gardener said there was a young good-looking Englishman in the villa who would be very nice to me; the money was only the hope we all used to excuse ourselves. We pretended to be seeking the money, but in truth we were seeking lover and love-new emotions.
'When the gardener left me in the bedroom that first morning, I noticed how fine the sheets were and the pretty pictures in the room: 'When will he come?'
I asked myself; 'What will he do?' And my heart was in my mouth.
'Before you came in that first time to see me, the hope of you set all my pulses throbbing. I threw myself on the bed and thought about it, and thinking gradually brought about the feeling that demands satisfaction, so I satisfied it by touching myself-waiting for you: you dear, you!
'I've told you nothing about men, you say; but really, I had no experiences to speak of till I came here. My mother was always warning me of the consequences and the risk of having a child was always present.
'I often saw men in the town I could have liked, but we lived right out in the country, and till your gardener came and talked to me and assured me there was no risk and a great deal of fun, I never gave myself to any man: you are first, and you know it, don't you, dear?
'One young fellow used to come out last summer from the town and we used to take long walks, and he said he loved me and was always touching my breasts and trying to excite me in fifty ways; but when I mentioned marriage, he sheered off. Men want pleasure and no ties and I don't blame them. If I were a man, I'd do the same: it's we women run the risk; but not with you, dear.
'Oh, now, often I can feel those slow long kisses of yours on my breasts and-I close my eyes and give myself to you: love is the best thing in the world, but how am I to love when you go away and the great days are ended? Oh, I wish my life could end with them: I have had the best of life.'
'Don't say that,' I cried. 'The best of your life is still to come, and I shall not be gone forever.'
And then the love play began again and went on till we were called out to lunch, and we found a feast that deserves to be described at length, but I am afraid of tiring my readers.
Though I liked Flora immensely, I often made fun of her coldness. She used to resent this, saying, 'You do not know me!'
One day she found me with Adriana, and that evening she asked me: 'Do you go with her because she's passionate?'
I nodded my head: it's useless to try to explain to a woman the attraction of novelty.
The next day, to my astonishment, Flora surpassed herself: she really used her sex as an instrument and gave me intense thrills.
As I cried out, 'Enough dear!' she triumphed.
'Am I better than your Adriana?'
'Much better,' I replied, 'but why don't you act like that always?'
'I don't know!' she replied. 'It's due to a sort of reserve I can't explain, but you mustn't believe with the gardener that Clara or Adriana or any of them feel more than I do. A man may be proud of liking the act; a woman is always ashamed to confess it or show it!'
The year after I had left San Remo, Flora wrote to me at the Hotel de Paris at Monte Carlo. She told me that all her life since I had gone away was stale and flat. If I didn't want her any more, she would prefer to kill herself: she could not endure her dull, uneventful existence. The letter was some months old, but I raced over to San Remo at once to make things right if possible.
Naturally, I first sought out my gardener. He was astonished. 'She has just been married,' he cried, when I showed him the letter, 'and well married; he's rich. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.'
It turned out to be as he had said: my Flora had married, and married exceedingly well, and when I sought her out, she didn't hesitate to tell me that half her success had come from the apprenticeship she had gone through with us Englishmen. 'You taught me to love, Sir,' she said, 'and it was your teaching mainly that made it easy for me later to excite love without feeling it much. Yet my husband is a dear fellow, and I think I shall be happy with him: you don't mind?' she asked, smiling archly the while.
'Mind! Of course not!' And I said to myself, 'Another ship come safely to port.'
Adriana Adriana's account was very like that of Flora's in the early years, but at first she was more outspoken.
'Passion-I'm made of it, a colt-wild, crazy, untamed colt-quick, rashly impulsive, savage-and yet I've emotion enough in me-high poetry; the violin, 'flame in the skies of sunset'-all bring tears to my eyes: the rippling of a stream, the green foliage of trees, books and pictures-a deep sweet world.
'Of course, it was an older girl who first taught me sensuality; I don't really think she ever touched me. It was quite a one-sided affair, but what I did to her gave me quite a little pleasure of my own. Of course, I didn't know what she did it for. I liked it and that was all that mattered to me.
'I had a governess just before I went to school. I can't remember, but, anyway, she's the only female, barring the first I mentioned, who made me aware of her passion. She would insist on bathing me. I knew that was funny, as none of the others had wished to. But she banged on the door the first night, and when I admitted her, she came over to me and slowly took away the towel covering me. I felt ashamed-her eyes made me feel so-her look made me blush-it also began to make me feel strangely pleased, with that feeling of pleasure we all experience, I think, when we are looked at. Well, every week she bathed me and I became fully aware of her feelings towards me once behind the bathroom door. And I loved it. She would lift me out of the bath and lay me across her knees and the delightful sensation of being devoured by her greedy eyes made me open my legs — for her to rub me.
'From twelve to fourteen I was at school and developed a passion for one of the seniors. And while I would have been thrilled at a single touch of her fingers even on my hand, she never took even the very slightest notice of me.
The sight of her thrilled me, and if she passed me and I felt her brush against me, it set my heart beating. But that sort of hero worship is very common at school.
'Another girl of my own age one night surprised me by asking me to accompany her into the bathroom. I went along wondering. She locked the door and then in a somewhat shamefaced fashion, asked me to touch her. I did, and she touched me. Both of us were highly excited, but we were interrupted, and somehow we never tried anything further afterwards.
'You ask me about exciting myself. I was doing it constantly from ten or eleven on. About thirteen I got quite thin and pale, and my mother told me one evening how a young girl friend of hers had ruined her health by touching her sex and so warned me. After that, I used to do it every Saturday night. Then I had an orgy, once a week; it was splendid. I used to think of some man who had attracted me or shown that he wanted me and I'd begin.
'One day in the tram a common man came in and threw himself down opposite me. Of a sudden I noticed that his trousers were unbuttoned and I saw his sex: it made me angry at first; he was so dirty and common. But as I stole glances at it, it excited me fearfully; I crossed my legs and squeezed my sex and at once I came. I could not help it: when I got out I was all streaming-wet to my knees.
'You ask me about my feelings. I have only to wait a very short time before I come, usually. But it all depends on the state of my mind. If there is not a good (I should say bad) atmosphere, it takes long, but if I feel really passionate- almost lewd-a minute will do it. And I can do it again perhaps three times, but that's the limit. My legs give way under me after that-so I judge I've had the best of myself; anyway I couldn't do more than that consecutively.
'No one thrill is ever exactly like the last; you soon learn to differentiate. Of course, they all recur, but never one after the other-and sometimes my favorite thrill comes most seldom; it is when all my muscles stiffen and grow rigid; it may not occur for days, even weeks.'
Naturally, I went to work at once to bring on the rigid paroxysm in Adriana and found no difficulty. 'You could not do it again,' she said, but in ten minutes I proved that I could bring about the rigid orgasm as often as I liked.
In fact, once after bringing on the paroxysm three or four times, she burst out crying and laughing in a sort of wild hysteria that took me hours to quiet.
'I love you,' she said to me, 'and that's why I can't control myself. But why do you want any one else? I'll give you all myself, more than any one else can, you dear! But you must be faithful!'
'When are you most passionate?' I asked, and she replied:
