Passion's evil

FIRST PART

Midnight sounded, and the salons of the Comtesse Gamiani still shone in a flood of light. The rounds and quadrilles continued animatedly, to the intoxicating sounds of the orchestra. The toilettes were marvelous, the jewels sparkled.

Gracious, assiduous, the mistress of the ban seemed to enjoy the success of her carefully planned fete, announced at great expense. She was observed to smile agreeably to, all the flattering words, to the customary phrases that each one prodigally used in payment for his presence.

Withdrawn in my habitual role of observer, I had already made more. than one remark which dispensed with my conversation to the Comtesse Gamiani the merit she was supposed to posses. I had quickly judged her, as it woman of the world, but it still remained for me to dissect her moral being, to carry the scalpel into the regions of her heart; and I know not what strange and unknown emotion withheld and stopped me in my examination. I felt an infinite pain to analyze the back, ground of this woman's existence, whose conduct nothing explained. Still young, and with an immense fortune, pretty in the eyes of a great number, this woman without relatives, without intimates, was in some way individually in the world. Alone, she spent an existence capable in all appearance of supporting more than one sharer.

Many a tongue had criticized, ending always by slandering, but, in the absence of proof, the Comtesse remained impenetrable.

Some applauded her as a Fedora, a woman without a heart, without temperament; others supposed her a spirit profoundly wounded, and who would in the future avoid crud deceptions.

Desiring to resolve my doubts, I placed under contribution all the resources of my logic, but all was in vain, I never arrived at a satisfactory conclusion.

I was about to quit the subject in despite, when, behind me, an old libertine raised his voice in an exclamation:

“Bah! she is a tribade.”

The word was like a flash of lightning, all fit together and was explained, there was no longer a possible contradiction.

A tribade! The word rings in the ears in a strange manner. Then it raises in you I know not what strange images of unknown voluptuosity, lascivious to excess. “Tis a luxurious rage, an infuriated lubricity, a horrible pleasure which remains forever unachieved.

Vainly I tried to put these ideas aside, by instants they moved my imagination to debauch. Already I saw the Comtesse nude, in the arms of another woman, with hair unbound, panting, broken, and still tormented by an aborted pleasure. My blood was on fire, my senses confused and I fell on a sofa like one in a faint.

Overcoming my emotions I calculated coldly what I must do to surprise the Comtesse; that I must do at any price. I decided to watch her during the night, and for that purpose to hide myself in her bedchamber.

The glass door of a clothes closet faced the bed. I perceived the advantage of that position and, screening myself with some of the costumes hanging there, I resigned myself to await the hour of the Sabbath.

I was hardly hidden when the Comtesse appeared, calling her maid, a young girl of a brown tint and striking figure.

“Julie, I will do without you this evening. Go to bed.”

“Ah! if you hear sounds in my chamber, do not disturb yourself. I wish to be alone.” These words almost presaged a drama. I applauded my own audacity.

Little by little the voices from the salon died out; the Comtesse remained alone with one of her friends, Mlle. Fanny B. Both were soon in the chamber, and before my eyes.

FANNY:

“What terrible weather! The rain is falling in torrents, and not a carriage.”

GAMIANI:

“I am as desolate as you, but unfortunately my carriage is at the repair shop.”

FANNY:

“My mother will be worried.”

GAMIANI:

“Have no fear, my dear Fanny, your mother is informed, she knows that you will pass the night with me. I offer you my hospitality.”

FANNY:

“In truth, you are too good. I will only cause you trouble.”

GAMIANI:

“Say rather a real pleasure. It will be an adventure to divert me. I would not send you to sleep alone in another chamber, we will remain together.”

FANNY:

“Why? I will only keep you from sleeping.”

GAMIANI:

“You stand too much on ceremony. See, we will be like two young friends at boarding school.” A sweet kiss reinforced this tender effusion.

GAMIANI:

“I will help with your undressing. My maid has retired, but we can do without her. Happy girl, how you are built, I admire your figure.”

FANNY:

“You find it good?”

GAMIANI:

“Ravishing!”

FANNY:

“You flatter me.”

GAMIANI:

“Oh! marvelous! It is enough to make one jealous. What whiteness!”

FANNY:

“As for that, I am no better than you. Frankly, you are whiter than I.”

GAMIANI:

“Don't think it, child. Take off everything like me. What! Embarrassed? One would think that I was a man. . There, look in that glass. . Paris would have thrown you the apple, you rogue! She smiles to see herself so fair. You well deserve a kiss on your forehead, your cheek, your lips. You are belle throughout, everywhere.”

The Comtesse's lips passed lasciviously, ardently over the girl's body. Surprised and trembling, Fanny submitted without understanding. They were a delicious couple, gull of grace, of lust and lascivious abandon and fearful modesty; One would have said it was an angel, a virgin, in the arms of a bacchante in furor.

What beauties placed before my sight, what a spectacle to arouse my senses!

