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“Come,” said Raphael, his lust thrilled beyond tolerance, “it is time for the victim to make her sacrifice, and let us all prepare to give her a taste of every man’s handiwork.”
This lecherous man placed me on the sofa and told Antonin and Clément to hold me down so that my position would conform to the demands of his erotic outbursts… Raphael, the Italian monk with a perverted erotic fetish, fulfilled his sexual desires on me ruthlessly without turning me into a non-virgin. Ah, these misguided people! One could say that each of these shameless people is proud to forget their humanity when they choose their shameful pleasures… Clément came forward, aroused both by the ugly image of his superior and by the fact that he himself was watching and moving his hands in a lascivious manner. He told me that he was no more dangerous than the presiding priest, and that he was paying his respects to me in a way that would not jeopardize my chastity. He told me to kneel before him, and he stood up and pressed his body against mine, and in this position he gratified his shameless sexual desires, and during the whole process I was deprived of the right to cry out for mercy.
Next came Jerome, whose temple was that of Raphael, though he did not enter the nave; he contented himself with observing the colonnade of columns before the door. Various primitive tricks excited him, but only the use of barbarous methods could satisfy him. This method made him a tyrant, and was supported by certain sophistries, which, unfortunately, have been handed down from generation to generation, and for which mankind still trembles to this day.
Antoine came and grabbed me and said, “They are all ready for me. Come, beautiful Sophie, let me avenge for you the irregular actions of my colleagues, who have indulged in their lusts, but have left behind the treasure of delightful virginity for me to pluck…”
How can I describe these details… God, the Great, how can I describe them to you? One could say that this villain was the most shameless of the four, and outwardly, his actions were closer to natural, but there was a condition, and that condition was that he would use every means to humiliate me in order to compensate for his not-quite-so-absurd outward actions… Alas, I have sometimes thought, in my wildest thoughts, of this pleasure of life, which I consider to be as chaste as the God who produced it, and which comes from the nature of mankind It is born of love and is used to comfort human beings. I never believed that human beings are like animals, who can only enjoy themselves by making their partners tremble with fear.
But I experienced this for myself, and I was so frightened that the pain I felt at the natural rupture of my hymen was no longer a thing in the midst of such a dangerous attack. Antoine, when he had reached his climax, uttered wild cries, and made fatal attacks on all parts of my body, and his bites were like the bloody scratches of a tiger, so that for a moment I thought that I had become the food of the beast, which would not rest until it had devoured me. When these atrocities were over, I was again thrown upon the altar, almost entirely insensible and motionless.
Raphael ordered a few women to attend me, and to wait upon me for my meals; but at this cruel moment my heart was suddenly assailed with grief, and I could not bear to think of the loss of my virginity, which I had sacrificed a thousand times in the past to preserve, and which was now lost, and still more intolerable was the fact that I had been ruined by these men, whom I ought to have looked to for help and spiritual consolation. My tears flowed like a fountain, my cries of distress resounded through the whole room, I rolled on the floor, pulled my hair, and begged my executioners to kill me, a sight to which these hard-hearted villains had long been accustomed, and who preferred to continue their pleasures with the other women to comforting me or calming my sufferings. My cries, however, made them uncomfortable.
They decided to take me to a place where they couldn’t hear my cries… As Ong Pha Lak was about to take me away, Raphael again looked at me with lewd eyes… Despite my pitiful state, he said that he didn’t want me to be taken away from him until he had made me his victim for the second time… As soon as he had finished saying that, he made his move… But it took a further stimulus to get his libido going So he resorted to the brutal methods of Jérôme in order to gain enough strength to fulfill his new crime… Great God! What unrestrained lust! These demons were so vicious that they chose a moment of extreme mental anguish, such as the one I was currently experiencing, to subject me to a very savage physical punishment!
At that moment Antoine came and grabbed me again and said: “Of course! There is nothing better than learning from the example of a superior, nothing more exciting than making another mistake, they say, there is pain and there is joy, I firmly believe that every beautiful chick will make me the happiest man.”
In spite of my disgust, no matter how much I screamed and pleaded, I was once again the poor object of this villain’s animalistic lust.
“Enough for the first time here,” said Raphael, as he took away the little flowers; “let us go to bed; and to-morrow we will see if the lovely Agnès has taken our lesson.” So they all dispersed.
Onfale took me to my room; I think the oldest woman was the one in charge of the care of the several women. She took me to the communal quarters of the four women, which was a square tower with a bed in each of the four corners.
Usually a priest followed the girl to her room, and proceeded to close the door and put in two or three latches. It was Clément who was in charge of this work, and after entering the room it was impossible to go out again, for there was no other door in the room, but only a small room connected with it, which was our toilet and washroom, and which had a window like our bedroom window, very narrow and barred. The bedroom was unfurnished, with a chair and a table near the bed, surrounded by a tattered cotton bedclothes, and in the small room there were a few wooden chests, a couple of pierced chairs, a couple of bidets, and a communal dressing-table.
All of this I observed the next day, when I first arrived I was only concerned with my own pain and I was oblivious to everything around me.
“O just God,” I said to myself, “is it destined that every good thought I have should be immediately followed by a punishment? Great God, I only wanted to come to this house to return a favor and do my duty as a believer; what have I done wrong? Have I sinned against God by trying to honor Him? Is this the way I should be rewarded? Ah, incomprehensible Divine Providence, if You do not want me to disobey Your rules, enlighten me with a thrust.”
As I thought about it, I shed bitter tears, and at dawn, while I was still weeping, Onfale came to my bedside and said to me: “My dear fellow, I have come to encourage you to cheer up; I cried like you for the first few days, but now I have gotten used to it, and you will do the same with me. The first moments were the most terrible, not only because we had to endlessly fulfill the whims of a few lecherous men, but also because we had lost our freedom in this wretched house and were subjected to their brutal abuse… Those who suffer see others suffering in front of them are comforted by each other.”
However intense my pain may be, I endure it for a while, and I ask this companion to tell me what other kinds of sufferings I have to suffer.
“Listen,” Ongphale said to me as he sat down on my bed, “I believe in you, so I speak to you from my heart, but I hope that you will not betray my trust… My dear friend, our deepest affliction is the uncertainty of our fate, and no one can say what will become of us after we leave this place; we have much leisure here to gather much evidence to prove that any girl who has been transformed by the monks here is our grave. We have a lot of leisure here, and we can gather a lot of evidence to prove that girls who have been transformed by the monks here are never seen in the outside world, and they themselves have warned us, saying clearly that this hermitage is our grave. But every year two or three girls always go out from here. What happens to them? Do they kill them, sometimes they tell us they do, sometimes they say they don’t, but none of the girls who go out of here, despite promising to denounce the convent and try to get us out, ever keep their word. Did they suppress these accusations, or did they make it impossible for the girls to do so? Whenever we ask the new arrivals if they have any news of these girls, they always answer that they have never heard of them.”
“These poor girls, what is to become of them? That is our greatest anxiety. Sophie, in our days of suffering, our real anguish is that we can’t know with certainty what our future destiny will be. I’ve been here for fourteen years, and I’ve seen more than fifty girls leave here… Where are they? Why is it that all of them swore to help us and none of them kept their word? We are sure that there are four of us, at least in this room, but we do know that there is another tower that corresponds to this one, with the same number of girls in it, and we have come to this conclusion from their behavior and speech, but we have never seen these girls, if there are any of them at all. The best proof of this is that we have never served them two days in a row; and if we were used by them yesterday, today we can rest for a day. These lechers would never fast a day. Besides, there is nothing else to induce them to give us a day’s vacation except their arbitrary arrangements at their whims, and we have no idea how to make the best use of it.”
“I’ve seen an old girl here seventy years old, who went out last summer; she’s spent sixty years here, and she’s seen over three hundred girls go out of here. I have seen more than a dozen girls under sixteen sent away during the time they kept this old girl. I have seen some sent away after three days, and some after a month, and some for years; and there is no certain rule in it, it is only what they think or what they are interested in. It does not matter whether the behavior is good or bad; I have seen some girls fly to their whims and be sent away after six weeks; and others, who were gloomy all day, and did what they pleased, were kept for many years. So it’s no use telling a newcomer what to do; they break all rules when they act as they please, and nothing is set in stone for them.”
“As for the priests, they rarely change; Antonin has been here for ten years, Clément has lived here for sixteen, Jérôme has been in the monastery since he was thirty, and Raphaël has been here since he was sixteen, replacing the previous presiding priest, who was an old man of sixty, who had died of over-indulgence… This Raphaël was a Florentine, a close relative of the Pope, who had a close acquaintance with him He was a close friend of the Pope, and it was through him that the so-called Miracle of the Blessed Virgin made the monastery famous and prevented the gossips from observing what was going on here from too close a distance. When he came the house was as you see it when you come. The abbey is said to be a hundred years old, and always in this condition, and all the presidents who have come here have preserved this convent which has been so favorable to their pleasures.”
“Raphael was one of the most lecherous monks of the century, and the reason he asked to be sent here was to live a life that would satisfy his proclivities, and his plan was to try to keep his secret privileges as long as possible.
We belong to the Diocese of Ossell, and whether the Bishop knows it or not, we have never seen him here. Usually this place is off the beaten track, except around the end of August, around the Feast of the Assumption. Not more than ten people come here every year. But whenever strangers arrive, the presiding officer always receives them with care, and shows them countless appearances of arduous monasticism, so that they all leave perfectly satisfied, and return to praise the monastery desperately; and the reason why these villains have escaped punishment is the result of the honesty of the people and the gullibility of the faithful.”
“As for the norms of our behavior, there are no strict rules, but if they are violated, no matter how big or small, they are very dangerous. In this respect I must speak to you in detail, for it is not permissible to make a mistake by saying, ‘Don’t punish me for breaking this law, for I didn’t know it existed.’
These rules should be told to you by your companions, or you should guess them yourself, and no one will warn you in advance, but punish you afterwards in the same way. The only punishment used is whipping, which is done to a part of the body, according to different faults, whether or not that part of you can stand the whipping or deserves the disgrace. In time, their favorite punishment became one of their methods of amusing themselves; you have tasted it yesterday without making any mistake, and soon you will taste it again for making a mistake.”
“All four of them fell in love with this cruel vice, and all four took turns as executioners. They sent one of them every day as ‘councilor,’ to hear the report of the head of the room; the head of the room was the oldest of the four girls, who acted as the internal policeman, and who was in charge of everything we said and did at dinner, and who could accuse anyone of wrongdoing and punish him for it, so let us examine each rule of conduct: we We must be up and dressed at nine o’clock in the morning; at ten o’clock the friars bring us bread and water for breakfast; at two o’clock in the afternoon we have our main meal, which consists of a pot of soup of fairly good quality, a piece of white roast pork, a pot of vegetables, sometimes a little fruit, and a bottle of wine for the four of us to drink. Every day, winter or summer, at five o’clock in the afternoon, the trustees came to inspect us. At this time the head of the room reported to the councilor about the behavior of the girls in her room, whether they had complained or spoken rebelliously, whether they had gone to bed on time, whether they had combed their hair properly or dressed themselves neatly, whether they had eaten their meals on time, and whether they had made any plans to escape. Everything about this should be reported truthfully, and if we do not do so, we ourselves are in danger of being punished.”
“Then the councilor went into our room and inspected every corner. When his task is done, and before he leaves the room, he always takes one of us for a little pleasure, sometimes all four of us together for his enjoyment. After he left the room, if it was not the day of our dinner, we were free to read or gossip or sleep. If we were to dine with the monks that night, the bell rang to tell us to get ready. The trustees on duty come to us in person, and we go together to the hall where you saw us, and the first thing we do is to read from the booklet of errors, in which are recorded the mistakes we made on the last occasion, such as being cold, or careless, or insufficiently attentive, or insufficiently submissive, etc., in serving the priest; and then we read out the mistakes we made in the room, according to the report of the chamberlain. Then the mistakes we had made in the room were read out according to the report of the room-master. The erring persons stood up in their turn in the middle of the hall, and the councilor on duty read out their errors one by one; then the presiding officer or another priest stripped the erring persons naked, and the councilor punished them according to the sentence he had pronounced, which he declared with a voice so loud that it was impossible to forget it. These villains are so cunning that not a day passes without the execution of the penalty.”
“When this was done, the revelry began, and it is impossible to give a detailed account of it. They do whatever they want, they’re whimsical, and they’re full of tricks. Can you find a pattern? The main thing is never to refuse their requests… everything must be foreseen, and even then it is not always safe. In the midst of the revelry, everyone had dinner; we were allowed to join in, and the food was much finer and richer than what we had eaten. When the priests were half drunk, they began to make a mess again; at this time their uncontrolled imaginations dug in and created all sorts of new tricks. At midnight when the drinking was over, each priest was allowed to keep one of us for the night, and the chosen woman went to sleep in the room of the priest who had chosen her, only to return the next morning among the women who had not been chosen. When the women returned to their bedrooms, the rooms were already cleaned and the beds made.
Sometimes in the morning before breakfast a priest sends for one of us to go to his room, and the man who comes is always the friar who has charge of serving us, who takes us to the priest who needs us, and waits until we are done with it to be sent back either by the priest himself or by that friar.”
“This friar, who cleans our rooms and transports us, is an old brute of a man, over seventy years of age, one-eyed, crippled, and mute, as you will soon see him. He has three helpers who are in charge of the whole monastery with him, one of them is the cook, another cleans the priest’s room as well as the rest of the place, and also helps the cook, and another is the porter whom you saw when you came in. We are never allowed to meet any of these handymen, except only the one who serves us exclusively; and it would be the worst of our crimes for us to have a conversation with him.”
“The presiding priests sometimes come to see us alone outside of the prescribed days, when the customary nasty ceremonies are performed, as you will learn later. Failure to comply constitutes a great sin, for they are always thinking of all sorts of tricks to attract offenders for their amusement, in order to punish us. Raphael seldom comes to us without some purpose in view, and it is our duty to obey, and our fate to be trampled upon. They kept us so tightly shut up that we never had a chance to take a breath of fresh air, and although the convent had a considerable garden, it was only because it was not fenced that they would not allow us to go into the garden for fear that the girl would escape and denounce herself to the judiciary, or to the Church’s inquisition, and shake out all the offenses that had been committed here. We never fulfill our religious duties, and are forbidden to think and talk so; and whenever we talk about it we are bound to be severely punished.”
