this harangue... this terrible order, i felt, left me no shifts, but would i not have been guilty had i failed to employ the means my heart prompted in me ? my situation left me this last resource: i fall at dom severino's feet, i employ all a despairing soul's eloquence to supplicate him not to take advantage of my state or abuse it; the bitterest tears spring from my eyes and inundate his knees, all i imagine to be of the strongest, all i believe the most pathetic, i try everything with this man.... great god! what was the use? could i have not known that tears merely enhance the object of a libertine's coveting? how was i able to doubt that everything i attempted in my efforts to sway those savages had the unique effect of arousing them.... "take the bitch," said severino in a rage, "seize her, clement, let her be naked in a minute, and let her learn that it is not in persons like ourselves that compassion stifles nature." my resistance had animated clement, he was foaming at the mouth: he took hold of me, his arm shook nervously; interspersing his actions with appalling blasphemies, he had my clothing torn away in a trice.

"a lovely creature," came from the superior, who ran his fingers over my flanks, "may god blast me if i've ever seen one better made; friends," the monk pursued, "let's put order into our procedures; you know our formula for welcoming newcomers: she might be exposed to the entire ceremony, don't you think? let's omit nothing; and let's have the eight other women stand around us to supply our wants and to excite them."

a circle is formed immediately, i am placed in its center and there, for more than two hours, i am inspected, considered, handled by those four monks, who, one after the other, pronounce either encomiums or criticisms.

you will permit me, madame, our lovely prisoner said with a blush, to conceal a part of the obscene details of this odious ritual; allow your imagination to figure all that debauch can dictate to villains in such instances; allow it to see them move to and fro between my companions and me, comparing, confronting, contrasting, airing opinions, and indeed it still will not have but a faint idea of what was done in those initial orgies, very mild, to be sure, when matched against all the horrors i was soon to experience.

"let's to it," says severino, whose prodigiously exalted desires will brook no further restraint and who in this dreadful state gives the impression of a tiger about to devour its prey, "let each of us advance to take his favorite pleasure." and placing me upon a couch in the posture expected by his execrable projects and causing me to be held by two of his monks, the infamous man attempts to satisfy himself in that criminal and perverse fashion which makes us to resemble none but the sex we do not possess while degrading the one we have; but either the shameless creature is too strongly proportioned, or nature revolts in me at the mere suspicion of these pleasures; severino cannot overcome the obstacles; he presents himself, and he is repulsed immediately.... he spreads, he presses, thrusts, tears, all his efforts are in vain; in his fury the monster lashes out against the altar at which he cannot speak his prayers; he strikes it, he pinches it, he bites it; these brutalities are succeeded by renewed challenges; the chastened flesh yields, the gate cedes, the ram bursts through; terrible screams rise from my throat; the entire mass is swifty engulfed, and darting its venom the next moment, robbed then of its strength, the snake gives ground before the movements i make to expel it, and severino weeps with rage. never in my life have i suffered so much.

clement steps forward; he is armed with a cat-o'-nine-tails; his perfidious designs glitter in his eyes.

"'tis i," says he to severino, "'tis i who shall avenge you, father, i shall correct this silly drab for having resisted your pleasures." he has no need of anyone else to hold me; with one arm he enlaces me and forces me, belly down, across his knees; what is going to serve his caprices is nicely discovered. at first, he tries a few blows, it seems they are merely intended as a prelude; soon inflamed by lust, the beast strikes with all his force; nothing is exempt from his ferocity; everything from the small of my back to the lower part of my thighs, the traitor lays cuts upon it all; daring to mix love with these moments of cruelty, he fastens his mouth to mine and wishes to inhale the sighs agony wrests from me... my tears flow, he laps them up, now he kisses, now he threatens, but the rain of blows continues; while he operates, one of the women excites him; kneeling before him, she works with each hand at diverse tasks; the greater her success, the more violent the strokes delivered me; i am nigh to being rent and nothing yet announces the end of my sufferings; he has exhausted every possibility, still he drives on; the end i await is to be the work of his delirium alone; a new cruelty stiffens him: my breasts are at the brute's mercy, he irritates them, uses his teeth upon them, the cannibal snaps, bites, this excess determines the crisis, the incense escapes him. frightful cries, terrifying blasphemies, shouts characterize its spurtings, and the monk, enervated, turns me over to jerome.

