Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume V Part 20

A.'s nascent beauty and delicacy and improvement were gradually impaired, too. My own conduct became so morose at times that, besides increasing her misery, I offended the others, and bickerings ensued. I heard the other actress say "He's mad; that what's the matter." And I was so wrapped up in myself and my religious mania that I did not mind their thinking so.

After the tour was over A. asked me to come and see her at her home, and as I missed her very much I went one night to tea. She had a room in her father's house to herself. A. was dressed in her best and we had an affectionate meeting. After tea I asked her if she were married to E. She said "No." Then I said: "Who are you married to?" She commenced to cry then, and told me something of her life, the saddest I ever heard. When only 17 she had been courted by a young man she did not care for, but who prevailed on her parents by pretending he had seduced her, but wished to marry her. Strange as it may seem, A. did not know what marriage meant, her mother being one of those silly women who don't like talking of these things and let their daughters grow up in ignorance, expecting they will learn from some one. In nine cases out of ten this happens, but A. was an exception. It was this, and the fact that she had not a particle of love for her husband, that gave her such a hatred of coition. When her mother saw the sheets the morning after the marriage she burst out crying; she did not like the young man and saw she had been deceived.

A.'s husband soon showed his true character; he was in reality a gaol-bird. He beat her, drank, and even wanted her to go on the streets to earn money for him. She left him and went home; it was then she began her theatrical career by entering the ballet. At intervals her husband, drunk and desperate, would waylay and threaten her in the street. One day after a rehearsal he attempted to stab her. She got on in spite of all, being a born actress, and played small parts in traveling companies. Then E., who had also gone on the stage, courted her and she listened to him, not because she cared for him, but he protected her and offered her a home. She joined him; but his drunkenness and sensuality were so gross that he ruined his health and he attempted to maltreat A. in a nameless way. And whenever she was in the family way he would leave her alone and half-conscious in the cellar for days. To add to her misery she had epileptic fits. Then sometimes they would be out of an engagement and starving. They had been so hungry as to steal raw potatoes out of a sack and eat them thus, having no fire. She would often have had engagements, but E. was jealous and would not let her act without him. And he beat her as her husband had done, and her health became undermined. It was just after one of the forced miscarriages that she joined our traveling company, and that accounted for her yellow and puffy appearance. E. was now away up-country with a circus, but was expected down any time. A. told me a good deal of all this, between her tears, while sitting at my feet, and her tone carried conviction. When I ought to have gone home I persuaded her to let me stay all night. We had been in bed some time when her mother knocked at the door and wanted to come in for something in a chest of drawers there. "Why don't you open the door, A.? Who have you got there? Hasn't that fellow gone?" A. was confused and told me to get under the bed, but I refused, and she covered me up with the bed clothes as well as she could and opened the door. She had hid my clothes, but missed one of my shoes, and her mother saw it. "Oh, A.," was all she said; "you've got that fellow in bed," and went out crying. "Well, Fred" (my stage name), "you've got me into a nice row," A. said. She gave me my breakfast in the morning and I walked out of the front door without being molested. Another night I entered her window by a ladder and stayed all night. In the middle of the night E. came home drunk. She would not let him in and told him she would have nothing more to do with him. He attempted to break in the door, when A. called to me, and hearing a man in the room he went away, saying, as he went downstairs: "Oh, A.! Oh, A.!" as if he thought she would not have done such a thing. He never molested us after that night.

I think it was my intention, at first, to break off with A. gradually. I found, however, I could not keep away from her, and it commenced to be evident to me that a bachelor's life in lodgings again would be dreary and lonely. And all this time the fear that I had offended G.o.d troubled me more than I have said, and it occurred to me (there may have been a touch of sophistry in this, or not) that if I were a true husband to her for the future-stuck to her and worked for her for the rest of my days-perhaps it would find favor in G.o.d's sight and be an atonement for my sin. Had she been free I would have married her, I believe. But she began to be hara.s.sed by her mother and bothered about my incessantly coming there and staying all night. It ended in my telling her I would be a husband to her, and she came and lived with me at my lodgings. We had one room and our meals cost us sixpence each. Cheap as it was, it was a struggle for me to earn money at all. I remember feeling ill and anxious once, and sustaining myself by the thought of my father wheeling the heavy truck up the street when he married my mother. And I decided to wheel my truck, too.

