so obscure were these speeches i knew not how to answer: however, reply to him i did, on a chance, as it were, and perhaps with too great a facility. must i confess it? alas! yes; to conceal my shortcomings would be to wrong your confidence and poorly to respond to the interest my misfortunes have quickened in you. hear then, madame, of the one deliberate fault with which i have to reproach myself.... what am i saying, a fault? it was a folly, an extravagance... there has never been one to equal it; but at least it is not a crime, it is merely a mistake, for which i alone have been punished, and of which it surely does not seem that the equitable hand of heaven had to make use in order to plunge me into the abyss which yawned beneath me soon afterward.

whatever the foul treatment to which the comte de bressac had exposed me the first day i had met him, it had, all the same, been impossible to see him so frequently without feeling myself drawn toward him by an insuperable and instinctive tenderness. despite all my recollections of his cruelty, all my thoughts upon his disinclinations toward women, upon the depravity of his tastes, upon the gulf which separated us morally, nothing in the world was able to extinguish this nascent passion, and had the count called upon me to lay down my life, i would have sacrificed it for him a thousand times over. he was far from suspecting my sentiments... he was far, the ungrateful one, from divining the cause of the tears i shed every day; nevertheless, it was out of the question for him to be in doubt of my eagerness to fly to do his every bidding, to please him in every possible way, it could not have been he did not glimpse, did not have some inkling of my attentions; doubtless, because they were instinctive, they were also mindless, and went to the point of serving his errors, of serving them as far as decency permitted, and always of hiding them from his aunt. this behavior had in some sort won me his confidence, and all that came from him was so precious to me, i was so blinded by the little his heart offered me, that i sometimes had the weakness to believe he was not indifferent to me. but how promptly his excessive disorders disabused me: they were such that even his health was affected. i several times took the liberty to represent to him the dangers of his conduct, he would hear me out patiently, then end by telling me that one does not break oneself of the vice he cherished.

"ah, therese!" he exclaimed one day, full of enthusiasm, "if only you knew this fantasy's charms, if only you could understand what one experiences from the sweet illusion of being no more than a woman! incredible inconsistency i one abhors that sex, yet one wishes to imitate it! ah! how sweet it is to succeed, therese, how delicious it is to be a slut to everyone who would have to do with you and carrying delirium and prostitution to their ultimate period, successively, in the very same day, to be the mistress of a porter, a marquis, a valet, a friar, to be the beloved of each one after the other, caressed, envied, menaced, beaten, sometimes victorious in their arms, sometimes a victim and at their feet, melting them with caresses, reanimating them with excesses.... oh no, therese, you do not understand what is this pleasure for a mind constructed like mine....

but, morals aside, if you are able to imagine this divine whimsy's physical sensations, there is no withstanding it, it is a titillation so lively, it is of so piquant a voluptuousness... one becomes giddy, one ceases to reason, stammers; a thousand kisses one more tender than the next do not inflame us with an ardor in any way approaching the drunkenness into which the agent plunges us; enlaced in his arms, our mouth glued to his, we would that our entire being were incorporated into his; we would not make but a single being with him; if we dare complain, 'tis of being neglected; we would have him, more robust than hercules, enlarge us, penetrate us; we would have that precious semen, shot blazing to the depths of our entrails, cause, by its heat and its strength, our own to leap forth into his hands.... do not suppose, therese, we are made like other men; 'tis an entirely different structure we have; and, in creating us, heaven has ornamented the altars at which our celadons sacrifice with that very same sensitive membrane which lines your temple of venus; we are, in that sector, as certainly women as you are in your generative sanctuary; not one of your pleasures is unknown to us, there is not one we do not know how to enjoy, but we have in addition to them our own, and it is this delicious combination which makes us of all men on earth the most sensitive to pleasure, the best created to experience it; it is this enchanting combination which renders our tastes incorrigible, which would turn us into enthusiasts and frenetics were one to have the stupidity to punish us... which makes us worship, unto the grave itself, the charming god who enthralls us."