FANNY:

“Oh! what are you doing! Stop. Madame, I beg you.”

GAMIANI:

“No! no!. . my Fanny, my child, my life, my joy! You see you are too beautiful! Oh! I love you! I love you!. . I am crazy!”

In vain the child struggled, her cries were smothered with kisses. Pressed and enlaced, her struggles were useless. The Comtesse carried her to the bed in her ardent embrace and threw her there like prey ready to be devoured.

FANNY:

“What are you doing? O God! Madame, but this is awful! I will call out! Let me alone, you make me afraid.”

And only kisses, more ardent, more animated, responded to her cries. With arms still more tightly enlaced, the two bodies formed but one.

GAMIANI:

“Fanny, be mine, all mine! Come, be my life! Tiens! It is pleasant! How you tremble, child! Ah! you yield!”

FANNY:

“You hurt, you hurt me! You are killing me! Ah! I am dying!”

GAMIANI:

“Yes, embrace me, my little one, my love! Press me closer. How beautiful you are all your pleasure Lascivious! you spend, you are happy! Oh God!”

Then passed a strange spectacle. The Comtesse, her eyes aflame, hair unbound, rolled and twisted on her victim, whose senses became active in their turn. Both renewed their bounds, their elans, smothering their sighs and cries with fiery kisses.

The bed creaked beneath the furious lunges of the Comtesse.

But soon, exhausted, broken, Fanny relaxed her arms. Pale, she remained immobile, like a fair corpse. The Comtesse became delirious. The pleasure killed her but did not satisfy. Furious, quivering, she leaped to the center of the chamber, where, rolling on the carpet, she excited herself by lascivious poses, crazily lubricious, provoking with her fingers all the excesses of pleasure.

This sight succeeded in making me loose my head.

For an instant disgust, indignation had dominated me; I wanted to show myself to the Comtesse; to load her with the weight of my disgust. But the senses were stronger than reason. The flesh triumphed, superb, quivering. I was giddy, like a fool. I threw myself on the fair Fanny, naked, all afire, purple, terrible.

She had hardly the time to comprehend this new attack when, already triumphant, I felt her slight, supple body tremble under me, act and respond to each of my thrusts. Our tongues met, burning, pointed; our souls melted into a single one.

FANNY:

Oh! my God! Some one is killing me.”

At these words the fair one stiffened, sighed, and then fell back, at the same time inundating me with her favors.

“Ah! Fanny!” I cried, “Wait. . To you! Ah!”

And in my turn I thought I was rendering up my life.

What excess! Exhausted, lost in Fanny's arms, I had felt nothing of the Comtesse's attacks. Recalled to herself by our cries and sighs, transported by a furor of envy, she had thrown herself upon me to tear me from her friend. Her arms crushed me and shook me, her fingers dug into my flesh, her teeth bit me.

This double contact with bodies sweating pleasure, all burning with lust, ravished me still further, redoubling my desire. Fire ran throughout me. But I remained firm, victorious, in the power of Fanny; then, without loosing any advantage of my position in this strange disorder of three bodies, mixed, crossed, intermingled the one in the other, I succeeded in firmly seizing the Comtesse's thighs and holding them spread above my head.

“Gamiani! to me! Lean forward and support yourself on your arms!”

Gamiani understood me, and I could at leisure place my active, devouring tongue on her burning part.

Fanny, crazed, abandoned, amorously caressed the palpitating breasts which swung above her.

In an instant the Comtesse was vanquished and yielded.

GAMIANI:

“What a fire you alight! It is too much! Mercy! Oh, what lubricious play! You are killing me!. .God. . I am choking.”

The Comtesse's body fell heavily to one side like a dead weight.

Fanny, still more exalted, threw her arms around my neck, enlaced me, pressed me and crossed her legs over my reins.

FANNY:

And we remained, the one extended on the other, rigid, without movement, our half open mouths pressed together and hardly exhaling our exhausted breath.

Little by little we recovered ourselves. The three of us got up and regarded each other stupidly for a moment. Surprised, ashamed of her transport, the Comtesse covered herself in haste. Fanny hid herself under the covers, then, like a child who discovers her fault when it is irreparably committed, she began to weep; the Comtesse did not wait to apostrophize me.

GAMIANI:

“Monsieur, this is certainly a miserable surprise. Your action is that of an odious spy, an infamous villain! You make me blush. I tried to defend myself. She replied: “Oh, Monsieur! Know that a woman never pardons one who suppresses her in her weaknesses.”

I did my best to reply. I declared that an unhappy passion, irresistible, and that her coldness had rendered desperate, had reduced me to this ruse, this violence.

“And further,” added I, “could you believe, Gamiani, that I would ever abuse my temerity. Ah no! that would be too ignoble. Never in my life will I forget the excess of our pleasures, but I will guard the memories for myself alone.” “If I am culpable, think of the delirium in my heart, or rather, hold but the thought of the pleasures that we have enjoyed together, and that we may enjoy again.

