Justine

‘Good gentlemen,’ I cried, extending my arms towards them, ‘kindly take pity on an unfortunate creature whose fate is more to be commiserated than you might think. Few of the reverses which men meet in life can be equal to mine. Do not let the situation in which you have found me arouse your suspicions, for it is the result of my poverty rather than my errors. Instead of increasing the sum of evils which crush me, you can, on the contrary, diminish it by helping me find a means of escape from the misfortunes which continually pursue me.

Monsieur de Bressac, for that was the name of the young man into whose hands I had fallen, had an undue amount of the libertine in his character, but had not been provided with an equal abundance of compassion in his heart. It is, nevertheless, unfortunately only too common to see the debauchery of the senses completely extinguish pity in man. In fact the usual effect of such a life seems to be that of hardening the heart. Whether the greater number of such deviations arise on the basis of a kind of apathy in the soul, or whether they are the result of the violent shock which they imprint on the mass of nerves – thus diminishing the sensitive action of these – it can always be said that a professional debauchee is rarely a man of pity. But, to this natural cruelty in the kind of person whose character I have sketched, there was in Monsieur de Bressac such a marked and additional disgust for our sex, such an inveterate hatred for all that distinguishes it, that it was extremely difficult for me to encourage in his soul those sentiments by which I longed to see him moved.

‘Anyway, my little wood-pigeon, just what are you doing here?’

Such was the only response of this man whom I wished to soften, and it was spoken harshly enough.

‘Tell me the truth! – You saw everything that happened between this young man and myself, didn’t you?’

‘Me? – Oh no, Monsieur!’ I cried quickly, believing I did no wrong in disguising the truth. ‘You may rest assured that I saw only the most ordinary things. I saw you, your friend and yourself, seated together on the grass. I believe I noticed that you chatted together for a moment. But rest completely assured that is all I saw!’

‘I would like to believe you,’ replied Monsieur de Bressac, ‘if only for your own safety. For if I suspected for an instant that you had seen anything else you would certainly never leave this thicket. Come, Jasmin, it is early enough, and we have time to listen to this slut’s adventures. She shall recount them to us immediately; and then we can tie her to this great oak and try out our hunting knives on her body.’

The young men sat down and ordered me to sit near them. Then I told them, quite truthfully, all that had happened to me since I had found myself alone in the world.

‘Jasmin,’ said Monsieur de Bressac, rising as soon as I had finished, ‘let us be just for once in our lives, my dear. The equitable Themis has already condemned this hussy, and we cannot allow the goddess’s wishes to be so cruelly frustrated. We shall ourselves execute upon this criminal the sentence she has incurred. What we are about to commit is not a crime, my friend, it is a virtue, a re-establishment of the order of things. And as we sometimes have the misfortune to disorganise this order, let us courageously right matters – at least when the opportunity presents itself.’

And the heartless men, having pulled me from my place, dragged me towards the tree they had spoken of, without being touched either by my sobs or my tears.

‘Tie her here, in this manner,’ said Bressac to his valet, as he held me with my belly against the tree.

Using their garters and their handkerchiefs, in a moment they had me so painfully tied down that it was impossible for me to move a single muscle. This operation achieved, the villains removed my skirts, lifted my chemise as high as my shoulders, and took out their hunting knives. I thought for a minute that they were going to cleave open my posteriors which had been uncovered by their brutality.

‘That’s enough,’ said Bressac before I had received a single cut. ‘That’s enough to acquaint her with what we could do to her, to keep her dependent on us. Sophie,’ he continued, as he untied the cords, ‘dress yourself, be discreet, and follow us. If you remain loyal to me, my child, you shall have no excuse for repentance. My mother needs a second chambermaid, and I am going to present you to her. On the strength of your story I can guarantee your conduct to her, but if you abuse my kindness or betray my confidence – then remember this tree which will become your death bed. It is only a mile or two from the castle to which we are taking you, and at the slightest fault you will be brought back here.’

Already dressed, I could scarcely find words to thank my benefactor. I threw myself at his feet, embraced his knees, and gave him every assurance possible as to my good behaviour. But he was as insensible to my joy as he had been to my suffering.

