Memoirs of Fanny Hill
it stood upon not to be deceived in it; but at length I observed a
paper patch of the same colour as the wainscot, which I took to conceal
some flaw; but then it was so high, that I was obliged to stand upon a
chair to reach it, which I did as soft as possible, and, with a point
of a bodkin, soon pierced it, and opened myself espial room sufficient.
And now, applying my eye close, I commanded the room perfectly, and
could see my two young sparks romping and pulling one another about,
entirely, to my imagination, in frolic and innocent play.
The eldest might be, on my nearest guess, towards nineteen, a tall
comely young man, in a white fustian frock, with a green velvet cape,
and cut bob-wig.
The youngest could not be above seventeen, fair, ruddy, completely well
made, and to say the truth, a sweet pretty stripling: he was too, I
fancy, a country lad, by his dress, which was a green plush frock, and
breeches of the same, white waistcoat and stockings, a jockey cap, with
his yellowish hair, long and loose, in natural curls.
But after a look of circumspection, which I saw the eldest cast every
way round the room, probably in too much hurry and heat not to overlook
the very small opening I was posted at, especially at the height it
was, whilst my eye close to it kept the light from shining through and
betraying it, he said something to his companion that presently changed
the face of things.
For now the elder began to embrace, to press and kiss the younger, to
put his hands into his bosom, and give him such manifest signs of an
amorous intention, as made me conclude the other to be a girl in
disguise: a mistake that nature kept me in countenance for, for she had
certainly made one, when she gave him the male stamp.
In the rashness then of their age, and bent as they were to accomplish
their project of preposterous pleasure, at the risk of the very worst
of consequences, where a discovery was nothing less than improbable,
they now proceeded to such lengths as soon satisfied me what they were.
For presently the eldest unbuttoned the other’s breeches, and removing
the linen barrier, brought out to view a white shaft, middle sized, and
scarce fledged, when after handling and playing with it a little, with
other dalliance, all received by the boy without other opposition than
certain wayward coyness, ten times-more alluring than repulsive, he got
him so turned round, with his face from him, to a chair that stood hard
by; when knowing, I suppose, his office, the Ganymede now obsequiously
leaned his head against the back of it, and projecting his body, made a
fair mark, still covered with his shirt. As he thus stood in a side
view to me, but fronting his companion, who, presently unmasking his
battery, produced an engine that certainly deserved to be put to a
better use, and very fit to confirm me in my disbelief of the
possibility of things; being pushed to odious extremities, which I had
built on the disproportion of parts; but this disbelief I was now cured
of, as by my consent all young men should likewise be, that their
innocence may not be betrayed into such snares, for want of knowing the
extent of their danger: for nothing is more certain than that ignorance
of advice is by no means a guard against it.
Slipping, then, aside the young lad’s shirt, and tucking it up under
his clothes behind, he shewed to the open air those globular fleshy
eminences that compose the Mount Peasants of Rome, and which now, with
all the narrow vale that intersects them, stood displayed and exposed
to his attack; nor could I without a shudder behold the dispositions he
made for it. First, then, moistening well with spittle his instrument,
obviously to make it glib, he pointed, he introduced it, as I could
plainly discern, not only from its direction and my losing sight of it,
but by the writhing, twisting and soft murmured complaints of the young
sufferer; but at length, the first straits of entrance being pretty
well go through, every thing seemed to move and go pretty currently on,
as on a carpet road, without much rub or resistance; and now, passing
one hand round his minions’ hips, he got hold of his red-topped ivory
toy, that stood perfectly stiff, and shewed, that if he was like his
mother behind, he was like his father before; this he diverted himself
with, whilst, with the other he wantoned with his hair, and leaning
forward over his back, drew his face, from which the boy shook the
loose curls that fell over it, in the posture he stood him in, and
brought him towards his, so as to receive a long breathed kiss; after
which, renewing his driving, and thus continuing to harass his rear,
the height of the fist came on with its usual symptoms, and dismissed
the action.
The criminal scene they acted, I had the patience to see to an end,
purely that I might gather more facts and certainty against them in my
design to do their deserts instant justice; and accordingly, when they
had re-adjusted themselves; and were preparing to go out, burning as I
was with rage and indignation, I jumped down from the chair, in order
to raise the house upon them, but with such an unlucky impetuosity,
that some nail or ruggedness in the floor caught my foot, and flung me
on my face with such violence, that I fell senseless on the ground, and
lay there some time before any one came to my relief: so that they,
alarmed, I suppose, by the noise of my fall, had more than the
necessary time to make a safe retreat. This they effected, as I learnt,
with a precipitation nobody could account for, until, when come to
myself, and composed enough to speak, I acquainted those of the house
with the whole transaction I had been evidence to.