Then addressing myself to Fanny, the while the Comtesse turned her head aside in feigned desolation: “Mademoiselle, should you weep in your pleasure! Ah! think only of the sweet felicity that united us but a moment ago, and which will remain in our memories like a happy dream, one that belongs but to you, and to you alone.”

“I swear to you that I will never sully the memory of my happiness by confiding it to others.

Their anger subsided, their tears ceased; insensibly we again found ourselves all three enlaced, disputing with toyings, kisses and caresses. “Oh, my fair friends, let no fear trouble you. Give yourselves without reserve. . as if this night were the last. . to joy. . to lust.”

And Gamiani cried: “The die is cast; to pleasure. Come Fanny, kiss me, dear one, Tiens! Let me bite you, let me suck you, clear to the marrow. Alcide, do your duty…Oh, the superb animal…what treasures…”

“You are envious, Gamiani, let it be yours. You disdain this pleasure, but you will bless it when you have tasted it. Remain lying and shove forward that part I must attack. . Ah! what beauties!. . what a posture! Quick, Fanny, straddle the Comtesse and yourself conduct this terrible flaming arm; batter the breech,…be firm. . too hard, too quick, . Gamiani!. . Ah!. . you skirmish with pleasure.”

The Comtesse acted like one possessed, more occupied with Fanny's kisses than with my efforts. I profited by her disturbing movements to throw Fanny backward on the Comtesse's body and to attack her with fury. In an instant we were all three confounded, melting with pleasure.

GAMIANI:

“What caprice, Alcide has suddenly turned you to an enemy. . Oh! I pardon you; you have understood that it was to loose too much pleasure for one who is insensible. What would you? I am in that sad condition of having been divorced from nature. I do not dream, I do not feel ought but the horrible, the extravagant. I pursue the impossible. Oh! but it is frightful. To consume one's self and to end only in deceptions. To always desire and to never be satisfied. My imagination kills me. I am terribly unhappy.”

There was in this whole discourse such a vivid action, such an expression of deep despair that I felt moved to pity. This woman suffered painfully.

“Perhaps this is but a passing condition, Gamiani, you feed yourself on too much melancholy reading.”

GAMIANI:

“Oh! no! no! no! that is not it. . Hear me, and perhaps you will pity and excuse me.”

“I had been raised in Italy, by an old aunt, who had been left a widow at an early date. I had attained my fifteenth year, and knew nothing of the world but the terrors of religion. Devoted to God, I passed my life in supplicating heaven to spare me the pains of hell.”

My aunt inspired me with fear without ever tempering it with the least show of tenderness. I had no other pleasures but in sleep. My days were passed as sad as the nights of one condemned.”

Only sometimes my aunt called me into her bed in the mornings. Then her regard was gentle, her words flattering. She drew me onto her breast, between her thighs, and suddenly clasped me in a convulsive embrace; I beheld her contort, threw back her head and faint with a crazy laugh. Frightened, I contemplated her; immobile, I thought her stricken with epilepsy.”

Following a long conversation which she had with a Franciscan monk, I was called in and the reverend Father addressed me as follows:

My daughter, you are growing up. Already the tempting demon may see you. Soon you will feel his attacks. If you are not pure and without stain, his thrusts may reach you; if you are exempt from all soil, you will remain invulnerable. By His sufferings Our Lord has won the world; by your own sufferings you can save yourself from your own sins. Prepare yourself to submit to the martyrdom of redemption. Ask God for the strength and courage necessary; this evening you will be tried. Go in peace, my daughter.” “My aunt having already spoken to me, for several days, of the suffering and torture to be endured to escape our sins, I retired, frightened by the monk's words. Alone, I tried to pray and to occupy myself with God, but I could see nothing but the picture of the sufferings that awaited me.”

“My aunt came to find me in the middle of the night. She ordered me to strip myself naked, then she washed me from head to feet, and made me put on a large, black robe, tied about the neck but opening down the entire back. She dressed herself in the same fashion, and we left the house in a carriage.”

“At the end of an hour I found myself in a vast hall, hung entirely with black and lighted only by a single lamp suspended from the ceiling. In the center was raised a 'Prie-Dieu' surrounded with cushions.”

“Kneel, my niece; prepare yourself with prayer, and support with courage all. the pains that God may inflict upon you.”

“I had hardly obeyed when a secret door opened and a monk, dressed like us, approached me, muttered a few words, then, spreading my robe and letting it fall to each side, he left uncovered all the posterior parts of my body. A slight murmur escaped from the monk, in ecstasy, no doubt, at the sight of my flesh. He passed his hand allover me, stopped on my buttocks and finished. by placing it lower still.”

It is there that the woman sins, it is there that she should suffer, said a sepulchral voice.

