The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings

by Marquis de Sade

  “No, don’t you do it,” cried the Bishop, “I am not as continent as Monsieur le Président, not I, my fuck’s itching me, and it’s got to be shed.”

  Wherewith, he was seen very publicly to perform things the structure of this very complex fiction prevents us from revealing at this stage, but things whose delightful influence very rapidly brought leaping forth the fuck whose mounting pressure had discomfited the Bishop’s thrice-blessed balls. As for Durcet, absorbed in Thérèse’s ass, nothing was heard from him, and in all likelihood Nature refused him what she lavishly granted the others, for he was not as a rule mute when accorded her favors. Seeing that now at last calm had been restored, Duclos went on with her lubricious exploits.

  A month later, I came to grips with a man whom one had almost to violate in order satisfactorily to carry out an operation somewhat akin to the one I related several minutes ago. I shit upon a dish, I bring it to him and thrust it under his nose while he sits in an armchair quietly reading a book, seemingly unaware of my presence. He looks up, falls to swearing, asks how the devil can the girl have the insolence to do such a thing in his presence, but all the same it’s a queer turd she’s got there, he contemplates it, handles it; I ask forgiveness for the liberty I have taken, he continues to mumble incoherencies at me, and then discharges with his eyes fixed on the morsel of shit; and in so doing he says he’ll find me again someday, that sooner or later he’ll see to it that I get what I deserve.

  A fourth gentleman employed none but women of seventy or more in practices which were quite similar; I watched him enact his rite with an old creature who could not have been less than eighty. He was reclining upon a sofa, the matron was straddling him; she deposited her strange old package on his belly while frigging a wrinkled, shriveled prick which scarcely discharged at all.

  At Fournier’s establishment we had another curious article of furniture: a kind of toilet chair, provided with the usual hole and set against the wall; things were so arranged that a man could lie in such a way that while his body extended into the neighboring room, his shoulders passed through an opening and his head occupied the place usually reserved for the chamber pot. I had been appointed to the task, and kneeling between his legs, I sucked his prick as best I could throughout the operation. Well, this extraordinary ceremony consisted in having a workman, who was paid to act a part whose full consequences he neither knew nor divined; in having, I say, a man of the people enter the room containing the chair, climb upon it, and do his business squarely upon the face of the patient over whom I was toiling; but the shit bearer had absolutely to be a poor drudge fetched in from the humblest milieu, he had as well to be old and ugly, he was inspected before being put to work, and were he to lack any of these qualities, our libertine would have nothing to do with him. During all this, I saw nothing but heard rather a lot: the instant of collision was also that of my man’s discharge, his fuck sprang down my throat the same moment the turd splashed upon his face, and when he emerged from beneath the chair and got to his feet, I saw by the state he was in that he had been handsomely served. By chance, after the exercise was over, I happened to meet the fellow who had performed so brilliantly; he was from the Auvergne, a good honest chap who earned his livelihood working with stonemasons; he seemed delighted to earn a crown by doing naught but ridding himself of what he would have had one way or another to expel from his bowels, and this little chore struck him as infinitely less arduous than carrying his hod. He was, what for his looks, quite dreadful to behold and must have been over forty.

  “Faith,” muttered Durcet, “I think that should do it.”

  And passing into his closet with the eldest of the fuckers, with Thérèse and Desgranges, he was heard braying and whinnying some minutes later; he returned but was disinclined to inform the company of the precise nature of the excesses whereunto he had surrendered himself.

  Supper was announced; it proved at least as libertine as ever, and after the meal, the four friends having been moved to spend the evening away from one another instead of frolicking together as they customarily did, the Duc went off to the boudoir at the end of the corridor, taking with him Hercule, Martaine, his daughter Julie, Zelmire, Hébé, Zélamir, Cupidon, and Marie.

  Curval commandeered the auditorium, providing himself with what companionship Constance could afford him, for she fell to trembling every time she found herself with him, and he did exceedingly little to allay her fears; he also took Fanchon, Desgranges, Bum-Cleaver, Augustine, Fanny, Narcisse, and Zéphyr.

