Gynecocracy

"Lady Alfred Ridlington will, if you like, lend herself to your whim." Cruel addition!

"I do not want to be incarnated by Lady Alfred Ridlington. You are cruel to me, Mademoiselle."

"Kinder than you think," she answered, getting me into position, clasping her arms round me, and again twining her legs about mine, which she stretched apart. "Now, Julian."

"No."

Elise had returned.

"Elise, birch him until you see he gives me good proof of his sex."

I was wild with rage. What profanation, what desecration! Elise performed her task. I was birched, flogged into obedience, once, twice.

"Waste," exclaimed Mademoiselle, laughing and satisfied. "Julian," she said, "I am sorry you should have clouded a day with so bright a morning, and made yourself so sad. Get those ridiculous notions out of your head, like a good boy. He will die of love, Elise. Dear boy, no one has ever shown me such true devotion. Some day, Julian, some day!"

"Today, Mademoiselle, can never return! If some day, it would not be the same."

"How absurd you are! As if that made any real difference. It is purely fantastical of you. But, anyhow, it cannot be today, that's certain. So there. Come," she added cheerily, seeing my countenance fall yet more, "come, you are a true knight and I will kiss you. I really will! Had you told me an hour ago that I would do so, I should have jeered at you! Go, Elise, and get my toilette ready. There, Julian, I will kiss you with a real kiss of love, such as your love inspires. I do love you, my dear Julian. I do indeed, and wish I could give you your desire. I cannot however.. Marriage is a diabolical invention for persons circumstanced as we are; the embodiment of everything anti-aphrodisiac. Even married people find it so. If we were married, should we be spooning like this, par example? But we live in the world. And what could become of the brat? What would become of me?"

I was compelled to acquiesce. The divine fury had all been whipped out of me by that time. I enjoyed the kisses; sweet delicious long ones they were and they helped to heal the wound. But it was one that had truly added indelible sadness and years to my life.

I could not dispossess myself of the idea that a beautiful being had been summoned by my spirit and the co-operation of Mademoiselle's which had worked upon mine, she being at that period my feminine complement and completion. And that, having been thus summoned, it had been obliged to go weeping away, wronged and defrauded of its 90

expectations, unable to linger, unable ever to return here, back into the nothingness out of which it had been evolved only to be disappointed and cheated; never to be clothed in the red earth which had been promised it, never to live.

I felt as though I had potentially lost a child* and my spirit was grieved.

* Emasculation was prohibited among the Jews. According to Josephus, it killed beforehand children who might otherwise have been begotten. The reason is intelligible but illogical.

CHAPTER 18

Under Elise — First experiences

It will be remembered that Mademoiselle, before there had been established between her and myself any of that sweet and intimate knowledge which had since so worked upon and so changed my disposition, had as a punishment for my rudeness to Elise condemned me to servitude under that lively young woman for three days. Whether Mademoiselle regretted it now, I do not know. She had never shown me such true tenderness or manifested such feeling towards me as on that morning; her kisses still burned upon my lips, and I could recall the sweet pressure of her recent embrace. Notwithstanding this, she did not revoke the sentence. Almost as soon as I had had my last kiss, Elise returned. She carried me off naked to her room, away from the dear presence of my Hortense-my Mademoiselle. The three days under her had commenced, and, upon that morning, resistance was futile, expostulation I abstained from, under the sway of an indescribable medley of feelings.

The three days under her had commenced, and, upon their threshold, I saw a whip fastened to Elise's waist belt, a long thong, such as with a snap on the handle is occasionally used as a leading string for dogs. My curiosity as to what was to happen at once received a rude shock, and I dared not anticipate. She led me to her room.

To its ceiling there was attached a hook. She buckled two leather straps, broad and lined with thick felt, round my wrists. In each strap was a ring, through which she passed a cord. I had to mount a pair of steps which stood directly under the hook in the ceiling of this rather low room. She swung the cord over this hook.

I demurred about mounting the steps, being fearful of her object. She whipped me until I obeyed. Then, leaving the cord fixed over the hook and to each of my wrists, I had to raise my hands over my head, and to descend the steps until the end was tight. She then dragged the ladder away, and I swung by my wrists in mid-air, some three feet from the ground.