                         THE TWENTY-FIFTH DAY

       However, a new intrigue was quietly taking form within the
impenetrable walls of the Chteau of Silling; but it did not have the
dangerous significance that had been attributed to Adelaide's league
with Sophie. This latest association was being hatched between Aline
and Zelmire; those two young girls' conformity of character
contributed greatly to their attachment to each other: both were
mild-natured and sensitive, no more than thirty months separated them
in age, they were both very childlike, very simple, very good-hearted:
they had, in brief, almost all of the same virtues, and almost all the
same vices, for Zelmire, sweet and tender, was also, like Aline,
careless and lazy. They suited one another so admirably that, on the
morning of the 25th, they were discovered in the same bed, and this is
how it happened: being destined for Curval, Zelmire slept, as we know,
in his bedchamber. Aline was Curval's bedwife that same night. But
Curval, having returned dead drunk from the orgies, wished to sleep
with no one but Invictus, and thus it fell out that these two little
doves, abandoned and brought together by fortune, from dread of the
cold both camped in the same bed and, in bed, 'twas maintained, their
little fingers itched more than their dear little elbows.
       Upon opening his eyes in the morning and seeing these two birds
sharing the same nest, Curval demanded to know what they were doing
there, and ordering them both to come instantly into his bed, he
sniffed about just below each one's clitoris, and clearly recognized
that both of them were still full of fuck. The case was grave:
Messieurs did indeed wish the young ladies to be victims of
impudicity, but they insisted that, amongst themselves, they behave
decently - oh, for what will libertinage, perpetually inconsistent
libertinage, not insist upon! - and if they sometimes consented to
permit the ladies to indulge in a little reciprocal impurity, it all
had to be both upon Messieurs' express instructions and before their
eyes. And thus it was the case was brought before the council, and the
two delinquents, who neither could nor dared deny the thing, were
ordered to demonstrate what they had been up to, and before a crowd of
spectators to display just what their individual talents were. They
did as they were told, with much blushing and not a little weeping,
and asked to be forgiven their mistakes. But too attractive was the
prospect of having that pretty couple amongst the culprits to be
punished the following Saturday; consequently, they were not forgiven,
but were speedily included in Durcet's book of sorrows which,
incidentally, was being very agreeably filled up that week.
       This chore completed, breakfast was finished, and Durcet
conducted his searches. The fatal indigestions yielded still another
miscreant: 'twas the little Michette, she'd been unable to hold the
bridge, she said they'd made her eat too much the night before, and
these were followed by a thousand other infantile excuses which did
not prevent her name from being written down. Curval, his prick
jumping like a young colt, seized the chamber pot and devoured its
contents. And then bringing his angry eyes to bear upon her:
       "Oh yes, by Jesus," said he, "yes, by the Saviour's fuck, you
shall be spanked, my little rascal, my own hand will see to that.
There are rules against shitting that way; you should at least have
given us notice; you know damned well that we are prepared to receive
shit at any hour of the day or night."
       And he fondled her buttocks very vivaciously while repeating
the rules to her.
       The boys were found intact, no chapel permissions were
distributed to them, and Messieurs repaired to table. During the meal,
there was plentiful and penetrating discussion of Aline's deed; they
ascribed a holier-than-thou attitude to her, said she appeared a
little hypocrite, and behold! here was proof of her real temperament
at last come to light.
       "How now, my friend," Durcet said to the Bishop, "is one still
to lay any store by appearances, above all those that girls parade?"
       'Twas unanimously agreed nothing was more deceitful than a
girl, and that, as they were every one of them false, they never made
use of their wits save to be more skillfully false. These observations
brought the table talk around to women, and the Bishop who abhorred
them, gave vent to all the hatred they inspired in him. He reduced
them to the state of the vilest animals, and proved their existence so
perfectly useless in this world that one could extirpate them from the
face of the earth without in the slightest countercarrying the designs
of Nature who, having in times past very surely found the means to
create without women, would find it again when only men were left.
       They proceeded to coffee; it was presented them by Augustine,
Michette, Hyacinthe, and Narcisse. The Bishop, one of whose greatest
uncomplex pleasures was to suck little boys' pricks, had been spending
a few minutes playing this game with Hyacinthe, when all of a sudden
he reared back and let out, not a shout, but a bubbling noise, for his
mouth was full; his exclamation was interpreted thus: "Ah, by God's
balls, my friends, a pucelage! That's the first time this little
rascal has discharged, I'm sure of it!" And, truth to tell, no one had
so far observed Hyacinthe carry things to that point; he was indeed
thought still too young to bring it off. But he was well advanced in
his fourteenth year, 'tis the age when Nature customarily heaps her
favors upon us, and nothing could have been more real than the victory
the Bishop thought he had achieved. None the less, the others were
anxious to verify the thing, and each wishing to be witness to the
adventure, they drew up their chairs in a semicircle around the young
man. Augustine, the most accomplished frigger in the seraglio,
received permission to manualize the lad within clear sight of the
assembly, and Hyacinthe was given leave to fondle and caress her in
whatsoever part of her body he desired. There's no spectacle more
voluptuous than that offered by a young maid of fifteen, lovely as the
day, lending herself to the caresses of a boy of fourteen and
provoking, by means of the most delicious pollutions, his springtide
discharge.
       Hyacinthe, aided perhaps by Nature, but yet more certainly by
the examples he had before his nose, fondled, handled, kissed naught
but his frigger's pretty little buttocks, and it required little more
than an instant of this to bring color to his cheeks, to fetch two or
three sighs from his lips, to induce his pretty little prick to shoot,
to a distance of one yard, five or six jets of sweet fuck white as
cream, which emissions happened to land on Durcet's thigh, for the
banker was seated nearest the boy and was having himself frigged by
Narcisse while watching the operation. The fact once indubitably
established, they caressed and kissed the child rather universally,
each swore he'd love to receive a small portion of that youthful
sperm, and as it appeared that, at his age and for a beginning, six
discharges were not too many, in that he had after all just delivered
himself of two without the least difficulty, our libertines induced
him to shed another in each of their mouths.
       Much heated by this performance, the Duc laid hands on
Augustine and frigged her clitoris with his tongue until he had
elicited several solid discharges from her; full of fire and blessed
with a mettlesome spirit, that little minx shot them off in short
order. While the Duc was thus polluting Augustine, nothing was more
engaging than to see Durcet, come up to gather symptoms of the
pleasure he was not provoking, kiss that beautiful child's mouth a
thousand times over, and swallow, so to speak, the voluptuousness
another was causing to circulate throughout her senses. The hour was
advanced, they were obliged to omit the midday nap and to pass
directly into the auditorium where Duclos had been awaiting them for a
long time; as soon as everyone had arranged himself, she took up the
thread of her adventures and spoke as hereafter you may read:

