"Then a boy came. I was tempted by his virginity, but I didn't yield; then last year a young visitor at the hotel made love to me-he didn't hurt, and I enjoyed it ecstatically, for I really liked him, and he had such dear pleasing ways: he was always bringing me flowers, and he would kiss my hands, and was always telling me how pretty I was and how much he loved my eyes: he was a dear!
"But now I've fallen in love with you with my whole soul and body passionately; and that's what makes me wild with jealousy. Flora is always boasting that you like her best, and I can't believe it, but I hate to hear her. I could strike the slut. But you do go with her, and I go home and cry half the night. Why can't you love me alone or love me best? Then I wouldn't care. But always to be second, to find that Flora is preferred to me: it's driving me crazy."
Of course I kissed her, smiling, and she said: "Promise you'll only go with me for this next week, and I'll give my very soul to you; promise! You'll see how sweet I can be-promise! I'll say all the naughty words and do all the naughty things: I want to! There! Do you hear that; I'll do more than you imagine, you dear, you!"
I promised and kept my word, but after that week Adriana never came back again, and so we lost the loveliest figure of all. In her, jealousy was stronger than passion, as it is in many, many women.
Clara
It was the gardener again who brought me to the chief discovery. He told me that Clara had no reticences and would tell me anything, so one day I got him to bring her and questioned her. She said:
"What is there to tell? It's the same thing over and over again, only it gets better and better all the time, different to (sic) most things in life. I don't know when I began. I don't think I was more than seven, but almost immediately I noticed that I didn't care for girls touching me; I only wanted boys, and I was very curious about them, though I pretended not to be.
"One boy, five or six years older than I was, when I was about ten, told me all about it and suited the action to the word. He hurt me a little, but the pleasure, even at the beginning, was greater than the pain, and so I went on with anyone I liked; and I liked a good many.
"I got very careful about thirteen because I knew what the consequences might be, and I made up my mind only to go with a man I really cared for. I don't know why I fell in love, but I did when I was about fifteen, with a gentleman who was good-looking and had charming manners. He spoke to me in the street, took me for a drive, kissed me and put his hand all over me. I didn't mind. He really was charming but when he took me up to his bedroom in his hotel, I told him I was frightened; but he assured me that I'd run no risk with him, and he kept his word. Yet, that sort of half-pleasure didn't content me, so I was very glad, indeed, when your gardener came; and since then I have been as happy as a bird!
"You want to know whether I have touched myself. Sure; all girls have. If they say they haven't, they lie; the silly fools. Why shouldn't we have pleasure when it's so easy?
"I remember my father took me once to the picture gallery in Genoa. I loved the pictures; but one had a young man in it who looked right at me. I got off next morning and went back to the gallery to my pictured lover. I could not help it; I sat down on the bench opposite to him and crossed my legs and squeezed my sex till I was wet. And when I went to bed that night I thought of him, and his lovely limbs and his great eyes, and I touched myself with my hand pretending it was him till I came again and again, and at last got so wild I just had to stop or I'd have screamed-but lots of girls are like that.
"I think I was one of the few who let a boy have me time and again. I could not resist: the truth is, I wanted him as much as he wanted me, and when an older man came after me, it was worse: I could not refuse him, and I felt more with him than with any boy, till I came here, and the great games began. Oh, I love them all; and I've always been taken with you since you gave me the first prize when I had only won the second. You great sweet!"
Naturally, after this we had a long kissing match that ended in a new rendezvous, which was repeated frequently, for I found Clara in many respects the most delightful of all the girls. She had really no reticences, and loved to show her sex and to talk about her intense sensations in the crudest terms; but she never invented or beautified anything, and this simplicity of truth in her was most attractive. When, for example, she said, "When you have me I feel the thrills running all down my thighs to the knees," she was plainly describing an immediate personal experience, and when she told me that merely hearing my voice in the villa made her sex open and shut, I could be sure it was the truth. And bit by bit this truth of reciprocated sensation grew on me, till I, too, was won by the novelty of the emotion. Clara was the most wonderful mistress of them all; though the youngest.
I have spoken here only of pleasant occurrences; and it is interesting or amusing incidents that I remember best in my past life; but towards the end of the summer there was a good deal of trouble with some of the girls. It began with the defection of Adriana; as if encouraged by her jealousy, others felt inclined to follow her example and make conditions.
The three queens, and Clara in especial, remained fairly constant to the end, but Jean and his girls were a constant source of trouble. He would change in the same day, and that always led to remonstrances or angry scenes. Finally, both Ernest and George had to go back to England, and I was ashamed of having let the summer pass without completing my work.
When I returned later to San Remo to see Flora, I found that Clara, too, had got well married. She explained it by saying that widows always found husbands easier than girls, knowing more of what men wanted.
A word here about the difference between the jealousy of man and that of woman.
The jealousy of woman: If the man went with another woman because he loved her, the woman would weep, but forgive him. Love is all powerful to her. But if the man went with another girl out of mere passion, even if he didn't care for her, the woman would be furious: she sees the act-it is an unpardonable traitorism.
The jealousy of man is just the contrary: If the woman went with another man, and gave herself to a passing fancy, the man would be hurt, but would forgive her easily. But if the woman gave herself to some one out of love, the man would be furious and too angry to forgive.
CHAPTER X
I want to give as fair and large a picture as I can of this third period of my life-the last decade of the nineteenth century. Casanova is often praised for having given a good picture of his age, yet he has painted no great man of his time, no writer of the first rank, no artist, no statesman, with the solitary exception of Frederick the Great, whom he hardly does more than mention.
In this Life of mine I have tried to picture my growth of character and mind and soul as faithfully as I can, and to complete this history by putting in the foreground, so to speak, the great men and deeds which characterized the age. In my first volume I tried to paint Whitman, Emerson, Carlyle, and others; and in my second volume Skobelef, Ruskin, Randolph Churchill and Maupassant. In this volume I have given sketches of many artists and writers, and I wish to complete the picture with further memories of my contemporaries.