taken to drink, and used to "whop her." And
that is the end of my acquaintance with the two girls.

I had great difficulty in keeping Esther from knowing too much about me,
and used a false name, had letters sent to a post-office, and had to do
much lying. The oddest thing was that though so near my mother's house,
and though I passed her one day when walking with one of my married
sisters, she did not know I was often living there, and close by her
home; but she found it out just before I parted with her. She knew quite
well that the conversation when sitting on the barrow could only have
been heard from one of the garden-walls close by the barrow; but I would
not at first tell her which. My real name I don't think she ever knew,
though I am not sure of that..

Curiosity made me call on ex-harlot Sarah, who lived in one room, and
whilst talking I put my hand up her petticoats, on to her cunt. She
laughed, opened her thighs wide, and said, "I knowed yer would," and she
looked as if a fuck would have gratified her,--but I did not attempt it.

CHAPTER XII.

Preliminary.--My taste for beauty of form.--Sarah Mavis.--
Midday in the Quadrant.--No. 13 J... s Street.--A bargain in
the hall.--A woman with a will.--Fears about my size.--
Muck.--Cold-blooded.--Tyranny.--My temper.--Submission.--A
revolt.--A half-gay lady.--Sarah watches me.--A quarrel.--
Reconciliation.

I must go back a year or more before the night when I last had
Kitty with the yellow hair and yellow motte, to tell the story of my
acquaintance with a woman of whom I have little to tell, considering
that she more or less is included in the history of my amours for nearly
four years, and who will appear more than once some years after that. A
word about my sensuous temperament first.

I had early a taste for beauty of female form. Face had for me of course
the usual attraction, for beauty of expression always speaks to the soul
of a man first. A woman's eyes speak to him before she opens her mouth,
and instinctively (for actual knowledge only comes to him in his maturer
years) he reads in them liking, dislike, indifference, voluptuousness,
desire, sensuous abandonment, or fierce reckless lust.

All these feelings can be seen in a woman's eyes alone, for they express
and move with every feeling, every passion, pure or sensual. They can
beget in the male pure love as it is called, which is believed to be
so till experien