The Mystified Magistrate

by Marquis de Sade

  The arrangements she made with her two lovers could not have been better: Des-Roues, a young army officer, came from four to five in the afternoon, following which a young businessman named Dolbreuse, who was uncommonly handsome, came between five-thirty and seven. These were the best times she could manage, for only during these hours was she sure not to be disturbed. Mornings she had to spend at the shop, and sometimes in the evening as well, or else her husband might show up and she would be compelled to discuss business matters with him. Moreover, Madame Dolmene had confided to one of her women friends that she rather liked having these affairs follow hard upon each other. That way, the fires of the imagination were still burning bright, she opined, and nothing was more pleasant than going from one pleasure to another without having to stoke the furnace afresh. For Madame Dolmene was a charming creature who knew how to calculate to perfection the various feelings and emotions of love. Few women were more talented than she in analyzing these nuances, from which she had determined that when all was said and done, two lovers were far better than one. As far as one’s reputation was concerned, it was more or less the same thing: one lover covered for the other, so to speak, and anyone who happened to notice could easily have mistaken the second lover for the first: they might think it was one person coming and going several times a day. And yet as far as the pleasure derived, what a difference! There was also another factor: Madame Dolmene was terribly afraid of getting pregnant, and knowing that her husband would never commit the folly of ruining her waistline, had also reasoned that with two lovers there was much less risk of what she dreaded on that score than there was with one because, as she put it, good anatomist that she was, the two fruits of love would mutually destroy each other.

  One day, the strictly established order of these two assignations got slightly mixed up, and as we shall see, the two lovers, who had never met, made each other’s acquaintance in a rather unusual albeit pleasant way. Des-Roues, lover number one, arrived a trifle behind schedule and, as if the Devil himself had had a hand in it, Dolbreuse, lover number two, happened to arrive a bit early.

  The discerning reader will readily see that the combination of these two seemingly innocuous mistakes unfortunately had to lead inevitably to an encounter: and so it did. But let us try to describe just what took place with all the modesty and restraint we can muster in a situation that in itself is extremely licentious.

  Through a strange quirk of fate—but then again, is life not filled with them?—our young army officer, a bit weary of playing the role of lover, wanted for a moment to play that of mistress. Instead of being held in the arms of his beloved, he wanted to hold her differently; in a word, what was down he turned up, and by this reversal of roles Madame Dolmene, naked as the Venus of Cal-lipygus,1 bending over the altar of love upon which the sacrifice is usually performed, was astride her lover, thus presenting to the door of the bedroom, where these ritual mysteries were being celebrated, that part of the body the Greeks worship with such devotion, portrayed so eloquently in the above-named statue, that part of the body which is undeniably lovely and to which, without looking very hard, one can find so many adoring adepts in Paris itself. Such was the position of our lovers when Dolbreuse, who had the run of the house, arrived humming a merry tune under his breath and cast his eyes on the anatomy that any decent and proper woman is never supposed to show.

  What might well have been a source of unmitigated pleasure to so many people made Dolbreuse stop in his tracks.

  “What’s this I see?” he cried out. “You traitor! Is this what you have in store for me?”

  Madame Dolmene, who at that very moment was experiencing one of those crises during which a woman’s body is far more in charge of her being than is her mind, resolved to pay him back in kind.

  “What the devil’s your problem?” she said to the second Adonis, without ceasing to give herself totally to the first. “I don’t see anything in all this that should upset you so. Don’t let us disturb you, my friend. Come, join in the fun: as you can see, there’s plenty of room for two.”

  Dolbreuse, who couldn’t refrain from laughing at his mistress’s sangfroid, decided that the best thing would be to follow her good advice without further ado and join in the fun.

  From all reports, all three had a rollicking good time.

  THE HUSBAND WHO

  TURNED PRIEST:

  A TALE OF PROVENCE

  In Provence, between the towns of Menerbe and Apt,1 in the county of Avignon, there stands a small, isolated convent called Saint-Hilaire, which is perched on the side of a hill so steep that even goats have trouble grazing there.2 This modest place serves more or less as a cesspool for all the surrounding Carmelite communities, a place to which those in its ranks who have in any way dishonored the order are summarily dispatched. Thus it is easy to imagine the pristine nature of the convent’s inhabitants: drunkards, womanizers, sodomites, and gamblers—such is the noble composition of the place: recluses who in this scandal-ridden retreat offer to God, as best they can, the hearts on which the rest of the world has turned its back. As neighbors there were but few: a château or two3 and, a scant league from the convent, the town of Menerbe itself—such were the entire surroundings of these good clerics who, despite their cassocks and their calling, did not always find their neighbors’ doors open to them.

