I trembled. “I am, Monsieur, I am, very much so. It—it dazzles me, it—”
“You will go far, my child. I am fond of you. I should like to see more of you.”
“Your sentiments flatter me, Monsieur, I might even venture to say that I merit them, so straitly do mine conform to yours…. I have had some education, ’twas at a convent that my mind was trained by a friend. Alas, Sir, my birth is not mean, it ought to have guaranteed me against the humiliation I am in now by hard circumstance.”
And thereupon I recounted my story to Noirceuil.
“Juliette,” said he after having heard me out, listening to every detail with keen attention, “I am sorely distressed by all this you tell me.”
“Why so?”
“Why? Because I knew your father. I am the cause of his bankruptcy, ’twas I who ruined him. There was a moment when I was in control of his entire fortune, I had the choice of doubling it for him or dispossessing him utterly; having consulted my principles, I found I had, indeed, no choice at all but to prefer my welfare to his. He died a pauper; and I have an income of three hundred thousand pounds a year. After all you have said, I ought of course to make reparation to you, since if you have suffered adversity ’tis owing to my crimes; but such a gesture would be virtuous. Do you see, I have a very great horror of virtue, I could never indulge in such a thing. I fear that past events have raised impenetrable barriers between us two; I regret it, but it looks as though our acquaintance were come to its term.”
“Execrable man!” I cried, “however much I am the victim of your vices, I adore them … yes, I adore your principles—”
“Oh, Juliette, there is yet more to be told,” he said in a quiet tone.
“I want to hear everything.”
“Your father … your mother.…”
“Yes?”
“Their existence was a threat to me. To avoid betrayal, I had to sacrifice them. They went in swift succession to the grave. That could be ascribed to a poison … they once dined at my home—”
A sudden quaking laid hold of me, to the core of me I shuddered; but straightway upon Noirceuil I bent a stare, the phlegmatic, apathetic stare of the wickedness with which, in spite of me, Nature was at once burning and freezing my heart:
“Monster,” I repeated in a thickened voice, and speaking slowly, “thou art an abomination, I love thee.”
“The murderer of your parents?”
“Can that matter to me? Sensations are my means for judging everything; none were stimulated in me by those persons of whom your crimes have rid me forever, and to hear you confess what you have done sets me all afire, transports me … ah, I may become delirious….”
“Charming creature,” said Noirceuil, “your naïveté, the candid purity of your soul, everything about you conspires against my principles; I am going to violate them and keep you by me, Juliette, I’ll not part with you. You shall not return to Duvergier, I’ll not hear of it.”
“But, Monsieur—your lady?”
“She’ll be no better than your slave, you’ll reign over my household, everyone in it will be under your orders, you shall have but to give them and be obeyed. Crime does indeed hold a mighty sway over my soul: whatever, whoever bears the evil brand is dear unto me. Nature made me to love it; abhorring virtue, despite myself I fall ever and ever down to my knees before crime and infamy. Oh, Juliette … Juliette, come hither, I’m hard, show me your beauteous ass—slut, give me that ass of yours, I’m of a great mind to fuck it, I’m going to expire from the pleasure of imagining my lust is making a victim of my greed’s offspring.”
I approached him, bidding him have furiously at me. “Yes, Noirceuil, fuck me, fuck me, you swine, I adore the idea of whoring to the assassin of my kin. Eh, come bugger-fuck that hole, wring the fuck out of my cunt, for tears I’m in no mood to spill: fuck, that’s the only homage I’m disposed to offer to the loathsome ashes of the family you destroyed.”
We waked the acolytes; sodomizing me, Noirceuil caused himself to be bum-stuffed and, having had his wife clamber atop me and deploy her buttocks, he bit and chewed them and gnawed and worried them and slapped them too, and all that with such vehemence that the poor creature’s hind parts were all bloodied before Noirceuil was done shedding his fuck.
As soon as I was installed in his town house, Noirceuil expressed his reluctance to have me venture out of it and would not even consent to let me go recover the effects I’d left at Duvergier’s; on the morrow he presented me to his domestics, to his acquaintances, saying I was a cousin, and from then on I was entrusted with the direction of the house.
