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

seek a wife in order to have a mistress? I want a wife that my whims may be
served, I want her to veil, to cover an infinite number of little secret
debauches the cloak of marriage wonderfully conceals. In a word, I want her
for the reasons you want my daughter - do you fancy I am ignorant of your
object and desires? We libertines wed women to hold slaves: as wives they
are rendered more submissive than mistresse, and you know the value we set
upon despotism in the joys we pursue."
It was at this point Durcet entered. His two friends related their
conversation and, delighted by an overture which promptly induced him to
avow the sentiments he too had conceived for Adelaide, the President's,
Durcet accepted the Duc as his son-in-law, provided he might become
Curval's. The three marriages were speedily concluded, the dowries were
immense, the wedding contracts identical.
No less culpable than his two colleagues, the President had admitted
to Durcet, who betrayed no displeasure upon learning it, that he maintained
a little clandestine commerce with his own daughter; the three fathers,
each wishing not only to preserve his rights, but noticing here the
possibility of extending them, commonly agreed that the three young ladies,
bound to their husbands by goods and homes only, would not in body belong
more to one than to any of them, and the severest punishments were
prescribed for her who should take it into her head not to comply with any
of the conditions whereunto she was subject.
They were on the eve of realizing their plan when the Bishop of X***,
already closebound through pleasure shared with his brother's two friends,
proposed contributing a fourth element to the alliance should the other
three gentlemen consent to his participation in the affair. This element,
the Duc's second daughter and hence the Bishop's niece, was already more
thoroughly his property than was generally imagined. He had effected
connections with his sister-in-law and the two brothers knew beyond all
shadow of doubt that the existence of this maiden, who was called Aline,
was far more accurately to be ascribed to the Bishop than to the Duc; the
former who, from the time she left the cradle, had taken the girl into his
keeping, had not, as one may well suppose, stood idle as the years brought
her charms to flower. And so, upon this head, he was his colleagues' equal,
and the article he offered to put on the market was in an equal degree
damaged or degraded; but as Aline's attractions and tender youth outshone
even those of her three companions, she was unhesitatingly made a part of
the bargain. As had the other three, the Bishop yielded her up, but
retained the rights to her use; and so each of our four characters thus
found himself husband to four wives. Thus there resulted an arrangement
which, for the reader's convenience, we shall recapitulate:
The Duc, Julie's father, became the husband of Constance, Durcet's
daughter;
Durcet, Constance's father, became the husband of Adelaide, the
President's daughter;
The President, Adelaide's father, became the husband of Julie, the
Duc's elder daughter;
And the Bishop, Aline's uncle and father, became the husband of the
other three females by ceding this same Aline to his friends, the while
retaining the same rights over her.