Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal/Chapter IV
CHAPTER IV
"LET us now go back to our story."
"When was it that you met Teleny again?"
"Not for some time afterwards. The fact is that although I continued to feel irresistibly attracted towards him, drawn as it were by an impelling power the strength of which I could at times hardly withstand, still I continued to avoid him.
"Whenever he played in public I always went to hear him—or rather, to look at him; and I only lived during those short moments when he was on the stage. My glasses would then be rivetted upon him; my eyes gloated upon his heavenly figure, so full of youth, life, and manhood.
"The longing that I felt to press my mouth on his beautiful mouth and parted lips was so intense that it always made my penis water.
"At times the space between us seemed to lessen and dwindle in such a way that I felt as though I could breathe his warm and scented breath—nay, I actually seemed to feel the contact of his body against my own.
"The sensation produced by the mere thought that his skin was touching mine excited my nervous system in such a way that the intensity of this barren pleasure produced at first a pleasant numbness over my whole body, which being prolonged, soon turned into a dull pain.
"He himself always appeared to feel my presence in the theatre, for his eyes invariably looked for me until they pierced the densest crowd to find me out. I knew, however, that he could not really see me in the corner where I was ensconced, either in the pit, the gallery, or at the bottom of some box. Still, go whithersoever I would, his glances were always directed towards me. Ah, those eyes! as unfathomable as the dim water of a well. Even now, as I remember them after these many years, my heart beats, and I feel my head grow giddy thinking of them. If you had seen those eyes, you would know what that burning languor which poets are always writing about really is.
"Of one thing I was justly proud. Since that famous evening of the charity concert, he played—if not in a more theoretically correct way—far more brilliantly and more sensationally than he had ever done before.
"His whole heart now poured itself out in those voluptuous Hungarian melodies, and all those whose blood was not frozen with envy and age were entranced by that music.
"His name, therefore, began to atract large audiences, and although musical critics were divided in their opinions, the papers always had long articles about him."
"And—being so much in love with him—you had the fortitude to suffer, and yet to resist the temptation of seeing him."
"I was young and inexperienced, therefore moral; for what is morality but prejudice?"
"Prejudice?"
"Well, is nature moral? Does the dog that smells and licks with evident gusto the first bitch that he meets, trouble his unsophisticated brains with morality? Does the poodle that endeavours to sodomize that little cur coming across the street care what a canine Mrs. Grundy will say about him?
"No, unlike poodles, or young Arabs, I had been inculcated with all kinds of wrong ideas, so when I understood what my natural feelings for Teleny were, I was staggered, horrified; and filled with dismay, I resolved to stifle them.
"Indeed, had I known human nature better, I should have left France, gone to the antipodes, placed the Himalayas as a barrier between us."
"Only to yield to your natural tastes with someone else, or with him, had you happened to meet unexpectedly after many years."
"You are quite right; physiologists tell us that the body of man changes after seven years; a man's passions, however, remain always the same; though smouldering in a latent state, they are in his bosom all the same; his nature is surely no better because he has not given vent to them. He is only humbugging himself and cheating everybody by pretending to be what he is not; I know that I was born a sodomite, the fault is my constitution's, not mine own.
"I read all I could find about the love of one man for another, that loathsome crime against nature taught to us not only by the very gods themselves, but by all the greatest men of olden times, for even Minos himself seems to have sodomized Theseus.
"I, of course, looked upon it as a monstrosity, a sin—as Origen says—far worse than idolatry. And yet I had to admit that the world—even after the cities of the plain had been destroyed—throve well enough notwithstanding this aberration, for Paphian girls in the great days of Rome were but too often discarded for pretty little boys.
"It was but time for Christianity to come and sweep away all the monstrous vices of this world with its brand new broom. Catholicism later on burnt those men who sowed in a sterile field—in effigy.
"The popes had their catamites, the kings had their mignons, and if all the host of priests, monks, friars and caluyers were forgiven, they—it must be admitted—did not always commit buggery, or cast away their seed on rocky soil, although religion did not intend their implements to be baby-making tools.
"As for the Templars, if they were burnt, it surely could not have been on account of their pæderasty, for it had been winked at long enough.
