                          THE FIFTEENTH DAY

       Rarely would the day following correction offer fresh signs of
misbehavior. There were none upon this one, but as strict as ever in
the article of permission to shit in the morning, Messieurs granted
this favor to no one but Hercule, Michette, Sophie, and Desgranges,
and Curval came perilously near to discharging while watching the
storyteller at work. Not overmuch was accomplished at coffee, the
friends were content to fondle buttocks and to suck one or two
assholes; the hour sounded, everyone went promptly to establish
himself in the amphitheater. Duclos faced her audience once again and
addressed the company in this wise:

       There had lately come to Fournier's a little girl of twelve or
thirteen, the age preferred by that singular gentleman I mentioned to
you; but I truly doubt whether in a very long time he had debauched
anything so cunning, so innocent, or so pretty. She had fair hair, was
tall for her years and fit to be painted, her physiognomy was tender
and voluptuous, her eyes the loveliest one could hope to see, and in
all her charming person there was something sweet and intriguing which
turned her into a very enchantress. But what was the degradation to
which the such a host of attractions was about to be subjected! and
how shameful was the debut being prepared for them! She was the
daughter of a tradesman in lingerie, purveyor to the Palace and a man
of comfortable means, and his daughter surely had been destined for a
happier fate than this of playing the whore; but the more the man of
whom it is a question was able, by means of his perfidious seductions,
to beguile his victims to their ruin, and the more thorough the
depravation into which he guided them, the greater his pleasure, the
fiercer his ecstasy. Little Lucile, directly after her arrival, was
scheduled to satisfy the disgusting and unclean caprices of a man who,
not merely content to have the most crapulous tastes, wished, still
better, to inflict them upon a maid.
       He arrives at the house; he proves to be an old notary stuffed
with gold and who, together with his wealth, has all the brutality
that avarice and luxury excite when combined in a seasoned spirit. The
child is exhibited to him; pretty as she may be, his first reaction is
disdain; he grumbles, he grits his teeth, mutters and swears, and says
that it damned well seems as if one can no longer find a pretty girl
in Paris; he demands, at last, whether there is proof positive she is
a virgin, he is assured that, yes, the article is mint, Fournier
offers to show it to him.
       "What? look at a cunt, I? Madame Fournier! I, look at a cunt! I
certainly hope you propose the thing in jest; have you noticed me
spending much time considering those objects since I have been coming
to you? I use them, to be sure, but in a manner which, I believe,
attests no great fondness for them."
       "Very well, Monsieur," Fournier said, "you will have to take
the house's word for it: I declare that she is as much a maid as a
child born five minutes ago."
       They go upstairs together and, as you may well conceive,
curious about the forthcoming tte--tte, I go and establish myself
at the hole. Poor little Lucile was overcome by a shame only to be
described by superlative expressions, hence not to be described at
all, for those expressions are needed to represent the impudence, the
brutality, and the ill-humor of her sixty-year-old lover.
       "Well, what the devil are you doing there, are you a stone?"
says he in a harsh voice. "Do I have to tell you to get your skirts
up? I should have been looking at your ass two hours ago. . . . Don't
stand there like an idiot, move."
       "But, Monsieur, what am I to do?"
       "Why, Jesus Christ, are such questions still asked? What are
you to do? Pick up your skirts and show me that damned ass I'm paying
to see."
       Lucile obeys, trembling like a leaf, and discloses a little
white ass just as darling and sweet as would be that of Venus herself.
       "Hum . . . looks all right," mutters the brute, "bring it
nearer. . . ."
       Then, getting a firm grip upon the two buttocks and separating
them forcefully:
       "You're damned certain no one's ever done anything to you
here?"
       "Oh, Monsieur, no one has ever touched me. . . ."
       "Very well. Now fart."
       "But, Monsieur, I can't."
       "Well, try, for Christ's sake, make yourself fart."
       She struggles, frowns, squints, a little breath of aromatic
wind does escape and produces a little echo upon entering the infected
mouth of the old libertine, who seems delighted.
       "Do you want to shit?" he asks.
