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Venus In Furs 5
All stories on this web site are purely FICTIONAL. The people depicted within these stories only exist in someone's IMAGINATION. Any resemblence between anyone depicted in these stories and any real person, living or dead, is an incredible COINCIDENCE too bizarre to be believed. If you think that you or someone you know is depicted in one of these stories it's only because you're a twisted perverted little fucker who sees conspiracies and plots where none exist. You probably suspect that your own MOTHER had sex with ALIENS and COWS and stuff. Well, she didn't. It's all in your head. Now take your tranquilizers and RELAX.
Venus In Furs, an etext in eight sections.
This is section 5 of 8.
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Punctually at nine o'clock next morning everything was ready for our
departure, as she had ordered. Travelling in a comfortable light carriage, we
left the little Carpathian town where the most important drama of my life had
reached a stage of development whose denouement it was then impossible to
foresee.
Everything was still going well. I sat beside Wanda who conversed with
grace and intelligence, as if to a good friend, about Italy, Pisemsky's latest
novel, Wagner's music. She wore a kind of Amazonian travelling costume of
black cloth -- the skirt cut like a riding habit, the short jacket edged with
sable -- which fitted closely and displayed her figure to advantage; over it
she wore her dark travelling-furs. Her hair, tied in a classic knot, lay
beneath a small fur hat from which hung a black veil. She was in good humour;
she fed me bonbons, played with my hair, untied my neckcloth and wound it into
pretty shapes, spread her furs over my knees and furtively pressed my fingers
beneath them; whenever our Jewish driver began nodding sleepily she gave me a
kiss -- and her cold lips had the fresh frosty fragrance of a young autumnal
rose blooming among bare stalks and yellow leaves, a rose upon whose calyx the
first frost has hung tiny diamonds of ice.
We reach the district capital and get down at the railway station.
Wanda slips out of her furs, throws them over my arm and goes off to buy the
tickets.
When she comes back her manner has changed completely.
"Here is your ticket, Gregor," she says in the haughty tone ladies use
to their servants.
"A third-class ticket!" I exclaim in mock horror.
"Of course," she replies. "Now pay attention. You are not to get on
the train until I am settled in my compartment and have no further need of
you. At every stopping-place you will come to my carriage and ask for orders.
Do not forget! Now give me my furs."
When I had helped her into them -- humbly, like a servant -- she went to
find an empty first-class compartment while I followed her. Leaning on my
arm, she got in; I wrapped her feet in bear skins and placed them on the
warming-bottle.
Then she dismissed me with a nod. I climbed slowly into a third-class
carriage which was filled with abominable tobacco-smoke like the fumes of
Acheron at the entrance to Hades, where I now had leisure to meditate on the
riddle of human existence and on that greatest riddle of all -- woman.
Whenever the train stops I jump down, run to her carriage and await her
orders, cap in hand. Now she wants coffee, now a glass of water, now
something to eat, now again a basin of warm water to wash her hands -- and so
on. She lets the gentlemen in her compartment pay court to her; I am
consumed by jealousy, and must leap about like an antelope in order to get
what she wants and then not miss the train myself. The night goes by in the
same way. I have not time to eat a mouthful, and I cannot sleep while
breathing the onionladen air along with Polish peasants, Jewish pedlars and
common soldiers. When I climb the steps of her carriage she is lying
stretched out on the cushions in her luxurious furs, covered with the skins of
animals; she is like an Oriental despot, and the men sit like Indian deities,
upright against the wall, hardly daring to breathe.
She stops in Vienna for a day's shopping, mainly to buy a collection of
magnificent gowns; she continues to treat me as her servant. I follow her at
the respectful distance of ten paces, she hands me her packages without even
deigning to look at me, and laden down like a donkey I pant along behind her.
Before we leave she tells me she has taken away all my clothes and given
them to the hotel waiters, and I am ordered to put on her livery -- a
Cracovian costume in her colours, light blue with red facings, and a square
red cap ornamented with peacock feathers -- which is rather becoming to me.
The silver buttons bear her coat-of-arms. I have the feeling of being
sold, or of having sold myself, to the devil.
My fair devil leads me from Vienna to Florence. Instead of Mazovians in
homespun linen and greasy-haired Jews, my companions are now curly-haired
contadini, a magnificent sergeant of the Italian Grenadiers and a poor German
painter; the tobacco-smoke no longer smells of onions, but of salami and
cheese.
