As I looked upon these dancing, restless shadows, I saw a myriad of fiery, snake-like elves gliding to and fro through them, winking and beckoning to me as they twirled and they rolled, luring me down to rest in those Lethean waters.
They were right. Rest must be found below those dark arches, on the soft, slushy sand of that swirling river.
How deep and fathomless those waters seemed! Veiled as they were by the mist, they had all the attraction of the abyss. Why should I not seek there that balm of forgetfulness which alone could ease my aching head, could calm my burning breast?
Why?
Was it because the Almighty had fixed His canon against self-slaughter?
How, when, and where?
With His fiery finger, when He made that coup de theatre on Mount Sinai?
If so, why was He tempting me beyond my strength?
Would any father induce a beloved child to disobey him, simply to have the pleasure of chastising him afterwards? Would any man deflower his own daughter, not out of lust, but only to taunt her with her incontinence? Surely, if such a man ever lived, he was after Jehovah's own image.
No, life is only worth living as long as it is pleasant. To me, just then, it was a burden. The passion I had tried to stifle, and which was merely smouldering, had burst out with renewed strength, entirely mastering me. That crime could therefore only be overcome by another. In my case suicide was not only allowable, but laudable - nay, heroic.
What did the Gospel say? 'If thine eye...' and so forth.
All these thoughts whirled through my mind like little fiery snakes. Before me in the mist, Teleny - like a vaporous angel of light - seemed to be quickly gazing at me with his deep, sad, and thoughtful eyes; below, the rushing waters had for me a siren's sweet, enticing voice.
I felt my brain reeling. I was losing my senses. I cursed this beautiful world of ours - this paradise, that man has turned into a hell. I cursed this narrow-minded society of ours, that only thrives upon hypocrisy. I cursed our blighting religion, that lays its veto upon all the pleasures of the senses.
I was already climbing on the parapet, decided to seek forgetfulness in those Stygian waters, when two strong arms clasped me tightly and held me fast.
- It was Teleny?
- It was.
'Camille, my love, my soul, are you mad?' said he, in a stifled, panting voice.
Was I dreaming - was it he? Teleny? Was he my guardian angel or a tempting demon? Had I gone quite mad?
All these thoughts chased one another, and left me bewildered. Still, after a moment, I understood that I was neither mad nor dreaming. It was Teleny in flesh and blood, for I felt him against me as we were closely clasped in each other's arms. I had wakened to life from a horrible nightmare.
The strain my nerves had undergone, and the utter faintness that followed, together with his powerful embrace, made me feel as if our two bodies clinging closely together had amalgamated or melted into a single one.
A most peculiar sensation came over me at this moment. As my hands wandered over his head, his neck, his shoulders, his arms, I could not feel him at all; in fact, it seemed to me as if I were touching my own body. Our burning foreheads were pressed against each other, and his swollen and throbbing veins seemed my own fluttering pulses.
Instinctively, and without seeking each other, our mouths united by a common consent. We did not kiss, but our breath gave life to our two beings.
I remained vaguely unconscious for some time, feeling my strength ebb slowly away, leaving but vitality enough to know that I was yet alive.
All at once I felt a mighty shock from head to foot; there was a reflux from the heart to the brain. Every nerve in my body was tingling; all my skin seemed pricked with the points of sharp needles. Our mouths which had withdrawn now clung again to each other with newly-awakened lust. Our lips - clearly seeking to engraft themselves together - pressed and rubbed with such passionate strength that the blood began to ooze from them - nay, it seemed as if this fluid, rushing up from our two hearts, was bent upon mingling together to celebrate in that auspicious moment the old hymeneal rites of nations - the marriage of two bodies, not by the communion of emblematic wine but of blood itself.
We thus remained for some time in a state of overpowering delirium, feeling, every instant, a more rapturous, maddening pleasure in each other's kisses, which kept goading us on to madness by increasing that heat which they could not allay, and by stimulating that hunger they could not appease.
