Juliette

by Marquis de Sade

  This time I had brought paraphernalia for aping the sex in whose qualities we were both naturally lacking. We girded on dildoes and fell to dallying now as lover and mistress, now as master and mate, now in the style of bardash and tribade, we coupled in every imaginable manner. But ever the novice, willing to follow but incapable of taking the lead, Honorine displayed modesty and timidity where debauchery and lusty zeal were to be desired; and when all was told, from her I obtained not a sixth of the pleasure Borghese would have given me in like circumstances. Had she been completely untried, the idea of corrupting her might have become the food to imagination libertinage ordinarily nourishes; but such was not the case, for Honorine, though yet a prude and pathetically inept, had nonetheless lived a little in this world, and ’twas during one of those moments of mutual abandon when avowals add a further dimension to pleasure that the heavenly Duchess related the anecdote you are now to hear.

  “Soon after my marriage to the Duke—I was sixteen years old at the time,” said she, “I contracted a close friendship with the Marquise Salvati, a woman twice my age, dreadfully dissolute, and who had always contrived to mask her scandalous conduct behind eminently virtuous appearances. Libertine, godless, eccentric in her tastes, pretty as an angel, Salvati enjoyed doing everything whence enjoyment can possibly be reaped; among her fondest practices was the seduction of newly-wed young women whom she would enlist to be her partners in her furtive revels. So it was the rascal took an interest in me. Her air of reserve, her hypocritical and cunning speech, her connections, a prior acquaintance with my mother, it was by these means she established relations with me, they very soon turned into a liaison of an intimate kind, for we were at the stage of reciprocal friggeries inside a week. The scene transpired in villeggiatura, at the country residence of Cardinal Orsini near Tivoli, where we met. Our husbands were with us. Mine was no great hindrance to me: elderly and, to judge from my experience with him up until then, cold, seeming to have married me for my wealth alone, I had little care for Grillo in the pursuit of my pleasures. The Marquise’s husband however, although very libertine, did not leave her to spoil in such complete idleness; his demands upon her were both fatiguing and unusual, their fulfillment required that she lie the whole of every night in his bedchamber, which did not facilitate our secret little doings. We made up for our nighttime estrangement during the day, when we would wander off together in the splendid woodlands of Orsini’s vast estate, and those promenades were the occasions upon which the Marquise toiled over my mind and soul, interspersing her lessons with the sweetest pleasures of feminine debauchery.

  “‘For passing life agreeably it is not a lover we need,’ she would urge, ‘from out of our embraces he goes forth indiscreet or perfidious. The habit we fall into of being loved causes us to take on a new lover, and for a dozen unpleasant nights we find ourselves condemned before the public for a lifetime. Not that a spotless reputation is anything of great value,’ the Marquise hastened to add, ‘but when one can preserve it and double one’s pleasures besides, you will agree, I should fancy, that the means leading to such results can only be the best.’

  “‘Why yes, indeed.’

  “‘Then those are the means we shall adopt, my angel; three days from now we return to town and once we are back I shall reveal to you the secret formula for happiness.’

  “‘The situation is this,’ said Salvati the day after we had regained Rome. ‘We are four. You will, if you wish, make the fifth. At our orders we have a reliable and resourceful woman of sixty years, the proprietress of a secluded house and very suitably appointed. We notify her, she straightway assembles in her house everything our lust can need, whether in male form or female, and of all this we make whatever use we wish and in completest security; what do you think of this arrangement?’

  “It cannot be denied, Juliette,” Madame Grillo continued, “youthful and neglected by my husband, I was only too ready to listen to that temptress’ offers. I assured her I would be with her on the very next excursion to that house, but insisted that she promise me I would encounter no men there.

  “‘As you know, my husband has virtually no dealings with me at all,’ said I, ‘which is a further reason he would be quick to remark damages I were to do his honor.’

  “All I asked, the Marquise promised, and we set forth. Seeing myself being conveyed across the Tiber and into the farthermost districts of the city, I felt a certain alarm; but contained it; we arrived. Before us stood a large and well-appearing house, but solitary, wrapped in silence and shadow, quite as was required by the mysteries we were about to celebrate.

  “We were to traverse several suites of rooms before seeing a soul; and then, in a large antechamber, we were met by the mistress of the place. And now I was surprised by a sudden altering in the Marquise’s tone: that decency, that show of sweetness and virtue gave way to language at which the lowest prostitute would have blushed.

  “‘What’s in the larder?’ she asked.

  “‘Awaiting the young lady you have brought I have four charming creatures,’ the old woman told us, ‘for your instructions were that I prepare her women only.’

  “‘And for me what have you got ready?’

  “‘Two fine Swiss Guards, strapping lads capable of giving it to you hard straight through till tomorrow.’

  “‘This whore,’ said the Marquise, and it was to me she was referring, ‘would do better to join me in a meal of good beef instead of going off to fill up on gruel—but she’s free to feed as she chooses. Say now.’ Salvati went on, ‘our sisters, are they here yet?’

  “‘Only one has appeared so far,’ replied the directress of the house. ‘Elmire.’

