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diff --git a/6852-0.txt b/6852-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04ce4ee --- /dev/null +++ b/6852-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6107 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Venus in Furs, by Ritter von Leopold Sacher-Masoch + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Venus in Furs + +Author: Ritter von Leopold Sacher-Masoch + +Translator: Fernanda Savage + +Release Date: February 2, 2003 [eBook #6852] +[Most recently updated: April 18, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VENUS IN FURS *** + + + + +Venus in Furs + +by Ritter von Leopold Sacher-Masoch + + +Of this book, intended for private circulation, only 1225 copies have +been printed, and type afterward distributed. + +Translated from the German + +By +FERNANDA SAVAGE + + +Contents + + INTRODUCTION + VENUS IN FURS + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was born in Lemberg, Austrian Galicia, on +January 27, 1836. He studied jurisprudence at Prague and Graz, and in +1857 became a teacher at the latter university. He published several +historical works, but soon gave up his academic career to devote +himself wholly to literature. For a number of years he edited the +international review, _Auf der Höhe_, at Leipzig, but later removed to +Paris, for he was always strongly Francophile. His last years he spent +at Lindheim in Hesse, Germany, where he died on March 9, 1895. In 1873 +he married Aurora von Rumelin, who wrote a number of novels under the +pseudonym of Wanda von Dunajew, which it is interesting to note is the +name of the heroine of _Venus in Furs_. Her sensational memoirs which +have been the cause of considerable controversy were published in 1906. + +During his career as writer an endless number of works poured from +Sacher-Masoch’s pen. Many of these were works of ephemeral journalism, +and some of them unfortunately pure sensationalism, for economic +necessity forced him to turn his pen to unworthy ends. + +There is, however, a residue among his works which has a distinct +literary and even greater psychological value. His principal literary +ambition was never completely fulfilled. It was a somewhat programmatic +plan to give a picture of contemporary life in all its various aspects +and interrelations under the general title of the _Heritage of Cain_. +This idea was probably derived from Balzac’s _Comedie Humaine_. The +whole was to be divided into six subdivisions with the general titles +_Love, Property, Money, The State, War,_ and _Death_. Each of these +divisions in its turn consisted of six novels, of which the last was +intended to summarize the author’s conclusions and to present his +solution for the problems set in the others. + +This extensive plan remained unachieved, and only the first two parts, +_Love_ and _Property_, were completed. Of the other sections only +fragments remain. The present novel, _Venus in Furs_, forms the fifth +in the series, _Love_. + +The best of Sacher-Masoch’s work is characterized by a swift narration +and a graphic representation of character and scene and a rich humor. +The latter has made many of his shorter stories dealing with his native +Galicia little masterpieces of local color. + +There is, however, another element in his work which has caused his +name to become as eponym for an entire series of phenomena at one end +of the psycho-sexual scale. This gives his productions a peculiar +psychological value, though it cannot be denied also a morbid tinge +that makes them often repellent. However, it is well to remember that +nature is neither good nor bad, neither altruistic nor egoistic, and +that it operates through the human psyche as well as through crystals +and plants and animals with the same inexorable laws. + +Sacher-Masoch was the poet of the anomaly now generally known as +_masochism_. By this is meant the desire on the part of the individual +affected of desiring himself completely and unconditionally subject to +the will of a person of the opposite sex, and being treated by this +person as by a master, to be humiliated, abused, and tormented, even to +the verge of death. This motive is treated in all its innumerable +variations. As a creative artist Sacher-Masoch was, of course, on the +quest for the absolute, and sometimes, when impulses in the human being +assume an abnormal or exaggerated form, there is just for a moment a +flash that gives a glimpse of the thing in itself. + +If any defense were needed for the publication of work like +Sacher-Masoch’s it is well to remember that artists are the historians +of the human soul and one might recall the wise and tolerant +Montaigne’s essay _On the Duty of Historians_ where he says, “One may +cover over secret actions, but to be silent on what all the world +knows, and things which have had effects which are public and of so +much consequence is an inexcusable defect.” + +And the curious interrelation between cruelty and sex, again and again, +creeps into literature. Sacher-Masoch has not created anything new in +this. He has simply taken an ancient motive and developed it frankly +and consciously, until, it seems, there is nothing further to say on +the subject. To the violent attacks which his books met he replied in a +polemical work, _Über den Wert der Kritik_. + +It would be interesting to trace the masochistic tendency as it occurs +throughout literature, but no more can be done than just to allude to a +few instances. The theme recurs continually in the _Confessions_ of +Jean Jacques Rousseau; it explains the character of the chevalier in +Prévost’s _Manon l’Escault_. Scenes of this nature are found in Zola’s +_Nana_, in Thomas Otway’s _Venice Preserved_, in Albert Juhelle’s _Les +Pecheurs d’Hommes_, in Dostojevski. In disguised and unrecognized form +it constitutes the undercurrent of much of the sentimental literature +of the present day, though in most cases the authors as well as the +readers are unaware of the pathological elements out of which their +characters are built. + +In all these strange and troubled waters of the human spirit one might +wish for something of the serene and simple attitude of the ancient +world. Laurent Tailhade has an admirable passage in his _Platres et +Marbres_, which is well worth reproducing in this connection: + +“Toutefois, les Hellènes, dans, leurs cités de lumière, de douceur et +d’harmonie, avaient une indulgence qu’on peut nommer scientifique pour +les troubles amoureux de l’esprit. S’ils ne regardaient pas l’aliéné +comme en proie a la visitation d’un dieu (idée orientale et fataliste), +du moins ils savaient que l’amour est une sorte d’envoûtement, une +folie où se manifeste l’animosité des puissances cosmiques. Plus tard, +le christianisme enveloppa les âmes de ténèbres. Ce fut la grande nuit. +L’Église condamna tout ce qui lui parût neuf ou menaçant pour les +dogmes implaçable qui reduisaient le monde en esclavage.” + +Among Sacher-Masoch’s works, _Venus in Furs_ is one of the most typical +and outstanding. In spite of melodramatic elements and other literary +faults, it is unquestionably a sincere work, written without any idea +of titillating morbid fancies. One feels that in the hero many +subjective elements have been incorporated, which are a disadvantage to +the work from the point of view of literature, but on the other hand +raise the book beyond the sphere of art, pure and simple, and make it +one of those appalling human documents which belong, part to science +and part to psychology. It is the confession of a deeply unhappy man +who could not master his personal tragedy of existence, and so sought +to unburden his soul in writing down the things he felt and +experienced. The reader who will approach the book from this angle and +who will honestly put aside moral prejudices and prepossessions will +come away from the perusal of this book with a deeper understanding of +this poor miserable soul of ours and a light will be cast into dark +places that lie latent in all of us. + +Sacher-Masoch’s works have held an established position in European +letters for something like half a century, and the author himself was +made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French Government in +1883, on the occasion of his literary jubilee. When several years ago +cheap reprints were brought out on the Continent and attempts were made +by various guardians of morality—they exist in all countries —to have +them suppressed, the judicial decisions were invariably against the +plaintiff and in favor of the publisher. Are Americans children that +they must be protected from books which any European school-boy can +purchase whenever he wishes? However, such seems to be the case, and +this translation, which has long been in preparation, consequently +appears in a limited edition printed for subscribers only. In another +connection Herbert Spencer once used these words: “The ultimate result +of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with +fools.” They have a very pointed application in the case of a work like +_Venus in Furs_. + +F. S. + + +Atlantic City +April, 1921 + + + + +VENUS IN FURS + + +_“But the Almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into +the hands of a woman.”_ + + +—The Vulgate, Judith, xvi. 7. + + +My company was charming. + +Opposite me by the massive Renaissance fireplace sat Venus; she was not +a casual woman of the half-world, who under this pseudonym wages war +against the enemy sex, like Mademoiselle Cleopatra, but the real, true +goddess of love. + +She sat in an armchair and had kindled a crackling fire, whose +reflection ran in red flames over her pale face with its white eyes, +and from time to time over her feet when she sought to warm them. + +Her head was wonderful in spite of the dead stony eyes; it was all I +could see of her. She had wrapped her marble-like body in a huge fur, +and rolled herself up trembling like a cat. + +“I don’t understand it,” I exclaimed, “It isn’t really cold any longer. +For two weeks past we have had perfect spring weather. You must be +nervous.” + +“Much obliged for your spring,” she replied with a low stony voice, and +immediately afterwards sneezed divinely, twice in succession. “I really +can’t stand it here much longer, and I am beginning to understand—” + +“What, dear lady?” + +“I am beginning to believe the unbelievable and to understand the +un-understandable. All of a sudden I understand the Germanic virtue of +woman, and German philosophy, and I am no longer surprised that you of +the North do not know how to love, haven’t even an idea of what love +is.” + +“But, madame,” I replied flaring up, “I surely haven’t given you any +reason.” + +“Oh, you—” The divinity sneezed for the third time, and shrugged her +shoulders with inimitable grace. “That’s why I have always been nice to +you, and even come to see you now and then, although I catch a cold +every time, in spite of all my furs. Do you remember the first time we +met?” + +“How could I forget it,” I said. “You wore your abundant hair in brown +curls, and you had brown eyes and a red mouth, but I recognized you +immediately by the outline of your face and its marble-like pallor—you +always wore a violet-blue velvet jacket edged with squirrel-skin.” + +“You were really in love with the costume, and awfully docile.” + +“You have taught me what love is. Your serene form of worship let me +forget two thousand years.” + +“And my faithfulness to you was without equal!” + +“Well, as far as faithfulness goes—” + +“Ungrateful!” + +“I will not reproach you with anything. You are a divine woman, but +nevertheless a woman, and like every woman cruel in love.” + +“What you call cruel,” the goddess of love replied eagerly, “is simply +the element of passion and of natural love, which is woman’s nature and +makes her give herself where she loves, and makes her love everything, +that pleases her.” + +“Can there be any greater cruelty for a lover than the unfaithfulness +of the woman he loves?” + +“Indeed!” she replied. “We are faithful as long as we love, but you +demand faithfulness of a woman without love, and the giving of herself +without enjoyment. Who is cruel there—woman or man? You of the North in +general take love too soberly and seriously. You talk of duties where +there should be only a question of pleasure.” + +“That is why our emotions are honorable and virtuous, and our relations +permanent.” + +“And yet a restless, always unsatisfied craving for the nudity of +paganism,” she interrupted, “but that love, which is the highest joy, +which is divine simplicity itself, is not for you moderns, you children +of reflection. It works only evil in you. _As soon as you wish to be +natural, you become common._ To you nature seems something hostile; you +have made devils out of the smiling gods of Greece, and out of me a +demon. You can only exorcise and curse me, or slay yourselves in +bacchantic madness before my altar. And if ever one of you has had the +courage to kiss my red mouth, he makes a barefoot pilgrimage to Rome in +penitential robes and expects flowers to grow from his withered staff, +while under my feet roses, violets, and myrtles spring up every hour, +but their fragrance does not agree with you. Stay among your northern +fogs and Christian incense; let us pagans remain under the debris, +beneath the lava; do not disinter us. Pompeii was not built for you, +nor our villas, our baths, our temples. You do not require gods. We are +chilled in your world.” + +The beautiful marble woman coughed, and drew the dark sables still +closer about her shoulders. + +“Much obliged for the classical lesson,” I replied, “but you cannot +deny, that man and woman are mortal enemies, in your serene sunlit +world as well as in our foggy one. In love there is union into a single +being for a short time only, capable of only one thought, one +sensation, one will, in order to be then further disunited. And you +know this better than I; whichever of the two fails to subjugate will +soon feel the feet of the other on his neck—” + +“And as a rule the man that of the woman,” cried Madame Venus with +proud mockery, “which you know better than I.” + +“Of course, and that is why I don’t have any illusions.” + +“You mean you are now my slave without illusions, and for that reason +you shall feel the weight of my foot without mercy.” + +“Madame!” + +“Don’t you know me yet? Yes, I am _cruel_—since you take so much +delight in that word-and am I not entitled to be so? Man is the one who +desires, woman the one who is desired. This is woman’s entire but +decisive advantage. Through his passion nature has given man into +woman’s hands, and the woman who does not know how to make him her +subject, her slave, her toy, and how to betray him with a smile in the +end is not wise.” + +“Exactly your principles,” I interrupted angrily. + +“They are based on the experience of thousands of years,” she replied +ironically, while her white fingers played over the dark fur. “The more +devoted a woman shows herself, the sooner the man sobers down and +becomes domineering. The more cruelly she treats him and the more +faithless she is, the worse she uses him, the more wantonly she plays +with him, the less pity she shows him, by so much the more will she +increase his desire, be loved, worshipped by him. So it has always +been, since the time of Helen and Delilah, down to Catherine the Second +and Lola Montez.” + +“I cannot deny,” I said, “that nothing will attract a man more than the +picture of a beautiful, passionate, cruel, and despotic woman who +wantonly changes her favorites without scruple in accordance with her +whim—” + +“And in addition wears furs,” exclaimed the divinity. + +“What do you mean by that?” + +“I know your predilection.” + +“Do you know,” I interrupted, “that, since we last saw each other, you +have grown very coquettish.” + +“In what way, may I ask?” + +“In that there is no way of accentuating your white body to greater +advantage than by these dark furs, and that—” + +The divinity laughed. + +“You are dreaming,” she cried, “wake up!” and she clasped my arm with +her marble-white hand. “Do wake up,” she repeated raucously with the +low register of her voice. I opened my eyes with difficulty. + +I saw the hand which shook me, and suddenly it was brown as bronze; the +voice was the thick alcoholic voice of my cossack servant who stood +before me at his full height of nearly six feet. + +“Do get up,” continued the good fellow, “it is really disgraceful.” + +“What is disgraceful?” + +“To fall asleep in your clothes and with a book besides.” He snuffed +the candles which had burned down, and picked up the volume which had +fallen from my hand, “with a book by”—he looked at the title page—“by +Hegel. Besides it is high time you were starting for Mr. Severin’s who +is expecting us for tea.” + +“A curious dream,” said Severin when I had finished. He supported his +arms on his knees, resting his face in his delicate, finely veined +hands, and fell to pondering. + +I knew that he wouldn’t move for a long time, hardly even breathe. This +actually happened, but I didn’t consider his behavior as in any way +remarkable. I had been on terms of close friendship with him for nearly +three years, and gotten used to his peculiarities. For it cannot be +denied that he was peculiar, although he wasn’t quite the dangerous +madman that the neighborhood, or indeed the entire district of Kolomea, +considered him to be. I found his personality not only interesting—and +that is why many also regarded me a bit mad—but to a degree +sympathetic. For a Galician nobleman and land-owner, and considering +his age—he was hardly over thirty—he displayed surprising sobriety, a +certain seriousness, even pedantry. He lived according to a minutely +elaborated, half-philosophical, half-practical system, like clock-work; +not this alone, but also by the thermometer, barometer, aerometer, +hydrometer, Hippocrates, Hufeland, Plato, Kant, Knigge, and Lord +Chesterfield. But at times he had violent attacks of sudden passion, +and gave the impression of being about to run with his head right +through a wall. At such times every one preferred to get out of his +way. + +While he remained silent, the fire sang in the chimney and the large +venerable samovar sang; and the ancient chair in which I sat rocking to +and fro smoking my cigar, and the cricket in the old walls sang too. I +let my eyes glide over the curious apparatus, skeletons of animals, +stuffed birds, globes, plaster-casts, with which his room was heaped +full, until by chance my glance remained fixed on a picture which I had +seen often enough before. But to-day, under the reflected red glow of +the fire, it made an indescribable impression on me. + +It was a large oil painting, done in the robust full-bodied manner of +the Belgian school. Its subject was strange enough. + +A beautiful woman with a radiant smile upon her face, with abundant +hair tied into a classical knot, on which white powder lay like a soft +hoarfrost, was resting on an ottoman, supported on her left arm. She +was nude in her dark furs. Her right hand played with a lash, while her +bare foot rested carelessly on a man, lying before her like a slave, +like a dog. In the sharply outlined, but well-formed linaments of this +man lay brooding melancholy and passionate devotion; he looked up to +her with the ecstatic burning eye of a martyr. This man, the footstool +for her feet, was Severin, but beardless, and, it seemed, some ten +years younger. + +“_Venus in Furs_,” I cried, pointing to the picture. “That is the way I +saw her in my dream.” + +“I, too,” said Severin, “only I dreamed my dream with open eyes.” + +“Indeed?” + +“It is a tiresome story.” + +“Your picture apparently suggested my dream,” I continued. “But do tell +me what it means. I can imagine that it played a role in your life, and +perhaps a very decisive one. But the details I can only get from you.” + +“Look at its counterpart,” replied my strange friend, without heeding +my question. + +The counterpart was an excellent copy of Titian’s well-known “Venus +with the Mirror” in the Dresden Gallery. + +“And what is the significance?” + +Severin rose and pointed with his finger at the fur with which Titian +garbed his goddess of love. + +“It, too, is a ‘Venus in Furs,’” he said with a slight smile. “I don’t +believe that the old Venetian had any secondary intention. He simply +painted the portrait of some aristocratic Mesalina, and was tactful +enough to let Cupid hold the mirror in which she tests her majestic +allure with cold satisfaction. He looks as though his task were +becoming burdensome enough. The picture is painted flattery. Later an +‘expert’ in the Rococo period baptized the lady with the name of Venus. +The furs of the despot in which Titian’s fair model wrapped herself, +probably more for fear of a cold than out of modesty, have become a +symbol of the tyranny and cruelty that constitute woman’s essence and +her beauty. + +“But enough of that. The picture, as it now exists, is a bitter satire +on our love. Venus in this abstract North, in this icy Christian world, +has to creep into huge black furs so as not to catch cold—” + +Severin laughed, and lighted a fresh cigarette. + +Just then the door opened and an attractive, stoutish, blonde girl +entered. She had wise, kindly eyes, was dressed in black silk, and +brought us cold meat and eggs with our tea. Severin took one of the +latter, and decapitated it with his knife. + +“Didn’t I tell you that I want them soft-boiled?” he cried with a +violence that made the young woman tremble. + +“But my dear Sevtchu—” she said timidly. + +“Sevtchu, nothing,” he yelled, “you are to obey, obey, do you +understand?” and he tore the _kantchuk_1 which was hanging beside the +weapons from its hook. + +[Footnote 1: A long whip with a short handle.] + + +The woman fled from the chamber quickly and timidly like a doe. + +“Just wait, I’ll get you yet,” he called after her. + +“But Severin,” I said placing my hand on his arm, “how can you treat a +pretty young woman thus?” + +“Look at the woman,” he replied, blinking humorously with his eyes. +“Had I flattered her, she would have cast the noose around my neck, but +now, when I bring her up with the _kantchuk_, she adores me.” + +“Nonsense!” + +“Nonsense, nothing, that is the way you have to break in women.” + +“Well, if you like it, live like a pasha in your harem, but don’t lay +down theories for me—” + +“Why not,” he said animatedly. “Goethe’s ‘you must be hammer or anvil’ +is absolutely appropriate to the relation between man and woman. Didn’t +Lady Venus in your dream prove that to you? Woman’s power lies in man’s +passion, and she knows how to use it, if man doesn’t understand +himself. He has only one choice: to be the _tyrant_ over or the _slave_ +of woman. As soon as he gives in, his neck is under the yoke, and the +lash will soon fall upon him.” + +“Strange maxims!” + +“Not maxims, but experiences,” he replied, nodding his head, “_I have +actually felt the lash_. I am cured. Do you care to know how?” + +He rose, and got a small manuscript from his massive desk, and put it +in front of me. + +“You have already asked about the picture. I have long owed you an +explanation. Here—read!” + +Severin sat down by the chimney with his back toward me, and seemed to +dream with open eyes. Silence had fallen again, and again the fire sang +in the chimney, and the samovar and the cricket in the old walls. I +opened the manuscript and read: + +CONFESSIONS OF A SUPERSENSUAL MAN. + + +The margin of the manuscript bore as motto a variation of the +well-known lines from _Faust_: + +“Thou supersensual sensual wooer +A woman leads you by the nose.” +—MEPHISTOPHELES. + + +I turned the title-page and read: “What follows has been compiled from +my diary of that period, because it is impossible ever frankly to write +of one’s past, but in this way everything retains its fresh colors, the +colors of the present.” + +Gogol, the Russian Molière, says—where? well, somewhere—“the real comic +muse is the one under whose laughing mask tears roll down.” + +A wonderful saying. + +So I have a very curious feeling as I am writing all this down. The +atmosphere seems filled with a stimulating fragrance of flowers, which +overcomes me and gives me a headache. The smoke of the fireplace curls +and condenses into figures, small gray-bearded kokolds that mockingly +point their finger at me. Chubby-cheeked cupids ride on the arms of my +chair and on my knees. I have to smile involuntarily, even laugh aloud, +as I am writing down my adventures. Yet I am not writing with ordinary +ink, but with red blood that drips from my heart. All its wounds long +scarred over have opened and it throbs and hurts, and now and then a +tear falls on the paper. + +The days creep along sluggishly in the little Carpathian health-resort. +You see no one, and no one sees you. It is boring enough to write +idyls. I would have leisure here to supply a whole gallery of +paintings, furnish a theater with new pieces for an entire season, a +dozen virtuosos with concertos, trios, and duos, but—what am I +saying—the upshot of it all is that I don’t do much more than to +stretch the canvas, smooth the bow, line the scores. For I am—no false +modesty, Friend Severin; you can lie to others, but you don’t quite +succeed any longer in lying to yourself—I am nothing but a dilettante, +a dilettante in painting, in poetry, in music, and several other of the +so-called unprofitable arts, which, however, at present secure for +their masters the income of a cabinet minister, or even that of a minor +potentate. Above all else I am a dilettante in life. + +Up to the present I have lived as I have painted and written poetry. I +never got far beyond the preparation, the plan, the first act, the +first stanza. There are people like that who begin everything, and +never finish anything. I am such a one. + +But what am I saying? + +To the business in hand. + +I lie in my window, and the miserable little town, which fills me with +despondency, really seems infinitely full of poetry. How wonderful the +outlook upon the blue wall of high mountains interwoven with golden +sunlight; mountain-torrents weave through them like ribbons of silver! +How clear and blue the heavens into which snowcapped crags project; how +green and fresh the forested slopes; the meadows on which small herds +graze, down to the yellow billows of grain where reapers stand and bend +over and rise up again. + +The house in which I live stands in a sort of park, or forest, or +wilderness, whatever one wants to call it, and is very solitary. + +Its sole inhabitants are myself, a widow from Lemberg, and Madame +Tartakovska, who runs the house, a little old woman, who grows older +and smaller each day. There are also an old dog that limps on one leg, +and a young cat that continually plays with a ball of yarn. This ball +of yarn, I believe, belongs to the widow. + +She is said to be really beautiful, this widow, still very young, +twenty-four at the most, and very rich. She dwells in the first story, +and I on the ground floor. She always keeps the green blinds drawn, and +has a balcony entirely overgrown with green climbing-plants. I for my +part down below have a comfortable, intimate arbor of honeysuckle, in +which I read and write and paint and sing like a bird among the twigs. +I can look up on the balcony. Sometimes I actually do so, and then from +time to time a white gown gleams between the dense green network. + +Really the beautiful woman up there doesn’t interest me very much, for +I am in love with someone else, and terribly unhappy at that; far more +unhappy than the Knight of Toggenburg or the Chevalier in Manon +l’Escault, because the object of my adoration is of stone. + +In the garden, in the tiny wilderness, there is a graceful little +meadow on which a couple of deer graze peacefully. On this meadow is a +stone statue of Venus, the original of which, I believe, is in +Florence. This Venus is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in +all my life. + +That, however, does not signify much, for I have seen few beautiful +women, or rather few women at all. In love too, I am a dilettante who +never got beyond the preparation, the first act. + +But why talk in superlatives, as if something that is beautiful could +be surpassed? + +It is sufficient to say that this Venus is beautiful. I love her +passionately with a morbid intensity; madly as one can only love a +woman who never responds to our love with anything but an eternally +uniform, eternally calm, stony smile. I literally adore her. + +I often lie reading under the leafy covering of a young birch when the +sun broods over the forest. Often I visit that cold, cruel mistress of +mine by night and lie on my knees before her, with the face pressed +against the cold pedestal on which her feet rest, and my prayers go up +to her. + +The rising moon, which just now is waning, produces an indescribable +effect. It seems to hover among the trees and submerges the meadow in +its gleam of silver. The goddess stands as if transfigured, and seems +to bathe in the soft moonlight. + +Once when I was returning from my devotions by one of the walks leading +to the house, I suddenly saw a woman’s figure, white as stone, under +the illumination of the moon and separated from me merely by a screen +of trees. It seemed as if the beautiful woman of marble had taken pity +on me, become alive, and followed me. I was seized by a nameless fear, +my heart threatened to burst, and instead— + +Well, I am a dilettante. As always, I broke down at the second stanza; +rather, on the contrary, I did not break down, but ran away as fast as +my legs would carry me. + +* * * * * + +What an accident! Through a Jew, dealing in photographs I secured a +picture of my ideal. It is a small reproduction of Titian’s “Venus with +the Mirror.” What a woman! I want to write a poem, but instead, I take +the reproduction, and write on it: _Venus in Furs_. + +You are cold, while you yourself fan flames. By all means wrap yourself +in your despotic furs, there is no one to whom they are more +appropriate, cruel goddess of love and of beauty!