Page:Aaron's Rod, Lawrence, New York 1922.djvu/289

 she wants is that I should desire her, that I should love her and desire her. But even that is putting her will first. And if I come to her so, if I come to her of my own desire, then she puts me off. She puts me off, or she only allows me to come to her. Even now it is the same after ten years, as it was at first. But now I know, and for many years I did not know—"

The little man was intense. His face was strained, his blue eyes so stretched that they showed the whites all round. He gazed into Lilly's face.

"But does it matter?" said Lilly slowly, "in which of you the desire initiates? Isn't the result the same?"

"It matters. It matters—" cried the Marchese.

"Oh, my dear fellow, how much it matters—" interrupted Argyle sagely.

"Ay!" said Aaron.

The Marchese looked from one to the other of them.

"It matters!" he cried. "It matters life or death. It used to be, that desire started in the man, and the woman answered. It used to be so for a long time in Italy. For this reason the women were kept away from the men. For this reason our Catholic religion tried to keep the young girls in convents, and innocent, before marriage. So that with their minds they should not know, and should not start this terrible thing, this woman's desire over a man, beforehand. This desire which starts in a woman's head, when she knows, and which takes a man for her use, for her service. This is Eve. Ah, I hate Eve. I hate her, when she knows, and when she wills. I hate her when she will make of me that which serves her desire.—She may love me, she may be soft and kind to me, she may give her life for me. But why? Only because I am hers. I am that thing which does her most intimate service. She can see no other in me. And I may be no other to her—"

"Then why not let it be so, and be satisfied?" said Lilly.

"Because I cannot. I cannot. I would. But I cannot. The Borghesia—the citizens—the bourgeoisie, they are the ones who can. Oh, yes. The bourgeoisie, the shopkeepers, these serve their wives so, and their wives love them. They