Querelle

Querelle did not reply. The smell of the opium packet lying on the bed disgusted him. And there the rod was already, entering. He recalled the Armenian he had strangled in Beirut, his softness, his lizard- or birdlike gentleness. Querelle asked himself whether he should try to please the executioner with caresses. Having no fear of ridicule now, he might as well try out that sweetness the murdered pederast had exuded. "He did call me the fanciest names I ever did hear, that's for sure. One of the softest, he was, too," he thought. But what gestures of affection were appropriate? What caresses? His muscles did not know which way to bend to obtain a curve. Norbert was crushing him. Slowly he penetrated him up to the point where his belly touched Querelle, whom he was holding close, with sudden, fearsome intensity, his hands clasped round the sailor's belly. He was surprised how warm it was inside of Querelle. He pushed in farther, very carefully, the better to savor his pleasure and his strength. Querelle was astonished at suffering so little pain. · QUERELLE "He's not hurting me. Have to admit he knows how to do 't 1 • , \Vhat he felt was a new nature entering into him and establishing itself there, and he was exquisitely aware of his being changed into a catamite. "\Vhat's he going to say to me afterwards? Hope he doesn't want to talk." In a vague way he felt grateful toward Norbert for protecting him, in thus covering him. A sense of some degree of affection for his executioner occurred to him. He turned his head slightly, hoping, after all, and despite his anxiety, that Norbert might kiss him on the mouth; but he couldn't even manage to see his face. The boss had no tender feelings for him whatsoever, nor would it ever have entered his head that a man could kiss another. Silently, his mouth half-open, Norbert was taking care of it, like of any serious and important business. He was holding Querelle with seemingly the same passion -a female animal shows when holding the dead body of her young offspring-the attitude by which we comprehend what love is : consciousness of the division of what previously was one, of what it is to be thus divided, while you yourself are watching yourself. The two men heard nothing but the sound of each other's breathing. Querelle felt like weeping over the skin he had sloughed and abandoned-where? at the foot of the city wall of Brest?-but his eyes, open in one of the deep folds of the velvet bedcover, remained dry. "Here it comes."

Querelle did not reply. The smell of the opium packet lying on the bed disgusted him. And there the rod was already, entering.