"o heaven!" said i to my companion, trembling with horror, "is it possible to be transported to such excesses! what infernal place is this!"
"listen to me, therese, listen, my child, you have not yet heard it all, not by any means," said omphale. "pregnancy, reverenced in the world, is the very certitude of reprobation amongst these villains; here, the pregnant woman is given no dispensations: brutalities, punishments, and watches continue; on the contrary, a gravid condition is the certain way to procure oneself troubles, sufferings, humiliations, sorrows; how often do they not by dint of blows cause abortions in them whose fruits they decide not to harvest, and when indeed they do allow the fruit to ripen, it is in order to sport with it: what i am telling you now should be enough to warn you to preserve yourself from this state as best you possibly can."
"but is one able to ?"
"of course, there are certain devices, sponges... but if antonin perceives what you are up to, beware of his wrath; the safest way is to smother whatever might be the natural impression by striving to unhinge the imagination, which with monsters like these is not difficult.
"we have here as well," my instructress continued, "certain dependencies and alliances of which you probably know very little and of which it were well you had some idea; although this has more to do with the fourth article with, that is to say, the one that treats of our recruitings, our retrenchments, and our exchanges i am going to anticipate for a moment in order to insert the following details. "you are not unaware, therese, that the four monks composing this brotherhood stand at the head of their order; all belong to distinguished families, all four are themselves very rich: independently of the considerable funds allocated by the benedictines for the maintenance of this bower of bliss into which everyone hopes to enter in his turn, they who do arrive here contribute a large proportion of their property and possessions to the foundation already established. these two sources combined yield more than a hundred thousand crowns annually which is devoted solely to finding recruits and meeting the house's expenses; they have a dozen discreet and reliable women whose sole task is to bring them every month a new subject, no younger than twelve nor older than thirty. the conscriptee must be free of all defects and endowed with the greatest possible number of qualities, but principally with that of eminent birth. these abductions, well paid for and always effected a great distance from here, bring no consequent discomfitures; i have never heard of any that resulted in legal action; their extreme caution protects them against everything. they do not absolutely confine themselves to virgins: a girl who has been seduced already or a married woman may prove equally pleasing, but a forcible abduction has got to take place, rape must be involved, and it must be definitely verified; this circumstance arouses them; they wish to be certain their crimes cost tears; they would send away any girl who was to come here voluntarily; had you not made a prodigious defense, had they not recognized a veritable fund of virtue in you, and, consequently, the possibility of crime, they would not have kept you twenty-four hours. everyone here, therese, comes of a distinguished line; my dear friend, you see before you the only daughter of the comte de * * *, carried off from paris at the age of twelve and destined one day to have a dowry of a hundred thousand crowns: i was ravished from the arms of my governess who was taking me by carriage, unoccupied save for ourselves, from my father's country seat to the abbey of panthemont where i was brought up; my guardian disappeared; she was in all likelihood bought; i was fetched hither by post chaise. the same applies to all the others. the girl of twenty belongs to one of the noblest families of poitou. the one sixteen years old is the daughter of the baron de * * *, one of the greatest of the lorraine squires; counts, dukes, and margraves are the fathers of the girls of twenty-three, twelve, and thirty-two; in a word, there is not one who cannot claim the loftiest titles, not one who is not treated with the greatest ignominy. but these depraved men are not content to stop at these horrors; they have wished to bring dishonor into the very bosom of their own family. the young lady of twenty-six, without doubt one of the most beautiful amongst us, is clement's daughter; she of thirty-six is the niece of jerome.
