Juliette

by Marquis de Sade

  “Come along, by Jesus, on to something else,” Clairwil cried, not so much as pausing for breath, “I never take time out when my sperm is started; so you whores, belabor me, rack me, suck me, whip me, frig me as hard as ever you can.”

  The girl of eighteen lies down upon the ottoman, I seat myself upon her face, Clairwil camps herself on mine. I sucked, and was sucked; above me the youngest girl gave her buttocks to be kissed by Clairwil whom another girl was embuggering with a dildo; the slenderest of the quartet, bending over, was finger-frigging Clairwil’s clitoris, which was established hard by my mouth, and in the meantime was presenting her cunt to my friend whose hands were polluting it in similar style. So it was our libertine was simultaneously arousing an asshole by lecheries, having her anus tongued, being sodomized, and getting her clitoris teased.

  Several minutes of this had gone by when she said to me, “Juliette, I told you that if I am to stiffen, I must be imaginatively moved; one of the things that best excites my imagination is to hear much foul language uttered all around me. Your whores, are they dumb?”

  We were arrived at an awkward pass; for these girls, chosen out of the best ranks of the bourgeoisie, and never having been libertine except with me, had poor acquaintance with any idiom apt to be agreeable to Clairwil’s ears; they did the best they were able, however, but I was obliged to aid them, and virtually all alone had to supply the caustic insults she was pleased to hear addressed to the Supreme Being in whose existence the jade had no more belief than I. Consequently, she who had been clitoris-frigging replaced me at my cunt-sucking post; and I concentrated on vilifying each member of the scurvy Christian trinity as they had never been blasphemed in all their lives. The tribade squirmed and sighed incontinently, but nothing came of it, postures and episodes had to be changed once again. I have never seen anything so majestic, nor so beautiful, nor so animated as that superb woman at the conclusion of this scene; were you of a mind to paint the very goddess of lewd love, you could not have looked elsewhere for your model; she throws her arms about my neck, hugs me, tongues me for a quarter of an hour, exhibits her ass to me; it was scarlet all over and contrasted in the most agreeable manner with the alabaster whiteness of the rest of her body.

  “Thrice bum-stuffed, holy God of buggery,” said she, over-wrought, “how hot I am in the cunt, Juliette, and what things I could achieve in this state; there’s not a crime of whatever sort or extent you can imagine I’d not commit on the spot. Oh, my love—oh, my whore—oh, my dearest little companion … oh, thou whom I love infinitely and in whose embrace I want to shed a lifetime’s fuck, oh, Juliette, you must admit that nothing paves a surer or a smoother way to horror than the calm self-confidence, impunity, capital, and good health we enjoy; so suggest to me the idea for a few crimes … I’ll accomplish them while you look on…. Let’s, oh, I beseech you, let’s perpetrate an infamy.…”

  Noticing that the youngest of the girls was arousing her and that she was going from her mouth to her ass to her cunt, sucking them one after the other, I inquired in a whisper, “Would you care to abuse her?”

  “No,” was her reply, “it wouldn’t satisfy me; I’ve nothing against giving a woman an occasional pummeling, but as for total material dissolution, you understand … I’d have to have a man. Only men rouse me to serious cruelties; I adore revenging my sex for the horrors men subject us to when those brutes have the upper hand. You can’t imagine with what delight I’d now murder a male. Any male at all. My God, the tortures I’d inflict upon him; the slow, winding, obscure path I’d find to bring him to his final destination…. Alack, ’tis plain to see, your mind has yet to reach full flower, you haven’t any men about for me to kill; and so let’s end the evening with a few exercises in libidinous nastiness since we cannot close it with crimes.”

  The libidinous acts, performed with great precision and all the desired conclusions, finally exhaust her; she refreshes herself in a bath of rose water, is dried, perfumed, draped in the most immodest of gowns; and we sit down to supper.

