 INTRODUCTION OF VENUS IN FURSE This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. VENUS IN FURSE by Leopold von Sackermassock translated by Fernanda Savage INTRODUCTION Leopold von Sackermassock was born in Lemberg, Austrian Galicia, on January 27th, 1836. He studied jurisprudence at Praeg 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 after Ho at Leipzig but later removed to Paris, for he was always strongly Francophile. His last years he spent at Lindheim in Hess, Germany where he died on March 9th, 1895. In 1873 he married Aurora von Ruhmeln who wrote a number of novels under the pseudonym of Wanda von Dunedru which, it is interesting to note, is the name of the heroine of Venus in Furs. Her sensational memoirs which have been the cause of considerable controversy were published in 1906. During his career as writer an endless number of works poured from Sackermassock's pen. Many of these were works of ephemeral journalism and some of them unfortunately pure sensationalism for economic necessity forced him to turn his pen to unworthy ends. There is, however, a residue among his work which has a distinct literary and even greater psychological value. His principal literary ambition was never completely fulfilled. It was a somewhat programmatic plan to give a picture of contemporary life in all its various aspects and interrelations under the general title, Heritage of Cain. This idea was probably derived from Balzac's comedy Humane. The whole was to be divided into six subdivisions with 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 conclusion 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 Sackermassock's work is characterized by a swift narration and a graphic representation of character and scene and a rich humor. The latter has made many of his shorter stories dealing with his native Galicia little masterpieces of local color. There is, however, another element in his work which has caused his name to become an eponym for an entire series of phenomena at one end of the psychosexual scale. This gives his productions a peculiar psychological value, though it cannot be denied also a morbid tinge that makes them often repellent. However, it is well to remember that nature is neither good nor bad, neither altruistic nor egoistic, and that it operates through the human psyche as well as through crystals and plants and animals with the same inexorable laws. Sackermassock 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 to be completely and unconditionally subject to the will of a person of the opposite sex and being treated by this person as by a master, to be humiliated, abused, and tormented, even to the verge of death. This motive is treated in all its innumerable variations. As a creative artist, Sackermassock 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 defences were needed for the publication of a work like Sackermassock'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 have so much consequence is an inexcusable defect. And the curious interrelation between cruelty and sex again and again creeps into literature. Sackermassock 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 book has met he replied in a polemical work, Ubert and Verde de Critique. 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 and explains the character of the chivalier and provost Monon Lusco. Scenes of this nature are found in Zola's nana and Thomas-Oddway's, Venice Preserved, and Albert Juhes, the Pecher Dome and Dostoevsky. In disguise and unrecognized form it constitutes the undercurrent of much of the sentimental literature of the present day, though in most cases the author as well as the readers are unaware of the pathological elements at 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 Teilhead has an admirable passage in his plaitres and marbes which is well worth reproducing in this connection. The following is a quote in French which I will likely butcher. If you never got the alien, like on the visitation of a god, ideal, oriental and fatalist, do one know that death is a sort of an avouement, a madness, where animosity of comic power manifests itself. Later on, christianism does not unveil the arms of the devil. This is the great night. The church condemns all those who were born as saints for the domes implacables which reduce the world on esclavage. Among Sakramasak's work, 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 tiltulating 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 literature but on the other hand raised the book beyond the sphere of art, pure and simple, and make it one of those appalling human documents which belong part to science and part to psychology. It is the confession of a deeply unhappy man who could not master his personal tragedy of existence and so sought to unburden his soul in writing down the things he felt and experienced. The reader who will approach the book from this angle and who will honestly put aside moral prejudices and preprocessions 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. Sakramasak's work have held an established position in European letters for something like half a century, and the author himself was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French government in 1883 on the occasion of his literary jubilee. When, several years ago, cheap reprints were brought out on the continent and attempts were made by various guardians of morality—they exist in all countries. To have them suppressed, the judicial decisions were invariably against the plaintiff and in favour of the publisher. Are Americans children that they must be protected from books which any European schoolboy can purchase whenever he wishes? However, such seems to be the case, and this translation, which has long been in preparation, consequently appears in a limited edition printed for subscribers only. In another connection Herbert Spencer once used these words, the ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. They have a very pointed application in the case of a work like Venus and Furs. F.S. Atlantic City, April 1921 End of Introduction Section 1 of Venus and Furs This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Venus and Furs by Leopold von Sacher Massach Translated by Fernanda Savage But the Almighty Lord hath struck him and hath delivered him into the hands of a woman, the Vulgate Judith 167. My company was charming. Opposite me by the massive Renaissance fireplace sat Venus. She was not a casual woman of the half-world, who under this pseudonym wages war against the enemy sex, like Mademoiselle Cleopatra, but the real true goddess of love. She sat in an armchair and had kindled a crackling fire whose reflection ran in red flames over her pale face with its white eyes and from time to time over her feet when she sought to warm them. Her head was wonderful in spite of the dead stony eyes. It was all I could see of her. She had wrapped her marble-like body in a huge fur and rolled herself up trembling like a cat. I don't understand it, I exclaimed. It isn't really cold any longer. For two weeks past we have had perfect spring