Letters From Prison (29 page)

What I would most like is that, for once, a comparison be made, and made fairly, between the life of the wretched victims they keep imprisoned here and the infamies of those who are their keepers; and then see who better deserves to be in charge of the keys to the cell doors! An unfortunate incident, a brazen act, some kind of betrayal on the part of valets or friends—put that on one side; and on the other, put a thousand injustices, a thousand vexations, a thousand atrocities, all of which are covered up and kept from the public by money or influence . . .

Enclosed herein a great many books I’m returning to you. Two volumes of Abbe Prévost, the rest of Monsieur d’Alembert’s works . . . What a man! What a pen! ’Tis such people I should like to have as arbiters and judges, and not the wretched souls that presume to govern my fate! I would have no trouble at all clearing my name in tribunals made up of such people, because just as one has little to fear when one is in the hands of philosophy, so one must tremble when one sees that one is prey to bigotry and rapacity . . . Also, the first two volumes of
Les Ceremonies;
I am sending them to you quite smartly, it seems to me. I never told you it was a book that could be read in a fortnight, and when you sent it to me I saw right away that that was a witty way of letting me know that my sufferings were still far from over. But I am now quite used to all your imbecilic jargon, I remain indifferent to it, it no longer affects me in the slightest. It remains to be seen whether or not trying to dry up a man’s ability to feel is a sound means for bringing him back onto the path of virtue, goodness; and whatever else may be said about your
Ceremonies,
so little did they terrify me that, if it is what people want, I shall agree to stay here until the book has been read: proof that my reckonings go well beyond this term. [As for] the rest of the books that I still have, [I] do not, I warn you, intend to rush through them, because, like
Les Ceremonies, 
they can only compose my primary reading. So progress will be slow. As for my secondary reading, all I have left is your
Troubadours:
that will take me about a fortnight, therefore till August 15th. For the aforementioned secondary reading, I would ask you, in accord with Abbe Amblet, to try to find me some novels that are both interesting and philosophical but neither too depressing nor too languorous, since I absolutely detest both of those two extremes. I repeat: novels; for in the evening ’tis impossible to read anything serious.

For the first of next month: a bar of marshmallow (no syrup) and above all, I beg of you, my bottle of eau de Cologne; do not forget it, I ask you on bended knee. If you care to send me some figs, I shall be most grateful: those you sent me last year, at about the same time if memory serves, arrived safely and did me a great deal of good. I leave it to you to shower your blessings upon me once again, and beseech you not to forget me when the Charterhouse peaches are round and ripe.

In addition, you would do me a great favor if you could get them to reinstate my walks, for I report to you a thousand times over that I am suffering horribly from my lack of fresh air, and that ’tis an infamy to deprive someone of a basic right granted to even the lowliest of animals. Can surplus alone suffice to make up the signal? And will it not be just as witty and affecting, when that extra episode is not included? Neck-deep in refuse and filth, eaten alive by bugs, fleas, mice, and spiders, served like a pig because of the incredible speed wherewith they light out of my room as soon as they have brought me my meals, I never have the time either to remember what I need or to ask for it, and our innkeeper’s three scullions, always ready to open fire the moment my door is unbolted, does not all that constitute a charming signal? . . . a truly pathetic and touching signal? Do you need to add the torture of the pneumatic machine? I won’t even mention the problem of my hair, which has been steadily falling out ever since one of the signal episodes called for no longer taking care of my hair: I shall not even bring up the subject, because I no longer have any vanity as far as my hair is concerned, thank God, and because the minute I am out of here I shall most certainly wear a wig . . . that is a firm decision . . . Ah! verily, my true love, have the years not taken their toll? . . . No more illusions, I’ve reached the age of forty, this charming age when I always promised I would renounce Satan and all his pomp . . . forty years come and gone, and ’tis time to begin, by slow degrees, taking
on a slight tint of the grave:
one is taken less by surprise when it comes if one is prepared for it in advance . . . Let it come, let it come whenever it likes; I await it, without desiring it but also without fearing it. ’Tis only those upon whom fortune has shone who are sorry to depart this life; but the man who, like me, counts his years only by his misfortunes, perforce looks forward to his demise as naught but the happy moment when his chains are at last lifted. May the dearly beloved friend, who is the only one who could yet temper the end of my career, not leave me with the pain and sorrow of surviving her, and may those poor creatures who owe us their existence enjoy a happier one than we! Those are the only prayers I still dare address to the Eternal, and the only ones whose fulfillment would cause a few more roses to bloom amidst the thorns of my life.

