Letters From Prison (55 page)

At least tell me when I shall have them back. What difference does it make whether or not I am told? Will it inform me when I am to be released? Haven’t you already committed that same stupid blunder six or seven times, without it resulting in anything positive for me?
“But if you are informed, you will spend all you time adding and subtracting.”

Eh! what bast-ly beasts you are: what does it matter whether or not I do my figuring before or after? You can see that your fears on that score are both vapid and clumsy beyond compare, since heretofore any calculations I made were for naught. I presume that in a month give or take I shall be allowed to take a walk. I ask you now, pray tell me if whether, being made aware of that fact today and therefore figuring when that date might be, or doing the same thing a month hence, makes the slightest difference? Would you like to be further reassured? May the devil take me here and now, as I pen these words, if I have any real desire to make such calculations, and if I request that my walks be restored for any other reason than that I simply can no longer exist without some fresh air, that I no more sleep at night than I can digest the foul food here. And may lightning strike me dead and reduce me this minute to dust if I ask you when these amenities will be restored to me for any other reason than to have a decent night’s sleep for the duration of my calvary here, and not, as you assume, in order to have the certainty and the consolation of knowing when my suffering will come to an end. But as for my release, if I ponder, and if I draw therefrom no conclusion, may I be blinded on the spot.

I should very much like to know what purpose it might serve, or will have served, to thus forbid my walks, to take them away then restore them, and so on? The only reasonable thing you might possibly adduce is that, calculating the total time of my detention, you figure a certain period of it when I shall be deprived of fresh air, and you have divided up that totality in such wise that
if I am not allowed my walks presently,
or on the contrary
if I am,
then I shall somehow be able to figure out how outrageously long the rest of my detention will be. But my response to that is: all you needed to do was have my walks forbidden during the four winter months; you could have arranged for that, and I would not have been deprived during the spring and summer of something as necessary to me as life itself. But did you have to resort to numbers? Ah! numbers! ‘Twill be a matter of some debate, you’ll see. From what tribunal does that sowlike wench, to whom I am linked only because I had the
great misfortune
of marrying her daughter, believe she has the right to torment me with her numbers? But she is getting her revenge! Oh, in that case, you’re implying the minister
¹
allows people to take their revenge? Well then, if he allows her to act thus, by what right would he prevent me by taking mine? And that I fully intend to do, and
‘twill be swift and sure.

Good night, go munch your little God-on-High and assassinate your parents. As for myself, I’m off to b----o----,
²
and I have not the slightest doubt, I assure you, that when the act is over I shall have done less ill than you.

1
. Sade is referring to the government minister who supervises the prison system.

2
. In French,
b. le v.—branle le vit
—masturbate, or “beat off.” What other recourse was there for an oversexed, isolated prisoner.

73. To Mademoiselle de Rousset

April 26, 1783

I
t saddens me greatly to see from your last letter, my dear Miss,
¹
that your ideas of fair and unfair are completely muddled in your head, and that that head, in other aspects rather amusingly well organized, nonetheless lends to prejudice what it ought to accord to reason.

’Tis with the intention of setting your ideas a bit aright, of rendering them more mature, through a slight infusion of philosophy, that I am going to clarify, and without further ado pass on to you, a short discourse on the matter of laws, wherein what was only sketched out in my January letter will appear here in some greater detail. You will find therein, in considerably greater abundance, various examples of the futility of our vices and virtues culled from other peoples of the earth. From which you will more easily be able to calculate what the intrinsic value of the sum total is, and to what extent ’tis unfortunately all too true that here below all is naught but system and opinion. Haven’t you been struck by the assertions culled from the reality of these examples, wherein we are so greatly at odds with so many of our brethren? If not, I would be greatly surprised. ’Tis nonetheless from this treasure trove that our most famous writers—our Helvitiuses, our Montesquieus, our Rousseaus, etc., have drawn their most triumphant premises, because a premise is always considerably stronger when it is backed up by a proof. In which case, it is hard to refute.

Oh! my dear Fanny,
²
let those who are supposed to be exemplary show us that they truly are, and we shall have no further need of laws; let those whom chance or luck have caused to rise to positions of prominence behave irreproachably, and they shall have every right to demand the same from us.

’Tis the manifold misuse of authority on the part of the government that multiplies the vices of individuals. With what face do those who are at the head of government dare punish vice, dare demand virtue, when they themselves provide the example of every depravity on the face of the earth?

By what right does this crowd of leeches who slake their thirst on the misfortunes of the people, who, through their despicable monopolies plunge this hapless and unhappy class—whose only wrong is to be weak and poor—into the cruel necessity of losing either their honor or their life, in the latter instance allowing the poor wretches no other choice but to perish either out of poverty or on the gallows; by what right, I say, do such monsters claim to require virtue from others? What! when in order to satisfy their cupidity, their avarice, their ambition, their pride, their rapacity, their lust, I see them remorselessly sacrifice millions of their king’s subjects, why should not I, if it so pleases, sacrifice others just as they do? By what means do they make amends for the universe of their crimes? By what means do they atone for their foul deeds? Who, I ask, who gives them the right to do whatsoever they please, and to punish me, if I take it upon myself simply to do as they do?

