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- Herausgeber: Olympia Press
- Kategorie: Erotik
- Sprache: Englisch
Scorching tale of an underground army organized for the single purpose of providing the greatest sexual thrills known to man! The Voluptuous Army was truly an underground movement, providing its members with every conceivable kind of sexual pleasure... where every perversion the deviate mind of man had created was indulged! Translation of l'Armee de Volupte is often mentioned in the same breath as The Pearl, Romance of Lust, Man with a Maid, etc. Book was honored with some appearances on banned lists in the '30s, but hasn't been seen much since. Illustrated.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
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The Voluptuous Army
Anonymous
This page copyright © 2007 Olympia Press.
INTRODUCTION
THE MERE FACT that a man is a prolific writer does not make him a good writer, for facility does not necessarily add quality to a story. We see the negative side of this situation in the many writers hacking out one or more books every month and depending on their sale merely to keep bread in their houses. Of course, books written at such speed suffer, for there is not the time for critical contemplation of the work before it is rushed to the publisher, who in his turn rushes it to the typographer who sets it in type hastily so that it may be rushed to the printer. Finished copies are rushed from the bindery to the point of sales, where they sell quickly or they are rushed back to the publisher for credit.
The keynote of this process is rushing, of time being of the essence, and as a result we see contemporary erotic literature as suffering in quality. But rushing is not necessarily the factor that prevents a work or a writer from being great. Le Nismois, author of The Voluptuous Army (originally l'Armee Volupte), was a prolific writer whose high standards maintained themselves throughout his production. Though he lived in a time we look back upon as more leisurely than ours, still his production kept pace with the modern high-speed 'typewriters' (to use Truman Capote's term), and the fact that his books are as good as they are illustrates the fact that a man of talent may write without necessarily writing badly. Only the bad writers write badly, and they would write badly if they spent an age on each chapter.
The Voluptuous Army is a strange and wondrous book, strange because we are possessed of the feeling of the ultimate reality of the people and events that are presented, and wondrous in that the circumstances of the story are really so fantastic. It is charming and delightful, a true classic that deserves to be openly made available to a wide audience. It fills a gap in published French erotica that has long existed, for Nismois has not generally been known to English-speaking people. Collectors have long known of his works, of course, and they have sought them out either in the original French editions, or in the few translations that have been made.
The present volume was reproduced from a worn and dog-eared copy borrowed long enough for a photocopy to be made. It had obviously seen better days, had been read repeatedly over the years, and was nearly falling apart. The title page reads:
The Voluptuous Army/by/Le Nismois/drawing of a bust of a woman/ translated/from the French/of/Robert l'Amoureux. On the reverse is: This edition is limited to 350 copies/This is copy No
No number appears, so it is impossible to tell if, in truth, the volume I used is one of the original 350 or if it is one of the many possibly struck off by the printer for his own use and sold surreptitiously. It is also impossible for me to determine at this time who the actual translator was, for 'Robert l'Amoureux' is hardly likely as the real name of the man who 'Englished' the text.
But in spite of these problems, which are really of concern to the specialist, The Voluptuous Army is a fine book, delightful to read and worthy of a place in the permanent library of anyone with an interest in rounding out collection of literature.
Dale Koby, A.B., M.A. Atlanta, Georgia December 1967
CHAPTER I
THAT MORNING, Emile Lodenbach rose late. He had danced away a great part of the night at the Countess of Bouteville's, paying his attentions to the prettiest and most passionate of the waltzing ladies, although his thirty-two years counseled him to moderation, and further, he had for a long time discussed and disputed with the beautiful Lucette de Mongellan, a discussion and dispute which had kept him from his sleep, once in his bed, until broad daylight.
“Ah, Lucette, Lucette,” he murmured, turning and tossing on his couch.
Lucette de Mongellan, grace personified, twenty-eight years of age, a brunette bewitching in her beauty and verve, fluttered before his eyes and kept him from his sleep which she conquered without difficulty by the single charm of her memory.
But why discuss and dispute with a pretty woman? To obtain that which she appeared indisposed to accord, or amused herself by putting off.
Lucette, however, stood accused by the exhibition of moments of real bursts of tenderness! Oh, feminine mind, who can ever know what is hidden in your depths!
Emile rose late and in a bad humor, quarreled with his faithful valet, Leonard, made a scene with the cook, Rosalie, over an omelet which wasn't frothy enough, as he liked them, threw his coffee out the window which fortunately gave upon a little garden attached to the hotel in which he lived, rue Cotambert, and, sulkily ensconced in his studio, decided to go through his correspondence.