The very quintessence of love was in these kisses. All that was excellent in us - the essential part of our beings - kept rising and evaporating from our lips like the fumes of an ethereal, intoxicating, ambrosial fluid.
Nature, hushed and silent, seemed to hold her breath to look upon us, for such ecstasy of bliss had seldom, if ever, been felt here below. I was subdued, prostrated, shattered. The earth was spinning round me, sinking under my feet. I had no longer strength enough to stand. I felt sick and faint. Was I dying? If so, death must be the happiest moment of our life, for such rapturous joy could never be felt again.
How long did I remain senseless? I cannot tell. All I know is that I awoke in the midst of a whirlwind, hearing the rushing of waters around me. Little by little I came back to consciousness. I tried to free myself from his grasp.
'Leave me! Leave me alone! Why did you not let me die? This world is hateful to me, why should I drag on a life I loathe?'
'Why? For my sake.' Thereupon he whispered softly, in that unknown tongue of his, some magic words which seemed to sink into my soul. Then he added, 'Nature has formed us for each other; why withstand her? I can only find happiness in your love, and in yours alone; it is not only my heart but my soul that panteth for yours.'
With an effort of my whole being I pushed him away from me, and staggered back.
'No, no!' I cried, 'do not tempt me beyond my strength; let me rather die.'
'Thy will be done, but we shall die together, so that at least in death we may not be parted. There is an after-life, we may then, at least, cleave to one another like Dante's Francesca and her lover Paulo. Here,' said he, unwinding a silken scarf that he wore round his waist, 'let us bind ourselves closely together, and leap into the flood.'
I looked at him, and shuddered. So young, so beautiful, and I was thus to murder him! The vision of Antinous as I had seen it the first time he played appeared before me.
He had tied the scarf tightly round his waist, and he was about to pass it around me.
'Come.'
The die was cast. I had not the right to accept such a sacrifice from him.
'No,' quoth I, 'let us live.'
'Live,' added he, 'and then?'
He did not speak for some moments, as if waiting for a reply to that question which had not been framed in words. In answer to his mute appeal I stretched out my hands towards him. He - as if frightened that I should escape him - hugged me tightly with all the strength of irrepressible desire.
'I love you!' he whispered, 'I love you madly! I cannot live without you any longer.'
'Nor can I,' said I, faintly; 'I have struggled against my passion in vain, and now I yield to it, not tamely, but eagerly, gladly. I am yours, Teleny! Happy to be yours, yours for ever and yours alone!'
For all answer there was a stifled hoarse cry from his innermost breast; his eyes were lighted up with a flash of fire; his craving amounted to rage; it was that of the wild beast seizing his prey; that of the lonely male finding at last a mate. Still his intense eagerness was more than that; it was also a soul issuing forth to meet another soul. It was a longing of the senses, and a mad intoxication of the brain.
Could this burning, unquenchable fire that consumed our bodies be called lust? We clung as hungrily to one another as the famished animal does when it fastens on the food it devours; and as we kissed each other with ever-increasing greed, my fingers were feeling his curly hair, or paddling the soft skin of his neck. Our legs being clasped together, his phallus,
in strong erection, was rubbing against mine no less stiff and stark. We were, however, always shifting our position, so as to get every part of our bodies in as close a contact as possible; and thus feeling, clasping, hugging, kissing, and biting each other, we must have looked, on that bridge amidst the thickening fog, like two damned souls suffering eternal torment.
The hand of Time had stopped; and I think we should have continued goading each other in our mad desire until we had quite lost our senses - for we were both on the verge of madness - had we not been stopped by a trifling incident.
A belated cab - wearied with the day's toil - was slowly trudging its way homeward. The driver was sleeping on his box; the poor, broken-down jade, with its head drooping almost between its knees, was likewise slumbering - dreaming, perhaps, of unbroken rest, of new-mown hay, of the fresh and flowery pastures of its youth; even the slow rumbling of the wheels had a sleepy, purring, snoring sound in its irksome sameness.
