03 - Section 03. Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland.

03 - Section 03. Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland.  
This book has been notorious since it first appeared and had been banned several times and in several countries. It is a fictional work that details the adventures of an orphaned girl who ends up working in a brothel in London. Early on she falls in love with a young man named Charles, but only to end up being separated from him. She then recounts her experiences as a prostitute who, in spite of her circumstances, manages to retain her humanity and undying faith in true love.  
⚠️If you find insult/get offended or are against extreme descriptions of sexual acts PUT THE BOOK DOWN⚠️

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Section three of Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Memoirs of a
Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland letter the first part three. Charles,
already disposed by the evidence of his senses to think

(00:22):
my pretenses to virginity not entirely apocryphal, smothers me with kisses,
begs me in the name of love to have a
little patience, and that he will be as tender of
hurting me as he would be of himself. Alas it
was enough I knew his pleasure to submit joyfully to him,
whatever pain I foresaw it would cost me. He now

(00:45):
resumes his attempts in more form. First he put one
of the pillows under me, to give the blank of
his aim a more favorable elevation, and another under my
head in ease of it. Then, spreading my thighs and
placing himself standing between them, made them rest upon his hips.
Applying then the point of his machine to the slit

(01:08):
into which he sought entrance. It was so small he
could scarce assure himself of its being rightly pointed. He looks,
he feels, and satisfies himself. Then driving on with fury.
Its prodigious stiffness thus impacted wedge like breaks the union
of those parts, and gained him just the insertion of

(01:32):
the tip of it lip deep, which, being sensible of
he improved his advantage, and following well his stroke in
a straight line forcibly deepens his penetration, but put me
to such intolerable pain from the separation of the sides
of that soft passage by a hard, thick body. I

(01:53):
could have screamed out, but as I was unwilling to
alarm the house, I held in my breath and crammed
my petticoat, which was turned up over my face, into
my mouth, and bit it through. In the agony at length,
the tender texture of that tract giving way to such
fierce tearing and rending he pierced something further into me,

(02:18):
and now outrageous and no longer his own master, but
borne headlong away by the fury and over metal of
fat member. Now exerting itself with a kind of native rage,
he breaks in, carries all before him, and one violent
merciless lunch scent it imbrood and reeking with virtant blood

(02:38):
up to the very hilt in me then then all
my resolution deserted me. I screamed out and fainted away
with the sharpness of the pain, And as he told
me afterwards, on his drawing out, when emission was over
with him, my thighs were instantly all in a stream
of blood that flowed from the wounded, torn passage. When

(03:02):
I recovered my senses, I found myself undressed and a
bed in the arms of the sweet, relenting murderer of
my virginity, who hung mourning tenderly over me, and holding
in his hand a cordial which, coming from the still
dear author of so much pain, I could not refuse.
My eyes, however, moistened with tears, and languishingly turned upon him,

(03:27):
seemed to reproach him with his cruelty, and ask him
if such were the rewards of love. But Charles, to
whom I was now infinitely endeared by this complete triumph
over a maidenhead where he so little expected to find
one in tenderness to that pain which he had put
me to in procuring himself the height of pleasure, smothered

(03:49):
his exultation, and employed himself with so much sweetness, so
much warmth, to soothe, to caress, and comfort me in
my soft complainings, which which breathed indeed more love than resentment,
that I presently drowned all sense of pain, in the
pleasure of seeing him, of thinking that I belonged to him,

(04:10):
he who was now the absolute disposer of my happiness
and in one word, my fate. The sore was, however,
too tender, the wound too bleeding fresh, for Charles good
nature to put my patience presently to another trial. But
as I could not stir or walk across the room,

(04:30):
he ordered the dinner to be brought to the bedside,
where it could not be otherwise than my getting down
the wing of a fowl, and two or three glasses
of wine, since it was my adored youth who both
served and urged them on me with that sweet, irresistible
authority with which love had invested him over me. After dinner,

(04:52):
and as everything but the wine was taken away, Charles
very impudently asks a leave he might read the grant
of in my my eyes, to come to bed to me,
and accordingly falls to undressing, which I could not see
the progress of without strange emotions of fear and pleasure.
He is now in bed with me the first time,

(05:13):
and in broad day. But when thrusting up his own
shirt and my shift, he laid his naked, glowing body
to mine. Oh insupportable delight, Oh superhuman rapture. What pain
could stand before pleasure? Socian sporting, I felt no more
the smart of my wounds below, but curling round him

(05:35):
like the tendril of a vine, as if I feared
any part of him should be untouched or unpressed by me.
I returned his strenuous embraces and kisses with a fervor
and gust only known to true love, and which mere
lust could never rise to yes. Even at this time,
when all the tyranny of the passions is fully over,

(05:58):
and my veins roll no longer but a cold, tranquil stream,
the remembrance of those passages that most affected me in
my youth still cheers and refreshes me. Let me proceed. Then,
my beauteous youth was now glued to me in all
the folds and twists that we could make our bodies
meet in. When no longer able to rein in the

(06:20):
fierceness of refreshed desires, he gives his steed the head
and gently insinuating his size between mine, stopping my mouth
with kisses of humid fire, makes a fresh irruption, and
renewing his thrusts, pierces, tears, and forces his way up
the torn tender folds that yielded him admission with a

(06:43):
smart little less severe than when the breach was first made.
I stifled, however, my cries, and bore him with the
passive fortitude of a heroine. Soon his thrusts more and
more furious, cheeks flushed with a deeper scarlet, his eyes
turned up in the fervent fit some dying size, and

(07:05):
an agonizing shudder announced the approaches of that ecstatic pleasure.
I was yet in too much pain to come in
for my share of it, Nor was it till after
a few enjoyments had numbed and blunted the sense of
the smart and given me to feel the titulating inspersion
of balsamic sweets, drew from me the delicious return, and

(07:27):
brought down all my passion that I arrived at excess
of pleasure through excess of pain. But when successive engagements
had broke and inured me, I began to enter into
the true, unallayed relish of that pleasure of pleasures when
the warm gush darts through all the ravished inwards. What

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floods of bliss? What melting transports, what agonies of delight?
Two fears too mighty for nature to sustain? Well? Has she, therefore,
no doubt provided the relief of a delicious, momentary dissolution,
the approaches of which are intimated by a dear delirium,

