The 120 Days of Sodom - Marquis De Sade [55]
"What doubt of it can there be?" said the Duc. "It happens every day that she implants the most violent inclination to commit what mortals call crimes, and had you poisoned her twenty times over, this act would never have been anything but the result of the penchant for crime Nature put in you, a penchant she wishes to draw your attention by endowing you with such a powerful hostility. It is madness to suppose one owes something to one's mother. And upon what, then, would gratitude be based? is one to be thankful that she discharged when someone once fucked her? That would suffice, to be sure. As for myself, I see therein naught but grounds for hatred and scorn. Does that mother of ours give us happiness in giving us life?…Hardly. She casts us into a world beset with dangers, and once in it, 'tis for us to manage as best we can. I distinctly recall that, long ago, I had a mother who aroused in me much the same sentiments Duclos felt for hers: I abhorred her. As soon as I was in a position to do so, I dispatched her into the next world; may she roast there; never in my life have I tasted a keener delight than the one I knew when she closed her eyes for the last time."
At this point dreadful sobs were heard to come from one of the quatrains. It proved to be the Duc's; upon closer examination it was discovered that young Sophie had burst into tears. Provided with a heart unlike those villains', their conversation had brought to mind the cherished memory of her who had given her life, and who had perished in an effort to protect her while she was being abducted; this cruel vision offered itself to her tender imagination, a flood of tears ensued.
"Ah, by God, now!" said the Duc, "that's splendid. It's for mama you're crying, is it, my little snotface? Come here, come along, let me comfort you."
And the libertine, warmed by what had been happening, by these words of his, and by the effects they produced, displayed a thunderous prick which was apparently speeding toward a discharge. Marie, the quatrain's duenna, led the child forward all the same. Her tears flowed abundantly down her cheeks, the novice's dress she was wearing that day seemed to lend yet more charm to the sorrow which embellished her looks: it was impossible for a creature to be lovelier.
"By the Holy Bugger," quoth the Duc, springing up like one gone out of his mind, "what a pretty mouthful we have here. I'm going to do what Duclos has just described… smear some fuck on her cunt… Undress her."
And everyone silently awaited the issue of this little skirmish.
"Oh! my Lord, my Lord!" cried Sophie, casting herself at the Duc's feet, "at least respect my sorrow, I groan for my mother's fate, she was dear to me, she died defending me, I shall never see her again. Have pity upon my tears, grant me this one evening of respite."
"Why, fuck my eyes!" the Duc exclaimed, fondling his heaventhreatening prick, "I'd never have believed this scene could be so voluptuous. Off with her clothes, I tell you to take them off," he roared at Marie, "she should already be naked."
And Aline, lying upon the Duc's couch, shed warm tears, so did Adelaide, who was heard to utter a moan in Curval's alcove; the latter, in no wise partaking of that lovely creature's grief, violently scolded his playmate for having shifted from the position he had commanded her to keep, and, that done, turned an appreciative gaze upon the delicious scene whose outcome interested him exceedingly.
Sophie's clothes are removed without the faintest regard for her feelings, she is placed in the posture Duclos has just described, the Duc announces that he is about to discharge. But how is the thing to be done? What Duclos has just related had been performed by a man virtually incapable of an erection, and he had been able to direct his flabby prick's discharge wherever he wished. Such was not the case here: the threatful head of the Duc's engine had not the least inclination to lower the awful stare whereby it seemed bent on cowing heaven; it appeared necessary, so to speak, to place