smell, but I remember, just as I fell asleep, the smell from the distant past.
My dreams were broken and incomprehensible. There was something about me and a little girl, and something else about being in bed with my mother. And that smell. About warmth and happiness. But it was all fragmentary and unreal.
When I woke in the morning it was with the memory of Gunilla flowing in my mind and tugging at me with that strange excitement. I opened my eyes and the whole room was sunlight. I looked at the chandelier, the arm chair, the cupboard, the door, and finally at the place beside me on the bed where she had lain. All these things had been felt, but not seen, and now, in the bright light, it seemed impossible: a part of my dream. And as such I basked in it) full of wonder. Full of joy.
But then the spots on the sheet recalled that it had actually happened-a thought, a realization which immediately brought back my sense of shame, and with it, of fear. What did it all mean? And those forbidden places she had me touch -was this-could it be right? I remembered parts of the dream, and I was certain this was very wrong. Why had Gunilla done it? In the orphanage we had been strictly taught not to have anything to do with our organs except when urinating. Only the wicked would even think of it, and yet, here was my sister doing all these things. I did not understand.
And there was the scene between Father and the maid, and before that, Father and Gunilla. This had something to do with it. In fact, this clean, respectable house seemed steeped in it, overflowing with it. My head began to ache with the confusion. Why had it been so fantastically pleasurable? From my own experience I could’ well comprehend why one wanted to do it, but why should these noble people permit themselves to do it if it were wrong. Even I, wicked as I was, had never permitted myself to do things that were wrong before-except something in my childhood-but I couldn’t remember that.
I thought of asking Mother. She had told me to ask her about anything that bothered me. But, not only was I far too shy to discuss this subject with her as yet, but also, since it involved others who had acted as though they did not want to be discovered, I could not speak without betraying them.
That was it! The concealment. Father acting a bit that way -although I couldn’t be sure-Annie begging him to stop, and saying it was wrong, and finally Gunilla not wanting the lights on. I just couldn’t put it together and I was left as always with that sense of shame as though it were I who made things evil wherever I went.
But perhaps the strangest thing was my confusion over the emotions I had felt: the curiosity, the excitement, the timidity, with only a slight feeling of shame. Perhaps this was because in the dark it was all so unreal, so phantom-like, so much like The Arabian Nights as Gunilla had said.
I could not fathom it all, and, feeling hungry, decided to get up and dress so that I could go down to eat. I put on a shirt and a pair of jeans so I could play outside, and left the room.
I went outside first. It was a perfect summer day. I sat down on the grass beneath one of the dining room windows, leaning my back against the side of the house.
The window above my head was open, and voices were coming from inside. It was Mother and Father, talking over breakfast. I was just about to go in and join them when the mention of my name caused me instinctively to stop and listen.
“…but I’m worried about Lars with the girls,” Mother was saying. “Whatever it was in his past that caused all his difficulties, and which caused him to be put away under the strange stipulations about women which we learned about- whatever it was-it is sure to be activated violently by this contact with the girls. Probably already has. After all, he never had even seen a picture of one before!”
“But how can it do him harm, Karin,” Father replied. “After all, he had to see a girl sometime, and then to learn about them. Seems to me that the quicker it happens the better. And about time, I might add!”
“Yes, yes, Bill, of course! But don’t you think the process should be a bit-well-gradual? Little by little rather than all at a swoop? After all, a whole multitude of things are natural to the girls-particularly to Gunilla, which would be impossible for him to take in at a gulp after the background he’s had. And I’m afraid it is bound to happen around Nilla, and that it will only corrupt him.”
“Humph! Are you sure, Karin, that you aren’t just worried that she will get to him before you have a chance to do just that yourself?”
“Bill, can’t you ever be serious!” For the first time I heard a sharp tone in Mother’s voice. Then: “I-well-hope to be able to adjust him to Swedish life and the freedom we have won and the progress in ideas about sex in society which we have made. But I don’t want him spoiled first. He’s our son now, and we must protect him.
“Especially from corruption, Bill. Isn’t there some way he can be adjusted a bit before he has to meet it all?”
“Maybe a little corruption is good for him. Sven Lindstrom, our principle Swedish disciple of Freud and Jung, wrote a long book which is a continuation of the investigations Freud was making in BEYOND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE. He calls it CORRUPTION AS A PURGATIVE-I have a copy upstairs if you’d like to read it. Anyway, in this book he expounds how corruption is necessary in our lives from time to time in order to cleanse the psyche of exaggerated conditioned responses and the harm which they create through inhibition. He says that only by the periodic catharsis produced by this corrupting of the natural drives can the psyche be cleansed, and the Super-ego prevented from strangling our natural responses.”
Mother seemed to pause a bit after this. Then:
“I only fear that what he is talking about is for the normally developed person. Lars is a special case.”
They went on to other matters, and then Father left for his office in town.
For a few moments I sat still trying to take this in, but most of it was incomprehensible to me. All I got from it was that Mother was worried about the shame in my past, and that some learned men believed bad things were sometimes good for you-or at least, this is how it seemed to me. I wished I could ask Mother, but I was ashamed to admit that I had been eavesdropping.
When I entered the dining room, Gunilla and Louise were coming down the stairs. I waved to them, then ducked through the door, not wanting to see Gunilla-or better- not being yet prepared to see her after the strange night before, but to my consternation, they followed me in. I was just on the verge of excusing myself from breakfast despite my hunger rather than face her over the meal, when Nilla said:
“Hi, Lars. Morning, Mother! We are going for a walk in the woods with Gustav if it’s all right.”
“Of course, dear,” Mother replied.
Gunilla turned to me, her eyes twinkling and dancing:
“Like to come along, Lars?” she half mocked. Her large breasts were offering themselves through a tight mocca jacket.
But as I blushed, trying to decide between the company of the breasts and the prospect of talking to Mother, the latter came to my rescue:
“Now, girls, you run along and let Lars have some breakfast and collect himself. He can come out later and play with you.”
I wondered to myself how she meant that “play” and then blushed again in self reproach for such thoughts, and for my sudden impulse to go. Without meeting Gunilla’s eye again, I turned and walked to the table.
As I sat down, Mother pulled a cloth cord and when the maid entered said:
“Annie, bring Lars a bowl of porridge, and afterwards some potatoes and eggs. He’s used to a good English breakfast.”
The maid stared at me with blue eyes, staring me up and down.
“Yes, Mrs. Brahe,” she said, and turned towards the pantry.
I noticed the gentle roll of her buttocks as she walked, but under the apron and serving frock she was wearing, it was hard to discern the apparition of the night before. Her long red hair, which I had last seen hanging to her waist, was now quite properly pinned on top of her head. But the arms which I had admired by lamp light looked the same. But everything was profoundly different. The knowledge of her unclothed breasts was in me. The memory of her in front of Father.; And under him. It was wild to be properly in a room with her now as though all was decent. It was the same with Gunilla.
I turned my eyes toward Mother whose smile suddenly enveloped me.
“Well, did you sleep, Lars?” she demanded. I almost feared those wide, discerning eyes could look into my soul to discover my secrets of the night before.
“Uh-yes, Mother, I-uh-did sleep all right. But I was-uh-so excited-that is-uh-it took me a while,” I stammered.