(08:09):
a sweet thrill on the point of emitting those liquid
sweets in which enjoyment itself is drowned when one gives
a languishing stretch out and dies at a discharge. How often,
when the rage and tumult of my senses had subsided
after the melting flow, have I, in a tender meditation,

(08:30):
asked myself coolly the question if it was in nature
for any of its creatures to be so happy as
I was? Or what were all fears of the consequence
put in the scale of one night's enjoyment of anything
so transcendently the taste of my eyes and heart as
that delicious, fond matchless youth. Thus we spent the whole

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afternoon till supper time in a continued circle of love, delights, kissing, turtle, pilling, toying,
and all the rest of the feast. At length, supper
was served in before which Charles had, for I do
not know what reason, slipped his clothes on, and, sitting
down by the bedside, we made table and tablecloth of

(09:14):
the bed and sheets. Whilst he suffered nobody to attend
or serve but himself. He ate with a very good appetite,
and seemed charmed to see me eat. For my part,
I was so transported with a comparison of the delights
I now swam in with the insipidity of all my
past scenes of life, that I thought them sufficiently cheap

(09:36):
at even the price of my ruin, or the risk
of their not lasting. The present possession was all my
little head could find room for. We lay together that night, when,
after playing repeated prizes of pleasure, nature, overspent and satisfied,
gave us up to the arms of sleep, those of

(09:57):
my dear youth encircled me, the conscioussness of which made
even that sleep more delicious. Late in the morning, I
waked first, and, observing my lovers, slept profoundly, softly disengaged
myself from his arms, scarcely daring to breathe, for fear
of shortening his repose. My cap, my hair, my shift

(10:18):
were all in disorder from the rufflings I had undergone,
and I took this opportunity to adjust and set them
as well as I could, whilst every now and then
looking at the sleeping youth with inconceivable fondness and delight,
and reflecting on all the pain he had put me
to taesitly owned that the pleasure had overpaid me for

(10:39):
my sufferings. It was then broad day I was sitting
up in the bed, the clothes of which were all
tossed or rolled off by the unquietness of our motions
from the sultry heat of the weather. Nor could I
refuse myself a pleasure that solicited me so irresistibly as
this fair occasion of feasting my sight with all those

(11:01):
treasures of youthful beauty I had enjoyed, and which lay
now almost entirely naked, his shirt being trussed up in
a perfect wisp, which the warmth of the room and
the season made me easy about the consequence of I
hung over him and a moored indeed, and devoured all
his naked charms with only two eyes. When I could

(11:23):
have wished them at least a hundred for the fuller
enjoyment of the gaze. Oh, could I paint his figure
as I see it now, still present to my transported imagination,
a whole length of an all perfect manly beauty in
full view. Think of a face without a fault, glowing
with all the opening bloom and verdant freshness of an

(11:44):
age in which beauty is of either sex, and which
the first down over his upper lip scarce began to
distinguish the parting of the double ruby pout of his
lips seemed to exhale an air sweeter and purer than
what it drew. Ah, what violence it did not cost
me to refrain the so tempted kiss. Then a neck

(12:07):
exquisitely turned, grazed behind and on the sides, with his
hair playing freely in natural ringlets, connected his head to
a body of the most perfect form and of the
most vigorous contexture, in which all the strength of manhood
was concealed and softened to appearance by the delicacy of
his complexion, the smoothness of his skin, and the plumpness

(12:30):
of his flesh, The platform of his snow white bosom
that was laid out in a manly proportion, presented on
the vermilion summit of each pap the idea of a
rose about to blow. Nor did his shirt hinder me
from observing that symmetry of his limbs, that exactness of shape,
in the fall of it towards the loins, where the

(12:52):
waist ends, and the rounding swell of the hip's commences,
where the skin, sleek, smooth and dazzling white burnishes on
the stretch over firm, plump, ripe flesh that crimped and
ran into dimples at the least pressure, or that the
touch could not rest upon, but slid over as on
the surface of the most polished ivory. His size, finely

(13:15):
fashioned and with florid, glossy roundness, gradually tapering away to
the knees, seemed pillars worthy to support that beauteous frame
at the bottom of which I could not without some
remains of terror. Some tender emotions, too, fixed my eyes
on that terrible machine, which had not long before, with

(13:36):
such fury, broke into torn and almost ruined those soft,
tender parts of mine that had not yet done smarting
with the effects of its rage. But behold it now crestfallen,
reclining its half capped vermilion head over one of his sighs, quiet,
pliant and to all appearance, incapable of the mischiefs and

(13:58):
cruelty it had committed. Then the beautiful growth of the
hair in short and soft curls round its root, its whiteness,
branched veins, the supple softness of the shaft as it
lay foreshorted, rolled and shrunk up into a squab thickness, languid,
and borne up from between his thighs by its globular appendage.

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That wondrous treasure bag of nature's sweets, which riveled round
and pursed up in the only wrinkles that are known
to please, perfected the prospect, and altogether formed the most
interesting moving picture in nature, and surely infinitely superior to
those nudities furnished by the painters, statuaries, or any art,

(14:43):
which are purchased at immense prices, whilst the sight of
them in actual life is scarce sovereignly tasted by any
but the view whom Nature has endowed with the fire
of imagination, warmly pointed by a truth of judgment to
the spring head. The originals, beauty of nature's unequaled composition,

(15:03):
above all the imitation of art or the reach of
wealth to pay their price. But everything must have an end.
A motion made by this angelic youth, in the listlessness
of going off sleep, replaced his shirt and then the bedclothes,
in a posture that shut up that treasure from longer view.

(15:24):
I lay down, then, and carrying my hands to that
part of me in which the objects just seen had
begun to raise a mutiny that prevailed over the smart
of them. My fingers now opened themselves in easy passage.
But long I had not time to consider the wide
difference there between the maid and the now finished woman,

(15:46):
before Charles waked, and turning towards me, kindly inquired how
I had rested, and scarce giving me time to answer,
imprinted on my lips one of his burning raptuur kisses,
which darted a flame to my heart that from thence
radiated to every part of me. And presently, as if

(16:07):
he had proudly meant revenge for the survey I had
smuggled of all his naked beauties, he spurns off the
bed clothes, and trussing up my shift as high as
it would go. Took his turn to feast his eyes
on all the gifts nature had bestowed on my person.
His busy hands, too, ranged intemperately over every part of me.

