Feeling my lips detach themselves from hers, Therese opened her eyes, — and in the timorous astonishment of her look I read the bestiality of my own features. But that was no longer the time for stupid sentimentality and foolish pity. A single idea, under the precipitate throbbing of my temples, dominated me: to put an end to the excessive erection of my sex by possessing the female who had thrown me into such a condition of rut.
Wholly unaffected by her terrified look, I raised Therese in my arms and carried her away to a corner of the vestibule where there was a pile of cushions. Overturning her on to these, I fell down by her side and slipped my hand under her petticoats. She sought to repulse me, but I overpowered her, one of my legs twined around hers and my body pressed against her breasts. And with mouth to mouth came the expression of my desire, — furiously: 'I want to possess you! I want to possess you!' Already my hand, above the stocking, had reached her naked thigh. But Therese succeeded in getting away: she raised herself up with a sudden movement like that of a tracked animal and, seizing my wrist, drove her finger-nails into, my flesh desperately. We looked at each other exactly as, during the savage hours of the War, a wounded man and the brute who was about to kill him must have gazed into each other's eyes. Two tears welled m Therese's eyes, and from her lips came the supplication-'Oh! no, not that! I implore you, — not that!'
Suddenly brought to my senses, I drew her head on to my shoulder and kissed her eyes. She murmured, — 'I believe that I should never have forgiven you!' Then she hid her face against my neck and I could feel her scalding tears coursing one after the other down her skin. No other noise in the house broke the silence, save that of the pendulum of a clock hammering out the seconds. I could feel that Time was flowing, materially, between my fingers: Time for ever completed on that day of my wedding, which was now irremediably spoilt. It must have been still very light out in the garden; but the vestibule, behind the closed shutters, was already dark and, like two abandoned children, we were huddled in its darkest corner. Hours passed. Therese no longer wept.
Yet her face was still hidden against my neck and from time to time, at long intervals, she sobbed.
My desire-recently so tyrannical-had completely subsided, indifferent to my wife's hand, which had involuntarily slipped between my legs. Mortally sad-as one can be after a defeat, the weight of which must be supported alone-I now realized, with bitter lucidity, the brutality of my act. And, when I called to mind my previous relations with Therese, its lamentable brutality appeared to me still more unpardonable.
For those relations, as regards a fleshly preparation, had been practically nil, — three weeks of a wholly intellectual comradeship,two years of an increasingly tender yet ever deferential correspondence, — and a fortnight's betrothal under close observation.
A fortnight during which we had done a great deal of kissing, to the extent of ravaging our lips, to the great scandal of those around us. But these kisses were only too rapid, too quickly interrupted; any slightly prolonged silence indeed gave the alarm to that sentinel on the watch in the adjoining room-Therese's grandmother. Never was the contact of our lips sufficiently long, or sufficiently profligate to enable me to dare to add a caress with my tongue and though my hands strayed to Therese's breasts, or stroked the curves of her loins, this could be done very furtively without the intimacy of a partly-unbuttoned piece of clothing. Perhaps she did not even notice the enveloping movement of those caresses, wholly occupied as she was by the only too-brief contact of our lips. The thought of our very near marriage alone helped me to accept the constraint imposed on our betrothal, and to support the suspicion which weighed on our actions.
On the other hand, we were allowed the greatest liberty as regards correspondence and conversation. The vigilant sentinel at her listening-station was unable to distinguish our words. As a matter of fact, all that she required was to hear a confused and uninterrupted sound. And so we profited by this to chatter together the livelong day and far into the night.
Our previous conversations had already revealed to me Therese's complete psychology, — a combination of intellectual maturity and juvenile spontaneity, beneath which could be glimpsed a rich potentiality of still dormant sensuality. But the more intimate conversations during our betrothal enlightened me on one point which, up to then, had remained in the shade: namely, Therese's profound innocence, — her total ignorance regarding carnal details.