A. seemed happy and her love increased, if possible; at first, though, she must have found me a trying lover, for I made her kneel and pray with me two or three times a day, which she did with such a queer expression of face. Sometimes her feelings got the better of her, and she would say: "Oh, d.a.m.n it, Fred, you are always praying." And then I would be shocked and she would be sorry.... Coitus was frequent; she commenced to like it now....

A. was not looking well one evening when she came in, and lay down on the bed. Presently she commenced to make a strange noise, and I saw her eyes were closed and her hands clenched. "Ah," said the landlady, who came in to help me; "she has epileptic fits." When her convulsions were over she looked blankly at us, knitting her brows and evidently puzzling her poor brain to remember who we were. For many years it was my fate to see her looking at me thus, at first stony and estranged, like a dweller in another star, then half-recalling with extended hand, then forgetting again with hand to mouth, then the gradual dawn of memory and love, and final full recognition. "It's Fred, my Fred!" I never got used to it; it always moved me to tears.... It was not to be thought that we had no quarrels. I still had fits of bad temper, and sometimes they came into collision with A.'s temper. It hurt my vanity considerably to see how soon she relinquished the respectful, patient, spaniel-bearing she had when we were traveling. I said some cruel things to her and she retorted. One would have thought, to hear us, that all affection was over. But when the mood of rage wore itself out we would both be sorry and make it up with tears, and be very happy in spite of our poverty.

I think it was l.u.s.t that prevented me from striving to fulfill my ambitions. A. let me do anything I liked, at all times of day or night, although she seemed surprised at my proceedings sometimes, for it was becoming a fever of lubricity with me. She still thought only of her love. I remember her coming in one day, tired, pale, perspiring, and worried-we had hardly anything in the house and she had been to the theater ineffectually-and when her eyes lighted on me the whole expression of her face changed, softened and brightened at once, and she came and kissed me and said: "It is so strange, I was thinking all sorts of nasty things coming along, but as soon as I see my pet's face I feel happy-I don't care for anything-I would sooner share a crust with him than have all the money in the world!"

I commenced to feel libidinous curiosity to examine her-this was mostly on Sundays-and she let me, blus.h.i.+ng at first, but laughing. Then I would try new positions in coitus I had heard of. Still she did not enter into my mood.

She was engaged at this time to play in a pantomime and I commenced to lead a miserable, jealous existence. I heard scandal about her, baseless enough, but in the diseased, nervous, anxious state I had brought myself to it nearly drove me mad. I would go with her sometimes to visit her mother, whom I began to like. Her brother I still saluted coldly. It caused me horror and jealousy to see A. kissing him and letting him tickle her. In my rage, when we came home, I even said that perhaps she would let him do something else, naming it brutally and coa.r.s.ely. I remember her shame, astonishment, indignation and tears. If ever a man tried a woman's love I did. But she forgave me, even that.

We went to live in a little cottage. It was in this cottage that A. first showed signs of l.u.s.t, and in the diseased state of my mind, instead of regretting it, I encouraged her. She told me one day that the o.r.g.a.s.m very often did not occur at the same time with her as with me, and that it would not unless I put my little finger into the a.n.u.s. This her husband taught her, and she would rather have died than confess it to me when we first met. We would often devote our Sundays to having a picnic as we termed our l.u.s.tful bouts, stimulating ourselves with wine. Her temper was not improved thereby (though her fits entirely stopped for a twelvemonth)-we had wordy warfares, but we made it up again always with tears. Nor did I allow myself to deteriorate without reactions and excursions into better things. I was always reading Emerson; it was he who rescued me from orthodox Christianity and taught me to trust in myself and in Nature. I have never ceased this struggle towards better things to this day. There, in a nutsh.e.l.l, is my life; I have always been defeated when temptation came, but I have never ceased to struggle. I determined to be more abstemious in s.e.xual indulgence and asked her to help me. She agreed willingly, for she was easily led. Whenever we fell back again into excess it was my fault.

At a theatrical performance we first met a Miss T., a young German who sang. She was about 25, with modest, quiet and engaging manners. A. and she became very friendly. I liked her; she was tall, dark and lithe, but had bad teeth.

