She clung to him, trembling, pleading. “Please, dearest, please! I’m afraid, Thyrsis.”
But nothing could stop him now. She was his—his to do what he pleased with! And he would bend her to his will! The voice of his manhood shouted aloud to him now, and it was like the clashing of wild cymbals in his soul.
He went on with what he was doing. She shrunk away from him, but he followed her, he held her fast.
Then she began to sob—“Oh Thyrsis, wait—spare me! I can’t bear it! No, Thyrsis—no!”
But he answered her, “Be still! I love you! You are mine.” And for every sob and every shudder and every moan of fear he had but one response—“I love you! You are mine!”
He knew that he loved her now—and he knew what his love meant. Before this they had been strangers; but now he would penetrate to the secret places, to the holy of holies of her being.
Never in all his life had Thyrsis known woman. To him woman had been the supreme mystery of life, a creature of awe and sacredness—not to be handled, scarcely even to be thought about. Now the awful ban was lifted, the barriers were down; what had been hidden was revealed, what had been forbidden was permitted. So all the chained desire of a lifetime drove him on; it was almost more than he could bear. The touch of her warm breasts, the faint perfume of her clothing, the pressure of her soft, white limbs—these things set every nerve of him a-tremble, they turned a madness loose in him. A blinding whirl of emotion seized him, he was like a leaf swept away in a gale; his words came now in wild sobs, “I love you! I love you!”
So with quivering fingers he stripped her before him; and she crouched there, cowering and weeping. He took her in his arms; and that clasp there was no misunderstanding, for all the mastery of his will was in it. Nor did she try to resist him—she lay still, but shaking like a leaf, and choking with sobs. And so it was that he wreaked his will upon her.
Section 10. And then came the reaction—the most awful experience of his life. Thyrsis was sitting upon the bed, and staring in front of him, dazed. He was exhausted, faint, shuddering with horror. “Oh, my God, my God!” he whispered.
What had he done? Corydon, the gentle and pure—she had trusted herself to him, and how had he treated her? He had tortured her, he had defiled her! Oh, it was sickening; brutal, like a butchery! He sunk down in a heap, moaning, “My God! I can’t bear it! I can’t bear it!”