I must now tell the greatest amatory experience of my life. I had made a great deal of money with Hooley, and was besides tormented with the wish to complete at any cost my book on Shakespeare. I had done some chapters in the Saturday Review, and Shaw, among others, had praised them highly. It was and is my belief that Shakespeare has been mis-seen and misunderstood by all the commentators. Ordinary men are always accustomed to make their gods in their own image, and so the English had formed a Shakespeare who loved his wife and yet was a pederast; who had made money at his business and retired to enjoy his leisure as a country gentleman in village Stratford after living through the bitter despair of Timon, and the madness of Lear: "O, let me not be mad, Sweet Heaven… I would not be mad!"
The only particle of truth in the fancy portrait has been contributed by Tyler, who, inspired by Wordsworth's saying that in the sonnets Shakespeare "unlocked his heart," proved that the sonnets showed that Shakespeare, about 1596, had fallen in love with a maid-of-honor named Mary Fitton and had been in love with her, as he said himself about 1600, for three years. I came to Tyler's aid by proving that this episode had been dragged into three different plays of the same period, and I went on to show that this love episode had practically been the great love of Shakespeare's life, and had lasted from 1596 to 1608. I proved also that though he disliked his wife, he was perfectly normal; that his fortune rested on the gift of Lord Southampton to him of a thousand pounds when he came of age in 1596; and that so far from having increased his wealth and been a prudent husbandman, he had never cared for "rascal counters," and died leaving barely one year's income, probably after the drinking-bout of tradition, in which he had drunk perhaps a little too much, for, to use his own words, he had "poor, unhappy brains for drinking": a too highly powered ship for the frail hull! Does he not talk in The Tempest of walking to "still his beating mind"?
All this and more I wanted to set forth, but was it possible to bring such a totally new conception of Shakespeare into life, and so to prove it that it would be accepted? I hated the English climate in the winter, and so I set off in an October fog for the Riviera; and I don't know why, but I went through Nice to San Remo. At San Remo, the hotel life quickly tired me, and I went about looking for a villa. I discovered a beautiful villa with views over both the mountains and the sea and a great garden; but alas, it was for sale and not for hire, the gardener told me.
This gardener deserves a word or two of description. He was a rather small man, perhaps forty-five or fifty years of age, a slight, strong figure, with an extraordinarily handsome head, set off by quite white moustaches- the suggestion of age being completely contradicted by the clearness of the skin and the brightness of his eyes. Ten thousand pounds was wanted for the villa, but the gardener told me that if I bought it, I could always sell it for as much as I paid for it, or more. I took this assertion with a grain of salt, but the end of it was that the gardener amused me so much that I bought the villa and went to live in it.
I ordered my days at once for work and for the first week or two did work ten or twelve hours a day, but one memorable afternoon I came upon the gardener, whom I had taken into my service, reading Dante, if you please, in the garden. I had a talk with him and found that he knew not only Dante, but Ariosto, and Leopardi, and Carducci, and was a real student of Italian literature. I passed a great afternoon with him, and resolved whenever I was tired in the future to come out and talk with him.
Two or three days afterwards I was overworked again, and I went out to him and he said: "You know, when I saw you at first, I thought we should have a great time together here; that you would love life and love; and here you are writing, writing, writing, morning, noon and night-wearing yourself out without any care for beauty or for pleasure."
"I like both," I said, "but I came here to work; still, I shouldn't mind having some distractions if they were possible; but what is possible here?"
"Everything," he replied. "I have been putting myself in your place: if I were rich, wouldn't I enjoy myself in this villa!"
"What would you do?" I asked.
"Well," he said, "I would give prizes for the prettiest girls, say one hundred francs for the first; fifty francs for the second; and twenty-five as consolation prizes if five or six girls came."
"What good would that do?" I asked. "You wouldn't get young girls that way, and you certainly wouldn't get their love."
"Wouldn't I!" he cried. "First of all, in order to see who was the prettiest, they would have to strip, wouldn't they? And the girl who is once naked before you is not apt to refuse you anything."
