Emmanuelle II

Emmanuelle Arsan, Anselm Hollo

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780802122360
• eBook ISBN: 9780802192707
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

The international bestselling author of the erotic classic Emmanuelle continues her "all-out one-woman crusade to liberate mankind from the sexual taboos" ( Panorama, Italy).
 
Emmanuelle II continues the timeless story of an unforgettable woman, a happy sensualist, whose unrestrained erotic experimentation explores the boundless possibilities of sex in a novel of literary and philosophical import.
 
The beautiful heroine's initiations into the ecstasies of love are here set against the exotic background of Thailand, where she easily moves from the attentions of a handsome Siamese prince at an elegant soiree to the dark ante-chamber of a Buddhist temple, where the vow of celibacy is cleverly circumvented by a venerable old monk.
 
A sensual delight, Emmanuelle II succeeds, like few novels before it, in pushing the philosophy of eroticism to the frontiers of myth. Its exploration of fantasy transformed into exquisite fulfillment makes this one of the finest erotic novels ever published, alongside Anne Desclos' The Story of O and Anaïs Nin's Delta of Venus.
 
"This new edition reminds us how this revolutionary epic had an impact on the sexual liberation of women." — Le Parisien Magazine
 
"Emmanuelle is not just sex; it is an eroticism that is vintage, oneiric, utopian, and tender, an optimistic and radiant eroticism." — Le Point

1

It Is the Love of Loving
That Makes You
the World’s Betrothed

We who must, perhaps, die one day, shall declare
man immortal on the very threshold of that instant.

—Saint-John Perse, Amers

“Anna Maria Serguine.”

In sounding the i in the young woman’s first name, Mario had held it, for the longest time, on a high, isolate note, thus giving the remainder of the syllables an air of abrupt and tender confidentiality.

She remained seated behind the steering wheel of her car. Mario took her hand and presented the long, ringless fingers to Emmanuelle, holding them on his own palm.

“Anna Maria,” says the echo within Emmanuelle, as she tries to recapture the caressing thrill of the sound that had followed upon the Florentine roll of the r. Fragments of plainchant come to her mind, and with them, the scents of incense and melting wax. Panis angelicus. Young girls’ knees under the decent cover of skirts. Delicious daydreams. O res mirabilis! And throats, prolonging the i-sounds, tongues, moistening them with their saliva, lips, opening, offering up their teeth. . . . O salutaris hostia. . . . With the light shining through a stained-glass window, from the other end of the world, Emmanuelle gilds this unfamiliar face, reproaching herself for her inability to transcend a schoolgirl’s vocabulary in her response to its beauty:

“She’s marvelous!” Emmanuelle whispers to herself. “And of a purity so sure of herself, so jubilant, so happy.” It is almost breaking her heart. Such grace can only be a dream!

“It’s up to you to make it real,” says Mario, and she asks herself whether she hasn’t, after all, been thinking out loud.

Anna Maria laughed, a peal of amusement so unembarrassed that Emmanuelle regained her composure. She decided to take the visitor’s hand into her own.

“But not right now,” Anna Maria said with a smile. “I mustn’t be late for this ladies’ tea party I’m going to.”

Then she turned toward Mario, looking him over as if he had grown since she had last seen him. Her car was a very low-slung affair.

“I’m sure you’ll find some good soul to take you back?”

“Via, cara, via!”

The wheels spun in the gravel, skidded off. No windshield, no mudguards, no top! Emmanuelle thought, anxiously looking up at the dark sky. Instantly unhappy, she watched the dream fading into the distance.

“And I had thought I knew the most beautiful creatures on this earth! Where did you ever find that archangel?”

“Oh, she’s related to my family,” Mario said. “Sometimes I have her drive me around.”

Then, sounding curious:

“You find her interesting?”

Emmanuelle looked inscrutable.

“She’ll be back tomorrow,” he said.

After a moment’s silence, he went on:

“I have to tell you this: you would have to get her more than just a little excited. But I’m sure that you’ll be able to make her listen to reason.”

“Me?” protested Emmanuelle. “But how do you think I could do such a thing? I’m just a beginner.”

A twinge of spite entered her feelings. Was it perhaps that he, as far as he was concerned, regarded their affair as finished, after one single lesson?

They had walked across Emmanuelle’s garden and terrace, and were now standing in the living room, in front of the large mobile sculpture constructed out of black metal. Mario breathed on its leaves and made them turn.

Emmanuelle said:

“But I’m sure you must have taken care of her education, yourself. What would I be able to add to that?”

“It isn’t Anna Maria we’re talking about. It’s you.”

He stopped to wait for a reply from her, but she only rearranged her features in an expression meant to look skeptical. So he went on, explaining:

“You see, the act that makes you new, is the one that you have to accomplish. There is no form that is yours to such a degree as the one that turns you into another being. But perhaps you are satisfied with what you are?”

Emmanuelle shook her great black mane.

“No, I’m not,” she said, resolutely.

“Well, then. Do it.” Mario sounded weary.

Nevertheless, he went on:

“As a woman, your love for yourself quite certainly is a fitting preoccupation. But you are a goddess, as well: therefore the well-being of others has to be an equal concern of yours.”

She smiled, remembering the boardwalk, the temple, the night. He looked at her, with a questioning mien:

“And have you started enlightening your husband?”

She shook her head, looking half defiant, half ashamed.

“But wasn’t he surprised by how long you were gone?”

“He was.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him that you had taken me to an opium den.”

“And he didn’t give you a lecture?”

“He made love to me.”

