Kahlil Gibran - "The Madman"

J Fenimore Cooper - "The Prairie"

Franklin P. Adams - "Tobogganing On Parnassus"

George Gissing - "The Emancipated"

Venus in Furs

L >> Leopold von Sacher Masoch >> Venus in Furs




The lioness had been hunted and driven until she was exhausted. She
had fallen asleep among her pillows, lying on her back, her hands
clenched, breathing heavily. A dream seemed to oppress her. I slowly
withdrew my hand, and let the red light fall full on her wonderful
face.

But she did not awaken.

I gently set the lamp on the floor, sank down beside Wanda's bed,
and rested my head on her soft, glowing arm.

She moved slightly, but even now did not awaken. I do not know how
long I lay thus in the middle of the night, turned as into a stone
by horrible torments.

Finally a severe trembling seized me, and I was able to cry. My
tears flowed over her arm. She quivered several times and finally sat
up; she brushed her hand across her eyes, and looked at me.

"Severin," she exclaimed, more frightened than angry.

I was unable to reply.

"Severin," she continued softly, "what is the matter? Are you ill?"

Her voice sounded so sympathetic, so kind, so full of love, that it
clutched my breast like red-hot tongs and I began to sob aloud.

"Severin," she began anew. "My poor unhappy friend." Her hand gently
stroked my hair. "I am sorry, very sorry for you; but I can't help
you; with the best intention in the world I know of nothing that
would cure you."

"Oh, Wanda, must it be?" I moaned in my agony.

"What, Severin? What are you talking about?"

"Don't you love me any more?" I continued. "Haven't you even a
little bit of pity for me? Has the beautiful stranger taken complete
possession of you?"

"I cannot lie," she replied softly after a short pause. "He has made
an impression on me which I haven't yet been able to analyse, further
than that I suffer and tremble beneath it. It is an impression of the
sort I have met with in the works of poets or on the stage, but I
always thought it was a figment of the imagination. Oh, he is a man
like a lion, strong and beautiful and yet gentle, not brutal like the
men of our northern world. I am sorry for you, Severin, I am; but I
must possess him. What am I saying? I must give myself to him, if he
will have me."

"Consider your reputation, Wanda, which so far has remained
spotless," I exclaimed, "even if I no longer mean anything to you."

"I am considering it," she replied, "I intend to be strong, as long
as it is possible, I want--" she buried her head shyly in the pillows
--"I want to become his wife--if he will have me."

"Wanda," I cried, seized again by that mortal fear, which always
robs me of my breath, makes me lose possession of myself, "you want
to be his wife, belong to him for always. Oh! Do not drive me away!
He does not love you--"

"Who says that?" she exclaimed, flaring up.

"He does not love you," I went on passionately, "but I love you, I
adore you, I am your slave, I let you tread me underfoot, I want to
carry you on my arms through life."

"Who says that he doesn't love me?" she interrupted vehemently.

"Oh! be mine," I replied, "be mine! I cannot exist, cannot live
without you. Have mercy on me, Wanda, have mercy!"

She looked at me again, and her face had her cold heartless
expression, her evil smile.

"You say he doesn't love me," she said, scornfully. "Very well then,
get what consolation you can out of it."

With this she turned over on the other side, and contemptuously
showed me her back.

"Good God, are you a woman without flesh or blood, haven't you a
heart as well as I!" I cried, while my breast heaved convulsively.

"You know what I am," she replied, coldly. "I am a woman of stone,
_Venus in Furs_, your ideal, kneel down, and pray to me."

"Wanda!" I implored, "mercy!"

She began to laugh. I buried my face in her pillows. Pain had
loosened the floodgates of my tears and I let them flow.

For a long time silence reigned, then Wanda slowly raised herself.

"You bore me," she began.

"Wanda!"

"I am tired, let me go to sleep."

"Mercy," I implored. "Do not drive me away. No man, no one, will
love you as I do."

"Let me go to sleep,"--she turned her back to me again.

I leaped up, and snatched the poinard, which hung beside her bed,
from its sheath, and placed its point against my breast.

"I shall kill myself here before your eyes," I murmured dully.

"Do what you please," Wanda replied with complete indifference. "But
let me go to sleep." She yawned aloud. "I am very sleepy."

