The Infinite Matrix | Michael Swanwick & Francisco Goya | The Sleep Of

Reason 26

08.22.02

the sleep of reason

by Michael Swanwick

with illustrations by

Francisco JosÉ de Goya y Lucientes

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Digital image © copyright

Davison Art Center,

Wesleyan University

DAC permission required

for any other use.

26. [Plate 27]

Grace in the Bordello

Was ever a woman less suited to be a whore than poor Grace? Her virtues

betrayed her. So modest that she blushed to see two dogs sniffing each

other with amorous intent, she was required to perform acts of reckless

depravity. By nature meek and submissive, she must now publicly solicit

wickedness in the most blatant manner imaginable. Alas, her mother had

sold her to a brothel, and she was too dutiful a daughter to disobey.

Worst of all was her discovery of what men were really like. Not one of

her assignations was sweet and romantic. Blunt and selfish was the best

she could wish for. Perverse and weird was what she usually got. Who

would have imagined? They all wanted to do disgusting things with

leather, rubber, diapers, clothes pins, urine, feces, dead fish? Not a

day went by without a new and appalling fetish.

It was disillusioning.

Still, she soldiered on. Like a good little scout, she did her best. She

hid her feelings, gave good weight, and never short-changed the house.

The other whores despised her for it, but what could she do? It was the

way she'd been brought up.

One day a supremely confident woman walked into her little room in the

bordello and told her to pack her things. "I paid off your pimp," she

said. "You're working for me now."

Grace wailed. To be bought and sold like a piece of merchandise ? it was

really too much! Her life had reached an absolute nadir. "Could any human

being be more miserable than me?" she wondered out loud.

"Easily," the woman said. "Let me teach you how."

Then, almost as an afterthought, she added, "My name is Elena."

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This is the 26th of 80 stories by Michael Swanwick written to accompany

Francisco Goya's Los Caprichos. For a listing of the most recently

available stories, go to The Sleep of Reason.

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