thus the count expressed himself, celebrating his eccentricities; when i strove to speak to him of the being to whom he owed everything, and of the grief such disorders caused his respectable aunt, i perceived nothing in him but spleen and ill-humor and especially impatience at having to see, in such hands and for so long, riches which, he would say, already ought to belong to him; i saw nothing but the most inveterate hatred for that so gentle woman, nothing but the most determined revolt against every natural sentiment. it would then be true that when in one's tastes one has been able so formally to transgress that law's sacred instinct, the necessary consequence of this original crime is a frightful penchant to commit every other.

sometimes i employed the means religion provides; almost always comforted by it, i attempted to insinuate its sweetnesses into this perverse creature's soul, more or less certain he could be restrained by those bonds were i to succeed in having him strike at the lure; but the count did not long tolerate my use of such weapons. a declared enemy of our most holy mysteries, a stubborn critic of the purity of our dogmas, an impassioned antagonist of the idea of a supreme being's existence, monsieur de bressac, instead of letting himself be converted by me, sought rather to work my corruption.

"all religions start from a false premise, therese," he would say; "each supposes as necessary the worship of a creator, but that creator never existed. in this connection, put yourself in mind of the sound precepts of that certain coeur-de-fer who, you told me, used to labor over your mind as i do; nothing more just, nor more precise, than that man's principles, and the degradation in which we have the stupidity to keep him does not deprive him of the right to reason well.

"if all nature's productions are the resultant effects of the laws whereof she is a captive; if her perpetual action and reaction suppose the motion necessary to her essence, what becomes of the sovereign master fools gratuitously give her? that is what your sagacious instructor said to you, dear girl. what, then, are religions if not the restraint wherewith the tyranny of the mightier sought to enslave the weaker? motivated by that design, he dared say to him whom he claimed the right to dominate, that a god had forged the irons with which cruelty manacled him; and the latter, bestialized by his misery, indistinctly believed everything the former wished. can religions, born of these rogueries, merit respect? is there one of them, therese, which does not bear the stamp of imposture and of stupidity? what do i descry in them all? mysteries which cause reason to shudder, dogmas which outrage nature, grotesque ceremonies which simply inspire derision and disgust.

but if amongst them all there were one which most particularly deserves our scorn and hatred, o therese, is it not that barbaric law of the christianity into which both of us were born? is there any more odious? one which so spurs both the heart and mind to revolt? how is it that rational men are still able to lend any credence to the obscure mutterings, to the alleged miracles of that appalling cult's vile originator? has there ever existed a rowdy scoundrel more worthy of public indignation! what is he but a leprous jew who, born of a slut and a soldier in the world's meanest stews, dared fob himself off for the spokesman of him who, they say, created the universe! with such lofty pretensions, you will have to admit, therese, at least a few credentials are necessary. but what are those of this ridiculous ambassador? what is he going to do to prove his mission? is the earth's face going to be changed? are the plagues which beset it going to be annihilated? is the sun going to shine upon it by night as well as by day? vices will soil it no more? are we going to see happiness reign at last?... not at all; it is through hocus-pocus, antic capers, and puns...

(the marquis de bievre never made one quite as clever as the nazarene's to his disciple: "thou art peter and upon this rock i will build my church"; and they tell us that witty language is one of our century's innovations!)

...that god's envoy announces himself to the world; it is in the elegant society of manual laborers, artisans, and streetwalkers that heaven's minister comes to manifest his grandeur; it is by drunken carousing with these, bedding with those, that god's friend, god himself, comes to bend the toughened sinner to his laws; it is by inventing nothing for his farces but what can satisfy either his lewdness or his gourmand's guts that the knavish fellow demonstrates his mission; however all that may be, he makes his fortune; a few beef-witted satellites gravitate toward the villain; a sect is formed; this crowd's dogmas manage to seduce some jews; slaves of the roman power, they joyfully embrace a religion which, ridding them of their shackles, makes them subject to none but a metaphysical tyranny.

