The 120 Days of Sodom (62 page)

    42. At the beginning he would gently burn various parts of the body with a candle flame, more recently he has begun to hurl women into a glowing furnace where they are consumed instantly.

    Durcet, his prick very stiff and who during the storytelling has ventured forth twice to flog Adelaide awaiting him at her pillar, proposes to lay her lengthwise in the fire, and after she has had sufficient time to quake over an idea Messieurs would be nothing loath to put into execution, they burn her nipples for the sake of their convenience; Durcet, her husband, burns one, her father, Curval, burns the other. This exciting operation causes both to discharge.

    THE 9TH. 43. In his young years a pin-pricker, he has got himself a more formidable weapon: discharges while thrice driving a dagger into the woman's heart.

    44. He used to adore burning gunpowder in the cunt, but has since improved his passion: he attaches a slender but attractive girl to a large rocket, the fuse is ignited, the rocket ascends, then returns to earth with the girl still attached.

    45. The same personage who put gunpowder in all the orifices of a woman's body, now wedges cartridges into them; they explode simultaneously, sending the members flying in every direction.

    46. First passion: he enjoyed secreting an emetic in the girl's food, unbeknownst to her; his second passion: he mixes a certain powder with her snuff, or sprinkles it on some flowers, she inhales and straightway falls dead.

    47. First passion: he would flog her breasts and neck; refinement thereof: he aims a blow of a crowbar at her throat, it fells her forever.

    48. Duclos spoke of him on the 27th of November, Martaine on the 14th of January (verify the dates): the whore enters and shits before the rake, he scolds her; brandishing a whip, he pursues her, she thinks to take refuge in a loft. A door opens, she spies a little stairway, believes she will be safe, rushes up the steps, but one of them gives way and she plunges into a large vat of boiling water; she dies, scalded, drowned, asphyxiated. His tastes are previously to have the woman shit and to lash her while she is doing so.

    Curval had solicited and obtained shit from Zelmire that morning; now, directly the aforementioned tale is concluded, the Duc demands further shit from her. She cannot produce any; she is promptly condemned to have her ass pricked with a golden needle until it is covered with blood; in that it is the Duc whose interests have suffered as a result of her refusal, he is the one who recovers damages.

    Curval requests shit of Zephyr; the latter replies, saying that the Duc had him shit that morning. This the Duc denies, Duclos is called to give evidence, she supports Blangis' contention even though it is false. Consequently, Curval has the right to punish Zephyr, despite the fact he is the Duc's bardash, just as the Duc has punished Zelmire, who is Curval's wife. The President flogs Zephyr until the lad streams blood, then tweaks his nose six times; the tweaks fetch forth more blood, and that makes the Duc roar with laughter.

    THE 10TH. Desgranges says that she is now going to discuss murders of imposture and duplicity in which the manner is of principal significance; that is to say, the murder itself is merely incidental. Wherewith, says she, poisonings will be presented first.

    49. A man whose caprice consisted in bum-fuckery and in no other kind, now envenoms all his wives; he is presently on his twenty-second. Never does he fuck them save in the ass, nor have they ever been deflowered otherwise.

    50. A bugger invites a number of friends to a banquet, and with each succeeding course a few of them are stricken with stomach cramps which prove fatal.

    51. Duclos spoke of him on the 26th of November, Martaine on the 10th of January; he is a bugger, pretends that it is relief he is giving the poor, distributes food, but 'tis poisoned.

    52. A treacherous bugger regularly employs a drug which, sprinkled on the ground, very wonderfully kills whosoever walks thereupon; he sprinkles it about rather frequently, and over wide areas.

    53. A bugger, equally skilled in alchemy, uses another substance which causes death after inconceivable torture; the death throes last a good two weeks, and no doctor has ever been able to diagnose or treat the ailment. He takes the keenest pleasure in paying you a visit while you are in the toils.

    54. A sodomizer of men and women makes use of yet another powder which deprives you of your senses and renders you as if dead. And such you are believed to be, you are buried, and full of despair, you die in your coffin, into which you have no sooner been placed than you regain consciousness. He endeavors to find the exact place you have been buried, to place an ear to the ground and listen for a few screams; if indeed he hears your cries, 'tis enough to make him swoon with pleasure. He thuswise slew part of his family.