O centuries of barbarity, O savage centuries, when the vanquished enemy served as fodder to the victor, an adornment to his triumph, no, you do not even come close to an atrocity such as this! Wretched were those who were defeated in battle, but at least you had weapons with which to defend yourselves! Today, all we have left is our tears, and we deal with them bravely.

At least these tyrants should learn how to choose their victims more fairly. They should learn not to vent their spleen upon those who know them intimately, upon those whose penetrating gaze will reach down even unto their most secret thoughts. Such hands, as soon as they have freed themselves from their chains, will tear away the blindfold of illusion, and by so doing will leave the idol on its pedestal completely exposed, so that the newly enlightened multitude can see with its own eyes the raw and disgusting matter wherewith ’tis composed.

Fanny, my dear Fanny, you no longer ask me for news of everything that is happening. You, my dear Miss, are losing interest regarding the concerns of your
Lovelace.
Yet how amused you would be if only you could see
Lady Mazan
³
during the visits she makes to her husband, if only you could see her casting a sidelong glance as long as she can at her dense
Submer
⁴
trying to make him understand that she is going to betray him; and he, who can see no farther than the end of his nose, having failed to see the glance, asks what she means by that, by that stupid outburst, which reminds me ever so much of those fat turkeys that are forced to swallow chestnuts . . . Ah! Fanny, Fanny, the mere act of recounting the story makes me laugh all over again! Lies and deception are greatly to be admired, especially when practiced by a dolt. Such a person seems to grow fatter and fatter by virtue of all the efforts made to become subtle, just as ’tis true as ever that nature and lies work poorly together.

Adieu, tomorrow I shall be dining
at Milady Folleville’s.
⁵
I trust you can join us there. We shall discuss politics, and sip a bit of punch. We shall keep to ourselves, drink sparingly, listen to no one, and share a few spiteful words.

1
. In English in the letter.

2
. Another nickname for Milli de Rousset.

3
. Madame de Sade. The Marquis de Mazan was a pseudonym Sade used during more than one of his flights abroad.

4
. The epithet, which Sade underlines, remains intriguingly elusive, though Sade is clearly referring to himself.

5
. Literally, Lady
Crazycity.
Sade’s view of Parisian high society is increasingly caustic.

74. To Mademoiselle de Rousset

[May, 1783?]

To Mademoiselle

Mademoiselle de Rousset

Wherever she may be.

Mademoiselle:

I was on the verge of responding to your letter, and you would most surely been pleased with the objects that. . . all the more so because . . . what? No, I was saying . . . you would truly have been most touched when, all of a sudden, just as I was just taking pen to hand, an accursed carillon,
^*
the sole instrument of misfortune that I can still hear within these walls, began to chime, making an infernal racket. Since a prisoner is always completely self-centered and lives in the firm belief that whatever takes place is done with him and him alone in mind, that every word uttered has a purpose—what did I do but take it into my mind that this accursed bell-ringing was speaking directly to me and was saying, very distinctly:

I pity you—I pity you,

You’re doomed to be, you must

End up as dust, as dust.

I rose to my feet in a state of indescribable fury, and all I wanted to do was rush over and beat the bell-ringer’s brains out, but then I saw to my great regret and sorrow that the
door to revenge
was not yet open. So I sat back down, took pen again in hand, and decided that what I really ought to do was respond to this knave the bell-ringer in the same spirit and tone, since I had no other choice,

So I said:

From pleasure, from joy

You must depart

My heart, my heart.

Friar, friar

Be pleased to meet

A hand that b-s, that b——s.
¹

But here—with naught but worry

My hand remains, may god be

praised,

My own best friend.

So come—do come

And with thy c—

Provide release for all that’s pent.

Half of me, half of me

Is made to be, pitilessly,

Tantalus, Tantalus.

O what a fate! o what a fate,

’Tis simply more than I can take.

’Tis killing me, ’tis killing me.

Grain untended, dies forlorn

Come fetch at least

The seeds, the seeds.

Martyr I am, martyr will be

Suffering’s my fate, that I see,

Without surcease, without surcease.

At this point I stopped, I counted, and I saw that all I had written was to the tune of a dirge. Ye gods, my friend, I cried out to myself, your mind’s as bad as that of madame la présidente; and at least as puffed up with pride as when that lady departs after a session with Madame Gourdan. I immediately set about polishing this masterpiece, which I am having sent on to you so that you can see with your own eyes, Mademoiselle, how I am coming along and how my wit is increasing by leaps and bounds.

By the by, Mademoiselle, send me some of those wonderful little Provençal green peas; this year ’tis impossible for me to eat any, Dom Sebastien de Quipuscoa
²
has placed an embargo on little green peas— ergo either I have to forgo eating any at all or eat those served the cart-men and carriers—last year it was cherries that were forbidden, but he didn’t profit in the slightest from that little game because I was paying for it; he put in a special request with madame la présidente for permission this year to make a
slight profit
on what is served me—oh! the poor beggar doesn’t miss a trick, of that you may be sure—and when one lodges a complaint, his response is that ’tis too
trifling
for him to bother with.