Here it will be said to me, and very justly said, that the truth we are seeking is too inaccessible, and is as foreign to our language as to our understanding. So indeed it is, and it should be plain that, rather than express it, I am simply endeavoring, once having set aside a space for it to occupy, to encircle it, to surround it. Though he fails to formulate it in thought or speech, the man who has suffered it one time and a thousand times, who has experienced it, still retains the resource of living it, of being it. And I finally understand in what sense Sade, like Pascal, Nietzsche, or Rimbaud, paid; in what sense also he was able to merit the title of divine as it was conferred upon him by a popular idiom which sometimes is of greater justness than the judgments of critics, sometimes rings truer than the lines of poets.
There is another resource, however.
X. THE ACCOMPLICE
In a curious book by Crébillon, The Letters of the Marquise de M., tender affection and jealousy, the need for love and ensuing regrets, desire and coquetry are rendered with great subtlety, with such subtlety that at no stage in the story does the reader ever know for sure whether or not the Marquise and the Count have been to bed together. But in Justine it’s quite the reverse. And Justine’s amorous adventures—very diverse, very involuntary—are shown us in the greatest detail without our ever having an inkling of what it might be our heroine is feeling—desire, love, loathing, indifference. Truly, it is difficult to say. And Sade knows it only too well. He knows it only too well because Justine is Sade himself.
That is Justine’s secret. A strange secret. A hard secret to get at, but not because it is nameless or unnamable. Hard to get at because, on the contrary, it already has its name because it has, if anything, been identified a little too often, under the name of that good Austrian novelist who came into the world a hundred years after Sade, and who gave his cruel heroines a riding crop to wield and sometimes a mink coat to wear. Well I know that Nature encompasses every taste, every mania. This particular one is no more harmful or more unpleasant than any other. Nor is it any less. But for mysteriousness it is not to be surpassed. It is the sole passion that cannot be thwarted without encouraging it, punished without rewarding it. Perfectly incomprehensible: absurd. What remains to be said? Only that the critic can turn this absurdity into a rationale.
It is now her turn to speak, the discreet, modest, satiated Justine Sade chose for his accomplice.
Sade
by Maurice Blanchot
A hundred and fifty years ago there appeared in Holland La Nouvelle Justine, ou les Malheurs de la Vertu, suivie de l’Histoire de Juliette, sa soeur. This monumental work, which had been preceded by several shorter versions, had grown longer with each successive revision until it reached the gigantic proportions of four thousand pages in this final form. This almost endless, overwhelming work immediately horrified the world.
If there is an Enfer in libraries—a special section for works deemed unfit for human consumption—it is for such a book. No literature of any period has seen a work so scandalous, one which has so profoundly wounded the thoughts and feelings of men. Today, when the writings of Henry Miller cause us to quake and quail, who would dare to compete with Sade’s licentiousness? Yes, the claim can be made: we have here the most scandalous work ever written. Is this not reason enough for us to turn our attention to it? What! You mean to say we have here the opportunity to acquaint ourselves with a work beyond which no other writer, at any time, has ever managed to venture; we have, so to speak, a veritable absolute in our hands, in this relative world of letters, and we make no attempt to question or consult it? You mean to say it does not occur to us to ask why it is unique, why it cannot be exceeded, what there is about it which is so outrageous, so eternally too strong for man to stomach? Curious neglect. But can it be that the purity of the scandal is solely dependent upon this neglect? When one considers the precautions that history has taken to make a prodigious enigma out of Sade, when one thinks of those twenty-seven years behind bars, of that fettered and forbidden existence, when the sequestration affects not only a man’s life but his afterlife—so much so that the condemnation of his work to seclusion seems to condemn him as well, still alive, to some eternal prison—then one is led to wonder whether the censors and judges who claim to immure Sade are not actually serving him instead, are not fulfilling the most fervent wishes of his libertinage, he who always aspired to the solitude of the earth’s entrails, to the mystery of a subterranean and reclusive existence. In a dozen different ways, Sade formulated the idea that man’s wildest excesses call for secrecy, for the obscurity of the farthest depths, the inviolable solitude of a cell. Now, the strange thing is that it is the guardians of morality who, by condemning Sade to solitary confinement, have thereby made themselves the most faithful