miserably informed are those who think that our lives consist of one string of uninterrupted joy and pleasure! All the crawling and despicable slaves who live in the courts of this world and who can only maintain their positions by suffering uncounted humiliations, submissive servility and continuous hypocrisy, still don't suffer half as much disappointment or undergo as many humiliations as the girls of our profession. It is not at all difficult for me to make the following statement: if our suffering were to be considered a merit and would be counted as penance for our deeds in this world, there would hardly be one among us who would not have her place in the histories of the martyrs or be worthy of canonization. Although a miserable desire for money may have been the motive for our prostitution, the oppressive general contempt, the outrageous humiliation and the insults we have to suffer are more than fair punishment for it. One must have been a whore to fully understand the terror of this trade. It is not without shuddering that I am trying to remember the hardships I had to endure during my apprenticeship. And still I must admit: how many are there who have suffered far more than I? Maybe that one who is driven around triumphantly in a golden, charmingly painted coach, laquered by Martin, that one — I dare say — who displays an almost revolting luxury matching the perverted and filthy taste of her benefactor. Who would believe that she is considered to be the meanest among the servants, that this same person is the pitiful object of the arrogance, wantonness and brutality of the meanest canaille, in short, that she may still bear the visible marks of physical punishment? I repeat: everything that seems pleasant and alluring in our profession is but illusion and far from the truth. There is nothing more humiliating, nothing more terrifying.
One cannot imagine — unless one knows from bitter experience — the excesses and aberrations of which many men are capable when they are caught in the delirium of their passions. I have known many who received their most voluptuous pleasures by being whipped, or who derived the same ecstasy from whipping another, and it has often happened that I was forced — after I had thoroughly whipped or boxed someone black and blue — to undergo similar tortures. It must seem simply amazing that there are always girls available who endure such a way of life patiently.
But it is amazing what the taste of lasciviousness, avarice, sloth and the hope of a happy future can bring about in people.
During the nearly four months that I stayed at Madame Florence's house, I may pride myself that I went through the most complete course on how to become a woman of pleasure. And when I left this excellent school I possessed all the skill and dexterity necessary to satisfy the old-fashioned and modern ways of lust, to bring about artful variations in the release of passion and to be fully conversant in every thinkable form of gymnastics in the field of lechery and fornication.
A small adventure which went beyond the limits of my endurance made me decide to start working on my own account and to live by myself. It happened as follows:
One day we were visited by an entire band of soldiers whose passions were as hot as their purses were empty. They had liberally sacrificed to Bacchus and thereupon decided to bestow their adoration upon the ladies of Venus.
Unfortunately, only two of us were at the house at that time. And to make it worse, my colleague was taking a cure with a strengthening medicine which tempered her ardor and made it temporarily impossible for her to be of any use to these visiting gentlemen. Thus I was left completely alone with them. In vain I tried to respectfully point out to them that it was absolutely impossible to properly satisfy the demands of so many people at once. But, whether I wanted to or not, I had to do whatever they desired. Finally I had to endure thirty attacks within two hours. Oh, how T wished that some devout ladies would have wanted to take my place and undergo the brutal treatment I received so they might have worked toward the redemption of their eternal souls! But as far as I, miserable sinner, am concerned, I have to admit that it was far from me to endure this entire affair patiently and to top if off with a Christian blessing for my rapists. I did not cease during this entire scene to heap the most incredible blasphemies upon their heads. After all, too much is too much. I was so gorged with sensual delights that I was no longer capable of digesting them.
CHAPTER SIX. A HOME OF MY OWN
After this vulgar and brutal visitation it was clear, even to Madame Florence, that it was useless to try and talk me into staying at the house any longer. She agreed to our separation with the condition that I would be available to render my services whenever the house needed extra help. And thus we said our farewells with mutual understanding and respect. I bought a few pieces of furniture with which I decorated a small home in the rue d'Argen-teuil and believed that I had succeeded in escaping police supervision. But what is the use of human cunning when fate has decided against us? Jealous, wrongful accusations disturbed the peace of my seclusion and disrupted my carefully laid plans just when I least expected it.
Among the shameless debauchees that secretly visited me was one who, whilst in a very bad humor, tried to make me responsible for a certain very critical indisposition he had suddenly contracted. I arrogantly listened to his wild accusations. His rantings became louder and louder and he treated me in such a shameful manner that two or three whores in the neighborhood who were very jealous of my success ran to the police and blackened my reputation. They were so successful that I was picked up and carted off to Bicetre.
The first ceremony to which I had to submit myself consisted of an examination with more than the necessary touching and feeling by four or five medical students at Saint-Come. They decided unanimously that I had spoiled blood and they condemned me to undergo immediately and without contradiction a sanitation experiment. Hie et nunc; here and now. After I had been properly prepared, which means I was given a bloodletting, an enema and a bath, I was rubbed all over with that certain powerful greasiness in which many globules are suspended that divide and thin out the lymphatic fluids by their activity and heaviness and thus restore the natural flow.
One does not have to be surprised that I am so conversant with the professional terminology. I had plenty of time to learn them all during the more than a month I spent with those blood cleansers. And, moreover, is there anything about which we pleasure girls are not able to talk since we have received our education from the public? Is there any profession or trade or craft about which we don't have the constant opportunity to hear conversation? The warrior, the lawyer, the financier, the philosopher and the man of the cloth… all these people try to do business with us in the same time-honored manner. And every one of them speaks the special language of his class. How is it possible to become well educated by so many means and then to pass up the opportunity? I don't know.
During my stay at Bicetre I had the honor to make the acquaintance of several demoiselles whose names I would not dare mention for fear of incurring the wrath of some of the highest ranking men in the kingdom whose idols these girls had become. There are personages that have to be respected despite the depravity of their inclinations. It is not fitting for us to criticize the way of life of the great men of the world. When they prefer to consort with abject, base, vile and despicable people rather than pay their respects to those who deserve to be honored by everyone and those who possess cultivated sentiments, that is their business.
Every time I was outside in the water basin of Saint-Come I was gripped by the intense desire to run away from my imprisonment. I wrote to all my influential friends in the most ingratiating manner begging them to do their utmost to try to achieve my release. But my letters never reached them, or rather, my friends pretended that they had never received them. I was desperate at the thought that all of them let me sit there. Then I suddenly thought about M. President de L
…, the one who had 'deflowered' me in such an unnatural manner. I begged him to help me and my pleas were not without results. Four days after I had sent my letter I was told that I was free to go. I was so overcome with joy and filled with such intense gratitude for the great service which this magnanimous High Justice rendered me, that it would have greatly pleased me to sacrifice twenty more of my virginities, and each one of them better than its predecessor, he had expressed such a desire.
When I returned to society I could have ended more than ever before upon my harms. It seemed as if the medicine that flowed through my veins had made an entirely different being out of me. I had become a breathtaking beauty though I still lacked one important ingredient. I knew next to nothing about those indefinable secrets which would bring out the advantages Nature had given me with the help of art and cosmetics. I was truly stupid and I believed that a nice complexion, a pleasant facial expression and a good figure were enough to be pleasing. Completely inexperienced and without any knowledge of certain tricks and little frauds the fairer sex employs, I left it up to my pretty face to supply myself with admirers. But I did not draw a single glance. On the contrary, I had to