"as soon as a new girl has arrived in this cloaca, as soon as she has been sealed in here forever to become a stranger to the world, another is immediately retrenched: such is our sufferings' complement; the cruelest of our afflictions is to be in ignorance of what happens to us during these terrible and disquieting dismissals. it is absolutely impossible to say what becomes of one upon leaving this place. from all the evidence we in our isolation are able to assemble, it seems as if the girls the monks retire from service never appear again; they themselves warn us, they do not conceal from us that this retreat is our tomb, but do they assassinate us? great heaven! would murder, the most execrable of crimes, would murder be for them what it was for that celebrated marechal de retz,
(see l'historic de bretagne by dom lobineau: marechal de retz: gilles de rais, marshal of charles vii's army.tr.)
a species of erotic entertainment whose cruelty, exalting their perfidious imaginations, were able to plunge their senses into a more intense drunkenness! accustomed to extracting joy from suffering only, to know no delectation save what is derived from inflicting torment and anguish, would it be possible they were distracted to the point of believing that by redoubling, by ameliorating the delirium's primary cause, one would inevitably render it more perfect; and that, without principles as without faith, wanting manners as they are lacking in virtues, the scoundrels, exploiting the miseries into which their earlier crimes plunged us, were able to find satisfaction in the later ones which snatch our lives away from us.... i don't know.... if one questions them upon the matter, they mumble unintelligibilities, sometimes responding negatively, sometimes in the affirmative; what is certain is that not one of those who has left, despite the promises she made us to denounce these men to the authorities and to strive to procure our liberation, not one, i say, has ever kept her word.... once again: do they placate us, dissuade us, or do they eliminate the possibility of our preferring charges? what we ask those who arrive for news of them who have gone, they never have any to communicate. what becomes of these wretches? that is what torments me, therese, that is the fatal incertitude which makes for the great unhappiness of our existence. i have been in this house for eighteen years, i have seen more than two hundred girls depart from it.... where are they? all of them having sworn to help us, why has not one kept her vow ?
"nothing, furthermore, justifies our retirement; age, loss of looks, this is not what counts: caprice is their single rule. they will dismiss today the girl they most caressed yesterday, and for ten years they will keep another of whom they are the most weary: such is the story of this chamber's superintendent; she has been twelve years in the house, and to preserve her i have seen them get rid of fifteen-year-old children whose beauty would have rendered the very graces jealous. she who left a week ago was not yet sixteen; lovely as venus herself, they had enjoyed her for less than a year, but she became pregnant and, as i told you therese, that is a great sin in this establishment. last month they retired one of sixteen, a year ago one of twenty, eight months pregnant; and, recently, another when she began to feel the first pangs of childbirth. do not imagine that conduct has any bearing upon the matter: i have seen some who flew to do their every bidding and who were gone within six months' time; others sullen, peevish, fantastical whom they kept a great number of years; hence, it is useless to prescribe any kind of behavior to our newly arrived; those monsters' whimsy bursts all circumscriptions, and caprice forms the unique law by which their actions are determined.
"when one is going to be dismissed, one is notified the same morning, never earlier: as usual, the officer of the day makes his appearance at nine o'clock and says, let us suppose, `omphale, the monastery is sending you into retirement; i will come to take you this evening.' then he continues about his business. but you do not present yourself for his inspection; he examines the others, then he leaves; the person about to be released embraces her comrades, she makes a thousand promises to strive in their behalf, to bring charges, to bruit abroad what transpires in the monastery: the hour strikes, the monk appears, the girl is led away, and not a word is heard of her. supper takes place in the usual fashion; we have simply been able to remark that upon these days the monks rarely reach pleasure's ultimate episodes, one might say they proceed gingerly and with unwonted care. however, they drink a great deal more, sometimes even to inebriation; they send us to our chamber at a much earlier hour, they take no one to bed with them, even the girls of the watch are relegated to the seraglios."
"very well," i say to my companion, "if no one has helped you it is because you have had to deal with frail, intimidated creatures, or women with children who dared not attempt anything for you. that they will kill us is not my fear; at least, i don't believe they do: that reasoning beings could carry crime to that point... it is unthinkable... i know that full well... after what i have seen and undergone i perhaps ought not defend mankind as i do, but, my dear, it is simply inconceivable that they can execute horrors the very idea of which defies the imagination. oh dear companion!" i pursued with great emotion, "would you like to exchange that promise which for my part i swear i will fulfill!... do you wish it ?"