“These words were hardly pronounced when I felt. myself beaten with rods, with cords knotted with points of steel. I clutched the “Prie Dieu", I forced myself to smother my cries, but in vain, the pain was too great. I threw myself down the hall, crying, mercy! mercy! I cannot bear this punishment. Rather kill me. Pity! I pray you.”

“Miserable coward,” cried my aunt, indignant, “must I set you an example!” At these words she exposed herself entirely naked, bravely spreading her thighs and holding them up.

The blows rained; the executioner was unmoved. In an instant her thighs were covered with blood.

My aunt remained unmoved, now and then crying: “Harder…ah! Harder still.” The sight transported me, I felt a supernatural courage, and cried that I was ready to suffer all.

On that my aunt got up and covered me with burning kisses, while the monk tied my hands and placed a bandage over my eyes.

“What can I tell you further! My torture recommenced, still more terrible; soon be numbed by pain, I remained motionless, no longer feeling anything. Only, above the sound of my blows I confusedly heard cries, shouts and the clacking of hands against flesh. There were also foolish laughs, nervous, convulsive, the precursors of the joy of the senses. Momentarily the voice of my aunt, who groaned with lust, dominated that strange harmony, that concert: orgiac, that saturnal of blood.

Later I learned that the spectacle of my torture served to reawaken their desires, each of my smothered cries provoked an elan of lust. Tired, without doubt, my executioner had finished.

Always motionless, in the clutch of fear, I was resigned to die. Yet, in measure as the use of my senses returned, I felt a singular itching, my body quivered, was on fire.

I agitated myself lubriciously, as if to satisfy an imperious, insatiable desire. All at once, two nervous arms enlaced me, and something hot, I knew not what, came to batter against my thigh, slid lower and suddenly penetrated me. In that moment I thought to be split in two. I gave a frightened cry which was quick covered by bursts of laughter. Two or three terrible thrusts served to entirely introduce this rough flail that crushed me. My bleeding thighs were pressed by the thighs of my adversary; it seemed to me that our flesh was intermixed to melt into a single body. All my veins were swollen, my nerves stretched. The vigorous rubbing to which I submitted, and which was executed with an unbelievable agility, heated me so that I felt as if I had received a red-hot iron.

Soon I fell into a state of ecstasy, I felt I was in heaven. A viscid and burning liquor which came to suddenly inundate me, seemed to penetrate clear to my bones and to tickle me even to the marrow. . Oh! it was too much! I melted like ardent lava. . I felt an active, devouring fluid coursing thru me, and I provoked its ejaculation by furious lunges, then fell, exhausted, into a bottomless abyss of unbelievable volupte.

FANNY:

“Gamiani, what a picture! You raise the devil un us.”

GAMIANI:

“That was not all. “My voluptuousness was quickly changed into an atrocious pain. I was horribly brutalized. More than twenty monks rolled upon me in turn, like frenzied cannibals. My head fell to one side, my body, broken, crushed, stretched on the cushions like a corpse.. I was carried to my bed as one dead.”

FANNY:

“What infamous cruelty?”

GAMIANI:

“Oh! yes, infamous! and still more melancholy. Returned to life and health, I understood the horrible perversity of my aunt and her still more horrible companions in debauch, whom only the sight of fearful tortures had the power to arouse anew. I swore a mortal hate toward them, and that hate, in my vengeance and despair, I have extended to all men.

“The idea of submitting to their caresses has always revolted me. I have been unwilling to serve as the vile plaything of their desires. “My temperament was fiery, and it must be satisfied. It was only later that I was cured of onanism by the wise lessons of the daughters of the convent of the Redemption. Their fatal science has made me lost forever.”

Here the changed voice of the Comtesse was choked by sobs. Caresses could secede in nothing on that woman. To create a diversion I addressed myself to FANNY:

ALCIDE: “In your turn, astonishing fair one, behold yourself, in a single night, initiated into many mysteries. Come, tell us how you have enjoyed the first pleasures of the senses.

FANNY: “I could not, I assure you.”

Alcide; “Your modesty is out of season, to say the least.”

FANNY: “No, but after the Comtesse's story, whatever I could say would be too insignificant.”

ALCIDE:

“Don't think that, poor simpleton! Why hesitate? Have we not all been confounded by the pleasures of the senses? We have no longer anything to blush at. We have done all, we can say all.”

GAMIANI:.

“Here, my fair one, a kiss, two hundred if needs be to decide you. And Alcide, how amorous he is. Look, how he threatens you.”

FANNY:

“No! No! leave me alone, Alcide! I have no more strength. Mercy, I pray you!. . Gamiani!. . how lubricious you are. . Alcide. . take it away. . Oh!”

ALCIDE:

“No quarter, morbleu! or Curtius will throw himself upon you all armed, unless you give us the Odysse of your maidenhead.”

FANNY:

You force me. .

GAMIANI AND ALCIDE:

“Yes! Yes!”