—After a while I add a +few verses from Goethe, which I recently found in his paralipomena to +_Faust_. + +TO AMOR + + +“The pair of wings a fiction are, +The arrows, they are naught but claws, +The wreath conceals the little horns, +For without any doubt he is +Like all the gods of ancient Greece +Only a devil in disguise.” + + +Then I put the picture before me on my table, supporting it with a +book, and looked at it. + +I was enraptured and at the same time filled with a strange fear by the +cold coquetry with which this magnificent woman draped her charms in +her furs of dark sable; by the severity and hardness which lay in this +cold marble-like face. Again I took my pen in hand, and wrote the +following words: + +“To love, to be loved, what happiness! And yet how the glamour of this +pales in comparison with the tormenting bliss of worshipping a woman +who makes a plaything out of us, of being the slave of a beautiful +tyrant who treads us pitilessly underfoot. Even Samson, the hero, the +giant, again put himself into the hands of Delilah, even after she had +betrayed him, and again she betrayed him, and the Philistines bound him +and put out his eyes which until the very end he kept fixed, drunken +with rage and love, upon the beautiful betrayer.” + +I was breakfasting in my honey-suckle arbor, and reading in the Book of +Judith. I envied the hero Holofernes because of the regal woman who cut +off his head with a sword, and because of his beautiful sanguinary end. + +“The almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into the +hands of a woman.” + +This sentence strangely impressed me. + +How ungallant these Jews are, I thought. And their God might choose +more becoming expressions when he speaks of the fair sex. + +“The almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into the +hands of a woman,” I repeated to myself. What shall I do, so that He +may punish me? + +Heaven preserve us! Here comes the housekeeper, who has again +diminished somewhat in size overnight. And up there among the green +twinings and garlandings the white gown gleams again. Is it Venus, or +the widow? + +This time it happens to be the widow, for Madame Tartakovska makes a +courtesy, and asks me in her name for something to read. I run to my +room, and gather together a couple of volumes. + +Later I remember that my picture of Venus is in one of them, and now it +and my effusions are in the hands of the white woman up there together. +What will she say? + +I hear her laugh. + +Is she laughing at me? + +It is full moon. It is already peering over the tops of the low +hemlocks that fringe the park. A silvery exhalation fills the terrace, +the groups of trees, all the landscape, as far as the eye can reach; in +the distance it gradually fades away, like trembling waters. + +I cannot resist. I feel a strange urge and call within me. I put on my +clothes again and go out into the garden. + +Some power draws me toward the meadow, toward her, who is my divinity +and my beloved. + +The night is cool. I feel a slight chill. The atmosphere is heavy with +the odor of flowers and of the forest. It intoxicates. + +What solemnity! What music round about! A nightingale sobs. The stars +quiver very faintly in the pale-blue glamour. The meadow seems smooth, +like a mirror, like a covering of ice on a pond. + +The statue of Venus stands out august and luminous. + +But—what has happened? From the marble shoulders of the goddess a large +dark fur flows down to her heels. I stand dumbfounded and stare at her +in amazement; again an indescribable fear seizes hold of me and I take +flight. + +I hasten my steps, and notice that I have missed the main path. As I am +about to turn aside into one of the green walks I see Venus sitting +before me on a stone bench, not the beautiful woman of marble, but the +goddess of love herself with warm blood and throbbing pulses. She has +actually come to life for me, like the statue that began to breathe for +her creator. Indeed, the miracle is only half completed. Her white hair +seems still to be of stone, and her white gown shimmers like moonlight, +or is it satin? From her shoulders the dark fur flows. But her lips are +already reddening and her cheeks begin to take color. Two diabolical +green rays out of her eyes fall upon me, and now she laughs. + +Her laughter is very mysterious, very—I don’t know. It cannot be +described, it takes my breath away. I flee further, and after every few +steps I have to pause to take breath. The mocking laughter pursues me +through the dark leafy paths, across light open spaces, through the +thicket where only single moonbeams can pierce. I can no longer find my +way, I wander about utterly confused, with cold drops of perspiration +on the forehead. + +Finally I stand still, and engage in a short monologue. + +It runs—well—one is either very polite to one’s self or very rude. + +I say to myself: + +“Donkey!” + +This word exercises a remarkable effect, like a magic formula, which +sets me free and makes me master of myself. + +I am perfectly quiet in a moment. + +With considerable pleasure I repeat: “Donkey!” + +Now everything is perfectly clear and distinct before my eyes again. +There is the fountain, there the alley of box-wood, there the house +which I am slowly approaching. + +Yet—suddenly the appearance is here again. Behind the green screen +through which the moonlight gleams so that it seems embroidered with +silver, I again see the white figure, the woman of stone whom I adore, +whom I fear and flee. + +With a couple of leaps I am within the house and catch my breath and +reflect. + +What am I really, a little dilettante or a great big donkey? + +A sultry morning, the atmosphere is dead, heavily laden with odors, yet +stimulating. Again I am sitting in my honey-suckle arbor, reading in +the Odyssey about the beautiful witch who transformed her admirers into +beasts. A wonderful picture of antique love. + +There is a soft rustling in the twigs and blades and the pages of my +book rustle and on the terrace likewise there is a rustling. + +A woman’s dress— + +She is there—Venus—but without furs—No, this time it is merely the +widow—and yet—Venus-oh, what a woman! + +As she stands there in her light white morning gown, looking at me, her +slight figure seems full of poetry and grace. She is neither large, nor +small; her head is alluring, piquant—in the sense of the period of the +French marquises—rather than formally beautiful. What enchantment and +softness, what roguish charm play about her none too small mouth! Her +skin is so infinitely delicate, that the blue veins show through +everywhere; even through the muslin covering her arms and bosom. How +abundant her red hair-it is red, not blonde or golden-yellow—how +diabolically and yet tenderly it plays around her neck! Now her eyes +meet mine like green lightnings—they are green, these eyes of hers, +whose power is so indescribable—green, but as are precious stones, or +deep unfathomable mountain lakes. + +She observes my confusion, which has even made me discourteous, for I +have remained seated and still have my cap on my head. + +She smiles roguishly. + +Finally I rise and bow to her. She comes closer, and bursts out into a +loud, almost childlike laughter. I stammer, as only a little dilettante +or great big donkey can do on such an occasion. + +Thus our acquaintance began. + +The divinity asks for my name, and mentions her own. + +Her name is Wanda von Dunajew. + +And she is actually my Venus. + +“But madame, what put the idea into your head?” + +“The little picture in one of your books—” + +“I had forgotten about it.” + +“The curious notes on its back—” + +“Why curious?” + +She looked at me. + +“I have always wanted to know a real dreamer some time—for the sake of +the change—and you seem one of the maddest of the tribe.” + +“Dear lady—in fact—” Again I fell victim to an odious, asinine +stammering, and in addition blushed in a way that might have been +appropriate for a youngster of sixteen, but not for me, who was almost +a full ten years older— + +“You were afraid of me last night.” + +“Really—of course—but won’t you sit down?” + +She sat down, and enjoyed my embarrassment—for actually I was even more +afraid of her now in the full light of day. A delightful expression of +contempt hovered about her upper lip. + +“You look at love, and especially woman,” she began, “as something +hostile, something against which you put up a defense, even if +unsuccessfully. You feel that their power over you gives you a +sensation of pleasurable torture, of pungent cruelty. This is a +genuinely modern point of view.” + +“You don’t share it?” + +“I do not share it,” she said quickly and decisively, shaking her head, +so that her curls flew up like red flames. + +“The ideal which I strive to realize in my life is the serene +sensuousness of the Greeks—pleasure without pain. I do not believe in +the kind of love which is preached by Christianity, by the moderns, by +the knights of the spirit. Yes, look at me, I am worse than a heretic, +I am a pagan. + +‘Doest thou imagine long the goddess of love took counsel +When in Ida’s grove she was pleased with the hero Anchises?’ + + +“These lines from Goethe’s _Roman Elegy_ have always delighted me. + +“In nature there is only the love of the heroic age, ‘when gods and +goddesses loved.’ At that time ‘desire followed the glance, enjoyment +desire.’ All else is factitious, affected, a lie. Christianity, whose +cruel emblem, the cross, has always had for me an element of the +monstrous, brought something alien and hostile into nature and its +innocent instincts. + +“The battle of the spirit with the senses is the gospel of modern man. +I do not care to have a share in it.” + +“Yes, Mount Olympus would be the place for you, madame,” I replied, +“but we moderns can no longer support the antique serenity, least of +all in love. The idea of sharing a woman, even if it were an Aspasia, +with another revolts us. We are jealous as is our God. For example, we +have made a term abuse out of the name of the glorious Phryne. + +“We prefer one of Holbein’s meagre, pallid virgins, which is wholly +ours to an antique Venus, no matter how divinely beautiful she is, but +who loves Anchises to-day, Paris to-morrow, Adonis the day after. And +if nature triumphs in us so that we give our whole glowing, passionate +devotion to such a woman, her serene joy of life appears to us as +something demonic and cruel, and we read into our happiness a sin which +we must expiate.” + +“So you too are one of those who rave about modern women, those +miserable hysterical feminine creatures who don’t appreciate a real man +in their somnambulistic search for some dream-man and masculine ideal. +Amid tears and convulsions they daily outrage their Christian duties; +they cheat and are cheated; they always seek again and choose and +reject; they are never happy, and never give happiness. They accuse +fate instead of calmly confessing that they want to love and live as +Helen and Aspasia lived. Nature admits of no permanence in the relation +between man and woman.” + +“But, my dear lady—” + +“Let me finish. It is only man’s egoism which wants to keep woman like +some buried treasure. All endeavors to introduce permanence in love, +the most changeable thing in this changeable human existence, have gone +shipwreck in spite of religious ceremonies, vows, and legalities. Can +you deny that our Christian world has given itself over to corruption?” + +“But—” + +“But you are about to say, the individual who rebels against the +arrangements of society is ostracized, branded, stoned. So be it. I am +willing to take the risk; my principles are very pagan. I will live my +own life as it pleases me. I am willing to do without your hypocritical +respect; I prefer to be happy. The inventors of the Christian marriage +have done well, simultaneously to invent immortality. I, however, have +no wish to live eternally. When with my last breath everything as far +as Wanda von Dunajew is concerned comes to an end here below, what does +it profit me whether my pure spirit joins the choirs of angels, or +whether my dust goes into the formation of new beings? Shall I belong +to one man whom I don’t love, merely because I have once loved him? No, +I do not renounce; I love everyone who pleases me, and give happiness +to everyone who loves me. Is that ugly? No, it is more beautiful by +far, than if cruelly I enjoy the tortures, which my beauty excites, and +virtuously reject the poor fellow who is pining away for me. I am +young, rich, and beautiful, and I live serenely for the sake of +pleasure and enjoyment.” + +While she was speaking her eyes sparkled roguishly, and I had taken +hold of her hands without exactly knowing what to do with them, but +being a genuine dilettante I hastily let go of them again. + +“Your frankness,” I said, “delights me, and not it alone—” + +My confounded dilettantism again throttled me as though there were a +rope around my neck. + +“You were about to say—” + +“I was about to say—I was—I am sorry—I interrupted you.” + +“How, so?” + +A long pause. She is doubtless engaging in a monologue, which +translated into my language would be comprised in the single word, +“donkey.” + +“If I may ask,” I finally began, “how did you arrive at these—these +conclusions?” + +“Quite simply, my father was an intelligent man. From my cradle onward +I was surrounded by replicas of ancient art; at ten years of age I read +_Gil Blas_, at twelve _La Pucelle_. Where others had Hop-o’-my-thumb, +Bluebeard, Cinderella, as childhood friends, mine were Venus and +Apollo, Hercules and Lackoon. My husband’s personality was filled with +serenity and sunlight. Not even the incurable illness which fell upon +him soon after our marriage could long cloud his brow. On the very +night of his death he took me in his arms, and during the many months +when he lay dying in his wheel chair, he often said jokingly to me: +‘Well, have you already picked out a lover?’ I blushed with shame. +‘Don’t deceive me,’ he added on one occasion, ‘that would seem ugly to +me, but pick out an attractive lover, or preferably several. You are a +splendid woman, but still half a child, and you need toys.’ + +“I suppose, I hardly need tell you that during his life time I had no +lover; but it was through him that I have become what I am, a woman of +Greece.” + +“A goddess,” I interrupted. + +“Which one,” she smiled. + +“Venus.” + +She threatened me with her finger and knitted her brows. “Perhaps, even +a ‘Venus in Furs.’ Watch out, I have a large, very large fur, with +which I could cover you up entirely, and I have a mind to catch you in +it as in a net.” + +“Do you believe,” I said quickly, for an idea which seemed good, in +spite of its conventionality and triteness, flashed into my head, “do +you believe that your theories could be carried into execution at the +present time, that Venus would be permitted to stray with impunity +among our railroads and telegraphs in all her undraped beauty and +serenity?” + +“_Undraped_, of course not, but in furs,” she replied smiling, “would +you care to see mine?” + +“And then—” + +“What then?” + +“Beautiful, free, serene, and happy human beings, such as the Greeks +were, are only possible when it is permitted to have _slaves_ who will +perform the prosaic tasks of every day for them and above all else +labor for them.” + +“Of course,” she replied playfully, “an Olympian divinity, such as I +am, requires a whole army of slaves. Beware of me!” + +“Why?” + +I myself was frightened at the hardiness with which I uttered this +“why”; it did not startle her in the least. + +She drew back her lips a little so that her small white teeth became +visible, and then said lightly, as if she were discussing some trifling +matter, “Do you want to be my slave?” + +“There is no equality in love,” I replied solemnly. “Whenever it is a +matter of choice for me of ruling or being ruled, it seems much more +satisfactory to me to be the slave of a beautiful woman. But where +shall I find the woman who knows how to rule, calmly, full of +self-confidence, even harshly, and not seek to gain her power by means +of petty nagging?” + +“Oh, that might not be so difficult.” + +“You think—” + +“I—for instance—” she laughed and leaned far back—“I have a real talent +for despotism—I also have the necessary furs—but last night you were +really seriously afraid of me!” + +“Quite seriously.” + +“And now?” + +“Now, I am more afraid of you than ever!” + +We are together every day, I and—Venus; we are together a great deal. +We breakfast in my honey-suckle arbor, and have tea in her little +sitting-room. I have an opportunity to unfold all my small, very small +talents. Of what use would have been my study of all the various +sciences, my playing at all the arts, if I were unable in the case of a +pretty, little woman— + +But this woman is by no means little; in fact she impresses me +tremendously. I made a drawing of her to-day, and felt particularly +clearly, how inappropriate the modern way of dressing is for a +cameo-head like hers. The configuration of her face has little of the +Roman, but much of the Greek. + +Sometimes I should like to paint her as Psyche, and then again as +Astarte. It depends upon the expression in her eyes, whether it is +vaguely dreamy, or half-consuming, filled with tired desire. She, +however, insists that it be a portrait-likeness. + +I shall make her a present of furs. + +How could I have any doubts? If not for her, for whom would princely +furs be suitable? + +* * * * * + +I was with her yesterday evening, reading the _Roman Elegies_ to her. +Then I laid the book aside, and improvised something for her. She +seemed pleased; rather more than that, she actually hung upon my words, +and her bosom heaved. + +Or was I mistaken? + +The rain beat in melancholy fashion on the window-panes, the fire +crackled in the fireplace in wintery comfort. I felt quite at home with +her, and for a moment lost all my fear of this beautiful woman; I +kissed her hand, and she permitted it. + +Then I sat down at her feet and read a short poem I had written for +her. + + VENUS IN FURS. + + +“Place thy foot upon thy slave, + Oh thou, half of hell, half of dreams; +Among the shadows, dark and grave, + Thy extended body softly gleams.” + + +And—so on. This time I really got beyond the first stanza. At her +request I gave her the poem in the evening, keeping no copy. And now as +I am writing this down in my diary I can only remember the first +stanza. + +I am filled with a very curious sensation. I don’t believe that I am in +love with Wanda; I am sure that at our first meeting, I felt nothing of +the lightning-like flashes of passion. But I feel how her +extraordinary, really divine beauty is gradually winding magic snares +about me. It isn’t any spiritual sympathy which is growing in me; it is +a physical subjection, coming on slowly, but for that reason more +absolutely. + +I suffer under it more and more each day, and she—she merely smiles. + +* * * * * + +Without any provocation she suddenly said to me to-day: “You interest +me. Most men are very commonplace, without verve or poetry. In you +there is a certain depth and capacity for enthusiasm and a deep +seriousness, which delight me. I might learn to love you.” + +After a short but severe shower we went out together to the meadow and +the statue of Venus. All about us the earth steamed; mists rose up +toward heaven like clouds of incense; a shattered rainbow still hovered +in the air. The trees were still shedding drops, but sparrows and +finches were already hopping from twig to twig. They are twittering +gaily, as if very much pleased at something. Everything is filled with +a fresh fragrance. We cannot cross the meadow for it is still wet. In +the sunlight it looks like a small pool, and the goddess of love seems +to rise from the undulations of its mirror-like surface. About her head +a swarm of gnats is dancing, which, illuminated by the sun, seem to +hover above her like an aureole. + +Wanda is enjoying the lovely scene. As all the benches along the walk +are still wet, she supports herself on my arm to rest a while. A soft +weariness permeates her whole being, her eyes are half closed; I feel +the touch of her breath on my cheek. + +How I managed to get up courage enough I really don’t know, but I took +hold of her hand, asking, + +“Could you love me?” + +“Why not,” she replied, letting her calm, clear look rest upon me, but +not for long. + +A moment later I am kneeling before her, pressing my burning face +against the fragrant muslin of her gown. + +“But Severin—this isn’t right,” she cried. + +But I take hold of her little foot, and press my lips upon it. + +“You are getting worse and worse!” she cried. She tore herself free, +and fled rapidly toward the house, the while her adorable slipper +remained in my hand. + +Is it an omen? + +* * * * * + +All day long I didn’t dare to go near her. Toward evening as I was +sitting in my arbor her gay red head peered suddenly through the +greenery of her balcony. “Why don’t you come up?” he called down +impatiently. + +I ran upstairs, and at the top lost courage again. I knocked very +lightly. She didn’t say come-in, but opened the door herself, and stood +on the threshold. + +“Where is my slipper?” + +“It is—I have—I want,” I stammered. + +“Get it, and then we will have tea together, and chat.” + +When I returned, she was engaged in making tea. I ceremoniously placed +the slipper on the table, and stood in the corner like a child awaiting +punishment. + +I noticed that her brows were slightly contracted, and there was an +expression of hardness and dominance about her lips which delighted me. + +All of a sudden she broke out laughing. + +“So—you are really in love—with me?” + +“Yes, and I suffer more from it than you can imagine?” + +“You suffer?” she laughed again. + +I was revolted, mortified, annihilated, but all this was quite useless. + +“Why?” she continued, “I like you, with all my heart.” + +She gave me her hand, and looked at me in the friendliest fashion. + +“And will you be my wife?” + +Wanda looked at me—how did she look at me? I think first of all with +surprise, and then with a tinge of irony. + +“What has given you so much courage, all at once?” + +“Courage?” + +“Yes courage, to ask anyone to be your wife, and me in particular?” She +lifted up the slipper. “Was it through a sudden friendship with this? +But joking aside. Do you really wish to marry me?” + +“Yes.” + +“Well, Severin, that is a serious matter. I believe, you love me, and I +care for you too, and what is more important each of us finds the other +interesting. There is no danger that we would soon get bored, but, you +know, I am a fickle person, and just for that reason I take marriage +seriously. If I assume obligations, I want to be able to meet them. But +I am afraid—no—it would hurt you.” + +“Please be perfectly frank with me,” I replied. + +“Well then honestly, I don’t believe I could love a man longer than—” +She inclined her head gracefully to one side and mused. + +“A year.” + +“What do you imagine—a month perhaps.” + +“Not even me?” + +“Oh you—perhaps two.” + +“Two months!” I exclaimed. + +“Two months is very long.” + +“You go beyond antiquity, madame.” + +“You see, you cannot stand the truth.” + +Wanda walked across the room and leaned back against the fireplace, +watching me and resting one of her arms on the mantelpiece. + +“What shall I do with you?” she began anew. + +“Whatever you wish,” I replied with resignation, “whatever will give +you pleasure.” + +“How illogical!” she cried, “first you want to make me your wife, and +then you offer yourself to me as something to toy with.” + +“Wanda—I love you.” + +“Now we are back to the place where we started. You love me, and want +to make me your wife, but I don’t want to enter into a new marriage, +because I doubt the permanence of both my and your feelings.” + +“But if I am willing to take the risk with you?” I replied. + +“But it also depends on whether I am willing to risk it with you,” she +said quietly. “I can easily imagine belonging to one man for my entire +life, but he would have to be a whole man, a man who would dominate me, +who would subjugate me by his inate strength, do you understand? And +every man—I know this very well—as soon as he falls in love becomes +weak, pliable, ridiculous. He puts himself into the woman’s hands, +kneels down before her. The only man whom I could love permanently +would be he before whom I should have to kneel. I’ve gotten to like you +so much, however, that I’ll try it with you.” + +I fell down at her feet. + +“For heaven’s sake, here you are kneeling already,” she said mockingly. +“You are making a good beginning.” When I had risen again she +continued, “I will give you a year’s time to win me, to convince me +that we are suited to each other, that we might live together. If you +succeed, I will become your wife, and a wife, Severin, who will +conscientiously and strictly perform all her duties. During this year +we will live as though we were married—” + +My blood rose to my head. + +In her eyes too there was a sudden flame— + +“We will live together,” she continued, “share our daily life, so that +we may find out whether we are really fitted for each other. _I grant +you all the rights of a husband, of a lover, of a friend._ Are you +satisfied?” + +“I suppose, I’ll have to be?” + +“You don’t have to.” + +“Well then, I want to—” + +“Splendid. That is how a man speaks. Here is my hand.” + +* * * * * + +For ten days I have been with her every hour, except at night. All the +time I was allowed to look into her eyes, hold her hands, listen to +what she said, accompany her wherever she went. + +My love seems to me like a deep, bottomless abyss, into which I subside +deeper and deeper. There is nothing now which could save me from it. + +This afternoon we were resting on the meadow at the foot of the +Venus-statue. I plucked flowers and tossed them into her lap; she wound +them into wreaths with which we adorned our goddess. + +Suddenly Wanda looked at me so strangely that my senses became confused +and passion swept over my head like a conflagration. Losing command +over myself, I threw my arms about her and clung to her lips, and +she—she drew me close to her heaving breast. + +“Are you angry?” I then asked her. + +“I am never angry at anything that is natural—” she replied, “but _I_ +am afraid you suffer.” + +“Oh, I am suffering frightfully.” + +“Poor friend!” she brushed my disordered hair back from my fore-head. +“I hope it isn’t through any fault of mine.” + +“No—” I replied,—“and yet my love for you has become a sort of madness. +The thought that I might lose you, perhaps actually lose you, torments +me day and night.” + +“But you don’t yet possess me,” said Wanda, and again she looked at me +with that vibrant, consuming expression, which had already once before +carried me away. Then she rose, and with her small transparent hands +placed a wreath of blue anemones upon the ringletted white head of +Venus. Half against my will I threw my arm around her body. + +“I can no longer live without you, oh wonderful woman,” I said. +“Believe me, believe only this once, that this time it is not a phrase, +not a thing of dreams. I feel deep down in my innermost soul, that my +life belongs inseparably with yours. If you leave me, I shall perish, +go to pieces.” + +“That will hardly be necessary, for I love you,” she took hold of my +chin, “you foolish man!” + +“But you will be mine only under conditions, while I belong to you +unconditionally—” + +“That isn’t wise, Severin,” she replied almost with a start. “Don’t you +know me yet, do you absolutely refuse to know me? I am good when I am +treated seriously and reasonably, but when you abandon yourself too +absolutely to me, I grow arrogant—” + +“So be it, be arrogant, be despotic,” I cried in the fulness of +exaltation, “only be mine, mine forever.” I lay at her feet, embracing +her knees. + +“Things will end badly, my friend,” she said soberly, without moving. + +“It shall never end,” I cried excitedly, almost violently. “Only death +shall part us. If you cannot be mine, all mine and for always, then _I +want to be your slave_, serve you, suffer everything from you, if only +you won’t drive me away.” + +“Calm yourself,” she said, bending down and kissing my forehead, “I am +really very fond of you, but your way is not the way to win and hold +me.” + +“I want to do everything, absolutely everything, that you want, only +not to lose you,” I cried, “only not that, I cannot bear the thought.” + +“Do get up.” + +I obeyed. + +“You are a strange person,” continued Wanda. “You wish to possess me at +any price?” + +“Yes, at any price.” + +“But of what value, for instance, would that be?”