Flesh by Brigid Brophy Read Free Book Online

bowl. It was as if he did not feel so much need of the agony its beauty caused him.
    That, of course, was because a new scale of sensuous experience had come within his range—or, rather, had possessed him, was playing on him, like a rainbow cast on his flesh by a window pane; for he was completely passive towards it. Again, it was part of his feeling of emerging into the sun of an unfolding year; the feeling which kept such step with the fact that the growing spring really was unfolding. He had a half-irritated, half-excited sensation, a prickling in the nostrils and the layers of the skin, as though the air which touched him was a suspension of pollen and the creamy scents of particularly rich flowers—which it really was, of course, as well. He knew this was an erotic sensation. He could tell that by comparing it with the feeling he had had when he danced with Nancy. That feeling, however, he now judged by the fact that it had come to him in the dark, still frosted days of February. It had been brave for the time of year, no doubt, but it was a mere crocus or snowdrop—and as pure. He was aware now of an impatience for fuller-blown experience. He was passive enough, waiting on his raft; but if he had had to wait much longer he would have feltdiscomfort. He signified his impatience by not eating very much; so that the filling out of his face and ribs, which was now undeniable, must have been effected by a redistribution, not an addition, of weight.
    All the same, he had been right when he compared the feeling of dancing with Nancy to an erotic daydream; and that element remained even in his new, further opened feeling. It was a feeling in which she figured—in which of course she figured; but in which, rather puzzlingly, she was not central, or did not stand alone in the centre. His prickling excitement was inseparable from an excitement about himself, about his new self. His desire for her was equally capable of attaching itself to his own Ego, which he had for so long disparaged, excused, suffered shame for, and which suddenly didn’t need any such thing but could be appreciated and cherished—by himself as well as Nancy. The thin mist of eroticism which now hung over all his days from earliest morning, like the faint hint of an early heat haze, was partly provoked by the fact that his own face, in the morning shaving mirror, was almost good-looking. If he was a spring flower, it must be a narcissus.
    They were married on the first of June from Nancy’s parents’ house. Marcus was twenty-eight, Nancy twenty-nine . All the guests said that the year’s seniority did not matter in the least.
    The honeymoon was to be in Italy. Marcus had imagined that Nancy might suggest Italy for the tactful reason that he knew both Italy and Italian better than she did and would be in a position to shew her round and take care of her. But of course she was not tactful. She had inclined at first towards France, because she knew it. It was he who persuaded her for Italy, which he was longing for. His sister had been a touch sulky about his refusal, for once, to accompany her skiing, and had hinted that, now he had broken the habit of their holidaying together, she would make difficulties about resuming it. So, if he had not met Nancy, he might never have seen Italy again. He had long before marked down Lucca as the place where he would like to spend his honeymoon, though in those days he did not really expect ever to have a honeymoon.
    Laundered, shaved and after-shaved, Marcus looked very well at his wedding. He was, now that he held himself better, quite a well-built man, with quite a handsome face, if you liked—if you could take—fleshy, high-featured, rather Wellingtonian faces.
    His sister, whose age also entered the discussion (it was thirty-three), wept when the couple departed.

5
    N ANCY did have a talent. It was for sexual intercourse.
    However, Marcus did not discover this on his first married night, which was spent on