weather. You must be nervous. Much obliged for your spring, she replied with low stony voice immediately afterwards sneezed divinely, twice in succession. I really can't stand it here much longer and I am beginning to understand. What, dear lady? I am beginning to believe the unbelievable and to understand the un-understandable. All of a sudden I understand the Germanic virtue of woman and German philosophy and I am no longer surprised that you of the North do not know how to love. And 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 when we first met? How could I forget it, I said? You wore your abundant hair and brown curls and you had brown eyes and a red mouth, but I recognized you immediately by the outline of your face in its marble-like pallor. You always wore a violet-blue velvet jacket edged with squirrel skin. You really were 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 is without evil. Well, as far as faithfulness goes, ungrateful. I will not reproach you with anything. You are a divine woman, but nevertheless a woman, and like every woman, cruel in love. What you call cruel, the goddess of love, replied eagerly, is simply the element of passion and of natural love, which is woman's nature and makes her give herself where she loves and makes her love everything that pleases her. Can there be any greater cruelty for a lover than the unfaithfulness of the woman he loves? Indeed, she replied, we are faithful as long as we love, but you demand faithfulness of a woman without love, and the giving of herself without enjoyment. Who is cruel there, woman or man? You of the North in general take love too soberly and seriously. You talk of duties where there should be only a question of pleasure. That is why our emotions are honorable and virtuous and are relations permanent, and yet a restless, always unsatisfied craving for the nudity of paganism, she interrupted, but that love, which is the highest joy, which is divine simplicity itself, is not for you moderns, you children of reflection. It works only evil in you. As soon as you wish to be natural, you become common. Do you nature seem something hostile? You have made devils out of the smiling gods of Greece and not for me a demon. You can only exercise and curse me or slay yourselves in becantic madness before my altar. And if every one of you has had the courage to kiss my red mouth, he makes a barefoot pilgrimage to roam in penitential robes and expects flowers to grow from his withered staff while under my feet roses, violets, and myrtles bring up every hour. But their fragrances do not agree with you. Stay among your northern fogs and Christian incense. Let us pagans remain under the debris beneath the lava. Do not dissenter us. Pompey was not built for you nor our villas or our baths, our temples. You do not require gods. We are chilled in your world. The beautiful marble woman coughed and drew the dark sable 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 that 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 world. And am I not entitled to be so? Man is the one who desires. Woman is the one who is desired. This is woman's entire but decisive advantage. Through his passion nature has given man to woman's hands and the woman who does not know how to make him her subject, her slave, her toy and how to betray him with a smile in the end is not wise. Exactly your principles I interrupted angrily. They are based on the experience of thousands of years, she replied ironically, while her white fingers played over the dark fur. The more devoted a woman shows herself, the sooner the man sobers down and becomes domineering. The more cruelly she treats him and the more faithless she is. The worse she uses him the more wantonly she plays with him. The less pity she shows him, by so much the more will she increase his desire be loved, worshipped by him. So it has always been since the time of Helen and Delilah down to Catherine II 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 favourites 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 cockedish. 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 in 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 rockously 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 near clothes and with a book besides he snuffed the candle which had burned down and picked up the volume which had fallen from my hands. With a book by, a title page by Hegel besides at this time you were starting for Mr. Severans who was expecting us for tea. A curious dream said Severan when I had finished. He supported his arm on his knees resting his face in his delicate, finely veined hands and felt a pondering. I knew that he wouldn't move for a long time. Hardly even breathe. This actually happened but I didn't consider his behaviour 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 neighbourhood or indeed the entire district of Columbia considered him to be. I found his personality not only interesting and that is why many also regarded me as a bit mad but to a degree sympathetic. As a noble man and landowner and considering his age he was hardly over thirty he displayed surprising sobriety a certain seriousness even pedantry. He lived according to a minutely elaborated half philosophical half practical system like clockwork not this alone but also by the thermometer, barometer, arometer, hydrometer, Hippocrates Hooflin, Plato, Kant, Knieg and Lord Chesterfield 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 everyone preferred to get out of his way. While he remained silent the fire sang in the chimney and the large venerable sem of our sing and the ancient chair in which I sat rocking to and fro smoking my cigar and the cricket in the old wall sang too. I let my eyes glide over the curious apparatus skeletons of animals stuffed birds, globes plaster casts with which his room was heaped full until by chance my glance remained fixed on a picture which I had seen often enough before but 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 body manner of the Belgian school its subject was strange enough a beautiful woman with a radiant smile upon her face with abundant hair tied in the classical knot on which white powder lay like a soft whore frost was resting on an ottoman supported on her left arm she was nude in her dark furs her right hand played with a lash while her bare foot rested carelessly on a man lying before her like a slave like a dog in the sharply outlined but well-formed liniments 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 full the footstool for her feet was severing but beardless and it seemed some ten years younger Venus in furs I cried pointing to the picture this is the way I saw her in my dream I too said Severin only I dreamed with open eyes indeed it is a tiresome story your picture apparently suggested my dream I continued but do tell me what it means I can imagine that it played a role in your life and perhaps a very decisive one but the details I can only get from you look at its counterpart replied my strange friend without heeding my question the counterpart was an excellent copy