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diff --git a/6852-h/6852-h.htm b/6852-h/6852-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8acff57 --- /dev/null +++ b/6852-h/6852-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9222 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Venus in Furs, by Ritter von Leopold Sacher-Masoch</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Venus in Furs, by Ritter von Leopold Sacher-Masoch</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Venus in Furs</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Ritter von Leopold Sacher-Masoch</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Translator: Fernanda Savage</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: February 2, 2003 [eBook #6852]<br /> +[Most recently updated: April 18, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Avinash Kothare, Tom Allen, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VENUS IN FURS ***</div> + +<h1>Venus in Furs</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Ritter von Leopold Sacher-Masoch</h2> + +<p class="center"> +Of this book, intended for private circulation, only 1225 copies have been +printed, and type afterward distributed. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +Translated from the German +</p> + +<p class="center"> +By +</p> + +<h5>FERNANDA SAVAGE</h5> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">INTRODUCTION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">VENUS IN FURS</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>INTRODUCTION</h2> + +<p> +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, <i>Auf der Höhe</i>, 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 <i>Venus in Furs</i>. Her sensational memoirs which have been the +cause of considerable controversy were published in 1906. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Heritage of Cain</i>. This idea was probably derived +from Balzac’s <i>Comedie Humaine</i>. The whole was to be divided into +six subdivisions with the general titles <i>Love, Property, Money, The State, +War,</i> and <i>Death</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +This extensive plan remained unachieved, and only the first two parts, +<i>Love</i> and <i>Property</i>, were completed. Of the other sections only +fragments remain. The present novel, <i>Venus in Furs</i>, forms the fifth in +the series, <i>Love</i>. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Sacher-Masoch was the poet of the anomaly now generally known as +<i>masochism</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>On the Duty of Historians</i> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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, <i>Über den Wert +der Kritik</i>. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Confessions</i> of Jean +Jacques Rousseau; it explains the character of the chevalier in Prévost’s +<i>Manon l’Escault</i>. Scenes of this nature are found in Zola’s +<i>Nana</i>, in Thomas Otway’s <i>Venice Preserved</i>, in Albert +Juhelle’s <i>Les Pecheurs d’Hommes</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Platres et Marbres</i>, which is +well worth reproducing in this connection: +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Among Sacher-Masoch’s works, <i>Venus in Furs</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>Venus in Furs</i>. +</p> + +<h5>F. S.</h5> + +<p class="letter"> +Atlantic City<br/> +April, 1921 +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>VENUS IN FURS</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>“But the Almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into +the hands of a woman.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +—The Vulgate, Judith, xvi. 7. +</p> + +<p> +My company was charming. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“What, dear lady?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, madame,” I replied flaring up, “I surely haven’t +given you any reason.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were really in love with the costume, and awfully docile.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have taught me what love is. Your serene form of worship let me +forget two thousand years.” +</p> + +<p> +“And my faithfulness to you was without equal!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, as far as faithfulness goes—” +</p> + +<p> +“Ungrateful!” +</p> + +<p> +“I will not reproach you with anything. You are a divine woman, but +nevertheless a woman, and like every woman cruel in love.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can there be any greater cruelty for a lover than the unfaithfulness of +the woman he loves?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is why our emotions are honorable and virtuous, and our relations +permanent.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. <i>As soon as you wish to be natural, +you become common.</i> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +The beautiful marble woman coughed, and drew the dark sables still closer about +her shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“And as a rule the man that of the woman,” cried Madame Venus with +proud mockery, “which you know better than I.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, and that is why I don’t have any illusions.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean you are now my slave without illusions, and for that reason you +shall feel the weight of my foot without mercy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know me yet? Yes, I am <i>cruel</i>—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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly your principles,” I interrupted angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“And in addition wears furs,” exclaimed the divinity. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean by that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know your predilection.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know,” I interrupted, “that, since we last saw each +other, you have grown very coquettish.” +</p> + +<p> +“In what way, may I ask?” +</p> + +<p> +“In that there is no way of accentuating your white body to greater +advantage than by these dark furs, and that—” +</p> + +<p> +The divinity laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Do get up,” continued the good fellow, “it is really +disgraceful.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is disgraceful?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +It was a large oil painting, done in the robust full-bodied manner of the +Belgian school. Its subject was strange enough. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Venus in Furs</i>,” I cried, pointing to the picture. +“That is the way I saw her in my dream.” +</p> + +<p> +“I, too,” said Severin, “only I dreamed my dream with open +eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a tiresome story.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look at its counterpart,” replied my strange friend, without +heeding my question. +</p> + +<p> +The counterpart was an excellent copy of Titian’s well-known “Venus +with the Mirror” in the Dresden Gallery. +</p> + +<p> +“And what is the significance?” +</p> + +<p> +Severin rose and pointed with his finger at the fur with which Titian garbed +his goddess of love. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +Severin laughed, and lighted a fresh cigarette. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t I tell you that I want them soft-boiled?” he cried +with a violence that made the young woman tremble. +</p> + +<p> +“But my dear Sevtchu—” she said timidly. +</p> + +<p> +“Sevtchu, nothing,” he yelled, “you are to obey, obey, do you +understand?” and he tore the <i>kantchuk</i><sup>1</sup> which was +hanging beside the weapons from its hook. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote 1: A long whip with a short handle.] +</p> + +<p> +The woman fled from the chamber quickly and timidly like a doe. +</p> + +<p> +“Just wait, I’ll get you yet,” he called after her. +</p> + +<p> +“But Severin,” I said placing my hand on his arm, “how can +you treat a pretty young woman thus?” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>kantchuk</i>, she adores me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense, nothing, that is the way you have to break in women.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if you like it, live like a pasha in your harem, but don’t +lay down theories for me—” +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<i>tyrant</i> over or the <i>slave</i> of woman. As soon as he gives in, his +neck is under the yoke, and the lash will soon fall upon him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Strange maxims!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not maxims, but experiences,” he replied, nodding his head, +“<i>I have actually felt the lash</i>. I am cured. Do you care to know +how?” +</p> + +<p> +He rose, and got a small manuscript from his massive desk, and put it in front +of me. +</p> + +<p> +“You have already asked about the picture. I have long owed you an +explanation. Here—read!” +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<h5>CONFESSIONS OF A SUPERSENSUAL MAN.</h5> + +<p> +The margin of the manuscript bore as motto a variation of the well-known lines +from <i>Faust</i>: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Thou supersensual sensual wooer<br/> +A woman leads you by the nose.”<br/> +—MEPHISTOPHELES. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +Gogol, the Russian Molière, says—where? well, somewhere—“the +real comic muse is the one under whose laughing mask tears roll down.” +</p> + +<p> +A wonderful saying. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +But what am I saying? +</p> + +<p> +To the business in hand. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +But why talk in superlatives, as if something that is beautiful could be +surpassed? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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— +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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: <i>Venus in Furs</i>. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Faust</i>. +</p> + +<h5>TO AMOR</h5> + +<p class="poem"> +“The pair of wings a fiction are,<br/> +The arrows, they are naught but claws,<br/> +The wreath conceals the little horns,<br/> +For without any doubt he is<br/> +Like all the gods of ancient Greece<br/> +Only a devil in disguise.” +</p> + +<p> +Then I put the picture before me on my table, supporting it with a book, and +looked at it. +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“The almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into the hands +of a woman.” +</p> + +<p> +This sentence strangely impressed me. +</p> + +<p> +How ungallant these Jews are, I thought. And their God might choose more +becoming expressions when he speaks of the fair sex. +</p> + +<p> +“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? +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +I hear her laugh. +</p> + +<p> +Is she laughing at me? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +I cannot resist. I feel a strange urge and call within me. I put on my clothes +again and go out into the garden. +</p> + +<p> +Some power draws me toward the meadow, toward her, who is my divinity and my +beloved. +</p> + +<p> +The night is cool. I feel a slight chill. The atmosphere is heavy with the odor +of flowers and of the forest. It intoxicates. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The statue of Venus stands out august and luminous. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Finally I stand still, and engage in a short monologue. +</p> + +<p> +It runs—well—one is either very polite to one’s self or very +rude. +</p> + +<p> +I say to myself: +</p> + +<p> +“Donkey!” +</p> + +<p> +This word exercises a remarkable effect, like a magic formula, which sets me +free and makes me master of myself. +</p> + +<p> +I am perfectly quiet in a moment. +</p> + +<p> +With considerable pleasure I repeat: “Donkey!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +With a couple of leaps I am within the house and catch my breath and reflect. +</p> + +<p> +What am I really, a little dilettante or a great big donkey? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +A woman’s dress— +</p> + +<p> +She is there—Venus—but without furs—No, this time it is +merely the widow—and yet—Venus-oh, what a woman! +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +She observes my confusion, which has even made me discourteous, for I have +remained seated and still have my cap on my head. +</p> + +<p> +She smiles roguishly. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Thus our acquaintance began. +</p> + +<p> +The divinity asks for my name, and mentions her own. +</p> + +<p> +Her name is Wanda von Dunajew. +</p> + +<p> +And she is actually my Venus. +</p> + +<p> +“But madame, what put the idea into your head?” +</p> + +<p> +“The little picture in one of your books—” +</p> + +<p> +“I had forgotten about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“The curious notes on its back—” +</p> + +<p> +“Why curious?” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at me. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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— +</p> + +<p> +“You were afraid of me last night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Really—of course—but won’t you sit down?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t share it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not share it,” she said quickly and decisively, shaking her +head, so that her curls flew up like red flames. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘Doest thou imagine long the goddess of love took counsel<br/> +When in Ida’s grove she was pleased with the hero Anchises?’ +</p> + +<p> +“These lines from Goethe’s <i>Roman Elegy</i> have always delighted +me. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“The battle of the spirit with the senses is the gospel of modern man. I +do not care to have a share in it.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, my dear lady—” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“But—” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Your frankness,” I said, “delights me, and not it +alone—” +</p> + +<p> +My confounded dilettantism again throttled me as though there were a rope +around my neck. +</p> + +<p> +“You were about to say—” +</p> + +<p> +“I was about to say—I was—I am sorry—I interrupted +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“How, so?” +</p> + +<p> +A long pause. She is doubtless engaging in a monologue, which translated into +my language would be comprised in the single word, “donkey.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I may ask,” I finally began, “how did you arrive at +these—these conclusions?” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>Gil +Blas</i>, at twelve <i>La Pucelle</i>. 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.’ +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“A goddess,” I interrupted. +</p> + +<p> +“Which one,” she smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“Venus.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Undraped</i>, of course not, but in furs,” she replied smiling, +“would you care to see mine?” +</p> + +<p> +“And then—” +</p> + +<p> +“What then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Beautiful, free, serene, and happy human beings, such as the Greeks +were, are only possible when it is permitted to have <i>slaves</i> who will +perform the prosaic tasks of every day for them and above all else labor for +them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” she replied playfully, “an Olympian divinity, +such as I am, requires a whole army of slaves. Beware of me!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +I myself was frightened at the hardiness with which I uttered this +“why”; it did not startle her in the least. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that might not be so difficult.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think—” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Quite seriously.” +</p> + +<p> +“And now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, I am more afraid of you than ever!” +</p> + +<p> +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— +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +I shall make her a present of furs. +</p> + +<p> +How could I have any doubts? If not for her, for whom would princely furs be +suitable? +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +I was with her yesterday evening, reading the <i>Roman Elegies</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +Or was I mistaken? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Then I sat down at her feet and read a short poem I had written for her. +</p> + +<h5> VENUS IN FURS.</h5> + +<p class="poem"> +“Place thy foot upon thy slave,<br/> + Oh thou, half of hell, half of dreams;<br/> +Among the shadows, dark and grave,<br/> + Thy extended body softly gleams.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +I suffer under it more and more each day, and she—she merely smiles. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +How I managed to get up courage enough I really don’t know, but I took +hold of her hand, asking, +</p> + +<p> +“Could you love me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not,” she replied, letting her calm, clear look rest upon me, +but not for long. +</p> + +<p> +A moment later I am kneeling before her, pressing my burning face against the +fragrant muslin of her gown. +</p> + +<p> +“But Severin—this isn’t right,” she cried. +</p> + +<p> +But I take hold of her little foot, and press my lips upon it. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Is it an omen? +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is my slipper?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is—I have—I want,” I stammered. +</p> + +<p> +“Get it, and then we will have tea together, and chat.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +I noticed that her brows were slightly contracted, and there was an expression +of hardness and dominance about her lips which delighted me. +</p> + +<p> +All of a sudden she broke out laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“So—you are really in love—with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and I suffer more from it than you can imagine?” +</p> + +<p> +“You suffer?” she laughed again. +</p> + +<p> +I was revolted, mortified, annihilated, but all this was quite useless. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” she continued, “I like you, with all my heart.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave me her hand, and looked at me in the friendliest fashion. +</p> + +<p> +“And will you be my wife?” +</p> + +<p> +Wanda looked at me—how did she look at me? I think first of all with +surprise, and then with a tinge of irony. +</p> + +<p> +“What has given you so much courage, all at once?” +</p> + +<p> +“Courage?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please be perfectly frank with me,” I replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Well then honestly, I don’t believe I could love a man longer +than—” She inclined her head gracefully to one side and mused. +</p> + +<p> +“A year.” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you imagine—a month perhaps.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not even me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh you—perhaps two.” +</p> + +<p> +“Two months!” I exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Two months is very long.” +</p> + +<p> +“You go beyond antiquity, madame.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see, you cannot stand the truth.” +</p> + +<p> +Wanda walked across the room and leaned back against the fireplace, watching me +and resting one of her arms on the mantelpiece. +</p> + +<p> +“What shall I do with you?” she began anew. +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever you wish,” I replied with resignation, “whatever +will give you pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +“How illogical!” she cried, “first you want to make me your +wife, and then you offer yourself to me as something to toy with.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda—I love you.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But if I am willing to take the risk with you?” I replied. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +I fell down at her feet. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +My blood rose to my head. +</p> + +<p> +In her eyes too there was a sudden flame— +</p> + +<p> +“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>I +grant you all the rights of a husband, of a lover, of a friend.</i> Are you +satisfied?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose, I’ll have to be?” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t have to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well then, I want to—” +</p> + +<p> +“Splendid. That is how a man speaks. Here is my hand.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you angry?” I then asked her. +</p> + +<p> +“I am never angry at anything that is natural—” she replied, +“but <i>I</i> am afraid you suffer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I am suffering frightfully.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor friend!” she brushed my disordered hair back from my +fore-head. “I hope it isn’t through any fault of mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“That will hardly be necessary, for I love you,” she took hold of +my chin, “you foolish man!” +</p> + +<p> +“But you will be mine only under conditions, while I belong to you +unconditionally—” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Things will end badly, my friend,” she said soberly, without +moving. +</p> + +<p> +“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>I want to be your slave</i>, serve you, suffer everything from +you, if only you won’t drive me away.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do get up.” +</p> + +<p> +I obeyed. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a strange person,” continued Wanda. “You wish to +possess me at any price?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, at any price.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +A shudder ran through me. I looked at her She stood firmly and confident before +me, and her eyes disclosed a cold gleam. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” she continued, “the very thought frightens +you.” A beautiful smile suddenly illuminated her face. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you lost your senses,” cried Wanda. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not, if I adore you the more on this account? <i>It is possible to +love really only that which stands above us,</i> a woman, who through her +beauty, temperament, intelligence, and strength of will subjugates us and +becomes a despot over us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then that which repels others, attracts you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. That is the strange part of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But in my case all these elements are raised to their highest +degree,” I replied. +</p> + +<p> +“In other words, reason has little power over you, and you are by nature, +soft, sensual, yielding.” +</p> + +<p> +“Were the martyrs also soft and sensual by nature?” +</p> + +<p> +“The martyrs?” +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary, they were <i>supersensual men,</i> 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—<i>supersensual.”</i> +</p> + +<p> +“Have a care that in being such, you do not become a martyr to love, the +<i>martyr of a woman</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“And even then all these strange tendencies were distinctly marked in +you?” asked Wanda. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>supersensual.</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“An irresistible yearning seized me. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>Germania</i>, like a shield against the +temptress, and indignantly left the room.” +</p> + +<p> +Wanda broke out in loud laughter. “It would, indeed, be hard to find +another man like you, but continue.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>kazabaika,</i><sup>2</sup> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote 2: A woman’s jacket.] +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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;<sup>3</sup> 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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote 3: The street of the Jews in Lemberg.] +</p> + +<p> +“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 +<i>kazabaika,</i> trimmed with ermine. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary, there was so little of cruelty in her that without any +more ado she let me adore her. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Wanda involuntarily looked at her hand; I noticed it, and had to smile. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Wanda rose and opened the window. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“In a moment.” +</p> + +<p> +As I entered Wanda was crouching by the fireplace where she had kindled a small +fire. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not like it—you are joking—you know—” I threw my +arm around her, and kissed her. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, I know, but why this great fondness for furs?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“A woman wearing furs, then,” cried Wanda, “is nothing else +than a large cat, an augmented electric battery?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks for the learned discourse on love,” said Wanda, “but +you haven’t told me everything. You associate something entirely +individual with furs.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand,” Wanda interrupted. “It gives a dominant and +imposing quality to a woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not only that,” I continued. “You know I am +<i>supersensual.</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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, <i>Isis</i>, +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think so? I hardly do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you actually lost your senses.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—you have awakened my dearest dream,” I cried. “It +has slept long enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“And this is?” She put her hand on my neck. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +<i>“To be the slave of a woman, a beautiful woman, whom I love, whom I +worship.”</i> +</p> + +<p> +“And who on that account maltreats you,” interrupted Wanda, +laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, who fetters me and whips me, treads me underfoot, the while she +gives herself to another.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +I looked at Wanda frightened. +</p> + +<p> +“You surpass my dreams.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid that I have already found my ideal!” I exclaimed, +burying my burning face in her lap. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +“Do you really then expect me to embody your ideal?” Wanda asked +archly, when we met in the park to-day. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—am I?” +</p> + +<p> +I kneeled down and seized her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe that everything my imagination has dreamed lies latent in your +personality.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are mistaken.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe,” I continued, “that you enjoy having a man wholly +in your power, torturing him—” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” she exclaimed quickly, “or perhaps—.” +She pondered. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“You will end by making of me a despot in miniature, a domestic +Pompadour.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Severin, once more I warn you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your warning is vain. Do with me what you will, as long as you +don’t drive me away.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your own nobility of character.” +</p> + +<p> +“Power makes people over-bearing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be it,” I cried, “tread me underfoot.” +</p> + +<p> +Wanda threw her arms around my neck, looked into my eyes, and shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Are these satisfactory?” said the shopkeeper. +</p> + +<p> +“No, they are much too small,” replied Wanda, with a side-glance at +me. “I need a large—” +</p> + +<p> +“For a bull-dog, I suppose?” opined the merchant. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she exclaimed, “of the kind that are used in Russia +for intractable slaves.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked further and finally selected a whip, at whose sight I felt a strange +creeping sensation. +</p> + +<p> +“Now good-by, Severin,” she said. “I have some other +purchases to make, but you can’t go along.” +</p> + +<p> +I left her and took a walk. On the way back I saw Wanda coming out at a +furrier’s. She beckoned me. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well then, kick me aside,” I replied, “when you are +tired of me. I want to be your slave.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I am a female Dionysius?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“My Beloved, +</p> + +<p> +I do not care to see you to-day or to-morrow, and not until evening the day +after tomorrow, and then <i>as my slave</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Your mistress +</p> + +<p> +Wanda.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Come in!” +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>kazabaika</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Slave!” +</p> + +<p> +“Mistress!” I kneel down, and kiss the hem of her garment. +</p> + +<p> +“That is as it should be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how beautiful you are.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do I please you?” She stepped before the mirror, and looked at +herself with proud satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall become mad!” +</p> + +<p> +Her lower lip twitched derisively, and she looked at me mockingly from behind +half-closed lids. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me the whip.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked about the room. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Marvellous woman!” I exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” I replied, “and even if you had, pains that come +through you are a joy. Strike again, if it gives you pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +“But it doesn’t give me pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +Again I was seized with that strange intoxication. +</p> + +<p> +“Whip me,” I begged, “whip me without mercy.” +</p> + +<p> +Wanda swung the whip, and hit me twice. “Are you satisfied now?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Seriously, no?” +</p> + +<p> +“Whip me, I beg you, it is a joy to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Severin!” +</p> + +<p> +“Tread me underfoot!” I exclaimed, and flung myself face to the +floor before her. +</p> + +<p> +“I hate all this play-acting,” said Wanda impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then maltreat me seriously.” +</p> + +<p> +An uncanny pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Severin, I warn you for the last time,” began Wanda. +</p> + +<p> +“If you love me, be cruel towards me,” I pleaded with upraised +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“If I love you,” repeated Wanda. “Very well!” She +stepped back and looked at me with a sombre smile. <i>“Be then my slave, +and know what it means to be delivered into the hands of a woman.”</i> +And at the same moment she gave me a kick. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you like that, slave?” +</p> + +<p> +Then she flourished the whip. +</p> + +<p> +“Get up!” +</p> + +<p> +I was about to rise. +</p> + +<p> +“Not that way,” she commanded, “on your knees.” +</p> + +<p> +I obeyed, and she began to apply the lash. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +I seized her hand to press it to my lips. +</p> + +<p> +“What impudence.” +</p> + +<p> +She shoved me away with her foot. +</p> + +<p> +“Out of my sight, slave!” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +After having spent a feverish night filled with confused dreams, I awoke. Dawn +was just beginning to break. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>she</i> whipped me. Now I know everything. +</p> + +<p> +My dream has become truth. How does it make me feel? Am I disappointed in the +realization of my dream? +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Why?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“My mistress,” I exclaimed, “and I your slave!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +The little bronze clock on which stood a cupid who had just shot his bolt +struck midnight. +</p> + +<p> +I rose, and wanted to leave. +</p> + +<p> +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— +</p> + +<p> +And it told me more than I dared to understand. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>kazabaika</i> in which she carelessly nestled. +</p> + +<p> +“Please,” I stammered, “but you will be angry with me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do with me what you will,” she whispered. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then whip me, or I shall go mad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t I forbidden you,” said Wanda sternly, “but you +are incorrigible.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I am so terribly in love.” I had sunken on my knees, and was +burying my glowing face in her lap. +</p> + +<p> +“I really believe,” said Wanda thoughtfully, “that your +madness is nothing but a demonic, unsatisfied sensuality. <i>Our unnatural way +of life must generate such illnesses.</i> Were you less virtuous, you would be +completely sane.