Gynecocracy

CHAPTER 3

I continued to cough and splutter and wished to spit, but I dared not. Mademoiselle, with refined severity quietly waited, for she had noticed my coughing up what I could, until I was obliged to again swallow what I had coughed up.

Then, with a wicked smile, she directed me to walk over to the wash-hand-stand. Upon it stood a jug whence she poured a quantity of musky-coloured water into a tumbler and placed it to my lips, bidding me drink it. I protested. I said I could not possibly hold any more, but Mademoiselle was inexorable, and holding my head by the hair, forced the rim of the tumbler between my lips (my hands were still tied), and its contents-warm mustard and water-down my throat. I was made to drain the glass. It was an emetic, intended to make me sick. To that in itself I did not object, but the idea of the passage of all that wine up again through my throat and mouth made me feel very bad indeed.

Then Mademoiselle made me kneel down. She placed a pot in front of me, and stood opposite. I noticed she had in her hand a long quill pen with feathers on both its sides. I was not long left to wonder what use she intended to put it to.

"Now, Master Julian," she said, standing over me with her left hand resting on my bare shoulder, "throw your head back as far as possible and open your mouth as wide as ever you can."

I already began to feel qualms and did not at once comply.

"If you do not immediately do as I tell you," observed Mademoiselle very sternly, "I will gag you as you have been and then try again."

I meekly threw my head back and opened my mouth.

"Now," said Mademoiselle, her left hand upon my forehead, and proceeding to tickle first the roof of my mouth, then the palate and sides, then the uvula and throat, making occasional dabs down it with the feather which soon made me retch, "now you must submit to being punished by me. It is doing you good already; that male factor between your legs," she cried, glancing at it, "is not half the size he was when I commenced."

"Ugh-ugh! I shall be sick."

"Hold your tongue and keep your mouth open."

I knew I must soon vomit. What a diabolical idea! What a horrid, disgusting mode of treatment!

"When Julius Caesar-no, you must not attempt to catch the feather with your teeth"-giving me a slap in the cheek-"visited Cicero, the latter was extremely flattered by Caesar's taking a vomitory before dinner. He regarded it"-I felt I should faint; a deadly paleness, a cold sweat, a fearful feeling of sickness possessed me; Mademoiselle's words seemed far off-"as an earnest good fellowship, as an assurance on Caesar's part that he intended in good faith to do full justice to his hospitality. Now you will please vomit. Yes, here, before me into that vessel as a punishment, in obedience to me, your mistress; and to show the good disposition you have to do honour to the bread and water which is all you will have for the next few days, unless, indeed, it should again enter my head to give you some other beverage, and"-looking fiercely at me-"perhaps some other food, too."

She could not mean-she would not dare! My condition, the constant retching, prevented my continuing unbroken any thread or sequence of ideas.

"Yes," she went on, confirming my worst apprehensions, "Elise has just reminded me that there is something behind as well as before by which you can be punished; and, as she said, you are such an utter reprobate I really think you deserve it."

My mouth filled. I spat it out. Mademoiselle pulled my head back and tickled my throat more vigorously and lower down. A cough, a choke, a perfect flood. A few minute's rest, a few groans, during which Mademoiselle let me rest against her. Again that irresistible overpowering sense of sickness.

"Shall I send for Maud, to console you?" asked Mademoiselle.

"No; only let me lie down." The mere idea of having anything to do with a woman was at that time abhorrent to my soul.

"Ah! I see," said Mademoiselle, "my friend was right. Her prescription was a good one. I have never seen this thing," she said, touching my shrivelled affair, "so small, so lifeless, before."

She made me rinse my mouth with Condy's fluid and water, and then put me to bed in the other room, leaving the door between it and her own room open. She covered me up and I soon fell asleep.