For a moment I stood as if petrified. Then I began to laugh and cry
at the same time. Finally I placed the poinard in my belt, and again
fell on my knees before her.

"Wanda, listen to me, only for a few moments," I begged.

"I want to go to sleep! Don't you hear!" she cried, leaping angrily
out of bed and pushing me away with her foot. "You forget that I am
your mistress?" When I didn't budge, she seized the whip and struck
me. I rose; she struck me again--this time right in the face.

"Wretch, slave!"

With clenched fist held heavenward, I left her bedroom with a sudden
resolve. She tossed the whip aside, and broke out into clear
laughter. I can imagine that my theatrical attitude must have been
very droll.

* * * * *

I have determined to set myself free from this heartless woman, who
has treated me so cruelly, and is now about to break faith and betray
me, as a reward for all my slavish devotion, for everything I have
suffered from her. I packed my few belongings into a bundle, and then
wrote her as follows:

"Dear Madam,--

I have loved you even to madness, I have given myself to you as no man
ever has given himself to a woman. You have abused my most sacred
emotions, and played an impudent, frivolous game with me. However, as
long as you were merely cruel and merciless, it was still possible for
me to love you. Now you are about to become _cheap_. I am no longer
the slave whom you can kick about and whip. You yourself have set me
free, and I am leaving a woman I can only hate and despise.

Severin Kusiemski."

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

Again I pause. I cannot go back. I dare not.

But how am I to leave Florence. I remember that I haven't any money,
not a penny. Very well then, on foot; it is better to be an honest
beggar than to eat the bread of a courtesan.

But still I can't leave.

She has my pledge, my word of honor. I have to return. Perhaps she
will release me.

After a few rapid strides, I stop again.

She has my word of honor and my bond, that I shall remain her slave
as long as she desires, until she herself gives me my freedom. But
I might kill myself.

I go through the Cascine down to the Arno, where its yellow waters
plash monotonously about a couple of stray willows. There I sit, and
cast up my final accounts with existence. I let my entire life pass
before me in review. On the whole, it is rather a wretched affair--a
few joys, an endless number of indifferent and worthless things, and
between these an abundant harvest of pains, miseries, fears,
disappointments, shipwrecked hopes, afflictions, sorrow and grief.

I thought of my mother, whom I loved so deeply and whom I had to
watch waste away beneath a horrible disease; of my brother, who full
of the promise of joy and happiness died in the flower of youth,
without even having put his lips to the cup of life. I thought of my
dead nurse, my childhood playmates, the friends that had striven and
studied with me; of all those, covered by the cold, dead, indifferent
earth. I thought of my turtle-dove, who not infrequently made his
cooing bows to me, instead of to his mate.--All have returned, dust
unto dust.

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

* * * * *

I am back again, dripping, wet through, glowing with shame and
fever. The negress has delivered my letter; I am judged, lost, in the
power of a heartless, affronted woman.

Well, let her kill me. I am unable to do it myself, and yet I have
no wish to go on living.

As I walk around the house, she is standing in the gallery, leaning
over the railing. Her face is full in the light of the sun, and her
green eyes sparkle.

"Still alive?" she asked, without moving. I stood silent, with bowed
head.

"Give me back my poinard," she continued. "It is of no use to you.
You haven't even the courage to take your own life."

"I have lost it," I replied, trembling, shaken by chills.

She looked me over with a proud, scornful glance.

"I suppose you lost it in the Arno?" She shrugged her shoulders. "No
matter. Well, and why didn't you leave?"

I mumbled something which neither she nor I myself could understand.

"Oh! you haven't any money," she cried. "Here!" With an
indescribably disdainful gesture she tossed me her purse.

I did not pick it up.

Both of us were silent for some time.

"You don't want to leave then?"

"I can't."

* * * * *

Wanda drives in the Cascine without me, and goes to the theater
without me; she receives company, and the negress serves her. No one
asks after me. I stray about the garden, irresolutely, like an animal
that has lost its master.

Lying among the bushes, I watch a couple of sparrows, fighting over
a seed.

Suddenly I hear the swish of a woman's dress.

Wanda approaches in a gown of dark silk, modestly closed up to the
neck; the Greek is with her. They are in an eager discussion, but I
cannot as yet understand a word of what they are saying. He stamps
his foot so that the gravel scatters about in all directions, and he
lashes the air with his riding whip. Wanda startles.