"What amused me, however, was to see that every writer impeached all his neighbours of indulging in this abomination; his own people alone were free from this shocking vice.
"The Jews accused the Gentiles, and the Gentiles the Jews, and—like syphilis—all the black sheep who had this perverted taste had always imported it from abroad. I also read in a modern medical book, how the penis of a sodomite becomes thin and pointed like a dog's, and how the human mouth gets distorted when used for vile purposes, and I shuddered with horror and disgust. Even the sight of that book blanched my cheek!
"It is true that since then, experience has taught me quite another lesson, for I must confess that I have known scores of whores, and many other women besides, who have used their mouths not only for praying and for kissing their confessor's hand, and yet I have never perceived that their mouths were crooked, have you?
"As for my cock, or yours, its bulky head—but you blush at the compliment, so we will drop this subject.
"At that time I tortured my brain, fearing to have committed this heinous sin morally, if not materially.
"Mosaic religion, rendered stricter by the Talmudic law, has invented a cowl to be used in the act of copulation. It wraps up the whole body of the husband, leaving in the middle of the gown but a tiny hole—like that in a little boy's pants—to pass the penis through, and thus enable him to squirt his sperm into his wife's ovaries, fecundating her in this way, but preventing as much as possible all carnal pleasure. Ah, yes! but people have long since taken French leave of the cowl, hoodwinking the whole affair by hooding their falcon with a "French letter."
"Yes, but are we not born with a leaden cowl—namely, this Mosaic religion of ours, improved upon by Christ's mystic precepts, and rendered impossibly perfect by Protestant hypocrisy; for if a man commit adultery with a woman every time he looks at her, did I not commit sodomy with Teleny every time I saw him or even thought of him?
"There were moments however when, nature being stronger than prejudice, I should right willingly have given up my soul to perdition—nay, yielded my body to suffer in eternal hell-fire—if in the meanwhile I could have fled somewhere on the confines of this earth, on some lonely island, where in perfect nakedness I could have lived for some years in deadly sin with him, feasting upon his fascinating beauty.
"Still I resolved to keep aloof from him, to be his motive power, his guiding spirit, to make of him a great, a famous, artist. As for the fire of lewdness burning within me—well, if I could not extinguish it, I could at least subdue it.
"I suffered. My thoughts, night and day, were with him. My brain was always aglow; my blood was over-heated; my body ever shivering with excitement. I daily read all the newspapers to see what they said about him; and whenever his name met my eyes the paper shook in my trembling hands. If my mother or anybody else mentioned his name I blushed and then grew pale.
"I remember what a shock of pleasure, not unmingled with jealousy, I felt, when for the first time I saw his likeness in a window amongst those of other celebrities. I went and bought it at once, not simply to treasure and doat upon it, but also that other people might not look at it."
"What! you were so very jealous?"
"Foolishly so. Unseen and at a distance I used to follow him about, after every concert he played.
"Usually he was alone. Once, however, I saw him enter a cab waiting at the back door of the theatre. It had seemed to me as if someone else was within the vehicle—a woman, if I had not been mistaken. I hailed another cab, and followed them. Their carriage stopped at Teleny's house. I at once bade my Jehu do the same.
"I saw Teleny alight. As he did so, he offered his hand to a lady, thickly veiled, who tripped out of the carriage and darted into the open doorway. The cab then went off.
"I bade my driver wait there the whole night. At dawn the carriage of the evening before came and stopped. My driver looked up. A few minutes afterwards the door was again opened. The lady hurried out, was handed into her carriage by her lover. I followed her, and stopped where she alighted.
"A few days afterwards I knew whom she was."
"And who was she?"
"A lady of an unblemished reputation with whom Teleny had played some duets.
"In the cab, that night, my mind was so intently fixed upon Teleny that my inward self seemed to disintegrate itself from my body and to follow like his own shadow the man I loved. I unconsciously threw myself into a kind of trance and I had a most vivid hallucination, which, strange as it might appear, coincided with all that my friend did and felt.
"For instance, as soon as the door was shut behind them, the lady caught Teleny in her arms, and gave him a long kiss. Their entrance would have lasted several seconds more, had Teleny not lost his breath.
