Teleny or the Reverse of the Medal (11 page)

Stung to the quick, he hardly knew whether he loved or hated this girl most, and he cared but little what became of him provided he could satisfy his craving for her. All the softness which love had awakened gave way to the sexual energy of the male.

Unperceived, or probably let in by the cook, he stealthily secreted himself in her room, and ensconced himself behind an old screen, which, together with other lumber, had been stowed away there.

His intention was to remain hidden till she was fast asleep, and then to get into her bed, and,
nolens volens,
to pass the night with her.

After waiting there some time in mortal anxiety—for every minute was like an hour to him—he finally saw her come in.

As she did so, she shut and locked the door behind her. His whole frame shook with joy at that slight act. First she clearly did not expect anyone, then she was in his possession.

Two holes which he had made in the paper of the screen enabled him to see everything perfectly. Little by little she prepared herself for the night. She undid her hair, then did it up again in a loose knot. After which she took off her dress, her stays, her skirts, and all her undergarments. At last she was in her chemise.

She then, with a deep sigh, took a rosary, and began to pray. He himself was a religious man, and would fain have repeated his prayers after her, but he vainly tried to mumble a few words. All his thoughts were on her.

The moon was now in its full, and flooded the room with its mellow light, falling on her naked arms, on her rounded shoulders and small protruding breasts, shedding upon them all kinds of opaline tints, giving them the delicate gloss of satin and the sheen of amber, while the linen chemise fell in folds on her nether parts with the softness of flannel.

He remained there motionless, almost awe-stricken, with his eyes fastened upon her, holding his thick, feverish breath, gloating on her with that fixed eagerness with which the cat watches the mouse, or the hunter the game. All the powers of his body seemed concentrated in the sense of vision.

At last she finished her prayers, crossed herself, and rose. She lifted her right foot to get into her rather high bed, showing the coachman her slender though well-shaped legs, her small but rounded buttocks, and, as she bent forward, the nether part of the two lips gaped, as one knee was already on the bed.

The coachman, however, had not time enough to see this, for with a cat-like bound he was already on her.

She uttered the faintest of cries, but he had already clasped her in his arms.

'Leave me! leave me! or I'll call for help.'

'Call as much as you like, darling; but no one can or will come to your aid before I have had you, for I swear by the Virgin Mary that I'll not leave this room before I've enjoyed you. If that
bougre
can use you for his pleasure, so shall I. If he has not—well, after all it is better to be a poor man's wife than a rich man's whore; and you know whether I have been wanting to marry you or not.'

Saying these words, holding her with one hand clasped as in a vise, her back against him, he tried with the other to twist her head round so as to get to her lips; but, seeing that he could not, he pressed her down on the bed. Holding her by the nape of the neck, he thrust his other hand between her legs and gripped her middle parts in his brawny palm.

Being ready beforehand, thrusting himself between her parted legs, he began to press his instrument against the lower part of the half-opened lips.

Swollen and dry as they had remained after my attempt, his good-sized turgid phallus slipped, and the tip lodged itself at the upper corner. Then, like a heavy laden stamen when kissed by the deflowering wind scatters its pollen on the open ovaries around it, so, hardly had the turgid and overflowing phallus touched the tiny clitoris when it jutted forth its sappy seed not only on it, but it squirted over all the surrounding parts. As she felt her stomach and thighs bathed by the warm fluid, it seemed to her that she was burnt by some scalding corrosive poison, and she writhed as if in pain.

But the more she struggled, the greater was the pleasure he felt, and his groans and the gurgling that seemed to mount from his middle parts up to his throat, testified to the rapture in which he was. He rested for a moment but his organ lost none of its strength or stiffness, her contortions only excited him the more. Putting his huge hand between her legs, he uplifted her on the bed, higher than she was, and brutally holding her down, he pressed the fleshy extremity of the glans against her, and the lips bathed in the slimy fluid parted asunder easily.

It was hardly a question with him now of pleasure given or received, it was the wild overpowering eagerness which the male brute displays in possessing the female, for you might have killed him, but he would not have let go his hold. He thrust at her with all the mighty heaviness of a bull; with another effort, the glans was lodged between the lips, another one more, half the column was already in, when it was stopped by the as yet unperforated but highly dilated virginal membrane. Feeling himself thus stopped at the outer orifice of the vagina he felt a moment of exultation.

He kissed her head with rapture.

'You are mine,' he cried with joy; 'mine for life and death, mine for ever and ever.'

She evidently must have compared his wild delight with my cold indifference, and yet she tried to scream, but his hand stopped her mouth. She bit him, still he did not heed it.

Then, regardless of the pain he was causing, heedless of the strain he was giving the prisoner lodged in its narrow cage, he clasped her with all his strength, and with a last powerful thrust the vulva was not only reached but crossed; the membrane—so strong in the poor girl— was slit, his Priapus was lodged deep into the vagina, and it slid up to the neck of the womb.

She uttered a loud, shrill, piercing cry of pain and anguish, and the scream vibrating through the stillness of the night was heard all over the house. Regardless of any consequences of the noises already heard in answer to the scream, regardless of the blood gushing forth, he rapturously plunged and re-plunged his lance in the wound he had made, and his groans of pleasure were mixed with her plaintive wail.

Finally he pulled his limber weapon out of her; she was free, but senseless and faint.

I was just upon the steps, when I heard the cry. Although I was not thinking of the poor girl, still, at once it seemed to me as if I recognized her voice, I flew up the steps, I rushed into the house, and I found the cook pale and trembling in the passage.