“The above is all I can tell you of the whole new situation; let experience teach you the rest. I want you to take courage, if possible; but you must give up the hope of returning to the world of men, for there has never been a precedent for a girl to reappear after she has gone out of this house.”
Our chamberlain ended her admonition with a few final words. These last words disturbed me so much that I asked Ongfale what she really thought about the fate of the girls who had left.
“What do you want me to answer you,” she said to me, “everything proves to me that their destination is the grave, and millions of impracticable ideas come all the time to destroy this inevitable belief.”
“It was only that morning that we were notified of our dismissal,” Ongfal continued, “and the duty councilor said to us, probably before breakfast, ‘Ongfal, pack your bags, the convent is dismissing you, and I’ll come to pick you up in the evening. I’ll pick you up in the evening.’ After that he went out. The expelled girl hugged and kissed her companions, promising to do them a favor for the millionth time! One must go and sue, and go and publicly spread the word about what is going on here. The time came when the monk appeared, took the girl away, and from now on she was never heard of again. If it happened to be the day of their revels, the supper was held as usual, and the only peculiarity we noticed on this day was that the priests did not play so much to the point of exhaustion, that they drank a good deal, that they called us back to our rooms earlier, that none of us were left behind to stay with them all night, and that we were not looked for the next morning.”
I thanked the headmistress for all the information she had given me, and I said to her, “My dear friend, perhaps you’ve met some children who are not capable of keeping their promises…”
Onfale interrupted me, saying, “Children? For four years now, a thirty-nine-year-old, a forty-year-old, a forty-six-year-old and a fifty-year-old ‘child’ have sworn to me to inform me as soon as they have news, and none of them has kept their word.”
“Never mind,” I replied, “let us both make a promise to each other; I swear to you, with the most sacred thing I have, that I would rather die than destroy these impudent men; will you make the same vow?
”
“Of course,” said Ongole to me, “but you must realize that these promises are useless. There are girls who are older than you, perhaps more incensed than you, whose families are the richest in the province, and who therefore have more means than you, and who, in short, have sworn with me, and who in consequence have still not kept their vows. I beg you to believe in my cruel experience, and to consider our vows as null and void, and not to rely on them any more.
”
Next we talked about the character of the priests and the girls. Onfale said to me: “There are no more dangerous men in all Europe than Raphael and Antonin; their natures are hypocritical, insidious, vicious, cruel, godless, and good at teasing beauties; there is never a shadow of pleasure in their eyes, except when they are doing evil. On the face of it Clément was the rudest of the four, but the best, and he was only terrible when he was drunk; take care never to offend him, for he could be offended at great peril.
As for Jérôme, he is naturally rough, and with him the reward is slaps and bruises all over his body; but if his lust is satisfied he becomes as pliable as a lamb, and this is the chief difference between him and the first two, who are only aroused by treachery and cruelty and atrocity.”
“As for the girls,” continued the chamberlain, “there is not much to be said; Little Flower is a child, has little heart, and does what she is told to do. Cornelli is very conscientious and affectionate, and no one can console her for her misfortunes; she is naturally melancholy, and has little conversation with her companions.”
After hearing this, I asked her if she really knew that there were unfortunate young girls like us being held in a symmetrical tower.
“I am almost certain of their existence,” said Ungfalle, “but we can only learn a thing or two from the careless divulgence of secrets by the monks, or from the mute monk who serves us, and it is very dangerous to be informed of such things. Besides, since we can’t help each other, what’s the point of knowing they exist? If now you ask me what proof I have of this matter, I will tell you that some of his unintentional speech is enough to prove it completely.”
“What is more, once, when I was walking out in the morning after having slept with Raphael at night, and had just crossed the threshold, and Raphael was about to see me out, I saw the mute friar, when he was not looking, bring into Antonan’s room a pretty girl of seventeen or eighteen, who was certainly not from my room. The mute friar, realizing that someone was there, quickly pushed her into Antonin’s room, but I had already seen it, and he didn’t say anything about it, and that was the end of the matter, and I would have had to risk a great deal if they had known about it. It is therefore certain that there are other women in this convent besides us, and that we only dine with the priests on alternate days, which they must have filled, and probably in equal numbers with us.”
As soon as Ong Fahr had finished speaking, she saw Hana come in. Hana had gone to her room after spending the night with Raphael, and since the rules of the convent forbade young girls to talk to each other about their escorts, when she saw that we were still awake, she said a quick hello and flopped down on the bed, exhausted, and slept until nine o’clock, when we all woke up. The gentle Cornelli came up to me, looked at me with tears in her eyes… and said to me, “My dear young lady, we are all wretches!”
Breakfast was served and my mates forced me to eat something, which I did to please them. The day passed rather peacefully. At five o’clock, as Ongfalle had said, the chairman of the council on duty walked in, and he was Antoine. He smiled and asked me how I felt about this strange encounter, and I only bowed my head, my eyes filled with tears, and did not answer him.
“She’ll get used to it, she’ll get used to it.” He laughed heartily and said, “There is no better place in France to train a young girl than here.”
He inspected everywhere and took the list of mistakes from the room-master. The head of the room was a good girl and rarely recorded too many mistakes on the list, often saying she had nothing to report. Before he left, Antoine came up to me… I shuddered, thinking that I was going to be another victim of this demon, but since this could happen at any time, what’s the difference between it happening now and tomorrow? But he let me go after only a few rough strokes, and he pounced on Cornelie, ordering us to stay there while he did it to inflame his desire.
This villain, who only cares for his own wishes and desires, will try any method of enjoyment, and he has used all sorts of the most atrocious and nasty methods on this poor girl, as he did on me last night.
This collective companionship was a common occurrence, and had become almost habitual; whenever a priest took a girl for pleasure, the other three had to surround them in order to fan the flames of his desire, and make the pleasure penetrate deep through all his organs.
I have purposely recounted here the details of these evils, with the intention of not mentioning them hereafter; I do not wish to recount these sordid things endlessly. I have told one, and the rest are conceivable; I will only tell you the principal events that occurred during my residence in this monastery, and will not alarm you with those details.
It was not the day for a dinner together, we had a rather quiet time, my companions tried to comfort me as much as they could, but nothing could calm the grief in my heart, they were all in vain, and the more they brought up my wounds, the more pain I felt in them.
The next morning at nine o’clock the presiding priest came to see me, although he was not on duty that day, and asked Ungfalle if I had begun to make up my mind, and without waiting for an answer he opened a wooden cupboard in our little room, and took out of it several women’s dresses.
“Since you have nothing,” he said to me, “we must think of giving you clothes to wear, and perhaps it is for our sake rather than yours, so you need not thank us. I myself do not think that all these clothes are useless; the girls serve us naked as beasts, and the clothes they leave behind them when they go away are not a very heavy burden; but our priests are men of high society, who are fond of luxuries and adornments, and must therefore be catered for.”
He threw a couple of women’s civilian clothes and half a dozen women’s shirts onto the bed, added a couple of items of nightcaps, socks and shoes, and told me to try them all on. He watched me change myself and fondled me nastily at every opportunity. Three of the women’s taffeta and one of Indian cotton suits fitted me, and he agreed to let me stay, ordering me to arrange the rest of the clothes, and telling me to remember that they all belonged to the convent, and that if I were to leave here before they were used up, I must return them to the convent.
As he spoke in this way he suddenly became aroused and ordered me to make myself into a position that I knew best suited him… I wanted to beg him for mercy, but seeing that his eyes were already glowing with anger, I thought it best to obey, and so I made myself into the position… This lecherous man satisfied his animalistic desires in the midst of the three girls and, as he was accustomed to doing, violated morality, religion and the nature of man. This vile Italian never gave up his vices. I aroused his lust, and at dinner he toasted me so frequently that I was chosen to accompany him for the night; my companions withdrew, and I entered his room.
I need not speak of my feelings of disgust and my misery, madam, you must imagine them to be at an extreme, and as such a thousand sights might detract from what I thought would be a narrative, I will not dwell upon them.
Raphael had a lovely little room, elegantly furnished and full of expensive furniture, and not a bit of anything that would make this lonely abode cozy, neat, and cheerful. As soon as the door of the room was closed, Raphael stripped naked and ordered me to do as he did. It took him a long time to be made excited, and the method employed was the original one by which he, as the initiator, had himself initiated the vernal passion. I can say that I learned the most complete lesson in indulgence that night, more than the most highly trained prostitute in the world knows.
I was first an elementary school teacher and soon became a pupil, but there was such a difference between the way I treated people and the way they treated me that, although they did not beg for mercy, I soon begged for mercy with tears in my eyes. My pleas were met with scorn, I was prevented from moving by the most barbaric precautions, and when I was fully under control, I was treated with unheard-of severity for two whole hours.
The person’s attention is not merely concentrated on a part of the body devoted to this use, but extends indiscriminately to all parts of the body, paying particular attention to those opposite parts, the most delicate orbs, etc., and nothing escapes the brutal eye of the executioner, who builds his pleasure on the sufferings of others. Sometimes he stops for a moment, and he passionately caresses and kisses with his hands and lips the remains of his crimes. Sometimes he suddenly let go of me, for the pleasure of watching me defend myself and escape; and I ran about the room with my fists falling more violently upon me. What more shall I say to you, madam? Any movement on my part invited his savage attacks, and I was already covered with blood.
“Let’s go to bed,” said the lecherous man afterward, his lust having been fanned by these scandalous preparatory maneuvers; “perhaps this is too much for you, but it is not nearly enough for me; one can never tire of this sacred exercise, but it is only an introduction, and the following is all we really to do.”
We went to bed, and Raphael, who was both a lecher and a heterophile, made me a slave to his sinful pleasures throughout the night. I seized a moment of peace and begged him to tell me if I could get out of here someday.
“Of course,” Raphael replied to me, “that’s what you came in for, and when all four of us agree to retire you, you’ll be able to get out for sure.”
“But,” I asked him again, with the intention of digging more out of him, “I am sworn to secrecy for life, and aren’t you afraid that some girl younger than I and who can’t keep a secret will go out and divulge the secret of all that has been done here?”
“That’s impossible,” replied the presiding priest.
“No way?”
“Definitely not…”
“Can you explain…”
“I can’t; it’s our secret; and all I can tell you is that, whether you can keep your mouth shut or not, it’s utterly impossible for you to divulge half a word of what we’ve done here.”
After these few words he roughly ordered me to change the subject, and I no longer dared to disobey him. At seven o’clock in the morning he told the friar to send me back to my room. I put together what he had said with what Ongole had told me, and I was forced to come to an unfortunate conclusion: they must be taking extreme measures against the girls who leave the house, and if they never speak, it is because they are shut up in coffins and have no means of speaking. This horrible thought made me tremble for a long time, and at last I fought against it with hope, and at last dispersed it, and I became as insensible as my companion.
Within a week I had made a circuit of all the monks, and I could easily convince myself that every one of them was engaged in a dirty and impudent practice, but that, like Raphael, they only abused others by means of brutality in order to kindle their lustful fire, as if all the other organs of their bodies were at the mercy of this corrupt heart, and could not produce pleasure without its impulse.
Antoine was the one who most afflicted me; it is simply impossible to imagine the extent to which this villain elevated brutality in his wicked lustful pleasures. He was forever traveling down the dark path of evil, and only evil could make him enjoy pleasure. In his enjoyment he continues to sustain his pleasure by atrocities, and by atrocities he culminates it.
I was surprised why the method he used could not impregnate one of the women. I asked the head of the house how he prevented pregnancy. Onfal answered me: “He kills the fruit of his lust at once; and if he finds any sign of pregnancy, he tells us to drink three large cups of herbs for three days in succession, so that on the fourth day the traces of his indulgence may be completely destroyed. This has happened to Cornelie once, and to me three times, and afterwards there was no harm done to our health; on the contrary, we were better.”
“Besides, as you see, he is the only one who may be in such danger; the other few, by reason of their irregular methods of lewdness, rather give us nothing to fear.”
Onfale asked me again if it was true that only Clément had given me the least amount of pain among them.
I replied, “Alas, among a host of nasty and indecent behaviors, some of them heart-warming, some of them revolting, and I can hardly say which one has done me less harm, I am so tired of all of them, that I wish I were out of this house at once, no matter what fate may await me.”
“After a short time your wish will be realized,” said Ungfakin; “you came here by chance, and they did not include you in their plans at all; they happened to retire a girl eight days before your arrival, and they would not have done so if they had not indeed had a substitute. It is not often that they go out to recruit new people themselves; they employ well-paid agents to serve them enthusiastically; and I am almost certain that a new girl is coming, and that your hopes can be realized. Besides, we are on the eve of the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, and it is seldom that this period comes without a harvest for them: either they tempt some maidens by means of penance, or they shut one of them up, and it is not often that they come across such a festival without a duck falling into their laps.”
This long-famous festival has finally arrived. Madam, do you know what blasphemy these priests do on this feast day? Thinking that a visible miracle would double the fame of their convent, they took the shortest and youngest of us, Little Flower, dressed her up in disguise, put all the adornments of the Blessed Virgin on her, tied her with ropes around her waist to keep them out of sight, and commanded her to wait until the priest lifted up the Blessed Sacrament of Jesus, and then she lifted up her arms to the sky in a proper manner.
They threatened the poor little girl with the most cruel punishment if she divulged a single word, and with the same punishment if she did not perform well. She did all she could to make the performance a success, and the people, who had been deceived and cheered at the miracle, left many alms for the Virgin, and went home satisfied, and more convinced of her spirituality.
Our lecherous devils wanted to bring their blasphemy to an end, and when Little Flower appeared at the supper table in her Madonna costume, which had gained everyone’s respect, the priests each wanted Little Flower to satisfy their perverse animalistic desires in her costume. After the first sinful act was accomplished, the devils, not satisfied but stimulated, placed Little Flower naked on a large table, lit candles, placed the icon of our Savior Jesus Christ on her head, and they had the audacity to actually place the Eucharist on the poor girl’s loins, where they accomplished the most horrible mysteries of our religion.
This ugly sight was too much for me to bear, and I fainted. When Raphael saw this, he said that, in order to tame me, it was necessary that I should be the altar in place of the little flower. They seized me and placed me in the place of the little flower, whereupon the impudent Italians, accomplished in me the evil deeds which they had just perpetrated on the little flower, adding to them other acts which were more ferocious and more sacrilegious.
