Memoirs of Fanny Hill: A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749)Cleland, John
General
Memoirs of Fanny Hill: A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749)
Cleland, John
England -- Fiction; Erotic fiction; Prostitutes -- Fiction
After a sufficient length of dialogue, my bedfellow left me to my rest,
and I fell asleep, through pure weariness, from the violent emotions I
had been led into, when nature which had been too warmly stirred and
fermented to subside without allaying by some means or other relieved
me by one of those luscious dreams, the transports of which are scarce
inferior to those of waking real action.
In the morning I awoke about ten, perfectly gay and refreshed. Phœbe
was up before me, and asked me in the kindest manner how I did, how I
had rested, and if I was ready for breakfast? carefully, at the same
time, avoiding to increase the confusion she saw I was in, at looking
her in the face, by any hint of the night’s bed scene. I told her if
she pleased I would get up, and begin any work she would be pleased to
set me about. She smiled; presently the maid brought in the tea
equipage, and I just huddled my clothes on, when in waddled my
mistress. I expected no less than to be told of, if not chid for, my
late rising, when I was most agreeably disappointed by her compliments
on my pure and fresh looks. I was “a bud of beauty” (this was her
style), “and how vastly all the fine men would admire me!” to all which
my answers did not, I can assure you, wrong my breeding; they were as
simple and silly as they could wish, and, no doubt, flattered them
infinitely more than had they proved me enlightened by education and a
knowledge of the world.
We breakfasted, and the tea things were scarce removed, when in were
brought two bundles of linen and wearing apparel: in short, all the
necessaries for rigging me out, as they termed it, completely.
Imagine to yourself, Madam, how my little coquet heart fluttered with
joy at the sight of a white lutestring, flowered with silver, scoured
indeed, but passed on me for spick and span new, a Brussels lace cap,
braited shoes, and the rest in proportion, all second-hand finery, and
procured instantly for the occasion, by the diligence and industry of
the good Mrs. Brown, who had already a chapman for me in the house,
before whom my charms were to pass in review; for he had not only, in
course, insisted on a previous sight of the premises, but also on
immediate surrendering to him, in case of his agreeing for me;
concluding very wisely, that such a place as I was in, was of the
hottest to trust the keeping of such a perishable commodity in, as a
maidenhead.
The care of dressing and tricking me out for the market, was then left
to Phœbe, who acquitted herself, if not well, at least perfectly to the
satisfaction of everything but my impatience of seeing myself dressed.
When it was over, and I viewed myself in the glass, I was no doubt, too
natural, too artless, to hide my childish joy at the change: a change,
in the real truth, for much the worse, since I must have much better
become the neat easy simplicity of my rustic dress than the awkward,
untoward, tawdry finery that I could not conceal my strangeness to.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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