"You smile; yes, I suppose you yourself are aware how easily people lose their breath in kissing, when the lips do not feel that blissful intoxicating lust in all its intensity. She would have given him another kiss, but Teleny whispered to her: 'Let us go up to my room; there we shall be far safer than here.'
"Soon they were in his apartment.
"She looked timidly around, and seeing herself in that young man's room alone with him, she blushed and seemed thoroughly ashamed of herself.
"'Oh! Réné,' said she, 'what must you think of me?'
"'That you love me dearly,' quoth he; 'do you not?'
"'Yes, indeed; not wisely, but too well.'
"Thereupon, taking off her wrappers, she rushed up and clasped her lover in her arms, showering her warm kisses on his head, his eyes, his cheeks and then upon his mouth. That mouth I so longed to kiss!
"With lips pressed together, she remained for some time inhaling his breath, and—almost frightened at her boldness—she touched his lips with the tip of her tongue. Then, taking courage, soon afterwards she slipped it in his mouth, and then after a while, she thrust it in and out, as if she were enticing him to try the act of nature by it; she was so convulsed with lust by this kiss that she had to clasp herself to him not to fall, for the blood was rushing to her head, and her knees were almost giving way beneath her. At last, taking his right hand, after squeezingly it hesitatingly for a moment, she placed it within her breasts, giving him her nipple to pinch, and as he did so, the pleasure she felt was so great that she was swooning away for joy.
"'Oh, Teleny!' said she; 'I can't! I can't any more.'
"And she rubbed herself as strongly as she could against him, protruding her middle parts against his."
"And Teleny?"
"Well, jealous as I was, I could not help feeling how different his manner was now from the rapturous way with which he had clung to me that evening, when he had taken the bunch of heliotrope from his button-hole and had put it in mine.
"He accepted rather than returned her caresses. Anyhow, she seemed pleased, for she thought him shy.
"She was now hanging on him. One of her arms was clasped around his waist, the other one around his neck. Her dainty, tapering bejewelled fingers were playing with his curly hair, and paddling his neck.
"He was squeezing her breasts, and, as I said before, slightly fingering her nipples.
"She gazed deep into his eyes, and then sighed.
"'You do not love me,' at last she said. 'I can see it in your eyes. You are not thinking of me, but of somebody else.'
"And it was true. At that moment he was thinking of me—fondly, longingly; and then, as he did so, he got more excited, and he caught her in his arms, and hugged and kissed her with far more eagerness than he had hitherto done—nay, he began to suck her tongue as if it had been mine, and then began to thrust his own into her mouth.
"After a few moments of rapture she, this time, stopped to take breath.
"'Yes, I am wrong. You love me. I see it now. You do not despise me because I am here, do you?'
"'Ah! if you could only read in my heart, and see how madly I love you, darling!'
"And she looked at him with longing, passionate eyes.
"'Still you think me light, don't you? I am an adulteress!'
"And thereupon she shuddered, and hid her face in her hands.
"He looked at her for a moment pitifully, then he took down her hands gently, and kissed her.
"'You do not know how I have tried to resist you, but I could not. I am on fire. My blood is no longer blood, but some burning love-philtre. I cannot help myself,' said she, lifting up her head defiantly as if she were facing the whole world, 'here I am, do with me what you like, only tell me that you love me, that you love no other woman but me, swear it.'
"'I swear,' said he, languidly, 'that I love no other woman.'
"She did not understand the meaning of his words.
"'But tell it to me again, say it often, it is so sweet to hear it repeated from the lips of those we doat on,' said she, with passionate eagerness.
"'I assure you that I have never cared for any woman so much as I do for you.'
"'Cared?' said she, disappointed.
"'Loved, I mean.'
"'And you can swear it?'
"'On the cross if you like,' added he, smiling.
"'And you do not think badly of me because I am here? Well, you are the only one for whom I have ever been unfaithful to my husband; though God knows if he be faithful to me. Still my love does not atone for my sin, does it?'
"Teleny did not give her any answer for an instant, he looked at her with dreamy eyes, then shuddered as if awaking from a trance.
