VENUS

IN FURS
VON SACHER–MASOCH
VENUS
INFURS
VONSACH
ERMASOCH
 INTRODUCTION
FERNANDA SAVAGE (1921)
PAGE ONE

VENUS IN FURS
VON SACHER–MASOCH (1870)
TRANS . FERNANDA SAVAGE (1921)
PAGE SIX
 INTRODUCTION
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was born in Lemberg, Austrian
Galicia, on January 27, 1836. He studied jurisprudence at
Prague and Graz, and in 1857 became a teacher at the latter
university. He published several historical works, but soon
gave up his academic career to devote himself wholly to
literature. For a number of years he edited the international
review, Auf der Hohe, 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 Wa-
nda von Dunajew, which it is interesting to note is the name
of the heroine of Venus in Furs. Her sensational memoirs
which have been the cause of considerable contro-versy were
published in 1906.
During his career as writer an endless number of works
poured from Sacher-Masoch's pen. Many of these were wo-
rks of ephemeral journalism, and some of them unfortunately
pure sensationalism, for economic necessity forced him to
turn his pen to unworthy ends.
There is, however, a residue among his works which
has a distinct literary and even greater psychological value.
His principal literary ambition was never completely ful-
filled. It was a somewhat programmatic plan to give a
picture of contemporary life in all its various aspects and

1
interrelations under the general title of the Heritage of Cain.
This idea was probably derived from Balzac's Comedie
Humaine. The whole was to be divided into six subdivisions
with the general titles Love, Property, Money, The State,
War, and Death. Each of these divisions in its turn consisted
of six novels, of which the last was intended to summarize
the author's conclusions and to present his solution for the
problems set in the others.
This extensive plan remained unachieved, and only the
first two parts, Love and Property, were completed. Of the
other sections only fragments remain. The present novel,
Venus in Furs, forms the fifth in the series, Love.
The best of Sacher-Masoch's work is characterized by
a swift narration and a graphic representation of character
and scene and a rich humor. The latter has made many of his
shorter stories dealing with his native Galicia little master-
pieces of local color.
There is, however, another element in his work which
has caused his name to become as eponym for an entire
series of phenomena at one end of the psycho-sexual scale.
This gives his productions a peculiar psychological value,
though it cannot be denied also a morbid tinge that makes
them often repellent. However, it is well to remember that
nature is neither good nor bad, neither altruistic nor egoistic,
and that it operates through the human psyche as well as
through crystals and plants and animals with the same in-
exorable laws.
Sacher-Masoch was the poet of the anomaly now
generally known as masochism. By this is meant the desire
on the part of the individual affected of desiring himself
completely and unconditionally subject to the will of a
person of the opposite sex, and being treated by this person

2
as by a master, to be humiliated, abused, and tormented,
even to the verge of death. This motive is treated in all its
innumerable variations. As a creative artist Sacher-Masoch
was, of course, on the quest for the absolute, and sometimes,
when impulses in the human being assume an abnormal or
exaggerated form, there is just for a moment a flash that
gives a glimpse of the thing in itself.
If any defense were needed for the publication of work
like Sacher-Masoch's it is well to remember that artists are
the historians of the human soul and one might recall the
wise and tolerant Montaigne's essay On the Duty of
Historians where he says, "One may cover over secret
actions, but to be silent on what all the world knows, and
things which have had effects which are public and of so
much consequence is an inexcusable defect."
And the curious interrelation between cruelty and sex,
again and again, creeps into literature. Sacher-Masoch has
not created anything new in this. He has simply taken an
ancient motive and developed it frankly and consciously,
until, it seems, there is nothing further to say on the subject.
To the violent attacks which his books met he replied in a
polemical work, Uber den Wert der Kritik.
It would be interesting to trace the masochistic
tendency as it occurs throughout literature, but no more can
be done than just to allude to a few instances. The theme
recurs continually in the Confessions of Jean Jacques
Rousseau; it explains the character of the chevalier in
Prevost's Manon l'Escault. Scenes of this nature are found in
Zola's Nana, in Thomas Otway's Venice Preserved, in Albert
Juhelle's Les Pecheurs d'Hommes, in Dostojevski. In dis-
guised and unrecognized form it constitutes the under-
current of much of the sentimental literature of the present

3
day, though in most cases the authors as well as the readers
are unaware of the pathological elements out of which their
characters are built.
In all these strange and troubled waters of the human
spirit one might wish for something of the serene and simple
attitude of the ancient world. Laurent Tailhade has an
admirable passage in his Platres et Marbres, which is well
worth reproducing in this connection:
Toutefois, les Hellenes, dans, leurs cites de lumiere, 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'aliene comme en proie a
la vistation d'un dieu (idee orientale et fataliste), du moins
ils savaient que l'amour est une sorte d'envoutement, une
folie ou se manifeste l'animosite des puissances cosmiques.
Plus tard, le christianisme enveloppa les ames de tenebres.
Ce fut la grande nuite. L'Eglise condamna tout ce qui lui
parut neuf ou menacant pour les dogmes implacable ui
reduisaient le monde en esclavage.

Among Sacher-Masoch's works, Venus in Furs is one of the

most typical and outstanding. In spite of melodramatic
elements and other literary faults, it is unquestionably a
sincere work, written without any idea of titillating morbid
fancies. One feels that in the hero many subjective elements
have been incorporated, which are a disadvantage to the
work from the point of view of literature, but on the other
hand raise the book beyond the sphere of art, pure and
simple, and make it one of those appalling human documents
which belong, part to science and part to psychology. It is
the confession of a deeply unhappy man who could not
master his personal tragedy of existence, and so sought to
unburden his soul in writing down the things he felt and

4
experienced. The reader who will approach the book from
this angle and who will honestly put aside moral prejudices
and prepossessions will come away from the perusal of this
book with a deeper understanding of this poor miserable soul
of ours and a light will be cast into dark places that lie latent
in all of us.
Sacher-Masoch's works have held an established pos-
ition 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 pre-paration,
consequently appears in a limited edition printed for
subscribers only. In another connection Herbert Spencer
once used these words: "The ultimate result of shielding men
from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools." They
have a very pointed application in the case of a work like
Venus in Furs.
F. S.

Atlantic City
April, 1921

5
 VENUS IN FURS
But the Almighty Lord hath struck him,
and hath delivered him into the hands of
a woman.
—The Vulgate, Judith, xvi. 7

My company was charming.

Opposite me by the massive Renaissance fireplace sat
Venus; she was not a casual woman of the half-world, who
under this pseudonym wages war against the enemy sex, like
Mademoiselle Cleopatra, but the real, true goddess of love.
She sat in an armchair and had kindled a crackling fire,
whose reflection ran in red flames over her pale face with its
white eyes, and from time to time over her feet when she
sought to warm them.
Her head was wonderful in spite of the dead stony
eyes; it was all I could see of her. She had wrapped her
marble-like body in a huge fur, and rolled herself up trembl-
ing like a cat.
"I don't understand it," I exclaimed, "It isn't really cold
any longer. For two weeks past we have had perfect spring
weather. You must be nervous."
"Much obliged for your spring," she replied with a low
stony voice, and immediately afterwards sneezed divinely,
twice in succession. "I really can't stand it here much longer,
and I am beginning to understand—"

6
 "What, dear lady?"
"I am beginning to believe the unbelievable and to
understand the un-understandable. All of a sudden I under-
stand the Germanic virtue of woman, and German philoso-
phy, and I am no longer surprised that you of the North do
not know how to love, haven't even an idea of what love is."
"But, madame," I replied flaring up, "I surely haven't
given you any reason."
"Oh, you—" The divinity sneezed for the third time,
and shrugged her shoulders with inimitable grace. "That's
why I have always been nice to you, and even come to see
you now and then, although I catch a cold every time, in
spite of all my furs. Do you remember the first time we
met?"
"How could I forget it," I said. "You wore your abun-
dant hair in brown curls, and you had brown eyes and a red
mouth, but I recognized you immediately by the outline of
your face and its marble-like pallor—you always wore a
violet-blue velvet jacket edged with squirrel-skin."
"You were really in love with the costume, and awfully
docile."
"You have taught me what love is. Your serene form
of worship let me forget two thousand years."
"And my faithfulness to you was without equal!"
"Well, as far as faithfulness goes—"
"Ungrateful!"
"I will not reproach you with anything. You are a
divine woman, but nevertheless a woman, and like every
woman cruel in love."
"What you call cruel," the goddess of love replied
eagerly, "is simply the element of passion and of natural
love, which is woman's nature and makes her give herself

7
where she loves, and makes her love everything, that pleases
her."
"Can there be any greater cruelty for a lover than the
unfaithfulness of the woman he loves?"
"Indeed!" she replied. "We are faithful as long as we
love, but you demand faithfulness of a woman without love,
and the giving of herself without enjoyment. Who is cruel
there—woman or man? You of the North in general take
love too soberly and seriously. You talk of duties where
there should be only a question of pleasure."
"That is why our emotions are honorable and virtuous,
and our relations permanent."
"And yet a restless, always unsatisfied craving for the
nudity of paganism," she interrupted, "but that love, which is
the highest joy, which is divine simplicity itself, is not for
you moderns, you children of reflection. It works only evil in
you. As soon as you wish to be natural, you become co-
mmon. To you nature seems something hostile; you have
made devils out of the smiling gods of Greece, and out of me
a demon. You can only exorcise and curse me, or slay
yourselves in bacchantic madness before my altar. And if
ever one of you has had the courage to kiss my red mouth, he
makes a barefoot pilgrimage to Rome in penitential robes
and expects flowers to grow from his withered staff, while
under my feet roses, violets, and myrtles spring up every
hour, but their fragrance does not agree with you. Stay
among your northern fogs and Christian incense; let us
pagans remain under the debris, beneath the lava; do not
disinter us. Pompeii was not built for you, nor our villas, our
baths, our temples. You do not require gods. We are chilled
in your world."
The beautiful marble woman coughed, and drew the

8
dark sables still closer about her shoulders.
"Much obliged for the classical lesson," I replied, "but
you cannot deny, that man and woman are mortal enemies,
in your serene sunlit world as well as in our foggy one. In
love there is union into a single being for a short time only,
capable of only one thought, one sensation, one will, in order
to be then further disunited. And you know this better than I;
whichever of the two fails to subjugate will soon feel the feet
of the other on his neck—"
"And as a rule the man that of the woman," cried
Madame Venus with proud mockery, "which you know
better than I."
"Of course, and that is why I don't have any illusions."
"You mean you are now my slave without illusions,
and for that reason you shall feel the weight of my foot
without mercy."
"Madame!"
"Don't you know me yet? Yes, I am cruel—since you
take so much delight in that word-and am I not entitled to be
so? Man is the one who desires, woman the one who is desi-
red. This is woman's entire but decisive advantage. Through
his passion nature has given man into woman's hands, and
the woman who does not know how to make him her subject,
her slave, her toy, and how to betray him with a smile in the
end is not wise."
"Exactly your principles," I interrupted angrily.
"They are based on the experience of thousands of
years," she replied ironically, while her white fingers played
over the dark fur. "The more devoted a woman shows her-
self, the sooner the man sobers down and becomes domin-
eering. The more cruelly she treats him and the more
faithless she is, the worse she uses him, the more wantonly

9
she plays with him, the less pity she shows him, by so much
the more will she increase his desire, be loved, worshipped
by him. So it has always been, since the time of Helen and
Delilah, down to Catherine the Second and Lola Montez."
"I cannot deny," I said, "that nothing will attract a man
more than the picture of a beautiful, passionate, cruel, and
despotic woman who wantonly changes her favorites without
scruple in accordance with her whim—"
"And in addition wears furs," exclaimed the divinity.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I know your predilection."
"Do you know," I interrupted, "that, since we last saw
each other, you have grown very coquettish."
"In what way, may I ask?"
"In that there is no way of accentuating your white
body to greater advantage than by these dark furs, and that
—"
The divinity laughed.
"You are dreaming," she cried, "wake up!" and she
clasped my arm with her marble-white hand. "Do wake up,"
she repeated raucously with the low register of her voice. I
opened my eyes with difficulty.
I saw the hand which shook me, and suddenly it was
brown as bronze; the voice was the thick alcoholic voice of
my cossack servant who stood before me at his full height of
nearly six feet.
"Do get up," continued the good fellow, "it is really
disgraceful."
"What is disgraceful?"
"To fall asleep in your clothes and with a book
besides." He snuffed the candles which had burned down,
and picked up the volume which had fallen from my hand,

10
"with a book by"—he looked at the title page—"by Hegel.
Besides it is high time you were starting for Mr. Severin's
who is expecting us for tea."
"A curious dream," said Severin when I had finished.
He supported his arms on his knees, resting his face in his
delicate, finely veined hands, and fell to pondering.
I knew that he wouldn't move for a long time, hardly
even breathe. This actually happened, but I didn't consider
his behavior as in any way remarkable. I had been on terms
of close friendship with him for nearly three years, and
gotten used to his peculiarities. For it cannot be denied that
he was peculiar, although he wasn't quite the dangerous
madman that the neighborhood, or indeed the entire district
of Kolomea, considered him to be. I found his personality
not only interesting—and that is why many also regarded me
a bit mad—but to a degree sympathetic. For a Galician
nobleman and land-owner, and considering his age—he was
hardly over thirty—he displayed surprising sobriety, a cer-
tain seriousness, even pedantry. He lived according to a
minutely elaborated, half-philosophical, half-practical sys-
tem, like clock-work; not this alone, but also by the thermo-
meter, barometer, aerometer, hydrometer, Hippocrates, Huf-
eland, Plato, Kant, Knigge, and Lord Chesterfield. But at
times he had violent attacks of sudden passion, and gave the
impression of being about to run with his head right through
a wall. At such times every one preferred to get out of his
way.
While he remained silent, the fire sang in the chimney
and the large venerable samovar sang; and the ancient chair
in which I sat rocking to and fro smoking my cigar, and the
cricket in the old walls sang too. I let my eyes glide over the
curious apparatus, skeletons of animals, stuffed birds, glo-

11
bes, 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 today, under the reflected
red glow of the fire, it made an indescribable impression on
me.
It was a large oil painting, done in the robust full-
bodied manner of the Belgian school. Its subject was strange
enough.
A beautiful woman with a radiant smile upon her face,
with abundant hair tied into a classical knot, on which white
powder lay like a soft hoarfrost, was resting on an ottoman,
supported on her left arm.
She was nude in her dark furs. Her right hand played
with a lash, while her bare foot rested carelessly on a man,
lying before her like a slave, like a dog. In the sharply out-
lined, but well-formed linaments of this man lay brooding
melancholy and passionate devotion; he looked up to her
with the ecstatic burning eye of a martyr. This man, the
footstool for her feet, was Severin, but beardless, and, it
seemed, some ten years younger.
"Venus in Furs," I cried, pointing to the picture. "That
is the way I saw her in my dream."
"I, too," said Severin, "only I dreamed my dream with
open eyes."
"Indeed?"
"It is a tiresome story."
"Your picture apparently suggested my dream," I
continued. "But do tell me what it means. I can imagine that
it played a role in your life, and perhaps a very decisive one.
But the details I can only get from you."
"Look at its counterpart," replied my strange friend,
without heeding my question.

12
 The counterpart was an excellent copy of Titian's well-
known "Venus with the Mirror" in the Dresden Gallery.
"And what is the significance?"
Severin rose and pointed with his finger at the fur with
which Titian garbed his goddess of love.
"It, too, is a 'Venus in Furs,'" he said with a slight
smile. "I don't believe that the old Venetian had any second-
ary intention. He simply painted the portrait of some aristo-
cratic Mesalina, and was tactful enough to let Cupid hold the
mirror in which she tests her majestic allure with cold
satisfaction. He looks as though his task were becoming
burdensome enough. The picture is painted flattery. Later an
'expert' in the Rococo period baptized the lady with the name
of Venus. The furs of the despot in which Titian's fair model
wrapped herself, probably more for fear of a cold than out of
modesty, have become a symbol of the tyranny and cruelty
that constitute woman's essence and her beauty.
"But enough of that. The picture, as it now exists, is a
bitter satire on our love. Venus in this abstract North, in this
icy Christian world, has to creep into huge black furs so as
not to catch cold—"
Severin laughed, and lighted a fresh cigarette.
Just then the door opened and an attractive, stoutish,
blonde girl entered. She had wise, kindly eyes, was dressed
in black silk, and brought us cold meat and eggs with our tea.
Severin took one of the latter, and decapitated it with his
knife.
"Didn't I tell you that I want them soft-boiled?" he
cried with a violence that made the young woman tremble.
"But my dear Sevtchu—" she said timidly.
"Sevtchu, nothing," he yelled, "you are to obey, obey,

13
do you understand?" and he tore the kantchuk1 which was
hanging beside the weapons from its hook.
The woman fled from the chamber quickly and timidly
like a doe.
"Just wait, I'll get you yet," he called after her.
"But Severin," I said placing my hand on his arm,
"how can you treat a pretty young woman thus?"
"Look at the woman," he replied, blinking humorously
with his eyes. "Had I flattered her, she would have cast the
noose around my neck, but now, when I bring her up with
the kantchuk, she adores me."
"Nonsense!"
"Nonsense, nothing, that is the way you have to break
in women."
"Well, if you like it, live like a pasha in your harem,
but don't lay down theories for me—"
"Why not," he said animatedly. "Goethe's 'you must be
hammer or anvil' is absolutely appropriate to the relation
between man and woman. Didn't Lady Venus in your dream
prove that to you? Woman's power lies in man's passion, and
she knows how to use it, if man doesn't understand himself.
He has only one choice: to be the tyrant over or the slave of
woman. As soon as he gives in, his neck is under the yoke,
and the lash will soon fall upon him."
"Strange maxims!"
"Not maxims, but experiences," he replied, nodding his
head, "I have actually felt the lash. I am cured. Do you care
to know how?"
He rose, and got a small manuscript from his massive
desk, and put it in front of me.
"You have already asked about the picture. I have long
1
A long whip with a short handle.

14
owed you an explanation. Here—read!"
Severin sat down by the chimney with his back toward
me, and seemed to dream with open eyes. Silence had fallen
again, and again the fire sang in the chimney, and the samo-
var and the cricket in the old walls. I opened the manuscript
and read:

CONFESSIONS OF A SUPERSENSUAL MAN

The margin of the manuscript bore as motto a variation

of the well-known lines from Faust:

Thou supersensual sensual woer

A woman leads you by the nose.
—MEPHISTOPHELES

I turned the title-page and read: "What follows has

been compiled from my diary of that period, because it is
impossible ever frankly to write of one's past, but in this way
everything retains its fresh colors, the colors of the present."
Gogol, the Russian Moliere, says—where? well, some-
where—"the real comic muse is the one under whose
laughing mask tears roll down."
A wonderful saying.
So I have a very curious feeling as I am writing all this
down. The atmosphere seems filled with a stimulating
fragrance of flowers, which overcomes me and gives me a
headache. The smoke of the fireplace curls and condenses
into figures, small gray-bearded kokolds that mockingly
point their finger at me. Chubby-cheeked cupids ride on the
arms of my chair and on my knees. I have to smile involunt-
arily, even laugh aloud, as I am writing down my adventures.

15
Yet I am not writing with ordinary ink, but with red blood
that drips from my heart. All its wounds long scarred over
have opened and it throbs and hurts, and now and then a tear
falls on the paper.
The days creep along sluggishly in the little Carpathian
health-resort. You see no one, and no one sees you. It is
boring enough to write idyls. I would have leisure here to
supply a whole gallery of paintings, furnish a theater with
new pieces for an entire season, a dozen virtuosos with
concertos, trios, and duos, but—what am I saying—the up-
shot of it all is that I don't do much more than to stretch the
canvas, smooth the bow, line the scores. For I am—no false
modesty, Friend Severin; you can lie to others, but you don't
quite succeed any longer in lying to yourself—I am nothing
but a dilettante, a dilettante in painting, in poetry, in music,
and several other of the so-called unprofitable arts, which,
however, at present secure for their masters the income of a
cabinet minister, or even that of a minor potentate. Above all
else I am a dilettante in life.
Up to the present I have lived as I have painted and
written poetry. I never got far beyond the preparation, the
plan, the first act, the first stanza. There are people like that
who begin everything, and never finish anything. I am such a
one.
But what am I saying?
To the business in hand.
I lie in my window, and the miserable little town,
which fills me with despondency, really seems infinitely full
of poetry. How wonderful the outlook upon the blue wall of
high mountains interwoven with golden sunlight; mountain-
torrents weave through them like ribbons of silver! How
clear and blue the heavens into which snowcapped crags

16
project; how green and fresh the forested slopes; the
meadows on which small herds graze, down to the yellow
billows of grain where reapers stand and bend over and rise
up again.
The house in which I live stands in a sort of park, or
forest, or wilderness, whatever one wants to call it, and is
very solitary.
Its sole inhabitants are myself, a widow from Lemberg,
and Madame Tartakovska, who runs the house, a little old
woman, who grows older and smaller each day. There are
also an old dog that limps on one leg, and a young cat that
continually plays with a ball of yarn. This ball of yarn, I
believe, belongs to the widow.
She is said to be really beautiful, this widow, still very
young, twenty-four at the most, and very rich. She dwells in
the first story, and I on the ground floor. She always keeps
the green blinds drawn, and has a balcony entirely over-
grown with green climbing-plants. I for my part down below
have a comfortable, intimate arbor of honeysuckle, in which
I read and write and paint and sing like a bird among the
twigs. I can look up on the balcony. Sometimes I actually do
so, and then from time to time a white gown gleams between
the dense green network.
Really the beautiful woman up there doesn't interest
me very much, for I am in love with someone else, and
terribly unhappy at that; far more unhappy than the Knight of
Toggenburg or the Chevalier in Manon l'Escault, because the
object of my adoration is of stone.
In the garden, in the tiny wilderness, there is a graceful
little meadow on which a couple of deer graze peacefully.
On this meadow is a stone statue of Venus, the original of
which, I believe, is in Florence. This Venus is the most

17
beautiful woman I have ever seen in all my life.
That, however, does not signify much, for I have seen
few beautiful women, or rather few women at all. In love
too, I am a dilettante who never got beyond the preparation,
the first act.
But why talk in superlatives, as if something that is
beautiful could be surpassed?
It is sufficient to say that this Venus is beautiful. I love
her passionately with a morbid intensity; madly as one can
only love a woman who never responds to our love with
anything but an eternally uniform, eternally calm, stony
smile. I literally adore her.
I often lie reading under the leafy covering of a young
birch when the sun broods over the forest. Often I visit that
cold, cruel mistress of mine by night and lie on my knees
before her, with the face pressed against the cold pedestal on
which her feet rest, and my prayers go up to her.
The rising moon, which just now is waning, produces
an indescribable effect. It seems to hover among the trees
and submerges the meadow in its gleam of silver. The
goddess stands as if transfigured, and seems to bathe in the
soft moonlight.
Once when I was returning from my devotions by one
of the walks leading to the house, I suddenly saw a woman's
figure, white as stone, under the illumination of the moon
and separated from me merely by a screen of trees. It seemed
as if the beautiful woman of marble had taken pity on me,
become alive, and followed me. I was seized by a nameless
fear, my heart threatened to burst, and instead—
Well, I am a dilettante. As always, I broke down at the
second stanza; rather, on the contrary, I did not break down,
but ran away as fast as my legs would carry me.

18
 * * *

What an accident! Through a Jew, dealing in photographs I

secured a picture of my ideal. It is a small reproduction of
Titian's "Venus with the Mirror." What a woman! I want to
write a poem, but instead, I take the reproduction, and write
on it: Venus in Furs.
You are cold, while you yourself fan flames. By all
means wrap yourself in your despotic furs, there is no one to
whom they are more appropriate, cruel goddess of love and
of beauty!—After a while I add a few verses from Goethe,
which I recently found in his paralipomena to Faust.

TO AMOR
The pair of wings a fiction are,
The arrows, they are naught but claws,
The wreath conceals the little horns,
For without any doubt he is
Like all the gods of ancient Greece
Only a devil in disguise.

