"Sade, Marquis De - The 120 Days Of Sodom 3" - читать интересную книгу автора (Marquis de Sade)

or wretched? Does her situation have anything to do with yours? does it
affect you? Get rid of those demeaning ties whose absurdity I've just
proven to you, and thereby entirely isolating this creature, sundering her
utterly from yourself, you will not only recognize that her misfortune must
be a matter of indifference to you, but that it might even be exceedingly
voluptuous to worsen her plight. For, after all, you do owe her your
hatred, that has been made clear, and thus you would be taking your
revenge: you would be performing what fools term an evil deed, and you know
the immense influence crime exerts upon the senses. And so here are two
sources of pleasure in the outrages I'd like to have you inflict upon her:
both the sweet delights of vengeance, and those one always tastes whenever
one does evil."
Whether it was that I employed a greater eloquence in exhorting Lucile
than I do in recounting the fact to you now, or whether it was because her
already very libertine and very corrupt spirit instantly notified her heart
of the voluptuous promise contained in my principles, she tasted them, and
I saw her lovely cheeks flush in response to that libertine flame which
never fails to appear every time one violates some prohibition, abolishes
some restraint.
"All right," she murmured, "what are we to do?"
"Amuse ourselves with her," said I, "and make some money at the same
time; as for pleasure, you can be sure to have some if you adopt my
principles. And as for the money, the same thing applies, for I can make
use of both your old gray-haired mother and your young sister; I'll arrange
two different parties which will prove very lucrative."
Lucile accepts, I frig her the better to excite her to commit the
crime, and we turn all our thoughts to devising plans. Let me first
undertake to outline the first of them, since it deserves to be included in
the category of passions I have to discuss, although I shall have to alter
the exact chronology in order to fit it into the sequence of events, and
when I shall have informed you of this first part of my scheme, I shall
enlighten you upon the second.
There was a man, well placed in society and exceedingly wealthy,
exceedingly influential and having a disorder of the mind which surpasses
all that words are able to convey; as I was acquainted with him only as the
Comte, you will allow me, however well advised of his full name I may be,
simply to designate him by his title. The Comte was somewhat above thirty-
five years of age, and all his passions had reached their maximum strength;
he had neither faith nor law, no god and no religion, and was above all
else endowed, like yourselves, Messieurs, with an invincible horror of what
is called the charitable sentiment; he used to say that to understand this
impulse was totally beyond his powers, and that he would not for an instant
assent to the notion that one dare outrage Nature to the point of upsetting
the order she had imposed when she created different classes of
individuals; the very idea of elevating one such class through the
bestowing of alms or aid, and thus of overthrowing another, the idea of
devoting sums of money, not upon agreeable things which might afford one
pleasure, but rather upon these absurd and revolting relief enterprises,
all this he considered an insult to his intelligence or a mystery his
intelligence could not possibly grasp. Thoroughly instilled, nay,