Would you like to inspect the original subtitles? These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated:
1
00:00:13,599 --> 00:00:16,199
THE MARQUISE DE SADE
2
00:00:21,300 --> 00:00:23,300
AUTUMN 1772
3
00:01:17,400 --> 00:01:21,200
What a strange way of receiving one's guests!
4
00:01:21,500 --> 00:01:25,500
She sent for me and then keeps me waiting like this!
5
00:01:25,700 --> 00:01:31,700
No doubt Mme de Montreuil is beside herself with worry for her son-in-law.
6
00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:36,500
I can't imagine that time has healed her wounds.
7
00:01:36,700 --> 00:01:40,799
But I haven't seen her since... what happened.
8
00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:47,200
Always, everywhere, we gloss over the matter saying ''what happened''--
9
00:01:47,500 --> 00:01:53,599
--exchanging looks and knowing smiles. Surely you are well informed?
10
00:01:53,799 --> 00:01:57,599
No. Alphonse and I are childhood friends.
11
00:01:57,799 --> 00:02:01,799
I'm content to remember him as a child, with his lovely fair hair.
12
00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:05,000
As you wish, Madame.
13
00:02:05,299 --> 00:02:10,599
For my part, I shall disclose the precise and detailed information--
14
00:02:10,800 --> 00:02:15,700
--which I have collected with every means at my disposal.
15
00:02:16,900 --> 00:02:20,700
Three months ago, on the 27th of June--
16
00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:25,500
--Donatien-Alphonse-François, Marquis de Sade, journeyed to Marseilles--
17
00:02:25,699 --> 00:02:29,799
--with Latour, his servant. There, one morning, he assembled--
18
00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:35,400
--four young women in a house belonging to a certain Mariette Borelly.
19
00:02:35,599 --> 00:02:39,799
All four were of course whores.
20
00:02:40,099 --> 00:02:46,599
He took a handful of gold coins out of his pocket and said--
21
00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:53,400
--that he would favour the girl who could guess how many coins he had.
22
00:02:53,900 --> 00:03:00,000
Marianne won. He sent the other women out, but the servant stayed.
23
00:03:00,800 --> 00:03:05,700
Then he ordered the two of them to lie on the bed--
24
00:03:06,199 --> 00:03:11,399
--whipped the girl with one hand and aroused the servant with the other.
25
00:03:13,500 --> 00:03:19,500
All the while Alphonse addressed his servant as ''Monsieur le Marquis''--
26
00:03:19,699 --> 00:03:23,899
--and made the man call his master Latour.
27
00:03:25,599 --> 00:03:32,199
After that he dismissed the servant, took out a crystal box set in gold--
28
00:03:32,500 --> 00:03:38,300
--that contained aniseed pastilles and told the girl to help herself.
29
00:03:38,500 --> 00:03:44,000
A remedy for flatulence, he said. In fact they were an aphrodisiac--
30
00:03:44,199 --> 00:03:48,799
--made of dried tiger beetle and Spanish fly.
31
00:03:49,099 --> 00:03:54,799
You know about that, don't you? You should try it some time.
32
00:03:55,000 --> 00:04:00,900
Marianne ate seven or eight of the pastilles.
33
00:04:01,099 --> 00:04:05,000
When she finished, the Marquis...
34
00:04:05,300 --> 00:04:10,800
...promised her a <i>louis d'or</i> if she let him do a certain thing.
35
00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:16,199
The thing <i>you're</i> said to be so fond of. When the morning sun...
36
00:04:16,399 --> 00:04:21,399
...lights the front of a statue of Venus that stands in a park--
37
00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:28,400
--the dazzling light penetrates right inside a vulva of snow-white marble.
38
00:04:28,699 --> 00:04:35,199
But when the sun, having circled the garden for half a day--
39
00:04:35,500 --> 00:04:41,800
--sinks beneath the trees, which part of Venus do the sun's rays penetrate?
40
00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:46,399
Only a devil would do something like that!
41
00:04:47,800 --> 00:04:52,000
Then Alphonse took out a bloodstained, barbed whip--
42
00:04:52,199 --> 00:04:55,000
--apparently often used.
43
00:04:55,300 --> 00:04:59,500
He made her undress and kneel at the foot of the bed.
44
00:04:59,800 --> 00:05:04,000
When he had castigated her, he ordered her to do the same to him.
45
00:05:04,199 --> 00:05:09,399
Alphonse carved the number of blows on the chimney-piece with a knife...
46
00:05:09,600 --> 00:05:15,100
The figures were 215, 179--
47
00:05:16,399 --> 00:05:21,000
--225 and 240...
48
00:05:22,100 --> 00:05:26,200
- ...or a total of... - 859 lashes!
49
00:05:26,399 --> 00:05:30,199
He has always been fascinated by figures--
50
00:05:30,500 --> 00:05:34,600
--since only figures are truly irrefutable.
51
00:05:34,899 --> 00:05:38,799
If numbers are at an inconceivable level, vice itself becomes a miracle.
52
00:05:39,100 --> 00:05:44,400
- Watch out, you too may go to hell! - Thank you for the warning.
53
00:05:44,600 --> 00:05:49,400
Then it was Rose's turn. The whip, the servant, a new combination--
54
00:05:49,600 --> 00:05:55,000
--as in a game of cards. Then came Marianette, the whip, the servant...
55
00:05:55,399 --> 00:06:00,199
So the morning's performance ended with wailing and screaming.
56
00:06:00,399 --> 00:06:04,799
The Marquis gave the girls six gold coins each and sent them packing.
57
00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:10,000
He lowered the Venetian blinds on the windows facing the sea--
58
00:06:10,300 --> 00:06:15,800
--and sank into a slumber, as deep and untroubled as a child's...
59
00:06:16,100 --> 00:06:22,300
An innocent, dreamless sleep. It was as if he had been buried in the sand--
60
00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:28,199
--of a beach where all the débris had been washed away--
61
00:06:28,500 --> 00:06:34,199
--where the shells had been ground to dust, the seaweed had dried--
62
00:06:34,800 --> 00:06:40,699
--and the dead fish turned to reeds...
63
00:06:44,300 --> 00:06:49,699
Next morning at cockcrow he left Marseilles in a three-horse carriage--
64
00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:55,399
--and drove home to La Coste. Needless to say, he had no idea--
65
00:06:55,600 --> 00:07:00,000
--that two days later the girls testified before the public prosecutor.
66
00:07:00,199 --> 00:07:04,800
Madame de Montreuil will be with you shortly.
67
00:07:10,199 --> 00:07:15,199
Charlotte! Don't run away!
68
00:07:16,500 --> 00:07:23,100
You worked for me, before you rushed off and became engaged in this house.
69
00:07:23,300 --> 00:07:28,800
You know all about my private life.
70
00:07:29,399 --> 00:07:36,199
You know people whisper behind my back that I am the Devil incarnate--
71
00:07:36,800 --> 00:07:42,000
--that I've harvested all the weeds that grow on the Isle of Love.
72
00:07:45,399 --> 00:07:49,500
It is unforgivable of me to keep you waiting so long.
73
00:07:49,699 --> 00:07:53,199
Madame la Comtesse de Saint-Fond...
74
00:07:53,600 --> 00:07:57,700
Madame la Baronne de Simiane... how kind of you to come!
75
00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:03,199
Tell us whatever you wish, without reticence. It may console you--
76
00:08:03,500 --> 00:08:08,800
--to have someone to listen. We shall not repeat a word.
77
00:08:11,199 --> 00:08:16,000
Perhaps this is not the right occasion for revealing it--
78
00:08:16,199 --> 00:08:21,300
--but when Renée married Alphonse, I was impressed with his character.
79
00:08:21,500 --> 00:08:26,199
He had a slightly foolish air, but he was witty and charming--
80
00:08:26,399 --> 00:08:30,099
--and so obviously in love with my daughter.
81
00:08:30,300 --> 00:08:35,399
And through their bond you became related to the house of Bourbon.
82
00:08:35,700 --> 00:08:41,200
At first, my son-in-law showed his most lovable side.
83
00:08:41,399 --> 00:08:45,600
While the newly-weds ere honey-- mooning at the Chateau Echauffour--
84
00:08:45,899 --> 00:08:50,600
--Alphonse wrote small plays with parts for both my daughter and me.
85
00:08:50,700 --> 00:08:56,400
Alphonse was an adorable child. We were playing in the rosegarden once--
86
00:08:56,700 --> 00:09:02,600
--when I pricked myself on a thorn. Alphonse not only pulled it out...
87
00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:08,600
- ...but sucked the wound clean. - Even then he had a taste for blood.
88
00:09:08,899 --> 00:09:15,600
- You talk as if he were a vampire! - No doubt vampires can be lovable.
89
00:09:15,899 --> 00:09:20,199
Ladies! Whatever is said about Alphonse today--
90
00:09:20,399 --> 00:09:24,799
--nothing can favourably influence my view of his character.
91
00:09:25,100 --> 00:09:28,800
As these agreeable theatrical performances were going on--
92
00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:34,299
--Alphonse travelled frequently to Paris, claiming important business.
93
00:09:34,600 --> 00:09:41,000
When, only five months after the wedding, he was thrown into prison--
94
00:09:41,100 --> 00:09:45,100
--I learnt the truth. It was a dreadful shock.
95
00:09:45,299 --> 00:09:50,199
In the ensuing nine years, I have waged a hopeless battle--
96
00:09:50,399 --> 00:09:54,699
--to protect the family's good name and my daughter's honour.
97
00:09:55,000 --> 00:10:01,100
Renée has refused to be crushed by what has happened. But this time...
98
00:10:01,600 --> 00:10:06,300
Oh, I know it's hopeless. Still, for my daughter's sake...
99
00:10:06,500 --> 00:10:13,700
I must do my best to save Alphonse. But today... Alphonse is ill!
100
00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:20,299
How can one convince a patient that he needs curing from an illness--
101
00:10:20,600 --> 00:10:25,300
--which evidently gives him so much pleasure?
102
00:10:25,600 --> 00:10:31,200
However repulsive to outsiders, it is a sickness with a scent of roses.
103
00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:43,100
Since I'm considered an authority on immorality--
104
00:10:43,299 --> 00:10:46,500
--I beg you to listen carefully.
105
00:10:46,600 --> 00:10:52,200
Depravity is a preserve unto itself, in which nothing is lacking.
106
00:10:52,500 --> 00:10:58,299
It has its shepherds' huts and windmills, its streams and lakes.
107
00:10:58,500 --> 00:11:03,600
But the whole landscape is not so tranquil: there are wastelands--
108
00:11:03,899 --> 00:11:09,000
--valleys belching sulphorous fumes, predators, dried-up springs...
109
00:11:12,700 --> 00:11:16,000
May I continue?
110
00:11:16,200 --> 00:11:20,500
This ample domain was designed by God.
111
00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:27,700
However strange the phenomena that occur there, they are intrinsic.
112
00:11:28,200 --> 00:11:33,400
The child, and I'm spealing from personal experience--
113
00:11:33,700 --> 00:11:41,100
--tales the telescope provided, and looks through it from the wrong end.
114
00:11:41,399 --> 00:11:47,000
A telescope, used in the way prescribed by morality and convention--
115
00:11:47,399 --> 00:11:53,899
--shows only how small the lawn and flowers surrounding one's home are.
116
00:11:54,200 --> 00:12:01,400
The child feels secure and is content with the beauty of its small domain.
117
00:12:01,600 --> 00:12:08,800
It starts hoping that once grown up, it can enlarge lawns and flowerbeds.
118
00:12:09,100 --> 00:12:15,600
But one day, something happens that strikes the child without premonition:
119
00:12:15,799 --> 00:12:21,500
you discover that the telescope has been the wrong way round.
120
00:12:22,799 --> 00:12:29,599
And then you suddenly perceive what you've never seen before:
121
00:12:31,500 --> 00:12:36,799
the flames of sulphorous fire in remote valleys--
122
00:12:37,200 --> 00:12:42,400
--the savage animals in the wilderness with their fangs bared.
