I kissed her.

I no longer knew myself. I uttered some nonsense, that she laughed at, whispered pet names into her mouth, caressed her cheek, kissed her many times. I undid a couple of buttons in her bodice and I caught a glimpse of her breasts inside—white rounded breasts, that peeped out like two sweet wonders behind her linen.

"May I see?" I say, and I try to undo more buttons to make the opening wider, but my movements are too rough, I make no way with the lower buttons; besides, the bodice tightened there.

"May I just see a little . . . a little?"

She winds her arms about my neck, quite slowly, tenderly, the breath of her pink quivering nostrils fans me right in the face; with one hand she begins herself to undo the buttons one by one. She laughs embarrassedly, laughs shortly, and looks up at me several times, to see if I notice that she is afraid. She loosens strings, unclasps her stays, is fascinated and frightened—and I finger with my clumsy hands at these buttons and strings. . . .

To divert my attention from what she is doing, she strokes down my shoulders with her