before she married. The second night I met
her she allowed me to kiss her as much as I liked and promised
all her favors for the third night. We took a long walk, and in
the dark she gave herself to me, but I hurt her so much I had to
stop two or three times. She had had connection only once, years
before, when at school herself. She was inclined to be sensual,
but she was young, fresh, and pretty, and her kisses turned my
head. I fell genuinely in love with her and told her so, one
night when she was particularly fascinating, with the tears in my
eyes; and her face met mine with equal love. The first night or
two I had felt no pleasure--whether through years of self-abuse
or not I do not know,--but this night my whole being was excited.
I met her once and sometimes twice a week and was always thinking
of her. My sister saw me looking love-sick one day and I heard
her say 'He's in love,' which rather flattered me, and I looked
more love-sick and idiotic than ever. It was all wrong and
perverted. She continued to meet her _fiancé_, and intended to
marry him. We both spoke of 'him' as an adultress speaks of her
husband. That high level of tears and childlike joy in our youth
and love was never reached again. But I realized her _sex_, her
kisses, her presence--after all those years of horror (if she had
only known)--more even than the sexual act itself; while she, as
time went on, commenced to show a curiosity which I thought
desecrating; she liked to examine--to 'let her hand stray,' were
her words. Even her beauty seemed impaired some nights and I
caught a gleam in her eye and a curve of her lip I thought
vulgar. But perhaps the next night I met her she would be as
bright as ever.

"I introduced her to my friends, who knew our relations, for I
blabbed everything. But she did not mind their knowing and if we
met would give them all a kiss, so that I felt I had been rather
too profuse in my hospitality, though I still would say: 'Have
another one, Bert; I don't mind.' But whatever ass I made of
myself she forgave me anything, and was fonder of me every time
we met, while I, although I did not know it for a long time, was
less fond of her. She knew how to revive my love, however. Some
nights she would not meet me, and I would be like a madman. Other
nights she would meet me, but not let me raise her dress. She
would lie on me, on a moonlit night, and her young face in shadow
like a siren's in its frame of hair, merely to kiss me. But what
kisses! Slow, cold kisses changing to clinging, passionate ones.
She would leave my mouth to look around, as if frightened, and
come back, open-mouthed, with a side-contact of lips that brought
out unexpected felicities.

"One night her _fiancé_ saw us together, and followed me after I
left her, but on turning a corner I ran. I ridiculed him to her
and despised him. I should have found it difficult to say why.
Another night her brother attacked me, and it would have gone
hard with me, but Annie pulled me in and banged the door. We were
in a friend's house, but her father came around soon and laid a
stick about her shoulders, in my presence. I tried to talk big,
and said something idiotic about being as good a man as her
betrothed, as though my intentions were honorable, which for one
brief moment made Anne look at me, paler faced and changed, such
a strange glance. But he beat her home, enjoying my rage, and she
went away, crying in her hands. I was allowed to go unmolested.

"I soon received a letter from her asking me not to mind and
making an appointment, at which she turned up cheerful and
unconcerned. She went to confession, and would meet me
afterwards; and her faith in that, and the difference of our
religions (if I had any religion) would make her seem strange and
alien to me at times, even banal. At last our meetings became a
mere habit of sensuality, with all charm, and suggestion of
better things eliminated....

"I went with my friend George (who shared my room) one afternoon
and called at Annie's school; she kept an infants' school of her
own. She came to the door herself. It was the first time I had
seen her in daylight, and I thought her cheek-bones bigger; she
certainly was not so pretty as on the first evening I met her.
George had told me he would sleep away if I wanted the room, and
when next I met her she promised to come and sleep with me.
Before I had always met her on the grass, under trees. She came,
and the sight of her young limbs and breasts revived something of
my love for her, my better love. But she was insatiable and more
sensual every day. One day she came when I was not well, and
would not go away disappointed. I had met a very pretty girl
about this time, and now resolved to give Annie up, which I did
in the cruelest manner, cutting her dead, and refusing to answer
her letters and touching messages. I heard that she would cry for
hours, but I was harder than adamant....

