LETTER XX
You may well scold me for my prolonged silence, for it is nearly a month since I sent you what you call the most damnably exciting letter you ever read. The truth is that our repeated orgies, at last, became too much for me. The one I last described inaugurated a series of others, much too repetitious for me to reiterate them over and over again, even if the laziness produced by such excesses had allowed me to sit down and pen a letter long enough to occupy hours in the mere mechanical operation of writing it. Suffice it then to tell you that we exhausted every pose and every salacious idea that the wildest imagination and lust could devise in nearly three weeks of those continuous orgies, which were twice as stimulating from the delicious accompaniments of triple incest and incestuous sodomy.
Never, never was I so rapturously stimulated to superhuman efforts. However Nature, overworked, asserted her will and taught me that unless I recruited my failing powers by rest and quiet I should sink beneath the effort. So, unwillingly taking my leave of this most amiable and delightful family, I departed and sought repose and re-invigoration in the quiet retreat of St. Valery, where healthful sea breezes and invigorating baths renewed the energies lost in the wildest debauches that insatiable lust ever prompted.
I see that while congratulating me on my good fortune in falling into such a good thing, you doubt if ever there was another example of such an intimate union between all the members of any family. Far from being unique, the newspapers frequently hint at the exposures before the magistrates of such intimacies in the lower circles; and be sure, that, for one such exposure, there are hundreds upon hundreds that are never heard of. Doubtless, the conditions which lead to all promiscuously sleeping in the same room, and often the daughters occupying the same bed as their parents, lead imperceptibly to common enjoyment.
In the manufacturing districts, it often happens that young girls who prove to be in the family way, confess before the magistrates that their brothers or fathers were the begetters of the illegitimate offspring.
A case occurred in the North, and was related to me by the surgeon who delivered the woman, of a mother not more than thirty-two years of age, whose husband having been killed by an accident in the mine, continued to occupy the one-roomed cottage, while the son worked in the mine and lived with his mother. As was natural they slept together to keep each other warm, with the result already stated.
But to fly at higher game. In the thirties of this century, Mr. Thompson, a gentleman of fortune in Cornwall, served the office of high sheriff of the county. He was deeply in love with and engaged to be married to, the lovely youngest daughter of a certain admiral, retired from active service, rich and living in the same county, near Bude, I believe. As soon as the bridegroom's year of office was at an end, and all the affairs of the shrievalty settled, the marriage came off with great eclat, if I remember right, in Exeter cathedral.
After the usual sumptuous breakfast, the happy couple started on their marriage trip, amid the good wishes of their friends and the hearty cheers of the mob. They drove some twenty-five miles to one of those convenient inns on public roads which at that period served for the altars on which maidenheads were sacrificed. Since then station hotels now serve the same purpose.
They dined, and the impatient bridegroom urged his bride to an early retreat and joined her after a sufficient interval had been given her to complete her night toilet and get into bed. The bridegroom had already undressed in his dressing-room, so throwing off his robes in the Chamber he jumped into bed, and with all the ardor of love and passion was into her in a minute, and without thought, or any preliminaries.
But once the edge of fierce passion was reduced by this intercourse, he became aware of an unusual projection of belly below him, and also he bethought him of the ease with which he had entered what he expected to find in virgin tightness. He moved off her, and on feeling her belly discovered that she was at least six months gone with child.
He taxed her with it, and there was an appearance of innocent surprise as she asked him what he meant.
'I mean that someone else has already been doing to you what I have just done?'
'Oh, yes, Papa has always done that ever, But, you know, Papas has a right to do so.'
'The devil they have! And were you the only one he did it to?'
'Oh, no, both my sisters and I slept with Papa in turns when he did not wish to have two or all.'
On hearing this explicit explanation, there was no course left to the poor husband but to rise and quit her at once and forever. He told her to remain in bed, that he must go at once to his sister, and would send for her. He felt that the poor creature, brought up in the innocence of any crime in what had occurred between her and her fond sire, was more to be pitied than scorned; that all the blame was due to the father.
All the same, he must and would be free of so horrible a treachery to him as to marry her to him in such a state.
He retired, dressed, took a post-chaise, and drove to his sister, who lived within a dozen miles of where he then was. She had been at the marriage, but he knew she would drive home after he had left. He arrived between twelve and one o'clock after all had retired, but he knocked them up and desired them to go and tell his sister that he was there, and must-see her immediately; she need not rise, he would come up to her when she was ready.
Accordingly, he was shortly ushered into her room. His pale and haggard look alarmed her greatly, and she at first thought some frightful accident had happened. He told her not to be alarmed, though it was something much more serious than an accident. He took a chair and sat by her bedside, while he recounted the dreadful secret he had gained possession of.
She was perfectly horrified and asked what he meant to do in such a dreadful case.