Then I put the picture before me on my table, support-ing it

with a book, and looked at it.
I was enraptured and at the same time filled with a
strange fear by the cold coquetry with which this magnifi-
cent woman draped her charms in her furs of dark sable; by
the severity and hardness which lay in this cold marble-like
face. Again I took my pen in hand, and wrote
the following words:
"To love, to be loved, what happiness! And yet how
the glamour of this pales in comparison with the tormenting
bliss of worshipping a woman who makes a plaything out of

19
us, of being the slave of a beautiful tyrant who treads us
pitilessly underfoot. Even Samson, the hero, the giant, again
put himself into the hands of Delilah, even after she had
betrayed him, and again she betrayed him, and the Philistines
bound him and put out his eyes which until the very end he
kept fixed, drunken with rage and love, upon the beautiful
betrayer."
I was breakfasting in my honey-suckle arbor, and read-
ing in the Book of Judith. I envied the hero Holofernes be-
cause of the regal woman who cut off his head with a sword,
and because of his beautiful sanguinary end.
"The almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath
delivered him into the hands of a woman."
This sentence strangely impressed me.
How ungallant these Jews are, I thought. And their
God might choose more becoming expressions when he
speaks of the fair sex.
"The almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath deliver-
ed him into the hands of a woman," I repeated to myself.
What shall I do, so that He may punish me?
Heaven preserve us! Here comes the housekeeper, who
has again diminished somewhat in size overnight. And up
there among the green twinings and garlandings the white
gown gleams again. Is it Venus, or the widow?
This time it happens to be the widow, for Madame
Tartakovska makes a courtesy, and asks me in her name for
something to read. I run to my room, and gather together a
couple of volumes.
Later I remember that my picture of Venus is in one of
them, and now it and my effusions are in the hands of the
white woman up there together. What will she say?
I hear her laugh.

20
 Is she laughing at me?
It is full moon. It is already peering over the tops of the
low hemlocks that fringe the park. A silvery exhalation fills
the terrace, the groups of trees, all the landscape, as far as the
eye can reach; in the distance it gradually fades away, like
trembling waters.
I cannot resist. I feel a strange urge and call within me.
I put on my clothes again and go out into the garden.
Some power draws me toward the meadow, toward
her, who is my divinity and my beloved.
The night is cool. I feel a slight chill. The atmosphere
is heavy with the odor of flowers and of the forest. It intox-
icates.
What solemnity! What music round about! A nightin-
gale sobs. The stars quiver very faintly in the pale-blue
glamour. The meadow seems smooth, like a mirror, like a
covering of ice on a pond.
The statue of Venus stands out august and luminous.
But—what has happened? From the marble shoulders
of the goddess a large dark fur flows down to her heels. I
stand dumbfounded and stare at her in amazement; again an
indescribable fear seizes hold of me and I take flight.
I hasten my steps, and notice that I have missed the
main path. As I am about to turn aside into one of the green
walks I see Venus sitting before me on a stone bench, not the
beautiful woman of marble, but the goddess of love herself
with warm blood and throbbing pulses. She has actually co-
me 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

21
cheeks begin to take color. Two diabolical green rays out of
her eyes fall upon me, and now she laughs.
Her laughter is very mysterious, very—I don't know. It
cannot be described, it takes my breath away. I flee further,
and after every few steps I have to pause to take breath. The
mocking laughter pursues me through the dark leafy paths,
across light open spaces, through the thicket where only
single moonbeams can pierce. I can no longer find my way, I
wander about utterly confused, with cold drops of perspir-
ation on the forehead.
Finally I stand still, and engage in a short monologue.
It runs—well—one is either very polite to one's self or
very rude.
I say to myself:
"Donkey!"
This word exercises a remarkable effect, like a magic
formula, which sets me free and makes me master of myself.
I am perfectly quiet in a moment.
With considerable pleasure I repeat: "Donkey!"
Now everything is perfectly clear and distinct before
my eyes again. There is the fountain, there the alley of box-
wood, there the house which I am slowly approaching.
Yet—suddenly the appearance is here again. Behind
the green screen through which the moonlight gleams so that
it seems embroidered with silver, I again see the white
figure, the woman of stone whom I adore, whom I fear and
flee.
With a couple of leaps I am within the house and catch
my breath and reflect.
What am I really, a little dilettante or a great big
donkey?
A sultry morning, the atmosphere is dead, heavily

22
laden with odors, yet stimulating. Again I am sitting in my
honey-suckle arbor, reading in the Odyssey about the beau=-
tiful witch who transformed her admirers into beasts. A
wonderful picture of antique love.
There is a soft rustling in the twigs and blades and the
pages of my book rustle and on the terrace likewise there is a
rustling.
A woman's dress—
She is there—Venus—but without furs—No, this time
it is merely the widow—and yet—Venus-oh, what a woman!
As she stands there in her light white morning gown,
looking at me, her slight figure seems full of poetry and
grace. She is neither large, nor small; her head is alluring,
piquant—in the sense of the period of the French marquises
—rather than formally beautiful. What enchantment and
softness, what roguish charm play about her none too small
mouth! Her skin is so infinitely delicate, that the blue veins
show through everywhere; even through the muslin covering
her arms and bosom. How abundant her red hair-it is red, not
blonde or golden-yellow—how diabolically and yet tenderly
it plays around her neck! Now her eyes meet mine like green
lightnings—they are green, these eyes of hers, whose power
is so indescribable—green, but as are precious stones, or
deep unfathomable mountain lakes.
She observes my confusion, which has even made me
discourteous, for I have remained seated and still have my
cap on my head.
She smiles roguishly.
Finally I rise and bow to her. She comes closer, and
bursts out into a loud, almost childlike laughter. I stammer,
as only a little dilettante or great big donkey can do on such
an occasion.

23
 Thus our acquaintance began.
The divinity asks for my name, and mentions her own.
Her name is Wanda von Dunajew.
And she is actually my Venus.
"But madame, what put the idea into your head?"
"The little picture in one of your books—"
"I had forgotten about it."
"The curious notes on its back—"
"Why curious?"
She looked at me.
"I have always wanted to know a real dreamer some
time—for the sake of the change—and you seem one of the
maddest of the tribe."
"Dear lady—in fact—" Again I fell victim to an
odious, asinine stammering, and in addition blushed in a way
that might have been appropriate for a youngster of sixteen,
but not for me, who was almost a full ten years older—
"You were afraid of me last night."
"Really—of course—but won't you sit down?"
She sat down, and enjoyed my embarrassment—for
actually I was even more afraid of her now in the full light of
day. A delightful expression of contempt hovered about her
upper lip.
"You look at love, and especially woman," she began,
"as something hostile, something against which you put up a
defense, even if unsuccessfully. You feel that their power
over you gives you a sensation of pleasurable torture, of
pungent cruelty. This is a genuinely modern point of view."
"You don't share it?"
"I do not share it," she said quickly and decisively,
shaking her head, so that her curls flew up like red flames.
"The ideal which I strive to realize in my life is the

24
serene sensuousness of the Greeks—pleasure without pain. I
do not believe in the kind of love which is preached by
Christianity, by the moderns, by the knights of the spirit.
Yes, look at me, I am worse than a heretic, I am a pagan.

Doest thou imagine long the goddess of love took counsel

When in Ida's grove she was pleased with the hero Achilles?

"These lines from Goethe's Roman Elegy have always

delighted me.
"In nature there is only the love of the heroic age,
'when gods and goddesses loved.' At that time 'desire
followed the glance, enjoyment desire.' All else is factitious,
affected, a lie. Christianity, whose cruel emblem, the cross,
has always had for me an element of the monstrous, brought
something alien and hostile into nature and its innocent
instincts.
"The battle of the spirit with the senses is the gospel of
modern man. I do not care to have a share in it."
"Yes, Mount Olympus would be the place for you,
madame," I replied, "but we moderns can no longer support
the antique serenity, least of all in love. The idea of sharing a
woman, even if it were an Aspasia, with another revolts us.
We are jealous as is our God. For example, we have made a
term abuse out of the name of the glorious Phryne.
"We prefer one of Holbein's meagre, pallid virgins,
which is wholly ours to an antique Venus, no matter how
divinely beautiful she is, but who loves Anchises today, Paris
tomorrow, 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

25
happiness a sin which we must expiate."
"So you too are one of those who rave about modern
women, those miserable hysterical feminine creatures who
don't appreciate a real man in their somnambulistic search
for some dream-man and masculine ideal. Amid tears and
convulsions they daily outrage their Christian duties; they
cheat and are cheated; they always seek again and choose
and reject; they are never happy, and never give happiness.
They accuse fate instead of calmly confessing that they want
to love and live as Helen and Aspasia lived. Nature admits of
no permanence in the relation between man and woman."
"But, my dear lady—"
"Let me finish. It is only man's egoism which wants to
keep woman like some buried treasure. All endeavors to
introduce permanence in love, the most changeable thing in
this changeable human existence, have gone shipwreck in
spite of religious ceremonies, vows, and legalities. Can you
deny that our Christian world has given itself over to
corruption?"
"But—"
"But you are about to say, the individual who rebels
against the arrangements of society is ostracized, branded,
stoned. So be it. I am willing to take the risk; my principles
are very pagan. I will live my own life as it pleases me. I am
willing to do without your hypocritical respect; I prefer to be
happy. The inventors of the Christian marriage have done
well, simultaneously to invent immortality. I, however, have
no wish to live eternally. When with my last breath
everything as far as Wanda von Dunajew is concerned
comes to an end here below, what does it profit me whether
my pure spirit joins the choirs of angels, or whether my dust
goes into the formation of new beings? Shall I belong to one

26
man whom I don't love, merely because I have once loved
him? No, I do not renounce; I love everyone who pleases me,
and give happiness to everyone who loves me. Is that ugly?
No, it is more beautiful by far, than if cruelly I enjoy the
tortures, which my beauty excites, and virtuously reject the
poor fellow who is pining away for me. I am young, rich,
and beautiful, and I live serenely for the sake of pleasure and
enjoyment."
While she was speaking her eyes sparkled roguishly,
and I had taken hold of her hands without exactly knowing
what to do with them, but being a genuine dilettante I hastily
let go of them again.
"Your frankness," I said, "delights me, and not it alone
—"
My confounded dilettantism again throttled me as
though there were a rope around my neck.
"You were about to say—"
"I was about to say—I was—I am sorry—I interrupted
you."
"How, so?"
A long pause. She is doubtless engaging in a
monologue, which translated into my language would be
comprised in the single word, "donkey."
"If I may ask," I finally began, "how did you arrive at
these—these conclusions?"
"Quite simply, my father was an intelligent man. From
my cradle onward I was surrounded by replicas of ancient
art; at ten years of age I read Gil Blas, at twelve La Pucelle.
Where others had Hop-o'-my-thumb, Bluebeard, Cinderella,
as childhood friends, mine were Venus and Apollo, Hercules
and Lackoon. My husband's personality was filled with sere-
nity and sunlight. Not even the incurable illness which fell

27
upon him soon after our marriage could long cloud his brow.
On the very night of his death he took me in his arms, and
during the many months when he lay dying in his wheel
chair, he often said jokingly to me: 'Well, have you already
picked out a lover?' I blushed with shame. 'Don't deceive
me,' he added on one occasion, 'that would seem ugly to me,
but pick out an attractive lover, or preferably several. You
are a splendid woman, but still half a child, and you need
toys.'
"I suppose, I hardly need tell you that during his life
time I had no lover; but it was through him that I have
become what I am, a woman of Greece."
"A goddess," I interrupted.
"Which one," she smiled.
"Venus."
She threatened me with her finger and knitted her
brows. "Perhaps, even a 'Venus in Furs.' Watch out, I have a
large, very large fur, with which I could cover you up
entirely, and I have a mind to catch you in it as in a net."
"Do you believe," I said quickly, for an idea which
seemed good, in spite of its conventionality and triteness,
flashed into my head, "do you believe that your theories
could be carried into execution at the present time, that
Venus would be permitted to stray with impunity among our
railroads and telegraphs in all her undraped beauty and
serenity?"
"Undraped, of course not, but in furs," she replied
smiling, "would you care to see mine?"
"And then—"
"What then?"
"Beautiful, free, serene, and happy human beings, such
as the Greeks were, are only possible when it is permitted to

28
have slaves who will perform the prosaic tasks of every day
for them and above all else labor for them."
"Of course," she replied playfully, "an Olympian divi-
nity, such as I am, requires a whole army of slaves. Beware
of me!"
"Why?"
I myself was frightened at the hardiness with which I
uttered this "why"; it did not startle her in the least.
She drew back her lips a little so that her small white
teeth became visible, and then said lightly, as if she were
discussing some trifling matter, "Do you want to be my
slave?"
"There is no equality in love," I replied solemnly.
"Whenever it is a matter of choice for me of ruling or being
ruled, it seems much more satisfactory to me to be the slave
of a beautiful woman. But where shall I find the woman who
knows how to rule, calmly, full of self-confidence, even
harshly, and not seek to gain her power by means of petty
nagging?"
"Oh, that might not be so difficult."
"You think—"
"I—for instance—" she laughed and leaned far back
—"I have a real talent for despotism—I also have the neces-
sary furs—but last night you were really seriously afraid of
me!"
"Quite seriously."
"And now?"
"Now, I am more afraid of you than ever!"
We are together every day, I and—Venus; we are
together a great deal. We breakfast in my honey-suckle
arbor, and have tea in her little sitting-room. I have an
opportunity to unfold all my small, very small talents. Of

29
what use would have been my study of all the various
sciences, my playing at all the arts, if I were unable in the
case of a pretty, little woman—
But this woman is by no means little; in fact she
impresses me tremendously. I made a drawing of her today,
and felt particularly clearly, how inappropriate the modern
way of dressing is for a cameo-head like hers. The
configuration of her face has little of the Roman, but much
of the Greek.
Sometimes I should like to paint her as Psyche, and
then again as Astarte. It depends upon the expression in her
eyes, whether it is vaguely dreamy, or half-consuming, filled
with tired desire. She, however, insists that it be a portrait-
likeness.
I shall make her a present of furs.
How could I have any doubts? If not for her, for whom
would princely furs be suitable?

* * *

I was with her yesterday evening, reading the Roman Elegies

to her. Then I laid the book aside, and improvised something
for her. She seemed pleased; rather more than that, she
actually hung upon my words, and her bosom heaved.
Or was I mistaken?
The rain beat in melancholy fashion on the window-
panes, the fire crackled in the fireplace in wintery comfort. I
felt quite at home with her, and for a moment lost all my fear
of this beautiful woman; I kissed her hand, and she permitted
it.
Then I sat down at her feet and read a short poem I had
written for her.

30
 VENUS IN FURS

Place thy foot upon thy slave,

Oh thou, half of hell, half of dreams;
Among the shadows, dark and grave,
Thy extended body softly gleams.

And—so on. This time I really got beyond the first

stanza. At her request I gave her the poem in the evening,
keeping no copy. And now as I am writing this down in my
diary I can only remember the first
stanza.
I am filled with a very curious sensation. I don't
believe that I am in love with Wanda; I am sure that at our
first meeting, I felt nothing of the lightning-like flashes of
passion. But I feel how her extraordinary, really divine
beauty is gradually winding magic snares about me. It isn't
any spiritual sympathy which is growing in me; it is a
physical subjection, coming on slowly, but for that reason
more absolutely.
I suffer under it more and more each day, and she—she
merely smiles.

* * *

Without any provocation she suddenly said to me today:

"You interest me. Most men are very commonplace, without
verve or poetry. In you there is a certain depth and capacity
for enthusiasm and a deep seriousness, which delight me. I
might learn to love you."
After a short but severe shower we went out together
to the meadow and the statue of Venus. All about us the

31
earth steamed; mists rose up toward heaven like clouds of
incense; a shattered rainbow still hovered in the air. The
trees were still shedding drops, but sparrows and finches
were already hopping from twig to twig. They are twittering
gaily, as if very much pleased at something. Everything is
filled with a fresh fragrance. We cannot cross the meadow
for it is still wet. In the sunlight it looks like a small pool,
and the goddess of love seems to rise from the undulations of
its mirror-like surface. About her head a swarm of gnats is
dancing, which, illuminated by the sun, seem to hover above
her like an aureole.
Wanda is enjoying the lovely scene. As all the benches
along the walk are still wet, she supports herself on my arm
to rest a while. A soft weariness permeates her whole being,
her eyes are half closed; I feel the touch of her breath on my
cheek.
How I managed to get up courage enough I really don't
know, but I took hold of her hand, asking,
"Could you love me?"
"Why not," she replied, letting her calm, clear look rest
upon me, but not for long.
A moment later I am kneeling before her, pressing my
burning face against the fragrant muslin of her gown.
"But Severin—this isn't right," she cried.
But I take hold of her little foot, and press my lips upon
it.
"You are getting worse and worse!" she cried. She tore
herself free, and fled rapidly toward the house, the while her
adorable slipper remained in my hand.
Is it an omen?

* * *

32
All day long I didn't dare to go near her. Toward evening as I
was sitting in my arbor her gay red head peered suddenly
through the greenery of her balcony. "Why don't you come
up?" he called down impatiently.
I ran upstairs, and at the top lost courage again. I
knocked very lightly. She didn't say come-in, but opened the
door herself, and stood on the threshold.
"Where is my slipper?"
"It is—I have—I want," I stammered.
"Get it, and then we will have tea together, and chat."
When I returned, she was engaged in making tea. I
ceremoniously placed the slipper on the table, and stood in
the corner like a child awaiting punishment.
I noticed that her brows were slightly contracted, and
there was an expression of hardness and dominance about
her lips which delighted me.
All of a sudden she broke out laughing.
"So—you are really in love—with me?"
"Yes, and I suffer more from it than you can imagine?"
"You suffer?" she laughed again.
I was revolted, mortified, annihilated, but all this was
quite useless.
"Why?" she continued, "I like you, with all my heart."
She gave me her hand, and looked at me in the
friendliest fashion.
"And will you be my wife?"
Wanda looked at me—how did she look at me? I think
first of all with surprise, and then with a tinge of irony.
"What has given you so much courage, all at once?"
"Courage?"
"Yes courage, to ask anyone to be your wife, and me in
particular?"

33
 She lifted up the slipper. "Was it through a sudden
friendship with this? But joking aside. Do you really wish to
marry me?"
"Yes."
"Well, Severin, that is a serious matter. I believe, you
love me, and I care for you too, and what is more important
each of us finds the other interesting. There is no danger that
we would soon get bored, but, you know, I am a fickle
person, and just for that reason I take marriage seriously. If I
assume obligations, I want to be able to meet them. But I am
afraid—no—it would hurt you."
"Please be perfectly frank with me," I replied.
"Well then honestly, I don't believe I could love a man
longer than—" She inclined her head gracefully to one side
and mused.
"A year."
"What do you imagine—a month perhaps."
"Not even me?"
"Oh you—perhaps two."
"Two months!" I exclaimed.
"Two months is very long."
"You go beyond antiquity, madame."
"You see, you cannot stand the truth."
Wanda walked across the room and leaned back
against the fireplace, watching me and resting one of her
arms on the mantelpiece.
"What shall I do with you?" she began anew.
"Whatever you wish," I replied with resignation,
"whatever will give you pleasure."
"How illogical!" she cried, "first you want to make me
your wife, and then you offer yourself to me as something to
toy with."

34
 "Wanda—I love you."
"Now we are back to the place where we started. You
love me, and want to make me your wife, but I don't want to
enter into a new marriage, because I doubt the permanence
of both my and your feelings."
"But if I am willing to take the risk with you?" I
replied.
"But it also depends on whether I am willing to risk it
with you," she said quietly. "I can easily imagine belonging
to one man for my entire life, but he would have to be a
whole man, a man who would dominate me, who would
subjugate me by his inate strength, do you understand? And
every man—I know this very well—as soon as he falls
in love becomes weak, pliable, ridiculous. He puts himself
into the woman's hands, kneels down before her. The only
man whom I could love permanently would be he before
whom I should have to kneel. I've gotten to like you so
much, however, that I'll try it with you."
I fell down at her feet.
"For heaven's sake, here you are kneeling already," she
said mockingly. "You are making a good beginning." When I
had risen again she continued, "I will give you a year's time
to win me, to convince me that we are suited to each other,
that we might live together. If you succeed, I will become
your wife, and a wife, Severin, who will conscientiously and
strictly perform all her duties. During this year we will live
as though we were married—"
My blood rose to my head.
In her eyes too there was a sudden flame—
"We will live together," she continued, "share our daily
life, so that we may find out whether we are really fitted for
each other. I grant you all the rights of a husband, of a lover,

35
of a friend. Are you satisfied?"
"I suppose, I'll have to be?"
"You don't have to."
"Well then, I want to—"
"Splendid. That is how a man speaks. Here is my
hand."

For ten days I have been with her every hour, except at night.
All the time I was allowed to look into her eyes, hold her
hands, listen to what she said, accompany her wherever she
went.
My love seems to me like a deep, bottomless abyss,
into which I subside deeper and deeper. There is nothing
now which could save me from it.
This afternoon we were resting on the meadow at the
foot of the Venus-statue. I plucked flowers and tossed them
into her lap; she wound them into wreaths with which we
adorned our goddess.
Suddenly Wanda looked at me so strangely that my
senses became confused and passion swept over my head
like a conflagration. Losing command over myself, I threw
my arms about her and clung to her lips, and she—she drew
me close to her heaving breast.
"Are you angry?" I then asked her.
"I am never angry at anything that is natural—" she
replied, "but I am afraid you suffer."
"Oh, I am suffering frightfully."
"Poor friend!" she brushed my disordered hair back
from my forehead. "I hope it isn't through any fault of mine."
"No—" I replied,—"and yet my love for you has
become a sort of madness. The thought that I might lose you,
perhaps actually lose you, torments me day and night."

36
 "But you don't yet possess me," said Wanda, and again
she looked at me with that vibrant, consuming expression,
which had already once before carried me away. Then she
rose, and with her small transparent hands placed a wreath of
blue anemones upon the ringletted white head of Venus. Half
against my will I threw my arm around her body.
"I can no longer live without you, oh wonderful
woman," I said. "Believe me, believe only this once, that this
time it is not a phrase, not a thing of dreams. I feel deep
down in my innermost soul, that my life belongs inseparably
with yours. If you leave me, I shall perish, go to pieces."
"That will hardly be necessary, for I love you," she
took hold of my chin, "you foolish man!"
"But you will be mine only under conditions, while I
belong to you unconditionally—"
"That isn't wise, Severin," she replied almost with a
start. "Don't you know me yet, do you absolutely refuse to
know me? I am good when I am treated seriously and
reasonably, but when you abandon yourself too absolutely to
me, I grow arrogant—"
"So be it, be arrogant, be despotic," I cried in the
fulness of exaltation, "only be mine, mine forever." I lay at
her feet, embracing her knees.
"Things will end badly, my friend," she said soberly,
without moving.
"It shall never end," I cried excitedly, almost violently.
"Only death shall part us. If you cannot be mine, all mine
and for always, then I want to be your slave, serve you,
suffer everything from you, if only you won't drive me
away."
"Calm yourself," she said, bending down and kissing
my forehead, "I am really very fond of you, but your way is

37
not the way to win and hold me."
"I want to do everything, absolutely everything, that
you want, only not to lose you," I cried, "only not that, I
cannot bear the thought."
"Do get up."
I obeyed.
"You are a strange person," continued Wanda. "You
wish to possess me at any price?"
"Yes, at any price."
"But of what value, for instance, would that be?"—She
pondered; a lurking uncanny expression entered her eyes
—"If I no longer loved you, if I belonged to another."
A shudder ran through me. I looked at her She stood
firmly and confident before me, and her eyes disclosed a
cold gleam.
"You see," she continued, "the very thought frightens
you." A beautiful smile suddenly illuminated her face.
"I feel a perfect horror, when I imagine, that the
woman I love and who has responded to my love could give
herself to another regardless of me. But have I still a choice?
If I love such a woman, even unto madness, shall I turn my
back to her and lose everything for the sake of a bit of
boastful strength; shall I send a bullet through my brains? I
have two ideals of woman. If I cannot obtain the one that
is noble and simple, the woman who will faithfully and truly
share my life, well then I don't want anything half-way or
lukewarm. Then I would rather be subject to a woman
without virtue, fidelity, or pity. Such a woman in her
magnificent selfishness is likewise an ideal. If
I am not permitted to enjoy the happiness of love, fully and
wholly, I want to taste its pains and torments to the very
dregs; I want to be maltreated and betrayed by the woman I

38
love, and the more cruelly the better. This too is a luxury."
"Have you lost your senses," cried Wanda.
"I love you with all my soul," I continued, "with all my
senses, and your presence and personality are absolutely
essential to me, if I am to go on living. Choose between my
ideals. Do with me what you will, make of me your husband
or your slave."
"Very well," said Wanda, contracting her small but
strongly arched brows, "it seems to me it would be rather
entertaining to have a man, who interests me and loves me,
completely in my power; at least I shall not lack pastime.
You were imprudent enough to leave the choice
to me. Therefore I choose; I want you to be my slave, I shall
make a plaything for myself out of you!"
"Oh, please do," I cried half-shuddering, half-enrapt-
ured. "If the foundation of marriage depends on equality and
agreement, it is likewise true that the greatest passions rise
out of opposites. We are such opposites, almost enemies.
That is why my love is part hate, part fear. In such a relation
only one can be hammer and the other anvil. I wish to be the
anvil. I cannot be happy when I look down upon the woman
I love. I want to adore a woman, and this I can only
do when she is cruel towards me."
"But, Severin," replied Wanda, almost angrily, "do you
believe me capable of maltreating a man who loves me as
you do, and whom I love?"
"Why not, if I adore you the more on this account? It is
possible to love really only that which stands above us, a
woman, who through her beauty, temperament, intelligence,
and strength of will subjugates us and becomes a despot over
us."
"Then that which repels others, attracts you."

