'Oh! yesterday's kiss. It is so long since, I cannot remember.'
'Shall I begin again?'
'You know I should like you to, since you told me that was the proper way to kiss people you loved.'
'But I don't know yet whether I love you.'
'As for me, I am quite sure that I do love you dearly. So do not kiss me if you don't like to do it, but I shall kiss you all the same.'
And as on the previous day she glued her lips to mine, with this difference, that this time her tongue touched my teeth.
I could not have got away had I wished to do so, she hugged me so tightly.
Her head fell back and with half closed eyes she murmured:
'Oh, how I love you!'
The kiss made me mad; I snatched her, so to speak, from the bed, and pressing her closely to my heart I covered her bosom with kisses.
'Oh, what are you doing, I feel quite faint?'
These words brought me to my senses, for it was not thus, by surprise, that I wished to possess her.
'Dear girl,' said I, 'I have had a bath got ready for you in the dressing room.' With these words I carried her there in my arms.
'Ah!' said she, sighing, 'how comfortable I feel in your arms.'
The bath was just warm enough, I put her into it after having poured in half a bottle of eau-de-Cologne. I then lit the fire and placed the bearskin rug in front of it.
Then I brought out a dressing gown of white cashmere and put before an armchair a pair of small red Turkish slippers with gold embroidery.
After a quarter of an hour, my little bather came out quite shivering and ran to the fire.
'Oh, how nice and warm!' she said, and she sat on the (bearskin at my feet.
She was charming in her cambric peignoir of such transparent texture that the skin could be seen through it. She looked round and said:
'Dear me, how pretty everything is here. Am I to live in this place?'
'Yes, if you like, but we must have somebody's permission.'
'Whose?'
'Your father's.'
'My father's! But will he not be glad when he knows I have a beautiful room and plenty of leisure time for study?'
'To study what?'
'Ah! I had forgotten. I must explain.'
'Do, my dear girl, by all means. You know you must tell me all,' said I, kissing her.
'You remember one day you gave me a ticket for a play?'
'Yes, I do remember.'
'It was for the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre, where they played Antony, by M. Dumas.'
'It is an immoral play, not at all fit for young girls to see.'
'I did not think so at all. I was quite taken up with it, and ever since that day, I told my sister and Monsieur Ernest that I wished to appear on the stage.'
'You don't say so?'
'Then Monsieur Ernest and my sister exchanged glances. 'Well,' said my sister, 'if she has any taste at all for it, it would be preferable to the milliner's business.'
''And then,' said Monsieur Ernest, With my journal, the Gazette des Theatres, I can give her a lift.'
''Well, that will be just the thing for her.''
'Madame Beruchet was told that I should sleep at my sister's and that I should not return until next day. After the play we returned to the Rue Ghaptal and I began to repeat the principal scenes which I remembered, and I set to acting all the while moving my arms about like this-'
But meanwhile Violette unconsciously had opened her peignoir and disclosed some lovely treasures to my view.
I took her in my arms, set her on my knee, and she nestled lovingly against me.
'What next?' I asked.
'Monsieur Ernest then said that if my mind was made up, as two or three years must elapse before I made my debut, I must let my father know of the plan.'
''And during these two or three years, how will she live?' asked Marguerite.
''What a question to ask!' replied Monsieur Ernest. 'She is pretty and a pretty girl need not want for anything. From fifteen to eighteen she will find a protector. Besides she eats no more than a little bird. What does she require? A nest and a little seed.' '
I shrugged my shoulders while casting a glance at the poor little creature nestling in my arms as in a cradle.
'Then,' resumed Violette, 'the next day they wrote to Papa.'
'And what did Papa reply?'
'He replied: 'You are two poor orphans thrown upon the world without any other protector than an old man of sixty-seven who may at any moment be taken away from you. Therefore, do the best you can, but never do anything which would make the poor old soldier ashamed of you.''
'Did you keep that letter?'
'Yes, I did.'
'Where is it?'
'In the pocket of one of my gowns. Then I thought of you. I said: 'Since he gave me tickets for the play, he must be acquainted with the managers of theatres.' I always put it off till the next day. But the affair with Monsieur Beruchet decided it all. Will you do all you can to help me in studying for the stage?'
'I will indeed, I promise you.'
'How good you are.' And Violette threw her arms round my neck, and so doing laid bare the treasures of her bosom.
This time, I confess, I lost my head; my hand glided down her body and rested upon a spot covered with hair as soft and as fine as silk.
When Violette felt my hand her whole body seemed to vibrate; her head fell back, her mouth was half opened, while her eyes were nearly closed. And yet, I had hardly touched her.
I was mad with passion and carrying her to the bed, I knelt before her and placed my mouth where my hand had been. I experienced then the supreme pleasure of one's lips in contact with virginity.
From this moment, Violette uttered inarticulate words, till a spasm of pleasure thrilled through her whole body.
I got up and gazed on her while she was recovering. She opened her eyes, tried to sit up, and murmured:
'Oh, how delicious it was! Can we begin again?'
Suddenly she got up and looking intently at me, she asked:
'Is it not very wicked?'
I sat near her on the bed.
'Has anybody ever spoken to you seriously?'
'Yes, sometimes father did, when I was a child, to scold me.'
'I don't mean that. I mean to ask you whether you could understand anyone who should talk to you seriously?'
'Not perhaps if it were a stranger. But I believe I can understand anything you say to me.'
'Well then, listen.'
She clasped her arms round my neck, fixed her eyes on mine and with an attentive air, said: 'Now speak, I listen.'
'Woman, when created, certainly received the same rights as a man, that is, the right of obeying one's natural instincts.
'Well, society being ruled by men, who are stronger than women, certain laws have been forced on women.