I had been ill and at this time A. and I had a quarrel, my temper suddenly breaking out in murderous frenzy. I called her names and finally put her outside the house, telling her to go to her mother. I suffered a very h.e.l.l of remorse and misery. Everything in the quiet, lonely house reminded me of her, seemed fragrant of her; my anguish became so keen I could not stop in the house, though I was just as wretched walking about. I kept this up for two days, when I met her coming to look for me. One look was enough-"A.!" "Pet!" in broken sobs-and in tears we kissed and made it up. Miss T. was with her, and I greeted her, too, with happy tears in my eyes. Another time, when A. was giving way to her temper, and one would have thought all love was dead, I said "Don't you love me then?" and the word alone was a talisman, her face changed, she held out her arms and began to sob quietly.... She accepted an offer to travel with a small theatrical company who were going up-country. She was not looking well when I left and after a time I received a telegram telling me to come to her at once as she was ill. Dreading all sorts of things I borrowed my fare and went to her. I knew nothing of women, of their point of view and different code of honor, and was very far from the att.i.tude of Guy de Maupa.s.sant who said he liked women all the better for their charmingly deceitful ways. A. wanted to see me and had taken the surest means to ensure my coming. I was angry at first, but she looked so well and was so loving that I could not be angry long.

One day when I was working the landlady came in and began talking about A. and her conduct before I came. She had gone into the actors' rooms at all hours, the woman said, and drank and been as bad as the rest in her conversation. It was the second time a married woman had run her down to me, and I commenced to think there might be something in it, and suffered all my mad jealousy over again. Not knowing the freedom actors and actresses allow themselves on tour, without there being necessarily anything in it, I worried till I thought I had nothing to do but die. And then one of the great struggles of my life occurred. Walking the country roads, I asked myself: "If it is true, if she has been unfaithful, will you forgive her and help her to arrive at her best?" For a long time the answer was "No!" But perhaps my striving for unity with myself had done some good, and the final resolution was for forgiveness. I felt more peace of mind then, and when I told a dying consumptive lodger in the house what the landlady had said, he replied, "Don't you believe a word of it. I know she loves you!"....

After an absence I found myself one evening in a town where A. was performing. I went round to the back and they told me she had gone to a room in the hotel to change for another part. I followed and entered the room, with a gla.s.s of spirits I found that an effeminate young actor was bringing to her. She was half undressed, her beautiful arms and shoulders bare. My arrival was unexpected and she looked at me surprised, I thought coldly, as I reproached her for not keeping a promise she had made to me to touch no alcohol during the tour, but soon her arms were round my neck. She cried like a child. She was bigger and handsomer and healthier. There was not only an increased strength and size, but an increased delicacy and sweetness; her eyes and brows were lovely; there was an indescribable bloom and fragrance on her, such as the sun leaves on a peach; the traveling, country air, and freedom from coitus (had I known it) had enabled her to arrive at her true self, not only a beautiful woman, but a woman of fascination, of wit, vivacity and universal camaraderie. Her face was like the dawn; all my fears and jealousy left me like a cloud that melts before the sun. I remember the look on her face as she embraced me in bed that night. It had just the very smallest touch of sensuality, but was more like some beautiful child's who is being caressed by one she loves; this divine, drowsy-eyed, adorable look I had never seen on her face before-nor have I since.

We fell back into our old l.u.s.tful ways. Later on A. became ill and the black devil of epilepsy returned. I became gloomy.... A restlessness and selfish brutality came over me; our love and peace were gone. I persuaded A. to go to Melbourne and look out for an engagement. The day before she was to sail we went to Glenelg for a trip. The sea air, as often happened, precipitated A.'s fits. We had gone down to the pier and A. said she felt bad. I just managed to support her to the hotel before she became stiff, and I made some impatient remark (for she nearly dragged me down) which she heard, not being quite unconscious and said half incoherently and very pitiably: "Be kind, oh, be kind!" repeating it after consciousness left her. Her heart had been breaking all day at the prospect of parting, and also, I expect, because I was so ready to part with her. That moment was a crisis in my life. I was in a murderous humor, but she looked so unutterably wretched that it seemed impossible to be anything but kind. I made myself speak lovingly to her, in moments of partial consciousness, hired a room, carried her up, and nursed her and petted her all night. The act of self-control, and forcing myself to be kind whatever I felt, became a habit in time, a sort of second nature.

In a few days she sailed. When she had gone I was remorseful and mad with myself. How could I let her go by herself? I resolved to follow her as speedily as possible, and did so.

If I remember rightly I came to the conclusion about this time that we ought not to have coition unless we felt great love for each other. It seemed to corroborate this to a certain extent that A. always seemed more electric and pleasant to the touch when we had connection for love and not for l.u.s.t. Leave it to Nature, I would say to myself. I began to feel how much my struggles, efforts and temperate living had improved me. I had more self-respect, though something of the old self-consciousness was still left. I did not get better continuously, but in an up-and-down zigzag. I still had moods of rage approaching madness and periods of neurotic depression. Long walks decidedly helped to cure me, and the sea, sun, wind, clouds and trees colored my dreams at night very sweetly. I frequently dreamed I was walking in orchards or forests, and a deeper, slightly melancholy but potent savor, as of a diviner destiny, was on my soul.

