                        THE TWENTY-FOURTH DAY

       Piety is indeed a true disease of the soul. Apply whatever
remedies you please, the fever will not subside, the patient never
heals; finding readier entry into the souls of the woebegone and
downtrodden, because to be devout consoles them for their other ills,
it is far more difficult to cure in such persons than in others. Such
was the case with Adelaide: the more that vista of debauchery and of
libertinage unfolded before her eyes, the more she recoiled and sought
sanctuary in the arms of that comfort-giving God she hoped one day
would come and deliver her from the evils which, she saw only too
well, her dreadful situation was going to bring down upon her head. No
one had a more profound appreciation of her circumstances than she;
her mind could not more clearly have foreseen everything that was
necessarily to follow the fatal beginning of which already she had
been a victim, however mildly; she wonderfully well understood that,
as the stories grew progressively stronger, the men's use of her and
of her companions, evolving sympathetically, would also grow more
ferocious. All that, despite everything she was told, made her avidly
seek out, as often and for as long as she could, the society of her
beloved Sophie. No longer did she dare go in quest of her at night;
her overseers were sharp-eyed, wary, and drastic steps had been taken
to thwart any more of those escapades, but whenever she found herself
free for an instant, she would fly to her soul mate, and upon this
very morning of the day we are presently chronicling, having risen
early from the Bishop's bed, where she had lain that night, she went
into the young girls' quarters to chat with her dearest correspondent.
Durcet, who because of his duties that month used also to rise earlier
than the others, found her there and declared to her there was nothing
for it, he could not both carry out his functions and overlook this
infraction of the rules; the society would have to decide the matter
according to its pleasure. Adelaide wept, tears were her sole weapon,
and she resorted to them. The only favor she dared beg from her
husband was to try to prevent Sophie from being punished; for Sophie,
she argued, could not be guilty, since it had been she, Adelaide, who
had come looking for her, not Sophie who had gone in search of
Adelaide. Durcet said he would report the fact as he had observed it,
would disguise nothing; no one is less apt to be melted than a
punisher whose keenest interest lies in punishing. And such was the
case here, of course; was there anything prettier to punish than
Sophie? Surely not, and what cause might Durcet have for sparing her?
       Their Lordships assembled, the financier made his report. Here
was an habitual offender; the Prsident recollected that, when he had
been at the Palais de Justice, his ingenious confreres used to contend
that recidivism in a man proves Nature is acting more strongly in him
than education or principles; hence, by repeated errors, he attests,
so to speak, that he is not his own master; hence, he must be doubly
punished - the Prsident now reasoned just as logically and with the
same inspired verve that, as had won him his schoolmates' admiration,
and he declared that, as he viewed the thing, one had no choice but to
invoke the law and punish the incurable Adelaide and her companion
with all permissible rigor. But as the law fixed the death penalty for
this offense, and as Messieurs were disposed to amuse themselves yet a
little longer with these ladies before taking the final step, they
were content to summon them, to make them kneel, and to read them the
article out of the ordinances applying to their case, drawing their
attention to the grave risk they had just run in committing such a
transgression. That done, their judges pronounced a sentence thrice as
severe as the one which had been executed upon them the previous
Saturday, they were forced to swear they would not repeat their crime,
they were advised that, should the same thing occur again, they would
have to endure the extreme penalty, and their names were inscribed in
the register.
       Durcet's inspection added three more names to the page; two
from amongst the little girls, one of the boys rounded out the
morning's capture. All this was the result of the experimenting with
minor indigestions; it was succeeding extremely well, but those poor
children, unable to restrain themselves another moment, were beginning
to tumble one after another into states of culpability: such had been
the experience of Fanny and of Hb amongst the girls, and of
Hyacinthe amongst the boys. The evidence found in their pots was
enormous, and Durcet frolicked about with it for a long time. Never
had so many permissions been requested on any given morning, and
certain subordinate personages were heard to curse Duclos for having
imparted her secret. Notwithstanding the multitude of requests, leave
to shit was granted only to Constance, Hercule, two second-rank
fuckers, Augustine, Zphyr, and Desgranges; they provided a few
minutes' entertainment, and Messieurs sat down to dine.
