Oh, that reminds me, kindly tell me what this little virtually stands for in your remark, “virtually everything at home remains in the same state in which I left it.” I am most curious to know what that means. Is it one more witty comment from your lovely little mother? Oh, I’m sure it is, but it won’t work, my darling présidente, it simply will not work. You already saw it didn’t work once before; it won’t work the second time either. All your efforts on that front are in vain . . . ’Tis an affair of six months at the most. . . Don’t you know how the spider spins its web? And this will be better, for your plan was shapeless, unpolished, a kind of rough canvas, what we painters call a rough sketch. ’Tis the froth which bubbles out of the pot before you get the clear soup. If you had been a trifle more patient you might have ended up with something noble, something fine, something clean . . . But you prefer that your work bear a close resemblance to yourself, don’t you? That is why you are so eagerly keen for the kill. My self-respect suffers therefrom, but, my beloved présidente, I gladly sacrifice it to your tastes.
Another question that I should like you to resolve for me at long last, my dear friend—for, despite my insolent digressions, ’tis always to you this letter is addressed—and that is to tell me once and for all how ’tis possible to resort again and again to the same old things, the same maneuvers, the same old methods, when one has so clearly seen that they all failed miserably the first time? What good did Pierre-Encize do me? What good did Miolans do me? What good did my first detention in Vincennes do me?4 All it did was make my temper and my mind worse, heat up my bile, my brain, my temperament, lead me back into the same errors, for the simple reason that ’tis part and parcel of my being never to admit or to say that punishment affects me other than to make me worse. Once that is clear, once that is acknowledged, once ’tis understood I would rather perish than prove the contrary, and that, accordingly, if a kinder and better means be employed in dealing with me, one can turn me into whatever one would like me to be, why then always resort to the same old thing? . . . Because S[artine] must pay his wh-, right? Of course!
1. Madame de Montreuil and her advisers.
2. The warden, Monsieur de Rougemont. When Sade felt ill and called for the doctor, he was informed that his request would have to be approved by the warden, who had left Vincennes at six in the morning.
3. Sade refers to the shenanigans of Madame de Langeac, a friend of Madame de Montreuil.
4. The three prisons where Sade was incarcerated for libertinage and outrage to morals in his younger days.
26. To Madame de Sade
[May, 1780]
I find nothing in the world as enjoyable, nothing quite so entertaining, as those mechanical fools who are so idiotic, so dull-witted they are unable to come up with anything better when they refuse a request than: “That’s never been done, I’ve never in all my life seen it done.” In the name of God, if chance ever puts you in contact with such louts, tell them as follows: “Stupid animal that thou art, if extraordinary things make such an impression upon thee, do nothing amazing thyself, for if thou dost not want to be amazed, thou must not amaze others.”
That’s never been done here, and I have never seen it happen, for example, ’tis as if at the age of eight and sixty years one donned an apple-green coat and had one’s hair curled with six rows of curls.
That’s never been done here, and I have never seen it happen, for example, is to prostitute one’s own wife in order to take in prisoners, and to feed as one’s own children one has never had the faculty of fathering.
That’s never been done here, and I have never seen it happen, for example, is to take a filthy and disgusting turnkey and turn him into one’s catamite, and to place such trust in the aforesaid turnkey as to make him both one’s mistress and one’s reader, both one’s scribe and one’s intimate confidant.
Rougemont, my old friend, when one carries strangeness to such an extreme one must not be surprised by other peoples’ minor eccentricities, unless one is resigned to being taken for a f-beast. But that is not what terrifies you, is it? Upon that score your mind was made up long ago; and this worthy resignation on your part is the only virtue I see in you.
Now that I have absolute certainty, through your very own admissions, that the handwriting is counterfeited, you will understand if I neither sign nor send anything further. When dealing with rogues and scoundrels, one must constantly be on one’s guard. You may be sure I shall be on mine. In Provence, do whatever you like: seize, loot, trim, clip away to your heart’s desire. No matter what you do, once I know for sure ’tis you who have done it, I shall approve it and applaud it, because ’tis only you I trust. But also that trust is total: it could not be greater.
Send me everything I ask for by the first of June without fail. I absolutely cannot shorten the list except for the six jars of jam. If need be, two will suffice until fruit is in season. On Thursday evening, or Friday morning at the very latest, the campaign volume on the military campaign and Voyage de Ceylan will be downstairs in the office.
If this supplement or postscript displeases, at least let this half-sheet go through: ’tis essential to my everyday business concerns.1
1. This remark is for the censor.
27. To Madame de Sade
[Early June, 1780]
Here we are back to frightful winter again. I advise you to take out all your warm clothes again, if perchance you have changed out of them, for this most uncommon drop in temperature after the warm weather we’d been having can only most certainly result in people’s falling ill if they fail to take proper precautions in keeping with this unseasonable weather. As for me, I know that my poor chest is suffering from it, the details of which I shall spare you, knowing as I do how powerful an interest you take in such matters. The result of the doctor’s visit was an herb tea wherewith I’m to stuff myself and which, I am now in a position to affirm only too well, will have no other effect than to upset my stomach altogether. However, what I was able to piece together from his embarrassed remarks to me (and could it be anything but embarrassed, speaking as he was with a pack of spies on every side and also because when all is said and done he was far more concerned about the person who profits from my sufferings than about the patient he had come to relieve!), from all this, I say, one thing I was able to piece together was, that only the waters and plentiful exercise, two things which are of course absolutely impossible, as you know, would be of any help to me, given my necessity to feed my little pigs.
