Web posted on: Thursday, March 04, 1999 10:14:49 AM

(CNN) -- The following are excerpts from Monica Lewinsky's new book, "Monica's Story," written by Princess Diana biographer Andrew Morton with the former White House intern's cooperation:

Chapter Four: Monica Goes to Washington

On her first intimate encounter with the president: "'I remember looking at him and seeing such a different person than the one I had expected to see. There was such a softness and tenderness about him, his eyes were very soul-searching, very wanting, very needing, and very loving. There was too, a sadness about him that I hadn't expected to see.'"

Chapter seven: Not Right in the Eyes of God

"By the time he reached the age of 40, he [Clinton] was unhappy in his marriage and hated what he was doing to himself and others ... He had considered divorcing Hillary and leaving politics forever -- at the time he had been re-elected for his fourth term as Governor of Arkansas. 'If I had to become a gas-station attendant to live an honest life and be able to look myself in the mirror and be happy with who I am, that's what I was prepared to do,' he confessed to Monica."

Chapter eleven: Terror in Room 1012

At the start of her first meeting with (Independent Counsel Ken) Starr's investigators, Monica demanded that Tripp stick around: "'Make her stay and watch,' she hissed. 'I want that treacherous bitch to see what she has done to me.' ... 'What on earth is going on,' she thought. 'All I'm trying to do is cover up my affair with the President.'"

Lewinsky: "'I find it difficult to describe the raw openness, the fear I felt. It was as if my stomach had been cut open and someone had poured acid onto my wound. I just felt an intense stinging pain and overriding terror. It was surreal. I couldn't understand how all this was happening.'"

"'If I have to go to jail I will do so to protect the President,' Lewinsky thought. 'I can't do this to him. I can't turn him in.'" She felt overwhelmed by guilt, knowing that she might ruin the life of the man she adored."

Lewinsky says at first, the only means she could think of that would both prevent her going to jail and protect her "handsome" was suicide. "'I couldn't bear to go to jail,' she says. 'I would come out an old lady and no one would ever want to marry me. I would never have the joy of getting married and starting a family. My life would be over. So I thought there is no way out other than killing myself. If I kill myself, then there would be no information and I wouldn't have to deal with the hurt and trouble I had caused the President.'"

The room where Lewinsky was talking with prosecutors during their initial meeting had sliding windows, and she says she considered throwing herself out, to crash to her death through the glass canopy below.

"Starr's men had her cold, Monica realized. She couldn't wriggle out of this one."

"Monica was being subjected to intimidating and remorseless psychological pressure, her inquisitors telling her, for the record, that she could leave when she liked, while making it very, very clear what the consequences would be if she did. Understandably, Monica disagrees with the assertion made by Kenneth Starr -- who was never present -- that she was not held against her will by the assorted law officers crowded into room 1012."

"'I still have nightmares about it,' she says, 'the sense of being trapped and drowning.'" Deputy Independent Counsel Jackie Bennett telling Lewinsky at the interrogation: "You should know that we are going to prosecute your mother too, because of the things you have said she has done. We have it all on tape."

Lewinsky says had she then known the full extent of Linda Tripp's treachery, her response would have been very different. "'I would have tried to kill her,' she says simply -- and means it."