The 120 Days of Sodom (14 page)

    Here a bell was heard struck in the salon; it announced supper. Whereupon Duclos, generally applauded for the auspicious little beginnings she had made, descended from the stage, and, after having made a few adjustments to repair the disorder all four of them seemed to be in, the friends turned their thoughts to new pleasures and hastened to find out what Comus held in store for them.

    This meal was to be served by the eight little girls, naked. Having been wise enough to leave the auditorium a few minutes early, they stood ready the moment the masters entered these fresh surroundings. The table companions were to be twenty in number: the libertine quartet, the eight fuckers, the eight little boys. But, still furious with Narcisse, the Bishop wished to veto his presence at the banquet, and as it was perfectly natural that they make allowances for one another's whims and observe a mutual tolerance, no one raised his voice to contest the sentence, and the poor little simpleton was confined alone in a dark closet to await that stage in the orgies when perhaps Monseigneur might be inclined to make friends with him again. The wives and the storytellers, dining apart, had concluded their meal in great haste in order to be ready for the orgies, the elders directed the movements of the eight little girls, and dinner was begun.

    This meal, much heavier than the one which had been eaten earlier in the day, was served with far greater opulence and splendor. I began with a shellfish soup and hors d'oeuvres composed of twenty dishes; twenty entrees came on next, and soon gave way to another twenty lighter entrees made up entirely of breasts of chicken, of assorted game prepared in every possible way. This was offset by a serving of roasts; everything of the rarest imaginable was brought on. Next arrived some cold pastry, soon afterward twenty-six entremets of every description and form. The table was cleared, and what had just been removed was replaced by a whole array of cold and hot sugared pastries. Dessert finally appeared: a prodigious number and variety of fruits, though the season was winter, then ices, chocolate, and the liqueurs which were taken at table. As for the wines, they varied with each service: Burgundy accompanied the first; two kinds of Italian wine came with the second and third; Rhine wine with the fourth; with the fifth, Rhфne wines; sparkling champagne with the sixth; two kinds of Greek wine with the other two courses. Spirits were prodigiously roused, for, as distinct from lunch, one was not granted permission during dinner to take the waitresses to task, or with that same severity; these creatures, being the very quintessence of what the company had to offer, had to be treated rather more sparingly but, on the other hand, the friends indulged in a furious round of impurities with them.

    Half-drunk, the Duc said he would not touch another drop, from now it was Zelmire's urine or nothing, and he drained two large glasses of it which he obtained by having the child climb upon the table and squat over his plate. "Why, there's nothing to drinking weak young piss," said Curval and, calling Fanchon to him: "Come hither, venerable bitch, I'd slake my thirst at the very source." And thrusting his head between the old crone's legs, he greedily sucked up the impure floods of poisonous urine she darted into his stomach. And now their words grew heated, they argued various philosophical problems and considered several questions relating to manners; I leave it to the reader to imagine the purity of those discourses and the loftiness of their moralizing. The Duc undertook an encomium of libertinage, and proved that it was natural, and that the more numerous were its extravagances, the better they served the creator of us all. His opinion was generally acclaimed, enthusiastically applauded, and they rose to go and put into practice the doctrines which had just been established. Everything was ready in the orgy salon: the women were there, already naked, lying upon piles of pillows on the floor, strewn promiscuously amongst the young catamites who had hastened away from table a little after dessert. Our friends reeled in; two elders undressed them, and they fell upon the flock like wolves assailing a sheepfold. The Bishop, whose passions had been cruelly irritated by the obstacles they had encountered of late, laid hands on Antinoьs' sublime ass while Hercule skewered him, and vanquished by this latest sensation and by the important and doubtless so much desired service Antinoьs was rendering him, he finally spat out streams of semen so hard driven and so pungent he swooned in ecstasy. Bacchus' wiles had spellbound senses glutted from excess, numbed from luxury; our hero passed from his faint to a sleep so profound he had to be carried to his bed. The Duc was having a marvelous time. Curval, recollecting what Martaine had offered the Bishop, stuffed her while he got his own ass stoppered. A thousand other horrors, a thousand other infamies accompanied and succeeded those, and our three indomitable champions - for the Bishop no longer was of this world - our valorous athletes, I say, escorted by the four night-toiling fuckers who had not been at the revels but who now came to fetch them, retired with the same wives who had shared their couches during the story time. Luckless victims of their brutality, upon whom it is only too likely they showered more outrages than caresses and who, it is equally probable, inspired in them more disgust than pleasure…

    Such were the events that transpired on the first day.