'Come home with me,' said Teleny, in a low, nervous, and trembling voice; 'come and sleep with me,' added he, in the soft, hushed, and pleading tone of the lover who would fain be understood without words.
I pressed his hands for all answer.
'Will you come?'
'Yes,' I whispered, almost inaudibly.
This low, hardly articulate sound was the hot breath of vehement desire; this lisped monosyllable was the willing consent to his eagerest wish.
Then he hailed the passing cab, but it was some moments before the driver could be awakened and made to understand what we wanted of him.
As I stepped in the vehicle, my first thought was that in a few minutes Teleny would belong to me. This thought acted upon my nerves as an electric current, making me shiver from head to foot.
My lips had to articulate the words, 'Teleny will be mine,' for me to believe it. He seemed to hear the noiseless movement of my lips, for he clasped my head between his hands, and kissed me again and again.
Then, as if feeling a pang of remorse - 'You do not repent, do you?' he asked.
'How can I?'
'And you will be mine - mine alone?'
'I never was any other man's nor ever shall be.'
'You will love me for ever?'
'And ever.'
'This will be our oath and our act of possession,' added he. Thereupon he put his arms around me and clasped me to his breast. I entwined my arms round him. By the glimmering, dim light of the cab-lamps I saw his eyes kindle with the fire of madness. His lips - parched with the thirst of long-suppressed desire, with the pent-up craving of possession - pouted towards mine with a painful expression of dull suffering. We were again sucking up each other's being in a kiss - a kiss more intense, if possible, than the former one. What a kiss that was!
The flesh, the blood, the brain, and that undefined subtler part of our being seemed all to melt together in an ineffable embrace.
A kiss is something more than the first sensual contact of two bodies; it is the breathing forth of two enamoured souls.
But a criminal kiss long withstood and fought against, and therefore long yearned after, is beyond this; it is as luscious as forbidden fruit; it is a glowing coal set upon the lips; a fiery brand that burns deep, and changes the blood into molten lead or scalding quicksilver.
Teleny's kiss was really galvanic, for I could taste its sapidity upon my palate. Was an oath needed, when we had given ourselves to one another with such a kiss? An oath is a lip-promise which can be, and is, often forgotten. Such a kiss follows you to the grave.
Whilst our lips clung together, his hand slowly, imperceptibly, unbuttoned my trousers, and stealthily slipped within the aperture, turning every obstacle in its way instinctively aside, then it lay hold of my hard, stiff and aching phallus which was glowing like a burning coal.
This grasp was as soft as a child's, as expert as a whore's, as strong as a fencer's. He had hardly touched me than I remembered the countess' words.
Some people, as we all know, are more magnetic than others. Moreover, whilst some attract, others repel us. Teleny had - for me, at least - a supple, mesmeric, pleasure-giving fluid in his fingers. Nay, the simple contact of his skin thrilled me with delight.
My own hand hesitatingly followed the lead his had given, and I must confess the pleasure I felt in paddling him was really delightful.
Our fingers hardly moved the skin of the penis; but our nerves were so strained, our excitement had reached such a pitch, and the seminal ducts were so full, that we felt them overflowing. There was, for a moment, an intense pain, somewhere about the root of the penis - or rather, within the very core and centre of the reins, after which the sap of life began to move slowly, slowly, from within the seminal glands; it mounted up the bulb of the urethra, and up the narrow column, somewhat like mercury within the tube of a thermometer - or rather, like the scalding and scathing lava within the crater of a volcano.
It finally reached the apex; then the slit gaped, the tiny lips parted, and the pearly, creamy viscous fluid oozed out - not all at once in a gushing jet, but at intervals, and in huge, burning tears.
At every drop that escaped out of the body, a creepy almost unbearable feeling started from the tips of the fingers, from the ends of the toes, especially from the innermost cells of the brain; the marrow in the spine and within all the bones seemed to melt; and when the different currents - either coursing with the blood or running rapidly up the nervous fibres - met within the phallus (that small instrument made out of muscles and blood-vessels) a tremendous shock took place; a convulsion which annihilated both mind and matter, a quivering delight which everyone has felt, to a greater or less degree - often a thrill almost too intense to be pleasurable.