What profession did Emile Lodenbach exercise? None, if we do not consider the collection of rents and interest for his personal use. Twenty-four thousand francs of rents to manage: care and boredom enough for a whole existence. Those unhappy rich are never pitied enough! Nevertheless, there was one good point in Emile's character: he interested himself in several less fortunate friends, sometimes lent them money, without conditions, a considerable sum when they asked it of him for an idea which he thought good, and, a no less extraordinary thing, if the idea was successful, they returned him his money and a considerable sum over and above it, which he refused, but which they obliged him to accept under the pretext that it would serve to augment his ability to lend again.
He had seen this ability grow to the point of constituting a little fortune beside his own, and it had ended by imposing upon him a whole labor of accounting and correspondence the satisfied friends recommending to him their friends in search of a good-natured capitalist and these he never refused without investigation into the man's character and the worth of the idea submitted to his judgment.
On this day, his mind was distracted and he read his mail with little comprehension. Lucette had not deserted his thoughts.
“Ah, Lucette, Lucette,” he repeated for the thousandeth time! “Whatever possesses her that she is so receptive and so mocking, so ardent and then so glacial, so easily understanding matters of the heart — and the senses, and so prompt to reject them! A coquette she is certainly, for your life, but good too, that shows in her eyes, humid when one depicts to her the fire which consumes him! Yes, but she lets it consume you. Truly, I am ill every single time I meet with Lucette and my temperament becomes heated like that of a young buck. I put myself into such a state that I am forced the next day to run to the Folies-Bergere, to the Moulin-Rouge or such places, I, a man of poise, a serious man, for, by the devil's horns, since I have known her, it has been impossible for me to become attached to any flower whatever whose perfume I could use for even a little time. Ah Lucette, this very evening I've got to lose myself in the Jardin de Paris! Is this reasonable?”
He crushed a letter in his hands, then suddenly, turning to the signature, he remarked that it bore none.
“Well, now, what sort of business is this?”
He reread the epistle to which he had previously attached no significance, and remained open-mouthed, asking himself if someone were playing a trick on him. “To Monsieur Emile Lodenbach:
“Love and its pleasures are the only laws of progress.
“Woman is the goddess of the temple; man is the levite.
Hymns and prayers become the sources of the voluptuous.
“All men and women enlisted in our army accept the general communion of love which unites soldiers and officers in feminine pleasures, with delicacy in the nuances of all phases of the voluptuous, thanks to the perfect accord among all.
“To love woman is to love God: one may love woman only in proclaiming her priestess of love, opening to all her brothers the gates of the Infinite, in the intoxication of multiple sensualities.”
Examining the paper on both sides, Emile Lodenbach sought an explanation.
“'Love and its pleasures,'“ he murmured, “'are the laws of progress!' well, and then? What the devil's that got to do with me? 'Woman is the goddess of the temple; man is the levite!' Ah, Lucette, Lucette.”
Once more he exclaimed. Decidedly, Lucette had subjugated him! Did she know the domination she exercised over his being? What a woman! What a coquette!
She inflamed me with her precocity which sometimes, often, bordered on cynical effrontery, but what sweetness there was in this effrontery! The words came from her lips in a smile of candor which stupefied and cut short any reply. What had she said during that last waltz when she had given over her eyes to abandon, herself to the vertigo of the whirling, her body almost in his arms? Yes, he remembered. A great sigh swelled her breast; the world no longer existed; it seemed to him that he possessed her, and that his hands found knowledge under her dress of the treasures he coveted: Lucette's eyes rose to his with a tremble of the lashes and she murmured:
“You see me and you feel me naked!”
Was it possible for a man, hearing such simple words from a woman, to experience such a commotion? Yes, he saw her naked body, he held her, then she turned mocker and said:
“Poor Emile, you are losing your goods!”
He was losing, losing ah, she did not withdraw her body from the soft compression in which they whirled. He reddened like a child apprehended in a fault, she held one leg almost glued to his, he trembled, they went into the last measures, and she said quite softly:
“Slower, my dear, slower, so that we may stop near a door. You shall save yourself. You must dry yourself. Our evening together is over. Thank you. I should be pretty, if you produced the same effect on me!”
What response, what reply could one make to such a woman!
Affected and disconcerting, attractive and bantering, adorable and hateable, ah, Lucette Lucette!