       "Well, now you see your mistake in allowing your daughter to
receive religious instruction," Durcet said to Curval; "there's
nothing to be done about her now. Those imbecilities have taken root
in her head. And I told you they would, ages ago."
       "In faith," said Curval, "I thought that acquaintance with them
would be just one more reason she'd have for despising them, and that
as she grew up she would convince herself of the stupidity of those
infamous dogmas."
       "What you say is all very well for reasoning minds," said the
Bishop, "but one simply must not expect it to succeed with a child."
       "I'm afraid we're going to be forced to resort to violent
measures," said the Duc, who knew very well Adelaide could overhear
him.
       "Oh yes, in good time," Durcet nodded. "I can assure her that
if she has no one but me for her advocate, she'll be poorly defended
in court."
       "Oh, I know that, Monsieur!" Adelaide stammered through her
tears; "everyone is aware of your feelings toward me."
       "My feelings?" protested Durcet. "But, my dear wife, I ought
perhaps to begin by informing you I have never had any feelings
whatsoever for a woman, and assuredly fewer for you, who belong to me,
than for any other. I hate religion, as well as those who practice it,
and I warn you that, from the indifference I have in your regard, I
shall pass damned quickly to the most violent aversion if you continue
to revere infamous and execrable illusions, phantoms which have ever
been the object of my contemptuous scorn. One must first have lost
one's mind to be able to acknowledge a god, and to have gone
completely mad to worship such a thing. In short, I declare to you
before your father and these other gentlemen that there are no lengths
to which I shall not go if I ever again find you guilty of such a sin.
You should have been sent to a nunnery if you wanted to pray to your
fuck-in-the-ass God; there you'd have been able to worship the bugger
to your heart's content."
       "Ah!" put in Adelaide, groaning, "a nun, Great God, a nun,
would to heaven that I were such."
       And Durcet, who at the time was sitting opposite her, annoyed
by her response, hurled a silver plate at her face; it would have
killed her had it struck her head, for the shock was so violent the
missile bent double upon crashing against the wall.
       "You're an insolent creature," Curval said to his daughter,
who, to avoid plate, had leapt between her father and Antinos. "You
deserve to have your belly kicked in."
       And driving her away from him with a blow of his fist:
       "Go crawl on your knees and beg your husband's forgiveness,"
said he, "or we'll expose you to the severest ordeal you've ever
dreamt of."
       In tears, she cast herself at Durcet's feet, but he, having got
a very solid erection from hurling the plate, and declaring he'd have
given a thousand louis to have hit his mark, Durcet said that he felt
an immediate, a general, and an exemplary punishment was in order;
another would of course be executed on Saturday, but he proposed that
this one time they do without the children's services at coffee and
devote that period to amusing themselves with Adelaide. Everyone
consented to the proposal; Adelaide, Louison, and Fanchon, the most
wicked of the four elders and the most dreaded by the women, moved
into the salon; certain considerations obliged us to draw a curtain
over what transpired there. But of one thing we may be perfectly
certain: our four heroes discharged during that set-to, and Adelaide
was allowed to take to her bed. 'Tis for the reader to invent the
combinations and scene he'd like best, and kindly consent to be
conveyed, if 'twould please him to accompany us, directly to the
throne room where Duclos is about to resume her narrative. All of the
friends have taken their places near their wives, all, that is to say,
save the Duc, who was to have Adelaide that afternoon, and who has
replaced her with Augustine; everyone then being ready, Duclos begins
to speak.

       One day, said that talented orator, while I was maintaining
before one of my fellow procuresses that I had surely seen all it were
possible to see of the most furious by way of passive flagellation, in
that I had flogged and witnessed others flog men with thorns and the
bull's pizzle:
       "Oh, by God," my colleague answered, "you still have a great
deal to see, my dear, and to persuade you that you've by no means
observed the worst, I'll send one of my clients around tomorrow."
