![]() ![]() ![]() That this account of first love is an unabashed queer drama is a novelty. i Olivia delivers an expression of pristine feeling, holding the involuntary ardour of a girl’s first love. It bears an epigraph, in French, from the 17 th-century writer La Bruyère: “One only loves well once, the first time the loves that follow are less involuntary”. It is dedicated “to the beloved memory of V.W.”, Virginia Woolf, who was one of Bussy’s close friends. In 1949 the Hogarth Press published the novella Olivia, by Olivia, pseudonym of the writer and translator Dorothy Bussy. ![]() She blows out the candle and wishes Olivia good night. Olivia thrills at the touch, covering Julie’s hands in kisses. It is only when the girl’s eyes are closed that she kisses her, and even then just on her cheek. Instead Mlle Julie settles Olivia down to sleep, like a mother with her child. Their faces are close the music seems to cue a kiss. She knows the poem Olivia is reading by heart. She enters the room to find Olivia reading poetry, and sits on the bed beside her, her long white hand cradling Olivia’s head and playing with her hair. Midway through Olivia, headmistress Mlle Julie (Edwige Feuillère), going to bed, notices light under the door of one of her pupils, Olivia. ![]()
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