|
Venus In Furs 6
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 6 of 8.
=
The agreement was dated as of that day.
The second document contained only a few words:
"Having been for some years weary of existence and its illusions, I have
of my own accord put an end to my worthless life."
I was filled with a sense of dread when I had finished reading. There
is still time, I thought, I can still withdraw... But the madness of passion,
and the sight of the beautiful woman pressed voluptuously against my shoulder,
carried me away.
"This you will have to copy, Severin," said Wanda, pointing to the
second document. "It must be all in your handwriting. For the agreement, of
course, that is not necessary."
I swiftly copied the few lines declaring myself a suicide and handed
them to Wanda. She read them and laid the paper on the table beside the
agreement.
"And now," she said with a mocking smile, "have you the courage to
sign?"
I picked up the pen.
"Let me sign first," she said. "Your hand is trembling -- are you
afraid of the happiness in store for you?"
She took the pen from me and drew the agreement towards her, while I,
still a prey to my own inner conflict, cast my eyes upward for a moment. As I
did so it struck me that the painting on the ceiling, like many of the Italian
and Dutch schools, was quite unhistorical, and that this very fact gave it a
strange air which had an uncanny effect on me. Delilah, an opulent woman with
flaming red hair, half nude in a dark fur cloak, was lying prone on a divan,
bent with a smile over the captured and bound Samson. Her smile, with its
mocking affectation of love, was full of diabolical cruelty; her eyes, half-
closed, were fixed on Samson's, and his own gaze was clinging to hers with a
last look of besotted adoration, for already one of his Philistine captors was
kneeling on his breast and holding the red-hot iron to blind him.
"Now-" Wanda was saying, when she turned and looked at me. "But you are
far away! What is the matter? Everything will be the same when you have
signed. Don't you know me yet, dear heart?"
I looked at the agreement. Her name was written there in bold letters.
Once again I looked into those eyes filled with such potent magic, then I took
the pen and quickly signed the first document.
"You are still trembling," said Wanda coolly. "Shall I help you?"
She took my hand gently in her own to guide the pen, and my name
appeared at the bottom of the second paper. Wanda looked once again at the
two documents, then turned and locked them in the desk beside the ottoman
where we were sitting.
"Good -- now give me your passport and money."
I took out my pocketbook and handed it to her; she cast a glance
through it, nodded, and locked it with the papers -- while I, lost in a kind
of blissful trance, knelt before her with my head pressed against her breast.
All at once she thrust me away with her foot, sprang up and pulled the
bell-rope, at whose summons three slender young negresses appeared, looking as
if carved from ebony, dressed from head to foot in red satin and each carrying
a noosed cord.
Grasping the situation, I am about to rise; but Wanda, already standing
over me like a mistress, her contracted brows and cold gaze bent on me, signs
with her hand, and before I know what is happening the negresses have borne me
to the ground and bound me hand and foot, tying my arms behind my back like a
condemned criminal, so that I can hardly move.
"Give me the whip, Haid^Be," says Wanda with a kind of supernatural calm.
Kneeling, the negress hands it to her mistress.
"And now take this heavy fur of mine. It is in my way."
The negress obeyed.
"The jacket there!" said Wanda.
Haid^Be quickly brought her the short jacket trimmed with ermine that was
lying on the bed, and Wanda slipped into it with two inimitably graceful
movements.
"Now tie him to the post here."
The negresses lifted me, and passing a heavy cord around my waist they
fastened me standing against one of the massive posts supporting the canopy of
the great Italian bed.
Then they suddenly disappeared as if the earth had swallowed them.
Wanda stepped swiftly towards me, her white satin gown flowing behind
her in a long sinuous train like silver, like moonlight, her hair glinting
like flame against the white fur of her jacket; now she stood before me with
one hand resting insolently on her hip, while in the other she held the whip.
She gave a short laugh."