It is night once more. I lie on the wooden seat as if on a rack; my
arms and legs seem broken. But there is an element of poetry in the
situation. The stars are sparkling all around, the Italian sergeant has a
face like the Apollo Belvedere, and the painter sings an exquisite German
song:
Now all the shadows gather
And star on star grows bright,
Deep longing falls upon me
And softly falls the night.
Through the sea of dreams,
Sailing endlessly,
Sailing onward goes my soul
In its search for thee.
And I think of the beautiful woman who is sleeping in queenly comfort
among her soft furs.
Florence! Crowds, cries, importunate porters and cabdrivers. Wanda
picks out a carriage and dismisses the porters.
"What else have I a servant for?" she says. "Gregor, here is the
ticket. Fetch the luggage."
She wraps herself in her furs and sits calmly in the carriage while I
drag the heavy trunks to it, one after the other. I stagger and almost
collapse under the last one; a good-natured carabiniere with an intelligent
face comes to my help. Wanda laughs.
"It must be heavy," she says. "All my furs are inside."
I climb to the driver's seat, wiping drops of sweat from my
forehead. She gives the name of the hotel, and the driver urges on his horse.
In a few minutes we stop at the brilliantly lit entrance.
"You have rooms?" she asks the clerk.
"Yes, madame."
"Two for me, one for my servant, all with fires."
"Two first-class rooms for Madame," he says to a valet who has hurried
up, "and one without heat for her servant."
"Show them to me," she says.
We mount to the first floor. She looks at the rooms for her own use,
and says shortly, "They will do. Have fires built at once. My servant will
sleep in the unheated room."
I merely look at her.
"Bring up the trunks, Gregor," she orders, ignoring my look. "In the
meantime I shall dress before going down to the dining-room, and you can have
something for your own dinner."
While she is in the adjoining room I drag the trunks upstairs and help
the valet build a fire in her bedroom, while he tries to question me in bad
French about my mistress; I take in with a brief glance the blazing fire, the
delicate white fourposter bed and the rugs which cover the floor. Then, tired
and hungry, I go downstairs and ask for something to eat. A good-natured
waiter who used to be in the Austrian army and makes a great effort to
converse with me in German, takes me to the dining-room and waits on me. I
have just had my first fresh drink in thirty-six hours and have the first
piece of hot food on my fork, when Wanda comes in.
I rise.
"What do you mean by bringing me to a room where my servant is eating!"
she says angrily to the waiter. She turns and leaves.
In the meantime I thank heaven I am allowed to go on eating. Later, I
climb the four flights of stairs to my room; my own small trunk is there
already, and a miserable little oil-lamp is burning. It is a narrow room
without a window, only a small ventilator; if it were not so hideously cold
it would remind me of one of the Venetian piombi. I have to laugh aloud, and
I am startled by the sound of my own laughter.
Suddenly the door is pulled open and the valet, with a theatrical
Italian gesture, cries out, "You are to come down to Madame at once!" I pick
up my cap, stumble down the first few steps and manage to arrive at her door
on the first floor and knock.
"Come in!"
I enter, close the door and stand at attention. Wanda has made herself
comfortable. Wearing a negligee of white muslin and lace, she is seated on a
small red divan with her feet on a footstool. She has thrown her fur cape
about her; it is the same cape in which she first appeared before me, as the
Goddess of Love.
The yellow lights of the candelabra in wall-brackets, their reflections
in the large mirrors, and the red flames from the open fireplace, all play
beautifully on the green velvet and dark sable of her cape, on her smooth
white skin and flaming red hair; her face, clear but cold, is turned towards
me, and her icy green eyes rest on me.
"I am satisfied with you, Gregor," she began.
I bowed.
"Come closer."
I obeyed.
"Closer still." She let her gaze drop, and stroked the sables with her
hand. "Venus in Furs is pleased with her servant. I can see you are
something more than a common dreamer, you yourself keep pace with your dreams;
you are the kind of man who is prepared to see them realized, no matter how
mad they are. I like this trait, I admit; it impresses me, there is strength
in it, and strength is the only thing worthy of regard. I think that under
special conditions, in an age of great deeds, your apparent weakness would
show up as extraordinary strength... Under the early Caesars you would have
been a martyr, during the Reformation an Anabaptist, in the French Revolution
one of those inspired Girondists who mounted the guillotine with the
Marseillaise on their lips. And you, you are my slave, mine --"
All at once she sprang up, her furs slipped from her and she threw her
arms with a soft pressure around my neck.