Is she afraid that he will strike her?

Have they gone that far?

He has left her, she calls him; he does not hear her, does not want
to hear her.

Wanda sadly lowers her head, and then sits down on the nearest stone-
bench. She sits for a long time, lost in thought. I watch her with
a sort of malevolent pleasure, finally I pull myself together by sheer
force of will, and ironically step before her. She startles, and
trembles all over.

"I come to wish you happiness," I said, bowing, "I see, my dear
lady, too, has found a master."

"Yes, thank God!" she exclaimed, "not a new slave, I have had enough
of them. A master! Woman needs a master, and she adores him."

"You adore him, Wanda?" I cried, "this brutal person--"

"Yes, I love him, as I have never loved any one else."

"Wanda!" I clenched my fists, but tears already filled my eyes, and
I was seized by the delirium of passion, as by a sweet madness. "Very
well, take him as your husband, let him be your master, but I want
to remain your slave, as long as I live."

"You want to remain my slave, even then?" she said, "that would be
interesting, but I am afraid he wouldn't permit it."

"He?"

"Yes, he is already jealous of you," she exclaimed, "he, of you! He
demanded that I dismiss you immediately, and when I told him who you
were--"

"You told him--" I repeated, thunderstruck.

"I told him everything," she replied, "our whole story, all your
queerness, everything--and he, instead of being amused, grew angry,
and stamped his foot."

"And threatened to strike you?"

Wanda looked to the ground, and remained silent.

"Yes, indeed," I said with mocking bitterness, "you are afraid of
him, Wanda!" I threw myself down at her feet, and in my agitation
embraced her knees. "I don't want anything of you, except to be your
slave, to be always near you! I will be your dog-"

"Do you know, you bore me?" said Wanda, indifferently.

I leaped up. Everything within me was seething.

"You are now no longer cruel, but cheap," I said, clearly and
distinctly, accentuating every word.

"You have already written that in your letter," Wanda replied, with
a proud shrug of the shoulders. "A man of brains should never repeat
himself."

"The way you are treating me," I broke out, "what would you call it?"

"I might punish you," she replied ironically, "but I prefer this
time to reply with reasons instead of lashes. You have no right to
accuse me. Haven't I always been honest with you? Haven't I warned
you more than once? Didn't I love you with all my heart, even
passionately, and did I conceal the fact from you, that it was
dangerous to give yourself into my power, to abase yourself before
me, and that I want to be dominated? But you wished to be my
plaything, my slave! You found the highest pleasure in feeling the
foot, the whip of an arrogant, cruel woman. What do you want now?

"Dangerous potentialities were slumbering in me, but you were the
first to awaken them. If I now take pleasure in torturing you,
abusing you, it is your fault; you have made of me what I now am, and
now you are even unmanly, weak, and miserable enough to accuse me."

"Yes, I am guilty," I said, "but haven't I suffered because of it?
Let us put an end now to the cruel game."

"That is my wish, too," she replied with a curious deceitful look.

"Wanda!" I exclaimed violently, "don't drive me to extremes; you see
that I am a man again."

"A fire of straw," she replied, "which makes a lot of stir for a
moment, and goes out as quickly as it flared up. You imagine you can
intimidate me, and you only make yourself ridiculous. Had you been
the man I first thought you were, serious, reserved, stern, I would
have loved you faithfully, and become your wife. Woman demands that
she can look up to a man, but one like you who voluntarily places his
neck under her foot, she uses as a welcome plaything, only to toss
it aside when she is tired of it."

"Try to toss me aside," I said, jeeringly. "Some toys are dangerous."

"Don't challenge me," exclaimed Wanda. Her eyes began to flash, and
a flush entered her cheeks.

"If you won't be mine now," I continued, with a voice stifled with
rage, "no one else shall possess you either."

"What play is this from?" she mocked, seizing me by the breast. She
was pale with anger at this moment. "Don't challenge me," she
continued, "I am not cruel, but I don't know whether I may not become
so and whether then there will be any bounds."

"What worse can you do, than to make your lover, your husband?" I
exclaimed, more and more enraged.

"I might make you _his_ slave," she replied quickly, "are you not in
my power? Haven't I the agreement? But, of course, you will merely
take pleasure in it, if I have you bound, and say to him.

