The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings

by Marquis de Sade

  102. A bugger compels a father to fuck his daughter in his presence. Next, the father holds the daughter, the bugger sodomizes her; after which he informs the father that the girl absolutely has to perish, but that he has the alternatives of killing her himself by strangling her, which will cause her little suffering, or, in that other case, if he prefers not to kill his daughter, then he, the libertine, will do the work, but the father shall have to witness it all, and his child’s agonies will be atrocious.

  Rather than see her undergo frightful tortures, the father decides to kill his daughter with a noose of black silk, but while he is preparing to dispatch her, he is seized, bound, and before his eyes his child is flayed alive, then rolled upon burning iron nails, then cast into a brazier, and the father is strangled; this, says the libertine, is to teach him a lesson not to be so eager to choke the life out of his own children, for ’tis barbaric. Afterward, he is dumped into the same brazier wherein his daughter perished.

  103. A great devotee of asses and of the lash brings together mother and daughter. He tells the girl that he is going to kill her mother if she, the girl, does not consent to the sacrifice of both her hands; the little one agrees, they are severed at the wrist. Whereupon these two creatures are separated; a rope suspended from the ceiling is slipped around the girl’s neck, she stands upon a stool; another cord runs from the stool into the next room and the mother is requested to hold the end. She is then invited to tug on the cord: she pulls it without knowing what she is doing, she is led directly into the first room to contemplate her work, and during that moment of her keenest distress, she is smitten down by a saber blow aimed at her head from behind.

  Jealous of the pleasure the two brothers had the night before, Durcet, that evening, is moved to suggest that they vex Adelaide, whose turn, he assures the society, is soon to come. And so Curval, her father, and Durcet, her husband, worry her thighs with white-hot tongs while the Duc’s unlubricated member sounds her ass. The tip of her tongue is pierced, the ends of both her ears are shorn away, with the aid of instruments Messieurs dispossess her of four teeth, and then she is given a savage whipping. That same evening, the Bishop bleeds Sophie while her dearly beloved friend, Adelaide, watches the blood issue from the child’s veins; the fountains are kept turned on until Sophie loses consciousness; as he bleeds her, the Bishop embuggers her, remaining in her ass throughout the operation.

  While Curval is sodomizing him, Narcisse loses a pair of fingers, then Marie is hailed into court, red-hot irons are thrust into her cunt and asshole, more irons are applied to six places upon her thighs, upon her clitoris, her tongue, upon her one remaining breast, and out come the remainder of her teeth.

  THE 20TH. 104. Champville’s of the 5th of December, the man who was wont to have the mother prostitute her son and hold him while he embuggered the lad, improves his taste by bringing the mother and son together. He tells the mother that he is about to kill her, but will spare her if she will murder her son. In case she refuses to do so, he slits the boy’s throat before the woman’s eyes. Or if she consents: then she is bound to her son’s dead body and left quietly to meditate and finally to die.

  105. A very incestuous personage assembles two sisters after having embuggered both of them; he binds them to a machine, each has a knife in her hand: the machine is set in motion, the girls are brought suddenly together and mutually kill each other.

  106. Another devotee of incest requires a mother and her four children. They are locked into a room; he observes them through a small barred window. He gives them nothing to eat in order to study the effects of famine upon this woman, and to discover which of her children she will eat first.

  107. Champville’s of the 29th of December, who liked to flog pregnant women, calls for a mother and daughter, both of whom must be gravid: they are tied to a pair of steel plates one set above the other; the women face one another; the machine starts, the jaws of the vise close with great speed and power, the two women are ground to dust, together with their fruit.

  108. A very buggerish gentleman entertains himself in the following manner: he assembles lover and mistress:

  “There is in all the world but one person who stands in the way of your happiness,” says he, taking the lover aside; “I am going to put that individual in your power.”

  And he leads him into an obscurely lit chamber containing a bed; upon it someone lies asleep. Greatly aroused, the young man takes dagger in hand and stabs his enemy. When he has had done, he is permitted to recognize his mistress’ dead body: ’twas she he slew; he kills himself in despair, or if he does not, the libertine kills him with a shot from a rifle, fired at a distance, not daring to enter the room with the furious young man who still has a weapon in his hand. Previously, he fucked the youth and his beloved too, they singly yielded to him in the hope he would help them and bring them together, it is after having enjoyed them he rids the world of them.

