                            THE EIGHTH DAY

       The previous day's examples having made a deep impression, no
one was found, no one could be found wanting the next day. The lessons
continued, they were executed upon the fuckers, and as the day
produced no outstanding event until coffee, we will begin our account
with that little rite. Coffee was served by Augustine, Zelmire,
Narcisse, and Zphyr. The thigh-fuckeries began again, Curval laid
hands on Zelmire, the Duc on Augustine, and after having admired and
kissed their pretty buttocks which, I truly don't know why, that day
possessed a charm, an attraction, a blush of vermilion the friends had
not hitherto remarked, after, I say, our libertines had thoroughly
kissed and caressed those exquisite little asses, farts were elicited
from them; the Bishop, who had Narcisse in his grip, had already
procured himself some, Zphyr's could be heard spluttering into
Durcet's mouth - why not imitate them? Zelmire succeeded, but
Augustine had striven with might and main, the Duc had threatened her
with another Saturday martyrdom, with punishment as severe as what she
had just suffered the day before, but strains and struggles, menaces
and imprecations were all in vain, nothing emerged from the poor
little creature, she was already in tears when a driblet at length
appeared and satisfied the Duc who inhaled the aroma and, highly
pleased with this mark of docility in the pretty child of whom he was
so fond, he camped his enormous engine between her thighs, then
withdrew it as he was about to discharge, and totally inundated her
two buttocks. Curval had done the same to Zelmire, but the Bishop and
Durcet contented themselves with what is known as the little goosing;
later, their nap over, they passed into the auditorium, where the
splendid Duclos, arrayed that day in everything that could most
successfully cause an observer to forget her age, appeared even
lovelier under the candlelight, and our libertines, grown very hot
with much looking at her, were loath to allow her to ascend to the
platform without first having her exhibit her buttocks to the
assembly.
       "A magnificent ass, upon my soul," said Curval.
       "Oh, indeed, my friend," said Durcet, "I warrant there are few
better to be seen."
       These encomiums heard, our heroine lowered her skirts, took her
seat, and resumed her story in such wise as the reader shall observe,
if he be pleased to continue, which we advise that he do for the sake
of his pleasure.

       A reflection and an event were responsible, Messieurs, for the
shift in battlefields; the digladiations I shall from now on relate
were performed in other surroundings. The reflection was a most simple
one: I remarked the lamentable condition of my purse, and straightway
was set to thinking. I had been nine years at Madame Gurin's, and
although, during that time, I had disbursed very little, I now found
myself without even a hundred louis; that woman, extremely clever and
never once deaf to the pleading of her own welfare, always found a way
to pocket two-thirds of the house's receipts and to impose additional
deductions upon the remainder. These practices displeased me and,
subject to repeated solicitations from another procuress, Madame
Fournier, who wanted nothing more than to have me settle down with
her, and knowing that this Fournier received elderly debauchees of a
higher tone and greater means than Gurin's clientele, I decided to
take my leave of the one and throw in my lot with the other. As for
the event which lent support to my ideas, it was the loss of my
sister: I had grown very attached to her, and I could no longer remain
in a house where everything reminded me of her but whence she was
absent.
       For nearly six months that dear sister had been receiving
visits from a tall, dark, and silent man whose face I found
exceedingly disagreeable. They would retire together, and I do not
know how they passed their time, for never did my sister want to
discuss what they did, and never did they cavort in a place where I
could view their commerce. In any event, she came into my room one
fine morning, embraced me, and said that her fortune was made, she was
to be the mistress of the tall man I disliked, and I learned only that
the deciding factor in her conquest was the beauty of her buttocks.
And with that she gave me her address, settled her accounts with
Gurin, gave each of us a farewell kiss, and left. You may be sure
that I did not fail to go the indicated address, for I wished to see
her. It was two days after her departure; I arrived, asked for my
sister, and my request was answered by shrugs and blank expressions. I
saw perfectly clear that my sister had been duped, for I could not
imagine she would have deprived me of the pleasure of her company.
