Letters From Prison (23 page)

1st Letter. . . September ’78

Crossed-out lines reassembled so as to reconstitute their meaning.
¹

“I have seen the high priestess.
²
I shall see her again, I am not displeased, to rush ahead with things at too fast a pace would be to make certain they failed, minds are still too biased. Moving slowly but surely, and with solid arguments, we shall win out and your detention will not last
at the very worst
beyond springtime. Mme de Sade is less well informed than I, they keep everything from her.”

Spring ends the 22nd of June, and consequently, till then we have nothing to say save about the phrase
at the very worst.
But let’s not quibble over such details. Will you be so kind as to tell me, Mademoiselle, whether I am not to deduce from this phrase that I shall most assuredly be free in June?

2nd letter. . . January ’79.

Crossed-out lines restored to their proper meaning.

“I cannot tell you when you will be let out . . . at worst, we have one resource, ’tis that your wife and your children cast themselves at the feet of the king, the one will beg to have her husband back, the others their father, etc.”

Proven contradiction.

First: If my detention is not to extend beyond the spring
(at the outside)
which, you say, you know for sure, then why, considering that you are better informed than Madame de Sade, do you say
that you cannot tell me when I shall be let out?
and if you cannot tell me when I shall be let out, why do you tell me 
that my detention will not last (at the outside) beyond springtime?
Second: If
at the outside
I am not due to be here later than the end of spring, why do you tell me that
in order for me to be released my wife and my children are going to cast themselves at the feet of the king?
And if in order for me to be released my wife and children must go and cast themselves at the feet of the king, why do you tell me
your detention will not last (at the outside) beyond springtime, I know more about the matter than Madame de Sade, from whom they keep everything? 
Worm your way out of that, Mademoiselle, devote all of your multi-talented resources to finding your way out of this labyrinth. Can one put one’s mind to better use than to justify one’s heart?

Sheer hatefulness proven beyond all doubt.

I have sometimes said to myself that ’tis entirely possible an even greater misfortune might yet befall me than all those I have thus far endured . . . What might that be? ‘Twould be to receive a letter urging me to try to escape if I can, or that someone sneak into me some poison or a file. The situation would then be clear . . . ‘Twould be proven once and for all that, being sentenced to a lifetime of imprisonment here, these were the only means left to deliver myself from my grief, and I should use them. If there is anything in the world synonymous with the 
file,
the
poison,
or
advice,
’tis assuredly the ingenious and charming
resource
that you seem pleased to have discovered, Mademoiselle,
that of having my wife and children cast themselves at the feet of the king.
If I had read this phrase before going to Aix, had I not seen and heard what I
saw and heard
in that part of the world, I do swear to you on my word of honor and in good conscience that the effect of your phrase would have been to take without further ado a pane of glass from my window, and swallow it with a glass of water . . . and of that I again swear to you on my most authentic word of honor. But convinced as I was, and still am, that ’tis physically impossible for my detention to be eternal, for a thousand reasons it would take too long to detail here, of which the best of them is that when it comes to life imprisonment the procedure and the conclusions were completely pointless, and that if life imprisonment was what was to ensue, this same sentence, assuming they would have taken the trouble to pronounce it, would have been infinitely less harsh. Convinced, I say, of the soundness of this argument, certified to me down there by Messrs. Siméon, Reinaud,
³
Gaufridy, by the advocate-general and by Monsieur du Bourguet, my recorder, I confined myself to saying to myself, upon seeing Mademoiselle Rousset offer as a final parting a means that is never employed except in the most extreme cases and in those where lifetime sentences have been most pronounced without hope of parole,
here’s a friend who is abandoning me, who is becoming the echo and marionette of my tyrants, and who, once a frank and honest person, is turning into someone most wicked and most traitorous.
Yes, Mademoiselle, that is what I said to myself, sprinkling this speech, by your leave, with a few tears, not out of fear, none being present in that case, but out of sorrow to see a friend willingly take it upon herself thus to thrust a knife into me at such a vulnerable moment, that the futile seductions of my torturers could compensate her for the loss of an unfortunate friend who was wont to love her as a sister.

