Next evening I went to Gabrielle's. Both women had got drunk she said, and slept together. “Did they flat-fuck afterwards, — did they really enjoy that” “Mais certainement oui,” it was “une fantaisie,” and they did it till they could do it no longer — “Mon Dieu,” till her friend fell asleep on the top of her. She was “une femme charmante, et cochonne.” They both had head-aches, had enjoyed themselves — look at the bottles. The bed was unmade, the room still in disorder. Should she fetch her friend again? — she had only just left her. “Mon Dieu” she did not recollect how often I had spent — seven times she thought. I fucked her, left, and did not see her again for months, but frequented Camille, who with her soft, almost feline ways and delicious manner in copulation, charmed me much.

To get away from home, I went abroad again early in December to Naples with a friend, and had women there of course. One evening coming out of my hotel, an elderly man exceedingly well dressed, accosted me in Italian. He was so gentlemanly in appearance and manners, that I stood and listened to him, at first not being able to make out what he said. It was that he had some charming ladies he could introduce me to — not common women, not whores. I listened, for it was the first time I had been solicited by a man on such matters, though I had made many a valet-de-place pimp, and go to brothels with me. They were charming he said in a quiet voice, and one a delicious young lady only fifteen years old. I told him no.

“Ah! the Signor would perhaps like a fine young man.” I did not quite understand him at first, not understanding Italian well, and repeated after him interrogatively the word “young.” He misunderstood me. Ah! yes, if I preferred young, he had two lovely boys, quite young, one thirteen, one fourteen years old, without any hair on them — they were most delicate. Finding I had to make him repeat, because I did not understand him and that I answered in French, he addressed me quite fluently in that language, and told it all over again. Yes, only thirteen and fourteen years, — no hair on them, but though so young they both could spend. I declined, he took off his hat with a gloved hand, “Buona sera, Sig-nor,” — he was often on the Chaia, if I changed my mind, and I several times saw him there accosting men just at dusk.

This set me thinking very much, and on reflection, though amusing one's self that way seemed to me most objectionable, yet if men liked it, it was their affair alone. A man had as much right to use his anus as he liked, as a man has to use his penis — that was the conclusion I came to. But it set me wondering if many men took their pleasure up other's backsides. Was it more pleasure than fucking women? — did the bug- garee have pleasure like the buggerer? — and so on, till I thought over all I had seen, heard, and done with my own sex from boyhood to the present time. My curiosity on the matter was aroused, and the curiosity has become stronger since.

I was extremely unhappy whilst away from England, felt as if banished, yet hated to go back, and was so depressed that I never had fewer women. I seemed to care nothing about them or indeed anything else, till parting with my friend, I went to Milan. There I found that at the very best house where they kept women, the price was only something less than four shillings for a woman, and fresh handsome women they were. A sexual rousing took place in me, but it was not the result of the cheapness of cunt, it was the niceness of the women, and out of eight women in the house I fucked seven. Then to Turin I went, and sledged over Mount Cenis, and afterwards by diligence much of the way, and the rest by rail, reached Paris with a few adventures, and the first, strange to say, again with (I believe) a married woman.

I travelled in the coupй of a diligence with a tall, dark-eyed, handsome lady, looking thirty, and a boy about five years old, her child. She was well, even ex-pensively dressed, but most quietly (quite the style then when ladies dressed for travel, with its roughness, and not as tho for show). Eight hours were we together. It was very cold, and I longed to get near her for the warmth which a nice woman gives a man; but the child sat in the middle. Of course we talked during the whole journey. She was going to the same town as I was, but I found not to the same hotel. She had been there before, and pronounced the F**c*n Hotel excellent, so I altered my mind, and went to it at the town of G**n*b*e.

It was a big old-fashioned hotel (the railway had then not quite reached the town, and none of the hotel-servants could speak anything but French and Italian (commonly the case in those days). We went up speedily with others to get bed-rooms (no telegraph then), a chambermaid showed them to us together, evidently thinking us married. I selected one. The lady looked at the one next. “The little boy will sleep with me,” said she, “I must have a large bed, — this bed won't do.” “Lucky boy,” said I. She fixed her eyes on me, and coloured. “Boys recollect what they see when very young, I know that, I do,” I went on to say, and laughed. “Do they?” — and she laughed too. “This room then?” said the maid. It had a large bed, but I had selected that. “There is a little room leading out of this (the smaller room) which will do for the little boy,” said the maid, showing it. The lady took the two rooms, the chambermaid then unlocked the door between my room and the lady's. “Shall I bring your supper here, or will you go downstairs?” said she to us. The lady laughed, and (in French of course), “No, no, — the gentleman is not with me.” “Mais pardon, Ma-dame,” said the chambermaid much confused, and shooting a bolt on Madame's side of the door, she went into my room and locked the door on my side, leaving there the key. I was standing in the corridor. Then my prick began suddenly to swell with a voluptuous sensation, the idea of being alone in the bed-room with the lady caused it.

The lady was a well-informed woman, and spoke French and Italian well. We had crossed the frontier in the diligence, and I heard her speak both languages; but though with her for hours, not a word, not a sign of voluptuousness had passed between us, and I had never thought of love till that moment.

Now lust seized me. “She means us to visit each other presently,” said I. The lady laughed. “A pretty visit for me, that would be.” “A bachelor on the visit to a widow.” “But I'm not a widow.” “You've been a long time without a husband you told me.” “And truly enough,” said she with a sigh.

We went into our rooms, washed, and soon after she went downstairs. Seeing no one, I went into her room, unbolted the door, and went then downstairs. The table d'hote was over, we each ordered dinner, and at the waiter's suggestion agreed to dine together, she paying her share. “Do you like champagne?” I asked. “Yes, but I can't afford it, so don't order any for me,” said she quite anxiously. “We are in old France again, and champagne I must have,” and I ordered some, begged she would favor me by taking a glass, and we soon got through one bottle, and began another. The little boy who had a small quantity, fell asleep, the mother said she must put him to bed. “Good night, sir,” said she. “I'll say good night to you upstairs, for I shall go to bed too.” She looked hard at me.

It was a very cold night, the corridors of the hotel were silent. Almost directly after she left I went up to my room. We could hear every movement in each other's room; it was always so in old-fashioned hotels in those days. I listened, — a door closed. “You're nice and warm, — good night dear, — go to sleep, — I'm close to you.” The next instant the rattle of a long strong piddle reached my ear. I laughed loudly and intentionally, and said through the door, “Good night.” “Good night,” she replied in such a tone, that I felt sure she was trying to stifle her laughter.