Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/230

206 to do with sympathy of which thou'rt ashamed.

"Yes, from to-day onwards I'll no longer fear the opinions of men, have no more cowardly modesty, Blandine.

"A time will come when I'll proclaim my raison d'être in face of all the world …

"It is high time. My hell has lasted long enough. It commenced at puberty. Sent to college, my boyish friendships took on all the tenderness, vivacity, and melancholy of true love. At the baths, the quivering nudity of my comrades induced in me a troublous but delicious ecstasy. In drawing from the antique I revelled in the noble male models; a born Pagan, I could think of no good quality without clothing it in the harmonious forms of an athlete, of a youthful hero or a young god; and voluptuously, I attuned the dreams and aspirations of my soul to the hymning of the glory of athletic limbs. At the same time, cocks and pheasants I thought more beautiful than their hens, lions and tigers more imposing than lionesses and tigresses. But I kept silence and concealed my predilections. I even tried to impose on my eyes and my other senses; I did violence to my heart and my flesh to