When they brought me down, I could no longer move and had to be moved back to my room, where I hid and cried for three days and three nights, shedding bitter tears for a crime in which I had no choice but to participate… This incident seizes my heart when I think about it, ma’am, and I am now in tears every time I think about it. I am deeply attached to religion, and anyone who offends or insults it makes my heart bleed.
We realized that the new companion we were waiting for had not been chosen from among the masses attending the festival, perhaps she had gone to another tower, but nothing happened to us. A few weeks passed in this way, and a new occurrence filled me with uneasiness. It had been nearly a month since I had arrived at this filthy house when Raphael walked into our tower one morning around nine o’clock. He looked as if he were excited, his eyes glowing with insanity; he watched the four of us carefully, calling us one by one to make his favorite pose, lingering longest on Ongfale.
He spent a few minutes watching Wunfal in this position. Slowly he got impulsive and did some of his favorite moves, but he did not reach orgasm… Then he helped her up and stared at her with a stern look for some time, a fierce look on his face.
“You have served us long enough,” he spoke at last, “and Hugh will dismiss you; I have come to tell you the news; prepare yourself, and I will come and take you away myself in the evening.”
When he was done, he observed her with the same demeanor, and then told her to get into that position again, which he did for a while, and then walked out of the room.
As soon as he left, Umbral immediately hugged me.
“Ah,” she said to me as she cried, “the moment I have both feared and waited for has finally arrived… What else will be my fate, Great God?”
I did all in my power to comfort her, but it was of little avail. She swore to me, in the clearest terms, that she would do her best to rescue us, and that she would denounce the villains whenever possible. She promised me with such firmness that I did not doubt for a minute that she would be able to do it, unless the thing was impossible.
That day passed as usual, and near six o’clock Raphael himself came up.
“Hey,” he said gruffly to Ung Fakin, “are you ready?”
“Ready, Father.”
“Come on, let’s go.”
“Please let me kiss my partners goodbye.”
“It’s no use,” said the priest, dragging her by the arm, “they’re waiting for you, come with me.”
That’s when she asked if she wanted to take her clothes.
“Not a bit of it, not a bit of it,” said Raphael; “all the clothes are monastic, aren’t they? You have no need of it all.”
Then he changed his tone, as if he was afraid he’d said too much.
“All these clothes are of no use to you. You can be tailored to your size, so it fits better.”
I asked the priest if I might be allowed to give Onfale a lift, only as far as the door, and he gave me such a fierce look that I was too frightened to ask a second time. Our poor companion gave us one more look, with troubled and tearful eyes, and went out.
As soon as she had gone, we three hugged and cried a lot. Half an hour later Antoine came to take us to dinner; and it was about an hour after we came down before Raphael appeared. He looked agitated, and often spoke to the others in a low voice, but everything was as usual. I noticed, as Ongfalle had warned me, that on this day the priests sent us to our rooms very early, and that they drank much more wine than usual, and that they let their passions be aroused, but did not ask for the boiling point.
What do we conclude from these characteristics? I note these points because it is not possible not to be vigilant at such a time, but I do not see the results of the generalization, and perhaps I tell you about these characteristics because they surprise me.
We waited for two days for news of Onfal, one day convinced that she would not break her promise, the other day believing that the brutal methods they had used against her made it impossible for her to keep her promise. After seven days we had not heard from her, and I became worried.
On the fourth day after Onfale’s departure, we went downstairs as usual to join the supper, and to the great surprise of the three of us, the moment we stepped in, a new companion came in through the other door leading out.
Antoine said to us: “Ladies, this is the one who has been sent to take the place of the young lady who has just departed, and I ask you to live with her as sisters, and to comfort her as far as you are able. Sophie,” said the priest to me, “you are the oldest of them all, and I have promoted you to the rank of chamberlain; you know the duties of a chamberlain, and you must fulfill them without fail.”
I wanted to refuse not to do it, but I couldn’t, I could only ever sacrifice my own thoughts and will to these villains, and all I could do was bow and show that I was willing to do whatever he liked.
We took off the short tops and muslin shirts which had been placed over our new companions, and there appeared before our eyes a maiden of fifteen years of age, with a delicate and beautiful face, and eyes full of tears, and a very pleasing sadness; she raised her eyes daintily towards each one of us, and I daresay I never saw more touching eyes of pity in my life; her blond hair with a grayish tinge was naturally curled, and fell long to her shoulders, her lips were were bright red, and her brain appeared very noble; her whole appearance was so attractive that it made those who saw her unconsciously enamored of her, and we soon learned from her (about whom I will here join) that her name was Octavie, the daughter of a rich merchant of Lyons, who had been brought up in Paris, and that she was on her way back to Lyons with one of her stewardesses to see her parents, when she did not wish to be attacked between Auxerre and Vermontonton, and she had been kidnapped. She was attacked between Auxerre and Vermenton, she was kidnapped, and brought all the way to this house, with no news of the carriage in which she was traveling or of the housekeeper who accompanied her.
She was first confined in a cellar, to which she had come by means of a very long tunnel, where she was kept for an hour, and, being in despair, was sent here again to be with us, and no priest has yet spoken to her.
These four wolves, in a flash to see a delicate beauty, can not help but be dazzled, delirious, can only be appreciated, can not move, the original beauty is able to make people worship, the worst bad guys can not help but express the mood of worship. But like us a few demons, can only endure for a while, a long time will feel bored. The presiding priest said: “Come, Miss, I beg you, let us see whether the rest of your body is as beautiful as your appearance.”
The beautiful girl was at a loss for words, her face flushed red, she didn’t understand what was being said to her, and the vicious Antonin grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and said a million nasty and foul things to her, which I can’t repeat here, and then finally he said, “Can’t you understand, you pretentious little girl, all we’re saying is that we’d like you to undress right now…” New cries New cried… New resisted, but Clément immediately grabbed her and in less than a minute had stripped this beautiful angel of everything that covered her.
Never before have I seen such white skin, such a perfect form that I am unable to fully depict it. Yet this vividness, this innocence and purity and this exquisite delicacy were about to become the prey of these savages. Nature had bestowed many graces upon her, as if she were made for them to spoil.
We formed a circle around her, and she scrutinized in all directions, as I had done. Antoine, whose lust had risen, could hold back no longer, and he made a ferocious assault on this newborn beauty, lighting the incense that honors the gods… Raphael himself could wait no longer, and believing that now was the time to go even further, he seized his victim by the hand and placed her in a position where she could satisfy his desires, and also asked for Clément’s help in holding her down.
Octavian cried, but none heard him. The hateful Italian, whose gaze burned with lust, was now in a position to attack, and he was still inspecting the letter-channel, as if to prevent resistance; he used no deception at all, and made no preparations, and, in spite of the total disproportion between him and his victim, he attacked, and an appalling shriek from the victim showed that she had failed. There was no method of relaxing the haughty victor a little, and the more she showed signs of pleading with him for mercy, the more violently he sent out to torment her. The poor little girl was exactly like me, shamelessly abused and yet still a virgin.
“How rare this victory is!” Raphael said as he stood up, “I thought I had failed for the first time in my life?”
“Let me conquer her,” said Antonin, without letting the girl straighten herself; “there is more than one fissure in the walls, and you only pass through the narrowest one.”
As he spoke, he joined the battle, and in less than a minute he had taken over the territory, and new moans were heard…
“Thank God,” said this terrible devil, “if I do not hear the groans of agony from the defeated, I doubt that I have lost the battle, and I measure my victory only by the number of tears I can wring out of my eyes.”
“Seriously,” said Gerome as he stepped forward, “I’m not disturbing this wonderful pose; it’s just what I wanted.”
He watched carefully, touching and feeling, and then a terrible whistle sounded in the air. Those beautiful flesh changed color, bright red mingled with bright creamy white… The sinister priest refused to stop for a moment… The more the young student moaned in pain, the more severe the homeroom teacher became… Everything went on as usual, with nothing forgiven… In less than a few moments there was not a single bruise on the body of this beautiful body that did not bear the scars of his barbaric act… and finally, it was in the bleeding wounds that he fulfilled his animalistic desire.
“I am gentler than all of them.” Clément said as he wrapped his arms around the beautiful girl while planting a wicked kiss on her coral-red lips… “This is the temple I will sacrifice…”
A series of kisses on the lovely little mouth that Venus herself had caused to thrill him. Now it was the viper who was spoiling the rose. He forced the poor girl to obey him, and Octavian fought hard, but was soon forced to be quiet; the villain triumphed, and that organ of joy, the sweetest refuge of love, was defiled by sin.
The rest of the evening was spent as you know it, but the beauty and age of the young maiden rekindled the lust of the villains, and they treated her with redoubled cruelty until they were at last satisfied, and then sent her back to her room for a few hours’ rest, which she so desperately needed, and which I would have liked to have consoled her for a little, at least for the first night, but I had to stay with Antoine all night, and instead it was myself who needed someone else’s comfort. It was very unfortunate for me that the word actually pleasing this lecher was not quite accurate; it should be said that I aroused the improper lust of this lecher more than any other, and for a long time now I had always spent four or five nights a week in his room.
When I returned to my room the next day, I saw my new companion weeping, and I told her all the words that others had urged me to say, but without success, just as they had no effect on me. It is hard to be consoled by a sudden change of fortune, and this young girl, full of piety, morality, and honor, found the present state of affairs intolerable.
Raphael was so fond of her that he asked her to stay with him several nights in a row, and this favor embarrassed her even more. Ongole was right when he told me that the dismissal of the girls had nothing to do with the number of years they stayed in the house, but that it was entirely up to the priests to decide what they wanted to do, or to investigate later, and that it was possible to keep a girl for eight days or for eight years. Oktawe was with us for less than six weeks before Raphael came and announced her dismissal… She made many promises to us, as did Unphal, and then disappeared, as she did, and we will never know what happened to her.
A whole month passed without a new arrival to replace her. It was during this time that I, like Honfleur, obtained proof that we were not the only ones living here, and that a similar number of girls were being harbored in another tower. But whereas Ongfale had only a suspicion, I had first-hand experience that proved the suspicion to be consistent with the truth.
It happened like this: I had just spent the night in Raphael’s room, and as was my custom, I came out at seven o’clock in the morning, when I saw a friar whom I had never seen before suddenly appearing in the corridor; this friar was as old and obnoxious as the one we had, and was carrying a girl of eighteen to twenty years of age, whom I thought was very beautiful. Raphael, who was supposed to take me to my room, was a little late, and I came face to face with the girl, whom the friar somehow managed to hide from me.
“Where are you taking this woman?” The presiding priest asked angrily.
“Take it to your room, beloved priest,” replied the odious hearer. “Did not His Excellency command me to do so yesterday?”
“I told you nine o’clock.”
“At seven o’clock, my lord, you told me you wanted to see her before early Mass.”
All this time I had been watching this girl, and she had watched me with great amazement.
“It doesn’t matter,” Raphael said as he motioned for me to come into his room again, and for the girl to go in as well.
“Tell you what, Sophie.” He closed the door, told the friar to wait, and said to me, “This girl holds the same position in the other tower as you do in this one, and she’s also the chamberlain; there’s nothing inconvenient about your two chamberlains getting to know each other. To make your acquaintance a little more complete, Sophie, I will show you Mariana in full nudity.”
I felt that this Mariana was a girl who knew no shame, and she immediately stripped naked. Raphael forced me to listen to her offense before him, and this lustful girl was bold enough to try to overcome my shame. This trick of ours was performed before him two or three times, causing the priest to burn with lust, and he seized Mariana to give vent to her animal desires in the form he chose, while I served as a set piece beside him. Finally satisfied, he returned us both to our respective rooms, forbidding us to divulge a single word.
After I promised to keep his secret, I went back to find my partner, now that we both did know we weren’t the only tools for these demons to use for their lust.
Octavie was soon forgotten by us, and another lovely girl of twelve took her place. This little girl was bright and handsome, but not so pretty as Octavia. Then it was Hana’s turn to go, and at the end of the day she promised to give me news, just as Ongfale had done, but still, like the unfortunate Ongfale, there was no news.
In place of Hana was a fifteen year old Dijon girl, very good looking, who soon replaced me in Antoine’s favor. I could see that if this priest ceased to have favor with me, I would lose the favor of other priests in the near future. I could not help trembling at my own fate; I felt that the time of my dismissal was near, and I did believe that this cruel dismissal was a sentence of death, and I was only shocked by it for a minute. I say a minute! For what has a woman as unfortunate as I am to have any attachment to life, and is not the greatest happiness I have ever had the loss of it?
These thoughts comforted me, and I waited for my destiny with the idea of resignation, not at all striving for trust. This negative approach brought me many disasters: there was not a moment when I was not accused, and not a day when I was not punished; I prayed to heaven and waited for my judgment; perhaps I was about to receive it, but unfortunately the hand of God had grown tired of tormenting me in the same way, and it pulled me out of this abyss, and shortly afterward threw me into another one. Let me tell you the events in the order in which they occurred, one by one, beginning with the matter of getting us all out of this shameful house.
Here is another example of a wicked man being rewarded for his evil deeds, and it seems that throughout my life those who have abused me, defiled me and chained me in irons, have always been well rewarded, as if Heaven were trying to show me that it is useless to be good. This sad lesson did not serve me in the least, and I would have continued to obey the dictates of my conscience even if I had just escaped from the sword hanging over my head.
One morning, to our surprise, Antonin came into our room and announced with us that the beloved Father Raphael, a close relative and favorite of the Pope, had been appointed by the Pope to be the Superior General of the Sisters of St. Francis.
“And I, children,” he said to us, “succeed myself as Bishop of Lyons; two new priests have come to take our place in this monastery, and perhaps they arrive the same day. We do not know them, and it is probable that they will send you home, or perhaps they will keep you; but whatever your fate may be, I would advise you, both for your own good, and for the honor of the two priests whom we have left here, to conceal all that we have done here, and to confess only that which it is impossible to keep out of your mouths.”
He brought such delightful news that we could not help agreeing to what he proposed, and we acceded to his request, the lecher wanting to take leave of the four of us together. Seeing that our misfortunes were about to come to an end, made us endure his final abuse without complaint; we refused nothing he asked, and he went out, satisfied, and left us for ever. Lunch was served as usual, and about two hours later Father Clément came into our room, bringing with him two priests who appeared to be respectable, either by age or appearance.