(16:29):
The delicious austerity and hardness of my yet unripe, budding breasts,
the whiteness and firmness of my flesh, the freshness and
regularity of my features, the harmony of my limbs, all
seemed to confirm him in his satisfaction with his bargain.
But when curious to explore the havoc he had made

(16:51):
in the center of his over fierce attack, he not
only directed his hands there, but with a pillow put
under placed me favorably for him his wanton purpose of inspection.
Then who can express the fire His eyes glistened, his
hands glowed with whilst sighs of pleasure and tender broken

(17:11):
exclamations were all the praises he could utter. By this time,
his machine, stiffly risen at me, gave me to see
it in its highest state and bravery. He feels it himself,
seems pleased at its condition, and smiling loves and graces,
seizes one of my hands and carries it with a

(17:33):
gentle compulsion to his pride of nature and its richest masterpiece.
I struggling faintly, could not help feeling what I could
not grasp, a column of the whitest ivory, beautifully streaked
with blue veins, and carrying fully uncapped a head of
the liveliest vermilion. No horn could be harder or stiffer,

(17:57):
yet no velvet more smooth or delay to the touch.
Presently he guided my hand lower to that part in
which nature and pleasure keep their stores in concert, so
aptly fastened and hung on to the root of their
first instrument, and minister that not improperly he might be
styled their purse bearer too. There he made me feel,

(18:20):
distinctly through their soft cover, the contents a pair of
roundish balls that seemed to play within and elude all
pressure but the tenderest from without. But now this visit
of my soft, warm hand in those so sensible parts
had put everything into such ungovernable fury, that, disdaining all

(18:42):
further preluding, and taking advantage of my commodious posture, he
made the storm fall where I scarce patiently expected, and
where he was sure to lay it. And presently then
I felt the stiff insertion between the yielding, divided lips
of the wound, now open for life, where the narrowness

(19:03):
no longer put me to intolerable pain, and afforded my
lover no more difficulty than what heightened his pleasure in
the strict embrace of that tender warm sheath round the
instrument it was so delicately adjusted to, and which now
chased home, so gorged me with pleasure that it perfectly

(19:23):
suffocated me and took away my breath. Then the killing thrusts,
the unnumbered kisses, every one of which was a joy inexpressible,
and that joy lost in a crowd of yet greater blisses.
But this was a disorder too violent in nature to
last long. The vessels, so stirred and intensely heated, soon

(19:46):
boiled over, and for that time put out the fire. Meanwhile,
all this stallions in disport had so far consumed the
morning that it became a kind of necessity to lay
breakfast and dinner into wine. In our calmer intervals, Charles
gave the following account of himself, every word of which

(20:07):
was true. He was the only son of a father who,
having a small post in the revenue rather overlived his income,
and had given this young gentleman a very slender education.
No profession had he bred him up to, but designed
to provide for him in the army by purchasing him
an ensigns commission, that is to say, provided he could

(20:30):
raise the money or procure it by interest, either of
which clauses was rather to be wished than hoped for
by him. On no better plan, however, had this improvident
father suffered this youth, a youth of great promise, to
run up to the age of manhood, or near it,
at least in next to idleness, And had besides taken

(20:53):
no sort of pains to give him even the common
premonitions against the vices of the town, and the dangers
of all sorts, words which weighed the unexperienced and unwary
in it. He lived at home and at discretion, with
his father, who himself kept a mistress, and for the
rest provided Charles did not ask him for money, he

(21:13):
was indolently kind to him. He might lie out when
he pleased, any excuse would serve, and even his reprimands
were so slight that they carried with them rather an
air of connivance at the fault, rather than any serious
control or constraint, but to supply his calls for money. Charles,
whose mother was dead, had by her side a grandmother

(21:36):
who doted upon him. She had a considerable annuity to
live on, and very regularly parted with every shilling she
could spare to this darling of hers, to the no
little heartburn of his father, who was vexed. Not that she,
by this means fed his son's extravagance, but that she
preferred Charles to himself. And we shall too soon see

(21:59):
what a fatal such a mercenary jealousy could operate in
the breast of a father. Charles was, however, by the
means of his grandmother's lavish fondness, very sufficiently enabled to
keep a mistress so easily contented as my love made me,
and my good fortune, for such I must ever call it,

(22:19):
threw me in his way in the manner above related,
just as he was on the lookout for one as
to temper. The even sweetness of it made him seem
born for domestic happiness, tender, naturally polite, and gentle mannered.
It could never be his fault. If ever, jars or
animosities ruffled a calm. He was so qualified in every

(22:41):
way to maintain or restore. Without those great or shining
qualities that constitute a genius or are fit to make
a noise in the world, he had all those humble
ones that composed the softer social merit, plain common sense,
set off with every grace of modesty and good nature,
made him, if not admired, what is much happier, universally

(23:05):
beloved and esteemed. But as nothing but the beauties of
his person had at first attracted my regard and fixed
my passion, Neither was I then a judge of that
internal merit which I had afterward full occasion to discover,
and which perhaps in that season of giddiness and levity,
would have touched my heart very little had it been

(23:28):
lodged in a person less the delight of my eyes,
an idle of my senses. But to return to our situation,
after dinner, which we ate a bed in a most
voluptuous disorder, Charles got up, and, taking a passionate leave
of me for a few hours, he went to town, where,
concerting matters with a young sharp lawyer, they went together

(23:51):
to my late venerable mistresses from whence I had but
the day before made my elopement, and with whom he
was deters to settle accounts in a manner that should
cut off all after reckonings from that quarter. Accordingly they went,
but on the way the templar his friend, on thinking
over Charles information, saw reason to give their visit another turn,

(24:16):
and instead of offering satisfaction, to demand it. On being
let in. The girls of the house flocked round Charles,
whom they knew, and from the earliness of my escape,
and their perfect ignorance of his ever having so much
as seen me, not having the least suspicion of his
being accessory to my flight, they were in their way

(24:38):
making up to him, and as to his companion, they
took him, probably for a fresh collie. But the templar
soon checked their forwardness by inquiring for the old lady,
with whom he said with a grave judge like countenance,
that he had some business to settle. Madam was immediately
sent down for and the ladies being desired to clear

(25:01):
the room. The lawyer asked her severely if she did
know or had not decoyed under pretense of hiring as
a servant, a young girl just come out of the
country called Francis or Fanny Hill, describing me withal as
particularly as he could from Charles's description, it is peculiar
to vice to tremble at the inquiries of justice. And

