Her room was warm and lightsome. A huge doll sat with her legs apart in the copious easy-chair beside the bed. He tried to bid his tongue speak that he might seem at ease, watching her as she undid her gown, noting the proud conscious movements of her perfumed head.As he stood silent in the middle of the room she came over to him and embraced him gaily and gravely. Her round arms held him firmly to her and he, seeing her face lifted to him in serious calm and feeling the warm calm rise and fall of her breast, all but burst into hysterical weeping. Tears of joy and relief shone in his delighted eyes and his lips parted though they would not speak.She passed her tinkling hand through his hair, calling him a little rascal.—Give me a kiss, she said.His lips would not bend to kiss her. He wanted to be held firmly in her arms, to be caressed slowly, slowly, slowly. In her arms he felt that he had suddenly become strong and fearless and sure of himself. But his lips would not bend to kiss her.With a sudden movement she bowed his head and joined her lips to his and he read the meaning of her movements in her frank uplifted eyes. It was too much for him. He closed his eyes, surrendering himself to her, body and mind, conscious of nothing in the world but the dark pressure of her softly parting lips. They pressed upon his brain as upon his lips as though they were the vehicle of a vague speech; and between them he felt an unknown and timid pressure, darker than the swoon of sin, softer than sound or odour.
THOMASttttttttttttGuiltyOf mankind. I have perpetrated human nature. My father and mother were accessories before the fact, But there’ll be no accessories after the fact, By my virility there won’t! Just see me As I am, like a perambulating Vegetable, patched with inconsequential Hair, looking out of two small jellies for the meansOf life, balanced on folding bones, my sexNo Beauty but a blemish to be hiddenBehind judicious rags, driven and scorched By boomerang rages and lunacies which neverTouch the accommodating artichokeOr the seraphic strawberry beaming in its bed:I defend myself against pain and death by painAnd death, and make the world go round, they tell meBy one of my less lethal appetites:Half this grotesque life I spend in a state Of slow decomposition, using The name of unconsidered God as a pedestal On which I stand and bray that I’m bestOf beasts, until under some patientMoon or other I fall to pieces, Like a cake of dung. Is there a slut would Hold this in her arms and put her lips against it?JENNETSluts are only human. By a quirkOf unastonished nature, your obscene Decaying figure of vegetable funCan drag upon a woman’s heart, as thoughHeaven were dragging up the roots of hell. What is to be done? Something compels us into The terrible fallacy that man is desirable and there’s no escaping into truth. The crimesAnd cruelties leave us longing, and campaigning Love still pitches his tent of light amongThe suns and moons. You may be decay and a platitudeOf flesh, but I have no other such memory of life. You may be corrupt as ancient applies, well thenCorruption is what I most willingly harvest. You are Evil, Hell, the Father of Lies; if soHell is my home and my days of good were a holiday:Hell is my hill and the world slopes away from itInto insignificance. I have come suddenlyUpon my heart and where it is I see no help for.