Pressed against each other, all we could do was to try and smother our groans as the fiery drops slowly followed one another.
The prostration which followed the excessive strain of the nerves had set in, when the carriage stopped before the door of Teleny's house - that door at which I had madly struck with my fist a short time before.
We dragged ourselves wearily out of the carriage, but hardly had the portal shut itself upon us than we were again kissing and fondling each other with renewed energy.
After some moments, feeling that our desire was too powerful to be withstood any longer: 'Come,' said he, 'why should we linger any longer, and waste precious time here in the darkness and in the cold?'
'Is it dark and is it cold?' was my reply.
He kissed me fondly.
'In the gloom you are my light; in the cold you are my fire; the frozen wastes of the Pole would be a Garden of Eden for me, if you were there,' I continued.
We then groped our way upstairs in the dark, for I would not allow him to light a wax match. I therefore went along, stumbling against him; not that I could not see, but because I was intoxicated with male desire as a drunken man is with wine.
Soon we were in his apartment. When we found ourselves in the small, dimly-lighted antechamber, he opened his arms and stretched them out towards me.
'Welcome!' said he. 'May this home be ever thine?' Then he added, in a low tone, in that unknown, musical tongue, 'My body hungereth for thee, soul of my soul, life of my life!'
He had barely finished these words before we were lovingly caressing each other.
After thus fondling each other for a few moments - 'Do you know,' said he, 'that I have been expecting you today?'
'Expecting me?'
'Yes, I knew that sooner or later you would be mine. Moreover, I felt that you would be coming today.'
'How so?'
'I had a presentiment.'
'And had I not come?'
'I should have done what you were going to do when I met you, for life without you would have been unbearable.'
'What! drowned yourself!'
'No, not exactly: the river is too cold and bleak, I am too much of a Sybarite for that. No, I should simply have put myself to sleep - the eternal slumber of death, dreaming of you, in this r
oom prepared to receive you, and where no man has ever set his foot.'
Saying these words he opened the door of a small chamber, and ushered me into it. A strong, overpowering smell of white heliotrope first greeted my nostrils.
It was a most peculiar room, the walls of which were covered over with some warm, white, soft, quilted stuff, studded all over with frosted silver buttons; the floor was covered with the curly white fleece of young lambs; in the middle of the apartment stood a capacious couch, on which was thrown the skin of a huge polar bear. Over this single piece of furniture, an old silver lamp - evidently from some Byzantine church or some Eastern synagogue - shed a pale glimmering light, sufficient, however, to light up the dazzling whiteness of this temple of Priapus whose voteries we were.
'I know,' said he, as he dragged me in, 'I know that white is your favourite colour, that it suits your dark complexion, so it has been fitted up for you and you alone. No other mortal shall ever set his foot in it.'
Uttering these words, he in a trice stripped me deftly of all my clothes - for I was in his hands like a slumbering child, or a man in a trance.
In an instant I was not only stark naked, but stretched on the bear-skin, whilst he, standing in front of me, was gloating upon me with famished eyes.
I felt his glances greedily fall everywhere; they sank in my brain, and my head began to swim; they pierced through my heart, whipping my blood up, making it flow quicker and hotter through all the arteries; they darted within my veins, and Priapus unhooded itself and lifted up its head violently so that all the tangled web of veins in its body seemed ready to burst.
Then he felt me with his hands everywhere, after which he began to press his lips on every part of my body, showering kisses on my breast, my arms, my legs, my thighs, and then, when he had reached my middle parts, he pressed his face rapturously on the thick and curly hair that grows there so plentifully.
He shivered with delight as he felt the crisp locks upon his cheek and neck; then, taking hold of my phallus, he pressed his lips upon it. That seemed to electrify him; and then the tip and afterwards the whole glans disappeared within his mouth.
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