       I have already had the honor to remark in your Lordships'
presence, that it is most difficult to fathom all the tortures man
invents for himself in order to find, in the degradation they produce,
or the agonies, those sparks of pleasure which age or satiety have
made to grow faint in him. Hard it is to credit the assertion that one
such gentleman of this sort, a person of sixty years and to a singular
degree jaded by all the pleasures of lubricity, used only to be able
to restore his senses to life by having the flames of burning candles
applied to every part of his body, and principally to the ones Nature
has intended for those selfsame pleasures. He would have his thighs
seared, his prick, his balls roasted, and above all else his asshole:
while all this was going forward, he would be kissing an ass, and
after the grievous operation had been repeated for the fifteenth or
twentieth time, he would discharge while sucking the anus of the girl
who'd been burning him.
       Soon after that one, I had dealings with another who obliged me
to use a horse's currycomb on him, to rub down his entire body with
that instrument, quite as one does to the animal I have just named.
Directly his body was all an open wound, I'd next rub him with
alcohol, and this second torture would cause him abundantly to
discharge upon my breasts - that was the battlefield he chose to spray
with his fuck. I would kneel before him, squeeze his prick between my
bubs, and he'd quietly wash them with his balls' acrid humor.
       A third would have would have every hair on his ass plucked out
one by one. While that lengthy operation was advancing, he would frig
himself upon a warm turd I'd just done for him. Then, at the crisis'
approach, I had, to give it the necessary encouragement, to drive the
point of a scissors deep enough into each of his buttocks to draw a
jet of blood. His ass was a maze of wounds and scars, I was scarce
able to find an open space for my two gashes; immediately the steel
entered him, he'd plunge his nose into the shit, smear it upon his
face, and floods of sperm would crown his ecstasy.
       A fourth put his prick in my mouth and bade me bite it as hard
as I could; in the meantime, as I chewed his poor device, I was
expected to lacerate his buttocks with an iron comb whose teeth were
ground to sharp points; and then, at the moment I sensed his prick
ready to melt - a very faint, a barely perceptible erection would tell
me so - and then, I say, I'd spread his buttocks prodigiously wide,
ease them close to a burning candle I'd kept in readiness on the
floor, and I'd braise his asshole with it. 'Twas the burning sensation
of that candle under his anus decided his emission; I'd therewith
redouble my bitings, and would soon find my mouth full.

