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14 erotic stories round the waist, holding her body against mine. Immediately I became the competent teacher, and not only did I save her from a certain fall, but I described zigzags with her, completely forgetting my role as pupil. I then had to admit to my deceit, which brought a black cloud to the horizon of our happiness. I explained that I had lied in order to create a pretext for our meetings, but, besides expressing her loathing of men who lied – a right allowed only to women – she observed that lies were only forgivable when they were unavoidable, adding that my imagination must be poor indeed if I could not find a better excuse. ‘If you had said to me honestly: “I can skate and I’d like to come with you”, I’d have come all the same, and wouldn’t now be feeling this distrust which really angers and hurts me…’ That day our fun was cut short, and it was only two days later that we met again, I fearing that I might not be forgiven and she, already having forgotten, once again smiling and friendly. My heroine was called Camilla and was the daughter of a businessman who traded in fruit, who lived near Geldersekade, and who, as far as I could understand, was a man of limited wealth whilst fabulously prolific: fourteen children. Camilla was almost seventeen and it was her duty to look after two of her younger siblings. Her literary education had been relatively good, but her character remained undisciplined, she was impulsive and broke the finer rules of etiquette to which she had been subject for some time, becoming a capricious and whimsical child. She would frequently say, ‘I know that I shouldn’t do this or that, and for that very reason I do it.’ The family did not know what plans to make for her future; her older brothers and sisters already worked for a living, and it was only she who did nothing whatsoever, and since her remaining at home was a constant source of disagreement and argument her parents allowed her plenty of freedom, hoping either for the opportunity to marry her off or that she might find work should something arise which she could not refuse.

deus ex machina 15 So most days she would wander about town, always with a novel by Querido – a sort of Dutch Zola – in her indispensable – a repository for cheese rinds, pieces of dry bread and apple cores. She would rummage in this bag, which she called her Entrepôt-dok, or free port – without the least ceremony, wherever she might be, and put the first piece of food which came to hand in her mouth. We continued to meet in Vondelpark, almost always at two in the afternoon, and after an hour’s skating which was as intoxicating, if not more so, as an hour at a ball in an aristocratic salon, intoxicating because of the delicious sensation that the closeness of her body caused me in the heat of that unrivalled exercise, which speeds up the circulation without affecting the nerves and which, by its very nature, allows for such graceful and artistic movement; after an hour’s healthy exercise, she would usually agree to my accompanying her as far as Nieuwmarkt, the picturesque fish market which was close to her home. We would then cross the oldest, most crowded and beautiful part of the city, where the canals become entwined and the bridges become still more numerous beneath the shadow of legendary towers which rise from the water, crowned by intricate bell-towers. There, more than in any other place, the crooked, irregular houses assume the appearance of an armada of floating, festooned galleons, many of them half submerged. It would have been impossible for me to go into that quarter alone, for I distrusted its Venetian seductiveness, and could never enjoy it on my own. With Camilla, who never lost the trail of this maze, I could watch unhindered the strange lifestyle of that amphibious population, packed into a scene which, in spite of its reality, seemed the work of fantasy and, far from peering eyes, it remained hidden in the memory along with the characters of a fantastic, unreal fairytale. I find it hard to express the pleasure of those walks, as we wandered like two small children, sucking oranges and pausing, enraptured, at each step. At other times we would walk almost to the other side of

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14 erotic stories round the waist, holding her body against mine. Immediately I became the competent teacher, and not only did I save her from a certain fall, but I described zigzags with her, completely forgetting my role as pupil.

I then had to admit to my deceit, which brought a black cloud to the horizon of our happiness. I explained that I had lied in order to create a pretext for our meetings, but, besides expressing her loathing of men who lied – a right allowed only to women – she observed that lies were only forgivable when they were unavoidable, adding that my imagination must be poor indeed if I could not find a better excuse.

‘If you had said to me honestly: “I can skate and I’d like to come with you”, I’d have come all the same, and wouldn’t now be feeling this distrust which really angers and hurts me…’

That day our fun was cut short, and it was only two days later that we met again, I fearing that I might not be forgiven and she, already having forgotten, once again smiling and friendly.

My heroine was called Camilla and was the daughter of a businessman who traded in fruit, who lived near Geldersekade, and who, as far as I could understand, was a man of limited wealth whilst fabulously prolific: fourteen children. Camilla was almost seventeen and it was her duty to look after two of her younger siblings. Her literary education had been relatively good, but her character remained undisciplined, she was impulsive and broke the finer rules of etiquette to which she had been subject for some time, becoming a capricious and whimsical child. She would frequently say, ‘I know that I shouldn’t do this or that, and for that very reason I do it.’

The family did not know what plans to make for her future; her older brothers and sisters already worked for a living, and it was only she who did nothing whatsoever, and since her remaining at home was a constant source of disagreement and argument her parents allowed her plenty of freedom, hoping either for the opportunity to marry her off or that she might find work should something arise which she could not refuse.

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