Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (best big ereader .TXT) 📖

Oh yes, I know, now run along!"

When I returned she was standing in the center of the room in her white satin dress, and the red kazabaika edged with ermine; her hair was white with powder and over her forehead she wore a small diamond diadem. For a moment she reminded me in an uncanny way of Catherine the Second, but she did not give me much time for reminiscences. She drew me down on the ottoman beside her and we enjoyed two blissful hours. She was no longer the stern capricious mistress, she was entirely a fine lady, a tender sweetheart. She showed me photographs and books which had just appeared, and talked about them with so much intelligence, clarity, and good taste, that I more than once carried her hand to my lips, enraptured. She then had me recite several of Lermontov's poems, and when I was all afire with enthusiasm, she placed her small hand gently on mine. Her expression was soft, and her eyes were filled with tender pleasure.

"Are you happy?"

"Not yet."

She then leaned back on the cushions, and slowly opened her
kazabaika .

But I quickly covered the half-bared breast again with the ermine. "You are driving me mad." I stammered.

"Come!"

I was already lying in her arms, and like a serpent she was kissing me with her tongue, when again she whispered, "Are you happy?"

"Infinitely!" I exclaimed.

She laughed aloud. It was an evil, shrill laugh which made cold shivers run down by back.

"You used to dream of being the slave, the plaything of a beautiful woman, and now you imagine you are a free human being, a man, my lover-you fool! A sign from me, and you are a slave again. Down on your knees!"

I sank down from the ottoman to her feet, but my eye still clung doubtingly on hers.

"You can't believe it," she said, looking at me with her arms folded across her breast. "I am bored, and you will just do to while away a couple of hours of time. Don't look at me that way - "

She kicked me with her foot.

"You are just what I want, a human being, a thing, an animal - "

She rang. The three negresses entered.

"Tie his hands behind his back."

I remained kneeling and unresistingly let them do this. They led me into the garden, down to the little vineyard, which forms the southern boundary. Corn had been planted between the espaliers, and here and there a few dead stalks still stood. To one side was a plough.

The negresses tied me to a post, and amused themselves sticking me with their golden hair-needles. But this did not last long, before Wanda appeared with her ermine cap on her head, and with her hands in the pockets of her jacket. She had me untied, and then my hands were fastened together on my back. She finally had a yoke put around my neck, and harnessed me to the plough.

Then her black demons drove me out into the field. One of them held the plough, the other one led me by a line, the third applied the whip, and Venus in Furs stood to one side and looked on.

* * * * *

When I was serving dinner on the following day Wanda said: "Bring another cover, I want you to dine with me to-day," and when I was about to sit down opposite her, she added, "No, over here, close by my side."

She is in the best of humors, gives me soup with her spoon, feeds me with her fork, and places her head on the table like a playful kitten and flirts with me. I have the misfortune of looking at Haydee, who serves in my place, perhaps a little longer than is necessary. It is only now that I noticed her noble, almost European cast of countenance and her magnificent statuesque bust, which is as if hewn out of black marble. The black devil observes that she pleases me, and, grinning, shows her teeth. She has hardly left the room, before Wanda leaps up in a rage.

"What, you dare to look at another woman besides me! Perhaps you like her even better than you do me, she is even more demonic!"

I am frightened; I have never seen her like this before; she is suddenly pale even to the lips and her whole body trembles. Venus in Furs is jealous of her slave. She snatches the whip from its hook and strikes me in the face; then she calls her black servants, who bind me, and carry me down into the cellar, where they throw me into a dark, dank, subterranean compartment, a veritable prison-cell.

Then the lock of the door clicks, the bolts are drawn, a key sings in the lock. I am a prisoner, buried.

I have been lying here for I don't know how long, bound like a calf about to be hauled to the slaughter, on a bundle of damp straw, without any light, without food, without drink, without sleep. It would be like her to let me starve to death, if I don't freeze to death before then. I am shaking with cold. Or is it fever? I believe I am beginning to hate this woman.

