Fear of De Sade

BARON: Exactly. But for you to understand I have to go back to the afternoon I got a letter from the baroness, days after our first meeting, fifteen years ago, when she led me to understand that she also desired me and wanted to marry me, and prove with me that God doesn’t exist. Those were her words. I like women who know how to use words. It was the Count of Suz, my cousin and confidant, who brought me the letter, days after that first meeting. In fact, it was he who introduced the baroness to me, in what was left of his property. In the letter, she announced that she was leaving the country with her parents, emigrating to flee from the Terror. Suddenly, just like that. Apparently, nothing of this was planned when we were introduced to one another days before. In the letter, she explained nothing else. She only said she had to leave with her family. She begged patience of me. And for the sake of love I gave way. Out of despair, to see her again at the end of seven interminable months, I agreed to marry, which went against all my principles, and even against the Revolution; marrying a repentant émigrée only made my already delicate situation even more uncomfortable. At the end of seven months’ separation, I got a letter from her in which she agreed to return, to give way to my pleas and, at the risk of being taken for an emigrant, to suffer the punishment due to a traitor to the fatherland – she knew how to use her imagination to excite me! – so long as she could marry me. She said she was ready for anything for the sake of love. She would come back in secret, if that was needful. I am a slave to my feelings, and it didn’t take long for me to fall in love when the count introduced the baroness to me in what was left of his property. It only took a few hours. What a woman! When she disappeared into exile, my passion only grew. Passion makes one give way. I gave way again when, after fifteen years of marriage, she appeared, no more no less, in the château of Lagrange, in its ruins rather, the bit that was left when my other goods were confiscated, asking me for the first time to take part in one of the nights I had been organising in her absence. She spent the greater part of our fifteen years of marriage away from here. In Marseilles and Bordeaux, doing God knows what. Little did she know that this time, exceptionally, unlike all the other nights she had no doubt heard about in Marseilles and Bordeaux, there would be no orgy. I am a weak man. As I said, a slave to my feelings. And, with the baroness’s travels, after fifteen years together, fifteen years of debauchery, given over to my instincts, fifteen years no different from my bachelor existence, I ended up falling under the spell of a girl. That night was to be the second time we met.

At this moment, terrified by what he thinks is a vision, the baron interrupts his story.

BARON: Forgive me, sir, I know it’s dark, and I can’t see further than my nose, but I had the impression I saw you for a moment. (silence) I know it’s not possible, it can’t be true, but . . . (silence) I had the impression that you are . . . black?

VOICE: As you’ve realised, it’s dark. You must be hallucinating. It’s common. The darkness produces visions, makes you see things. In the darkness, everyone sees what they want to see.

BARON: Of course, of course . . . Well, when my cousin, the Count of Suz, introduced me to the baroness, in what was left of his property, on the eve of the Terror, I really was in need of a wife, more because of the pressure of circumstances, to save my own skin, since my fame was beginning to make me an easy target for enemies parading as revolutionaries. I was always reputed to be a libertine, marriage is against my principles, but the circumstances demanded I got married, so the count said. They never had the balls for the real Revolution, master, and it was through trying to follow its principles to the letter that I ended up being forced to save my skin by marriage. Well, it happened just at the right time, because she was beautiful. And she wasn’t getting any younger. She had to get married. She managed to persuade me after seven months’ absence, although marrying a repentant émigrée at that moment was riskier than staying a bachelor, for someone with my reputation.

VOICE: If she was so beautiful, why hadn’t she married yet?