FANNY:

“I have arrived at my fifteenth year very innocent, I swear to you; I had not even stopped to think about what might be the difference in the sexes.”

“I lived careless and happy, without a doubt, until one very hot day, being alone in the house, I felt something like a need to expand myself, to put myself at ease.

“I undressed and extended myself almost naked, upon a divan. . Oh! I am ashamed to tell you. . I stretched myself out, spread my thighs and agitated myself in every manner. All, alone, I formed the most indecent postures.

“The cover of the divan felt cool. Its freshness caused an agreeable sensation, a voluptuous con' tact all over my body. Oh! how freely I breathed, surrounded by that warm atmosphere, softly penetrating. What a sweet and ravishing voluptuousness. I was in a delicious ecstasy. It seemed to me that new life inundate my entire being, that I was stronger, larger, and that I inspired a divine breath, that I expanded in the rays of a beautiful sun.

ALCIDE:

“You are poetic, Fanny.”

FANNY:

“Oh! I describe my sensations exactly to you. My eyes erred complacently over myself, my hands fluttered-about my neck, my breasts. Still lower, they stopped, and I fell, despite myself into a strange reverie.

“The words 'love' and 'lover' repeated themselves incessantly, in an unexplained sense. “I finished by feeling myself alone. I forgot that I had parents and friends, I. felt an awful emptiness. I got up, looking sadly about me.

“I remained for some time pensive, the head drooping in a melancholy manner, the hands joined, arms hanging.

“Then I examined myself anew, touching myself and asking myself if all this did not have a purpose, and end. “Instinctively I understood that I lacked something that I could not define, but I wanted it, I desired it, with all my soul.

I must have looked wild, for sometimes I laughed frenziedly; my arms opened as if to seize the unknown object of my desires; I went so far as to embrace myself. I enlaced myself, caressed myself; I felt the need of something absolutely real, some body to seize, to press; in my strange hallucination I hugged myself, believing it to be another.

“Through the windows I could see, in the distance, the trees and fields and I was tempted to go out and roll on the ground, to loose myself, airily, in the leaves. I contemplated the heavens and desired to fly in the air, to melt into the azure, to mix myself with the clouds, the heavens, the angels. I think I went crazy; my blood flew, burning to my head.

“Distracted, transported, I threw myself upon the cushions. I held one pressed between my thighs, I clasped another in my arms; I kissed it crazily, I embraced it passionately, I believe I even smiled at it in my intoxication, I was so dominated by my feelings. All at once I stopped, trembling; it seemed that I melted, flowed away. Ah! I cried, My God! Ah, .! and I got up, suddenly frightened.

“I found that I was all wet.”

“Being unable to understand what had happened to me, I believed that I was wounded, I was afraid. I threw myself on my knees, supplicating God to grant me pardon if I had done anything wrong.

ALCIDE:

“Amiable innocent! Have you never told any one what so badly frightened you?”

FANNY:

“No! Never! I could not. I was still ignorant till just when you revealed to me the secret of the enigma.”

ALCIDE:

“Oh, Fanny! that avowal fills me with happiness. My friend, receive again that proof of my love! Gamiani, excite me so that I can inundate this young flower with the celestial dew.”

GAMIANI:

“What fire! What ardor! Fanny! you faint already? Oh!. . she spends!. . She spends!”

FANNY:

“Alcide! Alcide! I die. . I. .”

And the sweet voluptuousness swallowed us in an intoxication that bore us to the heavens. After a few moments of repose to calm the senses I began to speak in these terms:

“I was born of young and robust parents. My infancy was happy, exempt from tears or illness; and so at the age of thirteen years I was already a man, The thorns of the flesh already began to make themselves vividly felt.”

“Destined to the church, raised in all the rigors of the principals of chastity, I combated with all my strength the first desires of my senses. My flesh was awakened, irritant, powerful, imperious, and I macerated it pitilessly.”

“I condemned myself to the most rigorous fasting. But at night, in my sleep, Nature obtained her relief, and I frightened myself, thinking I had been guilty of bringing some disorder upon myself. I redoubled my fasting, and gave particular attention to putting all baneful thoughts out of my mind. This opposition, this interior combat, finished by making me dull and stupid. My enforced continence gave to all my senses a sensibility, or rather an irritation that I had never before known.”

“I often suffered from vertigo. It seemed that all objects were turning around, and I with them. If, by hazard, I chanced to see a young woman, she appeared to me to be vividly illuminated and surrounded with a fire like electric sparks.”

“The humor, more and more heated and too abundant, was carried to my head, and the particles of fire with which it was filled struck vividly against the lenses of my eyes, causing there a sort of shining mirage.” “This lasted during several months, when, one morning, I suddenly felt a shock in all my members, a contraction and violent tension, followed by fearful and convulsive movements like those that ordinarily accompany an epileptic fit. The dazzling lights returned with greater brilliance than ever. . I saw at first a black circle turning rapidly before me, then enlarge and become immense; a light, lively and intense escaped from the axis of the circle and illuminated the whole space.”