When I related the thing to Gurin and complained of what had
happened, a malign smile crept over her face. She refused to explain
herself; hence I concluded she was embroiled in this mysterious
adventure but did not want me to become involved in it. It all had a
deep effect upon me and brought a swift end to my unresolve; as,
Messieurs, I shall have no occasion to speak of that beloved sister in
future, I may say now that, notwithstanding the inquiries I had made
and the lengths to which I went to find her, I was never able to
discover what had become of her.

       "I dare say not," Desgranges observed, "for, twenty-four hours
after having left you, she was no longer alive. No, she did not
deceive you; rather, she was herself deceived. But, as you surmised,
Gurin knew what was afoot."
       "Merciful Heavens! what are you telling me?" cried Duclos.
"Alas! though deprived of the sight of her, I still imagined she was
alive."
       "Most erroneously," Desgranges replied. "She told you the
strict truth: it was indeed the beauty of her buttocks, the
astonishing superiority of that memorable ass that procured her the
adventure in which she flattered herself a fortune was to be earned,
but wherein she gained death only."
       "And the tall silent man?" Duclos asked.
       "He was no more than the courtier in the story, he was working
for another."
       "Yet, I tell you, he saw her assiduously for six months."
       "In order to deceive her," Desgranges answered; "but go on with
your tale, these clarifications might prove tedious to their
Lordships, and should they wish to hear more of the matter, they may
rest assured the anecdote will figure in my depositions."
       "And spare us any emotional demonstrations, Duclos," said the
Duc dryly, upon noticing that it was all she could do to keep back a
few involuntary tears, "we don't much care for regrets and grievings,
you know; as a matter of fact, all the works of Nature could be blown
to hell and we'd not emit so much as a sigh. Leave tears to idiots and
children, and may they never soil the cheeks of a clearheaded,
clear-thinking woman, the sort we esteem."
       With these words, our heroine took herself in hand and resumed
her narrative at once.

       Owing to the two reasons I have just presented to your
Lordships, I made up my mind to leave; Fournier offered me better
accommodations, a far more interesting table, much more remunerative
although more arduous work, an equal share in the receipts, and
service charges. I went to her at once. At that time she occupied an
entire house, and five pretty young girls composed her seraglio; I
made the sixth. You will allow me to proceed again as earlier I did
when describing Gurin's establishment: I will not portray my
companions-at-arms until one by one they step into the arena.
       On the morrow of my arrival, I was given a project, for
Fournier ran a bustling house, people came and went all the time, each
of us would often receive five or six clients in the space of a day;
but I shall continue, as I have until now, to select none but those
who, by dint of singularity or piquancy, are apt to arrest your
attention.
       The first man I welcomed in my new habitation was a disbursing
official, aged about fifty. He had me kneel by the bed with my chin
resting on its edge; he established himself on the bed, kneeling also,
and above me. He frigged his prick squarely into my mouth, commanding
me to keep it wide open; I lost not a drop, and the bawdy fellow was
prodigiously amused by the contortions and efforts to vomit this
disgusting mouthwash caused in me.
       You will perhaps prefer me to group the four other adventures
in this category I had at Madame Fourniers, although you understand,
Messieurs, that these encounters were separated in time. I am certain
the telling will be far from displeasing to Monsieur Durcet, and
perhaps very opportune, and for the rest of the evening he will most
kindly permit me to entertain him with accounts of a passion for which
he has enthusiasm, and which procured me the honor of making his
acquaintance.

       "What's this?" exclaimed Durcet; "you are going to have me play
a role in your story?"
       "With your gracious leave, my Lord," Duclos replied. "I shall
simply advise Messieurs when I reach the point where you make your
entrance."
       "But my modesty . . . oh dear, oh dear! Before these little
girls, do you mean you intend to disclose all my turpitudes to their
innocent hearing?"
       And everyone having chuckled over the financier's whimsical
fears, Duclos resumed her narrative.

