“If, on the other hand, the act is discovered and punishment ensues, then, if one chooses to view the matter objectively, one will recognize that what we now repent is not the hurt caused someone else by our act, but our clumsiness in allowing it to be found out—and presently one has grounds for regret, yes, and should surely ponder the thing … simply in order, from lengthy reflection upon one’s misadventure, to realize that in the future one must be prudent—if the punishment inflicted upon one is anything short of capital. But these reflections are not to be confused with remorse, for true remorse, real remorse, is the pain produced by the hurt one has done oneself: which distinction brings to light the vast difference subsisting between these two sentiments, and at the same time reveals the usefulness of the one and the inanity of the other.
“When we indulge in a bit of foul play, however atrocious, the satisfaction it affords, or the profit it yields, is ample consolation for the trouble, however acute, which amusing ourselves may bring down upon the head of some one or more of our fellow men. Prior to performing the deed, do we not clearly foresee the inconveniences it will cause others? Of course; and this thought, rather than doing anything to stop us, usually spurs us on. And then the deed once done, suddenly and belatedly to fall prey to worry, to start to fret, to sweat, to allow scruple to hinder one from savoring pleasure—than this there is no greater nor baser folly. If because it has been detected this deed brings us unhappiness in its wake, let us bend our keener faculties to ferreting out the reasons why it came to public intelligence; and without shedding a superfluous tear over something we are powerless to arrange otherwise, let us mobilize every effort so that the next time we shall not be wanting in tact, let us turn this mishap to our advantage, and from this reversal draw the experience necessary to improve our methods: henceforth, we will ensure our impunity by swathing our irregularities in thicker veils and more entire obscurity. But let us not contrive, by means of purposeless remorse, to extirpate sound principles; for this bad behavior, this depravation, these vicious and criminal and abominable caprices, are precious attributes, they have procured us pleasure, have delighted us, and unwise is he who deprives himself of anything he enjoys—that would be similar to the lunacy of the man who, merely because a heavy dinner troubled his digestion, were to abjure forever the pleasures of good eating.
“Veritable wisdom, my dear Juliette, consists not in repressing, one’s vices, for, vices constituting, practically speaking, the sole happiness granted us in life, so to do would be to adopt the role, as it were, of one’s own executioner. The true and approved way is to surrender oneself to them, to practice them to the utmost, but with care enough and circumspection to be secured against the dangers of surprise. Fear not lest precautions and protective contrivances diminish your pleasure: mystery only adds thereto. Such conduct, furthermore, guarantees impunity; and is not impunity the most piquant aliment to debauchery?
“After having taught you how to deal with the remorse born of the pain one suffers from having done evil rather too conspicuously, it is of the essence, dear little friend, that you permit me now to indicate the manner of totally silencing that inner and confusion-breeding voice which, when thirsts have been slaked, wakes now and again to upbraid us for the follies into which passions have plunged us. Well, this cure is quite as sweet as it is sure, for it consists simply in reiterating the deeds that have made us remorseful, in repeating them so often that the habit either of committing these deeds or of getting away scot free with them completely undermines every possibility of feeling badly about them. This habit topples the prejudice, destroys it; it does more: by frequently exercising the sensibility in the very way and in the very situation which, at the outset, made it suffer, this habit at length makes the new state it has assumed wholly bearable and even delicious to the soul. Pride lends its aid: not only have you done something no one else would ever dare do, you have become so accustomed to doing it that you cannot anymore exist without it—there is one pleasure. The enacted deed produces another; and who is there doubts that this multiplying of delights very speedily induces a soul to adopt the lineaments and character it has got to have, however painful at first may have been the difficulties wherewith, perforce, it was beset by the deed in question?
“Do we not experience when performing any one of the alleged crimes in which lust is dominant the very sensations I have cited to you? Why is it one never repents a crime of libertinage? Because libertinage very soon becomes habitual. Thus may it be in the case of every other extravagance; like lubricity, they may all be readily transformed into custom, and like lewdness, each of them may provoke an agreeable vibration in the nerve fluids: this poignant itching, closely resembling passion, may become quite as delectable and consequently, like it, metamorphose into a primary need.
