'Good God,' he exclaimed, 'twenty, if you like! These girls will whisper it all about and you may be sure you will have an ever increasing number. This villa is going to get a good name if you continue!'
'I will continue weekly,' I said, 'but if there are likely to be more girls, I might bring a friend over from Monte Carlo, who happens to be there and who is really an English lord.'
'By all means,' he said; 'the more, the merrier.'
Accordingly, I sent a telegram to my friend, Ernest — asking him to come and spend a happy weekend with me. In due time he came. And it was well that he did come, for the second week showed me that the gardener was wiser and knew his country people better than I did: at least twenty girls came to win prizes, girls of all ages from fifteen to thirty. My gardener proposed that he should weed them out to six or seven, giving them consolation prizes without stripping them. Both Ernest and I were quite content, but we wanted to see his choice, and we were astonished by the ability with which he made his selection: practically, we had to agree with him. Twelve or fourteen girls were sent home with twenty-five francs each, without any further attempt at discrimination; and our inspection began without making me waver in my allegiance to Flora.
It was in these first weeks at San Remo that I began to discover that the body was not so important in love or in passion as the mind and character. I had no slightest desire to leave my beauty for any of the newer queens; and I didn't want her to strip, even for Ernest's inspection, although she was willing to. But I had become her lover now, and love desires exclusive possession.
The third meeting had a new termination. Another young Englishman, named George — , a friend of Ernest, had fallen in love with one the week before. We had the three queens, as we called them, to dinner, as well as to lunch. After dinner the gardener appeared with one, and declared that if our girls would strip, he would show that his was the prettiest of the lot. None of the three girls minded: they were all willing, so we had another contest; but we resolved to give the winner of this contest two hundred francs. I don't believe that the famous choice of Paris, with the three queens of Heaven before him, ever showed such beauties. I must try to describe them. Of two of them I have photographs, which I must not reproduce; and the third, my queen, I have already described. It is for my readers to use their imaginations.
And I cannot even give the photo of the gardener's choice, for she wasn't a bit more than fourteen years of age. When we made fun of him about this, he said philosophically, 'I am older than you men, and I have noticed that the older we get the younger we like the girls.' On this we all burst out laughing.
My readers may compare the four beauties for themselves.
This was the first time in my life that I ever studied the sex of women; and it was the gardener who brought it about. We had decided that all our three beauties were lovelier than his, when he challenged us to a new test.
'What do we desire most in a girl?' he asked: 'surely a small and well-made sex. Well, I'll bet Clara has the smallest and best sex of the lot.'
Ernest at once declared that the gardener was right; so we asked our beauties to submit to his examination. They laughed at us but yielded to the general wish. Clara won, as the gardener predicted; my Flora was second; Ernest's beauty, third; and George's fourth. But all had to admit that from the outside Flora's sex was the most perfectly formed.
We found that the chief centre of pleasure, as a rule, was the clitoris and that almost in proportion to its size; sometimes it was not distinguishable, but in the three beauties it was normal, whereas in Clara it was abnormally developed-fully an inch long. The inner lips too, in her case, were very heavy; and when the gardener told us that he had brought her twice to fainting, we had to agree with him that she felt more acutely than any of the rest.
Flora, however, disdained the test and said that she felt more at something said, at a beautiful thought or fine deed than she ever felt by mere sexual excitement.
One day Ernest and George went to Monte Carlo and brought over two more friends. The gardener was overjoyed, for as the girls increased, so his tips increased, and his amusement, too, I think. But from now on, our Sundays occasionally developed into orgies; that is, we wandered about, selecting now this and now that girl, instead of remaining faithful to the queens; but usually, as soon as the newcomers went away, we returned to our old allegiances. But from the outset I limited my time for amusement to two days a week: Wednesdays and Sundays; all the other days I spent working.
I shall never forget one occasion when we all went down bathing in a state of nature-half a dozen girls and four men. After the bath, we all came up and lay about on the grass and soon the lovely girlforms seduced the men, and the scene turned to embracing, which the beauty and abandon of the girls made memorable.
This life continued for five or six weeks, till one Thursday I was interrupted by the gardener, who came and asked me to come down to see a cousin of Clara's, Adriana. I found a very lovely girl with reddish fair hair and grey eyes: quite different in looks from the ordinary Italian. I could reproduce the likeness of her that a painter-friend, Rousselet, developed later from a photograph. But she was certainly one of the most beautiful beings I have ever seen in my life, and curiously enough, she seemed at first as sweet and sympathetic and passionate as she was lovely. I took to her at once and, strange to say, even Flora liked her. She told us she was an orphan and seemed always grateful for any kindness: when Flora told her she liked her and was not jealous, 'How could you be jealous?' said Adriana. 'You are too lovely to know what envy means.'
Flora kissed her, saying: 'My dear, I don't know whether it is wisdom in you or goodness, but you are certainly wonderful.'
We had been at these games more than half the summer when Ernest proposed we should vary the procedure by letting the girls select their favorites. No sooner proposed than done. We gave them prizes and asked them to apportion them: at once they established one purse and gave us all an equal prize; but they determined, too, who was the first favorite, and who the second, and so on.
I had no reason to complain of the result; but I was at a loss to know why I was chosen so frequently: was it due to a hint of the gardener, or simply to the fact that I was known to be the owner of the villa? I never could quite determine, but I was chosen so often that the game became monotonous; and when I was left out, Ernest was the winner, though George was far better looking than either of us, and at least ten years younger.
At length we hit on a new game: one Sunday about fifty girls had come, so Ernest proposed that our four beauties should select the prettiest four of the newcomers, while we men stood round and studied their feminine choice. We soon found it was impossible to know why this or that girl was chosen, but assuredly the prettiest were seldom, if ever, successful; nevertheless, the four selected were soon initiated.
One day there came a new development: three mothers had brought their girls, and George proposed we should get the mothers to select the most beautiful four to throne it at our lunch. To my delight, Flora was selected, and an excellent selection made from the others.
Every week, I had almost said, every Wednesday and every Sunday, there was something new: we constantly drove in George's carriage, or Ernest's, or both, either into the mountains or along the coast. George had discovered a wonderful, lonely, little bay for bathing, almost uninhabited, and we used to go there frequently, and half a dozen of us would bathe together; then the meals, especially the dinners, were always feasts which often ended in some droll invention.
The curious part of my personal adventure was the changes in the character of Adriana. It was almost indescribable; from being all sympathy and sweetness, she began, I think, through jealousy, to become more and more imperious.
'You know,' she began one day, when she had come of her own accord to see me, 'your Flora is engaged to be married; as soon as I saw her, I knew she wouldn't go begging long; she's pretty, though you must know her legs are thin. But perhaps you like thin legs?'
'You are the best made of them all,' I began, 'please let me see you, and don't bother about any one else.'
'If I'm the only one,' she replied, pouting; 'I can't bear to be second-'
'Make yourself the first: ' I said, 'it's up to you: be sweeter than Flora, more passionate than Clara, and you'll win-'
'Clara,' she cried, 'is nothing but a little prostitute, like her mother before her; she's quite common-'
I couldn't help provoking her. 'The gardener swears,' I said, 'that she has the smallest sex in the whole country and is besides the most passionate of all of you-'
'I hate these comparisons,' cried Adriana. 'They degrade one to the level of the mere animal; surely there's more to me than round limbs and a small sex?
