Alfred de Musset - Passion's evil

“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.