Gynecocracy

A minute description of all I underwent is out of the question, but Elise's cruelty affected my animal nature only. She could not temper her inflictions with the same sweet mercies as Mademoiselle, notwithstanding that, as the sequel will show, she went further in the attempt than Mademoiselle, but ineffectually. Mercy and kindness from Elise were matters of indifference to me so far as my passions or emotions were concerned. She was undoubtedly a charming woman; her figure was very good, and I remember how she impressed herself on me with her full round bosom as she stood in her simple dark grey dress the moment before she commenced lashing me. But she was coarser and more brutal. She did not possess the ravishing spirituality of Mademoiselle. As a woman she affected me merely from an animal point of view.

In the intellectual appreciation and intelligence of her mistress I had found, even while undergoing her severest punishments, solace and consolation. Mademoiselle directed herself more to working upon the mind and the spirit and used other measures judiciously and discreetly only as they served this purpose.

Elise was purely, ingeniously, and most wantonly cruel for the sake of cruelty itself, in which she appeared to take a fiendish pleasure. I do not believe Mademoiselle would ever have strapped me up in that manner. It was essentially a maid's notion. To elongate my figure indeed!

There was no coquetry, no attempt, no suggesting of dalliance or flirtation about Elise's method. No love; it was absolutely material. She directed herself entirely to the body, not to excite sensations, but with no apparent object beyond her own gratification. In consequence, I could not even feel the satisfaction arising from obedience to a mistress. Nothing appeared to ameliorate or sweeten my fate. I had no hope, except for the termination of these three days. I was absolutely in her hands, at her mercy completely, to wreak what vengeance upon me she pleased. Why had Mademoiselle handed me over to this abomination of desolation? I saw afterwards that she had an object she herself could never have accomplished or which her endeavours to accomplish would have hindered and spoilt the effect of her other influence over me. It was a wise and economical division of labour. The lesson had to be learnt and none was so gifted for inculcating it as Elise. The animal needed taming by brute force without the aid of spiritual agencies, and of that force Elise was the priestess.

It is quite plain that the incidents of my three days purgatory cannot be set out seriatim. If the history of thirty-six hours has occupied so much time and space, and even that has not been dealt with in every detail, how much space would an equally diffuse narrative of the events of seventy-two hours require? I should never have done. Moreover, I have to relate not only the story of those three days, but of subsequent years. I should be interminable!

If any one burns for more nimble details, let him obtain a verbal account from some victim who, like myself, was forced to the sacrifice as a sheep to the slaughter. There are verily and indeed many such; the case is not rare in England nor in Scotland, less rare in Ireland, and still less rare in Germany and Austria. And it is by no means new. It is mythological and classical; it was known at Pompeii, and practised also at Rome. Such matters are in this country veiled in the closest secrecy. Many a haughty dame, respectable and so to speak irreproachable, could vouch for the truth of the assertion; the walls and closets of many a palace could, if endowed with speech, tell the same tale. In olden days this mystery was not thought necessary. But the world was pagan then. This cult, this luxury, exists only amongst the most highly educated, the most intellectual and most refined; amongst the classes vulgarly described as the "Upper Ten Thousand." The middle classes and their children are ignorant of this discipline and excess of voluptuousness.

It was on a Friday morning in the beginning of May when Elise first "tackled me," as she called it. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and the nights of those days! How they are stamped and burnt in my recollection! What a martyrdom I underwent!