39
 "Yes. That is the strange part of me."
"Perhaps, after all, there isn't anything so very unique
or strange in all your passions, for who doesn't love beautiful
furs? And everyone knows and feels how closely sexual love
and cruelty are related."
"But in my case all these elements are raised to their
highest degree," I replied.
"In other words, reason has little power over you, and
you are by nature, soft, sensual, yielding."
"Were the martyrs also soft and sensual by nature?"
"The martyrs?"
"On the contrary, they were supersensual men, who
found enjoyment in suffering. They sought out the most
frightful tortures, even death itself, as others seek joy, and as
they were, so am I—supersensual."
"Have a care that in being such, you do not become a
martyr to love, the martyr of a woman."
We are sitting on Wanda's little balcony in the mellow
fragrant summer night. A twofold roof is above us, first the
green ceiling of climbing-plants, and then the vault of
heaven sown with innumerable stars. The low wailing love-
call of a cat rises from the park. I am sitting on footstool at
the feet of my divinity, and am telling her of my childhood.
"And even then all these strange tendencies were
distinctly marked in you?" asked Wanda.
"Of course, I can't remember a time when I didn't have
them. Even in my cradle, so mother has told me, I was
supersensual. I scorned the healthy breast of my nurse, and
had to be brought up on goats' milk. As a little boy I was
mysteriously shy before women, which really was
only an expression of an inordinate interest in them. I was
oppressed by the gray arches and half-darknesses of the

40
church, and actually afraid of the glittering altars and images
of the saints. Secretly, however, I sneaked as to a secret joy
to a plaster-Venus which stood in my father's little library. I
kneeled down before her, and to her I said the prayers I had
been taught—the Paternoster, the Ave Maria, and the Credo.
"Once at night I left my bed to visit her. The sickle of
the moon was my light and showed me the goddess in a pale-
blue cold light. I prostrated myself before her and kissed her
cold feet, as I had seen our peasants do when they kissed the
feet of the dead Savior.
"An irresistible yearning seized me.
"I got up and embraced the beautiful cold body and
kissed the cold lips. A deep shudder fell upon me and I fled,
and later in a dream, it seemed to me, as if the goddess stood
beside my bed, threatening me with up-raised arm.
"I was sent to school early and soon reached the
gymnasium. I passionately grasped at everything which
promised to make the world of antiquity accessible to me.
Soon I was more familiar with the gods of Greece than with
the religion of Jesus. I was with Paris when he gave the
fateful apple to Venus, I saw Troy burn, and followed
Ulysses on his wanderings. The prototypes of all that is
beautiful sank deep into my soul, and consequently at the
time when other boys are coarse and obscene, I displayed an
insurmountable aversion to everything base, vulgar,
unbeautiful.
"To me, the maturing youth, love for women seemed
something especially base and unbeautiful, for it showed
itself to me first in all its commonness. I avoided all contact
with the fair sex; in short, I was supersensual to madness.
"When I was about fourteen my mother had a
charming chamber-maid, young, attractive, with a figure just

41
budding into womanhood. I was sitting one day studying my
Tacitus and growing enthusiastic over the virtues of the
ancient Teutons, while she was sweeping my room.
Suddenly she stopped, bent down over me, in the meantime
holding fast to the broom, and a pair of fresh, full, adorable
lips touched mine. The kiss of the enamoured little cat ran
through me like a shudder, but I raised up my Germania, like
a shield against the temptress, and indignantly left the room."
Wanda broke out in loud laughter. "It would, indeed,
be hard to find another man like you, but continue."
"There is another unforgetable incident belonging to
that period," I continued my story. "Countess Sobol, a distant
aunt of mine, was visiting my parents. She was a beautiful
majestic woman with an attractive smile. I, however, hated
her, for she was regarded by the family as a sort of Messa-
lina. My behavior toward her was as rude, malicious, and
awkward as possible.
"One day my parents drove to the capital of the
district. My aunt determined to take advantage of their
absence, and to exercise judgment over me. She entered
unexpectedly in her fur-lined kazabaika,2 followed by the
cook, kitchen-maid, and the cat of a chamber-maid whom I
had scorned. Without asking any questions, they seized me
and bound me hand and foot, in spite of my violent
resistance. Then my aunt, with an evil smile, rolled up her
sleeve and began to whip me with a stout switch. She
whipped so hard that the blood flowed, and that, at last,
notwithstanding my heroic spirit, I cried and wept and
begged for mercy. She then had me untied, but I had to get
down on my knees and thank her for the punishment and kiss
her hand.
2
A woman's jacket.

42
 "Now you understand the supersensual fool! Under the
lash of a beautiful woman my senses first realized the
meaning of woman. In her fur-jacket she seemed to me like a
wrathful queen, and from then on my aunt became the most
desirable woman on God's earth.
"My Cato-like austerity, my shyness before woman,
was nothing but an excessive feeling for beauty. In my
imagination sensuality became a sort of cult. I took an oath
to myself that I would not squander its holy wealth upon any
ordinary person, but I would reserve it for an ideal woman, if
possible for the goddess of love herself.
"I went to the university at a very early age. It was in
the capital where my aunt lived. My room looked at that time
like Doctor Faustus's. Everything in it was in a wild
confusion. There were huge closets stuffed full of books,
which I bought for a song from a Jewish dealer on the
Servanica;3 there were globes, atlases, flasks, charts of the
heavens, skeletons of animals, skulls, the busts of eminent
men. It looked as though Mephistopheles might have stepped
out from behind the huge green store as a wandering
scholiast at any moment.
"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, Moliere, the Koran, the Kosmos, Casanova's Mem-
oirs. 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.
3
The street of the Jews in Lemberg.

43
Sometimes she appeared gowned like the Olympians with
the stern white face of the plaster Venus; sometimes in
braids of a rich brown, blue-eyes, in my aunt's red velvet
kazabaika, trimmed with ermine.
"One morning when she had again risen out of the
golden mist of my imagination in all her smiling beauty, I
went to see Countess Sobol, who received me in a friendly,
even cordial manner. She gave me a kiss of welcome, which
put all my senses in a turmoil. She was probably about forty
years old, but like most well-preserved women of the world,
still very attractive. She wore as always her fur-edged jacket.
This time it was one of green velvet with brown marten. But
nothing of the sternness which had so delighted me the other
time was now discernable.
"On the contrary, there was so little of cruelty in her
that without any more ado she let me adore her.
"Only too soon did she discover my supersensual folly
and innocence, and it pleased her to make me happy. As for
myself—I was as happy as a young god. What rapture for me
to be allowed to lie before her on my knees, and to kiss her
hands, those with which she had scourged me! What
marvellous hands they were, of beautiful form, delicate,
rounded, and white, with adorable dimples! I really was in
love with her hands only. I played with them, let them
submerge and emerge in the dark fur, held them against the
light, and was unable to satiate my eyes with them."
Wanda involuntarily looked at her hand; I noticed it,
and had to smile.
"From the way in which the supersensual predomina-
ted 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

44
roles she played. Still later I became the admirer of a
respectable woman. She acted the part of irreproachable
virtue, only in the end to betray me with a rich Jew. You see,
it is because I was betrayed, sold, by a woman who feigned
the strictest principles and the highest ideals, that I hate that
sort of poetical, sentimental virtue so intensely. Give me
rather a woman who is honest enough to say to me: I am a
Pompadour, a Lucretia Borgia, and I am ready to adore her."
Wanda rose and opened the window.
"You have a curious way of arousing one's imagina-
tion, stimulating all one's nerves, and making one's pulses
beat faster. You put an aureole on vice, provided only if it is
honest. Your ideal is a daring courtesan of genius. Oh, you
are the kind of man who will corrupt a woman to her very
last fiber.

* * *

In the middle of the night there was a knock at my window; I

got up, opened it, and was startled. Without stood "Venus in
Furs," just as she had appeared to me the first time.
"You have disturbed me with your stories; I have been
tossing about in bed, and can't go to sleep," she said. "Now
come and stay with me."
"In a moment."
As I entered Wanda was crouching by the fireplace
where she had kindled a small fire.
"Autumn is coming," she began, "the nights are really
quite cold already. I am afraid you may not like it, but I can't
put off my furs until the room is sufficiently warm."
"Not like it—you are joking—you know—" I threw
my arm around her, and kissed her.

45
 "Of course, I know, but why this great fondness for
furs?"
"I was born with it," I replied. "I already had it as a
child. Furthermore furs have a stimulating effect on all
highly organized natures. This is due both to general and
natural laws. It is a physical stimulus which sets you tingl-
ing, 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 charact-
ers, a heated atmosphere stimulation. Likewise with electri-
city. This is the reason why the presence of cats exercises
such a magic influence upon highly-organized men of intel-
lect. 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 Riche-
lieu, Crebillon, Rousseau, Wieland."
"A woman wearing furs, then," cried Wanda, "is
nothing else than a large cat, an augmented electric battery?"
"Certainly," I replied. "That is my explanation of the
symbolic meaning which fur has acquired as the attribute of
power and beauty. Monarchs and the dominant higher nobi-
lity in former times used it in this sense for their costume,
exclusively; great painters used it only for queenly beauty.
The most beautiful frame, which Raphael could find for the
divine forms of Fornarina and Titian for the roseate body of
his beloved, was dark furs."
"Thanks for the learned discourse on love," said
Wanda, "but you haven't told me everything. You associate
something entirely individual with furs."
"Certainly," I cried. "I have repeatedly told you that
suffering has a peculiar attraction for me. Nothing can int-

46
ensify my passion more than tyranny, cruelty, and esp-
ecially the faithlessness of a beautiful woman. And I cannot
imagine this woman, this strange ideal derived from an
aesthetics of ugliness, this soul of Nero in the body of a
Phryne, except in furs."
"I understand," Wanda interrupted. "It gives a domin-
ant and imposing quality to a woman."
"Not only that," I continued. "You know I am super-
sensual. 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 grid-
iron, pierced with arrows, boiled in pitch, thrown to wild
animals, nailed to the cross, and suffered the most horrible
torment with a kind of joy. To suffer and endure cruel torture
from then on seemed to me exquisite delight, especially
when it was inflicted by a beautiful woman, for ever since I
can remember all poetry and everything demonic was for me
concentrated in woman. I literally carried the idea into a sort
of cult.
"I felt there was something sacred in sex; in fact, it was
the only sacred thing. In woman and her beauty I saw
something divine, because the most important function of
existence—the continuation of the species—is her vocation.
To me woman represented a personification of nature, Isis,
and man was her priest, her slave. In contrast to him she was
cruel like nature herself who tosses aside whatever has
served her purposes as soon as she no longer has need for it.
To him her cruelties, even death itself, still were sensual
raptures.

47
 "I envied King Gunther whom the mighty Brunhilde
fettered on the bridal night, and the poor troubadour whom
his capricious mistress had sewed in the skins of wolves to
have him hunted like game. I envied the Knight Ctirad whom
the daring Amazon Scharka craftily ensnared in a forest near
Prague, and carried to her castle Divin, where, after having
amused herself a while with him, she had him broken on the
wheel—"
"Disgusting," cried Wanda. "I almost wish you might
fall into the hands of a woman of their savage race. In the
wolf's skin, under the teeth of the dogs, or upon the wheel,
you would lose the taste for your kind of poetry."
"Do you think so? I hardly do."
"Have you actually lost your senses."
"Possibly. But let me go on. I developed a perfect
passion for reading stories in which the extremest cruelties
were described. I loved especially to look at pictures and
prints which represented them. All the sanguinary tyrants
that ever occupied a throne; the inquisitors who had the
heretics tortured, roasted, and butchered; all the woman
whom the pages of history have recorded as lustful, beauti-
ful, and violent women like Libussa, Lucretia Borgia, Agnes
of Hungary, Queen Margot, Isabeau, the Sultana Roxolane,
the Russian Czarinas of last century—all these I saw in furs
or in robes bordered with ermine."
"And so furs now rouse strange imaginings in you,"
said Wanda, and simultaneously she began to drape her
magnificent fur-cloak coquettishly about her, so that the dark
shining sable played beautifully around her bust and arms.
"Well, how do you feel now, half broken on the wheel?"
Her piercing green eyes rested on me with a peculiar
mocking satisfaction. Overcome by desire, I flung myself

48
down before her, and threw my arms about her.
"Yes—you have awakened my dearest dream," I cried.
"It has slept long enough."
"And this is?" She put her hand on my neck.
I was seized with a sweet intoxication under the
influence of this warm little hand and of her regard, which,
tenderly searching, fell upon me through her half-closed lids.
"To be the slave of a woman, a beautiful woman,
whom I love, whom I worship."
"And who on that account maltreats you," interrupted
Wanda, laughing.
"Yes, who fetters me and whips me, treads me
underfoot, the while she gives herself to another."
"And who in her wantonness will go so far as to make
a present of you to your successful rival when driven insane
by jealousy you must meet him face to face, who will turn
you over to his absolute mercy. Why not? This final tableau
doesn't please you so well?"
I looked at Wanda frightened.
"You surpass my dreams."
"Yes, we women are inventive," she said, "take heed,
when you find your ideal, it might easily happen, that she
will treat you more cruelly than you anticipate."
"I am afraid that I have already found my ideal!" I
exclaimed, burying my burning face in her lap.
"Not I?" exclaimed Wanda, throwing off her furs and
moving about the room laughing. She was still laughing as I
went downstairs, and when I stood musing in the yard, I still
heard her peals of laughter above.

* * *

49
"Do you really then expect me to embody your ideal?"
Wanda asked archly, when we met in the park today.
At first I could find no answer. The most antagonistic
emotions were battling within me. In the meantime she sat
down on one of the stone-benches, and played with a flower.
"Well—am I?"
I kneeled down and seized her hands.
"Once more I beg you to become my wife, my true and
loyal wife; if you can't do that then become the embodiment
of my ideal, absolutely, without reservation, without soft-
ness."
"You know I am ready at the end of a year to give you
my hand, if you prove to be the man I am seeking," Wanda
replied very seriously, "but I think you would be more
grateful to me if through me you realized your imaginings.
Well, which do you prefer?"
"I believe that everything my imagination has dreamed
lies latent in your personality."
"You are mistaken."
"I believe," I continued, "that you enjoy having a man
wholly in your power, torturing him—"
"No, no," she exclaimed quickly, "or perhaps—." She
pondered.
"I don't understand myself any longer," she continued,
"but I have a confession to make to you. You have corrupted
my imagination and inflamed my blood. I am beginning to
like the things you speak of. The enthusiasm with which you
speak of a Pompadour, a Catherine the Second, and all the
other selfish, frivolous, cruel women, carries me away and
takes hold of my soul. It urges me on to become like those
women, who in spite of their vileness were slavishly adored
during their lifetime and still exert a miraculous power from

50
their graves.
"You will end by making of me a despot in miniature,
a domestic Pompadour."
"Well then," I said in agitation, "if all this is inherent in
you, give way to this trend of your nature. Nothing half-way.
If you can't be a true and loyal wife to me, be a demon."
I was nervous from loss of sleep, and the proximity of
the beautiful woman affected me like a fever. I no longer
recall what I said, but I remember that I kissed her feet, and
finally raised her foot and put my neck under it. She
withdrew it quickly, and rose almost angrily.
"If you love me, Severin," she said quickly, and her
voice sounded sharp and commanding, "never speak to me of
those things again. Understand, never! Otherwise I might
really—" She smiled and sat down again.
"I am entirely serious," I exclaimed, half-raving. "I ad-
ore you so infinitely that I am willing to suffer anything from
you, for the sake of spending my whole life near you."
"Severin, once more I warn you."
"Your warning is vain. Do with me what you will, as
long as you don't drive me away."
"Severin," replied Wanda, "I am a frivolous young
woman; it is dangerous for you to put yourself so completely
in my power. You will end by actually becoming a plaything
to me. Who will give warrant that I shall not abuse your
insane desire?"
"Your own nobility of character."
"Power makes people over-bearing."
"Be it," I cried, "tread me underfoot."
Wanda threw her arms around my neck, looked into
my eyes, and shook her head.
"I am afraid I can't, but I will try, for your sake, for I

51
love you Severin, as I have loved no other man."

* * *

Today she suddenly took her hat and shawl, and I had to go
shopping with her. She looked at whips, long whips with a
short handle, the kind that are used on dogs.
"Are these satisfactory?" said the shopkeeper.
"No, they are much too small," replied Wanda, with a
side-glance at me. "I need a large—"
"For a bull-dog, I suppose?" opined the merchant.
"Yes," she exclaimed, "of the kind that are used in
Russia for intractable slaves."
She looked further and finally selected a whip, at
whose sight I felt a strange creeping sensation.
"Now good-by, Severin," she said. "I have some other
purchases to make, but you can't go along."
I left her and took a walk. On the way back I saw
Wanda coming out at a furrier's. She beckoned me.
"Consider it well," she began in good spirits, "I have
never made a secret of how deeply your serious, dreamy
character has fascinated me. The idea of seeing this serious
man wholly in my power, actually lying enraptured at my
feet, of course, stimulates me—but will this attraction last?
Woman loves a man; she maltreats a slave, and ends by
kicking him aside."
"Very well then, kick me aside," I replied, "when you
are tired of me. I want to be your slave."
"Dangerous forces lie within me," said Wanda, after
we had gone a few steps further. "You awaken them, and not
to your advantage. You know how to paint pleasure, cruelty,
arrogance in glowing colors. What would you say should I

52
try my hand at them, and make you the first object of my
experiments. I would be like Dionysius who had the inventor
of the iron ox roasted within it in order to see whether his
wails and groans really resembled the bellowing of an ox.
"Perhaps I am a female Dionysius?"
"Be it," I exclaimed, "and my dreams will be fulfilled. I
am yours for good or evil, choose. The destiny that lies
concealed within my breast drives me on—demoniacally—
relentlessly."
My Beloved,
I do not care to see you today or tomorrow, and
not until evening the day after tomorrow, and then as
my slave.
Your mistress,
Wanda
"As my slave" was underlined. I read the note which I recei-
ved 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 yearn-
ing, with the magnificent scenery of the Carpathians. I am
back, tired, hungry, thirsty, and more in love than ever. I
quickly change my clothes, and a few moments later knock
at her door.
"Come in!"
I enter. She is standing in the center of the room,
dressed in a gown of white satin which floods down her
body like light. Over it she wears a scarlet kazabaika, richly
edged with ermine. Upon her powdered, snowy hair is a little
diadem of diamonds. She stands with her arms folded across
her breast, and with her brows contracted.
"Wanda!" I run toward her, and am about to throw my

53
arm about her to kiss her. She retreats a step, measuring me
from top to bottom.
"Slave!"
"Mistress!" I kneel down, and kiss the hem of her
garment.
"That is as it should be."
"Oh, how beautiful you are."
"Do I please you?" She stepped before the mirror, and
looked at herself with proud satisfaction.
"I shall become mad!"
Her lower lip twitched derisively, and she looked at me
mockingly from behind half-closed lids.
"Give me the whip."
I looked about the room.
"No," she exclaimed, "stay as you are, kneeling." She
went over to the fire-place, took the whip from the mantle-
piece, and, watching me with a smile, let it hiss through the
air; then she slowly rolled up the sleeve of her fur-jacket.
"Marvellous woman!" I exclaimed.
"Silence, slave!" She suddenly scowled, looked savage,
and struck me with the whip. A moment later she threw her
arm tenderly about me, and pityingly bent down to me. "Did
I hurt you?" she asked, half-shyly, half-timidly.
"No," I replied, "and even if you had, pains that come
through you are a joy. Strike again, if it gives you pleasure."
"But it doesn't give me pleasure."
Again I was seized with that strange intoxication.
"Whip me," I begged, "whip me without mercy."
Wanda swung the whip, and hit me twice. "Are you
satisfied now?"
"No."
"Seriously, no?"

54
 "Whip me, I beg you, it is a joy to me."
"Yes, because you know very well that it isn't serious,"
she replied, "because I haven't the heart to hurt you. This
brutal game goes against my grain. Were I really the woman
who beats her slaves you would be horrified."
"No, Wanda," I replied, "I love you more than myself;
I am devoted to you for death and life. In all seriousness, you
can do with me whatever you will, whatever your caprice
suggests."
"Severin!"
"Tread me underfoot!" I exclaimed, and flung myself
face to the floor before her.
"I hate all this play-acting," said Wanda impatiently.
"Well, then maltreat me seriously."
An uncanny pause.
"Severin, I warn you for the last time," began Wanda.
"If you love me, be cruel towards me," I pleaded with
upraised eyes.
"If I love you," repeated Wanda. "Very well!" She
stepped back and looked at me with a sombre smile. "Be
then my slave, and know what it means to be delivered into
the hands of a woman." And at the same moment she gave
me a kick.
"How do you like that, slave?"
Then she flourished the whip.
"Get up!"
I was about to rise.
"Not that way," she commanded, "on your knees."
I obeyed, and she began to apply the lash.
The blows fell rapidly and powerfully on my back and
arms. Each one cut into my flesh and burned there, but the
pains enraptured me. They came from her whom I adored,

55
and for whom I was ready at any hour to lay down my life.
She stopped. "I am beginning to enjoy it," she said,
"but enough for today. 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 sen-
ses. You have awakened dangerous elements in my being.
But now get up."
I seized her hand to press it to my lips.
"What impudence."
She shoved me away with her foot.
"Out of my sight, slave!"

* * *

After having spent a feverish night filled with confused

dreams, I awoke. Dawn was just beginning to break.
How much of what was hovering in my memory was
true; what had I actually experienced and what had I dream-
ed? That I had been whipped was certain. I can still feel each
blow, and count the burning red stripes on my body. And
she whipped me. Now I know everything.
My dream has become truth. How does it make me
feel? Am I disappointed in the realization of my dream?
No, I am merely somewhat tired, but her cruelty has
enraptured me. Oh, how I love her, adore her! All this cannot
express in the remotest way my feeling for her, my complete
devotion to her. What happiness to be her slave!

* * *

56
She calls to me from her balcony. I hurry upstairs. She is
standing on the threshold, holding out her hand in friendly
fashion. "I am ashamed of myself," she says, while I
embrace her, and she hides her head against my breast.
"Why?"
"Please try to forget the ugly scene of yesterday," she
said with quivering voice, "I have fulfilled your mad wish,
now let us be reasonable and happy and love each other, and
in a year I will be your wife."
"My mistress," I exclaimed, "and I your slave!"
"Not another word of slavery, cruelty, or the whip,"
interrupted Wanda. "I shall not grant you any of those
favors, none except wearing my fur-jacket; come and help
me into it."

