He had his first child nine months after, less a week; just two hundred and sixty days after the ball, the happy finish to which I have described.
ON THE SEAT OF A CLOSE-STOOL, OR THE CAPRICES OF NATURE
Madame Celeste de Congey having sent me an invitation to a banquet which she was giving for some friends, I went without any pressing.
I found her beautifully attired in a very low-cut dress. Two lovely globes half peeping from her corsage caused the dowagers to raise their eyebrows. Matters were made much worse by Celeste happening to burst into a fit of laughter whilst drinking. The glass of sherry would not go down. The fair one coughed; in the effort caused by this confounded cough, her left bosom burst its barrier and sprang from its prison.
She replaced it leisurely, showing no concern, all the while examining from the corner of her eye the effect which the sight of her charms had produced on the male portion of her guests.
She noticed-the rogue-that the person most disturbed was myself.
O nature, nature! Capricious in thy designs, thou hast placed the heart nigh to the stomach; hence the emotion of the one precipitates the course of the other. Thus it happened with me. Towards the close of the evening I was obliged to “seek fortune,” and slipping down the length of a sombre corridor, I discovered a dark closet which appeared to me to be a wardrobe. It was pervaded by the odour of jasmine, usual in these retreats. I entered, and groping about encountered a night-chair. Necessity has no law.
Suddenly, just as I was finishing my business, the sound of a light footfall and the froufrou of silk made themselves heard in the passage. Someone pushed open the door and came in. I did not stir.
The lady-for it was one-knew well where the night-chair was placed. She took her measures accordingly, and approaching backwards where I was seated, raised her petticoats, which enveloped me like a dark cloud. And two buttocks of full rondeur and plumpness, satiny in sheen, and grateful in warmth, sank down on me, deeming themselves gracing a different throne.
“Ah! Rescue! Horror! What is it? A man!”
The unfortunate part was that whilst all this was passing she had begun to make water. A burning flood inundated my thighs.
“Help! A man!”
“Madame, in the name of heaven, do not cry out!”
“A man!”
As though she needed to hear my voice to know that it was with a man she had committed herself. An unmistakeable sign told her that plainly enough. The mark of my sex agitated itself beneath her.
“Sir!”
She was pissing all the while.
My arms encircled this magnificent backside, my two hands were crossed on her rebounding stomach.
“Sir, sir, who are you?”
“I am your neighbour at table.”
And my hand-
“Sir! Here-and doing what you are doing!”
“It is you who are doing-I have finished.”
And a certain pendulum forced its way under the noble and puissant postface of the lady.
“Here!” she repeated. “You are a pig! You smell abominably. Pouah, sir. Insolent! Would you presume? He is entering! Fie! But it is disgusting. Ah, ah!”
She ejaculated, she pissed. How delightful and how atrocious!
“It was you, Richard! It was you!” she said to me. “On a night-chair. I never dare look you in the face again. However can we withdraw from this place now?”
“It is indispensable, my dear, that you raise yourself first, and allow me-”
“To wipe yourself. Pouah! Hold, there is in the corner a jug of clean water. As for myself, I will go to my room and cleanse myself in the wash-hand basin.”
“But it is I who received everything!”
The fact is that this dear Celeste had put me, by making water over me, in such a state that it was impossible for me to return to the drawing room.
I should say that this wardrobe was Madame de Congey's back dressing room, and that it communicated with her chamber. I rejoined the fair one there, after having plunged myself into the water jug. She helped me to strip off all my clothes, which we put in front of the hearth to dry, whilst we recommenced our joyance.
Thus began my amours with Celeste de Congey.
THE STRAWBERRY
You have slept enough, pretty one. The sky is clear, the morning air fresh, the birds chirping amid the budding foliage; put on your white dress, dearest, and let us take a trip to the wood!”
Laurette gladly consented; we took the train, got out at Sevres station, and climbed up to the forest.
Arrived under its shade, certain of being alone and unnoticed, we rested ourselves for a while. Laurette offered me her mouth. I took one kiss, two kisses, ten kisses. But she seemed preoccupied. Following her glance, I perceived a sparkling stream which trickled through the herbage and formed a small natural basin surrounded by great clumps of daisies. I comprehended my mistress's longing, and drew her towards the spring. She paddled in the water. I wanted to sprinkle her all over with it.
Afterwards we plunged deep into the wood. At the side of the path I saw some eglantines in flower. I said to my pet, “Laurette, look at these eglantines. If I were a poet I should compare them to the nipples of your breast.”
“Oh!” said she, “they are not so rosy.”
“Indeed they are.”
“I wager they are not.”
My faith, I opened her corsage and compared them. It was I who was in the right.
A little later, Laurette saw some strawberries. She went into the midst of the brambles to pick them, and when she had got her hands full, ate them delightedly. I appealed for my share of the feast; she invited me to take it from her mouth.
Our lips chased each other, and mingled, besmeared with this ruddy and perfumed juice. However, this game could not but lead us to another. Laurette began to roll the whites of her eyes. I speedily divined this language. “Ah, well,” I murmured softly to her, “lie down, then, on the grass.”
When she had lain down, I raised her dress and her white petticoats. She said not a word, did not budge, and held her two thighs tightly pressed together. I commenced tapping on her firm and full stomach, saying,
“Toe, toe! Open, my lady.”
Laurette's two thighs opened themselves sweetly.
“Good morning, the other little mouth,” I said. “Ah, Laurette! If we were to make it also eat strawberries?”
“Put one in, then, with the tip of your finger,” she sighed, “and let us try.”
“Not so silly!” I cried. “It is with the tip of my tongue that I shall put it in.”
I did as I had said. I pushed the strawberry in with the tip of my tongue. Laurette, swooning, said to me, “Push! push again. Ah, Richard! Ah! How amusing! What a merry way of eating strawberries!”
Such were my amours then. I was twenty years old. My heart still rejoices at the remembrance of these simple pleasures and this happy day. O truth! O nature!
HELP FOR THE WIDOWS
It was in the town of Moulins. Imagine a sombre habitation at the bottom of a court, a double-bedded room fit for a commercial traveller and his dog, and communicating by a wooden bridge with another part of the building, which was let privately and which did not make part of the hotel. For the scene takes place in an hotel. My friend Calprenede and I arrived at Moulins; someone pointed out to us the Golden Cock. We went there without hesitation. Not a room, nothing but this paltry little hole; it happened to be a feast day in the town. We were bound to put up with our cockloft, and you are going to see whether we had any reason in the end to be dissatisfied.
Securely installed, we set ourselves to make the acquaintance of the inhabitants. The bridge appeared to our astounded eyes; it was divided in the middle by a barrier. Night was falling. Calprenede, perceiving a light on the other side, and curious to know whether it did not burn in the chamber of some fair one, shook the obstacle, which gave way. We went forward, screened by the darkness, and through an open window the following dialogue reached our ears.