However, I could not resist seizing the first occasion to pay a quick visit to my former employer; indeed, I had no intention of cutting myself off altogether from her, but neither did I think it prudent policy to seem too eager to see her.
“My dear Juliette!” cried Duvergier as soon as she clapped eyes on me, “how glad I am to have you back! Come in, do, I’ve been so impatient, for I’ve a thousand things to talk to you about.”
We encloseted ourselves in her apartment; she embraced me with utmost cordiality and congratulated me upon having had the luck to please so wealthy a man as Noirceuil; “And now,” said she, “listen to me, my dear.
“I don’t know just how you view your new situation; but I should think it a most unfortunate mistake were you to go and suppose that in your present position of a kept whore you need in any wise be bound by some exaggerated fidelity to a man who converses with seven or eight hundred women each year. However rich a man may be, however liberal to us, we never owe him anything in return, thanks least of all; for ’tis in his own behalf he toils even if he bestows the whole treasure of the Indies upon us. He showers us with gold; why? either because of the pride he takes in having us all to himself, or because of the jealousy that spurs him to lavish money so that no one else will share in the object of his affections; but, Juliette, I ask you, do any man’s extravagances ever warrant our catering to his folly? Granted that it must grieve a man to see us in the arms of another; does it follow that we must suffer inconvenience simply to spare him the sight? I am willing to go farther: though one loves to the point of madness the man one lives with, whether as his wife or as his most cherished mistress, it would be nonetheless completest absurdity to chain oneself gratuitously to his bedpost. One can fuck every day in every conceivable manner without diminishing the sentiments of the heart, and without their help. ’Tis the most commonplace thing in the world, to love one man to distraction and to fuck frenziedly with another; you don’t give your heart to him, just your body. The most extensive, the most intensive, and the most oft-repeated riots of libertinage, having no connection whatever with love, cannot possibly betray its delicacy. In what consists the wrong one does a man whom one outrages by prostituting oneself to somebody else? You’ll agree with me that at the very most ’tis a moral affront; and so you’ve but to take the greatest precautions to prevent him from ever finding your infidelity out; and now what can he complain of? Indeed, one may fairly say that a marvelously well-behaved woman who nonetheless lets some suspicions take root against her, whether these suspicions be bred of imprudence or of calumnies, will be, even were she a perfect saint for virtue, infinitely guiltier in the view of the man who loves her than she who, getting herself fucked nigh to death from dawn to dark, was clever enough to attract no attention to her doings. Yes, and I shan’t have it end there, I’ll assert that a woman, however sound her reasons for handling a man gingerly and with thoughtfulness, yea, even for worshiping him, can give another not only her body but her heart too; she may even while loving one man a great deal also love a great deal the person with whom she chances to lie; this then is fickleness, and to my consideration nothing more nicely sorts with grand passions than fickleness. There are two manners of loving a man: morally and physically. A woman can morally idolize her husband and physically and momentarily love the young blade who pays her court; she can cavort with him without in any se
nse or degree offending the moral sentiments she entertains for and owes him she worships: every individual of our sex who is of a different opinion is an idiot who is steering nowhere but toward disaster. A mettlesome-spirited woman, how can you expect her to possibly subsist, or rather avoid starving, upon the caresses of only one man? The thing is unthinkable; and thus you discover Nature in perpetual conflict with your alleged precepts of constancy and fidelity. Now tell me, if you please, what importance can be ascribed by any right-thinking man to a sentiment that is in necessary and unending contradiction with Nature? A man ridiculous enough to demand that a woman never give herself to anyone except himself would be behaving quite as absurdly as he who would not tolerate his mistress or wife ever once dining with someone else; not only would such an attitude be downright queer, it would be tyrannical; for by what right, being incapable of satisfying the woman single-handed, can he require that this woman suffer and not seek to console herself by whatever means at her disposal? Oh, there is here a selfishness, an incredible harshness, a monstrous ungenerosity, and the very instant a woman detects such traits in him who claims to love her, that ought to suffice to make her decide there and then to compensate herself