Juliette

by Marquis de Sade

  “The Président Rieux, son of Samuel Bernard and Boulainvilliers’ father, stole through inclination and with our own purposes in view: on the Pont-Neuf, a pistol in his hand, he waylaid passers-by and emptied their pockets. Coveting a watch he saw on the person of a friend of his father, he, so the story goes, awaited him one evening when this friend was leaving Samuel’s house after a supper, and robbed him; straightway the friend returns to the brigand’s father, complains, identifies the thief; Samuel denies it, says the thing is impossible, swears his boy is asleep in his bed; they repair to the son’s bedchamber, Rieux isn’t there. A little later he comes home; they are sitting waiting for him, he is reproached, accused, he confesses this and many other thefts, promises to mend his ways and does: subsequently, Rieux becomes a very great magistrate.14

  “Nothing more readily conceivable than theft as debauch: it occasions the indispensable shock upon the nervous system and thence is born the inflammation which determines the lubricious mood. Everybody like me—and who, like me, quite needlessly, has stolen through libertinage—is acquainted with this secret pleasure; one may also experience it by cheating at the gaming table, or while playing games of any other sort. A thoroughgoing cheat was the Comte de X., he would be subject to the most imperious irritations when gambling; I once saw him obliged to fleece a young man to the tune of a hundred louis; the Comte, I believe, had an extraordinary desire to fuck the young man and simply couldn’t obtain an erection except by stealing. The game of whist starts, the Comte steals, up soars his prick, he embuggers the youth—but, as I distinctly recall, did not by any means return his money.

  “Governed by the same principles and for identical purposes, Argafond steals whatever he can lay hands upon; he has established a bawdyhouse where a complement of charming creatures despoil all the clients. The insolent rogue does very nicely.

  “But who are greater thieves than our financiers? Let me give you an example; it comes from the last century:

  “There were then in all the realm nine hundred millions in specie; toward the close of the reign of Louis XIV, the people were paying 750,000,000 in taxes per annum and, of this sum, only 250,000,000 found the way into the royal exchequer; which means half a billion went yearly into the pockets of thieves. They were thus very great thieves; do you suppose these thefts weighed heavily upon their conscience?”

  “Well,” was my reply to Dorval, “I am not unimpressed by your catalogue, I savor your arguments, but I do declare I am far from being able to understand how someone as rich as, for example, you yourself can derive pleasure from stealing.”

  “Because, when performed, the act has a strong impact upon the nervous system, I’ve told you so, and this impact, as it would seem to me my erection ought to have demonstrated to you,” Dorval answered, “is extremely voluptuous in my case, rich though I happen to be; rich or not, I am constructed like any other man. I may add, howbeit, that, in my view, I possess no more than is necessary to me, and having what is necessary doesn’t make one rich. What does, is having more than is necessary; my thefts cause my already filled cup to overflow. No, I repeat, ’tis not through satisfying our primary needs that we achieve happiness, ’tis through acquiring and exercising the power to appease our avid little whimsies, and they tend toward insatiability; he who has only what he requires to supply his wants, he cannot be called happy. He is poor.”

  The night was advancing, Dorval had further need of us, there were further lubricious episodes he wanted to expose us to, the enterprises he had in mind called for rest, silence, and calm.

  “Throw those Germans into a carriage, will you,” said he to one of his hirelings, a man who was accustomed to doing what was needed under these circumstances, “get them out of here, they’ll not wake up. Strip them and dump them naked in some out-of-the-way street. God takes care of his little children.”

  “Sir!” I cried, “what wanton cruelty!”

  “Do you think so? Never mind. They’ve satisfied me, I never for one instant wanted more than that from them; can you tell me what use I have of them now? So we’ll deliver them into the safekeeping of Providence; that’s what Providence is there for, after all. If Nature has any use for that pair you may rest assured they’ll not perish; but if she hasn’t, very likely they shall.”

  “But it is you who exposes them to disaster—”

  “I? I only cooperate with Nature: I carry things to a certain stage, there I stop, her puissant arm does the rest. Let them go. Fortunate they may count themselves that I do not do still worse; perhaps, indeed, I ought to….”

