pride; and the confession of my weakness, far from appeasing it, made it still more ardent. I felt the intoxicating wave of an irrepressible voluptuousness rising within me; I knew that, soon, no sense of modesty would be able to restrain it, — not even the shame of the final spasm under the greedy curiosity of that look of hers. Meanwhile a brief fit of dizziness came to the aid of my failing will-power. In that excessively heavy atmosphere the walls seemed to totter around me, and I collapsed on to the cushions scattered on the ground, thus escaping, despite myself, from Therese's too madly amorous hands. A look of disappointment darted from her eyes. But, noticing my pallor, she threw her arms around my neck and hid my head against her stomach, which the too narrow bolero had left bare.
My sensual hypertension, so near the point of orgasm, was slow in becoming appeased. In vain did I seek- motionless and with closed eyes-to escape from it. A recollection sufficed to awaken it; my sex began to swell as a wave of voluptuousness passed through it. The agonizing pulsation was, however, attenuated, then broke out afresh, and was again lessened. At last it disappeared, but only to leave my desire keener, more ravenous than ever, and reach once more that state of dizziness whose satisfaction it awaited.
Squatting down, in a state of nudity, between Therese's legs, I wanted to denude her also: the pyjamas she still wore had become physically intolerable to me. With a movement of her loins, she assisted me in uncovering her haunches and slipping off her garments. She let me part her legs; she let me unravel the blond locks on her pubes; she let me half-open the most secret spot of her body. Leaning backwards on the sofa, with open thighs and arched body, she made an offering of her panting sex, and greedily surrendered it to the multitudinous caresses of my lips and tongue, which were positively intoxicated by her moist and ever-increasing desire.
At last, in order to take breath, I drew myself up, and thus, kneeling between her legs, our sexes came together again. Then, with my flesh I touched ever so lightly that offering of hers, — as lightly and as slowly as the burning tension of my lust permitted. It was a prolonged caress which first of all availed itself of the hollows of my wife's loins, then ascended all along the fleshly crimson valley, setting in vibration her most subtle sensibility, and finally ending where her fleece was the thickest. As I stimulated her pleasure, Therese's breasts trembled with greater and greater rapidity. Straining towards me, her body rose and fell rhythmically, in obedience to an instinctive desire to intensify and increase the light rubbing together of our moist flesh. And then a cry came from her:
'Oh! Take me, — have me now for good and all!'
However I hesitated. Dominating the tumult of my feelings, a scruple still held me back: the fear of lacerating that flesh whose fragile sweetness I knew so well, and compassion for the sensitiveness of that virginal body which wished to surrender itself to the brutal satisfaction of my lust. Astonished at my hesitation and perhaps somewhat disappointed, Therese remained at first motionless, subsiding on the sofa. But soon she half-raised herself, encircled me with her arms, and clutched my thighs. And at the very moment when my penis began once more to caress and re-ascend the folds of her flesh, she pulled me towards her with such a passionate movement that I was suddenly buried in her.
On her features I read the extraordinarily rapid succession of her emotions: first of all a wince of pain on her face; then a tearful and troubled look in her eyes; and finally a flash of joyous pride. For yet another moment she smiled at me, — a rather dolorous yet infinitely tender smile. Then, closing her eyes, she fell backwards without any other protest than a cry of love:
'My husband! My beloved husband!'
CHAPTER XV
'That's all!' I murmured by way of conclusion. I was somewhat embarrassed by my uncle's stubborn silence and feared that I had said too much. Without uttering a word, and with closed eyes, he persisted in drawing imaginary puffs of smoke from his pipe, although it had gone out a long time ago. At last, looking at me so mildly that I was astonished, he said:
'You don't regret having followed my advice?'
'No, certainly not.'
'Well then, don't keep your recipe all to yourself, egoistically. Let others profit as well as yourself.'
'In what way?'
'Relate your experiences to them.'
'Never! In your case it's granted. You inspired the experiment and therefore I owed you an accurate account of it. But can you picture me making bed-room disclosures at a public lecture?'
'Write your story under a pseudonym. But do so very objectively, without any literary complications. Just a simple 'experimental subject', to use the language of physiologists.'
'To make them really convincing, my experiences would have to be described in strict chronological order, and without any fear of going into details as regards the multitudinous reactions of desire. But how could one do it without raising a storm of indignation?'
'Let the Pharisees shout as loud as they like. What they want to read about are adulterous women and inverts and enormities in general, suggested in ambiguous words; for the rule of the game consists in evoking scabrous situations by means of a vocabulary with a double meaning.'
'They would therefore accuse me of trickery if I evoked merely healthy conjugal love, and called things by their proper names.'
'On the other hand, other people would be grateful to you. They would approve of you for having frankly and without mock modesty approached that essential problem, — perhaps the most important of all social problems: sexual harmony in marriage.'
'Nevertheless they would object to the needlessness of too many details. Our fathers were content with points of suspension… and the rest was left to the imagination.'
'Carnal imagination? Let's talk about that. You are well aware that the 'average man'-whether he be a banker or an engineer-is totally devoid of it. Others find a substitute either in maniacal vices or a string of brutal obscenities; and as regards a household understanding that serves hardly any better purpose. But can one, without hypocrisy, reproach those primary pupils in the art of love with their unskilfulness? Who has ever thought of awakening or correcting their conjugal psychology?'
'Your primary pupils in erotism will always know enough to enable them to caress a woman and bring her to the pitch of their desire.'
'Not at all! The virtuoso in conjugal love is as rare as the true poet. All the others with their big clumsy paws are lamentable, — capable, perhaps, of the beginning of a caress, but soon short of breath for want of inspiration. And it is for their sake (to prevent their wives going elsewhere to slake their thirst for fleshly tenderness) that you ought to publish your 'experimental subject'.'
'Others have done it before me.'
'They have only done it by half. They didn't dare to stoop to that humble minuteness as regards details for which the contented egoism of an unimaginative husband is in no way a substitute.'
Without waiting for further objections on my part, my uncle continued:
'Many times when, during the War, we were 'in the blues', young officers confided their amorous exploits to me, — and often with splendid vigour. But, in almost every case, what a lack of light and shade there was! — what lamentable ignorance as regards the reflexes of a virgin! — what brutality on the occasion of the initiation! And when I reproached one of them for having celebrated the first night of his marriage cavalierly, without waiting for a few days necessary for his young wife's fleshly awakening, he looked at me nonplussed and exclaimed: 'Well, that's a good joke! We were absolutely alone in my bachelor's quarters, and I was bursting to have her. Wait a few days before possessing my wife! What should we have done all that time?' '
'It is to that question that my narrative ought to be an answer.'