—She pondered; a +lurking uncanny expression entered her eyes—“If I no longer loved you, +if I belonged to another.” + +A shudder ran through me. I looked at her She stood firmly and +confident before me, and her eyes disclosed a cold gleam. + +“You see,” she continued, “the very thought frightens you.” A beautiful +smile suddenly illuminated her face. + +“I feel a perfect horror, when I imagine, that the woman I love and who +has responded to my love could give herself to another regardless of +me. But have I still a choice? If I love such a woman, even unto +madness, shall I turn my back to her and lose everything for the sake +of a bit of boastful strength; shall I send a bullet through my brains? +I have two ideals of woman. If I cannot obtain the one that is noble +and simple, the woman who will faithfully and truly share my life, well +then I don’t want anything half-way or lukewarm. Then I would rather be +subject to a woman without virtue, fidelity, or pity. Such a woman in +her magnificent selfishness is likewise an ideal. If I am not permitted +to enjoy the happiness of love, fully and wholly, I want to taste its +pains and torments to the very dregs; I want to be maltreated and +betrayed by the woman I love, and the more cruelly the better. This too +is a luxury.” + +“Have you lost your senses,” cried Wanda. + +“I love you with all my soul,” I continued, “with all my senses, and +your presence and personality are absolutely essential to me, if I am +to go on living. Choose between my ideals. Do with me what you will, +make of me your husband or your slave.” + +“Very well,” said Wanda, contracting her small but strongly arched +brows, “it seems to me it would be rather entertaining to have a man, +who interests me and loves me, completely in my power; at least I shall +not lack pastime. You were imprudent enough to leave the choice to me. +Therefore I choose; I want you to be my slave, I shall make a plaything +for myself out of you!” + +“Oh, please do,” I cried half-shuddering, half-enraptured. “If the +foundation of marriage depends on equality and agreement, it is +likewise true that the greatest passions rise out of opposites. We are +such opposites, almost enemies. That is why my love is part hate, part +fear. In such a relation only one can be hammer and the other anvil. I +wish to be the anvil. I cannot be happy when I look down upon the woman +I love. I want to adore a woman, and this I can only do when she is +cruel towards me.” + +“But, Severin,” replied Wanda, almost angrily, “do you believe me +capable of maltreating a man who loves me as you do, and whom I love?” + +“Why not, if I adore you the more on this account? _It is possible to +love really only that which stands above us,_ a woman, who through her +beauty, temperament, intelligence, and strength of will subjugates us +and becomes a despot over us.” + +“Then that which repels others, attracts you.” + +“Yes. That is the strange part of me.” + +“Perhaps, after all, there isn’t anything so very unique or strange in +all your passions, for who doesn’t love beautiful furs? And everyone +knows and feels how closely sexual love and cruelty are related.” + +“But in my case all these elements are raised to their highest degree,” +I replied. + +“In other words, reason has little power over you, and you are by +nature, soft, sensual, yielding.” + +“Were the martyrs also soft and sensual by nature?” + +“The martyrs?” + +“On the contrary, they were _supersensual men,_ who found enjoyment in +suffering. They sought out the most frightful tortures, even death +itself, as others seek joy, and as they were, so am I—_supersensual.”_ + +“Have a care that in being such, you do not become a martyr to love, +the _martyr of a woman_.” + +We are sitting on Wanda’s little balcony in the mellow fragrant summer +night. A twofold roof is above us, first the green ceiling of +climbing-plants, and then the vault of heaven sown with innumerable +stars. The low wailing love-call of a cat rises from the park. I am +sitting on footstool at the feet of my divinity, and am telling her of +my childhood. + +“And even then all these strange tendencies were distinctly marked in +you?” asked Wanda. + +“Of course, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have them. Even in my +cradle, so mother has told me, I was _supersensual._ I scorned the +healthy breast of my nurse, and had to be brought up on goats’ milk. As +a little boy I was mysteriously shy before women, which really was only +an expression of an inordinate interest in them. I was oppressed by the +gray arches and half-darknesses of the church, and actually afraid of +the glittering altars and images of the saints. Secretly, however, I +sneaked as to a secret joy to a plaster-Venus which stood in my +father’s little library. I kneeled down before her, and to her I said +the prayers I had been taught—the Paternoster, the Ave Maria, and the +Credo. + +“Once at night I left my bed to visit her. The sickle of the moon was +my light and showed me the goddess in a pale-blue cold light. I +prostrated myself before her and kissed her cold feet, as I had seen +our peasants do when they kissed the feet of the dead Savior. + +“An irresistible yearning seized me. + +“I got up and embraced the beautiful cold body and kissed the cold +lips. A deep shudder fell upon me and I fled, and later in a dream, it +seemed to me, as if the goddess stood beside my bed, threatening me +with up-raised arm. + +“I was sent to school early and soon reached the gymnasium. I +passionately grasped at everything which promised to make the world of +antiquity accessible to me. Soon I was more familiar with the gods of +Greece than with the religion of Jesus. I was with Paris when he gave +the fateful apple to Venus, I saw Troy burn, and followed Ulysses on +his wanderings. The prototypes of all that is beautiful sank deep into +my soul, and consequently at the time when other boys are coarse and +obscene, I displayed an insurmountable aversion to everything base, +vulgar, unbeautiful. + +“To me, the maturing youth, love for women seemed something especially +base and unbeautiful, for it showed itself to me first in all its +commonness. I avoided all contact with the fair sex; in short, I was +supersensual to madness. + +“When I was about fourteen my mother had a charming chamber-maid, +young, attractive, with a figure just budding into womanhood. I was +sitting one day studying my Tacitus and growing enthusiastic over the +virtues of the ancient Teutons, while she was sweeping my room. +Suddenly she stopped, bent down over me, in the meantime holding fast +to the broom, and a pair of fresh, full, adorable lips touched mine. +The kiss of the enamoured little cat ran through me like a shudder, but +I raised up my _Germania_, like a shield against the temptress, and +indignantly left the room.” + +Wanda broke out in loud laughter. “It would, indeed, be hard to find +another man like you, but continue.” + +“There is another unforgetable incident belonging to that period,” I +continued my story. “Countess Sobol, a distant aunt of mine, was +visiting my parents. She was a beautiful majestic woman with an +attractive smile. I, however, hated her, for she was regarded by the +family as a sort of Messalina. My behavior toward her was as rude, +malicious, and awkward as possible. + +“One day my parents drove to the capital of the district. My aunt +determined to take advantage of their absence, and to exercise judgment +over me. She entered unexpectedly in her fur-lined _kazabaika,_2 +followed by the cook, kitchen-maid, and the cat of a chamber-maid whom +I had scorned. Without asking any questions, they seized me and bound +me hand and foot, in spite of my violent resistance. Then my aunt, with +an evil smile, rolled up her sleeve and began to whip me with a stout +switch. She whipped so hard that the blood flowed, and that, at last, +notwithstanding my heroic spirit, I cried and wept and begged for +mercy. She then had me untied, but I had to get down on my knees and +thank her for the punishment and kiss her hand. + +[Footnote 2: A woman’s jacket.] + + +“Now you understand the supersensual fool! Under the lash of a +beautiful woman my senses first realized the meaning of woman. In her +fur-jacket she seemed to me like a wrathful queen, and from then on my +aunt became the most desirable woman on God’s earth. + +“My Cato-like austerity, my shyness before woman, was nothing but an +excessive feeling for beauty. In my imagination sensuality became a +sort of cult. I took an oath to myself that I would not squander its +holy wealth upon any ordinary person, but I would reserve it for an +ideal woman, if possible for the goddess of love herself. + +“I went to the university at a very early age. It was in the capital +where my aunt lived. My room looked at that time like Doctor Faustus’s. +Everything in it was in a wild confusion. There were huge closets +stuffed full of books, which I bought for a song from a Jewish dealer +on the Servanica;3 there were globes, atlases, flasks, charts of the +heavens, skeletons of animals, skulls, the busts of eminent men. It +looked as though Mephistopheles might have stepped out from behind the +huge green store as a wandering scholiast at any moment. + +[Footnote 3: The street of the Jews in Lemberg.] + + +“I studied everything in a jumble without system, without selection: +chemistry, alchemy, history, astronomy, philosophy, law, anatomy, and +literature; I read Homer, Virgil, Ossian, Schiller, Goethe, +Shakespeare, Cervantes, Voltaire, Molière, the Koran, the Kosmos, +Casanova’s Memoirs. I grew more confused each day, more fantastical, +more supersensual. All the time a beautiful ideal woman hovered in my +imagination. Every so and so often she appeared before me like a vision +among my leather-bound books and dead bones, lying on a bed of roses, +surrounded by cupids. Sometimes she appeared gowned like the Olympians +with the stern white face of the plaster Venus; sometimes in braids of +a rich brown, blue-eyes, in my aunt’s red velvet _kazabaika,_ trimmed +with ermine. + +“One morning when she had again risen out of the golden mist of my +imagination in all her smiling beauty, I went to see Countess Sobol, +who received me in a friendly, even cordial manner. She gave me a kiss +of welcome, which put all my senses in a turmoil. She was probably +about forty years old, but like most well-preserved women of the world, +still very attractive. She wore as always her fur-edged jacket. This +time it was one of green velvet with brown marten. But nothing of the +sternness which had so delighted me the other time was now discernable. + +“On the contrary, there was so little of cruelty in her that without +any more ado she let me adore her. + +“Only too soon did she discover my supersensual folly and innocence, +and it pleased her to make me happy. As for myself—I was as happy as a +young god. What rapture for me to be allowed to lie before her on my +knees, and to kiss her hands, those with which she had scourged me! +What marvellous hands they were, of beautiful form, delicate, rounded, +and white, with adorable dimples! I really was in love with her hands +only. I played with them, let them submerge and emerge in the dark fur, +held them against the light, and was unable to satiate my eyes with +them.” + +Wanda involuntarily looked at her hand; I noticed it, and had to smile. + +“From the way in which the supersensual predominated in me in those +days you can see that I was in love only with the cruel lashes I +received from my aunt; and about two years later when I paid court to a +young actress only in the roles she played. Still later I became the +admirer of a respectable woman. She acted the part of irreproachable +virtue, only in the end to betray me with a rich Jew. You see, it is +because I was betrayed, sold, by a woman who feigned the strictest +principles and the highest ideals, that I hate that sort of poetical, +sentimental virtue so intensely. Give me rather a woman who is honest +enough to say to me: I am a Pompadour, a Lucretia Borgia, and I am +ready to adore her.” + +Wanda rose and opened the window. + +“You have a curious way of arousing one’s imagination, stimulating all +one’s nerves, and making one’s pulses beat faster. You put an aureole +on vice, provided only if it is honest. Your ideal is a daring +courtesan of genius. Oh, you are the kind of man who will corrupt a +woman to her very last fiber.” + +* * * * * + +In the middle of the night there was a knock at my window; I got up, +opened it, and was startled. Without stood “Venus in Furs,” just as she +had appeared to me the first time. + +“You have disturbed me with your stories; I have been tossing about in +bed, and can’t go to sleep,” she said. “Now come and stay with me.” + +“In a moment.” + +As I entered Wanda was crouching by the fireplace where she had kindled +a small fire. + +“Autumn is coming,” she began, “the nights are really quite cold +already. I am afraid you may not like it, but I can’t put off my furs +until the room is sufficiently warm.” + +“Not like it—you are joking—you know—” I threw my arm around her, and +kissed her. + +“Of course, I know, but why this great fondness for furs?” + +“I was born with it,” I replied. “I already had it as a child. +Furthermore furs have a stimulating effect on all highly organized +natures. This is due both to general and natural laws. It is a physical +stimulus which sets you tingling, and no one can wholly escape it. +Science has recently shown a certain relationship between electricity +and warmth; at any rate, their effects upon the human organism are +related. The torrid zone produces more passionate characters, a heated +atmosphere stimulation. Likewise with electricity. This is the reason +why the presence of cats exercises such a magic influence upon +highly-organized men of intellect. This is why these long-tailed Graces +of the animal kingdom, these adorable, scintillating electric batteries +have been the favorite animal of a Mahommed, Cardinal Richelieu, +Crebillon, Rousseau, Wieland.” + +“A woman wearing furs, then,” cried Wanda, “is nothing else than a +large cat, an augmented electric battery?” + +“Certainly,” I replied. “That is my explanation of the symbolic meaning +which fur has acquired as the attribute of power and beauty. Monarchs +and the dominant higher nobility in former times used it in this sense +for their costume, exclusively; great painters used it only for queenly +beauty. The most beautiful frame, which Raphael could find for the +divine forms of Fornarina and Titian for the roseate body of his +beloved, was dark furs.” + +“Thanks for the learned discourse on love,” said Wanda, “but you +haven’t told me everything. You associate something entirely individual +with furs.” + +“Certainly,” I cried. “I have repeatedly told you that suffering has a +peculiar attraction for me. Nothing can intensify my passion more than +tyranny, cruelty, and especially the faithlessness of a beautiful +woman. And I cannot imagine this woman, this strange ideal derived from +an aesthetics of ugliness, this soul of Nero in the body of a Phryne, +except in furs.” + +“I understand,” Wanda interrupted. “It gives a dominant and imposing +quality to a woman.” + +“Not only that,” I continued. “You know I am _supersensual._ With me +everything has its roots in the imagination, and thence it receives its +nourishment. I was already pre-maturely developed and highly sensitive, +when at about the age of ten the legends of the martyrs fell into my +hands. I remember reading with a kind of horror, which really was +rapture, of how they pined in prisons, were laid on the gridiron, +pierced with arrows, boiled in pitch, thrown to wild animals, nailed to +the cross, and suffered the most horrible torment with a kind of joy. +To suffer and endure cruel torture from then on seemed to me exquisite +delight, especially when it was inflicted by a beautiful woman, for +ever since I can remember all poetry and everything demonic was for me +concentrated in woman. I literally carried the idea into a sort of +cult. + +“I felt there was something sacred in sex; in fact, it was the only +sacred thing. In woman and her beauty I saw something divine, because +the most important function of existence—the continuation of the +species—is her vocation. To me woman represented a personification of +nature, _Isis_, and man was her priest, her slave. In contrast to him +she was cruel like nature herself who tosses aside whatever has served +her purposes as soon as she no longer has need for it. To him her +cruelties, even death itself, still were sensual raptures. + +“I envied King Gunther whom the mighty Brunhilde fettered on the bridal +night, and the poor troubadour whom his capricious mistress had sewed +in the skins of wolves to have him hunted like game. I envied the +Knight Ctirad whom the daring Amazon Scharka craftily ensnared in a +forest near Prague, and carried to her castle Divin, where, after +having amused herself a while with him, she had him broken on the +wheel—” + +“Disgusting,” cried Wanda. “I almost wish you might fall into the hands +of a woman of their savage race. In the wolf’s skin, under the teeth of +the dogs, or upon the wheel, you would lose the taste for your kind of +poetry.” + +“Do you think so? I hardly do.” + +“Have you actually lost your senses.” + +“Possibly. But let me go on. I developed a perfect passion for reading +stories in which the extremest cruelties were described. I loved +especially to look at pictures and prints which represented them. All +the sanguinary tyrants that ever occupied a throne; the inquisitors who +had the heretics tortured, roasted, and butchered; all the woman whom +the pages of history have recorded as lustful, beautiful, and violent +women like Libussa, Lucretia Borgia, Agnes of Hungary, Queen Margot, +Isabeau, the Sultana Roxolane, the Russian Czarinas of last century—all +these I saw in furs or in robes bordered with ermine.” + +“And so furs now rouse strange imaginings in you,” said Wanda, and +simultaneously she began to drape her magnificent fur-cloak +coquettishly about her, so that the dark shining sable played +beautifully around her bust and arms. “Well, how do you feel now, half +broken on the wheel?” + +Her piercing green eyes rested on me with a peculiar mocking +satisfaction. Overcome by desire, I flung myself down before her, and +threw my arms about her. + +“Yes—you have awakened my dearest dream,” I cried. “It has slept long +enough.” + +“And this is?” She put her hand on my neck. + +I was seized with a sweet intoxication under the influence of this warm +little hand and of her regard, which, tenderly searching, fell upon me +through her half-closed lids. + +_“To be the slave of a woman, a beautiful woman, whom I love, whom I +worship.”_ + +“And who on that account maltreats you,” interrupted Wanda, laughing. + +“Yes, who fetters me and whips me, treads me underfoot, the while she +gives herself to another.” + +“And who in her wantonness will go so far as to make a present of you +to your successful rival when driven insane by jealousy you must meet +him face to face, who will turn you over to his absolute mercy. Why +not? This final tableau doesn’t please you so well?” + +I looked at Wanda frightened. + +“You surpass my dreams.” + +“Yes, we women are inventive,” she said, “take heed, when you find your +ideal, it might easily happen, that she will treat you more cruelly +than you anticipate.” + +“I am afraid that I have already found my ideal!” I exclaimed, burying +my burning face in her lap. + +“Not I?” exclaimed Wanda, throwing off her furs and moving about the +room laughing. She was still laughing as I went downstairs, and when I +stood musing in the yard, I still heard her peals of laughter above. + +* * * * * + +“Do you really then expect me to embody your ideal?” Wanda asked +archly, when we met in the park to-day. + +At first I could find no answer. The most antagonistic emotions were +battling within me. In the meantime she sat down on one of the +stone-benches, and played with a flower. + +“Well—am I?” + +I kneeled down and seized her hands. + +“Once more I beg you to become my wife, my true and loyal wife; if you +can’t do that then become the embodiment of my ideal, absolutely, +without reservation, without softness.” + +“You know I am ready at the end of a year to give you my hand, if you +prove to be the man I am seeking,” Wanda replied very seriously, “but I +think you would be more grateful to me if through me you realized your +imaginings. Well, which do you prefer?” + +“I believe that everything my imagination has dreamed lies latent in +your personality.” + +“You are mistaken.” + +“I believe,” I continued, “that you enjoy having a man wholly in your +power, torturing him—” + +“No, no,” she exclaimed quickly, “or perhaps—.” She pondered. + +“I don’t understand myself any longer,” she continued, “but I have a +confession to make to you. You have corrupted my imagination and +inflamed my blood. I am beginning to like the things you speak of. The +enthusiasm with which you speak of a Pompadour, a Catherine the Second, +and all the other selfish, frivolous, cruel women, carries me away and +takes hold of my soul. It urges me on to become like those women, who +in spite of their vileness were slavishly adored during their lifetime +and still exert a miraculous power from their graves. + +“You will end by making of me a despot in miniature, a domestic +Pompadour.” + +“Well then,” I said in agitation, “if all this is inherent in you, give +way to this trend of your nature. Nothing half-way. If you can’t be a +true and loyal wife to me, be a demon.” + +I was nervous from loss of sleep, and the proximity of the beautiful +woman affected me like a fever. I no longer recall what I said, but I +remember that I kissed her feet, and finally raised her foot and put my +neck under it. She withdrew it quickly, and rose almost angrily. + +“If you love me, Severin,” she said quickly, and her voice sounded +sharp and commanding, “never speak to me of those things again. +Understand, never! Otherwise I might really—” She smiled and sat down +again. + +“I am entirely serious,” I exclaimed, half-raving. “I adore you so +infinitely that I am willing to suffer anything from you, for the sake +of spending my whole life near you.” + +“Severin, once more I warn you.” + +“Your warning is vain. Do with me what you will, as long as you don’t +drive me away.” + +“Severin,” replied Wanda, “I am a frivolous young woman; it is +dangerous for you to put yourself so completely in my power. You will +end by actually becoming a plaything to me. Who will give warrant that +I shall not abuse your insane desire?” + +“Your own nobility of character.” + +“Power makes people over-bearing.” + +“Be it,” I cried, “tread me underfoot.” + +Wanda threw her arms around my neck, looked into my eyes, and shook her +head. + +“I am afraid I can’t, but I will try, for your sake, for I love you +Severin, as I have loved no other man.” + +* * * * * + +To-day she suddenly took her hat and shawl, and I had to go shopping +with her. She looked at whips, long whips with a short handle, the kind +that are used on dogs. + +“Are these satisfactory?” said the shopkeeper. + +“No, they are much too small,” replied Wanda, with a side-glance at me. +“I need a large—” + +“For a bull-dog, I suppose?” opined the merchant. + +“Yes,” she exclaimed, “of the kind that are used in Russia for +intractable slaves.” + +She looked further and finally selected a whip, at whose sight I felt a +strange creeping sensation. + +“Now good-by, Severin,” she said. “I have some other purchases to make, +but you can’t go along.” + +I left her and took a walk. On the way back I saw Wanda coming out at a +furrier’s. She beckoned me. + +“Consider it well,” she began in good spirits, “I have never made a +secret of how deeply your serious, dreamy character has fascinated me. +The idea of seeing this serious man wholly in my power, actually lying +enraptured at my feet, of course, stimulates me—but will this +attraction last? Woman loves a man; she maltreats a slave, and ends by +kicking him aside.” + +“Very well then, kick me aside,” I replied, “when you are tired of me. +I want to be your slave.” + +“Dangerous forces lie within me,” said Wanda, after we had gone a few +steps further. “You awaken them, and not to your advantage. You know +how to paint pleasure, cruelty, arrogance in glowing colors. What would +you say should I try my hand at them, and make you the first object of +my experiments. I would be like Dionysius who had the inventor of the +iron ox roasted within it in order to see whether his wails and groans +really resembled the bellowing of an ox. + +“Perhaps I am a female Dionysius?” + +“Be it,” I exclaimed, “and my dreams will be fulfilled. I am yours for +good or evil, choose. The destiny that lies concealed within my breast +drives me on—demoniacally—relentlessly.” + +“My Beloved, + +I do not care to see you to-day or to-morrow, and not until evening the +day after tomorrow, and then _as my slave_. + +Your mistress + +Wanda.” + +“As my slave” was underlined. I read the note which I received early in +the morning a second time. Then I had a donkey saddled, an animal +symbolic of learned professors, and rode into the mountains. I wanted +to numb my desire, my yearning, with the magnificent scenery of the +Carpathians. I am back, tired, hungry, thirsty, and more in love than +ever. I quickly change my clothes, and a few moments later knock at her +door. + +“Come in!” + +I enter. She is standing in the center of the room, dressed in a gown +of white satin which floods down her body like light. Over it she wears +a scarlet _kazabaika_, richly edged with ermine. Upon her powdered, +snowy hair is a little diadem of diamonds. She stands with her arms +folded across her breast, and with her brows contracted. + +“Wanda!” I run toward her, and am about to throw my arm about her to +kiss her. She retreats a step, measuring me from top to bottom. + +“Slave!” + +“Mistress!” I kneel down, and kiss the hem of her garment. + +“That is as it should be.” + +“Oh, how beautiful you are.” + +“Do I please you?” She stepped before the mirror, and looked at herself +with proud satisfaction. + +“I shall become mad!” + +Her lower lip twitched derisively, and she looked at me mockingly from +behind half-closed lids. + +“Give me the whip.” + +I looked about the room. + +“No,” she exclaimed, “stay as you are, kneeling.” She went over to the +fire-place, took the whip from the mantle-piece, and, watching me with +a smile, let it hiss through the air; then she slowly rolled up the +sleeve of her fur-jacket. + +“Marvellous woman!” I exclaimed. + +“Silence, slave!” She suddenly scowled, looked savage, and struck me +with the whip. A moment later she threw her arm tenderly about me, and +pityingly bent down to me. “Did I hurt you?” she asked, half-shyly, +half-timidly. + +“No,” I replied, “and even if you had, pains that come through you are +a joy. Strike again, if it gives you pleasure.” + +“But it doesn’t give me pleasure.” + +Again I was seized with that strange intoxication. + +“Whip me,” I begged, “whip me without mercy.” + +Wanda swung the whip, and hit me twice. “Are you satisfied now?” + +“No.” + +“Seriously, no?” + +“Whip me, I beg you, it is a joy to me.” + +“Yes, because you know very well that it isn’t serious,” she replied, +“because I haven’t the heart to hurt you. This brutal game goes against +my grain. Were I really the woman who beats her slaves you would be +horrified.” + +“No, Wanda,” I replied, “I love you more than myself; I am devoted to +you for death and life. In all seriousness, you can do with me whatever +you will, whatever your caprice suggests.” + +“Severin!” + +“Tread me underfoot!” I exclaimed, and flung myself face to the floor +before her. + +“I hate all this play-acting,” said Wanda impatiently. + +“Well, then maltreat me seriously.” + +An uncanny pause. + +“Severin, I warn you for the last time,” began Wanda. + +“If you love me, be cruel towards me,” I pleaded with upraised eyes. + +“If I love you,” repeated Wanda. “Very well!” She stepped back and +looked at me with a sombre smile. _“Be then my slave, and know what it +means to be delivered into the hands of a woman.”