"Sade, Marquis De - The 120 Days Of Sodom 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Marquis de Sade)

familiar to him, and those who knew him personally had the strong suspicion
he owed his vast fortune to nothing other than two or three murders.
However that may be, it is, in the light of the following story, highly
probable that this variety of extravagance had the power to stir him
deeply, and it is this adventure, which attracted some unfortunate
publicity, that was responsible for his exclusion from the Court. We are
going to relate the episode in order to give the reader an idea of his
character.
There dwelled in the neighborhood of Curval's town house a miserable
street porter who, the father of a charming little girl, was ridiculous
enough to be a person of sensibility. Twenty messages of every kind had
already arrived containing proposals relating to the poor fellow's
daughter; he and his wife had remained unshaken despite this barrage aimed
at their corruption, and Curval, the source of these embassies, only
irritated by the growing number of refusals they had evoked, knew not what
tack to take in order to get his hands upon the girl and to subject her to
his libidinous caprices, until it struck to him that by simply having the
father broken he would lead the daughter to his bed. The thing was as
nicely conceived as executed. Two or three bullies in the President's pay
intervened in the suit, and before the month was out, the wretched porter
was enmeshed in an imaginary crime which seemed to have been committed at
his door and which got him speedily lodged in one of the Conciergerie's
dungeons. The President, as one would expect, soon took charge of the case,
and, having no desire to permit it to drag on, arranged in the space of
three days, thanks to his knavery and his gold, to have the unlucky porter
condemned to be broken on the wheel, without the culprit ever having
committed any crime but that of wishing to preserve his honor and safeguard
his daughter's.
Meanwhile, the solicitations were renewed. The mother was brought in,
it was explained to her that she alone had it in her power to save her
husband, that if she were to satisfy the President, what could be clearer
than that he would thereupon snatch her husband from the dreadful fate
awaiting him. Further hesitation was impossible; the woman made inquiries;
Curval knew perfectly well to whom she addressed herself, the counsels were
his creatures, and they gave her unambiguous replies: she ought not waste a
moment. The poor woman herself brought her daughter weeping to her judge's
feet; the latter could not have been more liberal with his promises, nor
have been less eager to keep his word. Not only did he fear lest, were he
to deal honorably and spare the husband, the man might go and raise an
uproar upon discovering the price that had been paid to save his life, but
the scoundrel even found a further delight, a yet keener one, in arranging
to have himself given what he wished without being obliged to make any
return.
This thought led to others; numerous criminal possibilities entered
his head, and their effect was to increase his perfidious lubricity. And
this is how he set about the matter so as to put the maximum of infamy and
piquancy into the scene:
His mansion stood facing a spot where criminals are sometimes executed
in Paris, and as this particular offense had been committed in that quarter
of the city, he won assurance the punishment would be meted out on this