  “These ladies, it was explained to me, adopted false names for the sake of additional secrecy, and thereupon it was decided mine would be Rose.

  “‘What is Elmire about?’

  “‘She is with the four girls I have assigned to milady.’

  “At this I cast an embarrassed glance at the Marquise.

  “‘Poor silly,’ she chided me, ‘this is no place for shyness, we are a community and when we indulge in similar activities we act in concert, each within view of the other. Those who frolic with women group together, those who use men congregate likewise.’

  “‘But I have no idea who this person might be,’ I protested.

  “‘Never fear, you’ll get to know her from frigging yourself in her company, there’s no better way to strike up acquaintance. Well now, which shall it be? Here in this room to the left are men, over there to the right, women; hurry up, make your choice and I’ll make the introductions.’

  “I was much troubled; I was violently eager for some men. But did I dare expose myself to all the risks that could result from my rashness? On the other hand, a new acquaintance spelled possible danger—who might this unknown woman prove to be? Would she be discreet? Would not her presence fairly paralyze me? Such were my doubts and perplexity that I stood a while not knowing which way to turn.

  “‘Make up your mind, little buggeress,’ said Salvati, catching me roughly by the arm, ‘I have better things to do here than waste precious time.’

  “‘Very well,’ said I, heaving a sigh, ‘I’ll go in with the women.’

  “The directress rapped on the door.

  “‘One moment,’ replied a muffled voice from within.

  “A few minutes later the door was opened by a young girl and we entered.

  “The Marquise’s companion, she whom we designated as Elmire, was yet a beautiful woman at forty-five and after anxiously scanning her face I decided we were perfect strangers. But great heaven, in what disorder I found her! Setting out to paint the effigy of license and impurity one would have had but to copy what was already drawn in this wild creature’s visage. She was sprawled stark naked upon an ottoman, her thighs flung apart; two girls lay about her, upon cushions, and in the same indecent attitude. Her face was flushed, her glittering eyes stared fixedly, her long tresses floated loose ove
r her degraded breast, spittle dribbled from her mouth. The two or three words she mumbled suggested she might be drunk; and from the untidiness in the room, the litter of glasses and bottles, I concluded that such indeed she must be.

  “‘Fuck,’ she grunted as she twitched beneath her own caresses, ‘I was on the verge of a squirt when you knocked, that’s why I made you wait; who’s this little whore?’

  “‘A sister,’ Salvati replied, ‘a tribade of your own stripe here for some friggery.’

  “‘She can make herself at home,’ said the seasoned Sappho, ‘fingers, mouths, dildoes, cunts, they are all here to be used. But first let me give her a wee kiss, come, there’s a pretty little darling.’

  “And on the instant, I am being kissed, tongued, probed, it all happens in a trice.

  “‘I leave her to you,’ the Marquise told her friend, ‘they’re waiting for me on the other side of the hall. Take good care of Rose, she has lots of things to learn.’ And the next instant she was gone.

  “The door is no sooner shut behind her than the four girls spring upon me and in the twinkle of an eye have me as naked as themselves. I shall not describe what those women did to me, it would be too afflicting to my modesty; I need merely say that libertinage and impudence were carried to the extreme. The middle-aged lady amused herself with me, amused herself in front of me; when my turn came I did with her and with each of the four girls every last thing that entered my head: Elmire took pleasure surprising me, teasing me, goading me on, shocking me, employing the most inconceivable and lewdest artifices. One might truthfully say that her greatest charm consisted in presenting lust to me under its filthiest shapes and most peculiar colors in order to contaminate my mind and corrupt my heart. Day came at long last, the Marquise reappeared, we dressed and promptly returned each to her house in the fervent hope that nothing would dissuade our husbands from continuing in the belief that their wives had spent the evening at a ball; and their Lordships never doubted but that this was the truth. Cheered by this first success, I allowed myself to be led a second time to that dreadful establishment; seduced by the pernicious Marquise, I very shortly turned from women to men and my misbehavior was without equal or precedent. Remorse finally fastened upon my soul; virtue cried out to me and I returned gratefully into its fold; I vowed to live as befits an honest woman and as such would I still be living were it not for you, whose graces and talents and adorableness and beauty must cause all the frail oaths that shall ever be foolishly sworn to goodness to shatter into pieces upon the altars of Love.”

  “Charming woman,” said I to the Duchess, “a virtuous vow, why, pronounced by you ’tis an extravagance for which Nature is bound to chasten you; ’tis not for honest living she created us, my dear, but for fucking; we outrage her by defying her purposes and when we refuse to fuck we are in open rebellion against her will. If that delicious house still exists I beseech you to return to it; never am I envious of my friends’ pleasures, I ask no more than permission to share or behold them.”

  “No, the woman who ran that house sold it a year or so ago and has left Rome,” Honorine said, “but there are other means for obtaining pleasure.”

  “And why not exploit them?”

  “I feel less and less free, my husband is taking a constantly growing interest in me, he is becoming jealous; I am even afraid he has begun to suspect there is something between you and me.”

  “Such a man must be got rid of.”

  “Got rid of!”

