Venus in Furs
Wanda approaches in a gown of dark silk, modestly closed up to the
neck; the Greek is with her. They are in an eager discussion, but I
cannot as yet understand a word of what they are saying. He stamps his
foot so that the gravel scatters about in all directions, and he lashes
the air with his riding whip. Wanda startles.
Is she afraid that he will strike her?
Have they gone that far?
He has left her, she calls him; he does not hear her, does not want to
hear her.
Wanda sadly lowers her head, and then sits down on the nearest
stone-bench. She sits for a long time, lost in thought. I watch her
with a sort of malevolent pleasure, finally I pull myself together by
sheer force of will, and ironically step before her. She startles, and
trembles all over.
“I come to wish you happiness,” I said, bowing, “I see, my dear lady,
too, has found a master.”
“Yes, thank God!” she exclaimed, “not a new slave, I have had enough of
them. A master! Woman needs a master, and she adores him.”
“You adore him, Wanda?” I cried, “this brutal person—”
“Yes, I love him, as I have never loved any one else.”
“Wanda!” I clenched my fists, but tears already filled my eyes, and I
was seized by the delirium of passion, as by a sweet madness. “Very
well, take him as your husband, let him be your master, but I want to
remain your slave, as long as I live.”
“You want to remain my slave, even then?” she said, “that would be
interesting, but I am afraid he wouldn’t permit it.”
“He?”
“Yes, he is already jealous of you,” she exclaimed, “he, of you! He
demanded that I dismiss you immediately, and when I told him who you
were—”
“You told him—” I repeated, thunderstruck.
“I told him everything,” she replied, “our whole story, all your
queerness, everything—and he, instead of being amused, grew angry, and
stamped his foot.”
“And threatened to strike you?”
Wanda looked to the ground, and remained silent.
“Yes, indeed,” I said with mocking bitterness, “you are afraid of him,
Wanda!” I threw myself down at her feet, and in my agitation embraced
her knees. “I don’t want anything of you, except to be your slave, to
be always near you! I will be your dog-”
“Do you know, you bore me?” said Wanda, indifferently.
I leaped up. Everything within me was seething.
“You are now no longer cruel, but cheap,” I said, clearly and
distinctly, accentuating every word.
“You have already written that in your letter,” Wanda replied, with a
proud shrug of the shoulders. “A man of brains should never repeat
himself.”
“The way you are treating me,” I broke out, “what would you call it?”
“I might punish you,” she replied ironically, “but I prefer this time
to reply with reasons instead of lashes. You have no right to accuse
me. Haven’t I always been honest with you? Haven’t I warned you more
than once? Didn’t I love you with all my heart, even passionately, and
did I conceal the fact from you, that it was dangerous to give yourself
into my power, to abase yourself before me, and that I want to be
dominated? But you wished to be my plaything, my slave! You found the
highest pleasure in feeling the foot, the whip of an arrogant, cruel
woman. What do you want now?
“Dangerous potentialities were slumbering in me, but you were the first
to awaken them. If I now take pleasure in torturing you, abusing you,
it is your fault; you have made of me what I now am, and now you are
even unmanly, weak, and miserable enough to accuse me.”
“Yes, I am guilty,” I said, “but haven’t I suffered because of it? Let
us put an end now to the cruel game.”
“That is my wish, too,” she replied with a curious deceitful look.
“Wanda!” I exclaimed violently, “don’t drive me to extremes; you see
that I am a man again.”
“A fire of straw,” she replied, “which makes a lot of stir for a
moment, and goes out as quickly as it flared up. You imagine you can
intimidate me, and you only make yourself ridiculous. Had you been the
man I first thought you were, serious, reserved, stern, I would have
loved you faithfully, and become your wife. Woman demands that she can
look up to a man, but one like you who voluntarily places his neck
under her foot, she uses as a welcome plaything, only to toss it aside
when she is tired of it.”
“Try to toss me aside,” I said, jeeringly. “Some toys are dangerous.”
“Don’t challenge me,” exclaimed Wanda. Her eyes began to flash, and a
flush entered her cheeks.
“If you won’t be mine now,” I continued, with a voice stifled with
rage, “no one else shall possess you either.”
“What play is this from?” she mocked, seizing me by the breast. She was
pale with anger at this moment. “Don’t challenge me,” she continued, “I
am not cruel, but I don’t know whether I may not become so and whether
then there will be any bounds.”
“What worse can you do, than to make your lover, your husband?” I
exclaimed, more and more enraged.
“I might make you _his_ slave,” she replied quickly, “are you not in my
power? Haven’t I the agreement? But, of course, you will merely take
pleasure in it, if I have you bound, and say to him.
“Do with him what you please.”
“Woman, are you mad!” I cried.
“I am entirely rational,” she said, calmly. “I warn you for the last
time. Don’t offer any resistance, one who has gone as far as I have
gone might easily go still further. I feel a sort of hatred for you,
and would find a real joy in seeing him beat you to death; I am still
restraining myself, but—”
Scarcely master of myself any longer, I seized her by the wrist and
forced her to the ground, so that she lay on her knees before me.
“Severin!” she cried. Rage and terror were painted on her face.