(25:24):
missus Brown, whose conscience was not entirely clear upon my account,
as knowing as she was of the town, as hackneyed
as she was in bluffing through all the dangers of
her vocation, could not help being alarmed at the question,
especially when he went on to talk of a justice
of the peace, Newgate, the Old Bailey, indictments for keeping

(25:47):
a disorderly house, pillory carting, and the whole process of
that nature. She, who it is likely imagined I had
lodged an information against her house, looked extremely blank and
began to make a thousand protestations and excuses. However, to
abridge they brought away triumphantly my box of things, which,

(26:12):
had she not been under an awe, she might have
disputed with them. And not only that, but a clearance
and discharge of any demands on the house, at the
expense of no more than a bowl of Arab punch,
the treat of which, together with the choice of the
house conveniences was offered and not accepted. Charles, all the

(26:32):
time acted the chance companion of the lawyer who had
brought him there, as he knew the house and appeared
in no wise interested in the issue. But he had
the collateral pleasure of hearing all that I had told
him verified so far as the bod spheres would give
her leave to enter into my history, which, if one
may guess by the composition she so readily came into,

(26:56):
were not small. Phoebe my kind Tutorus. Phoebe was at
that time gone out, perhaps in search of me or
their cook top story. Had not, it is probable, passed
so smoothly. This negotiation had, however, taken up some time,
which would have appeared much longer to me, left as

(27:18):
I was in a strange house, if the landlady, a
motherly sort of a woman to whom Charles had liberally
recommended me, had not come up and borne me company.
We drank tea and her chat helped to pass away
the time very agreeably, since he was our theme. But
as the evening deepened and the hour set for his

(27:39):
return was elapsed, I could not dispel the gloom of
impatience and tender fears which gathered upon me, and which
our timid sex are apt to feel in proportion to
their love. Long however, I did not suffer the sight
of him overpaid me, and the soft reproach I had
prepared for him expired before it reached my lips. I

(28:02):
was still abed, yet unable to use my legs otherwise
than awkwardly, and Charles flew to me, catched me in
his arms, raised and extending mine to meet his dear embrace,
and gives me an account interrupted by many, a sweet
parenthesis of kisses, of the success of his measures. I

(28:23):
could not help laughing at the fright the old woman
had been put into which my ignorance and indeed my
want of innocence, had far from prepared me for bespeaking.
She had, it seems, apprehended that I fled for shelter
to some relation I had recollected in town on my
dislike of their ways and proceeding towards me, and that

(28:44):
this application came from thence, For as Charles had rightly judged,
not one neighbor had at that still hour seen the
circumstance of my escape into that coach or at least
noticed him. Neither had any in the house the least
hint or clew of suspicion of my having spoke to him,

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much less my having clapped up such a sudden bargain
with the perfect stranger. Thus the greatest improbability is not
always what we should most mistrust. We supped with all
the gayety of two young, giddy creatures at the top
of their desires. And as I had most joyfully given
up to Charles the whole charge of my future happiness,

(29:27):
I thought of nothing beyond the exquisite pleasure of possessing him.
He came to bed in due time, and this second night,
the pain, being pretty well over, I tasted in full
drafts all the transports of perfect enjoyment. I swam, I
bathed in bliss, till both fell fast asleep through the

(29:49):
natural consequences of satisfied desires and appeased flames. Nor did
we wake but to renewed raptures, thus making the most
of life and love. Did we stay in this lodging
in Chelsea about ten days, in which time Charles took
care to give his excursions from home a favorable gloss,

(30:10):
and to keep his footing with his fond, indulgent grandmother,
from whom he drew constant and sufficient supplies for the
charge I was to him, and which was very trifling
in comparison with his former, less regular course of pleasures.
Charles removed me then to a private, ready furnished lodging
in d Street, Saint James, where he paid half a

(30:32):
guinea a week for two rooms and a closet on
the second floor, which he had been some time looking
out for, and was more convenient for the frequency of
his visits than where he had at first placed me
in a house which I cannot say but I left
with regret, as it was infinitely endeared to me by
the first possession of my Charles, and the circumstance of

(30:55):
losing there that jewel which can never be twice lost. Landlord, however,
had no reason to complain of anything but of a
procedure in Charles too liberal not to make him regret
the loss of us. Arrived at our new lodgings, I remember,
I thought them extremely fine, though ordinary enough even at

(31:16):
that price. But had it been a dungeon that Charles
had brought me to his presence would have made it
a little Versailles. The landlady, missus Jones, waited on us
to our apartment, and with great volubility of tongue, explained
to us all its conveniences, that her own maid should
wait on us, that the best of quality had lodged

(31:38):
in her house, that her first floor was led to
a foreign secretary of an embassy and his lady. That
I looked like a very good natured lady. At the
word lady, I blushed out of flattered vanity. This was
too strong for a girl of my condition. For though
Charles had had the precaution of dressing me in a

(31:59):
less tawdry flow hunting style than were the clothes I
escaped to him in, and of passing me for his wife,
that he had secretly married and kept private the old
story on account of his friends, I dareswear this appeared
extremely apocryphal to a woman who knew the town so
well as she did, but that was the least of

(32:19):
her concern. It was impossible to be less scruple ridden
than she was, and the advantage of letting her rooms
being her sole object. The truth itself would have far
from scandalized her or broke her bargain. A sketch of
her picture and personal history will dispose you to account
for the part she is to act in my concerns.

(32:41):
She was about forty six years old, tall, meager, red haired,
with one of those trivial ordinary faces you meet with
everywhere and go about unheeded and unmentioned. In her youth
she had been kept by a gentleman, who, dying left
her forty pounds a year during her life in consideration

(33:02):
of a daughter he had by her, which daughter, at
the age of seventeen, she sold for not a very
considerable sum, neither to a gentleman who was going on
envoy abroad, and took his purchase with him, where he
used her with the utmost tenderness, and it is thought
was secretly married to her, but had constantly made a

(33:22):
point of her not keeping up the least correspondence with
a mother base enough to make a market of her
own flesh and blood. However, as she had no nature,
nor indeed any passion but that of money, this gave
her no further uneasiness. Then, as she thereby lost a
handle of squeezing presents or other after advantages out of

(33:45):
the bargain indifferent then by nature of constitution to every
other pleasure, but that of increasing the lump by any
means whatever. She commenced a kind of private procurreus, for
which she was not a misfitted by her grave decent appearance,
and sometimes did a job in the match making way.