I had come to a sort of impasse in my work; I saw that the whole assumption that Shakespeare had been a boy lover, drawn from the sonnets, was probably false, but since Hallam it was held by every one in England, and every one, too, in Germany, so prone are men always to believe the worst, especially of their betters-the great leaders of humanity.
Heinemann, the publisher, had asked me for my book on Shakespeare before I left England, but as soon as I wrote him that I was going to disprove Shakespeare's abnormal tastes, he told me that he had found every authority in England was against me and therefore he dared not publish my book. Just when I was making up my mind to set forth my conviction, came this proposal of my gardener. I had worked very hard for years on the Saturday Review and in South Africa, and I thought I deserved a little recreation; so I said to the gardener, "Go to it. I don't want any scandal, but if you can get the girls through the prizes, I will put up the money cheerfully and will invite you to play master of ceremonies."
"This is Tuesday," he said. "I think next Sunday would be about the best day."
"As you please," I replied.
One Sunday, having given a conge to my cook and waiting-maid, I walked about to await my new guests, the cook having laid out a good dejeuner with champagne on the table in the dining-room. About eleven o'clock a couple of girls fluttered in, and my gardener conducted them into two bedrooms and told them to make themselves pretty and we would all lunch at half-past twelve. In half an hour five girls were assembled. He put them all into different rooms and went from room to room, telling them that they must undress and get ready for inspection. There was much giggling and some exclamations, but apparently no revolt. In ten minutes he came to me and asked me, was I ready for inspection?
"Certainly," I said; and we went to the first room. A girl's head looked out from under the clothes: she had got into bed. But my gardener knew better than to humor her: he went over and threw down the bed clothes, and there she was completely nude. "Stand up, stand up," he said, "you are worth looking at!"
And indeed she was. Nothing loath, she stood on the bed as directed and lent herself to the examination. She was a very pretty girl of twenty or twentyone; and at length, to encourage her, he took her in his arms and kissed her. I followed suit and found her flesh perfectly firm and everything all right, except that her feet were rather dirty; whereupon my gardener said, "That's easily remedied." We promised her a prize and told her that we would return when she had washed and put on her clothes and made herself as pretty as possible; and he led me into the next room.
The girl in this one was sitting on the bed, half-undressed, but she was very slight and much younger, and evidently very much excited, because she glowered at us as if she hated us. The moment we came into the room she went for the gardener, telling him that if she had known it was required to be naked, she wouldn't have come near us. The gardener kissed her at once and told her not to be frightened, that she was pretty sure of winning a prize, and she need not undress. And we went on to the third room.
There I had one of the surprises of my life: a girl stood on the rug near the bed with the color coming and going in her cheeks; she was in her shirt, but with her dress held round her hips. She, too, said she didn't want to strip-she would rather go home.
"But nothing has happened to you," said the gardener. "Surely a couple of men to admire you isn't going to make you angry; and that frown doesn't suit your loveliness at all."
In two or three minutes the wily Italian had dissipated her anger and she began to smile, and suddenly, shrugging her shoulders, she put down the dress and then at once stood up at his request, trying to laugh. She had one of the loveliest figures and faces that I ever saw in my life. Her breasts were small, but beautifully rounded and strangely firm; her hips, too, and bottom were as firm as marble, but a little slight. Her face was lit up with a pair of great hazel eyes and her mouth, though a little large, was perfectly formed: her smile won me. I told the gardener that I didn't want to see any more girls, that I was quite content, and he encouraged me to kiss and talk to her while he went into the next room to see the next applicant.
As soon as the gardener left the room, my beauty, whose name was Flora, began questioning me: "Why do you choose me? You are the owner, aren't you?"
I could only nod. I had sense enough to say, "Partly for your beauty, but also because I like you, your ways, your courage."
"But," she went on, "real liking does not grow as quickly as that, or just by the view of a body and legs."
"Pardon me," I rejoined, "but passion, desire in a man comes first: it's for the woman to transform it into enduring affection. You like me a little because I admire and desire you; it's for me by kindness and sympathy to turn that liking into love; so kiss me and don't let us waste time arguing. Can you kiss?"
