Juliette

by Marquis de Sade

  The two rendezvous arranged, I hasten off to organize the comedy. The wife, according to my reckonings, was as good as snared already: her native libertinage would all unaided spell her downfall. As for the husband’s, however, that was by no means so simple to contrive. Art was called for here, seduction would be necessary: the man I was dealing with was a Spaniard, a pious Spaniard. But nothing daunted me. Once the two stages were set—the two scenes were to transpire in adjoining chambers, a crack in the partition separating them would permit the husband to observe his wife’s infidelities; through a second aperture the wife would see her husband’s antics—I waited patiently for my two dupes.

  The husband arrived first.

  “My Lord,” I declared, “it would seem to me that in the light of your wife’s behavior you ought no longer feel constrained to deny expression to your tastes nor to refuse yourself pleasures.”

  Florella drew himself up. “Such things—”

  “You dislike them and you are quite right: the dangers are manifold when you dally with women. But, Excellency, look here, these pretty children,” said I, drawing aside a curtain behind which I had stationed three delightful little boys, draped in garlands of roses and otherwise naked, “these heavenly little Ganymedes, you’ll surely not maintain that sorrows are to be anticipated from enjoying them? Really, my Lord, it surpasses my understanding—you who are so ill-used, will you worsen affairs by being harsh to yourself?”

  And while I spoke the sweet little trio, acting upon my instructions, surrounded the Spaniard, hugged and kissed him, teased him and, despite all he could do, plucked his wavering virility forth from its tent. Man is weak. The pious are weaker than most, especially when you offer them boys. Seldom sufficiently stressed, often not even realized, there exists a powerful analogy between believers in God and buggers.

  “My Lord,” said I once things were well under way, “I am going to leave you to your own devices; I shall return as soon as your wife has begun her wanton capers. The sight of them ought to enable you to pursue your own in greater comfort.”

  And I leave just in time to greet the ambassadress, then on the point of entering.

  “Madame,” I whisper, conducting her to the hole in the wall, “you could not have come at a better moment. Behold in what way His Excellency passes his afternoons.”

  And indeed the good man, without an inkling of the scurvy trick being played upon him and seduced by my speeches, was almost naked now and already absorbed in the ethereal preludes of sodomistic lubricity.

  “The beast!” gasped the ambassadress, “the fiend! Let him dare criticize my conduct after what I have just seen—ah, I’ll have a thing or two to tell him! Juliette, it is dreadful, it is horrible—madre de Dios, where are my men? Send in my men, I’ll have my revenge, by heaven, I’ll have my revenge and more beside!”

  And having started Doña Florella off on her lewd routine, I rejoined her husband.

  “A thousand pardons if I disturb you, Excellency,” said I, “but the crucial instant is at hand and I should not like to have you miss it. Leave off your sweet sport a moment and come,” I urged him, steering Florella toward the second spyhole several feet away from the one through which he had been watched by his wife, “determine for yourself whether you are cornute or no.”

  “Great God!” that gentleman exclaimed, “with six men, and veritable scum of the earth besides! Oh, the slut: Juliette, take it, here is your money, this sight I have witnessed—I am thunderstruck, I am undone, I … can no more—away with these children, I wish never to hear of pleasures again. That monster in the next room has shattered my existence, slain the soul in me … I am in despair.”

  To me it was of no importance whether or not his lubricities reached their term, his wife had seen them begin, that was all I required. The aspect of the adventure my evil mind most appreciated was its sequel and it warmed the cockles of my very bad heart afterward to learn that the ambassadress had been stabbed to death, an event which gave rise to great commotion. A hundred diplomats, the emissaries of that many rival states, promptly published colorful versions of the story and Florella was hailed before Leopold’s magistrates: unable to endure the assaults of remorse, unable to face the ignominy about to fall on his head, the Spaniard shot himself. But I had contributed nothing to this second death, I was scarcely better than its indirect cause. The thought left me frightfully downcast; let me now tell you what I undertook several days later in order to pick up my spirits and at the same time promote my fortune.

