Afterwards we went into the park. I accompanied them as far as Hyde Park Corner. For some reason or other I elaborated the theme that men of thirty or forty usually corrupted young girls, and women of thirty or forty in turn corrupted youths. «I don't agree with you,»
Aubrey remarked. «It's usually a fellow's sister who gives him his first lessons in sex. I know it was Mabel here who first taught me.»
I was amazed at his outspokenness. Mabel flushed crimson and I hastened to add: «In childhood girls are far more precocious. But these little lessons are usually too early to matter.» He wouldn't have it, but I changed the subject resolutely and Mabel told me some time afterwards that she was very grateful to me for cutting short the discussion. «Aubrey,» she said, «loves all sex things and doesn't care what he says or does.» I had seen before that Mabel was pretty. I realized that day when she stooped over a flower that her figure was beautifully slight and round. Aubrey caught my eye at the moment and remarked maliciously, «Mabel was my first model, weren't you, Mabs? I was in love with her figure,» he went on judicially. «Her breasts were so high and firm and round that I took her as my ideal.» She laughed, blushing a little, and rejoined, «Your figures, Aubrey, are not exactly ideal.» I learned from this little discussion that most men's sisters are just as precocious as mine were and just as likely to act as teachers in matters of sex. From about this time on the individualities of people began to impress me definitely. Vernon suddenly got an appointment in a bank at Armagh and I went to live with him there, in lodgings. The lodging-house keeper I disliked: she was always trying to make me keep hours and rules, and I was as wild as a homeless dog; but Armagh was wonder city to me. Vernon made me a day-boy at the Royal School: it was my first big school; I learned all the lessons very easily and most of the boys and all the masters were kind to me. The great mall or park-like place in the centre of the town delighted me; I had soon climbed nearly every tree in it, tree climbing and reciting being the two sports in which I excelled.
When we were at Carrickfergus my father had had me on board his vessel and had matched me at climbing the rigging against a cabin boy, and though the sailor was first at the cross-trees, I caught him on the descent by jumping at a rope and letting it slide through my hands, almost at falling speed to the deck. I heard my father tell this afterwards with pleasure to Vernon, which pleased my vanity inordinately and increased, if that were possible, my delight in showing off. For another reason my vanity had grown beyond measure. At Carrickfergus I had got hold of a book on athletics belonging to Vernon and had there learned that if you went into the water up to your neck and threw yourself boldly forward and tried to swim, you would swim; for the body is lighter than the water and floats. The next time I went down to bathe with Vernon, instead of going on the beach in the shallow water and wading out, I went with him to the end of the pier. When he dived in, I went down the steps.
As soon as he came up to the surface I cried, «Look! I can swim too!» and I boldly threw myself forward and, after a moment's dreadful sinking and spluttering, did in fact swim. When I wanted to get back I had a moment of appalling fear: «Could I turn around?» The next moment I found it quite easy to turn and I was soon safely back on the steps again. «When did you learn to swim?» asked Vernon, coming out beside me. «This minute,» I replied. As he was surprised, I told him I had read it all in his book and made up my mind to venture the very next time I bathed. A little time afterwards I heard him tell this to some of his men friends in Armagh, and they all agreed that it showed extraordinary courage, for I was small for my age and always appeared even younger than I was. Looking back, I see that many causes combined to strengthen the vanity in me which had already become inordinate and in the future was destined to shape my life and direct its purposes. Here in Armagh everything conspired to foster my besetting sin. I was put among boys of my age, I think in the lower fourth. The form-master, finding that I knew no Latin, showed me a Latin grammar and told me I'd have to learn it as quickly as possible, for the class had already begun to read Caesar. He showed me the first declension mensa as the example, and asked me if I could learn it by the next day. I said I would, and as luck would have it, the mathematical master passing at the moment, the form-master told him I was backward and should be in a lower form. «He's very good indeed at figures,» the mathematical master rejoined. «He might be in the Upper Division.» «Really!» exclaimed the form-master. «See what you can do,» he said to me. «You may find it possible to catch up. Here's a Caesar too; you may as well take it with you. We have done only two or three pages.» That evening I sat down to the Latin grammar, and in an hour or so had learned all the declensions and nearly all the adjectives and pronouns. Next day I was trembling with hope of praise and if the form-master had encouraged me or said one word of commendation, I might have distinguished myself in the class work, and so changed perhaps my whole life, but the next day he had evidently forgotten all about my backwardness. By dint of hearing the other boys answer I got a smattering of the lessons, enough to get through them without punishment, and soon a good memory brought me among the foremost boys, though I took no interest in learning Latin.