       Another libertine, much older and in a different way digusting,
succeeded the one I mentioned a moment ago, and came to give me a
second representation of the same mania; he had me stretch out naked
upon a bed, stretched out himself, his head to my toe, popped his
prick in my mouth and his tongue in my cunt, and having adopted this
attitude, bade me make return for the voluptuous titillations he
declared his tongue was very certainly going to procure for me. I
sucked as best I could; he had my pucelage, he licked, bubbled,
splashed about and, without doubt, in all these maneuvers, labored
infinitely more in his own behalf than in mine. Whatever may have been
the truth, I felt nothing, and was exceedingly happy not to be
horribly revolted by the whole affair; there ensued the rou's
discharge, an operation which, in accordance with Fournier's earnest
wishes, for she had given me foreknowledge of everything, an
operation, I say, which I strove to make as lubricious as possible by
sucking, by wringing the juice from his prick with my lips, by
swishing it about in my mouth, and by running my hand over his
buttocks and tickling his anus, which last detail, he indicated,
pleased him very much, and which he performed on me in turn as best he
could. . . . The business completed, our man beat his retreat,
assuring Madame Fournier that never yet had he been outfitted with a
girl who gave him more satisfaction than I.
       Shortly after this latest of my exploits, an old witch of about
seventy came to our house; I was curious to know what brought her to
us, she seemed to have an expectant air, and, yes, I was told that she
was awaiting a customer. Extremely eager to see to what purpose the
old bag of bones was going to be put, I asked my companions whether
there were not a room from which one might have a view of the bouts,
as had been possible at Gurin's. One of my friends replied that
indeed such facilities were available and led me to a chamber equipped
with not one, but two holes; we took our posts, and this is what we
saw and heard, for the wall was no more than a thin partition, and
sound traversed it so easily we lost not a word. The old dame arrived
first. She looked at herself in a mirror, primped, made adjustments,
as if she fancied her charms were yet capable of conquering. A few
minutes later, in walked this Chlo's Daphnis; he was sixty at the
most, a tax commissioner, a man who was very comfortably well off and
who preferred spending his money upon worn-out sluts, old trash like
this, rather than upon pretty girls; and why? 'Twas a singularity of
taste you say that you understand, Messieurs, and indeed you explain
the thing admirably. He advances, surveying his Dulcinea; she makes
him a bow of deepest respect.
       "No nonsense, you old bitch," says the rake, "I don't care for
elegant manners. Get out of your clothes. . . . But wait just one
moment. Have you any teeth?"
       "No, Sire, not a one is left in my head," quoth the lady,
opening her foul old mouth. "See for yourself, may it please your
Lordship."
       Whereupon up steps his Lordship and, grasping her head, he
deposits upon her lips one of the most passionate kisses I have seen
in all my life; not merely did he kiss, but he sucked, he devoured,
most amorously he darted his tongue far, far into that putrid gullet,
and the dear old grandmother, of whom not so much had been made in
many a long year, replied with a tenderness which . . . I should have
much difficulty describing to you.
       "Very well," said the official, "that will do. Off with your
clothes."
       Meanwhile, he too undoes his breeches and brings out a little
dark and wrinkled member about which there is nothing at all that
promises an early erection. However, the old girl is naked, and with
unimaginable effrontery comes up to offer her lover the sight of an
ancient, yellow, and shriveled body, dry, shapeless, and unfleshed,
the full description whereof, irrespective of your particular fancies
in such matters, would so fill you with horror it were better for me
to say no more; but far from being disgusted, repelled, upset by what
greets his eye, our libertine is positively enchanted; ecstatic, he
seizes her, draws her to where he is seated in a chair, manualizes her
while waiting for her to remove a last stitch of clothing, again darts
his tongue into her mouth and, turning her around, for a moment pays
his respects to the other side of the coin. I very distinctly saw him
fondle her buttocks - but what am I saying? buttocks? rather, I saw
him manipulate the two wrinkled rags which fell in waves and little
ripples from her haunches and lay flapping on her thighs. Well, such
as they were he drew them apart, voluptuously fastened his lips upon
the infamous cloaca they enclosed, drove his tongue repeatedly
thereinto, and while he sweated happily over this ruin, she struggled
to give some firmness to the moribund device she was rattling.
       "Let's get to the heart of the matter," said her beloved;
"without my favorite stunts, all your attempts will be useless. You've
been told?"
       "Yes, Monsieur, I have been told."
       "And you know you've got to swallow?"
       "Yes, my dearie, I'll swallow, oh yes, my little cabbage, my
pet, down it'll go, I'll devour every little drop my duckling makes."