"I thought myself very much in love with the very pretty girl for
whom I had thrown up Annie. She lived with her mother and two
sisters, one older than herself, the other a mere child. The
eldest sister, a handsome, dark girl like a Spaniard, was not
virtuous. She was good natured; too much so, and took her
pleasure with several of us, dying, not long after, of
consumption. I thought her sister, my girl, was virtuous, and I
meant to marry her--some day. At any rate, I saw her mother, who
lived in a well-furnished house and was a superior woman. This
did not prevent my trying to seduce her daughter. I did not
succeed for a long time, though she did not cease meeting me. The
sisters came to see us. I knew, one night, her sister was
upstairs with D. and I guessed what they were at, so I suggested
to her she should creep up on them for fun. She did so, came
back, excited and pale--and gave herself to me. But she was not a
virgin and in time I had a glimpse of her unhappy fate and her
mother's position. Her father was dead or divorced, and her
mother, I believe, was mistress to some wealthy bookmaker. I am
not sure, there was always a mystery hanging over the mother, nor
am I certain that she connived at her daughter's seduction, but
the girl's account was that after some successful Cup day there
had been too much champagne drunk all around, and that a man she
looked on as a friend came into her bedroom that night when she
was _tête montée_ and seduced or violated her--whichever word you
like to choose. Since then his visits had been frequent until she
met me, she said, and if I would be true to her she would be a
true wife to me, and I believed her and still believe she meant
what she said. But I left Melbourne shortly after this, our
letters got few and far between, and ultimately I heard she was
married to a young man who had always been in love with her....

"Among the inmates of the boarding house was a 'married' couple
who stayed for some time; he was an insignificant, ugly, little,
crosseyed commercial traveler; she was a pretty, little creature
who looked as innocent and was as merry as a child; we all vied
in paying her attentions and waiting on her like slaves, the
husband always smiling a cryptic smile. After they had left it
was hinted they were not married at all; the oldest hands had
been taken in.... One afternoon I met Dolly, the commercial
traveler's wife, and she stopped and spoke to me. I remembered
what I had heard and ventured on some pleasantry at which she
laughed, and on my proposing that we should go for a walk she
consented. She had left the commercial traveler, it came out in
conversation, and we went on talking and walking, one idea only
in my mind now; could I detain her till dark? Dolly, who was very
pretty indeed, amused herself with me for hours, playing hot and
cold, snubbing me one minute, encouraging me with her eyed
another. Hour after hour went and she found this game so
entertaining that she accompanied me to the park behind the
Botanical Gardens, and it was not until it was too late for me to
catch a train home that she gave herself to me. In fact, we
stayed out the whole of that warm summer night. As the hours went
by she told me of her home in London and how she first went
wrong. She had been a good girl till one day on an excursion she
drank some rum or gin, which seemingly revived some dormant taint
of heritage; when she went home that night she fell flat at her
mother's feet. Her parents, well-to-do shopkeepers, who had
forgiven her several times before, turned her out. She became one
man's mistress and then another's. She began early, and was
scarcely 19 now. She would leave off the drink for a time and try
to be respectable. She loved her father and mother, but she could
not help drinking at times. She spoke cheerfully and laughingly
about it all; she was young, strong, good natured, and careless.
We went to sleep for a little while and then wandered in the
early morning down toward the cemetery, when she tried to tidy
her hair, asking me how I had enjoyed myself and not waiting for
an answer. She was thirsty, she said, and when the public houses
opened we went and had a drink. It was the first time I had seen
her drink alcohol,--at the boarding house she had always been the
picture of health and sweetness,--and I saw a change come over
her at once, so that I understood all that she had told me. The
sleepless night may have made it worse, but the look that came
into her eyes, and the looseness of the fibres not only of her
tell-tale wet mouth, but of every muscle of her face was
startling and piteous to see. She saw my look and laughed, but
her laugh was equally piteous to hear, and when she spoke again
her voice had changed too, and was equally piteous. She asked for
another. 'No, don't,' I begged, for the pretty girl I had
flattered myself I had passed a summer's night with that most
young men would envy, showed signs of changing, like some siren,
into a flabby, blear-eyed boozer. That hurt my vanity.

"I met her another night and she took, me to her lodgings, and I
slept with her all night. I no longer tried to stop her drinking,
but drank with her. I ceased to treat her with courtesy and
gallantry; she noticed it, but only drank the more, drank till
she became dirty in her ways, till her good looks vanished. I
left her, too drunk to stand, as some friend, a woman, called on
her.