  In celebration of the sixteenth week, Durcet, as a woman, marries Invictus, who enacts a masculine role; and as a man he takes Hyacinthe to be his wife; the ceremonies are performed that evening and, by way of festivity, Durcet wishes to torment Fanny, his feminine wife. Consequently, her arms are burned, so are her thighs in six separate places, two teeth are extracted from her mouth, she is flogged; Hyacinthe, who loves her and who is her husband thanks to the voluptuous arrangements hitherto described, Hyacinthe, I say, is obliged to shit into Fanny’s mouth, and she to eat the turd.

  The Duc pulls out one of Augustine’s teeth and immediately afterward fucks her in the mouth. Fanchon reappears, she is bled, and while blood flows from her arm, her arm is broken; next, they remove her toenails and sever the fingers from both her hands.

  THE 21ST. She announces that the following examples are of buggers who wish to commit exclusively masculine murders.

  109. He buries the muzzle of a shotgun in the boy’s ass, the weapon is loaded with buckshot and he has just finished fucking the lad. He pulls the trigger; the gun and his prick discharge simultaneously.

  110. He obliges the lad to watch his mistress being mutilated, and to eat her flesh, principally her buttocks, breasts, and heart. He has the option of eating these meats, or of dying of hunger. As soon as he has devoured them, if ’tis that he elects to do, the libertine inflicts several deep wounds upon him and leaves him thus to bleed to death; if he abstains from eating, he then starves to death.

  111. He tears off the youth’s testicles and, a short while later, serves them up to him in a ragout, then, in place of the stolen treasure, substitutes spheres of quicksilver and fills his voided scrotum with sulphur a-plenty, which cause such violent suffering that the patient succumbs. During his agony, the libertine embuggers him and increases the boy’s trouble by burning him here, there and everywhere with sulphur-impregnated slivers, and by scratching, picking, and further burning these wounds.

  112. He drives a long spike through the victim’s asshole and thus nails him to a slender pole, and leaves him to sigh away his last hours, or days.

  113. He embuggers, and whilst sodomizing, opens the cranium, removes the brain, and fills the cavity with molten lead.

  Vigorously fustigated beforehand, Hyacinthe’s ass is made generally available that evening. Narcisse is presented to the assembly: off come his balls with a snip of the scissors. Adelaide is summoned forth, a red-hot fire shovel is brushed over the rear of her thighs, they burn her clitoris, pierce her tongue, lash her breasts with cruel instruments, cut off the two little buttons on her breasts, break both her arms, carve away her remaining fingers, tear the hair from her cunt, tear a handful of hair from her head, pull out six of her teeth. Thus discomfited, she causes Messieurs to discharge every one save the Duc who, his livid prick straining upward, demands leave to exercise Thérèse all alone. Leave so to do is accorded him; using a pocketknife, he pries out all her nails and, as he proceeds, burns her fingers with a candle, then he fractures one of her arms, and still he does not discharge; very wroth, he leaps
upon Augustine, encunts her and tears out one of her teeth as he spills his seed into her womb.

  THE 22ND. 114. He breaks a young boy on the rack, then affixes him to a wheel upon which he is left to expire: upon the wheel he is turned in such a way as to expose his buttocks, and the scoundrel, his tormentor, has his table set beneath the wheel, and dines there every day until the patient is no more.

  115. He flays a young boy, rubs his body with honey, and invites the flies to the feast.

  116. He slices off his prick and breasts, nails one of his feet to a post, one of his hands to another post, and thus he is left to expire with however little dignity.

  117. The same man who had made Duclos take supper with his dogs, owns a lion too, and, arming a boy with a light stick, introduces the youngster into the lion’s cage. The boy’s defense only further arouses the animal; the libertine watches the contest and discharges when the loser is completely devoured.

  118. Clothed in a mare’s skin, his asshole smeared with mare’s fuck, a small boy is surrendered to an excited horse. The libertine observes their struggles and the boy’s death.