"'Sin,' he said, 'is the only thing worth living for.'
"She looked at him rather astonished, but then she kissed him again and again and answered: 'Well, yes, you are perhaps right; it is so, the fruit of the forbidden tree was pleasant to the sight, to the taste, and to the smell."
"They sat down on a divan. When they were clasped again in each other's arms he slipped his hand somewhat timidly and almost unwillingly under her skirts.
"She caught hold of his hand, and arrested it.
"'No, Réné, I beg of you! Could we not love each other with a Platonic love? Is that not enough?'
"'Is it enough for you?' said he, almost superciliously.
"She pressed her lips again upon his, and almost relinquished her grasp. The hand went stealthily up along the leg, stopped a moment on the knees, caressing them; but the legs closely pressed together prevented it from slipping between them, and thus reaching the higher storey. It crept slowly up, nevertheless, caressing the thighs through the fine linen underclothing, and thus, by stolen marches, it reached its aim. The hand then slipped between the opening of the drawers, and began to feel the soft skin. She tried to stop him.
"'No, no!' said she; 'please dont; you are tickling me.'
"He then took courage, and plunged his fingers boldly in the fine curly locks of the fleece that covered all her middle parts.
"She continued to hold her thighs tightly closed together, especially when the naughty fingers began to graze the edge of the moist lips. At that touch, however, her strength gave way; the nerves relaxed, and allowed the tip of a finger to worm its way within the slit—nay, the tiny berry protruded out to welcome it.
"After a few moments she breathed more strongly. She encircled his breast with her arms, kissed him, and then hid her head on his shoulder.
"'Oh, what a rapture I feel!' she cried. 'What a magnetic fluid you possess to make me feel I as do!'
"He did not give her any answer; but, unbuttoning his trousers, he took hold of her dainty little hand. He endeavoured to introduce it within the gap. She tried to resist, but weakly, and as if asking but to yield. She soon gave way, and boldly caught hold of his phallus, now stiff and hard, moving lustily by its own inward strength.
"After a few moments of pleasant manipulation, their lips pressed together, he lightly, and almost against her knowledge, pressed her down on the couch, lifted up her legs, pulled up her skirts without for a moment taking his tongue out of her mouth or stopping his tickling of her tingling clitoris already wet with its own tears. Then—sustaining his weight on his elbows—he got his legs between her thighs. That her excitement increased could be visibly seen by the shivering of the lips which he had no need to open as he pressed down upon her, for they parted of themselves to give entrance to the little blind God of Love.
"With one thrust he introduced himself within the precincts of Love's temple; with another, the rod was halfway in; with the third, he reached the very bottom of the den of pleasure; for, though she was no longer in the first days of earliest youth, still she had hardly reached her prime, and her flesh was not only firm, but she was so tight that he was fairly clasped and sucked by those pulpy lips; so, after moving up and down a few times, thrusting himself always further, he crushed her down with his full weight; for both his hands were either handling her breasts, or else, having slipped them under her, he was opening her buttocks; and then, lifting her firmly upon him, he thrust a finger in her backside hole, thus wedging her on both sides, making her feel a more intense pleasure by thus sodomizing her.
"After a few seconds of this little game he began to breathe strongly—to pant. The milky fluid that had for days accumulated itself now rushed out in thick jets, coursing up into her very womb. She, thus flooded, shewed her hysteric enjoyment by her screams, her tears, her sighs. Finally, all strength gave way; arms and legs stiffened themselves; she fell lifeless on the couch; whilst he remained stretched over her at the risk of giving the Count, her husband, an heir of gipsy blood.
"He soon recovered his strength, and rose. She was then recalled to her senses, but only to melt into a flood of tears.
"A bumper of champagne brought them both, however, to a less gloomy sense of life. A few partridge sandwiches, some lobster patties, a caviare salad, with a few more glasses of champagne, together with many marrons glacés, and a punch made of maraschino, pineapple juice and whisky, drunk out of the same goblet soon finished by dispelling their gloominess.
"'Why should we not put ourselves at our ease, my dear?' said he. 'I'll set you the example, shall I?'
"'By all means.'
