MS-HRC-SB-4-3

[2035] expecting rather to grow cold, if anything!

[2036] This first phase, that of the bed, was characterized by the
evolution of the relationship between Macmann and his keeper.
[2037] There sprang up gradually between them a kind of intimacy which,
at a given moment, led them to lie together and copulate as best
they could. [2038] For given their age and scant experience of carnal
love, it was only natural they should not succeed, at the first
shot. ^{[place = overwritten] , [place = margin left] [⁁]in giving each other the impression they were made for each other.}

[2039] The spectacle was then offered of Macmann trying to bundle
his sex into his partner's like a pillow into a pillow-slip,
folding it in t ^{[place = overwritten] w}o two and stuffing it in with his fingers. [2040] But
far from losing heart they warl ^{[place = overwritten] m}ed to their work. And though both
completely impotent they finally succeeded, summoning to their aid
all the resources of the skin, the mucus and the imagination, in
striking from their dry and feeble clips a kind of sombre gratif-
ication.

[2041] So that Moll exclaimed, being (at that stah ^{[place = overwritten] g}e) the more
expansive of the two, Oh would we had but met sixty years ago! ^{[place = overwritten] !}
[2042] But on the long road to this what flutterings, alarms and bash-
ful fumblings, of which only this, that they gac ^{[place = margin left] v}e Macmann some
insight into the meaning of the expression, Two is company.

[2043] He
then made unquestionable progress in the use of the spoken word,
word and learnt in a short time to let fall, at the right time,
the yesses, noes, mores and enoughs that keep love alive. [2044] It was
also the occasion of his penetrating into the enchanted world of
reading, thanks to the inflammatory letters which Moll brought