intolerable to me to live with her without being able to
touch her. We did not discuss it, but it was evident that the
desire was even stronger in her than in me.

"For some time it satisfied us fully to be in bed together. One
night, however, when she had had a cruelly trying day and I
wanted to find all ways of comforting her, I bared by breast for
her to lie on. Afterward it was clear that neither of us could be
satisfied without this. She groped for it like a child, and it
excited me much more to feel that than to uncover my breast and
arms altogether at once.

"Much of this excitement was sexually localized, and I was
haunted in the daytime by images of holding this woman in my
arms. I noticed also that my inclination to caress my other women
friends was not diminished, but increased. All this disturbed me
a good deal. The homosexual practices of which I had read lately
struck me as merely nasty; I could not imagines myself tempted to
them;--at the same time the whole matter was new to me, for I had
never wanted anyone even to share my bed before; I had read that
sex instinct was mysterious and unexpected, and I felt that I did
not know what might come next.

"I knew only one elder person whom (for wide-mindedness,
gentleness, and saintliness) I could bear to consult; and to this
person, a middle-aged man, I wrote for advice. He replied by a
long letter of the most tender warning. I had better not weaken
my influence with my friend, he wrote, by going back suddenly or
without her consent, but I was to be very wary of going further;
there was fire about. I tried to put this into practice by
restraining myself constantly in our intercourse, by refraining
from caressing her, for instance, when I wanted to caress her and
knew that she wanted it. The only result seemed to be that the
desire was more tormenting and constant than ever.

"If at this point my friend had happened to die or go away, and
the incident had come to an end, I should probably have been left
nervous in these matters for years to come. I should have
faltered in the opinion I had always held, that bodily
expressions of love between women were as innocent as they were
natural; and I might have come nearer than I ever expected to the
doctrine of those convent teachers who forbid their girls to
embr