Teleny or the Reverse of the Medal by Oscar Wilde, Anonymous

gladness. After all, I have wronged Briancourt, was the thought that came into my mind; must every man and woman be in love with the pianist?
    My joy, however, was not of long duration, for Briancourt had pulled Teleny towards him, and their lips met in a long kiss, a kiss which for me was gall and wormwood; then, after a few words, the door of Teleny's house was opened and the two young men went in.
    When I had seen them disappear, tears of rage, of anguish, of disappointment started from my eyes, I ground my teeth, I bit my lips to the blood, I stamped my feet, I ran on like a madman, I stopped for a moment before the closed door, and vented my anger in thumping the feelingless wood. At last, hearing footsteps approaching, I went on. I walked about the streets for half the night, then fagged out mentally and bodily, I returned home at early dawn.
    —And your mother?
    —My mother was not in town just then, she was at—, where I shall tell you her adventures some other time, for I can assure you they are worth hearing.
    On the morrow, I took a firm resolution not to go to Teleny's concerts any more, not to follow him about, but to forget him entirely. I should have left town, but I thought I had found out another means of getting rid of this horrible infatuation.
    Our chambermaid having lately got married, my mother had taken into her service—for reasons best known to herself—a country wench of sixteen or thereabouts, but who, strange to say, looked far younger than she really was, for as a rule those village girls look far older than their years. Although I did not find her good looking, still, everybody seemed smitten by her charms. I cannot say she had anything rustic or countrified about her, for that would awake at once in your mind a vague idea of something awkward or ungainly, while she was as pert as a sparrow, and as graceful as a kitten; still, she had a strong country freshness—nay, I might almost say, tartness—about her like that of a strawberry or a raspberry that grows in mossy thickets.
    Seeing her in her town-dress you always fancied you had once met her in picturesque rags, with a bit of red kerchief on her shoulders, and with the savage grace of a young doe standing under leafy boughs, surrounded by eglantine and briers, ready to dart off at the slightest sound.
    She had the slender lithesomeness of a young boy, and might well have been taken for one, had it not been for the budding, round, and firm breasts, that swelled out her dress.
    Although she seemed slyly conscious that not one of her movements was lost on the bystanders, still she not only seemed heedless of anyone's admiration, but was even quite vexed if it were expressed either by words or by signs.
    Woe to the poor fellow who could not keep his feelings within bounds; she soon made him feel that if she had the beauty and freshness of the dog-rose, she also had its sharp thorns.
    Of all the men she had ever known, I was the only one that had never taken the slightest notice of her. For my part, she simply—like all women—left me perfectly indifferent. I was therefore the only man she liked. Her cat-like grace, however, her slightly hoydenish ways, which gave her the appearance of a Ganymede, pleased me, and although I knew very well that I felt no love nor even the slightest attraction for her, still I believed that I might learn to like and perhaps be fond of her. Could I but have felt some sensuality towards her, I think I would even have gone so far as to marry her, rather than become a sodomite, and have an unfaithful man who did not care for me, as my lover.
    Anyhow, I asked myself, might I not feel some slight pleasure with her, just enough to quiet my senses, to lull my maddened brain to rest?
    And yet which was the greater evil of the two, the one of seducing a poor girl to ruin her, and making her the mother of a poor unhappy child, or that of yielding to the passion which was shattering my body and my mind?
    Our honorable