A VIRGIN HEART A Novel BY REMY DE GOURMONT Authorized Translation by ALDOUS HUXLEY Toronto THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY LIMITED 1922 Preface The author had thought of qualifying this book: A Novel Without Hypocrisy; but he reflected that these words might appear unseemly, since hypocrisy is becoming more and more fashionable. He next thought of: A Physiological Novel; but that was still worse in this age of great converts, when grace from on high so opportunely purifies the petty human passions. These two sub-titles being barred, nothing was left; he has therefore put nothing. A novel is a novel. And it would be no more than that if the author had not attempted, by an analysis that knows no scruples, to reveal in these pages what may be called the seamy side of a "virgin heart" to show that innocence has its instincts, its needs, its physiological dues. A young girl is not merely a young heart, but a young human body, all complete. Such is the subject of this novel, which must, in spite of everything, be called "physiological." R. G. A VIRGIN HEART CHAPTER I The terrace was in a ruinous state, over-grown with grass and brambles and acacias. The girl was leaning on the Parapet, eating mulberries. She displayed her purple-stained hands and laughed. M. Hervart looked-up. "You've got a moustache as well," he said. "It looks very funny." "But I don't want to look funny." She walked to the little stream flowing close at hand, wetted her handkerchief and began wiping her mouth. M. Hervart's eyes returned to his magnifying glass; he went on examining the daisy on which he had two scarlet bugs so closely joined together that they seemed a single insect. They had gone to sleep in the midst of their love-making, and but for the quivering of their long antennæ, you would have thought they were dead. M. Hervart would have liked to watch the ending of this little scene of passion; but it might go on for hours. He lost heart. "What's more," he reflected, "I know that the male does not die on the spot; he goes running about in search of food as soon as he's free. Still, I would have liked to see the mechanism of separation. That will come with luck. One must always count on luck, whether one is studying animals or men. To be sure, there is also patience, perseverance...." He made a little movement with his head signifying, no doubt, that patience and perseverance were not in his line. Then, very gently he laid the flower with its sleeping burden on the parapet of the terrace. It was only then he noticed that Rose was no longer there. "I must have annoyed her by what I said about the moustache. It wasn't true, either. But there are moments when that child gets on my nerves with that look of hers, as though she wanted to be kissed. And yet, if I did so much as to lay my hand on her shoulder, I should get my face smacked. A curious creature. But then all women are curious creatures, girls above all."