“You admit, Father,” said one of the novices to Clément, “that this travesty is so detestable, that I really wonder how God has put up with it for so long.”
Clément humbly admitted everything, and defended himself by saying that he and his colleagues had simply inherited the monastery as it was, that they had not innovated in any way; that, yes, there had been a change of personnel, but that this change had also been in the original system, and that they had merely followed their predecessor’s instructions.
“Even so,” the priest added, and I got the impression that he was the new presiding priest, which in fact he was. “We should also hurry up and crush this abominable lewd activity, Father, which stirs up indignation in the community, not to mention the religious community.”
So the priest turned to us again and asked us what our volunteers were, and everyone answered, either to return to their home towns or to go home.
“No problem, children,” said the priest, “I will give each of you a sum of money for the journey back, but you should go back one by one, successively, two days apart from each other, and you will walk back alone, hoping that you will never divulge what has happened in this convent. “
We all took a vow of secrecy… But the presiding priest was not satisfied with the vow. He asked us to approach the altar, and none of us refused, and he told us to swear under the altar to conceal forever what had happened in this house. I did so like the others. If I have broken my vows before you today, ma’am, it is because I have grasped the spirit of the vows, and the purpose of that good priest’s calling us to take the vows was to tell us to never make a complaint, and I am telling you these things because I know for certain that my saying them will not lead to bad consequences for the priests of this religious order.
My companions went first, and as we were not allowed to have a rendezvous place, and as we parted as soon as the new presiding priest arrived, we never had the chance of seeing each other again. My request was to go to Grenoble, and they gave me two louis for my passage. I retrieved the clothes I had worn when I arrived at the house, I found the eight louis I had left behind, and I was filled with joy: I was finally able to leave this place of sin for good, and so peacefully and unexpectedly. I went into the forest, and found again the road that led to Auxerre, just where I had left it to cast myself into the lake, exactly three years after I had left it, and I would have been twenty-five years old in a few weeks’ time (fn. 14).
The first thing I did was to fall on my knees and ask God to forgive me for the sins I had unwittingly committed; and I repented very devoutly, much more devoutly than I had before the defiled altar of that nasty house. Tears of regret flowed from my eyes.
“Alas!” I said to myself, “When I used to leave this path; how pure I was, with my heart filled with pious thoughts, which were then tragically shattered… What a pitiful scenario I am in now that I see me!”
These gloomy thoughts were only somewhat washed away by the joy of my freedom, when I continued my journey. Madam, in order not to bore you with trifles, I shall, with your consent, only relate those great things which either gave me important news, or transformed me for life.
I was resting a few days in Lyons, and in the house of the woman I was boarding with, I chanced to see a foreign newspaper, and what surprised me most was that I saw the sinner crowned with laurels, and one of the principal characters who had caused me pain, exalted to the heavens. It was the despicable Rodin, who had punished me inhumanly for a murder I had saved him from committing. Presumably he committed other murders, and he was obliged to leave France, where, according to this newspaper account, he was appointed chief royal physician to the King of Sweden, at a very high salary.
I thought to myself, “What luck for this villain! Well, well, since it is the will of God, and thou, poor woman, suffer thyself alone, and complain not when thou sufferest, for it is appointed to be a companion of virtue with hardship.”
Three days later I left Lyons and took the road to Dauphiné, with the foolish hope that happy days awaited me in this province. I left Lyons with two or three shirts and a few handkerchiefs in my coat pocket, and after walking as usual, about eight kilometers, I met an old woman who came up to me with a sad look and begged me to give her a little charity.
By nature, I sympathized with the poor and the needy and thought that there was nothing better in the world than to help people (Note 15). I immediately took out my money bag and wanted to take a few coins to this old woman, but who would have known that this hateful fellow, whom I at first thought to be old and feeble, would snatch away my money bag and knock me to the ground with a hard blow on the chest with a quicker stroke than I could manage? As I climbed to my feet, I could only see that she was already a hundred paces away from me, and that there were four hoodlums standing next to me on each side There were four hoodlums standing next to each other, making threatening gestures at me, if I dared to walk over… “Ah, fair God.” I cried out in agony, “Must the seed of virtue grow in me and be punished at the same time by the cruelest of calamities?”
All the courage in my body seems to be abandoning me at this terrible moment. I ask God’s forgiveness today, because at that moment I was on the verge of betraying Him. I had only two terrible choices before me: either to join the gang of hoodlums who had just so cruelly victimized me, or to return to Lyon and live a life of debauchery… God blessed me and kept me from falling, and I thank Him for sustaining me, even though the flames of hope that He had rekindled in me were only a harbinger of even greater calamities. Today, with my innocence, I am being led to the guillotine by a series of calamities, but it is only a matter of death. If I had done otherwise, disgrace, regret and shame would have awaited me, and death would have been preferable to all this.
I continued on my way, deciding to sell my clothes in the city of Vienne to pay my way to Grenoble. I was walking sadly along the road, and when I reached a place about a kilometer from the city, I saw two men on horseback on the plain on the right side of the highway, trampling another man with their horses’ feet until it seemed that the man was dead under the hooves of the horse, and then the two men galloped away… This horrible sight brought tears to my eyes… “Alas!” I thought, “This unfortunate man deserves more pity than I do; at least I’m healthy and strong enough to get a job, but what about him? If he doesn’t have any money on him, like me, he’s now crippled for life, so how will he live in the future?”
However much I may forbid myself to feel this sympathy, and however many cruel punishments I may have suffered, I cannot help committing it again. I approached the dying man; I had a little alcohol with me, which I handed him to smell; he opened his eyes, and the first thing he did was to express his gratitude, which led me to continue his care. I tore a shirt to bandage him, this shirt was the only thing I had left to sustain me, I tore it to pieces for this man, blood was flowing from several wounds, I used the torn shirt to stop the bleeding, and the small bottle of wine I had brought to refresh myself when I was tired from the road, I gave him a sip and used the rest to moisten his wounds.
At last the poor man recovered all his strength and courage, and though he was on foot, and had not much with him, he did not look like a poor man; he had several valuable things, like rings, watches, and other treasures, which had been damaged in the fight. When he was able to speak, he asked me what was the angel who had rescued him, and how he could express his gratitude. I was still naïve enough to think that the man to whom I had been indebted would not betray me, and believing that for once I could safely share with him the pleasures of a friend in distress, and that since he had just shed tears in my arms he must be able to sympathize with me in my affliction, I told him the whole of my experience, to which he listened with great interest. I told him the last of my woes as well, and he saw clearly my present difficult position.
“How fortunate I am!” He exclaimed, “At least I know how much you have sacrificed for me! My name is Darvell, and I have a beautiful castle in the mountains some sixty kilometers from here. If you will follow me, I can offer you lodgings, and to avoid your polite excuses, I will tell you at once why you are useful to me. I am married, and my wife needs a reliable man at her disposal; we have recently dismissed a bad fellow, and I offer you her place.”
I thanked my benefactor humbly and then asked him why a man of his stature would risk traveling alone, vulnerable to being attacked by some villain, as I had seen… “I’m a bit chubby, young and energetic,” Darvell told me, “and for a long time I’ve been used to walking to my home in the city of Vienne alone. For a long time I used to walk alone to my home in the city of Vienne, which was good for my health and saved me money. I don’t really need to save money, for, thank God, I am rich, as you will readily prove if you will come with me to my house. The two men with whom I have just been in dispute are minor noblemen of the town, with nothing but shawls and swords, and one has become a guard and the other a policeman, in other words, two crooks. Last week I won a hundred louis from them in a casino in Vienne, and I didn’t ask them for a receipt, believing their word, and today I met them and I asked them for their debt… You’ve seen how they answered me.”
I sighed with the honest nobleman at the double misfortune that had befallen him, and then he suggested that we should move.
“I feel much better, and depend entirely on your good nursing,” said Darvell; “it will be dark soon, and we will go to a house about four kilometers from here, and to-morrow morning we can ride away, and perhaps reach home that night.”
Determined to make the most of this salvation sent to me from heaven, I helped Darvell to start making his way, holding him up along the way as we left all the familiar roads and straightened up the trail towards the Alps. After about eight kilometers we did find an inn, just as Darvell had said. We had a pleasant dinner at the inn. After dinner he introduced me to the innkeeper’s wife, who let me sleep next to her.
The next day we hired two mules, followed on foot by one of the servants of the inn, and soon reached the frontier of the province of Dauphiné, towards which mountains we always proceeded. Darville, who had been wounded, could not walk the whole distance, and I myself, who seldom traveled on a mule, found it uncomfortable to do so. We halted at Villieu, where I was treated and attentively cared for, as was Darville. The next day we resumed our journey in the same direction.
At four o’clock in the evening we reached the foot of the mountain, and from there the trail was bad. Darvell bade the mule-driver not to leave me a step, in case of accidents; and as we traversed the ravines, turning seven times and going up the mountain without stopping, for about sixteen kilometers, with no one in the wilderness around us, and no signs of human beings to be found, I thought that I had reached the end of the world.
A touch of uneasiness could not but flood my mind. Lost among these unclimbable rocks, I was reminded of the Abbey of Our Lady of the Forest, nestled in the depths of the forest, and my strong antipathy to all regions of isolation made me tremble at the sight of the place. At last we saw at a distance a castle, perched on a menacing overhanging rock, as if hanging from the tips of futile crags, giving the impression of a haunted house rather than a human dwelling.
Though we saw the castle, there was no letter-road, and the path we walked, which was only for goats, was surrounded by rocks, and involved numerous turns and corners to reach the castle.
“This is my house,” said Darvell to me, when he thought I had got a good look at the castle. I asked in astonishment why he should live in such desolate premises, and he replied to me, in a rather gruff tone, that a man could live wherever he could.
His tone both offended and frightened me. One is sensitive to everything in misfortune, and the slightest change in the tone of the voice of those on whom we lean can inspire or stifle our hopes; but this was no time to shrink, and I pretended to be indifferent to everything. At last we made a circle round the old building, and suddenly realized that it stood before us. Darvell dismounted the mules, told me to do the same, and then returned the two mules to the mule-driver, paid him, and ordered him to go back with them, which he did, and which also greatly displeased me. Darvell noticed my unnatural appearance.
“What has happened to you, Sophie?” He asked me as we were walking towards his residence, “You have not left France, this chateau is located on the border of Dauphiné and has always belonged to that department.”
“Well, sir,” I replied, “but what made you think of settling in this dangerous spot?
”
“A dangerous place? No,” said Darvell, staring at me sinisterly as he walked away, “this is not a dangerous place, but neither is it a place for honest people to live in peace.”
“Ah, monsieur,” I replied, “you really make me tremble; where on earth are you taking me?”
“I’m taking you to work as a helper for the counterfeiters, bitch,” Darvell said as he grabbed me by the arm and forced me to walk across a drawbridge that lowered as we arrived and lifted as soon as we walked across.
“Here,” he added, as we entered the courtyard, “do you see this well?” As he spoke, he pointed out to me a large, deep cistern immediately by the gate, into which two naked women in chains were wrenching wheels to fill a cistern with water (fn. 16).
“They are your companions, and this is the work you are to do; you are to wrench the wheel twelve hours a day, and if you are lazy you are to be whipped like your companions, and you are to enjoy six taels of black bread and a tub of fava beans every day. As for freedom, you will never think of it, you will never see the sky again, and when you die of exhaustion, we will throw you into the hole by the well, do you see? We have thrown in thirty or forty women already, and we can get another one to take your place.”
“O just God, sir,” I cried, flinging myself at Darvell’s feet, “remember that I have saved your life, and that you have ever in a moment of thankfulness tried to give me happiness, and that I do not deserve such a recompense from you.”
“What do you mean by that, I ask you, your so-called gratitude, do you think you caught it?”
Dalvir said, “Judge well, little one, what were you doing before you helped me?
You could either continue on your way, or you could walk to me, and you chose the latter, which was a psychologically guided gesture… and it was a pleasure for you, wasn’t it? Who the hell are you to say that I have to repay you for your own pleasurable gesture? What makes you think that a man like me, who is so rich, who earns a million dollars a year, who can go to Venice anytime he wants to enjoy himself, would lower his status and be indebted to something like you?”
“Even though you saved my life, I owe you nothing, because you did it for yourself. Go to work, slave, go to work! It must be known that civilized society has overthrown the organization of nature without depriving it of its rights, and that it has created the strong and the weak from the beginning for the purpose of making the weak always subservient to the strong, as lambs are subservient to lions and insects to elephants. The ingenuity of mankind puts everyone in a different position; it is not physical strength that determines position, but wealth. The richest man is the strongest, and the poorest the weakest, and beyond this it is always written in the laws of nature that the strong are superior to the weak, that the chain that locks up the weak is always in the hands of the strong, and that the rich or the strong always strike the weak or the poorest with the chain.”
“Sophie, the gratitude which you advocate is not recognized by nature; it is never recorded in its laws; and the pleasure which the giver receives is not a reason for the recipient to renounce his right to the giver. Do you see that among the beasts there is gratitude of which you are proud? Why should I give up my rights for you, when I exceed you in wealth and energy? Just because you did for yourself the one thing you should have done?”
“Even when a favor is done between equals, a man of noble mind cannot tolerate gratitude that lowers his self-respect. The recipient of a favor will always feel disgraced, and this feeling of disgrace will have long since paid the debt owed to the giver. Is not the feeling of being superior to one’s own kind a pleasure to the self-respecting man? Does the giver need anything else? If gratitude becomes a burden to the recipient, what reason is there to force him to maintain it? Why must I feel inferior every time the giver’s eyes are fixed on me?”
“That ingratitude is not a vice, but a virtue of the noble mind, is a very clear and intelligible thing, just as it is a virtue of the weak mind to do good; a slave asks his master to do good, because of this necessity of his, and so would an ox and an ass if they could speak. But the strong man is only at the command of his lust or nature, and should welcome only that which is useful to him or pleasing to him. He who likes to give favors do so in spite of them, as long as you consider it a pleasure, but you cannot ask others to repay you because you have enjoyed yourself.”
When he had said this, Darvell, without waiting for an answer, ordered two of his servants to seize me, undress me, and lock me up with two other women, with whom I had to work, without allowing me to rest, when I was very tired from the long journey. I had been at the wheel for a quarter of an hour when the counterfeiters, who had finished their work for the day, came and gathered around me, scrutinizing me under the leadership of their chief. They laughed at the marks of shame that were engraved on my body, and they came up to me, touching me roughly all over my body, and making scathing remarks about my body, which they had no choice but to expose to them.