of Titian's well-known Venus with a mirror at Dresden gallery and what is the significance Severin rose and pointed with his finger at the fur which Titian garbed his goddess of love it too is a Venus in furs he said with a with a slight smile I don't believe that the old Venetian had any secondary intention he simply painted the portrait of some aristocratic Messalina and was tactful enough to let Cupid hold the mirror in which she tests her majestic allure with cold satisfaction he looked 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 that 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 and was dressed in black silk and brought us cold meat and eggs with our tea Severin took one of the letter and decapitated it with his knife didn't I tell you that I want them soft boiled? he cried with the violence that trembled but my dear sift she said timidly sift you nothing he cried you are to obey obey do you understand and he tore the canjuke which was hanging beside the weapon from its hook the woman fled from the chamber quickly and timidly like a doe just wait I'll get you 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 that woman he replied blinking humorously with his eyes at eye flattered her she would have cast the noose around my neck but now when I bring her up with a canjuke she adores me nonsense nonsense nothing that is the way you have to break women in well if you like it live like a posh on your harem but don't lay down theories for me not he said animatedly Gerdas you must be hammer her anvil is absolutely appropriate to the relation between man and woman didn't lady venus in your dream prove that to you woman's power lies in man's passion and she knows how to use it if man doesn't understand himself he has only one choice to be the tyrant over or the slave of woman as soon as he gives in his neck is under the yoke and the lash will soon fall upon him strange maxims not maxims but experiences he replied nodding his head I have actually felt the lash I am cured do you care to know how he rose and got a small manuscript from his massive desk and put it in front of me you have already asked about the picture I have long owed you an explanation here read Severin sat down by the chimney with his back towards me and seemed to dream with open eyes silence had fallen again and again the fire saying in the chimney in the semivar and the cricket in the old walls I opened the manuscript and read confessions of a super sensual man the manuscript bore as motto a variation of the well known lines from Faust the super sensual sensual woe 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 once pasts but in this way everything retains its fresh colors the colors of the present Google the Russian Moliere says where well somewhere the real comic muse is the one under whose laughing mask tears roll down a wonderful saying so I have a very curious feeling as I am writing all this down the atmosphere seems filled with the stimulating fragrance of flowers which overcomes me and gives me a headache the smoke of the fireplace curls and condenses into figures small grey bearded cuckolds that mockingly point their fingers at me chubby cheeked cupids ride on the arms of my chair and on my knees I have to smile involuntarily even laugh aloud as I am writing down my adventures yet I am not writing with ordinary ink the red blood that drips from my heart all its wounds long scarred over have been opened and throbs and hurts and now and then a tear falls on the paper the day creeps along sluggishly in the little Carpathian health resort you see no one and no one sees you it is boring enough to write a dill's I would have leisure here to supply a whole gallery of paintings furnish a theatre with new pieces for an entire season a dozen virtuosos with concertos trios and duos but what am I saying the upshot of it all is that I don't do much more than to stretch the canvas smooth the bow, line the scores for I am no false modesty friend Severin you can lie to others but you don't quite succeed any longer in lying to yourself I am nothing but a dilettante a dilettante in painting in poetry in music and several other of the so called unprofitable arts which however at present secure for their masters the income of a cabinet minister or even that of a minor potentate above all else I am a dilettante in life up to the present I have lived as I have painted and written poetry I never got far beyond the preparation the plan, the first act the first stanza there are people like that who begin everything and never finish anything I am such a one but what am I saying to the business in a 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 snow capped crags project how green and fresh the forested slopes the meadows on which small herds graze down to the yellow billows of grain where reapers stand and bend over and rise up again the house in which I live stands in a sort of park or forest or wilderness whatever one wants to call it and is very solitary its soul inhabitants are myself a widow from Lemberg and madame Tartakowska who runs the house a little old woman who grows older and smaller each day there are also a dog that limps on one leg and a young cat that continuously 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 24 at the most and very rich she dwells in the first story an eye on the ground floor she always keeps the green blinds drawn and has a balcony entirely overgrown with green climbing plants I for my part down below have a comfortable intimate arbor of honeysuckle in which I read and write and paint and sing like a bird among the twigs I can look up on the balcony sometimes I actually do so and then from time to time a white gown gleams between the dense green network really the beautiful woman up there doesn't interest me very much for I am in love with someone else and terribly unhappy at that far more unhappy than the night of toggenburg or the chevelier and mononlesco because the object of my adoration is of stone in the garden in the tiny wilderness there is a graceful little meadow on which a couple of deer graze peacefully on this meadow is a stone statue of Venus the original of which I believe is in Florence this Venus is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in all my life that however does not signify much or 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 of 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 waiting produces an indescribable effect it seems to hover among the trees as it emerges 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 with 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 in an accident through a jeweling 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 infers 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 Gerda which I recently found in his Paralipomina to Faust to Amor the pair of wings a fiction are the arrows they are not but claws the wreath conceals the little horns for without any doubt he is like all the gods of ancient Greece only a devil in disguise then I put the picture before me on my table supporting it with a book and looked at