  Giton is subjected to tortures that evening: the Duc, Curval, Hercule, and Bum-Cleaver penetrate his ass ungreased. He is whipped very lustily, Messieurs extract four of his teeth, cut off four of his fingers (as always. each friend has a share in the despoiling of the victim), and Durcet crushes one of his balls between thumb and forefinger. All four gentlemen soundly flog Augustine. Her glorious ass is soon washed in blood, the Duc embuggers her while Curval severs one of her fingers, then Curval marches into the breach while the Duc six times sears her thighs with a hot iron; Blangis snips away yet another finger the same instant his colleague discharges, and despite all this rough treatment, she spends the night, a stormy one, in the Duc’s bed. Marie sustains a broken arm, her fingernails are drawn out, her fingers burned.

  That same night, Durcet and Curval, seconded by Desgranges and Duclos, accompany Adelaide to the cellars. Curval gives her a farewell embuggering, then they cause her to die in the throes of terrible sufferings, which you will give in full detail.

  THE 23RD. 119. He places a young boy in a machine which stretches him, dislocating his bones; he is meticulously and thoroughly broken, then removed from the machine, given a chance to recover his breath, exposed to the process again; and so it continues for several days, until the patient’s death.

  120. He has a pretty girl pollute and fatigue a young boy; he is drained very dry indeed, but still the girl toils over him, he is given no nourishment, and eventually dies in horrible convulsions.

  121. In the space of a single day, he performs four operations upon the young man: a gallstone removal, a trepanning, the excision of a fistula in the eye, of one in the anus. He knows just enough about surgery to botch all four operations; then he abandons the patient, giving him no further help and watching him expire.

  122. After having sheared off the boy’s prick and balls, using a red-hot iron he hollows out a cunt in the place formerly occupied by his genitals; the iron makes the hole and cauterizes simultaneously: he fucks the patient’s new orifice and strangles him with his hands upon discharging.

  123. He massages him with a currycomb; when he has generally abraded his flesh in this fashion, he rubs him with alcohol, ignites it, resumes his combing, rubs again with alcohol, relights the torch, proceeding in this wise till death makes further care unnecessary.

  That same evening, Narcisse’s turn arrives to be vexed; fire is applied to his thighs and little prick, then Messieurs crush his two balls.

  They turn again to Augustine upon the recommendation of the Duc, whose spiteful attitude toward her seems only to have worsened; they burn her thighs and armpits, a very hot bar of iron is rammed into her cunt. She faints, the Duc waxes all the more furious, he shears off one of her nipples, drinks her blood, breaks both her arms, and tears out her cunt hair, all her teeth, and cuts off every finger left on her hands, cauterizing the wounds with fire. And once again ’tis in his bed she sleeps, or rather lies, that night, for if one is to believe Duclos, he fucks her fore and aft the whole night long, repeatedly telling her that the day about to dawn will be her last.

  Louison appears, they break one of her arms, burn her tongue, her clitoris, tear out all her nails, and burn the tips of her bleeding fingers. Curval sodomizes her in this state and, in his rage, twists and manhandles one of Zelmire’s breasts while discharging. Not content with those abuses, he catches hold of her again and whips her until he cannot lift his arm.

  THE 24TH. 124. The same man Martaine referred to on the 1st of January wishes to embugger the father while his two children observe, and as he discharges, he stabs one child to death with one hand, and with his other strangles the second.

  125. His first passion was to flog the bellies of pregnant women; his second is to assemble six of them whose pregnancy has reached the end of the eight month: he ties them back to back, their bellies prominently thrust forward: he splits open the belly of the first, perforates the belly of the second with dagger thrusts, gives a hundred kicks to the third’s, a hundred blows of a club deflates the belly of the fourth, he burns the fifth’s, applies a rasp to the sixth’s, and then, using a truncheon upon her belly, he finishes off whichever amongst them has survived her treatment.

  Curval interrupts the narrations with some furious scene or other, this passion having had a great effect upon his mind.