"Thereupon Teleny took off his white tie, that stiff and uncomfortable useless appendage invented by fashion only to torture mankind, yclept a shirt collar, then his coat and waistcoat, and he remained only in his shirt and trousers.
"'Now, my dear, allow me to act as your maid.'
"The beautiful woman at first refused, but yielded after some kisses; and, little by little, nothing was left of all her clothing but an almost transparent crêpe de Chine chemise, dark steel-blue silk stockings, and satin slippers.
"Teleny covered her bare neck and arms with kisses, pressed his cheeks against the thick, black hair of her arm-pits, and tickled her as he did so. This little titillation was felt all over her body, and the slit between her legs opened again in such a way that the delicate little clitoris, like a red hawthorn berry, peeped out as if to see what was going on. He held her for a moment crushed against his chest, and his 'merle'—as the Italians call it—flying out of his cage, he thrust it into the opening ready to receive it.
"She pushed lustily against him, but he had to keep her up, for her legs were almost giving way, so great was the pleasure she felt. He therefore stretched her down on the panther rug at his feet, without unclasping her.
"All sense of shyness was now overcome. He pulled off his clothes, and pressed down with all his strength. She—to receive his instrument far deep in her sheath—clasped him with her legs in such a way that he could hardly move. He was, therefore, only able to rub himself against her; but that was more than enough, for after a few violent shakes of their buttocks, legs pressed, and breasts crushed, the burning liquid which he injected within her body gave her a spasmodic pleasure, and she fell senseless on the panther skin whilst he rolled, motionless, by her side.
"Till then I felt that my image had always been present before his eyes, although he was enjoying this handsome woman—so beautiful, for she had hardly yet reached the bloom of ripe womanhood; but now the pleasure she had given him had made him quite forget me. I therefore hated him. For a moment I felt that I should like to be a wild beast—to drive my nails into his flesh, to torture him like a cat does a mouse, and to tear him into pieces.
"What right had he to love anybody but myself? Did I love a single being in this world as I loved him? Could I feel pleasure with anyone else?
"No, my love was not a maudlin sentimentality, it was the maddening passion that overpowers the body and shatters the brain!
"If he could love women, why did he then make love to me, obliging me to love him, making me a contemptible being in my own eyes?
"In the paroxysm of my excitement I writhed, I bit my lips till they bled. I dug my nails into my flesh; I cried out with jealousy and shame. It wanted but little to have made me jump out of the cab, and go and ring at the door of his house.
"This state of things lasted for a few moments, and then I began to wonder what he was doing, and the fit of hallucination came over me again. I saw him awakening from the slumber into which he had fallen when overpowered by enjoyment.
"As he awoke he looked at her. Now I could see her plainly, for I believe that she was only visible to me through his medium."
"But you fell asleep, and dreamt all this whilst you were in the cab, did you not?"
"Oh, no! All happened as I am telling you. I related my whole vision to him some time afterwards, and he acknowledged that everything had occurred exactly as I had seen it."
"But how could this be?"
"There was, as I told you before, a strong transmission of thoughts between us. This is by no means a remarkable coincidence. You smile and look incredulous; well, follow the doings of the Psychical Society, and this vision will certainly not astonish you any more."
"Well, never mind, go on."
"As Teleny awoke, he looked at his mistress lying on the panther-skin at his side.
"She was as sound asleep as anyone would be after a banquet, intoxicated by strong drink; or as a baby, that having sucked its fill, stretches itself glutted by the side of its mother's breast. It was the heavy sleep of lusty life, not the placid stillness of cold death. The blood—like the sap of a young tree in spring—mounted to her parted, pouting lips, through which a warm scented breath escaped at cadenced intervals, emitting that slight murmur which the child hears as he listens in a shell—the sound of slumbering life.
"The breasts—as if swollen with milk—stood up, and the nipples erect seemed to be asking for those caresses she was so fond of; over all her body there was a shivering of insatiable desire.
"Her thighs were bare, and the thick curly hair that covered her middle parts, as black as jet, was sprinkled over with pearly drops of milky dew.
