Author: Alfred de Musset (probably)

About: Modeled after George Sand, Passion's Evil (perhaps better known as "Gamiani") gives us a young man observing Gamiani and a young girl, obligingly named Fanny, engaged in their lesbian bed. Having watched them and provoked by their gay abandonment, he reveals himself, joins them, and they spend the night alternately sharing their intimate histories and their bodies in orgies of almost religious intensity. The stories they tell include the rape of one in a monastery and the nearly fatal debauchment of another in a convent, as well as encounters with a number of animals. The author Edith Wharton had an unpublished work based on this text.

Excerpt:

GAMIANI:

“Monsieur, this is certainly a miserable surprise. Your action is that of an odious spy, an infamous villain! You make me blush. I tried to defend myself. She replied: “Oh, Monsieur! Know that a woman never pardons one who suppresses her in her weaknesses.”

I did my best to reply. I declared that an unhappy passion, irresistible, and that her coldness had rendered desperate, had reduced me to this ruse, this violence.

“And further,” added I, “could you believe, Gamiani, that I would ever abuse my temerity. Ah no! that would be too ignoble. Never in my life will I forget the excess of our pleasures, but I will guard the memories for myself alone.” “If I am culpable, think of the delirium in my heart, or rather, hold but the thought of the pleasures that we have enjoyed together, and that we may enjoy again.

Then addressing myself to Fanny, the while the Comtesse turned her head aside in feigned desolation: “Mademoiselle, should you weep in your pleasure! Ah! think only of the sweet felicity that united us but a moment ago, and which will remain in our memories like a happy dream, one that belongs but to you, and to you alone.”

“I swear to you that I will never sully the memory of my happiness by confiding it to others.

Their anger subsided, their tears ceased; insensibly we again found ourselves all three enlaced, disputing with toyings, kisses and caresses. “Oh, my fair friends, let no fear trouble you. Give yourselves without reserve. . . as if this night were the last. . . to joy. . . to lust.”

And Gamiani cried: “The die is cast; to pleasure. Come Fanny, kiss me, dear one, Tiens! Let me bite you, let me suck you, clear to the marrow. Alcide, do your duty...Oh, the superb animal...what treasures...”

“You are envious, Gamiani, let it be yours. You disdain this pleasure, but you will bless it when you have tasted it. Remain lying and shove forward that part I must attack. . . . Ah! what beauties! . . . what a posture! Quick, Fanny, straddle the Comtesse and yourself conduct this terrible flaming arm; batter the breech. . . be firm. . . too hard, too quick, . . . Gamiani! . . . Ah! . . . you skirmish with pleasure.”