unication with the torrent on a former higher
level had let the water pass underneath the castle, and turn a water
wheel which cut up the bodies and made them float away by the outlet.
Human skulls and bones were found, singularly verifying the truth of
tradition.

At the time the Count was a fugitive hiding therein, the old apartments
were used as a granary to store the rent in kind of his father's
tenantry. As there were suspicions of his having taken refuge here, the
place had been two or three times ransacked by the police without their
discovering him--thanks to the ingenious hiding places he had
discovered.., But for this very reason every precaution had to be
taken, and no beds, bedding, or plates, knives, chairs, or tables were
there; he slept on the corn, spread three feet thick on the floor, or
sat on it when tired. His mother, with provisions under her petticoats,
would saunter in the garden, and, when unobserved, slip into the low
cavern and ascend by the secret stairs, and seated on the corn by his
side, would wait until he had done, to take everything away, and leave
not a trace of any one being provisioned up there. These details are
explanatory of what follows. The Count had been one of the Royal Guard
for two years at Turin, and being a handsome young fellow, had as much
fucking at command as he could wish for. When shut up for months in his
asylum the passions that had been kept under by constant gratification
began to torment him; from the loopholes of the castle he could see the
peasant women working on the mountainside, and, in stooping, showing
their legs even up to the bare skin, and this used to drive him mad
with desire. He did not frig himself, but at night stole down to the
garden, secured a large pumpkin or two, took them up to his retreat,
cut small holes in their sides, and then thrust his stiff-standing
prick into them, forcing the hole to the size of his prick, and then
working the pumpkin with both hands till he spent deliciously; he used
to get six or seven fucks in these artificial cunts, then throw away
the finished one on the torrent side of the castle. This was so far a
relief, but his lust grew fiercer every day, and on one occasion became
uncontrollable.

His mother, who had married at fifteen, was now a fine ripe woman in
her thirty-sixth year. One day, after setting down the things she had
brought up, she lifted her outer gown that she might not show she had
been sitting on co