* * *

The little bronze clock on which stood a cupid who had just
shot his bolt struck midnight.
I rose, and wanted to leave.
Wanda said nothing, but embraced me and drew me
back on the ottoman. She began to kiss me anew, and this
silent language was so comprehensible, so convincing—
And it told me more than I dared to understand.
A languid abandonment pervaded Wanda's entire
being. What a voluptuous softness there was in the gloaming
of her half-closed eyes, in the red flood of her hair which
shimmered faintly under the white powder, in the red and
white satin which crackled about her with every movement,
in the swelling ermine of the kazabaika in which she
carelessly nestled.
"Please," I stammered, "but you will be angry with

57
me."
"Do with me what you will," she whispered.
"Well, then whip me, or I shall go mad."
"Haven't I forbidden you," said Wanda sternly, "but
you are incorrigible."
"Oh, I am so terribly in love." I had sunken on my
knees, and was
burying my glowing face in her lap.
"I really believe," said Wanda thoughtfully, "that your
madness is nothing but a demonic, unsatisfied sensuality.
Our unnatural way of life must generate such illnesses. Were
you less virtuous, you would be completely sane."
"Well then, make me sane," I murmured. My hands
were running through her hair and playing tremblingly with
the gleaming fur, which rose and fell like a moonlit wave
upon her heaving bosom, and drove all my senses into
confusion.
And I kissed her. No, she kissed me savagely,
pitilessly, as if she wanted to slay me with her kisses. I was
as in a delirium, and had long since lost my reason, but now
I, too, was breathless. I sought to free myself.
"What is the matter?" asked Wanda.
"I am suffering agonies."
"You are suffering—" she broke out into a loud
amused laughter.
"You laugh!" I moaned, "have you no idea—"
She was serious all of a sudden. She raised my head in
her hands, and with a violent gesture drew me to her breast.
"Wanda," I stammered.
"Of course, you enjoy suffering," she said, and laughed
again, "but wait, I'll bring you to your senses."
"No, I will no longer ask," I exclaimed, "whether you

58
want to belong to me for always or for only a brief moment
of intoxication. I want to drain my happiness to the full. You
are mine now, and I would rather lose you than never to have
had you."
"Now you are sensible," she said. She kissed me again
with her murderous lips. I tore the ermine apart and the
covering of lace and her naked breast surged against mine.
Then my senses left me—
The first thing I remember is the moment when I saw
blood dripping from my hand, and she asked apathetically:
"Did you scratch me?"
"No, I believe, I have bitten you."

* * *

It is strange how every relation in life assumes a different

face as soon as a new person enters.
We spent marvellous days together; we visited the
mountains and lakes, we read together, and I completed
Wanda's portrait. And how we loved one another, how beau-
tiful her smiling face was!
Then a friend of hers arrived, a divorced woman
somewhat older, more experienced, and less scrupulous than
Wanda. Her influence is already making itself felt in every
direction.
Wanda wrinkles her brows, and displays a certain
impatience with me.
Has she ceased loving me?

* * *

For almost a fortnight this unbearable restraint has lain upon

59
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.
Today, while out walking, she staid behind with me. I
saw that this was done intentionally, and I rejoiced. But what
did she tell me?
"My friend doesn't understand how I can love you. She
doesn't think you either handsome or particularly attractive
otherwise. She is telling me from morning till night about the
glamour of the frivolous life in the capital, hinting at the
advantages to which I could lay claim, the large parties
which I would find there, and the distinguished and
handsome admirers which I would attract. But of what use is
all this, since it happens that I love you."
For a moment I lost my breath, then I said: "I have no
wish to stand in the way of your happiness, Wanda. Do not
consider me." Then I raised my hat, and let her go ahead.
She looked at me surprised, but did not answer a syllable.
When by chance I happened to be close to her on the
way back, she secretly pressed my hand. Her glance was so
radiant, so full of promised happiness, that in a moment all
the torments of these days were forgotten and all their
wounds healed.
I now am aware again of how much I love her.

* * *

"My friend has complained about you," said Wanda today.

"Perhaps she feels that I despise her."
"But why do you despise her, you foolish young man?"
exclaimed Wanda, pulling my ears with both hands.

60
 "Because she is a hypocrite," I said. "I respect only a
woman who is actually virtuous, or who openly lives for
pleasure's sake."
"Like me, for instance," replied Wanda jestingly, "but
you see, child, a woman can only do that in the rarest cases.
She can neither be as gaily sensual, nor as spiritually free as
man; her state is always a mixture of the sensual and spirit-
ual. 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 decept-
ion enter into her actions and personality and corrupt her
character."
"Certainly that is true," I said. "The transcendental
character with which woman wants to stamp love leads her
to deception."
"But the world likewise demands it," Wanda interrupt-
ed. "Look at this woman. She has a husband and a lover in
Lemberg and has found a new admirer here. She deceives all
three and yet is honored by all and respected by the world."
"I don't care," I exclaimed, "but she is to leave you
alone; she treats you like an article of commerce."
"Why not?" the beautiful woman interrupted vivac-
iously. "Every woman has the instinct or desire to draw
advantage out of her attractions, and much is to be said for
giving one's self without love or pleasure because if you do it
in cold blood, you can reap profit to best advantage."
"Wanda, what are you saying?"
"Why not?" she said, "and take note of what I am about
to say to you. Never feel secure with the woman you love, for
there are more dangers in woman's nature than you imagine.
Women are neither as good as their admirers and defenders
maintain, nor as bad as their enemies make them out to be.

61
Woman's character is characterlessness. The best woman
will momentarily go down into the mire, and the worst un-
expectedly rises to deeds of greatness and goodness and puts
to shame those that despise her. No woman is so good or so
bad, but that at any moment she is capable of the most
diabolical as well as of the most divine, of the filthiest as
well as of the purest, thoughts, emotions, and actions. In
spite of all the advances of civilization, woman has remained
as she came out of the hand of nature. She has the nature of a
savage, who is faithful or faithless, magnanimous or cruel,
according to the impulse that dominates at the moment.
Throughout history it has always been a serious deep
culture which has produced moral character. Man even when
he is selfish or evil always follows principles, woman never
follows anything but impulses. Don't ever forget that, and
never feel secure with the woman you love."

* * *

Her friend has left. At last an evening alone with her again. It
seems as if Wanda had saved up all the love, which had been
kept from her, for this superlative evening; never had she
been so kind, so near, so full of tenderness.
What happiness to cling to her lips, and to die away in
her arms! In a state of relaxation and wholly mine, her head
rests against my breast, and with drunken rapture our eyes
seek each other.
I cannot yet believe, comprehend, that this woman is
mine, wholly mine.
"She is right on one point," Wanda began, without
moving, without opening her eyes, as if she were asleep.
"Who?"

62
 She remained silent.
"Your friend?"
She nodded. "Yes, she is right, you are not a man, you
are a dreamer, a charming cavalier, and you certainly would
be a priceless slave, but I cannot imagine you as husband."
I was frightened.
"What is the matter? You are trembling?"
"I tremble at the thought of how easily I might lose
you," I replied.
"Are you made less happy now, because of this?" she
replied. "Does it rob you of any of your joys, that I have
belonged to another before I did to you, that others after you
will possess me, and would you enjoy less if another were
made happy simultaneously with you?"
"Wanda!"
"You see," she continued, "that would be a way out.
You won't ever lose me then. I care deeply for you and intel-
lectually we are harmonious, and I should like to live with
you always, if in addition to you I might have—"
"What an idea," I cried. "You fill me with a sort of
horror."
"Do you love me any the less?"
"On the contrary."
Wanda had raised herself on her left arm. "I believe,"
she said, "that to hold a man permanently, it is vitally
important not to be faithful to him. What honest woman has
ever been as devotedly loved as a hetaira?"
"There is a painful stimulus in the unfaithfulness of a
beloved woman. It is the highest kind of ecstacy."
"For you, too?" Wanda asked quickly.
For me, too."
"And if I should give you that pleasure," Wanda

63
exclaimed mockingly.
"I shall suffer terrible agonies, but I shall adore you the
more," I replied. "But you would never deceive me, you
would have the daemonic greatness of saying to me: I shall
love no one but you, but I shall make happy whoever pleases
me."
Wanda shook her head. "I don't like deception, I am
honest, but what man exists who can support the burden of
truth. Were I say to you: this serene, sensual life, this
paganism is my ideal, would you be strong enough to bear
it?"
"Certainly. I could endure anything so as not to lose
you. I feel how little I really mean to you."
"But Severin—"
"But it is so," said I, "and just for that reason—"
"For that reason you would—" she smiled roguishly
—"have I guessed it?"
"Be your slave!" I exclaimed. "Be your unrestricted
property, without a will of my own, of which you could
dispose as you wished, and which would therefore never be a
burden to you. While you drink life at its fullness, while
surrounded by luxury, you enjoy the serene happiness and
Olympian love, I want to be your servant, put on and take off
your shoes."
"You really aren't so far from wrong," replied Wanda,
"for only as my slave could you endure my loving others.
Furthermore the freedom of enjoyment of the ancient world
is unthinkable without slavery. It must give one a feeling of
like unto a god to see a man kneel before one and tremble. I
want a slave, do you hear, Severin?"
"Am I not your slave?"
"Then listen to me," said Wanda excitedly, seizing my

64
hand. "I want to be yours, as long as I love you."
"A month?"
"Perhaps, even two."
"And then?"
"Then you become my slave."
"And you?"
"I? Why do you ask? I am a goddess and sometimes I
descend from my Olympian heights to you, softly, very
softly, and secretly.
"But what does all this mean," said Wanda, resting her
head in both hands with her gaze lost in the distance, "a
golden fancy which never can become true." An uncanny
brooding melancholy seemed shed over her entire being; I
have never seen her like that.
"Why unachievable?" I began.
"Because slavery doesn't exist any longer."
"Then we will go to a country where it still exists, to
the Orient, to Turkey," I said eagerly.
"You would—Severin—in all seriousness," Wanda
replied. Her eyes burned.
"Yes, in all seriousness, I want to be your slave," I
continued. "I want your power over me to be sanctified by
law; I want my life to be in your hands, I want nothing that
could protect or save me from you. Oh, what a voluptuous
joy when once I feel myself entirely dependent upon your
absolute will, your whim, at your beck and call. And then
what happiness, when at some time you deign to be gracious,
and the slave may kiss the lips which mean life and death to
him." I knelt down, and leaned my burning forehead against
her knee.
"You are talking as in a fever," said Wanda agitatedly,
"and you really love me so endlessly." She held me to her

65
breast, and covered me with kisses.
"You really want it?"
"I swear to you now by God and my honor, that I shall
be your slave, wherever and whenever you wish it, as soon
as you command," I exclaimed, hardly master of myself.
"And if I take you at your word?" said Wanda.
"Please do!"
"All this appeals to me," she said then. "It is different
from anything else—to know that a man who worships me,
and whom I love with all my heart, is so wholly mine,
dependent on my will and caprice, my possession and slave,
while I—"
She looked strangely at me.
"If I should become frightfully frivolous you are to
blame," she continued. "It almost seems as if you were afraid
of me already, but you have sworn."
"And I shall keep my oath."
"I shall see to that," she replied. "I am beginning to
enjoy it, and, heaven help me, we won't stick to fancies now.
You shall become my slave, and I—I shall try to be Venus in
Furs."

* * *

I thought that at last I knew this woman, understood her, and

now I see I have to begin at the very beginning again. Only a
little while ago her reaction to my dreams was violently
hostile, and now she tries to carry them into execution with
the soberest seriousness.
She has drawn up a contract according to which I give
my word of honor and agree under oath to be her slave, as
long as she wishes.

66
 With her arm around my neck she reads this, unprece-
dented, incredible document to me. The end of each sentence
she punctuates with a kiss.
"But all the obligations in the contract are on my side,"
I said, teasing her.
"Of course," she replied with great seriousness, "you
cease to be my lover, and consequently I am released from
all duties and obligations towards you. You will have to look
upon my favors as pure benevolence. You no longer have
any rights, and no longer can lay claim to any. There can be
no limit to my power over you. Remember, that you won't be
much better than a dog, or some inanimate object. You will
be mine, my plaything, which I can break to pieces, when-
ever I want an hour's amusement. You are nothing, I am
everything. Do you understand?" She laughed and kissed me
again, and yet a sort of cold shiver ran through me.
"Won't you allow me a few conditions—" I began.
"Conditions?" She contracted her forehead. "Ah! You
are afraid already, or perhaps you regret, but it is too late
now. You have sworn, I have your word of honor. But let me
hear them."
"First of all I should like to have it included in our
contract, that you will never completely leave me, and then
that you will never give me over to the mercies of any of
your admirers—"
"But Severin," exclaimed Wanda with her voice full of
emotion and with tears in her eyes, "how can you imagine
that I—and you, a man who loves me so absolutely, who
puts himself so entirely in my power—" She halted.
"No, no!" I said, covering her hands with kisses. "I
don't fear anything from you that might dishonor me.
Forgive me the ugly thought."

67
 Wanda smiled happily, leaned her cheek against mine,
and seemed to reflect.
"You have forgotten something," she whispered coque-
ttishly, "the most important thing!"
"A condition?"
"Yes, that I must always wear my furs," exclaimed
Wanda. "But I promise you I'll do that anyhow because they
give me a despotic feeling. And I shall be very cruel to you,
do you understand?"
"Shall I sign the contract?" I asked.
"Not yet," said Wanda. "I shall first add your cond-
itions, and the actual signing won't occur until the proper
time and place."
"In Constantinople?"
"No. I have thought things over. What special value
would there be in owning a slave where everyone owns
slaves. What I want is to have a slave, I alone, here in our
civilized sober, Philistine world, and a slave who submits
helplessly to my power solely on account of my beauty and
personality, not because of law, of property rights, or
compulsions. This attracts me. But at any rate we will go to a
country where we are not known and where you can appear
before the world as my servant without embarrassment.
Perhaps to Italy, to Rome or Naples."

* * *

We were sitting on Wanda's ottoman. She wore her ermine

jacket, her hair was loose and fell like a lion's mane down
her back. She clung to my lips, drawing my soul from my
body. My head whirled, my blood began to seethe, my heart
beat violently against hers.

68
 "I want to be absolutely in your power, Wanda," I
exclaimed suddenly, seized by that frenzy of passion when I
can scarcely think clearly or decide freely. "I want to put
myself absolutely at your mercy for good or evil without any
condition, without any limit to your power."
While saying this I had slipped from the ottoman, and
lay at her feet looking up at her with drunken eyes.
"How beautiful you now are," she exclaimed, "your
eyes half-broken in ecstacy fill me with joy, carry me away.
How wonderful your look would be if you were being beaten
to death, in the extreme agony. You have the eye of a
martyr."

* * *

Sometimes, nevertheless, I have an uneasy feeling about

placing myself so absolutely, so unconditionally into a wo-
man's hands. Suppose she did abuse my passion, her power?
Well, then I would experience what has occupied my
imagination since my childhood, what has always given me
the feeling of seductive terror. A foolish apprehension! It
will be a wanton game she will play with me, nothing more.
She loves me, and she is good, a noble personality, incapable
of a breach of faith. But it lies in her hands—if she wants to
she can. What a temptation in this doubt, this fear!
Now I understand Manon l'Escault and the poor
chevalier, who, even in the pillory, while she was another
man's mistress, still adored her.
Love knows no virtue, no profit; it loves and forgives
and suffers everything, because it must. It is not our judg-
ment that leads us; it is neither the advantages nor the faults
which we discover, that make us abandon ourselves, or that

69
repel us.
It is a sweet, soft, enigmatic power that drives us on.
We cease to think, to feel, to will; we let ourselves be carried
away by it, and ask not whither?

* * *

A Russian prince made his first appearance today on the

promenade. He aroused general interest on account of his
athletic figure, magnificent face, and splendid bearing. The
women particularly gaped at him as though he were a wild
animal, but he went his way gloomily without paying
attention to any one. He was accompanied by two servants,
one a negro, completely dressed in red satin, and the other a
Circassian in his full gleaming uniform. Suddenly he saw
Wanda, and fixed his cold piercing look upon her; he even
turned his head after her, and when she had passed, he stood
still and followed her with his eyes.
And she—she veritably devoured him with her radiant
green eyes—and did everything possible to meet him again.
The cunning coquetry with which she walked, moved,
and looked at him, almost stifled me. On the way home I
remarked about it. She knit her brows.
"What do you want," she said, "the prince is a man
whom I might like, who even dazzles me, and I am free. I
can do what I please—"
"Don't you love me any longer—" I stammered,
frightened.
"I love only you," she replied, "but I shall have the
prince pay court to me."
"Wanda!"
"Aren't you my slave?" she said calmly. "Am I not

70
Venus, the cruel northern Venus in Furs?"
I was silent. I felt literally crushed by her words; her
cold look entered my heart like a dagger.
"You will find out immediately the prince's name,
residence, and circumstances," she continued. "Do you
understand?"
"But—"
"No argument, obey!" exclaimed Wanda, more sternly
than I would have thought possible for her, "and don't dare to
enter my sight until you can answer my questions."
It was not till afternoon that I could obtain the desired
information for Wanda. She let me stand before her like a
servant, while she leaned back in her arm-chair and listened
to me, smiling. Then she nodded; she seemed to be satisfied.
"Bring me my footstool," she commanded shortly.
I obeyed, and after having put it before her and having
put her feet on it, I remained kneeling.
"How will this end?" I asked sadly after a short pause.
She broke into playful laughter. "Why things haven't
even begun yet."
"You are more heartless than I imagined," I replied,
hurt.
"Severin," Wanda began earnestly. "I haven't done
anything yet, not the slightest thing, and you are already
calling me heartless. What will happen when I begin to carry
your dreams to their realization, when I shall lead a gay, free
life and have a circle of admirers about me, when I shall
actually fulfil your ideal, tread you underfoot and apply the
lash?"
"You take my dreams too seriously."
"Too seriously? I can't stop at make-believe, when
once I begin," she replied. "You know I hate all play-acting

71
and comedy. You have wished it. Was it my idea or yours?
Did I persuade you or did you inflame my imagination? I am
taking things seriously now."
"Wanda," I replied, caressingly, "listen quietly to me.
We love each other infinitely, we are very happy, will you
sacrifice our entire future to a whim?"
"It is no longer a whim," she exclaimed.
"What is it?" I asked frightened.
"Something that was probably latent in me," she said
quietly and thoughtfully. "Perhaps it would never have come
to light, if you had not called it to life, and made it grow.
Now that it has become a powerful impulse, fills my whole
being, now that I enjoy it, now that I cannot and do not want
to do otherwise, now you want to back out—you—are you a
man?"
"Dear, sweet Wanda!" I began to caress her, kiss her.
"Don't—you are not a man—"
"And you," I flared up.
"I am stubborn," she said, "you know that. I haven't a
strong imagination, and like you I am weak in execution. But
when I make up my mind to do something, I carry it through,
and the more certainly, the more opposition I meet. Leave
me alone!"
She pushed me away, and got up.
"Wanda!" I likewise rose, and stood facing her.
"Now you know what I am," she continued. "Once
more I warn you. You still have the choice. I am not
compelling you to be my slave."
"Wanda," I replied with emotion and tears filling my
eyes, "don't you know how I love you?"
Her lips quivered contemptuously.
"You are mistaken, you make yourself out worse than

72
you are; you are good and noble by nature—"
"What do you know about my nature," she interrupted
vehemently, "you will get to know me as I am."
"Wanda!"
"Decide, will you submit, unconditionally?"
"And if I say no."
"Then—"
She stepped close up to me, cold and contemptuous.
As she stood before me now, the arms folded across
her breast, with an evil smile about her lips, she was in fact
the despotic woman of my dreams. Her expression seemed
hard, and nothing lay in her eyes that promised kindness or
mercy.
"Well—" she said at last.
"You are angry," I cried, "you will punish me."
"Oh no!" she replied, "I shall let you go. You are free. I
am not holding you."
"Wanda—I, who love you so—"
"Yes, you, my dear sir, you who adore me," she
exclaimed contemptuously, "but who are a coward, a liar,
and a breaker of promises. Leave me instantly—"
"Wanda I—"
"Wretch!"
My blood rose in my heart. I threw myself down at her
feet and began to cry.
"Tears, too!" She began to laugh. Oh, this laughter was
frightful. "Leave me—I don't want to see you again."
"Oh my God!" I cried, beside myself. "I will do what-
ever 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.

73
 "Yes, you must be a slave, and feel the lash, for you
are not a man," she said calmly. She said this to me with
perfect composure, not angrily, not even excitedly, and it
was what hurt most. "Now I know you, your dog-like nature,
that adores where it is kicked, and the more, the more it is
maltreated. Now I know you, and now you shall come to
know me."
She walked up and down with long strides, while I
remained crushed on my knees; my head was hanging
supine, tears flowed from my eyes.
"Come here," Wanda commanded harshly, sitting
down on the ottoman. I obeyed her command, and sat down
beside her. She looked at me sombrely, and then a light
suddenly seemed to illuminate the interior of her eye.
Smiling, she drew me toward her breast, and began to kiss
the tears out of my eyes.

* * *

The odd part of my situation is that I am like the bear in

Lily's park. I can escape and don't want to; I am ready to
endure everything as soon as she threatens to set me free.

* * *

If only she would use the whip again. There is something

uncanny in the kindness with which she treats me. I seem
like a little captive mouse with which a beautiful cat prettily
plays. She is ready at any moment to tear it to pieces, and my
heart of a mouse threatens to burst.
What are her intentions? What does she purpose to do
with me?

74
 * * *

It seems she has completely forgotten the contract, my

slavehood. Or was it actually only stubbornness? And she
gave up her whole plan as soon as I no longer opposed her
and submitted to her imperial whim?
How kind she is to me, how tender, how loving! We
are spending marvellously happy days.
Today she had me read to her the scene between Faust
and Mephistopheles, in which the latter appears as a
wandering scholar. Her glance hung on me with strange
pleasure.
"I don't understand," she said when I had finished,
"how a man who can read such great and beautiful thoughts
with such expression, and interpret them so clearly,
concisely, and intelligently, can at the same time be such a
visionary and supersensual ninny as you are."
"Were you pleased," said I, and kissed her forehead.
She gently stroked my brow. "I love you, Severin," she
whispered. "I don't believe I could ever love any one more
than you. Let us be sensible, what do you say?"
Instead of replying I folded her in my arms; a deep
inward, yet vaguely sad happiness filled my breast, my eyes
grew moist, and a tear fell upon her hand.
"How can you cry!" she exclaimed, "you are a child!"

* * *

On a pleasure drive we met the Russian prince in his carria-

ge. 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,

75
however, did not seem to notice him. I felt at that moment
like kneeling down before her and kissing her feet. She let
her glance glide over him indifferently as though he were an
inanimate object, a tree, for instance, and turned to me with
her gracious smile.

* * *

When I said good-night to her today she seemed suddenly

unaccountably distracted and moody. What was occupying
her?
"I am sorry you are going," she said when I was al-
ready standing on the threshold.
"It is entirely in your hands to shorten the hard period
of my trial, to cease tormenting me—" I pleaded.
"Do you imagine that this compulsion isn't a torment
for me, too," Wanda interjected.
"Then end it," I exclaimed, embracing her, "be my
wife."
"Never, Severin," she said gently, but with great firm-
ness.
"What do you mean?"
I was frightened in my innermost soul.
"You are not the man for me."
I looked at her, and slowly withdrew my arm which
was still about her waist; then I left the room, and she—she
did not call me back.

* * *

A sleepless night; I made countless decisions, only to toss

them aside again. In the morning I wrote her a letter in which

76
I declared our relationship dissolved. My hand trembled
when I put on the seal, and I burned my fingers.
As I went upstairs to hand it to the maid, my knees
threatened to give way.
The door opened, and Wanda thrust forth her head full
of curling-papers.
"I haven't had my hair dressed yet," she said, smiling.
"What have you there?"
"A letter—"
"For me?"
I nodded.
"Ah, you want to break with me," she exclaimed,
mockingly.
"Didn't you tell me yesterday that I wasn't the man for
you?"
"I repeat it now!"
"Very well, then." My whole body was trembling, my
voice failed me, and I handed her the letter.
"Keep it," she said, measuring me coldly. "You forget
that is no longer a question as to whether you satisfy me as a
man; as a slave you will doubtless do well enough."
"Madame!" I exclaimed, aghast.
"That is what you will call me in the future," replied
Wanda, throwing back her head with a movement of
unutterable contempt. "Put your affairs in order within the
next twenty-four hours. The day after tomorrow I shall start
for Italy, and you will accompany me as my servant."
"Wanda—"
"I forbid any sort of familiarity," she said, cutting my
words short, "likewise you are not to come in unless I call or
ring for you, and you are not to speak to me until you are
spoken to. From now on your name is no longer Severin, but

77
Gregor."
I trembled with rage, and yet, unfortunately, I cannot
deny it, I also felt a strange pleasure and stimulation.
"But, madame, you know my circumstances," I began
in my confusion. "I am dependent on my father, and I doubt
whether he will give me the large sum of money needed for
this journey—"
"That means you have no money, Gregor," said
Wanda, delightedly, "so much the better, you are then
entirely dependent on me, and in fact my slave."
"You don't consider," I tried to object, "that as man of
honor it is impossible for me—"
"I have indeed considered it," she replied almost with a
tone of command. "As a man of honor you must keep your
oath and redeem your promise to follow me as slave
whithersoever I demand and to obey whatever I command.
Now leave me, Gregor!"
I turned toward the door.
"Not yet—you may first kiss my hand." She held it out
to me with a certain proud indifference, and I the dilettante,
the donkey, the miserable slave pressed it with intense
tenderness against my lips which were dry and hot with
excitement.
There was another gracious nod of the head.
Then I was dismissed.