  Dorval’s command was executed without delay; transported to the carriage, the two Germans, sound asleep, were removed. Of what happened to them I can recount this: that, as we learned afterward, they were deposited in a blind alley near a boulevard and, the next morning, taken to the commissary of police, finally to be released when it was clear to the authorities that neither of the men could provide the faintest explanation of the strange adventure that had befallen them.

  Once the Germans had been carted off, Dorval gave us exactly one-quarter of what we had taken from them; then he left the room. Fatima warned me that yet another redoubtable scene of lechery lay ahead; she couldn’t predict just what the drama would consist in, but she was sure nothing grave would happen to us. Scarcely had she finished whispering those words when a woman appeared in the doorway and summoned us to follow her; we did as we were told; after mounting some flights of stairs and walking down some corridors in the uppermost part of the house, she pushed us into a dark room where, until Dorval arrived, we could make out nothing of our surroundings.

  It was shortly after that Dorval came in. He was accompanied by two big rascals, moustached, of extremely sinister mien; they were bearing candles, their light revealed the strange furniture in this room. It was as I heard the door being bolted that my gaze fell upon the scaffold at the far end of the room. There stood two gibbets; deployed about was all the equipment needed for execution by the rope.

  Dorval spoke in a brusque tone: “Mesdemoiselles, you are going to receive punishment for your crimes. You will undergo it here.” Thereupon, settling himself in a large armchair, he bids his acolytes remove every stitch of clothing from our bodies—“Yes, stockings, shoes, everything.” Our garments are laid in a heap at his feet. He rummages through them, takes all the money he finds in our pockets; then, rolling everything into a bundle, he tosses it out the window.

  His face is impassive, his voice phlegmatic. As though to himself, but his eyes fixed upon us, he murmurs: “Useless, that stuff. A shroud for each of them. And I’ve got the two coffins ready.”

  From beneath the scaffold one of Dorval’s agents does indeed drag out two coffins. He arranges them side by side.

  “Duly aware as both of you are,” Dorval then said, “of having earlier this same day, and in this same locality which is my house, wickedly robbed two good people of their gems and of their gold, I am nonetheless under obligation to represent that truth to you and to inquire of you: Are you or are you not guilty of this fell deed?”

  “We are guilty, my Lord,” Fatima replied.

  I however was speechless. So terrifying were these proceedings that I was beginning to lose my wits.

  “Since you avow your crime,” Dorval resumed, “further formalities would be to no purpose; be that as it may, I must have a full confession. Is it not so, Juliette,” the traitor continued, addressing me and thus forcing me to speak, “is it not true that you are responsible for their death, in the course of the night did you not, inhumanly, have them cast naked into the street?”

  “Sir!” I stammered, “you yourself—”

  Then, checking myself, I said:

  “Yes. We are guilty of that crime, too.”

  “Well then, I have but to pronounce sentence. You will both hear it upon your knees. Kneel, I say. Now approach.”

  We knelt, we approached. ’Twas then I spied the effect this horrible scene was producing upon that lib
ertine. Obliged to give freedom to a member whose swelling proportions could no longer endure confinement in his breeches, he opened his fly and, as when one releases a young sapling which one has bent and tied down to the ground, so now this prick sprang upright and towered aloft.

  Dorval set to frigging himself. “You’re going to be hanged … you’re going to be choked absolutely to death, the two of you! The whores Rose Fatima and Claudine Juliette are condemned to die for having villainously, odiously robbed and despoiled and then exposed, with clear intent to destroy, two-individuals who were guests in the home of Monsieur Dorval: justice in consequence requires that the sentence be executed immediately.”

  We stood up and, at a signal from one of his myrmidons, first I, then Fatima advanced up to him. He was in a lather. We frigged his prick, he swore and stormed: his hands roved distractedly over every part of our bodies and with curses and threats he mixed jibes.

