ate, drank, and talked bawdily. They railed me severely because I could not eat; and I was ill able to defend myself, being altogether absorbed in other matters: the desire of finding my mother, and of having a skirmish with one of the sisters. I endeavored to read in their eyes which of them it was that had brought me into the world; but, although engaged with the Fathers, they threw glances at me which upset my conjectures. I stupidly imagined that I should recognise my mother by instinct; but I found that I was equally inclined to them all, and that my lance was quite ready to enter the lists with any or all of them.
My disturbed air was highly diverting to the company; but when the meal was dispatched, every thing was properly disposed for the enjoyment of the pleasures of love. The eyes of our adorables began to sparkle, and as a newcomer, I was expected to lead off in the dance.
“Come, Father Silas,” said the Prior; “you must make a beginning with your neighbor, Sister Gabrielle.”
I had already given and received several kisses, and her hand had even strayed as far as my breeches; she appeared to be the oldest of the six, but I was so far content with her charms as not to envy the lot of any one else. She was a bouncing dame, of a fair complexion and had no personal defect, but rather a superfluity of fat, indeed that was her only fault, if it be one at all. Her skin was of the most dazzling whiteness; her head exceedingly fine, and her eyes large and full of expression. Love made them tender and languishing, but they still exhibited a voluptuous brilliancy.
My desires had not waited for the Prior's exhortation; Gabrielle had excited them, and she gallantly gave herself to the task of satisfying them.
“Come, my king,” said she to me; “I want to have your maidenhead; come and lose it in the place where you commenced your existence.”
I was all of a tremble at hearing this. Without being more virtuous, I had acquired so much knowledge from the monks, that I could not do the same thing with Gabrielle that I had done with Annette. I was just on the point of doing what she requested, but was prevented by a remnant of shame, and retreated from the enterprise.
“Good heavens!” cried Gabrielle, “is it possible that this can be my son? How ever could I bring such a slink- away into the world! He is afraid to have sex With his mother!”
“My dear,” said I embracing her; “be satisfied with my love; if you were not my mother, I should be overjoyed to possess you. I entreat you to respect a weakness that I cannot help,”
The mere semblance of virtue is respectable in the sight of corruption itself; my conduct was praised by the monks, who acknowledged that they were in the wrong, except one who wanted to argue the matter with me.
“Poor simpleton!” said he, “Why do you shrink from an action so indifferent? Is not sex the joining together of a man and a woman? Is this natural or contrary to nature? It is evidently natural, since they both have an irresistible propensity to indulge in it; and it is equally clear that nature intends them to enjoy it as their feelings impel them. If God said to our first fathers, 'Increase and multiply,' how did he mean the multiplication to be effected? Adam had daughters, and he laid them. Eve had sons, who did with her what their father had done with their sisters. Let us come down to the deluge. The only person left in the world were Noah and his family; it was consequently necessary for the brother to lie with the sister, the son with the mother, and the father with the daughter, that the earth might be repeopled. Some ages after, when Lot fled from Sodom, his two daughters, who kept in view the intention of the Creator, and had just seen their good mother turned into a statue for being a little curious, cried out in the bitterness of their hearts: 'Alas! alas! The end of the world is near.' They would have been highly culpable in the eyes of God, had they not contributed to re-establish what he had just destroyed; and Lot, convinced of this truth, contributed thereto with all his might. In this instance you see Nature in her primitive simplicity. Men, subjected from the beginning to her laws, thought it a duty to follow them, but were soon led astray by their passions and forgot the ordinances of their bountiful mother; they would not continue in the happy state in which she had placed them; they turned every thing topsy-turvy, invented divers chimeras which they denominated vices, and framed laws, which, instead of promoting the cause of virtue, were abundantly productive of vice. These laws have engendered many prejudices, which have been patronised by blockheads and ridiculed by sages, and have taken root more deeply from age to age. When these meddling lawmakers overthrew the laws of nature, they ought to have modified the hearts which she gave us, and also to have regulated our desires and fixed some limits to their extravagances. Nature, speaking from the bottom of our hearts, continually protests against the injustice of their laws. In a word, poking without any distinction of persons is a divine institution, and the limited system is a human scheme. The former is as much above the latter as the heavens are above the earth. Is it possible, indeed, for any one without criminality to listen to man rather than to God? Certainly not; and St. Paul, the sacred interpreter of the will of heaven, has said: 'Rather than burn in Hell, give yourself to sexual indulgence, my children!' It is true that to avoid giving scandal to narrow minds, he somewhat veils the idea, and makes use of the expressive saying, 'It is better to marry than to bum'; but it is still the same thing in reality, for one only marries to have the pleasure of poking at discretion. How much more could I speak to you of this matter, if I did not feel the urgent necessity of following St. Paul's wise recommendation!”
He had a hearty laugh at his sally; the old rip rose from his seat, and spear in hand menaced all the slits in the room.
“Wait a moment,” said Sister Madelon; “I have thought of a plan to punish Silas.”
“What is it?” exclaimed they all.
“To make him lie down upon a bed; Gabrielle shall place herself along his back, and the Father who has just been speaking like an oracle, shall give her a good strumming in that position.”
The whole company laughed at this proposal, and I said that I readily consented, on the condition that while the Father rogered Gabrielle, I should be at work on the inventor of this precious punishment.
“Oh, if that's all, I am quite agreeable to it!” said she.
The scheme was applauded, and we all began to take our positions. Just imagine what an exhibition that must be. The Father did not make a single stroke at my mother without having it instantly repaid threefold; and her arse, in falling again on mine, drove me into Madelon to admiration, this one-on-the-other poking was diverting enough for the bystanders, but we were too seriously occupied to laugh. I could, had I so pleased, have easily revenged myself on Madelon by letting the weight of three bodies fall on her; but she was too loving, and labored away with too much good will to let me think of doing any such thing. Although I eased her as much as I could, it was rather hard upon her, for as my discharge came on before our upper partners were in the same condition, the excess of pleasure made me almost motionless. Gabrielle perceived this, and several spirited heaves of her arse did for me that which I had not the power to do for myself, and at the same time increased her own pleasures by making her spend also.
The elogium that we made of this fashion of stroking excited the monks and the sisters, who all began to make arrangements for poking a le quatuor, which is the name we gave to this posture, and we again showed them how to do it. The best discoveries are generally due to nature.
Gabrielle was so charmed with this manner of proceeding, that she said she never before knew to what an extent the pleasures of nature may be heightened by a proper mixture of art, and she had experienced more ecstasy than when she did me the honor of laying the foundation for my own individual person. We were curious to know the circumstances to which she alluded and entreated her to detail them.
Beauregard de Farniente
The Adventures of Father Silas
CHAPTER FIVE
“I have no objection,” said she, “and shall do it the more willingly, as Silas knows nothing of his mother more than he has learned this evening, and has still to learn whence she came and how she happens to be here. Allow me, Fathers, to give him this information, and to go back somewhat farther in my history than the day you wish me to speak of.-My friend,” continued she, addressing me, “you will not hear any tale of illustrious ancestors, for I have never heard that I had any. I am the daughter of a woman who used to let chairs in the church of this convent and who took her pleasures from the Fathers of that time, for she was too good a friend of the convent for me to suppose that I am indebted for my existence to the honest man, her husband.
“At ten years of age I did not belie my extraction, for I knew what it was to love before I knew myself, and the
