The night I speak of, my bed was taken out and put into the Chinese-paper room, one of the maids who helped to move it sat on the pot and piddled; I heard the rattle, and as far as I can recollect it was the first time I noticed anything of the sort, tho I recollect well-seeing women putting on their stockings and feeling the thigh of one of them just above her knee. Xxx I rouse myself and listen, the circumstances are strange, the room strange, it excites me, and I rise on my knees, I don’t know whether naturally, or cautiously, or how; perhaps cautiously, because I fear angering my mother, and the gentleman; perhaps a sexual instinct makes me curious, though that is not probable. My mother closed the curtains quite tightly all round a small four-post bed, and told me I was