"Of course I can," she said, "every one can!"
"That's not true," I retorted. "The majority of virgins can't kiss at all, and I believe you're a virgin."
"I am," she replied; "but you'll not find many in this crowd."
"Kiss me," I went on, taking her in my arms and kissing her till I found response in hot lips. As she used her tongue, she asked roguishly, "Well, Sir, can I kiss?"
"Yes," I replied, "and now I'll kiss you," and I laid her on the bed and buried my face between her legs.
She was a virgin, I discovered, and yet peculiarly quick to respond to passion: an astonishing mistress! She didn't hide from me the fact that, like most school girls in Italy, as in France, she had been accustomed to provoke her own sensuality by listening to naughty stories and by touching herself ever since puberty. But what kept her from giving herself freely was her fear of the possible consequences. My assurances seemed to have convinced her, for suddenly she started up and danced round me in her fascinating nudity.
"Shall I have a prize?" "The first," I cried.
"Carissimo mio," and she kissed me a dozen tunes. "I'll be whatever you want and cover you with love."
Our talk had gone on for perhaps half an hour, when a knock came at the door, and the gardener came in to find us both quite happy and, I think, intimately pleased with each other. He said, "The other two you had better see or they will be disappointed, but I think you have picked the prettiest." "I am quite content," I replied, "to rest on your approval of them." But my selfwilled beauty said, "Let us go and see them; I will go with you," and we went into the next room, said a few flattering things, and went on to the fifth room, where there was a girl who said she wouldn't undress.
"At any rate," said the gardener, "the matter is settled; we can all go in and have lunch, and then my master will give the prizes."
We had a great lunch, all helping each other and ourselves, and when the champagne was opened, every one seemed to enjoy the feast infinitely. But when the prize giving came, I was ashamed, hating to give one less than the other, so I called the gardener to one side and told him my reluctance.
"Nothing easier," he said. "I have made you out to be a great English lord. Go into that bedroom on the right and I will send them in one by one. If I were you, I would give the two first prizes and I will give the consolation stakes."
"Splendid," I said, "but give me a reasonable half-hour before sending in the second one." Flora came in and got her first prize, kissed me, and offered herself to my desire by opening the bed. Then for some reason or other a good idea came into my head.
I put up my hands. "That's for later, I hope," I exclaimed. "It means affection, and you don't care for me yet; perhaps you will with tune, and if you don't, I'll forgive you. There's no compulsion here."
"How good of you," she exclaimed. "Just for saying that I want to kiss you, caro mio (you dear)," and she threw her arms round my neck and gave me a long kiss.
Naturally, I unproved the occasion, and turned the kiss into an embrace by putting my hands up her dress on her sex. After I had touched her for a minute or so, she trembled and came, and as I put my arms round her and kissed her, she kissed me passionately in return. "Carissimo mio," she murmured, and hid her glowing cheek on my neck. While she was putting her dress in order before the glass, she began talking quickly: "You know, I hope this isn't the only time. I want to come back without any prize, for I like you and you have been kind to me. I was frightened at first-you must forget all that; you will, won't you? Cuore mio; I'll find new love names for you," and she did.
"But why did you want to see us all naked," she went on, "we're all alike, aren't we?"
"No, indeed," I cried, "you are all different."
"But you can't love one because her breasts are smaller than another's. No woman would care for such a thing. I love your voice and what you say and your eyes, but not your legs: fancy!" and she laughed aloud.
Finally she said, "When may I come again? soon, please!"
"Surely," I replied, "when will you come? I want your photograph."
"Any day you like," Flora said. And we fixed the meeting for Tuesday. She went off delighted.
The next girl who came in was the young girl, the second we saw, who had not undressed and who had declared that she wouldn't have come if she had known the conditions. At once she said to me: "I don't mind undressing for you: I know you now," and in a trice she had pulled her things off: she was very pretty. I afterwards photographed her in the swing in the garden. But she was nothing astonishing, just a very pretty and well-made girl of sixteen.