       And having given me notice of the hour of the visit, and
advised me of the ritual expected by that elderly post-office
commissioner whose name, I remember, was Monsieur de Grancourt, I made
full preparations and awaited for our man; I was to give him my
personal attention, the thing was so arranged. He arrives at the
house, and after we have retired to a room together:
       "Monsieur," I say, "I deeply regret having to make the
following disclosure, but I am bound to inform you that you are a
prisoner and cannot leave this place. I further regret to say that
Parliament has delegated me to arrest and punish you, and the
Legislature has so willed it, and I have its order in my pocket. The
person who sent you to me set a trap for you, for she knew full well
the implications of your coming here, and she could most assuredly
have enabled you to avoid this scene. As for the rest, you know the
facts in the case: 'tis not with impunity one perpetrates the black
and dreadful crimes you have committed, and I consider you exceedingly
fortunate to get off with so little."
       Our man had listened with the keenest attention to my harangue,
and immediately I had done, he burst into tears and fell down on his
knees before me, imploring me to deal leniently with him.
       "Well I know," said he, "that I have greatly misbehaved. I know
I have affronted God and justice; but since 'tis you, my sweet lady,
who are appointed to chasten me, I most earnestly entreat your
indulgence in my regard."
       "Monsieur," I replied, "I shall do my duty. How can you be sure
I am not myself being closely watched? What makes you suppose I have
it in my power to respond to your pleas for merciful compassion?
Remove your clothes and adopt a docile attitude, that is all I can say
to you."
       Grancourt obeyed; in a trice he was as naked as the palm of
your hand. But, great God! what was this body he offered to my sight!
I can only compare its skin to a ruffled taffeta. Upon that whole
body, marked everywhere, there was not a single spot which did not
bear terrible evidence of the lash.
       However, into the fire I had thrust an iron scourge garnished
with pointed steel tips; I had received the weapon that morning
together with the final instructions. This murderous instrument had
reached a bright-red color about the same moment Grancourt had removed
his last stitch. I snatched the scourge from the coals and, starting
to beat him with it, gently at first, then with increasing severity,
then with all my strength, and that heedless of where my blows fell,
rending him from the nape of his neck to his heels, I had my man
streaming blood in an instant.
       "You are a villain," I told him as I brought the scourge
whistling down upon his body, "you're a villain and you've committed
all sorts of crimes. Nothing is sacred to you, and I've lately heard
that you've poisoned your own mother."
       "'Tis true, Madame, oh, 'tis only too true. I'm a monster, I'm
a criminal," said he as he frigged himself. "There's no infamy I've
not perpetrated and am not prepared to do again. Come now, your blows
are utterly in vain, I'll never mend my ways, I find too much delight
in crime. You'd have to kill me to put a stop to my joy; crime is my
element, 'tis my life, I've lived in crime, I'll die in it."
       And you may well imagine how, these remarks of his inspiring my
arm and tongue, I redoubled my blows and invectives. The word "fuck"
escaped his lips, however: that was the signal: I lay on with all my
might and endeavor to strike his most sensitive parts. He skips, hops,
jumps, and capers, he eludes me and, discharging, he scampers into a
tub of warm water specially prepared to purify him after this bloody
ceremonial. Ah, upon my soul, yes! I ceded to my friend the honor of
having seen more of this sort of thing than I, and I believe we two
were able to say at the time that we had seen more than all the rest
of Paris, for our Grancourt's needs never varied, and for above twenty
years he had been going every day to that woman's establishment for
the same treatment.
       Shortly afterward, that same woman arranged to have me meet
another libertine whose idiosyncrasy, I fancy, will seem at least
unusual to you. The scene transpired in his little house at Roule. I
am introduced into a rather obscurely lit room, where I find a man
lying in bed, and, posed in the center of the room, a coffin.
       "You see before you," our libertine said to me, "a man
reclining upon his deathbed, one who would not close his eyes without
rendering a last homage to the object he worships. I adore asses, and
if I am to perish, I want to die while kissing one. When life shall
have fled this frame, you yourself shall lift me into that coffin,
draw round the shrouds, and nail down the lid. It is my design thus to
die in pleasure's embrace, and at this last moment to be served by the
very object of my lubricious heats. Come . . . come," he continued in
a broken, weak, gasping voice, "make haste, for I am nigh to the
threshold."
       I draw near to him, turn around, I exhibit my buttocks.
