“Ah, my dove, it is exquisite to have the lives of others arbitrarily in one’s power.”
“And killing them by poison, that must be exquisite too—I am sure of it, for, would you believe it? you no sooner mentioned the thing than I felt a quivering in my nerves, a sudden flash of heat…. Clairwil, I am quite certain that if you were to touch me now you would find me wet….”
Clairwil reaches a verifying hand beneath my skirts: “Aye, it is so—oh, beloved child, what a mind is yours! But, Juliette,” she said, knitting her brows, “did you not tell me Saint-Fond gave you an entire chest?”
I nodded.
“Well? What have you done with it?”
“There is none left and I dare not ask him for more.”
“You mean you used it?”
“All of it.”
“For his purposes?”
“Yes, a third of it. The rest for my passions.”
“Revenges?”
“Some were revenges. There were a good many lubricities.”
“Delicious creature!”
“Oh, Clairwil, you’ll never be able to conceive the horrors I have achieved in this domain … the joys I have derived from performing these crimes. … A box of poisoned almonds in my pocket, I used to stroll disguised through the public gardens, along the boulevards, into brothels; I would distribute those fatal candies to all who crossed my path; yes, to children also, especially to children. Afterward I would return to ascertain the results; were I to see a bier at the door of the individual upon whom the day before I played one of my cruel pranks, a glow would come into my cheeks … a fever into my blood … my head would reel … I would totter, have to lean against a wall or a lamppost for support; and Nature who, doubtless with a view to her own needs, had constituted me differently from others, would in the form of an unspeakable paroxysm reward an action which according to the belief of fools ought to have offended her.”
“All perfectly understandable, my dear,” Clairwil rejoined, “and the principles upon which we have been nourishing you for some time, Saint-Fond, Noirceuil, and I, elucidate the workings and designs of Nature as regards this entire matter; it is no more extraordinary to come to the point you have reached than to like to inflict beatings, it’s the same pleasure, but refined; and once it has been proven to us that from the commotion of the pain experienced by others there results an impact upon our nervous system and in it a vibration which must perforce provoke lust, all possible means for causing pain become for us so many means for tasting pleasure; and starting out with little teasings, we shortly arrive at execrations. The causes are the same, only the effects are different; the laws of Nature and, even more so, satiety require that there be a gradual but steady growth: you begin by poking with a pin, you end up stabbing with a dagger; there is, furthermore, a kind of perfidy in the employment of poison which singularly augments its attractiveness. Well, you have excelled your teachers, Juliette, I have perhaps imagined more than you, but I fear have accomplished less—”
“Imagined morel” I exclaimed. “What the devil more can you have imagined?”
“I would like,” Clairwil answered, “to find a crime which, even when I had left off doing it, would go on having perpetual effect, in such a way that so long as I lived, at every hour of the day and as I lay sleeping at night, I would be constantly the cause of a particular disorder, and that this disorder might broaden to the point where it brought about a corruption so universal or a disturbance so formal that even after my life was over I would survive in the everlasting continuation of my wickedness….”
“For the fulfillment of your aims, my dear,” said I, “I know of little else than what may be termed moral murder, which is arrived at by means of counsels, writings, or actions. Belmor and I have discussed this question together; here is a little computation he made just the other day, it suggests how rapidly contagion unfurls and how voluptuous it may be to cause, if it is true, as neither you nor I have any doubt, that as the crime becomes more atrocious, to that degree is the sensation enriched.”
And Madame de Lorsange displayed to her listeners the same paper Belmor had given her years before. This was the text: “Dedicating himself to this sort of action, one libertine can easily, in the course of one year, corrupt three hundred children; at the end of thirty years he will have corrupted nine thousand; and if each child he has corrupted only matches him in only one-fourth of his corruptions, and we can hardly expect less, and if each succeeding year’s batch of corrupted children follows suit, as must very probably happen, by the time those thirty years have elapsed the libertine will have seen this corruption flower in two whole generations, will be able to number nearly nine million persons corrupted either by himself or by the doctrines and examples he has disseminated.”
“Charming,” Clairwil replied; “but the undertaking, easy enough to launch, must be sustained—”
“Not only must a full three hundred victims be regularly corrupted every year, one must also, insofar as one can, aid in the corruption of the rest.”
“Think of it,” Clairwil murmured, “merely find ten confederates for the simultaneous and coordinated execution of ten such plans, the spread of corruption would, even as they watched, become swifter than the most headlong progressions of the plague or malignant fevers.”
“Of course,” I said; “but it is not enough to watch developments, such an enterprise needs constant promotion, constant maintenance. To that end, and to ensure final success, a combined and extensive use must be made of the means I spoke of a moment ago: counsels, actions, writings”
“You are, you know, treading on dangerous ground—”
“Admittedly; but remember Machiavelli, according to whom it were better to be impetuous than circumspect, because Nature is a woman to be mastered only by him who goes to her whip in hand. Experience shows, the same authority continues, that she far more readily grants her favors to ferocious suitors than to diffident”
“Your Belmor must be delightful,” Clairwil remarked.