* * *

Though it was late in the evening my light was still lit, and a
fire was burning in the large green stove. There were still
many things among my letters and documents to be put in
order. Autumn, as is usually the case with us, had fallen with

78
all its power.
Suddenly she knocked at my window with the handle
of her whip.
I opened and saw her standing outside in her ermine-
lined jacket and in a high round Cossack cap of ermine of the
kind which the great Catherine favored.
"Are you ready, Gregor?" she asked darkly.
"Not yet, mistress," I replied.
"I like that word," she said then, "you are always to
call me mistress, do you understand? We leave here tomor-
row morning at nine o'clock. As far as the district capital you
will be my companion and friend, but from the moment that
we enter the railway-coach you are my slave, my servant.
Now close the window, and open the door."
After I had done as she had demanded, and after she
had entered, she asked, contracting her brows ironically,
"well, how do you like me."
"Wanda, you—"
"Who gave you permission?" She gave me a blow with
the whip.
"You are very beautiful, mistress."
Wanda smiled and sat down in the arm-chair. "Kneel
down—here beside my chair."
I obeyed.
"Kiss my hand."
I seized her small cold hand and kissed it.
"And the mouth—"
In a surge of passion I threw my arms around the
beautiful cruel woman, and covered her face, arms, and
breast with glowing kisses. She returned them with equal
fervor—the eyelids closed as in a dream. It was after
midnight when she left.

79
 * * *

At nine o'clock sharp in the morning everything was ready

for departure, as she had ordered. We left the little Carpath-
ian health-resort in a comfortable light carriage. The most
interesting drama of my life had reached a point of
development whose denouement it was then impossible to
foretell.
So far everything went well. I sat beside Wanda, and
she chatted very graciously and intelligently with me, as with
a good friend, concerning Italy, Pisemski's new novel, and
Wagner's music. She wore a sort of Amazonesque travelling-
dress of black cloth with a short jacket of the same material,
set with dark fur. It fitted closely and showed her figure to
best advantage. Over it she wore dark furs. Her hair wound
into an antique knot, lay beneath a small dark fur-hat from
which a black veil hung. Wanda was in very good humor;
she fed me candies, played with my hair, loosened my neck
cloth and made a pretty cockade of it; she covered my knees
with her furs and stealthily pressed the fingers of my hand.
When our Jewish driver persistently went on nodding to
himself, she even gave me a kiss, and her cold lips had the
fresh frosty fragrance of a young autumnal rose, which blos-
soms alone amid bare stalks and yellow leaves and upon
whose calyx the first frost has hung tiny diamonds of ice.

* * *

We are at the district capital. We get out at the railway

station. Wanda throws off her furs and places them over my
arm, and goes to secure the tickets.
When she returns she has completely changed.

80
 "Here is your ticket, Gregor," she says in a tone which
supercilious ladies use to their servants.
"A third-class ticket," I reply with comic horror.
"Of course," she continues, "but now be careful. You
won't get on until I am settled in my compartment and don't
need you any longer. At each station you will hurry to my
car and ask for my orders. Don't forget. And now give me
my furs."
After I had helped her into them, humbly like a slave,
she went to find an empty first-class coupe. I followed.
Supporting herself on my shoulder, she got on and I wrapped
her feet in bear-skins and placed them on the warming bottle.
Then she nodded to me, and dismissed me. I slowly
ascended a third-class carriage, which was filled with abo-
minable tobacco-smoke that seemed like the fogs of Acheron
at the entrance to Hades. I now had the leisure to muse about
the riddle of human existence, and about its greatest riddle of
all—woman.

* * *

Whenever the train stops, I jump off, run to her carriage, and
with drawn cap await her orders. She wants coffee and then a
glass of water, at another time a bowl of warm water to wash
her hands, and thus it goes on. She lets several men who ha-
ve entered her compartment pay court to her. I am dying of
jealousy and have to leap about like an antelope so as to
secure what she wants quickly and not miss the train.
In this way the night passes. I haven't had time to eat a
mouthful and I can't sleep, I have to breathe the same oniony
air with Polish peasants, Jewish peddlers, and common
soldiers.

81
 When I mount the steps of her coupe, she is lying
stretched out on cushions in her comfortable furs, covered up
with the skins of animals. She is like an oriental despot, and
the men sit like Indian deities, straight upright against the
walls and scarcely dare to breathe.

* * *

She stops over in Vienna for a day to go shopping, and

particularly to buy series of luxurious gowns. She continues
to treat me as her servant. I follow her at the respectful dist-
ance of ten paces. She hands me her packages without so
much as even deigning a kind look, and laden down like a
donkey I pant along behind.
Before leaving she takes all my clothes and gives them
to the hotel waiters. I am ordered to put on her livery. It is a
Cracovian costume in her colors, light-blue with red facings,
and red quadrangular cap, ornamented with peacock-feath-
ers. The costume is rather becoming to me.
The silver buttons bear her coat of arms. I have the
feeling of having been sold or of having bonded myself to
the devil. My fair demon leads me from Vienna to Florence.
Instead of linen-garbed Mazovians and greasy-haired Jews,
my companions now are curly-haired Contadini, a magnifi-
cent sergeant of the first Italian Grenadiers, and a poor
German painter. The tobacco smoke no longer smells of
onions, but of salami and cheese.
Night has fallen again. I lie on my wooden bed as on a
rack; my arms and legs seem broken. But there nevertheless
is an element of poetry in the affair. The stars sparkle round
about, the Italian sergeant has a face like Apollo Belvedere,
and the German painter sings a lovely German song.

82
 "Now that all the shadows gather
And endless stars grow light,
Deep yearning on me falls
And softly fills the night."

"Through the sea of dreams

Sailing without cease,
Sailing goes my soul
In thine to find release."

And I am thinking of the beautiful woman who is sleeping in

regal comfort among her soft furs.

* * *

Florence! Crowds, cries, importunate porters and cabdriv-

ers. Wanda chooses a carriage, and dismisses the porters.
"What have I a servant for," she says, "Gregor—here is
the ticket—get the luggage."
She wraps herself in her furs and sits quietly in the
carriage while I drag the heavy trunks hither, one after
another. I break down for a moment under the last one; a
good-natured carabiniere with an intelligent face comes to
my assistance. She laughs.
"It must be heavy," said she, "all my furs are in it."
I get up on the driver's seat, wiping drops of perspira-
tion from my brow. She gives the name of the hotel, and the
driver urges on his horse. In a few minutes we halt at the
brilliantly illuminated entrance.
"Have you any rooms?" she asks the portier.
"Yes, madame."
"Two for me, one for my servant, all with stoves."

83
 "Two first-class rooms for you, madame, both with
stoves," replied the waiter who had hastily come up, "and
one without heat for your servant."
She looked at them, and then abruptly said: "they are
satisfactory, have fires built at once; my servant can sleep in
the unheated room."
I merely looked at her.
"Bring up the trunks, Gregor," she commands, paying
no attention to my looks. "In the meantime I'll be dressing,
and then will go down to the dining-room, and you can eat
something for supper."
As she goes into the adjoining room, I drag the trunks
upstairs and help the waiter build a fire in her bed-room. He
tries to question me in bad French about my employer. With
a brief glance I see the blazing fire, the fragrant white poster-
bed, and the rugs which cover the floor. Tired and hungry I
then descend the stairs, and ask for something to eat. A
good-natured waiter, who used to be in the Austrian army
and takes all sorts of pains to entertain me in German, shows
me the dining-room and waits on me. I have just had the first
fresh drink in thirty-six hours and the first bite of warm food
on my fork, when she enters.
I rise.
"What do you mean by taking me into a dining-room
in which my servant is eating," she snaps at the waiter,
flaring with anger. She turns around and leaves.
Meanwhile I thank heaven that I am permitted to go on
eating. Later I climb the four flights upstairs to my room. My
small trunk is already there, and a miserable little oil-lamp is
burning. It is a narrow room without fire-place, without a
window, but with a small air-hole. If it weren't so beastly

84
cold, it would remind me of one of the Venetian piombi.4
Involuntarily I have to laugh out aloud, so that it re-echoes,
and I am startled by my own laughter.
Suddenly the door is pulled open and the waiter with a
theatrical Italian gesture calls "You are to come down to
madame, at once." I pick up my cap, stumble down the first
few steps, but finally arrive in front of her door on the first
floor and knock.
"Come in!"
I enter, shut the door, and stand attention.
Wanda has made herself comfortable. She is sitting in
a neglige of white muslin and laces on a small red divan with
her feet on a footstool that matches. She has thrown her fur-
cloak about her. It is the identical cloak in which she
appeared to me for the first time, as goddess of love.
The yellow lights of the candelabra which stand on
projections, their reflections in the large mirrors, and the red
flames from the open fireplace play beautifully on the green
velvet, the dark-brown sable of the cloak, the smooth white
skin, and the red, flaming hair of the beautiful woman. Her
clear, but cold face is turned toward me, and her cold green
eyes rest upon me.
"I am satisfied with you, Gregor," she began.
I bowed.
"Come closer."
I obeyed.
"Still closer," she looked down, and stroked the sable
with her hand. "Venus in Furs receives her slave. I can see
that you are more than an ordinary dreamer, you don't
remain far in arrears of your dreams; you are the sort of man
4
These were notorious prisons under the leaden roof of the Palace of
the Doges.

85
who is ready to carry his dreams into effect, no matter how
mad they are. I confess, I like this; it impresses me. There is
strength in this, and strength is the only thing one respects. I
actually believe that under unusual circumstances, in a
period of great deeds, what seems to be your weakness
would reveal itself as extraordinary power. Under the early
emperors you would have been a martyr, at the time of the
Reformation an anabaptist, during the French Revolution one
of those inspired Girondists who mounted the guillotine with
the marseillaise on their lips. But you are my slave, my—"
She suddenly leaped up; the furs slipped down, and she
threw her arms with soft pressure about my neck.
"My beloved slave, Severin, oh, how I love you, how I
adore you, how handsome you are in your Cracovian
costume! You will be cold tonight up in your wretched room
without a fire. Shall I give you one of my furs, dear heart, the
large one there—"
She quickly picked it up, throwing it over my should-
ers, and before I knew what had happened I was completely
wrapped up in it.
"How wonderfully becoming furs are to your face,
they bring out your noble lines. As soon as you cease being
my slave, you must wear a velvet coat with sable, do you
understand? Otherwise I shall never put on my fur-jacket
again."
And again she began to caress me and kiss me; finally
she drew me down on the little divan.
"You seem to be pleased with yourself in furs," she
said. "Quick, quick, give them to me, or I will lose all sense
of dignity."
I placed the furs about her, and Wanda slipped her
right arm into the sleeve.

86
 "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 com-
mand it."
"Must I confess to you, Wanda?" I began.
"Yes, you must."
"Even it you take advantage of it," I continued, "I shall
love you the more deeply, adore you the more fanatically,
the worse you treat me. What you have just done inflames
my blood and intoxicates all my senses." I held her close to
me and clung for several moments to her moist lips.
"Oh, you beautiful woman," I then exclaimed, looking
at her. In my enthusiasm I tore the sable from her shoulders
and pressed my mouth against her neck.
"You love me even when I am cruel," said Wanda,
"now go!—you bore me—don't you hear?"
She boxed my ears so that I saw stars and bells rang in
my ears.
"Help me into my furs, slave."
I helped her, as well as I could.
"How awkward," she exclaimed, and was scarcely in it
before she struck me in the face again. I felt myself growing
pale.
"Did I hurt you?" she asked, softly touching me with
her hand.
"No, no," I exclaimed.
"At any rate you have no reason to complain, you want

87
it thus; now kiss me again."
I threw my arms about her, and her lips clung closely
to mine. As she lay against my breast in her large heavy furs,
I had a curiously oppressive sensation. It was as if a wild
beast, a she-bear, were embracing me. It seemed as if I were
about to feel her claws in my flesh. But this time the she-bear
let me off easily.
With my heart filled with smiling hopes, I went up to
my miserable servant's room, and threw myself down on my
hard couch.
"Life is really amazingly droll," I thought. "A short ti-
me ago the most beautiful woman, Venus herself, rested
against your breast, and now you have an opportunity for
studying the Chinese hell. Unlike us, they don't hurl the
damned into flames, but they have devils chasing them out
into fields of ice.
"Very likely the founders of their religion also slept in
unheated rooms."

* * *

During the night I startled out of my sleep with a scream. I

had been dreaming of an icefield in which I had lost my way;
I had been looking in vain for a way out. Suddenly an
eskimo drove up in a sleigh harnessed with reindeer; he had
the face of the waiter who had shown me to the unheated
room.
"What are you looking for here, my dear sir?" he ex-
claimed. "This is the North Pole."
A moment later he had disappeared, and Wanda flew
over the smooth ice on tiny skates. Her white satin skirt
fluttered and crackled; the ermine of her jacket and cap, but

88
especially her face, gleamed whiter than the snow. She shot
toward me, inclosed me in her arms, and began to kiss me.
Suddenly I felt my blood running warm down my side.
"What are you doing?" I asked horror-stricken.
She laughed, and as I looked at her now, it was no
longer Wanda, but a huge, white she-bear, who was digging
her paws into my body.
I cried out in despair, and still heard her diabolical
laughter when I awoke, and looked about the room in
surprise.
Early in the morning I stood at Wanda's door, and the
waiter brought the coffee. I took it from him, and served it to
my beautiful mistress. She had already dressed, and looked
magnificent, all fresh and roseate. She smiled graciously at
me and called me back, when I was about to withdraw
respectfully.
"Come, Gregor, have your breakfast quickly too," she
said, "then we will go house-hunting. I don't want to stay in
the hotel any longer than I have to. It is very embarassing
here. If I chat with you for more than a minute, people will
immediately say: 'The fair Russian is having an affair with
her servant, you see, the race of Catherines isn't extinct yet.'"
Half an hour later we went out; Wanda was in her
cloth-gown with the Russian cap, and I in my Cracovian
costume. We created quite a stir. I walked about ten paces
behind, looking very solemn, but expected momentarily to
have to break out into loud laughter. There was scarcely a
street in which one or the other of the attractive houses did
not bear the sign camere ammobiliate. Wanda always sent
me upstairs, and only when the apartment seemed to answer
her requirements did she herself ascend. By noon I was as
tired as a stag-hound after the hunt.

89
 We entered a new house and left it again without
having found a suitable habitation. Wanda was already
somewhat out of humor. Suddenly she said to me: "Severin,
the seriousness with which you play your part is charming,
and the restrictions, which we have placed upon each other
are really annoying me. I can't stand it any longer, I do love
you, I must kiss you. Let's go into one of the houses."
"But, my lady—" I interposed.
"Gregor?" She entered the next open corridor and
ascended a few steps of the dark stair-way; then she threw
her arms about me with passionate tenderness and kissed me.
"Oh, Severin, you were very wise. You are much more
dangerous as slave than I would have imagined; you are
positively irrestible, and I am afraid I shall have to fall in
love with you again."
"Don't you love me any longer then," I asked seized by
a sudden fright.
She solemnly shook her head, but kissed me again with
her swelling, adorable lips.
We returned to the hotel. Wanda had luncheon, and
ordered me also quickly to get something to eat.
Of course, I wasn't served as quickly as she, and so it
happened that just as I was carrying the second bite of my
steak to my mouth, the waiter entered and called out with his
theatrical gesture: "Madame wants you, at once."
I took a rapid and painful leave of my food, and, tired
and hungry, hurried toward Wanda, who was already on the
street.
"I wouldn't have imagined you could be so cruel," I
said reproachfully. "With all these, fatiguing duties you don't
even leave me time to eat in peace."
Wanda laughed gaily. "I thought you had finished," she

90
said, "but never mind. Man was born to suffer, and you in
particular. The martyrs didn't have any beefsteaks either."
I followed her resentfully, gnawing at my hunger.
"I have given up the idea of finding a place in the city,"
Wanda continued. "It will be difficult to find an entire floor
which is shut off and where you can do as you please. In
such a strange, mad relationship as ours there must be no
jarring note. I shall rent an entire villa—and you will be
surprised. You have my permission now to satisfy your
hunger, and look about a bit in Florence. I won't be home till
evening. If I need you then, I will have you called."
I looked at the Duomo, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Logia
di Lanzi, and then I stood for a long time on the banks of the
Arno. Again and again I let my eyes rest on the magnificent
ancient Florence, whose round cupolas and towers were
drawn in soft lines against the blue, cloudless sky. I watched
its splendid bridges beneath whose wide arches the lively
waves of the beautiful, yellow river ran, and the green hills
which surrounded the city, bearing slender cypresses and
extensive buildings, palaces and monasteries.
It is a different world, this one in which we are—a gay,
sensuous, smiling world. The landscape too has nothing of
the seriousness and somberness of ours. It is a long ways off
to the last white villas scattered among the pale green of the
mountains, and yet there isn't a spot that isn't bright with
sunlight. The people are less serious than we; perhaps, they
think less, but they all look as though they were happy.
It is also maintained that death is easier in the South.
I have a vague feeling now that such a thing as beauty
without thorn and love of the senses without torment does
exist.
Wanda has discovered a delightful little villa and

91
rented it for the winter. It is situated on a charming hill on
the left bank of the Arno, opposite the Cascine. It is
surrounded by an attractive garden with lovely paths, grass
plots, and magnificent meadow of camelias. It is only two
stories high, quadrangular in the Italian fashion. An open
gallery runs along one side, a sort of loggia with plaster-casts
of antique statues; stone steps lead from it down into the
garden. From the gallery you enter a bath with a magnificent
marble basin, from which winding stairs lead to my mistress'
bed-chamber.
Wanda occupies the second story by herself.
A room on the ground floor has been assigned to me; it
is very attractive, and even has a fireplace.
I have roamed through the garden. On a round hillock I
discovered a little temple, but I found its door locked.
However, there is a chink in the door and when I glue my
eye to it, I see the goddess of love on a white pedestal.
A slight shudder passes over me. It seems to me as if
she were smiling at me saying: "Are you there? I have been
expecting you."

* * *

It is evening. An attractive maid brings me orders to appear

before my mistress. I ascend the wide marble stairs, pass
through the anteroom, a large salon furnished with extravag-
ant magnificence, and knock at the door of the bedroom. I
knock very softly for the luxury displayed everywhere int-
imidates 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

92
sleeping furs, with the red ribbon and decoration on her bare
breast, and with her little white powdered curls.
I knocked again. Wanda impatiently pulls the door
open.
"Why so late?" she asks.
"I was standing in front of the door, but you didn't hear
me knock," I reply timidly. She closes the door, and clinging
to me, she leads me to the red damask ottoman on which she
had been resting. The entire arrangement of the room is in
red damask—wall-paper, curtains, portieres, hangings of the
bed. A magnificent painting of Samson and Delilah forms
the ceiling.
Wanda receives me in an intoxicating dishabille. Her
white satin dress flows gracefully and picturesquely down
her slender body, leaving her arms and breast bare, and
carelessly they nestle amid the dark hair of the great fur of
sable, lined with green velvet. Her red hair falls down her
back as far as the hips, only half held by strings of black
pearls.
"Venus in Furs," I whisper, while she draws me to her
breast and threatens to stifle me with her kisses. Then I no
longer speak and neither do I think; everything is drowned
out in an ocean of unimagined bliss.
"Do you still love me?" she asks, her eye softening in
passionate tenderness.
"You ask!" I exclaimed.
"You still remember your oath," she continued with an
alluring smile, "now that everything is prepared, everything
in readiness, I ask you once more, is it still your serious wish
to become my slave?"
"Am I not ready?" I asked in surprise.
"You have not yet signed the papers."

93
 "Papers—what papers?"
"Oh, I see, you want to give it up," she said, "well then,
we will let it go."
"But Wanda," I said, "you know that nothing gives me
greater happiness than to serve you, to be your slave. I would
give everything for the sake of feeling myself wholly in your
power, even unto death—"
"How beautiful you are," she whispered, "when you
speak so enthusiastically, so passionately. I am more in love
with you than ever and you want me to be dominant, stern,
and cruel. I am afraid, it will be impossible for me to be so."
"I am not afraid," I replied smiling, "where are the
papers?'"
"So that you may know what it means to be absolutely
in my power, I have drafted a second agreement in which
you declare that you have decided to kill yourself. In that
way I can even kill you, if I so desire."
"Give them to me."
While I was unfolding the documents and reading
them, Wanda got pen and ink. She then sat down beside me
with her arm about my neck, and looked over my shoulder at
the paper.
The first one read:

AGREEMENT BETWEEN MME. VON DUNAJEW AND

SEVERIN VON KUSIEMSKI

"Severin von Kusiemski ceases with the present day

being the affianced of Mme. Wanda von Dunajew, and
renounces all the rights appertaining thereunto; he on the
contrary binds himself on his word of honor as a man and
nobleman, that hereafter he will be her slave until such time

94
that she herself sets him at liberty again.
"As the slave of Mme. von Dunajew he is to bear the
name Gregor, and he is unconditionally to comply with
every one of her wishes, and to obey every one of her
commands; he is always to be submissive to his mistress, and
is to consider her every sign of favor as an extraordinary
mercy.
"Mme. von Dunajew is entitled not only to punish her
slave as she deems best, even for the slightest inadvertence
or fault, but also is herewith given the right to torture him as
the mood may seize her or merely for the sake of whiling
away the time. Should she so desire, she may kill him
whenever she wishes; in short, he is her unrestricted
property.
"Should Mme. von Dunajew ever set her slave at lib-
erty, Severin von Kusiemski agrees to forget everything that
he has experienced or suffered as her slave, and promises
never under any circumstances and in no wise to think of
vengeance or retaliation.
"Mme. von Dunajew on her behalf agrees as his
mistress to appear as often as possible in her furs, especially
when she purposes some cruelty toward her slave."
Appended at the bottom of the agreement was the date
of the present day.
The second document contained only a few words.
"Having since many years become weary of existence
and its illusions, I have of my own free will put an end to my
worthless life."
I was seized with a deep horror when I had finished.
There was still time, I could still withdraw, but the madness
of passion and the sight of the beautiful woman that lay all
relaxed against my shoulder carried me away.

95
 "This one you will have to copy, Severin," said Wanda,
indicating the second document. "It has to be entirely in your
own handwriting; this, of course, isn't necessary in the case
of the agreement."
I quickly copied the few lines in which I designated
myself a suicide, and handed them to Wanda. She read them,
and put them on the table with a smile.
"Now have you the courage to sign it?" she asked with
a crafty smile, inclining her head.
I took the pen.
"Let me sign first," said Wanda, "your hand is trembl-
ing, are you afraid of the happiness that is to be yours?"
She took the agreement and pen. While engaging in my
internal struggle, I looked upward for a moment. It occurred
to me that the painting on the ceiling, like many of those of
the Italian and Dutch schools, was utterly unhistorical, but
this very fact gave it a strange mood which had an almost
uncanny effect on me. Delilah, an opulent woman with
flaming red hair, lay extended, half-disrobed, in a dark fur-
cloak, upon a red ottoman, and bent smiling over Samson
who had been overthrown and bound by the Philistines. Her
smile in its mocking coquetry was full of a diabolical
cruelty; her eyes, half-closed, met Samson's, and his with a
last look of insane passion cling to hers, for already one of
his enemies is kneeling on his breast with the red-hot iron to
blind him.
"Now—" said Wanda. "Why you are all lost in
thought. What is the matter with you, everything will remain
just as it was, even after you have signed, don't you know me
yet, dear heart?"
I looked at the agreement. Her name was written there
in bold letters. I peered once more into her eyes with their

96
potent magic, then I took the pen and quickly signed the
agreement.
"You are trembling," said Wanda calmly, "shall I help
you?"
She gently took hold of my hand, and my name
appeared at the bottom of the second paper. Wanda looked
once more at the two documents, and then locked them in the
desk which stood at the head of the ottoman.
"Now then, give me your passport and money."
I took out my wallet and handed it to her. She inspect-
ed it, nodded, and put it with other things while in a sweet
drunkenness I kneeled before her leaning my head against
her breast.
Suddenly she thrusts me away with her foot, leaps up,
and pulls the bell-rope. In answer to its sound three young,
slender negresses enter; they are as if carved of ebony, and
are dressed from head to foot in red satin; each one has a
rope in her hand.
Suddenly I realize my position, and am about to rise.
Wanda stands proudly erect, her cold beautiful face with its
sombre brows and contemptous eyes is turned toward me.
She stands before me as mistress, commanding, gives a sign
with her hand, and before I really know what has happened
to me the negresses have dragged me to the ground, and have
tied me hand and foot. As in the case of one about to be
executed my arms are bound behind my back, so that I can
scarcely move.
"Give me the whip, Haydee," commands Wanda, with
unearthly calm.
The negress hands it to her mistress, kneeling.
"And now take off my heavy furs," she continues,
"they impede me."