accomplices of his immorality. It was Sade’s mother-in-law, the prudish Madame de Montreuil, who, by turning his life into a prison, at the same time made of it a masterpiece of infamy and debauchery. And, similarly, if today, a hundred and fifty years later, Justine and Juliette still seems to us the most scandalous, the most subversive of books, it is because it is almost impossible to read it: every possible measure has been taken—by the author, the publishers, and with the added help of universal Morality—to make certain this book remains a secret, a wholly unreadable work, as much for its length, the way it was written, and its endless repetitions, as for the force of its descriptions and its ferocious indecency, all of which could not help but secure its damnation. A scandalous, scarcely approachable book, which no one can render public. But a book which also shows that there is no scandal where there is first no respect, and that wherever the scandal is extraordinary the respect is extreme. Who, indeed, is more respected than Sade? How many people, still today, profoundly believe that all they have to do is hold this accursed book in their hands for a few moments for Rousseau’s arrogant warning to come true: Any girl who reads but a single page of this book will be lost? Such respect is indeed a great treasure for a literature and a civilization. One can therefore not refrain from making this one discreet request, addressed to all Sade’s publishers present and future: when dealing with Sade, at least respect the scandalous aspect.
Luckily, Sade defends himself rather well. Not only his work but his thinking remains impenetrable—and this in spite of the fact that both abound in detailed theories, which he expounds and repeats over and over again with disconcerting patience, and in spite of the fact that he reasons with impeccable clarity and not inconsiderable logic. He has a penchant—and even a passion—for systems. He expounds and affirms and offers proof; he comes back to the same problem a hundred times over (and a hundred is a conservative figure), he studies it from every angle, he considers every possible objection and answers them all, then manages to come up with some further objections and replies to them as well. And since what he says is usually simple enough, since his language is rich but precise and firm, it would seem that nothing should be more simple in dealing with Sade than to elucidate the ideology which, in his case, is inseparable from passion. And yet, what is the gist of Sade’s thought? What in fact did he say? What is the scheme, the order of this system? Where does it begin and where does it end? Is there, indeed, more than the shadow of a system in the probing of this mind, so obsessed as it is with reason? And why is it that so many well coordinated principles fail to form the solid whole which they ought to and which, at least on the surface, they in fact seem to? That too remains unclear. Such is the first peculiar characteristic of Sade: his theories and ideas are constantly generating and unleashing irrational forces to which they are bound. These forces simultaneously animate and thwart the theories, in such a way that the theories resist at first but then eventually yield; they seek to dominate the insurgent force, finally do, but only after they have unleashed other obscure forces, which bear the theories further along, deflect them from their course, and distort them. The result is that everything which is said is clear, but seems to be at the mercy of something left unsaid,
and a little later on what has not been explicitly stated does indeed appear and is reintegrated by logic; but then this in its turn succumbs to the influence of some other, still hidden force, until finally everything is expressed, is revealed, but also everything is plunged back again into the obscurity of unformulated and inexpressible thoughts.
The reader is often ill at ease when faced with this thought which is made clear only by a further thought which, for the present, cannot be clarified; and he becomes even more uncomfortable as he realizes that Sade’s stated principles—what we may term his basic philosophy—appears to be simplicity itself. This philosophy is one of self-interest, of absolute egoism: Each of us must do exactly as he pleases, each of us is bound by one law alone, that of his own pleasure. This morality is based upon the primary fact of absolute solitude. Sade has stated it, and repeated it, in every conceivable form: Nature wills that we be born alone, there is no real contact or relationship possible between one person and another. The only rule of conduct for me to follow, therefore, is to prefer whatever affects me pleasurably and, conversely, to hold as naught anything which, as a result of my preferences, may cause harm to others. The greatest pain inflicted on others is of less account than my own pleasure. Little do I care if the price I have to pay for my least delight is an awesome accumulation of atrocious crimes, for pleasure flatters me, it is within, while the effects of crime, being outside me, do not affect me.