    While joking and making merry that evening, Messieurs give Julie a powder concealed in her food, which causes her frightful cramps; they advise her that she is poisoned, she believes it, she wails, is beside herself. While watching her convulsions, the Duc has Augustine frig him directly opposite Julie. Augustine has the great misfortune of allowing the repuce to slip back over the Duc's glans, and that is something which displeases the Duc extremely: he was just about to discharge, the girl's carelessness prevents it. He declares he is going to cut off one of that buggress' fingers and, as good as his word, does so, slicing a digit from the hand that failed him, and while cutting, he has his daughter Julie, still persuaded she is poisoned, crawl up to him and complete his discharge. Julie is cured that same evening.

    THE 11TH. 55. A consummate bugger would frequently dine at the home of friends or acquaintances and would never fail to poison the individual his host cherished most dearly amongst all living creatures. He employed a powder which finally slew after causing two days of atrocious agony.

    56. An erstwhile breast-abuser has perfected his passion: he poisons infants being suckled by their nurses.

    57. He once used to love to receive back into his mouth milk enemas he had injected into his partner's rectum; his later passion: he administers toxic injections which kill while causing horrible spasms and colics.

    58. A crafty bugger of whom she will have occasion to say more on the 13th and the 26th, used to love to set fire to poorhouses, and would always see to it that a quantity of persons were consumed, above all children.

    59. Another bugger liked to cause women to die in childbirth; he would come to pay his respects, bringing along a powder whose odor would cause spasms and convulsions ending in death.

    60. The man to whom Duclos referred during her twenty-eighth evening enjoys watching a woman bear a child; he murders it immediately it emerges from the womb and within full view of the mother, and does so while feigning to caress it.

    That evening, Adelaide is first dealt a hundred lashes by each friend, and then, when she is well bloodied, shit is demanded of her; she gave some that morning to Curval, who swears 'tis not so. Consequently, they burn her two breasts, the palm of each hand, spill drops of molten sealing wax upon her thighs and belly, fill her navel therewith, burn her pubic hair after having doused it with cognac. The Duc attempts to pick a quarrel with Zelmire, and the President severs a finger from each of her hands. Augustine is scourged about the cunt and asshole.

    THE 12TH. Messieurs assemble in the morning and decide that the four governesses, who are no longer of much use to the society and whose functions the four storytellers shall henceforth be perfectly able to carry out, may just as well provide the society with a little amusement; Messieurs therefore decree that the elders shall be martyrized one after another, the first sacrifice being scheduled for the evening of that same day. The four storytellers are invited to replace the elders; they accept upon condition they shall suffer no ill-treatment. Messieurs promise to subject them to none.

    61. The three friends, d'Aucourt, the abbot, and Desprиs, of whom Duclos spoke on the 12th of November, are now living abroad and still enjoying each other's company, and this is one of their common passions: they require a woman whose pregnancy is in its eighth or begun its ninth month, they open her belly, snatch out the child, burn it before the mother's eyes, and in its place substitute a package containing sulphur and quicksilver, which they set afire, then stitch the belly up again, leaving the mother thus to perish in the midst of incredible agonies, while they look on and have themselves frigged by the girl they have with them. (Verify the girl's name.)

    62. He was fond of depucelating, has gradually broadened his scope of activity: he has a great number of children by several women, then, when they reach the age of five or six, he depucelates them, boys and girls alike, and directly he has fucked them, throws them into a blazing oven. Or he sometimes throws them in at the same moment he discharges.

    63. The man Duclos mentioned on the 27th of November, Martaine on the 15th of January, and she herself on the 5th of February, whose taste was to play at hanging, to see hanged, etc., this same fellow, I say, hides some of his personal effects in his domestics' wardrobes and declares he has been robbed. He strives to have his servants hanged, and if he succeeds goes to watch the spectacle; if not, he locks them in a room and strangles them to death. While operating, he discharges.

