Tableaux Vivants

THE GLAND OR OUR MOTHER EVE

It is said that the Spirit of Evil in ancient time appeared to our Mother Eve in the form of a serpent.

Do not believe it. Satan never chooses to take any other form than the human one, because it is under this form he can do most ill. He presented himself, then, to our mother under the form of a beautiful young man.

That which he presented to her was not an apple, it was a gland.

Eve found this fruit of love polished, sweet, and shining. Beyond this, it seemed enormous to her. And she judged it superior in every respect to that of Adam, who was too fond of sleeping in the grass, and whose virile embellishments were always a little dirty.

Satan perceived without any trouble the impression which he had produced on this naive soul. Accordingly he abused it.

He raised the gland to Eve's face and said to her, “Kiss it.”

She did so, and her lips, guided by nature, proved so skilful that the juice sprang from it.

Then she recognised that this precious object had no less flavour than charm. This, with her usual ingenuousness, she unhesitatingly confessed to her seducer, who said to her, “Wait a little.”

It would not be worth while being the Devil if one had not diabolical vigour.

Satan threw our mother down on the greensward and did her in the grocer fashion.

He turned her over and did her in the greyhound fashion.

He begged her to lie on him, and this time she did him in the street-boy manner.

After which, not being yet satisfied, he turned her over for the second time and did her a la Grecque.

In her backside, Madame, if it do not displease you, as at Sodom. Eve cried out a little, but found it good.

Thus she had tasted the gland in all manners, and sucked up with her every mouth the divine liquor which issues from it.

As this history is difficult to relate to children, they tell them that this gland was an apple.

It was nevertheless a gland.

My Duchess listened to me, laughing.

“That is an amusing fancy,” she said to me. “Now, let us go on to your good stories. I wish to enjoy through my ears until to-morrow.”

She made me sit in front of her; I had my two hands under her petticoats. The Duchess held between her rosy fingers the hero of the little poem which I had just recited, His Highness My Gland, in an exalted attitude.

I commenced about ten o'clock in the evening the tales you are going to read. Day broke whilst I was still speaking.

But listen!