"The play is over between us now," she said coldly, "now we are in
earnest. You fool, I can deride and despise you now, who in your silly
infatuation have given yourself to me as a toy! You are no longer the man I
love, but a slave whose life and death are in my hand.
"Now you will see what kind of woman I am!"
"To begin with, you shall have a taste of the whip in good earnest --
not for anything you've done, but simply to show you what you can expect
whenever you are awkward, disobedient or rebellious."
With savage grace she drew back her fur-lined sleeve and lashed me
across the back. I winced, for the whip cut into my flesh like a knife.
"How do you like that?" she asked.
I said nothing.
"Only wait, I will soon make you howl like a dog under the whip," she
promised, and began whipping me again.
The blows fell swiftly and with biting force on my back, my arms, my
shoulders, and I had to grit my teeth not to cry out. Then she struck me in
the face, the warm blood ran down -- but she laughed and whipped on.
"Now I understand you," she cried between the blows. "It is a real joy
to have someone utterly at my mercy -- and a man too, a man who loves me! You
do love me! No? Ah, then I'll cut you to ribbons, and every blow will give
me more pleasure, so writhe your body -- twist like a worm -- yes! And
scream, gasp, whine -- like that, yes! Ah, what good sport this is!"
At last she seemed to tire.
She threw the whip aside, stretched out on the ottoman and rang. The
negresses entered.
"Unfasten him."
As they unfastened the cord I fell to the floor like a log. The black
girls grinned, showing their white teeth.
"Loosen the cord on his ankles."
They did so, but I could not rise.
"Come here. To me, Gregor."
I dragged myself to the beautiful woman; never had she seemed more
desirable than at this moment when she breathed nothing but cruelty and
contempt.
"A little closer," she ordered. "Now kneel and kiss my foot."
She held out her foot from beneath the flowing white satin, and I, the
supersensual fool, I pressed my lips to it.
"Now you will not see me for a whole month, Gregor," she said gravely.
"I wish to become a stranger to you, so that you will get used to our new
relationship. In the meantime you will work in the garden and await my
orders. Now go, slave!"
A month has gone by -- a monotonous succession of days, of hard work and
wistful desire for her who is inflicting all these torments on me. I am under
the gardener's orders: I help him prune the trees and trim the hedges,
transplant the flowers, spade the flower-beds, rake the gravel paths; I share
his coarse food, I rise and go to bed with the birds; now and then I can hear
our mistress amusing herself among her circle of admirers, and once, down here
in the garden, I even hear her gay laughter.
I seem to be growing quite stupid. Is this the result of my present
life, or was I always so? The month is drawing to a close -- the day after
tomorrow. What will she do with me then? Or has she forgotten me and simply
left me to trim hedges and make up bouquets till my dying day?
A written order.
"The slave Gregor is hereby ordered to my personal service.
Wanda Dunaiev."
The next morning, with a beating heart I draw aside the heavy damask
curtain and enter the bedroom of my divinity; it is still in a pleasant semi-
darkness.
"Is that you, Gregor?" she asks as I kneel before the fireplace and
begin building a fire. I tremble at the sound of the beloved voice. I cannot
see her, she is invisible behind the curtains of the great bed.
"Yes, Mistress."
"How late is it?"
"After nine o'clock."
" Breakfast!"
I hasten to bring it, and kneel beside her bed with the tray.
"Here is the breakfast, Mistress."
Wanda draws the bed-curtains, and at first sight, lying among the
pillows and with her hair flowing loose, she seems a complete stranger, simply
a beautiful woman; but the beloved soft lines of her features are gone: this
face is hard and has an expression of weariness and satiety.
Or had I no eyes for this before?
She fixes her green eyes on me, with more curiosity than menace, perhaps
with a certain pity, and lazily draws the dark sleeping-fur over her naked
shoulder.
At this moment she is so seductive, so maddening that I feel the blood
mount to my temples and the tray I am holding begins to sway. She notices
this and reaches for the whip on the bedside table.
