Excerpt 1
Teréz was naturally not at all satisfying for me, and I soon decided on a trip to Budapest. I only had three or four patients, none of them requiring constant treatment. Thus, at 7.00 a.m. on 12 June, I boarded a train. And at 1.00 p.m., after a long, tiring, and unendurably boring trip, I was finally able to embrace Olga. In the smoky black reflections of Keleti pályaudvar, she first seemed surprisingly fat and strikingly lined. But afterwards I found her lips all the more sweet. Throughout the trip from the station, on the street and in the cab, I embraced her and kissed her greedily. Her kisses sent me into genuine ecstasy. My God, those kisses. What they meant to me. How much joy, suffering, all the complex excitement of a dissonant chord: marriage? career? future? honour? prestige? love? giving up other women?
Sacrifice? For her, I felt I could easily give up all the women fate still held in store for me. Crossing at the end of Barcsa utca, we got off at a little restaurant to take some nourishment. Greasy soup. We ate greasy pork or some such thing. I was utterly without appetite, but still I wanted to be over the problem of eating, so that afterwards we could live only for love. I looked at her constantly, I kissed her sweet face, eyes, neck, her soft, clean-smelling little hands, and I caressed her back, her tightly corseted, beautiful big thighs, her ankles through the thin net stockings. Meanwhile I ran over to the café across the way to telephone home and ask the concierge if everything was all right. I had taken .014 P the day before. The effect had completely worn off, so the weak and not unbearable P-hunger dissolved into colossal, harmonious lust. Ezeizer, the concierge, notified me that my bed had been made and my room aired. Now every worry that things might not go smoothly disappeared, and we were home fifteen minutes later. I greeted the pleasant sun-drenched room with a feeling of explosive happiness and satisfaction.
Excerpt 2
There was a superb Jewess at the spa, Zelma B. She was taller than average, with a wide Venus-like figure, sweet, full little mouth, a straight silly little nose (of the Irén Varsányi type) along with shapely hands and feet. At first she behaved quite wildly. She saw only her older sister, the wife of a lawyer from Stubnya, and her brother-in-law. The director of the sanatorium, Dicker – who later left with sixty crowns of mine without saying goodbye – besieged her vigorously from the start. But the little lady was savage and distrustful. As her refinement was slight, she openly confessed that she saw what the Director was after, but declared that he was greatly mistaken, because she was a respectable woman, etc.
As far as I my own case was concerned, I was her mute admirer for a week, and tried in vain to win even a glance from her. In the mornings, she sat beside her coffee in a light violet wool dressing gown and a full-length white madeira apron, which made her hips even wider and more impressive. One would have pictured this woman’s face attached to a thin (Lyca-like) body, but with her large, incomparably beautiful, and nobly formed buttocks, she could be attractive and bewitching. She lacked intelligence, however, the knowledge that makes my little Olga a woman of breeding and without peer. Olga can see her body at every moment, and feel its effect, almost unconsciously, but perfectly and constantly.
A week later Zelma appeared in my office with her husband. Naturally, I didn't neglect to stick the thermometer into her, especially as her pallor awakened my suspicion. The thermometer read 37.1 C. Disappointment awaited during the chest examination. Her pretty lace blouse covered slightly drooping breasts, though the woman was only 28. I convinced her to take an Arsycodile cure, and ordered her and her husband to return for a throat exam in the evening. The husband did not come. The woman spoke affectedly, did her best to be difficult, behaved completely differently from in the afternoon, and in the end, even after many attempts, I was unable to get a good look at her throat. I decided, however, that during the Arsycodiles, I would inject an IP or two and monitor the effects.
On the days that followed, the woman didn't come for her treatment unless I grabbed her and took her into my office. I saw her defence against me was strong, and I was happy about that – oh, what base and true joy! – because I knew that if that was the way things stood, a strong impulse had to be there as well. I resorted to a trick. I declared that when she came to see me she should always bring either her sister or her cousin (whom I frequently saw, a little 16-year-old Olga, with ugly features but a delicately blooming body) – ‘so that the person who escorted her could help me with the injection’, as her grace carried on in the most scandalous way each time, wriggling, wrestling, and shrieking. With this ruse, I was able to vex her. Besides this, when we talked, I always asked about her little cousin, and praised the young lass. Zelma wasn't able to hide how much all this bothered her. The sister soon departed, but I sent her messages through Zelma, who came for injections regularly. In the afternoons she invited me to eat cherries or cake in her room, where we finally exchanged our first kiss. I kissed her back or neck several times in the office but she would jump away, look daggers at me, and not say a word. I always kept calm, maintained my posture of superiority and joked about my actions. I could easily see that the game was to her liking. One day in her room she mentioned that if her husband came on Sunday, she would tell him about my behaviour, lodge a complaint, as it were... - All right, do it, I answered, if you have the heart to force that poor man into a duel.
‘Force him!’ she laughed, ‘he doesn't duel – he's afraid. He's a coward’ (loud chortle).
On that cue I pushed her down onto the couch and kissed the evil little beast all over. Her lips trembled, and she rested in my hands in an utter swoon. Afterwards, of course, the obligatory hysterical crying followed, at which point I left the room. Several cases had proved to me that this was the wisest course. In the following days, however, she never kissed me of her own volition, but always struggled and resisted, unable to enjoy the transgression.