"Do with him what you please."

"Woman, are you mad!" I cried.

"I am entirely rational," she said, calmly. "I warn you for the last
time. Don't offer any resistance, one who has gone as far as I have
gone might easily go still further. I feel a sort of hatred for you,
and would find a real joy in seeing him beat you to death; I am still
restraining myself, but--"

Scarcely master of myself any longer, I seized her by the wrist and
forced her to the ground, so that she lay on her knees before me.

"Severin!" she cried. Rage and terror were painted on her face.

"I shall kill you if you marry him," I threatened; the words came
hoarsely and dully from my breast. "You are mine, I won't let you go,
I love you too much." Then I clutched her and pressed her close to
me; my right hand involuntarily seized the dagger which I still had
in my belt.

Wanda fixed a large, calm, incomprehensible look on me.

"I like you that way," she said, carelessly. "Now you are a man, and
at this moment I know I still love you."

"Wanda," I wept with rapture, and bent down over her, covering her
dear face with kisses, and she, suddenly breaking into a loud gay
laugh, said, "Have you finished with your ideal now, are you
satisfied with me?"

"You mean?" I stammered, "that you weren't serious?"

"I am very serious," she gaily continued. "I love you, only you, and
you--you foolish, little man, didn't know that everything was only
make-believe and play-acting. How hard it often was for me to strike
you with the whip, when I would have rather taken your head and
covered it with kisses. But now we are through with that, aren't we?
I have played my cruel role better than you expected, and now you
will be satisfied with my being a good, little wife who isn't
altogether unattractive. Isn't that so? We will live like rational
people--"

"You will marry me!" I cried, overflowing with happiness.

"Yes--marry you--you dear, darling man," whispered Wanda, kissing my
hands.

I drew her up to my breast.

"Now, you are no longer Gregor, my slave," said she, "but Severin,
the dear man I love--"

"And he--you don't love him?" I asked in agitation.

"How could you imagine my loving a man of his brutal type? You were
blind to everything, I was really afraid for you."

"I almost killed myself for your sake."

"Really?" she cried, "ah, I still tremble at the thought, that you
were already in the Arno."

"But you saved me," I replied, tenderly. "You hovered over the
waters and smiled, and your smile called me back to life."

* * * * *

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

* * * * *

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

"Of course, you dear, sweet, beautiful woman."

* * * * *

Early in the morning she knocked at my door to ask how I had slept.
Her tenderness is positively wonderful. I should never have believed
that she could be so tender.

* * * * *

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

* * * * *

She is back, radiant with happiness and contentment.

"Well, has everything gone as you wished?" I asked tenderly, kissing
her hand.

"Yes, dear heart," she replied, "and we shall leave to-night. Help
me pack my trunks."

* * * * *

Toward evening she asked me to go to the post-office and mail her
letters myself. I took her carriage, and was back within an hour.

"Mistress has asked for you," said the negress, with a grin, as I
ascended the wide marble stairs.

"Has anyone been here?"

"No one," she replied, crouching down on the steps like a black cat.

I slowly passed through the drawing-room, and then stood before her
bedroom door.

Why does my heart beat so? Am I not perfectly happy?

Opening the door softly, I draw back the portiere. Wanda is lying on
the ottoman, and does not seem to notice me. How beautiful she looks,
in her silver-gray dress, which fits closely, and while displaying
in tell-tale fashion her splendid figure, leaves her wonderful bust
and arms bare.

Her hair is interwoven with, and held up by a black velvet ribbon.
A mighty fire is burning in the fire-place, the hanging lamp casts
a reddish glow, and the whole room is as if drowned in blood.

"Wanda," I said at last.

"Oh Severin," she cried out joyously. "I have been impatiently
waiting for you." She leaped up, and folded me in her arms. She sat
down again on the rich cushions and tried to draw me down to her
side, but I softly slid down to her feet and placed my head in her
lap.

"Do you know I am very much in love with you to-day?" she whispered,
brushing a few stray hairs from my forehead and kissing my eyes.

"How beautiful your eyes are, I have always loved them as the best
of you, but to-day they fairly intoxicate me. I am all--" She
extended her magnificent limbs and tenderly looked at me from beneath
her red lashes.

"And you--you are cold--you hold me like a block of wood; wait, I'll
stir you with the fire of love," she said, and again clung fawningly
and caressingly to my lips.