97
 The negress obeyed.
"The jacket there!" Wanda commanded.
Haydee quickly brought her the kazabaika, set with
ermine, which lay on the bed, and Wanda slipped into it with
two inimitably graceful movements.
"Now tie him to the pillar here!"
The negresses lifted me up, and twisting a heavy rope
around my body, tied me standing against one of the massive
pillars which supported the top of the wide Italian bed.
Then they suddenly disappeared, as if the earth had
swallowed them.
Wanda swiftly approached me. Her white satin dress
flowed behind her in a long train, like silver, like moonlight;
her hair flared like flames against the white fur of her jacket.
Now she stood in front of me with her left hand firmly
planted on her hips, in her right hand she held the whip. She
uttered an abrupt laugh.
"Now play has come to an end between us," she said
with heartless coldness. "Now we will begin in dead earnest.
You fool, I laugh at you and despise you; you who in your
insane infatuation have given yourself as a plaything to me,
the frivolous and capricious woman. You are no longer the
man I love, but my slave, at my mercy even unto life and
death.
"You shall know me!
"First of all you shall have a taste of the whip in all
seriousness, without having done anything to deserve it, so
that you may understand what to expect, if you are awkward,
disobedient, or refractory."
With a wild grace she rolled back her fur-lined sleeve,
and struck me across the back.
I winced, for the whip cut like a knife into my flesh.

98
 "Well, how do you like that?" she exclaimed.
I was silent.
"Just wait, you will yet whine like a dog beneath my
whip," she threatened, and simultaneously began to strike me
again.
The blows fell quickly, in rapid succession, with
terrific force upon my back, arms, and neck; I had to grit my
teeth not to scream aloud. Now she struck me in the face,
warm blood ran down, but she laughed, and continued her
blows.
"It is only now I understand you," she exclaimed. "It
really is a joy to have some one so completely in one's
power, and a man at that, who loves you—you do love me?
—No—Oh! I'll tear you to shreds yet, and with each blow
my pleasure will grow. Now, twist like a worm, scream,
whine! You will find no mercy in me!"
Finally she seemed tired.
She tossed the whip aside, stretched out on the
ottoman, and rang.
The negresses entered.
"Untie him!"
As they loosened the rope, I fell to the floor like a
lump of wood. The black women grinned, showing their
white teeth.
"Untie the rope around his feet."
They did it, but I was unable to rise.
"Come over here, Gregor."
I approached the beautiful woman. Never did she seem
more seductive to me than today in spite of all her cruelty
and contempt.
"One step further," Wanda commanded. "Now kneel
down, and kiss my foot."

99
 She extended her foot beyond the hem of white satin,
and I, the supersensual fool, pressed my lips upon it.
"Now, you won't lay eyes on me for an entire month,
Gregor," she said seriously. "I want to become a stranger to
you, so you will more easily adjust yourself to our new
relationship. In the meantime you will work in the garden,
and await my orders. Now, off with you, slave!"

* * *

A month has passed with monotonous regularity, heavy wo-

rk, and a melancholy hunger, hunger for her, who is inflict-
ing all these torments on me.
I am under the gardener's orders; I help him lop the
trees and prune the hedges, transplant flowers, turn over the
flower beds, sweep the gravel paths; I share his coarse food
and his hard cot; I rise and go to bed with the chickens. Now
and then I hear that our mistress is amusing herself,
surrounded by admirers. Once I heard her gay laughter even
down here in the garden.
I seem awfully stupid to myself. Was it the result of
my present life, or was I so before? The month is drawing to
a close—the day after tomorrow. What will she do with me
now, or has she forgotten me, and left me to trim hedges and
bind bouquets till my dying day?
A written order.
"The slave Gregor is herewith ordered to my personal
service.
Wanda Dunajew."
With a beating heart I draw aside the damask curtain
on the following morning, and enter the bed-room of my
divinity. It is still filled with a pleasant half darkness.

100
 "Is it you, Gregor?" she asks, while I kneel before the
fire-place, building a fire. I tremble at the sound of the
beloved voice. I cannot see her herself; she is invisible
behind the curtains of the four-poster bed.
"Yes, my mistress," I reply.
"How late is it?"
"Past nine o'clock."
"Breakfast."
I hasten to get it, and then kneel down with the tray
beside her bed.
"Here is breakfast, my mistress."
Wanda draws back the curtains, and curiously enough
at the first glance when I see her among the pillows with
loosened flowing hair, she seems an absolute stranger, a
beautiful woman, but the beloved soft lines are gone. This
face is hard and has an expression of weariness and satiety.
Or is it simply that formerly my eye did not see this?
She fixes her green eyes upon me, more with curiosity
than with menace, perhaps even somewhat pityingly, and
lazily pulls the dark sleeping fur on which she lies over the
bared shoulder.
At this moment she is very charming, very maddening,
and I feel my blood rising to my head and heart. The tray in
my hands begins to sway. She notices it and reached out for
the whip which is lying on the toilet-table.
"You are awkward, slave," she says furrowing her
brow.
I lower my looks to the ground, and hold the tray as
steadily as possible. She eats her breakfast, yawns, and
stretches her opulent limbs in the magnificent furs.
She has rung. I enter.
"Take this letter to Prince Corsini."

101
 I hurry into the city, and hand the letter to the Prince.
He is a handsome young man with glowing black eyes.
Consumed with jealousy, I take his answer to her.
"What is the matter with you?" she asks with lurking
spitefulness. "You are very pale."
"Nothing, mistress, I merely walked rather fast."
At luncheon the prince is at her side, and I am
condemned to serve both her and him. They joke, and I am,
as if non-existent, for both. For a brief moment I see black; I
was just pouring some Bordeaux into his glass, and spilled it
over the table-cloth and her gown.
"How awkward," Wanda exclaimed and slapped my
face. The prince laughed, and she also, but I felt the blood
rising to my face.
After luncheon she drove in the Cascine. She has a
little carriage with a handsome, brown English horse, and
holds the reins herself. I sit behind and notice how
coquettishly she acts, and nods with a smile when one of the
distinguished gentlemen bows to her.
As I help her out of the carriage, she leans lightly on
my arm; the contact runs through me like an electric shock.
She is a wonderful woman, and I love her more than ever.

* * *

For dinner at six she has invited a small group of men and
women. I serve, but this time I do not spill any wine over the
table-cloth.
A slap in the face is more effective than ten lectures. It
makes you understand very quickly, especially when the
instruction is by the way of a small woman's hand.

102
 * * *

After dinner she drives to the Pergola Theater. As she

descends the stairs in her black velvet dress with its large
collar of ermine and with a diadem of white roses on her
hair, she is literally stunning. I open the carriage-door, and
help her in. In front of the theater I leap from the driver's
seat, and in alighting she leaned on my arm, which trembled
under the sweet burden. I open the door of her box, and then
wait in the vestibule. The performance lasts four hours; she
receives visits from her cavaliers, the while I grit my teeth
with rage.
It is way beyond midnight when my mistress's bell
sounds for the last time.
"Fire!" she orders abruptly, and when the fire-place
crackles, "Tea!"
When I return with the samovar, she has already un-
dressed, and with the aid of the negress slipped into a white
negligee.
Haydee thereupon leaves.
"Hand me the sleeping-furs," says Wanda, sleepily
stretching her lovely limbs. I take them from the arm-chair,
and hold them while she slowly and lazily slides into the
sleeves. She then throws herself down on the cushions of the
ottoman.
"Take off my shoes, and put on my velvet slippers."
I kneel down and tug at the little shoe which resists my
efforts. "Hurry, hurry!" Wanda exclaims, "you are hurting
me! just you wait—I will teach you." She strikes me with the
whip, but now the shoe is off.
"Now get out!" Still a kick—and then I can go to bed.

103
 * * *

Tonight 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 monoton-
ous thoughts, watching hour after hour run by. From time to
time the sounds of music reached me, when the door remain-
ed open for a moment. Several servants tried to start a conv-
ersation with me, but soon desisted, since I knew only a few
words of Italian.
Finally I fell asleep, and dreamed that I murdered
Wanda in a violent attack of jealousy. I was condemned to
death, and saw myself strapped on the board; the knife fell, I
felt it on my neck, but I was still alive—
Then the executioner slapped my face.
No, it wasn't the executioner; it was Wanda who stood
wrathfully before me demanding her furs. I am at her side in
a moment, and help her on with it.
There is a deep joy in wrapping a beautiful woman into
her furs, and in seeing and feeling how her neck and
magnificent limbs nestle in the precious soft furs, and to lift
the flowing hair over the collar. When she throws it off a soft
warmth and a faint fragrance of her body still clings to the
ends of the hairs of sable. It is enough to drive one mad.

* * *

Finally a day came when there were neither guests, nor

theater, nor other company. I breathed a sigh of relief. Wa-
nda sat in the gallery, reading, and apparently had no orders
for me. At dusk when the silvery evening mists fell she

104
withdrew. I served her at dinner, she ate by herself, but had
not a look, not a syllable for me, not even a slap in the face.
I actually desire a slap from her hand. Tears fill my
eyes, and I feel that she has humiliated me so deeply, that
she doesn't even find it worth while to torture or maltreat me
any further.
Before she goes to bed, her bell calls me.
"You will sleep here tonight, I had horrible dreams last
night, and am afraid of being alone. Take one of the cushions
from the ottoman, and lie down on the bearskin at my feet."
Then Wanda put out the lights. The only illumination
in the room was from a small lamp suspended from the
ceiling. She herself got into bed. "Don't stir, so as not to
wake me."
I did as she had commanded, but could not fall asleep
for a long time. I saw the beautiful woman, beautiful as a
goddess, lying on her back on the dark sleeping-furs; her
arms beneath her neck, with a flood of red hair over them. I
heard her magnificent breast rise in deep regular breathing,
and whenever she moved ever so slightly. I woke up and
listened to see whether she needed me.
But she did not require me.
No task was required of me; I meant no more to her
than a night-lamp, or a revolver which one places under
one's pillow.

* * *

Am I mad or is she? Does all this arise out of an inventive,

wanton woman's brain with the intention of surpassing my
supersensual fantasies, or is this woman really one of those
Neronian characters who take a diabolical pleasure in

105
treading underfoot, like a worm, human beings, who have
thoughts and feelings and a will like theirs?
What have I experienced?
When I knelt with the coffee-tray beside her bed,
Wanda suddenly placed her hand on my shoulder and her
eyes plunged deep into mine.
"What beautiful eyes you have," she said softly, "and
especially now since you suffer. Are you very unhappy?"
I bowed my head, and kept silent.
"Severin, do you still love me," she suddenly
exclaimed passionately, "can you still love me?"
She drew me close with such vehemence that the
coffee-tray upset, the can and cups fell to the floor, and the
coffee ran over the carpet.
"Wanda—my Wanda," I cried out and held her pa-
ssionately against me; I covered her mouth, face, and breast
with kisses.
"It is my unhappiness that I love you more and more
madly the worse you treat me, the more frequently you
betray me. Oh, I shall die of pain and love and jealousy."
"But I haven't betrayed you, as yet, Severin," replied
Wanda smiling.
"Not? Wanda! Don't jest so mercilessly with me," I
cried. "Haven't I myself taken the letter to the Prince—"
"Of course, it was an invitation for luncheon."
"You have, since we have been in Florence—"
"I have been absolutely faithful to you" replied Wanda,
"I swear it by all that is holy to me. All that I have done was
merely to fulfill your dream and it was done for your sake.
"However, I shall take a lover, otherwise things will be
only half accomplished, and in the end you will yet reproach
me with not having treated you cruelly enough, my dear

106
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 so-
rrows."
She began to treat me tenderly like a child, to kiss me
and caress me. Finally she said with a gracious smile, "Go
now and dress, I too will dress. Shall I put on my fur-jacket?
Oh yes, I know, now run along!"
When I returned she was standing in the center of the
room in her white satin dress, and the red kazabaika edged
with ermine; her hair was white with powder and over her
forehead she wore a small diamond diadem. For a moment
she reminded me in an uncanny way of Catherine the Sec-
ond, but she did not give me much time for reminisce-nces.
She drew me down on the ottoman beside her and we
enjoyed two blissful hours. She was no longer the stern ca-
pricious mistress, she was entirely a fine lady, a tender
sweetheart. She showed me photographs and books which
had just appeared, and talked about them with so much
intelligence, clarity, and good taste, that I more than once
carried her hand to my lips, enraptured. She then had me
recite several of Lermontov's poems, and when I was all
afire with enthusiasm, she placed her small hand gently on
mine. Her expression was soft, and her eyes were filled with
tender pleasure.
"Are you happy?"
"Not yet."
She then leaned back on the cushions, and slowly
opened her kazabaika.

107
 But I quickly covered the half-bared breast again with
the ermine. "You are driving me mad." I stammered.
"Come!"
I was already lying in her arms, and like a serpent she
was kissing me with her tongue, when again she whispered,
"Are you happy?"
"Infinitely!" I exclaimed.
She laughed aloud. It was an evil, shrill laugh which
made cold shivers run down by back.
"You used to dream of being the slave, the plaything of
a beautiful woman, and now you imagine you are a free
human being, a man, my lover-you fool! A sign from me,
and you are a slave again. Down on your knees!"
I sank down from the ottoman to her feet, but my eye
still clung doubtingly on hers.
"You can't believe it," she said, looking at me with her
arms folded across her breast. "I am bored, and you will just
do to while away a couple of hours of time. Don't look at me
that way—"
She kicked me with her foot.
"You are just what I want, a human being, a thing, an
animal—"
She rang. The three negresses entered.
"Tie his hands behind his back."
I remained kneeling and unresistingly let them do this.
They led me into the garden, down to the little vineyard,
which forms the southern boundary. Corn had been planted
between the espaliers, and here and there a few dead stalks
still stood. To one side was a plough.
The negresses tied me to a post, and amused them-
selves sticking me with their golden hair-needles. But this
did not last long, before Wanda appeared with her ermine

108
cap on her head, and with her hands in the pockets of her
jacket. She had me untied, and then my hands were fastened
together on my back. She finally had a yoke put around my
neck, and harnessed me to the plough.
Then her black demons drove me out into the field.
One of them held the plough, the other one led me by a line,
the third applied the whip, and Venus in Furs stood to one
side and looked on.

* * *

When I was serving dinner on the following day Wanda said:

"Bring another cover, I want you to dine with me today," and
when I was about to sit down opposite her, she added, "No,
over here, close by my side."
She is in the best of humors, gives me soup with her
spoon, feeds me with her fork, and places her head on the
table like a playful kitten and flirts with me. I have the
misfortune of looking at Haydee, who serves in my place,
perhaps a little longer than is necessary. It is only now that I
noticed her noble, almost European cast of countenance and
her magnificent statuesque bust, which is as if hewn out of
black marble. The black devil observes that she pleases me,
and, grinning, shows her teeth. She has hardly left the room,
before Wanda leaps up in a rage.
"What, you dare to look at another woman besides me!
Perhaps you like her even better than you do me, she is even
more demonic!"
I am frightened; I have never seen her like this before;
she is suddenly pale even to the lips and her whole body
trembles. Venus in Furs is jealous of her slave. She snatches
the whip from its hook and strikes me in the face; then she

109
calls her black servants, who bind me, and carry me down
into the cellar, where they throw me into a dark, dank,
subterranean compartment, a veritable prison-cell.
Then the lock of the door clicks, the bolts are drawn, a
key sings in the lock. I am a prisoner, buried.
I have been lying here for I don't know how long,
bound like a calf about to be hauled to the slaughter, on a
bundle of damp straw, without any light, without food, with-
out drink, without sleep. It would be like her to let me starve
to death, if I don't freeze to death before then. I am shaking
with cold. Or is it fever? I believe I am beginning to hate this
woman.

* * *

A red streak, like blood, floods across the floor; it is a light

falling through the door which is now thrust open.
Wanda appears on the threshold, wrapped in her sa-
bles, holding a lighted torch.
"Are you still alive?" she asks.
"Are you coming to kill me?" I reply with a low, ho-
arse voice.
With two rapid strides Wanda reaches my side, she
kneels down beside me, and places my head in her lap. "Are
you ill? Your eyes glow so, do you love me? I want you to
love me."
She draws forth a short dagger. I start with fright when
its blade gleams in front of my eyes. I actually believe that
she is about to kill me. She laughs, and cuts the ropes that
bind me.

* * *

110
Every evening after dinner she now has me called. I have to
read to her, and she discusses with me all sorts of interesting
problems and subjects. She seems entirely transformed; it is
as if she were ashamed of the savagery which she betrayed
to me and of the cruelty with which she treated me. A
touching gentleness transfigures her entire being, and when
at the good-night she gives me her hand, a superhuman
power of goodness and love lies in her eyes, of the kind
which calls forth tears in us and causes us to forget all the
miseries of existence and all the terrors of death.
I am reading Manon l'Escault to her. She feels the
associat-ion, she doesn't say a word, but she smiles from
time to time, and finally she shuts up the little book.
"Don't you want to go on reading?"
"Not today. We will ourselves act Manon l'Escault
today. I have a rendezvous in the Cascine, and you, my dear
Chevalier, will accompany me; I know, you will do it, won't
you?"
"You command it."
"I do not command it, I beg it of you," she says with
irresistible charm. She then rises, puts her hands on my
shoulders, and looks at me.
"Your eyes!" she exclaims. "I love you, Severin, you
have no idea how I love you!"
"Yes, I have!" I replied bitterly, "so much so that you
have arranged for a rendezvous with some one else."
"I do this only to allure you the more," she replied
vivaciously. "I must have admirers, so as not to lose you. I
don't ever want to lose you, never, do you hear, for I love
only you, you alone."
She clung passionately to my lips.
"Oh, if I only could, as I would, give you all of my

111
soul in a kiss—thus—but now come."
She slipped into a simple black velvet coat, and put a
dark bashlyk5 on her head. Then she rapidly went through the
gallery, and entered the carriage.
"Gregor will drive," she called out to the coachman
who withdrew in surprise.
I ascended the driver's seat, and angrily whipped up the
horses.
In the Cascine where the main roadway turns into a
leafy path, Wanda got out. It was night, only occasional stars
shone through the gray clouds that fled across the sky. By
the bank of the Arno stood a man in a dark cloak, with a
brigand's hat, and looked at the yellow waves. Wanda
rapidly walked through the shrubbery, and tapped him on the
shoulder. I saw him turn and seize her hand, and then they
disappeared behind the green wall.
An hour full of torments. Finally there was a rustling in
the bushes to one side, and they returned.
The man accompanied her to the carriage. The light of
the lamp fell full and glaringly upon an infinitely young, soft
and dreamy face which I had never before seen, and played
in his long, blond curls.
She held out her hand which he kissed with deep
respect, then she signaled to me, and immediately the
carriage flew along the leafy wall which follows the river
like a long green screen.

* * *

The bell at the garden-gate rings. It is a familiar face. The

man from the Cascine.
5
A kind of Russian cap.

112
 "Whom shall I announce?" I ask him in French. He
timidly shakes his head.
"Do you, perhaps, understand some German?" he asks
shyly.
"Yes. Your name, please."
"Oh! I haven't any yet," he replies, embarrassed—"Tell
your mistress the German painter from the Cascine is here
and would like—but there she is herself."
Wanda had stepped out on the balcony, and nodded
toward the stranger.
"Gregor, show the gentleman in!" she called to me.
I showed the painter the stairs.
"Thanks, I'll find her now, thanks, thanks very much."
He ran up the steps. I remained standing below, and looked
with deep pity on the poor German.
Venus in Furs has caught his soul in the red snares of
hair. He will paint her, and go mad.

* * *

It is a sunny winter's day. Something that looks like gold

trembles on the leaves of the clusters of trees down below in
the green level of the meadow. The camelias at the foot of
the gallery are glorious in their abundant buds. Wanda is
sitting in the loggia; she is drawing. The German painter
stands opposite her with his hands folded as in adoration,
and looks at her. No, he rather looks at her face, and is
entirely absorbed in it, enraptured.
But she does not see him, neither does she see me, who
with the spade in my hand am turning over the flower-bed,
solely that I may see her and feel her nearness, which
produces an effect on me like poetry, like music.

113
 * * *

The painter has gone. It is a hazardous thing to do, but I risk

it. I go up to the gallery, quite close, and ask Wanda "Do you
love the painter, mistress?"
She looks at me without getting angry, shakes her
head, and finally even smiles.
"I feel sorry for him," she replies, "but I do not love
him. I love no one. I used to love you, as ardently, as
passionately, as deeply as it was possible for me to love, but
now I don't love even you any more; my heart is a void,
dead, and this makes me sad."
"Wanda!" I exclaimed, deeply moved.
"Soon, you too will no longer love me," she continued,
"tell me when you have reached that point, and I will give
back to you your freedom."
"Then I shall remain your slave, all my life long, for I
adore you and shall always adore you," I cried, seized by that
fanaticism of love which has repeatedly been so fatal to me.
Wanda looked at me with a curious pleasure.
"Consider well what you do," she said. "I have loved you
infinitely and have been despotic towards you so that I might
fulfil your dream. Something of my old feeling, a sort of real
sympathy for you, still trembles in my breast. When that too
has gone who knows whether then I shall give you your
liberty; whether I shall not then become really cruel,
merciless, even brutal toward; whether I shall not take a
diabolical pleasure in tormenting and putting on the rack the
man who worships me idolatrously, the while I remain
indifferent or love someone else; perhaps, I shall enjoy
seeing him die of his love for me. Consider this well."
"I have long since considered all that," I replied as in a

114
glow of fever. "I cannot exist, cannot live without you; I
shall die if you set me at liberty; let me remain your slave,
kill me, but do not drive me away."
"Very well then, be my slave," she replied, "but don't
forget that I no longer love you, and your love doesn't mean
any more to me than a dog's, and dogs are kicked."

* * *

Today I visited the Venus of Medici.

It was still early, and the little octagonal room in the
Tribuna was filled with half-lights like a sanctuary; I stood
with folded hands in deep adoration before the silent image
of the divinity.
But I did not stand for long.
Not a human soul was in the gallery, not even an
Englishman, and I fell down on my knees. I looked up at the
lovely slender body, the budding breasts, the virginal and yet
voluptuous face, the fragrant curls which seemed to conceal
tiny horns on each side of the forehead.