_ And at the same +moment she gave me a kick. + +“How do you like that, slave?” + +Then she flourished the whip. + +“Get up!” + +I was about to rise. + +“Not that way,” she commanded, “on your knees.” + +I obeyed, and she began to apply the lash. + +The blows fell rapidly and powerfully on my back and arms. Each one cut +into my flesh and burned there, but the pains enraptured me. They came +from her whom I adored, and for whom I was ready at any hour to lay +down my life. + +She stopped. “I am beginning to enjoy it,” she said, “but enough for +to-day. I am beginning to feel a demonic curiosity to see how far your +strength goes. I take a cruel joy in seeing you tremble and writhe +beneath my whip, and in hearing your groans and wails; I want to go on +whipping without pity until you beg for mercy, until you lose your +senses. You have awakened dangerous elements in my being. But now get +up.” + +I seized her hand to press it to my lips. + +“What impudence.” + +She shoved me away with her foot. + +“Out of my sight, slave!” + +* * * * * + +After having spent a feverish night filled with confused dreams, I +awoke. Dawn was just beginning to break. + +How much of what was hovering in my memory was true; what had I +actually experienced and what had I dreamed? That I had been whipped +was certain. I can still feel each blow, and count the burning red +stripes on my body. And _she_ whipped me. Now I know everything. + +My dream has become truth. How does it make me feel? Am I disappointed +in the realization of my dream? + +No, I am merely somewhat tired, but her cruelty has enraptured me. Oh, +how I love her, adore her! All this cannot express in the remotest way +my feeling for her, my complete devotion to her. What happiness to be +her slave! + +* * * * * + +She calls to me from her balcony. I hurry upstairs. She is standing on +the threshold, holding out her hand in friendly fashion. “I am ashamed +of myself,” she says, while I embrace her, and she hides her head +against my breast. + +“Why?” + +“Please try to forget the ugly scene of yesterday,” she said with +quivering voice, “I have fulfilled your mad wish, now let us be +reasonable and happy and love each other, and in a year I will be your +wife.” + +“My mistress,” I exclaimed, “and I your slave!” + +“Not another word of slavery, cruelty, or the whip,” interrupted Wanda. +“I shall not grant you any of those favors, none except wearing my +fur-jacket; come and help me into it.” + +* * * * * + +The little bronze clock on which stood a cupid who had just shot his +bolt struck midnight. + +I rose, and wanted to leave. + +Wanda said nothing, but embraced me and drew me back on the ottoman. +She began to kiss me anew, and this silent language was so +comprehensible, so convincing— + +And it told me more than I dared to understand. + +A languid abandonment pervaded Wanda’s entire being. What a voluptuous +softness there was in the gloaming of her half-closed eyes, in the red +flood of her hair which shimmered faintly under the white powder, in +the red and white satin which crackled about her with every movement, +in the swelling ermine of the _kazabaika_ in which she carelessly +nestled. + +“Please,” I stammered, “but you will be angry with me.” + +“Do with me what you will,” she whispered. + +“Well, then whip me, or I shall go mad.” + +“Haven’t I forbidden you,” said Wanda sternly, “but you are +incorrigible.” + +“Oh, I am so terribly in love.” I had sunken on my knees, and was +burying my glowing face in her lap. + +“I really believe,” said Wanda thoughtfully, “that your madness is +nothing but a demonic, unsatisfied sensuality. _Our unnatural way of +life must generate such illnesses._ Were you less virtuous, you would +be completely sane.” + +“Well then, make me sane,” I murmured. My hands were running through +her hair and playing tremblingly with the gleaming fur, which rose and +fell like a moonlit wave upon her heaving bosom, and drove all my +senses into confusion. + +And I kissed her. No, she kissed me savagely, pitilessly, as if she +wanted to slay me with her kisses. I was as in a delirium, and had long +since lost my reason, but now I, too, was breathless. I sought to free +myself. + +“What is the matter?” asked Wanda. + +“I am suffering agonies.” + +“You are suffering—” she broke out into a loud amused laughter. + +“You laugh!” I moaned, “have you no idea—” + +She was serious all of a sudden. She raised my head in her hands, and +with a violent gesture drew me to her breast. + +“Wanda,” I stammered. + +“Of course, you enjoy suffering,” she said, and laughed again, “but +wait, I’ll bring you to your senses.” + +“No, I will no longer ask,” I exclaimed, “whether you want to belong to +me for always or for only a brief moment of intoxication. I want to +drain my happiness to the full. You are mine now, and I would rather +lose you than never to have had you.” + +“Now you are sensible,” she said. She kissed me again with her +murderous lips. I tore the ermine apart and the covering of lace and +her naked breast surged against mine. + +Then my senses left me— + +The first thing I remember is the moment when I saw blood dripping from +my hand, and she asked apathetically: “Did you scratch me?” + +“No, I believe, I have bitten you.” + +* * * * * + +It is strange how every relation in life assumes a different face as +soon as a new person enters. + +We spent marvellous days together; we visited the mountains and lakes, +we read together, and I completed Wanda’s portrait. And how we loved +one another, how beautiful her smiling face was! + +Then a friend of hers arrived, a divorced woman somewhat older, more +experienced, and less scrupulous than Wanda. Her influence is already +making itself felt in every direction. + +Wanda wrinkles her brows, and displays a certain impatience with me. + +Has she ceased loving me? + +* * * * * + +For almost a fortnight this unbearable restraint has lain upon us. Her +friend lives with her, and we are never alone. A circle of men +surrounds the young women. With my seriousness and melancholy I am +playing an absurd role as lover. Wanda treats me like a stranger. + +To-day, while out walking, she staid behind with me. I saw that this +was done intentionally, and I rejoiced. But what did she tell me? + +“My friend doesn’t understand how I can love you. She doesn’t think you +either handsome or particularly attractive otherwise. She is telling me +from morning till night about the glamour of the frivolous life in the +capital, hinting at the advantages to which I could lay claim, the +large parties which I would find there, and the distinguished and +handsome admirers which I would attract. But of what use is all this, +since it happens that I love you.” + +For a moment I lost my breath, then I said: “I have no wish to stand in +the way of your happiness, Wanda. Do not consider me.” Then I raised my +hat, and let her go ahead. She looked at me surprised, but did not +answer a syllable. + +When by chance I happened to be close to her on the way back, she +secretly pressed my hand. Her glance was so radiant, so full of +promised happiness, that in a moment all the torments of these days +were forgotten and all their wounds healed. + +I now am aware again of how much I love her. + +* * * * * + +“My friend has complained about you,” said Wanda to-day. + +“Perhaps she feels that I despise her.” + +“But why do you despise her, you foolish young man?” exclaimed Wanda, +pulling my ears with both hands. + +“Because she is a hypocrite,” I said. “I respect only a woman who is +actually virtuous, or who openly lives for pleasure’s sake.” + +“Like me, for instance,” replied Wanda jestingly, “but you see, child, +a woman can only do that in the rarest cases. She can neither be as +gaily sensual, nor as spiritually free as man; her state is always a +mixture of the sensual and spiritual. Her heart desires to enchain man +permanently, while she herself is ever subject to the desire for +change. The result is a conflict, and thus usually against her wishes +lies and deception enter into her actions and personality and corrupt +her character.” + +“Certainly that is true,” I said. “The transcendental character with +which woman wants to stamp love leads her to deception.” + +“But the world likewise demands it,” Wanda interrupted. “Look at this +woman. She has a husband and a lover in Lemberg and has found a new +admirer here. She deceives all three and yet is honored by all and +respected by the world.” + +“I don’t care,” I exclaimed, “but she is to leave you alone; she treats +you like an article of commerce.” + +“Why not?” the beautiful woman interrupted vivaciously. “Every woman +has the instinct or desire to draw advantage out of her attractions, +and much is to be said for giving one’s self without love or pleasure +because if you do it in cold blood, you can reap profit to best +advantage.” + +“Wanda, what are you saying?” + +“Why not?” she said, “and take note of what I am about to say to you. +_Never feel secure with the woman you love,_ for there are more dangers +in woman’s nature than you imagine. Women are neither as _good_ as +their admirers and defenders maintain, nor as _bad_ as their enemies +make them out to be. _Woman’s character is characterlessness._ The best +woman will momentarily go down into the mire, and the worst +unexpectedly rises to deeds of greatness and goodness and puts to shame +those that despise her. No woman is so good or so bad, but that at any +moment she is capable of the most diabolical as well as of the most +divine, of the filthiest as well as of the purest, thoughts, emotions, +and actions. In spite of all the advances of civilization, woman has +remained as she came out of the hand of nature. She has the nature of a +savage, who is faithful or faithless, magnanimous or cruel, according +to the impulse that dominates at the moment. Throughout history it has +always been a serious deep culture which has produced moral character. +Man even when he is selfish or evil always follows _principles,_ woman +never follows anything but _impulses._ Don’t ever forget that, and +never feel secure with the woman you love.” + +* * * * * + +Her friend has left. At last an evening alone with her again. It seems +as if Wanda had saved up all the love, which had been kept from her, +for this superlative evening; never had she been so kind, so near, so +full of tenderness. + +What happiness to cling to her lips, and to die away in her arms! In a +state of relaxation and wholly mine, her head rests against my breast, +and with drunken rapture our eyes seek each other. + +I cannot yet believe, comprehend, that this woman is mine, wholly mine. + +“She is right on one point,” Wanda began, without moving, without +opening her eyes, as if she were asleep. + +“Who?” + +She remained silent. + +“Your friend?” + +She nodded. “Yes, she is right, you are not a man, you are a dreamer, a +charming cavalier, and you certainly would be a priceless slave, but I +cannot imagine you as husband.” + +I was frightened. + +“What is the matter? You are trembling?” + +“I tremble at the thought of how easily I might lose you,” I replied. + +“Are you made less happy now, because of this?” she replied. “Does it +rob you of any of your joys, that I have belonged to another before I +did to you, that others after you will possess me, and would you enjoy +less if another were made happy simultaneously with you?” + +“Wanda!” + +“You see,” she continued, “that would be a way out. You won’t ever lose +me then. I care deeply for you and intellectually we are harmonious, +and I should like to live with you always, if in addition to you I +might have—” + +“What an idea,” I cried. “You fill me with a sort of horror.” + +“Do you love me any the less?” + +“On the contrary.” + +Wanda had raised herself on her left arm. “I believe,” she said, “that +to hold a man permanently, it is vitally important not to be faithful +to him. What honest woman has ever been as devotedly loved as a +hetaira?” + +“There is a painful stimulus in the unfaithfulness of a beloved woman. +It is the highest kind of ecstacy.” + +“For you, too?” Wanda asked quickly. + +“For me, too.” + +“And if I should give you that pleasure,” Wanda exclaimed mockingly. + +“I shall suffer terrible agonies, but I shall adore you the more,” I +replied. “But you would never deceive me, you would have the daemonic +greatness of saying to me: I shall love no one but you, but I shall +make happy whoever pleases me.” + +Wanda shook her head. “I don’t like deception, I am honest, but what +man exists who can support the burden of truth. Were I say to you: this +serene, sensual life, this paganism is my ideal, would you be strong +enough to bear it?” + +“Certainly. I could endure anything so as not to lose you. I feel how +little I really mean to you.” + +“But Severin—” + +“But it is so,” said I, “and just for that reason—” + +“For that reason you would—” she smiled roguishly—“have I guessed it?” + +“Be your slave!” I exclaimed. “Be your unrestricted property, without a +will of my own, of which you could dispose as you wished, and which +would therefore never be a burden to you. While you drink life at its +fullness, while surrounded by luxury, you enjoy the serene happiness +and Olympian love, I want to be your servant, put on and take off your +shoes.” + +“You really aren’t so far from wrong,” replied Wanda, “for only as my +slave could you endure my loving others. Furthermore the freedom of +enjoyment of the ancient world is unthinkable without slavery. It must +give one a feeling of like unto a god to see a man kneel before one and +tremble. I want a slave, do you hear, Severin?” + +“Am I not your slave?” + +“Then listen to me,” said Wanda excitedly, seizing my hand. “I want to +be yours, as long as I love you.” + +“A month?” + +“Perhaps, even two.” + +“And then?” + +“Then you become my slave.” + +“And you?” + +“I? Why do you ask? I am a goddess and sometimes I descend from my +Olympian heights to you, softly, very softly, and secretly. + +“But what does all this mean,” said Wanda, resting her head in both +hands with her gaze lost in the distance, “a golden fancy which never +can become true.” An uncanny brooding melancholy seemed shed over her +entire being; I have never seen her like that. + +“Why unachievable?” I began. + +“Because slavery doesn’t exist any longer.” + +“Then we will go to a country where it still exists, to the Orient, to +Turkey,” I said eagerly. + +“You would—Severin—in all seriousness,” Wanda replied. Her eyes burned. + +“Yes, in all seriousness, I want to be your slave,” I continued. “I +want your power over me to be sanctified by law; I want my life to be +in your hands, I want nothing that could protect or save me from you. +Oh, what a voluptuous joy when once I feel myself entirely dependent +upon your absolute will, your whim, at your beck and call. And then +what happiness, when at some time you deign to be gracious, and the +slave may kiss the lips which mean life and death to him.” I knelt +down, and leaned my burning forehead against her knee. + +“You are talking as in a fever,” said Wanda agitatedly, “and you really +love me so endlessly.” She held me to her breast, and covered me with +kisses. + +“You really want it?” + +“I swear to you now by God and my honor, that I shall be your slave, +wherever and whenever you wish it, as soon as you command,” I +exclaimed, hardly master of myself. + +“And if I take you at your word?” said Wanda. + +“Please do!” + +“All this appeals to me,” she said then. “It is different from anything +else—to know that a man who worships me, and whom I love with all my +heart, is so wholly mine, dependent on my will and caprice, my +possession and slave, while I—” + +She looked strangely at me. + +“If I should become frightfully frivolous you are to blame,” she +continued. “It almost seems as if you were afraid of me already, but +you have sworn.” + +“And I shall keep my oath.” + +“I shall see to that,” she replied. “I am beginning to enjoy it, and, +heaven help me, we won’t stick to fancies now. You shall become my +slave, and I—I shall try to be _Venus in Furs_.” + +* * * * * + +I thought that at last I knew this woman, understood her, and now I see +I have to begin at the very beginning again. Only a little while ago +her reaction to my dreams was violently hostile, and now she tries to +carry them into execution with the soberest seriousness. + +She has drawn up a contract according to which I give my word of honor +and agree under oath to be her slave, as long as she wishes. + +With her arm around my neck she reads this, unprecedented, incredible +document to me. The end of each sentence she punctuates with a kiss. + +“But all the obligations in the contract are on my side,” I said, +teasing her. + +“Of course,” she replied with great seriousness, “you cease to be my +lover, and consequently I am released from all duties and obligations +towards you. You will have to look upon my favors as pure benevolence. +You no longer have any rights, and no longer can lay claim to any. +There can be no limit to my power over you. Remember, that you won’t be +much better than a dog, or some inanimate object. You will be mine, my +plaything, which I can break to pieces, whenever I want an hour’s +amusement. You are nothing, I am everything. Do you understand?” She +laughed and kissed me again, and yet a sort of cold shiver ran through +me. + +“Won’t you allow me a few conditions—” I began. + +“Conditions?” She contracted her forehead. “Ah! You are afraid already, +or perhaps you regret, but it is too late now. You have sworn, I have +your word of honor. But let me hear them.” + +“First of all I should like to have it included in our contract, that +you will never completely leave me, and then that you will never give +me over to the mercies of any of your admirers—” + +“But Severin,” exclaimed Wanda with her voice full of emotion and with +tears in her eyes, “how can you imagine that I—and you, a man who loves +me so absolutely, who puts himself so entirely in my power—” She +halted. + +“No, no!” I said, covering her hands with kisses. “I don’t fear +anything from you that might dishonor me. Forgive me the ugly thought.” + +Wanda smiled happily, leaned her cheek against mine, and seemed to +reflect. + +“You have forgotten something,” she whispered coquettishly, “the most +important thing!” + +“A condition?” + +“Yes, that I must always wear my furs,” exclaimed Wanda. “But I promise +you I’ll do that anyhow because they give me a despotic feeling. And I +shall be very cruel to you, do you understand?” + +“Shall I sign the contract?” I asked. + +“Not yet,” said Wanda. “I shall first add your conditions, and the +actual signing won’t occur until the proper time and place.” + +“In Constantinople?” + +“No. I have thought things over. What special value would there be in +owning a slave where everyone owns slaves. What I want is to _have a +slave, I alone,_ here in our civilized sober, Philistine world, and a +slave who submits helplessly to my power solely on account of my beauty +and personality, not because of law, of property rights, or +compulsions. This attracts me. But at any rate we will go to a country +where we are not known and where you can appear before the world as my +servant without embarrassment. Perhaps to Italy, to Rome or Naples.” + +* * * * * + +We were sitting on Wanda’s ottoman. She wore her ermine jacket, her +hair was loose and fell like a lion’s mane down her back. She clung to +my lips, drawing my soul from my body. My head whirled, my blood began +to seethe, my heart beat violently against hers. + +“I want to be absolutely in your power, Wanda,” I exclaimed suddenly, +seized by that frenzy of passion when I can scarcely think clearly or +decide freely. “I want to put myself absolutely at your mercy for good +or evil without any condition, without any limit to your power.” + +While saying this I had slipped from the ottoman, and lay at her feet +looking up at her with drunken eyes. + +“How beautiful you now are,” she exclaimed, “your eyes half-broken in +ecstacy fill me with joy, carry me away. How wonderful your look would +be if you were being beaten to death, in the extreme agony. You have +the eye of a martyr.” + +* * * * * + +Sometimes, nevertheless, I have an uneasy feeling about placing myself +so absolutely, so unconditionally into a woman’s hands. Suppose she did +abuse my passion, her power? + +Well, then I would experience what has occupied my imagination since my +childhood, what has always given me the feeling of seductive terror. A +foolish apprehension! It will be a wanton game she will play with me, +nothing more. She loves me, and she is good, a noble personality, +incapable of a breach of faith. But it lies in her hands —_if she wants +to she can._ What a temptation in this doubt, this fear! + +Now I understand Manon l’Escault and the poor chevalier, who, even in +the pillory, while she was another man’s mistress, still adored her. + +Love knows no virtue, no profit; it loves and forgives and suffers +everything, because it must. It is not our judgment that leads us; it +is neither the advantages nor the faults which we discover, that make +us abandon ourselves, or that repel us. + +It is a sweet, soft, enigmatic power that drives us on. We cease to +think, to feel, to will; we let ourselves be carried away by it, and +ask not whither? + +* * * * * + +A Russian prince made his first appearance today on the promenade. He +aroused general interest on account of his athletic figure, magnificent +face, and splendid bearing. The women particularly gaped at him as +though he were a wild animal, but he went his way gloomily without +paying attention to any one. He was accompanied by two servants, one a +negro, completely dressed in red satin, and the other a Circassian in +his full gleaming uniform. Suddenly he saw Wanda, and fixed his cold +piercing look upon her; he even turned his head after her, and when she +had passed, he stood still and followed her with his eyes. + +And she—she veritably devoured him with her radiant green eyes—and did +everything possible to meet him again. + +The cunning coquetry with which she walked, moved, and looked at him, +almost stifled me. On the way home I remarked about it. She knit her +brows. + +“What do you want,” she said, “the prince is a man whom I might like, +who even dazzles me, and I am free. I can do what I please—” + +“Don’t you love me any longer—” I stammered, frightened. + +“I love only you,” she replied, “but I shall have the prince pay court +to me.” + +“Wanda!” + +“Aren’t you my slave?” she said calmly. “Am I not Venus, the cruel +northern Venus in Furs?” + +I was silent. I felt literally crushed by her words; her cold look +entered my heart like a dagger. + +“You will find out immediately the prince’s name, residence, and +circumstances,” she continued. “Do you understand?” + +“But—” + +“No argument, obey!” exclaimed Wanda, more sternly than I would have +thought possible for her, “and don’t dare to enter my sight until you +can answer my questions.” + +It was not till afternoon that I could obtain the desired information +for Wanda. She let me stand before her like a servant, while she leaned +back in her arm-chair and listened to me, smiling. Then she nodded; she +seemed to be satisfied. + +“Bring me my footstool,” she commanded shortly. + +I obeyed, and after having put it before her and having put her feet on +it, I remained kneeling. + +“How will this end?” I asked sadly after a short pause. + +She broke into playful laughter. “Why things haven’t even begun yet.” + +“You are more heartless than I imagined,” I replied, hurt. + +“Severin,” Wanda began earnestly. “I haven’t done anything yet, not the +slightest thing, and you are already calling me heartless. What will +happen when I begin to carry your dreams to their realization, when I +shall lead a gay, free life and have a circle of admirers about me, +when I shall actually fulfil your ideal, tread you underfoot and apply +the lash?” + +“You take my dreams too seriously.” + +“Too seriously? I can’t stop at make-believe, when once I begin,” she +replied. “You know I hate all play-acting and comedy. You have wished +it. Was it my idea or yours? Did I persuade you or did you inflame my +imagination? I am taking things seriously now.” + +“Wanda,” I replied, caressingly, “listen quietly to me. We love each +other infinitely, we are very happy, will you sacrifice our entire +future to a whim?” + +“It is no longer a whim,” she exclaimed. + +“What is it?” I asked frightened. + +“Something that was probably latent in me,” she said quietly and +thoughtfully. “Perhaps it would never have come to light, if you had +not called it to life, and made it grow. Now that it has become a +powerful impulse, fills my whole being, now that I enjoy it, now that I +cannot and do not want to do otherwise, now you want to back out— +you—are you a man?” + +“Dear, sweet Wanda!” I began to caress her, kiss her. + +“Don’t—you are not a man—” + +“And you,” I flared up. + +“I am stubborn,” she said, “you know that. I haven’t a strong +imagination, and like you I am weak in execution. But when I make up my +mind to do something, I carry it through, and the more certainly, the +more opposition I meet. Leave me alone!” + +She pushed me away, and got up. + +“Wanda!” I likewise rose, and stood facing her. + +“Now you know what I am,” she continued. “Once more I warn you. You +still have the choice. I am not compelling you to be my slave.” + +“Wanda,” I replied with emotion and tears filling my eyes, “don’t you +know how I love you?” + +Her lips quivered contemptuously. + +“You are mistaken, you make yourself out worse than you are; you are +good and noble by nature—” + +“What do you know about my nature,” she interrupted vehemently, “you +will get to know me as I am.” + +“Wanda!” + +“Decide, will you submit, unconditionally?” + +“And if I say no.” + +“Then—” + +She stepped close up to me, cold and contemptuous. As she stood before +me now, the arms folded across her breast, with an evil smile about her +lips, she was in fact the despotic woman of my dreams. Her expression +seemed hard, and nothing lay in her eyes that promised kindness or +mercy. + +“Well—” she said at last. + +“You are angry,” I cried, “you will punish me.” + +“Oh no!” she replied, “I shall let you go. You are free. I am not +holding you.” + +“Wanda—I, who love you so—” + +“Yes, you, my dear sir, you who adore me,” she exclaimed +contemptuously, “but who are a coward, a liar, and a breaker of +promises. Leave me instantly—” + +“Wanda I—” + +“Wretch!” + +My blood rose in my heart. I threw myself down at her feet and began to +cry. + +“Tears, too!” She began to laugh. Oh, this laughter was frightful. +“Leave me—I don’t want to see you again.” + +“Oh my God!” I cried, beside myself. “I will do whatever you command, +be your slave, a mere object with which you can do what you will—only +don’t send me away—I can’t bear it—I cannot live without you.” I +embraced her knees, and covered her hand with kisses. + +“Yes, you must be a slave, and feel the lash, for you are not a man,” +she said calmly. She said this to me with perfect composure, not +angrily, not even excitedly, and it was what hurt most. “Now I know +you, your dog-like nature, that adores where it is kicked, and the +more, the more it is maltreated. Now I know you, and now you shall come +to know me.” + +She walked up and down with long strides, while I remained crushed on +my knees; my head was hanging supine, tears flowed from my eyes. + +“Come here,” Wanda commanded harshly, sitting down on the ottoman. I +obeyed her command, and sat down beside her. She looked at me sombrely, +and then a light suddenly seemed to illuminate the interior of her eye. +Smiling, she drew me toward her breast, and began to kiss the tears out +of my eyes. + +* * * * * + +The odd part of my situation is that I am like the bear in Lily’s park. +I can escape and don’t want to; I am ready to endure everything as soon +as she threatens to set me free. + +* * * * * + +If only she would use the whip again. There is something uncanny in the +kindness with which she treats me. I seem like a little captive mouse +with which a beautiful cat prettily plays. She is ready at any moment +to tear it to pieces, and my heart of a mouse threatens to burst. + +What are her intentions? What does she purpose to do with me? + +* * * * * + +It seems she has completely forgotten the contract, my slavehood. Or +was it actually only stubbornness? And she gave up her whole plan as +soon as I no longer opposed her and submitted to her imperial whim? + +How kind she is to me, how tender, how loving! We are spending +marvellously happy days. + +To-day she had me read to her the scene between Faust and +Mephistopheles, in which the latter appears as a wandering scholar. Her +glance hung on me with strange pleasure. + +“I don’t understand,” she said when I had finished, “how a man who can +read such great and beautiful thoughts with such expression, and +interpret them so clearly, concisely, and intelligently, can at the +same time be such a visionary and supersensual ninny as you are.” + +“Were you pleased,” said I, and kissed her forehead. + +She gently stroked my brow. “I love you, Severin,” she whispered. “I +don’t believe I could ever love any one more than you. Let us be +sensible, what do you say?” + +Instead of replying I folded her in my arms; a deep inward, yet vaguely +sad happiness filled my breast, my eyes grew moist, and a tear fell +upon her hand. + +“How can you cry!” she exclaimed, “you are a child!” + +* * * * * + +On a pleasure drive we met the Russian prince in his carriage. He +seemed to be unpleasantly surprised to see me by Wanda’s side, and +looked as if he wanted to pierce her through and through with his +electric gray eyes. She, however, did not seem to notice him. I felt at +that moment like kneeling down before her and kissing her feet. She let +her glance glide over him indifferently as though he were an inanimate +object, a tree, for instance, and turned to me with her gracious smile. + +* * * * * + +When I said good-night to her to-day she seemed suddenly unaccountably +distracted and moody. What was occupying her? + +“I am sorry you are going,” she said when I was already standing on the +threshold. + +“It is entirely in your hands to shorten the hard period of my trial, +to cease tormenting me—” I pleaded. + +“Do you imagine that this compulsion isn’t a torment for me, too,” +Wanda interjected. + +“Then end it,” I exclaimed, embracing her, “be my wife.” + +“_Never, Severin_,” she said gently, but with great firmness. + +“What do you mean?” + +I was frightened in my innermost soul. + +“_You are not the man for me._” + +I looked at her, and slowly withdrew my arm which was still about her +waist; then I left the room, and she—she did not call me back. + +* * * * * + +A sleepless night; I made countless decisions, only to toss them aside +again. In the morning I wrote her a letter in which I declared our +relationship dissolved. My hand trembled when I put on the seal, and I +burned my fingers. + +As I went upstairs to hand it to the maid, my knees threatened to give +way. + +The door opened, and Wanda thrust forth her head full of +curling-papers. + +“I haven’t had my hair dressed yet,” she said, smiling. “What have you +there?” + +“A letter—” + +“For me?” + +I nodded. + +“Ah, you want to break with me,” she exclaimed, mockingly. + +“Didn’t you tell me yesterday that I wasn’t the man for you?” + +_“I repeat it now!”