Another incident fed my self-esteem and opened to me the world of books. Vernon often went to a clergyman's who had a pretty daughter, and I too was asked to their evening parties. The daughter found out I could recite and at once it became the custom to get me to recite some poem everywhere we went. Vernon bought me the poems of Macaulay and Walter Scott and I had soon learned them all by heart. I used to declaim them with infinite gusto: at first my gestures were imitations of Willie's: but Vernon taught me to be more natural and I bettered his teaching. No doubt my small stature helped the effect and the Irish love of rhetoric did the rest; but everyone praised me and the showing off made me very vain and-a more important result-the learning of new poems brought me to the reading of novels and books of adventure. I was soon lost in this new world: though I played at school with the other boys, in the evening I never opened a lesson-book. Instead, I devoured Lever and Mayne Reid, Marryat and Fenimore Cooper with unspeakable delight. I had one or two fights at school with boys of my own age. I hated fighting, but I was conceited and combative and strong and so got to fisticuffs twice or three times. Each time, as soon as an elder boy saw the scrimmage, he would advise us, after looking on for a round or two, to stop and make friends. The Irish are supposed to love fighting better than eating; but my school days assure me, however, that they are not nearly so combative, or perhaps, I should say, so brutal, as the English.
In one of my fights a boy took my part and we became friends. His name was Howard and we used to go on long walks together. One day I wanted him to meet Strangways, the Vicar's son, who was fourteen but silly, I thought. Howard shook his head: «He wouldn't want to know me,» he said. «I am a Roman Catholic.» I still remember the feeling of horror his confession called up in me: «A Roman Catholic! Could anyone as nice as Howard be a Catholic?» I was thunderstruck and this amazement has always illumined for me the abyss of Protestant bigotry, but I wouldn't break with Howard, who was two years older than I and who taught me many things. He taught me to like Fenians, though I hardly knew what the word meant. One day I remember he showed me posted on the court house a notice offering?. 5000 sterling as reward to anyone who would tell the whereabouts of James Stephen, the Fenian head-centre. «He's travelling all over Ireland,» Howard whispered.
«Everybody knows him,» adding with gusto, «but no one would give the head-centre away to the dirty English.» I remember thrilling to the mystery and chivalry of the story. From that moment, head-centre was a sacred symbol to me as Howard. One day we met Strangways and somehow or other began talking of sex. Howard knew all about it and took pleasure in enlightening us both. It was Cecil Howard who first initiated Strangways and me, too, in self-abuse. In spite of my novel reading, I was still at eleven too young to get pleasure from the practice; but I was delighted to know how children were made and a lot of new facts about sex. Strangways had hair about his private parts, as indeed Howard had, also, and when he rubbed himself and the orgasm came, a sticky, milky fluid spirted from Strangway's cock, which Howard told us was the man's seed, which must go right into the woman's womb to make a child. A week later Strangways astonished us both by telling how he had made up to the nursemaid of his younger sisters and got into her bed at night. The first time she wouldn't let him do anything, it appeared, but, after a night or two, he managed to touch her sex and assured us it was all covered with silky hairs. A little later he told us how she had locked her door and how the next day he had taken off the lock and got into bed with her again. At first she was cross, or pretended to be, he said, but he kept on kissing and begging her, and bit by bit she yielded, and he touched her sex again. «It was a slit,» he said. A few nights later, he told us he had put his prick into her and, «Oh! by gum, it was wonderful, wonderful!» «But how did you do it?» we wanted to know, and he gave us his whole experience. «Girls love kissing,» he said, «and so I kissed and kissed her and put my leg on her, and her hand on my cock and I kept touching her breasts and her cunny (that's what she calls it) and at last I got on her between her legs and she guided my prick into her cunt (God, it was wonderful!) and now I go with her every night and often in the day as well. She likes her cunt touched, but very gently,» he added; «she showed me how to do it with one finger like this,» and he suited the action to the word.