for the dreadful circumstances to which her jailer wishes to reduce her. But if, in that other case, only interest or convenience attaches a woman to a man, her motive will be all the stronger in no wise to curb either her penchants or her desires: she is under no obligation to cede to her keeper save when he pays for her services, and while she does definitely owe him the use of her body when he contracts for it, before the bargain is struck and after she has fulfilled her part of it, she is free, the rest of her hours are hers to employ as she likes, and it is then that, business attended to, she may devote herself to pleasure and the inclinations of her heart; and why should she not, since her only commitment to her keeper is physical? The paying lover, or the husband, must perfectly well understand that he cannot exact from the object of his doting those feelings of the heart which obviously cannot be bought; these gentlemen are too intelligent not to know what is and what is not for sale. And therefore, provided the woman who is in the hire of either or, as the case may be, of both men cooperates in the satisfaction of their desires, they would pass for lunatics if they were to demand more of her. For, to frame it succinctly, from a woman a husband or a lover expects not virtue but the appearance of virtue. Put case she fucketh not with others, but seemeth to, then she’s lost; let her fuck a whole empire to death, but if she be not seen, lo! ’tis there a reputable lady.15 There exist examples enough to illustrate my assertions, Juliette; you have chosen a good moment to visit me, and I shall employ the occasion to convince you; waiting in the next room I’ve some fifteen women whom I’m going to pack off to be fucked somewhere outside town; look closely at them, each has her story. But if I am committing a grave imprudence in talking about them and in allowing them to be seen, I do it for your sake, and would not for someone else’s.”
So saying, Duvergier slid aside a little secret panel which exposed the entire room to our view without ourselves being visible to those within it.
“Did I say there were fifteen ladies in the circle? Count them for yourself.”
Fifteen women, all charming to behold but differently dressed, were indeed waiting, in silence, for the instructions they were to receive.
“We’ll move round from right to left,” said Duvergier, “beginning with that superb blonde you see there by-the fireplace. She is the Duchesse de Saint-Fal, whose conduct is surely not to be blamed; for, lovely as you must admit she is, my Lord the Due cannot bear her. Although you see her here, she is nonetheless rumored to be of spotless virtue; her family is very jealous of its name, watches her closely and, were news of her activities to leak abroad, they’d have her confined.”
“But,” I remarked, “these women must all run a grave risk by showing their presence here to one another. Might they not meet elsewhere? A slip of the tongue—or a little malice—”
“Firstly,” said the matron, “they are not mutually acquainted; but if later they should so become, what could one tell of another that she could not instantly turn against her accuser? All having the same concern, thus bound to discretion, there is no danger of denunciation; I’ve been purveying to these persons or their like for five and twenty years, and I’ve yet to hear tell of a single betrayal; they themselves fear no such thing. Do they look uneasy? Let me continue.
“That tall woman next to the Duchesse, she who appears to be about twenty and whose heavenly countenance resembles that of the purest virgin, she is wild about her husband; notwithstanding, she has an equally wild temperament; she pays me to put her in touch with youths. Would you believe it? she’s such a libertine, even at her age, that despite the money I am willing to spend, I simply cannot locate pricks big enough to satisfy her.
“Look at that other angel just to the left. She’s the daughter of a member of parliament; she’s clever too, and comes here on the sly, escorted by her governess. I doubt whether she is yet fourteen. I only involve her in scenes of passion where fuckery is omitted. Mind you, I’ve several bids of five hundred louis for her membrane, but I don’t dare. She’s waiting for a gentleman who discharges merely from putting his mouth in the vicinity of her ass; one thousand louis is the fee he’s offered me for leave to sink his prick into it. The danger being much slighter, I’ll arrange the affair by and by.
“That other child is thirteen years old: a little bourgeoise I’ve suborned. She’s to marry, she adores her intended; but she’s had a schooling rather like your own. Yesterday, Noirceuil and I concluded negotiations for the sale of her antiphysical pucelage; he’ll be here tomorrow to exploit his purchase. A young bishop should soon arrive, he’s contracted to loosen her up a little in the same part; but, you see, his device is dimensioned so modestly that your abundantly furnished lover will never know the difference.