123
00:12:43,700 --> 00:12:50,000
You know then that your world is an endless one--
124
00:12:50,299 --> 00:12:53,799
--of infinite variety.
125
00:12:56,000 --> 00:13:01,000
I have no idea what you're talking about. I have kept on struggling--
126
00:13:01,299 --> 00:13:07,599
--rushing to and fro, unbelieving... All I understand is honour and glory.
127
00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:14,799
All in vain. The High Court in Provence condemned Alphonse to death.
128
00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:19,799
Since the accused was not present and his whereabouts unknown--
129
00:13:19,899 --> 00:13:22,799
--his portrait was burnt...
130
00:13:24,799 --> 00:13:31,000
...at the stake. I can well imagine flames licking at the friendly smile--
131
00:13:31,200 --> 00:13:37,600
--and fair hair of my son-in-law's portrait, while the mob cheered...
132
00:13:38,799 --> 00:13:44,500
Perhaps that was the first glimpse of the inferno in our world.
133
00:13:45,799 --> 00:13:51,599
The masses must have been yelling ''More wood!'' and ''Make it burn!''--
134
00:13:52,299 --> 00:13:58,500
--expressing envy for the depravity they themselves were incapable of.
135
00:13:58,899 --> 00:14:05,199
''More wood!'' What would we do if the shouts reached all the way here?
136
00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:12,000
Some in the crowd are said to have shouted Renée's name, even mine!
137
00:14:12,799 --> 00:14:18,899
''More wood on the fire!" It must have been a purifying fire.
138
00:14:19,200 --> 00:14:23,600
When the Marquis' portrait went up in flames, it atoned for his sins.
139
00:14:23,899 --> 00:14:27,500
''More wood on the fire!"
140
00:14:27,799 --> 00:14:32,799
The lashing flames struck his pale cheeks and fair hair mercilessly.
141
00:14:33,299 --> 00:14:38,199
215...179...
142
00:14:38,799 --> 00:14:42,000
I'm sure the portrait was smiling.
143
00:14:52,799 --> 00:14:58,000
Madame, please consider my plight. I'm alone, I have no one to turn to.
144
00:14:58,200 --> 00:15:03,900
All my plans have misfired. My voice is hoarse from all my lamenting.
145
00:15:04,100 --> 00:15:09,800
Tale heart, Madame! I shall hasten to pay a visit to Cardinal Philippe--
146
00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:15,000
--and ask him to secure absolution from the Vatican.
147
00:15:15,200 --> 00:15:19,600
I have no wish to compete with Madame de Simiane in magnanimity--
148
00:15:19,799 --> 00:15:23,799
--nor do I usually strive for justice, honour or virtue.
149
00:15:24,000 --> 00:15:31,000
But I shall do what I can, not for your sake, but for the Marquis.
150
00:15:31,299 --> 00:15:40,199
I shall coax the steadfast Chancellor to annul the high court's decision.
151
00:15:40,600 --> 00:15:45,600
Surely you asked me here to induce me to use my body?
152
00:15:45,799 --> 00:15:49,599
- I would never dream of such a... - You needn't dissemble.
153
00:15:49,899 --> 00:15:55,600
Making use of evil for a virtuous purpose, is a respectable thing to do.
154
00:15:56,000 --> 00:16:01,600
- So I can count on your help? - Yes, you can, Madame.
155
00:16:01,799 --> 00:16:06,199
I would have been prepared to beg on my knees. How can I thank you?
156
00:16:06,399 --> 00:16:09,399
I have no desire to be thanked.
157
00:16:12,200 --> 00:16:15,900
- Excuse me, Madame... - What is it? Speak up.
158
00:16:16,100 --> 00:16:21,800
In this house there is no longer anything to keep secret.
159
00:16:25,299 --> 00:16:29,899
- The Marquise de Sade is here. - My daughter? What brings her here?
160
00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:35,800
Without a word of advance notice... Very well... Show her in.
161
00:16:41,700 --> 00:16:47,000
Renée! I'm so pleased to see you. I've missed you.
162
00:16:48,799 --> 00:16:54,099
I was so eager to see you, Mother, that I just packed and left.
163
00:16:57,899 --> 00:17:03,000
It has been raining every day at La Coste. Outside the chateau--
164
00:17:03,299 --> 00:17:07,500
--I kept meeting the stares and surreptitious whispering of the villagers.
165
00:17:07,799 --> 00:17:13,299
I was alone all day. At night the torchlight flickered on the walls--
166
00:17:13,599 --> 00:17:18,399
--the bats flew around and the owls screeched...
167
00:17:21,500 --> 00:17:26,500
I've come to Paris, because I longed to see you, albeit briefly--
168
00:17:26,700 --> 00:17:30,400
--and to confide in you, if only a few words.
169
00:17:31,400 --> 00:17:37,200
It was good of you to come. I've sat here all on my own too--
170
00:17:37,500 --> 00:17:41,900
--almost losing my head with worry about my poor daughter.
171
00:17:42,200 --> 00:17:46,200
Have you met the Comtesse de Saint-Fond?
172
00:17:46,400 --> 00:17:49,800
My daughter, the Marquise de Sade.
173
00:17:51,500 --> 00:17:57,599
- Madame de Simiane, it's been long. - You've been through an ordeal.
174
00:17:57,900 --> 00:18:01,400
These ladies have promised to help us.
175
00:18:01,799 --> 00:18:07,299
Two allied friends like this mean as much as a band a thousand strong!
176
00:18:07,599 --> 00:18:13,000
- You should thank them too, Renée. - My humble thanks.
177
00:18:13,299 --> 00:18:17,599
It's a pleasure to be of help. I shall act promptly in the morning.
178
00:18:17,799 --> 00:18:23,500
- It's time we left. - Our fate is in your hands.
179
00:18:23,799 --> 00:18:28,000
I greatly appreciate anything you can do for us.
180
00:18:28,200 --> 00:18:32,000
Before we go, I'd like to ask the Marquise...
181
00:18:32,099 --> 00:18:38,299
Perhaps it is not quite appropriate, but such is my nature.
182
00:18:40,200 --> 00:18:44,400
We've heard a fair amount about the Marquis from your mother.
183
00:18:44,599 --> 00:18:50,099
I myself have collected more precise information than the gossip entails.
184
00:18:50,400 --> 00:18:57,800
You and the family walk about without a trace of protective disguise.
185
00:18:58,099 --> 00:19:04,399
I don't suppose any question can surprise you now.
186
00:19:06,700 --> 00:19:13,000
This might make you willing to answer some indiscreet questions.
187
00:19:15,099 --> 00:19:19,299
- Am I right? - Of course.
188
00:19:19,400 --> 00:19:25,400
I am convinced the Marquis cannot express affection except indirectly--
189
00:19:25,700 --> 00:19:30,200
--through the cruelty that is the inverse of tenderness.
190
00:19:30,400 --> 00:19:33,800
How does this apply in your case?
191
00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:40,799
- That's enough, Mme de Saint-Fond! - I mean, how does he treat you?
192
00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:45,799
If I reply that he is sweet and considerate, you'll think him cruel.
193
00:19:46,200 --> 00:19:51,799
- And if I say that he is brutal... - How astute you are!
194
00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:58,799
He is my husband, and he loves me as a husband loves his wife.
195
00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:04,000
Even if you should see us in bed, I would not need to be ashamed.
196
00:20:04,200 --> 00:20:10,200
How strange! Perhaps such a refined couple do not even need tenderness?
197
00:20:10,400 --> 00:20:15,300
- No, and not cruelty either. - We really must leave now.
198
00:20:15,400 --> 00:20:20,000
And please forgive the intrusion.
199
00:20:20,299 --> 00:20:25,599
I am truly grateful for your visit. How can I thank you...
200
00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:32,200
What a snake! And I have to ask that woman for a favour!
201
00:20:32,599 --> 00:20:37,899
You handled it admirably. That was a truly dignified reply.
202
00:20:38,200 --> 00:20:45,000
I was prepared for unpleasantness. The ladies will help us free Alphonse.
203
00:20:45,200 --> 00:20:49,400
- So they have promised. - Poor Alphonse!
204
00:20:49,599 --> 00:20:53,899
It was worth coming to Paris just to hear such welcome news.
205
00:20:54,200 --> 00:20:58,299
I thought you said you'd come to Paris to see me.
206
00:20:58,599 --> 00:21:04,199
- Where is Alphonse now? - I wonder.
207
00:21:04,500 --> 00:21:10,200
Did he leave without telling even his wife where he was heading?
208
00:21:10,500 --> 00:21:15,599
If I'd known, I would have found it difficult to pretend ignorance.
209
00:21:15,900 --> 00:21:22,100
It is best for me to know nothing. His safety is my paramount wish.
210
00:21:22,400 --> 00:21:28,600
What a loyal wife you are! My ideals really have borne fruit!
211
00:21:28,799 --> 00:21:31,700
And then you get a husband like that!
212
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:37,299
The value of a wife's chastity is independent of her husband's character.
213
00:21:37,500 --> 00:21:40,400
Yes, but there are limits.
214
00:21:40,700 --> 00:21:46,000
If my husband's debauchery exceeds the limits, so must my obligations.
215
00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:52,000
It breaks my heart to see how patiently you endure all your troubles.
216
00:21:52,299 --> 00:21:57,200
Your blessed father was, after all, honorary president of the Tax Court.
217
00:21:57,400 --> 00:22:02,100
We always lived an honourable life, far from wicked gossip.
218
00:22:02,299 --> 00:22:07,599
What curse has heaped such misfortunes on our beloved daughter?
219
00:22:07,799 --> 00:22:11,200
I loathe that word, ''misfortunes''!
220
00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:17,400
I've always had to adapt to you. Your wishes have been my commands.
221
00:22:17,599 --> 00:22:23,500
To save your husband, I've swallowed my pride, begged outsiders for help!
222
00:22:23,799 --> 00:22:29,799
But now that you've turned up unexpectedly like this--
223
00:22:30,099 --> 00:22:34,799
--I shall speak my mind. I don't care what happens--
224
00:22:34,900 --> 00:22:39,800
--to our royal connections. You must divorce Alphonse!
225
00:22:40,099 --> 00:22:45,599
- God doesn't allow divorce. - But leave him then, at least!
226
00:22:45,799 --> 00:22:50,399
The formalities don't matter, so long as you cut all ties.
227
00:22:50,700 --> 00:22:55,500
If God does not allow the form of divorce, it's because separation--
228
00:22:55,900 --> 00:23:02,400
--will remedy your misfortunes, without severing our royal connections.
229
00:23:02,599 --> 00:23:08,299
- No, I won't leave Alphonse. - Why not, Renée?
230
00:23:08,500 --> 00:23:14,700
Is it just obduracy, or is it a matter of etiquette and good form?
231
00:23:14,900 --> 00:23:19,000
I refuse to believe it is love.
232
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:25,000
I don't know if love is the right word. During my sleepless nights--
233
00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:30,299
--I have pondered on everything that has happened since we married.
234
00:23:30,500 --> 00:23:34,000
It has all become clear.
235
00:23:34,299 --> 00:23:39,700
Fragments that lay scattered in my memory have fallen into place--
236
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:45,900
--and become strung together like a necklace - a necklace of rubies...
237
00:23:46,099 --> 00:23:49,899
...of precious stones as red as blood.
238
00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:57,100
I remember how on our honeymoon Alphonse stopped our carriage--
239
00:23:57,400 --> 00:24:02,700
--in a lily field. He wanted to intoxicate the flowers--
240
00:24:02,900 --> 00:24:07,400
--and he had a cask of red wine emptied over their white heads.
241
00:24:07,700 --> 00:24:13,400
Then he watched in delight as the red wine dripped from the petals.
242
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:21,799
Another time we came home from a hunt, and with his bare hands--
243
00:24:22,099 --> 00:24:27,199
--he removed the heart from the bloodstained breast of a white hare.
244
00:24:27,500 --> 00:24:35,400
He smiled contentedly and said that all loving hearts look the same.
