Fathers did not omit to cultivate my inclinations. A young monk gave me such excellent lessons, that I should have thought myself guilty of ingratitude towards the others if I had not let them know that I was also in a condition to give lessons myself. I had already acquitted myself with each of them, when they made a proposal to put me into a place where I should renew my payments as often as I pleased. Till then I had only been able to do it secretly, sometimes behind the altar, at others before, or in a confessional, but very rarely in a chamber. The idea of being without restraint flattered my taste; I accepted their offers, and entered here.
“On entering I was dressed like a young girl about to go to the altar, and the anticipation of my good fortune threw an air of serenity over my countenance which delighted all the Fathers. They were all on tiptoe to get into my good graces, as being the high-road to getting somewhere else. I foresaw that my nuptials would closely resemble those of the Lapithae, in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
“'My good Fathers,' said I to them, 'your numbers do not frighten me, but I may perhaps have formed an exaggerated estimate of my strength: I fear you will be too many for me; you are twenty, and the match is not even; I beg leave to propose an arrangement. You must all strip naked!' I myself began to set the example, and my gown, stays, and shift were off in a moment. I saw them all in the same condition, and my eyes revelled for a moment in the charming exhibition of twenty tools, stiff, thick, long, and hard as iron bars, all ready for the combat.
“'Come along,' said I; 'it is time to begin. I am going to lie down on this bed; I will open my thighs wide enough for you to effect an entrance by running at me weapon in hand; in this manner shall it be decided; the bunglers will have no one but themselves to blame and if they miss me they will find others at hand ready to supply the means of reducing their members to submission. That is what I propose, gentlemen!'
“They all praised this happy freak of my fancy, and drew lots for the first attack; I prepared the ring, and three passed without entering, and fell upon the sisters, who soon made them forget the mishap in all sorts of pleasures. A fourth came; it was yourself, Father Prior. With what lively transports did I repay your skill! And if the ecstasy produced by a mutual discharge causes conception, you share the honor of having begotten Silas with four or five who followed you. -Yes, my friend,” continued she addressing me; “you have the advantage of most men, who may perhaps be able to say when they were born, but not when they were begotten.”
Such were our conversations, and such were the pleasures that we had in the fish-house. I was never the last to arrive. Every night I visited the Prior or the steward; I was indefatigable, and became the leader of the band. In short I was the very soul of our meetings, and my tool passed into the hands of all, old and young.
Reflection would, however, sometimes arise in the very midst of our voluptuousness; all the sisters appeared delighted with their lot. I could not conceive how women of a gay and dissipated turn could voluntarily pass their life in such seclusion, live there without disgust, and relish pleasures which were purchased at the price of little less than absolute slavery. When I expressed my opinion to this effect they laughed at my surprise, and could not imagine how I came by such absurd ideas.
“You know very little of our temperament,” said one of the prettiest to me one day, “and that libertinism, the deceitful fruit of a cultivated education, has thrown us into the arms of our monks; is it not true, that it is more natural to be more sensible to good than ill?” I assented.
“Should you make any difficulty,” continued she, “of enduring one disagreeable hour of the day, if you were certain of great happiness in the following hour?”
“No, certainly not,” said I.
