I ordered my days at once for work and for the first week or two did work ten or twelve hours a day, but one memorable afternoon I came upon the gardener, whom I had taken into my service, reading Dante, if you please, in the garden. I had a talk with him and found that he knew not only Dante, but Ariosto, and Leopardi, and Carducci, and was a real student of Italian literature. I passed a great afternoon with him, and resolved whenever I was tired in the future to come out and talk with him.
Two or three days afterwards I was overworked again, and I went out to him and he said: "You know, when I saw you at first, I thought we should have a great time together here; that you would love life and love; and here you are writing, writing, writing, morning, noon and night-wearing yourself out without any care for beauty or for pleasure."
"I like both," I said, "but I came here to work; still, I shouldn't mind having some distractions if they were possible; but what is possible here?"
"Everything," he replied. "I have been putting myself in your place: if I were rich, wouldn't I enjoy myself in this villa!"
"What would you do?" I asked.
"Well," he said, "I would give prizes for the prettiest girls, say one hundred francs for the first; fifty francs for the second; and twenty-five as consolation prizes if five or six girls came."
"What good would that do?" I asked. "You wouldn't get young girls that way, and you certainly wouldn't get their love."
"Wouldn't I!" he cried. "First of all, in order to see who was the prettiest, they would have to strip, wouldn't they? And the girl who is once naked before you is not apt to refuse you anything."
I had come to a sort of impasse in my work; I saw that the whole assumption that Shakespeare had been a boy lover, drawn from the sonnets, was probably false, but since Hallam it was held by every one in England, and every one, too, in Germany, so prone are men always to believe the worst, especially of their betters-the great leaders of humanity.
Heinemann, the publisher, had asked me for my book on Shakespeare before I left England, but as soon as I wrote him that I was going to disprove Shakespeare's abnormal tastes, he told me that he had found every authority in England was against me and therefore he dared not publish my book. Just when I was making up my mind to set forth my conviction, came this proposal of my gardener. I had worked very hard for years on the Saturday Review and in South Africa, and I thought I deserved a little recreation; so I said to the gardener, "Go to it. I don't want any scandal, but if you can get the girls through the prizes, I will put up the money cheerfully and will invite you to play master of ceremonies."
"This is Tuesday," he said. "I think next Sunday would be about the best day."
"As you please," I replied.
One Sunday, having given a conge to my cook and waiting-maid, I walked about to await my new guests, the cook having laid out a good dejeuner with champagne on the table in the dining-room. About eleven o'clock a couple of girls fluttered in, and my gardener conducted them into two bedrooms and told them to make themselves pretty and we would all lunch at half-past twelve. In half an hour five girls were assembled. He put them all into different rooms and went from room to room, telling them that they must undress and get ready for inspection. There was much giggling and some exclamations, but apparently no revolt. In ten minutes he came to me and asked me, was I ready for inspection?
"Certainly," I said; and we went to the first room. A girl's head looked out from under the clothes: she had got into bed. But my gardener knew better than to humor her: he went over and threw down the bed clothes, and there she was completely nude. "Stand up, stand up," he said, "you are worth looking at!"
And indeed she was. Nothing loath, she stood on the bed as directed and lent herself to the examination. She was a very pretty girl of twenty or twentyone; and at length, to encourage her, he took her in his arms and kissed her. I followed suit and found her flesh perfectly firm and everything all right, except that her feet were rather dirty; whereupon my gardener said, "That's easily remedied." We promised her a prize and told her that we would return when she had washed and put on her clothes and made herself as pretty as possible; and he led me into the next room.
The girl in this one was sitting on the bed, half-undressed, but she was very slight and much younger, and evidently very much excited, because she glowered at us as if she hated us. The moment we came into the room she went for the gardener, telling him that if she had known it was required to be naked, she wouldn't have come near us. The gardener kissed her at once and told her not to be frightened, that she was pretty sure of winning a prize, and she need not undress. And we went on to the third room.
There I had one of the surprises of my life: a girl stood on the rug near the bed with the color coming and going in her cheeks; she was in her shirt, but with her dress held round her hips. She, too, said she didn't want to strip-she would rather go home.
"But nothing has happened to you," said the gardener. "Surely a couple of men to admire you isn't going to make you angry; and that frown doesn't suit your loveliness at all."
In two or three minutes the wily Italian had dissipated her anger and she began to smile, and suddenly, shrugging her shoulders, she put down the dress and then at once stood up at his request, trying to laugh. She had one of the loveliest figures and faces that I ever saw in my life. Her breasts were small, but beautifully rounded and strangely firm; her hips, too, and bottom were as firm as marble, but a little slight. Her face was lit up with a pair of great hazel eyes and her mouth, though a little large, was perfectly formed: her smile won me. I told the gardener that I didn't want to see any more girls, that I was quite content, and he encouraged me to kiss and talk to her while he went into the next room to see the next applicant.
As soon as the gardener left the room, my beauty, whose name was Flora, began questioning me: "Why do you choose me? You are the owner, aren't you?"
I could only nod. I had sense enough to say, "Partly for your beauty, but also because I like you, your ways, your courage."
"But," she went on, "real liking does not grow as quickly as that, or just by the view of a body and legs."
"Pardon me," I rejoined, "but passion, desire in a man comes first: it's for the woman to transform it into enduring affection. You like me a little because I admire and desire you; it's for me by kindness and sympathy to turn that liking into love; so kiss me and don't let us waste time arguing. Can you kiss?"
"Of course I can," she said, "every one can!"
"That's not true," I retorted. "The majority of virgins can't kiss at all, and I believe you're a virgin."
"I am," she replied; "but you'll not find many in this crowd."
"Kiss me," I went on, taking her in my arms and kissing her till I found response in hot lips. As she used her tongue, she asked roguishly, "Well, Sir, can I kiss?"
"Yes," I replied, "and now I'll kiss you," and I laid her on the bed and buried my face between her legs.
She was a virgin, I discovered, and yet peculiarly quick to respond to passion: an astonishing mistress! She didn't hide from me the fact that, like most school girls in Italy, as in France, she had been accustomed to provoke her own sensuality by listening to naughty stories and by touching herself ever since puberty. But what kept her from giving herself freely was her fear of the possible consequences. My assurances seemed to have convinced her, for suddenly she started up and danced round me in her fascinating nudity.
"Shall I have a prize?" "The first," I cried.
"Carissimo mio," and she kissed me a dozen tunes. "I'll be whatever you want and cover you with love."
Our talk had gone on for perhaps half an hour, when a knock came at the door, and the gardener came in to find us both quite happy and, I think, intimately pleased with each other. He said, "The other two you had better see or they will be disappointed, but I think you have picked the prettiest." "I am quite content," I replied, "to rest on your approval of them." But my selfwilled beauty said, "Let us go and see them; I will go with you," and we went into the next room, said a few flattering things, and went on to the fifth room, where there was a girl who said she wouldn't undress.