"You are awkward, slave," she says, knitting her brows.
I lower my gaze and hold the tray as steadily as I can; she finishes
her breakfast, yawns, and stretches her opulent limbs in the magnificent furs.
She has rung. I enter.
"Take this letter to Prince Corsini."
I hurry into the city and hand the letter to the Prince, a handsome
young man with glowing black eyes, and then, consumed with jealousy, I take
his answer back to my mistress.
"What is the matter?" she asks with covert malice. "You are very pale."
"It is nothing, mistress. I merely walked too fast."
At luncheon the Prince sits beside her, and I am obliged to wait on both
of them, while they converse gaily as if I did not exist. For an instant a
blackness comes before my eyes, and as I am pouring some Bordeaux in his glass
I spill it on the tablecloth and on her gown.
"Clumsy!" Wanda exclaims, and slaps my face; the Prince laughs, and
then she laughs too, and I feel the blood coming into my cheeks.
After luncheon she drives in the Cascine. She has a small carriage with
a pair of handsome English bays, and takes the reins herself; I sit in the
boot behind, and observe the coquetry of her mien and the smiling nods she
gives the fashionable gentlemen who bow to her.
As I hand her from the carriage, she leans lightly on my arm: the
contact is like an electric shock. Ah, she is a marvellous woman, and I love
her more than ever.
o
She has invited a small mixed party for dinner. I wait on table, but
this time I do not spill any wine on the cloth. A slap in one's face is more
effective than ten reprimands; it makes an immediate impression on one's
understanding, especially when the instruction comes by way of a woman's
little hand.
After dinner she goes to the Teatro della Pergola; I am bidden to drive
her there. As she descends the stairs of the villa in her black velvet
evening wrap with its great ermine collar, and with a wreath of white roses on
her hair, she is breathtakingly lovely. I open the carriage door and help her
in. In front of the theatre I leap down from the driver's seat, and as she
gets out she leans once again on my arm which trembles under the sweet burden.
I open the door of her box, and then wait in the corridor. The performance
lasts four hours; during the entr'actes she receives visits from her
admirers, while I clench my teeth with rage.
It is long past midnight when my mistress' bell sounds for the last
time.
"Fire," she orders brusquely -- and, when the fire is crackling, "Tea!"
When I come back with the samovar she has already been undressed and
Haid^Be is helping her into a white negligee.
The negress is dismissed.
"Give me my sleeping-furs," says Wanda, sleepily stretching her
beautiful limbs. I take them from the armchair and hold them while she slips
her arms, slowly and lazily, into the sleeves. Then she sinks down on the
cushions of the ottoman.
"Take off my shoes, and put on my velvet slippers."
I kneel before her and pull at the little shoe, which resists my
efforts. "Hurry, hurry!" she exclaims. "Oh, now you are hurting me! Wait, I
will teach you..." She lashes me with the whip, and the shoe is already off!
"Now off with you!" She gives me a kick -- and now I can go to bed.
Tonight I attended her to an evening party. In the entrance-hall she
ordered me to take her furs; then with a proud smile, certain of conquest,
she entered the brilliantly illuminated drawing-room. Once again I waited for
her, full of gloomy and tedious thoughts, watching hour after hour go by;
from time to time, whenever the door opened, snatches of music came to me. A
couple of the other servants tried to start a conversation, but soon desisted
on finding I knew only a few words of Italian.
At last I fell asleep, and dreamed I had murdered Wanda in a violent fit
of jealousy and was condemned to death; I saw myself strapped down on the
plank, the knife fell, I felt it on my neck, but I was still alive --
Then the executioner slapped my face.
No, it was not the executioner, it was Wanda -- standing angrily before
me and demanding her furs. I sprang to her side in a moment, and helped her
into them.
There is a profound pleasure in wrapping a beautiful, voluptuous woman
in her furs, in seeing and feeling how her neck and superb limbs nestle amid
the soft rich fur, in lifting her flowing hair over the collar -- and then,
when she throws them off, a sweet warmth and a faint fragrance of her body
still clings to the ends of the hairs of sable: it is enough to drive one
mad!