_ + +“Very well, then.” My whole body was trembling, my voice failed me, and +I handed her the letter. + +“Keep it,” she said, measuring me coldly. “You forget that is no longer +a question as to whether you satisfy me as a man; as a _slave_ you will +doubtless do well enough.” + +“Madame!” I exclaimed, aghast. + +“That is what you will call me in the future,” replied Wanda, throwing +back her head with a movement of unutterable contempt. “Put your +affairs in order within the next twenty-four hours. The day after +to-morrow I shall start for Italy, and you will accompany me as my +servant.” + +“Wanda—” + +“I forbid any sort of familiarity,” she said, cutting my words short, +“likewise you are not to come in unless I call or ring for you, and you +are not to speak to me until you are spoken to. From now on your name +is no longer Severin, but _Gregor_.” + +I trembled with rage, and yet, unfortunately, I cannot deny it, I also +felt a strange pleasure and stimulation. + +“But, madame, you know my circumstances,” I began in my confusion. “I +am dependent on my father, and I doubt whether he will give me the +large sum of money needed for this journey—” + +“That means you have no money, Gregor,” said Wanda, delightedly, “so +much the better, you are then entirely dependent on me, and in fact my +slave.” + +“You don’t consider,” I tried to object, “that as man of honor it is +impossible for me—” + +“I have indeed considered it,” she replied almost with a tone of +command. “As a man of honor you must keep your oath and redeem your +promise to follow me as slave whithersoever I demand and to obey +whatever I command. Now leave me, Gregor!” + +I turned toward the door. + +“Not yet—you may first kiss my hand.” She held it out to me with a +certain proud indifference, and I the dilettante, the donkey, the +miserable slave pressed it with intense tenderness against my lips +which were dry and hot with excitement. + +There was another gracious nod of the head. + +Then I was dismissed. + +* * * * * + +Though it was late in the evening my light was still lit, and a fire +was burning in the large green stove. There were still many things +among my letters and documents to be put in order. Autumn, as is +usually the case with us, had fallen with all its power. + +Suddenly she knocked at my window with the handle of her whip. + +I opened and saw her standing outside in her ermine-lined jacket and in +a high round Cossack cap of ermine of the kind which the great +Catherine favored. + +“Are you ready, Gregor?” she asked darkly. + +“Not yet, mistress,” I replied. + +“I like that word,” she said then, “you are always to call me mistress, +do you understand? We leave here to-morrow morning at nine o’clock. As +far as the district capital you will be my companion and friend, but +from the moment that we enter the railway-coach you are my slave, my +servant. Now close the window, and open the door.” + +After I had done as she had demanded, and after she had entered, she +asked, contracting her brows ironically, “well, how do you like me.” + +“Wanda, you—” + +“Who gave you permission?” She gave me a blow with the whip. + +“You are very beautiful, mistress.” + +Wanda smiled and sat down in the arm-chair. “Kneel down—here beside my +chair.” + +I obeyed. + +“Kiss my hand.” + +I seized her small cold hand and kissed it. + +“And the mouth—” + +In a surge of passion I threw my arms around the beautiful cruel woman, +and covered her face, arms, and breast with glowing kisses. She +returned them with equal fervor—the eyelids closed as in a dream. It +was after midnight when she left. + +* * * * * + +At nine o’clock sharp in the morning everything was ready for +departure, as she had ordered. We left the little Carpathian +health-resort in a comfortable light carriage. The most interesting +drama of my life had reached a point of development whose denouement it +was then impossible to foretell. + +So far everything went well. I sat beside Wanda, and she chatted very +graciously and intelligently with me, as with a good friend, concerning +Italy, Pisemski’s new novel, and Wagner’s music. She wore a sort of +Amazonesque travelling-dress of black cloth with a short jacket of the +same material, set with dark fur. It fitted closely and showed her +figure to best advantage. Over it she wore dark furs. Her hair wound +into an antique knot, lay beneath a small dark fur-hat from which a +black veil hung. Wanda was in very good humor; she fed me candies, +played with my hair, loosened my neck cloth and made a pretty cockade +of it; she covered my knees with her furs and stealthily pressed the +fingers of my hand. When our Jewish driver persistently went on nodding +to himself, she even gave me a kiss, and her cold lips had the fresh +frosty fragrance of a young autumnal rose, which blossoms alone amid +bare stalks and yellow leaves and upon whose calyx the first frost has +hung tiny diamonds of ice. + +* * * * * + +We are at the district capital. We get out at the railway station. +Wanda throws off her furs and places them over my arm, and goes to +secure the tickets. + +When she returns she has completely changed. + +“Here is your ticket, Gregor,” she says in a tone which supercilious +ladies use to their servants. + +“A third-class ticket,” I reply with comic horror. + +“Of course,” she continues, “but now be careful. You won’t get on until +I am settled in my compartment and don’t need you any longer. At each +station you will hurry to my car and ask for my orders. Don’t forget. +And now give me my furs.” + +After I had helped her into them, humbly like a slave, she went to find +an empty first-class coupe. I followed. Supporting herself on my +shoulder, she got on and I wrapped her feet in bear-skins and placed +them on the warming bottle. + +Then she nodded to me, and dismissed me. I slowly ascended a +third-class carriage, which was filled with abominable tobacco-smoke +that seemed like the fogs of Acheron at the entrance to Hades. I now +had the leisure to muse about the riddle of human existence, and about +its greatest riddle of all—_woman_. + +* * * * * + +Whenever the train stops, I jump off, run to her carriage, and with +drawn cap await her orders. She wants coffee and then a glass of water, +at another time a bowl of warm water to wash her hands, and thus it +goes on. She lets several men who have entered her compartment pay +court to her. I am dying of jealousy and have to leap about like an +antelope so as to secure what she wants quickly and not miss the train. + +In this way the night passes. I haven’t had time to eat a mouthful and +I can’t sleep, I have to breathe the same oniony air with Polish +peasants, Jewish peddlers, and common soldiers. + +When I mount the steps of her coupe, she is lying stretched out on +cushions in her comfortable furs, covered up with the skins of animals. +She is like an oriental despot, and the men sit like Indian deities, +straight upright against the walls and scarcely dare to breathe. + +* * * * * + +She stops over in Vienna for a day to go shopping, and particularly to +buy series of luxurious gowns. She continues to treat me as her +servant. I follow her at the respectful distance of ten paces. She +hands me her packages without so much as even deigning a kind look, and +laden down like a donkey I pant along behind. + +Before leaving she takes all my clothes and gives them to the hotel +waiters. I am ordered to put on her livery. It is a Cracovian costume +in her colors, light-blue with red facings, and red quadrangular cap, +ornamented with peacock-feathers. The costume is rather becoming to me. + +The silver buttons bear her coat of arms. I have the feeling of having +been sold or of having bonded myself to the devil. My fair demon leads +me from Vienna to Florence. Instead of linen-garbed Mazovians and +greasy-haired Jews, my companions now are curly-haired Contadini, a +magnificent sergeant of the first Italian Grenadiers, and a poor German +painter. The tobacco smoke no longer smells of onions, but of salami +and cheese. + +Night has fallen again. I lie on my wooden bed as on a rack; my arms +and legs seem broken. But there nevertheless is an element of poetry in +the affair. The stars sparkle round about, the Italian sergeant has a +face like Apollo Belvedere, and the German painter sings a lovely +German song. + +“Now that all the shadows gather +And endless stars grow light, +Deep yearning on me falls +And softly fills the night.” + +“Through the sea of dreams +Sailing without cease, +Sailing goes my soul +In thine to find release.” + + +And I am thinking of the beautiful woman who is sleeping in regal +comfort among her soft furs. + +* * * * * + +Florence! Crowds, cries, importunate porters and cab-drivers. Wanda +chooses a carriage, and dismisses the porters. + +“What have I a servant for,” she says, “Gregor—here is the ticket—get +the luggage.” + +She wraps herself in her furs and sits quietly in the carriage while I +drag the heavy trunks hither, one after another. I break down for a +moment under the last one; a good-natured _carabiniere_ with an +intelligent face comes to my assistance. She laughs. + +“It must be heavy,” said she, “all my furs are in it.” + +I get up on the driver’s seat, wiping drops of perspiration from my +brow. She gives the name of the hotel, and the driver urges on his +horse. In a few minutes we halt at the brilliantly illuminated +entrance. + +“Have you any rooms?” she asks the portier. + +“Yes, madame.” + +“Two for me, one for my servant, all with stoves.” + +“Two first-class rooms for you, madame, both with stoves,” replied the +waiter who had hastily come up, “and one without heat for your +servant.” + +She looked at them, and then abruptly said: “they are satisfactory, +have fires built at once; my servant can sleep in the unheated room.” + +I merely looked at her. + +“Bring up the trunks, Gregor,” she commands, paying no attention to my +looks. “In the meantime I’ll be dressing, and then will go down to the +dining-room, and you can eat something for supper.” + +As she goes into the adjoining room, I drag the trunks upstairs and +help the waiter build a fire in her bed-room. He tries to question me +in bad French about my employer. With a brief glance I see the blazing +fire, the fragrant white poster-bed, and the rugs which cover the +floor. Tired and hungry I then descend the stairs, and ask for +something to eat. A good-natured waiter, who used to be in the Austrian +army and takes all sorts of pains to entertain me in German, shows me +the dining-room and waits on me. I have just had the first fresh drink +in thirty-six hours and the first bite of warm food on my fork, when +she enters. + +I rise. + +“What do you mean by taking me into a dining-room in which my servant +is eating,” she snaps at the waiter, flaring with anger. She turns +around and leaves. + +Meanwhile I thank heaven that I am permitted to go on eating. Later I +climb the four flights upstairs to my room. My small trunk is already +there, and a miserable little oil-lamp is burning. It is a narrow room +without fire-place, without a window, but with a small air-hole. If it +weren’t so beastly cold, it would remind me of one of the Venetian +_piombi_.4 Involuntarily I have to laugh out aloud, so that it +re-echoes, and I am startled by my own laughter. + +[Footnote 4: These were notorious prisons under the leaden roof of the +Palace of the Doges.] + + +Suddenly the door is pulled open and the waiter with a theatrical +Italian gesture calls “You are to come down to madame, at once.” I pick +up my cap, stumble down the first few steps, but finally arrive in +front of her door on the first floor and knock. + +“Come in!” + +I enter, shut the door, and stand attention. + +Wanda has made herself comfortable. She is sitting in a neglige of +white muslin and laces on a small red divan with her feet on a +footstool that matches. She has thrown her fur-cloak about her. It is +the identical cloak in which she appeared to me for the first time, as +goddess of love. + +The yellow lights of the candelabra which stand on projections, their +reflections in the large mirrors, and the red flames from the open +fireplace play beautifully on the green velvet, the dark-brown sable of +the cloak, the smooth white skin, and the red, flaming hair of the +beautiful woman. Her clear, but cold face is turned toward me, and her +cold green eyes rest upon me. + +“I am satisfied with you, Gregor,” she began. + +I bowed. + +“Come closer.” + +I obeyed. + +“Still closer,” she looked down, and stroked the sable with her hand. +“Venus in Furs receives her slave. I can see that you are more than an +ordinary dreamer, you don’t remain far in arrears of your dreams; you +are the sort of man who is ready to carry his dreams into effect, no +matter how mad they are. I confess, I like this; it impresses me. There +is strength in this, and strength is the only thing one respects. I +actually believe that under unusual circumstances, in a period of great +deeds, what seems to be your weakness would reveal itself as +extraordinary power. Under the early emperors you would have been a +martyr, at the time of the Reformation an anabaptist, during the French +Revolution one of those inspired Girondists who mounted the guillotine +with the marseillaise on their lips. But you are my slave, my—” + +She suddenly leaped up; the furs slipped down, and she threw her arms +with soft pressure about my neck. + +“My beloved slave, Severin, oh, how I love you, how I adore you, how +handsome you are in your Cracovian costume! You will be cold to-night +up in your wretched room without a fire. Shall I give you one of my +furs, dear heart, the large one there—” + +She quickly picked it up, throwing it over my shoulders, and before I +knew what had happened I was completely wrapped up in it. + +“How wonderfully becoming furs are to your face, they bring out your +noble lines. As soon as you cease being my slave, you must wear a +velvet coat with sable, do you understand? Otherwise I shall never put +on my fur-jacket again.” + +And again she began to caress me and kiss me; finally she drew me down +on the little divan. + +“You seem to be pleased with yourself in furs,” she said. “Quick, +quick, give them to me, or I will lose all sense of dignity.” + +I placed the furs about her, and Wanda slipped her right arm into the +sleeve. + +“This is the pose in Titian’s picture. But now enough of joking. Don’t +always look so solemn, it makes me feel sad. As far as the world is +concerned you are still merely my servant; you are not yet my slave, +for you have not yet signed the contract. You are still free, and can +leave me any moment. You have played your part magnificently. I have +been delighted, but aren’t you tired of it already, and don’t you think +I am abominable? Well, say something—I command it.” + +“Must I confess to you, Wanda?” I began. + +“Yes, you must.” + +“Even if you take advantage of it,” I continued, “I shall love you the +more deeply, adore you the more fanatically, the worse you treat me. +What you have just done inflames my blood and intoxicates all my +senses.” I held her close to me and clung for several moments to her +moist lips. + +“Oh, you beautiful woman,” I then exclaimed, looking at her. In my +enthusiasm I tore the sable from her shoulders and pressed my mouth +against her neck. + +“You love me even when I am cruel,” said Wanda, “now go!—you bore +me—don’t you hear?” + +She boxed my ears so that I saw stars and bells rang in my ears. + +“Help me into my furs, slave.” + +I helped her, as well as I could. + +“How awkward,” she exclaimed, and was scarcely in it before she struck +me in the face again. I felt myself growing pale. + +“Did I hurt you?” she asked, softly touching me with her hand. + +“No, no,” I exclaimed. + +“At any rate you have no reason to complain, you want it thus; now kiss +me again.” + +I threw my arms about her, and her lips clung closely to mine. As she +lay against my breast in her large heavy furs, I had a curiously +oppressive sensation. It was as if a wild beast, a she-bear, were +embracing me. It seemed as if I were about to feel her claws in my +flesh. But this time the she-bear let me off easily. + +With my heart filled with smiling hopes, I went up to my miserable +servant’s room, and threw myself down on my hard couch. + +“Life is really amazingly droll,” I thought. “A short time ago the most +beautiful woman, Venus herself, rested against your breast, and now you +have an opportunity for studying the Chinese hell. Unlike us, they +don’t hurl the damned into flames, but they have devils chasing them +out into fields of ice. + +“Very likely the founders of their religion also slept in unheated +rooms.” + +* * * * * + +During the night I startled out of my sleep with a scream. I had been +dreaming of an icefield in which I had lost my way; I had been looking +in vain for a way out. Suddenly an eskimo drove up in a sleigh +harnessed with reindeer; he had the face of the waiter who had shown me +to the unheated room. + +“What are you looking for here, my dear sir?” he exclaimed. “This is +the North Pole.” + +A moment later he had disappeared, and Wanda flew over the smooth ice +on tiny skates. Her white satin skirt fluttered and crackled; the +ermine of her jacket and cap, but especially her face, gleamed whiter +than the snow. She shot toward me, inclosed me in her arms, and began +to kiss me. Suddenly I felt my blood running warm down my side. + +“What are you doing?” I asked horror-stricken. + +She laughed, and as I looked at her now, it was no longer Wanda, but a +huge, white she-bear, who was digging her paws into my body. + +I cried out in despair, and still heard her diabolical laughter when I +awoke, and looked about the room in surprise. + +Early in the morning I stood at Wanda’s door, and the waiter brought +the coffee. I took it from him, and served it to my beautiful mistress. +She had already dressed, and looked magnificent, all fresh and roseate. +She smiled graciously at me and called me back, when I was about to +withdraw respectfully. + +“Come, Gregor, have your breakfast quickly too,” she said, “then we +will go house-hunting. I don’t want to stay in the hotel any longer +than I have to. It is very embarassing here. If I chat with you for +more than a minute, people will immediately say: ‘The fair Russian is +having an affair with her servant, you see, the race of Catherines +isn’t extinct yet.’” + +Half an hour later we went out; Wanda was in her cloth-gown with the +Russian cap, and I in my Cracovian costume. We created quite a stir. I +walked about ten paces behind, looking very solemn, but expected +momentarily to have to break out into loud laughter. There was scarcely +a street in which one or the other of the attractive houses did not +bear the sign _camere ammobiliate_. Wanda always sent me upstairs, and +only when the apartment seemed to answer her requirements did she +herself ascend. By noon I was as tired as a stag-hound after the hunt. + +We entered a new house and left it again without having found a +suitable habitation. Wanda was already somewhat out of humor. Suddenly +she said to me: “Severin, the seriousness with which you play your part +is charming, and the restrictions, which we have placed upon each other +are really annoying me. I can’t stand it any longer, I do love you, I +must kiss you. Let’s go into one of the houses.” + +“But, my lady—” I interposed. + +“Gregor?” She entered the next open corridor and ascended a few steps +of the dark stair-way; then she threw her arms about me with passionate +tenderness and kissed me. + +“Oh, Severin, you were very wise. You are much more dangerous as slave +than I would have imagined; you are positively irrestible, and I am +afraid I shall have to fall in love with you again.” + +“Don’t you love me any longer then,” I asked seized by a sudden fright. + +She solemnly shook her head, but kissed me again with her swelling, +adorable lips. + +We returned to the hotel. Wanda had luncheon, and ordered me also +quickly to get something to eat. + +Of course, I wasn’t served as quickly as she, and so it happened that +just as I was carrying the second bite of my steak to my mouth, the +waiter entered and called out with his theatrical gesture: “Madame +wants you, at once.” + +I took a rapid and painful leave of my food, and, tired and hungry, +hurried toward Wanda, who was already on the street. + +“I wouldn’t have imagined you could be so cruel,” I said reproachfully. +“With all these, fatiguing duties you don’t even leave me time to eat +in peace.” + +Wanda laughed gaily. “I thought you had finished,” she said, “but never +mind. Man was born to suffer, and you in particular. The martyrs didn’t +have any beefsteaks either.” + +I followed her resentfully, gnawing at my hunger. + +“I have given up the idea of finding a place in the city,” Wanda +continued. “It will be difficult to find an entire floor which is shut +off and where you can do as you please. In such a strange, mad +relationship as ours there must be no jarring note. I shall rent an +entire villa—and you will be surprised. You have my permission now to +satisfy your hunger, and look about a bit in Florence. I won’t be home +till evening. If I need you then, I will have you called.” + +I looked at the Duomo, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Logia di Lanzi, and +then I stood for a long time on the banks of the Arno. Again and again +I let my eyes rest on the magnificent ancient Florence, whose round +cupolas and towers were drawn in soft lines against the blue, cloudless +sky. I watched its splendid bridges beneath whose wide arches the +lively waves of the beautiful, yellow river ran, and the green hills +which surrounded the city, bearing slender cypresses and extensive +buildings, palaces and monasteries. + +It is a different world, this one in which we are—a gay, sensuous, +smiling world. The landscape too has nothing of the seriousness and +somberness of ours. It is a long ways off to the last white villas +scattered among the pale green of the mountains, and yet there isn’t a +spot that isn’t bright with sunlight. The people are less serious than +we; perhaps, they think less, but they all look as though they were +happy. + +It is also maintained that death is easier in the South. + +I have a vague feeling now that such a thing as beauty without thorn +and love of the senses without torment does exist. + +Wanda has discovered a delightful little villa and rented it for the +winter. It is situated on a charming hill on the left bank of the Arno, +opposite the Cascine. It is surrounded by an attractive garden with +lovely paths, grass plots, and magnificent meadow of camelias. It is +only two stories high, quadrangular in the Italian fashion. An open +gallery runs along one side, a sort of loggia with plaster-casts of +antique statues; stone steps lead from it down into the garden. From +the gallery you enter a bath with a magnificent marble basin, from +which winding stairs lead to my mistress’ bed-chamber. + +Wanda occupies the second story by herself. + +A room on the ground floor has been assigned to me; it is very +attractive, and even has a fireplace. + +I have roamed through the garden. On a round hillock I discovered a +little temple, but I found its door locked. However, there is a chink +in the door and when I glue my eye to it, I see the goddess of love on +a white pedestal. + +A slight shudder passes over me. It seems to me as if she were smiling +at me saying: “Are you there? I have been expecting you.” + +* * * * * + +It is evening. An attractive maid brings me orders to appear before my +mistress. I ascend the wide marble stairs, pass through the anteroom, a +large salon furnished with extravagant magnificence, and knock at the +door of the bedroom. I knock very softly for the luxury displayed +everywhere intimidates me. Consequently no one hears me, and I stand +for some time in front of the door. I have a feeling as if I were +standing before the bed-room of the great Catherine, and it seems as if +at any moment she might come out in her green sleeping furs, with the +red ribbon and decoration on her bare breast, and with her little white +powdered curls. + +I knocked again. Wanda impatiently pulls the door open. + +“Why so late?” she asks. + +“I was standing in front of the door, but you didn’t hear me knock,” I +reply timidly. She closes the door, and clinging to me, she leads me to +the red damask ottoman on which she had been resting. The entire +arrangement of the room is in red damask—wall-paper, curtains, +portieres, hangings of the bed. A magnificent painting of Samson and +Delilah forms the ceiling. + +Wanda receives me in an intoxicating dishabille. Her white satin dress +flows gracefully and picturesquely down her slender body, leaving her +arms and breast bare, and carelessly they nestle amid the dark hair of +the great fur of sable, lined with green velvet. Her red hair falls +down her back as far as the hips, only half held by strings of black +pearls. + +“Venus in Furs,” I whisper, while she draws me to her breast and +threatens to stifle me with her kisses. Then I no longer speak and +neither do I think; everything is drowned out in an ocean of unimagined +bliss. + +“Do you still love me?” she asks, her eye softening in passionate +tenderness. + +“You ask!” I exclaimed. + +“You still remember your oath,” she continued with an alluring smile, +“now that everything is prepared, everything in readiness, I ask you +once more, is it still your serious wish to become my slave?” + +“Am I not ready?” I asked in surprise. + +“You have not yet signed the papers.” + +“Papers—what papers?” + +“Oh, I see, you want to give it up,” she said, “well then, we will let +it go.” + +“But Wanda,” I said, “you know that nothing gives me greater happiness +than to serve you, to be your slave. I would give everything for the +sake of feeling myself wholly in your power, even unto death—” + +“How beautiful you are,” she whispered, “when you speak so +enthusiastically, so passionately. I am more in love with you than ever +and you want me to be dominant, stern, and cruel. I am afraid, it will +be impossible for me to be so.” + +“I am not afraid,” I replied smiling, “where are the papers?’” + +“So that you may know what it means to be absolutely in my power, I +have drafted a second agreement in which you declare that you have +decided to kill yourself. In that way I can even kill you, if I so +desire.” + +“Give them to me.” + +While I was unfolding the documents and reading them, Wanda got pen and +ink. She then sat down beside me with her arm about my neck, and looked +over my shoulder at the paper. + +The first one read: + +AGREEMENT BETWEEN MME. VON DUNAJEW AND SEVERIN VON KUSIEMSKI + + +“Severin von Kusiemski ceases with the present day being the affianced +of Mme. Wanda von Dunajew, and renounces all the rights appertaining +thereunto; he on the contrary binds himself on his word of honor as a +man and nobleman, that hereafter he will be her _slave_ until such time +that she herself sets him at liberty again. + +“As the slave of Mme. von Dunajew he is to bear the name Gregor, and he +is unconditionally to comply with every one of her wishes, and to obey +every one of her commands; he is always to be submissive to his +mistress, and is to consider her every sign of favor as an +extraordinary mercy. + +“Mme. von Dunajew is entitled not only to punish her slave as she deems +best, even for the slightest inadvertence or fault, but also is +herewith given the right to torture him as the mood may seize her or +merely for the sake of whiling away the time. Should she so desire, she +may kill him whenever she wishes; in short, he is her unrestricted +property. + +“Should Mme. von Dunajew ever set her slave at liberty, Severin von +Kusiemski agrees to forget everything that he has experienced or +suffered as her slave, and promises _never under any circumstances and +in no wise to think of vengeance or retaliation_. + +“Mme. von Dunajew on her behalf agrees as his mistress to appear as +often as possible in her furs, especially when she purposes some +cruelty toward her slave.” + +Appended at the bottom of the agreement was the date of the present +day. + +The second document contained only a few words. + +“Having since many years become weary of existence and its illusions, I +have of my own free will put an end to my worthless life.” + +I was seized with a deep horror when I had finished. There was still +time, I could still withdraw, but the madness of passion and the sight +of the beautiful woman that lay all relaxed against my shoulder carried +me away. + +“This one you will have to copy, Severin,” said Wanda, indicating the +second document. “It has to be entirely in your own handwriting; this, +of course, isn’t necessary in the case of the agreement.” + +I quickly copied the few lines in which I designated myself a suicide, +and handed them to Wanda. She read them, and put them on the table with +a smile. + +“Now have you the courage to sign it?” she asked with a crafty smile, +inclining her head. + +I took the pen. + +“Let me sign first,” said Wanda, “your hand is trembling, are you +afraid