“I discovered a horizon without bounds, a vast, inflamed heaven transversed by a thousand floating flames that all fell resplendent in a rain of gold, shining with sapphire, emerald and azure.”

“The fire died out; a dawn, blue and vaulted came to replace it; I seemed to swim in a soft, limpid light, soft as the pale reflection of the moon on a summer's night, when behold, from the far distance hastened toward me, vaporous, aerial, like a. flock of golden butterflies, infinite myriads of naked young girls, shining and fresh, transparent as alabaster statues.” “I threw myself before these sylphs, but they escaped me, laughing and playful; their delicious groups melting for a moment into the azure and then again reappearing, more lively, more joyous; charming bouquets of ravishing figures, each of which gave me a winning smile, a malicious look.”

“Little by little the young girls were eclipsed; then came to me fair women of the age of love and tender passions. Some, lively and animated, with ardent eyes and palpitating bosoms; others, pale and drooping the virgins of Ossian. Their bodies, slender, voluptuous, covered with gauze. They seemed to be dying of languor and waiting; they opened their arms to rile, but escaped me always.”

“I agitated myself lubriciously on my couch; I raised myself on my knees and my hands shook my glorious priapus. I spoke of love, of pleasure, in the most indecent terms; memories of the classics were, for instance, mixed with my dreams, I saw Jupiter on fire, Juno handling his thunder: I saw all Olympus in rut, in disorder, pell-mell strange; afterward I witnessed an orgy, a hellish bacchanal; in a deep and somber cavern, lighted by stinking torches with a reddish glow, with blue and green tints reflected hideously on the bodies of a hundred devils, shaped like goats with forms grotesquely lubricious.”

“Some, thrown from a spring-board, fell on a woman, penetrating her suddenly with their whole dart and causing her the sudden convulsion of a rapid, unexpected spending. Other, more wanton, upset a prude headforemost, and all, amid insane laughter, with the aid of a mallet, forced into her a large priapus of fire, martyring her with an excess of lustful pleasure. Again I saw others who, match in hand, lighted frightful members that were received unflinchingly between the out spread thighs of frenzied she-devils.”

“The most evil of the band attacked a Messalin by her four members, and gave himself up, before her, to all the joys, to the most expressive pleasures. The unfortunate one twisted herself, furious, foaming at the mouth hungry for the pleasure that she could not enjoy.”

“Here and there a thousand little devils, each uglier, more active and rampant that this other, came and went, sucking, pinching, biting and dancing around or mingling among themselves. Everywhere there were laughs, shouts, convulsions, frenzies, cries, sighs and faintings of lust.”

“In a space above the devils of the first rank diverted themselves jovially by parodying the mysteries of our religion.”

“A naked nun, prostrate, her eyes beautifully turned upward toward the vault, received with a devout ardor the white communion given to her, from the end of a very honest holy-water sprinkler, by a big devil in cross and mitre turned in reverse.”

“Further on a tiny devil received in floods on his face the baptisms of life, while another feigning to be dead, was helped on his way with a frightful profusion of the holy viaticum.”

“A master devil, borne on four shoulders, balanced proudly the most energetic demonstration of his eroto-satanic pleasure, and, in his moments of humor, sprinkled the blessed in floods. Everyone prostrated at his passage. It was the procession of the Holy Sacrament.”

“But behold, a clock struck, and all the devils called joined hands and formed an immense circle. The signal given, they turned, skipping and jumping like lightning. The most feeble succumbed in this rapid circling, this insane gallop. Their fall brought down others; the result was a horrible confusion, a frightful pell-mell of grotesque enlacements, hideous couplings, an unclean chaos of broken bodies, soiled with lust, that a thick smoke came to conceal.”

GAMIANI:

“Your description is marvelous! Alcide, your dream would go well in a book.”

ALCIDE:

“Listen again, what follows is no more than the reality. When I had recovered from that terrible access, I felt myself brighter but more exhausted. Three women, still young and dressed in simple white gowns, were seated near my bed. I thought that I was still in delirium; but I soon learned that my physician, understanding my malady, had judged it proper to apply the sole remedy that fit my case.

“First I took a plump white hand, that I covered with kisses. A pair of fresh, rosy lips were pressed to mine. That delicious contact electrified me; I had all the ardor of a wild fool. "

“Oh! my fair friends,” I cried, “I wish to be happy, happy to excess; I could die in your arms. Lend yourselves to my transports, to my follies!”

“With that I threw from me that which still covered me, I stretched myself on my bed. A cushion, placed beneath my reins, held me in the most advantageous position. My priapus stood up, superb, radiant.”

“You, piquant brunette, with the bosom so firm and so white, seat yourself on the foot of the bed, your legs extended near mine. Good! Lift my feet to your breasts and rub them gently against your pretty buttons of love. Ravishing! Ah, you are delicious!