       And therewith the libertine deposits her on the bed, her head
lying toward its foot, he straightway pops his limp engine between her
gums, drives doughtily in up to the balls, wriggles about until,
seizing his delight's legs and perching them upon his shoulders, his
snout is nicely lodged between the old creature's buttocks. His tongue
wanders deep into that exquisite hole; the honeybee going in quest of
the rose's nectar sucks not more voluptuously; the lady sucks too, our
hero begins to stir. "Ah, fuck!" he cries after a quarter of an hour
of this libidinous calisthenic, "suck me, suck me, suck and swallow
it, you filthy buggress, swallow, for it's coming, by Jesus' sweet
face, it's coming, don't you feel it?" And flinging kisses here and
there, scattering kisses upon everything in sight, thighs, vagina,
buttocks, anus, everything gets licked, everything is sucked, the old
bitch gulps, and the poor old wreck, who withdraws as slack a device
as the one he inserted, and who has apparently discharged unerected,
goes tottering out all ashamed of his transports, and as promptly as
ever he can gains the door in order to avoid the sobering sight of the
appalling object which has just seduced him in his weakness.

       "And the old bitch?" inquired the Duc.

       The old bitch coughed, spat, blew her nose, dressed with all
possible dispatch, and left.
       A few days later, the same companion thanks to whom I had been
able to enjoy witnessing this scene had her turn. She was a blond girl
of about sixteen, with the world's most interesting physiognomy; I
eagerly seized the opportunity to see her at work. The man with whom
she was to hold conference was at least as old as the tax
commissioner. He had her kneel between his legs, immobilized her head
by catching hold of her ears, and snapped into her startled mouth a
prick which looked to me to be dirtier and more unappetizing than a
rag left to soak in the gutter. Observing that frightful morsel
approaching her clean healthy lips, my poor colleague was moved to
back away, but it was not for nothing our gentleman held her like a
spaniel by the ears.
       "What the devil's this?" he muttered. "Are you going to be
difficult?"
       And threatening to summon Fournier, who had doubtless
recommended the most conciliatory attitude to her, he triumphed over
her hesitations. She opens her lips, retreats, opens them again and
finally, gagging and spluttering, accepts into that sweetest of mouths
that most infamous of relics; from this point onward, the villain's
speech was exceedingly rude.
       "Ah, you little slut!" he shouted in a rage, "you've got
scruples, have you, about sucking the finest prick in France? You
suppose, do you, that one's got to wash one's balls just for your
sake? Well, fuck you, bitch: suck, do you hear? suck the sweetmeat."
       Waxing very hot thanks to these sarcasms and the revulsion he
noticed he was inspiring my companion, for true it is, Messieurs, that
the loathing you quicken in us becomes the gadfly that arouses your
pleasure, stings your lust; waxing most ardent, I say, the libertine
plunged into an ecstasy and left in the poor girl's mouth the most
definite evidence of his virility. Less complaisant than the old
woman, she swallowed nothing, and far more revolted, a moment later
she retched her stomach empty, and our libertine, readjusting himself
without paying much attention to what she was about, laughed
sneeringly between his teeth, amused by his libertinage's cruel
consequences.
       My turn came next. But more fortunate than my two predecessors,
it was Cupid himself I was turned over, and after having satisfied him
I was left with nothing but wonder to find tastes so peculiar in a
young man so well framed to please. He arrives, he has me take off
what I am wearing and lies down upon the bed, orders me to squat above
his face and with my mouth proceed to try to wring a discharge from a
very mediocre prick, for which however he has words of praise and
whose fuck he entreats me to swallow as soon as I feel it flow.
       "But don't waste the occasion to idleness," the little
libertine added, "meanwhile, I'd have that cunt of yours flood urine
into my mouth, I promise you I'll swallow it as you shall my fuck, and
I'd be delighted to sniff a few farts from that splendid ass."
       I fell to the task and simultaneously executed my three chores
with such skill and grace that the little anchovy soon vomited all its
fury into my mouth; I swallowed heartily, my Adonis likewise made
short shrift of the piss that poured out of my crack and, while he
drank, he inhaled the fragrance that a continual stream of farts bore
to his nostrils.

       "Forsooth, Mademoiselle," murmured Durcet, "you could surely
have dispensed with disclosures that portray all my youthful
childishness."