of the happiness that is to be yours?” + +She took the agreement and pen. While engaging in my internal struggle, +I looked upward for a moment. It occurred to me that the painting on +the ceiling, like many of those of the Italian and Dutch schools, was +utterly unhistorical, but this very fact gave it a strange mood which +had an almost uncanny effect on me. Delilah, an opulent woman with +flaming red hair, lay extended, half-disrobed, in a dark fur-cloak, +upon a red ottoman, and bent smiling over Samson who had been +overthrown and bound by the Philistines. Her smile in its mocking +coquetry was full of a diabolical cruelty; her eyes, half-closed, met +Samson’s, and his with a last look of insane passion cling to hers, for +already one of his enemies is kneeling on his breast with the red-hot +iron to blind him. + +“Now—” said Wanda. “Why you are all lost in thought. What is the matter +with you, everything will remain just as it was, even after you have +signed, don’t you know me yet, dear heart?” + +I looked at the agreement. Her name was written there in bold letters. +I peered once more into her eyes with their potent magic, then I took +the pen and quickly signed the agreement. + +“You are trembling,” said Wanda calmly, “shall I help you?” + +She gently took hold of my hand, and my name appeared at the bottom of +the second paper. Wanda looked once more at the two documents, and then +locked them in the desk which stood at the head of the ottoman. + +“Now then, give me your passport and money.” + +I took out my wallet and handed it to her. She inspected it, nodded, +and put it with other things while in a sweet drunkenness I kneeled +before her leaning my head against her breast. + +Suddenly she thrusts me away with her foot, leaps up, and pulls the +bell-rope. In answer to its sound three young, slender negresses enter; +they are as if carved of ebony, and are dressed from head to foot in +red satin; each one has a rope in her hand. + +Suddenly I realize my position, and am about to rise. Wanda stands +proudly erect, her cold beautiful face with its sombre brows and +contemptous eyes is turned toward me. She stands before me as mistress, +commanding, gives a sign with her hand, and before I really know what +has happened to me the negresses have dragged me to the ground, and +have tied me hand and foot. As in the case of one about to be executed +my arms are bound behind my back, so that I can scarcely move. + +“Give me the whip, Haydée,” commands Wanda, with unearthly calm. + +The negress hands it to her mistress, kneeling. + +“And now take off my heavy furs,” she continues, “they impede me.” + +The negress obeyed. + +“The jacket there!” Wanda commanded. + +Haydée quickly brought her the _kazabaika_, set with ermine, which lay +on the bed, and Wanda slipped into it with two inimitably graceful +movements. + +“Now tie him to the pillar here!” + +The negresses lifted me up, and twisting a heavy rope around my body, +tied me standing against one of the massive pillars which supported the +top of the wide Italian bed. + +Then they suddenly disappeared, as if the earth had swallowed them. + +Wanda swiftly approached me. Her white satin dress flowed behind her in +a long train, like silver, like moonlight; her hair flared like flames +against the white fur of her jacket. Now she stood in front of me with +her left hand firmly planted on her hips, in her right hand she held +the whip. She uttered an abrupt laugh. + +“Now play has come to an end between us,” she said with heartless +coldness. “Now we will begin in dead earnest. You fool, I laugh at you +and despise you; you who in your insane infatuation have given yourself +as a plaything to _me_, the frivolous and capricious woman. You are no +longer the man I love, but _my slave_, at my mercy even unto life and +death. + +“You shall know me! + +“First of all you shall have a taste of the whip in all seriousness, +without having done anything to deserve it, so that you may understand +what to expect, if you are awkward, disobedient, or refractory.” + +With a wild grace she rolled back her fur-lined sleeve, and struck me +across the back. + +I winced, for the whip cut like a knife into my flesh. + +“Well, how do you like that?” she exclaimed. + +I was silent. + +“Just wait, you will yet whine like a dog beneath my whip,” she +threatened, and simultaneously began to strike me again. + +The blows fell quickly, in rapid succession, with terrific force upon +my back, arms, and neck; I had to grit my teeth not to scream aloud. +Now she struck me in the face, warm blood ran down, but she laughed, +and continued her blows. + +“It is only now I understand you,” she exclaimed. “It really is a joy +to have some one so completely in one’s power, and a man at that, who +loves you—you do love me?—No—Oh! I’ll tear you to shreds yet, and with +each blow my pleasure will grow. Now, twist like a worm, scream, whine! +You will find no mercy in me!” + +Finally she seemed tired. + +She tossed the whip aside, stretched out on the ottoman, and rang. + +The negresses entered. + +“Untie him!” + +As they loosened the rope, I fell to the floor like a lump of wood. The +black women grinned, showing their white teeth. + +“Untie the rope around his feet.” + +They did it, but I was unable to rise. + +“Come over here, Gregor.” + +I approached the beautiful woman. Never did she seem more seductive to +me than to-day in spite of all her cruelty and contempt. + +“One step further,” Wanda commanded. “Now kneel down, and kiss my +foot.” + +She extended her foot beyond the hem of white satin, and I, the +supersensual fool, pressed my lips upon it. + +“Now, you won’t lay eyes on me for an entire month, Gregor,” she said +seriously. “I want to become a stranger to you, so you will more easily +adjust yourself to our new relationship. In the meantime you will work +in the garden, and await my orders. Now, off with you, slave!” + +* * * * * + +A month has passed with monotonous regularity, heavy work, and a +melancholy hunger, hunger for her, who is inflicting all these torments +on me. + +I am under the gardener’s orders; I help him lop the trees and prune +the hedges, transplant flowers, turn over the flower beds, sweep the +gravel paths; I share his coarse food and his hard cot; I rise and go +to bed with the chickens. Now and then I hear that our mistress is +amusing herself, surrounded by admirers. Once I heard her gay laughter +even down here in the garden. + +I seem awfully stupid to myself. Was it the result of my present life, +or was I so before? The month is drawing to a close—the day after +to-morrow. What will she do with me now, or has she forgotten me, and +left me to trim hedges and bind bouquets till my dying day? + +A written order. + +“The slave Gregor is herewith ordered to my personal service. + +Wanda Dunajew.” + +With a beating heart I draw aside the damask curtain on the following +morning, and enter the bed-room of my divinity. It is still filled with +a pleasant half darkness. + +“Is it you, Gregor?” she asks, while I kneel before the fire-place, +building a fire. I tremble at the sound of the beloved voice. I cannot +see her herself; she is invisible behind the curtains of the +four-poster bed. + +“Yes, my mistress,” I reply. + +“How late is it?” + +“Past nine o’clock.” + +“Breakfast.” + +I hasten to get it, and then kneel down with the tray beside her bed. + +“Here is breakfast, my mistress.” + +Wanda draws back the curtains, and curiously enough at the first glance +when I see her among the pillows with loosened flowing hair, she seems +an absolute stranger, a beautiful woman, but the beloved soft lines are +gone. This face is hard and has an expression of weariness and satiety. + +Or is it simply that formerly my eye did not see this? + +She fixes her green eyes upon me, more with curiosity than with menace, +perhaps even somewhat pityingly, and lazily pulls the dark sleeping fur +on which she lies over the bared shoulder. + +At this moment she is very charming, very maddening, and I feel my +blood rising to my head and heart. The tray in my hands begins to sway. +She notices it and reached out for the whip which is lying on the +toilet-table. + +“You are awkward, slave,” she says furrowing her brow. + +I lower my looks to the ground, and hold the tray as steadily as +possible. She eats her breakfast, yawns, and stretches her opulent +limbs in the magnificent furs. + +She has rung. I enter. + +“Take this letter to Prince Corsini.” + +I hurry into the city, and hand the letter to the Prince. He is a +handsome young man with glowing black eyes. Consumed with jealousy, I +take his answer to her. + +“What is the matter with you?” she asks with lurking spitefulness. “You +are very pale.” + +“Nothing, mistress, I merely walked rather fast.” + +At luncheon the prince is at her side, and I am condemned to serve both +her and him. They joke, and I am, as if non-existent, for both. For a +brief moment I see black; I was just pouring some Bordeaux into his +glass, and spilled it over the table-cloth and her gown. + +“How awkward,” Wanda exclaimed and slapped my face. The prince laughed, +and she also, but I felt the blood rising to my face. + +After luncheon she drove in the Cascine. She has a little carriage with +a handsome, brown English horse, and holds the reins herself. I sit +behind and notice how coquettishly she acts, and nods with a smile when +one of the distinguished gentlemen bows to her. + +As I help her out of the carriage, she leans lightly on my arm; the +contact runs through me like an electric shock. She _is_ a wonderful +woman, and I love her more than ever. + +* * * * * + +For dinner at six she has invited a small group of men and women. I +serve, but this time I do not spill any wine over the table-cloth. + +A slap in the face is more effective than ten lectures. It makes you +understand very quickly, especially when the instruction is by the way +of a small woman’s hand. + +* * * * * + +After dinner she drives to the Pergola Theater. As she descends the +stairs in her black velvet dress with its large collar of ermine and +with a diadem of white roses on her hair, she is literally stunning. I +open the carriage-door, and help her in. In front of the theater I leap +from the driver’s seat, and in alighting she leaned on my arm, which +trembled under the sweet burden. I open the door of her box, and then +wait in the vestibule. The performance lasts four hours; she receives +visits from her cavaliers, the while I grit my teeth with rage. + +It is way beyond midnight when my mistress’s bell sounds for the last +time. + +“Fire!” she orders abruptly, and when the fire-place crackles, “Tea!” + +When I return with the samovar, she has already undressed, and with the +aid of the negress slipped into a white negligee. + +Haydée thereupon leaves. + +“Hand me the sleeping-furs,” says Wanda, sleepily stretching her lovely +limbs. I take them from the arm-chair, and hold them while she slowly +and lazily slides into the sleeves. She then throws herself down on the +cushions of the ottoman. + +“Take off my shoes, and put on my velvet slippers.” + +I kneel down and tug at the little shoe which resists my efforts. +“Hurry, hurry!” Wanda exclaims, “you are hurting me! just you wait—I +will teach you.” She strikes me with the whip, but now the shoe is off. + +“Now get out!” Still a kick—and then I can go to bed. + +* * * * * + +To-night I accompanied her to a soiree. In the entrance-hall she +ordered me to help her out of her furs; then with a proud smile, +confident of victory, she entered the brilliantly illuminated room. I +again waited with gloomy and monotonous thoughts, watching hour after +hour run by. From time to time the sounds of music reached me, when the +door remained open for a moment. Several servants tried to start a +conversation with me, but soon desisted, since I knew only a few words +of Italian. + +Finally I fell asleep, and dreamed that I murdered Wanda in a violent +attack of jealousy. I was condemned to death, and saw myself strapped +on the board; the knife fell, I felt it on my neck, but I was still +alive— + +Then the executioner slapped my face. + +No, it wasn’t the executioner; it was Wanda who stood wrathfully before +me demanding her furs. I am at her side in a moment, and help her on +with it. + +There is a deep joy in wrapping a beautiful woman into her furs, and in +seeing and feeling how her neck and magnificent limbs nestle in the +precious soft furs, and to lift the flowing hair over the collar. When +she throws it off a soft warmth and a faint fragrance of her body still +clings to the ends of the hairs of sable. It is enough to drive one +mad. + +* * * * * + +Finally a day came when there were neither guests, nor theater, nor +other company. I breathed a sigh of relief. Wanda sat in the gallery, +reading, and apparently had no orders for me. At dusk when the silvery +evening mists fell she withdrew. I served her at dinner, she ate by +herself, but had not a look, not a syllable for me, not even a slap in +the face. + +I actually desire a slap from her hand. Tears fill my eyes, and I feel +that she has humiliated me so deeply, that she doesn’t even find it +worth while to torture or maltreat me any further. + +Before she goes to bed, her bell calls me. + +“You will sleep here to-night, I had horrible dreams last night, and am +afraid of being alone. Take one of the cushions from the ottoman, and +lie down on the bearskin at my feet.” + +Then Wanda put out the lights. The only illumination in the room was +from a small lamp suspended from the ceiling. She herself got into bed. +“Don’t stir, so as not to wake me.” + +I did as she had commanded, but could not fall asleep for a long time. +I saw the beautiful woman, beautiful as a goddess, lying on her back on +the dark sleeping-furs; her arms beneath her neck, with a flood of red +hair over them. I heard her magnificent breast rise in deep regular +breathing, and whenever she moved ever so slightly. I woke up and +listened to see whether she needed me. + +But she did not require me. + +No task was required of me; I meant no more to her than a night-lamp, +or a revolver which one places under one’s pillow. + +* * * * * + +Am I mad or is she? Does all this arise out of an inventive, wanton +woman’s brain with the intention of surpassing my supersensual +fantasies, or is this woman really one of those Neronian characters who +take a diabolical pleasure in treading underfoot, like a worm, human +beings, who have thoughts and feelings and a will like theirs? + +What have I experienced? + +When I knelt with the coffee-tray beside her bed, Wanda suddenly placed +her hand on my shoulder and her eyes plunged deep into mine. + +“What beautiful eyes you have,” she said softly, “and especially now +since you suffer. Are you very unhappy?” + +I bowed my head, and kept silent. + +“Severin, do you still love me,” she suddenly exclaimed passionately, +“can you still love me?” + +She drew me close with such vehemence that the coffee-tray upset, the +can and cups fell to the floor, and the coffee ran over the carpet. + +“Wanda—my Wanda,” I cried out and held her passionately against me; I +covered her mouth, face, and breast with kisses. + +“It is my unhappiness that I love you more and more madly the worse you +treat me, the more frequently you betray me. Oh, I shall die of pain +and love and jealousy.” + +“But I haven’t betrayed you, as yet, Severin,” replied Wanda smiling. + +“Not? Wanda! Don’t jest so mercilessly with me,” I cried. “Haven’t I +myself taken the letter to the Prince—” + +“Of course, it was an invitation for luncheon.” + +“You have, since we have been in Florence—” + +“I have been absolutely faithful to you,” replied Wanda, “I swear it by +all that is holy to me. All that I have done was merely to fulfill your +dream and it was done for your sake. + +“However, I shall take a lover, otherwise things will be only half +accomplished, and in the end you will yet reproach me with not having +treated you cruelly enough, my dear beautiful slave! But to-day you +shall be Severin again, the only one I love. I haven’t given away your +clothes. They are here in the chest. Go and dress as you used to in the +little Carpathian health-resort when our love was so intimate. Forget +everything that has happened since; oh, you will forget it easily in my +arms; I shall kiss away all your sorrows.” + +She began to treat me tenderly like a child, to kiss me and caress me. +Finally she said with a gracious smile, “Go now and dress, I too will +dress. Shall I put on my fur-jacket? Oh yes, I know, now run along!” + +When I returned she was standing in the center of the room in her white +satin dress, and the red _kazabaika_ edged with ermine; her hair was +white with powder and over her forehead she wore a small diamond +diadem. For a moment she reminded me in an uncanny way of Catherine the +Second, but she did not give me much time for reminiscences. She drew +me down on the ottoman beside her and we enjoyed two blissful hours. +She was no longer the stern capricious mistress, she was entirely a +fine lady, a tender sweetheart. She showed me photographs and books +which had just appeared, and talked about them with so much +intelligence, clarity, and good taste, that I more than once carried +her hand to my lips, enraptured. She then had me recite several of +Lermontov’s poems, and when I was all afire with enthusiasm, she placed +her small hand gently on mine. Her expression was soft, and her eyes +were filled with tender pleasure. + +“Are you happy?” + +“Not yet.” + +She then leaned back on the cushions, and slowly opened her +_kazabaika_. + +But I quickly covered the half-bared breast again with the ermine. “You +are driving me mad.” I stammered. + +“Come!” + +I was already lying in her arms, and like a serpent she was kissing me +with her tongue, when again she whispered, “Are you happy?” + +“Infinitely!” I exclaimed. + +She laughed aloud. It was an evil, shrill laugh which made cold shivers +run down by back. + +“You used to dream of being the slave, the plaything of a beautiful +woman, and now you imagine you are a free human being, a man, my +lover-you fool! A sign from me, and you are a slave again. Down on your +knees!” + +I sank down from the ottoman to her feet, but my eye still clung +doubtingly on hers. + +“You can’t believe it,” she said, looking at me with her arms folded +across her breast. “I am bored, and you will just do to while away a +couple of hours of time. Don’t look at me that way—” + +She kicked me with her foot. + +“You are just what I want, a human being, a thing, an animal—” + +She rang. The three negresses entered. + +“Tie his hands behind his back.” + +I remained kneeling and unresistingly let them do this. They led me +into the garden, down to the little vineyard, which forms the southern +boundary. Corn had been planted between the espaliers, and here and +there a few dead stalks still stood. To one side was a plough. + +The negresses tied me to a post, and amused themselves sticking me with +their golden hair-needles. But this did not last long, before Wanda +appeared with her ermine cap on her head, and with her hands in the +pockets of her jacket. She had me untied, and then my hands were +fastened together on my back. She finally had a yoke put around my +neck, and harnessed me to the plough. + +Then her black demons drove me out into the field. One of them held the +plough, the other one led me by a line, the third applied the whip, and +Venus in Furs stood to one side and looked on. + +* * * * * + +When I was serving dinner on the following day Wanda said: “Bring +another cover, I want you to dine with me to-day,” and when I was about +to sit down opposite her, she added, “No, over here, close by my side.” + +She is in the best of humors, gives me soup with her spoon, feeds me +with her fork, and places her head on the table like a playful kitten +and flirts with me. I have the misfortune of looking at Haydée, who +serves in my place, perhaps a little longer than is necessary. It is +only now that I noticed her noble, almost European cast of countenance +and her magnificent statuesque bust, which is as if hewn out of black +marble. The black devil observes that she pleases me, and, grinning, +shows her teeth. She has hardly left the room, before Wanda leaps up in +a rage. + +“What, you dare to look at another woman besides me! Perhaps you like +her even better than you do me, she is even more demonic!” + +I am frightened; I have never seen her like this before; she is +suddenly pale even to the lips and her whole body trembles. Venus in +Furs is jealous of her slave. She snatches the whip from its hook and +strikes me in the face; then she calls her black servants, who bind me, +and carry me down into the cellar, where they throw me into a dark, +dank, subterranean compartment, a veritable prison-cell. + +Then the lock of the door clicks, the bolts are drawn, a key sings in +the lock. I am a prisoner, buried. + +I have been lying here for I don’t know how long, bound like a calf +about to be hauled to the slaughter, on a bundle of damp straw, without +any light, without food, without drink, without sleep. It would be like +her to let me starve to death, if I don’t freeze to death before then. +I am shaking with cold. Or is it fever? I believe I am beginning to +hate this woman. + +* * * * * + +A red streak, like blood, floods across the floor; it is a light +falling through the door which is now thrust open. + +Wanda appears on the threshold, wrapped in her sables, holding a +lighted torch. + +“Are you still alive?” she asks. + +“Are you coming to kill me?” I reply with a low, hoarse voice. + +With two rapid strides Wanda reaches my side, she kneels down beside +me, and places my head in her lap. “Are you ill? Your eyes glow so, do +you love me? I want you to love me.” + +She draws forth a short dagger. I start with fright when its blade +gleams in front of my eyes. I actually believe that she is about to +kill me. She laughs, and cuts the ropes that bind me. + +* * * * * + +Every evening after dinner she now has me called. I have to read to +her, and she discusses with me all sorts of interesting problems and +subjects. She seems entirely transformed; it is as if she were ashamed +of the savagery which she betrayed to me and of the cruelty with which +she treated me. A touching gentleness transfigures her entire being, +and when at the good-night she gives me her hand, a superhuman power of +goodness and love lies in her eyes, of the kind which calls forth tears +in us and causes us to forget all the miseries of existence and all the +terrors of death. + +* * * * * + +I am reading _Manon l’Escault_ to her. She feels the association, she +doesn’t say a word, but she smiles from time to time, and finally she +shuts up the little book. + +“Don’t you want to go on reading?” + +“Not to-day. We will ourselves act _Manon l’Escault_ to-day. I have a +rendezvous in the Cascine, and you, my dear Chevalier, will accompany +me; I know, you will do it, won’t you?” + +“You command it.” + +“I do not command it, I beg it of you,” she says with irresistible +charm. She then rises, puts her hands on my shoulders, and looks at me. + +“Your eyes!” she exclaims. “I love you, Severin, you have no idea how I +love you!” + +“Yes, I have!” I replied bitterly, “so much so that you have arranged +for a rendezvous with some one else.” + +“I do this only to allure you the more,” she replied vivaciously. “I +must have admirers, so as not to lose you. I don’t ever want to lose +you, never, do you hear, for I love only you, you alone.” + +She clung passionately to my lips. + +“Oh, if I only could, as I would, give you all of my soul in a +kiss—thus—but now come.” + +She slipped into a simple black velvet coat, and put a dark _bashlyk_5 +on her head. Then she rapidly went through the gallery, and entered the +carriage. + +[Footnote 5: A kind of Russian cap.] + + +“Gregor will drive,” she called out to the coachman who withdrew in +surprise. + +I ascended the driver’s seat, and angrily whipped up the horses. + +In the Cascine where the main roadway turns into a leafy path, Wanda +got out. It was night, only occasional stars shone through the gray +clouds that fled across the sky. By the bank of the Arno stood a man in +a dark cloak, with a brigand’s hat, and looked at the yellow waves. +Wanda rapidly walked through the shrubbery, and tapped him on the +shoulder. I saw him turn and seize her hand, and then they disappeared +behind the green wall. + +An hour full of torments. Finally there was a rustling in the bushes to +one side, and they returned. + +The man accompanied her to the carriage. The light of the lamp fell +full and glaringly upon an infinitely young, soft and dreamy face which +I had never before seen, and played in his long, blond curls. + +She held out her hand which he kissed with deep respect, then she +signaled to me, and immediately the carriage flew along the leafy wall +which follows the river like a long green screen. + +* * * * * + +The bell at the garden-gate rings. It is a familiar face. The man from +the Cascine. + +“Whom shall I announce?” I ask him in French. He timidly shakes his +head. + +“Do you, perhaps, understand some German?” he asks shyly. + +“Yes. Your name, please.” + +“Oh! I haven’t any yet,” he replies, embarrassed—“Tell your mistress +the German painter from the Cascine is here and would like—but there +she is herself.” + +Wanda had stepped out on the balcony, and nodded toward the stranger. + +“Gregor, show the gentleman in!” she called to me. + +I showed the painter the stairs. + +“Thanks, I’ll find her now, thanks, thanks very much.” He ran up the +steps. I remained standing below, and looked with deep pity on the poor +German. + +Venus in Furs has caught his soul in the red snares of hair. He will +paint her, and go mad. + +* * * * * + +It is a sunny winter’s day. Something that looks like gold trembles on +the leaves of the clusters of trees down below in the green level of +the meadow. The camelias at the foot of the gallery are glorious in +their abundant buds. Wanda is sitting in the loggia; she is drawing. +The German painter stands opposite her with his hands folded as in +adoration, and looks at her. No, he rather looks at her face, and is +entirely absorbed in it, enraptured. + +But she does not see him, neither does she see me, who with the spade +in my hand am turning over the flower-bed, solely that I may see her +and feel her nearness, which produces an effect on me like poetry, like +music. + +* * * * * + +The painter has gone. It is a hazardous thing to do, but I risk it. I +go up to the gallery, quite close, and ask Wanda “Do you love the +painter, mistress?” + +She looks at me without getting angry, shakes her head, and finally +even smiles. + +“I feel sorry for him,” she replies, “but I do not love him. I love no +one. _I used to love you, as ardently, as passionately, as deeply as it +was possible for me to love,_ but now I don’t love even you any more; +my heart is a void, dead, and this makes me sad.” + +“Wanda!” I exclaimed, deeply moved. + +“Soon, you too will no longer love me,” she continued, “tell me when +you have reached that point, and I will give back to you your freedom.” + +“Then I shall remain your slave, all my life long, for I adore you and +shall always adore you,” I cried, seized by that fanaticism of love +which has repeatedly been so fatal to me. + +Wanda looked at me with a curious pleasure. “Consider well what you +do,” she said. “I have loved you infinitely and have been despotic +towards you so that I might fulfil your dream. Something of my old +feeling, a sort of real sympathy for you, still trembles in my breast. +When that too has gone who knows whether then I shall give you your +liberty; whether I shall not then become really cruel, merciless, even +brutal toward; whether I shall not take a diabolical pleasure in +tormenting and putting on the rack the man who worships me +idolatrously, the while I remain indifferent or love someone else; +perhaps, I shall enjoy seeing him die of his love for me. Consider this +well.” + +“I have long since considered all that,” I replied as in a glow of +fever. “I cannot exist, cannot live without you; I shall die if you set +me at liberty; let me remain your slave, kill me, but do not drive me +away.” + +“Very well then, be my slave,” she replied, “but don’t forget that I no +longer love you, and your love doesn’t mean any more to me than a +dog’s, and dogs are kicked.” + +* * * * * + +To-day I visited the Venus of Medici. + +It was still early, and the little octagonal room in the Tribuna was +filled with half-lights like a sanctuary; I stood with folded hands in +deep adoration before the silent image of the divinity. + +But I did not stand for long. + +Not a human soul was in the gallery, not even an Englishman, and I fell +down on my knees. I looked up at the lovely slender body, the budding +breasts, the virginal and yet voluptuous face, the fragrant curls which +seemed to conceal tiny horns on each side of the forehead. + +* * * * * + +My mistress’s bell. + +It is noonday. She, however, is still abed with her arms intertwined +behind her neck. + +“I want to bathe,” she says, “and you will attend me. Lock the door!” + +I obey. + +“Now go downstairs and make sure the door below is also locked.” + +I descended the winding stairs that lead from her bedroom to the bath; +my feet gave way beneath me, and I had to support myself against the +iron banister. After having ascertained that the door leading to the +Loggia and the garden was