"She came to see me once more, like her old self, so well dressed
and well behaved, and chatted so cheerfully to my landlady that
the latter afterward congratulated me on having such a friend.
Dolly carried a parcel of underclothing she had made, with a few
toys, for the children of a poor man in the suburbs, and I
accompanied her to the house. There was great excitement among
the ragged children; in fact, the atmosphere became so
dangerously full of love and charity that I commenced to feel
uncomfortable,--the shower of roses again,--and was glad to find
myself in the open air. We went for a walk and had several
drinks, which made the usual change in Dolly. I got tired of her,
determined I would leave her, spoke cruelly, and finally--after
having connection with her on the dry seaweed--rose and left her
brutally, walked away faster and faster, deaf to her
remonstrances, and careless whether or how she reached the
station....

"I had gone to lodge with a family whom I had been accustomed to
visit as a friend; there were two daughters; the elder, engaged
to a young German who was away with a survey party, had a rather
plain face, but a strong one and was herself a strong character,
and I came to like her in spite of myself; the second girl had
light golden hair, a fresh complexion, a short nose, and rather
large mouth, which contained beautiful teeth; they were both
good, obedient, innocent church-going daughters. As there was
plenty of amusement there of an evening, singing and dancing, I
did not go out, got into better ways, and gradually gave up
drinking to excess. I was so improved in appearance that an old
acquaintance did not recognize me. My anecdotes and fun amused
Mrs. S., the mother of the girls. She could be very violent on
occasions, I found, and I learned that there had been terrible
scenes at times, and that from time to time it had been necessary
to place her in an asylum. I went for drives with the girls and
to theatres, and ought to have been happy and glad to find myself
in such good quarters. The mother trusted me so entirely that she
left me for hours with the girls, the younger one of whom I would
kiss sometimes. She was engaged to a young fellow whom I spoke to
patronizingly, but whose shoes I was not worthy to fasten. I was
the cause of quarrels between them. They made it up again but I
think he noticed the change that was taking place in Alice. For
from kissing her I had gone on--all larking at first. We formed
the habit of sitting down on the sofa when alone and kissing
steadily for ten minutes or more at a time. She was excited
without knowing what was the matter with her--but I knew. And one
day when our mouths were together I drew her to me and commenced
to stroke her legs gently down. She trembled like a string bow,
and allowed my hand to go farther. And then she was frightened
and ashamed and commenced to laugh and cry together. She had
these hysterical attacks several times and they always frightened
me. It ended in my seducing her. She broke off her engagement,
and then was sorry; but soon she thought only of me.... One day
Alice and I were nearly caught. I had just left her on the sofa
and had commenced drawing at a table with my back to her when
suddenly her mother came in without her shoes, while Alice had
one hand up her clothes arranging her underclothing. The mother
stopped dead and shot me one glance I shall never forget. 'Why,
Alice, you frighten me!' she said. I feigned surprise and asked
'What is the matter?' Alice, although she was frightened out of
her wits, managed to stammer: 'He couldn't see me--you couldn't
see me, could you?' appealing to me. But I had managed to collect
my senses a bit and although still under that maternal eye I
asked,--at last turning slowly around to Alice: 'See? What do you
mean? See what?' And I looked so mystified that the mother was
deceived, and contented herself with scolding Alice and telling
her to run no risks of that sort. I breathed again.

"But I was near the end of my tether. Alice and I talked about
everything now. She told me about her life at boarding school and
the strange ideas some of the girls had about men and marriage.
After leaving school she had been sent to a large millinery or
drapery establishment to learn sewing and dressmaking. Here, she
said, the talk was awful at times, and one girl had a book with
pictures of men's organs of generation, which was passed around
and excited their curiosity to the highest pitch.

"I had days of tenderness and contrition, and even told her I
would get on and marry her. Then the tears would come into her
eyes and she would say: 'I seem to feel as if you were my husband
now.' ...

"I had to see a man on business and went to his cottage. The door
was opened by his wife, a handsome, dark-eyed young woman, who
looked as if butter would not melt in her mouth. After leaving a
message I went on talking to her on other subjects. She piqued my
vanity in some way, and made me feel curious and restless. I
found myself thinking of her after I left and looking back I saw
she was still looking at me.