    64. An inveterate shit-lover, he of whom Duclos spoke on the 14th of November, has a specially prepared commode at his home; he engages his intended victim to sit down upon it, and once the victim is seated, the seat buckles, gives way, and precipitates the sitter into a very deep ditch filled with shit, in which evironment she is left to die.

    65. A man to whom Martaine made reference and who would amuse himself watching a girl fall from a ladder, has perfected his passion thus (but find out which man):

    He situates the girl upon a little trestle on the edge of a deep ditch filled with water; on the farther side of it is a wall which seems to be all the more inviting, what for the ladder leaning against it. But to reach the ladder she must cross the moat, and she becomes all the more willing to spring into the water as the fire burning behind the trestle moves gradually closer to her. If she hesitates too long, the fire will reach her, consume her, and as she does not know how to swim, she will be drowned if she plunges into the water. While she is considering what to do, the fire approaches, and she finally elects to struggle with a different element and endeavor to get to the wall. It frequently happens that she drowns; if so, the game is over. But if by good fortune she reaches the other bank and then the ladder, and starts to climb it, toward the top there is a rung which breaks beneath her weight and she drops into a hole covered over with a thin layer of earth, and the hole contains a bed of live coals upon which she perishes. Hard by the scene, the libertine observes it with the keenest interest, frigging himself industriously.

    66. The same man Duclos spoke of on the 29th of November, the same who bumwise depucelated Martaine when a little girl of five, and also the same with whom Desgranges announces she will conclude her narrations (the hell episode), this individual, I say, embuggers the prettiest girl of sixteen or eighteen the procuress can find for him. Sensing his crisis about to arrive, he releases a spring, upon the bare and completely unadorned neck of the girl descends a machine furnished with steel teeth; the machine begins to move laterally and gradually saws through the pinioned neck while the libertine occupies himself with completing his discharge. Which always takes a very long time.

    That very evening Messieurs discover the intrigue involving Augustine and one of the subaltern fuckers; he has not yet fucked her, but to attain his ends has suggested that they both escape from the castle, and he has outlined to her a very easy way to do so. Augustine confesses that she was about to grant him what he sought from her in order to save herself from a place where she believes her life to be in danger. 'Tis Fanchon who discovers and reports everything. The traitorous quadrumvirate leap upon the fucker without warning, bind him hand and foot, and take him down to the cellars, where the Duc embuggers him with extreme vigor and without pomade, while the President saws through his neck and the other two apply red-hot irons to all parts of his body.

    This scene transpires directly after dinner is over and hence coffee is omitted that day; the work completed, everyone repairs to the auditorium as usual, then to supper, and amongst themselves Messieurs debate whether, in return for having disclosed the conspiracy, they ought not accord Fanchon a reprieve, for their decision that morning was to maltreat her the same evening. The Bishop declares himself against sparing her, and says that it would be unworthy of them to yield to the sentiment of gratitude, and that, for his part, he will always be seen to favor any decision likely to afford the society one pleasure more, just as he will always vote against any motion apt to deprive it of a pleasure. And so, after having punished Augustine for lending herself to the subversive scheme, first by obliging her to watch her lover's execution, then by embuggering her and making her believe her head would be cut off as well, next by actually pulling out two of her teeth, an operation performed by the Duc while Curval was embuggering that beautiful girl, finally by giving her a sound whipping, after all that, I say, Fanchon is led into the arena, made to shit, given a hundred lashes by each of the friends, and then the Duc deftly shaves off her left nipple. She raises a storm, criticizing their behavior toward her and describing it as unjust. "Were it just," says the Duc, wiping his razor, "it would surely fail to give us an erection." Whereupon they dress the old whore's wounds, eager to preserve her for further ordeals.

    Their Lordships perceive that indeed there had been faint but definite rebellious stirrings amongst the subaltern fuckers; the prompt sacrifice of one of them has, however, thoroughly quelled their murmurs. Like Fanchon, the three other duennas are divested of all responsibility, removed from office, and replaced by the four storytellers and Julie. They tremble, do the old dames; but by what shifts are they to escape their fate?