locked, I returned. Wanda was now sitting on +the bed with loosened hair, wrapped in her green velvet furs. When she +made a rapid movement, I noticed that the furs were her only covering. +It made me start terribly, I don’t know why? I was like one condemned +to death, who knows he is on the way to the scaffold, and yet begins to +tremble when he sees it. + +“Come, Gregor, take me on your arms.” + +“You mean, mistress?” + +“You are to carry me, don’t you understand?” + +I lifted her up, so that she rested in my arms, while she twined hers +around my neck. Slowly, step by step, I went down the stairs with her +and her hair beat from time to time against my cheek and her foot +sought support against my knee. I trembled under the beautiful burden I +was carrying, and every moment it seemed as if I had to break down +beneath it. + +The bath consisted of a wide, high rotunda, which received a soft quiet +light from a red glass cupola above. Two palms extended their broad +leaves like a roof over a couch of velvet cushions. From here steps +covered with Turkish rugs led to the white marble basin which occupied +the center. + +“There is a green ribbon on my toilet-table upstairs,” said Wanda, as I +let her down on the couch, “go get it, and also bring the whip.” + +I flew upstairs and back again, and kneeling put both in my mistress’s +hands. She then had me twist her heavy electric hair into a large knot +which I fastened with the green ribbon. Then I prepared the bath. I did +this very awkwardly because my hands and feet refused to obey me. Again +and again I had to look at the beautiful woman lying on the red velvet +cushions, and from time to time her wonderful body gleamed here and +there beneath the furs. Some magnetic power stronger than my will +compelled me to look. I felt that all sensuality and lustfulness lies +in that which is half-concealed or intentionally disclosed; and the +truth of this I recognized even more acutely, when the basin at last +was full, and Wanda threw off the fur-cloak with a single gesture, and +stood before me like the goddess in the Tribuna. + +At that moment she seemed as sacred and chaste to me in her unveiled +beauty, as did the divinity of long ago. I sank down on my knees before +her, and devoutly pressed my lips on her foot. + +My soul which had been storm-tossed only a little while earlier, +suddenly was perfectly calm, and I now felt no element of cruelty in +Wanda. + +She slowly descended the stairs, and I could watch her with a calmness +in which not a single atom of torment or desire was intermingled. I +could see her plunge into and rise out of the crystalline water, and +the wavelets which she herself raised played about her like tender +lovers. + +Our nihilistic aesthetician is right when he says: a real apple is more +beautiful than a painted one, and a living woman is more beautiful than +a Venus of stone. + +And when she left the bath, and the silvery drops and the roseate light +rippled down her body, I was seized with silent rapture. I wrapped the +linen sheets about her, drying her glorious body. The calm bliss +remained with me, even now when one foot upon me as upon a footstool, +she rested on the cushions in her large velvet cloak. The lithe sables +nestled desirously against her cold marble-like body. Her left arm on +which she supported herself lay like a sleeping swan in the dark fur of +the sleeve, while her left hand played carelessly with the whip. + +By chance my look fell on the massive mirror on the wall opposite, and +I cried out, for I saw the two of us in its golden frame as in a +picture. The picture was so marvellously beautiful, so strange, so +imaginative, that I was filled with deep sorrow at the thought that its +lines and colors would have to dissolve like mist. + +“What is the matter?” asked Wanda. + +I pointed to the mirror. + +“Ah, that is really beautiful,” she exclaimed, “too bad one can’t +capture the moment and make it permanent.” + +“And why not?” I asked. “Would not any artist, even the most famous, be +proud if you gave him leave to paint you and make you immortal by means +of his brush. + +“The very thought that this extra-ordinary beauty is to be lost to the +world,” I continued still watching her enthusiastically, “is +horrible—all this glorious facial expression, this mysterious eye with +its green fires, this demonic hair, this magnificence of body. The idea +fills me with a horror of death, of annihilation. But the hand of an +artist shall snatch you from this. You shall not like the rest of us +disappear absolutely and forever, without leaving a trace of your +having been. Your picture must live, even when you yourself have long +fallen to dust; your beauty must triumph beyond death!” + +Wanda smiled. + +“Too bad, that present-day Italy hasn’t a Titian or Raphael,” she said, +“but, perhaps, love will make amends for genius, who knows; our little +German might do?” She pondered. + +“Yes, he shall paint you, and I will see to it that the god of love +mixes his colors.” + +* * * * * + +The young painter has established his studio in her villa; he is +completely in her net. He has just begun a Madonna, a Madonna with red +hair and green eyes! Only the idealism of a German would attempt to use +this thorough-bred woman as a model for a picture of virginity. The +poor fellow really is an almost bigger donkey than I am. Our misfortune +is that our Titania has discovered our ass’s ears too soon. + +* * * * * + +Now she laughs derisively at us, and how she laughs! I hear her +insolent melodious laughter in his studio, under the open window of +which I stand, jealously listening. + +* * * * * + +“Are you mad, me—ah, it is unbelievable, me as the Mother of God!” she +exclaimed and laughed again. “Wait a moment, I will show you another +picture of myself, one that I myself have painted, and you shall copy +it.” + +Her head appeared in the window, luminous like a flame under the +sunlight. + +“Gregor!” + +I hurried up the stairs, through the gallery, into the studio. + +“Lead him to the bath,” Wanda commanded, while she herself hurried +away. + +A few moments passed and Wanda arrived; dressed in nothing but the +sable fur, with the whip in her hand; she descended the stairs and +stretched out on the velvet cushions as on the former occasion. I lay +at her feet and she placed one of her feet upon me; her right hand +played with the whip. “Look at me,” she said, “with your deep, +fanatical look, that’s it.” + +The painter had turned terribly pale. He devoured the scene with his +beautiful dreamy blue eyes; his lips opened, but he remained dumb. + +“Well, how do you like the picture?” + +“Yes, that is how I want to paint you,” said the German, but it was +really not a spoken language; it was the eloquent moaning, the weeping +of a sick soul, a soul sick unto death. + +* * * * * + +The charcoal outline of the painting is done; the heads and flesh parts +are painted in. Her diabolical face is already becoming visible under a +few bold strokes, life flashes in her green eyes. + +Wanda stands in front of the canvas with her arms crossed over her +breast. + +“This picture, like many of those of the Venetian school, is +simultaneously to represent a portrait and to tell a story,” explained +the painter, who again had become pale as death. + +“And what will you call it?” she asked, “but what is the matter with +you, are you ill?” + +“I am afraid—” he answered with a consuming look fixed on the beautiful +woman in furs, “but let us talk of the picture.” + +“Yes, let us talk about the picture.” + +“I imagine the goddess of love as having descended from Mount Olympus +for the sake of some mortal man. And always cold in this modern world +of ours, she seeks to keep her sublime body warm in a large heavy fur +and her feet in the lap of her lover. I imagine the favorite of a +beautiful despot, who whips her slave, when she is tired of kissing +him, and the more she treads him underfoot, the more insanely he loves +her. And so I shall call the picture: _Venus in Furs_.” + +* * * * * + +The painter paints slowly, but his passion grows more and more rapidly. +I am afraid he will end up by committing suicide. She plays with him +and propounds riddles to him which he cannot solve, and he feels his +blood congealing in the process, but it amuses her. + +During the sitting she nibbles at candies, and rolls the paper-wrappers +into little pellets with which she bombards him. + +“I am glad you are in such good humor,” said the painter, “but your +face has lost the expression which I need for my picture.” + +“The expression which you need for your picture,” she replied, smiling. +“Wait a moment.” + +She rose, and dealt me a blow with the whip. The painter looked at her +with stupefaction, and a child-like surprise showed on his face, +mingled with disgust and admiration. + +While whipping me, Wanda’s face acquired more and more of the cruel, +contemptuous character, which so haunts and intoxicates me. + +“Is this the expression you need for your picture?” she exclaimed. The +painter lowered his look in confusion before the cold ray of her eye. + +“It is the expression—” he stammered, “but I can’t paint now—” + +“What?” said Wanda, scornfully, “perhaps I can help you?” + +“Yes—” cried the German, as if taken with madness, “whip me too.” + +“Oh! With pleasure,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders, “but if I am +to whip you I want to do it in sober earnest.” + +“Whip me to death,” cried the painter. + +“Will you let me tie you?” she asked, smiling. + +“Yes—” he moaned— + +Wanda left the room for a moment, and returned with ropes. + +“Well—are you still brave enough to put yourself into the power of +Venus in Furs, the beautiful despot, for better or worse?” she began +ironically. + +“Yes, tie me,” the painter replied dully. Wanda tied his hands on his +back and drew a rope through his arms and a second one around his body, +and fettered him to the cross-bars of the window. Then she rolled back +the fur, seized the whip, and stepped in front of him. + +The scene had a grim attraction for me, which I cannot describe. I felt +my heart beat, when, with a smile, she drew back her arm for the first +blow, and the whip hissed through the air. He winced slightly under the +blow. Then she let blow after blow rain upon him, with her mouth +half-opened and her teeth flashing between her red lips, until he +finally seemed to ask for mercy with his piteous, blue eyes. It was +indescribable. + +* * * * * + +She is sitting for him now, alone. He is working on her head. + +She has posted me in the adjoining room behind a heavy curtain, where I +can’t be seen, but can see everything. + +What does she intend now? + +Is she afraid of him? She has driven him insane enough to be sure, or +is she hatching a new torment for me? My knees tremble. + +They are talking. He has lowered his voice so that I cannot understand +a word, and she replies in the same way. What is the meaning of this? +Is there an understanding between them? + +I suffer frightful torments; my heart seems about to burst. + +He kneels down before her, embraces her, and presses his head against +her breast, and she—in her heartlessness—laughs—and now I hear her +saying aloud: + +“Ah! You need another application of the whip.” + +“Woman! Goddess! Are you without a heart—can’t you love,” exclaimed the +German, “don’t you even know, what it means to love, to be consumed +with desire and passion, can’t you even imagine what I suffer? Have you +no pity for me?” + +“No!” she replied proudly and mockingly, “but I have the whip.” + +She drew it quickly from the pocket of her fur-coat, and struck him in +the face with the handle. He rose, and drew back a couple of paces. + +“Now, are you ready to paint again?” she asked indifferently. He did +not reply, but again went to the easel and took up his brush and +palette. + +The painting is marvellously successful. It is a portrait which as far +as the likeness goes couldn’t be better, and at the same time it seems +to have an ideal quality. The colors glow, are supernatural; almost +diabolical, I would call them. + +The painter has put all his sufferings, his adoration, and all his +execration into the picture. + +* * * * * + +Now he is painting me; we are alone together for several hours every +day. To-day he suddenly turned to me with his vibrant voice and said: + +“You love this woman?” + +“Yes.” + +“I also love her.” His eyes were bathed in tears. He remained silent +for a while, and continued painting. + +“We have a mountain at home in Germany within which she dwells,” he +murmured to himself. “She is a demon.” + +* * * * * + +The picture is finished. She insisted on paying him for it, +munificently, in the manner of queens. + +“Oh, you have already paid me,” he said, with a tormented smile, +refusing her offer. + +Before he left, he secretly opened his portfolio, and let me look +inside. I was startled. Her head looked at me as if out of a mirror and +seemed actually to be alive. + +“I shall take it along,” he said, “it is mine; she can’t take it away +from me. I have earned it with my heart’s blood.” + +* * * * * + +“I am really rather sorry for the poor painter,” she said to me to-day, +“it is absurd to be as virtuous as I am. Don’t you think so too?” + +I did not dare to reply to her. + +“Oh, I forgot that I am talking with a slave; I need some fresh air, I +want to be diverted, I want to forget. + +“The carriage, quick!” + +Her new dress is extravagant: Russian half-boots of violet-blue velvet +trimmed with ermine, and a skirt of the same material, decorated with +narrow stripes and rosettes of furs. Above it is an appropriate, +close-fitting jacket, also richly trimmed and lined with ermine. The +headdress is a tall cap of ermine of the style of Catherine the Second, +with a small aigrette, held in place by a diamond-agraffe; her red hair +falls loose down her back. She ascends on the driver’s seat, and holds +the reins herself; I take my seat behind. How she lashes on the horses! +The carriage flies along like mad. + +Apparently it is her intention to attract attention to-day, to make +conquests, and she succeeds completely. She is the lioness of the +Cascine. People nod to her from carriages; on the footpath people +gather in groups to discuss her. She pays no attention to anyone, +except now and then acknowledging the greetings of elderly gentlemen +with a slight nod. + +Suddenly a young man on a lithe black horse dashes up at full speed. As +soon as he sees Wanda, he stops his horse and makes it walk. When he is +quite close, he stops entirely and lets her pass. And she too sees +him—the lioness, the lion. Their eyes meet. She madly drives past him, +but she cannot tear herself free from the magic power of his look, and +she turns her head after him. + +My heart stops when I see the half-surprised, half-enraptured look with +which she devours him, but he is worthy of it. + +For he is, indeed, a magnificent specimen of man, No, rather, he is a +man whose like I have never yet seen among the living. He is in the +Belvedere, graven in marble, with the same slender, yet steely +musculature, with the same face and the same waving curls. What makes +him particularly beautiful is that he is beardless. If his hips were +less narrow, one might take him for a woman in disguise. The curious +expression about the mouth, the lion’s lip which slightly discloses the +teeth beneath, lends a flashing tinge of cruelty to the beautiful face— + +Apollo flaying Marsyas. + +He wears high black boots, closely fitting breeches of white leather, +short fur coat of black cloth, of the kind worn by Italian cavalry +officers, trimmed with astrakhan and many rich loops; on his black +locks is a red fez. + +I now understand the masculine Eros, and I marvel at Socrates for +having remained virtuous in view of an Alcibiades like this. + +* * * * * + +I have never seen my lioness so excited. Her cheeks flamed when she +left from the carriage at her villa. She hurried upstairs, and with an +imperious gesture ordered me to follow. + +Walking up and down her room with long strides, she began to talk so +rapidly, that I was frightened. + +“You are to find out who the man in the Cascine was, immediately— + +“Oh, what a man! Did you see him? What do you think of him? Tell me.” + +“The man is beautiful,” I replied dully. + +“He is so beautiful,” she paused, supporting herself on the arm of a +chair, “that he has taken my breath away.” + +“I can understand the impression he has made on you,” I replied, my +imagination carrying me away in a mad whirl. “I am quite lost in +admiration myself, and I can imagine—” + +“You may imagine,” she laughed aloud, “that this man is my lover, and +that he will apply the lash to you, and that you will enjoy being +punished by him. + +“But now go, go.” + +* * * * * + +Before evening fell, I had the desired information. + +Wanda was still fully dressed when I returned. She reclined on the +ottoman, her face buried in her hands, her hair in a wild tangle, like +the red mane of a lioness. + +“What is his name?” she asked, uncanny calm. + +“Alexis Papadopolis.” + +“A Greek, then,” + +I nodded. + +“He is very young?” + +“Scarcely older than you. They say he was educated in Paris, and that +he is an atheist. He fought against the Turks in Candia, and is said to +have distinguished himself there no less by his race-hatred and +cruelty, than by his bravery.” + +“All in all, then, a man,” she cried with sparkling eyes. + +“At present he is living in Florence,” I continued, “he is said to be +tremendously rich—” + +“I didn’t ask you about that,” she interrupted quickly and sharply. +“The man is dangerous. Aren’t you afraid of him? I am afraid of him. +Has he a wife?” + +“No.” + +“A mistress?” + +“No.” + +“What theaters does he attend?” + +“To-night he will be at the Nicolini Theater, where Virginia Marini and +Salvini are acting; they are the greatest living artists in Italy, +perhaps in Europe. + +“See that you get a box—and be quick about it!” she commanded. + +“But, mistress—” + +“Do you want a taste of the whip?” + +* * * * * + +“You can wait down in the lobby,” she said when I had placed the +opera-glasses and the programme on the edge of her box and adjusted the +footstool. + +I am standing there and had to lean against the wall for support so as +not to fall down with envy and rage—no, rage isn’t the right word; it +was a mortal fear. + +I saw her in her box dressed in blue moire, with a huge ermine cloak +about her bare shoulders; he sat opposite. I saw them devour each other +with their eyes. For both of them the stage, Goldoni’s _Pamela,_ +Salvini, Marini, the public, even the entire world, were non-existant +to-night. And I—what was I at that moment?— + +* * * * * + +To-day she is attending the ball at the Greek ambassador’s. Does she +know, that she will meet him there? + +At any rate she dressed, as if she did. A heavy sea-green silk dress +plastically encloses her divine form, leaving the bust and arms bare. +In her hair, which is done into a single flaming knot, a white +water-lily blossoms; from it the leaves of reeds interwoven with a few +loose strands fall down toward her neck. There no longer is any trace +of agitation or trembling feverishness in her being. She is calm, so +calm, that I feel my blood congealing and my heart growing cold under +her glance. Slowly, with a weary, indolent majesty, she ascends the +marble staircase, lets her precious wrap slide off, and listlessly +enters the hall, where the smoke of a hundred candles has formed a +silvery mist. + +For a few moments my eyes follow her in a daze, then I pick up her +furs, which without my being aware, had slipped from my hands. They are +still warm from her shoulders. + +I kiss the spot, and my eyes fill with tears. + +* * * * * + +He has arrived. + +In his black velvet coat extravagantly trimmed with sable, he is a +beautiful, haughty despot who plays with the lives and souls of men. He +stands in the ante-room, looking around proudly, and his eyes rest on +me for an uncomfortably long time. + +Under his icy glance I am again seized by a mortal fear. I have a +presentiment that this man can enchain her, captivate her, subjugate +her, and I feel inferior in contrast with his savage masculinity; I am +filled with envy, with jealousy. + +I feel that I am a queer weakly creature of brains, merely! And what is +most humiliating, I want to hate him, but I can’t. Why is that among +all the host of servants he has chosen me. + +With an inimitably aristocratic nod of the head he calls me over to +him, and I—I obey his call—against my own will. + +“Take my furs,” he quickly commands. + +My entire body trembles with resentment, but I obey, abjectly like a +slave. + +* * * * * + +All night long I waited in the ante-room, raving as in a fever. Strange +images hovered past my inner eye. I saw their meeting—their long +exchange of looks. I saw her float through the hall in his arms, +drunken, lying with half-closed lids against his breast. I saw him in +the holy of holies of love, lying on the ottoman, not as slave, but as +master, and she at his feet. On my knees I served them, the tea-tray +faltering in my hands, and I saw him reach for the whip. But now the +servants are talking about him. + +He is a man who is like a woman; he knows that he is beautiful, and he +acts accordingly. He changes his clothes four or five times a day, like +a vain courtesan. + +In Paris he appeared first in woman’s dress, and the men assailed him +with love-letters. An Italian singer, famous equally for his art and +his passionate intensity, even invaded his home, and lying on his knees +before him threatened to commit suicide if he wouldn’t be his. + +“I am sorry,” he replied, smiling, “I should like to do you the favor, +but you will have to carry out your threat, for I am a man.” + +* * * * * + +The drawing-room has already thinned out to a marked degree, but she +apparently has no thought of leaving. + +Morning is already peering through the blinds. + +At last I hear the rustling of her heavy gown which flows along behind +her like green waves. She advances step by step, engaged in +conversation with him. + +I hardly exist for her any longer; she doesn’t even trouble to give me +an order. + +“The cloak for madame,” he commands. He, of course, doesn’t think of +looking after her himself. + +While I put her furs about her, he stands to one side with his arms +crossed. While I am on my knees putting on her fur over-shoes, she +lightly supports herself with her hand on his shoulder. She asks: + +“And what about the lioness?” + +“When the lion whom she has chosen and with whom she lives is attacked +by another,” the Greek went on with his narrative, “the lioness quietly +lies down and watches the battle. Even if her mate is worsted she does +not go to his aid. She looks on indifferently as he bleeds to death +under his opponent’s claws, and follows the victor, the stronger—that +is the female’s nature.” + +At this moment my lioness looked quickly and curiously at me. + +It made me shudder, though I didn’t know why—and the red dawn immerses +me and her and him in blood. + +* * * * * + +She did not go to bed, but merely threw off her ball-dress and undid +her hair; then she ordered me to build a fire, and she sat by the +fire-place, and stared into the flames. + +“Do you need me any longer, mistress?” I asked, my voice failed me at +the last word. + +Wanda shook her head. + +I left the room, passed through the gallery, and sat down on one of the +steps, leading from there down into the garden. A gentle north wind +brought a fresh, damp coolness from the Arno, the green hills extended +into the distance in a rosy mist, a golden haze hovered over the city, +over the round cupola of the Duomo. + +A few stars still tremble in the pale-blue sky. + +I tore open my coat, and pressed my burning forehead against the +marble. Everything that had happened so far seemed to me a mere child’s +play; but now things were beginning to be serious, terribly serious. + +I anticipated a catastrophe, I visualized it, I could lay hold of it +with my hands, but I lacked the courage to meet it. My strength was +broken. And if I am honest with myself, neither the pains and +sufferings that threatened me, not the humiliations that impended, were +the thing that frightened me. + +I merely felt a fear, the fear of losing her whom I loved with a sort +of fanatical devotion; but it was so overwhelming, so crushing that I +suddenly began to sob like a child. + +* * * * * + +During the day she remained locked in her room, and had the negress +attend her. When the evening star rose glowing in the blue sky, I saw +her pass through the garden, and, carefully following her at a +distance, watched her enter the shrine of Venus. I stealthily followed +and peered through the chink in the door. + +She stood before the divine image of the goddess, her hands folded as +in prayer, and the sacred light of the star of love casts its blue rays +over her. + +* * * * * + +On my couch at night the fear of losing her and despair took such +powerful hold of me that they made a hero and a libertine of me. I +lighted the little red oil-lamp which hung in the corridor beneath a +saint’s image, and entered her bedroom, covering the light with one +hand. + +The lioness had been hunted and driven until she was exhausted. She had +fallen asleep among her pillows, lying on her back, her hands clenched, +breathing heavily. A dream seemed to oppress her. I slowly withdrew my +hand, and let the red light fall full on her wonderful face. + +But she did not awaken. + +I gently set the lamp on the floor, sank down beside Wanda’s bed, and +rested my head on her soft, glowing arm. + +She moved slightly, but even now did not awaken. I do not know how long +I lay thus in the middle of the night, turned as into a stone by +horrible torments. + +Finally a severe trembling seized me, and I was able to cry. My tears +flowed over her arm. She quivered several times and finally sat up; she +brushed her hand across her eyes, and looked at me. + +“Severin,” she exclaimed, more frightened than angry. + +I was unable to reply. + +“Severin,” she continued softly, “what is the matter? Are you ill?” + +Her voice sounded so sympathetic, so kind, so full of love, that it +clutched my breast like red-hot tongs and I began to sob aloud. + +“Severin,” she began anew. “My poor unhappy friend.” Her hand gently +stroked my hair. “I am sorry, very sorry for you; but I can’t help you; +with the best intention in the world I know of nothing that would cure +you.” + +“Oh, Wanda, must it be?” I moaned in my agony. + +“What, Severin? What are you talking about?” + +“Don’t you love me any more?” I continued. “Haven’t you even a little +bit of pity for me? Has the beautiful stranger taken complete +possession of you?” + +“I cannot lie,” she replied softly after a short pause. “He has made an +impression on me which I haven’t yet been able to analyse, further than +that I suffer and tremble beneath it. It is an impression of the sort I +have met with in the works of poets or on the stage, but I always +thought it was a figment of the imagination. Oh, he is a man like a +lion, strong and beautiful and yet gentle, not brutal like the men of +our northern world. I am sorry for you, Severin, I am; but I must +possess him. What am I saying? I must give myself to him, if he will +have me.” + +“Consider your reputation, Wanda, which so far has remained spotless,” +I exclaimed, “even if I no longer mean anything to you.” + +“I am considering it,” she replied, “I intend to be strong, as long as +it is possible, I want—” she buried her head shyly in the pillows—“I +want to become his wife—if he will have me.” + +“Wanda,” I cried, seized again by that mortal fear, which always robs +me of my breath, makes me lose possession of myself, “you want to be +his wife, belong to him for always. Oh! Do not drive me away! He does +not love you—” + +“Who says that?” she exclaimed, flaring up. + +“He does not love you,” I went on passionately, “but I love you, I +adore you, I am your slave, I let you tread me underfoot, I want to +carry you on my arms through life.” + +“Who says that he doesn’t love me?” she interrupted vehemently. + +“Oh! be mine,” I replied, “be mine! I cannot exist, cannot live without +you. Have mercy on me, Wanda, have mercy!” + +She looked at me again, and her face had her cold heartless expression, +her evil smile. + +“You say he doesn’t love me,” she said, scornfully. “Very well then, +get what consolation you can out of it.” + +With this she turned over on the other side, and contemptuously showed +me her back. + +“Good God, are you a woman without flesh or blood, haven’t you a heart +as well as I!” I cried, while my breast heaved convulsively. + +“You know what I am,” she replied, coldly. “I am a woman of stone, +_Venus in Furs_, your ideal, kneel down, and pray to me.” + +“Wanda!” I implored, “mercy!” + +She began to laugh. I buried my face in her pillows. Pain had loosened +the floodgates of my tears and I let them flow. + +For a long time silence reigned, then Wanda slowly raised herself. + +“You bore me,” she began. + +“Wanda!” + +“I am tired, let me go to sleep.” + +“Mercy,” I implored. “Do not drive me away. No man, no one, will love +you as I do.” + +“Let me go to sleep,”—she turned her back to me again. + +I leaped up, and snatched the poinard, which hung beside her bed, from +its sheath, and placed its point against my breast. + +“I shall kill myself here before your eyes,” I murmured dully. + +“Do what you please,” Wanda replied with complete indifference. “But +let me go to sleep.” She yawned aloud. “I am very sleepy.” + +For a moment I stood as if petrified. Then I began to laugh and cry at +the same time. Finally I placed the poinard in my belt, and again fell +on my knees before her. + +“Wanda, listen to me, only for a few moments,” I begged. + +“I want to go to sleep! Don’t you hear!” she cried, leaping angrily out +of bed and pushing me away with her foot. “You forget that I am your +mistress?” When I didn’t budge, she seized the whip and struck me. I +rose; she struck me again—this time right in the face. + +“Wretch, slave!” + +With clenched fist held heavenward, I left her bedroom with a sudden +resolve. She tossed the whip aside, and broke out into clear laughter. +I can imagine that my theatrical attitude must have been very droll. + +* * * * * + +I have determined to set myself free from this heartless woman, who has +treated me so cruelly, and is now about to break faith and betray me, +as a reward for all my slavish devotion, for everything I have suffered +from her. I packed my few belongings into a bundle, and then wrote her +as follows: + +“Dear Madam,— + +I have loved you even to madness, I have given myself to you as no man +ever has given himself to a woman. You have abused my most sacred +emotions, and played an impudent, frivolous game with me. However, as +long as you were merely cruel and merciless, it was still possible for +me to love you. Now you are about to become _cheap_. I am no longer the +slave whom you can kick about and whip. You yourself have set me free, +and I am leaving a woman I can only hate and despise. + +Severin Kusiemski.” + +I handed these lines to the negress, and hastened away as fast as I +could go. I arrived at the railway-station all out of breath. Suddenly +I felt a sharp pain in my heart and stopped. I began to weep. It is +humiliating that I want to flee and I can’t. I turn back—whither?