"My beloved slave, my Severin -- Oh how I love you, how I adore you, how
handsome you are in that costume! But you will be cold tonight up there in
your wretched room without a fire -- shall I give you one of my furs, dear
heart -- the big one there --"
She picked it up quickly, throwing it over my shoulders, and before I
could resist I was completely enveloped in it.
"How wonderfully becoming furs are to your face, how they bring out its
distinction! When you are no longer my slave you must wear a black velvet
coat trimed with sable, do you hear? If you don't, I shall never wear my fur-
jacket again..."
Once more she began kissing and caressing me, and at last drew me down
on the small velvet divan.
"I really think you are pleased with yourself in furs," she said.
"Quick, quick, give them back to me, or I will lose all my feeling of
authority."
I wrapped the furs around her, and she slipped her right arm into the
sleeve and sank back.
"There," she said, "That is the pose of Titian's picture, isn't it? But
enough of playacting. Don't look so solemn all the time, you make me sad. In
the world's eyes you are still simply my servant, you are not yet my slave,
for you still have not signed the contract. You are still free, you can leave
me at any time; you have played your part magnificently. I am delighted, but
aren't you tired of it by now, don't you think me hateful? -- Tell me now, I
order you."
"Wanda, must I confess the truth?"
"You must."
"Then I must tell you -- even though you may take advantage of it --
that I shall love you only the more deeply, adore you with only a greater
frenzy, the worse you treat me. What you have done so far has set my blood on
fire and intoxicated all my senses." I held her close, clinging for several
moments to her moist lips. "Oh, you beautiful woman!" I exclaimed as I gazed
at her, and in my ecstasy I tore the sables from her shoulders and pressed my
mouth to one of her breasts.
"So you love me, even when I am cruel?" she said. "Ah, go away! You
bore me, do you understand?"
She slapped my face so hard I saw stars and bells rang in my ears.
"Help me into my furs, slave."
Still giddy, I helped her as well as I could.
"How clumsy you are!" she exclaimed, and had scarcely resumed her cape
before she slapped my face again. I felt myself turning pale.
"Did I hurt you?" she asked, touching my cheek softly.
"No, no," I cried.
"At any rate you have no cause to complain, this is the way you wanted
things. Now, kiss me again."
I threw my arms around her, and her lips clung closely to mine. As she
lay on my breast in her heavy trailing furs, I had for a moment a strangely
oppressive sensation: it was as if a wild-beast, a she-bear, were embracing
me, and I was about to feel her claws in my flesh. But this time the she-bear
spared me...
Full of pleasant anticipations, I went up to my wretched servant's room
and threw myself on the hard couch.
"Life is really amazingly droll," I thought. "A few minutes ago a woman
of surpassing beauty, Venus herself, rested against your breast, and now you
have an opportunity of studying the Chinese hell -- for unlike us, the Chinese
don't hurl the damned into the flames, they have devils to chase them out into
fields of ice. Well, the founders of their religions probably slept in
unheated rooms too."
That night I started from my sleep with a scream; I had been dreaming
of an ice-field where I had lost my way, vainly seeking a way out, when
suddenly an Eskimo drove up in a sleigh drawn by reindeer; he had the face of
the valet who had shown me to my unheated room.
"What are you looking for here, monsieur?" he cried. "This is the North
Pole."
The next moment he had vanished, and Wanda was flying towards me over
the smooth ice on tiny skates. Her white satin skirt fluttered and crackled;
the ermine of her jacket and cap, and especially her face itself, gleamed
whiter than the snow as she shot towards me, folded me in her arms and began
kissing me; suddenly I felt warm blood running down my side.
"What are you doing?" I cried in horror. She laughed, and as I looked
at her she was no longer Wanda but a huge white she-bear which was digging its
claws into my flesh. I uttered a cry of desperation, and could still hear her
diabolical laughter as I awoke and looked around the room in astonishment.
Early next morning I was standing outside Wanda's door when the valet
brought her coffee; I took it from him and waited on my beautiful mistress.
