Донасьен Альфонс Франсуа де Сад – Justine (страница 5)

Nevertheless, Dubourg only became the more insulting. He accused me of being the cause of his weakness, and wished to recompense himself by fresh outrages and abuses of an even more terrifying nature. There was nothing disgusting he did not say to me, nothing he did not attempt, nothing his vile imagination, the hardness of his nature, and his depraved morals did not cause him to undertake. But my awkwardness tired his patience, especially as I made not the slightest attempt to play up to him. You may well imagine that it required considerable fortitude on my part to lend myself in such a manner; nor has the passage of time been able to obliterate my remorse…Nothing, however, succeeded; his final attempts failed miserably; and my submission lost its power to inflame him. In vain he successively passed from tenderness to severity, from severity to tyranny, from glances of loving sympathy to the excesses of filth and lust. At length we were equally tired – a condition which fortunately persisted and prevented his being able to recover the ability necessary for truly dangerous attacks. He gave over, but made me promise to return the following day; and in order to be absolutely sure of this he paid me only the sum I owed la Desroches. And so I returned to the woman’s house exceedingly humbled by my adventure, and firmly decided, whatever might happen to me in the future, never to expose myself to this man a third time. I expressed these ideas to my landlady when paying her, and decried with maledictions the old rogue who had been capable of so cruelly taking advantage of my misery. Nevertheless, my curses, far from bringing on him the wrath of God, seemed only to bring him good fortune. Eight days later I learned that this notorious libertine had just received from the government a grant which increased his annual revenue to more than 400,000 livres. I was lost in reflections on this and similar inconsistencies of destiny, when a ray of hope seemed suddenly to lighten my heart.

La Desroches came to tell me that at last she had discovered a house where I would gladly be received, providing I conducted myself well therein.

‘Oh! Merciful heaven,’ I cried delightedly, flinging myself into her arms, ‘– that is the very condition I should myself lay down; do not doubt my decision for an instant – I accept the offer with pleasure…’

And so I left the home of Desroches for what I hoped would be a changed and better period of life.

My new master was an old usurer who had become rich not only by way of lending money, but also by robbing everyone with whom he came into contact – whenever he found it possible to do so safely and with impunity. He lived on the rue Quincampoix, in an apartment on the first floor, accompanied by an old mistress whom he called his wife and who was at least as wicked as he himself.

‘Sophie,’ said this miser to me (for that was the name I had assumed in order to conceal my own), ‘my dear Sophie, the first of the virtues necessary to anyone who lives in my house is that of honesty…And if ever I should find you appropriating to yourself the tenth part of one of my pennies, I shall have you hanged – hanged, do you understand, until it would be impossible to revive you! For if my wife and I are able to enjoy a few small pleasures in our old age, it is only because it is the fruit of our excessive labours and profound sobriety. By the way, my child, do you eat a lot?’

‘Only a few ounces of bread a day, sir,’ I replied; ‘together with a little water and some soup when I am lucky enough to be able to have it.’

‘Soup! Soup! – good heavens!’ exclaimed the old miser to his wife – ‘Let us bewail the extravagance of luxury and its progress in our times!’ Then he continued: ‘For a year this child has been looking for a job; for a year she has been dying of starvation; and at the same time she wants to eat soup! We ourselves have it only rarely – once every Sunday, to be precise – we who have worked ourselves like galley-slaves for forty years. You will receive three ounces of bread a day, my girl, half a bottle of river water, and every eighteen months one of my wife’s old dresses from which you can make your petticoats. At the end of a year, if we are satisfied with your services, and if your approach to economy corresponds with our own; if, in short, you order arrangements so that our domestic matters prosper, then we will pay you three crowns.

‘Looking after us is only a small matter. It is simply a case of cleaning and polishing this six-roomed flat three times each week. And, of course, you will make the beds, answer the door, powder my wig, dress the hair of my wife, look after the dog, the cat, and the parrot, attend to your kitchen duties, and wash the dishes regularly, whether they have been used or not; as well as helping my wife with the cooking and spending your spare time making caps, knitting stockings, and producing other little things for the household. So you see, Sophie, there isn’t much to do, and you will have quite enough leisure in which to attend to your own odd jobs and make whatever clothing you may need.’

You can easily imagine, Madame, that one would have to be in precisely that state of misery in which I happened to be before you would have accepted such a position. Not only were these creatures asking me to do far more work than my age and strength permitted, but was it possible to keep going on the food and the pittance they offered? Nevertheless I was careful not to be difficult, and installed myself in their home that same evening.

If, Madame, the cruel situation in which I found myself allowed me to think of amusing you for a moment – when I ought only to try and arouse sympathetic feeling for me in your heart – I honestly believe I could send you into paroxysms of laughter by relating in detail some of the manifestations of avarice which abounded so plentifully in that house. But such a terrible catastrophe befell me during my second year there that, when I think of it, I find it difficult to offer humorous details before acquainting you with the nature of this misfortune. Nevertheless, I can tell you, Madame, that lights were never used in that house. The bedroom of my master and mistress was situated directly opposite the street lamp, so they dispensed with any other means of illumination, not even using a light to see their way to bed. As for underwear and suchlike, they never wore it, but sewed into the sleeves of their coats and dresses old ruffles, which I washed each Saturday evening, so that they would be clean and fresh for Sunday. Neither were there any sheets or towels, so as to avoid the expense of laundering – for this, according to the respectable Monsieur Du Harpin, was an unusually expensive item. They never had wine in the house, for, according to Madame Du Harpin, clear water was the natural beverage of the first men, and the only one prescribed us by nature. Every time bread was cut a basket had to be placed underneath the loaf so as to catch the crumbs. To these were added the remnants of every meal, and on Sundays the mixture was fried in a little rancid butter and served up to form the special dish of the Sabbath day. Clothes and upholstery were never brushed in the usual manner, as that might have tended to produce wear in the material. Instead they were lightly swept with a feather duster. Their shoes were reinforced with metal caps, and each of them kept, as venerable relics, those which they had worn on their wedding day. But a much more bizarre duty was one which I had to undertake once a week. There was one large room in the flat with completely bare walls. Here I used to go regularly in order to scrape some of the plaster off the walls with a knife. This was then passed through a fine sieve, and I was instructed to use the resulting powder each morning to dress the gentleman’s wig and the chignon of the lady.

I would to God that these were the only depraved methods of economy indulged by this sorry couple. Nothing is more natural than the desire to conserve one’s means; but what is not equally so is the wish to increase them with the fortunes of others – and it did not take me long to realise that it was in this manner that Monsieur Du Harpin had become so rich.

Now at that time there was living above us an individual in very easy circumstances, owning some very pretty jewels; and these, perhaps because they belonged to our neighbour, or perhaps because they had actually passed through his hands, were well known to my master. Quite frequently I heard him lamenting to his wife about a certain gold box worth thirty or forty louis, which, he said, would certainly have belonged to him if he had been a little more adroit at an earlier time. In order to console himself for having returned the box which he had once borrowed, Monsieur Du Harpin planned to steal it, and it was me he commanded to effect this transference.

Having delivered a long speech on the unimportance of stealing, and on the possible utility to society of such an activity – since it served to re-establish an equilibrium totally upset by the unequal distribution of wealth, Monsieur Du Harpin presented me with a false key, assuring me that it would open the apartment of our neighbour, and that I would find the box in a desk which was never locked. He added that I would be able to remove it without any danger, and that for such a considerable service he would add an extra crown to my wages for the following two years.