"Don't you believe I could do it otherwise?"
"No, I don't believe it."
"Ah, from me you may expect everything," I said, and I put my arm around her waist.
"Can I?" was all she said.
It annoyed me, almost wounded me, that she should look upon me as being so utterly inoffensive. I braced myself up, steeled my heart, and seized her hand; but she withdrew it softly, and moved a little away from me. That just put an end to my courage again; I felt ashamed, and looked out through the window. I was, in spite of all, in far too wretched a condition; I must, above all, not try to imagine myself any one in particular. It would have been another matter if I had met her during the time that I still looked like a respectable human being--in my old, well- off days when I had sufficient to make an appearance; and I felt fearfully downcast!
"There now, one can see!" she said, "now one can just see one can snub you with just the tiniest frown--make you look sheepish by just moving a little away from you" ... she laughed, tantalizingly, roguishly, with tightly-closed eyes, as if she could not stand being looked at, either.
"Well, upon my soul!" I blurted out, "now you shall just see," and I flung my arms violently around her shoulders. I was mortified. Was the girl out of her senses? Did she think I was totally inexperienced! Ha! Then I would, by the living.... No one should say of me that I was backward on that score. The creature was possessed by the devil himself! If it were only a matter of going at it, well....
She sat quite quietly, and still kept her eyes closed; neither of us spoke. I crushed her fiercely to me, pressed her body greedily against my breast, and she spoke never a word. I heard her heart's beat, both hers and mine; they sounded like hurrying hoofbeats.
I kissed her.
I no longer knew myself. I uttered some nonsense, that she laughed at, whispered pet names into her mouth, caressed her cheek, kissed her many times....