(34:05):
In short, there was nothing that appeared to her under
the shape of gain that she would not have undertaken.
She knew most of the ways of the town, having
not only herself been upon, but kept up constant intelligences
in promoting a harmony between the two sexes in private
pawnbroking and other profitable secrets. She rented the house she

(34:28):
lived in and made the most of it by letting
it out in lodgings. Though she was worth at least
near three or four thousand pounds, she would not allow
herself even the necessaries of life, and pinned her subsistence
entirely on what she could squeeze out of her lodgers.
When she saw such a young pair come under her roof,

(34:49):
her immediate notions, doubtless, were how she should make the
most money of us, by every means that money might
be made, and which she rightly judged our situation, and
inexperience would soon beget her occasions of in this hopeful sanctuary,
and under the clutches of this harpy did we pitch

(35:09):
our residence. It will not be mighty material to you
or very pleasant to me to enter into a detail
of all the petty, cutthroat ways and means with which
she used to fleece us, all which Charles indolently chose
to bear with, rather than take the trouble of removing
the difference of expense, being scarce attended to by a

(35:31):
young gentleman who had no idea of stint or even
of economy, and a raw country girl who knew nothing
of the matter. Here, however, under the wings of my
sovereignly beloved did I flow the most delicious hours of
my life. My Charles I had, and in him everything
my fond heart could wish or desire. He carried me

(35:53):
to plays, operas, masquerades, and every diversion of the town,
all of which pleased me indeed, but pleased me infinitely
the more for his being with me, and explaining everything
to me, and enjoying perhaps the natural impressions of surprise
and admiration which such sights at the first never failed

(36:15):
to excite in a country girl new to the delights
of them. But to me they sensibly proved the power
and full dominion of the sole passion of my heart
over me, a passion in which soul and body were consented,
and left me no room for any other relish of
life but love. As to the men I saw at

(36:36):
those places or at any other, they suffered so much
in the comparison my eyes made of them with my
all perfect Adonis, that I had not the infidelity even
of one wandering thought to reproach myself with. Upon his account,
he was the universe to me, and all that was
not him was nothing to me. My love in fine

(36:59):
was so excessive that it arrived at annihilating every suggestion
or kindling spark of jealousy for one idea. Only tending
that way gave me such exquisite torment that my self
love and dread of worse than death, made me forever
renounce and defy it. Nor had I indeed occasion for

(37:21):
were I to enter here on the recital of several instances,
were in Charles sacrifice to me women of greater importance
than I dare hint, which, considering his form was no
such wonder. I might indeed give you full proof of
his unshaken constancy to me, But would not you accuse
me of warming up again a feast that my vanity

(37:43):
ought long ago to have been satisfied with in our
cessations from active pleasure. Charles framed himself one in instructing me,
as far as his own lights reached in great many
points of life, that I was, in consequence of my
no education, perfectly ignorant of. Nor did I suffer one

(38:03):
word to fall in vain from the mouth of my
lovely teacher. I hung on every syllable he uttered, and
received as oracles all he said. Whilst kisses were all
the interruption, I could not refuse myself the pleasure of
admitting from lips that breathed more than Arabian sweetness. I was,
in a little time enabled by the progress I had

(38:25):
made to prove the deep regard I had paid to
all that he had said to me, repeating it to
him almost word for word, and to show that I
was not entirely the parrot, but that I reflected upon
that I entered into it. I joined my own comments
and asked him questions of explanation. My country accent, and

(38:45):
the rusticity of my gait, manners, and deportment began now
sensibly to wear off, So quick was my observation, and
so efficacious my desire of growing every day worthier of
his heart as to money. Though he brought me constantly
all he received, it was with difficulty he even got

(39:06):
me to give it room in my bureau. And what
clothes I had he could prevail on me to accept
of on no other foot than that of pleasing him
by the greater neatness in my dress, beyond which I
had no ambition. I could have made a pleasure of
the greatest toil, and worked my fingers to the bone
with joy to have supported him. Guess then if I

(39:29):
could harbor any idea of being burdensome to him, And
this disinterested turn in me was so unaffected, so much
to dictate of my heart, that Charles could not but
feel it. And if he did not love me as
I died him, which was a constant and only matter
of sweet contention between us, he managed so at least

(39:50):
as to give me the satisfaction of believing it impossible
for man to be more tender, more true, more faithful
than he was. Our landlady, missus Jones, came frequently up
to my apartment, from whence I never stirred on any
pretext without Charles, nor was it long before she warmed
out without much art, the secret of our having cheated

(40:13):
the church of a ceremony, and in course of the
terms we lived together upon a circumstance which far from
displeased her, considering the designs she had upon me, and
which alas she will too soon have room to carry
into execution. But in the meantime her own experience of
life let her see that any attempt, however indirect or disguised,

(40:38):
to divert or break, at least presently so strong a
cement of hearts as ours was, could only end in
losing two lodgers, of whom she made very competent advantages
if either of us came to smoke her commission for
a commission she had from one of her customers, either
to debauch or get me away from my keeping at

(41:00):
any rate. But the barbarity of my fate soon saved
her the task of disuniting us. I had now been
eleven months with this life of my life, which had
passed in one continued rapid stream of delight, but nothing
so violent was ever made to last. I was about
three months gone with child by him, a circumstance which

(41:23):
would have added to his tenderness, had he ever left
me room to believe it could receive an addition. When
the mortal the unexpected blow of separation fell upon us,
I shall gallop posts over the particulars which I shudder
yet to think of, and cannot to this instant reconcile
myself how or by what means I could outlive it.

(41:46):
Two life long days had I lingered through without hearing
from him, I who breathed, who existed but in him,
and had never yet seen twenty four hours pass without
seeing or hearing from him. The third day, my impatience
was so strong. My alarms had been so severe that
I perfectly sickened with them, and being unable to support

(42:09):
the shock longer, I sunk upon the bed and ringing
for Missus Jones, who had far from comforted me under
my anxieties. She came up. I had scarce breath and
spirit enough to find words to beg of her, if
she would save my life to fall upon some means
of finding out instantly what was become of its only

(42:31):
prop and comfort. She pitied me in a way that
rather sharpened my affliction than suspended it, and went out
upon this commission, for she had but to go to
Charles's house, who lived but an easy distance in one
of the streets that run into Covent Garden. There she
went into a public house, and from thence sent for

(42:53):
a maid servant, whose name I had given her as
the properest to inform her. The maid readily came, and
as readily when missus Jones inquired of her what was
become of mister Charles or whether he was gone out
of town, acquainted her with the disposal of her master's son,
which the very day after was no secret to the servants.

