han my amours with the maidservant which of course I
had confided to her. She laughed, and said: "Of course." We often
copulated, as long as I was at home, and then I lost sight of
her. Of all the women with whom I have had to do, save one, she
had the most copious secretion of mucus, which in those days I
believed was the woman's semen. Her thighs used to be wet with
it.

At the University I had regular relations with women of all
sorts, rarely missing a week. Two of them were married women, one
the wife of a solicitor, the other of a doctor. How proud I felt
of my first intrigue with a married woman! I felt that I was
really a man of the world now!

But though my friends used to tell me all about their love
affairs, and I longed to confide in them, I did not do so. This
was because when I went up to the University, my uncle said that
he would give me a word of advice and hoped that I would follow
it--never to give away a woman, and never to refuse to respond to
a woman's advances, whoever she were. To neglect this advice
would, he said, be foolish, and to break the rules "damned
ungentlemanly." I wish I had always followed advice proffered, as
closely as I have followed this. One night, when I was somewhat
disguised in liquor, as our grandfathers would have put it, I
picked up a girl, who was a private prostitute, if the phrase be
permissible. She declined copulation, and proposed other means of
satisfaction. I insisted, being stubborn in my cups. Had I been
sober I should have done as she suggested, for I have always made
it a point to allow the woman to choose the method of
gratification, and not to demand, or even suggest, anything
myself. I like to please women, and I have always been curious as
to their wants and desires, as revealed, without outside
influence, by themselves. The result of my refusing all methods
of gratification save the most ordinary was that the girl, who
must have known that she was not all right, but shrank from
saying so in so many words, gave me a gonorrhoea, which lasted
nine weeks and much interfered with my amours, as I naturally
declined to run the risk of infecting my partner, a risk which to
my certain knowledge many a young fellow has run, with disastrous
consequence to the confiding woman. As it was due to my tipsy
obstinacy, I c