CHAPTER 34The next day I cast an appraising eye upon my companions: thosefour girls ranged from twenty-five to thirty years of age; althoughbestialized and besotted by misery and warped by excessivedrudgery, they still had the remnants of beauty; their figures werehandsome, and the youngest, called Suzanne, still had, togetherwith charming eyes, very fine hair; Roland had seized her in Lyon,he had deflowered her, and after having sworn to her family hewould marry her, he had brought her to this frightful chateau,where she had been three years his slave, and during that periodshe had been especially singled out to be the object of themonster's ferocities: by dint of blows from the bull's pizzle, herbuttocks had become as calloused and toughened as would be cow'shide dried in the sun; she ha
