The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings

  “Of that I am sure,” said Ernestine, “and no doubt it will. And now am I free to go? Has your rage been appeased?”

  “Senator!” cried Madame Scholtz, “do not let this girl leave here. . . . She will be the undoing of us both What do we care about this creature’s life? Let us straightway cut it short and spend the rest of our days in peace.”

  “No,” said the Count. “Ernestine realizes that to lodge a complaint against us would serve no purpose. She has lost her betrothed, but she can still see to it that her father’s fortune is made. Let her not breathe a word, and happiness can still be hers.”

  “Complaints, Senator, I lodge complaints? . . . Madame suspects that I might be tempted to institute an action against you? No, no . . . There are certain kinds of offenses for which a woman does not lodge any complaint . . . she cannot without debasing herself, and the avowals, which would be all too embarrassing to her, would offend her modesty far more than the redress she would receive to satisfy her revenge were ever worth. Let me go, Senator, let me leave this place, and you may count upon my discretion.”

  “Ernestine, I intend to let you go. . . . And let me remind you once again: your fate is in your own hands.”

  “I know that full well,” responded Ernestine proudly, “ ’tis they will insure it.”

  “How unwise of you!” Madame Scholtz exclaimed. “Oh! Count, I would never have agreed to be your accomplice had I suspected you were capable of such weakness!”

  “Ernestine will not betray us,” said the Count. “She knows I love her still. . . . She knows that the reward for her silence can be marriage.”

  “Ah! have no fear, have no fear,” said Ernestine, getting into the carriage which awaited her. “I care far too much about redeeming my honor to resort to such base methods. . . . You will be pleased by those I choose, my dear Count. They will do honor to us both. Adieu.”

  Ernestine’s carriage started off. . . . Her way home took her through the middle of the public square whereon her lover had just perished; she had to fight her way through the crowd which had just finished feasting its eyes upon the terrible spectacle. Her courage alone sustained her; her resolution lent her strength, and at last she arrived home.

  Her father returned at the same moment; Oxtiern had artfully arranged for the Colonel to be detained the length of time required for the consummation of his crime. . . . He saw his daughter pale and distraught . . . her hair in disarray; but she was none the less dry-eyed, her countenance was proud, and her words firm.

  “May I speak to you privately, Father?” she said. “I have something I must tell you.”

  “Daughter, you frighten me. . . . What has happened? You have been out while I was away. . . . I have heard rumors concerning the execution of a young man from Norrköping. I hurried home in a state of deep distress . . . greatly disturbed. Tell me all you know . . . the icy hand of death grips my heart.”

  “Listen to me, Father . . . restrain your tears” (and, casting herself into the Colonel’s arms): “We were not born to know happiness, Father. There are certain persons whom Nature creates solely to drift from one misfortune to the next throughout the short span of their days here on earth. Not all of us can hope to experience an equal share of happiness; on this score we must submit to the will of Heaven. But at least you still have your daughter, she will be a source of help to you in your old age, a rod and staff to comfort you. . . . The poor young man from Norrköping about whom you have just heard is none other than Herman; he has just perished on the gallows before my very eyes. . . . Yes, Father, before my eyes. . . . They wanted me to witness the execution . . . and I did. Herman died the victim of Madame Scholtz’s insane jealousy and Oxtiern’s mad rage. . . . ’Tis not all I have to tell, Father: would that the loss of my lover were all I had to discover to you; but, alas, I have suffered an even crueler one. . . . Your daughter has been returned to you dishonored . . . Oxtiern . . . while one of his victims was being sacrificed beneath the executioner’s blade, was despoiling the other.”

  Sanders, in a state of fury, rose to his feet:

  “I have heard enough,” he said. “My duty is clear. The son of that worthy friend of Charles XII needs no one to tell him how to deal with a traitor. Within the hour either I shall be dead or your honor will be avenged.”