She was already dressed and looked superb, all fresh and rosy; she gave me a
gracious smile, and called me back when I was about to withdraw respectfully.
"Now, Gregor, have your own breakfast at once," she said. "Then we will
look for a house. I don't wish to stay any longer in this hotel than is
necessary, it is most embarrassing here; if I speak to you for more than a
minute the people will say, 'Look, the fair Russian is having an affair with
her servant! You see, the race of Catherine is not yet extinct.'"
Half an hour later we went out. Wanda was wearing her suit of black
cloth with the Russian cap, and I my Cracovian costume. We caused quite a
stir -- I walking about ten paces behind her, looking very solemn but
expecting every moment to have to explode with laughter. There was hardly a
street in which one or other of the attractive houses did not bear the sign
Appartamento ammobiliato; in each case Wanda made me go upstairs first, and
only when the quarters seemed to answer her needs did she herself ascend. By
noon I was as tired as a stag-hound after the chase.
We entered another house and left it, still without having found
suitable accommodation. By this time Wanda seemed somewhat out of humour;
all at once she turned to me.
"Severin, you are playing your part so seriously, it is enchanting! But
this masquerade is really tiresome, I cannot stand it any longer -- I love
you, I must have you! Let us go into one of these houses..."
"But, Mistress --" I protested.
"Gregor!" She entered the next building and mounted a few steps of the
dark stairway; then she threw her arms around me with passionate abandon and
kissed me.
"Ah, Severin," she said some time later, stroking my hair, "you were
very wise, you are much more dangerous as a slave than I would have imagined,
you are quite irresistible! I'm afraid I shall have to fall m love with you
all over again."
"Do you love me no longer?" I said, seized by a sudden fright.
She shook her head solemnly, but kissed me again with her swelling
adorable lips.
We returned to the hotel. Wanda ordered luncheon, and told me to find
something to eat also. I was not, of course, served as quickly as she -- and
so, just as I was carrying the second piece of beefsteak to my mouth, the
valet entered and called out in his theatrical way, "Madame wants you
immediately!"
I took a rapid and rueful leave of my luncheon, and then, still tired
and hungry, hastened out to join Wanda who was already in the street.
"I did not think you could be so cruel, Mistress," I said reproachfully.
"With all my fatiguing duties, you do not even allow me time to eat in peace."
Wanda laughed happily. "I thought you had finished," she said. "But
never mind: man was born to suffer, and you especially. The martyrs had no
beefsteaks either."
I listened to her with some pique, still gnawed by hunger.
"I have given up the idea of finding a place in the city itself," Wanda
went on, "and in any case it would be impossible to find a whole floor so
isolated that one could do as one pleased. In such a strange, mad
relationship as ours there must be no jarring note. I am going to rent a
whole villa -- and then, see how you will be surprised! In the meantime you
have my permission to satisfy your hunger and to look around Florence. I will
not be home until evening. If I should need you then, I will have you
called."
I looked at the Duomo, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Loggia de' Lanzi, and
stood for a long time on the banks of the Arno. Time and again I let my gaze
rove over the magnificent old city of Florence, whose round cupolas and towers
were drawn with such soft lines against the cloudless blue sky; I surveyed
the splendid bridges beneath whose wide arches flowed the dancing waves of the
beautiful yellow river, and the green hills encircling the city, with their
slender cypresses and spacious buildings, palaces and monasteries...
It is another world we are in now, a gay, smiling, sensuous world; the
landscape also has none of the gravity and sombreness of ours. The eye must
travel a long way to reach the last white villas scattered amid the pale green
of the mountains, but it can find no space that is not bathed in sunlight.
The people here are less serious than we are; perhaps they think less, but
they all look as if they were happy.
It is also claimed that death is easier in the South.
At this moment I have a vague feeling that beauty without a sting, and
sensual love without suffering, do exist after all.
Wanda has found a delightful villa and taken it for the winter. It
stands on one of the hills on the left bank of the Arno opposite the Cascine,
set in the middle of a little park with fine lawns, paths and magnificent beds
of camellias, only two storeys high and quadrangular in the Italian style. An
open gallery, a kind of loggia furnished with casts of antique statues, runs
along one side; stone steps lead down into the garden. From the gallery you
enter a great bathing-room, with a splendid marble bath, from which a winding
stairway leads to my mistress' bedroom.