       "No, Monsieur."
       "Well, I do, I've something copious to get rid of, if you're
interested in the pertinent facts; so prepare yourself to satisfy this
particular need of mine . . . take off your skirts."
       They are removed.
       "Lie down upon that sofa. Raise your thighs."
       Lucile settles herself, the old notary arranges and poses her
so that her wide--flung legs display her cunt to the fullest
advantage, in which open and prominent position it may be readily
employed as a chamber pot. So to use it was his heavenly intention; in
order that the container respond more perfectly to what is to be
demanded of it, he begins by widening it as much as possible, devoting
both hands and all his strength to the task. He takes his place,
pushes, a turd lands in the sanctuary Cupid himself would not have
disdained having for a temple. He turns around, eyes his work, and
with his fingers presses and thrusts the filthy excrement into the
vagina and largely out of sight; he establishes himself astride Lucile
once again, and ejects a second, then a third stool, and each is
succeeded by the same ceremony of burial. Finally, having deposited
his last turd, he inserts and tamps it down with such brutal zeal that
the little one utters a cry, and by means of this disagreeable
operation perhaps loses the precious flower, Nature's ornament,
offered the child as a gift to Hymen. This was the moment at which our
libertine's pleasure attained its crisis: to have filled the young and
pretty cunt to overflowing with shit, to crowd it with shit and stuff
it with yet more, that was his supreme delight: all the while in
action, he opens his fly and draws out a species of prick, very
flaccid it is, and he shakes it, and as he toils away in his
disgusting manner, he manages to spatter upon the floor a few drops of
thin, discolored sperm, whose loss may be credited solely to the
infamies he has been performing. Having concluded his business, he
takes himself off, Lucile washes, and that is that.
       Some time later, I found myself with another individual whose
mania struck me as no less unpleasant: he was an elderly magistrate at
the high court. One was obliged not only to watch him shit, no, there
was more to it than that: I had to help him, with my fingers,
facilitate the matter's emergence by pressing, opening, agitating,
compressing his anus, and when once he had been freed of his burden, I
had with utmost care to clean the soiled area with my tongue.

       "Well, by God! there's a bit of taxing drudgery, I own," said
the Bishop. "The four ladies you see here, and they are our wives, or
our daughters, or our nieces, these ladies nevertheless have to
perform that same chore every day, you know. And what the devil, I ask
you, what the devil is a woman's tongue good for if not to wipe
assholes? I frankly cannot think of any other use to put it to.
Constance," the Bishop pursued, turning to the Duc's lovely wife, who
happened to be upon his couch, "give Duclos a little demonstration of
your proficiency in the thing; here you are, I'll offer you a very
untidy ass, it hasn't been cleaned since this morning, I've been
keeping it this way for you. Off you go, display your abilities."
       And the poor creature, only too well accustomed to these
horrors, executed them as a dutiful, a thoughtful wife should; ah,
great God! what will not dread and thralldom produce!
       "Oh, by Jesus," said Curval, presenting his ugly, beslimed
asshole to the charming Aline, "she'll not be the only one to give
examples of excellence. Get to work, little whore," said he to that
beautiful and virtuous girl, "outdo your companion."
       And the thing was accomplished.
       "Why, Duclos," said the Bishop, "I think we might proceed now;
we only wished to point out that your man's request had nothing of the
unusual about it, and that a woman's tongue is fit to nothing if to
wipe an ass."
       The amiable Duclos fell to laughing and continued:

       You will permit me, Messieurs, said she, to interrupt the
catalogue of passions for an instant that I may apprise you of an
event which has no bearing upon them; it has only to do with me, but
as you have ordered me to recount the interesting episodes in my life,
even when they are not related to the anthology of tastes we are
compiling, I think that the following ought not be passed by in
silence.