‘Let’s get going,’ he exclaimed. ‘Your conduct will speak for you, and that alone will decide your fate.’

We continued to make our way. Jasmin and his master talked together, and I followed them humbly without saying word. In less than an hour we arrived at the castle of Madame la Comtesse de Bressac, and its magnificence gave me the impression that whatever position I should fill in this household it would assuredly be more lucrative than that of housekeeper to Monsieur and Madame Du Harpin. I was made to wait in one of the servants’ rooms, where Jasmin gave me a very good lunch. Meanwhile Monsieur de Bressac went up to see his mother, told her all about me and, half an hour later, came to find me himself so that he might introduce me to her.

Madame de Bressac was a woman of forty-five, still very beautiful; and she appeared to be extremely honourable and courteous – but, above all, very kind and human. Nevertheless, a little severity seemed blended in her manner and her speech. She had lost her husband two years previously. He had been a man of unusually distinguished family, but had married her with no other fortune than the celebrated name he gave her. Thus all the benefits which the young Marquis de Bressac could hope for depended on his mother, since what his father had been able to leave him was scarcely enough to live on. Madame de Bressac, however, had augmented this by a considerable allowance. But much more would have been necessary to meet the enormous, as well as the irregular, expenses of her son. There were at least sixty thousand livres of revenue in this house and Monsieur de Bressac had neither brothers nor sisters. Nobody had been able to persuade him to enter the army – for everything which separated him from his chosen pleasures was so insupportable to him that it was impossible to make him accept any tie. For three months of the year the Comtesse and her son lived on their country estate, the remainder of their time being spent in Paris. And these three months, which she insisted her son spend with her, were already a severe torture for a man who could never leave the centre of his pleasures without giving way to despair.

The Marquis de Bressac ordered me to tell his mother the same things which I had related to him; and when I had finished my recital she looked at me and said: ‘Your candour and your naïvety do not permit me to doubt your innocence. I shall ask no further questions of you, except that I would like to know if you are really, as you say, the daughter of the gentleman you have mentioned. If such is the case, I knew your father, and it will give me yet another reason for being even more interested in your welfare. As for your affair at the Du Harpin household, I shall take it upon myself to bring that to a satisfactory conclusion with a couple of visits to the Chancellor – who has been my friend for many years. He is the greatest man of integrity in France, and it will only be necessary to prove your innocence to him in order to bring to naught everything that has been done against you. Then you will be able to reappear in Paris without the slightest fear…But reflect well, Sophie – everything I promise you here is only to be given at the price of the most perfect behaviour. In this way whatever I ask of you will always turn to your profit.’

I threw myself at the feet of Madame de Bressac, assuring her that she would never be anything other than pleased with me; and from that moment I was installed in her home in the position of second chambermaid. After three days the enquiries which Madame de Bressac had made in Paris concerning me brought in all the confirmation I could desire. Every idea of misfortune evaporated at last from my mind, never to be replaced save by the hope of the sweetest consolations I could possibly expect. But it was not written in heaven that poor Sophie should ever be happy, and if a few moments of calm were fortuitously granted her, it was only to render more bitter those horrors which were to follow.

We had barely arrived in Paris before Madame de Bressac began to work for my benefit. A high official asked to see me, listening to my misfortunes with interest. The dishonesty of Du Harpin was thoroughly investigated and fully admitted, and my questioners were convinced that even if I had profited by the fire in the court prisons, at least I had had nothing to do with the starting of it. Finally all proceedings against me were erased from the records (a matter on which they assured me), and the examining magistrates no longer found it necessary to engage in further formalities.

It is easy to imagine the extent to which such circumstances attached me to Madame de Bressac – even had she not shown me many additional kindnesses. Considering such acts as these, how could I be anything other than bound for ever to such a precious protectress? It had, nevertheless, been far from the intentions of the young Marquis de Bressac that I should become so intimately devoted to his mother. Quite apart from the frightful dissipations in which the young man wallowed, the nature of which I have already revealed to you, and into which he plunged with an even more blind prodigality than he had in the country, I was not long in noticing that he absolutely detested the Comtesse. It is true that she did everything in the world to prevent his debauches – or to interfere with them. But she employed, perhaps, too much severity and the Marquis, inflamed even more by the effects of this stringency, gave himself up to libertinism with even greater ardour. Thus the poor Comtesse drew no profit from her persecutions other than that of making herself the object of a sovereign hate.

