The 120 Days of Sodom - Marquis De Sade [225]
71. The gentleman she mentioned on the 11th, who likes to burn down poorhouses, endeavors to lure a beggar, whether a man or a woman, from out of one and into his own home, upon the pretense of bestowing charity; he embuggers his victim, then breaks his back and leaves him thus discomfited to die in a dungeon.
72. He who was wont to defenestrate a woman, hurling her upon a dung heap, the same man of whom Martaine spoke, by way of second passion executes the following one: he allows the girl to sleep in a room she is acquainted with and whose window she knows to be not far above the ground; she is given opium, when in a deep slumber she is conveyed to another chamber, identical with the first but having a window high above the ground which, on this side of the house, is strewn with sharp rocks. Next, the libertine enters where she lies sleeping, makes a dreadful noise, terrifies her; she is informed that she is about to die. Knowing the drop from the window to the ground to be short, she leaps through it, but falls thirty feet and lands upon the murderous rocks, killing herself. No one has so much as laid a finger upon her.
In the character of a woman, that great histrionic, the Bishop, marries Antinoьs, whose role is that of a husband, and also weds Celadon, whom he takes to be his wife, and 'tis that evening the child is embuggered for the first time.
This ceremony celebrates the festival of the fifteenth week; to complete the holiday, the prelate wishes to expose Aline to some severe vexations, for his libertine rage against her has been quietly but steadily mounting: she is hanged, then quickly cut down, but while seeing her however briefly aloft, everyone discharges. Durcet opens her veins, this treatment restores her to life; the next day she appears none the worse for wear, but suspension has added an inch to her height; she relates what she experienced during the ordeal. The Bishop, for whom everything is an occasion of jollity and everyone the object of game that day, cuts one of old Louison's nipples clean off her breast; whereupon the other two duennas see very clearly what their fate is to be.
THE 14TH. 73. A man whose simple taste was to flog a girl, perfects it by every day removing morsels of flesh the size of a pea from the girl's body, but her wounds are not dressed, and thus she perishes over a low fire, as it were.
Desgranges announces that she will now deal with exceedingly painful murders wherein 'tis the extreme cruelty which comprises the main element; Messieurs more strongly than ever urge her to furnish abundant details.
74. He who was fond of letting blood daily relieves his victim of a half ounce of it, continuing till she is dead. Messieurs greet this example with hearty applause.
75. He who was wont to prick the ass with many pins every day administers a more or less superficial gash with a poignard. The blood is stanched, but the wound is not treated, neither does it mend, and thus 'tis a slow death she dies. A fustigator (75) quietly and slowly saws off all four limbs, one after the other.
76. The Marquis de Mesanges, of whom Duclos spoke in connection with the shoemaker Petignon's daughter, bought by the Marquis from Duclos, and whose first passion was to undergo four hours of flogging without discharging, for a second passion places a little girl in the hands of a giant fellow who holds the child by the head over a large charcoal brazier which burns her very slowly; the victims must be virgins.
77. His first passion: little by little to burn the breasts and buttocks with the flame of a match; his second: over every part of the girl's body to plant a forest of sulphur-coated slivers, which he lights one by one. He watches her die in this way.
"Nor is there anymore painful way to die," observes the Duc, who then confesses to having surrendered himself to this infamous pastime, and to having discharged