       "Ah, wondrous ass!" he cries. "'Tis well, I am easy thus to be
able to take with me to the grave the idea of a behind as pretty as
that one!"
       And he fondled it, opened it, nuzzled and kissed it just the
way the healthiest man in the world might have done.
       "Oh, indeed!" said he a moment later as he left off his task
and rolled toward the wall, "well I knew 'twould not be for long I'd
savor this pleasure; I do now expire, remember what I have enjoined
you to do."
       And so saying, he uttered a profound sigh, grew rigid, and
played his part with such skill that damn me if I didn't think he was
dead. I kept my wits about me; eager to see the end of this droll
ceremony, I wrapped him in the shroud. He had ceased to stir, and
whether it was that he knew some secret for feigning death, or whether
my imagination had been affected, he felt as rigid and cold as a bar
of iron; only his prick gave some hints of life: it too was rigid, but
not cold, and glued to his belly, and drops of fuck seemed to come
oozing from it despite his moribund condition. Directly I have him
swathed in the sheet, I take him up in my arms, and it wasn't easy,
for the way he'd become rigid made him as heavy as a steer. I
succeeded nevertheless in transporting him to the coffin. As soon as I
have laid him out, I start reciting the prayer for the dead, and
finally I nail the coffin shut; that was the critical instant for him:
no sooner have I driven the last nail home than he sets to screeching
like a madman:
       "Holy name of God, I'm coming! Get out, whore, get out, for if
I catch you, you're done for!"
       I'm seized by fear, I dart to the stairs, upon which I meet a
tactful manservant who is thoroughly acquainted with his master's
manias and who gives me two louis; I proceed to the door, while the
valet hastens into the patient's bedchamber to free him from the
sealed coffin.

       "Now there's a quaint taste," said Durcet. "Well, Curval, what
do you think of that one?"
       "Marvelous," the Prsident replied; "there you have an
individual who wishes to make himself familiar with the idea of death,
and hence unafraid of it, and who to that end has found no better
means than to associate it with a libertine idea. There is absolutely
no doubt about it: that man will die fondling an ass."
       "Nor any doubt," said Champville, "that he is proudly impious;
I know him, and I shall have occasion to describe the use he makes of
religion's holiest mysteries."
       "I don't wonder he is an unbeliever," said the Duc. "He's
clearly a man who laughs at the whole business and who wishes to
accustom himself to acting and thinking the same way during his last
minutes."
       "For my part," the Bishop said, "I find something very piquant
in that passion, and I'll not hide the fact I'm stiff from hearing
about it. Continue, Duclos, go on, for I have the feeling I might do
something silly, and I'd prefer to leave well enough alone for the
rest of the day."

       Very well, said that splendid raconteur, here's one less
complex; 'tis the story of a man who for five years regularly applied
at my door for the single pleasure of getting me to sew up his
asshole. He used to stretch out belly down upon a bed, I would seat
myself between his legs and, equipped with a stout needle and half a
spool of heavy cobbler's thread, I'd sew his anus completely closed,
and this fellow's skin in that area was so toughened and so used to
needle thrusts that my operation would not draw a single drop of blood
from his hide. While I worked, he would frig himself, and he used to
discharge like a mule when I'd taken the last stitch. His ecstasy
dissipated, I'd promptly undo my work, and that would be that.
       Another used to have brandy rubbed over every part of his body
where Nature had placed hair, then I'd put a match to those areas I'd
rubbed with alcohol, and all the hair would go up in flames. He would
discharge upon finding himself afire, meanwhile I'd shown him my
belly, my cunt, and so forth, for that fellow had the bad taste never
to want to see anything but fronts.

       "But, tell me, Messieurs, did any of you know Mirecourt, today
prsident in the upper chamber, and in those days attorney to the
Crown?"
       "I knew him," said Curval.
       "Well, my Lord, do you know what used to be, and what I dare
say still is, his passion?"
       "No; and he passes, or wishes to pass, for a devout and good
subject, I'd be most pleased to know."
       "My Lord," Duclos said, "he likes also to be taken for an ass.
. . ."