‘You mustn’t imagine,’ the Marquis often said to me, ‘that my mother acts in your interest entirely of her own volition. Believe me, Sophie, if I didn’t pester her continually, she would scarcely remember the promises she made you. You value her every act, yet all she does has been suggested by me. I am not, therefore, claiming too much when I say that it is only to me that you owe any gratitude. What I demand in return should seem to you even more disinterested, since you are well enough acquainted with my tastes to be quite certain that, however pretty you may be, I shall never lay any claim to your favours. No, Sophie, no, the services I expect of you are of quite another kind. And when you are fully convinced of all I have done for you, I hope that I shall find in your heart everything I have a right to expect.’

These speeches seemed so obscure to me that I never knew how to reply to them. I made random remarks, however – and with perhaps a little too much facility.

Which brings me, Madame, to the moment when I must inform you of the only real fault for which I have felt any need to reproach myself during the whole of my life. While I am describing it as a fault, it was certainly an unparalleled extravagance, but at least it was not a crime. It was a simple enough error, and one for which only I myself was punished; but it also seems to me one which heaven’s equitable hand ought not to have employed to draw me into the abyss which, unknown to me, was opening beneath my feet It had been impossible for me to see the Marquis de Bressac without feeling myself attracted to him by an impulse of tenderness which nothing had been able to quell in me. Whatever reflections I may have made on his lack of interest in women, on the depravity of his tastes, on the moral distances which separated us, nothing, nothing in the world could extinguish this nascent passion. And if the Marquis had asked me for my life, I would have sacrificed it to him a thousand times, feeling that such an action would be as nothing. He was far from suspecting the feelings I entertained for him, as these were carefully locked up in my heart…Ungrateful as he was, he could never discern the cause of those tears which the miserable Sophie shed, day after day, over the shameful disorders which were destroying him. It was, nevertheless, impossible that he could avoid noticing my personal attention to him; for, blinded by my devotion, I went even so far as to serve his errors – at least in so far as decency permitted me – and I always concealed them from his mother.

My conduct had thus earned me something of his confidence, and each small thing he said to me became precious. I allowed myself, in short, to become so dazzled by the little he offered my heart that there were times when I was arrogant enough to believe that I was not indifferent to him. But time after time the excess of his disorders would promptly disabuse me. They were such that not only was the house filled with servants given up to the same execrable tastes as the Marquis, but he even hired outside a crowd of bad characters whom he visited, or who came to see him day by day. And as such tastes, odious as they are, are not the least expensive, the young man disorganised his finances prodigiously. Sometimes I took the liberty of representing to him all the inconveniences of his conduct. He would listen to me without repugnance, but always ended by explaining that it was impossible to correct the kind of vice by which he was dominated and which reproduced itself under a thousand diverse forms. There was a different nuance of this deviation for every age of man, offering continually new sensations every ten years, and thus enabling it to hold its unfortunate devotees in bondage right to the very edge of the grave…But if I attempted to speak to him of his mother and the sorrow he brought her, he would show nothing but vexation, ill-humour, irritation, and impatience. And when he considered for how long she had held a fortune which he felt should already be his, he expressed the most inveterate hatred for this honourable and upright woman, backed by the most unswerving revolt against natural sentiment. Is it then true that when one has so definitely transgressed against the sacred rules of morality and sobriety, the necessary consequence of one’s first crime should be a frightful facility in committing all the others with impunity?

Several times I tried to employ religious argument with him. Nearly always being consoled by my own faith, I attempted to transmit some of its sweetness to the soul of this perverse creature, for I was convinced that I might captivate him by these means if only I could tempt him for a moment to partake of their delights. But the Marquis did not long allow me to employ such methods. The declared enemy of our holy mysteries, a self-opinionated and obstinate railer against the purity of our doctrines, a passionate antagonist against the existence of a Supreme Being, Monsieur de Bressac, instead of being converted by me, sought all the more to corrupt me.