Her name, she told me, was Yolande; she lived with an aunt. I may have more to tell of her later, though her quick temper made me avoid her.
When I gave her the second prize of seventy-five francs, she said, "You are giving me the second prize; if I had been nicer you perhaps would have given me the first."
Her frankness amused me. "Does it make much difference to you, the difference between seventy-five and one hundred francs?"
She nodded her head: "It will make a difference to my dress," she said. "I want pretty underthings"-and she curled up her nose.
"Well," I replied, "say nothing about it, and take another twenty-five francs."
At once she threw her arms around my neck and kissed me, and then, "May I come back?"
"Sure, sure," I replied.
"May I bring some one else?"
"Any one you please," I said.
That is about all I remember of the first seance, except that the beauty, Flora, whom I have tried to describe, did not leave the villa till long after dinner.
When I talked with my gardener of the event afterwards, he told me that he had preferred the youngest of all, whom I had not seen. "Clara," he said, "was the prettiest of the lot." As I told him I thought her too thin for beauty and too young to be mentally attractive, be promised to show me her nudity the next Sunday. I wanted to know about the next Sunday. "Will you be able to get three or four new girls?"
"Good God," he exclaimed, "twenty, if you like! These girls will whisper it all about and you may be sure you will have an ever increasing number. This villa is going to get a good name if you continue!"
"I will continue weekly," I said, "but if there are likely to be more girls, I might bring a friend over from Monte Carlo, who happens to be there and who is really an English lord."
"By all means," he said; "the more, the merrier."
Accordingly, I sent a telegram to my friend, Ernest — asking him to come and spend a happy weekend with me. In due time he came. And it was well that he did come, for the second week showed me that the gardener was wiser and knew his country people better than I did: at least twenty girls came to win prizes, girls of all ages from fifteen to thirty. My gardener proposed that he should weed them out to six or seven, giving them consolation prizes without stripping them. Both Ernest and I were quite content, but we wanted to see his choice, and we were astonished by the ability with which he made his selection: practically, we had to agree with him. Twelve or fourteen girls were sent home with twenty-five francs each, without any further attempt at discrimination; and our inspection began without making me waver in my allegiance to Flora.
It was in these first weeks at San Remo that I began to discover that the body was not so important in love or in passion as the mind and character. I had no slightest desire to leave my beauty for any of the newer queens; and I didn't want her to strip, even for Ernest's inspection, although she was willing to. But I had become her lover now, and love desires exclusive possession.
The third meeting had a new termination. Another young Englishman, named George — , a friend of Ernest, had fallen in love with one the week before. We had the three queens, as we called them, to dinner, as well as to lunch. After dinner the gardener appeared with one, and declared that if our girls would strip, he would show that his was the prettiest of the lot. None of the three girls minded: they were all willing, so we had another contest; but we resolved to give the winner of this contest two hundred francs. I don't believe that the famous choice of Paris, with the three queens of Heaven before him, ever showed such beauties. I must try to describe them. Of two of them I have photographs, which I must not reproduce; and the third, my queen, I have already described. It is for my readers to use their imaginations.
And I cannot even give the photo of the gardener's choice, for she wasn't a bit more than fourteen years of age. When we made fun of him about this, he said philosophically, "I am older than you men, and I have noticed that the older we get the younger we like the girls." On this we all burst out laughing.
My readers may compare the four beauties for themselves.
This was the first time in my life that I ever studied the sex of women; and it was the gardener who brought it about. We had decided that all our three beauties were lovelier than his, when he challenged us to a new test.
"What do we desire most in a girl?" he asked: "surely a small and well-made sex. Well, I'll bet Clara has the smallest and best sex of the lot."
Ernest at once declared that the gardener was right; so we asked our beauties to submit to his examination. They laughed at us but yielded to the general wish. Clara won, as the gardener predicted; my Flora was second; Ernest's beauty, third; and George's fourth. But all had to admit that from the outside Flora's sex was the most perfectly formed.