245
00:24:38,599 --> 00:24:44,099
Things that I took for whims have become part of a pattern--
246
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:48,000
--with their own signifiance.
247
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:52,900
I was gripped by a feeling beyond all logic.
248
00:24:54,400 --> 00:25:02,000
If all the rubies that whirled in my mind had been joined to a necklace--
249
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:07,800
--it was my duty to take good care of it and make it my own.
250
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:13,000
It was not you but Alphonse who lost those rubies.
251
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:19,000
- Now he has entrusted them to me. - Your pride will be the ruin of you.
252
00:25:19,500 --> 00:25:24,599
However I express myself, I don't think you can understand. Once more:
253
00:25:24,799 --> 00:25:32,500
Now I know what the truth is. My loyalty is based on that truth.
254
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:37,299
Do you understand what Alphonse's wife is trying to say?
255
00:25:37,599 --> 00:25:43,299
The truth is the whip and the pastilles... shame and dishonour.
256
00:25:43,599 --> 00:25:47,699
You and everyone else look only to facts.
257
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:52,799
It's easy to dismiss him as a monster, when one is a normal person.
258
00:25:52,799 --> 00:25:56,000
But Alphonse really is a monster.
259
00:25:56,200 --> 00:26:01,900
Then I can hardly be sane myself, and no one can rely on me.
260
00:26:02,099 --> 00:26:06,000
- Renée, you don't mean that you... - Don't worry.
261
00:26:06,299 --> 00:26:10,700
You give your imagination just as free a rein as Madame de Saint-Fond.
262
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:16,700
Alphonse is like music with a single theme. I vowed to be faithful to it.
263
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:23,200
The theme may be tender, or resound with lashes of a whip.
264
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:28,900
But Alphonse has never made me hear the lashes.
265
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:33,799
Whether it's a sign of his respect or his contempt, I don't know.
266
00:26:34,099 --> 00:26:40,199
- You've been deceived, like me. - No man has ever deceived a woman.
267
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:45,500
- But if he were a normal man... - Alphonse is a man!
268
00:26:45,700 --> 00:26:51,900
Of course when we married I had no idea that he was a man <i>like this</i>.
269
00:26:52,099 --> 00:26:56,500
But still, I think I have always known him.
270
00:26:56,799 --> 00:27:01,000
Perhaps I have loved the shadows--
271
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:09,000
--that may be glimpsed behind his radiant brow and shining gaze.
272
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:17,900
What's the difference between loving roses and loving the scent of roses?
273
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:24,500
What a stupid question! The rose has the scent suitable for a rose.
274
00:27:24,700 --> 00:27:31,200
I beg you, save Alphonse. If he is pardoned--
275
00:27:31,500 --> 00:27:36,400
--I shall do my utmost to move his heart, to soothe the fury in his soul--
276
00:27:36,700 --> 00:27:42,000
--to make sure he is never again the subject of evil gossip. This time...
277
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:48,200
You're exhausted. Rest awhile. You're bound to find some way out.
278
00:27:48,500 --> 00:27:51,900
I'll accompany you to your room.
279
00:28:26,799 --> 00:28:30,799
Why don't you wish to see your sister, mademoiselle?
280
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:36,700
Unpleasant words might be uttered. I've returned to see my mother--
281
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:43,000
--and find my sister. What bad luck! The look in her eyes frightens me.
282
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:47,700
How can you say that about your own sister?
283
00:28:47,900 --> 00:28:52,200
You can go, Charlotte. I shall wait for Mother here.
284
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:26,200
- Anne! What a surprise! - It's a long time since we last met.
285
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:36,099
- To have both my daughters home! - Charlotte just said. Where is Renée?
286
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:41,900
In her room, resting. But how was your journey? Where did you go?
287
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:47,700
- To Italy. I was mainly in Venice. - Then you really did go a long way.
288
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:54,299
- I didn't want to be known. - An innocent lady of noble descent?
289
00:29:54,599 --> 00:29:58,299
It was my travelling companion who wished not to be recognized.
290
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:02,200
- A lady friend? - No, my brother-in-law.
291
00:30:02,500 --> 00:30:05,500
Alphonse.
292
00:30:05,799 --> 00:30:11,200
Surely you don't mean that you travelled with Alphonse?
293
00:30:11,900 --> 00:30:17,400
- Yes, we were together all the time. - But how could you?
294
00:30:17,500 --> 00:30:22,000
I was invited to La Coste.
295
00:30:22,599 --> 00:30:27,000
On the very first night Alphonse came to my bedroom.
296
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:31,400
He didn't ask whether I wanted it or not.
297
00:30:31,700 --> 00:30:37,200
When he was sought by the police he asked me to flee with him.
298
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:56,400
How dreadful! He's an evil spirit in human guise.
299
00:30:56,599 --> 00:30:59,099
Poor Renée!
300
00:31:00,700 --> 00:31:06,100
This must stay between you and me.
301
00:31:06,299 --> 00:31:10,899
You must on no account say anything to Renée. It would kill her.
302
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:16,900
My sister already knows everything. What happened at La Coste...
303
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:22,299
..that we travelled to Italy. She also knows where Alphonse is hiding.
304
00:31:22,500 --> 00:31:26,400
Does Renée know?
305
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:35,299
Where is Alphonse hiding now? I suppose you know that too?
306
00:31:35,599 --> 00:31:39,199
- Of course I know. - Where, then?
307
00:31:39,599 --> 00:31:46,099
At Chambéry, in Sardinia. He's hiding at a farm outside the town.
308
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:51,800
- In Sardinia, did you say? - At Chambéry.
309
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:54,799
Charlotte!
310
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:03,500
I'm going to write three letters. I want them delivered straight away.
311
00:32:03,700 --> 00:32:06,000
Stay here!
312
00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:19,100
- How was the summer in Venice? - Wonderful!
313
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:27,599
Mortal danger, love, death, turbid canals...
314
00:32:29,500 --> 00:32:34,200
And the square that one couldn't cross when the water rose...
315
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:40,400
- I'd like to go somewhere like that - Every night you could hear a duel.
316
00:32:40,799 --> 00:32:45,000
There were bloodstains on the bridges in the morning mist.
317
00:32:45,700 --> 00:32:50,000
And the whole sky was full of pigeons!
318
00:32:50,299 --> 00:32:55,299
When nothing disturbs them, they strut around St. Mark's Square--
319
00:32:55,599 --> 00:33:00,399
--but when frightened they all rise at once, with rustling wings...
320
00:33:01,599 --> 00:33:07,399
The peals of the campanile bells, resounding over the still water...
321
00:33:07,700 --> 00:33:15,900
All the bridges, as countless as the pigeons. And the moon...
322
00:33:16,599 --> 00:33:21,399
You must have enjoyed the gondolas, and the gondoliers' singing!
323
00:33:21,700 --> 00:33:27,600
Gondolas? Singing? I suppose that is what Venice means to other people.
324
00:33:27,799 --> 00:33:30,799
Charlotte!
325
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:36,299
One to the Comtesse de Saint-Fond, the other to the Baronne de Simiane.
326
00:33:36,599 --> 00:33:42,399
Make sure they understand that I retract something I requested earlier.
327
00:33:44,799 --> 00:33:49,599
The third letter is a petition to His Majesty the King.
328
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:55,200
I shall deliver this one to the Palace personally.
329
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:14,700
SECOND ACT SEPTEMBER 1778
330
00:34:39,199 --> 00:34:44,500
- I have good news. - What's it all about, so suddenly?
331
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:50,400
You can have it... if you can take it!
332
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:58,400
- Don't tease, Anne. - Look, here it is!
333
00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:14,000
How childish you are!
334
00:35:21,099 --> 00:35:24,900
"Decision of the High Court in Provence:
335
00:35:25,199 --> 00:35:29,899
The accused, Donatien-Alphonse- François de Sade is reprimanded--
336
00:35:30,199 --> 00:35:35,000
--for the crimes of sodomy and indecency committed by him.
337
00:35:35,300 --> 00:35:39,900
Furthermore, the said Marquis is required to pay fines of 50 <i>louis d'or</i>--
338
00:35:40,199 --> 00:35:44,299
--and prohibited, for the ensuing three years, to reside in Marseilles.
339
00:35:44,599 --> 00:35:50,400
On payment of fines, his name will be deleted from the records."
340
00:35:50,599 --> 00:35:55,000
- That was good news, wasn't it? - It's like a dream.
341
00:35:55,199 --> 00:36:00,299
- More like waking from a nightmare. - This means Alphonse is free...
342
00:36:00,699 --> 00:36:05,899
...and so am I... after six long years.
343
00:36:06,599 --> 00:36:13,099
Six years ago we concocted those plans to save Alphonse, remember?
344
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:19,800
You'd just come back from Italy, where you had consoled Alphonse.
345
00:36:20,099 --> 00:36:25,799
''Consoled Alphonse''! Isn't it time to stop using such euphemisms?
346
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:31,900
- After all, it's past history. - Yes, of course it's the past - gone.
347
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:39,700
For six years I hammered on a door of stone. My nails were torn off--
348
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:45,400
--my fists became bloody, but it was beyond my power to open that door.
349
00:36:45,699 --> 00:36:50,500
- You did your best. - But my best wasn't good enough.
350
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:54,900
If it was our mother's strength that make that door close--
351
00:36:55,199 --> 00:37:00,199
--it's also her strength that has made it open, quite unexpectedly.
352
00:37:00,900 --> 00:37:06,800
So now mother and daughters are reconciled, and the daughters too.
353
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:11,800
Of course. You've grown up...
354
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:14,699
...and I've grown old.
355
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:21,699
No, your radiant face is younger and more beautiful than six years ago.
356
00:37:23,099 --> 00:37:29,699
Happiness... In the world's eyes I'm the unhappiest of people.
357
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:34,699
Last winter at La Coste, there was such a shortage of wood--
358
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:39,500
--that all I could do to get some warmth was crawl into bed.
359
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:45,100
I've never felt such joy about the spring.
360
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:52,500
When the grass turned green and the sun filtered down on the icy floors--
361
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:58,600
--through the round windows high up, like great shining brass trumpets--
362
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:05,300
--my hope was reawakened that Alphonse would regain his freedom.
363
00:38:07,500 --> 00:38:13,800
It was as if Alphonse's debauchery and my own distress had merged.
364
00:38:14,199 --> 00:38:21,099
In these six years, my unhappiness has finally caught up--
365
00:38:21,300 --> 00:38:27,800
--with Alphonse's obsession - or so it seems.
366
00:38:29,300 --> 00:38:33,600
I have felt his terrible loneliness in prison--
367
00:38:33,900 --> 00:38:38,000
--as strongly as if myself had experienced it.
368
00:38:38,300 --> 00:38:43,600
I have realized that whatever depraved actions he has carried out--
369
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:48,000
--he has always striven for the unattainable.
370
00:38:51,500 --> 00:38:55,400
That is why Alphonse has never loved anyone...
371
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,900
...not even you.
372
00:38:59,199 --> 00:39:02,799
Nor you, sister?
373
00:39:04,599 --> 00:39:09,699
Perhaps that is why you and I have managed to become friends again.
374
00:39:09,900 --> 00:39:13,400
And the happiness you mentioned?
375
00:39:13,699 --> 00:39:17,699
How shall I describe the happiness?
376
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:24,400
It is like a piece of handiwork that makes one's neck stiff--
377
00:39:24,699 --> 00:39:28,000
--like a kind of needlework.
378
00:39:28,300 --> 00:39:34,200
Stitch by stitch, the embroiderer sews in loneliness, weariness--
379
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:39,800
--anxiety, sadness, nights of terror--
380
00:39:39,900 --> 00:39:43,900
--and sunrises of dismay--
381
00:39:44,199 --> 00:39:49,199
--and she sighs with relief when she has completed a small tapestry...
382
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:52,700
...with conventional roses.
383
00:39:54,699 --> 00:39:58,099
A woman's hands and a woman's patience--
384
00:39:58,300 --> 00:40:02,400
--can even transform the torments of hell into roses.