And so ’tis clear that prison not only has ruined my health but also prevents me from taking the necessary steps to improve it. Shall we now examine its moral effects? All right, you may be absolutely convinced, you and yours, that ’tis the poison most certain to wreak havoc on the soul, to make sure the qualities of character are actually destroyed, that except for those who get their living therefrom or who thereby pay their mistresses, there is not a person in the world who will fail to tell you that ’tis never by severing a person’s every tie with society you will succeed in inculcating a respect for those ties, and that the remedy, in a word, may well serve to worsen, but surely never improve, anyone.
I remember a time when madame your mother was fully convinced of these principles: but in those days she was not as yet an affiliate and she had not yet learned (for experience always does teach us something) that ’tis far better to sell or sacrifice one’s son-in-law and one’s grandchildren than to deprive oneself of the single honor of being affiliated with the police on the distaff side and to be able to say, along with the bumbailiffs, officers of the watch and ladies of the bordello: “I’m here in the name of the crown court.” I remember. In those happy days of which I speak that praiseworthy passion was still in its early stages, the effects of which have since proved to be so brilliant. ‘Twas a profound admiration for sublime official decrees that emanated from law courts, and especially for that kind of pretentious charlatanism that claims omniscience, which fools and provincials never fail to f
ind so amazing . . . But what progress we have made since then! ’Tis our own flesh and blood we now want to be our victims and, all puffed up with pride triumphant, we ourselves lead them to the altar, their brows adorned with the bandages of infamy, which our stupidity has placed there.
How wonderful! Let us then hear from these unfortunate victims, since hear them we must and since ’tis set in stone that no matter what government we live under, the best of all laws will always be that of the strongest! But at least let there be some variation; for you will perforce agree with me that ’tis difficult when the victims are always the same. I agree with you that the little larder must always be kept filled, for otherwise how would one maintain one’s carriage and one’s dressing-gown? . . . Even so, let there be some differentiation in the choice of victims! Ah! I hear your response, “’Tis not on every street corner you come across mothers as idiotic as mine, and who, although already caught twice, are absurd enough to let themselves be caught a third time. You have to take whatever you can get. You need about fifteen, don’t you, to fill your quota? And where the devil do you expect us to find, with the desired variation, sixty or eighty families per year in a state of such a stupor as to imitate my mother?”
Yes, my dear friend, I understand you very well, and with a complete feeling of resignation in the face of such sublime arguments, I shall cry out as did the Prophet King: Quot sunt dies judicium? Quando facies de persequentibus me: judicium? (Psalm 118)
[Included with this letter was the following request for items, dated June 15, 1780:]
The succeeding volumes of d’Alembert, if you please. I’ll send them back in short order. Some trash for my secondary reading, since I am absolutely unable to read anything serious at night, what with the periodic headache I get immediately after I have eaten, and seeing that I am kept from taking any exercise, which you know I am accustomed to. Some marshmallow syrup, passably iodized, and the same sort as before, for ’tis very good. Above all some jam, which I am in the habit of eating, and which you really ought to have sent me instead of the little candles for which I had no use, since I have more than I have need of, both the short and the tall, until the 1st of July. Do please contact the dentist, for I fear I shall need him within a fortnight, and as soon as it becomes pressing I shall write you a little message telling you to send him to me forthwith.
I recall that on the 15th of June last year you sent me an excellent eel pie which, despite the warm weather, was a great success. As I have been allowed only a small amount of both roasted and boiled meat, I have to believe one can mix in a bit of fish as well, but one has to be extremely careful about one thing that will hasten its going bad, and that is to make sure no spice whatsoever is added to it, for if there is the slightest bit I shall simply refuse to eat it. It won’t keep, I know; in which case, the only wise thing to do is make it a very small pie, and I’ll make the best of it. If you want me to try the first strawberries of the season and feel you are in a position to send me some, I shall be most pleased; but that is just a fantasy pure and simple on my part, to which you need pay no attention.
I embrace you with all my heart.
28. To Madame de Sade
June 25, 1780
“When you get out I shall lock you up in my bedroom,” etc.
“When you get out you will go abroad,” etc.
“When you get out you will be exiled,” etc.
“When you get out you can do your own browsing in the bookshops,” etc.
Oh, my God! won’t I have my hands full, and how clever I shall be if I am able to fit them all in! Why did you not add, “When you get out you will embark on a ship”? “And when you reach port, I shall be happy beyond compare”—a sentence as full as the one that said: “Seventeen seventy nine will be a very happy year for me.”