We found that the chief centre of pleasure, as a rule, was the clitoris and that almost in proportion to its size; sometimes it was not distinguishable, but in the three beauties it was normal, whereas in Clara it was abnormally developed-fully an inch long. The inner lips too, in her case, were very heavy; and when the gardener told us that he had brought her twice to fainting, we had to agree with him that she felt more acutely than any of the rest.
Flora, however, disdained the test and said that she felt more at something said, at a beautiful thought or fine deed than she ever felt by mere sexual excitement.
One day Ernest and George went to Monte Carlo and brought over two more friends. The gardener was overjoyed, for as the girls increased, so his tips increased, and his amusement, too, I think. But from now on, our Sundays occasionally developed into orgies; that is, we wandered about, selecting now this and now that girl, instead of remaining faithful to the queens; but usually, as soon as the newcomers went away, we returned to our old allegiances. But from the outset I limited my time for amusement to two days a week: Wednesdays and Sundays; all the other days I spent working.
I shall never forget one occasion when we all went down bathing in a state of nature-half a dozen girls and four men. After the bath, we all came up and lay about on the grass and soon the lovely girlforms seduced the men, and the scene turned to embracing, which the beauty and abandon of the girls made memorable.
This life continued for five or six weeks, till one Thursday I was interrupted by the gardener, who came and asked me to come down to see a cousin of Clara's, Adriana. I found a very lovely girl with reddish fair hair and grey eyes: quite different in looks from the ordinary Italian. I could reproduce the likeness of her that a painter-friend, Rousselet, developed later from a photograph. But she was certainly one of the most beautiful beings I have ever seen in my life, and curiously enough, she seemed at first as sweet and sympathetic and passionate as she was lovely. I took to her at once and, strange to say, even Flora liked her. She told us she was an orphan and seemed always grateful for any kindness: when Flora told her she liked her and was not jealous, "How could you be jealous?" said Adriana. "You are too lovely to know what envy means."
Flora kissed her, saying: "My dear, I don't know whether it is wisdom in you or goodness, but you are certainly wonderful."
We had been at these games more than half the summer when Ernest proposed we should vary the procedure by letting the girls select their favorites. No sooner proposed than done. We gave them prizes and asked them to apportion them: at once they established one purse and gave us all an equal prize; but they determined, too, who was the first favorite, and who the second, and so on.
I had no reason to complain of the result; but I was at a loss to know why I was chosen so frequently: was it due to a hint of the gardener, or simply to the fact that I was known to be the owner of the villa? I never could quite determine, but I was chosen so often that the game became monotonous; and when I was left out, Ernest was the winner, though George was far better looking than either of us, and at least ten years younger.
At length we hit on a new game: one Sunday about fifty girls had come, so Ernest proposed that our four beauties should select the prettiest four of the newcomers, while we men stood round and studied their feminine choice. We soon found it was impossible to know why this or that girl was chosen, but assuredly the prettiest were seldom, if ever, successful; nevertheless, the four selected were soon initiated.
One day there came a new development: three mothers had brought their girls, and George proposed we should get the mothers to select the most beautiful four to throne it at our lunch. To my delight, Flora was selected, and an excellent selection made from the others.
Every week, I had almost said, every Wednesday and every Sunday, there was something new: we constantly drove in George's carriage, or Ernest's, or both, either into the mountains or along the coast. George had discovered a wonderful, lonely, little bay for bathing, almost uninhabited, and we used to go there frequently, and half a dozen of us would bathe together; then the meals, especially the dinners, were always feasts which often ended in some droll invention.
The curious part of my personal adventure was the changes in the character of Adriana. It was almost indescribable; from being all sympathy and sweetness, she began, I think, through jealousy, to become more and more imperious.
"You know," she began one day, when she had come of her own accord to see me, "your Flora is engaged to be married; as soon as I saw her, I knew she wouldn't go begging long; she's pretty, though you must know her legs are thin. But perhaps you like thin legs?"
"You are the best made of them all," I began, "please let me see you, and don't bother about any one else."