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter?” asked Wanda. +</p> + +<p> +“I am suffering agonies.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are suffering—” she broke out into a loud amused +laughter. +</p> + +<p> +“You laugh!” I moaned, “have you no idea—” +</p> + +<p> +She was serious all of a sudden. She raised my head in her hands, and with a +violent gesture drew me to her breast. +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda,” I stammered. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, you enjoy suffering,” she said, and laughed again, +“but wait, I’ll bring you to your senses.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Then my senses left me— +</p> + +<p> +The first thing I remember is the moment when I saw blood dripping from my +hand, and she asked apathetically: “Did you scratch me?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I believe, I have bitten you.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +It is strange how every relation in life assumes a different face as soon as a +new person enters. +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Wanda wrinkles her brows, and displays a certain impatience with me. +</p> + +<p> +Has she ceased loving me? +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +I now am aware again of how much I love her. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +“My friend has complained about you,” said Wanda to-day. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps she feels that I despise her.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why do you despise her, you foolish young man?” exclaimed +Wanda, pulling my ears with both hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Because she is a hypocrite,” I said. “I respect only a woman +who is actually virtuous, or who openly lives for pleasure’s sake.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly that is true,” I said. “The transcendental +character with which woman wants to stamp love leads her to deception.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care,” I exclaimed, “but she is to leave you +alone; she treats you like an article of commerce.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda, what are you saying?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” she said, “and take note of what I am about to say +to you. <i>Never feel secure with the woman you love,</i> for there are more +dangers in woman’s nature than you imagine. Women are neither as +<i>good</i> as their admirers and defenders maintain, nor as <i>bad</i> as +their enemies make them out to be. <i>Woman’s character is +characterlessness.</i> 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 +<i>principles,</i> woman never follows anything but <i>impulses.</i> +Don’t ever forget that, and never feel secure with the woman you +love.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +I cannot yet believe, comprehend, that this woman is mine, wholly mine. +</p> + +<p> +“She is right on one point,” Wanda began, without moving, without +opening her eyes, as if she were asleep. +</p> + +<p> +“Who?” +</p> + +<p> +She remained silent. +</p> + +<p> +“Your friend?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +I was frightened. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter? You are trembling?” +</p> + +<p> +“I tremble at the thought of how easily I might lose you,” I +replied. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda!” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“What an idea,” I cried. “You fill me with a sort of +horror.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you love me any the less?” +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is a painful stimulus in the unfaithfulness of a beloved woman. It +is the highest kind of ecstacy.” +</p> + +<p> +“For you, too?” Wanda asked quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“For me, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if I should give you that pleasure,” Wanda exclaimed +mockingly. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly. I could endure anything so as not to lose you. I feel how +little I really mean to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“But Severin—” +</p> + +<p> +“But it is so,” said I, “and just for that +reason—” +</p> + +<p> +“For that reason you would—” she smiled +roguishly—“have I guessed it?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Am I not your slave?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then listen to me,” said Wanda excitedly, seizing my hand. +“I want to be yours, as long as I love you.” +</p> + +<p> +“A month?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps, even two.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you become my slave.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you?” +</p> + +<p> +“I? Why do you ask? I am a goddess and sometimes I descend from my +Olympian heights to you, softly, very softly, and secretly. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Why unachievable?” I began. +</p> + +<p> +“Because slavery doesn’t exist any longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then we will go to a country where it still exists, to the Orient, to +Turkey,” I said eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +“You would—Severin—in all seriousness,” Wanda replied. +Her eyes burned. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“You really want it?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“And if I take you at your word?” said Wanda. +</p> + +<p> +“Please do!” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +She looked strangely at me. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I shall keep my oath.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>Venus in Furs</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +With her arm around my neck she reads this, unprecedented, incredible document +to me. The end of each sentence she punctuates with a kiss. +</p> + +<p> +“But all the obligations in the contract are on my side,” I said, +teasing her. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you allow me a few conditions—” I began. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Wanda smiled happily, leaned her cheek against mine, and seemed to reflect. +</p> + +<p> +“You have forgotten something,” she whispered coquettishly, +“the most important thing!” +</p> + +<p> +“A condition?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I sign the contract?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet,” said Wanda. “I shall first add your conditions, +and the actual signing won’t occur until the proper time and +place.” +</p> + +<p> +“In Constantinople?” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>have a slave, I +alone,</i> 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.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +While saying this I had slipped from the ottoman, and lay at her feet looking +up at her with drunken eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +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 —<i>if she wants to she can.</i> What a temptation in +this doubt, this fear! +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +And she—she veritably devoured him with her radiant green eyes—and +did everything possible to meet him again. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you love me any longer—” I stammered, +frightened. +</p> + +<p> +“I love only you,” she replied, “but I shall have the prince +pay court to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda!” +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you my slave?” she said calmly. “Am I not +Venus, the cruel northern Venus in Furs?” +</p> + +<p> +I was silent. I felt literally crushed by her words; her cold look entered my +heart like a dagger. +</p> + +<p> +“You will find out immediately the prince’s name, residence, and +circumstances,” she continued. “Do you understand?” +</p> + +<p> +“But—” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Bring me my footstool,” she commanded shortly. +</p> + +<p> +I obeyed, and after having put it before her and having put her feet on it, I +remained kneeling. +</p> + +<p> +“How will this end?” I asked sadly after a short pause. +</p> + +<p> +She broke into playful laughter. “Why things haven’t even begun +yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are more heartless than I imagined,” I replied, hurt. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“You take my dreams too seriously.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is no longer a whim,” she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” I asked frightened. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear, sweet Wanda!” I began to caress her, kiss her. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t—you are not a man—” +</p> + +<p> +“And you,” I flared up. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +She pushed me away, and got up. +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda!” I likewise rose, and stood facing her. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda,” I replied with emotion and tears filling my eyes, +“don’t you know how I love you?” +</p> + +<p> +Her lips quivered contemptuously. +</p> + +<p> +“You are mistaken, you make yourself out worse than you are; you are good +and noble by nature—” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you know about my nature,” she interrupted vehemently, +“you will get to know me as I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda!” +</p> + +<p> +“Decide, will you submit, unconditionally?” +</p> + +<p> +“And if I say no.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well—” she said at last. +</p> + +<p> +“You are angry,” I cried, “you will punish me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no!” she replied, “I shall let you go. You are free. I am +not holding you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda—I, who love you so—” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda I—” +</p> + +<p> +“Wretch!” +</p> + +<p> +My blood rose in my heart. I threw myself down at her feet and began to cry. +</p> + +<p> +“Tears, too!” She began to laugh. Oh, this laughter was frightful. +“Leave me—I don’t want to see you again.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +What are her intentions? What does she purpose to do with me? +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +How kind she is to me, how tender, how loving! We are spending marvellously +happy days. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Were you pleased,” said I, and kissed her forehead. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“How can you cry!” she exclaimed, “you are a child!” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +When I said good-night to her to-day she seemed suddenly unaccountably +distracted and moody. What was occupying her? +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry you are going,” she said when I was already standing on +the threshold. +</p> + +<p> +“It is entirely in your hands to shorten the hard period of my trial, to +cease tormenting me—” I pleaded. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you imagine that this compulsion isn’t a torment for me, +too,” Wanda interjected. +</p> + +<p> +“Then end it,” I exclaimed, embracing her, “be my +wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Never, Severin</i>,” she said gently, but with great firmness. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +I was frightened in my innermost soul. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>You are not the man for me.</i>” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +As I went upstairs to hand it to the maid, my knees threatened to give way. +</p> + +<p> +The door opened, and Wanda thrust forth her head full of curling-papers. +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t had my hair dressed yet,” she said, smiling. +“What have you there?” +</p> + +<p> +“A letter—” +</p> + +<p> +“For me?” +</p> + +<p> +I nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you want to break with me,” she exclaimed, mockingly. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t you tell me yesterday that I wasn’t the man for +you?” +</p> + +<p> +<i>“I repeat it now!”</i> +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then.” My whole body was trembling, my voice failed me, +and I handed her the letter. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>slave</i> +you will doubtless do well enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Madame!” I exclaimed, aghast. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda—” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>Gregor</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +I trembled with rage, and yet, unfortunately, I cannot deny it, I also felt a +strange pleasure and stimulation. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t consider,” I tried to object, “that as man +of honor it is impossible for me—” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +I turned toward the door. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +There was another gracious nod of the head. +</p> + +<p> +Then I was dismissed. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly she knocked at my window with the handle of her whip. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you ready, Gregor?” she asked darkly. +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet, mistress,” I replied. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda, you—” +</p> + +<p> +“Who gave you permission?” She gave me a blow with the whip. +</p> + +<p> +“You are very beautiful, mistress.” +</p> + +<p> +Wanda smiled and sat down in the arm-chair. “Kneel down—here beside +my chair.” +</p> + +<p> +I obeyed. +</p> + +<p> +“Kiss my hand.” +</p> + +<p> +I seized her small cold hand and kissed it. +</p> + +<p> +“And the mouth—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +When she returns she has completely changed. +</p> + +<p> +“Here is your ticket, Gregor,” she says in a tone which +supercilious ladies use to their servants. +</p> + +<p> +“A third-class ticket,” I reply with comic horror. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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—<i>woman</i>. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Now that all the shadows gather<br/> +And endless stars grow light,<br/> +Deep yearning on me falls<br/> +And softly fills the night.”<br/> +<br/> +“Through the sea of dreams<br/> +Sailing without cease,<br/> +Sailing goes my soul<br/> +In thine to find release.” +</p> + +<p> +And I am thinking of the beautiful woman who is sleeping in regal comfort among +her soft furs. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +Florence! Crowds, cries, importunate porters and cab-drivers. Wanda chooses a +carriage, and dismisses the porters. +</p> + +<p> +“What have I a servant for,” she says, “Gregor—here is +the ticket—get the luggage.” +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>carabiniere</i> with an intelligent face comes to +my assistance. She laughs. +</p> + +<p> +“It must be heavy,” said she, “all my furs are in it.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you any rooms?” she asks the portier. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, madame.” +</p> + +<p> +“Two for me, one for my servant, all with stoves.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at them, and then abruptly said: “they are satisfactory, have +fires built at once; my servant can sleep in the unheated room.” +</p> + +<p> +I merely looked at her. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +I rise. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>piombi</i>.<sup>4</sup> +Involuntarily I have to laugh out aloud, so that it re-echoes, and I am +startled by my own laughter. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote 4: These were notorious prisons under the leaden roof of the Palace +of the Doges.] +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Come in!” +</p> + +<p> +I enter, shut the door, and stand attention. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I am satisfied with you, Gregor,” she began. +</p> + +<p> +I bowed. +</p> + +<p> +“Come closer.” +</p> + +<p> +I obeyed. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +She suddenly leaped up; the furs slipped down, and she threw her arms with soft +pressure about my neck. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +She quickly picked it up, throwing it over my shoulders, and before I knew what +had happened I was completely wrapped up in it. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +And again she began to caress me and kiss me; finally she drew me down on the +little divan. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +I placed the furs about her, and Wanda slipped her right arm into the sleeve. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Must I confess to you, Wanda?” I began. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you must.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“You love me even when I am cruel,” said Wanda, “now +go!—you bore me—don’t you hear?” +</p> + +<p> +She boxed my ears so that I saw stars and bells rang in my ears. +</p> + +<p> +“Help me into my furs, slave.” +</p> + +<p> +I helped her, as well as I could. +</p> + +<p> +“How awkward,” she exclaimed, and was scarcely in it before she +struck me in the face again. I felt myself growing pale. +</p> + +<p> +“Did I hurt you?” she asked, softly touching me with her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” I exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“At any rate you have no reason to complain, you want it thus; now kiss +me again.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +With my heart filled with smiling hopes, I went up to my miserable +servant’s room, and threw myself down on my hard couch. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Very likely the founders of their religion also slept in unheated +rooms.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you looking for here, my dear sir?” he exclaimed. +“This is the North Pole.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing?” I asked horror-stricken. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +I cried out in despair, and still heard her diabolical laughter when I awoke, +and looked about the room in surprise. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.’” +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>camere ammobiliate</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, my lady—” I interposed. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you love me any longer then,” I asked seized by a +sudden fright. +</p> + +<p> +She solemnly shook her head, but kissed me again with her swelling, adorable +lips. +</p> + +<p> +We returned to the hotel. Wanda had luncheon, and ordered me also quickly to +get something to eat. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +I took a rapid and painful leave of my food, and, tired and hungry, hurried +toward Wanda, who was already on the street. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +I followed her resentfully, gnawing at my hunger. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +It is also maintained that death is easier in the South. +</p> + +<p> +I have a vague feeling now that such a thing as beauty without thorn and love +of the senses without torment does exist. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Wanda occupies the second story by herself. +</p> + +<p> +A room on the ground floor has been assigned to me; it is very attractive, and +even has a fireplace. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +I knocked again. Wanda impatiently pulls the door open. +</p> + +<p> +“Why so late?” she asks. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you still love me?” she asks, her eye softening in passionate +tenderness. +</p> + +<p> +“You ask!” I exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Am I not ready?” I asked in surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“You have not yet signed the papers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Papers—what papers?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I see, you want to give it up,” she said, “well then, we +will let it go.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not afraid,” I replied smiling, “where are the +papers?’” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Give them to me.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The first one read: +</p> + +<h5>AGREEMENT BETWEEN MME. VON DUNAJEW AND SEVERIN VON KUSIEMSKI</h5> + +<p> +“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 <i>slave</i> until such time that she herself sets him +at liberty again. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>never under any circumstances and in no wise to +think of vengeance or retaliation</i>. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Appended at the bottom of the agreement was the date of the present day. +</p> + +<p> +The second document contained only a few words. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Now have you the courage to sign it?” she asked with a crafty +smile, inclining her head. +</p> + +<p> +I took the pen. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me sign first,” said Wanda, “your hand is trembling, are +you afraid of the happiness that is to be yours?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You are trembling,” said Wanda calmly, “shall I help +you?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Now then, give me your passport and money.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me the whip, Haydée,” commands Wanda, with unearthly calm. +</p> + +<p> +The negress hands it to her mistress, kneeling. +</p> + +<p> +“And now take off my heavy furs,” she continues, “they impede +me.” +</p> + +<p> +The negress obeyed. +</p> + +<p> +“The jacket there!” Wanda commanded. +</p> + +<p> +Haydée quickly brought her the <i>kazabaika</i>, set with ermine, which lay on +the bed, and Wanda slipped into it with two inimitably graceful movements. +</p> + +<p> +“Now tie him to the pillar here!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Then they suddenly disappeared, as if the earth had swallowed them. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>me</i>, the frivolous and capricious woman. You are no longer +the man I love, but <i>my slave</i>, at my mercy even unto life and death. +</p> + +<p> +“You shall know me! +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +With a wild grace she rolled back her fur-lined sleeve, and struck me across +the back. +</p> + +<p> +I winced, for the whip cut like a knife into my flesh. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, how do you like that?” she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +I was silent. +</p> + +<p> +“Just wait, you will yet whine like a dog beneath my whip,” she +threatened, and simultaneously began to strike me again. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Finally she seemed tired. +</p> + +<p> +She tossed the whip aside, stretched out on the ottoman, and rang. +</p> + +<p> +The negresses entered. +</p> + +<p> +“Untie him!” +</p> + +<p> +As they loosened the rope, I fell to the floor like a lump of wood. The black +women grinned, showing their white teeth. +</p> + +<p> +“Untie the rope around his feet.” +</p> + +<p> +They did it, but I was unable to rise. +</p> + +<p> +“Come over here, Gregor.” +</p> + +<p> +I approached the beautiful woman. Never did she seem more seductive to me than +to-day in spite of all her cruelty and contempt. +</p> + +<p> +“One step further,” Wanda commanded. “Now kneel down, and +kiss my foot.” +</p> + +<p> +She extended her foot beyond the hem of white satin, and I, the supersensual +fool, pressed my lips upon it. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +A month has passed with monotonous regularity, heavy work, and a melancholy +hunger, hunger for her, who is inflicting all these torments on me. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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? </p> + +<p> +A written order. +</p> + +<p> +“The slave Gregor is herewith ordered to my personal service. +</p> + +<p> +Wanda Dunajew.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my mistress,” I reply. +</p> + +<p> +“How late is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Past nine o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“Breakfast.” +</p> + +<p> +I hasten to get it, and then kneel down with the tray beside her bed. +</p> + +<p> +“Here is breakfast, my mistress.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Or is it simply that formerly my eye did not see this? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You are awkward, slave,” she says furrowing her brow. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +She has rung. I enter. +</p> + +<p> +“Take this letter to Prince Corsini.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter with you?” she asks with lurking spitefulness. +“You are very pale.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, mistress, I merely walked rather fast.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“How awkward,” Wanda exclaimed and slapped my face. The prince +laughed, and she also, but I felt the blood rising to my face. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +As I help her out of the carriage, she leans lightly on my arm; the contact +runs through me like an electric shock. She <i>is</i> a wonderful woman, and I +love her more than ever. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +It is way beyond midnight when my mistress’s bell sounds for the last +time. +</p> + +<p> +“Fire!” she orders abruptly, and when the fire-place crackles, +“Tea!” +</p> + +<p> +When I return with the samovar, she has already undressed, and with the aid of +the negress slipped into a white negligee. +</p> + +<p> +Haydée thereupon leaves. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Take off my shoes, and put on my velvet slippers.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Now get out!” Still a kick—and then I can go to bed. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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— +</p> + +<p> +Then the executioner slapped my face. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Before she goes to bed, her bell calls me. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +But she did not require me. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +What have I experienced? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What beautiful eyes you have,” she said softly, “and +especially now since you suffer. Are you very unhappy?” +</p> + +<p> +I bowed my head, and kept silent. +</p> + +<p> +“Severin, do you still love me,” she suddenly exclaimed +passionately, “can you still love me?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda—my Wanda,” I cried out and held her passionately +against me; I covered her mouth, face, and breast with kisses. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I haven’t betrayed you, as yet, Severin,” replied Wanda +smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Not? Wanda! Don’t jest so mercilessly with me,” I cried. +“Haven’t I myself taken the letter to the Prince—” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, it was an invitation for luncheon.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have, since we have been in Florence—” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +When I returned she was standing in the center of the room in her white satin +dress, and the red <i>kazabaika</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you happy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet.” +</p> + +<p> +She then leaned back on the cushions, and slowly opened her <i>kazabaika</i>. +</p> + +<p> +But I quickly covered the half-bared breast again with the ermine. “You +are driving me mad.” I stammered. +</p> + +<p> +“Come!” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Infinitely!” I exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +She laughed aloud. It was an evil, shrill laugh which made cold shivers run +down by back. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +I sank down from the ottoman to her feet, but my eye still clung doubtingly on +hers. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +She kicked me with her foot. +</p> + +<p> +“You are just what I want, a human being, a thing, an +animal—” +</p> + +<p> +She rang. The three negresses entered. +</p> + +<p> +“Tie his hands behind his back.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Then the lock of the door clicks, the bolts are drawn, a key sings in the lock. +I am a prisoner, buried. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +A red streak, like blood, floods across the floor; it is a light falling +through the door which is now thrust open. +</p> + +<p> +Wanda appears on the threshold, wrapped in her sables, holding a lighted torch. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you still alive?” she asks. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you coming to kill me?” I reply with a low, hoarse voice. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +I am reading <i>Manon l’Escault</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you want to go on reading?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not to-day. We will ourselves act <i>Manon l’Escault</i> 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?” +</p> + +<p> +“You command it.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Your eyes!” she exclaims. “I love you, Severin, you have no +idea how I love you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I have!” I replied bitterly, “so much so that you have +arranged for a rendezvous with some one else.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +She clung passionately to my lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, if I only could, as I would, give you all of my soul in a +kiss—thus—but now come.” +</p> + +<p> +She slipped into a simple black velvet coat, and put a dark +<i>bashlyk</i><sup>5</sup> on her head. Then she rapidly went through the +gallery, and entered the carriage. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote 5: A kind of Russian cap.] +</p> + +<p> +“Gregor will drive,” she called out to the coachman who withdrew in +surprise. +</p> + +<p> +I ascended the driver’s seat, and angrily whipped up the horses. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +An hour full of torments. Finally there was a rustling in the bushes to one +side, and they returned. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +The bell at the garden-gate rings. It is a familiar face. The man from the +Cascine. +</p> + +<p> +“Whom shall I announce?” I ask him in French. He timidly shakes his +head. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you, perhaps, understand some German?” he asks shyly. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Your name, please.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Wanda had stepped out on the balcony, and nodded toward the stranger. +</p> + +<p> +“Gregor, show the gentleman in!” she called to me. +</p> + +<p> +I showed the painter the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Venus in Furs has caught his soul in the red snares of hair. He will paint her, +and go mad. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +She looks at me without getting angry, shakes her head, and finally even +smiles. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel sorry for him,” she replies, “but I do not love him. +I love no one. <i>I used to love you, as ardently, as passionately, as deeply +as it was possible for me to love,</i> but now I don’t love even you any +more; my heart is a void, dead, and this makes me sad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda!” I exclaimed, deeply moved. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +To-day I visited the Venus of Medici. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +But I did not stand for long. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +My mistress’s bell. +</p> + +<p> +It is noonday. She, however, is still abed with her arms intertwined behind her +neck. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to bathe,” she says, “and you will attend me. Lock +the door!” +</p> + +<p> +I obey. +</p> + +<p> +“Now go downstairs and make sure the door below is also locked.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Gregor, take me on your arms.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean, mistress?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are to carry me, don’t you understand?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter?” asked Wanda. +</p> + +<p> +I pointed to the mirror. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, that is really beautiful,” she exclaimed, “too bad one +can’t capture the moment and make it permanent.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Wanda smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he shall paint you, and I will see to it that the god of love mixes +his colors.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Her head appeared in the window, luminous like a flame under the sunlight. +</p> + +<p> +“Gregor!” +</p> + +<p> +I hurried up the stairs, through the gallery, into the studio. +</p> + +<p> +“Lead him to the bath,” Wanda commanded, while she herself hurried +away. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +The painter had turned terribly pale. He devoured the scene with his beautiful +dreamy blue eyes; his lips opened, but he remained dumb. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, how do you like the picture?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Wanda stands in front of the canvas with her arms crossed over her breast. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“And what will you call it?” she asked, “but what is the +matter with you, are you ill?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid—” he answered with a consuming look fixed on the +beautiful woman in furs, “but let us talk of the picture.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, let us talk about the picture.” +</p> + +<p> +“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: <i>Venus in +Furs</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +During the sitting she nibbles at candies, and rolls the paper-wrappers into +little pellets with which she bombards him. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“The expression which you need for your picture,” she replied, +smiling. “Wait a moment.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +While whipping me, Wanda’s face acquired more and more of the cruel, +contemptuous character, which so haunts and intoxicates me. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“It is the expression—” he stammered, “but I +can’t paint now—” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” said Wanda, scornfully, “perhaps I can help +you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—” cried the German, as if taken with madness, +“whip me too.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! With pleasure,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders, +“but if I am to whip you I want to do it in sober earnest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whip me to death,” cried the painter. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you let me tie you?” she asked, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—” he moaned— +</p> + +<p> +Wanda left the room for a moment, and returned with ropes. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +She is sitting for him now, alone. He is working on her head. +</p> + +<p> +She has posted me in the adjoining room behind a heavy curtain, where I +can’t be seen, but can see everything. +</p> + +<p> +What does she intend now? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +I suffer frightful torments; my heart seems about to burst. +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! You need another application of the whip.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“No!” she replied proudly and mockingly, “but I have the +whip.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The painter has put all his sufferings, his adoration, and all his execration +into the picture. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<p> +“You love this woman?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“I also love her.” His eyes were bathed in tears. He remained +silent for a while, and continued painting. +</p> + +<p> +“We have a mountain at home in Germany within which she dwells,” he +murmured to himself. “She is a demon.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +The picture is finished. She insisted on paying him for it, munificently, in +the manner of queens. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you have already paid me,” he said, with a tormented smile, +refusing her offer. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +I did not dare to reply to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I forgot that I am talking with a slave; I need some fresh air, I +want to be diverted, I want to forget. +</p> + +<p> +“The carriage, quick!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +My heart stops when I see the half-surprised, half-enraptured look with which +she devours him, but he is worthy of it. +</p> + +<p> +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— +</p> + +<p> +Apollo flaying Marsyas. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +I now understand the masculine Eros, and I marvel at Socrates for having +remained virtuous in view of an Alcibiades like this. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Walking up and down her room with long strides, she began to talk so rapidly, +that I was frightened. +</p> + +<p> +“You are to find out who the man in the Cascine was, immediately— +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what a man! Did you see him? What do you think of him? Tell +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“The man is beautiful,” I replied dully. +</p> + +<p> +“He is so beautiful,” she paused, supporting herself on the arm of +a chair, “that he has taken my breath away.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“But now go, go.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +Before evening fell, I had the desired information. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“What is his name?” she asked, uncanny calm. +</p> + +<p> +“Alexis Papadopolis.” +</p> + +<p> +“A Greek, then,” +</p> + +<p> +I nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“He is very young?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“All in all, then, a man,” she cried with sparkling eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“At present he is living in Florence,” I continued, “he is +said to be tremendously rich—” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“A mistress?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“What theaters does he attend?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“See that you get a box—and be quick about it!” she +commanded. +</p> + +<p> +“But, mistress—” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you want a taste of the whip?” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>Pamela,</i> Salvini, Marini, the +public, even the entire world, were non-existant to-night. And I—what was +I at that moment?— +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +To-day she is attending the ball at the Greek ambassador’s. Does she +know, that she will meet him there? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +I kiss the spot, and my eyes fill with tears. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +He has arrived. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +With an inimitably aristocratic nod of the head he calls me over to him, and +I—I obey his call—against my own will. +</p> + +<p> +“Take my furs,” he quickly commands. +</p> + +<p> +My entire body trembles with resentment, but I obey, abjectly like a slave. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +The drawing-room has already thinned out to a marked degree, but she apparently +has no thought of leaving. +</p> + +<p> +Morning is already peering through the blinds. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +I hardly exist for her any longer; she doesn’t even trouble to give me an +order. +</p> + +<p> +“The cloak for madame,” he commands. He, of course, doesn’t +think of looking after her himself. +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<p> +“And what about the lioness?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment my lioness looked quickly and curiously at me. +</p> + +<p> +It made me shudder, though I didn’t know why—and the red dawn +immerses me and her and him in blood. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you need me any longer, mistress?” I asked, my voice failed me +at the last word. +</p> + +<p> +Wanda shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +A few stars still tremble in the pale-blue sky. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +But she did not awaken. +</p> + +<p> +I gently set the lamp on the floor, sank down beside Wanda’s bed, and +rested my head on her soft, glowing arm. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Severin,” she exclaimed, more frightened than angry. +</p> + +<p> +I was unable to reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Severin,” she continued softly, “what is the matter? Are you +ill?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Wanda, must it be?” I moaned in my agony. +</p> + +<p> +“What, Severin? What are you talking about?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Consider your reputation, Wanda, which so far has remained +spotless,” I exclaimed, “even if I no longer mean anything to +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“Who says that?” she exclaimed, flaring up. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who says that he doesn’t love me?” she interrupted +vehemently. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! be mine,” I replied, “be mine! I cannot exist, cannot +live without you. Have mercy on me, Wanda, have mercy!” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at me again, and her face had her cold heartless expression, her +evil smile. +</p> + +<p> +“You say he doesn’t love me,” she said, scornfully. +“Very well then, get what consolation you can out of it.” +</p> + +<p> +With this she turned over on the other side, and contemptuously showed me her +back. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“You know what I am,” she replied, coldly. “I am a woman of +stone, <i>Venus in Furs</i>, your ideal, kneel down, and pray to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda!” I implored, “mercy!” +</p> + +<p> +She began to laugh. I buried my face in her pillows. Pain had loosened the +floodgates of my tears and I let them flow. +</p> + +<p> +For a long time silence reigned, then Wanda slowly raised herself. +</p> + +<p> +“You bore me,” she began. +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am tired, let me go to sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mercy,” I implored. “Do not drive me away. No man, no one, +will love you as I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me go to sleep,”—she turned her back to me again. +</p> + +<p> +I leaped up, and snatched the poinard, which hung beside her bed, from its +sheath, and placed its point against my breast. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall kill myself here before your eyes,” I murmured dully. +</p> + +<p> +“Do what you please,” Wanda replied with complete indifference. +“But let me go to sleep.” She yawned aloud. “I am very +sleepy.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda, listen to me, only for a few moments,” I begged. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Wretch, slave!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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: +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Madam,— +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>cheap</i>. 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. +</p> + +<p> +Severin Kusiemski.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Again I pause. I cannot go back. I dare not. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +But still I can’t leave. +</p> + +<p> +She has my pledge, my word of honor. I have to return. Perhaps she will release +me. +</p> + +<p> +After a few rapid strides, I stop again. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Well, let her kill me. I am unable to do it myself, and yet I have no wish to +go on living. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Still alive?” she asked, without moving. I stood silent, with +bowed head. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have lost it,” I replied, trembling, shaken by chills. +</p> + +<p> +She looked me over with a proud, scornful glance. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you lost it in the Arno?” She shrugged her shoulders. +“No matter. Well, and why didn’t you leave?” +</p> + +<p> +I mumbled something which neither she nor I myself could understand. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! you haven’t any money,” she cried. “Here!” +With an indescribably disdainful gesture she tossed me her purse. +</p> + +<p> +I did not pick it up. +</p> + +<p> +Both of us were silent for some time. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t want to leave then?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Lying among the bushes, I watch a couple of sparrows, fighting over a seed. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly I hear the swish of a woman’s dress. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Is she afraid that he will strike her? +</p> + +<p> +Have they gone that far? +</p> + +<p> +He has left her, she calls him; he does not hear her, does not want to hear +her. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I come to wish you happiness,” I said, bowing, “I see, my +dear lady, too, has found a master.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You adore him, Wanda?” I cried, “this brutal +person—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I love him, as I have never loved any one else.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You want to remain my slave, even then?” she said, “that +would be interesting, but I am afraid he wouldn’t permit it.” +</p> + +<p> +“He?” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“You told him—” I repeated, thunderstruck. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“And threatened to strike you?” +</p> + +<p> +Wanda looked to the ground, and remained silent. +</p> + +<p> +“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-” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know, you bore me?” said Wanda, indifferently. +</p> + +<p> +I leaped up. Everything within me was seething. +</p> + +<p> +“You are now no longer cruel, but cheap,” I said, clearly and +distinctly, accentuating every word. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“The way you are treating me,” I broke out, “what would you +call it?” +</p> + +<p> +“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? +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I am guilty,” I said, “but haven’t I suffered +because of it? Let us put an end now to the cruel game.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is my wish, too,” she replied with a curious deceitful look. +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda!” I exclaimed violently, “don’t drive me to +extremes; you see that I am a man again.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Try to toss me aside,” I said, jeeringly. “Some toys are +dangerous.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t challenge me,” exclaimed Wanda. Her eyes began to +flash, and a flush entered her cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +“If you won’t be mine now,” I continued, with a voice stifled +with rage, “no one else shall possess you either.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“What worse can you do, than to make your lover, your husband?” I +exclaimed, more and more enraged. +</p> + +<p> +“I might make you <i>his</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Do with him what you please.” +</p> + +<p> +“Woman, are you mad!” I cried. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Severin!” she cried. Rage and terror were painted on her face. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Wanda fixed a large, calm, incomprehensible look on me. +</p> + +<p> +“I like you that way,” she said, carelessly. “Now you are a +man, and at this moment I know I still love you.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean?” I stammered, “that you weren’t +serious?” +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“You will marry me!” I cried, overflowing with happiness. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—marry you—you dear, darling man,” whispered Wanda, +kissing my hands. +</p> + +<p> +I drew her up to my breast. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, you are no longer Gregor, my slave,” said she, “but +Severin, the dear man I love—” +</p> + +<p> +“And he—you don’t love him?” I asked in agitation. +</p> + +<p> +“How could you imagine my loving a man of his brutal type? You were blind +to everything, I was really afraid for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I almost killed myself for your sake.” +</p> + +<p> +“Really?” she cried, “ah, I still tremble at the thought, +that you were already in the Arno.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you saved me,” I replied, tenderly. “You hovered over +the waters and smiled, and your smile called me back to life.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, you dear, sweet, beautiful woman.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +She is back, radiant with happiness and contentment. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, has everything gone as you wished?” I asked tenderly, +kissing her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, dear heart,” she replied, “and we shall leave to-night. +Help me pack my trunks.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Mistress has asked for you,” said the negress, with a grin, as I +ascended the wide marble stairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Has anyone been here?” +</p> + +<p> +“No one,” she replied, crouching down on the steps like a black +cat. +</p> + +<p> +I slowly passed through the drawing-room, and then stood before her bedroom +door. +</p> + +<p> +Why does my heart beat so? Am I not perfectly happy? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda,” I said at last. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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—” +</p> + +<p> +“But child—” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wanda!” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +She began with fettering my feet and then she tied my hands behind my back, +pinioning my arms like those of a prisoner. +</p> + +<p> +“So,” she said, with gay eagerness. “Can you still +move?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fine—” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +A curious tremor seized me at that moment. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a feeling as if I were about to be executed,” I said with a +low voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you shall have a thorough punishment to-day,” exclaimed +Wanda. +</p> + +<p> +“But put on your fur-jacket, please,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall gladly give you that pleasure,” she replied. She got her +<i>kazabaika</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you remember the story of the ox of Dionysius?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I remember it only vaguely, what about it?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Dionysius nodded graciously to the inventor, and to put his invention to +an immediate test had him shut up in the iron ox. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a very instructive story. +</p> + +<p> +“It was you who innoculated me with selfishness, pride, and cruelty, and +<i>you shall be their first victim.</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you still love me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Even to madness,” I exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“So much the better,” she replied, “and so much the more will +you enjoy what I am about to do with you now.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>Venus in Furs.”</i> +</p> + +<p> +Without replying Wanda placed her arms around my neck and kissed me. I was +again seized by my fanatical passion. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is the whip?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +Wanda laughed, and withdrew a couple of steps. +</p> + +<p> +“You really insist upon being punished?” she exclaimed, proudly +tossing back her head. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly Wanda’s face was completely transformed. It was as if disfigured +by rage; for a moment she seemed even ugly to me. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then <i>you</i> whip him!” she called loudly. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“You are indeed cruel,” he said, turning to Wanda. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Her words brought back my complete self-possession. +</p> + +<p> +“Unloosen me!” I exclaimed angrily. +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t you my slave, my property?” replied Wanda. “Do +you want me to show you the agreement?” +</p> + +<p> +“Untie me!” I threatened, “otherwise—” I tugged +at the ropes. +</p> + +<p> +“Can he tear himself free?” she asked. “He has threatened to +kill me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be entirely at ease,” said the Greek, testing my fetters. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall call for help,” I began again. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you dare!” I exclaimed, trembling with indignation, +“I won’t permit it—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, because I don’t wear furs,” the Greek replied with an +ironical smile, and he took his short sable from the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“You are adorable,” exclaimed Wanda, kissing him, and helping him +into his furs. +</p> + +<p> +“May I really whip him?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Do with him what you please,” replied Wanda. +</p> + +<p> +“Beast!” I exclaimed, utterly revolted. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +It was as though I were awakening from a dream. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Then everything was silent for a moment. +</p> + +<p> +I listened breathlessly. +</p> + +<p> +The carriage door slammed, the horse began to pull—the rolling of the +carriage for a short time—then all was over. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>labor</i> and to <i>do my duty</i> was comforting like a drink of fresh +water. Then my father died, and I inherited the estate, but it meant no change. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +One day a box arrived, accompanied by a letter. I recognized Wanda’s +writing. +</p> + +<p> +Curiously moved, I opened it, and read. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir.— +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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— +</p> + +<p> +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—<i>moral seriousness</i>. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Venus in Furs</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +“And the moral of the story?” I said to Severin when I put the +manuscript down on the table. +</p> + +<p> +“That I was a donkey,” he exclaimed without turning around, for he +seemed to be embarrassed. “If only I had beaten her!” +</p> + +<p> +“A curious remedy,” I exclaimed, “which might answer with +your peasant-women—” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, they are used to it,” he replied eagerly, “but imagine +the effect upon one of our delicate, nervous, hysterical ladies—” +</p> + +<p> +“But the moral?” +</p> + +<p> +“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 <i>never his +companion.</i> This she can become only when she has the same rights as he, and +is his equal in education and work. +</p> + +<p> +“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? +</p> + +<p> +“The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, +deserves to be whipped. +</p> + +<p> +“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’<sup>6</sup> or Plato’s +rooster<sup>7</sup> are the image of God.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote 6: One of Schopenhauer’s designations for women.] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote 7: Diogenes threw a plucked rooster into Plato’s school and +exclaimed: “Here you have Plato’s human being.”] +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VENUS IN FURS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +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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