  The Bishop went into the drawing room with Duclos who, that evening, revenged herself upon the fickle Duc, who had led Martaine away with him; Aline, Invictus, Thérèse, Sophie, the charming little Colombe, Céladon, and Adonis completed the prelate’s entourage.

  Durcet remained in the dining room. It was cleared, rugs and cushions were brought in and strewn all about. He encloseted himself, I say, with Adelaide, his beloved wife, with Antinoüs, Louison, Champville, Michette, Rosette, Hyacinthe, and Giton.

  More the redoubling of lecherous appetites than any other reason had doubtless dictated this arrangement, for brains were heated to such a point that evening that it was unanimously agreed no one would go to bed; it was perfectly incredible what was achieved in each room by way of infamies and impurities.

  Toward dawn, their Lordships decided to return to table, although they had taken abundant drink throughout the night; everyone trooped into the dining room, there was an indistinct, promiscuous pell-mell, the cooks were awakened and soon sent in scrambled eggs, toast, onion soup, and omelettes. Drinking was resumed, the company grew very merry, all save Constance who was plunged in inconsolable sadness. Curval’s hatred was growing just as certainly as was her poor belly; she had that night during the orgies experienced the effects of his hostility, she had suffered everything but blows, for Messieurs had agreed to leave the pear to ripen; she had, I say, blows excepted, undergone every imaginable mistreatment; she thought to complain to Durcet and to her husband, the Duc: they both bade her go to the devil and remarked that she must surely have been guilty of some fault which was hidden from their eyes, yes, surely, else how could she thus ever have displeased that most virtuous and most gentle of mortals; they wagged their heads and walked away. And then they all went to bed.

  THE ELEVENTH DAY

  They did not rise till late that day, and dispensing with all the usual ceremonies, went directly to table once they had got up from their beds. Coffee, served by Giton, Hyacinthe, Augustine, and Fanny, was largely uneventful, although Durcet could not do without some farts from Augustine, and the Duc thrust his brave instrument between Fanny’s lips. Now, as from the desire to what the desire causes ’tis ever but a single step with personages such as our heroes, they went unswervingly toward satisfying themselves; happily, Augustine was prepared, she blew a steady breeze into the little financier’s mouth, and he came nigh to stiffening; as for Curval and the Bishop, they confined themselves to fondling the two little boys’ behinds, and then our champions moved to the auditorium.

  One day little Eugénie, who was becoming more familiar with the rest of us and whom six months in the whorehouse had only rendered all the prettier, Eugénie, I say, one day accosted me and, lifting her skirts, bade me look at her ass. “Do you see, Duclos, how Fournier wants me to keep my behind today?”

  An inch-thick patch of shit covered her sweet little asshole.

  “And why does she want you to wear that?” I asked her.

  “It’s for the sake of an old gentleman who is coming this afternoon,” she explained, “and he expects a beshitted ass.”

  “Well, well,” said I, “he’ll be very pleased with you. I’m sure, for yours couldn’t possibly be more thickly encrusted.”

  And she told me that Fournier’s was the hand that had smeared her thus. Curious to witness the impending scene, I flew to the spy hole as soon as dear little Eugénie was summoned. The principal actor was a monk, but one of those monks we call gros bonnets, a
Cistercian, tall, heavy, vigorous, and nearing sixty. He caresses the child, kisses her upon the mouth, and demanding to know whether she is neat and clean, he hoists her petticoats personally to verify a constant state of cleanliness whereof Eugénie gives him full assurance, although knowing nothing could be further from the truth; but she had been instructed so to speak to him.

  “What’s this, my little rascal?” exclaims the monk upon catching sight of that formidable mess. “What? Do you dare tell me you are neat and tidy when your ass is as filthy as this? Why, by the Virgin, I’m sure ’tis a fortnight since this bum’s been wiped. ’Tis very troubling indeed, for I like things to be clean, I do, and it truly looks as if I had better look into the situation.”