  For some time now, Father Gabriel, one of the saints of this hermitage, had his eye on a certain woman of Menerbe whose husband, Monsieur Rodin, was, if ever there was one, a born cuckold. Madame Rodin was a petite brunette of twenty-eight, with a mischievous pair of eyes and perfectly rounded buttocks; in short, a mouthwatering dish to set before a monk. As for Monsieur Rodin, he was a decent enough fellow, going quietly about his business. He had sold cloth for a living and at one point had been a town provost.* In other words, what is commonly known as an honest burgher. Though not totally sure of the tender virtue of his better half, he was nonetheless enough of a philosopher to understand that the best way of preventing an excessive growth of horns on one’s forehead was simply to pretend they weren’t there. In his earlier days, he had studied for the priesthood. He spoke Latin as well as Cicero himself, and often enjoyed playing checkers with Father Gabriel, who, sly and clever lover-to-be that he was, knew that if it was the wife you were after, you should always insinuate yourself to some degree into the husband’s good graces. Among the sons of Elijah,4 Father Gabriel was a real stud. Looking at him, one had the impression that, if necessary, the task of repopulating the entire earth could be left entirely in his capable hands. If ever there was a begetter of children, it was Gabriel. He stood six feet tall and, it was said, was as well endowed as any mule in the region (a specialty, so we are told, of the Carmelite fathers); a swarthy fellow with eyebrows that would have put Jupiter to shame, he was possessed of a solid pair of shoulders, and a back as broad as the trunk of an alder. What woman would not have been irresistibly drawn to such a strapping, bawdy fellow? And it must be confessed that Madame Rodin did find him astonishingly seductive, endowed as he clearly was with attributes she had found sorely lacking in the decent lord and master her parents had chosen for her. As we have said, Monsieur Rodin appeared to close his eyes to everything, but that did not mean he wasn’t jealous. He did not say a word, but he was always there, including times he clearly should have been elsewhere. And yet the pear was ripe for plucking. In fact, the naive Madame Rodin had quite openly declared to her would-be lover that all she was waiting for to respond to his desires—which seemed far too ardent to resist any longer—-was the proper occasion. And on his end, Father Gabriel made it known that he was ready and willing, and certainly able … In a very brief moment when Monsieur Rodin had been obliged to step out, Father Gabriel had flashed before his charming mistress’s eyes credentials that help a woman—assuming she is still on the fence—make up her mind once and for all.

  One day Rodin had invited himself to lunch with Father Gabriel at Saint-Hilaire, suggesting that after lunch they go
hunting together. After they had downed a few good bottles of Lanerte5 wine, Father Gabriel thought that fate had finally handed him on a silver platter the occasion he had been waiting for.

  “Oh, Good God, my dear provost,” said the monk to his friend, “you don’t know how glad I am to see you. You couldn’t have come at a better time. I have a very urgent business matter to attend to, and you can be of great service to me.”

  “What’s the business matter, Father?”

  “Do you know a man in Menerbe named Renoult?”

  “Renoult the hatmaker?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “So …?”

  “Well, this wily rascal owes me a hundred ecus, and I’ve just heard a while ago that he’s on the verge of going under. In fact, he may well be on his way out of the county as we speak. It’s absolutely imperative that I go see him this minute.”

  “So what’s stopping you?”

  “My mass, damn it, my mass. I have to say mass. Oh! if only I could say the hell with mass and have the hundred ecus securely in my pocket…”

  “Do you mean to say you can’t find someone to say mass for you?”

  “Oh, spare me. There are only three of us here, and if we don’t say mass three times a day the Father Superior, who never says it himself, will report us to Rome. But there is a way you can help, my friend, if only you’re willing. It’s all in your hands.”

  “Good God, of course I’m only too willing to help. What do I have to do?”

  “I’m here alone with the sexton. The two earlier masses have already been said, and both the other monks are off the premises somewhere. No one will be any the wiser. It will be an insignificant congregation, no more than a handful of peasants and that devout little lady from the Château de *** who lives a half league from here, an angelic creature who thinks that by being devout she can atone for her husband’s escapades.6 You once told me you had studied for the priesthood, isn’t that so?”

  “Indeed I did.”

  “So you must have learned how to say mass.”

  “As well as the archbishop himself!”

  “Oh, my dear, good friend!” Father Gabriel went on, pulling Rodin to him in a bear hug, “for God’s sake, put on these robes. It’s ten o’clock now. At the stroke of eleven, say the mass, I beg of you. Our brother the sexton is a good fellow; he won’t ever betray us. If anyone in the congregation happens to notice it’s not me, we’ll tell him it’s a new monk, and those who don’t notice can stew in their ignorance.

  “I’m going to hie off to see this rogue of a hatmaker, and either I’ll have my money or he’ll pay with his life. I’ll be back in no more than two hours. Hold lunch for me; after mass, grill us a sole, fry up some eggs, open the wine. As soon as I’m back we’ll eat lunch, then off we’ll go hunting … Yes, my friend, a-hunting we will go. And I have a strong feeling that today’s hunt will be most excellent. In fact, I’ve heard tell that some horned beast has recently been seen in these parts. By God! We’ll bag him for sure, even if it brings twenty lawsuits down on our heads from the lord of the manor.”7

  “It seems like a good plan,” Rodin said, “and as a favor I’m prepared to do it. In fact, there’s almost nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Father. But tell me: wouldn’t I be committing a sin?”

