Frank Harris - My Life and Loves, Book 1

Seated in my chair behind her, I caught sight of her legs, for her dress rucked up behind as she leaned over; at once my breath stuck in my throat. Her legs were lovely, I thought, and the temptation came to touch them; for no one could see. I got up immediately and stood by the chair she was standing on. Casually I let my hand fall against her left leg. She didn't draw her leg away or seem to feel my hand, so I touched her more boldly. She never moved, though now I knew she must have felt my hand. I began to slide my hand up her leg and suddenly my fingers felt the warm flesh on her thigh where the stocking ended above the knee. The feel of her warm flesh made me literally choke with emotion: my hand went on up, warmer and warmer, when suddenly I touched her sex; there was soft down on it. The heart-pulse throbbed in my throat. I have no words to describe the intensity of my sensations. Thank God, E… did not move or show any sign of distaste. Curiosity was stronger even than desire in me and I felt her sex all over, and at once the idea came into my head that it was like a fig (the Italians, I learned later, called it familiarly fica); it opened at my touches and I inserted my finger gently, as Strangways had told me that Mary had taught him to do; still E… did not move.

Gently I rubbed the front part of her sex with my finger. I could have kissed her a thousand times out of gratitude. Suddenly, as I went on, I felt her move, and then again; plainly she was showing me where my touch gave her most pleasure: I could have died for her in thanks; again she moved and I could feel a little mound or small button of flesh right in the front of her sex, above the junction of the inner lips; of course it was her clitoris. I had forgotten all the old Methodist doctor's books till that moment; this fragment of long forgotten knowledge came back to me: gently I rubbed the clitoris and at once she pressed down on my finger for a moment or two. I tried to insert my finger into the vagina; but she drew away at once and quickly, closing her sex as if hurt, so I went back to caressing her tickler. Suddenly the miracle ceased. The cursed organist had finished his explanation of the new plain chant, and as he touched the first notes on the piano, E… drew her legs together; I took away my hand and she stepped down from the chair. «You darling, darling,» I whispered, but she frowned, and then just gave me a smile out of the corner of her eye to show me she was not displeased. Ah, how lovely, how seductive she seemed to me now, a thousand times lovelier and more desirable than ever before. As we stood up to sing again, I whispered to her: «I love you, love you, dear, dear!» I can never express the passion of gratitude I felt to her for her goodness, her sweetness in letting me touch her sex. E… it was who opened the Gates of Paradise to me and let me first taste the hidden mysteries of sexual delight. Still after more than fifty years I feel the thrill of the joy she gave me by her response, and the passionate reverence of my gratitude is still alive in me. This experience with E… had the most important and unlocked for results. The mere fact that girls could feel sex-pleasure «just as boys do» increased my liking for them and lifted the whole sexual intercourse to a higher plane in my thought. The excitement and pleasure were so much more intense than anything I had experienced before that I resolved to keep myself for this higher joy. No more self-abuse for me; I knew something infinitely better. One kiss was better, one touch of a girl's sex.

That kissing and caressing a girl should inculcate self-restraint is not taught by our spiritual guides and masters; but it is nevertheless true. Another cognate experience came at this time to reinforce the same lesson. I had read all Scott, and his heroine Di Vernon made a great impression on me. I resolved now to keep all my passion for some Di Vernon in the future. Thus the first experiences of passion and the reading of a love story completely cured me of the bad habit of self-abuse. Naturally, after this first divine experience, I was on edge for a second and keen as a questing hawk. I could not see E… till the next music lesson-a week to wait; but even such a week comes to an end, and once more we were imprisoned in our solitude behind the piano; but though I whispered all the sweet and pleading words I could imagine, E… did nothing but frown refusal and shake her pretty head. This killed for the moment all my faith in girls: why did she act so? I puzzled my brain for a reasonable answer and found none. It was part of the damned inscrutability of girls, but at the moment it filled me with furious anger. I was savage with disappointment. «You're mean!» I whispered to her at long last, and I would have said more if the organist hadn't called on me for a solo, which I sang very badly, so badly indeed that he made me come from behind the piano and thus abolished even the chance of future intimacies. Time and time again I cursed organist and girl, but I was always alert for a similar experience. As dog fanciers say of hunting dogs, «I had tasted blood and could never afterwards forget the scent of it.»

Twenty-five years or more later, I dined with Frederic Chapman, the publisher of the Fortnightly Review, which I was then editing; he asked me some weeks afterwards, had I noticed a lady, and described her dress to me, adding, «She was very curious about you. As soon as you came into the room she recognized you and has asked me to tell her if you recognized her; did you?» I shook my head. «I'm near-sighted, you know,» I said, «and therefore to be forgiven, but when did she know me?» He replied, «As a boy at school; she said you would remember her by her Christian name of E…» «Of course I do,» I cried. «Oh, please tell me her name and where she lives. I'll call on her. I want (and then reflection came to suggest prudence) to ask her some questions,» I added, lamely. «I can't give you her name or address,» he replied. «I promised her not to, but she's long been happily married, I was to tell you.» I pressed him, but he remained obstinate, and on second thought I came to see that I had no right to push myself on a married woman who did not wish to renew acquaintance with me, but oh! I longed to see her and hear from her own lips the explanation of what to me at the time seemed her inexplicable, cruel change of attitude. As a man, of course, I know she may have had a very good reason indeed, and her mere name still carries a glamour about it for me, and unforgettable fascination. My father was always willing to encourage self-reliance in me: indeed, he tried to make me act as a man while I was still a mere child. The Christmas holidays only lasted for four weeks; it was cheaper for me, therefore, to take lodgings in some neighboring town rather than return to Ireland. Accordingly, the headmaster received the request to give me some seven pounds for my expenses and he did so, adding moreover much excellent advice. My first holiday I spent in the watering-place of Rhyl in North Wales because a chum of mine, Evan Morgan, came from the place and told me he'd make it interesting for me. And in truth he did a good deal to make me like the people and love the place. He introduced me to three or four girls, among whom I took a great fancy to one Gertrude Hanniford. Gertie was over fifteen, tall and pretty, I thought, with long plaits of chestnut hair; one of the best companions possible. She would kiss me willingly but whenever I tried to touch her more intimately, she would wrinkle up her nose with «Don't!» or «Don't be dirty!» One day I said to her reproachfully: «You'll make me couple 'dirty' with 'Gertie' if you go on using it so often.» Bit by bit she grew tamer, though all too slowly for my desires; but luck was eager to help me. One evening late we were together on some high ground behind the town when suddenly there came a great glare in the sky, which lasted two or three minutes: the next moment we were shaken by a sort of earthquake accompanied by a dull thud. «An explosion!» I cried, «on the railway: let's go and see!» And away we set off for the railway. For a hundred yards or so Gertie was fast as I was; but after the first quarter of a mile I had to hold in so as not to leave her. Still for a girl she was very fast and strong. We found a footpath alongside the railway, for we found running over the wooden ties very slow and dangerous. We had covered a little over a mile when we saw the blaze in front of us and a crowd of figures moving about before the glare. In a few minutes we were opposite three or four blazing railway carriages and the wreck of an engine.