Memoirs of Fanny Hill
affright us, when we cannot get from them, draw our eyes as forcibly as
those that please us. I could not long withstand that nameless impulse,
which, without any desire of this novel sight, compelled me towards it;
emboldened too by my certainty of being at once unseen and safe, I
ventured by degrees to cast my eyes on an object so terrible and
alarming to my virgin modesty as a naked man.
“But as I snatched a look, the first gleam that struck me, was in
general the dewy lustre of the whitest skin imaginable, which the sun
playing upon made the reflection of it perfectly beamy. His face, in
the confusion I was in, I could not well distinguish the lineamints of,
any farther than that there was a great deal of youth and freshness in
it. The frolic and various play of all his fine polished limbs, as they
appeared above the surface, in the course of his swimming or wantoning
with the water, amused and insensibly delighted me; sometimes he lay
motionless, on his back, waterborne, and dragging after him a fine head
of hair, that, floating, swept the stream in a bush of black curls.
Then the overflowing water would make a separation between his breast
and glossy white belly; at the bottom of which I could not escape
observing so remarkable a distinction, as a black mossy tuft, out of
which appeared to emerge a round, softish, limber, white something,
that played every way, with ever the least motion or whirling eddy. I
cannot say but that part chiefly, by a kind of natural instinct,
attracted, detained, captivated my attention: it was out of the power
of all my modesty to command my eye away from it; and seeing nothing so
very dreadful in its appearance, I insensibly looked away all my fears:
but as fast as they gave way, new desires and strange wishes took
place, and I melted as I gazed. The fire of nature, that had so long
lain dormant or concealed, began to break out, and made me feel my sex
for the first time. He had now changed his posture, and swam prone on
his belly, striking out with his legs and arms; finer modeled than
which could not have been cast, whilst his floating locks played over a
neck and shoulders whose whiteness they delightfully set off. Then the
luxuriant swell of flesh that rose from the small of his back, and
terminates its double cope at where the thighs are set off, perfectly
dazzled one with its watery glistening gloss.
“By this time I was so affected by this inward involution of
sentiments, so softened by this sight, that now, betrayed into a sudden
transition from extreme fears to extreme desires, I found these last so
strong upon me, the heat of the weather too perhaps conspiring to exalt
their rage, that nature almost fainted under them. Not that I so much
as knew precisely what was wanting to me: my only thought was, that so
sweet a creature, as this youth seemed to me, could only make me happy;
but then, the little likelihood there was of compassing an acquaintance
with him, or perhaps of ever seeing him again, dashed my desires, and
turned them into torments. I was still gazing, with all the powers of
my sight, on this bewitching object, when, in an instant, down he went.
I had heard of such things as a cramp seizing on even the best
swimmers, and occasioning their being drowned; and imagining this so
sudden eclipse to be owing to it, the inconceivable fondness this
unknown lad had given birth to, distracted me with the most killing
terrors; insomuch, that my concern giving the wings, I flew to the
door, opened it, ran down to the canal, guided thither by the madness
of my fears for him, and the intense desire of being an instrument to
save him, though I was ignorant how, or by what means to effect it: but
was it for fears, and a passion so sudden as mine, to reason! All this
took up scarce the space of a few moments. I had then just life enough
to reach the green borders of the waterpiece, where wildly looking
round for the young man, and missing him still, my fright and concern
sunk me down in a deep swoon, which must have lasted me some time; for
I did not come to myself, till I was roused out of it by a sense of
pain that pierced me to the vitals, and awaked me to the the most
surprising circumstance of finding myself not only in the arms of this
very young gentleman I had been so solicitous to save; but taken at
such an advantage in my unresisting condition, that he had actually
completed his entrance into me so far, that weakened as I was by all
the preceding conflicts of mind I had suffered, and struck dumb by the
violence of my surprise, I had neither the power to cry out, nor the
strength to disengage myself from his strenuous embraces, before,
urging his point, he had forced his way and completely triumphed over
my virginity, as he might now as well see by the streams of blood that
followed his drawing out, as he had felt by the difficulties he had met
with consummating his penetration. But the sight of the blood, and the
sense of my condition, had (as he told me afterwards), since the
ungovernable rage of his passion was somewhat appeased, now wrought so
far on him, that at all risks, even of the worst consequences, he could
not find in his heart to leave me, and make off, which he might easily
have done. I still lay all discomposed in bleeding ruin, palpitating,
speechless, unable to get off, and frightened, and fluttering like a
poor wounded partridge, and ready to faint away again at the sense of
what had befallen me. The young gentleman was by me, kneeling, kissing
my hand, and with tears in his eyes, beseeching me to forgive him, and
offering all the reparation in his power. It is certain that could I,
at the instant of regaining my senses, have called out, or taken the
bloodiest revenge, I would not be stuck at it; the violation was
attended too with such aggravating circumstances, though he was
ignorant of them, since it was to my concern for the preservation of
his life, that I owed my ruin.