their motives become evident, their indocility unveils itself, the seditious louts are arrested; their captain perishes, but of a death doubtless much too merciful for his species of crime, and through an unpardonable lapse of intelligence, this uncouth boor's disciples are allowed to disperse instead of being slaughtered cheek to jowl with their leader. fanaticism gets minds in its grip, women shriek, fools scrape and scuffle, imbeciles believe, and lo! the most contemptible of beings, the most maladroit quacksalver, the clumsiest impostor ever to have made his entrance, there he is: behold! god, there's god's little boy, his papa's peer; and now all his dreams are consecrated i and now all his epigrams are become dogmas! and all his blunders mysteries! his fabulous father's breast opens to receive him and that creator, once upon a time simple, of a sudden becomes compound, triple, to humor his son, this lad so worthy of his greatness; but does that sacred god stick at that? no, surely not, his celestial might is going to bestow many another and greater favor.

at the beck and call of a priest, of, that is to say, an odd fellow foul with lies, the great god, creator of all we behold, is going to abase himself to the point of descending ten or twelve million times every morning in a morsel of wheat paste; this the faithful devour and assimilate, and god almighty is lugged to the bottom of their intestines where he is speedily transmuted into the vilest excrements, and all that for the satisfaction of the tender son, odious inventor of this monstrous impiety which had its beginnings in a cabaret supper.

he spake, and it was ordained. he said: this bread you see will be my flesh; you will digest it as such; now, i am god; hence, god will be digested by you; hence, the creator of heaven and earth will be changed, because i have spoken, into the vilest stuff the body of man can exhale, and man will eat his god, because this god is good and because he is omnipotent. however, these blatherings increase; their growth is attributed to their authenticity, their greatness, their sublimity to the puissance of him who introduced them, while in truth the commonest causes double their existence, for the credit error acquires never proved anything but the presence of swindlers on the one side and of idiots on the other. this infamous religion finally arrives on the throne, and it is a weak, cruel, ignorant and fanatical emperor who, enveloping it in the royal mantle, soils the four corners of the earth with it. 0 therese, what weight are these arguments to carry with an inquiring and philosophic mind? is the sage able to see anything in this appalling heap of fables but the disgusting fruit of a few men's imposture and the diddled credulity of a vast number? had god willed it that we have some religion or other, and had he been truly powerful or, to frame it more suitably, had there truly been a god, would it have been by these absurd means he would have imparted his instructions to us? would it have been through the voice of a contemptible bandit he would have shown how it were necessary to serve him? were he supreme, were he mighty, were he just, were he good, this god you tell me about, would it be through enigmas and buffooneries he would wish to teach me to serve and know him? sovereign mover of the stars and the heart of man, may he not instruct us by employing the one or convince us by graving himself in the other? let him, one of these days, upon the sun indite the law, writ out in letters of fire, the law as he wants us to understand it, in the version that pleases him; then from one end of the universe to the other, all mankind will read it, will behold it at once, and thereafter will be guilty if they obey it not. but to indicate his desires nowhere but in some unknown corner of asia; to select for witnesses the craftiest and most visionary of people, for alter ego the meanest artisan, the most absurd, him of the greatest rascality; to frame his doctrine so confusedly it is impossible to make it out; to limit knowledge of it to a small group of individuals; to leave the others in error and to punish them for remaining there.... why, no, therese, no, these atrocities are not what we want for our guidance; i should prefer to die a thousand deaths rather than believe them. when atheism will wish for martyrs, let it designate them; my blood is ready to be shed. let us detest these horrors, therese; let the most steadfast outrages cement the scorn which is patently their due.... my eyes were barely open when i began to loathe these coarse reveries; very early i made it a law unto myself to trample them in the dust, i took oath to return to them never more; if you would be happy, imitate me; as do i, hate, abjure, profane the foul object of this dreadful cult; and this cult too, created for illusion, made like him to be reviled by everyone who pretends to wisdom."