She read the question in her father confessor’s eyes.

“Yes,” she said, “I was thinking about it, all the time.”

“And you liked it that way?”

Emmanuelle’s face was eloquent: in her mind, she was reliving the tremendous new thrill she had experienced when her husband’s semen had spurted forth to mingle with the sam-lo’s.

“You’d like to do it again, right now,” Mario observed.

“But I told you, I believe in your law.”

And it was true. At this moment, she found herself unable even to remember what could have raised any doubts in her mind. In order to convince Mario, she repeated the maxim that he had caused her to formulate, the day before:

“All time spent in other pursuits but that of making love, embraced by an ever-increasing number of arms, is time lost.”

Then she wanted to know:

“And what does Anna Maria believe she ought to spend her time on?”

“On the preparation for other times; on self-mortification in this world, in order to achieve endless ecstasy in the other.”

Emmanuelle’s voice sounded impartial:

“Well, that means that there are other values in her life, besides those of eroticism. She, too, has her gods and her laws.”

Mario looked at her quizzically:

‘What I’m waiting to see,” he said, “is whether the dream of heaven is going to lead a daughter of man to damnation, or if the love of the real is going to win a soul, here on earth.”

Emmanuelle puts her hand on his arm.

“But I’m such a miserable hostess. I haven’t even offered you a drink, not even a cigarette.”

She wants to guide him over to the bar, but he holds her back.

“I hope, to say the very least, that you’re not wearing anything under those shorts?” he asks, looking roguish.

“Look again.”

The shorts are so minimal that they’re hardly visible beneath the coral-red sweater. Emmanuelle’s black, curly pubic hair is peeking out both sides of the crotch.

Mario looks, but has still further comment to make:

“I don’t like this kind of clothing. A skirt may be raised: it is a gate permitting entry. Those shorts are like a wall. I’ll get bored with your legs, as long as I see them emerging from that little bag.”

“I’ll take them off,” Emmanuelle says, good-humoredly. “But first you have to tell me what you would like to drink?”

He has another bee in his bonnet:

“Why stay in here? I like the trees in your garden.”

“But it’s going to rain!”

“It isn’t raining yet.”

He takes Emmanuelle where he wants to go: out to the wide ledge of flat rocks bordering the terrace. A lightning-bolt turns the spaces between the motionless, flamboyant flowers a vivid hue of green.

“Oh, Mario, look at that beautiful boy walking by in the street!”

“Yes, he’s handsome all right.”

“Why don’t you call him over here and make love to him?”

“There is a time for everything under heaven, saith the Preacher: a time to run after the boys, and a time to let them run.”

“I’m positive he never said anything like it. Listen, Mario, I’m thirsty!”

He crosses his arms, in a display of patience. She knows what he is waiting for. She shrugs, looking obstinate, and examines her naked thighs: naked up to the groin, where the edge of her shorts draws a red line across the skin. To expose oneself beyond that line is incompatible with dignity.

“Well, then?”

“Please, Mario, not out here! They can see us from the house across the street. Look!”

She points at a pair of curtains moving in one of the windows.

“You know these Siamese. There’s always someone skulking around.”

“But that’s perfect!” Mario exclaims. “Didn’t you tell me that you like people admiring your body?”

Emmanuelle’s shamefaced look makes him smile. Then he gets going, once again.

“Remember: nothing that’s discreet can be erotic. The erotic heroine is not unlike the chosen of God: she is the one who brings about strife and scandal. A masterpiece always scandalizes the world. What nakedness is it that hides itself in order to be naked? Your lechery makes little sense, if you draw the curtains of your bedroom on it: it won’t liberate your neighbor from his ignorance, his shame, his fear. The important thing is not that you get naked, but that you are seen naked; not that you cry out with pleasure, but that you can be heard; not that you count your lovers, but that he can count them; not that your own eyes have been opened to the truth of loving love, but that that other one, who is still groping about amongst his own chimeras, and in his own night, may discover, by seeing you, that there is no other light, and see your gestures testify to the fact that there is no other beauty.”

His voice assumes a more urgent tone:

“Every relapse into false shame will demoralize a multitude. Each time you start worrying about causing a scandal, think of those who secretly yearn for you to show them the way. Do not betray them. Don’t make light of the hope they put in you, whether they know it or not! If out of timidity or doubt you should ever—yes, even just once—prevent the accomplishment of an erotic act, no future audacity or merit would ever make up for such backsliding.”

He pauses to draw breath, and then, with an almost imperceptible note of disdain in his voice:

“Or is it propriety you’re thinking about? Is it that you only want to do as others do—or that you want all others to act like you? Is it Emmanuelle you want to be . . . or just anybody?”

“But surely I can respect the beliefs of my neighbors,” she defends herself. “That doesn’t mean that I share them, does it? And if they do not like my kinds of pleasure, why should I enjoy shocking them, or creating a scandal? It’s no skin off my back to let them conduct their lives according to their own lights. Is it possible to live at all, without a little discretion, tolerance, politeness? What is wrong with letting those people persuade th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Emmanuelle II
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Emmanuelle II
• 1 It Is the Love of Loving That Makes You the World's Betrothed
• 2 The Invitation
• 3 The Battle of Eve
• 4 The Night of Maligath
• 5 The Hetairion
• 6 To Arinane's Happiness
• 7 The Age of Reason
• 8 Deus Escreve Direito Por Linhas Tortas
• 9 The Birds Unmasked
• 10 The Noblest Talent
• 11 The Glass House
• 12 Her Bare Legs on Your Fiery Beaches
• Back Cover