it I was enraptured and at the same time filled with a strange fear by the cold coquetry with which this magnificent woman draped her charms in her furs of dark sable by the severity and hardness which lay in this cold marble-like face again I took my pen in hand and wrote the following words to love to be loved what happiness and yet how the glamour of this pales in comparison with the tormenting bliss of worshiping a woman who makes a plaything out of us of being the slave of a beautiful tyrant who treads us pitilessly under foot even Samson the hero the giant again puts 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 honeysuckle arbor and reading in the book of Judith I envied the hero Hall of Fairnees because of the regal woman who cut off his head with a sword and because of his beautiful sanguinary end the almighty Lord hath struck him and hath delivered him into the hands of a woman the sentence strangely impressed me how un-gallant these Jews are I thought and their God might choose more becoming expression when he speaks of the fair sex the almighty Lord hath struck him and hath delivered him into the hands of a woman I repeated to myself what shall I do so that he may punish me heaven preserve us here comes the housekeeper who was 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 Tartacosca makes a courtesy and asks me in her name for something to read I run to my room and gather a couple of volumes later I remember that my picture and now it and my effusions are in the hands of the white woman up there together what will she say I hear her laugh is she laughing at me it is full moon it is already peering over the tops of the low hemlocks that fringe the park a silvery exhalation fills the terrace of the groups of trees all the landscape as far as the eye can reach in the distance gradually fades away like trembling waters I cannot resist I feel a strange urge and call within me I put on my clothes again and go out into the garden some power draws me toward the meadow toward her who is my divinity and my beloved the night is cool I feel a slight chill the atmosphere is heavy with the odor of flowers and of the forest it intoxicates what solemnity what music round about a nightingale sobs the stars quiver very faintly in the pale blue glamour the meadow seems smooth like a mirror like a covering of ice on a pond the statue of Venus stands out august and luminous but what has happened here 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 miss the main path as I am about to turn aside to one of the green walk I see Venus sitting for me on a stone bench not that beautiful woman of marble but the goddess of love herself with warm blood and throbbing pulses she has actually come to life for me like the statue that began to breathe for her creator indeed the miracle is only half completed her white hair seems still to be on a stone and her white gowns shimmers like moonlight or is it satin from her shoulders the dark fur flows but her lips are already reddening and her cheeks begin to take color two diabolical green rays out of her eyes fall upon me and now she laughs her laughter is very mysterious very she can't be described it takes my breath away I flee further and every few steps I have to pause to take breath the mocking laughter pursues me through the dark leafy paths across light open spaces through the thicket where only single moonbeams can pierce I can no longer find my way I wander about utterly confused with cold drops of perspiration on the forehead finally I stand still and engage in a short monologue it runs well one is either very polite to oneself 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 boxwood 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 I again see the white figure the woman of stone whom I adore whom I fear and flee with a couple of leaps I am within the house and catch my breath and reflect what am I really a little dilettante or a great big donkey a sultry morning the atmosphere is dead heavily laden with odors yet stimulating I am sitting in my honeysuckle arbor reading in the odyssey about the beautiful witch who transformed her admirers into beasts a wonderful picture of antique love there is a soft rustling in the twigs and blades and the pages of my book Russell and all the terrorists 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 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 pecan't in the sense of the period of the French marquises and formally beautiful what enchantment and softness what roguest charm plays about her none too small mouth her skin is so infinitely delicate and 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 bioboldically 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 our precious stones are deep unfathomable mountain lakes she observes my confusion which has even made me discourteous for I remain seated and still have my cap upon 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 dill taunt her great big donkey can do on such an occasion thus our acquaintance began the divinity asks for my name and mentions her own her name is Amanda von Dunadu 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 note on its back why curious she looked at me I have always wanted to know a real dreamer for the time for the sake of the change and you seem one of the maddest of the tribe dear lady in fact again I felt victim to an odious asinine stammering and in addition flushed 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 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 an especially woman she began as something hostile something against which you put up a defense even if unsuccessfully you feel that their power over you gives you a sensation of pleasurable torture of pungent cruelty this is a genuinely modern point of view you don't share it I do not share it she said quickly and decisively shaking her head so that her curls flew up like red flames the ideal which I strive to realize in my life is the serene sensuousness of the Greeks pleasure without pain I do not believe in the kind of love which is preached by Christianity by the moderns, by the knights of the spirit yes, look at me I am worse than a heretic I am a pagan doest thou imagine long the goddess of love took counsel when in Ida's grove she was pleased with the hero Achilles these lines from Gerd'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 for me an element of the monstrous brought something alien and hostile into nature and its innocent instincts the battle of the spirits with the senses is the gospel of modern man I do not care to have a share in it yes 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 in a spaceship 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 Freeney we prefer one of Holbein's meager pallid virgins which is wholly ours to an antique Venus no matter how divinely beautiful she is Pisces 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 something demonic and cruel and we read into our happiness a sin which we must expiate so you too are one of those who rave about modern women those miserable hysterical feminine