385
00:40:03,500 --> 00:40:07,099
Renée, isn't it wonderful? Congratulations!
386
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:12,099
- I owe everything to you, mother. - Don't overdo the gratitude.
387
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:18,200
- You've felt very bitter towards me. - I blush to hear you say that.
388
00:40:18,500 --> 00:40:24,199
Alphonse should be home at La Coste already. I must prepare to leave.
389
00:40:24,699 --> 00:40:31,399
- You needn't be in such a hurry. - No, you can very well let him wait.
390
00:40:31,699 --> 00:40:37,399
Today I think we should be together all three like we used to--
391
00:40:37,699 --> 00:40:41,899
--and tell one another about the hardships we've gone through.
392
00:40:42,199 --> 00:40:47,399
Like that time when Alphonse managed to escape from prison.
393
00:40:48,099 --> 00:40:53,699
I can't stop hating him for treating my daughters so disgracefully.
394
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:57,800
- He hasn't treated med disgracefully. - Nor me.
395
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:01,900
What you say is ridiculous and incomprehensible!
396
00:41:02,099 --> 00:41:05,400
His desire flares up like a sacriledge--
397
00:41:05,699 --> 00:41:09,799
--like when a horse is excited by trampling the frozen grass...
398
00:41:10,099 --> 00:41:13,900
That's why he always follows a fixed pattern:
399
00:41:14,199 --> 00:41:19,500
he lets the muddy water of a cold morning crystallize into sacred ice--
400
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:25,500
--that he crushes underfoot. Whores are momentarily turned into saints--
401
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:30,900
--so that he can whip them. The next moment the dream is torn to shreds.
402
00:41:31,099 --> 00:41:34,599
Then he gets rid of the whores and beggars--
403
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:40,400
--and has no one to feed the honey of tenderness he has collected inside--
404
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:44,700
--after these moments of rapture.
405
00:41:44,900 --> 00:41:48,400
Then he returns to me--
406
00:41:48,699 --> 00:41:52,399
--and lets all his love flow over me.
407
00:41:52,699 --> 00:41:58,599
Under the dazzling sun, he toils to collect the honey of tenderness--
408
00:41:58,900 --> 00:42:06,800
--and bestows it on me where I'm waiting in the cool, dark hive.
409
00:42:07,300 --> 00:42:13,400
How you end up adorning Alphonse with your understanding, your poetry!
410
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:22,599
I never thought of understanding him. With me, he let himself go.
411
00:42:23,300 --> 00:42:29,200
He loves me like a man. And I responded like a woman.
412
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:35,100
Since you venture to be so open, I have something to add:
413
00:42:35,599 --> 00:42:38,599
I used you as a tool.
414
00:42:40,900 --> 00:42:45,300
Alphonse could never behave like a normal man with me--
415
00:42:45,699 --> 00:42:52,099
--since I knew he wasn't a normal man. That's why I chose you.
416
00:42:56,000 --> 00:43:01,900
You don't have my memories of Venice. I'm sorry for you.
417
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:08,000
The moon, red as blood, rising out of a canal in the mist...
418
00:43:08,199 --> 00:43:14,599
An umade bed, redolent of seaweed washed up on a white beach--
419
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:19,000
--full of the dampness and odour of the sea.
420
00:43:19,199 --> 00:43:23,299
The bloodstained recollections that sometimes showed in his eyes...
421
00:43:23,500 --> 00:43:28,699
- ...were the source of our tenderness. - What a revolting topic of discussion!
422
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:36,000
The Comtesse de Saint-Fond asks to be admitted for a brief word.
423
00:43:36,199 --> 00:43:41,799
Well, she's heard most of it. Ask her to come in.
424
00:44:14,500 --> 00:44:20,099
I took the liberty of arriving like this. I trust you don't mind.
425
00:44:20,500 --> 00:44:24,599
At least I'm not flying in on a broomhandle.
426
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:28,700
I have something to tell you.
427
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:34,400
Last night I acted like Mme de Montespan in the days of Louis XIV.
428
00:44:34,699 --> 00:44:39,799
A private audience with the King? But they say our present monarch...
429
00:44:40,199 --> 00:44:46,500
I shall tell you everything. I need a good listener like you--
430
00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:50,800
--not an easily scared creature like Madame de Simiane.
431
00:44:51,099 --> 00:44:55,599
A lady with courage and presence of mind, who defends virtue at all times.
432
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:59,400
Thank you for the compliment.
433
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:08,800
When people feel a need to spice their pleasures, they call to mind--
434
00:45:09,099 --> 00:45:15,400
--how as children they enjoyed being punished, and regret this loss.
435
00:45:15,900 --> 00:45:20,900
Then they begin to scorn the invisible Master--
436
00:45:21,199 --> 00:45:27,799
--challenging him, arousing his wrath. But divinity is a lazy dog:
437
00:45:28,099 --> 00:45:34,099
while it is dozing in the sun, you can pull its tail without it flinching.
438
00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:40,000
- You say that God is a lazy dog? - Yes, and a degenerate one too.
439
00:45:40,199 --> 00:45:45,399
I misjudged the Marquis when I considered that master of chastisement--
440
00:45:45,699 --> 00:45:51,899
--that provost-marshal with his whip, that hooligan, as one chosen by God.
441
00:45:52,099 --> 00:45:59,000
No, the Marquis is a simple fellow, we are members of the same coterie.
442
00:45:59,300 --> 00:46:04,500
The clique surrounding the lazy dog are both scourgers and scourged--
443
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:11,100
--both castigators and castigated, trouble-makers of the same hue.
444
00:46:11,300 --> 00:46:16,400
One challenges the dog by flagellating--
445
00:46:16,699 --> 00:46:21,099
--another by being flagellated...
446
00:46:21,300 --> 00:46:28,100
One by shedding blood, the other by letting blood flow...
447
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:34,500
And still the dog does not deign to awaken.
448
00:46:34,800 --> 00:46:39,000
The Marquis de Sade and I are accomplices.
449
00:46:39,300 --> 00:46:43,500
- How did you discover that? - Not discover... I felt it.
450
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:48,900
- When did that happen? - When I was serving as a table.
451
00:46:49,199 --> 00:46:54,099
Nothing strange about that, is there? To go straight to the point--
452
00:46:54,300 --> 00:46:58,900
--I was stripped naked so that my body could be used as an altar.
453
00:46:59,099 --> 00:47:02,799
I was turned on my back on a black shroud.
454
00:47:03,099 --> 00:47:08,299
Between my breasts, a small silver crucifix was laid.
455
00:47:08,599 --> 00:47:13,599
The silver chalice placed between my thighs--
456
00:47:13,900 --> 00:47:17,300
--felt just as cold as a chamber-pot of Sévres porcelain...
457
00:47:17,599 --> 00:47:23,299
But none of this made me tremble with pleasure at the blasphemy itself.
458
00:47:23,599 --> 00:47:31,199
The moment for celebrating the mass approached--
459
00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:36,099
--and they gave me burning candles to hold in my hands.
460
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:43,700
The flames were far away, the boiling wax seemed distant...
461
00:47:44,699 --> 00:47:50,399
In the Sun King's day, they sacrificed babies at their black masses...
462
00:47:50,699 --> 00:47:55,199
In these degenerate days, the baby was replaced by a lamb.
463
00:47:55,500 --> 00:47:58,900
The officiating priest invoked Jesus Christ--
464
00:47:59,300 --> 00:48:03,900
--and suddenly the anxious bleating above my head gave way to a shriek.
465
00:48:04,199 --> 00:48:09,599
And then the animal's blood flowed over my breasts--
466
00:48:09,900 --> 00:48:14,200
--over my stomach and down...
467
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:19,900
...into the holy chalice between my thighs.
468
00:48:21,199 --> 00:48:28,299
Until then I had found the whole business half comic, half eccentric--
469
00:48:28,599 --> 00:48:32,599
--but at that moment...
470
00:48:33,599 --> 00:48:39,799
...joy flared up in my impassive heart.
471
00:48:43,199 --> 00:48:48,599
While the hot wax dripped on my outspread arms--
472
00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:53,600
--which formed a cross of wickedness, I understood--
473
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:59,400
--that the fire in my hands was equivalent to the Crucifixion nails.
474
00:49:05,699 --> 00:49:10,899
I'm telling you this not from vanity or self-satisfaction.
475
00:49:11,099 --> 00:49:15,599
I want you to understand that I've made Alphonse's ecstacy my own.
476
00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:21,200
Alphonse wants to see, I want to be seen. Our experience is different.
477
00:49:21,400 --> 00:49:26,000
But when the lamb's blood poured like rain over my naked body--
478
00:49:26,199 --> 00:49:31,299
--I realized who Alphonse really is.
479
00:49:33,800 --> 00:49:38,700
- And who is he? - Alphonse is myself.
480
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:43,400
He is me.
481
00:49:44,199 --> 00:49:48,899
He is the bloodstained table of human flesh--
482
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:55,400
--a quivering foetus with blind eyes, ingrowing limbs; a divine miscarriage.
483
00:49:55,800 --> 00:50:03,200
Yes, I realized that the Marquis de Sade is the foetus aborted by God--
484
00:50:03,599 --> 00:50:08,299
--who can be himself only when he flees from himself--
485
00:50:08,599 --> 00:50:12,199
--and that those surrounding Alphonse - the women he tormented--
486
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:17,599
--and the women who tormented him - were also Alphonse.
487
00:50:23,099 --> 00:50:28,199
The man you call Alphonse is a mere shadow.
488
00:50:28,500 --> 00:50:33,800
If I understand you correctly, you mean that Alphonse is blameless.
489
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:38,500
Presumably that is the term in your vocabulary.
490
00:50:38,699 --> 00:50:45,099
So you and the High Court judges have come to the same conclusion.
491
00:50:45,300 --> 00:50:50,400
Be glad, Madame. Thanks to my mother Alphonse is free at last.
492
00:50:50,599 --> 00:50:56,400
- Read it yourself. - Strange... What date does it say?
493
00:50:56,599 --> 00:51:02,799
- When was the court decision issued? - I didn't think of that.
494
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:09,400
Here it is, in small lettering... not surprising that I didn't notice it.
495
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:14,000
''14th July, 1778...''
496
00:51:14,300 --> 00:51:20,400
The fourteenth of July! Today is the first of September.
497
00:51:20,699 --> 00:51:25,699
The decision was announced one and a half months ago!
498
00:51:26,000 --> 00:51:30,699
I've been in Paris all summer without hearing about it.
499
00:51:31,300 --> 00:51:36,500
Anne! What does this mean? Why wasn't I told anything before now?
500
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:45,200
Why has my mother done this? Why keep quiet about such happy news?
501
00:51:46,500 --> 00:51:53,599
Alphonse must be waiting for me! Yet I haven't heard a word from him.
502
00:51:54,199 --> 00:51:58,599
- I'm going straight home to La Coste. - There's no point.
503
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:04,000
The Marquis de Sade is safely incarcerated again, in another prison.
504
00:52:04,300 --> 00:52:09,100
It can't be true! Alphonse has been pardoned.
505
00:52:09,500 --> 00:52:13,699
- Mother, say it isn't true! - The Comtesse teases you.
506
00:52:13,900 --> 00:52:18,800
Today you'll regret that an irreproachable lady like you--
507
00:52:19,099 --> 00:52:26,500
--got involved with a woman like me. Six years ago, you tried to use me.
508
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:31,600
Immediately afterwards, you changed your mind and declined my assistance.
509
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:37,000
I can forgive your wanting to use me, but not your rejecting my help.
510
00:52:39,099 --> 00:52:43,900
I was denied the opportunity of carrying out a virtuous deed--
511
00:52:44,199 --> 00:52:49,500
--and that compels me once more to play a part contrary to my nature.
512
00:52:49,800 --> 00:52:55,200
I find myself in the unusual position of revealing the true situation.
513
00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:59,400
Your mother set a trap for Alphonse.
514
00:52:59,699 --> 00:53:05,099
The retrial at the High Court was a means of ensnaring him again.