These principles are clear. We find them reiterated and developed in a thousand ways through some twenty volumes. Sade never tires of them. What he infinitely enjoys is to square them against the prevailing theories of the time, the theories of man’s equality before Nature and the law. He then proposes this kind of reasoning: Since all men are equal in the eyes of Nature, I therefore have the right, because of this identity, not to sacrifice myself for the preservation of others, their ruin being indispensable to my happiness. Or else he will propound a kind of Declaration of the Rights of Eroticism, with this axiom—equally valid for men and women alike—as a fundamental precept: Give yourself to whomsoever desires you, take from whomever you please. “What evil do I do, what crime do I commit when, upon meeting some lovely creature, I say: ‘Avail me of that part of you which can give me a moment’s satisfaction and, if you wish, make full use of that part of mine which may prove agreeable to you’?” To Sade, such propositions seem irrefutable. For pages on end he invokes the equality of individuals and the reciprocity of rights, without ever realizing that his arguments, far from being buttressed by these lofty principles, are becoming meaningless because of them. “Never can an act of possession be exercised on a free person,” he declares. But what conclusion does he draw from this? Not that he has lost the right to perpetrate violence on anyone or to abuse such a person for his own pleasure, against that person’s will, but rather that no one, in order to refuse himself to Sade, may invoke exclusive attachments, a right of “possession.” For Sade, the equality of all human beings is the right to equal use of them all, freedom is the power to bend others to his own will.
To see formulas of this sort piling up on top of each other leads one to conclude that there is something missing in Sade’s reasoning process, some lacuna or madness. One has the feeling of grappling with the product of a profoundly disturbed mind, strangely suspended over the void. But suddenly logic reasserts itself, the objections vanish, and little by little the system takes shape. Justine, who, we recall, represents Virtue in Sade’s world—Virtue which is tenacious, humble, continually wretched and oppressed but never convinced of its errors—suddenly declares in a most reasonable manner: Your principles presuppose power. If my happiness consists in never taking into account the interests of others, in exploiting every opportunity to hurt or injure them, there will perforce come a day when the interests of others will likewise consist in doing me harm; in the name of what shall I then protest? “Can the person who isolates himself do battle with the whole world?” To this classic objection, Sade’s protagonist replies, both explicitly and implicitly, in a number of ways, and these replies gradually lead us into the heart of his universe. Yes, he starts off by saying, my right is the right of power. And indeed Sade’s cast of characters is composed primarily of a tiny number of omnipotent men who have had the energy and initiative to raise themselves above the law and place themselves outside the pale of prejudice, men who feel that Nature has singled them out and, feeling themselves worthy of this distinction, strive to assuage their passions by any and all means.
These peerless men generally belong to a privileged class: they are dukes and kings, the Pope, himself issued from the nobility; they benefit from the advantages of their rank and fortune, and from the impunity which their high station confers upon them. To their birth they owe the inequality which they are content to exploit and perfect by the exercise of an implacable despotism. They are the most powerful because they belong to a powerful class. “I call people,” says one of them, “that vile and reprehensible class which manages to survive only by dint of sweat and toil; all who breathe must join together against this abject class.”
Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that, although these sovereigns of debauchery generally concentrate in themselves and to their own advantage the full inequality of classes, this is but a historical circumstance to which Sade, in his value judgments, pays not the slightest heed. Sade discerned clearly that, at the time he was writing, power was a social category, that it was part and parcel of the organization of society such as it existed both before and after the Revolution. But he also believes that power (like solitude, moreover) is not merely a state but a choice and a conquest, and that only he is powerful who by his own will and energy knows how to make himself so. Actually, Sade’s heroes are recruited from two opposing milieux: from among the highest and the lowest, from among the mighty of the world and, at the opposite pole, fished up from the sewers and cesspools of the lower depths. At the outset, both these groups have something extreme working for them, for the extreme of poverty is as powerful a stimulus as are the dazzling possibilities that fortune offers. When one is a Dubois or a Durand, one revolts against the law because one is too far beneath it to be able to conform to the law without perishing. And when one is a Saint-Fond or the Duc de Blangis, one is too far above the law to be able to submit to it without debasement. This is why, in Sade’s works, the apology for crime derives from two contradictory principles: for some men, inequality is a fact of Nature; certain persons are necessarily slaves and victims, they have no rights, they are nothing, against them any act, any crime is permitted. Whence those frenzied eulogies to tyranny, those political constitutions bent on making it forever impossible for the weak to seek vengeance or the poor to grow rich. “Let it be clearly understood,” says Verneuil,
that ’tis among Nature’s intentions that there necessarily be a class of individuals who by their birth and inherent weakness shall remain essentially subject to the other class.