“He is indeed,” said I; “there are not many men so lovable, none more libertine—by the way, he will adore the purchases we are going to make; we shall have to resell them to him for their weight in gold—and do you really believe that however we be devoted to a man, whatever be our relationship to him, do you really believe that notwithstanding all that we should constantly deceive him too?”
“Most certainly,” was Clairwil’s reply; “dealing with a man, we have the human nature in him to contend with, and are obliged to proceed toward him as he always proceeds in our regard; and since no man is frank, why would you have us be frank with them? Enjoy your lover’s tastes where they concur with your caprices; make the most profitable use of his moral and physical faculties; heat yourself by the fire of his intelligence, be inspired by his talents; but never for one instant forget that he belongs to an enemy sex, a sex bitterly at war with your own … that you ought never let pass an opportunity for avenging the insults women have endured at its hands, and which you yourself are every day on the eve of having to suffer; in short, he is a man, and you have got to dupe him…. You know, Juliette, on this head you are still of an incredible guilelessness: you are kindly, you are good-hearted, why, you respect men; whereas they must be used and deceived, and nothing else. From Saint-Fond you don’t glean a sixth of what I’d extract; had he a similar weakness for me, in your place I would be banking millions every day.”
Our conversation, held in Clairwil’s carriage while driving to a remote point on the edge of the Faubourg Saint-Jacques, was now broken off, for we were come to where the sorceress lived.
It was a little house, isolated and lying between courtyard and garden; one of our lackeys rang, an old serving-woman answered the door. Having learned our business she bade us first dismiss our coachman and attendants, suggesting we have them wait for us at a certain wineshop some distance away; the orders were given and she ushered us into a small chamber.
A quarter of
an hour later Madame Durand appeared. Forty years of age, this was a very handsome woman, richly and gracefully made, tall, with a majestic presence, Roman features, a wondrous skin and large expressive eyes; her speech was seemly, her gesture measured; her look and manners contained everything that announces breeding, education, and intelligence.
“Madame,” my friend addressed her, “persons well in your acquaintance and whom you have satisfied send us here…. First, we would have you say what the future holds in store for us, these twenty-five louis are in payment for that; next, we would have you provide us the wherewithal for controlling that future, I mean a complete assortment of the poisons you prepare. And there,” Clairwil went on, tendering her fifty louis more, “is the sum you ordinarily ask for instruction in the composing of those same poisons, and for showing the beginner your laboratory and your garden of venomous plants. Be sure of it, our interest in these things is practical.”
“Let me begin by saying,” Durand replied, “that you are two extremely pretty women, and as such, before anything else, you shall have to undergo initial and quite indispensable ceremonies which may perhaps displease you.”
Clairwil inquired in what these ceremonies consisted.
“You must accompany me into a dimly lit cabinet,” said the sorceress, “where, once you have removed all your clothes, you shall be flogged by me.”
“Vigorously?”
“Until the blood flows, my fair friends … yes, until the lash draws blood from your bodies: I never give out the least information save this little request be complied with; more, I have need of your blood for the auguries, and of blood resultant from a preliminary fustigation.”
“Come along,” I said to Clairwil, “under circumstances like these one must demur to nothing.”
The cabinet into which Durand led us was too unusual not to merit a description; and though for illumination there was but one smoky lamp, we could still discern objects well enough to make out their details. This cabinet, painted black, was about nine feet wide by twelve long; all along the wall to the right were alembics, furnaces, and other instruments of chemistry; to the left, shelves containing bottles and jars in great profusion, numerous books, there was a workbench, a stool; opposite us, at the farther end, hung a black curtain dividing this room from another; the curtain fell upon a divan, dividing it also, so that half the divan was in the cabinet, half in the room beyond; and there was, rising in the center, a velvet-covered wooden post to which Madame Durand attached us, face to face.
“So then,” this personage demanded, “are you resolved to suffer some pain to acquire the knowledge you seek?”
“Lay on, Madame,” we answered, “lay on, we are prepared for whatever may come.”
At that Durand kissed each of us very amorously, gave our buttocks a friendly squeeze, and blindfolded us; and from this moment onward silence was observed: we were softly approached, by whom we could not be sure, and given fifty strokes each. They were but rods that were first used upon us, but willow rods so green and so tough and wielded with such force that, notwithstanding our habituation to these pleasures, I think this volley of cuts may well have opened our skin. However, we durst not complain, and not a word was said to us. Our buttocks were palpated then, and it is certain those hands were not Madame Durand’s.
Our tormentor set to work anew, and now we could be in no more doubt of his sex: a prick made contact with our behinds, was rubbed in the blood oozing forth from them; some sighs, some voluptuous moans were heard, and two or three kisses were bestowed on our assholes, a tongue even twittered into them, then twittered out again; a third attack occurred, but the rods had been laid aside; numb though our asses were, we had no trouble deciding that here the instrument being employed was a cat, the tips whereof were sharp; so indeed they must have been, for I immediately felt blood course down my legs and gather in a puddle around my bare feet. Back came the prick, back came the tongue, and the ceremony terminated. The blindfolds were taken away and all we saw was Madame Durand; a saucer in her hand; she placed it beneath Clairwil’s buttocks, placed another beneath mine; then when they were brimful with blood, removed them and loosed our bonds. She sponged our behinds with water and vinegar and asked us, had it hurt?