creatures who don't appreciate a real man in their some nambulistic 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 of calmly confessing they want to love and live as Helen and a spacial 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 endeavours to introduce permanence and love for the most changeable thing 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 ostracised branded stones 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 as far as Juan de Juan Dunaju 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 in the formation of new beings shall I belong to one man whom I don't love merely because I have once loved him no I do not renounce I love everyone who pleases me and give happiness to everyone 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 how to deal 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 about 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 of my thumb blue beard Cinderella has childhood friends mine were Venus and Apollo Hercules and Lacoon my husband's personality was filled with serenity and sunlight not even the incurable illness which fell upon him soon after our marriage and he was out of 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 wheelchair 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 you have a child and you need toys I suppose I hardly need to tell you that during his lifetime I had no lover but it was through him that I have become what I am a woman of grease a goddess I interrupted which one she smiled Venus she threatened me with her fingers and knitted her brows perhaps even 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 traiteness 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 out of the impunity among our railroads and telegraphs and all her undraped beauty and serenity undraped of course not but in furs she replied smiling would you care to see mine and then what then beautiful free serene and happy human beings such as the Greeks were are only possible when it is permitted to have slaves who will perform the prosaic tasks of every day for them and above all else labor for them of course she replied playfully and Olympian divinity such as I am requires a whole army of slaves beware of me why? I myself was frightened at the hardiness with which I uttered this why it did not startle her in the least she drew back her lips a little so that her small white teeth became visible and then said lightly as if she were discussing some trifling matter do you want to be my slave? there is no equality in love I replied solemnly whenever it is a matter of choice for me of ruling or being ruled it seems much more satisfactory to me to be the slave of a beautiful woman but where shall I find a woman who knows how to rule calmly with confidence even harshly and not seek to gain her power by means of petty nagging oh that might not be so difficult you think I for instance she laughed and leaned far back I have a real talent for despotism I also have the necessary furs but last night you were really seriously afraid of me quite seriously and now now I am more afraid of you than ever we are together every day I and Venus we are together a great deal we breakfast in my honeysuckle arbor and have tea in her little sitting room I have an opportunity to unfold all my small very small talents of what use would have been my studying all the various sciences at 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 as little of the Roman but much of the Greek sometimes I should like to paint her as psyche and then again as a start 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 and of section one section two of venus and furs this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org venus and furs by Leopold von Sackermasock translated by Fernanda Savage section two 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 I lost all my fear of this beautiful woman I kissed her hand and she permitted it then I sat down at her feet and read a short poem I had written for her venus in furs place thy foot upon thy slave o thou half of hell of dreams among the shadows dark engrave 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 I don't believe that I am in love with Wanda I'm sure that at our first meeting I felt nothing of the lightning like lashes 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 suffered 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 common place without verb 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 and after a short but severe shower we went out together to the meadow and the statue of Venus all about us the earth steamed to mists rose up toward heaven like clouds of incense a shattered rainbow still hovered in the air the trees 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 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 oriole Vanda 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 rests upon me but not for long a moment later I am kneeling before her pressing my burning face against the fragrant muslin but Severin this isn't right she cried but I take hold of her little foot and press my lips upon it you are getting worse and worse she cried she tore herself free and fled rapidly toward the house the while her adorable slipper remained in my hand is it an omen all day long I didn't dare to go near her toward evening as I was sitting in my arbor her gay red head peered suddenly through the greenery of her balcony why don't you come up she 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 really are in love with me yes and I suffer from it more 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 courage is courage to ask anyone to be your wife and me in particular she lifted up the slipper was it a sudden friendship with this but joking aside I 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 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 months I exclaimed two months is very long you go beyond antiquity madam 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 with the mantelpiece what shall I do with you she began anew whatever you wish I replied with resignation whatever will give you pleasure first you want to make me your wife and then you offer yourself to me as something to toy with Wanda I love you now we are back to the place where we started you love me and want to make me your wife but I don't want to enter into a new marriage because I doubt the permanence of both my and your feelings but if I am willing to take the risk with you I replied but it also depends on whether I am willing to risk it with you you 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 would subjugate me by his innate strength do you understand 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 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 and become your wife and a wife separate 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 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've 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 it 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 passions left over my head like a conflagration losing command over myself