ought only of her love. I remember her coming in one day,
tired, pale, perspiring, and worried--we had hardly anything in
the house and she had been to the theater ineffectually--and when
her eyes lighted on me the whole expression of her face changed,
softened and brightened at once, and she came and kissed me and
said: "It is so strange, I was thinking all sorts of nasty things
coming along, but as soon as I see my pet's face I feel happy--I
don't care for anything--I would sooner share a crust with him
than have all the money in the world!"

I commenced to feel libidinous curiosity to examine her--this was
mostly on Sundays--and she let me, blushing at first, but
laughing. Then I would try new positions in coitus I had heard
of. Still she did not enter into my mood.

She was engaged at this time to play in a pantomime and I
commenced to lead a miserable, jealous existence. I heard scandal
about her, baseless enough, but in the diseased, nervous, anxious
state I had brought myself to it nearly drove me mad. I would go
with her sometimes to visit her mother, whom I began to like. Her
brother I still saluted coldly. It caused me horror and jealousy
to see A. kissing him and letting him tickle her. In my rage,
when we came home, I even said that perhaps she would let him do
something else, naming it brutally and coarsely. I remember her
shame, astonishment, indignation and tears. If ever a man tried a
woman's love I did. But she forgave me, even that.

We went to live in a little cottage. It was in this cottage that
A. first showed signs of lust, and in the diseased state of my
mind, instead of regretting it, I encouraged her. She told me one
day that the orgasm very often did not occur at the same time
with her as with me, and that it would not unless I put my little
finger into the anus. This her husband taught her, and she would
rather have died than confess it to me when we first met. We
would often devote our Sundays to having a picnic as we termed
our lustful bouts, stimulating ourselves with wine. Her temper
was not improved thereby (though her fits entirely stopped for a
twelvemonth)--we had wordy warfares, but we made it up again
always with tears. Nor did I allow myself to deteriorate without
reactions and excursions into better things. I was always reading
Emers