  It is common knowledge that the Italians make wide use of poisons: their atrociousness of character finds therein a suitable vehicle of expression, and a convenient means for taking the revenge and serving the lust wherefor they have also acquired a name in the world. Sbrigani and I having exhausted the supply acquired long before from Madame Durand, I had lately entered into the fabrication of those venoms for which she had given me the recipes: I sold these products in quantity, scores of people consulted me for their needs, and this branch of commerce developed into an immense source of revenue.

  A rather well-favored young man, by whom I had been fucked to perfection and who was a daily visitor to my house, besought me to provide him something for his mother: he could no longer abide her interference in his pleasures and the sooner she was out of the way, the sooner he would gain a considerable inheritance. Such were the solid reasons why he was resolved to be rid of that Argus forthwith, and as he was a person of staunch principles, he was able without scruple or hesitation to concert a deed which common sense dictated. And so he asked me for a violent toxin whose effect would be rapid. Instead, I sold him a slow one, and the day following the transaction I paid the mother a call. The poison, as I rightly assumed, must already have been administered, for my young man had been nothing if not eager to get down to business. But as its action would not be felt for another few days, no symptom was yet manifest. I disclosed her son’s fell designs to the woman, describing them as intentions.

  “Madame,” I declared, “your plight is unenviable, it is grave, and without my aid you are lost; but your son is not alone in this despicable plot against your life, his two sisters are involved also, and ’twas one of them who applied to me for the poison necessary to cut the thread of your days.”

  “What are these ghastly things you tell me?”

  “There are terrible truths to bare in this world, and ungrateful, nay, distressing is the mission of those who from love of mankind are forced to reveal them. You must seek vengeance, Madame, and do so without delay. I have brought you that very drug your monstrous children mean to give you; use it upon them, be quick: they merit nothing less, an eye for an eye, Madame, retaliation in kind is the best justice of all. And hold your tongue, for you cannot without dishonor to yourself let it be known that your own flesh and blood have plotted your murder; avenge yourself in silence, you shall obtain satisfaction and avoid any stain. No, no, be assured of it, there is no wrong in turning against your would-be attackers the sword they are about to lift against you. To the contrary, smite down the wicked and you earn the praise of every good man.”

  And it was to the most vindictive woman in Florence I was speaking; of this I was aware. She takes my powders, she pays me gold. The very next day she mixes them into her children’s food, and as that particular poison was exceedingly strong, the brother and two sisters perished very shortly; and their mother followed them to the grave inside a week. All their funeral processions passed down the road before my house.

  “Sbrigani,” I said as the sounds of lamentation reached my ears and drew me to the window, “I behold a gladdening scene below; fuck me, dear friend, even as I gaze at what I have wrought. Hurry, Sbrigani, deliver me quickly of the hot sperm that has been a whole week simmering in my womb; I must absolutely discharge at the sight of my crimes.”

  Do you ask me why I included the woman’s two daughters in this hecatomb? Then I shall answer you. They were of unsurpassed loveliness; for two long months
I had tried everything under the sun to seduce them, and they had not succumbed: was more needed to kindle my wrath? And is virtue not always reprehensible in the eyes of crime and infamy?

  No need to tell you, my friends, that in the thick of these perfidious villainies my personal lubricity hardly lay dormant. Having but to choose from among the superb men and the sublime women I procured for others, you may be sure that I sorted out the best for my own purposes before relegating the rest to my customers; but Italians stiffen poorly, neither big nor for long, and their health, always dubious, drove me into an exclusive sapphism. Countess Donis was in those days the richest, the most beautiful, the most elegant, and the most dissolute Lesbian Florence could boast; it was commonly supposed I was her kept companion, and the opinion was not without some basis in fact.

  Madame Donis was a widow of thirty-five, delightfully shaped, with a charming face, a clever mind, much wit, and many talents. Libertinage and interest were the sinews of my twofold attachment to her, together we indulged in the strangest, the most reckless, the most outlandish of impudicities. I had taught the Countess the art of whetting her pleasures upon the stone of cruel refinements, and the whore, deriving untold benefit from my experience and instruction, was already almost a match for me in wickedness.