Admit it, yes, please do, ’tis that last “when you get out” is the one you are keeping from me. Several sentences in your letters like the one I just quoted, the same old tunes mumbled to La Jeunesse and also appearing in his own letters, a note countersigned “rigolei d’ aqui” and postmarked Boulogne-sur-Mer, embellished as usual with numbers (a note they just happened to drop off in my room back in March of 1778), a casual question Marais put to me on the road, if I was afraid of the sea,1 and, most of all, something analogous to that project, which you mentioned to me after one of your returns from Paris, in the early stages of my affair: these are the grounds for my suspicion, which alas is doubtless all too well founded, about how this dreadful business is ultimately going to come out: a sinister end, of which you have to give me unmistakable hints in all of your letters, in everything they have done in my regard, in the packages you send, etc.
Please pay close attention to what I am about to say, keeping in mind that I am writing this letter in a state of total calm, and, make absolutely sure it reaches you, making sure ’tis free of any kind of invectives, to prevent the censors from finding any reasonable motive to confiscate it; so, once again, pay close attention if you please to what I have to say.
I have always dreaded and prodigiously detested the sea. La Jeunesse, who has seen me brave the sea, knows that this antipathy stems from my basic nature and that I absolutely cannot bear sailing. You may be sure that with the sad state of my already wasted chest, that is all it would take to finish me off. Even if it were a question, not of a post, not of the command, but of crowning me the king of an island, I would turn it down. I feel bound to declare it in no uncertain terms; to which I add something else concerning which you may be sure I shall remain firm, and from which I shall most assuredly not waver, and that is, certain as I would be that such a project holds nothing for me but a very swift death, I shall most certainly never agree to it of my own free will. And that if I am forced into it, I would sooner be chopped into pieces on the shore than forced onto any sort of ship, preferring, between two possible deaths, the one that will deliver me from my sufferings at one fell swoop rather than one which, simply prolonging them, would be more than dreadful in my view. In testimony whereof I sign this present writing, so that those who might have concocted this dark design against me may be convinced of my position.
de Sade
I have not often asked you to dispel all the fears or nightmarish fantasies wherewith my unfortunate situation has filled me. Furthermore, there are five or six other worrisome aspects to this ridiculous scheme you leave me with, regarding which I ask you for no reassurance, if one may employ that expression. But as for this one, it has afflicted me so long and so cruelly that I believe the anxiety it has caused me, and the sleepless nights it has made me spend, are doubtless the reason behind my failing health; and I ask you with the greatest urgency to reassure me on this score. If you fail to reply to me, if you choose to remain silent on the matter, I shall be forced to believe that nothing is more true, and in that case I shall not hide from you the fact that. . . For God’s sake, erase this doubt from my mind, I ask you most humbly. It does not surprise me that a knave* whose situation is so precarious that he stands to be shipped off to the islands for any misdemeanor, perhaps from having been afraid [of the high seas] more than once in his life, either that or being sent to the galleys, made such a suggestion to your mother. The desire he has always had, which you yourself have admitted, to go down and manage my estate for my own good, in order to steal to his heart’s content, more than justifies this advice. But I hope your mother will not be weak enough to acquiesce to it. You are fully aware, and you must constantly make every effort to remind your mother, what a complex and thorny matter it is to manage my estates, and what a singularly easy opportunity they offer for thievery, something my father painfully discovered, since during the last years of his life—may God keep him close beside Him or send him back to me—he derived absolutely no benefit therefrom. During this latest absence,2 you have also seen it for yourself, since the leases in the surrounding areas rose by a third while mine fell by a quarter. And yet in spite of all that, I swear, under whatever penalty it may plea
se you, that I intend to leave them to my son worth twice what they were when I inherited them from my father, if for once in my life I am left alone and am allowed to go and live upon them when I get out of here. Those are things of which you must constantly remind your mother, who I believe will, when she takes all this into account, see a far greater need for allowing me to remain peacefully at home rather than shipping me off to some distant place. I dare say that Gaufridy, another scoundrel of the first order—of which I think you have had more than ample proof—keeps sending your mother all sorts of plans and proposals, to convince her that, no matter how far removed I may be from the scene, she can direct everything perfectly well from her own hearth and home, and that her every wish is his command. But to that there is only one reply one need make to him: “Sir, so what about the La Coste lease?”—you will soon see him blush and fall silent.
In a word, I ask you for no greater consolation than to assure me that when I am released from here I shall be allowed to go and work for the future of my children: regarding that next step in my life, leave me to fret as much or as little as you please, ’tis a form of existence I have grown used to by now, and which has convinced me there is nothing truer than that one can adapt to any situation. All I ask is that you allay my fears upon the single matter of shipping me off to sea, which I consider a deliberate act of killing me off in a tortuously slow manner. The shorter way would be to send me a stout dose of opium, and the matter would be done. I shall sign the request in my own blood if need be.
Letters From Prison Page 21