After this painful scene was over, and they had moved away a little, Darvell seized one of the whips that were often placed near us, and lashed me five or six times, and then said to me, “If you don’t do your duty, whore, this is how I’ll treat you, and this time it’s not because you didn’t do your duty, but just to show you what happens when you don’t do it. “
Each lash took away a portion of my skin, and I had never endured such sharp agony, not under Brusak, not under those savage priests, and I could not help uttering earth-shattering cries, while struggling beneath the iron refining; the cries and the writhing of my body only made the onlooking demons laugh.
From this I cruelly realized that if some people can take pleasure in the suffering of others for the sake of vengeance or shameful lust, others are quite savagely organized to take pleasure in the suffering of others, with the sole motive of satisfying the demands of pride or curiosity. Men are by nature evil, both in the excitement of their passions and in the calm, and the suffering of their fellow men can be turned to their shameful enjoyment.
Three dark huts were situated around the well, separated from each other and closed like prisons, and the servant who had just locked me up, after handing me water, fava beans, and bread, showed me my hut, and I entered it. Here at last I was able to consider well the harshness of my situation.
“Is this possible?” I thought to myself, “It is surprising that some people are so barbarous as to extinguish the feeling of retribution in their hearts, whereas I, as soon as an honest man causes me to feel this feeling, I immediately and very joyfully go about retributing it. Is it possible for mankind to neglect this feeling? What can anyone who inhumanly extinguishes this feeling be but a devil?”
I was weeping as I thought about it when suddenly the door of the hayloft opened and in came Darvell.
He had the candle in his hand, and without saying a word, he laid it on the floor, and pounced on me like a wild beast, and when I resisted he struck me with his fists, and at last roughly overpowered me, and, having gratified his beastly desires, picked up the candle, and walked out, shutting the door behind him.
I said to myself; “How far must I go before my abuse ends? What difference is there between such a man and the beasts of the forest?”
The sun came up, and I did not rest a minute; the door of our hut was opened, the servants locked us up again in the iron smithy, and we began that miserable work again. My companions were two girls between twenty-five and thirty years of age, who, though damaged by heavy manual labor and dumb with suffering, were still graceful; they had beautiful figures, and one of them had preserved a beautiful head of hair.
Conversations with them led me to learn that they had both been at different times the mistresses of Darville, the one at Lyons; the other at Grenoble. He had brought them to this dreadful hermitage, where for several years they had lived with Darville as equals, and in return for the pleasure they had given him for many years, he had punished them for this disgraceful work.
I learned from them that at the present time he has another charming mistress, who is more fortunate than they are, and who will probably be able to go with him to Venice. He has lately transferred large sums of money to Spain, and he waits for bills of exchange to be sent from Spain to Italy, as he does not wish to bring counterfeit money to Venice.
He never sends forged money only to his agents in third countries, and not to the country in which he is to settle, so that in the country in which he settles he may have legal instruments, and his conspiracy may never be exposed, and his fortune have a firm foundation. So he had recently set out for Venice. But in a moment all might be lost, and his contemplated repose in Venice depended entirely on the result of the final negotiations, in which he had invested the greater part of his fortune; and if the Spanish city of Cadiz accepted his forged currency, and accordingly remitted to him legal notes to be sent to Venice, his old age would be a happy one; or else his conspiracy was exposed, and he was in danger of being prosecuted and danger of being hanged, which was the end he deserved.
“Alas!” I said to myself after hearing the news, “God should be just for once, and should not allow a demon like this to succeed, so that the three of us can take a breath.”
At noon we were allowed to rest for two hours, and we always used this time to go to our respective rooms for rest and lunch. At two o’clock we were chained up again and kept turning the wheel until dark. We were never allowed to enter the castle.
The reason why we were naked five months in the year was because of the heat and the fatigue of our work, and also, as I was told by my companions, because it was easier to be whipped than to be naked, and our vicious masters had to come at intervals to beat us. In winter we were each given a pair of pants and an undershirt that clung to our skin, and which wrapped our whole body so tightly that our poor flesh was easily subjected to the whipping of our executioners.
Darvell didn’t show up at all during the day that day, and near midnight he came back to insult me. I wanted to use this time to ask him to treat me better.
“What right have you to demand this of me?” said the savage fellow, after he had satisfied his animal lust, “is it because I have spent a little time with you on the spur of the moment? Do I give you the right to demand compensation? I don’t demand anything from you… I enjoyed it, and I don’t see how I can’t exercise my right a second time after I’ve exercised it on you. There is no love in my behavior; love is a feeling that I have never known in my heart.
I have used a woman out of necessity, as I have used a bottle in different necessities, and I have never had respect or love for the woman who has satisfied my lusts by reason of my money and my power; I have used her only on my own account, and have only demanded obedience from her, and I do not see that I am thus called upon to show gratitude to her. Just as a robber robs a man of his purse in the woods, because the robber is stronger and more robust than the man, can the robber be called upon to show gratitude for his robbery? In the same way, the fact that a man insults a woman only proves that he has a right to insult a second one, but is not a normal reason for him to make reparation to the woman.”
Dalvir said this to me after he had satisfied his animal lusts, and then sailed away, leaving me in renewed contemplation. That night Dalvir came again to inspect our work, and, finding that we had not filled the water-wheel with the usual quantity of water during the day, seized the cruel whip and beat us all three until we bled. The whipping of me was not a little less severe than the others, though, which did not prevent him from insulting me again that night as he had done on the previous occasion.
I pointed out to him the wounds he had inflicted on me, and dared to remind him that I had once torn my clothes to dress his wounds; but Darvell, who was only interested in his own amusement, replied to my complaints with a dozen slaps, interspersed with all sorts of curses, and at last, as usual, after his bestiality had been satisfied, he threw me down and went away. This continued for a month, and my life did not change in the least; I was treated neither better nor worse.
After a year of this, word came that Darvell had struck it rich, and that he would not only receive in Venice the large amount of notes he had longed for, but they had asked him to ship a few million more counterfeit coins to Spain in order that they might be exchanged for notes and remitted to Venice for him. The villain was unexpectedly rich, and he was to go away with more than a million dollars in property. This is a new example of Divine revelation to me, and this is the new way in which Heaven attempts to persuade me: that sin always brings prosperity; and that disaster is inevitably accompanied by virtue.
Darvell was ready to move, and he came to see me at midnight the night before he left, something that had not happened for a long time. He told me himself that he was rich and that he was going away. I fell on my knees at his feet, and I firmly asked him to give me my freedom and to give me a little charity for my passage to Grenoble.
“You’ll turn me in when you get to Grenoble.”
“No, sir,” I said, as I sprinkled my tears on his knees, “I swear to you I shall never go to Grenoble again; believe me, take me to Venice; perhaps I can impress some weak hearts there more than in my native land; and if you will take me there, I swear to you by my most sacred thing to you, and I swear to you that I shall give you no trouble.”
“I won’t do you a favor at all, and I won’t give you a penny,” the impudent bastard answered me scathingly; “what people call a good deed or a handout is something I naturally detest, and I wouldn’t give half a penny to a poor man, even if I were three times richer than I am now. I laid down these principles long ago, and I will never violate them. The poor are a phenomenon of nature, and in creating mankind with unequal abilities, nature has shown us that this inequality is to be maintained, and so is that which has made our civilization change the organization of nature by laws.”
“The poor represent weakness, and I told you long ago that to free the poor is to destroy the order that has been created; it is to violate nature. It is to overthrow the equilibrium which is the basis of good order, it is to try to create the usual which is very dangerous to society, it is to encourage idleness and idleness, it is to teach the poor to steal from the rich, and by helping the poor the rich will feed their habit of getting something for nothing.”
“Ah! Sir, how cruel are these principles of yours! Would you say the same if you had not been rich from the beginning?”
“I did not start out rich, but I will take control of my destiny; I have long trampled underfoot the ghost of so-called morality, which only leads men to the gallows or to hospitals; I have long seen that religion, charity and benevolence are stumbling-blocks to riches. I spurned religion and worldly laws, and when I met the poor in my path I struck them down; I always took advantage of the honesty and gullibility of others to cheat them out of their wealth, and it was by destroying the poor and stealing from the rich that I arrived at the temple of riches. Why don’t you follow my example? Your destiny is in your own hands, and has your beloved vain morality ever consoled you for the sacrifices you have made for it? O poor man, there is no time, it is too late; weep for your transgressions, endure the agony, and try, as far as possible, to recover all that you have lost among the ghosts you reverence.”
After these cold and heartless words, Darvir came at me… but he frightened me so much, and his shameless maxims made me hate him so much that I pushed him away; he tried to use force: it did not work, and he resorted to brutality, and I was beaten countless times, but he did not triumph. At last he quenched his lust in defeat, and I had my revenge.
Before leaving the next day, this vile fellow performed before us another drama of cruelty and barbarism, with a ferocity and brutality unrivaled by any emperor in history. All believed that his mistress would follow him out of here, and he dressed her up accordingly. When it was almost time to mount his horse, he brought her to us.
“Your post is here, stinking bitch,” he told her, while ordering her to strip naked, “I want my men to remember me, that I left what they thought was my favorite woman here as a hostage, but there are only three women needed here… and it’s a dangerous road I’m embarking on… and my My weapons are useful to me. I’m going to try my pistol on one of you.”
As he spoke he loaded a gun, pointed it at the breasts of the three watercartpushing women, and said to one of them, “Go,” he said to her, while shooting her in the breast, “go and take my message to the underworld, and go and say to the devil, Darvell, that the richest villain on earth is the one who most arrogantly contempt of God and your authority.”
The unfortunate woman did not break at once, and struggled for a long time in her chains, a horrible sight which the impudent man admired for a long time. At last he removed her, called his mistress to take her place, ordered her to turn the wheel three or four times, and then whipped her a dozen times. When this was over, the vile man mounted his horse, and the two servants followed him, and left us for ever.
The day after Darvell left, everything changed. The man who succeeded him, a gentle and reasonable man, immediately called for our chains to be opened.
“This kind of work is not women’s work,” he said to us, full of kindness, “and animals should be used to propel these machines; we are quite sinful enough in this occupation, and we cannot offend Heaven by abusing you without cause.”
He brought us into the castle, and, without any personal interest, put Dalvir’s mistress in charge of the whole of the affairs of the castle, and placed us in the workshop, where we were responsible for the cutting of counterfeit coins, a work which was not too tiring, and for which we were paid with very comfortable rooms and excellent food. Two months later, Laurent, Dalvir’s successor, announced to us that Dalvir had arrived safely in Venice, where he had taken up his residence and realized his dream of wealth and prosperity.
His successor was far less fortunate. Poor Laurent was an honest man, and that was the reason why he soon fell to pieces. One day all was quiet in the castle, and under the supervision of our kind master our work, though criminal, was going on smoothly and cheerfully. Suddenly the castle was surrounded; the drawbridge had not been lowered, the moat had been crossed, and before our men could think of a defense, the castle was surrounded by more than a hundred mounted police. We were obliged to surrender, and the mounted police strung us up like cattle, tied us behind horses, and took us to Grenoble.
“My God,” I thought to myself as I entered the city, “this is the city I’m going to, and I was so confused before that I thought I’d be happy here.”
The proceedings against the counterfeiters were soon decided, and the whole number sentenced to be hanged. The people, when they saw the brand of shame upon me, almost dispensed with the step of interrogating me, and I was found guilty like the rest. We were tried by a famous magistrate, a good citizen and a wise philosopher, whose good and benevolent deeds were to be inscribed on the stone of the Hall of Fame. I pleaded with this puritan, and he listened to me… Not only that, but he was so convinced of my honesty and the truth of my unfortunate history that he actually comforted me with tears of sympathy.
O great one, whom I should honor, allow me to offer you reverence; the gratitude of a fallen woman will not become too heavy a burden for you, and her contribution to you will always be a joy to her heart.
Mr. S… was the puritan who became my defense lawyer, and people listened to my complaints, my moans gained sympathy, and my tears touched people who were not hard-hearted. The prisoners who were about to be executed supported my defense with their confessions. I was acquitted of all charges, and was free to do as I pleased. My benefactors raised another collection for me, which amounted to ten pistoles (fn. 17). Thus I saw happiness, and felt that what I expected was to be realized; I thought that my calamity was at an end, but who knew that Providence was not so, and that my calamity was not yet over.
When I left prison, I stayed in a hotel across the bridge from Isser, which they assured me was a very safe hotel. My plan was to follow Mr. S…’s instructions, stay there for a few days, try to find a job in the city, and if that didn’t work out, go back to Lyon with a letter of introduction from Mr. S….
I ate at the hotel at what was called the “host table”. The next day I noticed that I was being scrutinized by a fat lady, who was dressed very elegantly and called herself a baroness. I looked back at her, and believing that we were acquaintances, we approached each other and embraced each other like two acquaintances who could not remember where they knew each other.
At last the fat baroness took me aside: “Sophie,” she said, calling my name, “I am not mistaken, you are the one I rescued from the Paris prison ten years ago. Do you remember La Dubois?”
The encounter did not please me, and I answered her politely, but I was up against the shrewdest and most cunning woman in France, and I could not escape her clutches. La Rouge was very attentive to me. La Dubois, who was very attentive to me, told me that she paid as much attention to my case as the whole town, but she did not know that I was one of the accused. I have always been soft of hearing, and I was taken to her room, and told her of my misfortune.
“My dear friend,” she said, as she embraced me once more, “I want to come and go with you more intimately, for the purpose of telling you that I have made a great fortune, and that now all I have you may use as you please.”
“You see,” she said, opening the chest full of gold and diamonds to show me, “this is what I have earned by my labor, and if I had clung to morality as you do, I would have been hanged or imprisoned to-day.”
“O madam,” I said to her, “if you get all this by sinning, Heaven is fair, and it will not let you enjoy these things for long.”
“You are mistaken,” said La. Don’t imagine that God always protects moral people; these people also have a certain development in a short period of time that makes you fall into error,” said La Dubois to me. In fact, God treats those who do bad things and those who do good things equally: He only needs an equal number of bad things and good things, and it doesn’t matter what people do bad things and what people do good things.”