       I had been a great while at Madame Fournier's, had long since
become the first ranked according to seniority, and in her entire
entourage was the girl in whom she had the greatest confidence. It was
I who most often arranged the parties and received the funds. Fournier
had gradually taken the place of the mother I had lost, she had aided
me in time of trouble, watched over my welfare, had written faithfully
to me when I had been abroad in England, upon my return had as a
friend opened her house to me when, in difficult circumstances, I
desired to take asylum with her once again. Twenty times over she had
lent me money, and often had never asked for it back. The opportunity
arrived to show my gratitude and to respond to her limitless faith in
me, and you shall judge, Messieurs, with what eagerness my soul opened
itself to virtue's entrance and what an easy access it had thereinto:
Fournier fell ill, and her first thought was to call me to her
bedside.
       "Duclos, my child, I love you," said she, "well you know it,
and I am going to prove it by the absolute trust I am about to place
in you. Despite your mind, which is not a good one, I believe in you
incapable of wronging a friend; I am very ill, I am old, I do not know
what is to become of me. But I may die soon; I have relatives who will
of course be my heirs. I can at least leave them something, and want
to: I have a hundred thousand francs in gold in this little coffer;
take it, my child," said she, "here, I give it to you, but upon
condition you dispose of this money in keeping with my instructions."
       "Oh, my dear mother," said I, stretching forth my arms to her,
"I beseech you, these precautions distress me; they shall surely prove
needless, but if unhappily they were to prove necessary, I take oath
and swear exactly to carry out your intentions."
       "I believe you, my child," said she, "and that is why my eyes
have settled upon you; that little coffer, then, contains one hundred
thousand francs in gold; I have scruples, a few scruples, my dear
friend, I feel remorseful for the life I have led, the quantity of
girls I have cast into crime and snatched away from God. And so I wish
to do two things by means of which it is my hope the divinity will be
led to deal less severely with me: I think of charity now, and of
prayer. You shall take fifteen thousand francs of this money, and you
shall give it to the Capuchins on the rue Saint-Honor, so that those
good fathers will say a perpetual mass for the salvation of my soul;
another sum, also of fifteen thousand francs, shall be set aside, and
when I have closed my eyes, you shall surrender it to the cur of the
parish and beg him to distribute it amongst the poor dwelling in this
quarter of the city. Charity is a very excellent thing, my child;
nothing better repairs in the eyes of God the sins we have committed
in this world. The poor are His children, and beloved of Him is he who
gives them succor and comfort; never is God more to be pleased than by
alms distributed to the needy. There lies the true way of gaining
Heaven, my child! As for the remainder, immediately I am dead you
shall take sixty thousand francs to one Petignon, a shoemaker's
apprentice in the rue du Bouloir: this poor lad is my son, he knows
nothing of his origins: he is the bastard issue of adultery. Upon
dying, I want the unhappy orphan to benefit from those marks of
tenderness I have never shown him while alive. Ten thousand francs are
left; I beg you to keep them, my dear Duclos, keep them as a feeble
token of my fondness for you, may they be some kind of recompense for
the trouble you shall have to take in seeing to the distribution of
the rest of my fortune. And may this little sum aid you to resolve to
abandon the dreadful trade we follow, a calling wherein there is no
salvation, nor any hope. For one is not a whore forever."
       Innerly delighted to be entrusted with such a handsome sum, and
thoroughly determined, for fear of becoming confused by Fournier's
intricate instructions upon sharing it, to keep her fortune intact and
for myself alone, I produced a flood of very artificial tears and cast
myself into the old matron's arms, reiterated many oaths of fidelity,
and turned all my thoughts thenceforth to devising means to prevent
the cruel disappointments certain to occur were a return to sound
health to bring about a change in her resolutions. The means presented
itself the very next day: the doctor prescribed and emetic, and as I
was in charge of nursing her, it was to me he handed the medicine,
drawing my attention to the fact the package contained two doses, and
warning me to be sure to administer only one at a time because, were
both given her, death would be the result; were the first to have no
effect, or an insufficient one, the second could be employed later, if
need be. I promised the doctor to take the greatest possible care, and
immediately he had turned his back, banishing from my heart all those
futile sentiments which would have stopped a timorous spirit, putting
to rout all remorse and all frailty, and thinking exclusively of my
gold, of the sweet charm of making it mine, and of the delicious
titillation one experiences every time one concerts an evil deed, the
certain prognostic of the pleasure it will give, dwelling, I say, upon
all that and upon nothing else, I straightway dropped both doses into
a glass of water and offered the brew to my dear friend's lips; she
swallowed it down without a moment's delay and thereby, just as
rapidly, found the death I had sought to procure her.
