Letters From Prison (27 page)

Oh! ’tis a fine mess we have here, dear friend! Good God, if only you could see it for yourself! But of such shenanigans and of my health who will ever give you an accurate report? Ah! perish all thought of ever finding out the truth! Can you hope to get it from this kind of automaton who, twice a day, brings me food and drink as if to a dog in its kennel? Certainly not! The rascal to whom I’m worth more than forty pence a day would be the last person to let you know that I am at my wit’s end here and that ’tis killing me by slow degrees. Do you think you’ll find out from His Highness the
Chief Jailer?
Even less likely. Ah! Good Lord, since no one is going to make the slightest move to have them all released until word gets out that everyone is at the end of their rope, we are in a position to do some fine business! I sometimes imagine I can hear him say:

“You bore me to tears, Sir, with all this talk of yours about human kindness; I have a hard time feeling sorry for you. I, Sir, I need to drink, eat, sleep, and have myself . . . shaved. I am the youngest son in my family,
slightly depraved,
and to whom this post was given in the days when everything went to pimps, and because that’s what I was like any other. I got to where I am by the sweat of my brow, and in times as perilous for us as these, considering that the State is no longer honored as it deserves to be, you want me to subject myself to that ridiculous human kindness and report to your family on matters that might be of interest to them and so deprive me of my few remaining pleasures! Ah! you may be sure I shall do no such thing.”

In short, the upshot of all this is that your ever-witty présidente has been screwing around full-go twice over; one, the Langeacqueries
³
can at least be taken care of by payoffs, but this one is much worse, since keeping one here is the source of one’s income. Oh, the decent woman, the good woman, the ingenious woman, that présidente of yours! What a sharp mind, what a genius, how adept she is at making things work! Sometimes when I reflect upon that woman’s vast capacities—I mean her genius—I am simply stunned. How quick she is to foresee things once they have happened! What a talent she has for averting calamities when they have already occurred! . . . ’Tis an obsession with her, a veritable innate predilection! What that woman wants is not to prevent evil, ’tis that it come to pass and she then has the pleasure of taking her revenge afterward . . . Oh, she is the most generous of souls! She reminds me of that madman in Athens of whom Plutarch speaks, who stood in the street watching his house burn. “What, don’t you want to save your house?” people shouted at him. “I’d like nothing less,” he replied coldly. “I want the house to burn down so that I may have the pleasure of punishing those who set it on fire.” He and your mother are like two peas in a pod. Hark back upon almost all the events in the history of that prude’s behavior toward me, her falsehoods, her ruses, her infamous maneuvers, both past and
present,
and you will see whether ’tis not the same thing, word for word.

Oh, that reminds me, kindly tell me what this little
virtually 
stands for in your remark, “virtually everything at home remains in the same state in which I left it.” I am most curious to know what that means. Is it one more witty comment from your
lovely little mother?
Oh, I’m sure it is, but it won’t work, my darling présidente, it simply will not work. You already saw it didn’t work once before; it won’t work the second time either. All your efforts on that front are in vain . . . ’Tis an affair of six months at the most. . . Don’t you know how the spider spins its web? And this will be better, for your plan was shapeless, unpolished, a kind of rough canvas, what we painters call a
rough sketch.
’Tis the froth which bubbles out of the pot before you get the clear soup. If you had been a trifle more patient you might have ended up with something
noble,
something
fine,
something
clean
. . . But you prefer that your work bear a close resemblance to yourself, don’t you? That is why you are so eagerly keen for the kill. My self-respect suffers therefrom, but, my beloved présidente, I gladly sacrifice it to your tastes.

Another question that I should like you to resolve for me at long last, my dear friend—for, despite my insolent digressions, ’tis always to you this letter is addressed—and that is to tell me once and for all how ’tis possible to resort again and again to the same old things, the same maneuvers, the same old methods, when one has so clearly seen that they all failed miserably the first time? What good did Pierre-Encize do me? What good did Miolans do me? What good did my first detention in Vincennes do me?
⁴
All it did was make my temper and my mind worse, heat up my bile, my brain, my temperament, lead me back into the same errors, for the simple reason that ’tis part and parcel of my being never to admit or to say that punishment affects me other than to make me worse. Once that is clear, once that is acknowledged, once ’tis understood I would rather perish than prove the contrary, and that, accordingly, if a kinder and better means be employed in dealing with me, one can turn me into whatever one would like me to be, why then always resort to the same old thing? . . . Because S[artine] must pay his wh-, right? Of course!

1
. Madame de Montreuil and her advisers.

2
. The warden, Monsieur de Rougemont. When Sade felt ill and called for the doctor, he was informed that his request would have to be approved by the warden, who had left Vincennes at six in the morning.

3
. Sade refers to the shenanigans of Madame de Langeac, a friend of Madame de Montreuil.

4
. The three prisons where Sade was incarcerated for libertinage and outrage to morals in his younger days.

26. To Madame de Sade

[May, 1780]

I
find nothing in the world as enjoyable, nothing quite so entertaining, as those mechanical fools who are so idiotic, so dull-witted they are unable to come up with anything better when they refuse a request than:
“That’s never been done, I’ve never in all my life seen it done.”
In the name of God, if chance ever puts you in contact with such louts, tell them as follows: “Stupid animal that thou art, if extraordinary things make such an impression upon thee, do nothing amazing thyself, for if thou dost not want to be amazed, thou must not amaze others.”

