by Frank Harris
She was very kind to me and we got on together at once. She was lonely, I suppose, and I began well by telling her she was the prettiest girl in the whole place and the finest. She translated finest, I remember, as la plus chic. The next half-holiday Edwards went into the house for something. I told her I wanted a kiss, and she said: «You're only a boy, mals gentil,» and she kissed me. When my lips dwelt on hers, she took my head in her hands, pushed it away and looked at me with surprise. «You are a strange boy,» she said musingly. The next holiday I spent at the vicarage. I gave her a little French love letter I had copied from a book in the school library, and I was delighted when she read it and nodded at me, smiling, and tucked it away in her bodice. «Near her heart,» I said to myself, but I had no chance even for a kiss, for Edwards always hung about. But late one afternoon he was called away by his mother for something and my opportunity came. We usually sat in a sort of rustic summerhouse in the garden. This afternoon Lucille was seated, leaning back in an armchair right in front of the door, for the day was sultry-close, and when Edwards went, I threw myself on the doorstep at her feet: her dress clung to her form, revealing the outlines of her thighs and breasts seductively. I was wild with excitement. Suddenly I noticed her legs were apart; I could see her slim ankles. Pulses awoke throbbing in my forehead and throat: I begged for a kiss and got on my knees to take it: she gave me one; but when I persisted, she repulsed me, saying: «Non, non! Sois sage!»
As I returned to my seat reluctantly, the thought came, «Put your hand up her clothes»; I felt sure I could reach her sex. She was seated on the edge of the chair and leaning back. The mere idea shook and scared me: but what can she do, I thought: she can only get angry.
I thought again of all possible consequences: the example with E… came to encourage and hearten me. I leaned round and knelt in front of her, smiling, begging for a kiss, and as she smiled in return, I put my hand boldly right up her clothes on her sex. I felt the soft hairs and the form of it in breathless ecstasy; but I scarcely held it when she sprang upright. «How dare you?» she cried, trying to push my hand away. My sensations were too overpowering for words or act; my life was in my fingers; I held her cunt. A moment later I tried to touch her gently with my middle finger as I had touched E…: 'twas a mistake: I no longer held her sex and at once Lucille whirled round and was free. «I have a good mind to strike you,» she cried.
«I'll tell Mrs. Edwards,» she snorted indignantly. «You're a bad, bad boy and I thought you nice. I'll never be kind to you again: I hate you!» She fairly stamped with anger. I went to her, my whole being one prayer. «Don't spoil it all,» I cried. «You hurt so when you are angry, dear.» She turned to me hotly. «I'm really angry, angry,» she panted, «and you're a hateful rude boy and I don't like you any more,» and she turned away again, shaking her dress straight.
«Oh, how could I help it?» I began. «You're so pretty, oh, you are wonderful, Lucille!» «Wonderful,» she repeated, sniffing disdainfully, but I saw she was mollified. «Kiss me,» I pleaded,
«and don't be cross.» «I'll never kiss you again,» she replied quickly; «you can be sure of that.» I went on begging, praising, pleading for ever so long, till at length she took my head in her hands, saying: «If you'll promise never to do that again, never, I'll give you a kiss and try to forgive you.» «I can't promise,»
I said, «it was too sweet; but kiss me and I'll try to be good.»
She kissed me a quick peck and pushed me away. «Didn't you like it?» I whispered, «I did awfully. I can't tell you how I thrilled: oh, thank you, Lucille, thank you, you are the sweetest girl in the world, and I shall always be grateful to you, you dear!»
She looked down at me musingly, thoughtfully; I felt I was gaining ground. «You are lovely there,» I ventured in a whisper.
«Please dear, what do you call it? I saw chat once: is that right, 'pussy?'» «Don't talk of it,» she cried impatiently. «I hate to think-» «Be kind, Lucille,» I pleaded. «You'll never be the same to me again: you were pretty before, chic and provoking, but now you're sacred. I don't love you, I adore you, reverence you, darling!
May I say 'pussy?'» «You're a strange boy,» she said at length,
«but you must never do that again; it's nasty and I don't like it. I-»
«Don't say such things!» I cried, pretending indignation. «You don't know what you're saying-nasty! Look, I'll kiss the fingers that have touched your pussy,» and I suited the action to the word.