* * *

My mistress's bell.
It is noonday. She, however, is still abed with her arms
intertwined behind her neck.
"I want to bathe," she says, "and you will attend me.
Lock the door!"
I obey.
"Now go downstairs and make sure the door below is
also locked."
I descended the winding stairs that lead from her

115
bedroom to the bath; my feet gave way beneath me, and I
had to support myself against the iron banister. After having
ascertained that the door leading to the Loggia and the
garden was locked, I returned. Wanda was now sitting on the
bed with loosened hair, wrapped in her green velvet furs.
When she made a rapid movement, I noticed that the furs
were her only covering. It made me start terribly, I don't
know why? I was like one condemned to death, who knows
he is on the way to the scaffold, and yet begins to tremble
when he sees it.
"Come, Gregor, take me on your arms."
"You mean, mistress?"
"You are to carry me, don't you understand?"
I lifted her up, so that she rested in my arms, while she
twined hers around my neck. Slowly, step by step, I went
down the stairs with her and her hair beat from time to time
against my cheek and her foot sought support against my
knee. I trembled under the beautiful burden I was carrying,
and every moment it seemed as if I had to break down
beneath it.
The bath consisted of a wide, high rotunda, which
received a soft quiet light from a red glass cupola above.
Two palms extended their broad leaves like a roof over a
couch of velvet cushions. From here steps covered with
Turkish rugs led to the white marble basin which occupied
the center.
"There is a green ribbon on my toilet-table upstairs,"
said Wanda, as I let her down on the couch, "go get it, and
also bring the whip."
I flew upstairs and back again, and kneeling put both in
my mistress's hands. She then had me twist her heavy
electric hair into a large knot which I fastened with the green

116
ribbon. Then I prepared the bath. I did this very awkwardly
because my hands and feet refused to obey me. Again and
again I had to look at the beautiful woman lying on the red
velvet cushions, and from time to time her wonderful body
gleamed here and there beneath the furs. Some magnetic
power stronger than my will compelled me to look. I felt that
all sensuality and lustfulness lies in that which is half-
concealed or intentionally disclosed; and the truth of this I
recognized even more acutely, when the basin at last was
full, and Wanda threw off the fur-cloak with a single gesture,
and stood before me like the goddess in the Tribuna.
At that moment she seemed as sacred and chaste to me
in her unveiled beauty, as did the divinity of long ago. I sank
down on my knees before her, and devoutly pressed my lips
on her foot.
My soul which had been storm-tossed only a little
while earlier, suddenly was perfectly calm, and I now felt no
element of cruelty in Wanda.
She slowly descended the stairs, and I could watch her
with a calmness in which not a single atom of torment or
desire was intermingled. I could see her plunge into and rise
out of the crystalline water, and the wavelets which she
herself raised played about her like tender lovers.
Our nihilistic aesthetician is right when he says: a real
apple is more beautiful than a painted one, and a living
woman is more beautiful than a Venus of stone.
And when she left the bath, and the silvery drops and
the roseate light rippled down her body, I was seized with
silent rapture. I wrapped the linen sheets about her, drying
her glorious body. The calm bliss remained with me, even
now when one foot upon me as upon a footstool, she rested
on the cushions in her large velvet cloak. The lithe sables

117
nestled desirously against her cold marble-like body. Her left
arm on which she supported herself lay like a sleeping swan
in the dark fur of the sleeve, while her left hand played
carelessly with the whip.
By chance my look fell on the massive mirror on the
wall opposite, and I cried out, for I saw the two of us in its
golden frame as in a picture. The picture was so marvellous-
ly beautiful, so strange, so imaginative, that I was filled with
deep sorrow at the thought that its lines and colors would
have to dissolve like mist.
"What is the matter?" asked Wanda.
I pointed to the mirror.
"Ah, that is really beautiful," she exclaimed, "too bad
one can't capture the moment and make it permanent."
"And why not?" I asked. "Would not any artist, even
the most famous, be proud if you gave him leave to paint you
and make you immortal by means of his brush.
"The very thought that this extra-ordinary beauty is to
be lost to the world," I continued still watching her
enthusiastically, "is horrible—all this glorious facial express-
ion, this mysterious eye with its green fires, this demonic
hair, this magnificence of body. The idea fills me with a
horror of death, of annihilation. But the hand of an artist
shall snatch you from this. You shall not like the rest of us
disappear absolutely and forever, without leaving a trace of
your having been. Your picture must live, even when you
yourself have long fallen to dust; your beauty must triumph
beyond death!"
Wanda smiled.
"Too bad, that present-day Italy hasn't a Titian or
Raphael," she said, "but, perhaps, love will make amends for
genius, who knows; our little German might do?" She

118
pondered.
"Yes, he shall paint you, and I will see to it that the god
of love mixes his colors."

* * *

The young painter has established his studio in her villa; he

is completely in her net. He has just begun a Madonna, a
Madonna with red hair and green eyes! Only the idealism of
a German would attempt to use this thorough-bred woman as
a model for a picture of virginity. The poor fellow really is
an almost bigger donkey than I am. Our misfortune is that
our Titania has discovered our ass's ears too soon.

* * *

Now she laughs derisively at us, and how she laughs! I hear
her insolent melodious laughter in his studio, under the open
window of which I stand, jealously listening.

* * *

"Are you mad, me—ah, it is unbelievable, me as the Mother

of God!" she exclaimed and laughed again. "Wait a moment,
I will show you another picture of myself, one that I myself
have painted, and you shall copy it."
Her head appeared in the window, luminous like a
flame under the sunlight.
"Gregor!"
I hurried up the stairs, through the gallery, into the
studio.
"Lead him to the bath," Wanda commanded, while she

119
herself hurried away.
A few moments passed and Wanda arrived; dressed in
nothing but the sable fur, with the whip in her hand; she
descended the stairs and stretched out on the velvet cushions
as on the former occasion. I lay at her feet and she placed
one of her feet upon me; her right hand played with the
whip. "Look at me," she said, "with your deep, fanatical
look, that's it."
The painter had turned terribly pale. He devoured the
scene with his beautiful dreamy blue eyes; his lips opened,
but he remained dumb.
"Well, how do you like the picture?"
"Yes, that is how I want to paint you," said the
German, but it was really not a spoken language; it was the
eloquent moaning, the weeping of a sick soul, a soul sick
unto death.

* * *

The charcoal outline of the painting is done; the heads and

flesh parts are painted in. Her diabolical face is already
becoming visible under a few bold strokes, life flashes in her
green eyes.
Wanda stands in front of the canvas with her arms
crossed over her breast.
"This picture, like many of those of the Venetian scho-
ol, is simultaneously to represent a portrait and to tell a
story," explained the painter, who again had become pale as
death.
"And what will you call it?" she asked, "but what is the
matter with you, are you ill?"
"I am afraid—" he answered with a consuming look

120
fixed on the beautiful woman in furs, "but let us talk of the
picture."
"Yes, let us talk about the picture."
"I imagine the goddess of love as having descended
from Mount Olympus for the sake of some mortal man. And
always cold in this modern world of ours, she seeks to keep
her sublime body warm in a large heavy fur and her feet in
the lap of her lover. I imagine the favorite of a beautiful
despot, who whips her slave, when she is tired of kissing
him, and the more she treads him underfoot, the more in-
sanely he loves her. And so I shall call the picture: Venus in
Furs."

* * *

The painter paints slowly, but his passion grows more and
more rapidly. I am afraid he will end up by committing
suicide. She plays with him and propounds riddles to him
which he cannot solve, and he feels his blood congealing in
the process, but it amuses her.
During the sitting she nibbles at candies, and rolls the
paper-wrappers into little pellets with which she bombards
him.
"I am glad you are in such good humor," said the
painter, "but your face has lost the expression which I need
for my picture."
"The expression which you need for your picture," she
replied, smiling. "Wait a moment."
She rose, and dealt me a blow with the whip. The
painter looked at her with stupefaction, and a child-like
surprise showed on his face, mingled with disgust and
admiration.

121
 While whipping me, Wanda's face acquired more and
more of the cruel, contemptuous character, which so haunts
and intoxicates me.
"Is this the expression you need for your picture?" she
exclaimed. The painter lowered his look in confusion before
the cold ray of her eye.
"It is the expression—" he stammered, "but I can't
paint now—"
"What?" said Wanda, scornfully, "perhaps I can help
you?"
"Yes—" cried the German, as if taken with madness,
"whip me too."
"Oh! With pleasure," she replied, shrugging her shou-
lders, "but if I am to whip you I want to do it in sober
earnest."
"Whip me to death," cried the painter.
"Will you let me tie you?" she asked, smiling.
"Yes—" he moaned—
Wanda left the room for a moment, and returned with
ropes.
"Well—are you still brave enough to put yourself into
the power of Venus in Furs, the beautiful despot, for better
or worse?" she began ironically.
"Yes, tie me," the painter replied dully. Wanda tied his
hands on his back and drew a rope through his arms and a
second one around his body, and fettered him to the cross-
bars of the window. Then she rolled back the fur, seized the
whip, and stepped in front of him.
The scene had a grim attraction for me, which I cannot
describe. I felt my heart beat, when, with a smile, she drew
back her arm for the first blow, and the whip hissed through
the air. He winced slightly under the blow. Then she let blow

122
after blow rain upon him, with her mouth half-opened and
her teeth flashing between her red lips, until he finally
seemed to ask for mercy with his piteous, blue eyes. It was
indescribable.

* * *

She is sitting for him now, alone. He is working on her head.

She has posted me in the adjoining room behind a
heavy curtain, where I can't be seen, but can see everything.
What does she intend now?
Is she afraid of him? She has driven him insane enough
to be sure, or is she hatching a new torment for me? My
knees tremble.
They are talking. He has lowered his voice so that I
cannot understand a word, and she replies in the same way.
What is the meaning of this? Is there an understanding
between them?
I suffer frightful torments; my heart seems about to
burst.
He kneels down before her, embraces her, and presses
his head against her breast, and she—in her heartlessness—
laughs—and now I hear her saying aloud:
"Ah! You need another application of the whip."
"Woman! Goddess! Are you without a heart—can't
you love," exclaimed the German, "don't you even know,
what it means to love, to be consumed with desire and pa-
ssion, can't you even imagine what I suffer? Have you no
pity for me?"
"No!" she replied proudly and mockingly, "but I have
the whip."
She drew it quickly from the pocket of her fur-coat,

123
and struck him in the face with the handle. He rose, and drew
back a couple of paces.
"Now, are you ready to paint again?" she asked in-
differently. He did not reply, but again went to the easel and
took up his brush and palette.
The painting is marvellously successful. It is a portrait
which as far as the likeness goes couldn't be better, and at the
same time it seems to have an ideal quality. The colors glow,
are supernatural; almost diabolical, I would call them.
The painter has put all his sufferings, his adoration,
and all his execration into the picture.

* * *

Now he is painting me; we are alone together for several

hours every day. Today he suddenly turned to me with his
vibrant voice and said:
"You love this woman?"
"Yes."
"I also love her." His eyes were bathed in tears. He
remained silent for a while, and continued painting.
"We have a mountain at home in Germany within
which she dwells," he murmured to himself. "She is a
demon."

* * *

The picture is finished. She insisted on paying him for it,

munificently, in the manner of queens.
"Oh, you have already paid me," he said, with a
tormented smile, refusing her offer.
Before he left, he secretly opened his portfolio, and let

124
me look inside. I was startled. Her head looked at me as if
out of a mirror and seemed actually to be alive.
"I shall take it along," he said, "it is mine; she can't
take it away from me. I have earned it with my heart's
blood."

* * *

"I am really rather sorry for the poor painter," she said to me
today, "it is absurd to be as virtuous as I am. Don't you think
so too?"
I did not dare to reply to her.
"Oh, I forgot that I am talking with a slave; I need
some fresh air, I want to be diverted, I want to forget.
"The carriage, quick!"
Her new dress is extravagant: Russian half-boots of
violet-blue velvet trimmed with ermine, and a skirt of the
same material, decorated with narrow stripes and rosettes of
furs. Above it is an appropriate, close-fitting jacket, also
richly trimmed and lined with ermine. The headdress is a tall
cap of ermine of the style of Catherine the Second, with a
small aigrette, held in place by a diamond-agraffe; her red
hair falls loose down her back. She ascends on the driver's
seat, and holds the reins herself; I take my seat behind. How
she lashes on the horses! The carriage flies along like mad.
Apparently it is her intention to attract attention today,
to make conquests, and she succeeds completely. She is the
lioness of the Cascine. People nod to her from carriages; on
the footpath people gather in groups to discuss her. She pays
no attention to anyone, except now and then acknowledging
the greetings of elderly gentlemen with a slight nod.
Suddenly a young man on a lithe black horse dashes up

125
at full speed. As soon as he sees Wanda, he stops his horse
and makes it walk. When he is quite close, he stops entirely
and lets her pass. And she too sees him—the lioness, the
lion. Their eyes meet. She madly drives past him, but she
cannot tear herself free from the magic power of his look,
and she turns her head after him.
My heart stops when I see the half-surprised, half-
enraptured look with which she devours him, but he is
worthy of it.
For he is, indeed, a magnificent specimen of man, No,
rather, he is a man whose like I have never yet seen among
the living. He is in the Belvedere, graven in marble, with the
same slender, yet steely musculature, with the same face and
the same waving curls. What makes him particularly beau-
tiful is that he is beardless. If his hips were less narrow, one
might take him for a woman in disguise. The curious expre-
ssion about the mouth, the lion's lip which slightly discloses
the teeth beneath, lends a flashing tinge of cruelty to the
beautiful face—
Apollo flaying Marsyas.
He wears high black boots, closely fitting breeches of
white leather, short fur coat of black cloth, of the kind worn
by Italian cavalry officers, trimmed with astrakhan and many
rich loops; on his black locks is a red fez.
I now understand the masculine Eros, and I marvel at
Socrates for having remained virtuous in view of an Alcibia-
des like this.

* * *

I have never seen my lioness so excited. Her cheeks flamed

when she left from the carriage at her villa. She hurried

126
upstairs, and with an imperious gesture ordered me to fo-
llow.
Walking up and down her room with long strides, she
began to talk so rapidly, that I was frightened.
"You are to find out who the man in the Cascine was,
immediately—
"Oh, what a man! Did you see him? What do you think
of him? Tell me."
"The man is beautiful," I replied dully.
"He is so beautiful," she paused, supporting herself on
the arm of a chair, "that he has taken my breath away."
"I can understand the impression he has made on you,"
I replied, my imagination carrying me away in a mad whirl.
"I am quite lost in admiration myself, and I can imagine—"
"You may imagine," she laughed aloud, "that this man
is my lover, and that he will apply the lash to you, and that
you will enjoy being punished by him.
"But now go, go."

* * *

Before evening fell, I had the desired information.

Wanda was still fully dressed when I returned. She
reclined on the ottoman, her face buried in her hands, her
hair in a wild tangle, like the red mane of a lioness.
"What is his name?" she asked, uncanny calm.
"Alexis Papadopolis."
"A Greek, then,"
I nodded.
"He is very young?"
"Scarcely older than you. They say he was educated in
Paris, and that he is an atheist. He fought against the Turks in

127
Candia, and is said to have distinguished himself there no
less by his race-hatred and cruelty, than by his bravery."
"All in all, then, a man," she cried with sparkling eyes.
"At present he is living in Florence," I continued, "he is
said to be tremendously rich—"
"I didn't ask you about that," she interrupted quickly
and sharply. "The man is dangerous. Aren't you afraid of
him? I am afraid of him. Has he a wife?"
"No."
"A mistress?"
"No."
"What theaters does he attend?"
"Tonight he will be at the Nicolini Theater, where Vir-
ginia Marini and Salvini are acting; they are the greatest livi-
ng artists in Italy, perhaps in Europe.
"See that you get a box—and be quick about it!" she
commanded.
"But, mistress—"
"Do you want a taste of the whip?"

* * *

"You can wait down in the lobby," she said when I had
placed the opera-glasses and the programme on the edge of
her box and adjusted the footstool.
I am standing there and had to lean against the wall for
support so as not to fall down with envy and rage—no, rage
isn't the right word; it was a mortal fear.
I saw her in her box dressed in blue moire, with a huge
ermine cloak about her bare shoulders; he sat opposite. I saw
them devour each other with their eyes. For both of them the
stage, Goldoni's Pamela, Salvini, Marini, the public, even the

128
entire world, were non-existant tonight. And I—what was I
at that moment?—

* * *

Today she is attending the ball at the Greek ambassador's.

Does she know, that she will meet him there?
At any rate she dressed, as if she did. A heavy sea-
green silk dress plastically encloses her divine form, leaving
the bust and arms bare. In her hair, which is done into a
single flaming knot, a white water-lily blossoms; from it the
leaves of reeds interwoven with a few loose strands fall
down toward her neck. There no longer is any trace of
agitation or trembling feverishness in her being. She is calm,
so calm, that I feel my blood congealing and my heart
growing cold under her glance. Slowly, with a weary,
indolent majesty, she ascends the marble staircase, lets her
precious wrap slide off, and listlessly enters the hall, where
the smoke of a hundred candles has formed a silvery mist.
For a few moments my eyes follow her in a daze, then
I pick up her furs, which without my being aware, had
slipped from my hands. They are still warm from her should-
ers.
I kiss the spot, and my eyes fill with tears.

* * *

He has arrived.
In his black velvet coat extravagantly trimmed with
sable, he is a beautiful, haughty despot who plays with the
lives and souls of men. He stands in the ante-room, looking
around proudly, and his eyes rest on me for an uncomfort-

129
ably long time.
Under his icy glance I am again seized by a mortal
fear. I have a presentiment that this man can enchain her,
captivate her, subjugate her, and I feel inferior in contrast
with his savage masculinity; I am filled with envy, with
jealousy.
I feel that I am a queer weakly creature of brains,
merely! And what is most humiliating, I want to hate him,
but I can't. Why is that among all the host of servants he has
chosen me.
With an inimitably aristocratic nod of the head he calls
me over to him, and I—I obey his call—against my own
will.
"Take my furs," he quickly commands.
My entire body trembles with resentment, but I obey,
abjectly like a slave.

* * *

All night long I waited in the ante-room, raving as in a fever.

Strange images hovered past my inner eye. I saw their meet-
ing—their long exchange of looks. I saw her float through
the hall in his arms, drunken, lying with half-closed lids
against his breast. I saw him in the holy of holies of love,
lying on the ottoman, not as slave, but as master, and she at
his feet. On my knees I served them, the tea-tray faltering in
my hands, and I saw him reach for the whip. But now the
servants are talking about him.
He is a man who is like a woman; he knows that he is
beautiful, and he acts accordingly. He changes his clothes
four or five times a day, like a vain courtesan.
In Paris he appeared first in woman's dress, and the

130
men assailed him with love-letters. An Italian singer, famous
equally for his art and his passionate intensity, even invaded
his home, and lying on his knees before him threatened to
commit suicide if he wouldn't be his.
"I am sorry," he replied, smiling, "I should like to do
you the favor, but you will have to carry out your threat, for I
am a man."

* * *

The drawing-room has already thinned out to a marked de-

gree, but she apparently has no thought of leaving.
Morning is already peering through the blinds.
At last I hear the rustling of her heavy gown which
flows along behind her like green waves. She advances step
by step, engaged in conversation with him.
I hardly exist for her any longer; she doesn't even
trouble to give me an order.
"The cloak for madame," he commands. He, of course,
doesn't think of looking after her himself.
While I put her furs about her, he stands to one side
with his arms crossed. While I am on my knees putting on
her fur over-shoes, she lightly supports herself with her hand
on his shoulder. She asks:
"And what about the lioness?"
"When the lion whom she has chosen and with whom
she lives is attacked by another," the Greek went on with his
narrative, "the lioness quietly lies down and watches the
battle. Even if her mate is worsted she does not go to his aid.
She looks on indifferently as he bleeds to death under his
opponent's claws, and follows the victor, the stronger—that
is the female's nature."

131
 At this moment my lioness looked quickly and curious-
ly at me.
It made me shudder, though I didn't know why—and
the red dawn immerses me and her and him in blood.

* * *

She did not go to bed, but merely threw off her ball-dress
and undid her hair; then she ordered me to build a fire, and
she sat by the fire-place, and stared into the flames.
"Do you need me any longer, mistress?" I asked, my
voice failed me at the last word.
Wanda shook her head.
I left the room, passed through the gallery, and sat
down on one of the steps, leading from there down into the
garden. A gentle north wind brought a fresh, damp coolness
from the Arno, the green hills extended into the distance in a
rosy mist, a golden haze hovered over the city, over the
round cupola of the Duomo.
A few stars still tremble in the pale-blue sky.
I tore open my coat, and pressed my burning forehead
against the marble. Everything that had happened so far
seemed to me a mere child's play; but now things were be-
ginning to be serious, terribly serious.
I anticipated a catastrophe, I visualized it, I could lay
hold of it with my hands, but I lacked the courage to meet it.
My strength was broken. And if I am honest with myself,
neither the pains and sufferings that threatened me, not the
humiliations that impended, were the thing that frightened
me.
I merely felt a fear, the fear of losing her whom I loved
with a sort of fanatical devotion; but it was so overwhelm-

132
ing, so crushing that I suddenly began to sob like a child.

* * *

During the day she remained locked in her room, and had the
negress attend her. When the evening star rose glowing in
the blue sky, I saw her pass through the garden, and, care-
fully following her at a distance, watched her enter the shrine
of Venus. I stealthily followed and peered through the chink
in the door.
She stood before the divine image of the goddess, her
hands folded as in prayer, and the sacred light of the star of
love casts its blue rays over her.

* * *

On my couch at night the fear of losing her and despair took

such powerful hold of me that they made a hero and a
libertine of me. I lighted the little red oil-lamp which hung in
the corridor beneath a saint's image, and entered her bed-
room, covering the light with one hand.
The lioness had been hunted and driven until she was
exhausted. She had fallen asleep among her pillows, lying on
her back, her hands clenched, breathing heavily. A dream
seemed to oppress her. I slowly withdrew my hand, and let
the red light fall full on her wonderful face.
But she did not awaken.
I gently set the lamp on the floor, sank down beside
Wanda's bed, and rested my head on her soft, glowing arm.
She moved slightly, but even now did not awaken. I do
not know how long I lay thus in the middle of the night,
turned as into a stone by horrible torments.

133
 Finally a severe trembling seized me, and I was able to
cry. My tears flowed over her arm. She quivered several
times and finally sat up; she brushed her hand across her
eyes, and looked at me.
"Severin," she exclaimed, more frightened than angry.
I was unable to reply.
"Severin," she continued softly, "what is the matter?
Are you ill?"
Her voice sounded so sympathetic, so kind, so full of
love, that it clutched my breast like red-hot tongs and I began
to sob aloud.
"Severin," she began anew. "My poor unhappy friend."
Her hand gently stroked my hair. "I am sorry, very sorry for
you; but I can't help you; with the best intention in the world
I know of nothing that would cure you."
"Oh, Wanda, must it be?" I moaned in my agony.
"What, Severin? What are you talking about?"
"Don't you love me any more?" I continued. "Haven't
you even a little bit of pity for me? Has the beautiful stranger
taken complete possession of you?"
"I cannot lie," she replied softly after a short pause.
"He has made an impression on me which I haven't yet been
able to analyse, further than that I suffer and tremble beneath
it. It is an impression of the sort I have met with in the works
of poets or on the stage, but I always thought it was a
figment of the imagination. Oh, he is a man like a lion,
strong and beautiful and yet gentle, not brutal like the men of
our northern world. I am sorry for you, Severin, I am; but I
must possess him. What am I saying? I must give myself to
him, if he will have me."
"Consider your reputation, Wanda, which so far has
remained spotless," I exclaimed, "even if I no longer mean

134
anything to you."
"I am considering it," she replied, "I intend to be
strong, as long as it is possible, I want—" she buried her
head shyly in the pillows—"I want to become his wife—if he
will have me."
"Wanda," I cried, seized again by that mortal fear,
which always robs me of my breath, makes me lose
possession of myself, "you want to be his wife, belong to
him for always. Oh! Do not drive me away! He does not love
you—"
"Who says that?" she exclaimed, flaring up.
"He does not love you," I went on passionately, "but I
love you, I adore you, I am your slave, I let you tread me
underfoot, I want to carry you on my arms through life."
"Who says that he doesn't love me?" she interrupted
vehemently.
"Oh! be mine," I replied, "be mine! I cannot exist,
cannot live without you. Have mercy on me, Wanda, have
mercy!"
She looked at me again, and her face had her cold
heartless expression, her evil smile.
"You say he doesn't love me," she said, scornfully.
"Very well then, get what consolation you can out of it."
With this she turned over on the other side, and cont-
emptuously showed me her back.
"Good God, are you a woman without flesh or blood,
haven't you a heart as well as I!" I cried, while my breast
heaved convulsively.
"You know what I am," she replied, coldly. "I am a
woman of stone, Venus in Furs, your ideal, kneel down, and
pray to me."
"Wanda!" I implored, "mercy!"

