Oh fuck
So I'm browsing the original Robert Hichens novel of Bella Donna and oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. Not only is it good stuff, but yeah, it's delicious. Hichens seems to have been a very intelligent and sensual writer and understanding of the female psyche and some of his stuff also has some touches that seem kind of slashy/queer, and going by what I read about him (wrote a book about Oscar Wilde's gayness before the Wilde trials, never married) I kind of wonder. But I'm probably enjoying all the Orientalist porn more than I should. It's very much a product of its time (and Hichens seems to have himself lived in Egypt for ages, so at least he knew something about it) and racist, yeah, but it's still good and Romantic writing. And did I mention erotic? If you detach it from its time and actual reality and read it through a fantasy/kinky lens? The Baroudi in the book doesn't look like Connie, but he's meant to be physically imposing and magnetic and insolent and cruelly sensuous, so that totally works. So, yeah, holy fuck, feast your eyes on this excerpt (I think this might be right up cavefelem's alley)...
"She had some imagination, although she was not a highly
or a very sensitively imaginative woman, and now she left
her imagination at play. It took her with it into the heart of
an Eastern house which was possessed by an Eastern master.
Where was the house - in what strange land of sunshine?
She did not know or care to know. And, indeed, it mattered
little to her - an Eastern woman whose life was usually bounded
by a grille.
For she imagined herself an Eastern woman, subject to the
laws and the immutable customs of the unchanging East, and
she was in the harim of a rich Oriental, to whom she belonged
body and soul, and who adored her, but as a man of the East
adores the woman who is both his mistress and his slave.
For years she had ruled men, and trodden them under her feet.
She had lived for that - the ruling of men by her beauty and
her clever determination. Now she imagined herself no longer
possessing, but entirely possessed; no longer commanding, but
utterly obedient. What a new experience that would be! All
the capricious womanhood of her seemed to be alert and
tingling at the mere thought of it. Instead of having slaves
to be herself a slave!
She moved a little on the divan. The heavy perfume that
pervaded the room seemed to be creeping about her with an
intention - to bring her under its influence. She heard the
very faint and liquid murmur of the faskeeyeh, where the tiny
gilded ball was rising, poising, sinking, governed by the aspir-
ing and subsiding water. That, too, was a slave - a slave in
the Eastern house of Baroudi.
Slowly she closed her eyes in the Eastern house of
Baroudi.
Here Baroudi lay as she was lying, and smoked the keef,
and ate the Hashish, and dreamed.
He would never be the slave of a woman. She felt sure of
that. But he might make a woman his slave. At moments,
when he looked at her, he had the eyes of a slave-owner. But
he might adore a slave with a cruel adoration. She felt
cruelty in him, and it attracted her, it lured her, it responded
to something in her nature which understood, and respected,
cruelty, and which secretly despised gentleness. In his love
he would be cruel. Never would he be quite at the feet of the
woman. His eyes had told her that, had told it to her with
insolence.
The gilded ball in the faskeeyeh, the slave covered with
jewels in the harim!"
OKAY
Fuck, no wonder they cast him. I haven't even made it to the part in the gif yet and I hope it actually exists in the novel. I might combust, though. Christ, I need to find this in print as it's like 500 pages and I totally won't be able to read it on my computer screen, but oh god.
"She had some imagination, although she was not a highly
or a very sensitively imaginative woman, and now she left
her imagination at play. It took her with it into the heart of
an Eastern house which was possessed by an Eastern master.
Where was the house - in what strange land of sunshine?
She did not know or care to know. And, indeed, it mattered
little to her - an Eastern woman whose life was usually bounded
by a grille.
For she imagined herself an Eastern woman, subject to the
laws and the immutable customs of the unchanging East, and
she was in the harim of a rich Oriental, to whom she belonged
body and soul, and who adored her, but as a man of the East
adores the woman who is both his mistress and his slave.
For years she had ruled men, and trodden them under her feet.
She had lived for that - the ruling of men by her beauty and
her clever determination. Now she imagined herself no longer
possessing, but entirely possessed; no longer commanding, but
utterly obedient. What a new experience that would be! All
the capricious womanhood of her seemed to be alert and
tingling at the mere thought of it. Instead of having slaves
to be herself a slave!
She moved a little on the divan. The heavy perfume that
pervaded the room seemed to be creeping about her with an
intention - to bring her under its influence. She heard the
very faint and liquid murmur of the faskeeyeh, where the tiny
gilded ball was rising, poising, sinking, governed by the aspir-
ing and subsiding water. That, too, was a slave - a slave in
the Eastern house of Baroudi.
Slowly she closed her eyes in the Eastern house of
Baroudi.
Here Baroudi lay as she was lying, and smoked the keef,
and ate the Hashish, and dreamed.
He would never be the slave of a woman. She felt sure of
that. But he might make a woman his slave. At moments,
when he looked at her, he had the eyes of a slave-owner. But
he might adore a slave with a cruel adoration. She felt
cruelty in him, and it attracted her, it lured her, it responded
to something in her nature which understood, and respected,
cruelty, and which secretly despised gentleness. In his love
he would be cruel. Never would he be quite at the feet of the
woman. His eyes had told her that, had told it to her with
insolence.
The gilded ball in the faskeeyeh, the slave covered with
jewels in the harim!"
OKAY
Fuck, no wonder they cast him. I haven't even made it to the part in the gif yet and I hope it actually exists in the novel. I might combust, though. Christ, I need to find this in print as it's like 500 pages and I totally won't be able to read it on my computer screen, but oh god.