That’s never been done here, and I have never seen it happen, for example,
’tis as if at the age of eight and sixty years one donned an apple-green coat and had one’s hair curled with six rows of curls.

That’s never been done here, and I have never seen it happen, for example,
is to prostitute one’s own wife in order to take in prisoners, and to feed as one’s own children one has never had the faculty of fathering.

That’s never been done here, and I have never seen it happen, for example,
is to take a filthy and disgusting turnkey and turn him into one’s catamite, and to place such trust in the aforesaid turnkey as to make him both one’s mistress and one’s reader, both one’s scribe and one’s intimate confidant.

Rougemont, my old friend, when one carries strangeness to such an extreme one must not be surprised by other peoples’ minor eccentricities, unless one is resigned to being taken for a f-beast. But that is not what terrifies you, is it? Upon that score your mind was made up long ago; and this worthy resignation on your part is the only virtue I see in you.

Now that I have absolute certainty, through your very own admissions, that the handwriting is counterfeited, you will understand if I neither sign nor send anything further. When dealing with rogues and scoundrels, one must constantly be on one’s guard. You may be sure I shall be on mine. In Provence, do whatever you like:
seize, loot, trim, clip away to your heart’s desire.
No matter what you do, once I know for sure ’tis you who have done it, I shall approve it and applaud it, because ’tis only you I trust. But also that trust is total: it could not be greater.

Send me everything I ask for by the first of June without fail. I absolutely cannot shorten the list except for the six jars of jam. If need be, two will suffice until fruit is in season. On Thursday evening, or Friday morning at the very latest, the campaign volume on the military campaign and
Voyage de Ceylan
will be downstairs in the office.

If this supplement or postscript displeases, at least let this half-sheet go through: ’tis essential to my everyday business concerns.
¹

1
. This remark is for the censor.

27. To Madame de Sade

[Early June, 1780]

H
ere we are back to frightful winter again. I advise you to take out all your warm clothes again, if perchance you have changed out of them, for this most uncommon drop in temperature after the warm weather we’d been having can only most certainly result in people’s falling ill if they fail to take proper precautions in keeping with this unseasonable weather. As for me, I know that my poor chest is suffering from it, the details of which I shall spare you, knowing as I do how
powerful 
an interest you take in such matters. The result of the doctor’s visit was an herb tea wherewith I’m to stuff myself and which, I am now in a position to affirm only too well, will have no other effect than to upset my stomach altogether. However, what I was able to piece together from his embarrassed remarks to me (and could it be anything but embarrassed, speaking as he was with a pack of spies on every side and also because when all is said and done he was far more concerned about the person who profits from my sufferings than about the patient he had come to relieve!), from all this, I say, one thing I was able to piece together was, that only the waters and plentiful exercise, two things which are of course absolutely impossible, as you know, would be of any help to me, given my necessity
to feed my little pigs.

And so ’tis clear that prison not only has ruined my health but also prevents me from taking the necessary steps to improve it. Shall we now examine its moral effects? All right, you may be absolutely convinced,
you and yours,
that ’tis the poison most certain to wreak havoc on the soul, to make sure the qualities of character are actually destroyed, that except for
those who get their living therefrom or who thereby pay their mistresses,
there is not a person in the world who will fail to tell you that ’tis never by severing a person’s every tie with society you will succeed in inculcating a respect for those ties, and that the remedy, in a word, may well serve to worsen, but surely never improve, anyone.

I remember a time when madame your mother was fully convinced of these principles: but in those days she was not as yet an affiliate and she had not yet learned (for experience always does teach us something) that ’tis far better to sell or sacrifice one’s son-in-law and one’s grandchildren than to deprive oneself of the single honor of being affiliated with the police
on the distaff side
and to be able to say, along with
the bumbailiffs, officers of the watch
and
ladies of the bordello:
“I’m here in the name of the crown court.” I remember. In those happy days of which I speak that praiseworthy passion was still in its early stages, the effects of which have since proved to be so brilliant. ‘Twas a profound admiration for sublime official decrees that emanated from law courts, and especially for that kind of pretentious charlatanism that claims omniscience, which fools and provincials never fail to find so amazing . . . But what progress we have made since then! ’Tis our own flesh and blood we now want to be our victims and, all puffed up with pride triumphant, we ourselves lead them to the altar, their brows adorned with the bandages of infamy, which our stupidity has placed there.

How wonderful! Let us then hear from these unfortunate victims, since hear them we must and since ’tis set in stone that no matter what government we live under, the best of all laws will always be that of the strongest! But at least let there be some variation; for you will perforce agree with me that ’tis difficult when the victims are always the same. I agree with you that
the little larder
must always be kept filled, for otherwise how would one maintain one’s
carriage
and one’s
dressing-gown?
. . . Even so, let there be some differentiation in the choice of victims! Ah! I hear your response,
“’Tis not on every street corner you come across mothers as idiotic as mine, and who, although already caught twice, are absurd enough to let themselves be caught a third time. You have to take whatever you can get. You need about fifteen, don’t you, to fill your quota?
And where the devil do you expect us to find, with the desired variation, sixty or eighty families per year in a state of such a stupor as to imitate my mother?”

Yes, my dear friend, I understand you very well, and with a complete feeling of resignation in the face of such sublime arguments, I shall cry out as did the Prophet King:
Quot sunt dies judicium? Quando facies de persequentibus me:
judicium? (Psalm 118)

[Included with this letter was the following request for items, dated June 15, 1780:]