In addition, there was the life-sized Christ from the Thabor garden lying on the flagstones, his worm-eaten cross in the process of being replaced with a new one. He was a splendidly athletic figure, a perfect physical specimen modeled out of some smooth, soap-like substance, stretched out in an attitude of acceptance with widespread arms, expanded pectoral muscles, his stomach hollow but powerfully molded and his legs thickly knotted with sinews. He lay there, stripped of his cross but nonetheless crucified for that, for presently I made out that Thomas was lying beneath him, reproducing his attitude exactly and grunting under the weight of the statue which was all but crushing him.

I fled in horror from a scene which so forcefully brought together the acts of love and crucifixion, as though Christ’s conventional chastity had been no more than a long, secret preparation for his union with the cross, as though a man in the act of love were to be in some way nailed to his lover. However that might be, I now knew Thomas’ dark secret, his physical, carnal, sensual love for Jesus, and I was in no doubt that this somber passion had something—although what precisely?—to do with the famous “dry come” of which he was the inventor and which earned him exceptional kudos with the Foils.

The dry come—as its name indicates—was the achievement of an orgasm with no release of sperm. It could be brought off by means of a fairly strong pressure of the fingers—either by oneself or by one’s partner—on the furthest accessible point of the spermatic cord, i.e., just below the anus. It produces a keener, more unexpected sensation, attended by a sharp spasm—relished by some, abhorred, for reasons largely superstitious, by others. It causes a greater nervous exhaustion; but since the reserves of sperm remain intact, repetition is easier and more effective. To be honest, for me the dry come has always been an interesting curiosity but of no great practical advantage. Orgasm without ejaculation produces a kind of closed circuit which seems to me to imply a rejection of others. It is as if the man practicing the dry come, after an initial impulse toward his partner, were suddenly to realize that here was no soul mate or, more to the point, brother in flesh, and, seized with revulsion, break contact and withdraw into himself, as the sea, frustrated by the breakwater, sucks back its waves in the undertow. It is the reaction of a person whose choice is fundamentally for the closed cell, for a geminate seclusion. I am too far away—perhaps I ought to add, alas—from the perfect pair, I am too fond of other people, I am, in short, too much of a hunter by instinct to shut myself in like that.

This fierce piety and my disturbing discoveries surrounded Thomas with a somber distinction. The fathers themselves would gladly have done without their too gifted pupil, although, when all was said and done, he was a credit to them and it must be admitted that his excesses, which in a lay institution would have rebounded on themselves, found in a religious college a climate that favored their development. Drycome had distorted the meanings of most of the prayers and rituals on which we were nourished—but had they really any meaning in themselves, or were they only waiting, free and available, for someone with the wit to bend them, with gentle violence, to his own way of thinking? For instance, I need go no further than the Psalms which we sang every Sunday at vespers and which might have been written for him, and us. Thomas would crush us with his arrogant demand as our voices echoed his proud, enigmatic assertion that:

     

Dixit dominus domino meo

Sede a dextris meis

       

The Lord said unto my lord, sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. And we would picture him with his head on Jesus’ breast, spurning with his feet a groveling horde of humbled masters and fellow pupils. But we took completely for our own the Psalm’s disdainful charge against heterosexuals:

        

Pedes habent, et non ambulabunt

Oculos habent, et non videbunt

Manus habent, et non palpabunt

Nares habent, et non odorabunt!

       

Feet have they, but they walk not. Eyes have they, but they see not. Hands have they, but they handle not. Noses have they, but they smell not.

We who walked and saw and handled and smelled would bawl out that insolent indictment while our eyes caressed the backs and buttocks of the fellow pupils in front of us, so many young calves reared for domestic use and so paralyzed, blind, insensible, and devoid of any sense of smell.

Raphael Ganesh was certainly a long way from Thomas Drycome’s elaborate mysticism. He preferred the opulent, highly colored imagery of the East to the monographic traditions of Christianity. He got his nickname from the Hindu idol whose colorful picture covered the whole of his desk lid. This was Ganesh, the elephant-headed god with four arms and a languishing, kohl-rimmed eye, the son of Siva and Parvati, always accompanied by the same totem animal, the rat The gaudy colors, the Sanskrit text, the enormous jewels with which the idol was decked were all there solely as a frame, to extol and set off the supple, scented trunk which swayed with a lascivious grace. That at least was what Raphael claimed, who saw Ganesh as the deification of the sexual organ as an object of worship. According to him, the only justification for any boy’s existence was as the temple of a single god, concealed within the sanctuary of his clothes, to whom he burned to render homage. As for the rat totem, its meaning remained obscure to the most learned orientalists and Raphael was far from suspecting that it would be for little Alexandre Surin, whom they called Fleurette, to unravel the secret. This Eastern idolatry, crude and primitive as it was, made Raphael the antithesis of the subtle, mystical Thomas. But I have always thought the Foils were fortunate in possessing two heads so diametrically opposite in inspiration and practice.

         

The cruel, sensuous society of the Foils, together with our encounters in the fencing school, have left me with a liking for those weapons. But since it is no longer the fashion to go about wearing a sword, I have provided myself with a secret array of swords in the shape of a collection of sword sticks. I have ninety-seven at the moment and I do not mean to stop there. Their value depends on the fineness of the sheath and how perfectly it locks.