«Oh, don't,» she cried and caught my hand in hers, «don't!» But somehow she leaned against me at the same time and left her lips on mine. Bit by bit my right hand went down to her sex again, this time on the outside of her dress, but at once she tore herself away and would not let me come near her again. My insane desire had again made me blunder. Yet she had half yielded, I knew, and that consciousness set me thrilling with triumph and hope, but alas! at that moment we heard Edwards shout to us as he left the house to rejoin us. This experience had two immediate and unlooked for consequences: first of all, I could not sleep that night for thinking of Lucille's sex. When I fell asleep I dreamed of Lucille, dreamed that she had yielded to me and I was pushing my sex into hers; but there was some obstacle and while I was pushing, pushing, my seed spirted in an orgasm of pleasure-and at once I awoke and putting down my hand, found that I was still coming: the sticky, hot, milk-like sperm was all over my hairs and prick. I got up and washed and returned to bed; the cold water had quieted me; but soon by thinking of Lucille and her soft, hot, hairy «pussy,» I grew randy again and in this state fell asleep. Again I dreamed of Lucille and again I was trying, trying in vain to get into her when again the spasm of pleasure overtook me; I felt my seed spurting hot and-I awoke. But lo! when I put my hand down, there was no seed, only a little moisture just at the head of my sex-nothing more. Did it mean that I could only give forth seed once?
I tested myself at once; while picturing Lucille's sex, its soft hot roundness and hairs, I caressed my sex, moving my hand faster up and down till soon I brought on the orgasm of pleasure and felt distinctly the hot thrills as if my seed were spurting, but nothing came, hardly even the moisture. Next morning I tested myself at the high jump and found I couldn't clear the bar at an inch lower than usual. I didn't know what to do: why had I indulged so foolishly? But next night the dream of Lucille came back again, and again I awoke after an acute spasm of pleasure, all wet with my own seed. What was I to do? I got up and washed and put cold water in a sponge on my testicles and all chilled crawled back into bed. But imagination was master. Time and again the dream came and awakened me. In the morning I felt exhausted, and washed-out and needed no test to assure me that I was physically below par. That same afternoon I picked up by chance a little piece of whipcord and at once it occurred to me that if I tied this hard cord around my penis, as soon as the organ began to swell and stiffen in excitement, the cord would grow tight and awake me with the pain. That night I tied up Tommy and gave myself up to thoughts of Lucille's private parts: as soon as my sex stood and grew stiff, the whipcord hurt dreadfully and I had to apply cold water at once to reduce my unruly member to ordinary proportions. I returned to bed and went to sleep: I had a short sweet dream of Lucille's beauties, but then awoke in agony. I got up quickly and sat on the cold marble slab of the washstand. That acted more speedily than even the cold water: why? I didn't learn the reason for many a year.
The cord was effective, did all I wanted: after this experience I wore it regularly and within a week was again able to walk under the bar and afterwards jump it, able to pull myself up with one hand till my chin was above the bar. I had conquered temptation and once more was captain of my body. The second unsuspected experience was also a direct result, I believe, of my sex awakening with Lucille and the intense sex-excitement. At all events it came just after the love passages with her that I have described and post hoc is often propter hoc. I had never yet noticed the beauties of nature; indeed, whenever I came across descriptions of scenery In my reading
, I always skipped them as wearisome. Now of a sudden, in a moment, my eyes were unsealed to natural beauties. I remember the scene and my rapt wonder as if it were yesterday. It was a bridge across the Dee near Overton in full sunshine; on my right the river made a long curve, swirling deep under a wooded height, leaving a little tawny sand bank half bare just opposite to me: on my left both banks, thickly wooded, drew together and passed round a curve out of sight. I was entranced and speechless-enchanted by the sheer color-beauty of the scene-sunlit water there and shadowed here, reflecting the gorgeous vesture of the wooded height. And when I left the place and came out again and looked at the adjoining cornfields, golden against the green of the hedgerows and scattered trees, the colors took on a charm I had never noticed before: I could not understand what had happened to me. It was the awakening of sex-life in me, I believe, that first revealed to me the beauty of inanimate nature. A night or two later I was ravished by a moon nearly at the full that flooded our playing field with ivory radiance, making the haystack in the corner a thing of supernal beauty. Why had I never before seen the wonder of the world, the sheer loveliness of nature all about me? From this time on I began to enjoy descriptions of scenery in the books I read, and began, too, to love landscapes in painting. Thank goodness! the miracle was accomplished, at long last, and my life enriched, ennobled, transfigured as by the bounty of God! From that day on I began to live an enchanted life, for at once I tried to see beauty everywhere and at all times of day and night caught glimpses that