"Such a sight would have awakened an eager, irrepressible desire in Joseph himself, the only chaste Israelite of whom we have ever heard; and yet Teleny, leaning on his elbow, was gazing at her with all the loathsomeness we feel when we look at a kitchen table covered with the offal of the meat, the hashed scraps, the dregs of the wines which have supplied the banquet that has just glutted us.
"He looked at her with the scorn which a man has for the woman who has just administered to his pleasure, and who has degraded herself and him. Moreover, as he felt unjust towards her, he hated her, and not himself.
"I felt again that he did not love her, but me, though she had made him for a few moments forget me.
"She seemed to feel his cold glances upon her, for she shivered, and, thinking she was asleep in bed, she tried to cover herself up; and her hand, fumbling for the sheet, pulled up her chemise, only uncovering herself more by that action. She woke as she did so, and caught Teleny's reproachful glances.
"She looked around, frightened. She tried to cover herself as much as she could; and then, entwining one of her arms round the young man's neck—
"'Do not look at me like that,' she said. 'Am I so loathsome to you? Oh! I see it. You despise me.' And her eyes filled with tears. 'You are right. Why did I yield? Why did I not resist the love that was torturing me? Alas! it was not you; but I who sought you, who made love to you; and now you feel for me nothing but disgust. Tell me, is it so? You love another woman! No!—tell me you don't!'
"'I don't,' said Teleny, earnestly.
"'Yes, but swear.'
"'I have already sworn before, or at least offered to do so? What is the use of swearing, if you don't believe me?'
"Though all lust was gone, Teleny felt a heartfelt pity for that handsome young woman, who, maddened by love for him, had put into jeopardy her whole existence to throw herself into his arms.
"Who is the man that is not flattered by the love he inspires in a high-born, wealthy, and handsome young woman, who forgets her marriage vows to enjoy a few moments' bliss in his arms? But, then, why do women generally love men who often care so little for them?
"Teleny did his best to comfort her, to tell her over and over again that he cared for no woman, to assure her that he would be eternally faithful to her for her sacrifice; but pity is not love, nor is affection the eagerness of desire.
"Nature was more than satisfied; her beauty had lost all its attraction; they kissed again and again; he languidly passed his hands all over her body, from the nape of the neck to the deep dent between those round hills, which seemed covered with fallen snow, giving her a most delightful sensation as he did so; he caressed her breasts, suckled and bit the tiny protruding nipples, whilst his fingers were often thrust far within the warm flesh hidden under that mass of jet-black hair. She glowed, she breathed, she shivered with pleasure; but Teleny, though performing his work with masterly skill, remained cold at her side.
"'No, I. see that you don't love me; for it is not possible that you—a young man'
"She did not finish. Teleny felt the sting of her reproaches, but remained passive; for the phallus is not stiffened by taunts.
"She took the lifeless object in her delicate fingers. She rubbed and manipulated it. She even rolled it between her two soft hands. It remained like a piece of dough. She sighed as piteously as Ovid's mistress must have done on a like occasion. She did like this woman did some hundreds of years before. She bent down; she took the tip of that inert piece of flesh between her lips—the pulpy lips which looked like a tiny apricot—so round, sappy, and luscious. Soon it was all in her mouth. She sucked it with as much evident pleasure as if she were a famished baby taking her nurse's breast. As it went in and out, she tickled the prepuce with her expert tongue, touched the tiny lips on her palate.
"The phallus, though somewhat harder, remained always limp and nerveless.
"You know our ignorant forefathers believed in the practice called 'nouer les aiguillettes'—that is, rendering the male incapable of performing the pleasant work for which Nature has destined him. We, the enlightened generation, have discarded such gross superstitions, and still our ignorant forefathers were sometimes right."
"What! you do not mean to say that you believe in such tomfoolery?"
"It might be tomfoolery, as you say; but still it is a fact. Hypnotize a person, and then you will see if you can get the mastery over him or not."
"Still, you had not hypnotized Teleny?"
"No, but our natures seemed to be bound to one another by a secret affinity."
"At that moment I felt a secret shame for Teleny. Not being able to understand the working of his brain, she seemed to regard him in the light of a young cock, who, having crowed lustily once or twice at early dawn, has strained his neck to such a pitch that he can only emit hoarse, feeble, gurgling sounds out of it after that.