“Listen to me, Sophie, and pay attention to me,” she continued, as she sat down and motioned me to sit beside her; “you are very clever, and I am anxious to convince you. My dear, one does not get happiness or not get happiness by choosing bad or good things, for good things are the same as bad things, and the choice is but a manifestation of behavior, and whichever you choose, you follow the course of the great crowd, and he who departs from it commits a mistake. In a world full of morality, I urge you to choose morality, for reward follows reward, and there is no doubt that you will be happy. In a world of total corruption and degradation, I would always advise you to choose badness. For the man who does not follow others is bound to die; he meets only obstacles along the way, and as he is the weakest of men he is bound to be crushed.”
“The law tries in vain to restore order and to bring man back to morality, but unfortunately it is too weak to succeed; for a time it may divert man a little from the highway, but never completely. When the interests of mankind call men to corruption and degradation, those who do not wish to be degraded fight alone against the interests of mankind in general; and what happiness can be hoped for by those who are constantly opposed to the interests of others? You will contradict me by saying that it is the bad men who defend the interests of others, and that I would agree with you when the good men and the bad men of the world were divided into two equal numbers, because then the interests of one part of the people defended the interests of one part of the people; but unfortunately this is not the case in a perfectly corrupt society; then the bad men injure only other bad men, and the other bad men then contrive to make up for the loss by some bad thing, and consequently all the bad people are made happy.”
“Such vibrations are universal, and the innumerable collisions and mutual damages that take place enable everyone to make back what he has lost at once, and thus to be in a constant state of happiness. Bad men are dangerous to good men, for good men are both weak and fearful, and dare not do anything, and without good men, bad men can only harm bad men, and thus are able to make the earth blossom with innumerable flowers of sin.”
“It may be argued against me that good things come to good ends, which is another sophistry. The so-called good results are useful only to the weak, not to the unjust who rely only on their own resourcefulness and ability to change their fate. How is it possible, my girl, that you may not fail often in your life, since you continually take the opposite direction, going against the grain with all men? You will soon find the other side as I did, if you will only plunge bravely into the rapids. Can a man who travels against the current in a river be as fast as one who goes down with it?”
“You have often spoken to me of Providence; who can prove that Providence likes order and therefore morality? Has not Providence often given you examples of its injustice and perversion of right and wrong? Does God send wars, pestilence, and famine to mankind, and set up an evil universe all over the globe, for the purpose of proving to you that he loves morality for ten minutes? Why must you make those wicked people abhorrent to God, when God himself works according to evil, and in his will and behavior everything is evil and corrupt, everything is sin and tumult?”
“Who brought us into the way of evil? Is it not the God of Heaven? Do we not say that any will we have, any feeling we have, comes from God? Is it reasonable to say that God wants us to love evil, and that evil is not useful to God? If evil is useful to God, why should we oppose it? What gives us the right to destroy it? Why do we not heed its call?
Just a little more philosophy in the world would put things back to normal in the near future, and show legislators and law enforcers that the evils they condemn and severely penalize sometimes do a little more good than the morality they so often propagate but never reward.”
“But, madam,” I said to this woman who had abetted evil, “I am rather too weak to do what you say, and my heart produces regrets at all times; how can you destroy it?”
“Regret is a mere fancy, Sophie,” added La, Dubois; “it is the foolish complaint of the weak who dare not destroy it.”
“Eliminate it, can it be done?”
“It could not be easier; one is always sorry for things that one is not accustomed to do ordinarily. Just do the thing that makes you regret a few times more, and you will destroy regret; if you hold the torch of lust high, and take the powerful law of interest against regret, you will soon destroy it. Regret does not prove sin. It only shows a mind that is apt to yield. Suppose there were at present an absurd command forbidding you to go out of this room; you could not but have regret if you did, even though you knew perfectly well that it would not be a bad thing to leave the room.”
“It is therefore wrong to think that sin alone produces regret. Regret can be easily overcome only by believing that sin does not count for a thing, or that evil is necessary in the whole layout of nature, just as regret is easily overcome by stepping out of a room after you have received an unlawful order to remain in it. We should rightly analyze, at the outset, what mankind’s so-called evils are all about; a so-called evil is nothing more than a violation of a country’s laws or their customs, and what can be called an evil in France is not an evil if it goes on for a few hundred kilometers more, and therefore there is never an act that the whole world would call an evil, and in the final analysis there is nothing that can be justifiably labeled as an evil; everything is all determined by geography and human perception.”
“Understanding this, it is absurd to be bent on practicing virtue and escaping from sin, for what is called virtue here becomes sin elsewhere, and what is called sin here is virtue under another weather. Now I ask you, after such reflection and study, can a man in France, who, in a moment of pleasure or for his own benefit, does something in conformity with Chinese or Japanese morality, which his own country condemns him, produce regret? Can he dwell on such meaningless distinctions? If he has a little philosophical thought, can this distinction produce regret in him? If regret serves only for the sake of defense, only to break through constraints and not for the sake of the act itself, is it not extremely ridiculous to continue to have regret and not to destroy it at once?”
“As long as one is accustomed to regard the behavior that produces regret as indifferent, and as long as one repeats it as often as possible, the more often the better, the torch of reason will soon destroy the foolish fruit of regret.”
“For thirty years, Sophie, a long succession of crimes has guided me step by step to the fortune which I have touched; and in two or three more turns I shall be transformed from the poor circumstances in which I was born into a man who earns an annuity of fifty thousand francs a year. Do you think that the poisonous sting of regret has not pierced me a little in my brilliant course? Absolutely not, I have never felt like that. Even if an unlucky event pulls me in a moment from the top to the abyss, I never regret it; I only complain of the incompetence of others and of myself, but my conscience is always settled.”
“Well, let us for the moment reason according to your philosophical principles. Since from childhood my conscience has not been accustomed to triumph over what is called prejudice, what right have you to demand that my conscience should be as firm as yours, and since we are both of us of entirely different minds, on what ground do you demand that I should adopt the same methods as you? You recognize that there is a great deal of bad and a great deal of good in the world, and that therefore there must be one class of men to do good and another to do evil. The decisions I take, even according to your principles, are part of nature; therefore, do not compel me to depart from the law which governs me; you yourself have said that you enjoy happiness in the course of your life, and I, likewise, am not likely to find it elsewhere than in the course of mine, and do not think that the extremely vigilant law will long let those who trample upon it go unpunished; you are not Have you not seen a living example of this? I had the misfortune to live with fifteen villains, fourteen of whom died shamefully, and I alone am safe and sound.”
“Do you think it’s a disaster? In the first place, what is shame to the man who has no more principles? What is shame to the man who is beyond all things, whose honor is but prejudice, whose fame is but an illusion, whose future is but a dream, and who then dies here or in his bed, whether he dies here or in his bed? There are two kinds of villains in the world: those who rely on great wealth and fame to save them from such a tragic end, and those who do not avoid such an end when they are caught. The latter comes from a poor background, and if he is wise, he should have only two things in his eyes: money, or the gallows. If he succeeds, he receives the money he wishes for; if he receives the gallows, what regret can he have for a man who has nothing to lose?”
“The law is of no use to all bad men: it does not control the bad men who are powerful, the lucky bad men escape the law, and the most unfortunate bad man has nothing but profit, and the law has nothing to fear from him.”
“Do you believe that God’s law awaits those who do not fear sin in a better world?”
“I believe that if there were a God, there would be fewer bad things in the world; and I believe that if there are bad things in the world, it is because they are needed by this God, or because he is not powerful enough to stop them.
This being so, I have no fear of a God who is both weak and bad in himself, and I dare boldly offend him without fear of his punishment.”
“You do make me tremble, ma’am,” I said, as I rose, “and pardon not being able to listen any longer to your odious sophistry, and your hateful cursing of the gods.”
“Wait a minute, Sophie, if I cannot reason with you, at least I hope to be able to empathize with you. I need you, and you must not refuse me your aid. Here is a hundred louis, which I place by your side in your presence, and which will be yours if you succeed as an officer.”
I had always listened to my own good nature, and I at once questioned La Rouge about what had happened to her, in order to prevent her from committing a crime with all my strength. I immediately questioned La Dubois as to what was the matter, in order to prevent her from committing the crime with all my might.
“The thing is,” she said to me, “have you noticed the young Lyon merchant who has been dining with us for three days?”
“Noticed that, didn’t Dibbleeay?”
“That’s right.”
“Well?”
“He’s in love with you, he told me in secret. He has six hundred thousand francs, partly in gold, partly in bills, in a little box beside his bed. I managed to convince him that you had agreed to befriend him, and what did it matter to you whether it was true or not? I persuaded him to ask you to take a walk outside the city, and I convinced him that in this walk he could make progress in his pursuit of you. You will please him by keeping him in the countryside as long as possible; in the meantime I will steal his money, but I will not escape, and when his baggage reaches Turin I will still be in Grenoble.”
“We want to try to call his attention away from us, and we pretend to help him in his search; in the meantime I announce that I am going to move off, and he won’t be surprised, and you will follow me along, and when we reach Piemont, the hundred francs will be yours.”
“I am willing to do it, ma’am,” I said to La. “I will do it, ma’am,” I said to La Dubois; in fact, I had resolved to tell poor Dibreuil that people were counting on him shamelessly.
To better deceive the bad woman, I added: “Consider, madam, that if Dibreuil were really in love with me, I could either warn him or associate with him, and I would receive from him much more than you have promised to give me.”
“You are quite right,” La. Dubois said to me, “and really, I have come to believe that you are more gifted in crime than I am. Well,” she said as she filled out the check, “I’m going to give you a check for a thousand louis now, and you won’t refuse it.”
“I certainly don’t refuse, ma’am,” and I took the check; “it’s all due to the distress of my situation, and the fact that I’m soft of ear and want to make you happy.”
Everything was arranged. That night I began to pander to Dibreuil and found that sure enough he was interested in me.
I could not have been in a more awkward position, and while I certainly did not want to complete the crime, even if I was paid more, I was also very reluctant to hang a woman who had helped me to gain my freedom ten years earlier. I wanted to prevent the crime from taking place without having to denounce her, and if it had been anyone else but a sophisticated and bad man like La. If it had been someone else, not a sophisticated villain like La Dubois, I would have succeeded long ago.
I made this decision before I knew that this bad woman was secretly plotting to not only crush my legitimate plans, but to punish me for coming up with them.
On the day of the scheduled outing, La. Dubois invited us both to dine in her room, and we accepted the invitation. After dinner, Dibreuil and I went downstairs to urge on the carriage. La Dubois did not follow us. La Dubois did not follow us, so I had a few moments alone with Debreuil before getting into the carriage.
“Monsieur,” I said to him hastily, “pay attention to what I have to say, do not make a show of it, and it is especially important to do what I tell you. Have you any reliable friends in this hotel?”
“Yes, I have a young partner who is as reliable as I am.”
“Then, sir, please instruct him quickly that he is not to leave your bedroom for a minute during our walk.”
“But I have the key to my bedroom in my pocket, so why be overly careful?”
“It’s more important than you think, sir, so please do as I say, or I won’t go out without you. The woman from whose house we have just come is a villain; she has arranged our excursion in order that in the meantime she may steal from you more conveniently. Hurry, sir, she is watching us, and she is a dangerous person; it is better not to let on that I have warned you. Give the key to your friend quickly, and tell him to bring some men to your room, and remain in it till we return. I will tell you the rest when we are in the carriage.”
Dibreuil, on hearing my words, clasped my hand in thanks, and then ran as fast as he could to issue the orders I had given him. He returned, and we set out, and on the way I told him the whole story. He thanked me profusely, and then begged me to tell him the truth about me. After hearing this, he thought that all my past experiences would not prevent him from proposing to me and sharing his property with him.
“We are both of similar birth,” said Dibreuil to me; “like you my father was a merchant, and while my business has prospered, yours has unfortunately failed. I shall be glad to make amends for the injustice which fate has done you. Consider it, Sophie, I am autonomous, I am dependent on no one; I am going to Geneva to make a large investment, and your advice has saved me; you will follow me to Geneva, and there you will become my wife, and when you come to Lyons you will appear as a lady.”
I was so moved by this encounter that I couldn’t refuse it, but I couldn’t accept it right away either. I had to let Debreuil know something that he might regret first. He was extremely grateful for my thoughtfulness and only embraced me more tightly… I was such a poor woman that happiness smiled at me only to make the pain of not being able to hold on to it all the more acute! God had decided that whenever I tried to do a good deed, he would send me a disaster.
As we talked and talked, we were eight kilometers from the city, and we were about to get out of the carriage and take a walk along the path along the Ijssel River, when all of a sudden Dibrej told me that he was very sad… He got out of the carriage and vomited violently, so I helped him back into the carriage and we sped back to Grenoble. Dibrej was in such pain that we had to carry him to his bedroom.
His friends were amazed at his condition, and they followed his orders not to leave his bedroom. I followed him every step of the way… The doctor came… God of justice, the poor young man’s condition was diagnosed as poison… As soon as I heard the news, I flew to La DuBois’s room… the villain… she had gone… I went back to my room, and my closet had been broken up, and what little money I had and what little clothes I had had taken away, and I was told that La DuBois had gone to Turin by mail for three hours. And I was told that La Du Bois had already traveled three hours to Turin by mail coach.
There can be no doubt that she was the principal perpetrator of all the crime; she went first to Dibreuil’s room, and, seeing it guarded, was so angry that she took her revenge on me, and at dinner she had already poisoned Dibreuil, so that when we returned, if she had succeeded in her theft, poor Dibreuil was too preoccupied with the protection of his own life to pursue her, and she was safely disengaged; and, what is more, as he was, so to speak, in the company of me when he was poisoned. I was also more suspected than she.
I darted again to the room of Dibreuil, whom they forbade me to approach (fn. 18), and who died surrounded by his friends. Before he died he defended me, assured them of my innocence, and forbade them to pursue me. No sooner had he closed his eyes than his partner rushed to tell me the news and asked me to be at ease… Alas, how could I be at ease? How could I not cry for my only confidant, the only person who had graciously rescued me from my misery since I was in distress?… How could I not lament the theft of my belongings, which had plunged me back into the abyss of poverty?