“Glance closely at that other woman, that one there. I believe she is twenty-six. She lives with a man who is beyond words devoted to her, who denies her nothing her heart desires; they’ve both done incredible things for each other; but that doesn’t prevent the little rascal from fucking every man in sight, it’s men she loves, all men, and with a rapacity that takes one’s breath away. Formerly, her lover permitted her to indulge herself, if anyone’s to blame for the disorders she wallows in, ’tis he: she but profits from the examples he once set before her, and unbeknownst to him she has her daily fling of fuckery under my roof.
“The pretty brunette beside her is the wife of an elderly individual who wedded her for love; she exhibits prodigious consideration for him, and there are few who can boast of so wonderful a reputation for virtue. Here her patience is rewarded: she’s waiting for a pair of young men; later on in the day she’ll come back again to meet the man she loves. Of mornings she dedicates herself to debauchery; the longings of her heart are satisfied after lunch.
“That one next to her is of an extreme piety. Notice her costume. The scoundrel divides her time between reading sermons, attending Mass, and frequenting brothels; she has a husband, he adores her but is powerless to change her ways. Stubborn, shrewish, domineering at home, she reckons all that mummery must induce him to forgive her the rest. The poor devil has made her a wealthy woman; and nonetheless she has made him the most miserable of men. I too have a frightful time with her, for she’ll only fuck clerics. True, age and looks and manners matter not one whit to her; the whore’s happy so long as the prick in her cunt belongs to a man of God.
“Over there beyond her is a kept woman who receives a wage of two hundred louis a month; she spends it here, and if her allowance were doubled she’d probably never leave my place at all. She’s a former pupil of mine. Her old archbishop would stake his emoluments that she’s chaster than the Virgin—who, by the way, being much worshiped by the folk of his diocese, brings in those same two hundred louis which, destined for Mary, go next to the prelate, then to his concubine, finally to me. All that, my Ju
liette, is how things transpire in this silly world of ours; one swims with the current or drowns battling it.
“Now we come to that middle-class girl over there, she’s nineteen, and tell me if you’ve ever seen a more comely creature. Her lover has done everything under the sun for her: he rescued her from poverty, settled her debts, maintains her on the finest footing; if she took a fancy to the very stars, he’d attempt to steal them out of heaven for her, and the little whore hasn’t a single moment to herself she doesn’t employ in fucking. But libertinage is not what guides her, no, ’tis greed: she does whatever is asked of her, she’ll consent to any match I make so long as she’s paid for her trouble, and her price is high. Is she wrong to ask all the market will stand? The brute I’m going to turn her over to will leave her bedridden for six weeks, and she knows it; but she’ll earn her ten thousand francs this morning, and for the rest she doesn’t care a fig.”
“And her lover?”
“Oh, she’ll improvise some excuse or other, never fear. She slipped and fell. Or she was run down by a carriage. With that brain of hers, she’s clever enough to make a dunce of God Almighty.
“That little minx there,” Duvergier continued, pointing out a gorgeous creature of twelve, “is a more unusual case: her mother sells her, they are needy folk. The two of them could, to be sure, find other work, they’ve even been offered it, but they refuse: only libertinage suits them. Once again it’s Noirceuil who’ll have the first shot at that child’s asshole.
“And now behold the triumph of conjugal love. In all the world there’s not a wife who cherishes her husband as that woman does,” Duvergier declared, indicating a creature of some twenty-eight years, a perfect Aphrodite. “Yes, she adores him, she is jealous too, but she cannot withstand her urges; she disguises herself, she’s taken for a vestal, but every week she enters the lists with fifteen or a score of men.
“I consider that other one quite as attractive,” my informant went on, “and her position is truly extraordinary: her own husband prostitutes her. Mark you, he is passionately fond of her, and that could provide the explanation: he’s witness to her proceedings, he’s ready to pimp for his lady, but he embuggers her fucker.
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