This combination of maturity and ignorance will, perhaps, be regarded as paradoxical, — at the very least contradictory; yet it characterizes a type of young woman, absolutely homogeneous and more common than people think, — a type, moreover, which has nothing in common with the goose-like girl of former times.
In the case of these latter, love is reduced to a childish scale of sentimental and roguish pranks. But to Therese marriage was something else, — it was an intellectual and sentimental problem involving a fleshly aspect. She had traced the boundaries of this problem, forbidding herself to go beyond them, or enervate her mind in the process. Above all, she had been antagonistic to listening to the semi-confidences of vicious companions, who would primarily have besmirched love in her eyes. Confident that, at the chosen hour, the one she loved would know how to initiate her, totally, without subterfuges, she had retained for him the virginity of her mind, as jealously as that of her body. Contemporary literature is certainly not favourable to such a mental virginity, and Therese, already for a number of years, had gone far beyond the programme of classical works. But she took advice and instinctively avoided the reading of certain books, after the manner of those young men who, left wholly free but mindful of their sexual hygiene, know how to flee from the contamination of certain women.
Was this voluntary absence of unhealthy curiosity in Therese's case an indication of some sensual deficiency? I had no fear on that score. From the outset of our very first conversations, I had amused myself over the passion she displayed for everything which had once interested her,study and reading, music and tennis, even her dolls which she still secretly fondled, nay, even the old dog which had so long been the discreet confident of her troubles. The conclusions I had drawn from this were soon confirmed by other more symptomatic details, — the profundity of certain looks, the involuntary lasciviousness which sometimes emanated from her adorably supple body; and, during our betrothal, the rapid acceleration of her pulse under the influence of a somewhat prolonged kiss. Yet her temperament remained-like her intellectual curiosity-outside the zone of fleshly preoccupations.
With all these characteristics I was acquainted. They had even come into greater relief since my examination of them from that central point of view-new to me-which my uncle had revealed. And though, at first, I challenged his sensual theories, judging the conclusions either exaggerated or ridiculous, I soon came to realize their wisdom: productive of deeper voluptuous sensations. Moreover, they adapted themselves exactly to Therese's temperament; they emphasized at one and the same time the resources and the danger.
The resources of such a temperament were at one and the same time its richness, its diversity, its assured consent to the most ardent carnal love, provided I knew how to defer the hour for total possession; at the same time-at the cost of imposing a few days' constraint on my feelingsthere was the certainty of finding her to be an ideal mistress, — an ardent, delicate, and inventive inspirer of our love. On the other hand, the danger at one and the same time was that pride and hypersensibility of a young woman who had remained pure voluntarily; that was the very perfection of her temperament, — too delicately complex to support without damage a clumsy initiation.
Intelligent as she was, — capable of understanding a merely hinted allusion, and though she was voluntarily ignorant of certain physical sides of love, this was clearly no reason why they should be grossly revealed to her by a drunken Helot, incapable of curbing his instincts… And to think that I, myself, had been that ruttish being, — an object of terror and disgust in the eyes of the woman he loved! Face to face with this lamentable check to my dreams, I remained, now, in a state of bewilderment.
I guessed that the end of the day had come by the shriller chirping of the birds, — as it were the clamour of quarrelsome children in a huge dormitory. But for a long time now they had calmed down. Deep obscurity had invaded the corner where we were stranded. It was very warm. Moistness emanated from Therese's body, and disquieted me.
Gently seizing her hand, I removed it from the neighbourhood of the secret re-awakening of my desire. Raising herself up, she felt for my face and lightly touched my lips with a fugitive kiss. Then, in a voice she wished to be mirthsome, but which still trembled a little, she said:
'What a terrible dungeon! You must have mistaken the house, darling.
This is surely the mansion of Gilles de Retz himself. He must be spying upon us from over there, in the darkness, — with his horrid blue beard!'
Simulating fear, she pressed herself against me. Then, without transition, she continued:
'Did you think me stupid a short time ago?'
'My beloved! — let us say not a word more on the subject. Imagine that you were sleeping and had a bad