I threw my arms around her and clung to her lips and 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'm 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 but you don't yet possess me said Wanda and again she looked at me with that vibrant consuming expression which I'd already once before carried me away then she rose and with her small transparent hands placed a wreath of blue anemones upon the ring-lit white head of Venus half against my will I threw my arm around her body I can no longer live without you a 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 on their 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 to absolutely to me I grow arrogant so be it be arrogant be despotic I cried in the fullness of exultation only be mine mine forever I laid 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 that I want to be your slave serve you suffer everything from you drive me away calm yourself she said bending down and kissing my forehead I am really very fond of you but your way is not the way to win and hold me I want to do everything absolutely everything that you want only not to lose you I cried only not that I cannot bear the thought do get up I obeyed you are a strange person continued wonder 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 shutter ran through me I looked at her she stood firmly and confident before me and her eyes disclosed a 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 I knew 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 under madness shall I turn my back to her and lose everything for the sake of a bit of boastful strength shall I send the 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 of the very dregs I want to be maltreated and betrayed by the woman I love and the more cruelly the better this too is a luxury have you lost your senses cried Wanda I love you with all my soul I continued with all my senses and your presence and personality are absolutely essential to me if I am to go on living choose between my ideals do with me what you will make of me your husband or your slave very well said Wanda attracting her small but strongly arched brows it seems to me it would be rather entertaining to have a man who interests and loves me completely in my power at least I shall not lack past time you are imprudent enough to leave the joys to me therefore I choose I want you to be my slave I shall make a plea thing through myself out of you oh please do I cried half shuddering captured 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 if 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 I am suffering 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 is it possible to love really only that it is possible to love really only that which stands above us a woman through her beauty temperament intelligence and strength of will subjugates us and becomes a despot over us then that which repels others 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 super sensual 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 super sensual I have to care that in being such you do not become a martyr to love the martyr for a woman we are sitting on Wanda's little balcony in the mellow fragrant summer night a two fold roof is above us first the green ceiling of climbing plants and then the vault of heaven zone with innumerable stars a low wailing love call of a cat rises from the park I am sitting on a footstool at the feet of my divinity and I'm telling her of my childhood and even when 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 my mother has told me I was super sensual I scorned the healthy breasts of my nurse and had to be brought up on goat's milk as a little boy I was mysteriously shy before women which really was only an expression of an inordinate interest in them I was oppressed by the gray arches and half darknesses of the church and actually afraid of the glittering altars and images of the saints secretly however I sneaked as to a secret joy to a plaster Venus which stood in my father's little library I kneeled down before her and to her I said the prayers I had been taught the pattern of stir the avi Maria and the cradle 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 upraised arm I was sent to school early and soon reached 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 saying deep into my soul and consequently at the time when other boys are coarse and obscene I displayed an insurmountable aversion to everything base loger and 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 a fair sex and short I was super sensual to madness when I was about 14 my mother had a charming chambermaid young attractive with a figure dressed budding into womanhood I was sitting one day studying my Tacitus and growing enthusiastic over the virtues of the ancient tutons 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 enamored little cat ran through me like a shutter but I raised up my Germania like a shield against the temperance 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 unforgettable incident belonging to that period I continued my story Countess Sobel a distant aunt of mine was visiting my parents she was a beautiful majestic woman with an attractive smile I however hated her for she was regarded by the family as a sort of Messalina my behavior toward her was as rude malicious and awkward as possible one day my parents strove 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 line Kazabica followed by the cook kitchen maid and the cat of a chambermaid whom I had scorned without asking any questions she seized 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 me so hard that the blood flowed and that at last not withstanding 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 now you understand the super sensual 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 tato like austerity my shyness before woman was nothing but an excessive 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 dr. Faustus everything was in a wild confusion there were huge closets stuffed full of books which I bought for a song from a jewellish dealer on the Cervanica there were globes, atlases, flasks, charts of the heavens skeletons of animals, skulls the busts of eminent men it looked as though myphysopheles might have stepped out from behind the huge green stores a wandering skolist 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, Austean Schiller, Gerdish, Shakespeare Cervantes, Voltaire, Molière the Quran, the cosmos, Casanova's memoirs I grew more confused each day more fantastical more super sensual 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 leatherbound books and dead bones lying on a bed of roses surrounded by cupids sometimes she appeared gowned like the Olympians with the stern white face of the plaster Venus sometimes in braids of a rich brown blue eyes my aunt's red velvet cuspaica trimmed with her mind one morning when she had again risen out of the golden mists of my imagination with all her smiling beauty I went to see the Countess Sobel 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 40 