After a long absence, during which she had frequently been ill, A. joined me. I could see she was recovering from fits, which I began to realize that she had more frequently in absence from me, and also from drinking, perhaps. She was small and thin, but fresh and sweet as honey, and all signs of fits and tempers pa.s.sed away from her face, so wonderful in its changes. I had become so healthy through my abstinence, temperance and long walks that our meeting was a new revelation to me of how delicate, fragrant and divine a convalescent woman may be. She was glad and surprised to see me looking so well, and if she put her hand on my arm I felt a joyous thrill. I was certainly a better man for abstaining and she a better woman and I determined not to have connection unless we were carried away by our love. As a matter of fact we did not give way to excess, though we were very loving. I tried to persuade myself that we had not gone back to our old ways, but I could not do so long.

Miss T. put in an appearance every day. She did not look so innocent, but as it was no business of mine I did not trouble. She seemed more attached to A. than ever.... A. was still very loving with me, but it was an effort to me to keep up to her pitch, and when A. proposed to go to Melbourne with Miss T, to sell off the furniture before settling in Adelaide, I was rather glad of the opportunity of abstaining from coitus and of watching myself to see if I again improved. When A. and Miss T. came to see me before going down to the steamer, A. was nearly crying and Miss T., changed from the old welcome friend, was not only pale and anxious, but looked guilty as if she had some treachery in her mind; she could not meet my eye. I thought less of it then than afterwards. And once more I took long walks at night and rose early to catch the freshness of the mornings.

Some time before this I had read a book advocating a vegetarian diet, and at this time I chanced to read Pater's beautiful "Denys L'Auxerrois," the imaginary portrait of a young vine-dresser, who was attractive beyond ordinary mortals and lived, until his fall and deterioration, on fruit and water. The words, "a natural simplicity in living" remained in my memory. I resolved to read more carefully the book on scientific diet. Who can say, I thought, what changes for the better may come to me if I live on a strictly scientific and natural diet?

I fasted one whole day, and then had a breakfast of cherries, in the middle of the day a meal of fruit, and walking in the afternoon-a gray, rainy day-I felt so light, so different, and the gray sky looked so sweet and familiar, that I was reminded of the luminous visions of my boyhood. It was a distinct revelation. This Pan-like, almost Bacchic feeling, did not last, however, nor was I always able to maintain my new method of diet, though I tried to do so. I made the attempt, however, but I imagine I was more than usually run down. I would walk miles in the hope of feeling less restless. One holiday I walked down to Glenelg, having only had grapes for my dinner, and lying on the beach I looked through a strong binocular gla.s.s I had borrowed at the girls bathing. And the beauty of their faces in their frames of hair, of their arms, of their figures, seen through their wet clinging dresses, satisfied me and filled me with joy, gave me for a short time that peace and content-in harmony with the strong sunlight on the waves and the rhythmic surf on the sh.o.r.e-I was seeking. The summer evenings on the pier or along the beach had a peculiar savor; one felt the youth and beauty there even on dark nights, the air was fragrant with them, white dresses and summer hats disappearing down the beach or over the sand hills. It was easy-doubtless justifiable sometimes-to put a lewd construction on these disappearances; but I felt it need not have been so; that it was not necessary that youth and beauty, even the s.e.xual act itself if led up to by love, should be a subject of giggling and sn.i.g.g.e.ring. I always left the beach and its flitting summer dresses with a sigh.

A., after writing once, ceased writing at all and once more her mother and I were left in a state of anxiety and suspense. At last I determined to go to Melbourne to look for her, the only clue I had being a remark in her letter that a certain actor was giving her an engagement. In Melbourne I could not find any traces of her for some days and what traces I did find of her were not calculated to allay my anxious fears. One hotel-keeper told me that some one of A's name had stayed there with another hussy (giving Miss T's stage name): "There were nice carryings on with the pair of them." I thought of Miss T's strange looks, but could not imagine what hold she had on A., for A. loved me, I knew. I seemed to be in an inextricable maze. I could settle to nothing and was thinking of applying to the police when I heard that the actor A. had mentioned had taken his company to the Gippsland lakes. I followed to Sale, found the actor and was told that A. was not there. "She slipped me at the last moment," he said, "and remained in Melbourne." I returned to my lodgings, with my anxiety and nervous restlessness increased tenfold. But suddenly my fear and restlessness left me like a cloud. I felt quiet, young, peaceful, able to enjoy the country, A. was doubtless all right and would be able to explain her silence. I undressed leisurely and happily, thinking of the stars.