Wanda has the first floor all to herself. My room is on the ground
floor; it is very attractive, and even boasts a fireplace.
I have been wandering through the gardens, and on a round knoll have
discovered a little temple whose door is locked -- but there is a chink in the
door and when I put my eye to it I can see the Goddess of Love standing on a
white pedestal.
A faint shiver goes through me. She seems to be smiling at me and
saying, "So there you are... I have been waiting for you."
Evening. A pretty maid brings me an order from my mistress to wait on
her. I climb the wide marble stairs and pass through the anteroom, a large
salon extravagantly furnished, and knock at the door of her bedroom. I knock
very softly, for all this luxury is rather intimidating: no one hears me, and
I stand for some time before the door. I feel as if I were waiting outside
the bedroom of Catherine the Great, and at any moment the Empress herself
might appear in her sleeping-furs, the red ribbon and decorations on her
half-bared breast, her little curls white with powder.
I knock again. Wanda opens the door brusquely. "Why are you .so late?"
she says.
"I was outside, you didn't hear me knock," I explain timidly.
She smiles, closes the door, and leaning on my arm leads me to the red
damask ottoman where she has been lying. The whole decoration of the room is
in red damask -- walls, curtains, portieres, bedhangings; a magnificent
painting of Samson and Delilah forms the ceiling.
Wanda is receiving me in an intoxicating dishabille; the folds of white
satin flow softly down her slender body, her arms are bare, her naked breasts
are couched in a nest of green velvet. Her red hair, confined only by strings
of black pearls, streams down her back to her hips.
"Venus in furs," I whisper as she draws me to her and almost stifles me
with kisses. I am incapable of either speech or thought, my head is swimming,
everything is drowned in an ocean of unimaginable bliss.
At last Wanda drew away gently, and leaning on one arm seemed plunged in
thought. I was kneeling at her feet, and she was playing with my hair.
"And do you still love me?" she asked, her gaze melting in a passion of
tenderness.
"Can you ask?"
"You remember your oath then?" she said with a seductive smile. "Now
that everything is in order, and everything ready, once again I ask you -- are
you still prepared to be my slave?"
"Have I not sworn it?"
"You have not yet signed the papers."
"Papers? What papers?"
"Oh, I see, you wish to withdraw," she said. "Very well, we will say no
more."
"But Wanda, you know all my happiness lies in serving you, in being your
slave! I would do anything to put myself wholly in your power -- yes, give
you my life itself --"
"How beautiful you are like that," she sighed, "when you speak so
ardently, so passionately! I am more in love with you than ever... And you,
you want me to be domineering, harsh, cruel -- I fear I cannot."
"I am not afraid," I replied with a smile. "Where are these papers?"
A pause. Her expression had altered slightly.
"So you may know what it means to be entirely in my power," she said
evenly, "in addition to our contract of servitude I have drafted a statement
declaring your decision to kill yourself. This is so I can even kill you
myself, if I wish."
"Show me these papers..."
As I was unfolding and reading them Wanda fetched pen and ink, then sat
down beside me, and passing her bare arm around my neck she looked over my
shoulder at the first document.
"Agreement between Madame von Dunaiev
and Severin von Kusiemski
"From this day forward Severin von Kusiemski ceases to be the affianced
husband of Madame von Dunaiev, and surrenders all the rights thereto
appertaining; on his own behalf he binds himself, on his honour as a
gentleman and nobleman, henceforth to be her slave until such time as she
restores him his liberty.
"As the slave of Madame von Dunaiev he shall take the name of Gregor,
and shall comply unconditionally with all her demands and obey all her orders;
he shall be at all times subject to his mistress, and shall regard any sign of
her favour as an extraordinary act of grace.
"Madame von Dunaiev shall be entitled not only to punish her slave as
she thinks fit, even for the least fault or misdemeanour, but is moreover
granted the right to torture him whenever the mood may seize her or simply as
a pastime. Should she so desire, she may kill him when she wishes; in
effect, he shall be her property without restriction.
"Should Madame von Duniaev ever set her slave at liberty, Severin von
Kusiemski undertakes to forget all that he has undergone or suffered as her
slave, and solemnly promises never under any circumstances to perform any act
of requital or retaliation.
"For her part, Madame von Dunaiev, as his mistress, agrees to appear as
often as possible in her furs, and especially when she intends any cruelty on
the person of her slave."
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