  Clairwil, quite as eccentric in her comportment at table as in bed, quite as intemperate, no less curious in the article of eating than in the other of fucking, fed only on fowl and game, and they had to be boned and then served up disguised in all sorts of forms; her usual drink was sweetened water and it had to be iced regardless of the season, and to every pint of this liquid she added twenty drops of essence of lemon and two spoonfuls of orange flower extract; she never touched wine, but consumed large amounts of coffee and liqueurs; she ate in excessive quantity; furthermore, of the better than fifty dishes put before her she attacked every one. Advised beforehand of her tastes, I saw to it that her desires were accommodated, and it defies belief, the tale of all she made away with. That charming person, whose custom was whenever and wherever possible to secure the adoption of her private tastes, recommended them to me so heartily that she induced me to observe her diet, but not her abstinence from wine; I still indulge very heavily in it and shall doubtless continue to do so for the rest of my life.

  While we were supping I confessed to Clairwil my amazement at her libertinage.

  “You haven’t seen much yet,” she replied, “little beyond a faint sketch of what I regularly accomplish in lewd debauchery. I am most eager that we essay truly extraordinary things together; I shall have you admitted into a society I belong to, and whose members specialize in obscenities of a much superior dimension. To its meetings each husband must bring his wife, each brother his sister, each father his daughter, each bachelor a friend, each lover his mistress; and gathered in a spacious hall each takes his pleasure with what pleases him most, subject to no rule save that of his desires, to no limit save that of his imagination; the most praiseworthy is he who acquits himself of the greatest and most numerous extravagances, and cash prizes are awarded to those who distinguish themselves in infamy or who invent new ways and means for procuring oneself pleasure.”

  “Oh, dearest friend,” I cried, taking Clairwil in my arms, “you simply have no idea how those few details excite me, nor how happy I would be to join your circle.”

  “Yes, but will you be considered eligible? Candidates are submitted to the most arduous tests.”

  “Do you doubt of. my capacity, of my determination? And whatever these initiations may be, do you suppose I will flinch, knowing as you do all that I have performed intrepidly in the company of Noirceuil and Saint-Fond?”

  “True enough,” she conceded, “you’re not shy, it must be owned. Your chances of being admitted are better than fair.” Then a note of enthusiasm entered her voice. “Oh, Juliette, as it is always to the disgust, to the restlessness, to the despair at not ever having found either a mutual understanding or mutual pleasure with the object to which we are conventionally bound that are owing all of wedlock’s miseries, to remedy this hideous situation, to counteract the hideous social practices whereby mismatched individuals are imprisoned all their lives in nightmarish unions, it would be necessary that all men and all women federate into such clubs. A hundred husbands, a hundred fathers, corporatively with their wives or daughters, are availed thereby of all they lack. When I cede my husband to Climène, she obtains everything her own husband cannot give her and from the one she abandons to me, I derive all the delights mine is incapable of providing me. These exchanges multiply and thus, you see, in a single evening every woman enjoys a hundred men, each man as many women; in the course of these forgatherings characters develop; one has an opportunity to study oneself; the most entire freedom of taste or fancy holds sway there: the man who dislikes women amuses himself with his fellows, the woman who is fond of persons of her own sex simply follows the dictates of her penchants also; no constraint, no hindrances, no modesty, the mere desire to increase one’s pleasures ensures that each will offer all his resources. Thereupon the general interest maintains the pact, and particular interest coincides straitly with the general, which renders indissoluble the ties forming the society: ours has been fifteen years
in existence, and all that time I have never witnessed a single squabble, no, not one instance of ill-humor. Such arrangements annihilate jealousy, forever destroy the fear of cuckoldry, two of life’s most pernicious poisons, and for that reason alone merit preference over those monotonous partnerships in which husband and wife, pining their lives away one in the presence of the other, are doomed either to everlasting boredom and displeasure, or to grief at being unable to dissolve their marriage save at the price of dishonor for them both. May our example persuade mankind to do as we. There are, I am aware, some prejudices to overcome; but prejudice cannot long survive when one of these groups, as is the case with ours, is injected with a strong philosophical temper. It was during my first year of marriage I was granted membership, I was just sixteen then. Oh yes, making my debut, I confess I did indeed blush at having to appear naked before all those men and to participate in their carryings-on and in those of the women who, because of my age and figure, were drawn to me like flies to sugar; but in three days I was acquitting myself like a veteran. The example of the others seduced me; and I can honestly affirm that no sooner did I see my lascivious companions vying for honors in the choice and the invention of lubricities, no sooner did I see them wallowing in filth and infamy, than I plunged into the competition with ardent good will and shortly surpassed them all in theory and practice alike.”