CHAPTER II
WHAT A HOLE THERE was in his existence after the meeting at the ball! The dangerous siren carried away the mind and senses of poor Emile Lodenbach, and he was not even able to go see her, the tireless woman of the world receiving only on Tuesday afternoon, and in the midst of numberless visitors there would not be the slightest opportunity for a moment of isolation with her.
Many times, in his madness, he wrote burning letters, inspired sometimes by a sentimental style and sometimes in a lively vein destroying them immediately upon the sudden vision of his enamorata's ironic smile.
“Ancient trumpets of Jericho,” he cried, “proclaim it through space. It is by the flesh, the flesh, the flesh that she holds me, let us run to a remedy.”
He thought of it no more, but that evening went to the Moulin-Rouge, with the resolution to pick up some vicious courtesan, whom he would keep on a renewable lease.
There was no lack of rumpled wenches. He would dictate the conditions: a month of trial, good-living during that month, the woman's purse filled to her wish, against her shameless abandon to any and all experiences in the art of the most highly-coloured cochonneries. She must remove with her flesh the Lucetienne influence. If he were satisfied, he might even marry this salvaged merchandise.
Why didn't he propose marriage to Lucette? Because he had asked her about it, and she had laughed in his face, replying:
“I marry, I, Lucette, ah, my dear. I became a widow at the end of six months of marriage: my husband loved me too much, and that pleased me. Strength will not save a man who is excessively in love. Yours intrigues me, and I would not have you die.”
There was a mob at the Moulin-Rouge and sex abounded.
“Women, a woman for me,” said Emile, shaking hands with Glomiret the painter whom he had perceived immediately upon entering.
“A woman, you are looking for a woman in this place. You!”
“Here or elsewhere, aren't they all alike?”
“Oh, yes, certainly, worthless hacks, all of them.”
“Don't say that. Objects of pleasure, yes, and I don't want anything else.”
“If you're looking for an adventure, you've come in the nick of time.”
“An adventure would frighten me! Thighs, buttocks, breasts, I ask no more than that, the whole spiced with a lecherous disposition, without too much self-appreciation.”
'The devil! Just the phoenix for this place! Try the adventure.”
“What is it?”
“A Titian blonde, of great elegance, with the air of a lost princess, an unknown with a beauty of face and figure, apparently with her maid, seated both of them. See, there, over on the side, studying everybody, up to the moment unseduced in spite of several attempts.”
“A go-fuck-yourself to harvest.”
“Oh, she will understand that you are not an habitue and may show herself more receptive.”
“Or more recalcitrant if she wants to be uppish.”
“I don't imagine so. She wants an adventure and you find a fulfillment of the conditions dictated by your search for a woman, and this one is not marked on the program of those usually found under the wings of the Moulin.”
“And you?”
“Beaten, in my first attack.”
“Not encouraging.”
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You're not timid.”
“And I don't want to be. I'll try it.”
They separated, and Emile approached a very pretty woman, seated at a table with another who from her dress was obviously playing second fiddle and who was drinking a glass of Grenadine.
“A bad counsellor, solitude, Madame,” he said, saluting her quite properly.
She looked him over from head to foot, smiled, and responded:
“Isn't it preferable to the society of the crude and drunken?”
“You are severe! But would you permit me to break into your solitude?”
“Why not?”
“Ah, what could be more delightful? A little place, and I shall try —”
“To amuse me? I do not ask more, proceed.”
Emile experienced emotion and pleasure. The woman was not only very pretty and quite well-poised, with a poise bespeaking good taste, but had a je ne sais quoi about her which gave her an astonishing resemblance to the terrible Lucette.
“Here's an opportunity,” he said to himself, “to conquer the shadow in default of the prey itself!”
Seated between the lady and her maid, he murmured, “Now let me introduce myself.”
“Yes, it's time to think about that.”
“Monsieur Emile Lodenbach, a bachelor, in easy circumstances, loving pleasure, bored with being alone, and —”
“Running after women.”
“Permit me, seeking one woman.”
“For the evening.”
“For several evenings, for a long while, forever perhaps, if we got along well.”
“A woman who frequents this place!”
“Or elsewhere, I shall not quarrel about that.”
“You would marry her?”
“After a trial, naturally.”
“How frank you are!”
“Do you want a husband?”
She shrugged her shoulders, smiled in disdain and replied, “I am married.”
“Ah, a thousand pardons! Limited liberty, then.”
“Liberty according to my will. In my turn to present myself, not for any engagement for one or several nights, but in the event that our relations should be prolonged over a more or less indeterminate period, Lucie —”
She hesitated; he broke in, “Useless, dear lady, when you know me better.”