  “No, Father, I beseech you,” said Ernestine, restraining the Colonel from leaving. “I demand, in the name of all you hold most dear, that you not seek this revenge yourself. If I had the misfortune to lose you, can you imagine the horror of my fate? Left alone, with no one to look to for support . . . an easy mark for the foul schemes of these monsters; do you think they would waste any time sacrificing me in turn? . . . You must live for me, Father, for your dear daughter who, in the depths of her despair, has no one but you to turn to for help or consolation . . . has only your hands wherewith to wipe away her tears. . . . Listen to my plan; it requires but a minor sacrifice, which may even prove to be superfluous if my cousin Sindersen is a man of feeling. The fear that my aunt may show a preference for me in her will is the sole reason for the slight coolness that has existed between us. I intend to dispel his fears and sign a statement renouncing my share of her inheritance; I shall win him over to our cause. He is young, he is courageous, he is a soldier like yourself. He will go and find Oxtiern and will cleanse my wrong with the blood of this traitor. And as we demand satisfaction, if he succumbs I shall no longer restrain your arm, and you in your turn will go seek out the Senator and avenge at once both your daughter’s honor and the death of him she loved. By so doing, the scoundrel who deceived me will have two enemies against him rather than one; and for one such as he, the more enemies the better!”

  “But Daughter, Sindersen is very young for a foe such as Oxtiern.”

  “Have no fears, Father, traitors are always cowards, victory will not be difficult. . . . Ah! may it be given to me to see him thus vanquished! . . . In any case, I demand that this plan be followed . . . you owe it to me, Father . . . the wrong I have suffered gives me that right. I beseech you to grant me this one request. . . . ’Tis at your feet I request it.”

  “If ’tis what you want, then I consent to it,” said the Colonel, helping his daughter to her feet, “and the argument that makes me yield to your wishes is the certainty of increasing the number of enemies, as you say, arrayed against the person who dishonored you.”

  Ernestine kissed her father and hurried off to find her cousin. She returned in a short time.

  “Sindersen agrees and is ready, Father,” she said to the Colonel. “But because of his aunt he most earnestly entreats you not to breathe a word of this to Madame Plorman, who could never forgive herself for having advised me to go to the Count’s house, which she did in all good faith. Sindersen is therefore of the opinion that all this must be kept from Madame Plorman; he will avoid meeting you till the affair is concluded, and you will do the same with him.”

  “Agreed,” said the Colonel, “let him fly forth and seek revenge . . . I shall be but a step or two behind. . . .”

  All grew calm. . . . Ernestine retired for the night, apparently quite calm. The following morning at an early hour Count Oxtiern received a letter in an unknown hand which consisted merely of the following words:

  A heinous crime cannot be committed with impunity; an odious injustice cannot go unavenged; a decent girl cannot be dishonored without the tempter, or him who is responsible for the crime, paying with his life. At ten o’clock tonight an officer dressed in a red uniform will be strolling near the port, a sword beneath his arm, awaiting your arrival. If you fail to meet him there, this same officer will come to your house the following day and there will blow your brains out.

  The letter was delivered by a servant out of livery, and since he had been instructed to return with a reply, he came back with this same note, on the back of which was penned simply these four words: I shall be there.

  But the false-hearted Oxtiern was too intrigued to learn what had transpired at
Madame Plorman’s house since Ernestine’s return not to have employed every means his fortune could command to obtain that information. He learned who the officer dressed in red was to be; he learned too that the Colonel had instructed his personal valet to prepare for him an English uniform, as he intended to don a disguise to follow him to whom the task of avenging his daughter had been entrusted, so that the avenger would not recognize him. And, in the unlikely event that he were defeated in the duel, he, the Colonel, would take up the cudgels on the spot. ’Twas more than enough for Oxtiern to use in order to devise a new and terrible plot.

  Night fell, and ’twas an unusually dark one; Ernestine sent word to her father that Sindersen would leave in an hour and, given her state of distress, asked his permission to retire for the night. The Colonel, only too pleased to be alone, bid his daughter good night and made preparations to follow him who had sworn to avenge her honor. He left the house. . . . He was unaware of the uniform Sindersen would be wearing. Ernestine had not showed him the challenge; in order to maintain the aura of secrecy the young man had requested, and in order not to arouse his daughter’s suspicions, he had refrained from asking any questions. He was not concerned about the details; he knew where the duel was scheduled to take place, and he headed toward the port, certain that he would have no difficulty in recognizing his nephew. He arrived at the appointed spot and, seeing no one appear, kept on walking. Just then a stranger accosted him, bearing no weapons, and with his hat held low.