“Blond, with the eyes of blue, be mine, you are my queen! Come, place yourself astraddle on the throne. Take the inflamed scepter in your hand and hide it entirely in your empire. . Oh! Not so fast! Wait! be slow and measured like a cavalier in a gentle trot. Prolong the pleasure.” “And you, so large, so fair, with the ravishing form, straddle here above my head. Ah! Marvelous! You have guessed it. Spread your thighs wide. Further! that my eye may see you, my mouth devour you and my tongue penetrate you at leisure. Why stand straight up? Lean down and give me your breasts to kiss!”

“Be mine! be mine!” said the brunette, showing her agile tongue to the other, sharp as the stylus of Venus.

“Come, till I eat your eyes, your lips! I love you that way. Oh! lubricious. . put your hand there. . now. . gently, gently!”

“And then each one began to agitate, to excite to pleasure.”

“With my eyes I devoured this animated scene, these lascivious movements, these senseless poses. Soon the sighs and cries were mingled and confounded; while fire circulated in my veins. I thrilled throughout. My two hands toyed with a burning breast, or were carried, frenzied, contracted, to charms still more secret. Then my mouth replaced them. I sucked avidly, I gnawed and bit! She cried to me to stop, that I was killing her; I only redoubled my play.”

“That access finished me. My head fell back heavily. I had no more strength.

“Enough! enough!” I cried, “Oh! my feet! What voluptuous tickling! It hurts me! cramps me! My feet stretch and twist. . Oh!”

“I felt the delirium approach for the third time. I thrust with fury. My three fair ones lost both their heads and their equilibrium at the same time. I received them in my arms, fainting, expiring, and I felt myself inundated. “Joys of heaven or of hell, it was like torrents of never ending fire.”

GAMIANI:

“What pleasures you have enjoyed, Alcide, I envy you! And you, Fanny? What! the foolish thing! I believe she is asleep.”

FANNY:

“Let me be, GAMIANI: take your hand away, it oppresses me. I am overcome. . dead. . What a night! my God! Sleep. . I. .”

The poor child yawned, turned over and curled up into a little bundle in a comer of the bed. I wished to draw her back.

“No! no!” the Comtesse said to me. “I understand how she feels. For myself, I am of a humor far different than hers. I feel irritated, I am tormented, I wish, ah! you see I wish I were dead. Your two bodies touching me, your discourse, our furors, all that has excited me, transported me. I have a hell in my mind and a fire in my body. I know not what to attempt. Oh fury!”

ALCIDE:

“What are you going to do, Gamiani? Why are you getting up?”

GAMIANI:

“I can be quiet no longer, I burn. . I wish. . tire me out! If some one would crush me, beat me. . Oh! I cannot spend!”

The Comtesse gnashed her teeth viciously, her eyes rolled frightfully in their orbits. Her entire being quivered and twisted, it was horrible to see. Fanny awoke, surprised, frightened. For myself, I expected an attack of nerves.

In vain I covered her most tender parts with kisses; my hands were weary of torturing that unconquerable fury. The spermatic canals were closed, or exhausted. I drew blood, but the crisis did not arrive.

GAMIANI:

“I will leave you. Go to sleep.”

At these words, Gamiani leaped out of the bed, opened a door, and disappeared.

ALCIDE:

“What does she want? Do you understand it, Fanny?”

FANNY:

“Chut, Alcide, listen! What cries!” She is killing herself! God! the door is locked! Ah! she is in Julie's chamber. Wait, there is a glazed opening, we can see all. Draw up the divan, here are two chairs, get up.

What a spectacle. By the light of a night lamp, dim, flickering, the Comtesse, her eyes horribly drawn to the side, her lips covered with a frothy saliva, sperm coursing along her thighs, rolled and bellowed on a large carpet made of cat-skins.

Her reins rubbed against the fur with an unbelievable agility. Momentarily the Comtesse agitated her legs in the air, raising them almost straight over her head, exposing her entire back to our view, then allowing them to fall with a nervous laugh.

GAMIANI:

“Julie, come here! My head whirls. Ah! You damned fool, I will bite you.”

And Julie, also naked, but strong, and powerful, seized hold of her hands and tied them, as well as her feet. Her excess was then at its full her convulsions frightened me. Julie, without showing the least sign of astonishment, danced and jumped as if crazy, excited herself to pleasure and fell back, fainting, on a divan.

The Comtesse followed all her movements with her eyes. Her powerlessness to attempt the same furors, to enjoy the same intoxication, redoubled her rage still further; she was like a female Prometheus, torn by a hundred vultures at once.

GAMIANI:

“Medor! Medor! Take me Take me!” At this cry an enormous dog appeared from a hiding place, and throwing himself upon the Comtesse began to ardently lick her clitoris, the point of which stood out red and inflamed.