       I cannot describe to you what feelings possessed me when I saw
my scheme had succeeded; each of the retchings wherewith she exhaled
her life produced a truly delicious sensation throughout my entire
being; thrilled, I listened to her, I watched her, I was perfectly
intoxicated with joy. She stretched her arms toward me, addressed me a
last farewell, I was overwhelmed with pleasurable sensations, I was
already forming a thousand plans for spending the gold. I had not long
to wait; Fournier expired that same afternoon; the prize belonged to
me.

       "Duclos," said the Duc, "be truthful: did you frig yourself?
did crime's piercingly voluptuous sensation attain your organs of
pleasure?"
       "Yes, my Lord, I confess it did; thanks to my prank I
discharged five times before nightfall."
       "It is then true," the Duc intoned in a loud and authoritative
voice, "it is then true that crime has of itself such a compelling
attractiveness that, unattended by any accessory activity, it may be
itself suffice to inflame every passion and to hurl one into the same
delirium occasioned by lubricious acts. Well, what say you?"
       "Why, my Lord," Duclos answered, "I say I had my employer
honorably buried, appropriated the bastard Petignon's inheritance,
wasted not a penny on perpetual masses, nor did I bother to make a
single charitable distribution, for, as a matter of fact, I have
always beheld charity with the most authentic horror, regardless of
the speeches, such as Fournier's, that I have heard pronounced in its
favor. I maintain that there must be poor in this world, that Nature
wishes that such there be, that she requires it, and that it is to fly
in the face of her decrees to pretend to restore equilibrium, if it is
disorder she wants."
       "What's this!" said Durcet. "Do you then have principles,
Duclos? I am very pleased to observe this in you; for, as you appear
to realize, any relief given to misfortune, any gesture that lightens
the load of the distressed, is a real crime against the natural order.
The inequality she has created in our persons proves that this
discordance pleases Nature, since 'twas she established it, and since
she wishes that it exists in fortunes as well as in bodies. And as the
weak may always redress matters by means of theft, the strong are
equally allowed to restore inequality, or protect it, by refusing to
give aid to the wretched. The universe would cease on the spot to
subsist were there to be an exact similarity amongst all beings; 'tis
of this disparity there is born the order which preserves, contains,
directs everything. One must therefore take great care not to disturb
it; moreover, in believing that it is a good thing I do for this
miserable class of men, I do much ill to another, for indigence is the
nursery to which the wealthy and powerful repair in quest of the
objects their lust or cruelty needs; I deprive the rich man of that
branch of pleasure when, by raising up the downtrodden, I inhibit this
class from yielding to him. And thus my charities have done nothing
but put one part of humankind very modestly in my debt and done
prodigious harm to the other. Hence, I regard charity not only as
something evil in itself, but, what is more, I consider it a crime
against Nature who, having first made differences apparent to our
eyes, has certainly never intended ideas of eliminating them to occupy
our heads. And so, far from giving alms to the poor, consoling the
widow, succoring the orphan, if it is according to Nature's true
intentions I wish to act, not only do I leave these wretches in the
state Nature put them into, but I even lend Nature a strong right arm
and aid her by prolonging this state and vigorously opposing any
efforts they make to change it, and to this end I believe any means
may be allowed."
       "What!" cried the Duc, "even stealing from and ruining them?"
       "Oh my, yes," the financier replied, "even augmenting their
number, since this class serves another, and since, by increasing the
size of the one, though I may do it a modicum of harm, I shall perform
a great service for the other."
       "That, my friends, is a very harsh system indeed," said Curval.
"Haven't you heard tell of the sweet pleasures of doing good unto
others?"