  “Monsieur,” said this man to him, “are you not Colonel Sanders?”

  “I am.”

  “Then prepare to defend yourself. Sindersen has betrayed you, he has no intention of engaging the Count in a duel. But this last-named gentleman is not far off, and ’tis against you alone he intends to duel.”

  “God be praised!” said the Colonel with a shout of joy, “nothing could please me more.”

  “One word of caution, if you don’t mind, Monsieur,” resumed the stranger. “Do not say a word; this spot is not very safe. The Senator has many friends. The slightest sound from you might bring them running to stop the duel. . . . He prefers that it not be stopped, and desires to offer you full satisfaction. . . . Therefore say nothing and launch an all-out assault upon the officer dressed in red whom you will see advancing toward you from that direction.”

  “Good,” said the Colonel, “and now withdraw with all dispatch. I am burning to cross swords. . . .”

  The stranger withdrew, Sanders circled twice again the designated site until at last he saw lurking in the shadows an officer dressed in red who was walking proudly toward him. He had no doubt ’twas Oxtiern, and Sanders lunged at him with drawn sword, saying not a word for fear of being separated. The officer put up a stout defense—also without uttering a sound—and displayed exceptional bravery. At length his valor yielded to the Colonel’s vigorous assaults, and the poor creature fell, mortally wounded, to the dust. At that moment a cry escaped the lips of the Colonel’s opponent—’twas a woman’s cry, a baleful cry that pierced the Colonel’s heart. . . . He approached the fallen fighter . . . and perceived features far different from the masculine traits of the person he thought he was dueling. . . . Merciful Heaven! . . . ’Twas his own daughter . . . ’twas she, brave Ernestine, who wished to avenge her own honor or die in the attempt and who, bathed in her own blood, lay dying, a victim of her father’s sword.

  “O dreadful day for me!” the Colonel cried. . . . “Ernestine, ’tis you I have slain! What a horrible mistake! . . . Who is responsible for it? . . .”

  “Father,” said Ernestine in a weak voice, clasping the Colonel in her arms, “I did not recognize you. Forgive me, Father, for having taken arms against you. Can you forgive me?”

  “Great God! when ’tis my hand has brought you to death’s door! O my dear soul, with how many envenomed blows does Heaven intend to strike us at once?”

  “This whole scheme is once again the handiwork of perfidious Oxtiern. . . . A stranger accosted me and, saying he was by Oxtiern dispatched, told me to remain completely silent, in order that the duel not be stopped. He further advised me that, upon seeing a man dressed in the uniform you are wearing, I should draw my sword and attack, for ’twould be the Count. . . . I believed his words; it was an act of purest perfidy! . . . I am dying . . . but at least I have the comfort of dying in your arms, ’tis the gentlest, sweetest death I could hope to have after all the afflictions wherewith I have just been overwhelmed. Embrace me, Father, and receive your poor Ernestine’s last farewell.”

  With these words the ill-fated girl breathed her last. Sanders bathed her with his tears. . . . But the desire for revenge helps allay sorrow’s hurt. . . . He left his daughter’s blood-stained body to fly and seek redress from the law . . . determined to die or bring Oxtiern to justice. . . . ’Tis only in a court of law he decided he could hope to make his appeal. . . . To deal further with a villain of Oxtiern’s stature was out of the question: the Count would sooner have him murdered than consent to cross swords with him in equal combat. Still covered with his daughter’s blood, the Colonel prostrated himself before the magistrates, discovered to them the frightful chain of circumstances wherewith he had been beset and revealed the full extent of the Count’s infamies. . . . They were moved by his recital, concerned by what he said; nor did he fail above all to prove to them how complete, in the case of Herman, had been the miscarriage of justice, because of the stratagems of the same traitor against whom he was lodging his complaint. . . . He was promised retribution.