"I no longer please you; I suppose I'll have to be cruel to you
again, evidently I have been too kind to you to-day. Do you know, you
little fool, what I shall do, I shall whip you for a while--"

"But child--"

"I want to."

"Wanda!"

"Come, let me bind you," she continued, and ran gaily through the
room. "I want to see you very much in love, do you understand? Here
are the ropes. I wonder if I can still do it?"

She began with fettering my feet and then she tied my hands behind
my back, pinioning my arms like those of a prisoner.

"So," she said, with gay eagerness. "Can you still move?"

"No."

"Fine--"

She then tied a noose in a stout rope, threw it over my head, and
let it slip down as far as the hips. She drew it tight, and bound me
to a pillar.

A curious tremor seized me at that moment.

"I have a feeling as if I were about to be executed," I said with a
low voice.

"Well, you shall have a thorough punishment to-day," exclaimed Wanda.

"But put on your fur-jacket, please," I said.

"I shall gladly give you that pleasure," she replied. She got her
_kazabaika_, and put it on. Then she stood in front of me with
her arms folded across her chest, and looked at me out of half-closed
eyes.

"Do you remember the story of the ox of Dionysius?" she asked.

"I remember it only vaguely, what about it?"

"A courtier invented a new implement of torture for the Tyrant of
Syracuse. It was an iron ox in which those condemned to death were
to be shut, and then pushed into a mighty furnace.

"As soon as the iron ox began to get hot, and the condemned person
began to cry out in his torment, his wails sounded like the bellowing
of an ox.

"Dionysius nodded graciously to the inventor, and to put his
invention to an immediate test had him shut up in the iron ox.

"It is a very instructive story.

"It was you who innoculated me with selfishness, pride, and cruelty,
and _you shall be their first victim._ I now literally enjoy having a
human being that thinks and feels and desires like myself in my power;
I love to abuse a man who is stronger in intelligence and body than I,
especially a man who loves me.

"Do you still love me?"

"Even to madness," I exclaimed.

"So much the better," she replied, "and so much the more will you
enjoy what I am about to do with you now."

"What is the matter with you?" I asked. "I don't understand you,
there is a gleam of real cruelty in your eyes to-day, and you are
strangely beautiful--completely _Venus in Furs."_

Without replying Wanda placed her arms around my neck and kissed me.
I was again seized by my fanatical passion.

"Where is the whip?" I asked.

Wanda laughed, and withdrew a couple of steps.

"You really insist upon being punished?" she exclaimed, proudly
tossing back her head.

"Yes."

Suddenly Wanda's face was completely transformed. It was as if
disfigured by rage; for a moment she seemed even ugly to me.

"Very well, then _you_ whip him!" she called loudly.

At the same instant the beautiful Greek stuck his head of black
curls through the curtains of her four-poster bed. At first I was
speechless, petrified. There was a horribly comic element in the
situation. I would have laughed aloud, had not my position been at
the same time so terribly cruel and humiliating.

It went beyond anything I had imagined. A cold shudder ran down my
back, when my rival stepped from the bed in his riding boots, his
tight-fitting white breeches, and his short velvet jacket, and I saw
his athletic limbs.

"You are indeed cruel," he said, turning to Wanda.

"Only inordinately fond of pleasure," she replied with a wild sort
of humor. "Pleasure alone lends value to existence; whoever enjoys
does not easily part from life, whoever suffers or is needy meets
death like a friend.

"But whoever wants to enjoy must take life gaily in the sense of the
ancient world; he dare not hesitate to enjoy at the expense of
others; he must never feel pity; he must be ready to harness others
to his carriage or his plough as though they were animals. He must
know how to make slaves of men who feel and would enjoy as he does,
and use them for his service and pleasure without remorse. It is not
his affair whether they like it, or whether they go to rack and ruin.
He must always remember this, that if they had him in their power,
as he has them they would act in exactly the same way, and he would
have to pay for their pleasure with his sweat and blood and soul. That
was the world of the ancients: pleasure and cruelty, liberty and slavery
went hand in hand. People who want to live like the gods of Olympus
must of necessity have slaves whom they can toss into their fish-
ponds, and gladiators who will do battle, the while they banquet, and
they must not mind if by chance a bit of blood bespatters them."

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