boy who served her as beast of burden, hunted thus on
horseback with her hair streaming in the wind. Afterwards, when they
were with their parents, she would pinch him secretly, and by repeated
threats would prevent him from crying or complaining. Thus in secret
they led a life of their own, very different from that which was
apparent to the eyes of others. When they were alone, she treated him as
a toy, to be broken to fragments at her pleasure, simply to see what
might be inside. Was she not the Marquise? Were not people on their
knees before her? And when she was tired of tyrannising over Colombel in
private, she would take a peculiar pleasure, when a number of others
were present, in tripping him up, or in running a pin into his arm or
leg, whilst at the same time she forbade him with a fierce glance of her
black eyes to show even by the movement of an eyelid that she was to
blame.

"Colombel bore his martyrdom with a dull resentment. Trembling, he kept
his eyes on the ground, to escape the temptation to strangle his young
mistress. And yet he did not dislike being beaten; it gave him a bitter
delight. Sometimes, even, he actually sought for a blow, awaiting the
pain with a peculiar thrill, and feeling a certain satisfaction in the
smart when she pricked him with a pin."

I have now recounted a number of cases in which the perversions observed
in adults can be traced back to early childhood. I have shown that it
remains doubtful, when the specific perversion first makes its
appearance, whether it results from a congenital predisposition which is
merely aroused to activity by an outward stimulus, or whether the
outward stimulus is also the true determinant. A further point has now
to be considered, and it is one which, as far as I know, has hitherto
been completely ignored in the literature of the subject. The majority
of sexual perverts trace back the origin of their perversion to a time
at which the detumescence impulse had not yet been awakened. Thus, the
homosexual tells us of a peculiar impulse he felt in childhood to kiss
his tutor; we learn from the hair-fetichist that when still a child he
loved to play with girls' hair; and so on. And we are told that these
impulses, voluptuously tinged, occurred at a time when erection and
ejaculation had not yet taken place, and that there was not as yet any
of that peripheral voluptuous sensation which can be clearly
differentiated from the purely psychical voluptuous se