When I came home again, and told Mrs. Cole this adventure, she very
sensibly observed to me, that “there was no doubt of the due vengeance
one time or other overtaking these miscreants, however they might
escape for the present; and that, had I been the temporal instrument of
it, I should have been put to a great deal more trouble and confusion
than I imagined; that, as to the thing itself, the less said of it was
the better; but that though she might be suspected of partiality, from
its being the common cause of womankind, out of whose mouths this
practice tended to take something more than bread, yet she protested
against any mixture of passion, with a declaration extorted from her by
pure regard to truth; which was, that whatever effect this infamous
passion had in other ages and other countries, it seemed a peculiar
blessing on our air and climate, that there was a plaguespot visibly
imprinted on all that are tainted with it, in this nation at least, for
that among numbers of that stamp whom she had known, or at least were
universally under the scandalous suspicion of it, she would not name an
exception hardly to one of them, whose character was not, in all other
respects, the most worthless and despicable that could be; stript of
all the manly virtues of their own sex, and filled up with only the
worst vices and follies of ours; that, in fine, they were scarce less
execrable than ridiculous in their monstrous inconsistence, of loathing
and contemning women, and at the same time apeing all their manners,
airs, lisps, scuttle, and, in general, all their little modes of
affectation, which become them at least better, than they do these
unsexed, male misses.”
But here, washing my hands of them, I re-plunge into the stream of my
history, which I may very properly ingraft a terrible sally of
Louisa’s, since I had some share in it myself, and have besides engaged
myself to relate it, in point of countenance to poor Emily. It will
add, too, one more example to thousands, in confirmation of the maxim,
that women get once out of compass, there are no lengths of
licentiousness, that they are not capable of running.
One morning then, that both Mrs. Cole and Emily were gone out for the
day, and only Louisa and I (not to mention the house-maid) were left in
charge of the house, whilst we were loitering away the time, in looking
through the shop windows, the son of a poor woman, who earned very hard
bread indeed by mending of stockings, in a stall in the neighbourhood,
offered us some nosegays, ranged round a small basket; by selling of
which the poor boy eked out his mother’s maintenance of them both: nor
was he fit for any other way of livelihood, since he was not only a
perfect changeling, or idiot, but stammered so that there was no
understanding even those sounds his half-dozen animals ideas, at most,
prompted him to utter.
The boys and servants in the neighbourhood had given him the nick-name
of good-natured Dick, from the soft simpleton’s doing every thing he
was bid at the first word, and from his naturally having no turn to
mischief; then, by the way, he was perfectly well made, stout,
clean-limbed, tall of his age, as strong as a horse, and, withal,
pretty featured; so that he was not, absolutely, such a figure to be
snuffled at neither, if your nicety could, in favour of such
essentials, have dispensed with a face unwashed, hair tangled for want
of combing, and so ragged a plight, that he might have disputed points
of shew with any heathen philosopher of them all.
This boy we had often seen, and bought his flowers, out of pure
compassion, and nothing more; but just at this time as he stood
presenting us his basket, a sudden whim, a start of wayward fancy,
seized Louisa; and, without consulting me, she calls him in, and
beginning to examine his nosegays, culls out two, one for herself,
another for me, and pulling out half a crown, very currently gives it
him to change, as if she had really expected he could have changed it:
but the boy, scratching his head, made his signs explain his inability
in place of words, which he could not, with all his struggles,
articulate.
Louisa, at this, says: “Well, my lad, come up stairs with me, and I
will give you your due,” winking at the same time to me, and beckoning
me to accompany her, which I did, securing first the street-door, that
by this means, together with the shop, became wholly the care of the
faithful house-maid.
As we went up, Louisa whispered me “that she had conceived a strange
longing to be satisfied, whether the general rule held good with regard
to this changeling, and how far nature had made him amends, in her best
bodily gifts, for her denial of the sublimer intellectual ones; begin,
at the same time, my assistance in procuring her this satisfaction.” A
want of complaisance was never my vice, and I was so far from opposing
this extravagant frolic, that now, bit with the same maggot, and my
curiosity conspiring with hers, I entered plump into it, on my own
account.
Consequently, soon as we came into Louisa’s bed-chamber, whilst she was
amusing him with picking out his nosegays, I undertook the lead, and
began the attack. As it was not then very material to keep much
measures with a mere natural, I made presently free with him, though at
my first motion of meddling, his surprise and confusion made him
receive my advances but awkwardly: nay, insomuch that he bashfully
shied, and shied back a little; till encouraging him with my eyes,
plucking him playfully by the hair, sleeking his cheeks, and forwarding
my point by a number of little wantonnesses, I soon turned him
familiar, and gave nature her sweetest alarm: so that aroused, and
beginning to feel himself, we could, amidst all the innocent laugh and
grin I had provoked him into, perceive the fire lighting in his eyes,
and, diffusing over his cheeks, blend its glow with that of his
blushes. The emotion in short of animal pleasure glared distinctly in
the simpleton’s countenance; yet struck with the novelty of the scene,
he did not know which way to look or move; but tame, passive,