515
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:09,800
You know my information is always correct, don't you?
516
00:53:10,099 --> 00:53:14,799
Not until yesterday did I myself find out the details of what happened.
517
00:53:15,099 --> 00:53:20,799
Last autumn your mother requested an arrest warrant from His Majesty.
518
00:53:21,099 --> 00:53:25,799
As soon as Alphonse had been released by the court order of July 14--
519
00:53:26,099 --> 00:53:32,599
--he was surrounded by the King's guard and taken back to Vincennes.
520
00:53:32,900 --> 00:53:37,800
This time he was moved to an isolation cell--
521
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:42,900
--that was infinitely darker, colder and damper than the first one.
522
00:53:43,199 --> 00:53:48,099
On the way there he succeeded in escaping, it is true--
523
00:53:48,400 --> 00:53:52,800
--but don't worry, Madame! Your son-in-law is in safe custody--
524
00:53:53,000 --> 00:53:59,099
--in a dungeon fortified with double iron doors, even the skylight has bars.
525
00:54:03,599 --> 00:54:07,799
This time you can be sure that he won't get out so easily.
526
00:54:16,800 --> 00:54:22,800
I believe you said that you dropped in while you were out on a walk?
527
00:54:23,099 --> 00:54:27,299
I would like to accompany you as you continue your walk.
528
00:54:27,599 --> 00:54:32,699
I shall consider myself lucky to have the company of such a charming tool.
529
00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:39,099
First you were your sister's tool--
530
00:54:39,300 --> 00:54:42,300
--then your mother's.
531
00:54:42,500 --> 00:54:47,099
Next time you can be mine, can't you?
532
00:54:47,500 --> 00:54:53,000
By all means, use me as a table, a chest of drawers or whatever!
533
00:54:53,300 --> 00:54:57,800
You're a wise young woman. You have two folding wings--
534
00:54:58,099 --> 00:55:02,799
--that allow you to fly away from every troublesome situation.
535
00:55:03,099 --> 00:55:09,699
Those wings are undoubtedly your own.
536
00:55:23,000 --> 00:55:25,800
There we are, then, Madame.
537
00:55:26,599 --> 00:55:32,500
Charlotte! Look closely at my face. I shan't visit this house again.
538
00:55:32,800 --> 00:55:39,300
You'll probably only see the faces of impeccable people in the future--
539
00:55:39,599 --> 00:55:44,900
--so you'd better memorize what a dissolute woman looks like.
540
00:56:22,400 --> 00:56:27,599
Why did you deceive me in that despicable way?
541
00:56:27,800 --> 00:56:35,200
We're both guilty of keeping secrets. We stand opposed to each other:
542
00:56:35,599 --> 00:56:42,400
I wish to keep Alphonse in prison, you're determined to get him free.
543
00:56:42,699 --> 00:56:48,099
Throughout, we've tried to thwart each other's plans. Renée...
544
00:56:48,500 --> 00:56:54,000
I've become old and tired, I don't wish to quarrel with you any more.
545
00:56:54,199 --> 00:56:58,799
But it's true that Alphonse is in prison, and that it's your doing?
546
00:56:59,099 --> 00:57:03,799
- I'm not the King. - That was a wicked thing to do.
547
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:07,900
I thought a certain brutality was required to bring you to your senses.
548
00:57:08,199 --> 00:57:12,299
Once your eyes were opened, you would break with Alphonse.
549
00:57:12,500 --> 00:57:15,699
- I can't. - Why not?
550
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:20,800
How long are you going to regard that monster as your husband?
551
00:57:21,000 --> 00:57:24,199
Has he been faithful to you?
552
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:29,700
Oh yes, when he's alone in his cell, he weeps and wails in his letters.
553
00:57:30,000 --> 00:57:35,400
Then he casts out sickly words of love and promises eternal faithfulness.
554
00:57:35,699 --> 00:57:41,000
But that is reserved for his letters. Divorce him!
555
00:57:41,199 --> 00:57:45,099
That is your only chance of finding happiness.
556
00:57:45,599 --> 00:57:50,400
My happiness... I can't break with him.
557
00:57:50,599 --> 00:57:55,900
So you mean it's love that prevents you from leaving him?
558
00:57:56,099 --> 00:57:59,799
That's beyond understanding.
559
00:58:02,099 --> 00:58:08,699
Think, Renée! Your husband is not a human being.
560
00:58:08,900 --> 00:58:15,700
He is still my husband! I mean to follow him as far as I can.
561
00:58:16,000 --> 00:58:21,199
If your intention was to separate us, it was an error to put him in prison.
562
00:58:21,400 --> 00:58:25,800
I shall write to him and take every opportunity to visit him.
563
00:58:26,099 --> 00:58:31,199
As long as he is imprisoned, I am the only person he has in the world.
564
00:58:31,400 --> 00:58:37,599
I get the impression that you too, deep down--
565
00:58:37,800 --> 00:58:42,100
--want to have Alphonse like a bird in a cage.
566
00:58:42,400 --> 00:58:47,599
When he is deprived of his freedom, you needn't feel any jealousy.
567
00:58:47,800 --> 00:58:51,300
Then it's his turn to be jealous.
568
00:58:51,599 --> 00:58:57,000
Didn't he write an awful letter when he thought you'd been unfaithful?
569
00:58:57,300 --> 00:59:03,600
You and I have the same interest in keeping him locked up.
570
00:59:03,800 --> 00:59:06,700
It's not true.
571
00:59:07,000 --> 00:59:12,900
You want him released, although you know he will cause you suffering.
572
00:59:13,099 --> 00:59:17,299
Do you enjoy suffering so much?
573
00:59:17,500 --> 00:59:21,400
There's no worse suffering than I'm going through at present.
574
00:59:21,699 --> 00:59:27,000
If he is released, will you be glad then? Happy?
575
00:59:27,300 --> 00:59:34,400
- I can't dream of a greater happiness! - What kind of happiness?
576
00:59:34,800 --> 00:59:39,400
The happiness of being abandoned by my husband night after night...
577
00:59:39,599 --> 00:59:43,799
...of lying curled up in bed at La Coste shivering with cold--
578
00:59:44,099 --> 00:59:48,599
--and seeing in my mind's eye Alphonse in a warm room somewhere--
579
00:59:48,800 --> 00:59:53,400
--holding a flaming brand to the naked back of a bound woman.
580
00:59:53,599 --> 00:59:58,000
The happiness of knowing that bloody scandals are spreading out--
581
00:59:58,199 --> 01:00:02,399
--like the scarlet train of a coronation robe...
582
01:00:02,699 --> 01:00:07,299
...of walking through the village as the chatelaine, with downcast eyes.
583
01:00:07,599 --> 01:00:14,699
The happiness of poverty, dishonour, is due to me if Alphonse is released.
584
01:00:15,000 --> 01:00:20,000
You're lying, lying! You still keep secrets from me, I know!
585
01:00:20,300 --> 01:00:26,600
My hired investigator saw you at La Coste at Christmas four years ago!
586
01:00:26,900 --> 01:00:32,599
You've forgotten it, of course. Or you can't keep the occasions apart.
587
01:00:32,800 --> 01:00:39,500
Four years ago Alphonse had managed to escape from prison--
588
01:00:39,800 --> 01:00:44,100
--and secretly returned to La Coste. It was a severe winter--
589
01:00:44,400 --> 01:00:50,400
--and I had to pawn the family silver to pay for firewood.
590
01:00:50,699 --> 01:00:55,299
- It was hardly a Christmas at all. - Not what you were engaged in, no!
591
01:00:55,500 --> 01:01:01,400
Despite your poverty you could afford to hire five young girls as ''maids''--
592
01:01:01,599 --> 01:01:08,400
--and a young man as a ''secretary''. My investigator hid on a balcony--
593
01:01:08,699 --> 01:01:14,599
--and saw through the window your peculiar way of celebrating Christmas.
594
01:01:14,800 --> 01:01:21,400
The firelight was bright enough to illuminate the bare treetrunks outside.
595
01:01:21,599 --> 01:01:25,000
- Say no more! - Don't interrupt!
596
01:01:25,199 --> 01:01:30,099
Alphonse wore a black velvet cape, his bare chest showed underneath.
597
01:01:30,400 --> 01:01:36,000
The five girls ran naked to and fro to avoid his whip, begging for mercy.
598
01:01:36,199 --> 01:01:42,199
You hung from a ceiling beam, your hands tied together, naked as well.
599
01:01:42,500 --> 01:01:46,900
You were half-unconscious from pain, drops of blood shone in the firelight.
600
01:01:47,199 --> 01:01:53,500
The Marquis ordered the young man the cleanse the Marquise's body.
601
01:01:53,800 --> 01:01:59,800
The youth stood on a chair and took hold of your hanging body...
602
01:02:00,099 --> 01:02:05,199
And then he licked you... And it wasn't only blood he licked...
603
01:02:05,500 --> 01:02:11,800
Renée... there's no point getting you to show your scars.
604
01:02:12,000 --> 01:02:15,900
Your pallor tells me everything that needs to be said.
605
01:02:16,199 --> 01:02:22,000
- It was the only time. I was forced. - Can Alphonse turn you into a dog?
606
01:02:22,300 --> 01:02:28,400
A worm? Where is your womanly pride?
607
01:02:28,599 --> 01:02:34,799
I didn't bring you up for that. You are poisoned by Alphonse's lechery.
608
01:02:35,000 --> 01:02:39,099
At the depths of shame and dishonour, there's no sympathy.
609
01:02:39,400 --> 01:02:43,500
A woman who has resolved to live in fidelity is prepared to take any step.
610
01:02:43,800 --> 01:02:48,500
She will trample on both society's laws and her own reputation.
611
01:02:48,800 --> 01:02:53,800
- All women who love rogues say so. - Alphonse is no rogue.
612
01:02:54,000 --> 01:02:58,400
He's a threshold between me and the impossible. Between me and God.
613
01:02:58,699 --> 01:03:04,799
- Your embellishing descriptions! - You need metaphors to describe him.
614
01:03:05,000 --> 01:03:10,199
He's a dove, not a lion. He's a white flower, not a poisonous plant.
615
01:03:10,500 --> 01:03:17,599
That Christmas I realized that understanding and protecting don't suffice.
616
01:03:17,900 --> 01:03:24,200
I had to rid myself of the illusion that I was the most decent of wives.
617
01:03:24,500 --> 01:03:30,500
The arrogance that is yoked to decency vanished on that dreadful night.
618
01:03:30,699 --> 01:03:34,399
You mean you became his accomplice?
619
01:03:34,599 --> 01:03:39,400
Yes, I became the accomplice of a dove, of a white flower.
620
01:03:39,699 --> 01:03:44,199
The unruly wild beast called woman discovered--
621
01:03:44,500 --> 01:03:49,000
--that hers had been none other than voracious decency...
622
01:03:49,300 --> 01:03:55,900
- You are still a wild beast like that. - No one has said such things to me!
623
01:03:56,199 --> 01:04:01,000
You shall hear it often! With your teeth, you've torn Alphonse to shreds.
624
01:04:01,199 --> 01:04:05,000
I'm the one who has been torn to shreds by that monster's fangs.
625
01:04:05,199 --> 01:04:09,399
He has nothing resembling fangs. He has a knife, a whip and a rope:
626
01:04:09,699 --> 01:04:13,699
oldfashioned instruments of torture and human inventions.
627
01:04:14,000 --> 01:04:20,199
But you've had fangs from the start. Your white breasts are fangs.
628
01:04:20,500 --> 01:04:24,900
Your thighs, which haven't lost their suppleness and lustre, are fangs.
629
01:04:25,199 --> 01:04:32,000
Your body is clad in armour, glittering with the thorns of hypocrisy.
630
01:04:32,199 --> 01:04:37,599
- My breasts bore and nurtured you! - My breasts are not like yours...
631
01:04:37,800 --> 01:04:43,200
..moulded in the shape of hypocrisy to tally with accepted rules of morality.