'Where is Catherine?'

'In her room—I—I think.'

'Then, who screamed?'

'But—but I don't know. Perhaps she did.'

'And why don't you go to help her?'

'The door is locked,' said she, looking aghast.

I rushed to the door. I shook it with all my strength.

'Catherine, open! What's the matter?'

At the sound of my voice the poor girl came back to life.

With another mighty shake I burst the lock. The door opened.

I had just time enough to catch sight of the girl in her blood-stained chemise.

Her loose hair was all dishevelled. Her eyes were gleaming with a wild fire. Her face was contorted by pain, shame, and madness. She looked like Cassandra after she had been violated by Ajax's soldiers.

As she stood, not far from the window, her glances from the coachman fell upon me with loathing and scorn.

She now knew what the love of men was. She rushed to the casement. I bounded towards her, but forestalling me, she leapt out before the coachman or myself could prevent her; and although I caught the end of her garment, her weight tore it, and I was left with a rag in my hand.

We heard a heavy thud, a scream, a few groans, then silence.

This shocking suicide of our maid absorbed all my thoughts for a few days, and gave me no slight amount of trouble and worry for some time afterwards.

Besides, as I was no casuist, I asked myself whether I had not had some share in prompting her to commit such a rash act; I therefore tried to make amends to the coachman, at least, by helping him as much as I could out of his trouble. Moreover, if I had not been fond of the girl, I had really tried to love her, so that I was greatly upset by her death.

My manager, who was far more my master than I was his, seeing the shattered state of my nerves, persuaded me to undertake a short business journey, which otherwise he would have had to make himself.

All these circumstances obliged me to keep my thoughts away from Teleny, who had lately engrossed them so entirely. I therefore tried to come to the conclusion that I had quite forgotten him; and I was already congratulating myself on having mastered a passion that had rendered me contemptible in my own eyes.

On my return home I not only shunned him, but I even avoided reading his name in the papers—nay, whenever I saw it on the bills in the street, I turned my head away from it, notwithstanding all the attraction it had for me; such was the fear I had of falling under his magic spell. And yet, was it possible for me to continue avoiding him? Would not the slightest accident bring us together again? And then—?

I tried to believe that the power he had over me had vanished, and that it was not possible for him to acquire it again. Then, to make doubly sure, I resolved to cut him dead the first time we met. Moreover I was in hopes he would leave the town—for some time at least, if not forever.

Not long after my return, I was with my mother in a box at the theatre, when all at once the door opened and Teleny appeared in the doorway.

On seeing him I felt myself grow pale and then red, my knees seemed to be giving way, my heart began to beat with such mighty thumps that my breast was ready to burst. For a moment, I felt all my good resolutions give way; then, loathing myself for being so weak, I snatched up my hat, and—scarcely bowing to the young man—I rushed out of the box like a madman, leaving my mother to apologize for my strange behavior. No sooner was I out than I felt drawn back, and I almost returned to beg his forgiveness. Shame alone prevented me from doing so.

When I re-entered the box, my mother, vexed and astonished, asked me what had made me act in such a boorish way to the musician, whom everybody welcomed and made much of.

'Two months ago, if I remember rightly,' said she, 'there was hardly another pianist like him; and now, because the press has turned against him, he is even below being bowed to.'

'The press is against him? said I, with uplifted eyebrows.

'What! have you not read how bitterly he has been criticized of late?'

'No, I have had other matters to think about than pianists.'

'Well, of late he seems to have been out of sorts. His name has appeared on the bills several times, and then he has not played; while at the last concerts he went through his pieces in a most humdrum, lifeless way, so very different from his former brilliant execution.'

I felt as if a hand was gripping at my heart within my breast, still I tried to keep my features as indifferent as possible.

'I am sorry for him,' I said, listlessly; 'but then, I daresay the ladies will console him for the taunts of the press, and thus blunt the points of their arrows.'

My mother shrugged her shoulders and drew down the corners of her lips disdainfully. She little guessed either my thoughts, or how bitterly I regretted the way in which I had acted towards the young man whom — well, it was useless to mince matters any longer, or to give myself the lie—I still loved. Yes, loved more than ever — loved to distraction.

On the morrow, I looked for all the papers in which his name was mentioned, and I found— it may perhaps be vanity on my part to think so—that from the very day I had ceased to attend his concerts, he had been playing wretchedly, until at last his critics, once so lenient, had all joined against him, endeavoring to bring him to a better sense of the duty he owed to his art, to the public, and to himself.

About a week afterwards, I again went to hear him play.

As he came in, I was surprised to see the change wrought in him in that short space of time; he was not only careworn and dejected, but pale, thin, and sickly-looking. He seemed, in fact, to have grown ten years older in those few days. There was in him that alteration which my mother had noticed in me on her return from Italy; but she, of course, had attributed it to the shock my nerves had just received.

As he came on, some few persons tried to cheer him by clapping their hands, but a low murmur of disapproval, followed by a slight hissing sound, stopped these feeble attempts at once. He seemed scornfully indifferent to both sounds. He sat listlessly down, like a person worn out by fever, but, as one of the musical reporters stated, the fire of art began all at once to glow within his eyes. He cast a sidelong glance on the audience, a searching look full of love and of thankfulness.

Then he began to play, not as if his task were a weary one, but as if he were pouring out his heavily-laden soul; and the music sounded like the warbling of a bird which, in its attempt to captivate its mate, pants forth its flood of rapture, resolved either to conquer or to die in profuse strains of unpremeditated art.