It's 1809. Thirteen year-old Thomasina and her twenty two year old tutor Septimus sit at a large table in a room overlooking the expansive gardens of Thomasina's family estate. Septimus is reading a poem, "The Couch of Eros," to himself. Thomasina is supposed to be studying mathematics, but instead she asks Septimus what the phrase "carnal embrace" means. At first, he tells her that it means embracing a large piece of meat (carnal, from the Latin carnis, or meat). But when Thomasina tells him that Mrs. Chater, the wife of the man who wrote the poem Septimus is reading, was seen in a carnal embrace with Mr. Noakes, the landscape gardener, Septimus explains that "carnal embrace" is another way of saying "sexual intercourse,." He describes intercourse in the same sort of clinical way he describes the theorem that Thomasina is supposed to be studying. Thomasina is disgusted, and says that when she's older she'll never be able to participate in "carnal embrace" without thinking of him. (read more)