My wife and my children cast themselves at the feet of the king!
But are you aware, Mademoiselle, that I so love these children that I would rather choose a lifetime in prison than expose them to the certain dishonor wherewith such a maneuver would visit upon them forever? Do you think Madame de Montreuil a total fool, a woman capable of exposing her grandchildren to rack and ruin, do you think that, my case once heard, my trial over, she would not have sooner enlisted fifty armed men, if that was what it had taken to free me at the time, than (to attain that same end) compromise both her daughter and her grandchildren? A woman by the name of Madame de Sade cast herself at the king’s feet, together with her children . . . Ah! are you aware, Mademoiselle, such an act would go down in history, nor are there many like it to be found in any reign?. . . That of Louis XV offers but one instance of it: a certain Monsieur de Lali
⁴
. . . But I am being very kind wasting my time refuting such a fantasy . . . which owes its existence only to the vile deference you have had for those who are persecuting me, and who doubtless told you,
Write that to him; it will be charming, you’ll see the effect it has on his mind.
They are wrong, Mademoiselle, ’tis not in my mind it has hurt me . . .
’Tis a little lower down
. . . (as you used to say in a happier time) yes . . . ’tis there the knife went in, and went in deep, ’tis not a pinprick it made, ’tis a gash, and the venom the blade was infected with will make the wound incurable.

I have said all I have to say, Mademoiselle . . . I have now but to wish you a good and pleasant journey . . . If I wished to go on harping on the same old thing, I would say that since you are leaving without me despite your promise, ’tis the clearest indication that my sorrows are not at an end. The end of your letter—
a time will come. . . make sure I hear how you are faring, etc.
—exhales an odor of great length, which leads me to think that I still have a long while to suffer in this execrable prison, and that you deceived me most cruelly when you implied that the end would coincide with the end of spring. But I do not want to put a further tinge of gall and blackness upon thoughts which are already dismal enough . . . You yourself must be well aware of all the pain this departure causes me . . .
I feel it to the depths of my heart! . . .
And (in spite of your behavior) ‘twas a kind of consolation for me to breathe the same air as you . . . But ’tis unfair of me to take advantage of your indulgence for so long . . . besides, what good can you do for me by staying here? You see how it is dragging on, as you see there is still a long road to hoe before ’tis over! Go, Mademoiselle . . . go . . . return to your own affairs. . . After having devoted yourself to your friends, ’tis only right and proper to think of yourself. . . Do think of me from time to time . . . even in the midst of your pleasures; go to La Coste in the month of August, I sentence you to do so, sit down upon the bench—do you know which one I am talking about? . . . Yes . . . and when you are there, say, “A year ago he was here, next to me . . . yes, I was here . . . and he was there . . . He opened up his heart to me, with that candor and that naivete clearly proved how much I meant to him . . . I asked him to promise me. . . . . . . . . . .he took my hand and said to me, ‘My dear friend, I swear to you’ . . . ‘Ah,’ said I, ‘twill be for your own happiness . . . ’ And his reply to me was: ‘Ah! was there any other advice you could give me?’” . . . And then you will go into the little green sitting room . . . and you will say: “My table was over there . . . there was where I wrote all his letters, for his life was an open book to me . . . Sometimes he sat in the armchair. . .”—you know which armchair I mean? —“and from there he would say, ‘Write
. . .We shall do . .
‘But, Monsieur,
we?’
‘Yes, dear friend,
we:
our phrases must be formed like our hearts . . . So please put
we
. . .”’ And then you’ll go and set the clock . . . Then you’ll take two or three turns about the big drawing room, and you will say: “Even if I had lost him forever, still . . . how precious all these places for me! . . .” Yes, do all that, and I, ever sad and unhappy, ever caught between hope (perhaps the most frivolous hope) . . . and the desire to have done with my woes . . . I shall wander with you during all those little walks and those little memories . . . perhaps I may squeeze your hand again . . . Do you know how powerful an illusion may be upon a sensitive spirit? . . . You will think you are seeing me, and all it will be is your own shadow . . . you’ll think you are hearing my voice . . . and ‘twill only be the voice of your heart . . . Who knows whether some misgivings may begin to creep up on you: you will remember these letters . . . yes, these cruel letters which you leave with me . . . and which will be all I have of you . . . like those wretches that poverty compels to eat the most contradictory fare, I shall read them. . . because you have written them . . . I shall cherish them, because I know you wrote them without thinking . . . Adieu, Mademoiselle . . . yes . . . adieu . . . At least I say it without tears in my eyes as I utter those words . . . Give me news of yourself via Madame de Sade, and she will pass mine on to you . . . But please be so kind as to write me another brief letter before you leave . . . to tell me the day . . . yes, the day . . . For I absolutely want to know what day you are leaving. Once again, adieu. You can see that I refuse to resort to a formal closing.