  The description of this delicious association had such an effect upon me that I was unwilling to take leave of Clairwil until she had sworn to secure my entrance into her club. The oath was sealed with fresh outpourings of fuck we both released before the eyes of three strapping lackeys: they held candelabras while we frigged each other, and though they were moved by the spectacle, Clairwil forbade them from participating in it save as bystanders.

  “There you have an instance,” said she, “of how one accustoms oneself to cynicism, a Habit of mind whereof proof will be required of you before you are accepted into our society.”

  We separated, enchanted with each other and promising to meet together again at the very first opportunity.

  Noirceuil was impatient to find out how my liaison with Madame de Clairwil was progressing; the warmth wherewith I spoke of her translated my gratitude. He wanted graphic particulars, I supplied them; and, as Clairwil had done, he criticized me for not having a more numerous complement of women in my household. I increased them by eight the very next day, which gave me a seraglio of twelve of the prettiest creatures in Paris; I exchanged them against a dozen fresh ones every month.

  I mentioned the society Clairwil belonged to; did Noirceuil attend its meetings?

  “In the days when men were in the majority there,” he replied, “I never missed a single one; but I have given up going since everything has fallen into the hands of a sex whose authority I dislike. Saint-Fond felt the same way and dropped out shortly after I did. But that is not particularly relevant,” Noirceuil continued; “if those orgies amuse you, and since Clairwil enjoys them, there is no reason why you shouldn’t join in: everything vicious must be given a fair try, and only virtue is thoroughly boring. At those meetings you will be frigged to perfection, exquisitely fucked; you’ll be nourished upon the very best principles only; and so I would advise you to gain admission as soon as you possibly can.” Then he inquired if my new friend had recounted her adventures to me in detail.

  “No,” said I.

  “Philosophical in spirit though you are, and the fact cannot have escaped her notice,” Noirceuil remarked, “she probably feared lest you be scandalized. For that Clairwil is a very paragon of lust, cruelty, debauchery, and atheism; there is no horror, no execration wherewith she is not soiled profoundly; her social position and boundless wealth have always saved her from the rope, but she’s merited it twenty times over: reckon up the sum of her daily activities and there you have the total of her crimes, and had she been hanged every day of her life it would never have been without cause. Saint-Fond thinks very highly of her; nonetheless, and this I know, he prefers you for a number of reasons: therefore, Juliette, continue to be deserving of the confidence of a man in whose power it is to make your life a happy one, or an unhappy.”

  “Rest assured,” I rejoined, “all my efforts shall be bent in that direction.” Noirceuil had come to fetch me for supper at his little house, and we betook ourselves there and spent the night carousing with two other engaging persons, executing all the extravagances that occurred to that specialist in lubricious practices.

  It was shortly afterward that, mightily stirred by what I had been witness to, by the things I had been hearing, I reached the point where I simply could not restrain myself any longer, I had absolutely to commit a crime of my own; and I was eager to learn, moreover, whether I could truly rely upon the impunity that had been promised me. So I took counsel with myself, and decided to enact one such horror as I was being schooled in day in and day out. Wishing to put both my daring and my savagery to the test, I got into man’s attire and, a brace of pistols in my pocket, went out alone, stood in a back street, and waited for the first comer, with the aim of robbing and murdering him for my pleasure. I was leaning against the wall; I was in that state of inner turmoil great passions provoke, and whose impact upon the animal spirits is necessary to the elementary criminal delight. I listened, asweat. Every murmur, every footfall raised my hopes. The very faintest movement in the shadows made me think my prey was nigh; and then I heard sounds of lamentation. I sped in the direction whence they came, they were groans; I approach, ’tis a poor woman huddled upon a doorstep.