  “Bah, put out of the way.”

  “Why, you make me shudder!”

  “You have no cause to shudder. Men are put out of the way and got properly rid of every day. The foremost of Nature’s laws is to disencumber ourselves of whatever displeases us; husband-murder is an imagined crime I myself have perpetrated without the slightest hesitation or regret; we must think of ourselves in this world, nobody else counts. Fundamentally and absolutely isolated from all other beings, just as we should approach only those which please us, so should we be equally careful to send on their way those which are distasteful to us. Between the existence of a person I find troublesome and my own interests there can be no common measure. What! I’d be such an enemy of my own well-being as to prolong the life of him who causes me suffering? I’d so violently contradict the commands of Nature as not to put an end to the life of him who deliberately ruins all the felicity of mine? Moral and political murders shall be tolerated, nay, justified, and personal murders disconsidered! It is not only unfair, it is preposterous. Honorine, such prejudices are grotesquely unbecoming, you should be above them. He who intends to be happy on earth must without any scruple fling aside everything, absolutely everything that stands in his path, he must embrace everything that serves or flatters his passions…. You lack the means? I can provide them.”

  “What horrors do you speak!” cried the Duchess. “I do not love Signor Grillo, I shall not pretend the contrary; but I respect him; he is my youth’s protector; his jealousy is my safeguard, for otherwise, if unrestrained, I would rush headlong into the pitfalls toward which it is certain that libertinage would lead me—”

  “Child, you talk nonsense!” I interrupted, “all sophistry and weakness. Are you trying to tell me that because somebody prevents you from seizing the joys of life Nature holds out to you, you ought, instead of putting a halt to his interference, to double the weight of the shackles he loads upon you? Ah, Honorine, stand fearlessly up, break those humiliating chains. The handiwork of fashion and egotistical policy, what is there sacred about them, tell me? Scorn them, jeer at them, curse them, spit upon them if you like, they merit no better. In this world, a pretty woman should have no god other than pleasure; no physical obligation other than to receive our homage in return for the delight she gives us; no virtue other than that of fucking; no moral duty other than to observe the imperious law of her desires. First of all, you must get yourself a child, never mind who sires it on you, you need issue if you are to secure control over your husband’s fortune. That once accomplished, we feed the funny fellow a well-spiced cup of consommé and afterward the two of us, you and I, go for a gay wallow in the slime pit of the most atrocious, the most abominable pleasure—pleasure of the most atrocious, the most abominable sort because that is the most delectable sort which has been made for your enjoyment and which you have been made to enjoy, atrocious and abominable pleasure whereof you cannot deprive yourself without someday being called to answer for it before the judgment seat of Reason and of Nature.”

  That prudish spirit proved stubbornly unresponsive to my teachings; this was perhaps the only woman I had ever failed to corrupt. The moment came when I lost patience and abandoned my efforts; that was the moment I took the resolve to destroy her.

  The question now was simply of disposing my guns to best advantage; I went to consult Borghese.

  “I thought you were in love with the Duchess,” Olympia teased.

  “What an idea, I in love! My heart has always been a stranger to puerile sentiments: I have amused myself with that woman, done everything humanly possible to guide her into crime, she refuses to be led, it’s a wretched fool I intend at present to send to her doom.”

  “I perfectly understand. It should not be difficult.”

  “No, it should not be, except that I want her husband to perish with her; I had projected his death, I wanted to put the dagger into his wife’s hand and have her wield it against him—must the idiot’s refusal cost me a victim?”

  “Rascal!”

  “Both of them have to be killed.”

  “The idea pleases me,” said Borghese, “the act would amuse me as much as you; bring them to my country house and we shall see what we can do.”

  Arrangements are made for the party, Borghese and I harmonize our plans. I shall not bother you with the details but move directly to the outcome.

  Along with us we had taken a young man of the Princess’ acquaintance. Quite as seductive as he was comely, no less clever than witty, our Doln
i, twenty years old, used to fuck us fairly frequently, and knowledge of his mind and parts had induced us to select him for the piece of wickedness we were meditating. From the very first moment, Dolni set to work and with great art aroused the passions of Honorine and the jealous suspicions of her husband. The deeply disturbed Grillo turned to me in quest of a friendly ear and poured out all his fears; these, as you may imagine, I did rather more to increase than allay.

  “My good Duke,” said I to that fool, “I am greatly surprised that you have been so slow to notice your wife’s behavior. I or indeed any other could have enlightened you long ago, but one is sometimes reluctant to become the bearer of evil tidings; you seemed so well protected by your blindness, it is so cruel to blast such illusions; I held my peace. Dolni’s purpose for being here is the Duchess’ presence, as everybody is well aware; why, I had hardly been overnight in Rome when I heard of their affair.”

  “Then it is an affair?”

  “To put it mildly, my Lord. But I see that you still entertain doubts, and they can be more painful than the naked truth itself. It is in the morning or while you are out taking a walk that Dolni ordinarily dishonors your bed: catch the two culprits in the act tomorrow, and for your honor’s sake be not laggardly in revenging yourself for so brazen an affront.”