“Oh, Juliette! if like myself you would live happily in crime—and, my beloved, I am wont to indulge heavily therein—if, I say, you would find in crime the same happiness that is mine, then strive as time passes to make of evil-doing a habit, until, with the passing of time, you have become so endeared to the habit that you literally cannot go on without imbibing of this potent drink, and until every man-made convention appears so ridiculous to your consideration that your pliant but nonetheless sinewy soul becomes gradually accustomed to construing as vices all human virtues, and as virtuous whatever mortals call criminal: do this, and lo! as though miraculously, new perspectives, a new universe shall appear before you, a consuming and delicious conflagration will glide into your nerves, it will make boil the electrically charged liquor in which the life principle has its seat. Fortunate enough to be able to dwell in a mundane society whence my sad fate has exiled me, with every new day you will form fresh projects, and their realization will every day overwhelm you with a sensual euphoria such as none but you shall know anything of. All the persons, all the creatures about you shall look to you like so many victims destiny has led up in fetters to sate your heart’s perversity. No more duties, no more hampering ties, no more obstacles to impede you, they’ll all vanish in a trice, dissolved by the vehemence of your desires. No longer from the depths of your soul shall any voice speak reproachfully, hoping to impair your vigor and rob you of joy. Nevermore shall prejudice militate against your happiness, wisdom shall abolish every check, and with even stride you shall walk along a pathway strewn thick with flowers, till finally you accede to perversity’s ultimate excesses. It will be then you’ll perceive the weakness of what in days past they described to you as Nature’s dictates; when you shall have spent a few years winking at what imbeciles term her laws, when, in order to become familiar with their infraction, it shall have pleased you to pulverize them all, then you’ll behold her, that Nature, a wicked smile on her lips, thrilled half to death at having been violated, you’ll see the quean/melt before your impulsive desires, you’ll see her come crawling toward you, begging to be shackled by your irons … she’ll stretch forth her wrists, plead to be your captive; now a slave to you instead of your sovereign, subtly she’ll instruct your heart in what fashion to outrage her further yet; as though degradation were her whole delight, only by showing you how to insult her excessively will she demonstrate her ability to impose her governance upon you. Let her. When once you reach that stage, do not resist, ever; as soon as you have discovered the way to seize Nature, insatiable in her demands upon you, she will lead you on, step by step, from irregularity to irregularity: all are preparatory, the last committed will never be but progress accomplished toward still another by means whereof she prepares to submit to you yet again; like unto the whore of Sybaris, who will put on every shape so as to excite the lust of him who buys her, she will in like wise teach you a hundred ways to soil and vanquish her, and all that the more completely to ensnare you in her turn, the more utterly to make you her own. However, one single hint of resistance, let me repeat, one reluctant gesture were fatal: it will cost you the loss of all you have won by complacency heretofore: yield: unless you acquaint yourself wi
th everything, you’ll know nothing; and if you’re so timid as to pause in your conversation with her, Nature will escape you forever. Above all, beware of religion, nothing is more apt to lure you astray than religion’s baneful insinuations. Comparable to the Hydra whose heads grow back as swiftly as they are lopped off, it will unceasingly debilitate you if you falter at the task of obliterating its principles. There is the danger ever present that some bizarre ideas of the fantastical God wherewith they befouled your childhood return again to disturb your maturer imagination while it is in the midst of its divinest heats. Oh, Juliette! forget it, scorn it, the concept of this vain and ludicrous God. His existence is a shadow instantly to be dissipated by the least mental effort, and you shall never know any peace so long as this odious chimera preserves any of its prize upon your soul which error would give to it in bondage. Refer yourself again and again to the great theses of Spinoza, of Vanini, of the author of Le Système de la Nature. We will study them, we will analyze them together, I promised you authoritative dissertations upon this subject and I am going to keep my word: both of us shall feast heartily upon these writers and shall fill ourselves with the spirit of their sage opinions. Should you be visited by further doubts, you shall communicate them to me, I will set your mind at rest. Grown as staunch and doughty as I in your thinking, you’ll soon be imitating me in action, and like myself, you’ll never more pronounce this loathsome God’s name save with revulsion and in hateful blasphemy. The very conceiving of this so infinitely disgusting phantom is, I confess it, the one wrong I am unable to forgive man. I excuse him all his whims, his ironies, and his eccentricities, I sympathize with all his frailties, but I cannot smile tolerantly upon the lunacy that could erect this monster, I do not pardon man for having himself wrought those religious chains which have so dreadfully hobbled him and for having crept despicably forward, eyes downcast and neck stretched forth, to receive the shameful collar manufactured only by his own stupidity. There would be no end to it, Juliette, were I to give vent to all the horror waked in me by the execrable doctrine based upon a God’s existence; mere mention of him rouses my ire, when I hear his name pronounced I seem to see all around me the palpitating shades of all those woebegone creatures this abominable opinion has slaughtered on the face of the earth. Those ghosts cry out beseechingly to me, they supplicate me to make use of all I have been endowed with of force and ingenuity to erase from the souls of my brethren the idea of the revolting chimera which has brought such rue into the world.”
At this point Madame Delbène asked me how far I had myself proceeded in these matters.