—to +her, whom I abhor, and yet, at the same time, adore. + +Again I pause. I cannot go back. I dare not. + +But how am I to leave Florence. I remember that I haven’t any money, +not a penny. Very well then, on foot; it is better to be an honest +beggar than to eat the bread of a courtesan. + +But still I can’t leave. + +She has my pledge, my word of honor. I have to return. Perhaps she will +release me. + +After a few rapid strides, I stop again. + +She has my word of honor and my bond, that I shall remain her slave as +long as she desires, until she herself gives me my freedom. But I might +kill myself. + +I go through the Cascine down to the Arno, where its yellow waters +plash monotonously about a couple of stray willows. There I sit, and +cast up my final accounts with existence. I let my entire life pass +before me in review. On the whole, it is rather a wretched affair—a few +joys, an endless number of indifferent and worthless things, and +between these an abundant harvest of pains, miseries, fears, +disappointments, shipwrecked hopes, afflictions, sorrow and grief. + +I thought of my mother, whom I loved so deeply and whom I had to watch +waste away beneath a horrible disease; of my brother, who full of the +promise of joy and happiness died in the flower of youth, without even +having put his lips to the cup of life. I thought of my dead nurse, my +childhood playmates, the friends that had striven and studied with me; +of all those, covered by the cold, dead, indifferent earth. I thought +of my turtle-dove, who not infrequently made his cooing bows to me, +instead of to his mate.—All have returned, dust unto dust. + +I laughed aloud, and slid down into the water, but at the same moment I +caught hold of one of the willow-branches, hanging above the yellow +waves. As in a vision, I see the woman who has caused all my misery. +She hovers above the level of the water, luminous in the sunlight as +though she were transparent, with red flames about her head and neck. +She turns her face toward me and smiles. + +* * * * * + +I am back again, dripping, wet through, glowing with shame and fever. +The negress has delivered my letter; I am judged, lost, in the power of +a heartless, affronted woman. + +Well, let her kill me. I am unable to do it myself, and yet I have no +wish to go on living. + +As I walk around the house, she is standing in the gallery, leaning +over the railing. Her face is full in the light of the sun, and her +green eyes sparkle. + +“Still alive?” she asked, without moving. I stood silent, with bowed +head. + +“Give me back my poinard,” she continued. “It is of no use to you. You +haven’t even the courage to take your own life.” + +“I have lost it,” I replied, trembling, shaken by chills. + +She looked me over with a proud, scornful glance. + +“I suppose you lost it in the Arno?” She shrugged her shoulders. “No +matter. Well, and why didn’t you leave?” + +I mumbled something which neither she nor I myself could understand. + +“Oh! you haven’t any money,” she cried. “Here!” With an indescribably +disdainful gesture she tossed me her purse. + +I did not pick it up. + +Both of us were silent for some time. + +“You don’t want to leave then?” + +“I can’t.” + +* * * * * + +Wanda drives in the Cascine without me, and goes to the theater without +me; she receives company, and the negress serves her. No one asks after +me. I stray about the garden, irresolutely, like an animal that has +lost its master. + +Lying among the bushes, I watch a couple of sparrows, fighting over a +seed. + +Suddenly I hear the swish of a woman’s dress. + +Wanda approaches in a gown of dark silk, modestly closed up to the +neck; the Greek is with her. They are in an eager discussion, but I +cannot as yet understand a word of what they are saying. He stamps his +foot so that the gravel scatters about in all directions, and he lashes +the air with his riding whip. Wanda startles. + +Is she afraid that he will strike her? + +Have they gone that far? + +He has left her, she calls him; he does not hear her, does not want to +hear her. + +Wanda sadly lowers her head, and then sits down on the nearest +stone-bench. She sits for a long time, lost in thought. I watch her +with a sort of malevolent pleasure, finally I pull myself together by +sheer force of will, and ironically step before her. She startles, and +trembles all over. + +“I come to wish you happiness,” I said, bowing, “I see, my dear lady, +too, has found a master.” + +“Yes, thank God!” she exclaimed, “not a new slave, I have had enough of +them. A master! Woman needs a master, and she adores him.” + +“You adore him, Wanda?” I cried, “this brutal person—” + +“Yes, I love him, as I have never loved any one else.” + +“Wanda!” I clenched my fists, but tears already filled my eyes, and I +was seized by the delirium of passion, as by a sweet madness. “Very +well, take him as your husband, let him be your master, but I want to +remain your slave, as long as I live.” + +“You want to remain my slave, even then?” she said, “that would be +interesting, but I am afraid he wouldn’t permit it.” + +“He?” + +“Yes, he is already jealous of you,” she exclaimed, “he, of you! He +demanded that I dismiss you immediately, and when I told him who you +were—” + +“You told him—” I repeated, thunderstruck. + +“I told him everything,” she replied, “our whole story, all your +queerness, everything—and he, instead of being amused, grew angry, and +stamped his foot.” + +“And threatened to strike you?” + +Wanda looked to the ground, and remained silent. + +“Yes, indeed,” I said with mocking bitterness, “you are afraid of him, +Wanda!” I threw myself down at her feet, and in my agitation embraced +her knees. “I don’t want anything of you, except to be your slave, to +be always near you! I will be your dog-” + +“Do you know, you bore me?” said Wanda, indifferently. + +I leaped up. Everything within me was seething. + +“You are now no longer cruel, but cheap,” I said, clearly and +distinctly, accentuating every word. + +“You have already written that in your letter,” Wanda replied, with a +proud shrug of the shoulders. “A man of brains should never repeat +himself.” + +“The way you are treating me,” I broke out, “what would you call it?” + +“I might punish you,” she replied ironically, “but I prefer this time +to reply with reasons instead of lashes. You have no right to accuse +me. Haven’t I always been honest with you? Haven’t I warned you more +than once? Didn’t I love you with all my heart, even passionately, and +did I conceal the fact from you, that it was dangerous to give yourself +into my power, to abase yourself before me, and that I want to be +dominated? But you wished to be my plaything, my slave! You found the +highest pleasure in feeling the foot, the whip of an arrogant, cruel +woman. What do you want now? + +“Dangerous potentialities were slumbering in me, but you were the first +to awaken them. If I now take pleasure in torturing you, abusing you, +it is your fault; you have made of me what I now am, and now you are +even unmanly, weak, and miserable enough to accuse me.” + +“Yes, I am guilty,” I said, “but haven’t I suffered because of it? Let +us put an end now to the cruel game.” + +“That is my wish, too,” she replied with a curious deceitful look. + +“Wanda!” I exclaimed violently, “don’t drive me to extremes; you see +that I am a man again.” + +“A fire of straw,” she replied, “which makes a lot of stir for a +moment, and goes out as quickly as it flared up. You imagine you can +intimidate me, and you only make yourself ridiculous. Had you been the +man I first thought you were, serious, reserved, stern, I would have +loved you faithfully, and become your wife. Woman demands that she can +look up to a man, but one like you who voluntarily places his neck +under her foot, she uses as a welcome plaything, only to toss it aside +when she is tired of it.” + +“Try to toss me aside,” I said, jeeringly. “Some toys are dangerous.” + +“Don’t challenge me,” exclaimed Wanda. Her eyes began to flash, and a +flush entered her cheeks. + +“If you won’t be mine now,” I continued, with a voice stifled with +rage, “no one else shall possess you either.” + +“What play is this from?” she mocked, seizing me by the breast. She was +pale with anger at this moment. “Don’t challenge me,” she continued, “I +am not cruel, but I don’t know whether I may not become so and whether +then there will be any bounds.” + +“What worse can you do, than to make your lover, your husband?” I +exclaimed, more and more enraged. + +“I might make you _his_ slave,” she replied quickly, “are you not in my +power? Haven’t I the agreement? But, of course, you will merely take +pleasure in it, if I have you bound, and say to him. + +“Do with him what you please.” + +“Woman, are you mad!” I cried. + +“I am entirely rational,” she said, calmly. “I warn you for the last +time. Don’t offer any resistance, one who has gone as far as I have +gone might easily go still further. I feel a sort of hatred for you, +and would find a real joy in seeing him beat you to death; I am still +restraining myself, but—” + +Scarcely master of myself any longer, I seized her by the wrist and +forced her to the ground, so that she lay on her knees before me. + +“Severin!” she cried. Rage and terror were painted on her face. + +“I shall kill you if you marry him,” I threatened; the words came +hoarsely and dully from my breast. “You are mine, I won’t let you go, I +love you too much.” Then I clutched her and pressed her close to me; my +right hand involuntarily seized the dagger which I still had in my +belt. + +Wanda fixed a large, calm, incomprehensible look on me. + +“I like you that way,” she said, carelessly. “Now you are a man, and at +this moment I know I still love you.” + +“Wanda,” I wept with rapture, and bent down over her, covering her dear +face with kisses, and she, suddenly breaking into a loud gay laugh, +said, “Have you finished with your ideal now, are you satisfied with +me?” + +“You mean?” I stammered, “that you weren’t serious?” + +“I am very serious,” she gaily continued. “I love you, only you, and +you—you foolish, little man, didn’t know that everything was only +make-believe and play-acting. How hard it often was for me to strike +you with the whip, when I would have rather taken your head and covered +it with kisses. But now we are through with that, aren’t we? I have +played my cruel role better than you expected, and now you will be +satisfied with my being a good, little wife who isn’t altogether +unattractive. Isn’t that so? We will live like rational people—” + +“You will marry me!” I cried, overflowing with happiness. + +“Yes—marry you—you dear, darling man,” whispered Wanda, kissing my +hands. + +I drew her up to my breast. + +“Now, you are no longer Gregor, my slave,” said she, “but Severin, the +dear man I love—” + +“And he—you don’t love him?” I asked in agitation. + +“How could you imagine my loving a man of his brutal type? You were +blind to everything, I was really afraid for you.” + +“I almost killed myself for your sake.” + +“Really?” she cried, “ah, I still tremble at the thought, that you were +already in the Arno.” + +“But you saved me,” I replied, tenderly. “You hovered over the waters +and smiled, and your smile called me back to life.” + +* * * * * + +I have a curious feeling when I now hold her in my arms and she lies +silently against my breast and lets me kiss her and smiles. I feel like +one who has suddenly awakened out of a feverish delirium, or like a +shipwrecked man who has for many days battled with waves that +momentarily threatened to devour him and finally has found a safe +shore. + +* * * * * + +“I hate this Florence, where you have been so unhappy,” she declared, +as I was saying good-night to her. “I want to leave immediately, +tomorrow, you will be good enough to write a couple of letters for me, +and, while you are doing that, I will drive to the city to pay my +farewell visits. Is that satisfactory to you?” + +“Of course, you dear, sweet, beautiful woman.” + +* * * * * + +Early in the morning she knocked at my door to ask how I had slept. Her +tenderness is positively wonderful. I should never have believed that +she could be so tender. + +* * * * * + +She has now been gone for over four hours. I have long since finished +the letters, and am now sitting in the gallery, looking down the street +to see whether I cannot discover her carriage in the distance. I am a +little worried about her, and yet I know there is no reason under +heaven why I should doubt or fear. However, a feeling of oppression +weighs me down, and I cannot rid myself of it. It is probably the +sufferings of the past days, which still cast their shadows into my +soul. + +* * * * * + +She is back, radiant with happiness and contentment. + +“Well, has everything gone as you wished?” I asked tenderly, kissing +her hand. + +“Yes, dear heart,” she replied, “and we shall leave to-night. Help me +pack my trunks.” + +* * * * * + +Toward evening she asked me to go to the post-office and mail her +letters myself. I took her carriage, and was back within an hour. + +“Mistress has asked for you,” said the negress, with a grin, as I +ascended the wide marble stairs. + +“Has anyone been here?” + +“No one,” she replied, crouching down on the steps like a black cat. + +I slowly passed through the drawing-room, and then stood before her +bedroom door. + +Why does my heart beat so? Am I not perfectly happy? + +Opening the door softly, I draw back the portiere. Wanda is lying on +the ottoman, and does not seem to notice me. How beautiful she looks, +in her silver-gray dress, which fits closely, and while displaying in +tell-tale fashion her splendid figure, leaves her wonderful bust and +arms bare. + +Her hair is interwoven with, and held up by a black velvet ribbon. A +mighty fire is burning in the fire-place, the hanging lamp casts a +reddish glow, and the whole room is as if drowned in blood. + +“Wanda,” I said at last. + +“Oh Severin,” she cried out joyously. “I have been impatiently waiting +for you.” She leaped up, and folded me in her arms. She sat down again +on the rich cushions and tried to draw me down to her side, but I +softly slid down to her feet and placed my head in her lap. + +“Do you know I am very much in love with you to-day?” she whispered, +brushing a few stray hairs from my forehead and kissing my eyes. + +“How beautiful your eyes are, I have always loved them as the best of +you, but to-day they fairly intoxicate me. I am all—” She extended her +magnificent limbs and tenderly looked at me from beneath her red +lashes. + +“And you—you are cold—you hold me like a block of wood; wait, I’ll stir +you with the fire of love,” she said, and again clung fawningly and +caressingly to my lips. + +“I no longer please you; I suppose I’ll have to be cruel to you again, +evidently I have been too kind to you to-day. Do you know, you little +fool, what I shall do, I shall whip you for a while—” + +“But child—” + +“I want to.” + +“Wanda!” + +“Come, let me bind you,” she continued, and ran gaily through the room. +“I want to see you very much in love, do you understand? Here are the +ropes. I wonder if I can still do it?” + +She began with fettering my feet and then she tied my hands behind my +back, pinioning my arms like those of a prisoner. + +“So,” she said, with gay eagerness. “Can you still move?” + +“No.” + +“Fine—” + +She then tied a noose in a stout rope, threw it over my head, and let +it slip down as far as the hips. She drew it tight, and bound me to a +pillar. + +A curious tremor seized me at that moment. + +“I have a feeling as if I were about to be executed,” I said with a low +voice. + +“Well, you shall have a thorough punishment to-day,” exclaimed Wanda. + +“But put on your fur-jacket, please,” I said. + +“I shall gladly give you that pleasure,” she replied. She got her +_kazabaika_, and put it on. Then she stood in front of me with her arms +folded across her chest, and looked at me out of half-closed eyes. + +“Do you remember the story of the ox of Dionysius?” she asked. + +“I remember it only vaguely, what about it?” + +“A courtier invented a new implement of torture for the Tyrant of +Syracuse. It was an iron ox in which those condemned to death were to +be shut, and then pushed into a mighty furnace. + +“As soon as the iron ox began to get hot, and the condemned person +began to cry out in his torment, his wails sounded like the bellowing +of an ox. + +“Dionysius nodded graciously to the inventor, and to put his invention +to an immediate test had him shut up in the iron ox. + +“It is a very instructive story. + +“It was you who innoculated me with selfishness, pride, and cruelty, +and _you shall be their first victim._ I now literally enjoy having a +human being that thinks and feels and desires like myself in my power; +I love to abuse a man who is stronger in intelligence and body than I, +especially a man who loves me. + +“Do you still love me?” + +“Even to madness,” I exclaimed. + +“So much the better,” she replied, “and so much the more will you enjoy +what I am about to do with you now.” + +“What is the matter with you?” I asked. “I don’t understand you, there +is a gleam of real cruelty in your eyes to-day, and you are strangely +beautiful—completely _Venus in Furs.”_ + +Without replying Wanda placed her arms around my neck and kissed me. I +was again seized by my fanatical passion. + +“Where is the whip?” I asked. + +Wanda laughed, and withdrew a couple of steps. + +“You really insist upon being punished?” she exclaimed, proudly tossing +back her head. + +“Yes.” + +Suddenly Wanda’s face was completely transformed. It was as if +disfigured by rage; for a moment she seemed even ugly to me. + +“Very well, then _you_ whip him!” she called loudly. + +At the same instant the beautiful Greek stuck his head of black curls +through the curtains of her four-poster bed. At first I was speechless, +petrified. There was a horribly comic element in the situation. I would +have laughed aloud, had not my position been at the same time so +terribly cruel and humiliating. + +It went beyond anything I had imagined. A cold shudder ran down my +back, when my rival stepped from the bed in his riding boots, his +tight-fitting white breeches, and his short velvet jacket, and I saw +his athletic limbs. + +“You are indeed cruel,” he said, turning to Wanda. + +“Only inordinately fond of pleasure,” she replied with a wild sort of +humor. “Pleasure alone lends value to existence; whoever enjoys does +not easily part from life, whoever suffers or is needy meets death like +a friend. + +“But whoever wants to enjoy must take life gaily in the sense of the +ancient world; he dare not hesitate to enjoy at the expense of others; +he must never feel pity; he must be ready to harness others to his +carriage or his plough as though they were animals. He must know how to +make slaves of men who feel and would enjoy as he does, and use them +for his service and pleasure without remorse. It is not his affair +whether they like it, or whether they go to rack and ruin. He must +always remember this, that if they had him in their power, as he has +them they would act in exactly the same way, and he would have to pay +for their pleasure with his sweat and blood and soul. That was the +world of the ancients: pleasure and cruelty, liberty and slavery went +hand in hand. People who want to live like the gods of Olympus must of +necessity have slaves whom they can toss into their fish-ponds, and +gladiators who will do battle, the while they banquet, and they must +not mind if by chance a bit of blood bespatters them.” + +Her words brought back my complete self-possession. + +“Unloosen me!” I exclaimed angrily. + +“Aren’t you my slave, my property?” replied Wanda. “Do you want me to +show you the agreement?” + +“Untie me!” I threatened, “otherwise—” I tugged at the ropes. + +“Can he tear himself free?” she asked. “He has threatened to kill me.” + +“Be entirely at ease,” said the Greek, testing my fetters. + +“I shall call for help,” I began again. + +“No one will hear you,” replied Wanda, “and no one will hinder me from +abusing your most sacred emotions or playing a frivolous game with +you.” she continued, repeating with satanic mockery phrases from my +letter to her. + +“Do you think I am at this moment merely cruel and merciless, or am I +also about to become cheap? What? Do you still love me, or do you +already hate and despise me? Here is the whip—” She handed it to the +Greek who quickly stepped closer. + +“Don’t you dare!” I exclaimed, trembling with indignation, “I won’t +permit it—” + +“Oh, because I don’t wear furs,” the Greek replied with an ironical +smile, and he took his short sable from the bed. + +“You are adorable,” exclaimed Wanda, kissing him, and helping him into +his furs. + +“May I really whip him?” he asked. + +“Do with him what you please,” replied Wanda. + +“Beast!” I exclaimed, utterly revolted. + +The Greek fixed his cold tigerish look upon me and tried out the whip. +His muscles swelled when he drew back his arms, and made the whip hiss +through the air. I was bound like Marsyas while Apollo was getting +ready to flay me. + +My look wandered about the room and remained fixed on the ceiling, +where Samson, lying at Delilah’s feet, was about to have his eyes put +out by the Philistines. The picture at that moment seemed to me like a +symbol, an eternal parable of passion and lust, of the love of man for +woman. “Each one of us in the end is a Samson,” I thought, “and +ultimately for better or worse is betrayed by the woman he loves, +whether he wears an ordinary coat or sables.” + +“Now watch me break him in,” said the Greek. He showed his teeth, and +his face acquired the blood-thirsty expression, which startled me the +first time I saw him. + +And he began to apply the lash—so mercilessly, with such frightful +force that I quivered under each blow, and began to tremble all over +with pain. Tears rolled down over my cheeks. In the meantime Wanda lay +on the ottoman in her fur-jacket, supporting herself on her arm; she +looked on with cruel curiosity, and was convulsed with laughter. + +The sensation of being whipped by a successful rival before the eyes of +an adored woman cannot be described. I almost went mad with shame and +despair. + +What was most humiliating was that at first I felt a certain wild, +supersensual stimulation under Apollo’s whip and the cruel laughter of +my Venus, no matter how horrible my position was. But Apollo whipped on +and on, blow after blow, until I forgot all about poetry, and finally +gritted my teeth in impotent rage, and cursed my wild dreams, woman, +and love. + +All of a sudden I saw with horrible clarity whither blind passion and +lust have led man, ever since Holofernes and Agamemnon—into a blind +alley, into the net of woman’s treachery, into misery, slavery, and +death. + +It was as though I were awakening from a dream. + +Blood was already flowing under the whip. I wound like a worm that is +trodden on, but he whipped on without mercy, and she continued to laugh +without mercy. In the meantime she locked her packed trunk and slipped +into her travelling furs, and was still laughing, when she went +downstairs on his arm and entered the carriage. + +Then everything was silent for a moment. + +I listened breathlessly. + +The carriage door slammed, the horse began to pull—the rolling of the +carriage for a short time—then all was over. + +* * * * * + +For a moment I thought of taking vengeance, of killing him, but I was +bound by the abominable agreement. So nothing was left for me to do +except to keep my pledged word and grit my teeth. + +* * * * * + +My first impulse after this, the most cruel catastrophe of my life, was +to seek laborious tasks, dangers, and privations. I wanted to become a +soldier and go to Asia or Algiers, but my father was old and ill and +wanted me. + +So I quietly returned home and for two years helped him bear his +burdens, and learned how to look after the estate which I had never +done before. To _labor_ and to _do my duty_ was comforting like a drink +of fresh water. Then my father died, and I inherited the estate, but it +meant no change. + +I had put on my own Spanish boots and went on living just as rationally +as if the old man were standing behind me, looking over my shoulder +with his large wise eyes. + +One day a box arrived, accompanied by a letter. I recognized Wanda’s +writing. + +Curiously moved, I opened it, and read. + +“Sir.— + +Now that over three years have passed since that night in Florence, I +suppose, I may confess to you that I loved you deeply. You yourself, +however, stifled my love by your fantastic devotion and your insane +passion. From the moment that you became my slave, I knew it would be +impossible for you ever to become my husband. However, I found it +interesting to have you realize your ideal in my own person, and, while +I gloriously amused myself, perhaps, to cure you. + +I found the strong man for whom I felt a need, and I was as happy with +him as, I suppose, it is possible for any one to be on this funny ball +of clay. + +But my happiness, like all things mortal, was of short duration. About +a year ago he fell in a duel, and since then I have been living in +Paris, like an Aspasia— + +And you?—Your life surely is not without its sunshine, if you have +gained control of your imagination, and those qualities in you have +materialized, which at first so attracted me to you—your clarity of +intellect, kindness of heart, and, above all else, your—_moral +seriousness_. + +I hope you have been cured under my whip; the cure was cruel, but +radical. In memory of that time and of a woman who loved you +passionately, I am sending you the portrait by the poor German. + +_Venus in Furs_.” + +I had to smile, and as I fell to musing the beautiful woman suddenly +stood before me in her velvet jacket trimmed with ermine, with the whip +in her hand. And I continued to smile at the woman I had once loved so +insanely, at the fur-jacket that had once so entranced me, at the whip, +and ended by smiling at myself and saying: The cure was cruel, but +radical; but the main point is, I have been cured. + +* * * * * + +“And the moral of the story?” I said to Severin when I put the +manuscript down on the table. + +“That I was a donkey,” he exclaimed without turning around, for he +seemed to be embarrassed. “If only I had beaten her!” + +“A curious remedy,” I exclaimed, “which might answer with your +peasant-women—” + +“Oh, they are used to it,” he replied eagerly, “but imagine the effect +upon one of our delicate, nervous, hysterical ladies—” + +“But the moral?” + +“That woman, as nature has created her and as man is at present +educating her, is his enemy. She can only be his slave or his despot, +but _never his companion._ This she can become only when she has the +same rights as he, and is his equal in education and work. + +“At present we have only the choice of being hammer or anvil, and I was +the kind of donkey who let a woman make a slave of him, do you +understand? + +“The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, +deserves to be whipped. + +“The blows, as you see, have agreed with me; the roseate supersensual +mist has dissolved, and no one can ever make me believe again that +these ‘sacred apes of Benares’6 or Plato’s rooster7 are the image of +God.” + +[Footnote 6: One of Schopenhauer’s designations for women.] + + +[Footnote 7: Diogenes threw a plucked rooster into Plato’s school and +exclaimed: “Here you have Plato’s human being.”] + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VENUS IN FURS *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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