632
01:04:43,400 --> 01:04:49,800
No doubt my father loved them, since you both put store by conventions.
633
01:04:50,000 --> 01:04:52,800
I forbid you to denigrate your father!
634
01:04:53,000 --> 01:04:56,599
You complied with the rules even in bed.
635
01:04:56,900 --> 01:05:02,200
Even your whispered pillowtalk expressed a shared admiration--
636
01:05:02,500 --> 01:05:03,300
-for conventional morallty You two were a ready-made ley and leyhole.
637
01:05:03,300 --> 01:05:07,800
--for conventional morality. You two were a ready-made key and keyhole.
638
01:05:08,099 --> 01:05:12,799
If the key was inserted in the lock the door of happiness always opened.
639
01:05:13,000 --> 01:05:16,800
You talked about keys and keyholes that didn't fit together, and laughed.
640
01:05:17,099 --> 01:05:22,599
No one wants to be a rusty key or a keyhole that whines with pain!
641
01:05:23,000 --> 01:05:30,500
Your breasts and thighs clinged like leeches to social conventions.
642
01:05:30,800 --> 01:05:36,600
You slept with morality and banality and moaned with pleasure.
643
01:05:36,800 --> 01:05:41,800
That's monstrous! Three times a day you sated yourselves with contempt--
644
01:05:42,099 --> 01:05:48,000
--for those who flouted etiquette, just as you ate three meals.
645
01:05:52,199 --> 01:05:57,399
If you turned the key and opened the door, the bedroom was there...
646
01:05:57,599 --> 01:06:02,299
...the drawingroom there, the bathroom over there, and the kitchen...
647
01:06:02,599 --> 01:06:10,199
You strolled around as you pleased, discussing honour and reputation.
648
01:06:13,400 --> 01:06:16,800
Not even in your wildest dreams did you imagine--
649
01:06:17,099 --> 01:06:22,599
--what it would be like to unlock the wonderful door--
650
01:06:22,900 --> 01:06:28,200
--that opened on a sky full of stars.
651
01:06:34,599 --> 01:06:38,699
We didn't try to open the gates of hell either.
652
01:06:39,300 --> 01:06:44,700
Hatred of what one cannot imagine is spreading in the world.
653
01:06:46,000 --> 01:06:52,000
It is a kind of hammock in which people enjoy their afternoon nap.
654
01:06:58,900 --> 01:07:04,800
But soon enough you have acquired brass breasts and a stomach of brass.
655
01:07:05,400 --> 01:07:09,099
They shine when you polish them.
656
01:07:10,000 --> 01:07:15,300
You and your kind call a rose beautiful and a snake nasty.
657
01:07:15,599 --> 01:07:21,400
You don't know that they are friends and exchange guises in the night.
658
01:07:22,400 --> 01:07:28,400
The snake turns red and the rose gets gleaming scales.
659
01:07:31,500 --> 01:07:35,599
A roe deer you think is pretty, a lion is frightening.
660
01:07:35,900 --> 01:07:40,400
You have no idea how their blood flows when they make love.
661
01:07:40,800 --> 01:07:46,800
You know nothing of the nights when sanctity and shame switch places--
662
01:07:47,099 --> 01:07:51,000
--and therefore you want to exterminate such nights--
663
01:07:51,199 --> 01:07:55,000
--after you have ridiculed them with your brains of brass.
664
01:07:55,300 --> 01:08:00,600
So the sweet roe, the ugly toad, the frightening lion och the cunning fox--
665
01:08:00,900 --> 01:08:05,400
--are one and the same and merge together in thunderstorms at night?
666
01:08:05,599 --> 01:08:09,400
What's so remarkable about that?
667
01:08:09,699 --> 01:08:14,000
Women used to be burnt at the stake for such ideas.
668
01:08:18,000 --> 01:08:22,500
You have merely opened the door to that sky full of stars--
669
01:08:22,800 --> 01:08:26,400
--and stumbled out through it.
670
01:08:27,199 --> 01:08:31,500
People divide everyone into compartments--
671
01:08:31,800 --> 01:08:36,000
--just as they lay handkerchiefs and gloves in different drawers--
672
01:08:36,199 --> 01:08:40,800
--or say that roe deers are pretty and toads ugly.
673
01:08:41,100 --> 01:08:44,700
You are kept in the drawer for propriety--
674
01:08:44,899 --> 01:08:49,199
--and Alphonse is consigned to the drawer for perversity.
675
01:08:49,399 --> 01:08:53,500
But an earthquake may turn the drawers upside down.
676
01:08:53,800 --> 01:08:58,400
You may land among the depraved, Alphonse among the well behaved.
677
01:08:58,600 --> 01:09:03,400
One has to watch out for earthquakes and lock the drawers.
678
01:09:17,199 --> 01:09:22,199
If you could see how repellent you look, you'd find it hard to decide--
679
01:09:22,500 --> 01:09:25,500
--which drawer to place yourself in.
680
01:09:26,000 --> 01:09:30,300
Dazzled by the de Sade family name, you gave your daughter to Alphonse--
681
01:09:30,500 --> 01:09:34,800
--but when your house is threatened by fire, you want to buy her back.
682
01:09:35,000 --> 01:09:39,000
I've already spent all available funds.
683
01:09:39,300 --> 01:09:42,600
You're as pleased to buy your daughter back--
684
01:09:42,899 --> 01:09:46,899
--as a prostitute to redeem the wardrobe she has pawned.
685
01:09:47,199 --> 01:09:51,899
You have fantasies of an enjoyable, happy life.
686
01:09:52,199 --> 01:09:55,599
Without ever exploring what lies at the end of the world--
687
01:09:55,899 --> 01:10:01,299
--you cover your windows with pink curtains - and then you die.
688
01:10:01,600 --> 01:10:07,400
You're proud never to have let yourself be harmed by those you despise--
689
01:10:07,699 --> 01:10:14,599
--but no base of human pride could be more petty and contemptible.
690
01:10:14,800 --> 01:10:21,800
- You'll die too one day. - Yes, but not like you.
691
01:10:22,000 --> 01:10:26,000
Of course not. I've no intention of being burnt at the stake.
692
01:10:26,199 --> 01:10:31,500
I don't intend to die like a genteel whore with a nest-egg put aside.
693
01:10:31,699 --> 01:10:35,300
Renée - I could hit you!
694
01:10:47,399 --> 01:10:53,000
Do that! But what will you do, if I curl up with pleasure at being hit?
695
01:10:58,699 --> 01:11:03,300
- Your face, when you say that... - What about my face?
696
01:11:03,600 --> 01:11:08,600
You've become so like Alphonse that it scares me.
697
01:11:22,899 --> 01:11:27,599
What was it that Madame de Saint- Fond said? ''Alphonse is myself!''
698
01:11:42,399 --> 01:11:44,899
''Alphonse is myself!''
699
01:11:48,800 --> 01:11:51,800
''Alphonse is myself!''
700
01:11:54,800 --> 01:11:58,400
THIRD ACT
701
01:12:10,500 --> 01:12:16,399
Nine months after the outbreak of the French Revolution
702
01:12:37,199 --> 01:12:40,099
- Renée? - Yes?
703
01:12:41,500 --> 01:12:44,399
- Aren't you tired of it? - No.
704
01:12:45,600 --> 01:12:49,700
For twelve years I've seen you visiting Alphonse in prison.
705
01:12:50,000 --> 01:12:55,800
Never have I seen you tired of it. You had hardly returned from a visit--
706
01:12:56,100 --> 01:13:01,200
--when you started preparing for the next, wondering what to bring him.
707
01:13:02,300 --> 01:13:07,400
That's true. I didn't want my husband to think I had aged.
708
01:13:07,699 --> 01:13:12,699
If he saw me often enough, I thought he wouldn't notice I was growing old.
709
01:13:13,000 --> 01:13:20,100
But any day now, all the criminals and lunatics will be let out.
710
01:13:22,100 --> 01:13:26,000
The justice I always believed in was eliminated--
711
01:13:26,199 --> 01:13:31,800
--when the National Assembly declared all royal arrests to be invalid.
712
01:13:33,399 --> 01:13:37,899
Since that day, you've stopped visiting Alphonse.
713
01:13:38,199 --> 01:13:43,300
There's no need any more. Sooner or later, he'll come home.
714
01:13:43,500 --> 01:13:48,199
That's true. At the same time, you've changed.
715
01:13:48,399 --> 01:13:52,000
I've become old and tired too.
716
01:13:52,199 --> 01:13:58,199
When the whole society is changing, people can't avoid changing as well.
717
01:13:58,399 --> 01:14:04,199
Charlotte didn't come to the door. Is she joining the rest of the mob?
718
01:14:04,399 --> 01:14:06,599
Anne!
719
01:14:07,100 --> 01:14:11,600
I'm here to say farewell. Or rather, to ask you to come with us, Mother.
720
01:14:11,899 --> 01:14:17,000
Without the slightest warning? Where are you planning to go?
721
01:14:17,300 --> 01:14:20,900
- To Venice, with my husband. - Venice...
722
01:14:21,199 --> 01:14:26,000
No, sister. This has nothing to do with the Venice you remember.
723
01:14:26,300 --> 01:14:31,300
My husband has bought a palace and decided we should move there.
724
01:14:31,600 --> 01:14:36,200
Why should you leave your beautiful home and your position at court?
725
01:14:36,399 --> 01:14:42,000
My husband says it is already dangerous to fraternize with the court.
726
01:14:42,199 --> 01:14:48,199
The Comte de Mirabeau has urged the King to go into exile--
727
01:14:48,399 --> 01:14:55,199
--but others are against it. My husband also thinks it would be wise.
728
01:14:55,600 --> 01:15:02,100
- And yet the King remains? - He always was a great vacillator.
729
01:15:02,399 --> 01:15:06,899
As long as the King remains, I shall stay in Paris.
730
01:15:07,199 --> 01:15:12,000
Have you become such a royalist, Mother? Joking apart--
731
01:15:12,399 --> 01:15:17,000
--things look peaceful on the surface, but we don't know what may happen.
732
01:15:17,199 --> 01:15:22,099
The best thing is to remain calm and look both left and right.
733
01:15:22,399 --> 01:15:26,399
I think I shall be able to live here in peace and quiet.
734
01:15:26,600 --> 01:15:31,900
However indiscriminately the mob acts, they won't attack an old woman.
735
01:15:32,199 --> 01:15:38,300
These days, the wisest course is not to take sides.
736
01:15:39,000 --> 01:15:44,800
Keep that up, and you may end up like the Comtesse de Saint-Fond.
737
01:15:45,199 --> 01:15:51,199
A poor comparison. Do you think I can die such an honourable death?
738
01:15:51,500 --> 01:15:56,600
Madame de Saint-Fond was said to have tired of Paris--
739
01:15:56,899 --> 01:16:01,199
--and gone to Marseilles where, at night, she dressed up as prostitute--
740
01:16:01,399 --> 01:16:07,000
--and sold herself to the sailors she accosted in the street.
741
01:16:07,300 --> 01:16:13,600
She spent her days in her villa, caressing her cheeks with her earnings.
742
01:16:13,899 --> 01:16:19,299
She had a jeweller set precious stones in the coins.
743
01:16:19,600 --> 01:16:24,300
She planned to have a dress sewn from them, and show it off in Paris.
744
01:16:24,500 --> 01:16:29,600
She would have had to earn a fortune to cover enough of that body.
745
01:16:29,800 --> 01:16:33,800
She had aged considerably, you know.
746
01:16:34,100 --> 01:16:37,900
One evening a riot broke out.
747
01:16:38,199 --> 01:16:42,699
Since she was standing on a dark street corner in her harlot's guise--
748
01:16:42,899 --> 01:16:48,399
--she was dragged along with the mob and sang that song with the others...
749
01:16:48,699 --> 01:16:55,399
Ta-ta-ta-ta! The refrain is ''Hang the aristocrats from the lamp-posts!''
750
01:16:56,399 --> 01:17:01,399
She sang ''Hang the aristocrats!'' at the top of her voice.
