Juliette

by Marquis de Sade

  “I dare say, Emma, and I am touched by your delicacy, but it is not in this manner you would ever get me into bondage; mine is too lofty a soul to consent to dependence upon a woman: I must either dominate her or not use her at all.”

  “Why, very well then, I shall be your whore, I like that role; how much will you pay me a month?”

  “What did you get from Sophia?”

  “The value of one hundred French louis.”

  “I will give you the same; but you will be faithful? Submissive?”

  “As a slave.”

  “Slavery implies that you be dispossessed of the tokens of freedom and the means to fail your master. Hand your funds over to me.”

  “Here they are,” and Emma fetched me her casket.

  “But, my angel,” said I, raising the lid, “you must have stolen this sum: with one hundred louis a month you could not possibly have composed this fortune, Emma, not at your age.”

  “Do you suppose I left that Messalina without first giving her treasury a feel?”

  “And if I were to do unto thee that which thou hast done?”

  “Borchamps, I love you, what I have is yours; I am not entrusting my money to you, I am giving it; but this gift and my favors are not to be had save upon one condition.”

  “And that condition?”

  “It is that we be this very instant rid of the drab piece of baggage you are towing across Europe.”

  “You are paying me for her death?”

  “That is what I demand in exchange for my hundred thousand crowns.”

  “Exquisite little minx! The idea is amusing; but the project must be embellished by a few rather severe episodes.”

  “Ill though she is?”

  “But the object is to do her in, is it not?”

  “To be sure.”

  “Well, come along, I shall present you as an irate wife who demands that I return to her; I shall excuse myself for a fit of blind passion which, in my embarrassed situation, forced me to behave in my mysterious manner; you will fulminate; I shall be obliged to tell her that I am abandoning her, and the poor woman will die of chagrin, she and the infant inside her.”

  “She is pregnant?”

  “Indeed she is.”

  “Why, we shall have a jolly time!” And in Emma’s sparkling eyes I saw how this villainy was arousing her; the whore is overcome by emotion, she kisses me, a paroxysm shakes loose her fuck…. We enter.

  So well did we play our parts that the wretched Clotilda swallowed everything down to the dregs. Emma, witty, malicious, and a wicked tease, maintained that when I’d deserted her I’d also robbed her, and that not a button or a handkerchief in the room belonged by rights to this bedridden adventuress. I agreed that all this was indubitably so, and my sorrowful wife, only too well aware of the black situation menacing her, turned her beautiful face away to hide her weeping.

  “Oh no, sir traitor, I shall not let you out of my sight,” Emma declared with great energy, “I am not going to budge from here, for I intend to get my due.”

  Supper is brought into the room. Emma and I eat heartily and call for the best wines in the house while the helpless Clotilda watches herself being stripped, plundered to the last penny, and stares at the prospect of soon having nothing left to feed upon but her despair and her tears. Our copious repast finished, it was upon the foot of the forlorn soul’s bed that we celebrated the pleasure of our reunion.

  A pretty thing she was, that Emma; twenty-one years old, a face that personified voluptuousness itself, the figure of a nymph, great dark eyes, the freshest mouth, the whitest teeth, the most cunning little tongue, the fairest and smoothest skin, marvelously molded in breast and buttock, a libertine too, and in the highest degree, with all the salt and all the spitefulness of cruel lubricity. We fucked deliciously in every style and manner while battening upon the spectacle, equally rare and stimulating, of my wife wrung by moans, grief, and anxiety.

  As I was embuggering her, Emma would have her unfortunate rival show us her ass. Clotilda was almost too sick, too exhausted to move; howbeit, obey she must. I slapped that splendid behind whereof I had made such feast of late and which I was now so unkindly abandoning; I smote it so hard that the poor woman, weak from distress, from pain, from illness, lay motionless upon the bed.

  “We could strangle her,” said I, bum-fucking Emma with great zest.