  “How cruel I am,” said he, “to consign such lovely flesh to the dungheap. But there’s no hope of reprieve, the sentence has been pronounced, it’s got to be carried out; these cunts, so inviting today, will be the abode of maggots tomorrow…. Ah, doublefuck the Almighty, what pleasures….”

  Then his two lieutenants laid hands on Fatima—and I continued to frig Dorval. The poor girl was bound in a trice, the halter was slipped around her neck, but everything was so arranged that the victim, after hanging the briefest instant in the air, would fall to the floor where a mattress was spread. Then came my turn; I tremble, fear blinds me—of what they’d done to Fatima I’d seen only enough to be terrified, the rest had escaped me, and it was only after my own experience that I realized how little danger had been involved in this curious ritual. And so, when the two men came for me, overcome with fear, I cast myself at Dorval’s feet: my resistance aroused him: he bit my flank with such violence the marks his teeth left were still there two months later. They dragged me away and several seconds afterward I was lying motionless beside Fatima. Dorval comes over to where we are, peers at us.

  “Sacred bugger-fucking Christ!” he expostulates, “do you mean to say the bitches are still alive?”

  “Begging your pardon, Sir,” one of his men informs him, “’tis done, they breathe no more.”

  And it is at this point Dorval’s dark passion reaches its denouement: he leaps upon Fatima—who takes care not to stir a muscle—he encunts her with a prick gone mad and after several ferocious strokes he springs away and assails me—and I too am lying still as death; swearing like one of the damned, he drives his member to the hilt in my vagina and his discharge is accompanied by symptoms of pleasure more resembling fury than joy.

  Was he ashamed? Or was he disgusted? Whichever, we saw no more of Dorval. As for the valets, they’d vanished the moment their master had bounded upon the scaffold to belabor us in his frenzy. The same woman who had introduced us into this attic chamber now reappeared, released us; she brought us refreshments, assured us our ordeal was over but also advised us that nothing of what had been taken away from us would be given back.

  “My instructions are to restore you naked to where you came from,” she continued. “You’ll do whatever complaining you wish to Madame Duvergier, she’ll look into the matter as she sees fit. So let’s be off, ’tis late, you must be home before dawn.”

  Angry, I ask to speak to Dorval, I am told I cannot—although the odd fellow was in all likelihood surveying us through one of his peepholes. The woman repeats that we must make haste; a carriage is there awaiting us, we climb in, and a little more than an hour later we enter our matron’s house.

  Madame Duvergier was still in bed. Retiring to our rooms, we each found ten louis and a complete new costume, in quality far superior to those we’d lost.

  “We’ll not say anything. Agreed? For we’ve been paid, our clothing has been better than replaced,” Fatima pointed out, “and there would be no advantage to having Duvergier know about our outing. I told you, Juliette, these things go on behind her back and they’d best stay there. When we’re not obliged to share our earnings with her, there’s no need to mention our employment.” Fatima gazed at me for a moment. “My dear,” she went on, “you’ve just paid a very cheap price for a very great lesson; be easy, the bargain you’ve struck was good. With what you’ve learned at Dorval’s hands, provided you don’t forget it, you are now in a way to make every one of your adventures yield triple or four times what they’d be worth to the uninitiated.”

  “I really don’t know whether I’d dare without having someone else along to bolster my courage,” I told my companion.

  “You’d be a fool to let a single opportunity pass,” Fatima asserted; “bear Dorval’s ethics and advice ever in mind; equality, my beloved, equality, that’s my one guiding principle, and wherever it’s not been established by chance or fate, that’s where it is up to us to create it by our ingenuity.”

  Several days later I had an interview with Madame Duvergier. After inspecting me, she said:

  “It looks to me as though your natural deflowerings are just about complete; well, Juliette, you must now start earning your way hindwise, and you’ll have an even greater success than you did when we took toll for transit in your frontward avenue. The state of affairs, I tell you, requires that we reverse our approach henceforth. I trust you’ll not raise any silly objections; in the past I’ve had some preposterous little simpletons here who, affirming that it is criminal to give oneself thus to men, brought no good repute to my house and considerable harm to my commerce. Untutored as you may be, rather than utter infantile nonsense which you’ll later blush at having pronounced, pray be still for a moment and listen to me.