  Despite the immense influence the Senator prided himself upon enjoying, he was arrested that same night. Believing himself as safe as he was certain of the outcome of his criminal designs—or perhaps having been wrongly informed by his spies—he was lying peacefully coupled in the arms of Madame Scholtz, celebrating with her the ghastly manner in which they had taken their revenge. They were both taken away and cast into prison. The judicial inquiry was held with utter rigor . . . no shadow of influence was allowed to intrude upon it. The two guilty parties contradicted each other’s testimony . . . the one and the other mutually convicted themselves. . . . The memory of Herman was rehabilitated. Madame Scholtz was sentenced to pay for the horror of her crimes on the selfsame gallows whereon she had caused the innocent Herman to perish.

  The Senator was sentenced to suffer the same fate. But the King tempered the harsh verdict by pardoning him, to the extent of banishing the Count for life to the depths of the mines.

  From the guilty parties’ possessions, the King offered the Colonel a pension of ten thousand ducats, and raised him to the rank of General in his service. But Sanders refused both offers.

  “Sire,” he said to the monarch, “you are too generous. For if these favors are being granted as a reward for my services to the Crown, then they are far too magnanimous, I do not deserve them. . . . And if they are offered as payment for the losses I have suffered, they are insufficient. Sire, the wounds inflicted upon one’s heart cannot be healed either with gold or by the bestowal of honors. . . . I beseech therefore Your Majesty to grant me a certain time alone with my despair. In a short while I shall solicit from Your Highness the only favor that may seem befitting to me.”

  “This then, Monsieur,” Falkeneim broke in, “is the essence of the story you asked me to relate. I only regret that we are under the obligation to see this Oxtiern again; he can only be an object of horror in your eyes.”

  “No one is more understanding than I, Monsieur,” I replied, “when ’tis a question of the errors into which we are led by our constitutions. I look upon evildoers, in the midst of honest and upright people, as those irregularities which Nature mingles in amongst the beauties wherewith she adorns the universe. But this man Oxtiern you have described, and especially Madame Scholtz, abuse the right which men’s weaknesses must obtain from philosophers. ’Tis impossible that crime be carried to any greater lengths. In the conduct of the one as of the other, there are acts which make one’s blood run cold
. To ravish that hapless girl while her lover is being put to the sword . . . then to have her murdered by her own father . . . these are subtle refinements of horror which cause one to be ashamed to be a man, when one is unfortunate enough to have to share this title with such monstrous villains.”

  Scarcely had I uttered these words than Oxtiern appeared, bearing his letter. He was too clever and perceptive a man not to detect upon my face that I had just been made privy to his adventures. . . . He looked at me.

  “Monsieur,” he said, in French, “have pity upon me. Immense wealth . . . a powerful family . . . influence: these are the sirens who lured me to my doom. Educated by misfortune, I have learned the meaning of remorse, and I can now live among my fellow men without terrifying or harming them.”

  These words from the ill-fated Count were accompanied by a flow of tears, which I could not bring myself to share. My guide took his letter, repeated his offer to be of service, and we were preparing to leave when we saw a crowd of people in the street moving toward us. . . . We stopped; Oxtiern was still with us. Slowly we were able to distinguish among the crowd two men who were conversing heatedly and who, upon seeing us, straightway headed in our direction. Oxtiern recognized both personages.

  “O Heaven!” he exclaimed, “what is this? . . . Colonel Sanders brought hither by the director of the mine! . . . Yes, ’tis our pastor coming, bringing the Colonel toward us. . . . What I you mean this implacable enemy has come to find me even unto the bowels of the earth! . . . Does this mean my cruel punishment does not suffice to satisfy him! . . .”

  Oxtiern was still giving utterance to these thoughts when the Colonel accosted him with these words, as soon as he had reached his side:

  “You are free, Monsieur,” he said to him, “and ’tis to the man in the world whom you have most grievously offended that your pardon is due. . . . Here it is, Senator, from my own hand. The King offered me commissions, honors; I refused them all. The only favor I requested was your freedom, and my request has been granted. You are free to follow me.”