  “We could, but it would be a serious mistake,” replied the clever and imaginative girl; “far better simply to abandon her more or less alive, to damage her reputation with the innkeeper, and to make sure that, left without resources, she will either perish from hunger or try to survive from libertinage.”

  This last idea having caused me a prodigious discharge, we made ready to depart. We removed every last object from the room; we despoiled Clotilda even of her nightgown; we plucked even the rings off her fingers, unscrewed the rings from her ears, took even her shoes, her slippers, in a word, she was left as naked as the day she was born; the poor dear wept and said the most melting things to me.

  “Alas, short of murdering me, you could not carry barbarity any farther. May heaven forgive you as do I; and whatever be the career you follow, give a thought sometimes to the woman who never did you any wrong unless it was to love you too much.”

  “Come, come, cheer up,” said Emma, “all you have to do to earn some money is frig some pricks. Why, instead of blaming us you ought to thank us: along with the rest we could deprive you of life. Count your blessings.”

  The horses were harnessed, the carriage waiting at the door. As we were about to mount Emma had a word with the people of the inn.

  “The creature we are leaving behind up there,” she told them, “is an arrant whore who stole my husband; as chance would have it, I came upon him in this place: I recover what is mine by law and right and, together with him, am taking away the belongings that slut robbed from me. Here is her lodging and board, paid up until today, I’ll answer for no more: do with her whatever you see fit, she has all she needs to settle any debts she may incur from you and to return home to her own country. And here is the key to her room; adieu.”

  The coachman cracked his whip and we whirled off without waiting to learn what happened next in an adventure which now ceased to hold anything of interest for us.

  “I am most content,” said Emma. “Your management of this affair reveals a character very kindred to mine; I already feel attached to you. How do you suppose it will fare with Madame?”

  “She will beg alms or render lewd services; what matter is it to us?”

  And to turn the conversation upon a worthier theme, I besought Emma to tell me a little more about herself.

  “I was born in Brussels,” the splendid creature began; “never mind from what lineage I come, know simply that my parents are persons of foremost rank in that city. When yet very young I was sacrificed to an unendurable husband; the man I loved picked a quarrel with him and on their way to the dueling-ground, slew him from behind. ‘I am lost,’ my lover said to me, ‘I lent too much heed to vengeance, now I must flee. If you love me, Emma, come away with me; I am not poor, we shall have enough to live in peace and ease for the rest of our days.’

  “Oh, Borchamps, could I refuse a man whom my advice had undone?”

  “This murder was of your devising?”

  “Are you in a doubt, my dear, and should I disguise anything from you? I followed my lover into exile; he failed me; I had the same trick played upon him he had played upon my husband. Sophia learned of my story; she was much taken by my crime … was soon adoring my person. The development of my character pleased her, we rubbed cunts; I was initiated into all her secrets; ’tis to her I am indebted for all the principles in which I am unshakable today: although in the end I robbed her, it is no less true that I had a constant affection for the Princess. The outstanding libertinage of her mind, the warmth of her imagination, oh, the basis of my attachment to her was sound; and had it not been for the dread her final p
roposals caused me, I might perhaps have remained with her for the rest of my life.”

  “It may be, Emma, that I know you better than you know your own self: you would quickly have become tired of being no more than the pawn of the crime of others, you would have begun to want to commit it on your own behalf, and, sooner or later, you would have left that woman. Is she jealous?”

  “Frightfully.”

  “She did at least permit you women?”

  “Never any except those she involved in her pleasures.”

  “I repeat it, Emma, you would not have lived long with Sophia.”

  “Oh, my friend, I give thanks to the fate which delivered me out of her hands and into yours; let us be ever mindful of the honor that prevails amongst thieves, exert our craft upon everybody else, but never turn it against each other.”

  Pretty though Emma was, and despite the analogy between her character and mine, I was not yet sure enough of myself to be able to guarantee an exact balance in the association she desired, and I left her to interpret my silence in whatever way she chose. For indeed, was there a single crime in the world I could engage myself not to commit?