751
01:17:01,699 --> 01:17:06,399
But the rioters were attacked by guards and fell like dominoes--
752
01:17:06,699 --> 01:17:11,000
--and Madame de Saint-Fond was trampled to death.
753
01:17:11,300 --> 01:17:18,000
When morning came, the crowd found her body and placed it on a shutter.
754
01:17:18,300 --> 01:17:24,699
They carried it round the streets and mourned her as a sublime victim.
755
01:17:25,000 --> 01:17:30,800
Impromptu poets wrote ballads about the ''pathetic harlot''--
756
01:17:31,000 --> 01:17:36,899
--that everyone sang. No one knew who she was.
757
01:17:38,199 --> 01:17:44,199
In the morning light her body looked like a slaughtered hen.
758
01:17:44,500 --> 01:17:49,199
It took on the same colours as the <i>tricolore:</i>
759
01:17:49,399 --> 01:17:55,000
the red blood, the white flesh and all the bruises.
760
01:17:55,300 --> 01:18:00,500
But the morning sun shone mercilessly through the thick layer of powder--
761
01:18:00,800 --> 01:18:06,000
--and revealed her withered skin. People were dismayed--
762
01:18:06,300 --> 01:18:11,800
--when they saw that she had metamorphosed into an old hag.
763
01:18:12,100 --> 01:18:16,800
But it didn't detract from the tribute given to her.
764
01:18:17,100 --> 01:18:21,600
Deprived of her feathers, the wrinkled thighs laid bare--
765
01:18:21,899 --> 01:18:26,399
--her corpse continued its triumphal procession through the city.
766
01:18:26,699 --> 01:18:31,000
That, as you know, was the beginning of the Revolution.
767
01:18:49,300 --> 01:18:54,199
Now you're off to the Mediterranean, the sea of old age and death.
768
01:18:54,500 --> 01:18:59,000
What an unpleasant way to put it! We're going there to stay alive.
769
01:18:59,199 --> 01:19:05,000
You've always been busy living. But other people have kept you alive.
770
01:19:06,800 --> 01:19:13,000
I agree that Venice today has little in common with your Venice of the past.
771
01:19:13,300 --> 01:19:17,699
You're escaping quite simply by not keeping any memories.
772
01:19:17,899 --> 01:19:21,599
So you think I should hold on to memories?
773
01:19:21,800 --> 01:19:27,300
When reminiscences become necessary, I shall show them with pleasure.
774
01:19:28,000 --> 01:19:32,399
It's just that I don't let myself be weighed down by them.
775
01:19:33,399 --> 01:19:37,399
Aren't you the one without memories?
776
01:19:37,600 --> 01:19:42,700
All your life, you'll stand with your face turned towards a white wall.
777
01:19:43,000 --> 01:19:49,100
One can discern traces of congealed blood and drops resembling tears...
778
01:19:49,399 --> 01:19:53,599
- But otherwise it is simply a wall. - That's true.
779
01:19:53,899 --> 01:19:58,500
I've always turned my face towards the motionless sediment.
780
01:19:58,800 --> 01:20:02,000
My memories are insects in amber--
781
01:20:02,300 --> 01:20:07,100
--not like yours, shadows fluttering over the water.
782
01:20:07,399 --> 01:20:12,399
You're right about one thing: my memories have always been a burden.
783
01:20:12,800 --> 01:20:20,600
Yes, and a source of jealousy. In my face you can read two memories--
784
01:20:20,800 --> 01:20:26,699
--and you hate me for them - Venice and happiness.
785
01:20:27,000 --> 01:20:31,899
- I've never wished for them. - You won't admit defeat, will you?
786
01:20:33,000 --> 01:20:39,000
When I was young, I thought I wished for those same recollections.
787
01:20:39,199 --> 01:20:45,300
But what remained in my memory, the insects that stuck in my amber--
788
01:20:45,600 --> 01:20:52,900
--was neither Venice nor happiness but something frightening...
789
01:20:53,199 --> 01:20:57,399
Something that cannot be expressed in words--
790
01:20:57,800 --> 01:21:02,900
--something I neither wished for nor even dreamed of in my youth.
791
01:21:03,199 --> 01:21:07,800
When something happens that you think is the last thing you wanted--
792
01:21:08,100 --> 01:21:13,300
--it often proves to be what has unconsciously been your supreme desire
793
01:21:13,600 --> 01:21:17,000
Only that deserves to be a memory--
794
01:21:17,300 --> 01:21:22,300
--only that can be enclosed in amber.
795
01:21:23,699 --> 01:21:28,500
That alone is the kernel that can ripen into the fruit of memory--
796
01:21:28,800 --> 01:21:33,800
--of which you never tire, no matter how many times you taste it.
797
01:21:34,600 --> 01:21:39,500
That letter! That letter!
798
01:21:40,800 --> 01:21:46,100
When I read the letter from Alphonse a few days ago, I was really touched.
799
01:21:46,399 --> 01:21:52,799
When freedom is near, he forgives everything, even what I did to him.
800
01:21:53,199 --> 01:21:59,500
Among the revolutionaries, there are several he has known in prison.
801
01:21:59,800 --> 01:22:04,699
He says that if ever I get in difficulties--
802
01:22:05,000 --> 01:22:10,899
--he'll speak to his friends. That's quite a reversal of fortunes!
803
01:22:11,100 --> 01:22:16,400
You choose not to trust me then? I don't ask you to decide today--
804
01:22:16,699 --> 01:22:20,399
--but my husband and I leave the day after tomorrow.
805
01:22:20,600 --> 01:22:24,800
It's kind of you, but old people like to think things over.
806
01:22:25,000 --> 01:22:28,899
You must give me a bit more time to make up my mind.
807
01:22:30,800 --> 01:22:34,900
For the time being it's good-bye then.
808
01:22:40,000 --> 01:22:42,500
Farewell, Mother.
809
01:22:45,000 --> 01:22:48,699
- Farewell, sister. - Farewell, Anne.
810
01:22:52,199 --> 01:22:57,099
- Give my regards to the Comte. - Thank you, I shall.
811
01:22:58,800 --> 01:23:02,000
- Charlotte! - Yes, Madame.
812
01:23:07,699 --> 01:23:13,300
There hasn't been a death in our family. Why are you dressed in black?
813
01:23:13,800 --> 01:23:19,800
Ah, you want to honour Madame de Saint-Fond, your former employer.
814
01:23:20,199 --> 01:23:23,199
I respect that fine thought.
815
01:23:23,500 --> 01:23:29,300
But why the sudden loyalty to a lady you disliked so much that you left her?
816
01:23:29,500 --> 01:23:35,199
- Oh, Madame... - That's no reply! Don't be so silly!
817
01:23:35,600 --> 01:23:39,700
It's nine months since the fall of the Bastille.
818
01:23:40,000 --> 01:23:44,100
The more unsettled conditions are, the more impudent you become.
819
01:23:44,399 --> 01:23:50,199
Since the mob marched on Versailles you've become positively rude.
820
01:23:50,600 --> 01:23:54,900
You've been in our home for more than twenty years--
821
01:23:55,199 --> 01:23:59,000
--and acquired a taste for luxury by looking at us.
822
01:24:00,399 --> 01:24:04,799
You've managed to save a little money...
823
01:24:05,199 --> 01:24:10,599
Surely you can't join the mob that jostles and clamours in the streets?
824
01:24:10,800 --> 01:24:17,600
Like Mme de Saint-Fond, you too, pretending to be one of the people--
825
01:24:17,899 --> 01:24:21,799
--would be a hypocrite and die...
826
01:24:22,100 --> 01:24:28,600
You identify with her, of course, and mourn the death of an impostor!
827
01:24:28,800 --> 01:24:33,199
Yes, Madame! I mourn her death.
828
01:24:33,500 --> 01:24:39,300
In that case, wear mourning garb or whatever you like.
829
01:24:39,500 --> 01:24:44,800
- Did you like Mme de Saint-Fond? - Yes, Madame.
830
01:24:45,100 --> 01:24:49,600
- More than your present mistress? - Yes, Madame.
831
01:24:49,800 --> 01:24:55,000
One certainly never heard such answers before the Revolution!
832
01:24:55,199 --> 01:24:59,800
People have become ever more unpolished...
833
01:25:18,800 --> 01:25:21,199
Madame de Montreuil.
834
01:25:22,600 --> 01:25:29,400
My goodness! Isn't it the Baronne de Simiane? An unexpected visit.
835
01:25:30,199 --> 01:25:34,399
- It really has been a long time. - What brings you here?
836
01:25:35,000 --> 01:25:40,800
- I came at Renée's invitation. - Thank you for taking the trouble.
837
01:25:41,500 --> 01:25:46,300
- I'm glad you've come to a decision. - What decision?
838
01:25:46,600 --> 01:25:51,300
I asked Madame de Simiane for a favour.
839
01:25:51,899 --> 01:25:55,899
I've been granted admission to the Baronne's convent.
840
01:25:56,199 --> 01:26:02,199
- Are you going to become a nun? - What help did Renée ask you for?
841
01:26:02,399 --> 01:26:06,000
Renée has visited me several times.
842
01:26:06,399 --> 01:26:11,199
I promised we would look after her if she decided to enter a convent.
843
01:26:11,600 --> 01:26:15,400
When you stopped visiting Alphonse - was that when you decided?
844
01:26:15,699 --> 01:26:20,300
The plans I have harboured for years have taken on a more definite shape.
845
01:26:20,500 --> 01:26:24,500
Just when Alphonse is about to be freed?
846
01:26:24,800 --> 01:26:29,100
Every time I visited him, I decided that the next time would be the last.
847
01:26:29,399 --> 01:26:35,299
But when that the came, my resolution came to nothing...
848
01:26:45,600 --> 01:26:51,600
You are a small fish that caught on the line of the Fisher of Men.
849
01:26:52,000 --> 01:26:58,000
However often you've spat out the hook, you've known, deep down--
850
01:26:58,399 --> 01:27:04,899
--that one day you would be caught. You have longed for the moment--
851
01:27:05,300 --> 01:27:11,000
--when you'd lie wriggling in the bright evening light from God's eye--
852
01:27:11,399 --> 01:27:17,099
--and your scales would glitter with the water of this worldly life.
853
01:27:17,500 --> 01:27:22,399
Oh, Renée, God's countless eye--
854
01:27:23,000 --> 01:27:27,800
--send us myriads of scouts, who--
855
01:27:28,000 --> 01:27:33,000
--with infinitely greater thoroughness than the royal security forces--
856
01:27:33,300 --> 01:27:38,699
--search our souls, and then, with immeasurable patience--
857
01:27:39,000 --> 01:27:44,100
--wait until they fasten in the nets of their own accord.
858
01:27:44,399 --> 01:27:49,000
They take in their hands the souls they have so skilfully captured--
859
01:27:49,199 --> 01:27:54,199
--and take them to a prison of light.
860
01:27:58,699 --> 01:28:04,199
I'm ashamed to say it, but it is only now that I'm old--
861
01:28:04,500 --> 01:28:09,500
--that I understand at least something of God's will.
862
01:28:09,800 --> 01:28:15,300
I have always played the role of a pious woman.
863
01:28:15,699 --> 01:28:21,000
My conviction that I possessed all virtues made me narrowminded.
864
01:28:21,199 --> 01:28:25,599
I blush to think back on that time.
865
01:28:27,399 --> 01:28:33,399
That's right - an autumn day eighteen years ago--
866
01:28:34,300 --> 01:28:37,500
--here in his room--
867
01:28:37,800 --> 01:28:42,699
--I heard Madame de Saint-Fond talking about the Marquis de Sade.
868
01:28:43,000 --> 01:28:48,800
Since then eighteen long years have passed.
869
01:28:51,000 --> 01:28:55,399
I remember how you, Madame de Montreuil, came rushing in--
870
01:28:55,899 --> 01:29:00,599
--more beautiful than ever, despite all you had gone through.
871
01:29:01,000 --> 01:29:05,800
You, Renée, returned that same day to live with your mother.