The next day, Sunday, I awoke refreshed and still at peace. After breakfast, hearing children's voices, I went out into the garden and there was a collision of souls who somehow were affinities. A young girl about twelve or younger with a fine presence and handsome face fixed her eyes on me for half a minute and then came and sat on my knee. She was one of those children I am accustomed to call "love-children," because they are so much brighter, healthier, larger and more loving than others. I always imagine more love went to their making. We fell in love and she said, stroking my beard, "Oh, you are pretty!" and I said, "And so are you!" We were so affectionate that the servant called the child away and I went for a walk, finding my little sweetheart waiting for me on my return. The touch of her hand was electric and her voice fresh and musical. I kissed her, but had become more self-conscious since the morning and wondered if her mother or the servant were looking, or even of they would appear. I was not so frank and natural as my little chum. I have often thought of her since. She had the breadth of forehead, the strength and yet lightness of limb, together with the hands and feet, not too small, that I always imagine the dwellers in Paradise will have.

I returned to Melbourne and continued trying to find A. At the same time I commenced in earnest to live on fruit and brown bread only, and enjoyed better tone and health every day, so that it was a joy to walk down the street in the sun and exchange glances with pa.s.sengers a la old Walt. One day in the Botanical Gardens veils seemed to be lifted off my eyes. I could look straight at the sun and taking my note of color from that golden light I turned my eyes on the flowers, the mown gra.s.s, the trees, and for the first time perceived what a heavenly color green is, what divine companions flowers are, and what a blue sky really means. For half an hour I was in Paradise, and to complete my joy Nature revealed to me a new and unexpected secret.

I was lying on a bench, basking, and my silk s.h.i.+rt coming open the strong sun made its way to my breast and presently I felt a totally new sensation there. I had discovered the last joy of the skin. My skin, fed by healthy fruit-made blood, must have functioned normally under the excitation of the sun just then (for a brief s.p.a.ce only, alas!). I cannot describe the joy, any more than I could describe the taste of a peach to one who has only eaten apples: it was satisfying, divine. I opened my s.h.i.+rt wider, but the feeling only spread faintly, and indeed this halcyon sunny hour terminated in a restlessness that sent me walking into town to look for A.

At last I heard, not of A., but of Miss T. She was in a ballet. I went round during rehearsal and while waiting entered into conversation with a little chorus girl with a good face, who was sewing. On my telling her whom I was seeking she stopped sewing and looked at me quickly: "Oh, are you her husband? I know her. I have seen them together." She looked as if she were going to tell me something, but merely shook her old-fas.h.i.+oned head in a mournful, indescribable way, saying "Why don't you keep your wife with you?" I went to the door and presently saw Miss T. She tried to avoid me, I thought, and looked more vicious than ever, but after a minute's thought reluctantly told me where she and A. were staying. To hide my fears and suspicions I had a.s.sumed a careless demeanor, but I think I should have strangled her had she refused to tell me. I hastily went to the place indicated and going up the stairs (to the astonishment of the people) opened the door and found myself face to face with A.-but how changed! She had the hard, harlot, loveless look I detested. I felt for a few minutes that I did not love her, and she regarded me coldly too, but presently old habits reinstated themselves. She put out her hands, very pitiably, and then was sobbing in my arms. I could get nothing out of her but sobs, and to this day do not know where she spent all these weeks nor why she did not write. Miss T. came in after rehearsal, pale and hard-faced. I greeted her politely, but was watching her, trying to puzzle out why A. did not look as she usually did after long absence from coition. Miss T. took another room in the same house and was soon joined by another ballet girl, young and very pretty, who soon began to have fits. A. was always crying until Miss T. went away with her pretty friend. I knew nothing, could hardly be said to suspect anything definite, and yet I pitied that pretty girl whose eyes looked so helpless and appealing.

I set to work again. But I continued to live on fruit and bread, and taking off my clothes I would stand up at the window in the sun. A lot of prost.i.tutes, however, who lived at the back saw me and were scandalized or shocked or thought me mad. The landlady heard of it and spoke to A. So I had to desist from my glorious sun-baths.