  However, our liaison grew stronger, we reached certain understandings; their first basis was the inviolable and mutual promise never to lose an occasion to do evil, to contrive such occasions whenever it was in our power; it was likewise agreed that the fruit of our common thievings and rapine would always be evenly shared.

  We had gone hardly twenty leagues when we were presented with an opportunity to put our maxims into action and our oaths to the test. We were traversing Götaland and were in the neighborhood of the town of Jönköping when a French carriage driving ahead of us struck a wheel into the rut and broke the axle. The master, whose valet was in charge of the advance horses, had nought to do but get down and wait with his baggage by the roadside till help should come. This help we offered when we drew abreast of him, and learned that the man was a French merchant going to Stockholm on business for his company, who were well-known traders. Villeneuir’s age was twenty-three and never had anyone so pretty a face; together with his charming outside he had all the candor and sincerity of his nation.

  “A thousand thanks for your kindness in offering me a seat in your carriage to the nearest post,” said he. “I am all the more obliged to you forasmuch as in this chest I am carrying objects of major importance: diamonds, gold, bills of exchange I have been commissioned by three Paris firms to deliver to their Swedish correspondents. You can imagine the state I would be in were I to have the misfortune of losing such things.”

  “Why, Sir, if that be the case we are in great good luck to be able to ensure the safety of such precious effects,” said Emma. “Will you see fit to entrust them to us and bestow upon us the honor of saving you from your predicament and your fortune from eventual marauders?”

  Villeneuil climbs in; we recommend that his postilion guard the carriage and team until the young man is able to send his valet back with fresh horses and someone to repair the damage.

  No sooner had we started off with our charming prey than Emma covertly sought my hand….

  “Agreed,” I murmured in an undertone, “but this calls for a few episodes.”

  “Assuredly,” said she.

  And on we drove.

  Having come to the little town of Vimmerby we found Villeneuil’s lackey at the posting station and sent him back in all haste after his master’s equipage.

  “You were doubtless intending to stay the night here?” I said to the young man. “We ourselves cannot, since we must endeavor to reach Stockholm as soon as possible; so we shall let you down, Sir, and take our leave of you now.”

  To this the ardent Villeneuil, who had, not without emotion, been gazing at the charms of my friend, replied with a look seeming to express regret that we should be parting so soon; spying the shadow come across his countenance, Emma quickly spoke up, saying that indeed, she did not see why it was necessary to say such an early goodbye, and that since we had been enjoying our journey together, why might we not all continue on to the capital?

  “Yes, and why not?” said I. “This then is what I would suggest: Monsieur will leave a message here at the posting station, instructing his valet to join him at the Hotel de Danemark, where we shall be stopping in Stockholm. Thereby everything is arranged and we remain together.”

  “An infinitely welcome suggestion,” says the young man, casting a sidelong glance at Emma, who by means of one just as impassioned announces that she is in no wise sorry to see him fall in with any proposal which might lead to a lessening of the distance between them.

  Villeneuil scribbles a letter, it is handed to the innkeeper, our horses are watered, then we fly on toward Stockholm. We had another thirty leagues still to cover; we arrived the following evening and ’twas only then my companion informed me of the ruse she had devised to ensure the execution of the deed we were meditating. The rascal, excusing herself under the pretext of having to attend to a need, had dismounted from the carriage at Vimmerby and quickly written out a message of her own; she had substituted it for Villeneuil’s, and in hers prescribed to the lackey that he seek his master not at the Hotel de Danemark, but at The English Arms.

  Once in Stockholm her first care, as you may readily imagine, was to appease the young merchant’s inquietudes, who wondered why his carriage was being delayed; she did everything she felt most likely to make him easy and to dazzle him at the same time. Villeneuil had tumbled head over heels in love with her; the thing became plain beyond all doubt, and Emma accordingly staged a flawless performance; Villeneuil seemed jealous of me.