I told everything to Dibreuil’s partner, how La Rouge had conspired to steal his friend’s property, and so on. How La Dubois had conspired to steal his friend’s property, what had happened to me, and so on. He sympathized with me, lamented the death of his partner, and reproached me for not having hesitated too much to give the alarm as soon as I learned of La Dubois’s plot. We thought that this dreadful woman would reach safety in only four hours, that she would be there long before we could think of pursuing her, and that we would have to spend a great deal of money, and that the owner of the hotel, who was implicated in my accusations, would certainly fight to defend himself, and might perhaps defeat me, since I had been a lucky escapee in a criminal case in Grenoble, and was now living only on the charity of the charity authorities… These reasons not only convinced me, but frightened me so much that I resolved to leave immediately, without even informing S… Sir, my benefactor. Dibrej’s friend was in favor of my idea, and he told me frankly that if there was a public inquiry into his friend’s death, the testimony he would have to give would definitely involve me because I was close to Mr. S. Dobrej. Since I was close to La Dubois and had been the last person to walk with Dibreuil, he considered, on the basis of all this, that I must leave Grenoble at once, without telling anyone, and that on his side he would certainly not take any action against me.
After reviewing the whole affair alone, I felt that the advice of the young man, who was convinced of my innocence but thought that on the face of it I was guilty, was very good, and that the only evidence in my favor was the advice I had given to Dibreuil, which, however, was explained by his death, and turned out to be not so strong as I had imagined it to be. I made up my mind at once, and I told Dibreuil’s partner of my decision.
“I wish,” he said to me, “that my friend had made a decision in your favor, which I should have been glad to carry out. I would even have liked him to have said to me that it was you who advised him to have the bedroom guarded while you were out walking, but he said nothing of this; he only said to us several times in succession that you were innocent, and that no proceedings should be instituted against you.”
“I had to confine myself to carrying out his last orders. You tell me that you have suffered theft for his sake, and I ought to have done you a favor, mademoiselle; but I have just begun business; I am young, and my fortune is limited; not a penny of Dibreuil’s legacy belongs to me, and I am about to return the whole of it to his family. Therefore, Sophie, please accept that I can only do you a small favor, here are five louis, and,” he said as he called a woman into his room, whom I had seen at the hotel, “this is one of the proprietresses of Chalons-sur-Saône, my native town, who is on her way back to her native land, and is going to stop at Lyons for twenty-four hours to do her business and then return. “
He introduced me to this woman: “Mrs. Bertrand, I would like to introduce you to a young girl who would love to get a job in the provinces. I’d appreciate it if you’d do your best to help her find a job in our hometown that matches her family’s background and education. Good-bye, Sophie… Mrs. Bertrand leaves tonight, and you will follow her, hoping that luck will accompany you to your new city, where I myself may soon see you again, and I shall be grateful to you all my life for the friendly shelter you have given to Dibreuil.”
He was such a kind and decent young man, who owed me absolutely nothing, but treated me so well that I could not help but shed tears. I accepted his money, vowing that I would work until I could pay him back one day in the future.
I left him thinking, “Alas, though I have fallen into misfortune while doing another good deed, at least for the first time in my life I have found consolation in the depths of evil.” I never saw the young benefactor again, and I set out with Bertrand, as he had decided, on the evening of the day following the tragic death of Dibreuil.
Bertrand had a covered cart, drawn by a horse, which we both took turns driving inside the canopy; in it were her clothes and a considerable amount of cash, and an eighteen-month-old baby girl, whom she nursed. My great misfortune was that before long I fell in love with this little doll, and became more attached to her than her mother.
Mrs. Bertrand was a foul-mouthed woman, uneducated, stupid, suspicious, talkative, narrow-minded, and as nasty as a nun, and about as common as a woman of the common people.
Every evening we carried all our luggage into the hotel and we shared a room. We arrived safely in Lyon, where Bertrand was staying for two days on her business, and during that time I met someone by accident.
The other day I had invited a girl from the hotel to walk with me on the quays of the Rhone, when suddenly I saw Father Antonin coming towards us. He was the executioner of my virginity, whom I had known in the convent of Our Lady of the Forest, and was now the presiding officer of the Order of Osteen in this city. Antonin came up to me arrogantly and asked me, in front of my lady friend, if I would like to renew my love in his new apartment.
He also pointed to my female companion and said, “This fat mother is also welcome; we have quite a few easy-going people in the seminary who can stand two saucy girls.”
I was flushed with shame at these words. For a while I tried to convince him that he had mistaken him, but I was unsuccessful; then I made many gestures to make him a little more steady in the presence of my companion, but they had no effect at all on this rude and impertinent man, and caused him to make more frequent demands. At last, as we repeatedly refused to follow him, he was obliged to ask repeatedly for our address. In order to get rid of him, it suddenly occurred to me to give him a false address, which he wrote down in a note-book, and then left us, saying on his way out that he would see us again soon.
We went back, and on the way I told my lady friend the unfortunate story of my acquaintance with the priest, but she was not satisfied with what I said; she was one of those girls who are naturally talkative, and I found that she had known for a long time that I had known the villainous priest, and that this had come out of Bertrand’s conversation.
As it turned out, the priest didn’t come, we moved on, and it was late when we left Lyon, and the first day we arrived in Villefranche. It is here, madam, that great misfortune has befallen me, and caused me to appear before your eyes today as a criminal. I have been blameless in all the miseries of my life, and you see that I have been struck many times by the injustice of fate, and that fate has thrown me into the depths of misfortune for no other reason than that I have had an unquenchable desire to do good in my breast.
We arrived at Villefranche about six o’clock in the evening of the month of February, and we hastily finished our supper and went to bed early to prepare for a more arduous journey on the morrow. We had not slept more than two hours, when a terrible puff of smoke burst into our room, and awakened us both. We had no doubt that the fire had started in the neighborhood…
By Jove, the fire developed so terribly that we opened the door of our room, half-naked, and heard only the sound of the walls falling down around us, the terrible bursting of the roof-frames, and the appalling cries for help from the victims who had fallen into the fire. A blaze of flame came upon us, and we had scarcely time to rush outside, which we did at last, and mingled with the other sufferers, who were half-naked like ourselves, and some of whom had been caught in the flames, and were fleeing out to seek succor.
At this moment I remembered Bertrand’s little daughter, and being a mother who had been so intent on her own escape that she had forgotten to protect her baby girl, I had no time to inform her, and at once flew through the flames into our bedchamber, which the flames made it impossible for me to open my eyes, and burned me in many places, and I seized the little thing, and turned back to prepare to hand her over to her mother.
I was leaning against a half-burnt beam, one foot in the air, and my first action was to put my hand out in front of me, and this instinctive impulse compelled me to let go, and let the babe I held in my hand fall free, so that the poor little girl fell into the flames under her mother’s very eyes. The unjust woman did not think for a moment that I had done this with the object of saving her daughter, and that my slip had caused me to fall myself, and her grief made her lose her senses, and, going so far as to hold me responsible for the death of her daughter, pounced upon me with such violence and fists and kicks that I was unable to defend myself in the bodily injuries I sustained.
By this time the fire was extinguished, and much succor was rendered to save half the hotel. The first thing Bertrand did was to return to her room, which was the least damaged, and she began to complain again, saying to me that if she had left her daughter in her room she would not have been in danger. But by the time she had searched for her luggage, and found that it had all been stolen, her appearance was greatly changed! In the grip of her despair and anger, she cursed me in a loud voice for being the cause of the fire, and said that I had set it so as to make it easier to steal it; she said that she was going to denounce me, and that she would do so at once, and that she would ask to appear before the local judge and speak to him (fn. 19).
I appealed in vain for my innocence, but she wouldn’t listen to me. The judge was not far away, he had just been directing the firefighting, and as soon as this vicious woman requested it, he came… She formally filed a complaint against me, saying whatever came into her head, and in order to strengthen the force and legitimacy of her accusations, she portrayed me as a prostitute, a prisoner who had managed to escape from her sentence in Grenoble, a young man who must have undoubtedly been forced by her mistress to bring her in, and she mentioned that priest in Lyon… In short, she did not omit a single word of anything that belonged to the vilest calumny, and the thoughts of despair and revenge made her language all the more venomous.
The judge heard the complaint and examined the whole hotel. The fire had started in a warehouse full of hay, and several persons testified to the fact that they had seen me enter it that night. I had been in search of an outhouse, and had listened to the erroneous directions of some of the maids of honor, and had gone into this storehouse, and had remained a considerable time before I came out, and had every reason to be suspected. The course of the proceedings was accordingly begun, and everything was done according to law, witnesses being heard, and not a word in my own defense. It was proved that I was the arsonist, and that I had burned the baby girl because I was excessively wicked; it was also proved that I was an accomplice, and that while I was saving the child on one side of the room, the accomplice was stealing on the other.
This never further clarified the facts, and at dawn the next day I was sent to Lyon Prison on charges of arson, child murder and theft.
For a long time I had been accustomed to being slandered, to injustice and suffering, and from childhood I had been familiar with the fact that a single act of kindness must be rewarded with evil, and for once my sorrow was slow, not sharp, and I only wept bitterly, not groaned. But it is only natural that a suffering man should always try to find a way out of the depths of his misery, and so I thought of Father Antonin. However little hope there was of getting help, I wanted to see him.
I made the request. The priest, who did not know who it was that wanted to see him, came; he pretended not to recognize me, whereupon I said to the guards that I had received him as my instructing priest in my youth, and that therefore he probably could not remember me, and that I was now requesting, under the same name, to have a confidential interview with him, to which both the prison and he quickly agreed.
After I was alone with the priest, I knelt down and begged him to deliver me from this distressing situation, and I proved to him my innocence, and told him that it was because of the insolent things he had said to me two days before that he had offended the person who had brought me here, and that it was she who was now accusing me. The priest listened to me very carefully, and before I had finished, the villain told me to offer myself to him, a shameful suggestion that made me shrink backward in horror.
The priest said to me: “Sophie, don’t be angry, as you usually are, when people offend your damned prejudices; you see clearly now where your principles will take you, and you may have time to persuade yourself that they will only ever take you from abyss to abyss, and if you wish to go on living I advise you to give them up. I see only one way of obtaining success, and that is to throw myself on the mercy of a priest who is a near relative of the Prefect, and I can inform him that you are his niece, and that he can bail you out on that account, and I am convinced that if he promises to send you to a convent for ever, he can prevent the proceedings from going on. As soon as you come out of prison, he will give you to me, and I will be responsible for hiding you for ever. But then you will be mine, and I won’t hide the fact that you will be a slave for my pleasure, and you will fulfill all my carnal needs without hesitation. Sophie, you must choose between agreeing to my terms or dying, and you must answer immediately.”
“Fie on you, Father,” I replied, horrified, “you’re a devil to take advantage of my current situation and put me between death and shame, get out of here, I want to die clean, at least I’ll die with no regrets.”
My resistance aroused the villain, and he had the audacity to show me how aroused he was; a shameless man, who thought of pleasuring himself with lewdness while I was in fetters and the executioner’s knife was hanging over my head. I fled, and he pursued me, and satisfied his animal lust by throwing me down on a bed of straw.
“Listen to me,” he said to me, as he straightened his coat; “you do not wish me to help you, well, I will give you up; I will neither help you nor harm you; but if you say a word against me, I will at once lay a felony upon your head, and deprive you of all right of defense. Think carefully before you open your mouth what I am going to say to the guards later on, and please take in its spirit, or I will put you to death at once.”
He knocked on the door and the guard walked in.
“Monsieur,” the villain said to him, “the girl is mistaken; she wants another priest, Father Antonin of Bordeaux, not me; I did not know her before, and I do not know her now; she asked me to listen to her confession, and I have done so; you are acquainted with our rules, and I have nothing more to to say. I take my leave of you both, and I am at your disposal should I be needed again.”
Antoine walked out after those words, leaving me dumbfounded with surprise at his duplicity and impudence.
The proceedings in the lower courts were always slow, and were conducted by idiots, strict fools, or atrocious fanatics, who found eight or ten store clerks; and the honorable tribunal, unanimously sentenced me to death, and sent it at once to Paris for ratification. At this time the most painful and saddest thoughts tore through my heart.
“Why is my life so plagued with disasters! For every good thought I move, there is always some calamity that follows; how is it possible for a discerning God to penalize my good deeds while holding up the wicked to the heavens, so that they may overwhelm me with their sins?”
“As a child, a usurer abetted me to steal; I refused, and he became rich, while I was almost hanged. In the forest a couple of rogues tried to rape me because I would not follow them, and as a result they became rich, while I fell into the hands of a debauched marquis, who whipped me a hundred times because I would not poison his mother. Then I went to the house of a surgeon, whom I prevented from committing an abominable sin, and he repaid me by cutting off the toes of the find, branding me, and casting me out of his house; he became rich and I was obliged to beg for food. I wanted to approach God and pray for his purification, but the solemn sanctuary was turned into a place of humiliation for me; the devil who had raped and abused me was now exalted, and I was plunged once more into the abyss of misery.
I helped a poor man who robbed me of my money. I rescued a fainting man, and the villain ordered me to turn the wheels of a waterwheel like an animal; he whipped me when I was exhausted, and all good fortune went to his head, while I almost lost my life because I was forced to work for him. A shameless woman tried to lure me into a crime, and I lost my own property again in order to aid the victim’s; the victim tried to repay me by marrying me, and he died in my arms without being able to do so. In a fire I risked my life to save a child of another, and in consequence I fell for the third time under the sword of Themis (fn. 20). I asked a man who had abused me to save me, and I thought I could move him by my heavy calamities, but who knew that this barbaric fellow would once again use abuse to help me… O Lord of Heaven! Will You allow me to doubt Your justice? If I had been doing bad things, like those bad people, would You have given me a great disaster?”
“Madam, these are the words that I have involuntarily and boldly uttered to curse the gods… If you will look at me with sympathy and compassion, you will know that I have been forced by fate to say these words.
…I am very sorry, madam, that I have made you listen patiently for half a day, that I have disturbed your rest, and that I myself have once again exposed the sores, and this is the gain of recounting these tragic experiences, that it is dawn, and that the guards are about to call me by name, so please, let me run to my death, that I am not afraid any more, and that death can shorten my sufferings, and can bring them to an end. Only the fortunate are afraid of death, for they live every day on a sunny day. But the little girl in distress, who had encountered snakes, stepped on thorns, known only abominable people, and whose adversity had robbed her of parents, possessions, friends, help, protection, and who was left with nothing but tears for water and misery for food… was a little girl who did not shudder at the sight of death, but longed for it as if it were a safe harbor. Instead, she longed for it as if it were a safe harbor where she could regain her peace of mind and wait at the feet of the just God of Heaven for the day when her innocence, which had been insulted and trampled upon on earth, would be compensated for in heaven.”