135
 She began to laugh. I buried my face in her pillows.
Pain had loosened the floodgates of my tears and I let them
flow.
For a long time silence reigned, then Wanda slowly
raised herself.
"You bore me," she began.
"Wanda!"
"I am tired, let me go to sleep."
"Mercy," I implored. "Do not drive me away. No man,
no one, will love you as I do."
"Let me go to sleep,"—she turned her back to me
again.
I leaped up, and snatched the poinard, which hung
beside her bed, from its sheath, and placed its point against
my breast.
"I shall kill myself here before your eyes," I murmured
dully.
"Do what you please," Wanda replied with complete
indifference. "But let me go to sleep." She yawned aloud. "I
am very sleepy."
For a moment I stood as if petrified. Then I began to
laugh and cry at the same time. Finally I placed the poinard
in my belt, and again fell on my knees before her.
"Wanda, listen to me, only for a few moments," I
begged.
"I want to go to sleep! Don't you hear!" she cried,
leaping angrily out of bed and pushing me away with her
foot. "You forget that I am your mistress?" When I didn't
budge, she seized the whip and struck me. I rose; she struck
me again—this time right in the face.
"Wretch, slave!"
With clenched fist held heavenward, I left her bedroom

136
with a sudden resolve. She tossed the whip aside, and broke
out into clear laughter. I can imagine that my theatrical
attitude must have been very droll.

* * *

I have determined to set myself free from this heartless

woman, who has treated me so cruelly, and is now about to
break faith and betray me, as a reward for all my slavish
devotion, for everything I have suffered from her. I packed
my few belongings into a bundle, and then wrote her as
follows:
Dear Madam—
I have loved you even to madness, I have given
myself to you as no man ever has given himself to a
woman. You have abused my most sacred emotions,
and played an impudent, frivolous game with me.
However, as long as you were merely cruel and
merciless, it was still possible for me to love you. Now
you are about to become cheap. I am no longer the
slave whom you can kick about and whip. You yourself
have set me free, and I am leaving a woman I can only
hate and despise.
Severin Kusiemski

I handed these lines to the negress, and hastened away as fast

as I could go. I arrived at the railway-station all out of
breath. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my heart and stopped.
I began to weep. It is humiliating that I want to flee and I
can't. I turn back—whither?—to her, whom I abhor, and yet,
at the same time, adore.

137
 Again I pause. I cannot go back. I dare not.
But how am I to leave Florence. I remember that I
haven't any money, not a penny. Very well then, on foot; it is
better to be an honest beggar than to eat the bread of a
courtesan.
But still I can't leave.
She has my pledge, my word of honor. I have to return.
Perhaps she will release me.
After a few rapid strides, I stop again.
She has my word of honor and my bond, that I shall
remain her slave as long as she desires, until she herself
gives me my freedom. But I might kill myself.
I go through the Cascine down to the Arno, where its
yellow waters plash monotonously about a couple of stray
willows. There I sit, and cast up my final accounts with
existence. I let my entire life pass before me in review. On
the whole, it is rather a wretched affair—a few joys, an
endless number of indifferent and worthless things, and
between these an abundant harvest of pains, miseries, fears,
disappointments, shipwrecked hopes, afflictions, sorrow and
grief.
I thought of my mother, whom I loved so deeply and
whom I had to watch waste away beneath a horrible disease;
of my brother, who full of the promise of joy and happiness
died in the flower of youth, without even having put his lips
to the cup of life. I thought of my dead nurse, my childhood
playmates, the friends that had striven and studied with me;
of all those, covered by the cold, dead, indifferent earth. I
thought of my turtle-dove, who not infrequently made his
cooing bows to me, instead of to his mate.—All have return-
ed, dust unto dust.
I laughed aloud, and slid down into the water, but at

138
the same moment I caught hold of one of the willow-
branches, hanging above the yellow waves. As in a vision, I
see the woman who has caused all my misery. She hovers
above the level of the water, luminous in the sunlight as
though she were transparent, with red flames about her head
and neck. She turns her face toward me and smiles.

I am back again, dripping, wet through, glowing with shame

and fever. The negress has delivered my letter; I am judged,
lost, in the power of a heartless, affronted woman.
Well, let her kill me. I am unable to do it myself, and
yet I have no wish to go on living.
As I walk around the house, she is standing in the
gallery, leaning over the railing. Her face is full in the light
of the sun, and her green eyes sparkle.
"Still alive?" she asked, without moving. I stood silent,
with bowed head.
"Give me back my poinard," she continued. "It is of no
use to you. You haven't even the courage to take your own
life."
"I have lost it," I replied, trembling, shaken by chills.
She looked me over with a proud, scornful glance.
"I suppose you lost it in the Arno?" She shrugged her
shoulders. "No matter. Well, and why didn't you leave?"
I mumbled something which neither she nor I myself
could understand.
"Oh! you haven't any money," she cried. "Here!" With
an indescribably disdainful gesture she tossed me her purse.
I did not pick it up.
Both of us were silent for some time.
"You don't want to leave then?"
"I can't."

139
 * * *

Wanda drives in the Cascine without me, and goes to the

theater without me; she receives company, and the negress
serves her. No one asks after me. I stray about the garden,
irresolutely, like an animal that has lost its master.
Lying among the bushes, I watch a couple of sparrows,
fighting over a seed.
Suddenly I hear the swish of a woman's dress.
Wanda approaches in a gown of dark silk, modestly
closed up to the neck; the Greek is with her. They are in an
eager discussion, but I cannot as yet understand a word of
what they are saying. He stamps his foot so that the gravel
scatters about in all directions, and he lashes the air with his
riding whip. Wanda startles.
Is she afraid that he will strike her?
Have they gone that far?
He has left her, she calls him; he does not hear her,
does not want to hear her.
Wanda sadly lowers her head, and then sits down on
the nearest stone-bench. She sits for a long time, lost in
thought. I watch her with a sort of malevolent pleasure,
finally I pull myself together by sheer force of will, and
ironically step before her. She startles, and trembles all over.
"I come to wish you happiness," I said, bowing, "I see,
my dear lady, too, has found a master."
"Yes, thank God!" she exclaimed, "not a new slave, I
have had enough of them. A master! Woman needs a master,
and she adores him."
"You adore him, Wanda?" I cried, "this brutal person—"
"Yes, I love him, as I have never loved any one else."
"Wanda!" I clenched my fists, but tears already filled

140
my eyes, and I was seized by the delirium of passion, as by a
sweet madness. "Very well, take him as your husband, let
him be your master, but I want to remain your slave, as long
as I live."
"You want to remain my slave, even then?" she said,
"that would be interesting, but I am afraid he wouldn't permit
it."
"He?"
"Yes, he is already jealous of you," she exclaimed, "he,
of you! He demanded that I dismiss you immediately, and
when I told him who you were—"
"You told him—" I repeated, thunderstruck.
"I told him everything," she replied, "our whole story,
all your queerness, everything—and he, instead of being
amused, grew angry, and stamped his foot."
"And threatened to strike you?"
Wanda looked to the ground, and remained silent.
"Yes, indeed," I said with mocking bitterness, "you are
afraid of him, Wanda!" I threw myself down at her feet, and
in my agitation embraced her knees. "I don't want anything
of you, except to be your slave, to be always near you! I will
be your dog-"
"Do you know, you bore me?" said Wanda, indifferent-
ly.
I leaped up. Everything within me was seething.
"You are now no longer cruel, but cheap," I said,
clearly and distinctly, accentuating every word.
"You have already written that in your letter," Wanda
replied, with a proud shrug of the shoulders. "A man of
brains should never repeat himself."
"The way you are treating me," I broke out, "what
would you call it?"

141
 "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 play-
thing, my slave! You found the highest pleasure in feeling
the foot, the whip of an arrogant, cruel woman. What do you
want now?
"Dangerous potentialities were slumbering in me, but
you were the first to awaken them. If I now take pleasure in
torturing you, abusing you, it is your fault; you have made of
me what I now am, and now you are even unmanly, weak,
and miserable enough to accuse me."
"Yes, I am guilty," I said, "but haven't I suffered
because of it? Let us put an end now to the cruel game."
"That is my wish, too," she replied with a curious
deceitful look.
"Wanda!" I exclaimed violently, "don't drive me to
extremes; you see that I am a man again."
"A fire of straw," she replied, "which makes a lot of
stir for a moment, and goes out as quickly as it flared up.
You imagine you can intimidate me, and you only make
yourself ridiculous. Had you been the man I first thought you
were, serious, reserved, stern, I would have loved you
faithfully, and become your wife. Woman demands that she
can look up to a man, but one like you who voluntarily
places his neck under her foot, she uses as a welcome
plaything, only to toss it aside when she is tired of it."
"Try to toss me aside," I said, jeeringly. "Some toys are

142
dangerous."
"Don't challenge me," exclaimed Wanda. Her eyes
began to flash, and a flush entered her cheeks.
"If you won't be mine now," I continued, with a voice
stifled with rage, "no one else shall possess you either."
"What play is this from?" she mocked, seizing me by
the breast. She was pale with anger at this moment. "Don't
challenge me," she continued, "I am not cruel, but I don't
know whether I may not become so and whether then there
will be any bounds."
"What worse can you do, than to make your lover,
your husband?" I exclaimed, more and more enraged.
"I might make you his slave," she replied quickly, "are
you not in my power? Haven't I the agreement? But, of
course, you will merely take pleasure in it, if I have you
bound, and say to him.
"Do with him what you please."
"Woman, are you mad!" I cried.
"I am entirely rational," she said, calmly. "I warn you
for the last time. Don't offer any resistance, one who has
gone as far as I have gone might easily go still further. I feel
a sort of hatred for you, and would find a real joy in seeing
him beat you to death; I am still restraining myself, but—"
Scarcely master of myself any longer, I seized her by
the wrist and forced her to the ground, so that she lay on her
knees before me.
"Severin!" she cried. Rage and terror were painted on
her face.
"I shall kill you if you marry him," I threatened; the
words came hoarsely and dully from my breast. "You are
mine, I won't let you go, I love you too much." Then I
clutched her and pressed her close to me; my right hand

143
involuntarily seized the dagger which I still had in my belt.
Wanda fixed a large, calm, incomprehensible look on
me.
"I like you that way," she said, carelessly. "Now you
are a man, and at this moment I know I still love you."
"Wanda," I wept with rapture, and bent down over her,
covering her dear face with kisses, and she, suddenly
breaking into a loud gay laugh, said, "Have you finished with
your ideal now, are you satisfied with me?"
"You mean?" I stammered, "that you weren't serious?"
"I am very serious," she gaily continued. "I love you,
only you, and you—you foolish, little man, didn't know that
everything was only make-believe and play-acting. How
hard it often was for me to strike you with the whip, when I
would have rather taken your head and covered it with
kisses. But now we are through with that, aren't we? I have
played my cruel role better than you expected, and now you
will be satisfied with my being a good, little wife who isn't
altogether unattractive. Isn't that so? We will live like
rational people—"
"You will marry me!" I cried, overflowing with
happiness.
"Yes—marry you—you dear, darling man," whispered
Wanda, kissing my hands.
I drew her up to my breast.
"Now, you are no longer Gregor, my slave," said she,
"but Severin, the dear man I love—"
"And he—you don't love him?" I asked in agitation.
"How could you imagine my loving a man of his brutal
type? You were blind to everything, I was really afraid for
you."
"I almost killed myself for your sake."

144
 "Really?" she cried, "ah, I still tremble at the thought,
that you were already in the Arno."
"But you saved me," I replied, tenderly. "You hovered
over the waters and smiled, and your smile called me back to
life."

* * *

I have a curious feeling when I now hold her in my arms and

she lies silently against my breast and lets me kiss her and
smiles. I feel like one who has suddenly awakened out of a
feverish delirium, or like a shipwrecked man who has for
many days battled with waves that momentarily threatened
to devour him and finally has found a safe shore.

* * *

"I hate this Florence, where you have been so unhappy," she
declared, as I was saying good-night to her. "I want to leave
immediately, tomorrow, you will be good enough to write a
couple of letters for me, and, while you are doing that, I will
drive to the city to pay my farewell visits. Is that satisfactory
to you?"
"Of course, you dear, sweet, beautiful woman."

* * *

Early in the morning she knocked at my door to ask how I

had slept. Her tenderness is positively wonderful. I should
never have believed that she could be so tender.

* * *

145
She has now been gone for over four hours. I have long since
finished the letters, and am now sitting in the gallery,
looking down the street to see whether I cannot discover her
carriage in the distance. I am a little worried about her, and
yet I know there is no reason under heaven why I should
doubt or fear. However, a feeling of oppression weighs me
down, and I cannot rid myself of it. It is probably the
sufferings of the past days, which still cast their shadows
into my soul.

* * *

She is back, radiant with happiness and contentment.

"Well, has everything gone as you wished?" I asked
tenderly, kissing her hand.
"Yes, dear heart," she replied, "and we shall leave to-
night. Help me pack my trunks."

* * *

Toward evening she asked me to go to the post-office and

mail her letters myself. I took her carriage, and was back
within an hour.
"Mistress has asked for you," said the negress, with a
grin, as I ascended the wide marble stairs.
"Has anyone been here?"
"No one," she replied, crouching down on the steps
like a black cat.
I slowly passed through the drawing-room, and then
stood before her bedroom door.
Why does my heart beat so? Am I not perfectly happy?
Opening the door softly, I draw back the portiere.

146
Wanda is lying on the ottoman, and does not seem to notice
me. How beautiful she looks, in her silver-gray dress, which
fits closely, and while displaying in tell-tale fashion her
splendid figure, leaves her wonderful bust and arms bare.
Her hair is interwoven with, and held up by a black
velvet ribbon. A mighty fire is burning in the fire-place, the
hanging lamp casts a reddish glow, and the whole room is as
if drowned in blood.
"Wanda," I said at last.
"Oh Severin," she cried out joyously. "I have been
impatiently waiting for you." She leaped up, and folded me
in her arms. She sat down again on the rich cushions and
tried to draw me down to her side, but I softly slid down to
her feet and placed my head in her lap.
"Do you know I am very much in love with you to-
day?" she whispered, brushing a few stray hairs from my
forehead and kissing my eyes.
"How beautiful your eyes are, I have always loved
them as the best of you, but today they fairly intoxicate me. I
am all—" She extended her magnificent limbs and tenderly
looked at me from beneath her red lashes.
"And you—you are cold—you hold me like a block of
wood; wait, I'll stir you with the fire of love," she said, and
again clung fawningly and caressingly to my lips.
"I no longer please you; I suppose I'll have to be cruel
to you again, evidently I have been too kind to you today. Do
you know, you little fool, what I shall do, I shall whip you
for a while—"
"But child—"
"I want to."
"Wanda!"
"Come, let me bind you," she continued, and ran gaily

147
through the room. "I want to see you very much in love, do
you understand? Here are the ropes. I wonder if I can still do
it?"
She began with fettering my feet and then she tied my
hands behind my back, pinioning my arms like those of a
prisoner.
"So," she said, with gay eagerness. "Can you still
move?"
"No."
"Fine—"
She then tied a noose in a stout rope, threw it over my
head, and let it slip down as far as the hips. She drew it tight,
and bound me to a pillar.
A curious tremor seized me at that moment.
"I have a feeling as if I were about to be executed," I
said with a low voice.
"Well, you shall have a thorough punishment today,"
exclaimed Wanda.
"But put on your fur-jacket, please," I said.
"I shall gladly give you that pleasure," she replied. She
got her kazabaika and put it on. Then she stood in front of
me with her arms folded across her chest, and looked at me
out of half-closed eyes.
"Do you remember the story of the ox of Dionysius?"
she asked.
"I remember it only vaguely, what about it?"
"A courtier invented a new implement of torture for
the Tyrant of Syracuse. It was an iron ox in which those
condemned to death were to be shut, and then pushed into a
mighty furnace.
"As soon as the iron ox began to get hot, and the
condemned person began to cry out in his torment, his wails

148
sounded like the bellowing of an ox.
"Dionysius nodded graciously to the inventor, and to
put his invention to an immediate test had him shut up in the
iron ox.
"It is a very instructive story.
"It was you who innoculated me with selfishness,
pride, and cruelty, and you shall be their first victim. I now
literally enjoy having a human being that thinks and feels
and desires like myself in my power; I love to abuse a man
who is stronger in intelligence and body than I, especially a
man who loves me.
"Do you still love me?"
"Even to madness," I exclaimed.
"So much the better," she replied, "and so much the
more will you enjoy what I am about to do with you now."
"What is the matter with you?" I asked. "I don't
understand you, there is a gleam of real cruelty in your eyes
today, and you are strangely beautiful—completely Venus in
Furs."
Without replying Wanda placed her arms around my
neck and kissed me. I was again seized by my fanatical
passion.
"Where is the whip?" I asked.
Wanda laughed, and withdrew a couple of steps.
"You really insist upon being punished?" she exclaim-
ed, proudly tossing back her head.
"Yes."
Suddenly Wanda's face was completely transformed. It
was as if disfigured by rage; for a moment she seemed even
ugly to me.
"Very well, then you whip him!" she called loudly.
At the same instant the beautiful Greek stuck his head

149
of black curls through the curtains of her four-poster bed. At
first I was speechless, petrified. There was a horribly comic
element in the situation. I would have laughed aloud, had not
my position been at the same time so terribly cruel and
humiliating.
It went beyond anything I had imagined. A cold
shudder ran down my back, when my rival stepped from the
bed in his riding boots, his tight-fitting white breeches, and
his short velvet jacket, and I saw his athletic limbs.
"You are indeed cruel," he said, turning to Wanda.
"Only inordinately fond of pleasure," she replied with
a wild sort of humor. "Pleasure alone lends value to exist-
ence; whoever enjoys does not easily part from life, whoever
suffers or is needy meets death like a friend.
"But whoever wants to enjoy must take life gaily in the
sense of the ancient world; he dare not hesitate to enjoy at
the expense of others; he must never feel pity; he must be
ready to harness others to his carriage or his plough as
though they were animals. He must know how to make
slaves of men who feel and would enjoy as he does, and use
them for his service and pleasure without remorse. It is not
his affair whether they like it, or whether they go to rack and
ruin. He must always remember this, that if they had him in
their power, as he has them they would act in exactly the
same way, and he would have to pay for their pleasure with
his sweat and blood and soul. That was the world of the
ancients: pleasure and cruelty, liberty and slavery went hand
in hand. People who want to live like the gods of Olympus
must of necessity have slaves whom they can toss into their
fish-ponds, and gladiators who will do battle, the while they
banquet, and they must not mind if by chance a bit of blood
bespatters them."

150
 Her words brought back my complete self-possession.
"Unloosen me!" I exclaimed angrily.
"Aren't you my slave, my property?" replied Wanda.
"Do you want me to show you the agreement?"
"Untie me!" I threatened, "otherwise—" I tugged at the
ropes.
"Can he tear himself free?" she asked. "He has threat-
ened to kill me."
"Be entirely at ease," said the Greek, testing my fetters.
"I shall call for help," I began again.
"No one will hear you," replied Wanda, "and no one
will hinder me from abusing your most sacred emotions or
playing a frivolous game with you." she continued, repeating
with satanic mockery phrases from my letter to her.
"Do you think I am at this moment merely cruel and
merciless, or am I also about to become cheap? What? Do
you still love me, or do you already hate and despise me?
Here is the whip—" She handed it to the Greek who quickly
stepped closer.
"Don't you dare!" I exclaimed, trembling with indigna-
tion, "I won't permit it—"
"Oh, because I don't wear furs," the Greek replied with
an ironical smile, and he took his short sable from the bed.
"You are adorable," exclaimed Wanda, kissing him,
and helping him into his furs.
"May I really whip him?" he asked.
"Do with him what you please," replied Wanda.
"Beast!" I exclaimed, utterly revolted.
The Greek fixed his cold tigerish look upon me and
tried out the whip. His muscles swelled when he drew back
his arms, and made the whip hiss through the air. I was
bound like Marsyas while Apollo was getting ready to flay

151
me.
My look wandered about the room and remained fixed
on the ceiling, where Samson, lying at Delilah's feet, was
about to have his eyes put out by the Philistines. The picture
at that moment seemed to me like a symbol, an eternal para-
ble 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, whe-
ther he wears an ordinary coat or sables."
"Now watch me break him in," said the Greek. He
showed his teeth, and his face acquired the blood-thirsty
expression, which startled me the first time I saw him.
And he began to apply the lash—so mercilessly, with
such frightful force that I quivered under each blow, and
began to tremble all over with pain. Tears rolled down over
my cheeks. In the meantime Wanda lay on the ottoman in
her fur-jacket, supporting herself on her arm; she looked on
with cruel curiosity, and was convulsed with laughter.
The sensation of being whipped by a successful rival
before the eyes of an adored woman cannot be described. I
almost went mad with shame and despair.
What was most humiliating was that at first I felt a
certain wild, supersensual stimulation under Apollo's whip
and the cruel laughter of my Venus, no matter how horrible
my position was. But Apollo whipped on and on, blow after
blow, until I forgot all about poetry, and finally gritted my
teeth in impotent rage, and cursed my wild dreams, woman,
and love.
All of a sudden I saw with horrible clarity whither
blind passion and lust have led man, ever since Holofernes
and Agamemnon—into a blind alley, into the net of woman's
treachery, into misery, slavery, and death.

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 It was as though I were awakening from a dream.
Blood was already flowing under the whip. I wound
like a worm that is trodden on, but he whipped on without
mercy, and she continued to laugh without mercy. In the
meantime she locked her packed trunk and slipped into her
travelling furs, and was still laughing, when she went
downstairs on his arm and entered the carriage.
Then everything was silent for a moment.
I listened breathlessly.
The carriage door slammed, the horse began to pull—
the rolling of the carriage for a short time—then all was
over.
For a moment I thought of taking vengeance, of killing
him, but I was bound by the abominable agreement. So
nothing was left for me to do except to keep my pledged
word and grit my teeth.
My first impulse after this, the most cruel catastrophe
of my life, was to seek laborious tasks, dangers, and
privations. I wanted to become a soldier and go to Asia or
Algiers, but my father was old and ill and wanted me.
So I quietly returned home and for two years helped
him bear his burdens, and learned how to look after the
estate which I had never done before. To labor and to do my
duty was comforting like a drink of fresh water. Then my
father died, and I inherited the estate, but it meant no change.
I had put on my own Spanish boots and went on living
just as rationally as if the old man were standing behind me,
looking over my shoulder with his large wise eyes.
One day a box arrived, accompanied by a letter. I re-
cognized Wanda's writing.
Curiously moved, I opened it, and read.

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 Sir—
Now that over three years have passed since that
night in Florence, I suppose, I may confess to you that
I loved you deeply. You yourself, however, stifled my
love by your fantastic devotion and your insane
passion. From the moment that you became my slave, I
knew it would be impossible for you ever to become my
husband. However,
I found it interesting to have you realize your
ideal in my own person, and, while I gloriously
amused myself, perhaps, to cure you.
I found the strong man for whom I felt a need,
and I was as happy with him as, I suppose, it is
possible for any one to be on this funny ball of clay.
But my happiness, like all things mortal, was of
short duration. About a year ago he fell in a duel, and
since then I have been living in Paris, like an Aspasia—
And you?—Your life surely is not without its
sunshine, if you have gained control of your imagina-
tion, and those qualities in you have materialized,
which at first so attracted me to you—your clarity of
intellect, kindness of heart, and, above all else, your—
moral seriousness.
I hope you have been cured under my whip; the
cure was cruel, but radical. In memory of that time
and of a woman who loved you passionately, I am
sending you the portrait by the poor German.

Venus in Furs

I had to smile, and as I fell to musing the beautiful woman

suddenly stood before me in her velvet jacket trimmed with

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ermine, with the whip in her hand. And I continued to smile
at the woman I had once loved so insanely, at the fur-jacket
that had once so entranced me, at the whip, and ended by
smiling at myself and saying: The cure was cruel, but
radical; but the main point is, I have been cured.
"And the moral of the story?" I said to Severin when I
put the manuscript down on the table.
"That I was a donkey," he exclaimed without turning
around, for he seemed to be embarrassed. "If only I had beat-
en her!"
"A curious remedy," I exclaimed, "which might answer
with your peasant-women—"
"Oh, they are used to it," he replied eagerly, "but
imagine the effect upon one of our delicate, nervous,
hysterical ladies—"
"But the moral?"
"That woman, as nature has created her and as man is
at present educating her, is his enemy. She can only be his
slave or his despot, but never his companion. This she can
become only when she has the same rights as he, and is his
equal in education and work.
"At present we have only the choice of being hammer
or anvil, and I was the kind of donkey who let a woman
make a slave of him, do you understand?
"The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself
to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.
"The blows, as you see, have agreed with me; the rose-
ate supersensual mist has dissolved, and no one can ever
make me believe again that these 'sacred apes of Benares'6 or
Plato's rooster7 are the image of God."
6
One of Schopenhauer's designations for women.
7
Diogenes threw a plucked rooster into Plato's school and exclaim-

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ed: "Here you have Plato's human being."

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