Tom Baker

An adventure happened under the Regency in Paris, extraordinary enough to still be told with interest today; it offers on the one hand a secret debauchery, and on the other hand, three dreadful murders, the author of which was never discovered. And, as to your conjectures before we begin, as to what caused the catastrophe, and whether or not it was deserved, we can hope to elucidate; perhaps then it will disturb our readers less.

There are plenty of foolish women who imagine that, provided they do not "come to the point" with a lover, that they can without offending their husbands at least, afford a trade in gallantry; and it often results from this way of looking at things more dangerous consequences than if their downfall had been complete. What happened to the Marquise de Guissac, a woman of status from Nîmes in Languedoc, is a sure proof of what we are posing here as a maxim.

Note: The following tales are adapted from "Short Stories, Histories and Fables," by the great master of erotic fiction, the Donatien Alphonse Francois Comte de Sade, better known to history as the Marquis de Sade.

The surrealist horror film Dr. Caligari (1989), featuring erotic actresses such as Madeleine Reynal and Laura Albert, is a neon-and-plastic, sex-infused nightmare oddity belched up from the fetid guts of the late Reagan era, a videocassette relic of the bygone days of little corner stores peddling cheap, direct-to-VHS "grand guinol" for the eager lines of bored, potato chip munching thrill seekers.

The old saying, "a dream come true" seems rather trite or hackneyed; but, in the weird world of the annals of the psychic, such occurrences DO in fact happen; dreams DO come true. And with startling regularity.