"Moreover, I almost felt sorry for that woman; and I thought, if I were only in her place, how disappointed I should be. And I sighed, repeating almost audibly,—'Were I but in her stead.'
"The image which had formed itself within my mind so vividly was all at once reverberated within Réné's brain; and he thought, if instead of this lady's mouth those lips were my lips; and his phallus at once stiffened and awoke into life; the glands swelled with blood; not only an erection took place, but it almost ejaculated. The Countess—for she was a Countess—was herself surprised at this sudden change, and stopped, for she had now obtained what she wanted; and she knew that—'Depasser le but, c'est manquer la chose.'
"Teleny, however, began to fear that if he had his mistress's face before his eyes, my image might entirely vanish; and that—beautiful as she was—he would never be able to accomplish his work to the end. So he began by covering her with kisses; then deftly turned her on her back. She yielded without understanding what was required of her. He bent her pliant body on her knees, so that she presented a most beautiful sight to his view.
"This splendid sight ravished him to such an extent that by looking at it his hitherto limp tool acquired its full size and stiffness, and in its lusty vigour leapt in such a way that it knocked against his navel.
"He was even tempted for a moment to introduce it within the small dot of a hole, which if not exactly the den of life is surely that of pleasure; but he forbore. He even resisted the temptation of kissing it, or of darting his tongue into it; but bending over her, and placing himself between her legs, he tried to introduce the glans within the aperture of her two lips, now thick and swollen by dint of much rubbing.
"Wide apart as her legs were, he first had to open the lips with his fingers on account of the mass of bushy hair that grew all around them; for now the tiny curls had entangled themselves together like tendrils, as if to bar the entrance; therefore, when he had brushed the hair aside, he pressed his tool in it, but the turgid dry flesh arrested him. The clitoris thus pressed danced with delight, so that he took it in his hand, and rubbed and shook it softly and gently on the top part of her lips.
"She began to shake, to rub herself with delight; she groaned, she sobbed hysterically; and when he felt himself bathed with delicious tears he thrust his instrument far within her body, clasping her tightly around the neck. So, after a few bold strokes, he managed to get in the whole of the rod down to the very root of the column, crushing his hair against hers, so far in the utmost recesses of the womb that it gave her a pleasurable pain as it touched the neck of the vagina.
"For about ten minutes—which to her felt an eternity—she continued panting, throbbing, gasping, groaning, shrieking, roaring, laughing, and crying in the vehemence of her delight.
"'Oh! Oh! I am feeling it again! In—in—quick—quicker! There! there!—enough!—stop!'
"But he did not listen to her, and he went on plunging and re-plunging with increasing vigour. Having vainly begged for a truce, she began to move again with renewed life.
"Having her a retro, his whole thoughts were thus concentrated upon me; and the tightness of the orifice in which the penis was sheathed, added to the titillation produced by the lips of the womb, gave him such an overpowering sensation that he redoubled his strength, and shoved his muscular instrument with such mighty strokes that the frail woman shook under the repeated thumps. Her knees were almost giving way under the brutal force he displayed. When again, all at once, the flood-gates of the seminal ducts were open, and he squirted a jet of molten liquid down into the innermost recesses of her womb.
"A moment of delirium followed; the contraction of all her muscles gripped him and sucked him up eagerly, greedily; and after a short spasmodic convulsion, they both fell senseless side by side, still tightly wedged in one another."
"And so ends the Epistle!"
"Not quite so, for nine months afterwards the Countess gave birth to a fine boy"
"Who, of course, looked like his father? Doesn't every child look like its father?"
"Still this one happened to look neither like the Count nor like Teleny."
"Who the deuce did it look like then?"
"Like myself."
"Bosh!"
"Bosh as much as you like. Anyhow, the rickety old count is very proud of this son of his, having discovered a certain likeness between his only heir and the portrait of one of his ancestors. He is always pointing out this atavism to all his visitors; but whenever he struts about, and begins to expound learnedly over the matter, I am told that the Countess shrugs her shoulders and puckers down her lips contemptuously, as if she was not quite convinced of the fact."