  While speaking he had deposited Eugénie upon a bed, knelt behind her buttocks, and begun to pry them apart with both his hands. One would have thought that, at the outset, he purposed simply to observe the state of affairs, which caused him great surprise, but little by little he becomes accustomed to things as they are, sees here a virtue where he had seen only a fault before, sticks out his tongue and moves his head closer, sets to polishing the gem, the clods and spots he removes, the pristine object they conceal inflames his senses, his prick gets up, his nose, mouth, and tongue seem simultaneously to be at work, his ecstasy appears so delicious he is all but deprived of the power to speak, his fuck finally mounts—he grasps his prick, frigs it, and as he discharges, finishes cleaning that anus, which is now so fresh and pure one would scarcely suppose it had been nasty no more than a minute or two before.

  But the libertine was not yet ready to bring the affair to a conclusion, this voluptuous mania of his constituted a mere preliminary; he gets to his feet, bestows further kisses upon his little partner, exposes to her view a great ass of very evil aspect and very unclean, and he orders her to give it a thorough shaking, to socratize it; this brings his prick up furiously again, he now returns to Eugénie’s ass, overwhelms it with renewed caresses, lickings, and so forth, but what he did after that it is not for me to relate, nor would it properly figure in these introductory narrations; you will, Messieurs, have the great kindness to allow Madame Martaine to tell you of the behavior of a villain with whom she was only too well acquainted; and in order to avoid all questions, my Lords, which your own regulations forbid me to treat, or resolve, I continue on to another episode.

  “Just one word, Duclos,” said the Duc, who then queried the storyteller in an indirect language which enabled her to make lawful reply. “Was it big with the monk? Was this Eugénie’s first time? . . .”

  “Yes, Sire, the first, and the monk’s was about the size of yours.”

  “Ah, fuck my eyes!” muttered Durcet; “a damned pretty demonstration, I’d like to have seen that.”

  You would perhaps have been equally curious, Duclos said as she picked up the thread of her narrative, about the individual who, a few days later, passed into my hands. Outfitted with a vessel containing eight or ten great turds gathered from all quarters and whose authors he would have been very distressed to have identified, I was with my own hands to rub him from head to toe with this fragrant pomade. Not an inch on his body was neglected, not even his face, and when I had massaged his prick, which I frigged at the same time, the infamous pig, who all the while stared contentedly at himself in a mirror, left evidence of his humble virility between my palms.

  And at last, gentlemen, we have arrived; I can now advise you that the homage is about to be made in the veritable temple. I had been told to hold myself in readiness, I kept my bowels closed for two long days. It was a commander of the Order of the Knights of Malta with whom I was to break a lance; he used to see a different girl every morning for these exercises; the following scene transpired at his home.

  “Very fair buttocks,” was his opinion as he embraced my behind. “However, my child,” he continued, “there’s more to it than simply having a comely ass, you know. That comely ass must know how to shit. Tell me, have you the urge?”

  “Such an urge I’m dying to satisfy it, Monsieur,” I confessed.

  “Well, by Jesus, that’s delicious!” exclaimed the commander, “that’s what is called excellent service to society, but look here, my little duck, would you like to shit in this chamber pot I’m offering you?”

  “In faith, Monsieur,” I made answer, “what with the need I have to shit, I’d do it anywhere, I’d even shit in your mouth.”

  “No! In my mouth, you say? Why, bless me, that is delicious, and that’s precisely the place I myself had in mind for you,” he added, setting the pot aside.

  “Well, Monsieur, let’s make haste, bring up your mouth,” said I, “for indeed I’ll not be able to hold back much longer.”

  He places himself on the couch, I climb astride him, while operating I frig him, he supports my haunches with his hands and receives, piece by piece, everything I deposit in his avid mouth. He is thrilled by it all, nears his ecstasy, my wrist is hardly needed to bring forth the floods of semen which salute my performance; I frig, conclude my shitting, our man loses himself and his seed altogether, and I leave him delighted with me, or at least so he has the kindness to say to Fournier, at the same time requesting the services of another girl for the morrow.

  The personage who came next employed more or less the same approach to the problem, but simply kept the morsels in his mouth for a longer period. He reduced them to a fluid, rinsed his mouth with them for a quarter of an hour, and spat out little more than dingy water.