The honest Mr. de Colville was thrilled to hear this account. M. de Colville was much excited by this account, and as for Mme. As for Mme. de Lausange, we have said that the great errors of her youth did not extinguish her sympathy, and that she almost fainted.
“Mademoiselle,” she said to Sophie, “it is difficult to hear your account and not express my utmost concern for you… but can I confess to you? An unexplainable feeling, stronger than the one I have just told you about, irresistibly drew me towards you, viewing your suffering as my own. You have concealed your name, Sophie, you have not told me who you really are, and I beg you to tell me all this. Do not think that I am doing this out of pure curiosity, if what I suspect is true… Ah, Justina, if you are my sister…”
“Justina… ma’am, what a name!”
“She’s your age this year, too.”
“Oh, Juliette, is it you?” The poor woman flung herself into the arms of Mrs. de Lossange. “Is it you, sister, great God… what kind of curses I have said against God, what kind of doubts I have had about God… ah! I have no regrets in dying, now that I can embrace you once again.”
The two sisters hugged each other tightly, talking only with whimpers, and only two people could be heard crying… de. Mr. Colville couldn’t help but shed tears of sympathy as well, and feeling that he couldn’t do without taking responsibility for this, he immediately walked out and entered another room.
He wrote to the Minister of the Seal, describing in words full of blood and tears the fate of the unfortunate Justina, assuring her personally of her innocence, requesting that the case should be cleared up, and stating that the prisoner was now confined in his castle, and that she could be brought to him at the order of the Minister of the Seal. When the letter was finished, he called two knights, informed them of his identity, and ordered them to deliver it at once to the minister of the seal, and on their return to fetch the female prisoner from his house, if so ordered by the supreme magistrate. The two knights knew the identity of De Colville, and were not afraid to implicate him. Knowing de Colville’s identity, they obeyed the order without fear of being implicated and got into a carriage and went…
“Come, pretty girl,” said M. de Corville to JUSTINA, who was still embracing her sister, “come, in fifteen minutes everything will be changed for you. Mr. Colville said to Justine, who was still embracing her sister, “Come, in fifteen minutes everything will be different for you… It cannot be said that you cannot find reward for your virtues in this world, or that you have met hard-hearted people… Come with me… You are my prisoner, and it is I who will vouch for you.”
So Mr. de Colville told them briefly what he had just done. Monsieur Colville told them briefly what he had just done… “You are such a dear and honorable man,” said Madame de Lorsange. “You are such a dear and honorable man,” said Madame de Laussange, kneeling at her lover’s feet. “This is one of the noblest things you have ever done in your life. Only with your true understanding of the heart and the spirit of the law could you have restored innocence to the innocent and extended a helping hand to the unfortunate… Yes, she is your prisoner, sir… Go, Justina, go, fly and kiss this fair protector, who is not as likely to abandon you as the others… Ah, sir, our love was precious to me, and it is even more so now that an additional layer of adoration makes it even more beautiful.”
The two women vied with each other in hugging and kissing Mr. De. Mr. Colville’s knees were kissed and wet with tears.
Everyone moved off. It wasn’t long before we reached the castle. Mr. de Colville and Mr. de Lafayette were there. M. de Colville and Mme. Monsieur de Colville and Madame de Losange happily did everything they could to bring Justine from extreme misery to great comfort and wealth; they fed her with delicacies from the sea, they gave her the best beds, they wished her to give orders in their house, and, in short, they did everything… whatever two good hearts could do to be kind… They had medicines prepared, bathed her, dressed her up, and made her more beautiful than ever before; she became the darling of the couple! She became the favorite of the couple, who fought to make her forget her misfortune as soon as possible.
A masterful artist has used technology to rub out the two marks of shame from her body. Everything was as Madame de Rosange and her lover had wished. As Madame de Losange and her lover had wished, the traces of misfortune had begun to disappear from Justine’s beautiful forehead… Elegance gradually took over, her snow-white cheeks completely faded from their pale color to the rose-red color of spring, and a smile, which had not been seen for a long time, now reappeared cheerfully on her lips.
There was good news from Paris, Mr. de Colville. Monsieur de Colville had moved the whole of France, encouraging the enthusiasm of Monsieur S., who had joined him in telling the story of Justine’s misfortune and giving Justine the peace she deserved… At last the king’s royal decree arrived, withdrawing the unfair charges that had been brought against Justine since she was a child, granting her the title of Model Citizen, silencing all the royal courts that had conspired to set up the unfortunate girl and giving Justine an annuity of 12,000 francs out of the assets of the counterfeit money-making workshops in Dauphiné. It also gave Justine an annuity of twelve thousand francs out of the assets collected by the counterfeiters’ workshops in the province of Dauphiné.
She almost fainted with pleasure when she heard the good news; she shed sweet tears for days at a time in the arms of her benefactors, and suddenly her temper changed, and no one could guess what was the cause. She became melancholy, restless, and rambunctious, and sometimes she shed tears among her friends, when she could not herself explain the cause of them.
“I was born to a miserable life, and do not deserve this much happiness,” she sometimes said to Madame de Rosange. “Ah, dear sister, this life will not last. dear sister, this life will not last.”
Though they told her that all her lawsuits were over, and that she should have no scruples, it was of no avail. The fact that they took care not to mention any of the characters with whom she had been implicated in the past only calmed her for a moment, and it may be said that the poor girl, who had been born into many misfortunes, had already felt the sword of misfortune, which had long been hanging over her head, and which was soon to strike her the final blow.
Mrs. de Rossange was still living in the country; it was the end of the summer, and everyone was going out for a walk, but a terrible storm was building up. Mme. de Lausange was still living in the country; it was the end of summer, and the group had been preparing to go out for a walk, but a terrible storm was forming in the sky, and the walk could not be taken. The heat forced the windows of the parlor to be opened. Lightning thundered, hail fell, the wind blew wildly, and the clouds were disorganized by the fire of heaven.
De… Mrs. Lok Sangay was afraid… Mrs. Lok Sangay’s greatest fear was thunder. Madame de Laussange’s greatest fear was thunder, and she told her sister to close all the doors and windows. Monsieur de Colville came back just then; and Justine, anxious to reassure her sister, flew to one of the windows and tried to close it, but the wind was blowing her back, and she was fighting it when a thunderbolt struck her in the middle of the living room, and she lay down on the floor, completely unconscious.
Madame de Lossange Mrs. Lok Sangay let out a horrible scream… she fainted. Mr. de Colville called out for help. Mr. Colville called out for help, and everyone rushed to her aid. Madame de Losange woke up, but poor Justine had suffered a shock that she didn’t seem to have a chance of saving. The lightning went in at her right breast, scorched her bosom, and came out at her mouth, and disfigured her face so that no one dared to look at it. Mr. de Colville wanted to call the horses. Mr. de Colville wanted her to be taken to the hospital at once. Mr. de Colville wanted to have her carried to the hospital at once. Mme. de Lausange stood up, and very calmly objected to this.
“No,” she said to her lover, “no, keep her down and let me look at her; I need to look at her to firm up the decision I have just taken. Listen to me, sir, please don’t oppose my decision, and nothing in the world can dissuade me from it.”
“My poor sister has always insisted on being moral, and in consequence has endured untold sufferings which are too peculiar, sir, to oblige me to open my eyes to myself. Do not think that I am blind to the false rays of happiness that shine upon bad people in the midst of her calamities. The fluctuating fortunes of the good and the bad are riddles given us by God, which we cannot guess, but we should not be deluded by them. The prosperity of bad people is only a test from God, just like the lightning, whose light is deceptive, which illuminates the universe for a moment in order to then cast the poor people it illuminates into the abyss of death…”
“We have a good example before us; the successive calamities, the uninterrupted misfortunes of this miserable girl, are the warnings which Heaven has given me; calling me to repent of my wrongs, to let Heaven hear my voice of repentance, and at last to rejoin it in its embrace. Am I still afraid of the punishment given to me by the heavens? I am a man… speaking of my sins can make you tremble… my debauched life, my anti-religion… every minute of my life has been against the teachings of my religion… what am I waiting for? Hasn’t it become clear that the girl who never made a mistake in her life has received such treatment.”
“Let us part, sir, the time has come…, there are no bonds between us, forget me, welcome me on a path to eternal life, let me renounce at God’s feet all the shameful crimes that once defiled me. This next severe blow is necessary for my conversion in this life, and I can only hope for happiness in the other world, Farewell, sir, you shall never see me again. The last thing I ask of your friendship is that you will not pry into my whereabouts; I am waiting for you in another and better world, to which your virtues will surely lead you, and I only hope that the austerities which I have practiced for the expiation of my sins will enable me to pass through my unfortunate old age, and that I shall one day see you in a better world.”
Mrs. de Rosange left the house at once. Mme. de Lausange left the house at once; she called for a carriage, took some money, and left the rest of her property to M. de Colville. She took some money and left the rest of her fortune to M. de Colville, and flew to Paris as fast as she could. She entered the Carmelite order in Paris, and within a few years became an exemplary person, both because she was very pious, and because she lived wisely and decently.
Mr. Colville deserved the highest office in the land. M. de Colville deserved the highest rank in the State, and he got it, and he used his high position honorably for the happiness of his people, the glory of his sovereign, and the enrichment of his friends.
Reader, as you read this tale, I hope you have learned the lesson as this woman of high rank has learned it, and that you are convinced, as she was, that true happiness exists only in morality, and that if God allows the virtuous man to be persecuted on earth, it is because God has a very good reward ready for him in heaven.
Fifteen days later.
July 8, 1787
Notes.
Note 1: “Bean Diddy” is a middle grade philosophical novel by Voltaire. It is written about a young man in ancient Babylon, Chadig, who is devoted to goodness, but every good deed he does is followed by a disaster. Finally, after the angel Gesrard pointed out that the world could not do without evil, Chadig got a good ending and became the king.
Note 2: The island of Eros is the island of Aphrodite, the goddess of love in Greek mythology. Aphrodite was born out of the foam of the waves, and was sent to the Greek island of Cetere, which has since been called the island of Eros, where men and women love each other and everyone enjoys joy.
Note 3: Eju, the ancient French monetary unit, each worth three to five francs.
Note 4: Louis, a French gold coin of the past, worth twenty francs each.
Note 5: This is the first time a virtuous person has been punished.
Note 6: This is the second time the virtuous are punished.
Note 7: The Virtuous One is punished for the third time because she refuses to follow a group of robbers who want to rape her in the forest of Bon Meun.
Note 8: In the sequel to “Justine”, Mrs. de Brusac is transformed from a mother to an aunt. In the sequel to “Justine”, Mrs. de Brusac is changed from a mother to an aunt. Is this a prudent move on the part of the author? The new fashion of the French Revolution was to glorify maternal love. The abuse and murder of birth mothers was unacceptable to the new mindset.
Note 9: In the second edition of the book, instead of whipping Justina, Brusak tells his wolf-dog to bite her.
Footnote 10: The virtuous person is punished for the fourth time because she refused to poison Mrs. de Brusac. Mrs. Broussac. Author’s note.
Note 11: In the second edition of this book, Rodin kept fourteen boy-boys and fourteen girl-boys, whom he whipped and sodomized. He also had two wives and a daughter, and incest and sexual abuse took place. Rodin’s daughter was also the subject of a vivisection. Justine was twenty-two years old at the time. Original editor’s note.
Footnote 12: This was the sixth virtue for which she was punished: she was religious, and she was raped when she wished to receive the Eucharist.
Note 13: Lucrece, a Roman noblewoman of great beauty, committed suicide after being raped, and is said to have caused a revolution that turned Rome into a republic.
Note 14: Another version has a completely different ending: Justina escapes, and in her escape she finds a tunnel where the dismissed girls were abused to death, and she ends up in a graveyard, where she sees the bodies buried in a thin layer of the earth’s surface. Original Editor’s Notes.
Footnote 15: The seventh virtue for which she was punished: compassion for the poor author’s note.
Footnote 16: The eighth virtue penalized: she saved the head of the counterfeiters from near death Author’s note.
Footnote 17: Pistoles, an ancient French coin, each equal to ten livres.
Footnote 18: She was punished for her ninth act of kindness: she was stolen from Grenoble because she refused to steal. Author’s Notes.
Note 19: Her tenth good deed was punished: she saved a child from a fire, which led to a lawsuit.
Note 20: Themis, the goddess of law and justice in Greek mythology, holds a balance in one hand and a sword in the other, and her eyes are blindfolded with a band of cloth.
Asahizuru: “What the hell is this ——–?”
Submarine: “What the hell is this thing–“
CSH: “I don’t know, when I was preparing for the Decalogue, I felt that the quality of the books I had on hand wasn’t quite enough, so I sent a letter to the convener, who looked for the books and mailed them to the U.S., and then I came back to scan them, and after organizing them, that’s how it looked.”
Nuts: “Look at the line that says, ‘Is it normal to be a virgin at your age?’ Oh, my God! Is it normal to be a virgin halfway through a porno novel?”
Convener: “It’s my fault, when K told me that this book is famous, it’s a world famous book, how could I know that it’s really just a world literature book and not a yellow novel!”
CSH: “That’s out of my hands, it doesn’t seem to be my problem, does it? Justina, you readers may be very disappointed that there isn’t really much eroticism in it.
But it can be regarded as a very important book in the world’s erotic literature; the author Sade is also one of the celebrities in the history of eroticism. He writes about sexual abuse, sexual perversions of this kind, which are rare in previous literature, and for that reason, the book is still barely readable.”
Convener: “If I had known, I would have switched to a different set of books by the same author.”
CSH: “In the same set of “World Masterpieces of Sexual Literature. In the same set of “World Literature of Sex Literature”, Sade’s other book, “The Lady’s Robbery”, can be said to be a strengthened version of “Justine”, with more erotic depictions (though not a lot). In fact, the only two novels in the set that really feature erotic plots are ‘Emmanuelle’ as well as ‘The Tale of the O Lady.”
Convener: It’s my fault, wow! I’m going to commit hara-kiri to thank you all!!!”
Eagle Demon: “–Anyways, thanks to the scanlators for their work, although it seems a bit of a misnomer due to the carelessness of the book selector, but CSH gets a lot of credit for putting together such a long scanlation! Okay, let’s move on to Night 14 of the Decameron – Adventures in Cock.”