“Never mind,” said we, “is there anything else that has to be done?”
“Yes,” Durand replied; “you must be frigged about the clitoris: I can make you no predictions unless I have observed you in pleasure’s throes.”
The sorceress now had us stretch out side by side upon the divan; thanks to the curtain bisecting it, we were from the waist down in the cabinet, from the waist up in the room adjoining. By means of a strap passed across our midriffs Durand fixed us to the couch: unable to sit up, we would be unable to make out with whom we were having to do. She, half-naked herself, had settled near us; her superb breasts were placed where we could kiss them; she watched us carefully and glanced from time to time at the two saucers. Our friggings started with the clitoris, very knowing attentions were then turned to our cunts and assholes; we were tongued in both those orifices; other straps were fastened around our ankles, our legs were hoisted into the air; and a mediocre prick was introduced alternately into our cunts and our bums.
Detecting the hoax, I spoke up at once: “I should hope, Madame, that you have at least some assurance of this man’s trustworthiness?”
“Simple creature,” was Durand’s response, “’tis not a man who is taking his pleasure with you, ’tis God.”
“Madame, you are mad,” Clairwil affirmed, “there is no God; and if there were, all his acts approaching to perfection, he might perhaps have himself embuggered, but for a certainty he would not fuck women.”
“Silence,” Durand commanded; “concentrate upon fleshly impressions without fretting over the identity of those who cause you to feel them: if you utter another word, all shall be in vain.”
“We shall not say anymore,” I replied, “but mark you well, Madame, we want neither the pox nor offspring.”
“None of these things is to be feared with God,” Durand declared; “now an end to this conversation, there is nothing further I can say.”
And I very distinctly felt the prick belonging to the personage aboard me discharge abundantly inside my bowels; he even swore, he stormed, he fumed; and that same instant, hardly noticing what was happening, we were borne aloft, divan and all.
We found ourselves in a largely unfurnished room which, judging from the time we took ascending there, seemed very high up; no more curtain separating our heads from our bodies now; another machinery had conveyed Durand, she was there, so also were two little girls of thirteen or fourteen: they were sitting in armchairs and were bound fast…. From their countenances, from their pallor it was plain to see those creatures had been reared in extreme poverty; not far from them lay, in a cradle, two infant boys nine months of age; a big table was in the room, ranged upon it were numerous parcels resembling those enveloping drugs in a pharmacy: and also in this room were a great many more jars and bottles than we had seen in the other.
“It is here I pronounce opinion,” said Durand.
And she undid the strap pinioning us.
“You, Clairwil,” she began, looking hard into the dish containing her blood, “and you see that I know your name, without anybody having told me it; you, Clairwil, shall live only five years longer; but for the excesses you indulge in you would be able to live to sixty: your fortune shall increase as your health declines, and the day the Bear moves into the Scales you shall regret the flowers of springtime.”
“I do not understand.”
“Write down my words and the day will come when their meaning shall be very clear.”
At this my friend seemed worried.
“As for you, Juliette—and, pray tell me, who ever could have given me your name?—you, Juliette, shall be enlightened by a dream, an angel will appear to you, it will unveil incomprehensible truths; but between now and then I may foretell this: wh
en vice doth cease woe shall betide.”
And now a thick cloud filled the room. Durand fell into a trance, she shrieked, did strange contortions, in doing them shook off the little that still adorned her lovely body; the cloud having dissipated, she returned to her senses. That vapor had left an odor of mingled amber and sulphur in the air. Our clothes were restored to us; once we were dressed Durand asked us what kinds of poison we desired.
“Your prediction distresses me,” said Clairwil; “death inside five years I”
“Ah, who knows? May be you will avoid it,” Durand replied. “I told you what I saw in your fate, my eyes sometimes deceive me.”
“Let me cling to that hope, else I must truly despair,” said Clairwil; “but perhaps she errs in another direction, and I have only a week to live? So be it; such time as remains to me I shall spend soiling myself in crimes. Eh then, Madame, be quick about it, show me your wares; open your jars, let us see the weird plants in your garden: explain to us all the properties of all these lethal things, we’ll set aside those which please us, and you can dress a reckoning afterward.”
“I must have twenty-five louis more,” said the witch, “that is the fee for admission to my exhibits; later you will pay for the separate items you select, according to the rate of each. You may wish to experiment with them, you will of course be at liberty to do so: those two little girls are at your disposal, and if they do not suffice I will furnish you, at fifty louis a head, as many men as you like.”
“You are delightful, Madame,” I exclaimed, throwing my arms around Durand’s neck, “I am so happy we consulted you, and I am certain you shall be happy to have us for clients.”
Taking down the jars from the shelves one at a time, she began by showing us aphrodisiacs and love philters as well as emmenagogic agents, electuaries, and other antiaphrodisiac purgatives. We had an ample store of the former done into packages, amongst them goodly amounts of cantharides, ginseng, and several vials of Joui liqueur from Japan for which, because of its rarity and its unusual virtues, Durand charged us ten louis an ounce.