       "Ha!" said the Duc with a merry laugh, "well indeed! You who
scarcely dare look at a cunt today, do you mean to say you used to
have 'em piss in the old days?"
       "'Tis true," said Durcet, "I blush to admit it, for what could
be more dreadful than to have such turpitudes upon one's conscience?
Oh, I presently feel the heavy weight of remorse, my friend. . . . O
delicious asses!" he exclaimed, in his enthusiasm kissing Sophie's
which he had drawn close for a minute's fondling, "O divine asses! how
I reproach myself for the incense I deprived you of! O delicious
fundaments, I promise you an expiatory sacrifice, I swear upon your
altars never again while I live to stray from the paths of rectitude."
       And that splendid behind having heated him somewhat, the
libertine placed the novice in what was doubtless an exceedingly
indecent posture but one in which he was able, as has been seen above,
to give his little anchovy to be sucked while sucking the tidiest,
freshest, most voluptuous of asses. But Durcet, become now too blas,
too surfeited with that pleasure, only very rarely found it
invigorating; one could suck all one wished, he could do the same till
his lips cracked, 'twas always the same: he would withdraw in the same
collapsed state and, cursing and swearing at the girl, would regularly
postpone until some happier moment the pleasures Nature denied him
then.
       Not everyone was so unfortunate; the Duc, who had passed into
his closet with Zlamir, Bum-Cleaver, and Thrse, emitted shouts and
bellows which attested to his happiness, and Colombe, hawking and
spitting in great earnestness, left precious little doubt about the
temple at which he had done his worshiping. As for the Bishop,
reclining upon his couch in the most natural manner, Adelaide's
buttocks pinching his nose and his prick in her mouth, he was in
seventh heaven, for he was having a wealth of farts out of the young
woman; Curval, in an extremely upright state, plugged Hb's little
mouth with his outsized stopper, and yielded up his fuck as he
resorted to other stunts.
       Mealtime arrived. The Duc wished to advance the thesis that if
happiness consisted in the entire satisfaction of all the senses, it
were difficult to be happier than were they.
       "The remark is not a libertine's," said Durcet. "How can you be
happy if you are able constantly to satisfy yourself? It is not in
desire's consummation happiness consists, but in the desire itself, in
hurdling the obstacles placed before what one wishes. Well, what is
the perspective here? One needs but wish and one has. I swear to you,"
he continued, "that since my arrival here my fuck has not once flowed
because of the objects I find about me in this castle. Every time, I
have discharged over what is not here, what is absent from this place,
and so it is," the financier declared, "that, according to my belief,
there is one essential thing lacking to our happiness. It is the
pleasure of comparison, a pleasure which can only be born of the sight
of wretched persons, and here one sees none at all. It is from the
sight of him who does not in the least enjoy what I enjoy, and who
suffers, that comes the charm of being able to say to oneself: 'I am
therefore happier than he.' Wherever men may be found equal, and where
these differences do not exist, happiness shall never exist either: it
is the story of the man who only knows full well what health is worth
after he has been ill."
       "In that case," said the Bishop, "you would maintain as a real
source of pleasure the act of going and contemplating the tears of
persons stricken by misery?"
       "Most assuredly," Durcet replied. "In all the world there is
perhaps no voluptuousness that more flatters the senses than the one
you cite."
       "What? You would not succor the lowly and wretched?" exclaimed
the Bishop who took the most genuine delight in engaging Durcet to
expetiate upon a question whose examination was so much to the taste
of them all and upon which, they knew, the financier was able to
deliver some very sound opinions.
       "What is it you term succor?" Durcet responded. "For the
voluptuousness I sense and which is the result of this sweet
comparison of their condition with mine, would cease to exist were I
to succor them: by extricating them from a state of wretchedness, I
should cause them to taste an instant's happiness, thus destroying the
distinction between them and myself, thus destroying all the pleasure
afforded by comparison."
       "Well then, following that," reasoned the Duc, "one should in
one way or another, so as the better to establish that distinction
indispensable to happiness, one should, I say, rather aggravate their
plight."