  “A sin, my friend? Not at all. There might be if a priest botched a mass, but as for the words said by someone who is not ordained, it’s the same as if the words had not been uttered at all. Believe me, I’m a casuist, and there is nothing in all this that would qualify as a venial sin.”

  “But do I have to say the words?”

  “And why not? These words are meaningful only in our mouths. The power is vested in us, not in the words themselves. You see, all I’d have to do is pronounce these words over your wife’s belly for me to metamorphose the temple wherein you make your sacrifice into the body of Christ… No, no, my friend, we and we alone have the power of transubstantiation. You, Rodin, can utter the words twenty thousand times over without the Holy Spirit ever once descending. Even with us it sometimes fails completely. It’s all a matter of faith. In the words of Jesus Christ, with a bit of faith no bigger than the size of a grain of sand, one can move mountains, you know. Take me, for example: sometimes when I’m saying mass my mind wanders and I find myself thinking about the girls and women in the congregation, not about the damn little wafer I’m holding in my fingers. Do you think that in such cases I can get anything to descend? I’d be better off believing in the Koran than in stuffing my head with that sort of twaddle. In any event, your mass will for all intents and purposes be just as good as mine. So don’t give it another thought! Everything will go just fine!”

  “Good God above!” Rodin exclaimed. “I’m starved! And still two hours to go before lunch.”

  “So what’s to keep you from having a bite right now? Here: there’s plenty more where that came from.”

  “And what about the mass I’m supposed to say?”

  “Eh? Good Lord, what difference does that make? Do you think it makes any difference to Him whether He lands in a full stomach rather than an empty one? Whether the wafer lies on top of or underneath the rest of the food? I’ll be damned if it makes the slightest difference, at least in my opinion. Come, come, my friend, if I had to go to Rome every time I’ve eaten before I said mass, I’d be constantly on the road. Anyway, as I said, you’re not a priest, so you’re not bound by the rules. You’re only to give an image of the mass, not the real thing. So you can do whatever you like before or after— even screw your wife if she was here. All you have to do is emulate me. You’re not really celebrating mass or consummating the sacrifice.”

  “In that case by all means,” said Rodin. “Full speed ahead, and don’t give it another thought!”

  “Good,” said Father Gabriel, rushing out the door, leaving his friend in the good hands of the sexton. “You can count on me, my friend, I’ll be back inside two hours and then I’m all yours!”

  And with that the monk hurried on his way, pleased as punch with his little scheme.

  One can imagine that he wasted no time arriving at the doorstep of the provost’s wife. Surprised to see him, and thinking he was supposed to be with her husband, she asked him what the reason was for such an unexpected visit.

  “Let’s not waste precious minutes, my sweet,” said the monk, who was quite out of breath. “We don’t have very much time. First a glass of wine, then let’s to it without further ado.”

  “But what about my husband?”

  “He’s saying mass.”

  “Saying mass?”

  “You heard me, my love, saying mass,” said the Carmelite as he tumbled the dear lady head over heels onto the bed. “‘Tis true, my love, I’ve turned your husband into a priest, and while he is celebrating a divine mystery, let us hasten to celebrate a secular one.”

  The monk was, as noted, a sturdy fellow, and when he had hold of a woman it was hard to resist him. Moreover, his reasoning was so conclusive that he quickly won her over. Nor did he find it all that difficult to persuade a hot-blooded Provençal woman of twenty-two8 summers, so much in fact that he convinced her a second time.

  “Oh, you angel sent from heaven,” she said at long last, now thoroughly won over, “do you know what time it is? We must take our leave. If our pleasures are limited to the length of the mass then he must already have reached the missa est”

  “No, no, my dove,” said the Carmelite, armed and ready with a further argument to offer Madame Rodin, “don’t give it another thought, my pet, we have all the time in the world. Let’s have another go, my dear. These novices up there don’t go as fast as we. One more time, what do you say? I’ll bet your cuckold of a husband hasn’t even got to the part where the wafer is raised aloft.”

  But leave each other they finally did, not without promising however to see each other again and not without discussing a number of ways and means to make that happen. After which Gabriel rejoined Rodin.

&
nbsp; The good fellow had celebrated the mass as flawlessly as any bishop.

  “The only problem I ran into,” he said proudly, was the quodaures, which I flubbed slightly. At that juncture I was supposed to drink but instead I began to eat. But the sexton straightened me out…. And what about your hundred ecus, Father?”

  “I got them all right. The rascal tried to worm his way out of it, but I grabbed a pitchfork and, by God, gave him a sound thrashing—on his head, all over.”

  Once the meal was over, our two friends went out hunting as they had planned. When he got home, Rodin told his wife about the favor he had just done for Father Gabriel.