We slept on a single bed, and though I did my best to avoid coitus (I wanted to wait and think out some theory of it), A., who knew nothing of this, wanted to resume our old habits, and finally I surrendered. But my sufferings next day were intense, and I had the sense of having fallen from some high estate. My thoughts were divided between two theories: one that our misery was caused by our diet, more or less; the other that we had fallen into some error as regards coitus, and this was becoming almost a certainty with me.

There is one incident I think worthy of note which happened before the "fall" just mentioned and when I was living on fruit and in splendid health. At a performance I saw a girl on the stage with handsome legs in tights, and once as she straightened her leg the knee-cap going into position gave me such a strange and keen joy-of that quality I call divine or musical-that I was like one suddenly awakened to the divinity and beauty of the female form. The joy was so keen and yet peaceful, familiar, and subjective that I could not help comparing it to a happy chemical change in the tissues of my own brain. Like the unexpected functioning of my skin in the sun it was a sign of a partial return to a normal condition, another glimpse of Paradise.

I stuck to my new diet and gained a fresh elation and joy in life. Gradually clothes became insupportable, and I went down to the beach as often as possible to take them off, and at nights, beside the patient and astonished A., I would lie naked. One evening, pa.s.sing some gra.s.s, I looked over the fence like a gipsy and felt a longing to take off my clothes and sleep in the gra.s.s all night. It was of course impossible. And A. looked unhappily in my face; she began to think her mother, who now thought I was mad, must be right.

That night I woke up and found myself having coition. I was angry and felt I had been put back in my progress, but a fever of l.u.s.t now came over me. I would sit under the tap and let the cold water run over me to conquer the fever, but at the end of a week my hopes were frustrated and I even turned against my natural diet, on which I had made flesh. A., as I expected, went through her usual fits, and slowly recovered. (If we had connection only once she in about three weeks had a mild attack of fits; if we had coition more than once the fits were more severe.) I relapsed more than once and as a means of impressing my resolution for future abstinence I would walk for miles in the middle of pitch-black nights....

Miss T. came over to Adelaide and as I knew nothing definite against her and heard that she was engaged, I thought perhaps my suspicions were unfounded and was friendly. But one day in town I saw her and A. on a tram going out to our cottage. Even then my suspicions might not have been awakened, but I saw Miss T. say something rapidly to A., and A. called out to me, "Will you be coming home soon?" And I answered "No." When the tram had gone on I found myself vaguely wondering what Miss T. wanted to know that for, for my perceptions were becoming acute enough to understand women's ways. In another minute I was walking rapidly home. When I came to the door it was locked. I knocked and knocked and no one came. I called out and threatened to kick in the door. Still no one came. Mad with rage I commenced to put my threat into execution, when the door was opened by Miss T., half-naked, in her petticoats, and pale as death, but no longer defiant. "So I've caught you, have I?" I looked, but could not trust myself to speak. Wondering why A. did not appear I went into the bedroom. She was lying on the bed, just as Miss T. had left her, on the verge of a fit, and on seeing me she held out her hands piteously, and when I stooped over her she whispered, "Send her away, send her away." Then she became unconscious and going into the next room I ordered Miss T. (who had managed to scramble on her dress) out of the house. I spoke scornfully as if addressing a dog, and she slinked out with a malignant but cowed look I hope never to see on a woman's face again. What they had been doing with their clothes off I do not know; women will rather die than confess. When A. had recovered from her fit she denied that there had been anything between them, and stuck to it doggedly, but with such a forlorn look I had not the heart to prosecute my inquiries.

For my part, all the efforts I had been making for so long seemed for a time to be in vain; for some weeks I sank into a sort of satyriasis, and even my anger against Miss T. turned to a prurient curiosity. At the same time I was not always able to adhere to my diet. But both as regards coition and diet I was still fighting, and on the whole successfully. My fits of temper, however, were excessive and my ennui became gloomy despair. One day I blasphemed on crossing the Park and spoke contemptuously of "G.o.d and his twopenny ha'penny revolving b.a.l.l.s," referring to the planetary system. But for long walks I should have gone mad. A. was drinking in the intervals of her fits. I found half-empty bottles of wine hidden away. This did not improve my temper, and one day-this was when she was well and up-I struck her a heavy blow on the face, and she aimed a gla.s.s decanter at me. She went home to her mother and I lived alone in the cottage. I heard soon afterwards that her husband had come back and that they had made it up. Our parting was not, however, destined to be final.

Even out of that month's sufferings I made capital. I was better after my tendency to lubricity, my gloom, rage, restlessness and degradation. They had been but the irritations of convalescence.