Did the notorious author of Justine and The 120 Days of Sodom have a sense of humor? Indeed he did, and this short story shows a side of Sade few have seen. Here is a witty, libertine tale, free of flagellation and sexual perversion. Instead, it reveals a husband’s adultery and a wife’s clever “retaliation.” This is decidedly a feminist text, and it punctures the double standard still infecting relations between men and women. Translated from the French by R J Dent.