"To make a long story short, she encouraged me. It ended by my
leaving the S. family and going to board with them. T.D., the
husband, was glad of my company and my money. They had a little
boy--whose father T. was not. I soon understood her inviting
looks at me. For she was a general lover, and an old man, in a
good government billet, visited her often when T.D. was away: I
will call him Silenus. There was also a dark, handsome man who
built organs. The latter came one day and sent for some beer. I
was working in my room, and it so happened that before he knocked
she had been going further than usual in her talk with me; in
fact, as good as giving me the word. When her friend was admitted
he had to pass my open door and he gave me a look with his black
eyes and I gave him a look which told each what the other's game
was. It is wonderful what a lot can be learned from a single
glance of the eyes. When I saw the little boy bringing in the
beer I felt that he had bested me. But she brought me in a glass
first, and putting her down on the sofa I scored first. It was
done so suddenly, so brutally, that, accustomed as she must have
been to such scenes she turned red and bit her under lip. But she
sent the other man away in a few minutes. After that she was
insatiable; it was every day and sometimes twice in one day. I
commenced to be gloomy and miserable again. And there was not
even a pretense of love. There was no deception about her; she
even introduced me to Silenus and we made excursions together,
for which he paid, as he had plenty of money. We were always
drinking, until at last I could eat nothing unless I had two or
three whiskies. I became very thin, my horizon seemed black and
all things at an end. (But T.D. enjoyed his meals and was really
fond of his wife and her boy and his work; life was pleasant to
him.) She would go up to town with me and to a certain hotel;
after drinking she would leave me waiting while she retired with
the handsome young landlord for a short time. She told me when
she came back that he was a great favorite with married women.

"She told me that Silenus visited a woman who practiced
_fellatio_ on him. Mrs. D. thought such practices abominable and
could not imagine how a woman could like doing such a thing.

"When she was out walking with me one day T.D.'s name came up and
she said in a slightly altered voice: 'He told me he loved me!'
It was a word seldom used by her except in jest. I threw a
startled look at her and caught an inquisitive and apologetic
look in return, such a strange and touching glance that I saw I
had not yet understood her,--there was an enigma somewhere. When,
bit by bit, she told me her life, I understood, or thought I
understood, that strange childlike glance in this young woman
steeped to her eyes in sin. No one had ever made love to her or
spoken to her of love in her life.

"It had commenced at school. She must have been a particularly
fine and handsome girl, judging from her photographs. She had
seen boys playing with girls' privates under the form and felt
jealous that they did not play with her's. She had no mother to
look after her and she soon found plenty of boys to play with
her, and young men, too, as she grew older. She took it as she
took her meals. She had been really fond of her child's father,
but as he had shown no tenderness for her, nothing but a craving
for sensual gratification, she would rather have died than let
him know. She soon tired of her attachments, she told me. She did
not like T.D. He was not the complacent husband; he was spirited
enough, but he believed everything she told him. One day he came
home unexpectedly when we were together on the bare palliass in
her room. It was a critical moment when his knocks were heard,
and in the hurry and excitement some moisture was left on the
bed. The knocks became louder, but she was calmer than I, and
bade me run down to the closet. I could hear her cheerful and
chaffing voice greeting him. When I walked in back to my own room
she called out: 'Here's T. home!' I learned afterward that he had
been surly and suspicious, and had seen the moisture on the bed,
and asked about it, whereupon she had turned the tables upon him
completely; he ought to be ashamed of himself; she knew what he
meant by his insinuations; if he must know how that moisture come
on the bed, why she put the soap there in a hurry to catch a
flea. He believed her and brought her a present next day in
atonement for his suspicions.

"During her monthly periods, when I could not touch her, she
would come in and play with me until emissions occurred, and my
feelings had become so perverted that I even preferred this to
coitus. The orgasm would occur twice in her to once in me, and
though her eyes were rather hard and her mouth too, she always
looked well and cheerful, while I was gloomy and depressed. In
her side, however, was a hard lump, which pained her at times,
and which, doubtless, was waiting its time....

"One day I felt so low in health that I proposed to T.D. that we
should take a boat and sail out in the bay for a day or two. The
sea, the change, the open air revived me, and I even made
sketches of the black sailor as he steered the boat. One day when
I was left alone in charge of the boat, as I felt the time
hanging on my hands, for the sea, the blue sky, the lovely day
gave me no real pleasure, I remember abusing myself, the old
habit reasserting itself as soon as I was alone and idle. When
T.D. came back he brought Mrs. D. with him, laughing and jolly as
usual. She was surprised when lying next to me under the deck on
our return I did not respond to her advances. It would have
pleased her, with her husband only a few feet away. After that I
spent a night with her, but she was getting tired of me. I did
not care for her, but it hurt my vanity and I made a few attempts
to be impertinent. She looked at me coldly and threatened to
complain to T....