"i will be no more of a threat to your virtue than clement was," said this libertine as he caressed the blood-spattered altar at which clement had just sacrificed, "but i should indeed like to kiss the furrows where the plow passed; i too am worthy to open them, and should like to pay them my modest respects; but i should like even more," went on the old satyr, inserting a finger where severino had lodged himself, "i should like to have the hen lay, and 'twould be most agreeable to devour its egg... does one exist? why, yes indeed, by god!... oh, my dear, dear little girl! how very soft..."

his mouth takes the place of his finger... i am told what i have to do, full of disgust i do it. in my situation, alas, am i permitted to refuse? the infamous one is delighted... he swallows, then, forcing me to kneel before him, he glues himself to me in this position; his ignominious passion is appeased in a fashion that cannot justify any complaint on my part. while he acts thus, the fat woman flogs him, another puts herself directly above his mouth and acquits herself of the same task i have just been obliged to execute.

"'tis not enough," says the monster, "each one of my hands has got to contain... for one cannot get one's fill of these goodies." the two prettiest girls approach; they obey: there you have the excesses to which satiety has led jerome. at any rate, thanks to impurities he is happy, and at the end of half an hour, my mouth finally receives, with a loathing you must readily appreciate, this evil man's disgusting homage.

antonin appears. "well," says he, "let's have a look at this so very spotless virtue; i wonder whether, damaged by a single assault, it is really what the girl maintains." his weapon is raised and trained upon me; he would willingly employ clement's devices: i have told you that active flagellation pleases him quite as much as it does the other monk but, as he is in a hurry, the state in which his colleague has put me suffices him: he examines this state, relishes it, and leaving me in that attitude of which they are all so fond, he spends an instant pawing the two hemispheres poised at the entrance; in a fury, he rattles the temple's porticos, he is soon at the sanctuary; although quite as violent as severino's, antonin's assault, launched against a less narrow passage, is not as painful to endure; the energetic athlete seizes my haunches and, supplying the movements i am unable to make, he shakes me, pulls me to him vivaciously; one might judge by this hercules' redoubling efforts that, not content to be master of the place, he wishes to reduce it to a shambles. such terrible attacks, so new to me, cause me to succumb; but unconcerned for my pain, the cruel victor thinks of nothing but increasing his pleasure; everything embraces, everything conspires to his voluptuousness; facing him, raised upon my flanks, the fifteen year-old girl, her legs spread open, offers his mouth the altar at which he sacrifices in me: leisurely, he pumps that precious natural juice whose emission nature has only lately granted the young child; on her knees, one of the older women bends toward my vanquisher's loins, busies herself about them and with her impure tongue animating his desires, she procures them their ecstasy while, to inflame himself yet further, the debauchee excites a woman with either hand; there is not one of his senses which is not tickled, not one which does not concur in the perfection of his delirium; he attains it, but my unwavering horror for all these infamies inhibits me from sharing it.... he arrives there alone; his jets, his cries, everything proclaims it and, despite myself, i am flooded with the proofs of a fire i am but one of six to light; and thereupon i fall back upon the throne which has just been the scene of my immolation, no longer conscious of my existence save through my pain and my tears... my despair and my remorse.

however, dom severino orders the women to bring me food; but far from being quickened by these attentions, an access of furious grief assails my soul. i, who located all my glory, all my felicity in my virtue, i who thought that, provided i remained well-behaved at all times, i could be consoled for all fortune's ills, i cannot bear the horrible idea of seeing myself so cruelly sullied by those from whom i should have been able to expect the greatest comfort and aid: my tears flowed in abundance, my cries made the vault ring; i rolled upon the floor, i lacerated my breast, tore my hair, invoked my butchers, begged them to bestow death upon me... and, madame, would you believe it? this terrible sight excited them all the more.