  “And who are you?” I inquired, drawing close to the creature.

  “The most unfortunate of women,” is her tearful reply; and I observe that she cannot be over thirty years of age; “and if you are death’s messenger, you bring me glad tidings.”

  “But your difficulties are of precisely what kind?”

  “They are frightful,” she said, and as she sat up, the lamplight revealed her mild inviting features. “Yes, few have ever been so unlucky as I. We’ve had no work for a week, no money, we had a room in this building, we weren’t able to pay the rent, nor able either to buy milk for the baby—they’ve taken it away from me and put my husband in jail. I too would have been arrested had I not run away from those monsters who treated us so brutally. You see me lying on the threshold of a house that belonged to me once, for I have not always been poor. In those days, when I could afford to, I helped the needy; will you do for me now what I used to do for them? I do not ask much.”

  A subtle glow stole through my veins as I heard those words, savored that accent. Oh, by God, I said to myself, what an occasion for a delectable crime, and how the idea stung my senses.

  “Get up,” said I. “I’m a man as you can see. You have a body left to you, don’t you? I intend to amuse myself with it.”

  “Oh, Sir! Here am I beset by sorrow and distress—can such a state kindle lust?”

  “It kindles mine all right; so do as I tell you, else you’ll regret it.”

  And taking strong hold of her arm, I forced her to stand still while I proceeded to an investigation. It brought agreeable things to light, those skirts harbored charms very fair, very firm, very appetizing.

  “Frig me,” I ordered, conveying her hand to my cunt, “I am a woman, but one who stiffens for her own sex. Put your fingers in there and rub.”

  “Oh, Lord! Leave me be, leave me be, I shudder at all these horrors, Though poor, I am honest; don’t humiliate me, for pity’s sake!”

  She endeavors to break away from me, I seize her by the hair, raise a pistol to her temple: “Be off, buggeress,” I say, “off to hell with you, and tell them there that Juliette sent you.”

  And she fell, blood gushing from her head. Yes, my friends, I shot her dead, I won’t deny it, neither will I pretend that this deed did not cause a sudden rise in the temperature of my neural humours, for, as I enacted it, my fuck fairly spat forth.

  And so these are the fruits of crime, I mused, how right
they were to describe it to me in such glowing terms. God! what sovereign influence it can exert upon a brain like mine, and what gigantic pleasures it can afford!

  Hearing the pistol-shot, people had come to their windows; I saw a few heads and now began to think of my safety. Cries of “Police, police!” went up on all sides. It was just after midnight, I was hailed, ordered to halt; the discovery of my weapons eliminated all doubt; I was asked my name.

  “You’ll be informed at the Minister’s,” I said brazenly. “Take me to the Hotel de Saint-Fond.”

  Dumbfounded, the sergeant does not dare refuse; I am manacled, I am pinioned … and still the fuck seeps down my thighs: delicious are the fetters of the crime you adore, and wearing them causes one long spasm of joy.

  Saint-Fond had not yet retired; a servant notified him, I was led in, the Minister greeted me with a smile.

  “That will do,” he said to the sergeant; “had you not brought this lady here to my house you were as good as hanged. You may go now, sir, and resume your functions, consider that you have done your duty. What has just transpired shall remain a mystery. You are not to intrude into it; I presume I need say no more.”

  Alone with my lover, I related all that had passed, my account set his prick in the air; he wished to know when the woman had fallen to the ground, had I been able to appreciate the effects of her contortions?

  I answered that I had not had enough time.

  “No, I suppose not. That’s the trouble with performances of that sort, you aren’t able to obtain any enjoyment from the victim.”

  “To be sure, my Lord—but a street crime—”

  “I know, I know, I’ve a few of them to my credit—disturbance of the peace, scandal, the street … the highway—the additional severity of the law toward such offenses; and they can be profitable as well … on top of it all, that particular woman’s circumstances, her indigence, her misery…. No, it’s not to be scoffed at. You could have taken her home with you, it would have been an evening’s entertainment for us both. … By the way, did not that sergeant mention having identified the corpse?”