ravished me with delight and turned my being into a hymn of praise and joy. Faith had left me, and with faith, hope in heaven or indeed in any future existence: saddened and fearful, I was as one in prison with an undetermined sentence; but now in a moment the prison had become a paradise, the walls of the actual had fallen away into frames of entrancing pictures. Dimly I became conscious that if this life were sordid and mean, petty and unpleasant, the fault was in myself and in my blindness. I began then for the first time to understand that I myself was a magician and could create my own fairyland, ay, and my own heaven, transforming this world into the throne-room of a god! This joy and this belief I want to impart to others more than almost anything else, for this has been to me a new Gospel of courage and resolve and certain reward, a man's creed teaching that as you grow in wisdom and courage and kindness, all good things are added unto you. I find that I am outrunning my story and giving here a stage of thought and belief that only became mine much later; but the beginning of my individual soul-life was this experience, that I had been blind to natural beauty and now could see; this was the root and germ, so to speak, of the later faith that guided all my mature life, filling me with courage and spilling over into hope and joy ineffable.
Very soon the first command of it came to my lips almost every hour: «Blame your own blindness! Always blame yourself!»
Chapter IV. From School to America
Early in January there was a dress rehearsal of the trial scene of The Merchant of Venice. The grandee of the neighborhood who owned the great park, Sir. W. W. W., some M. P.'s, notably a Mr. Whalley, who had a pretty daughter and lived in the vicinity, and the vicar and his family were invited, and others whom I did not know; but with the party from the vicarage came Lucille.
The big schoolroom had been arranged as a sort of theatre and the estrada at one end, where the head-master used to throne it on official occasions, was converted into a makeshift stage and draped by a big curtain that could be drawn back or forth at will. The Portia was a very handsome lad of sixteen named Herbert, gentle and kindly, yet redeemed from effeminacy by the fact that he was the fleetest sprinter in the school and could do the hundred yards in eleven and a half seconds. The Duke was, of course, Jones; and the merchant, Antonio, a big fellow named Vernon; and I had got Edwards the part of Bassanio; and a pretty boy in the fourth form was taken as Nerissa. So far as looks went the cast was passable; but the Duke recited his lines as if they had been imperfectly learned and so the trial scene opened badly. But the part of Shylock suited me intimately and I had learned how to recite. Now before E… and Lucille, I was set on doing better than my best. When my cue came, I bowed low before the Duke and then bowed again to left and right of him in silence and formally, as if I, the outcast Jew, were saluting the whole court; then in a voice that at first I simply made slow and clear and hard, I began the famous reply: I have possessed your Grace of what I purpose; And by our Holy Sabbath have I sworn To have the due and forfeit of my bond. I don't expect to be believed; but nevertheless I am telling the bare truth when I say that in my impersonation of Shylock I brought in the very piece of «business» that made Henry Irving's Shylock fifteen years later «ever memorable,» according to the papers. When at the end, baffled and beaten, Shylock gives in: I pray you, give me leave to go from hence, I am not well: send the deed after me, And I will sign it, the Duke says, «Get thee gone, but do it,» and Gratiano insults the Jew- the only occasion, I think, when Shakespeare allows the beaten to be insulted by a gentleman. On my way to the door as Shylock I stopped, bent low before the Duke's dismissal; but at Gratiano's insult, I turned slowly round, while drawing myself up to my full height and scanning him from head to foot. Irving used to return all across the stage, and folding his arms on his breast, look down on him with measureless contempt. When, fifteen years later, Irving, at the Garrick Club one night after supper asked me what I thought of this new «business,» I replied that if Shylock had done what he did, Gratiano would probably have spat in his face and then kicked him off the stage. Shylock complains that the Christians spat upon his gaberdine. My boyish, romantic reading of the part, however, was essentially the same as Irving's, and Irving's reading was cheered in London to the echo because it was a rehabilitation of the Jew; and the Jew rules the roost today in all the cities of Europe. At my first words I could feel the younger members of the audience look about as if to see if such reciting as mine was proper and permitted, then one after the other gave in to the flow and flood of passion. When I had finished everyone cheered, Whalley and Lady W… enthusiastically, and to my delight, Lucille as well. After the rehearsal, everyone crowded about me. «Where did you learn?» «Who taught you?» At length Lucille came. «I knew you were someone,» she said in her pretty way (quelqu'un), «but it was extraordinary! You'll be a great actor, I'm sure.» «And yet you deny me a kiss,» I whispered, taking care no one should hear. «I deny you nothing,» she replied, turning away, leaving me transfixed with hope and assurance of delight. «Nothing,» I said to myself, «nothing means everything»; a thousand times I said it over to myself in an ecstasy.