    

    The company rose at the customary hour. The Bishop, entirely recovered from his excess, and who, waking at four in the morning, was deeply shocked to find they had let him go to bed unaccompanied, had summoned Julie and his fucker for the night to come and occupy their posts. They answered the call instantly, and in their arms the libertine plunged back into the thick of new impurities.

    When, in keeping with regulations, breakfast had been taken in the girls' quarters, Durcet went on his rounds, and, notwithstanding all the arguments he heard, further delinquencies appeared to his eyes. Michette was guilty of one kind of fault and Augustine, whom Curval had ordered to keep herself throughout the day in a certain state, was found in the absolutely opposite state; she declared she had forgotten, made a hundred apologies, and promised it would not happen again, but the quadrumvirate was inexorable, and both names were inscribed on the list of punishments to be executed come the first Saturday.

    Highly dissatisfied with all these little girls' ineptness in the art of masturbation, annoyed by the effects of this awkwardness with which he had been obliged to put up the previous evening, Durcet proposed that one hour in the morning be set aside for giving them lessons, and that the friends take turns rising an hour early, the exercise period being set from nine until ten - one friend would rise at nine every morning, I say, to participate in the training. It was decided that the supervisor would be seated comfortably in a chair in the middle of the harem and that each little girl, led forth and guided by Duclos, the best frigger in the castle, would demonstrate upon the friend, would direct the little girl's hand, her motion, would explain the intricacies of tempo, how much and how little speed was required and how that depended on the patient's condition, would also explain what attitudes and postures were most conducive to the operation's success; furthermore, punishments were fixed for her who at the end of a fortnight, despite the lessons, should fail of perfect proficiency in this art. It was emphasized to the little girls that, pursuant to the good ecclesiastic's doctrines, the glans was to be kept uncovered at all times, and that the hand not in action was meanwhile continually to be employed exciting the adjacent areas, this in keeping with the particular fancy of the patient.

    The financier's proposal pleased everyone; Duclos was informed, she accepted her appointment, and that same day she set up a frigging dummy upon which, in their spare time, the little girls could exercise their wrists and maintain the necessary degrees of agility and suppleness. Hercule was given the same instructorship in the boys' chamber; they being, as always, more skilled in this technique than the girls, because in the case of boys it is merely a question of doing for others what they do unto themselves, a week was ample time to turn them into the most delicious corps of friggers you could ever hope to meet with. On this particular morning, not one of them was found at fault, and Narcisse's behavior of the previous day having brought about the refusal of all permissions, the chapel was empty save for Duclos, a pair of fuckers, Julie, Therиse, Cupidon, and Zelmire. Curval was stiff as a ramrod, Adonis had inspired an astonishingly high temperature in him when, that morning, he had visited the boys, and it was generally thought he would erupt while watching Therиse and the two fuckers manage their affairs; but he kept a grip upon himself.

    The midday meal was the usual affair, but the President, having drunk a singular amount and frolicked about even more while eating, became inflamed all over again when coffee was served by Augustine and Michette, Zelamir and Cupidon, directed by old Fanchon, whom out of whimsy they had commanded to be as naked as the children. From this contrast Curval's new lubricious furor was born, and he gave himself over to some choice extravagances at the expense of Zelamir and the duenna; this riotous conduct finally cost him his fuck.

    The Duc, pike aloft, closed in upon Augustine; he brayed, he swore, he waxed unreasonable, and the poor little thing, all atremble, retreated like a dove before the bird of prey ready to pounce upon it. He limited himself, however, to a few libertine kisses, and was content to give her an introductory lesson in advance of the ones she was to begin the following morning. The two others, less animated, having already started their naps, our two champions imitated them, and the quartet did not wake until six o'clock, the hour when the storytelling began in the throne room.

    All the previous day's quatrains had been altered with respect to both subjects and dress, and our friends had these couch companions: the Duc shared his niche with Aline, the Bishop's daughter and consequently his own niece; beside the Bishop lay his sister-in-law, Constance, the Duc's wife and Durcet's daughter; Durcet was with Julie, the Duc's daughter, the President's wife; that he might be roused from sleep and roused to more, Curval had with him Adelaide, Durcet's wife, one of the creatures in this world it gave him the greatest pleasure to tease because of her virtue and her piety. He opened up with a few scurrile jests and low pranks, and having ordered her throughout the seance to maintain a posture that sorted well with his tastes, but which the poor woman found very tiresome to maintain, he threatened her with all his anger might produce were she to budge or give him a moment's inconvenience. Everything being ready, Duclos ascended the platform and resumed her narration in this wise:

    Three days having elapsed since my mother had appeared at the house, her husband, far more uneasy about his belongings and his money than about her, took it into his head to enter her room, where it was their custom to hide their most precious possessions; and what was his astonishment when, instead of what he was seeking, he found nothing but a note, written by my mother, advising him to make the best of his loss because, having decided to leave him forever, and having no money of her own, she had been forced to take all she had been able to make off with. As for the rest, he was to blame himself and his hard use of her for her departure and for her having left him with two daughters who were, however, certainly worth as much as and possibly more than what she had removed. But the old gaffer was far from judging equal what now he had and what he had just lost, and the dismissal he graciously gave us, together with the request we not even sleep in the house that night, was convincing evidence some discrepancy existed between his way of reckoning and my mother's.

    Not much afflicted by a compliment which gave us full liberty to launch forth unimpeded into the little mode of life that was beginning to please us so much, my sister and I thought only to collect our few belongings and to bid as swift a farewell to our dear stepfather as he had seen fit to bid us. Without the loss of a minute, we withdrew, and while waiting to decide how best to come to grips with our new destinies, we took lodgings in a small room in the neighborhood. Our first thoughts turned to what might be our mother's fate and whereabouts; we had not the least doubt but that she had gone to the monastery, having decided to live secretly with some father, or that she was being kept somewhere in the vicinity, and this was the opinion we held, without being unduly concerned, when a friar from the monastery brought us a note that bore out our conjectures. The substance of the note was that we would be very well advised, immediately night had fallen, to come to the monastery and speak to the Father Superior, who was the note's author; he would wait for us in the church until ten o'clock and would lead us to the place presently occupied by our mother, whose actual happiness and peace he would gladly have us share. He very energetically urged us not to fail to come, and above all to conceal our movements with all possible care; for it was essential our stepfather know nothing of what was being done in behalf of both our mother and ourselves. My sister, fifteen years old at the time and hence more clever and more reasonable than I, who was but nine, after having dismissed the bearer of the letter and given him the reply that she would ponder its contents, admitted she found all these maneuvers very peculiar indeed.

    "Francon," says she, "let's not go. There's something wrong with it. If this were an honest proposal, why wouldn't Mother have either added a few words or made some kind of sign. Father Adrien, her best friend, left there almost three years ago, and since then she's only dropped in at the monastery while passing by, and hasn't had any other regular intrigue there. What would have led her to choose this place for hiding? The Father Superior isn't her lover and never has been. I know, it's true she has amused him two or three times, but he's not the man to lose his head over a woman for that slender reason: he's even more inconstant and brutal to women once his caprice is satisfied. And so why would he have taken such an interest in our mother? There's something queer about it, I tell you. I never liked that old Superior; he's wicked and harsh, and he's a brute. Once he got me into his room, there were three more of them there, and after what happened to me then I swore I'd never set foot in the place again. If you take my advice, you'll leave all those nasty monks alone. There's no reason why I shouldn't tell you so now, Francon, I have an acquaintance, a good friend, I dare say; her name is Madame Guerin, I've been going to her place for the past two years, and in all that time not one week has gone by without her arranging something nice for me. But none of those six-penny fucks like the ones at the monastery; I get at least three crowns from every one. Here, there's proof of it," my sister continued, showing me a purse containing more than ten louis, "you can see I'm able to make my own way in the world. Well, my advice to you is to do what I do. Guerin will take you on, I'm sure of it, she got a glimpse of you a week ago when she came to fetch me for a party, and she told me to make you a proposal, and she said that, young as you are, she'd always find some way of placing you. Do like me, I tell you, and we'll be well off in no time. Now, that's all I've got to say to you; I'll pay your expenses for tonight, but from then on don't count on me, little sister. Each for himself in this world. That's what I say. I've earned that money with my body and my fingers, do the same yourself. And if you have any qualms, go talk it over with the devil, but don't come looking for me; well, I've told what I think, and I'll tell you now that I'd sooner stick my tongue two feet out than give you even a glass of water for nothing. As for Mother, I don't care what's happened to her, as a matter of fact, even if it's the worst I'm perfectly delighted, and all I hope is that the whore is far enough away so I'll never see her again for the rest of my life. I know all the things she did to prevent me from getting anywhere in the trade, and all the while she was giving me that fine advice, the bitch was doing things three times worse. So, may the devil take her and above all not bring her back, that's all I care."