(43:16):
Such sure measures had he taken for the most cruel
punishment of his child for having more interest with his
grandmother than he had, though he made use of a
pretense plausible enough to get rid of him in this
secret and abrupt manner, for fear her fondness should have
interposed a bar to his leaving England and proceeding on
a voyage he had concerted for him, which pretext was

(43:40):
that it was indispensably necessary to secure a considerable inheritance
that devolved to him by the death of a rich merchant,
his own brother at one of the factories in the
South Seas of which he had lately received advice, together
with a copy of the will, in consequence of which
to send away his son. He had, unknown to him,

(44:04):
made the necessary preparations for fitting him out, struck a
bargain with the captain of a ship whose punctual execution
of his orders he had secured by his interest with
his principal owner and patron, and in short concerted his
measures so secretly and effectually, that whilst his son thought
he was going down the river for a few hours,

(44:26):
he was stopped on board of a ship, debarred from writing,
and more strictly watched than a state criminal. Thus was
the idol of my soul torn from me, Enforced on
a long voyage without taking leave of one friend, and
receiving one line of comfort, accept a dry explanation and
instructions from his father how to proceed when he should

(44:50):
arrive at his destined port, enclosing withal some letters of
recommendation to a factory. There All these particulars. I did
not learn my new till some time after. The maid,
at the same time added that she was sure this
usage of her sweet young master would be the death
of his grandmamma, as indeed it proved true. For the

(45:13):
old lady, on hearing it, did not survive the news
a whole month, And as her fortune consisted in an
annuity out of which she had laid up no reserves,
she left nothing worth mentioning to her. So fatally envied darling,
but absolutely refused to see his father before she died.
When missus Jones returned and I observed her looks, they

(45:36):
seemed so unconcerned and even near to pleased, that I
half flattered myself. She was going to set my tortured
heart at ease by bringing me good news. But this,
indeed was a cruel delusion of hope. The barbarian, with
all the coolness imaginable, stabbed me to the heart in
telling me succinctly that he was sent away at least

(45:59):
so four years voyage here, she stretched maliciously, and that
I could not expect, in reason ever to see him again,
And all this with such pregnant circumstances that I could
not escape giving them credit, as they were indeed too true.
She hardly finished her report before I fainted away, and

(46:22):
after several successive fits, all the while wild and senseless,
I miscarried of the dear pledge of my Charles's love.
But the wretched never die when it is fittest they
should die, and women are hard lived. To a proverb,
the cruel and interested care taken to recover me saved
an odious life, which, instead of the happiness and joys

(46:45):
it had overflowed in all of a sudden, presented no
view before me of anything but the depth of misery, horror,
and the sharpest affliction. Thus I lay six weeks in
the struggles of youth and co institution, against the friendly
efforts of death, which I constantly invoked to my relief
and deliverance, but which proving too weak for my wish.

(47:09):
I recovered at length, though into a state of stupefaction
and despair that threatened me with the loss of my
senses and a mad house time. However, that great comforter
and ordinary began to assuage the violence of my sufferings
and to numb my feeling of them. My health returned
to me, though I still retained an air of grief, dejection,

(47:33):
and languor, which, taking off the ruddiness of my country complexion,
rendered it rather more delicate and affecting. The landlady had
all this while officiously provided and taken care that I
wanted for nothing, and as soon as she saw me
retrieved into a condition of answering her purpose. One day

(47:54):
after we had dined together, she congratulated me on my recovery,
the merit of which she took entirely to herself. And
all this by way of introduction to a most terrible
and scurvy epilog. You are now, says she Miss Fanny,
tolerably well, and you are very welcome to stay in

(48:15):
the lodgings as long as you please. You see, I
have asked you for nothing this long time, But truly
I have a call to make up a sum of
money which must be answered, and with that presents me
with a bill of arrears for rent diet apothecary's charges,
nurse et cetera, some total twenty three pounds seventeen and

(48:38):
sixpence towards discharging of which I had not in the world,
which she well knew more than seven guineas left by
chance of my dear Charles's common stock with me. At
the same time, she desired me to tell her what
course I would take for payment. I burst into a
flood of tears and told her my condition, adding that

(49:01):
I would sell but few clothes I had, and that
for the rest I would pay her as soon as possible.
But my distress, being favorable to her views, only stiffened
her the more. She told me very coolly that she
was indeed sorry for my misfortunes, but that she must
do herself justice, though it would go to the very

(49:22):
heart of her to send such a tender young creature
to prison. At the word prison, every drop of my
blood chilled, and my fright acted so strongly upon me that,
turning as pale and faint as a criminal at the
first sight of his place of execution, I was on
the point of swooning. My landlady, who wanted only to

(49:44):
terrify me to a certain point, and not to throw
me into a state of body inconsistent with her designs
upon it, began to soothe me again and told me,
in a tone composed to more pity and gentleness, that
it would be my own fault if she was for
to proceed to such extremities. But she believed there was
a friend to be found in the world who would

(50:06):
make up matters to both our satisfactions, and that she
would bring him to drink tea with us that very afternoon,
when she hoped we would come to a right understanding
in our affairs. To all this, not a word of answer,
I sat mute, confounded, terrified. Missus Jones, however, judging rightly

(50:26):
that it was time to strike while the impressions were
so strong upon me, left me to myself and to
all the terrors of imagination, wounded to death by the
idea of going to a prison, and from a principle
of self preservation, snatching at every glimpse of redemption from it.
In this situation, I sat near half an hour, swallowed

(50:48):
up in grief and despair, when my landlady came in, and,
observing a deathlike dejection in my countenance, and still in
pursuance of her plan, put on a false pity and
bidding me be of a good heart. Things she said
would not be so bad as I imagined if I
would be. But my own friend enclosed with telling me