  126. The seducer mentioned by Duclos assembles two women. Says he to the first: “Deny God and religion if you wish to live,” but his valet has whispered to her, telling her to say nothing, for if she does, she shall surely be killed, but by keeping silent she shall have nothing to fear. Hence, she is mute; he blows out her brains, murmuring, “There’s one for God.” He calls the second; struck by the example of the first and remembering what she has been told before entering the room, that she has no choice but to renounce belief in God and religion if she is to save herself, she assents to all he proposes: he blows out her brains: “And there’s another for the Devil.” The villain plays that little game every week.

  127. He is a great bugger and he is fond of giving dances, but the ceiling in the salon is of a special order, it collapses as soon as the room is filled, and nearly everyone perishes. Were he to remain living in the same city for any length of time, he would be detected, but he moves frequently; he is eventually found out, but only after having given his fiftieth dance.

  128. Martaine’s of the 27th of January, whose taste is to promote abortions, establishes three pregnant women in three cruel postures, composing an artistic group. Thus situated, they give birth while he looks on, then he ties each infant to its mother’s neck until the little creature either dies or is eaten, for the libertine keeps the women just where they are and gives them no food. The same personage has yet another passion: he has two women whelp in his presence, blindfolds them, and after having himself identified the infants by some mark, he puts them side by side and bids each woman go and recover each her own offspring; if the ladies are not mistaken, he permits their young to live, but if they are in error, he carves up the children with a saber.

  Narcisse is presented at the evening orgies. While the Bishop sodomizes the little fellow, Durcet relieves him of his remaining digits and inserts a red-hot needle into his urethral canal. They bid Giton step forth, he is kicked about, ’tis a lively game of ball they play with him, three of the friends fracture one of his legs while the Duc embuggers him.

  Zelmire’s turn: they roast her clitoris, sear her tongue, bake her gums, extract four of her teeth, burn her thighs in six places before and behind, snip away her nipples, unfinger both her hands, and when she is thus prepared to afford pleasure, Curval embuggers her. But he does not discharge.

  Up steps Fanchon. Their attentions cost her an eye.

  Escorted by Desgranges and Duclos, the Duc and Curval make a journey to the cellars with Augustine in the course of that night; her ass has been preserved in excellent
condition, ’tis now lashed to tatters, then the two brothers alternately embugger her, but guard their seed, and then the Duc gives her fifty-eight wounds in the buttocks, pours boiling oil into each gash. He drives a hot iron into her cunt, another into her ass, and fucks her wounded charms, his prick sheathed in a sealskin condom which worsens the already lamentable state of her privities. That accomplished, the flesh is peeled away from the bones of her arms and legs, which bones are sawed in several different places, then her nerves are laid bare in four adjacent places, the nerve ends are tied to a short stick which, like a tourniquet, is twisted, thus drawing forth the aforesaid nerves, which are very delicate parts of the human anatomy and, which, when mistreated, cause the patient to suffer much. Augustine’s agonies are unheard-of.

  She is given some respite and allowed to recruit her strength, then Messieurs resume work, but this time, as the nerves are pulled into sight, they are scraped with the blade of a knife. The friends complete that operation and now move elsewhere; a hole is bored in her throat, her tongue is drawn back, down, and passed through it, ’tis a comical effect, they broil her remaining breast, then, clutching a scalpel, the Duc thrusts his hand into her cunt and cuts through the partition dividing the anus from the vagina; he throws aside the scalpel, reintroduces his hand, and rummaging about in her entrails, forces her to shit through her cunt, another amusing stunt; then, availing himself of the same entrance, he reaches up and tears open her stomach. Next, they concentrate upon her visage: cut away her ears, burn her nasal passages, blind her eyes with molten sealing wax, girdle her cranium, hang her by the hair, attach heavy stones to her feet, and allow her to drop: the top of the skull remains dangling.

  She was still breathing when she fell, and the Duc encunted her in this sorry state; he discharged and came away only the more enraged. They split her belly, opened her, and applied fire to her entrails; scalpel in hand, the Président burrows in her chest and harasses her heart, puncturing it in several places. ’Twas only then her soul fled her body; at the age of fifteen years and eight months thus perished one of the most heavenly creatures ever formed by Nature’s skillful hand. Etc. Her eulogy.