The Comtesse cried in a loud voice: “Hai! Hai! Hai!” raising her voice in proportion to her pleasure. One could thus calculate the graduations of the tickling felt by this frightful Calymanthe.

GAMIANI:

“The milk! the milk! Oh! the milk!”

I could not understand this exclamation, a veritable cry of agony and distress, when Julie reappeared, armed with an enormous godmiche filled with hot milk, which a spring allowed to be squirted ten paces at will. By means of two straps she adapted this ingenious instrument to the desired place. The most generous stallion, in all his power, was never furnished, in thickness at least, to better advantage. I could not believe that an introduction was possible, when to my surprise, five or six furious lunges, amidst sharp, piercing cries, sufficed to entirely swallow and hide that enormous machine. The Comtesse suffered like the damned: stiff, motionless, like a piece of marble, one might have said she was the Cassandra of Cassini.

The in and out movement, operated with consummate skill, when Medor, dispossessed but always obedient to his lesson, incontinently threw himself upon the male Julie, the movements of whose half-opened thighs discovered a most delicious feast. Medor acquitted himself so well that Julie suddenly stopped and swooned, overcome with pleasure. Her enjoyment must have been great, for I have never seen anything equal to the expression on that woman's face.

Irritated by a delay which prolonged her pain and deferred her pleasure. the unhappy Comtesse cursed and groaned like a lost soul.

Recovering herself. Julie quickly recommenced with greater force. At a furious lunge by the Comtesse, her eyes closed, mouth half open, she comprehended that the moment had come, and her finger released the spring.

GAMIANI:

“Ah! Ah!..stop!..I melt!..hail! hail! hail!. . I spend!. . Oh. .!”

Infernal lubricity! I had no longer the strength to move from my place. My reason was lost, my eyes fascinated.

These furious transports, this brutal lust made my head swim. There seemed to be nothing in me but burning blood, disordered by lust and debauch. I was bestially furious with love.

Fanny's face had also singularly changed. Her eyes were fixed, her stiffened arms lay nervously beside me. Her half opened lips and clenched teeth indicated an attack of delirious sensuality which bordered on the rage for pleasure, which demanded to excess.

We had hardly reached the bed when we threw ourselves, heaving upon each other, like two wild beasts. Everywhere our bodies touched and rubbed became rapidly electrified. It was, in the midst of convulsive embraces. wild cries, frenzied bitings, a coupling of flesh and bone, a hideous coupling, the enjoyment of brutes, rapidly devouring, yet which did not draw blood. Sleep finally put an end to all these furors. After five hours of this beneficent calm, I awoke the first.

The sun was already shining with all its fires, its rays joyously piercing the curtains and playing in golden reflections over the rich carpet and silky stuffs.

What an enchanting awaking, colorful, poetic, after an unclean night? I said to myself; it seemed to me that I had escaped from a frightful nightmare, and I had near me, in my arms, within my hands, a gently agitated breast, a breast of lilies and roses, so frail and so pure, that one feared to destroy it in merely brushing it with the tips of the lips. Oh the delicious creature! Fanny, in the arm of sleep, half nude on an oriental bed, realized all the ideals of my fairest dreams. Her head reposed, graciously bent upon a curling arm; her profile was drawn, sweet and pure, like a design of Raphael; her body, in each of its parts as in the assembled whole, was of a magical beauty.

It was a great pleasure to savor at leisure the sight of so many charms, also it was a pity to think that, virgin for fifteen spring-times, a single night had sufficed to soil her.

Freshness, graces, youth, the hand of the orgy had tarnished, had sullied all, had all plunged into filth and mire. This soul so naive and tender, this spirit, until now so gently cradled by the hands of angels; delivered forever to impure demons; no more illusions, no more dreams, not even a first love, not even a sweet surprise; all the poetic life of a young girl forever lost.

She awoke, the poor child, almost laughing. She thought to find her accustomed morning, her sweet thoughts, her innocence, alas! She saw me: it was no longer her own bed, her own chamber. Oh! her sorrow was painful. Her tears choked her. I contemplated them, abashed, ashamed of myself. I held her pressed within my arms. Each of her tears I drank with intoxication.

The senses no longer spoke, my spirit alone out poured itself, my love was painted vividly in my language and in my eyes.

Fanny heard me, mute, astonished, ravished: she aspired my breath, my glances, pressed me momentarily and seemed to say: “Yes! Yes! still yours, all yours!” As she had given me her body, credulous, innocent, she now gave me her soul, confident, enthused. I thought, in a kiss, to take it from her lips, and I there gave her mine. It was heaven, and it was all. We finally arose. I wished to again see the Comtesse. She was ignobly sprawled, her face disordered, her body soiled and stained. Like a drunken woman, thrown naked near a wall, she seemed to sleep off her debauch.

“Oh! away,” I cried, “Away! Fanny, let us quit this ignoble resort.”