"If I'm the only one," she replied, pouting; "I can't bear to be second-"
"Make yourself the first: " I said, "it's up to you: be sweeter than Flora, more passionate than Clara, and you'll win-"
"Clara," she cried, "is nothing but a little prostitute, like her mother before her; she's quite common-"
I couldn't help provoking her. "The gardener swears," I said, "that she has the smallest sex in the whole country and is besides the most passionate of all of you-"
"I hate these comparisons," cried Adriana. "They degrade one to the level of the mere animal; surely there's more to me than round limbs and a small sex?
I'd give anything, everything to love, but to mere desire- nothing-"
"Desire," I remarked, "is the door to love and the guide; physical beauty can be seen and measured, so to speak, whereas affection and devotion need time to be appreciated. Do you know," I added warningly, "jealousy is no proof of affection; on the contrary, I think jealous people are usually hardhearted: pride is their master passion, not affection."
"Oh; I'm proud," she cried, "I admit it, but I think if you cared for me and me alone, I would do anything for you whatever you wished."
I turned the talk by admiring her arms and bust, for I didn't wish to change Flora; and, lovely though Adriana was, I resented her imperious-ness; but her body was too perfect and I ended by making her feel and enjoy her.
"Did I please you?" she asked afterwards.
"More than ever," I said.
"You see," she cried; "may I come tomorrow?"
"Oh, you know," I said, "I have to work; I would like you to come, but not before Saturday."
"Then you will have Flora on Wednesday," she said pouting.
"No," I replied, to get rid of her, "I promise I'll have no one until you come again."
She kissed me, and there the matter ended for the time. But she soon made herself impossible by her exactions.
It was the advent into our company of one Frenchman, whom I shall call by his Christian name, Jean, who brought us to an acquaintance with new sensualities. He chose again a girl, Rosa, and declared that by whipping her bottom he could bring her to a passion of desire and soon the whippings, just to redden the skin, became more or less general among us: from time to time we all tried it; and strange to say the girls were most partial to it- the sufferers, so to speak, though the suffering plainly was very slight and soon lost in pleasure. On more than one occasion the whippings became general, and nothing prettier could be imagined than three or four girls being excited in this way. Generally it was one of the girls who did the whipping; it was curious how much rougher they were than the men; it showed us all very plainly that women think less of small pains than men do.
Another thing Jean did was to send to Paris and get half a dozen instruments resembling the sex of men in stiff Indian rubber; and these, too, we found could be used to excite our beauties to a hitherto unknown extent.
We all agreed finally that the sensuality of women lasted much longer than that of men, and women needed much more exciting. But Jean's greatest achievement was altogether new to most of us. He heard the gardener one day bragging of his mistress because she had the smallest sex.
"Of course," said Jean, "you know that you can make any girl's sex as small as you like."
We showed astonishment and he went on: "There are three or four injections which will contract the sex as much as you please, contract it so that you cannot enter easily the sex of a woman who has had a child: it's ridiculous to talk of a small sex as a beauty when anyone can have it."
In the next week or ten days we had all tried his injections of alum water and found that his remedy was in every case infallible; but still we preferred those who were naturally small.
Ernest told us that he had had a similar experience in the East, I think in Java, and I had to admit that I had learned about it in India.
Jean, too, would not be fettered for a moment to any girl, but every Wednesday and every Sunday chose a new partner; and he used to amuse us all infinitely with his stories of how he treated them and how he enjoyed them. One day when Jean had been bragging of his performances, one of his mistresses suddenly interrupted him by saying, "The only way one can ever get you to go twice is by whipping you," and we all laughed, for Jean was distinctly younger than any of us except George, and we hitherto had taken his bragging, more or less, to be the truth.
Looking back over that wonderful summer, I consider my most valuable experiences to be the stories the girls told of themselves: the sex experiences in girlhood of Flora and Adriana taught me a great deal, for they both were normal. I am sure Flora's confessions were perfectly truthful and, though Adriana concealed a good deal usually, she now and then revealed herself very completely. This is what Flora told me: but I'll keep these revelations for another chapter.