30. To Madame de Sade

[September 17, 1780]

I
was on the point of writing you a lovely letter, my dear, thanking you for having seen to it that my walks were restored. But I was dead wrong; I have just been told that I am in error.

This morning the so-called adjutant arrives and informs me that
the king has
restored my walks. “Most obliged, Sir; I thank you and his Highness as well.” “Ah, but that’s not all, Sir, for you have no right. . . —” “What’s this?” I broke in, “a little sermon? Please spare me; in matters of morality I know all there is to know.” “But, Sir, ’tis only that—” “Sir,” I added, “as long as the man of whom you are speaking (the jailer) is civil, he will find me polite to a fault; should he cease to be he will find someone quite disposed to teach him a few lessons, the cut of my jib being such that I brook no insolence from anyone, least of all from a rogue of a jailer . . .” At which point the siege was lifted; and as I refused, so they claim, to hear the old soldier’s lesson in morality to the end . . . no more walks. And therefore, dear friend, I withdraw my thanks to you, and I save my gratitude until the favor is granted unconditionally and, above all, with no lesson in morality.

I saw the moment when, if I had gone on, they would not, I do believe, have minded asking me
to apologize
. . . But who in the world are these people, and who do they think they are dealing with, or rather who are they used to dealing with?

Moreover, I write all this so that it is very clear what I have said word for word, to make sure they do not go and falsify my words, which this great lout of a sick old soldier is fully capable of doing. In writing about them to you, I bring them back to life, and I solemnly declare and swear by all that is most holy in the world that were they to disembowel me alive I should never change my maxim one whit:
mild and polite to a fault as long as others are the same with me; barbed and very strict when others are lacking in proper respect toward me.

I’ve received everything. I plan to send back a great number of books between the 20th and the 22nd, and at the same time I shall write to you about books and errands. Until then, I embrace you with all of my heart.

The morning of the 17TH

P.S.—As best I could make out, judging from the initial period of the oratorical speech of the tall, thin individual they unleashed on me this morning, I gather the piece meant to treat of the moral and physical essence of that contemptible atom that goes by the name of
jailer.
I saw that the orator was going to be cold and tedious, that his speech would be chock full of catachresis, totally lacking in metaphors, and equally abounding in pleonasms, that his text was poorly constructed and his epigraph incorrect, that each member would be uniform, graceless, and devoid of that salt and those nuances so necessary to the soul of discourse, as Cicero so highly recommended; moreover, that the matter, in itself rather dry, was totally foreign to my existence and to the kind of art I cultivate. In consequence whereof I sent the orator packing. However, if ‘twere absolutely necessary that I know everything there is to know about a foul heart who earns his living by doing what would dishonor the life of any honest man, then, to spare me from the repercussions and strew a few flowers upon this unpleasant lesson, have the piece in the
Encyclopedia
copied out for me, I’ll learn it by heart; that’s the most I can do. And do let me have my walks! I beg it on bended knee, for I need them most sorely, and my head, I’ve already told you, will never ripen in the shade.

31. To Madame de Sade

December 14, 1780

T
oday, Thursday the 14th of December, 1780,
the 1400th day, the 200th week,
and
the end of the 46th month
we have been separated, having received from you sixty-eight fortnightly packets of provisions and one hundred letters, and this one being the 114th of mine. These last three articles pertain only to my second detention. As for the first three, for me they are one and the same, since I count my real misfortunes from the day when our separation began, having always made, and always making, all my calculations from this period.