       "Ah! by God! said the Duc; and turning to Curval: "what do you
think of that, my friend? Damned strange taste, don't you think, for a
judge? I'll wager that once he's an ass he thinks he's going to
pronounce judgment. Well, what next?" he asked of Duclos.
       "Next, your Grace, one must lead him by the halter, walk him
about the room for an hour, he brays, one mounts astride him, and when
one's in the saddle, one whips his entire body with a switch, as if to
quicken his gait. He breaks into a trot, and as he's started by now to
frig himself, he soon discharges and, while he does so, makes loud
noises, bucks, rears, and throws the rider."
       "That, I'd say, is more diverting than lubricious. And pray
tell me, Duclos," the Duc went on, "did that man ever tell you he had
some comrade who shared his taste?"
       "Why, indeed, he did tell me so," said the amiable Duclos,
entering into the joke with a merry laugh and descending from her
platform, for her day's stint was over; "Yes, Sire, he told me he had
a quantity of comrades, but that not all of them would allow
themselves to be mounted."
       The sance had come to an end, Messieurs were disposed to
perform a few stunts before supper; the Duc hugged Augustine in close
embrace.
       "You know," he said dreamily, frigging her clitoris and
directing her to grasp his prick, "you know, I'm not at all surprised
that Curval is sometimes tempted to violate the pact and pop a
pucelage or two, for I feel at this very moment, for example, that I
could willingly send Augustine's to the devil."
       "Which one?" Curval inquired.
       "Both of them, bless my soul," answered the Duc; "but one must
behave oneself during this sojourn; in having thus to wait a little
while for our pleasures, we make them far more delicious. Well, little
girl," he continued, "show me your buttocks, perhaps 'twill change the
character of my ideas. . . . Bleeding Christ! look at that little
whore's ass! Curval, what do you advise me to do with this thing?"
       "Put some vinegar sauce on it," said Curval.
       "Mercy!" exclaimed the Duc, "what a notion. But patience,
patience . . . everything will come in good time."
       "My very dear brother," said the Bishop in a halting voice,
"there's something in your words that smells of fuck."
       "Really? For indeed I have the greatest desire to lose some."
       "And what prevents you?" the Bishop wanted to know.
       "Oh, many things, many things," the Duc replied. "First of all,
I see no shit in the pipe, and I'd like shit, and then . . . I don't
know - there are so many things I'd like. . . ."
       "What?" asked Durcet just before Antinos' turd cascaded into
his mouth.
       "What?" echoed the Duc. "There's, to begin with, a little
infamy I simply must perform."
       And retiring to the distant boudoir with Augustine, Zlamir,
Cupidon, Duclos, Desgranges, and Hercule, he was heard, a minute
later, to utter ringing cries and oaths which proved the Duc had
finally managed to calm his brain and soothe his balls. Little precise
information exists upon what he did to Augustine, but, notwithstanding
his love for her, she was seen to return in tears and, ominous sign!
one of her fingers had been twisted. We deeply regret not yet to be
able to explain all this to the reader, but it is quite certain that
these gentlemen, on the sly and before the arrival of the day
heralding open season, were giving themselves over to tricks which
have not so far been embodied in story, hence to unsanctioned deeds,
and in so doing they were acting in formal violation of the
regulations they had sworn in honor to observe; but, you know, when an
entire society commits the same faults, they are commonly pardoned.
The Duc came back and was pleased to see that Durcet and the Bishop
had not been wasting their time, and that Curval, in Bum-Cleaver's
arms, was deliciously doing everything one may possibly do with all
the voluptuous objects one may possibly assemble around oneself.
       Supper was served, orgies followed as usual, the household
retired to bed. Lame and aching as Adelaide was, the Duc, who was
scheduled to have her by him that night, wanted her there, and as he
had come from the orgies rather drunk, as was his wont, it is said
that he did not deal tenderly with her. But by and large the night was
passed just like all the preceding nights, that is to say, in the
depths of delirium and debauchery, and fair-haired Aurora having come,
as the poets say, to fling open the gates of the palace where dwelt
Apollo, that god, somewhat a libertine himself, only mounted his azure
chariot in order to bring light to shed upon new lecheries.
