nineteen. They might have remained casual summer acquaintances but for a freakish fire in their cottage. He had spotted the flames and carried Harriet, the invalid sister, to safety in his arms. Afterward, when she suffered from nightmares, Dr. Flaubert insisted on caring for her at home. At Rouen, Gustave and Caroline countered her demons with card games and puppet plays. The trio became fast friends.
When he moved to Paris for law school, he called on the sisters at their house on the Champs-Élysées. At first his visits were chatty family affairs, with Captain and Mrs. Collier in attendance. Because the entire family held writers in the highest regard, he felt especially welcome. They shared his enthusiasm for Hugo, Byron, and Wordsworth, for Chateaubriand and Shakespeare. Both sisters were bluestockings, versed in the classics and contemporary literature. He confided to them that he had written a book called Novembre, and read some of it aloud. Chez Collier he felt safe and appreciated.
Both girls were appealing. Gertrude was lively and rambunctious, her cheeks rosy with good health, while Harriet radiated the languishing beauty of the semi-invalid, that incandescent pallor that haunted the pages of his beloved Romantics. Both were devout and decorous, attending church every Sunday and abiding strictly by the rules of chaperonage. The three of them never left the house. This made for a less direct sort of coquetry than he was accustomed to. Flirtations took the form of verbal fencing, particularly for Harriet, whose wit was sufficiently nimble to trade innuendos and double entendres.
Slowly, like a net drifting to the bottom of the sea, his interest settled on her. Her large blue eyes and slightly disheveled clothes were uniquely alluring. She had a spinal disorder and usually lay stretched out in fetching poses on the sofa or chaise longue. Chronic debility lent her an ethereal air. And while he could pinpoint no obvious changes, over the months her demeanor increasingly hinted that she desired him. Was he imagining it, or did her poses and gestures sometimes verge on the overtly suggestive?
He began to daydream obsessively about her—lurid, priapic scenarios in which he rescued and then made passionate love to her. She intruded on his sex life with prostitutes. While a whore was fellating him, he’d picture Harriet on her back, clothed in petticoats and a camisole, her eyes half closed, her legs beginning to fall open. Sometimes, when he visited her, he had to camouflage his arousal by remaining seated with a book in his lap.
These fantasies had no future—which made them more ardent—because even Harriet, with her reduced prospects for a husband, was afflicted with that peculiar English virtue a strong sense of duty . Gertrude sometimes called it “constancy of purpose,” speaking in English as though the idea could not be translated because it didn’t exist in French. Perhaps it didn’t. Nor did he comprehend this duty. He knew it wasn’t confined to sex, but wreaked the greatest havoc there. Englishwomen knew nothing about their bodies. Alfred, his closest confidant in things venereal, had once bedded an English maid who did not know what or where the clitoris was. Was it possible in the year 1843 that an educated woman like Harriet Collier was ignorant of her magic button? Alfred claimed his English maid had never masturbated and that after he taught her how, she declared him superfluous.
One day, shortly before he failed his second-year law exams, he found himself alone with Harriet. Gertrude had gone to fetch a book from the library. He was sitting next to her on the sofa, reading aloud, when she took his hand and entwined her fingers with his. A preternatural light in her eyes seemed to draw him into their blueness, pulling him into the vortex of her gaze. She lifted his hand to her pale lips and lightly kissed each fingertip.
Just then, Mrs. Collier paused in the doorway with a smile on her face
When he moved to Paris for law school, he called on the sisters at their house on the Champs-Élysées. At first his visits were chatty family affairs, with Captain and Mrs. Collier in attendance. Because the entire family held writers in the highest regard, he felt especially welcome. They shared his enthusiasm for Hugo, Byron, and Wordsworth, for Chateaubriand and Shakespeare. Both sisters were bluestockings, versed in the classics and contemporary literature. He confided to them that he had written a book called Novembre, and read some of it aloud. Chez Collier he felt safe and appreciated.
Both girls were appealing. Gertrude was lively and rambunctious, her cheeks rosy with good health, while Harriet radiated the languishing beauty of the semi-invalid, that incandescent pallor that haunted the pages of his beloved Romantics. Both were devout and decorous, attending church every Sunday and abiding strictly by the rules of chaperonage. The three of them never left the house. This made for a less direct sort of coquetry than he was accustomed to. Flirtations took the form of verbal fencing, particularly for Harriet, whose wit was sufficiently nimble to trade innuendos and double entendres.
Slowly, like a net drifting to the bottom of the sea, his interest settled on her. Her large blue eyes and slightly disheveled clothes were uniquely alluring. She had a spinal disorder and usually lay stretched out in fetching poses on the sofa or chaise longue. Chronic debility lent her an ethereal air. And while he could pinpoint no obvious changes, over the months her demeanor increasingly hinted that she desired him. Was he imagining it, or did her poses and gestures sometimes verge on the overtly suggestive?
He began to daydream obsessively about her—lurid, priapic scenarios in which he rescued and then made passionate love to her. She intruded on his sex life with prostitutes. While a whore was fellating him, he’d picture Harriet on her back, clothed in petticoats and a camisole, her eyes half closed, her legs beginning to fall open. Sometimes, when he visited her, he had to camouflage his arousal by remaining seated with a book in his lap.
These fantasies had no future—which made them more ardent—because even Harriet, with her reduced prospects for a husband, was afflicted with that peculiar English virtue a strong sense of duty . Gertrude sometimes called it “constancy of purpose,” speaking in English as though the idea could not be translated because it didn’t exist in French. Perhaps it didn’t. Nor did he comprehend this duty. He knew it wasn’t confined to sex, but wreaked the greatest havoc there. Englishwomen knew nothing about their bodies. Alfred, his closest confidant in things venereal, had once bedded an English maid who did not know what or where the clitoris was. Was it possible in the year 1843 that an educated woman like Harriet Collier was ignorant of her magic button? Alfred claimed his English maid had never masturbated and that after he taught her how, she declared him superfluous.
One day, shortly before he failed his second-year law exams, he found himself alone with Harriet. Gertrude had gone to fetch a book from the library. He was sitting next to her on the sofa, reading aloud, when she took his hand and entwined her fingers with his. A preternatural light in her eyes seemed to draw him into their blueness, pulling him into the vortex of her gaze. She lifted his hand to her pale lips and lightly kissed each fingertip.
Just then, Mrs. Collier paused in the doorway with a smile on her face
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