“Yes, but if he does?”

“It would not be delicate on his part, but what should prevent me from replying that I don’t know what he means?”

“You are right; that’s the best way.  But have you told your confessor of our mutual enjoyment?”

“No, for as I did not give myself up to you with any criminal intention, I do not think I have offended God.”

“You are an angel, and I admire the clearness of your reasoning.  But listen to me; it’s possible that you are already with child, or that you may become so this morning; promise to name the child after me.”

“I will do so.”

The four hours sped rapidly away.  After the sixth assault we were wearied though not satiated.  We parted with tears, and swore to love each other as brother and sister ever after.

I went home, bathed, slept an hour, rose, dressed, and dined pleasantly with the family.  In the evening I took the Mengs family for a drive in my landau, and we then went to the theatre, where the castrato who played the prima donna was a great attraction.  He was the favourite pathic of Cardinal Borghese, and supped every evening with his eminence.

This castrato had a fine voice, but his chief attraction was his beauty.  I had seen him in man’s clothes in the street, but though a fine-looking fellow, he had not made any impression on me, for one could see at once that he was only half a man, but on the stage in woman’s dress the illusion was complete; he was ravishing.

He was enclosed in a carefully-made corset and looked like a nymph; and incredible though it may seem, his breast was as beautiful as any woman’s; it was the monster’s chiefest charm.  However well one knew the fellow’s neutral sex, as soon as one looked at his breast one felt all aglow and quite madly amorous of him.  To feel nothing one would have to be as cold and impassive as a German.  As he walked the boards, waiting for the refrain of the air he was singing, there was something grandly voluptuous about him; and as he glanced towards the boxes, his black eyes, at once tender and modest, ravished the heart.  He evidently wished to fan the flame of those who loved him as a man, and probably would not have cared for him if he had been a woman.

Rome the holy, which thus strives to make all men pederasts, denies the fact, and will not believe in the effects of the glamour of her own devising.

I made these reflections aloud, and an ecclesiastic, wishing to blind me to the truth, spoke as follows:—­

“You are quite right.  Why should this castrato be allowed to shew his breast, of which the fairest Roman lady might be proud, and yet wish everyone to consider him as a man and not a woman?  If the stage is forbidden to the fair sex lest they excite desires, why do they seek out men-monsters made in the form of women, who excite much more criminal desires?  They keep on preaching that pederasty is comparatively unknown and entraps only a few, but many clever men endeavour to be entrapped, and end by thinking it so pleasant that they prefer these monsters to the most beautiful women.”