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 the green velvet with brown martin but nothing of the sternness so delighted me the other time was not 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 suprasuctual 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 squirged me what marvelous hands they were a 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 hands I noticed it and had to smile from the way in which the suprasuctual predominated in me in those days you can see that I was in love only with the cruel lashes I received from my aunt and about two years later when I paid court to a young actress only in the role she played still later I became the admirer of a respectable woman she acted the part of irreproachable virtue only in the end it portrayed me with a rich Jew you see it is because I was betrayed sold by a woman who was one of the strictest principles in the highest ideals that I hate the sort of poetical, sentimental virtue so intensely give me rather a woman who was honest enough to say to me I am a pompadour a Lucretia Borgia and I am ready to adore her Wanda rose and opened the window you have a curious way of arousing one's imagination stimulating all one's nerves making one's pulses beat faster you put an Oreo 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 all the time you have disturbed me with your stories I have been tossing about in bed and can't go to sleep 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'm afraid you may not like it but I can't put off my furs until the room is sufficiently warm not like it you are joking you know I threw my arm around her and kissed her of course I know but why this great fondness for furs I was born with it I replied I already had it as a child furthermore furs have a stimulating effect on all highly organized natures this is due to both general and natural laws it is a physical stimulus which sets you tingling and no one can wholly escape it it has recently shown a certain relationship between electricity and warmth at any rate their effects upon the human organism are related the torrid zone produces more passionate characters a heated atmosphere stimulation likewise with electricity this is the reason why the presence of cats exercise such a magic influence upon highly organized men of intellect this is why these long-tailed graces of the animal kingdom its adorable, scintillating electric batteries have been the favorite animal of a Mohammed Cardinal Richelieu who had beyond were so violent a woman wearing furs then cried Wanda is nothing more 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 long arcs and the dominant higher nobility 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 or for an arena and Taishan 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 repeatedly told you that suffering has a peculiar attraction for me nothing can intensify my passion more than tyranny cruelty and especially the faithlessness of a beautiful woman and I cannot imagine this woman this strange ideal derived from an aesthetics of ugliness this soul of Nero in the body of Vrini except in furs I understand Wanda interrupted it gives a dominant and imposing quality to a woman not only that I continued you know I'm super sensual with me everything has its roots in the imagination and then it receives its nourishment I was already prematurely developed and highly sensitive when at about the age of ten the legends of the martyrs fell into my hands I remember reading with a kind of horror which really was rapture of how they pined in prisons were laid on the gridiron pierced with arrows boiled and pitched thrown to wild animals nailed to the cross and suffered the most horrible torment with a kind of joy to suffer and endure a 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 the 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 and 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 and contrast to him she was cruel like nature herself who tosses aside whatever served her purposes as soon as she no longer has need for it to him her cruelties even death itself still were sensual raptures I envied King Gunther whom the mighty Brunhilder fettered on the bridal knight and the poor Troubadour whom his capricious mistress had sewed in the skin of wolves to have him hunted like game I envied the knight Tirad who the daring daughter craptily ensnared in the forest near Prague and carried to her castle divine where after having amused herself awhile 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 and the wolf's skin under the teeth of the dogs or upon the wheel 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 extremist cruelties were described I loved especially to look at the 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 women whom the pages of history have recorded as lustful and beautiful and violent women like Libousa Lucretia Borgia Agnes of Hungary, Queen Margot Isabeau, the Sultan of Roxalan the Russian Tsarina of the last century all these I saw in furs or in robes bordered with their mind and so furs now roused 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 about her boss in her arms well how do you feel now half broken on the wheel her piercing green eyes rested on me with a peculiar mocking satisfaction overcome by desire I flung myself down before her and threw my arms about her yes you have awakened my dearest dream I cried it has slept long enough and this is she put her hand on my neck I was seized with a sweet intoxication under the influence of this warm little hand and of her regard which tenderly searching fell upon me through her half closed lids to be the slave of a woman a beautiful woman whom I love, whom I worship and who on that account maltreats you interrupted Wanda laughing yes who fetters me and whips me treads me underfoot the while she gives herself to another and who in her wantonness goes 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 surpassed my dreams yes, we women are inventive she said take heed when you find your ideal it might easily happen to you more cruelly than you anticipate I am afraid that I have already found my ideal I exclaimed burying my 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 peels of laughter above 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 softness you know I am ready at the end of a year to give you my hand if you prove to be the man I am seeking Wanda replied very seriously but I think you would be more grateful to me if, through me you realized your imaginings well, which do you prefer I believe that everything my imagination has dreamed lies latent in your personality you are mistaken I believe I continue 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 II and all the other selfish, frivolous, cruel women carries me away and takes hold of my soul and urges me on to become like those women who, in spite of their vileness were slavishly adored during their lifetime and still exert a miraculous power from their graves you will end by making 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 in your nature nothing halfway if you can't be a