“But how quick is the shift of passions from one extreme to another!
and how little are they acquainted with the human heart who dispute it!
I could not see this amiable criminal, so suddenly the first object of
my love, and as suddenly of my just hate, on his knees, bedewing my
hands with his tears, without relenting. He was still stark-naked, but
my modesty had been already too much wounded, in essentials, to be so
much shocked as I should have otherwise been with appearances only; in
short, my anger ebbed so fast, and the tide of love returned so strong
upon me, that I felt it a point of my own happiness to forgive him. The
reproaches I made him were murmured in so soft a tone, my eyes met his
with such glances, expressing more languor than resentment, that he
could not but presume his forgiveness was at no desperate distance; but
still he would not quit his posture of submission, till I had
pronounced his pardon in form; which after the most fervent entreaties,
protestations, and promises, I had not the power to withhold. On which,
with the utmost marks of a fear of again offending, he ventured to kiss
my lips, which I neither declined nor resented: but on my mild
expostulation with him upon the barbarity of his treatment, he
explained the mystery of my ruin, if not entirely to the clearance, at
least much to the alleviation of his guilt, in the eyes of a judge so
partial in his favour as I was grown.
“It seems that the circumstance of his going down, or sinking, which in
my extreme ignorance I had mistaken for something very fatal, was no
other than a trick of diving, which I had not ever heard, or at least
attended o, the mention of: and he was so long-breathed at it, that in
the few moments in which I ran out to save him, he had not yet emerged,
before I fell into the swoon, in which, as he rose, seeing me extended
on the bank, his first idea was, that some young woman was upon some
design of frolic or diversion with him, for he knew I could not have
fallen asleep there without his having seen me before: agreebly to
which notion he had ventured to approach, and finding me without sign
of life, and still perplexed as he was what to think of the adventure,
he took me in his arms at all hazards, and carried me into the
summer-house, of which he observed the door open: there he laid me down
on the couch, and tried, as he protested in good faith, by several
means to bring me to myself again, till fired, as he said, beyond all
bearing by the sight and touch of several parts of me, which were
unguardedly exposed to him, he could no longer govern his passion; and
the less, as he was not quite sure that his first idea of this swoon
being a feint, was not the very truth of the case; seduced then by this
flattering notion, and overcome by the present, as he styled them,
super-human temptations, combined with the solitude and seeming
security of the attempt, he was not enough his own master not to make
it. Leaving me then just only whilst he fastened the door, he returned
with redoubled eagerness to his prey: when, finding me still entranced,
he ventured to place me as he pleased, whilst I felt, no more than the
dead, what he was about, till the pain he put me to roused me just in
time enough to be witness of a triumph I was not able to defeat, and
now scarce regretted: for as he talked, the tone of his voice sounded,
methought, so sweetly in my ears, the sensible nearness of so new and
interesting an object to me, wrought so powerfully upon me, that, in
the rising perception of things in a new and pleasing light, I lost all
sense of the past injury. The young gentleman soon discerned the
symptoms of a reconciliation in my softened looks, and hastening to
receive the seal of it from my lips, pressed them tenderly to pass his
pardon in the return of a kiss so melting fiery, that the impression of
it being carried to my heart, and thence to my new discovered sphere of
Venus, I was melted into a softness that could refuse him nothing. When
now he managed his caresses and endearments so artfully, as to
insinuate the most soothing consolations for the past pain and the most
pleasing expectations of future pleasure, but whilst mere modesty kept
my eyes from seeing his and rather declined them, I had a glimpse of
that instrument of mischief which was now, obviously even to me, who
had scarce had snatches of a comparative observation of it, resuming
its capacity to renew it, and grew greatly alarming with its increase
of size, as he bore it no doubt designedly, hard and stiff against one
of my hands carelessly dropt; but then he employed such tender
prefacing, such winning progressions, that my returning passion of
desire being now so strongly prompted by the engaging circumstances of
the sight and incendiary touch of his naked glowing beauties, I yield
at length at the force of the present impressions, and he obtained of
my tacit blushing consent all the gratifications of pleasure left in
the power of my poor person to bestow, after he had cropt its richest
flower, during my suspension of life, and abilities to guard it.
“Here, according to the rule laid down, I should stop; but I am so much
in notion, that I could not if I would. I shall only add, however, that
I got home without the least discovery, or suspicion of what had
happened. I met my young ravisher several times after, whom I now
passionately loved and who, though not of age to claim a small but
independent fortune, would have married me; but as the accident that
prevented it, and its consequences, which threw me on the public,
contain matters too moving and serious to introduce at present, I cut
short here.”
Louisa, the brunette whom I mentioned at first, now took her turn to
treat the company with her history. I have already hinted to you the