Open . . . open your heart and you will see the feeling that replaces it.

de Sade

1
. The headings are Sade’s.

2
. Madame de Montreuil.

3
. Maitres Siméon and Reinaud were Sade’s lawyers in the Midi. Both had been involved in his Aix appeal and both had advised Sade against going to Paris in February 1777.

4
. Sade is probably referring to Thomas Lally, who was governor-general of the French colonies of India in the eighteenth century. Defeated by the English armies in India, he rendered his sword at Pondicherry, and upon his return to France was condemned to death and executed. The case to which Sade refers relates to Lally’s son Gérard, the Marquis de Lally-Tollendal, who with the help of Voltaire besought Louis XV to rehabilitate his father’s good name.

19. To Carteron, a.k.a. La Jeunesse, a.k.a. Martin Quiros

[October 4, 1779]

M
artin Quiros. . . you behave most insolently, my son, if I were there, I’d play a dirty trick on you . . . I’d snatch off that frigging wig of yours, which you replenish every year with ass-hairs gathered from bidets on the road between Courthezon and Paris, then what would you do, you old monkey, to fix that? Eh, speak up, what would you do? Would you go around like some person from Picardy foraging for nuts fallen off a tree, and peck and pluck about to right and left amidst all those black old
things
aligned in the evening outside the shops up and down the rue Saint-Honoré, and then the next day, with a bit of strong glue, you would set it back again upon your scaly brow so that it would be no more visible than a crab-louse on a slut’s beard, would you not, my lad . . . Come . . . let’s have a little quiet, if you’d be so kind, for I am tired of being insulted for so long by riffraff. True, I do as dogs do, and when I see that pack of mongrel bitches barking at my heels, I lift a leg and piss on their noses.

F------me, I say, you are as learned as an in-folio, where have you picked up so many pretty things?. . . These elephants killing Caesar, this Brutus stealing cattle, this Hercules, this Battle of Prunellae, and this Varius! . . . Oh! that is fine stuff indeed! You stole all that one evening, on your way home with your mistress after having taken her to supper with her old mum, you slipped it in from behind under her petticoats, piece by piece as you got hold of it, and then you acted as if you were eating cherries, so that the poor marquise arrived home that night with elephants, Herculeses, and steers inside her dress, which made her hold herself stiff and bolt upright quite as if she were not a magistrate’s daughter. Sometimes you prattle to me about some woman with child, but, ah, I didn’t teach you my tricks for pregnant ladies, no, but for yourself . . . Are you with child, my lad? Is it Mme Patulos who is? Or is it Milli springtime?
¹
Tell me . . . tell me, who is it, then, who’s heavy in your house? Forsooth, let them be, if they like it, and bear in mind my little song,
Go f-
-
k away the live long day . . .
Well, that’s the song I sing here, six times a day. And I whistle it four.