"I want to relate an impression I received one night about this
time when with several friends we called at a brothel. I forget
my companion, but I remember two faces. It was winter, and great
depression prevailed in Adelaide. We had been talking to the
mistress as we drank some beer and were pretending to be jolly
fellows, although we were wet, cold, and had not enjoyed
ourselves (at least, I had not), and she was speaking harshly and
jeeringly about two girls she had now who had not earned a penny
for the past week. Just then we heard footsteps and she said in a
lower tone: 'Here they are,' They came in, unattended, having
ascertained which the brothel-keeper snorted and turned her back
to them. The faces of the girls, who were quite young, looked so
miserable that even I pitied them. The look on the face of one of
those girls as she stood by the hearth drawing off her gloves
lives in my memory. Too deep for tears was its sorrow, shame, and
hopelessness....

"I had given up drink and was living in the bush. To anyone with
normal nerves it would have been a happy time of quiet, rustic
peace, beauty, and relief from city life. With me it was restless
vanity amounting to madness. In every relation, action, or
possible event in which I figured or might figure in the future,
I always instantaneously called up an imaginary audience. And
then this imaginary audience admired everything I did or might
do, and put the most heroic, gallant, and romantic construction
on my acts, appearance, lineage, and breeding. Suppose I saw a
pretty girl on a bush road. Instead of thinking 'There is a
pretty girl; I should like to know her or kiss her,' as I suppose
a healthy, normal young man would think, I thought after this
fashion: 'There is a pretty girl; now, as I pass her she will
think I am a handsome and aristocratic-looking stranger, and, as
I carry a sketch-book, an artist--"A landscape painter! How
romantic!" she will say, and then she will fall in love with me,'
etc. This preoccupation with what other people might think or
would think so engrossed all my time that I had no means of
enjoying the presence, thought, or favor of the divine creatures
I met, and I must have appeared 'cracked' to them with my
reticence, pride, and silly airs.

"I met girls as foolish as myself sometimes. Once at a _table
d'hôte_ I met a young girl who went for a walk with me and let me
know her carnally although she was little more than a schoolgirl.
She was going down to town soon, she said, and would meet me at a
certain hotel (belonging to relations of hers) in Adelaide on a
certain date, some time ahead; if I took a room there she would
come into it during the night. In the meanwhile I had given way
to drink again and abused myself at intervals. I came down to
town, drunk, in the coach, and kept my appointment with the young
girl at the hotel, expecting a night of pleasure; but she merely
stared at me coldly as if she had never seen me before. I abused
myself twice in my solitary room....

"I met a middle-aged schoolteacher (who had once been an officer
in the army) down for his holidays. As he spoke well, and was a
'gentleman,' I cultivated him. One night he asked me to meet a
girl he had an appointment with and tell her he was not well
enough to meet her. He foolishly told me the purpose of their
intended meeting. I went to the trysting-place, at the back of
the hotel, and met the girl. On delivering my message she smiled,
made some joke about her friend, and looked at me as much as to
say: 'You will do as well.' I had been drinking, and in the most
brutal manner I took her into a closet. By some strange chance or
state of nerves she gave me exquisite pleasure, but the orgasm
came with me before it did with her, and in spite of her
disappointment and protests I stood up and pulled her out of the
place for fear some one should find us there. Still protesting
she followed me, but her foot slipped on the paved court, and she
fell down on her face. When she rose I saw that her front teeth
were broken. I looked at her without pity, with impatience, and
abruptly leaving her I went into the hotel to 'the colonel.' I
commenced to tell him lies, when he asked me with a weak laugh
what had been keeping me. I smiled with low cunning and drunken
vanity, evading the question. Then he accused me directly. I only
laughed; but, drunk as I was, I remember the look of the ageing
bachelor as he saw he had been betrayed by a younger man. He had
known her for years....

"I was now living in the home of a woman who was separated from
her husband and kept lodgers. She had a daughter, with whom I
walked out, a pretty girl who drank like a fish, as her mother
also did. There were other lodgers coming and going. I would lie
down all day and keep myself saturated with beer. I commenced to
get fat and bloated, with the ways of a brothel bully. A
broken-down, drunken old woman who visited the house and had been
a beautiful lady in her youth told me I should end my days on the
gallows trap. The same woman when drunk would lift up her dress,
sardonically, exposing herself. Other old women would congregate
in the neglected and dirty bedrooms and tell fortunes with the
cards. One little woman, an onanist, was like a character out of