* * * * *

A red streak, like blood, floods across the floor; it is a light falling through the door which is now thrust open.

Wanda appears on the threshold, wrapped in her sables, holding a lighted torch.

"Are you still alive?" she asks.

"Are you coming to kill me?" I reply with a low, hoarse voice.

With two rapid strides Wanda reaches my side, she kneels down beside me, and places my head in her lap. "Are you ill? Your eyes glow so, do you love me? I want you to love me."

She draws forth a short dagger. I start with fright when its blade gleams in front of my eyes. I actually believe that she is about to kill me. She laughs, and cuts the ropes that bind me.

* * * * *

Every evening after dinner she now has me called. I have to read to her, and she discusses with me all sorts of interesting problems and subjects. She seems entirely transformed; it is as if she were ashamed of the savagery which she betrayed to me and of the cruelty with which she treated me. A touching gentleness transfigures her entire being, and when at the good-night she gives me her hand, a superhuman power of goodness and love lies in her eyes, of the kind which calls forth tears in us and causes us to forget all the miseries of existence and all the terrors of death.

* * * * *

I am reading Manon l'Escault to her. She feels the association, she doesn't say a word, but she smiles from time to time, and finally she shuts up the little book.

"Don't you want to go on reading?"

"Not to-day. We will ourselves act Manon l'Escault to-day. I have a rendezvous in the Cascine, and you, my dear Chevalier, will accompany me; I know, you will do it, won't you?"

"You command it."

"I do not command it, I beg it of you," she says with irresistible charm. She then rises, puts her hands on my shoulders, and looks at me.

"Your eyes!" she exclaims. "I love you, Severin, you have no idea how I love you!"

"Yes, I have!" I replied bitterly, "so much so that you have arranged for a rendezvous with some one else."

"I do this only to allure you the more," she replied vivaciously. "I must have admirers, so as not to lose you. I don't ever want to lose you, never, do you hear, for I love only you, you alone."

She clung passionately to my lips.

"Oh, if I only could, as I would, give you all of my soul in a kiss - thus - but now come."

She slipped into a simple black velvet coat, and put a dark bashlyk [Footnote: A kind of Russian cap.] on her head. Then she rapidly went through the gallery, and entered the carriage.

"Gregor will drive," she called out to the coachman who withdrew in surprise.

I ascended the driver's seat, and angrily whipped up the horses.

In the Cascine where the main roadway turns into a leafy path, Wanda got out. It was night, only occasional stars shone through the gray clouds that fled across the sky. By the bank of the Arno stood a man in a dark cloak, with a brigand's hat, and looked at the yellow waves. Wanda rapidly walked through the shrubbery, and tapped him on the shoulder. I saw him turn and seize her hand, and then they disappeared behind the green wall.

An hour full of torments. Finally there was a rustling in the bushes to one side, and they returned.

The man accompanied her to the carriage. The light of the lamp fell full and glaringly upon an infinitely young, soft and dreamy face which I had never before seen, and played in his long, blond curls.

She held out her hand which he kissed with deep respect, then she signaled to me, and immediately the carriage flew along the leafy wall which follows the river like a long green screen.

* * * * *

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

"Whom shall I announce?" I ask him in French. He timidly shakes his head.

"Do you, perhaps, understand some German?" he asks shyly.

"Yes. Your name, please."

"Oh! I haven't any yet," he replies, embarrassed - "Tell your mistress the German painter from the Cascine is here and would like - but there she is herself."

Wanda had stepped out on the balcony, and nodded toward the stranger.

"Gregor, show the gentleman in!" she called to me.

I showed the painter the stairs.

"Thanks, I'll find her now, thanks, thanks very much." He ran up the steps. I remained standing below, and looked with deep pity on the poor German.

Venus in Furs has caught his soul in the red snares of hair. He will paint her, and go mad.

* * * * *