LILY by Bergotte (intellectual books to read .txt) 📖

Dr Neville Flint called on his contact, Eli Cohen, in the early evening of the 23rd of December, at his home in Vienna, in the hope of seeing Eli’s daughter, Esther, one last time before leaving for London and a life of relative comfort and seclusion. He was bitterly disappointed to learn that the young lady had retired early. Eli knew of his daughter’s desire to see the good doctor again and was hoping that a marriage settlement between the two could be arranged, sooner rather than later. He suggested that Dr Flint should mount the stairs and knock on Esther’s bedroom door. If she would open and see him, all well and good, if she were already asleep, then so be it.

Neville did as he was bidden. On hearing her gentle voice welcoming him, he entered the room, to see her sitting in her night gown, brushing her long blonde hair whilst she gazed abstractedly, at a large glass in front of her. He approached her, stood behind her, placing both hands on her shoulders.

As he did so, he looked around the room. He saw lampshades white and cream, curtains brown and beige, rugs fawn and russet, a carriage clock on the mantelpiece. Several books, like sentries on duty, stood erect on a shelf between two bookends, in the guise of elephants fashioned from dark wood with white, ivory tusks. The bedchamber gave off an air of opulence. A nest of three wooden tables, occupying one corner, next to a comfortable high-backed leather armchair, suggested a living area, where Esther, in her moments of solitude, could relax, read, think and write letters.

He eventually looked down at her shoulder blades hoping she would turn to greet him. Esther, however, was trying desperately to disguise the fact that she wanted to clasp him to her bosom and declare her love for him, then and there. She resisted the temptation to turn and face him, for she was afraid. Her fear of his rejecting her made her blood freeze in her veins. He looked down over her shoulder and stared at her breasts, rising and falling beneath her nightdress, as her heart beat faster and faster. He bent down and kissed her chastely, on her neck. She seemed to swoon in delirium as his hands found their way around her slim waist, and held her tightly.

“Good evening, Neville,” she said. “I’m delighted that you have come.” She rose from her stool and stood in front of him, then quickly turned in his arms to touch her face against his lips. He saw her radiant smile, prompting him to pull her towards him tightly, as he luxuriated in the contours of her slender body and the rounded breasts he felt against his chest.

“I am very pleased to be here, my dear,” he said, sweeping her hair away from her face with a deft movement of one hand, so that he might look deeply into those sparkling eyes of hers. She was lost for words, incapable of any speech; there was so much, she thought, that hung on the next few moments.

She looked up to meet his gaze and remembered vividly, as she did so, the first time she had met him. In London, in 1902, she had attended his surgery, that he might investigate a delicate gynaecological matter. She had felt no embarrassment at removing her clothing, so that he could make a detailed examination of her body. This was the first time, since her childhood that any man had seen her naked. She had put complete trust in him. A nurse had been present throughout the proceedings, whilst he, for his part, was a model of professional propriety. He asked her few questions, during what was to him, she thought, a routine examination.

But now, in these different circumstances, his aloofness had finally disappeared, to be replaced by a flesh and blood person, who would fall passionately in love with her. The romance had begun a few days after the surgery encounter, when Esther had met him quite by accident, at a social function sponsored by London University.

He seemed to be quite taken by her, she thought. She told him of her researches into Jewish mythology and how she had begun to identify herself with Lilith, to the extent of calling herself Lily. “She is a contradictory character,” she explained to him, “because, on the one hand, as Adam’s first wife, she demanded equality with him.” “Why?” asked Neville.
“Because she was formed from the dust of the earth, just as he was. So, she refused to lie beneath him in any act of sexual union and refused to be obedient to him. This is a positive point of view in my opinion; for she is mistress of her own destiny, as I think I am. I would like you to call me Lily. You can think of it as a personal term of endearment between us.”
“So,” asked Neville, returning to her earlier point, his curiosity aroused, “you reject having a stable married life and children?”
“That’s the problem,” replied Lily. “I would like to marry and have children, but in the myth, Lilith’s punishment was to be responsible for the deaths of children. Lilith is a demonic being, and that side of her I reject.”
“Not much of a heroine either, is she?” queried Neville
“For women’s independence of thought, I think she is,” replied Lily.

Now, as then, Dr Flint held her in his gaze, trapped by her beauty, her wantonness, her provocative sexuality, as well as her vulnerability, dressed as she was in her rather flimsy nightdress. Everything about her fascinated and captivated him.

