Page:Des Grieux, The Prelude to Teleny.djvu/61

 the traces of sperm, the creased and tumbled sheets,left no doubt as to what had happened.

Hers had not been a dream, a nightmare, but crude reality; moreover, it was the sinner and not the saint who had slept with her.

With tears of terror in her eyes, she acknowledged the terrible reality to herself.

She was not a virgin any more, but a—what word is horrible enough to express what she was?

She had been possessed, enjoyed, deflowered, futtered. A man—a common vagrant—had taken her, kissed her, toyed with her, used her at his pleasure, poked his prickle into her, slit her, and thus abated her maidenhood. Now she was a man's thing, not his wife; besides what a man this was!

What would her life henceforth be?

She felt sick, her head grew giddy, a spasmodic shivering seized her. First her heart stopped, then again it began to beat wildly. It seemed as if a hand, or rather a claw, was griping her throat tightly and choking her. She could hardly breathe. Soon all this disappeared and a burning pain