(51:11):
that she had brought a very honorable gentleman to drink
tea with me, who would give me the best advice
how to get rid of all my troubles, upon which,
without waiting for a reply, she goes out and returns
with this very honorable gentleman, whose very honorable procureace she
had been on this as well as other occasions. This gentleman,

(51:33):
on his entering the room, made me a very civil bow,
which I had scarce strength or presence of mind enough
to return a curtsy too, when the Landlady, taking upon
her to do all the honors of the first interview,
for I had never that I remembered seen the gentleman before,
sets a chair for him and another for herself, all

(51:57):
this while not a word on either side. A stupid
stare was all the face I could put on this
strange visit. The tea was made, and the Landlady, unwilling
I suppose to lose any time observing my silence and
shyness before this entire stranger. Come, Miss Fanny, says she,

(52:18):
in a coarse, familiar style and tone of authority. Hold
up your head, child, and do not let sorrows spoil
that pretty face of yours. What sorrows are only for
a time. Come be free. Here is a worthy gentleman
who has heard of your misfortunes and is willing to
serve you. You must be better acquainted with him. Do

(52:39):
you not now stand upon your punctilios and this and that?
But make your market while you may at this so
delicate and eloquent harangue. The gentleman who saw I looked
frightened and amazed, and indeed incapable of answering, took her
up for breaking things in so abrupt a manner as
rather to then incline me to an acceptance of the

(53:02):
good he intended me. Then, addressing himself to me, told
me he was perfectly acquainted with my whole story, and
every circumstance of my distress, which he owned, was a
cruel plunge for one of my youth and beauty to
fall into. That he had long taken a liking to
my person, for which he appealed to missus Jones there present.

(53:25):
But finding me so absolutely engaged to another, he had
lost all hopes of succeeding till he had heard the
sudden reverse of fortune that had happened to me, on
which he had given particular orders to my Landlady to
see that I should want for nothing, and that had
he not been forced abroad to the Hague on affairs,

(53:45):
he could not refuse himself to he would himself have
attended me during my sickness. That, on his return, which
was but the day before, he had, on learning my recovery,
desired my Landlady's good offices to interduce him to me,
and was as angry at least as I was shocked
at the manner in which she had conducted herself towards

(54:07):
obtaining him that happiness, but that to show me how
much he disdained her procedure, and how far he was
from taking any ungenerous advantage of my situation, and from
exacting any security for my gratitude, he would, before my
face that instant discharge my debt entirely to my Landlady,

(54:28):
and give me her receipt in full, after which I
should be at liberty either to reject or grant his suit.
As he was much above putting any force upon my inclinations.
Whilst he was exposing his sentiments to me, I ventured
just to look up to him and observing his figure,
which was that of a very well looking gentleman, well

(54:50):
made about forty, dressed in a suit of plain clothes,
with a large diamond ring on one of his fingers,
the luster of which played in my my eyes as
he waved his hand in talking, and raised my notions
of his importance. In short, he might pass for what
is commonly called a comely black man, with an air

(55:11):
of distinction natural to his birth and condition to all
his speeches. However, I answered only in tears that flowed
plentifully to my relief, and choking up my voice excused
me from speaking, very luckily, for I should not have
known what to say. The sight, however, moved him, as
he afterwards told me irresistibly, and by way of giving

(55:34):
me some reason to be less powerfully afflicted, He drew
out his purse, and, calling for pen and ink, which
the landlady was prepared for, paid her every farthing of
her demand, independent of a liberal gratification which was to follow,
unknown to me, and taking a receipt in full, very
tenderly forced me to secure it by guiding my hand,

(55:57):
which he had thrust it into, so as to make
me passively put it into my pocket. Still, I continued
in a state of stupidity or melancholy despair, as my
spirits could not yet recover from the violent shocks they
had received, and the comode landlady had actually left the
room and me alone with this strange gentleman before I

(56:20):
observed it, and then I observed it without alarm, for
I was now lifeless and indifferent to everything. The gentleman, however,
no novice in affairs of this sort, drew near me, and,
under the pretense of comforting me, first with his handkerchief,
dried my tears as they ran down my cheeks. Presently

(56:42):
he ventured to kiss me. On my part, neither resistance
nor compliance, I sat stock still, and now looking on
myself as bought by the payment that had been transacted
before me. I did not care what became of my
wretched body, and, wanting life, spirits, or courage to oppose
the least struggle, even that of the modesty of my sex,

(57:06):
I suffered tamely whatever the gentleman pleased, who, proceeding insensibly
from freedom to freedom, insinuated his hand between my handkerchief
and bosom, which he handled at discretion. Finding thus no repulse,
and that everything favored beyond expectation the completion of his desires.

(57:27):
He took me in his arms and bore me, without
life or motion, to the bed on which, laying me
gently down, and having me at what advantage, he pleased.
I did not so much as know what he was about,
till recovering from a trance of lifeless insensibility, I found
him buried in me, whilst I lay passive and innocent

(57:49):
of the least sensation of pleasure. A death cold corpse
could scarce have less life or sense in it. As
soon as he had thus pacified a passion which had
too little respected the condition I was in, he got off, and,
after recomposing the disorder of my clothes, employed himself with

(58:10):
the utmost tenderness to calm the transports of remorse and
madness at myself with which I was seized. Too late,
I confess, for having suffered on that bed the embraces
of an utter stranger. I tore my hair, wrung my hands,
and beat my breast like a mad woman. But when

(58:30):
my new master, for in that light I then viewed him,
applied himself to appease me, as my whole rage was
leveled at myself, no part of which I thought myself
permitted to aim at him. I begged of him, with
more submission than anger, to leave me alone, that I
might at least enjoy my affliction in quiet. This he

(58:52):
positively refused, for fear, as he pretended I should do
myself a mischief. Violent passions seldom last long, and those
of women, least of any. A dead still calm succeeded
this storm, which ended in a profuse shower of tears.
Had any one but a few instants before told me

(59:14):
that I should have ever known any man but Charles,
I would have spit in his face. Or had I
been offered infinitely a greater sum of money than that
I saw paid for me, I had spurned the proposal
in cold blood. But our virtues and vices depend too
much on our circumstances. Unexpectedly beset, as I was betrayed

(59:35):
by a mind, weakened by a long, severe affliction, and
stunned with the terrors of a jail, my defeat will
appear the more excusable, since I certainly was not present
at or a party in any sense to it. However,
as the first enjoyment is decisive, and he was now
over the bar. I thought I had no longer a