       "Abusive pleasures!" Durcet answered at once. "That delight you
allude to is nothing like the one I recommend; the first is illusory,
a fiction; the second is authentic, real; the first is founded upon
vile prejudices, the second upon reason; the first, through the agency
of pride, the most false of all our sensations, may provide the heart
with a brief instant's titillation; the other is a veritable mental
pleasure-taking, and it inflames every other passion by the very fact
it runs counter to common opinions. In a word, one of them gets this
prick of mine stiff," Durcet concluded, "and I feel practically
nothing from the other."
       "But must the one criterion for judging everything be our
feelings?" asked the Bishop.
       "The only one, my friend," said Durcet; "our senses, nothing
else, must guide all our actions in life, because only their voice is
truly imperious."
       "But God knows how many thousand crimes may be the result of
such a doctrine," the Bishop observed.
       "God knows, yes, and do you suppose that matters?" Durcet
demanded; "for it is enjoyable, isn't it? Crime is a natural mode, a
manner whereby Nature stirs man, makes him to move. Why would you not
have me let myself be moved by Nature in this direction as well as in
the direction of virtue? Nature needs virtuous acts, and vicious ones
too; I serve Nature as well by performing the one as when I commit the
other. But we have entered into a discussion which could lead us far;
suppertime is approaching, and Duclos has still ground to cover before
completing her task. Go on, charming girl, pursue your way, and
believe me when I say you have just acknowledged an act and a doctrine
which make you deserving of our eternal esteem and of that of every
philosopher."

       My first idea when once my good patron had been inhumed was to
assume the direction of her house and to maintain it on the same
footing she had found so profitable. I announced this project to my
colleagues, and they all, Eugnie above the rest, for she was my best
beloved, I say, promised to regard me as their new mother. I was not
too young to pretend to the title, being then nearly thirty and
possessed of all the intelligence and good sense one must have to
govern a convent. And so it is, Messieurs, that I shall conclude the
story of my adventures not as a public whore, but as an abbess, pretty
enough and still youthful enough sometimes, indeed often, to treat
directly with our clients; and treat with them I did: I shall in the
sequel take care to notify you each time I took personal charge of the
problem at hand. All Fournier's customers remained to me, I knew the
secret of acquiring additional ones: my apartments were kept very neat
and clean, and an excessive submissiveness inculcated in my girls,
whom I selected with discrimination, hugely flattered my libertines'
caprices.
       The first purchaser to arrive was an old treasurer of the
Exchequer, a former friend of the departed Fournier; I gave him little
Lucile, over whom he waxed very enhusiastic. His habitual mania, quite
as filthy as disagreeable for his partner, consisted in shitting upon
his Dulcinea's face, of smearing his excrement over all her features,
and then of kissing her in this state, and of sucking her. Out of
friendship for me, Lucile allowed the old satyr to have his way very
completely with her, and he discharged upon her belly as he lay
kissing and licking his disgusting performance.
       Not long afterward, we had another; Eugnie was also assigned
to cope with him. He had a barrel full of shit trundled in, plunged
the naked girl into it, and licked every inch of her body, swallowing
what he removed, and not finishing until he had rendered her as clean
as she had been prior to her immersion. That one was a celebrated
lawyer, a rich man and a very well-known one; he possessed, for the
enjoyment of women, none but the most modest qualities, which lack he
remedied by this species of libertinage he had lovingly cultivated all
his life.
       The Marquis de R***, one of Fournier's oldest clients, came
shortly after her death to express his sorrow upon learning that she
was no more; he also assured me he would patronize the house just as
faithfully as before and, to convince me of his devotion, wanted to
see Eugnie that same evening. This old rake's passion consisted in
first bestowing prodigious kisses upon the girl's mouth; he swallowed
all the saliva it were possible to drain from her, then kissed her
buttocks for a quarter of an hour, called for farts, and finally
demanded the major thing. After it had been done, he kept the turd in
his mouth and, making the girl bend down over him, he had her embrace
him with one hand and frig him with the other; and while he was
tasting the pleasure of this masturbation and tickling her beshitted
asshole, the girl had to eat the turd she had deposited in his mouth.