872
01:29:06,100 --> 01:29:13,100
You looked so young and pure of heart, as if transfigured with sorrow.
873
01:29:13,600 --> 01:29:17,400
It's like yesterday.
874
01:29:18,300 --> 01:29:26,699
I wonder if time has not slipped through this room with trailing skirts--
875
01:29:27,300 --> 01:29:32,400
--although our ears have not detected the rustling of silk...
876
01:29:32,600 --> 01:29:36,900
Your views are no doubt valuable--
877
01:29:37,199 --> 01:29:41,599
--but now I hope Renée will also listen to a mother's words.
878
01:29:41,800 --> 01:29:46,199
I think Renée should fulfil her duties in this mundane world--
879
01:29:46,399 --> 01:29:50,000
--before entering a convent. There is no reason to hurry.
880
01:29:50,199 --> 01:29:54,899
- Madame de Montreuil! - Will you let me finish speaking?
881
01:29:55,300 --> 01:29:59,500
Alphonse will soon be released from prison. Don't you think--
882
01:29:59,800 --> 01:30:05,000
--that you ought to live with him until death do you part?
883
01:30:05,699 --> 01:30:11,599
For eighteen years I've begged you to leave him--
884
01:30:11,899 --> 01:30:16,599
--but you've always said that you will never do so.
885
01:30:16,899 --> 01:30:22,399
Why is the situation reversed? I'm not trying to influence you any more.
886
01:30:22,800 --> 01:30:27,600
If you want to go on living with Alphonse, I have no objections.
887
01:30:27,899 --> 01:30:32,299
What is it that makes you want to be a nun?
888
01:30:34,199 --> 01:30:41,199
In all honesty, I still consider him an incorrigible scoundrel.
889
01:30:41,699 --> 01:30:46,500
But now criminals, lunatics and paupers are the ones in power.
890
01:30:46,800 --> 01:30:50,800
Alphonse belongs to all these categories.
891
01:30:51,199 --> 01:30:56,899
- He may become the family's saviour. - So you're planning to use him?
892
01:30:57,199 --> 01:31:03,800
Indeed! And you must help me. In the labour pains of the Revolution--
893
01:31:04,100 --> 01:31:10,000
--Alphonse's shameless behaviour may well be applauded.
894
01:31:10,300 --> 01:31:16,400
Society's condemnation of his acts may be seen as proof of his integrity.
895
01:31:16,600 --> 01:31:21,100
An honourable person wouldn't solicit help from one she has persecuted.
896
01:32:34,800 --> 01:32:41,600
I think it was a different kind of light from that you refer to.
897
01:32:41,800 --> 01:32:45,500
It was as if it came from another source...
898
01:32:45,699 --> 01:32:50,199
There's only one source of the holy light.
899
01:32:50,500 --> 01:32:55,399
...as if the light had been refracted and came from another direction...
900
01:32:56,800 --> 01:33:00,699
Another direction?
901
01:33:02,300 --> 01:33:07,500
I'm not sure, but I became aware that it came from another direction--
902
01:33:07,800 --> 01:33:12,400
--when I read this frightful novel Alphonse wrote in prison--
903
01:33:12,600 --> 01:33:16,400
--called <i>Justine</i>.
904
01:33:16,800 --> 01:33:22,699
It's a novel about two sisters, Juliette, the elder, and Justine.
905
01:33:23,199 --> 01:33:27,199
They lose their parents and are cast out into the world.
906
01:33:27,600 --> 01:33:34,500
Justine who seeks to defend her virtue incurs all possible misfortunes--
907
01:33:34,800 --> 01:33:40,800
--while the elder sister who has indulged in vice flourishes.
908
01:33:41,199 --> 01:33:47,300
However, it is not Juliette who is struck by God's wrath, but Justine--
909
01:33:47,600 --> 01:33:54,200
--who ends her days in misery. She is constantly humiliated and tortured.
910
01:33:54,600 --> 01:33:58,600
Her toes are amputated and her teeth pulled out--
911
01:33:58,800 --> 01:34:02,699
--she is branded, flogged and robbed.
912
01:34:03,000 --> 01:34:07,500
When she is about to be executed, her sister turns up and saves her.
913
01:34:07,699 --> 01:34:13,099
But her happiness does not last long: she has an accident and dies.
914
01:34:16,800 --> 01:34:20,900
Alphonse toiled night and day with this novel.
915
01:34:21,300 --> 01:34:24,600
What made him do it?
916
01:34:28,199 --> 01:34:33,599
Don't you think it is spiritual treason to write such a disgusting story?
917
01:34:37,600 --> 01:34:43,400
Undoubtedly. Contaminating one's own mind and others' is indefensible.
918
01:34:43,800 --> 01:34:47,800
While Alphonse sat in his prison cell, brooding and writing--
919
01:34:48,100 --> 01:34:52,100
--he shut me up in his novel.
920
01:34:52,399 --> 01:34:57,199
We on the outside were also locked up in that prison.
921
01:34:57,699 --> 01:35:03,399
When I read his novel I realized what he was doing in prison.
922
01:35:03,600 --> 01:35:09,800
The mob stormed the Bastille, but he tore down the walls from within--
923
01:35:10,100 --> 01:35:14,200
--and remained in prison of his own free will.
924
01:35:14,600 --> 01:35:19,300
He wanted to create an imperishable cathedral of vice.
925
01:35:20,199 --> 01:35:25,500
Instead of committing evil deeds, he wanted to develop a code of evil.
926
01:35:26,100 --> 01:35:29,900
Not so much actions as principles.
927
01:35:30,300 --> 01:35:36,199
Not so much nocturnal pleasure as a single, everlasting night.
928
01:35:36,600 --> 01:35:42,200
Not so much slaves of the whip as the rule of the whip.
929
01:35:42,600 --> 01:35:48,600
Obsessed with destruction, he created something instead.
930
01:35:49,199 --> 01:35:53,199
Something inexplicable, congenital in him--
931
01:35:53,500 --> 01:35:58,600
--that produced transparent forms of evil.
932
01:36:01,100 --> 01:36:06,600
The world we are living in now is a creation of the Marquis de Sade.
933
01:36:14,300 --> 01:36:18,800
His heart and his body were what I wanted to follow!
934
01:36:19,000 --> 01:36:22,199
I believed we'd never part.
935
01:36:22,500 --> 01:36:26,699
Suddenly, his hands turned to iron and knocked me down.
936
01:36:28,800 --> 01:36:32,199
He no longer has a heart.
937
01:36:32,600 --> 01:36:37,400
A mind that can think up and write something like that is not human.
938
01:36:48,300 --> 01:36:52,500
How radiant he looks, standing there outside my prison!
939
01:36:53,600 --> 01:36:57,400
He is the freest human being in the world.
940
01:36:58,000 --> 01:37:03,500
He stretches out his arms to the end of time, the end of the world.
941
01:37:05,399 --> 01:37:09,899
He piles evil on evil, and mounts the crest of evil.
942
01:37:10,399 --> 01:37:14,199
Soon he will touch eternity.
943
01:37:15,399 --> 01:37:20,000
Alphonse has built a back stairway to salvation.
944
01:37:20,300 --> 01:37:24,600
God will destroy that back stairway.
945
01:37:25,300 --> 01:37:30,699
No - perhaps God gave him the task of building it.
946
01:37:33,300 --> 01:37:38,100
I plan to spend the remainder of my life asking God that question.
947
01:37:39,600 --> 01:37:43,400
So you've made up your mind.
948
01:37:43,699 --> 01:37:47,300
Yes, I've made up my mind.
949
01:37:55,300 --> 01:37:59,600
Even if Alphonse were on his way here--
950
01:37:59,899 --> 01:38:04,399
--and returned home as the free man you've waited eighteen years for?
951
01:38:04,600 --> 01:38:08,700
It wouldn't alter my decision.
952
01:38:25,800 --> 01:38:30,000
Alphonse has spun a thread of light from evil--
953
01:38:30,399 --> 01:38:35,599
--created something sacred from the corruption he has gathered round him.
954
01:38:36,199 --> 01:38:41,899
His armour gleams faintly with the light he spreads across the world.
955
01:38:42,199 --> 01:38:48,099
The pattern on the armour, beaten in a metal that is rusty from blood--
956
01:38:48,399 --> 01:38:53,399
--represents not garlands of flowers but whips.
957
01:38:55,600 --> 01:38:59,300
Instead of a shield he carries a branding-iron--
958
01:38:59,600 --> 01:39:05,100
--that reflects the reddened skin of the women he has branded.
959
01:39:05,399 --> 01:39:08,799
Human anguish...
960
01:39:10,600 --> 01:39:13,400
...human suffering...
961
01:39:14,899 --> 01:39:19,599
...human lamentation rise--
962
01:39:20,399 --> 01:39:24,699
--like horns on his silver helmet, reaching for the sky.
963
01:39:24,800 --> 01:39:29,100
He presses a sword sated with blood to his lips--
964
01:39:29,399 --> 01:39:33,500
--and swears the solemn oath.
965
01:39:34,300 --> 01:39:39,300
His fair hair frames his pale face like a halo--
966
01:39:39,500 --> 01:39:45,300
--and his cuirass shines like a mirror, clouded by the sighs of the dying.
967
01:39:45,500 --> 01:39:50,500
His hands touch people's heads--
968
01:39:50,800 --> 01:39:56,000
--and then even the most despised, the most rejected take courage--
969
01:39:56,199 --> 01:40:01,500
--and follow him to the battlefield in the first light of dawn.
970
01:40:01,899 --> 01:40:07,699
His chest surges when he sees the bloody slaughter--
971
01:40:08,399 --> 01:40:14,399
--the banquet attended by millions of corpses--
972
01:40:14,600 --> 01:40:20,200
--the most silent of feasts.
973
01:40:20,600 --> 01:40:26,800
His white horse, spattered with blood, braces its breast--
974
01:40:27,100 --> 01:40:33,000
--like the prow of a ship, and stretches out to a morning sky--
975
01:40:33,399 --> 01:40:37,599
--in which the flashes of lightning cross one another.
976
01:40:37,899 --> 01:40:41,399
At the same moment, the sky is rent--
977
01:40:42,100 --> 01:40:46,500
--and a cascade of light plunges down--
978
01:40:47,000 --> 01:40:52,699
--a holy light that blinds all who behold it.
979
01:40:54,699 --> 01:40:59,199
And Alphonse, perhaps, is the very essence of that light.
980
01:41:41,199 --> 01:41:45,300
The Marquis de Sade is at the door. Shall I show him in?
981
01:41:52,899 --> 01:41:58,000
- Shall I show him in? - How does the Marquis look?
982
01:41:58,500 --> 01:42:03,699
- He's waiting. Shall I show him in? - I'm asking you how he looks.
983
01:42:04,000 --> 01:42:08,600
He's so changed that I hardly recognized him.
984
01:42:08,800 --> 01:42:12,600
His black coat is pathmed at the elbows.
985
01:42:12,899 --> 01:42:17,000
His shirtcollar is so dirty that I took him for a beggar.
986
01:42:17,300 --> 01:42:23,699
And he's become so plump! His face is puffy and deathly pale.
987
01:42:24,000 --> 01:42:28,899
His clothes are too tight, I even wonder if he'll get through the door.
988
01:42:29,199 --> 01:42:34,300
His gaze shifts as if in fright, his chin trembles slightly--
989
01:42:34,600 --> 01:42:39,600
--and when he talks you see that only a few yellow teeth are left.
990
01:42:39,800 --> 01:42:46,100
But he said his name with dignity ''Have you forgotten me?'' he asked.
991
01:42:46,399 --> 01:42:52,399
And then, stressing each syllable: ''I'm Donatien-Alphonse-François...''
992
01:42:52,699 --> 01:42:57,599
- ''...Marquis de Sade.'' - Tell him to go away.
993
01:43:03,899 --> 01:43:09,399
And say this: ''The Marquise wishes never to see him again.''
95808
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get subtitles in any language from opensubtitles.com, and translate them here.