  “Oh, my friend,” she said to me one day, “how many and various are the desires aroused by the thought of a crime! I liken it to a spark which swiftly sets alight everything combustible at hand, whose ravages increase in proportion to the fuel it finds, and which ends up producing a blaze in us such as is not to be extinguished save by rivers of fuck. But, Juliette, some theory must exist governing this as there is a theory governing everything else, and it too must possess its principles, its rules…. I am eager to become familiar with them; teach me, my angel, you know what my dispositions, my penchants are, teach me how to regulate all this.”

  “Adorable woman,” I replied, “I am too devoted to my pupil to leave her only halfway educated. Lend me a little attention and I shall disclose to you the precepts which have led me to where you see me today.

  “They are these, beloved Countess. Whenever you have the urge to commit a crime, what are the general precautions to be observed, barring of course those particular ones which the nature of events alone must prescribe?

  “Firstly, combine your scheme several days ahead of time, thoroughly revolve and ponder all its consequences, some will contain advantages for you, spy them out, look with similar care for those likely to betray you, and weigh them as coolly as if it were inevitable that you be found out. If it be a murder you concert, remember that in all the world no individual is so completely isolated that some acquaintance or friend or relative of his, however remote, may not bring you to eventual harm. These persons, whoever they are, will sooner or later come looking for your victim and, not finding him, finally come looking for you: hence, before you act prepare your welcome for them, your manner of replying to their questions and of imposing silence upon them if they are not satisfied with your answers. Once ready to strike, do the thing alone if you possibly can; if you are forced to employ a confederate, see to it that he has so much to gain from your crime, compromise him so vitally, bind him so fast to the deed that he cannot possibly turn against you later. Self-interest is the prime mover of human beings; thus, let there be no doubt of it, if you neglect these precautions and the accomplice finds a greater advantage in playing you false than in keeping faith with you, then be sure of it, my dear, betray you he shall, above all if he is weak and believes avowing may be a means to clearing his conscience.

  “If you are going to derive some profit from your crime, carefully hide this motive you have for committing it; when you are in company never give the faintest sign that it is among your preoccupations, a slip of the tongue, a stray remark dropped beforehand will be recalled afterward, and these words will always testify against you and very frequently, in the absence of better evidence, serve as proof. If the committed crime doubles your fortune, defer until much later the purchase of a new coach or necklace, the changes in your circumstances, outwardly displayed will arouse curiosity, incite comment, and bring the police around to your door.

  “The deed once done, you will be best advised, especially as a beginner, to avoid company for awhile, since the visage is the mirror of the soul and despite us the muscles that shape our facial expression will inevitably, try as we will to prevent it, reflect our inmost feelings. For the same reason, see to it you introduce no subject of conversation which has the slightest bearing upon the deed; for if it is the first time you have committed it, you are apt, as you discuss it, to wax rather too eloquent, to say that trifle too much which will incriminate you, and if to the contrary it is one of your habitual crimes, a crime that affords you pleasure, your physiognomy will announce to others the agreeable impression made upon you by anything touching the deed. In general, through practice strive to acquire enough control over your expression and reactions as finally to be master of them, and to be rid of the habit of displaying your secret emotions upon your face; calm and imperturbability and impassiveness should reign there, and train yourself to appear utterly unmoved even when gripped by the most powerful feelings. Well, none of this is attained save through total habituation to vice, and a toughening of the soul in the last degree; both of these being of the highest necessity to you, I must keenly recommend them.