That was my first happy night in England. Mr. Whalley congratulated me and introduced me to his daughter, who praised me enthusiastically, and best of all, the Doctor said, «We must make you stage manager, Harris, and I hope you'll put some of your fire into the other actors.» To my astonishment my triumph did me harm with the boys. Some sneered, while all agreed that I did it to show off.
Jones and the sixth began the boycott again. I didn't mind much, for I had heavier disappointments and dearer hopes. The worst was I found it difficult to see Lucille in the bad weather; indeed, I hardly caught a glimpse of her the whole winter. Edwards asked me frequently to the vicarage; she might have made half a dozen meetings but she would not, and I was sick at heart with disappointment and the regret of unfulfilled desire. It was March or April before I was alone with her in her schoolroom at the vicarage. I was too cross with her to be more than polite. Suddenly she said: «Vous me boudez» I shrugged my shoulders. «You don't like me,» I began, «so what's the use of my caring?» «I like you a great deal,» she said, «but-» «No, no,» I said, shaking my head. «If you really liked me, you wouldn't avoid me and-» «Perhaps it's because I like you too much-»
«Then you'd make me happy,» I broke in. «Happy,» she repeated. «How can I?» «By letting me kiss you, and-» «Yes, and-» she repeated significantly. «What harm does it do you?» I asked. «What harm?» she repeated. «Don't you know it's wron
g? One should only do that with one's husband; you know that.» «I don't know anything of the sort,» I cried. «That's silly. We don't believe that today.» «I believe it,» she said gravely. «But if you didn't, you'd let me?» I cried. «Say that, Lucille. That would be almost as good, for it would show you liked me a little.» «You know I like you a great deal,» she replied. «Kiss me then,» I said. «There's no harm in that.» And when she kissed me I put my hand over her breasts; they thrilled me, they were so elastic-firm; and in a moment my hand slid down her body, but she drew away at once, quietly but with resolve. «No, no,» she said, half smiling.
«Please,» I begged. «I can't,» she said, shaking her head.
«I mustn't. Let us talk of other things. How is the play getting on?»
But I could not talk of the play as she stood there before me. For the first time I divined through her clothes nearly all the beauties of her form. The bold curves of hip and breast tantalized me and her face was expressive and defiant. How was it I had never noticed all the details before? Had I been blind? Or did Lucille dress to show off her figure? Certainly her dresses were arranged to display the form more than English dresses, but I too had become more curious, more observant. Would life go on showing me new beauties I had not even imagined? My experience with E… and Lucille made the routine of school life almost intolerable to me. I could only force myself to study by reminding myself of the necessity of winning the second prize in the mathematical scholarship, which would give me ten pounds and ten pounds would take me to America. Soon after the Christmas holidays I had taken the decisive step. The examination in winter was not nearly so important as the one that ended the summer term, but it had been epoch-making to me. My punishments having compelled me to learn two or three books of Vergil by heart and whole chapters of Caesar and Livy, I had come to some knowledge of Latin: in the examination I had beaten not only all my class, but thanks to trigonometry and Latin and history, all the two next classes as well.