  “Needless to say, you are unwilling to have this turn into an adventure out of a popular novel,” Emma observed; “you desire me, Villeneuil, but love has nothing to do with your feelings. And I, moreover, cannot become yours; nothing on earth would ever induce me to leave Borchamps; he is my husband. Therefore be content with what I can offer you, and do not aspire after what I am unable to accord; and rest assured that provided we keep inside those boundaries, my husband, a born libertine, is the man to join in our happiness: surrendering to it, we can perfectly well provide him the joy of one such lewd scene as he delights in. Borchamps has a fondness for men. You are extremely handsome, Sir; consent to avail him of your charms, only do that and I believe I can guarantee he will let you enjoy mine in peace.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I am certain of it. This complaisance—it does not go too much against the grain?”

  “Not at all. It’s a practice from college days, I find nothing strange in seeing it preserved and am myself as much given to it as anyone else.”

  “And so it but remains to make the arrangements?”

  “You have my consent to everything….”

  Whereupon the clever Emma flings open the closet in which I have been hiding. “Come along, Borchamps,” she cries, “Villeneuil offers you his ass, have supper brought up, then bar the door and let’s to our frolicking.”

  “Charming young man,” say I, stepping forth from concealment and thrusting my tongue into the traveler’s mouth, albeit penetrated by the desire to kill him once I have fucked him, “your accommodation moves me. And as a matter of fact, is this not a very simple sort of transaction? I cede you my wife, you lend me your behind, why refrain from happiness when it may be so easily had?”

  Even as I spoke my friend was unbuttoning Villeneuil’s breeches; and if her delicate hands brought the world’s prettiest prick into view, mine just as soon discovered the most sublime ass it is possible to see. Kneeling before that heavenly furniture, I was carried utterly away, and I would perhaps still be licking it, sucking it, had my dear Emma not called my attention away from it to have me admire the exquisite member wherewith our prey was provided in front. No sooner have I taken that superb engine in charge than I present him an ass which is burning from the desire to possess it.

  “Oh, Villeneuil!” I cried, “deign to begin with me; th
ose charms you covet,” I went on, nodding toward Emma’s, “shall be yours directly you have rendered yourself master of my ass; such is the price of their having, they’ll not be yours save you pay it.”

  I am fucked; that was all Villeneuil’s reply. I lift my mistress’ skirts for him, he fondles her, he kisses her while fucking me; unable to cope with his passions, the animal quits me to snap his dart into Emma’s panting cunt. Seeing his bum well inside my reach, I leap upon it and sodomize him to avenge the affront he has just offered me; he discharges; I waylay him as he retires from Emma’s cunt; finding him still stiff enough for that, I clap him into my anus again, embugger Emma, and sweetest ecstasy crowns our pleasure anew; we begin again. Villeneuil encunts my friend, I embugger him; the whore flopped and thrashed about between the two of us for nearly two hours; Villeneuil sticks her ass, I her cunt, I refuck Villeneuil, he refucks me back; the whole night, in a word, is passed in drunkenness and once it is dissipated worry breeds afresh.

  “Still no sign of my valet,” says Villeneuil.

  “It must be the repair of your carriage that is holding him up,” Emma replies; “there could be no misreading your message, its terms were clear; so have a little patience. Besides, have you not got your most precious effects with you? You can perfectly well take them to their destination.”

  “I shall go tomorrow,” says Villeneuil.

  And as he was much spent from the pleasures of the night before, he went early to bed.

  Once he lay in the arms of sleep, I turned to Emma and said: “The time has come. Either we act now or this fellow’s immense riches slip from our grasp.”

  “Ah, my friend, we are in a hotel, what shall we do with the corpse?”

  “Cut it into pieces and burn them; this man is accompanied by nobody, nobody will come here to look for him. Thanks to the precautions you took, the valet will go hunting for him at the other end of town. We’ll let him explain things in any way he wishes; he can demand inquiries, he can make them himself, I defy him to find hide or hair of his master: when we came through the city gates I gave our names to the guard and described Villeneuil as a footman in our hire. Well, we have dismissed the footman. There’s an end to it.”