Jacky S - Suburban Souls, Book II

I ought to have written to you some time ago to thank you for your long and philosophical letter. I do not want to argue, or I could show you that you are sanguine on points which, picked to pieces, would show but a bare canvas, to be covered by the daydreams and fancies of the man who has forgotten the grand truth that all is vanity.

Women keep their secrets well, and they know how much they are pandering to the vanity of men, a knowledge which prevents them from disclosing the secrets of the charnel house. Men may write such tales as Nemesis Hunt, and give spice to the commonplace adventures of a gay woman, by introducing the incestuous intercourse between her and the lover of her mother, supposed to be her father, for the amusement of those who are fond of gutter literature.

I must confess that the idea of any save platonic intercourse with the wife or relation of any friend has always been very distasteful to me, and I have often thought, when running my eye over the legends in the Old Testament referring to the chronicles of the Jews, that the low system of enlightenment remarkable among whole colonies of Jews in Southern Russia, is fostered by those intermarriages, which to my mind, are as incestuous as the coupling up of Nemesis Hunt and Jean Messal.

Among the early Jews, and no doubt among many of the present day, incestuous connection is no crime and quite a matter of course.

I can understand that every one has his opinions on the subject, and I know that I had to pay very dearly once for expressing mine, whether the son of a twin sister married the daughter of his mother's twin. I am told this was according to the Jewish rite. Naturally the object was to keep the money in the family.

l do not want to inflict any long sermon on you as to the virtue and vices of Nemesis Hunt. The book will take, but it will not come up to my standard of “blue” books, according to the samples you have so kindly placed at my disposition from time to time, and while there may be some excuse for the lover, who was not sure the woman who offered him such rapturous embraces was in any way related to him there was none for the woman who suspected the truth, from the time she met her father on the steamer.

I owe you so many thanks for the papers you send me with such charming regularity that I am ashamed to say I look forward to them as a right.

By the way, I was very much entertained with the volume: The Scarlet City, which I will return to you next week, as I want to read it over again for the references it contains to men I have known.

I see you have taken to typewriting. I am sending off this by twilight, as I can only just see the letters on my machine. I am sure you will never feel inclined to take your pen up again, once you get into the swing of typewriting, and though you may often strike a wrong letter, the thing is so easy that you would never be persuaded to mess about with pen and ink for any consideration.

My dear Jacky, will you let me offer my most heartfelt sympathy for the loss you have so recently sustained. I only heard of it recently and if you were thinking of the person whom it has pleased a higher power to remove from this earth when you last wrote to me, and so ably championed the affection of woman, then your loss must have been severe indeed, and I might say irreparable.

Yours very truly,

ERIC ARVEL.

JACKY TO ERIC ARVEL.

Paris. November 9, 1899.

My dear Mr. Arvel,

I am always flattered and honored to hear from you, but more so today, as I am deeply touched by your kindly expression of sympathy.

There were lettres de faire part. I did not send you one. I did not want anyone to see me that day, nor did I wish to see anybody.

I begin to think you are right in all you say. You have evidently had a greater and more varied experience with women than I. I see that I have been spoilt. I never had to make love…at least, not much.

Now, I suppose, I must swell the ranks of the michés (Le Miché malgré lui, Molière …slightly altered), or else go and “listen to the band,” instead of joining the merry maze of mercenary, menstruating Messalinas!

Glad you like the papers and books. When you send back The Scarlet City, I will lend you another of the same sort: A Pelican and Pink 'Un. Also, an “indigo” novelty: Dolly Morton, the true (?) confessions of a lady fair. And lots more.

I have only taken to typing since the twenty-sixth ult., plus two lessons with a fairy-fingered maiden. I had some work to do which necessitated it. I thought I would try myself and have hired a “Nonpareil” for a month. I am a rare cuckoo at it! (Sounds like a fable: “The Cuckoo and the Typewriter.”) Thought I should save money with it, but am spending a small fortune in erasers. There the love of gold, from my Bourse education and frequenting the Jews, peeps out again!

And yet a lady-authoress told me the other evening that she “had never met such a sensitive Christian.”

I should like to know how long it takes to get to real speed on this clattering monster? I must stop at home with it a night or two, and have a real tussle with it.

Faithfully yours,

JACKY.

ERIC ARVEL TO JACKY.

Sonis-sur-Marne. November 10, 1899.

My dear Jacky,

Many thanks for your letter, but I am afraid you are a sad flatterer. I am finishing The Scarlet City, for the second time, and I will send it to you on Monday. I shall be very pleased to read the Pelican and the Pink 'Un, as also the “blue” volume, purporting to be the confessions of a lady fair, although I am afraid the mother of most of the ladies fair and frail was Moll Flanders, and that the supposed petticoated authoress wore bluchers and smoked a short pipe. By the way, talking of what is “blue,” you said you would lend me a “blue” book, the prospectus of which you sent me, relating to various mal-conformations of certain organs.

(The rest of the letter was about the art of type writing.)

About the twentieth, I shall be going to England, where I shall remain possibly three weeks, trying to get something to do, as times have not been over brilliant with me of late, and the expenses of my Bourse telegrams have increased so much, that working for the financial press has become bare bread and cheese.

Whenever you have any idea of taking a lesson on your typewriter think of me, and remember that I shall always be glad to have your news, which I hope will always be good and couched in your usual happy strain of mind.

Very faithfully yours,

ERIC ARVEL.

I wrote a very short note in answer to the above, thanking him for his kind offer of tuition on the typewriter, and announcing that I was sending him the books he asked for.

I noted that Papa did not bear malice, as he coolly demanded the volume of which I had annotated the prospectus in such a vile manner a few months before. This is the first time he alludes to any of what may be called my obscene innuendoes. So he got Dolly Morton, The Pelican, and The Ethnology of the Sixth Sense. This last work I took the liberty of marking here and there in the following manner:

“The first shape of the hymen, almost invariable in infancy, and which is sometimes prolonged beyond puberty, consists in a liabial arrangement of the membrane, the edges of which, separated by a vertical opening and facing one another, make a projection at the entrance of the vagina, which it closes, if I may say so, like a fowl's anus.” (P. 275.)

“…we often see tall and strong women showing a small vulva, and a mount of Venus without hairs, while little dwarfs display a largely developed vulva, followed by a vagina capable of satisfying an enormous penis.” (P. 291.)

“…an abundance of hair under the armpits, and…a slight moustache on the lips. Most frequently brunettes alone have this advantage.” (P. 292.).