Henceforward, I believe, my destiny was fixed.

Charles stirred, I made haste to turn round and pretended to sleep, and he left the bed first, as was his habit.

The limit fixed for our sojourn at granny's house drew near.

I was far from being unhappy, as my husband was good to me and loved me as heartily as his cold nature allowed him. He was proud of my beauty and refused me nothing, but all this did not suffice. It was not what I had so much desired — namely, a voluptuous, lascivious, ardent love, for which I would have sacrificed everything, for which I was capable of real devotion! I could see laid out before me, a gentle monotonous life, probably without the birth of a child, but too difficult to support for a temperament like mine.

Charles did it to me once or twice a week, and always in the same despairing reserved style. He only kissed my cheeks or my forehead, my young firm breasts received no caresses, his hand seemed to flee that charming place that would have so gladly welcomed its touch. I too felt that I dare not try to feel him, as instinctively I knew he would have repulsed me.

We had already been married two years, I was twenty!

My temperatment now in full blast had increased in passion, instead of growing calmer! My husband did it less and less, and as I feared I had no child, and a baby would have changed my one fixed idea.

My grandmother had been dead a year. We dwelt in the town of Z — , where my husband occupied an exalted position that obliged him to be frequently absent, and these little journeys suited his taste for hunting and shooting.

Therefore I was often alone, and in spite of music, that I continued to love and successfully cultivate, my brain was always at work, my excited senses continually pictured scenes of delirious love. What fearful nights I used to pass alone, writhing between the sheets in lascivious positions that I instinctively invented!