“Very well then,” said she, “instead of an hour say a day; of two, one shall be for dullness, the other for pleasure; and I think you too prudent to refuse such a chance if you had the offer of it. I will even go further and say, that the most indifferent of men would not refuse it, and the cause is very clear. Pleasure is the 'primum mobile' of all human actions, though disguised under a thousand different names, according to the characters of men, and in this particular there is as great a variety among our sex; but in them the love of pleasure is an overwhelming passion; even their most indifferent actions as well as their most serious thoughts spring from this common source, and always bear, however they be disguised, the mark or stamp of their origin. Nature has given us stronger desires, and consequently much more difficult to satisfy than yours. A few strums are sufficient to exhaust a man, while they only animate us; say six, but a woman can stand above twice than number. The sentiment of pleasure is then twice as powerful in a woman as in a man; and if you should think yourself fortunate could you purchase one day of joy by a day of anxiety, do you think it strange that I am content with a double portion. Should you be surprised at my passing two-thirds of my life in pain that I might pass the other in pleasure? I have supposed an equality between us; when you see us continually occupied with what composes the sovereign happiness of woman, when we are continually in your arms, tell me, do you think it possible for us to think of the pain, or that it can have any influence over us? Shall you not find our condition a thousand times more agreeable than that of those unfortunate girls, who, though born with passions as violent as other women, linger in solitude under pressure of desires that no man might satisfy. Here we fear nothing; free from all the inquietudes of life, we have only its charms; we have the delights of love without anything to counterbalance them, and we only perceive the difference of the days by the variety of pleasures they bring us. You are wrong. Father Silas, if you think us unhappy.”
I did not expect to hear such just reasoning from a girl that I deemed to be only capable of sensual pleasure. She seemed born for the occupation she had adopted; I profited by her propensity to love, and we gratified our passions at leisure.
Man is not always happy; I became melancholy; I was in sexual desire what Alexander was in ambition; I wanted to lie with every woman in all the world, and then to find a new one for the same purpose. I had always borne off the prize in our amorous combats, but from being the bravest, I soon sunk into the most backward. The continual enjoyment of pleasure had destroyed its piquancy, and I was with the sisters what a husband is to his wife. The indisposition of my mind soon affected my body; they reproached me bitterly with my indifference without any effect, and it required all the Prior's affection to induce me to go to the fish-house. He entreated our sisters to set about curing me, and they neglected nothing that might effect it. One who voluptuously reclined on a bed showed me her bosom; a little well formed leg, and thighs as white as snow, promised me a beautiful bower; another in the attitude of a woman who presents herself for the combat, showed how eager she was to be at it; and others, in different postures, tickling their slits, expressed by their sighs the pleasures they felt. Some stripped themselves, and exhibited everything without a veil. One leaning on a sofa would show me the reverse of the medal; another lying on a bed of black satin exposed the front; a third made me lie down on the floor between two chairs; and in this position I saw her work away with a dildo, while another was rogering stark naked close before me with a monk in the same condition; in short, they offered to my view the most lecherous images, sometimes all together, at others successively.
On some occasions they laid me down on a settee; one sister placed herself astride over my neck so that my chin was enveloped in her hair; another placed herself on my belly; a third on my thighs tried to introduce my instrument; two others were placed at my side, so that I held a quim in each hand; and one a my head leaned over and pressed my face between her bubbles; all were naked, all frigged, and all spent; my hands, my thighs, my belly, my neck, my staff, were perfectly inundated; I swam in spunk, but had none of my own to mix with it. This last ceremony, called the question extraordinary, was just as useless as the preceding ones: I was entirely given up, and my cure was left to nature.
Such was my condition, when one day as I was walking in the garden alone, and meditating on my unhappy destiny, I met Father Simeon, a profound character, who had grown grey in the service of Venus and Bacchus, and, like the ancient Nestor, had seen the inmates of the convent several times changed. He came up to me, and, embracing me, said:
“O my son, your grief is heavy, but do not be alarmed, I will cure you. Unlimited dissipation, my friend, has caused your indisposition; your diseased appetite must be stimulated by succulent dishes; a devotee is also necessary for you.”
I could not refrain from laughing at the phlegmatic manner with which the Father recommended such a course of treatment.
“You laugh,” said he; “but I speak seriously. You do not know these devotees, and are ignorant of their resources for rekindling fires when almost extinguished. I have experienced them myself. O happy days, whither have ye fled! No one speaks now of the vigorous Father Simeon.”
I could scarcely avoid a loud laugh, but the fear of offending him made me refrain.
“O my son,” continued he, “take advantage of your youth; the only means of arousing you from this lethargy is