(59:56):
right to refuse the caresses of one that had got
that advantage over me, no matter how obtained. Conforming myself
then to this maxim, I considered myself as so much
in his power that I endured his kisses and embraces
without effecting struggles or anger, not that they as yet
gave me any pleasure or prevailed over the aversion of

(01:00:19):
my soul to give myself up to any sensation of
that sort. What I suffered, I suffered out of a
kind of gratitude, and as a matter of course, after
what had passed. He was, however, so regardful as not
to attempt the renewal of those extremities which had thrown
me just before into such violent agitations, But, now secure

(01:00:42):
of possession, contented himself with bringing me to temper by degrees,
and waiting at the hand of time for those fruits
of generosity and courtship, which he since often reproached himself
with having gathered much too green. When yielding to the
invitations of my inability to resist him, and overborne by desires,

(01:01:03):
he had wreaked his passion on a mere, lifeless, spiritless body,
dead to all purposes of joy, since taking none, it
ought to be supposed incapable of giving any This is, however, certain,
my heart never thoroughly forgave him the manner in which
I had fallen to him, although in point of interest

(01:01:24):
I had reason to be pleased that he found in
my person wherewithal to keep him from leaving me as
easily as he had gained me. The evening was, in
the meantime so far advanced that the maid came in
to lay the cloth for supper, when I understood with
joy that my landlady, whose sight was present poisoned to me,

(01:01:45):
was not to be with us. Presently, a neat and
elegant supper was introduced, and a bottle of Burgundy with
the other necessaries, were set on a dumb waiter. The
maid quitting the room, The gentleman insisted with a tender
warmth that I should sit up in the elbow chair
by the fire and see him eat, if I could

(01:02:05):
not be prevailed on to eat myself. I obeyed, with
a heart full of affliction at the comparison it made
between those delicious tete a tetes with my ever, dear youth,
and this forced situation, this new awkward scene, imposed and
obtruded on me by cruel necessity. At supper, after a

(01:02:26):
great many arguments used comfort and reconcile me to my fate,
he told me that his name was H, brother to
the Earl of l and that, having by the suggestions
of my landlady, been led to see me, he had
found me perfectly to his taste, and given her a
commission to procure me at any rate, And that he

(01:02:46):
had at length succeeded as much to his satisfaction as
he passionately wished it might be to mine, adding withal
some flattering assurances that I should have no cause to
repent my knowledge of him. I had now got down
at least half a partridge and three or four glasses
of wine, which he compelled me to drink by way

(01:03:08):
of restoring nature. But whether there was anything extraordinary put
into the wine, or whether there wanted no more to
revive the natural warmth of my constitution and give fire
to the old train, I began no longer to look
with that constraint, not to say discussed on mister H,
which I had hit hetherto done. But withal. There was

(01:03:30):
not the least grain of love mixed with this softening
of my sentiments. Any other man would have been just
the same to me as mister h that stood in
the same circumstances and had done for me and with
me what he had done. There are not on earth
at least eternal griefs. Mine were, if not at an end,

(01:03:51):
at least suspended. My heart, which had been so long
overloaded with anguish and vexation, began to dilate and open
to the least gleam of diversion or amusement. I wept
a little, and my tears relieved me. I sighed, and
my sighs seemed to lighten me of a load that
oppressed me. My countenance grew, if not cheerful, at least

(01:04:15):
more composed and free. Mister Rah, who had watched, perhaps
brought on this change, knew too well not to seize it.
He thrust the table imperceptibly from between us, and bringing
his chair to face me, He soon began, after preparing
me by all the endearments of assurances and protestations, to

(01:04:36):
lay hold of my hands, to kiss me, and once
more to make free with my bosom which being at
full liberty from a disorder of a loose Disabelle now
panted and frobbed less with indignation than with fear and
bashfulness at being used so familiarly by still a stranger.
But he soon gave me greater occasion to exclaim by

(01:04:59):
stooping down and slipping his hand above my garters. Thence
he strove to regain the pass which he had before
found so open and unguarded. But now he could not
unlock the twist of my thighs. I gently complained and
begged him to let me alone, told him I was
not well. However, as he saw there was more form

(01:05:21):
and ceremony in my resistance than good earnest, he made
his conditions for desisting from pursuing his point, that I
should be put instantly to bed, whilst he gave certain
orders to the landlady, and that he would return in
an hour, when he hoped to find me more reconciled
to his passion for me than I seemed at present.

(01:05:41):
I neither assented nor denied, but my air and manner
of receiving this proposal gave him to see that I
did not think myself enough my own mistress to refuse it. Accordingly,
he went out and left me. When a minute or
two after, before I could recover myself into any compose
for thinking, the maid came in with her mistress service

(01:06:04):
and a small silver porringer of what she called a
bridle poset, and desired me to eat it as I
went to bed, which consequently I did, and felt immediately
a heat, a fire, run like a hue and cry
through every part of my body. I burnt, I glowed,
and wanted even little of wishing for any man. The maid,

(01:06:27):
as soon as I was laying down, took the candle away, and,
wishing me a good night, went out of the room
and shut the door after her. She had hardly time
to get downstairs before mister h opened my room door
softly and came in, now undressed in his night gown
and cap, with two lighted wax candles, and bolting the door.

(01:06:51):
Gave me though I expected him some sort of alarm.
He came a tiptoe to the bedside and said, with
a gentle whisper, pray, my dear, do not be startled.
I will be very tender and kind to you. He
then hurried off his clothes and leaped into bed, having
given me openings enough whilst he was stripping to observe

(01:07:13):
his brawny structure, strong made limbs, and rough, shaggy breast.
The bed shook again when it received this new load.
He lay on the outside, where he kept the candles burning,
no doubt for the satisfaction of every sense. For as
soon as he had kissed me, he rolled down the
bedclothes and seemed transported with the view of all my

(01:07:37):
person at full length, which he covered with a profusion
of kisses, sparing no part of me. Then, being on
his knees between my thighs, he drew up his shirt
and bared all his hairy thighs and stiff, staring trencheon.
Red topped and rooted into a thicket of curls which

(01:07:58):
covered his belly to the navel and gave it the
air of a flesh brush, And soon I felt it
joining close to mine. When he had drove the nail
up to the head and left no partition but the
intermediate hair on both sides. End of Section three