       "One moment, if you please," said the Bishop. "Every time I
hear of someone discharging into a mouth I am reminded of the good
fortune I had earlier today, and my spirits are disposed to tasting
further pleasures of the same sort."
       Saying which, he draws Invictus near, for that champion wsa on
duty in the Bishop's alcove that afternoon, and falls to sucking the
brave fellow's prick with all the energetic lustiness of a true
bugger. Fuck explodes, the prelate gobbles it up, and straightway goes
to repeat the operation upon Zphyr. The Bishop was brandishing his
knobkerrie, and 'twas seldom that women would feel completely at their
ease when he was in this critical state and they were near him.
Unfortunately, it was his niece Aline who happened to be within range.
       "What are you doing there, bitch?" he rasped; "I want men for
my fun."
       Aline seeks to elude him, he seizes her by the hair and,
dragging her into his closet along with Zelmire and Hb, the two
girls in his quartet:
       "You'll see," says he to his friends, "you'll see how I'm going
to teach these wenches to slip cunts under my hand when I'm doing my
best to find some pricks."
       Upon his order, Fanchon accompanied the three maidens, and an
instant later Aline was heard to utter very shrill cries; then came
tidings of Monseigneur's discharge, reverberating howls which blended
with his dear niece's dolorous accents. Everyone returned . . . Aline
was weeping, squeezing and clutching her behind.
       "Come show me what he did to you," said the Duc; "I love
nothing better than to see traces of my distinguished brother's
brutality."
       Aline displayed I've no idea what, for I have never been able
to discover what went on in those infernal closets, but the Duc
exclaimed: "By fuck, 'tis delicious, I think I'll go off and do the
same." But Curval having pointed out to him that time was growing
short, and having added that he had an amusing enterprise in mind for
the orgies, which scheme would demand a clear head and all his fuck,
Duclos was asked to go ahead with the fifth story in order that the
sitting be brought to a proper conclusion; the storyteller therewith
addressed the convocation once again:

       Belonging to that group of extraordinary individuals, said she,
whose mania consists in wallowing in degradation and in insulting
their own dignity, was a certain judge of the circuit court whose name
was Foucolet. There's truly no believing the point to which that
fellow would carry his furor; he had to be given a sample of almost
every torture. I used to hang him, but the rope would break just in
time and he would fall upon a mattress; the next instant, I would
strap him to a St. Andrew's cross and make as if to break his limbs
with a bar, but it was only a roll of pasteboard; I used to brand him
upon the shoulder, the iron I used was warm and left a faint imprint,
no more; I would flog his back in precise imitation of the public
servant who performs those noble feats, and whilst I was doing all
this I had to overwhelm him with a stream of atrocious invectives,
bitter reproaches for various crimes, for which, during each
successive operation, he would demand, a candle in his hand and
wearing only his shirt, God's forgiveness and the law's, pronouncing
his entreaties in a very humble and contrite tone; finally, the
meeting would be brought to a close on my ass, where the libertine
would yield up his fuck when his head had reached the ultimate degree
of distraction.

       "Well now, are you going to let me discharge in peace now that
Duclos has finished?" the Duc asked Curval.
       "No, not a bit of it," the Prsident replied; "preserve your
fuck, I tell you I need it for the orgies."
       "Oh, so you take me for your valet, do you?" the Duc exclaimed.
"You take me for a worn-out bugger? Do you suppose that the small
quantity of fuck I'm going to lose in a moment will prevent me from
joining in all the infamies which are going to pop into your head four
hours from now? Come now, Prsident, you know me better than that;
banish your fears, I'll be fit again for anything inside fifteen
minutes, but my good and holy brother has been pleased to give me a
little example of an atrocity I'd be grief-stricken not to execute
with Adelaide, your dear and estimable daughter."
       And pushing her forthwith into his closet, along with Thrse,
Colombe, and Fanny, the female elements of his quatrain, he probably
did there, with them, what the Bishop had done to his niece, and
discharged with the same episodes, for, as not long before they heard
Aline's terrible scream, so now their ears were treated to another
from the lips of Adelaide and the bawdy Duc's yells of lust. Curval
wished to learn which of the two brothers had been the better behaved;
he summoned the two women, and having pored at length over their two
behinds, he decided that the Duc had not merely imitated, but
surpassed the Bishop.
       They sat down at table, and having by means of some drug or
other stuffed the bowels of all the subjects, men and women, with an
abundance of wind, after supper they played the game of
fart-in-the-face: Messieurs, all four of them, lay back upon couches,
their heads raised, and one by one the members of the household
stepped up to deliver their farts into the waiting mouths. Duclos was
requested to do the counting and mark down the scores; there were
thirty-six farters against only four swallowers: hence there were
certain persons who received as many as one hundred and fifty farts.
It had been for this rousing ceremony Curval had wanted the Duc to
keep himself fit, but such precautions, as Blangis had made perfectly
clear, were quite unnecessary; he was too great a friend of
libertinage to allow some new excess to find him unprepared; to the
contrary, any new excess always had the greatest effect upon him, his
situation notwithstanding, and he did not fail to produce a second
discharge thanks to the humid mistral Fanchon wafted into his mouth.
As for Curval, they were Antinos' farts which cost him his fuck,
whereas Durcet bent before the gale that swept out of Martaine's
asshole, and the Bishop lost all control in the face of what
Desgranges offered him. The youthful beauties' efforts, 'twill be
remarked, came to naught; but is it not true that it is always the
crapulous individual who best executes the infamous deed?