  “Were you not immune to remorse, and you will never acquire that immunity except through the habit of crime, were you not, I say, perfectly forearmed against all misgivings, all qualms, ’twould be useless for you to endeavor to win control over your countenance, it would fall on every occasion and betray you at every turn. Therefore, having done a piece of wickedness, do not rest on your laurels, Madame: you will be the unhappiest of women if you make only one sally into crime and call a halt there. Either stay quietly at home, or, having ventured to the brink of evil, leap boldly over the precipice. Only the accumulated weight of a multitude of misdeeds will stifle your capacity for remorse, will engender the sweet habituation which dulls it so wonderfully, and will provide you the mask you need in order to deceive others. And do not suppose you have anything to gain from attenuating the character of the crime you meditate, its greater or lesser atrocious-ness is irrelevant: it is not because of its atrocity a deed is punished, but because its author is detected, and the more violent the crime the more precautions he is required to take. Thus it is virtually impossible to realize a major crime without observing care for one’s safety, whereas this is too easily left unheeded when the crime is petty, and that is why it is found out. A crime’s atrocity is of concern only to you, and can it concern you once your conscience is impervious to it? its discovery, however, is to your detriment, and should be scrupulously prevented.

  “Employ hypocrisy, it is indispensable in this world where accepted usage is hardly to practice what you preach: crimes are rarely imputed to those who manifest a general indifference toward everything that happens. Not everyone is so unhappy nor so clumsy as Tartuffe. Nor furthermore is it, like Tartuffe, to the point of enthusiasm for virtues one should carry one’s hypocrisy, you need go no farther than indifference to crime: you do not worship virtue, but neither are you fond of vice, and this kind of hypocrisy is never detected, because it leaves the pride of others in peace, which the sort of hypocrisy that distinguishes Molière’s hero necessarily offends.

  “Be just as careful to avoid witnesses as you would be in the choice of accomplices, and whenever possible dispense with both. It is always the one or the other and often the two together who lead the criminal to the scaffold.3 Well-laid plans and sound technique spare you from having to do with people of that sort. Never say my son, my valet, my wife will never betray me, for if such persons want to, they can do you unlimited harm even if they do not denounce you to the law whose guardians may also be bought.

  “Above all never have recourse to religion: you are lost if you put yourself back under its sway, it wi
ll torment you, it will fill your heart with quakings and your head with illusions and you will end up becoming your own delator and worst enemy. All these things weighed and arranged in due order, and this methodically, objectively, rationally (for I am willing enough to have you conceive the crime in the throes of passion, indeed, I even urge you to, but I insist that, conjured up in frenzy, it be prepared in calm), now cast a clear eye upon yourself, see who you are, gauge your faculties, evaluate your forces, your assets, your influence, your station; determine the extent of your vulnerability before the law, the worth of the defenses you can interpose between yourself and its attacks. And if after this survey you find yourself on safe ground, go ahead; but once the die is cast, act forthwith. The best laid plans may miscarry, know it in advance; if you have done everything prudence demands, and if still you are found out, face the situation bravely. For what indeed is the worst that can befall you now? A very mild and a very quick death. And better that it should be on a gallows than in your bed; truly, the sufferings are nothing by comparison, and it is all much sooner over with; disgrace? But what does disgrace matter? you’ll not feel it, the dead feel nothing, and as for what may be felt by your family, can this alarm you, a philosophic individual, who worries precious little about families? Do you dread hearing yourself reproached, supposing now that they let you live and are content to castigate you? What? you shudder at the thought of a few idle invectives and a tarnished name? Fie! you tremble before less than a spook. Honor? What is honor? A meaningless word, of itself nothing, which for its existence depends upon the opinion of others and which, so defined, should neither flatter us when it is accorded nor be regretted when it is lost. Let Epicurus’ attitude be our own: bestowed upon us from the outside, so much the better if fame and honor be ours, so much the worse if not, in this there is nought we can do save know how to get on without them when we cannot acquire them. And be ever mindful that there is no crime on earth, however modest, which does not bring its perpetrator more pleasure than dishonor or disgrace can bring him pain. Am I any the less alive for being socially blemished? What care I for a little mud spattered upon me if beneath it I preserve my comfort and my faculties intact! ’Tis therein I find my happiness, and not in an opinion I cannot create nor amend nor retain, and which is meaningless and vain, since it is an everyday spectacle to see people stripped of every vestige of honor and fame nevertheless achieve an existence, a consideration which feeble simpletons never attain after a lifetime of dogged virtuousness.