       "There is no doubting it," said Durcet, "and that explains the
infamies of which I have been accused all my life. Those who are in
perfect ignorance of my motives," the banker continued, "call me
harsh, ferocious, barbaric, but, laughing at these divers
denominations, I go merrily on; I cause, I dare say, what fools
describe as atrocities, but thereby I have created pleasure-giving
distinctions and have made many a delectable comparison."
       "Come now," said the Duc, "confess, my dear fellow: admit that
upon more than a score of occasions you have engineered the ruin of
some poor folk, simply by that means to serve the perverse tastes you
have just acknowledged."
       "More than a score?" said Durcet. "More than ten score, my
friend, and, without the slightest exaggeration, I could enumerate
above four hundred families reduced to beggardom, a state in which
they'd not now be languishing had it not been for me."
       "And," said Curval, "I fancy you have profited from their
ruin?"
       "Why yes, that has very frequently been the case, but I must
also confess that often enough I have acted not to gain, but purely to
undo, at the behest of that certain wickedness which almost always
awakens the organs of lubricity in me; my prick positively jumps when
I do evil, in evil I discover precisely what is needed to stimulate in
me all of pleasure's sensations, and I perform evil for that reason,
for it alone, without any ulterior motive."
       "Upon my soul," declared the Prsident, "I own I fancy nothing
better than that taste. When I was in Parliament I must have voted at
least a hundred times to have some poor devil hanged; they were all
innocent, you know, and I would never indulge in that little injustice
without experiencing, deep within me, a most voluptuous titillation:
no more was needed to inflame my balls, nothing used to heat them more
certainly. You can imagine what I felt when I did worse."
       "It is certain," said the Duc, whose brain was beginning to
warm as he fingered Zphyr, "that crime has sufficient charm of itself
to ignite all the senses, without one having to resort to any other
expedient; no one understands better than I that enormities and
malpractices, even those at the most extreme remove from libertine
misbehavior, are quite as capable of inciting an erection as those
which lie directly within the sphere of libertinage. The man who is
addressing you at this very instant has owed spasms to stealing,
murdering, committing arson, and he is perfectly sure that it is not
the object of libertine intentions which fire us, but the idea of
evil, and that consequently it is thanks only to evil and only in the
name of evil one stiffens, not thanks to the object, and were this
object to be divested of the power to cause us to do evil, our prick
would droop, 'twould interet us no more."
       "What could be more certain than that?" the Bishop demanded.
"And thence is born another certitude: the greatest pleasure is
derived from the most infamous source. The doctrine which must
perpetually govern our conduct is this: the more pleasure you seek in
the depths of crime, the more frightful the crime must be; as for
myself, Messieurs," added the Bishop, "if I may be permitted to speak
personally, I affirm that I have reached the point of no longer being
susceptible of this sensation you have been discussing, of no longer
experiencing it, I say, as a result of lesser or minor crimes, and if
the one I perpetrate does not combine as much of the atrocious, of the
base, of the vicious, of the deceitful, of the treacherous as may be
possibly imagined, the sensation is not merely faint, there is no
sensation at all."
       "Very well," said Durcet, "is it possible to commit crimes such
as these our minds yearn after, crimes like those you mention? For my
part, I must declare that my imagination has always outdistanced my
faculties; I lack the means to do what I would do, I have conceived of
a thousand times more and better than I have done, and I have ever had
complaint against Nature who, while giving me the desire to outrage
her, has always deprived me of the means."
       "There are," said Curval, "but two or three crimes to perform
in this world, and they, once done, there's no more to be said; all
the rest is inferior, you cease any longer to feel. Ah, how many
times, by God, have I not longed to be able to assail the sun, snatch
it out of the universe, make a general darkness, or use that star to
burn the world! oh, that would be a crime, oh yes, and not a little
misdemeanor such as are all the ones we perform who are limited in a
whole year's time to metamorphosing a dozen creatures into lumps of
clay."
       Whereupon, their minds having waxed gay and hot, as two or
three young girls had already had cause to remark, and their pricks
beginning to rise, they left the table and went in search of pretty
mouths, thereinto to pour the floods of that liquor whose too
insistent throbbings promoted the utterance of so many horrors. That
evening they confined themselves to mouth pleasures, but invented a
hundred manners of varying them, and when they had run, all four of
them, each a magnificent race, in a few hours of repose they sought to
find the strength necessary to starting out afresh.