“I have not yet made my first communion,” I answered her.
“So much the better!” said she, folding me in her arms. “Excellent, my little angel, I’ll preserve you from that idolatrous rite. With what regards confession, reply, when they question you, that you are not prepared to recite. The mother in charge of the novices is my friend, her position depends upon my favor, I shall recommend you to her and they’ll leave you strictly alone. As for Mass, we’ve got to appear there in spite of our wishes; but, one moment, do you see that pretty little assortment of books?” she asked, pointing to some thirty-odd volumes bound in red morocco; “I shall lend you those works. Read them during the abominable sacrifice. They will in some sort alleviate the obligation of having to be witness to the whole miserable ceremony.”
“Oh, my friend!” I exclaimed, “how deeply in your debt I shall be! My heart and mind were already advanced in the direction your advice indicates I should take. … I had a head start—not, to be sure, with respect to morals, for the things you have just told me are so very novel, and so engaging—I had no previous inkling of them, truly. But at a very early hour I began to abhor religion, just as you do, and it was only with extremest aversion I fulfilled its duties. Oh, can you divine the pleasure you give me in promising to broaden my understanding! Alas! having until now heard nothing philosophical said about these matters of superstition, I owe all my modest store of impiety to Nature’s liberal suggestions.”
“Ah! obey her promptings, my darling—they’re such as shall never mislead you.”
“Do you know,” I continued, “the lecture you have just given me, it is a very compelling one … full of bold ideas. May I say that it is rare to find one so well informed at your age? Allow me to tell you so, my dear: I find it hard to believe a person’s conscience can reach the state which, by your description, it is plain yours has attained, without that person having acquitted herself of a number of most extraordinary feats. And how—forgive me for putting the question to you—how have you found the opportunity to perpetrate outrages capable of inwardly toughening you to this degree?”
“The day will come when you shall know everything about me,” said the Superior, rising from her chair.
“And why must it be postponed? are you afraid of—”
“Merely of horrifying you.”
“Then fear not, my friend.”
But the approach of company prevented Delbène from enlightening me touching what I was afire to know.
“Tush,” said she, putting a finger to her lips, “let’s turn our thoughts to pleasure. Kiss me, Juliette. I promise to confide in you on some later day.”
Our associates had arrived; I must portray them for you.
Madame de Volmar had taken the veil only six months before. Just twenty years old, tall, slender, very fair of skin, with chestnut hair, the loveliest body imaginable: Volmar, blessed with such a host of charms, was understandably one of Madame Delbène’s most cherished disciples and, excepting only the latter, the most libertine of the ladies who were about to participate in our orgies.
Saint-Elme was a novice of seventeen, very animated, with a charming countenance, sparkling eyes, well-molded breasts, and an air of general voluptuousness. Elizabeth and Flavie were both pensionnaires: the first could not have been past thirteen, the second was sixteen. Elizabeth’s face was sensitive, her features were unusually delicate; the lines of her body were agreeable to see, its curves already affirmed. As for Flavie, she had surely the most heavenly face one could hope to find in this world: nowhere did there exist a prettier smile, lovelier teeth, more beautiful hair; nor was there another who possessed a more engaging figure, a softer and clearer skin. Ah, my friends! had I to paint the Goddess of Flowers, ’twould be Flavie I’d select for my model.
The introductions and the customary compliments were without undue formality; each member of the society, fully aware of what had motivated the forgathering, was impatient to proceed to business; but those ladies’ exchanges did, I must declare, astonish me. Even in the middle of a brothel one is not likely to overhear libertine language more gracefully and more casually pronounced than it was by these young women; and nothing could have been more pleasant than the contrast between their modest demeanor, their reserve abroad, and the energetic indecency they displayed throughout these luxurious assemblies.
“Delbène,” said Madame Volmar upon making her entrance, “I defy you to wheedle me into discharging today—oh, but I’m done up, my dear, I was the night rioting with Fontenille. I worship the little rascal, in all my life no one ever frigged me more competently, I’ve never parted with so much fuck, nor so often, no, nor with such delight. Ah, my adorable one, we accomplished marvels!”
“Amazing, aren’t they?” Delbène remarked; “well, I trust we’ll perform a few a thousand times more extraordinary this afternoon.”
“Fuck my eyes! then let’s have at it!” cried Sainte-Elme. “I’m stiff—I’m not like Volmar, I slept alone,” and, raising her skirts, “do you see my cunt? Isn’t it plain, the treatment it desperately needs?”
“Stay,” said the Superior, “be not overhasty. This is an initiatory ceremony: I am admitting Juliette into our college, and she must undergo the prescribed ritual.”