Either I do not know my p’s and q’s or that’s what I call pinning down dates for you! And so ’tis to this hundredth letter from you, which I have just this minute received, that I am replying, my dear. There, at the very beginning, I see the proof that my manuscripts have reached you, which pleases me. You have chosen some very strange verses; I dare say they contain one solid truth, constitute a maxim new to the stage, so I believe, but which, like all the others that are offered there every day, will never have any positive effect on anyone. As for the line of prose, you certainly did not select the most striking one in that scene, which is one of the least bad in the play; still, I like the fact that you chose it, for it shows that you always agree with me when it comes to the happiness of our children. Rest assured that I shall always agree with yours, but also know that my view will rarely coincide with that of my tyrants;
¹
I shall always be suspicious of everything they suggest doing on our children’s behalf; they have given too many proofs of their undying hatred for the father for me ever to believe they can love the children, and you may take it for granted that either I must cease regarding them as my flesh and blood or those infamous people shall never be allowed to interfere with them. So there you have it; just look at the fine results all this has already produced: hereditary hatreds, endless dissensions, goods and properties ravaged beyond repair, irreparable disorder, ruined educations, a family deprived of all outward consideration, and children forever condemned to a life of unhappiness. And all that because one woman, furious to see the consequences of an event she lacked the intelligence to foresee, angrily declared before a gathering of three or four cronies (what is called a family gathering):
“Yes, no matter what the outcome, no matter what the fateful consequences may be for my daughter and for my grandchildren, however certainly ‘twill be the undoing of them all, I shall be ten, twelve, fifteen years, etc., before I see the end of this affair.
” Oh! Great God, did the Hurons, the Hottentots ever reason thus! And do these barbarians, these savages in their rustic huts, do they ever provide us with any examples of like atrocities? But let’s return to the subject, for I’m not myself when I begin to dwell upon such infamies. It strikes me as so horribly unfortunate to have been born only to spend a third of my life as the plaything of a woman’s fury—and an idiotic one to boot—that I must constantly remind myself of what I owe to the ties I have contracted so as not to curse them altogether. There I am, brought back to you, dear friend, you whom in spite of all I shall love as the best and dearest friend the world could have ever given me.

I adore looking at copies written in your own hand; you would not believe the pleasure it gives me. I shall always remember that, when I was in Italy, you began to copy out
Le C
é
libataire 
for me, because there were places in it you thought I would like; that thoughtfulness on your part has come back to me a hundred times over. When they are my own verses, I like it even more. How I would love to have you make a copy, in your own hand, of my entire verse play, with little marginal notes praising or criticizing those passages that called for one or the other, and if it were you alone had done it without any outside help. I would wager whatever you like that such a manuscript, if shown to some discerning soul, would conform to his opinion throughout. But I just throw that out; don’t go and try doing it, ‘twould tax you and tire you. We shall discuss the idea when next we see each other, ‘twould be a better time and place.

I am, my friend, going to renew an old request, which, since ’tis most reasonable, I trust you will do your best to convince those who might oppose it to change their minds. The years roll by and yet I never get a chance to read
Le Mercure,
²
when I leave here ‘twill take me a good year simply to read all those back issues, and yet I shall have many other things to take care of. This is what I propose in the matter, and I like to think ’tis not too much to ask. I was out in the world in [part of] 1777 and at the end of 1778. Consequently I was able to keep up with, and I did keep up with, the principal events of those two years: what harm is there in sending me the issues of those two years, so that I have less to read when I get out? That is all I ask. Mérigot rents them, you can borrow them from him; do send them to me, I beg of you. Still, if perchance one of these volumes happened to include, in the section on current events, which I never read, if, I say, some issue contains a report on some event that you did not want me to read about, tear the page out and pay Mérigot for the volume; thirty sous should take care of it nicely. You see that I don’t care a whit about such things. All I’m interested in is the part dealing with the theater and literature. Whatever kind of work you choose, ’tis absolutely impossible to do anything that makes any sense unless you keep up with the newspapers. There are probably better ones, but I followed
Le Mercure
for a good many years, and found it to my liking. As a favor, then, dear friend, a very great favor, do send me
Le Mercure
for the past two years ’77 and ’78, and tear out, cross out, to your heart’s content, and be sure that I shall neither complain nor ever ask you why such and such a page was deleted. Also, I beg you to send me for the 1st of next month the three yearbooks: military, royal, and the one devoted to theater, which you have been so kind as to send me every year. These two articles shall be at the top of my list of errands, with which I shall end this letter or which I shall enclose on a separate sheet.