Although he was prepared to pay very well, he used to find exceedingly
few girls who were willing to cooperate in this little abomination,
and that is why the Marquis would come regularly to me: he was as
eager to remain one of my clients as I was to have him make frequent
visits to my establishment. . . .

       At this point the Duc, very hot indeed, said that as the supper
hour was hard upon them, he would like, before going to table, to
execute the last-cited fantasy. And this is how he went about it: he
had Sophie come to him, received her turd in his mouth, then obliged
Zlamir to run up and eat Sophie's creation. This idiosyncrasy might
perhaps have been a delight for anyone else but a child like Zlamir;
as yet insufficiently mature, hence unable to appreciate the
delicious, he manifested disgust only, and seemed about to misbehave.
But the Duc threatened him with everything his anger might produce
were the boy to hesitate another instant; the boy obeyed. The stunt
struck the others as so engaging that each of them imitated it, more
or less, for Durcet held that favors had to be parceled out fairly;
was it just, he asked, for the little boys to eat the girls' shit
while the girls went hungry? no, surely not, and consequently he had
Zphyr shit in his mouth and ordered up Augustine to eat the
marmalade, which that lovely and interesting girl promptly did, her
repast being as promptly succeeded by the racking vomitings.
       Curval imitated this variation and received his dear Adonis'
turd, which Michette consumed, not without a duplication of
Augustine's histrionics; as for the Bishop, he was content to emulate
his brother, and had the delicate Zelmire excrete a confiture Cladon
was induced to gobble up. Accompanying all this were certain
unmistakable signs of repugnance which, of course, were of the
greatest interest to libertines in whose view the torments they
inflict are unexcelled for inspiring satisfaction. The Bishop and the
Duc discharged, the two others either could not, or would not, and all
four went in to supper, where Duclos' action was the object of the
loftiest encomiums.
       "A very intelligent creature," observed the Duc, whose regard
for the storyteller could not have been more profound. "Intelligent, I
say, to have sensed that gratitude is nonsense, an hallucination, and
that ties of fondness or of any other sort ought never either to make
us pause or even to suspend the effects of crime, because the object
which has served us can claim no right to our heart's generosity; that
object employs itself only in our behalf, its mere presence humiliates
a stout soul, and one must either hate of be rid of it."
       "Very true," said Durcet, "so true that you'll never see a man
of any wit seek to make others grateful to him. Fully certain that
benevolence creates nothing but enemies, he practices only the arts
his wisdom approves for his safety."
       "One moment," interrupted the Bishop. "It is not at giving you
pleasure he who serves you is laboring, but he is rather striving
simply to gain an ascendancy over you by putting you in his debt.
Well, I ask, what does such a scheme deserve? He does not say, as he
serves you: I serve you because I wish to do good for you. No, he
simply says: I put you under obligation in order to lower you and to
raise myself above you."
       "These reflections seem to me," said Durcet, "abundantly to
prove how abusive are the services usually rendered, and how absurd is
the practice of good. But, they will tell you, one does good for its
own sake and for one's own; 'tis all very well for them whose weakness
of spirit permits them to enjoy such little delights, but they who are
revolted by them, as are we, great God! would be great fools to bother
over such tepid stuff."
       This doctrine having fired their imaginations, Messieurs drank
a great deal, and the orgies were celebrated with vivacity and brio.
Our like-thinking libertines sent the children off to bed, chose to
spend a part of the night tippling with no one but the four elders and
the four storytellers, and in their company to vie with one another in
infamies and atrocities. As amongst these twelve individuals there was
not one who was not worthy of the noose, the rack, and probably the
wheel, I leave it to the reader to picture what was said and done. For
from words they passed to deeds, the Duc got hot again, and I don't
know just why it happened or how, but they say Thrse bore the marks
of his affection for weeks. However all that may be, let us allow our
actors to move from these bacchanals to the chaste bed of the wife
that had been prepared for each of the four, and let us see what
transpired at the castle on the morrow.