  “I must inform you, my child, that it boils down to the same thing: a woman is a woman everywhere, she does as well—and certainly no worse—when she cedes her ass as when she opens her cunt to traffic, she has as great a right to take a prick in her mouth as to fondle one in her hand, if her thighs clasped together can be of service to one man, why should she deny her armpits to another? It’s all one and the same, my angel; the essential thing is to earn money, how it’s got is a matter of indifference.

  “There are even those—incurable fools for the most part, the rest are clowns—who dare maintain that sodomy is a crime against society because it negatively affects the birth rate. This is absolutely false; there will always be more than enough human beings on earth whatever may be the progress of sodomy. But, supposing for an instant that the ranks of the population were to begin to thin, would one not have to lay the blame upon Nature? for ’tis from no other source that those individuals who incline to this passion have received not only the taste and the penchant which draw them into practicing buggery, but also the faulty or thwart constitution which renders them ill-adapted to sensual pleasure in the ordinary manner we women procure it for them. And is it not Nature, once again, who, after we have acted for an extended period in accordance with the so-called laws of population, finally deprives us of the wherewithal to give men any real pleasure? Now, if Nature so operates as simultaneously to make it impossible for men to taste legitimate pleasures on the one hand, and on the other to constitute women in precisely the opposite fashion to that which would be necessary to the continued tasting of even an insipid pleasure, it is amply clear, so it seems to me, that the alleged outrages which, oafs would have it, man commits when he seeks pleasure elsewhere than with women, or with them elsewhere than cuntwardly—these fancied outrages, I say, rather than being offensive to Nature, can be no other than of that same Nature’s inspiration. To offset the privations her primary laws impose upon man, Nature, subsequently, is nothing loath to grant him certain facilities, especially since, as may very well be the case, she herself is eager, or obliged, to limit the increase of population whose excessive size can but be to her disadvantage. And this latter idea is all the more evident in the fact that Nature has limited the time during which women can bear. Why these limitations and deadlines, if perpetual increase were so necessar
y as is sometimes fancied? and if Nature has set these limits, why shouldn’t she have set others? She has posed a term to every woman’s fecundity; in man, her wisdom would also have inspired varying passions or certain distastes: while some members of the community do their duty, others, differently made, must go elsewhere to relieve themselves of the seed for which Nature herself has no use. Why, without going far afield in search of explanations, we can confine ourselves to an immediate, palpable, and conclusive one: the sensation itself; and, without further discussion, ’tis there the place where Nature wishes to have her bidding done. Well, Juliette, you may rest assured of this,” Duvergier continued, little realizing that the person she was speaking to was not without experience in the matter, “that it is infinitely more pleasurable to be had in the hinder part than in any other; sensual women, once they have made the experiment, either forget about or revolt at the thought of cunt-fuckery. Ask around, you’ll find that they all say the same. Therefore, my child, try the thing for the sake of your pocketbook and in the interests of your pleasure; and you may be perfectly sure that men are willing to pay a very different price to have this eccentricity of theirs flattered than for common belly-bumping; if today I have an income totaling thirty thousand pounds a year, I can honestly assure you that I owe three-quarters of it to the assholes I’ve rented to the general public. Cunts don’t bring a penny anymore, my dear girl, they aren’t in fashion these days, people are tired of them, you simply cannot sell a cunt to anyone, and I’d give up this business tomorrow if I couldn’t find women favorably disposed to rendering this essential courtesy.

  “Tomorrow morning, dear heart,” the shameless creature concluded, “your masculine maidenhead goes to the venerable Archbishop of Lyon, who pays me fifty louis apiece for these articles. Look sharp, see to it you offer no resistance to the good prelate’s enervated desires, they’ll faint entirely away at the first hint of skittishness on your part. It shall be far less to your charms than to a docile eagerness to please that you’ll owe your conquest and proofs of an already much impaired virility; whereas if the old despot doesn’t find a slave in you, you’ll get no more out of him than you’d have from a statue.”