  Yet another had, if that is possible, a still more bizarre eccentricity; he liked to find four turds in the pot beneath a pierced chair, but those four turds could not be mixed with so much as a single drop of urine. He would be shut up alone in the room containing this treasure, never did he allow a girl with him, and every precaution had to be taken to insure his solitude, he could not bear the thought he might be observed, and when at last he felt secure he went into action; but I am absolutely unable to tell you what he did, for no one had ever seen him; all that is known is that when he had left the room, the pot was discovered perfectly empty and as tidy as can be. But what he did with his four turds only the devil can tell you, if indeed he knows. He may perhaps have thrown them away somewhere, but, then again, he could also have done something else with them.

  However, what would lead one to suspect he did not do that something else with them is that he left the procuring of those four turds entirely up to Fournier, and never made the least inquiry about their origin. One day, in order to observe whether what we were about to say would alarm him—for his alarm might have provided us with a clue about the fate of those turds—we told him that the ones he had been served that day had come from several persons suffering from syphilis. He laughed good-naturedly with us, was not in the slightest disturbed, which reaction was not to be expected from someone who had employed rather than cast away the turds. When we sought, upon one or two occasions, to push our questions a little further, he bade us be silent, and never were we to learn more of the matter.

  That concludes what I have to tell you this evening, said Duclos; tomorrow I propose to relate my new mode of life, or rather the new turn my same mode of life took, when I met Monsieur d’Aucourt; and as for the charming passion you so heavily favor, I hope to have the honor to entertain you with examples of it for at least another two or three days.

  Opinions were divided about the fate of the turds in the episode Duclos had just recounted, and while arguing and reasoning about them, Messieurs had a few produced for themselves; and the Duc, eager to make everyone aware of the taste he was developing for Duclos, exhibited to the entire assembly his libertine manner of amusing himself with her, and the dexterity, aptitude, and promptness, accompanied by the most stirring language, wherewith she knew so artfully how to satisfy him.

  Supper and the orgies transpired without any unusual incident, nothing of importance took place before the afternoon of the next day, and so we may move directly to the recitations wherewith D
uclos brightened the 12th of November.

  THE TWELFTH DAY

  The new mode of life I was about to begin, said Duclos, obliges me to draw your attention, Messieurs, to my personal appearance and character at the time; one is better able to figure the pleasures being described if one is first acquainted with the object that procures them. I had just attained my twenty-first year. My hair was brown, but nevertheless my skin was of a most agreeable whiteness. The abundance of hair covering my head fell in floating and perfectly authentic curls to just above my knees. I had the eyes you behold me now to have, and they have always been judged lovely. My figure was rather full although tall, supple, and gracious. With what regards my behind, that part of the anatomy in which libertines today take such a keen interest, it was by common consent superior to the most sublime specimens one is likely ever to see, and there were few women in Paris who had an ass as deliciously molded; it was full, round, very plump, and exceedingly soft, generous, I say, but without its ampleness detracting anything from its elegance, the least gesture immediately discovered that heavenly little rosebud you so cherish, Messieurs, and which, I do indeed like yourselves believe, is a woman’s most magical attraction. Although I had been for a long season active in libertinage, my ass could not have been healthier or looked more untried; its splendid condition was in part owing to the good constitution Nature had granted me and in part to the extreme prudence I exercised on the battlefield, scrupulously avoiding encounters capable of damaging my most precious asset. I had very little love for men, I had never had but one attachment; I had a libertine mind, but it was extraordinarily libertine, and after having described my charms it is only fitting that I say a word or two about my vices. I love women, Messieurs, I don’t deny it. Not however to the uncommon degree my good colleague, Madame Champville, loves them; she will very probably tell you that she has ruined herself for them; I have simply always preferred them to men in my pleasures, and those they have procured me have always exerted a more powerful sway over my senses than masculine delights. Apart from this fault, I have had another of adoring to steal: I have refined this mania to an unbelievable point. Entirely convinced that all possessions should be equally distributed in the world and that it is only strength and violence which are opposed to this equality, foremost law of Nature, I have striven to rectify the actual scheme and to do my utmost to re-establish the proper balance. And had it not been for this accursed compulsion I might perhaps still be with the benevolent mortal of whom I shall speak next.