true and loyal life 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 quickly and rose almost angrily if you love me, Severin she said quickly and her voice sounded sharp and commanding never speak of those things again understand never otherwise I might really she smiled and sat down again I am entirely serious I exclaimed half raving I adore you so infinitely that I am willing to suffer anything from you for the sake of spending my whole life near you Severin, once more I warn you your warning is vain do with me what you will as long as you don't drive me away Severin, replied Wanda I am a frivolous young woman it is dangerous for you to put yourself so completely in my power you will end by actually becoming a plaything to me who will give word that I shall not abuse your insane desire your own nobility of character power makes people overbearing be it I cried, tread me underfoot Wanda threw her arms around my neck looked into my eyes and shook her head I am afraid I can't but I will try for your sake for I love you Severin as I have loved no other man today she took her hat and shawl and I had to go shopping with her she looked at whips long whips with the short handle the kind that are used on dogs are these satisfactory said the shopkeeper they're much too small replied Wanda with a side glance at me I need a large for a bulldog I suppose upon 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 goodbye Severin she said I have some other purchases to make but you can't go along on the way back as I Wanda coming out of her furriers she beckoned me considerate well she began 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 holy in my power actually lying in rapture that my feet of course stimulates me but will this attraction last woman loves a man your 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 and glowing colors what would you say should I try my hand at them do the first object of my experiments I would be like Dionysius who had the inventor of the iron ox roasted with 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 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 demonically 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 received early in the morning a second time then I had a donkey saddled an animal symbolic of learned professors and rode into the mountains I wanted to numb my desire my yearning with the magnificent scenery of the Carpathians I am back tired hungry thirsty and more in love than ever I quickly changed my clothes and a few moments later knock at her door come in I enter she's 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 Kazabica 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 I'm about to throw my arm about her to kiss her she retreats a step measuring me from top to bottom slave mistress I kneel down and kiss the hem of her garment that is as it should be oh how beautiful you are do I please you she stepped before the mirror and looked at herself with proud satisfaction I shall become mad her lower lip twitched derisively and she looked at me mockingly from behind half closed lids give me the whip I looked about the room no she exclaimed stay as you are kneeling she went over to the fireplace took the whip from the mantelpiece and watching me with a smile let it hiss through the air then she slowly rolled up the sleeve of her fur jacket marvelous woman I exclaimed silent slave she suddenly scowled looked savage and struck me with a whip a moment later she threw her arm tenderly about me and pityingly bent down to me did I hurt you? she asked did you kindly have 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 with me I begged with me without mercy won a swung the whip and hit me twice are you satisfied now? no seriously no with me I beg you do you enjoy 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 where 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 a death in 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 they'll treat 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 somber smile be then my slave I 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 and raptured me they came from her whom I adored and for whom I was ready at any hour to lay down my life she stopped I'm beginning to enjoy it she said but enough for today I feel a demonic curiosity to see how far your strength goes I take a cruel joy in seeing you tremble and arrive beneath my whips and in hearing your groans and wails I want to go on whipping without pity until you beg for mercy until you lose your senses you have awakened dangerous elements in my being but now get up I seized her hand and pressed it to my lips what impudence she shoved me away with her foot out of my sight to slave after having spent a feverish night filled with confused dreams I awoke Dawn was just beginning to break how much of what was hovering in my memory was true what had I actually experienced and what had I dreamed that I had been whipped was certain I can still feel each blow and count the burning red stripes on my body and she whipped me now I know everything my dream has become truth how does it make me feel am I disappointed in the realization of my dream no I am merely somewhat tired but her cruelty has enraptured me oh how I love her adore her all this cannot express in the remotest way my feeling for her devotion to her what happiness to be her slave she calls 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 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 these 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 onto the ottoman she began to kiss me anew and this silent language was so comprehensible so convincing and it told me more than I dare 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 of her with every movement in the swelling ermine of the casabica in which she carelessly nestled please I stammered but you will be angry with me do with me what you will she whispered well then whip me or I shall go mad haven't I forbidden you said Wanda certainly but you are incorrigible oh I am so terribly in love I had sung it on my knees and was burying my glowing face in her lap I really believe said Wanda thoughtfully that your madness is nothing more than 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 drew up 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 I asked Wanda I am suffering agonies you are suffering she broke out into loud and used laughter you laugh I moaned you have no idea she was serious all of a sudden she raised my head in her hands and with a violent gesture drew me to her breast Wanda I stammered of course you enjoy suffering she said and laughed again but wait I'll bring you to your senses no I will no longer ask I exclaimed whether you want to belong to me for always or for only a brief moment of intoxication I want to drain my happiness the full you are mine now and I would rather lose you than never to have had you now you are a sensible she said she kissed me again with her murderous lips I tore the urmine apart in the covering of lace and her naked breasts 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've bitten you