"You are the limit! First of all, hide yourself under the sheets. You are far too improper."
"Whose fault is that? I was sleeping very soberly this morning…"
For a few moments we quarrelled: each seeking to absolve herself or himself from all responsibility. Therese called me "Bluebeard" and a "woman-eater"; while I stigmatised her gluttony, — that of an ogress, who lies in wait for children at their awakening. To put an end to the dispute, we took refuge in our respective bathrooms.
The rain-storm that morning barely cooled the atmosphere, so by tacit consent we remained in the very simple attire of our dressing-gowns.
Having sent the gardener for provisions, we found our food in the pantry turning-box and had a gay little luncheon. Afterwards, we spent the greater part of the afternoon on a sofa in the drawing-room, Therese reading verses to me, hap-hazard, from an anthology. I listened to her; but, deaf to her protests, I had partly opened her dressing-gown, so as to lay my cheek against the delicate whiteness of her stomach.
She again protested, but without further convincing me when, at dinner-time, I took her on my knees; for, opening my garment and raising hers, I wanted her buttocks to rest in direct contact with my thighs. However, I respected the condition of apparent indecency which, as a last resource, she insisted on laying down, — chastely I drew down her dressing-gown over our dual nudity. And during the whole of the dinner we pretended to ignore the persistent swelling of my sex under the delicious weight of her loins.
Before the door of what was "her" room I no longer proposed, as on the previous day, to separate. However, Therese expressed a wish that we should be "very good". The day's programme appeared, indeed, honourable, our morning's frolics having been prolonged beyond noon, and the remainder of the day having been only relatively chaste. But as soon as the light was switched off, our bodies-still thirsting for tenderness-sought for each other. Night becoming our accomplice, our bodies were enlaced in the maddest manner; innumerable caresses were alternated with hands, mouths, and flesh.
The total obscurity-humouring her modesty- let loose in Therese's imagination a perfect tornado of erotism. There and then I foresaw in her an inventive mistress who, after many years of married life, would continue to renew and diversify our pleasure. I gave myself wholly up to her fancies, — fancies sometimes naive, rarely clumsy, more often most precise in their sensual intuition. But I avoided all contact (of however slight a duration) between my flesh and hers. The very persistence which Therese displayed in provoking such contacts and binding me to them put me on my guard against their inevitable evolution. Fatally and of common accord, they would have ended in total possession". Now, this appeared to me to be still premature.
Why I should have had a difficulty in explaining. Was it a desire to prolong the disturbing charm of that virginity of hers? A yearning after those hours of initiation, the end of which would be marred by the act of possession? Hesitation to cause suffering to an already overbeloved flesh? Perhaps… Certainly and above all a fear that, through a brutal action, I might spoil a memorable date in our fleshly history. For that was indeed the very first day on which our bodies, having completed their reciprocal discoveries, were at last able to surrender themselves, without restraint, to a complete orgy of caresses… My most ardent wish was that the recollection of that day should remain impregnated with voluptuous tenderness, in a most unique manner, and without that discordant note which an act of violence, even accepted, would have produced.
Whether my reasons were sound or unsound, Therese accepted them.
Moreover, we knew instinctively that that night marked the extreme possibility of our expectations; on the morrow our dual desire would result in the union of our bodies, willy nilly. Filled with more confidence by the very certainty of that abdication, now so near, we dared to commit a piece of supreme imprudence. In the middle of the night, Therese, with legs apart, offered me her full-blown nudity; and with the moist extremity of my sex- though I stiffened my will against the temptation to penetrate her violently-I touched her sex ever so lightly. At first very slowly, my caress soon became more persistent, more rapid; then entered on the path of that supreme voluptuousness with which my whole body was vibrating. A cry came from Therese's lips, — "Have me!" but on her palpitating stomach I had already offered a sacrifice to my lust. Therese brought her hand down, eager to retain that ephemeral pledge of our love; and soon, with our legs still entwined, we both fell sound asleep.
CHAPTER XIII
Having made most accurate prognostications regarding the brightness of that Sunday morning, our programme had been drawn up on the previous evening. We were to walk to church and rise at an early hour.
Better to be ahead of the hour when the sun was pouring down upon the road and making it unbearable. However, projects of the day before have a strange habit of being changed on awakening the next morning. Therese moaned that she was sleepy; she threw her arms around my neck and sought to keep me in bed. And when I tried to disengage myself, she slid her hand with great rapidity towards the middle of my body and treacherously seized hold of me. Laughing at her roguishness, she exclaimed: "Tenio lupum auribus!"
"You're a deep one! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
"But it's in the Latin Grammar, darling."
"I'm not talking to you about the Latin Grammar."
Meanwhile she showed great concern over the fragile flabbiness of my sex, which was still somnolent in her hand. Stopping her laughter, she pressed me to her tenderly and murmured caressing words in my ear.
Then, once more, the azure of her eyes lit up with an amused look; for, beneath her imprisoning fingers, she began to feel my sex awaken from its torpor. Having relinquished the idea of getting out of bed, I already accepted defeat and anticipated the voluptuous reward for my cowardice. But Therese, doubtless, only wanted to make sure of my power over her. Satisfied with the experiment, she threw back the sheet and, at a glance, noted her triumph; then, after bestowing a rapid kiss on the Phallus, standing at attention in her hand, she escaped in the direction of the bath-room and doubly locked herself in.
After the monotony of the extensive walls skirting our deserted avenue, the road towards the church suddenly opened out into the country. It meandered between two thick-set hedges, — a true roadway of former times, when roads were not yet saddened beneath a black livery of tar. In the distance-as though from a past century- a light cart jolted towards us, — a veritable cart of former days with a piebald horse, its hood swaying backwards and forwards, and little spurts of dust rising under each wheel.
Therese had armed herself with a Japanese parasol (probably all that remained of some gallant fete) which had been left hanging about in the vestibule; and when she twirled this multicoloured omhrelle on her shoulder a kaleidoscopic effect aureoled the tranquil happiness of her face. It was certainly, on that day, going to be particularly hot; the shadows were already gathering together and taking refuge, as though in fear, at the base of the trees. But Therese's wish was to pardon the sun, because of the gaiety of the birds, the provocative red of the poppies, the snowy-whiteness of the washing hanging in the orchards. And when, in advance, I made my excuses to her for a return journey which was bound to be irksome, she began to declaim a hymn to Light: