“They make children that way,” said Fred. “You come up and we will ask the old nurse where children come from, and shell say 'out of the parsley-bed,' but it's all a lie.” We went and asked her in a casual sort of way. She replied, 'The parsley-bed,” and laughed. The nurse at my house told me the same when I asked her afterwards about my mother's last baby. “Ain't they liars?” Fred remarked to me. 'It comes out of their cunts, and it's made by fucking.'
We both desired to see women piddling, though both must have before seen them at it often enough. Walking near the market-town with him, just at the outskirts, and looking up a side-road, we saw a pedlar woman squat down and piss. We stopped short and looked at her: she was a short-petticoated, thick-legged, middle-aged woman; the piss ran off in a copious stream, and there we stood, grinning. “Be off, be off, what are you standing grinning at, yer damned young fools,” cried the woman. 'Be off, or Ill heave a stone at yer,' and she pissed on. We moved a few steps back, but, keeping our faces toward her, Fred stooped and put his head down. 'I can see it coming,' said he jeeringly. He was rude from his infancy, hold in handiness to the utmost, had the impudence of the Devil. The stream ceased, the woman rose up swearing, took up a big flint and threw it at us. “I'll tell on yer,” she cried. “I knows yer, wait till I see yer again.” She had a large basket of crockery for sale, it was put down in the main-road at the angle; she had just turned round into the side Lane to piss. We ran off, and, when well away, turned round and shouted at her. “I saw your cunt,” Fred bawled out; she flung another stone. Fred took up one, threw it, and it crashed into the crockery, the woman began to chase us, off we bolted across the fields home. She could not follow us that way; it was an eventful day for us. I recollect feeling full of envy at Fred's having seen her cunt.
Though writing now, and having in my mind's eye exactly how the woman squatted, and the way her petticoats hung, I am sure he never did see it; it was brag when he said he had, but we were always talking about girls' cunts, the desire-to see one was great, and I then believed that he had seen the pedlar woman's.
Then one of Fred's companions chewed us a baudy picture, it was coloured. I wondered at the cunt being a long sort of gash. I had an idea that it was round, like an arse-hole. Fred told his friend I was , an ass, but I could not get the idea of a cunt not being a round hole quite out of my head, until I had fucked a woman. We were all anxious to get the picture, and tossed up for it, but neither I nor Fred got it, some other boy did.
Soon after that, Fred came to stop with us and our talk was always about women's privates, our curiosity became intense. I had a little sister about nine months old, who was in the nursery. Fred incited me to look at her cunt, if I could manage it The two nurses came down in turns, to the servants' dinner, I was often in the nursery, and, soon after Fred's suggestion, was there one day when the oldest nurse said: “Stop here, master Walter, while I go downstairs for a couple of minutes. Mary (the other nurse) will be up directly, and don't make a noise. My little sister was lying on the bed asleep. “Yes, Ill wait” Down, went nurse, leaving the door open; quick as lightning, I threw up the infant's clothes, saw her little slit, and put my finger quite gently on it, she was laying on her back most conveniently. I pulled one leg away to see better, the child awakened and began crying, I heard footsteps and had barely time to pull down her clothes, when the under nursemaid came in, I only had had a momentary glimpse of the outside of the little cunt, for I was not a minute in the room with the child by myself altogether and was fearful of being caught all the time I was looking.
'There must have been something in my face, for the nursemaid said, What is the matter, what have you been doing to the baby? 'Nothing.” “Yes, you are colouring up, now tell me.” “Nothing, I have done nothing.” “You wakened your sister.” “No, I have not. The girl laid hold of me and gave me a little shake, “I'll tell your mamma if you don't tell me, what is it now?” “No, I have done nothing, I was looking out of the window when she began to cry. You're “telling a story, I see you are,” said the nursemaid; and off I went, after being impudent to her.
I told Fred, and he tried the same dodge, but don't recollect whether he succeeded or not. His sisters were some of them older, and we began to scheme how to see their cunts, when I was on a visit to-his mother's. (my aunt), which was to come off in the holidays. The look of the little child's cunt, as I described it, convinced him that the picture was correct, and that a cunt was a long slit and not a round hole. That cast doubt on males putting their pricks into them, and we clung somehow to the idea of the round hole, and we quarrelled about it.
It must have been about this time that I was walking with my father, and read something that was written in chalk on the walls. I asked him what it meant. He said he did not know, that none but low people, and blackguards wrote on walls; and it was not worthwhile noticing such things. I was conscious that I had done wrong somehow, but did not know exactly what. When I went out, which I was now allowed to do for short distances by myself, I copied what was on the walls, to tell Fred, it was foul, baudy language of some sort, but the only thing we understood at all, was the word cunt.
Just then being out with some boys, we saw two dogs fucking. I have no recollection of seeing dogs doing that before, We closed round them, yelling with delight as they stuck rump to rump, then one boy said that was what men and women did, and I asked, did they stick together so, a boy replied that they did; others did it, and, all the remainder of the day, some of us discussed this; the impression left on my mind is that it appeared to me very nasty; but it seemed at the same time to confirm me in the belief that men put their pricks up into women's holes, about which I seem at that time to have had grave doubts.
After this time my recollection of events is clearer, and I can tell not only what took place, but better what I heard, said, and thought.
Chapter II
My godfather • At Hampton-Court • My aunt's backside • Public baths • My cousins cunts • Haymaking frolics • Family difficulties • School amusements • A masturbating relative • Romance and sentiment.
My godfather (whose fortune I afterwards inherited) was very fond of me; somewhere about this time he used perpetually to be saying, 'When you get to school, don't you follow any of the tricks yourself that other boys do, or you will the in a mad-house; lots of boys do.” And he told me some horrible tales; it was done in a mysterious way. I felt there was a hidden meaning and, not having knowledge of what it was, asked him. I should know fast enough, said he, but mark his words. He repeated this so often that it sunk deeply into my mind, and made me uneasy, something was to happen to me, if I did something -I did not know what-it was intended as a caution against frigging; and it bad good effect on me I am sure in various ways in the after time.
One day talking with Fred, I recollected what I had done to the governess. I had kept it to myself all along for fear. 'What a lie,” said he. “I did really.” 'Oh! ain't you a liar,' he reiterated, I'll ask Miss Granger.” The same governess was with us then. At this remark of his, an absolute terror came over me, the dread was something so terrible that the recollection of it is now 'Oh don't, Pray, don't, Fred,' I said, 'oh, if Papa should hear! He kept on saying he would I was too young to see the improbability of his doing anything of the sort. 'If you do, I'll tell him what we did when the pedlar woman piddled.' He did not care. 'Now, it's a lie, isn't it, you did not feel her cunt?' In fear, I confessed it was a lie. 'I knew it was; said Fred. He had kept me in a state of terror about the affair for days, till I told a lie to get quit of the subject.