His eyes alighted on an earring she was still wearing. Its turquoise hue reminded him of the blue mantel she wore at the concert, to which he had escorted her on the previous evening. She had secured seats to watch Gustav Mahler conduct the Vienna Philharmonic in a complete performance of his Third Symphony at the Golden Hall. “I am so proud of Mahler’s achievement,” she told Neville. “In a city that despises Jews, he has become musical director of the Vienna Opera and has won the hearts and minds of the Viennese public with performances of his own compositions and his fame is spreading rapidly, all over Europe.”

“I thought Mahler had been accepted into the Roman Catholic Church, to ensure his success with the Viennese,” commented Flint.
“True enough,” agreed Lily. “However, there is a tradition in Jewish thinking that goes back to Moses Mendelssohn, the grandfather of composer Felix, that the torchbearers of civilisation in the future, would be Christians rather Jews. We have been a lamp to lighten the gentiles. As you know, I am Jewish myself, by birth and culture but not religious belief. I am a free-thinker.”

“Tonight,” she thought, “as you hold me in your arms; I fervently hope you will propose marriage to me. You are the answer to all my dreams, all I long for.” Neville smiled at her, but made no such offer. He wanted to be sure that she would be obedient to him. For him, the only way he would be certain of her obedience, was for her to submit to his sexual advances. After all, if she were a latter day Lilith, a succubus,

there was no problem. However, the more he threw off the trappings of Edwardian culture, the more she wanted to restrain him. She had not realised how her teasing, flirting, kissing, had physically affected him and made his passion rise and enflame him. He had become like a man possessed, as he kissed her on the mouth and pressed his loins into her.

She had allowed him to lift the nightdress over her head, throwing it on to the floor. Then, grasping her tightly around her thighs, he had lifted her bodily and thrown her on to the bed. The sight of her loose, unkempt, dishevelled, uncut hair was a sign for him, of a lascivious, even promiscuous nature.

Lily wanted him to possess her, to enter her, become one with her. But, a dread of the consequences made her fight him off. As she played “hard to get”, this served to encourage him and make him bolder. She thought that once she had given herself to him he would abandon her. She wanted to marry as a virgin, if and when she married, if only to please her father. These thoughts reminded her of a conversation she had enjoyed with Neville, concerning unconscious thoughts. He really made her think through her ideas.

He had argued that, “nothing in the past can cause you to think, or act, in the way you do.”
“Cause is a very strong word,” she countered. “There are other, weaker springs to action and thought, than causes.”
“Such as?”
"People have different motives for acting as they do and tendencies to think in certain ways. Character traits may well influence the way they behave. Other people might make plausible suggestions, which later influence their decisions to act. All these motives, tendencies, traits, are unconscious mental states.”
“I don’t believe in the unconscious,” said Neville, simply.
“Why not? Listen. I can remember facts and experiences which lie dormant in me until I recall them. Think of Keats’ poem with the line about a beaker of wine, ‘with beaded bubbles winking at the brim.’ The surface of the liquid in the glass is quite still, until the bubbles break the surface. This is the meeting point, crossing place, or border, where unconscious thoughts become conscious.”
“A very powerful illustration,” confessed Neville, “but there is no such thing as unconscious thoughts becoming conscious ones.”
“Why ever not?” demanded Lily.
“Because my unconscious thoughts are not really thoughts at all.”
“Why not?”
“Because I am not thinking them,” replied Neville.
“What about unconscious desires to do this or that? For example, I might have an unconscious desire to behave well in company, to meet other people, to make friends with them, to travel to distant lands.”
“If they’re unconscious how do I know about them?”
“Think of the bubbles in the glass; when they break the surface I become aware of them.”
“Ah! Events are not like their causes are they? A desire to eat an apple is not caused by a desire, is it? A compulsion to gamble or a fear of the dark, is based on previous experience,” concluded Neville.
“Well,” said Lily, “dreams really are unconscious states of mind.”
“I would say that ‘she is dreaming’ and ‘she is unconscious’ refer to two different mental states. My thoughts are not at all like bubbles floating freely because when they are conscious thoughts they are under my control. In this sense I am free to think what I want. I choose to think of my house, of the opera I saw last night.”


The fire in the grate had been banked up, Flint had observed. “So,” he thought, “Lily never intended to go to sleep early. The fire’s heat and light would keep her awake. He now watched as the logs burnt slowly. Her passion had now waned, but he was aroused. How could he rekindle it, reawaken her sexual desire for him? And if he could not, should he try to take her by force? Could he make her submit to him physically? There was one sure way of finding out.

He started to undress. She scrambled across the bed, managing to hide herself under the bedclothes. She had