“I shall kill you if you marry him,” I threatened; the words came
hoarsely and dully from my breast. “You are mine, I won’t let you go, I
love you too much.” Then I clutched her and pressed her close to me; my
right hand involuntarily seized the dagger which I still had in my
belt.
Wanda fixed a large, calm, incomprehensible look on me.
“I like you that way,” she said, carelessly. “Now you are a man, and at
this moment I know I still love you.”
“Wanda,” I wept with rapture, and bent down over her, covering her dear
face with kisses, and she, suddenly breaking into a loud gay laugh,
said, “Have you finished with your ideal now, are you satisfied with
me?”
“You mean?” I stammered, “that you weren’t serious?”
“I am very serious,” she gaily continued. “I love you, only you, and
you—you foolish, little man, didn’t know that everything was only
make-believe and play-acting. How hard it often was for me to strike
you with the whip, when I would have rather taken your head and covered
it with kisses. But now we are through with that, aren’t we? I have
played my cruel role better than you expected, and now you will be
satisfied with my being a good, little wife who isn’t altogether
unattractive. Isn’t that so? We will live like rational people—”
“You will marry me!” I cried, overflowing with happiness.
“Yes—marry you—you dear, darling man,” whispered Wanda, kissing my
hands.
I drew her up to my breast.
“Now, you are no longer Gregor, my slave,” said she, “but Severin, the
dear man I love—”
“And he—you don’t love him?” I asked in agitation.
“How could you imagine my loving a man of his brutal type? You were
blind to everything, I was really afraid for you.”
“I almost killed myself for your sake.”
“Really?” she cried, “ah, I still tremble at the thought, that you were
already in the Arno.”
“But you saved me,” I replied, tenderly. “You hovered over the waters
and smiled, and your smile called me back to life.”
* * * * *
I have a curious feeling when I now hold her in my arms and she lies
silently against my breast and lets me kiss her and smiles. I feel like
one who has suddenly awakened out of a feverish delirium, or like a
shipwrecked man who has for many days battled with waves that
momentarily threatened to devour him and finally has found a safe
shore.
* * * * *
“I hate this Florence, where you have been so unhappy,” she declared,
as I was saying good-night to her. “I want to leave immediately,
tomorrow, you will be good enough to write a couple of letters for me,
and, while you are doing that, I will drive to the city to pay my
farewell visits. Is that satisfactory to you?”
“Of course, you dear, sweet, beautiful woman.”
* * * * *
Early in the morning she knocked at my door to ask how I had slept. Her
tenderness is positively wonderful. I should never have believed that
she could be so tender.
* * * * *
She has now been gone for over four hours. I have long since finished
the letters, and am now sitting in the gallery, looking down the street
to see whether I cannot discover her carriage in the distance. I am a
little worried about her, and yet I know there is no reason under
heaven why I should doubt or fear. However, a feeling of oppression
weighs me down, and I cannot rid myself of it. It is probably the
sufferings of the past days, which still cast their shadows into my
soul.
* * * * *
She is back, radiant with happiness and contentment.
“Well, has everything gone as you wished?” I asked tenderly, kissing
her hand.
“Yes, dear heart,” she replied, “and we shall leave to-night. Help me
pack my trunks.”
* * * * *
Toward evening she asked me to go to the post-office and mail her
letters myself. I took her carriage, and was back within an hour.
“Mistress has asked for you,” said the negress, with a grin, as I
ascended the wide marble stairs.
“Has anyone been here?”
“No one,” she replied, crouching down on the steps like a black cat.
I slowly passed through the drawing-room, and then stood before her
bedroom door.
Why does my heart beat so? Am I not perfectly happy?
Opening the door softly, I draw back the portiere. Wanda is lying on
the ottoman, and does not seem to notice me. How beautiful she looks,
in her silver-gray dress, which fits closely, and while displaying in
tell-tale fashion her splendid figure, leaves her wonderful bust and
arms bare.
Her hair is interwoven with, and held up by a black velvet ribbon. A
mighty fire is burning in the fire-place, the hanging lamp casts a
reddish glow, and the whole room is as if drowned in blood.
“Wanda,” I said at last.
“Oh Severin,” she cried out joyously. “I have been impatiently waiting
for you.” She leaped up, and folded me in her arms. She sat down again
on the rich cushions and tried to draw me down to her side, but I
softly slid down to her feet and placed my head in her lap.
“Do you know I am very much in love with you to-day?” she whispered,
brushing a few stray hairs from my forehead and kissing my eyes.
“How beautiful your eyes are, I have always loved them as the best of
you, but to-day they fairly intoxicate me. I am all—” She extended her
magnificent limbs and tenderly looked at me from beneath her red
lashes.
“And you—you are cold—you hold me like a block of wood; wait, I’ll stir
you with the fire of love,” she said, and again clung fawningly and
caressingly to my lips.
“I no longer please you; I suppose I’ll have to be cruel to you again,
evidently I have been too kind to you to-day. Do you know, you little
fool, what I shall do, I shall whip you for a while—”
“But child—”
“I want to.”
“Wanda!”
“Come, let me bind you,” she continued, and ran gaily through the room.
“I want to see you very much in love, do you understand? Here are the
ropes. I wonder if I can still do it?”
She began with fettering my feet and then she tied my hands behind my
back, pinioning my arms like those of a prisoner.