The laws are not made for the people. . . . The basic precept of any wise government is to make certain that the people shall not encroach upon the authority of the masters.
And Saint-Fond:
The people shall be kept in a state of slavery which will make it quite impossible for them ever to attempt to dominate the wealthy or debase their properties and possessions.
Or again:
All that goes under the name of crimes of libertinage shall never be punished, save in the slave castes.
Here, it would seem, we have the most blatant, the wildest theoretical apology for absolute despotism ever formulated. But suddenly the perspective shifts. And what does Dubois say?
Nature has caused us all to be equals born; if fate is pleased to intervene and upset the primary scheme of things, it is up to us to correct its caprices and, through our own skill, to repair the usurpations of the strongest. . . . So long as our good faith and patience serve only to double the weight of our chains, our crimes will be as Virtues, and we would be fools inde
ed to abstain from them when they can lessen the yoke wherewith their cruelty bears us down.
And she adds: for the poor, crime alone can open the doors to life; villainy is the recompense for injustice, just as theft is the revenge of the dispossessed. Thus the lines are clearly drawn: equality, inequality; freedom to oppress, revolt against the oppressor; these are merely provisional arguments by which Sadean man, depending on his position in the social hierarchy, asserts his right to power. Actually, the distinction between those who require crime in order to survive and those for whom crime is the sole source of pleasure, will soon vanish. Madame Dubois becomes a baroness. Madame Durand, a fourth-rate poisoner, ascends to a higher station than that occupied by the selfsame princesses whom Juliette unhesitatingly sacrifices to her. Counts become bandit chieftains, the head of a group of highwaymen (as in Faxelange), or else innkeepers, the better to despoil and murder fools. Most of the victims of libertinage, however, are selected from among the aristocracy; they must be of noble birth. It is to his mother, the Countess, that the Marquis de Bressac declares with superb contempt: “Thy days belong to me, and mine are sacred.”
Now, what happens? A few men have become powerful. Some were bequeathed power by birth, but they have also demonstrated that they deserve it by the way in which they have accrued it and enjoyed it. Others have risen to power, and the sign of their success is that, once having resorted to crime to acquire power, they use it to acquire the freedom to commit any crime whatsoever. Such then is Sade’s world: a few people who have reached the pinnacle, and around them an infinite, nameless dust, an anonymous mass of creatures which has neither rights nor power. Let us see what now happens to the rule of absolute egoism. I do whatever I please, says Sade’s hero, all I know, all I recognize is my own pleasure, and to make certain I get it I torture and kill. You threaten me with a like fate the day I shall happen to meet someone whose happiness is dependent on torturing and killing me. But I have acquired power precisely in order to raise myself above this threat. Whenever Sade comes up with answers such as these, we can feel ourselves slipping toward an area of his thought which is sustained solely by the obscure forces which lurk therein. What is this power which fears neither chance nor law, which exposes itself disdainfully to the terrible risks of a rule conceived in these terms: I shall do you all the harm I please, you may do me all the harm you can—under the assumption that such a rule will invariably operate to its advantage? Now, the point is that all it takes is a single exception for these principles to disintegrate and collapse: if the Powerful One, whose sole purpose is pleasure, ever once encounters misfortune, if in the exercise of his tyranny he once becomes a victim, he will be lost, the law of pleasure will appear a sham, a lie, and man, instead of wishing to triumph through excess, will once again revert to that mediocrity that ever casts a worried eye in fear of the slightest evil which may befall him.