'Oh! no, — what a shocking thing to suggest. But the priest of Mars and Venus has thrown open his residence to us. That is where we are going to install ourselves.'
'In such a house of ill-repute? That's a fine thing, in the case of a young married woman.'
'Would you prefer a bedroom in an hotel? I can telegraph from here, — 'Require for young married woman bedroom having sheltered only rosieres or other virtuous maidens. Kindly furnish guarantees or attestations.''
Therese began to laugh.
'Well, after all,' she said, 'a good work will have been accomplished.
By our legitimate union we shall have rehabilitated that place of perdition.'
'And, in close proximity to the Temple of Venus, we will raise a little altar to the Cupid who presides over regular households.'
'With a saucepan and a feather-duster to mark his attributions.
Apropos of the household, are your horrible bachelor's quarters fairly comfortable? I mean for a fairly lengthy stay?'
'The best of everything in. its way. As regards this particular bachelor's home, don't imagine a diminutive and obscure ground floor, as in the bad books which Sainte Barbe, your grandmother, allowed you to read. On the contrary, picture a well-trimmed park…'
'The Parc aux Cerfs!' (1) (1) An old quarter of Versailles which gave its name to a house, situated in the Rue Saint-Mederic, which Louis XV purchased in 1755 as a residence for his many transitory mistresses who were brought there by his valet de chambre Lebel.
'If that is what they taught you in preparation for your degree in history, I shall begin to doubt of the virtue of our so-called true young women.'
'Fortunately we still have left the exquisite politeness of our so-called well-behaved men.' As she uttered these words she smiled at me, while momentarily hesitating; and then, slightly blushing, continued:
'If they had asked me what Louis the Well Beloved did exactly in his Pare aux Cerfs, I should have obtained very bad marks. I had better warn you.'
'I thought as much and… I love you. But let us return to the question of Albert's house. I was saying that there is a well-trimmed park, — the villa is spacious, — there is a room at each of the four, points of the compass, so that one can choose according to the season, — there are two bath-rooms; and all the rest is on the same scale.'
'But what are you doing as regards the master of the house?'
'There now, you've said vous again, instead of tu. Another forfeit…'
She refused me her lips, exclaiming:
'Not now, impudent driver!'
'Imprudent?'
'Imprudent and impudent. But that's not the question. I mean to be alone with you, otherwise back I go to the home of my grandmother, Sainte Barbe, as you so respectfully call her.'
'Clearly, you would give her great pleasure by doing so. But your venerated grandmother- God preserve her soul! — will, alas! be deprived of that joy. For the master of the house is a model of discretion; he thought he was under the obligation of accepting a mission in Africa.'
'That was nice of him!'
'That's a heart-felt cry which would touch poor Albert.'
We continued along a most quiet avenue, provincial to perfection,past modest villas, and then lofty hermetic walls behind which one could picture convents. Two children were playing marbles and a dog was fussing around some boundary-stones. They appeared to have been placed there of set purpose by a skilful stage-manager, in order to emphasize the peaceful solitude of that suburban landscape. I stopped opposite a closed gate-way; but doubtless our arrival, amidst the silence of the deserted avenue, had been heard from afar, for the gates immediately opened, disclosing a fairly long and very shady park-like carriage-road. At the end of this tunnel of verdure the house appeared, astonishingly luminous, and with its white facade brightened up by purple blinds.
So, while the family into which I had married was deploring my excessive speed along roads leading to Juan- les-Pins, we rolled slowly along in that Versailles garden, — very slowly indeed, as though we feared that the luminous apparition at the end of the drive might vanish on our approach. Somewhat disturbed a short time before by my wife's objections, I was now wholly reassured as to the fortunate choice of our holiday-place. Dumb with astonishment, Therese snuggled up to me and, with a movement in which admiration was mingled with a suspicion of unformulated fear, stretched out her clasped hands towards the house.
I left Therese oh the flight of steps, — white marble steps adorned with red geraniums, and while the gardeners were discreetly seeing to our luggage I went off to garage the car. The garage was quite near, yet I purposely dawdled over my job, the prey to a disquietude which wrung my heart and loins. For the sight of that house in which, for weeks past, I had placed my amorous dreams suddenly let loose in me a maddening series of erotic visions.
My sexual impatience, dormant during the carrying out of ordinary daily duties, was suddenly awakened and already whispered its pernicious advice in my ears.
The day before, again, I feared the necessary yet brutal act which was to seal my union with Therese definitely. This fear was comparable to physical anguish, incessantly mingled with the warp and woof of my dreams; and just as I succeeded in momentarily eluding it, it returned, more lancinating than ever, to interpose itself between our bodies, which in thought I had united. Some people will laugh at this fear of mine and consider it hardly manly; but others will understand me,those who regard a young woman as something more than the possessor of a pair of bubbies and Callipygian buttocks.
Far from growing indistinct at the approach of marriage, this dull anguish of mine increased, on the contrary, as! began to appreciate better the delicate purity of Therese. But all at once it was dissipated, at the sudden appeal of my desire; and arguments crowded to my brain to justify this volte-face. What should I gain by deferring an act which alone could give us access to fleshly delights? Was I going to succumb to a morbid fit of sentimentality? — make myself ridiculous in my own eyes by omitting to exercise, that very night, my rights as a husband? Would it not be better, at the cost of a transitory suffering on Therese's part, to awaken to-morrow side by side with the body of a real woman, capable of appeasing my desire? A shiver passed through me and in response came a violent tension of my sex. My thoughts were concentrated on a narrow, voluptuous image, — that of my flesh tenderly imprisoned by the flesh of my beloved. The preceding rape had already lost all importance in my eyes;-it was nothing save a rapid and indeed insignificant act; a brief pain which would quickly evaporate amidst the fire of immediate sensual enjoyment.
CHAPTER III
Therese was waiting for me in the vestibule. Laughingly, she greeted me with the words: 'The luggage has been taken upstairs and the gardeners have vanished. Therefore, my Lord and Master, am I all alone and at Thy mercy.' Then, with outstretched arms and a somewhat troubled look in her eyes, she advanced towards me; and,' suddenly throwing herself into my arms, kissed me passionately on the mouth.
Long did we remain standing in that position, closely pressed one against the other. Therese's lips were burning hot and from time to time they trembled. Through the light material of her summer gown, I could feel the dual provocation of her breasts. My two hands slid down to her hips and I pressed her violently to my body, to appease my exacerbated desire against the warmth of her stomach. A hallucinating dizziness mounted from my loins to my brain. My willpower, under a force which was, as it were, foreign to me, but to which I felt a desire to succumb amidst the total nudity of both our bodies, began to disintegrate. But Therese thought only of my lips, without the faintest idea of how my sex, in such close contact with her, was quivering. I felt annoyed with her for not responding to my lascivious pressure against her tummy; I felt annoyed when she did not respond by some movement or other of her lips which, despite the intervening clothing, would have assuaged that pressure by a caress.
Through one of those inconsistencies so common in love, I was irritated by my wife's naivete and by that very purity which had attracted me to her.