At last a day when there are no guests, no theatre or evening reception.
I breathe a sigh. Wanda is sitting in the loggia, reading, and has no orders
for me. At dusk, when the silvery mists of evening begin to gather, she goes
inside. I serve her at dinner; she is alone at the table, but has not a look
or a syllable for me, not even a slap in the face.
Oh, I even crave a blow from her hand.
Tears come to my eyes, and I feel I have sunk so low in her regard that
she does not even think it worth while to torment or illtreat me...
Before she retires, her bell summons me.
"You will sleep here tonight," she says. "I had fearful dreams last
night and I am afraid to be alone. Take one of the cushions from the ottoman,
and lie down on the bearskin at my feet."
Then she blew out the light, so that the only illumination came from a
small lamp hanging from the ceiling, and got into bed. "Do not stir, or you
will keep me awake."
I did as she ordered, but I could not fall asleep for a long time; I
saw the beautiful woman, beautiful as a goddess, lying among her dark furs,
her arms behind her head and buried in the flood of her red hair; I heard the
movement of her superb breast as it rose and fell with the deep regular swell
of her breathing, and whenever she moved, though ever so slightly, I opened my
eyes and listened for some sign that she had need of me.
But she had no need.
No task was required of me; I meant no more to her than a night-light
or a revolver kept by the bedside.
Am I mad, or is she? Does all this spring from the invention of a
wanton woman who wishes to outdo my supersensual fantasies -- or is this woman
really one of those Neronian characters who take a diabolical pleasure in
treading human beings underfoot as if they were worms -- human beings who
think and feel and desire like themselves?
What I have gone through!
As I knelt beside her bed with her morning coffee, Wanda suddenly laid
her hand on my shoulder and her eyes plunged deeply into mine.
"What beautiful eyes you have," she said softly. "Above all now that
you are suffering. Are you very unhappy?"
I bowed my head and was silent.
"Severin! Do you still love me?" she suddenly cried with passion, "can
you still love me?" And she drew me to her with such violence that the tray
was overturned, the pot and cups fell to the floor and the coffee ran over the
carpet.
"Wanda -- my Wanda," I cried and pressed her passionately to me,
covering her mouth, face and breasts with kisses, "it is my misery to love you
even more madly the worse you treat me, the more you deceive and betray me!
Oh, I shall die of pain and love and jealousy..."
"But I have not betrayed you, Severin -- not yet," she retorted with a
smile.
"You have not? Wanda! Do not play so mercilessly with me," I cried.
"Did I not take your letter to the Prince --"
"Certainly. It was an invitation to luncheon."
"Since we have been in Florence, you have --"
"I have been absolutely faithful to you," she said. "I swear it by all
that is holy to me. Everything I have done has been simply to bring your
dreams to life -- for your own sake."
She paused, looking at me, and then went on calmly. "However, I shall
take a lover, or else the programme would be incomplete and in the end you
would reproach me for not having treated you cruelly enough, my dear handsome
slave! But today you shall be Severin again, the only man I love. I did not
really give away your clothes, they are here in the big wardrobe. Go and
dress as you used to in that little Carpathian town, when our love was so
fresh and intimate. Forget everything that has happened since then! Ah, you
will soon forget it in my arms, when I will kiss away all your sorrows!"
She began to fondle me tenderly, kissing and caressing me like a child.
At last she said with a gracious smile, "Go and dress now, and I will get
dressed too. Shall I wear my fur jacket? Oh yes, I know. Run along now!"
When I came back she was standing in the middle of the room in her white
satin gown and red fur-jacket edged with ermine, her hair white with powder
and on her head a small diamond tiara. Once again for an instant she reminded
me strangely of Catherine the Great, but she gave me no time to indulge such
recollections, drawing me down to the ottoman beside her where we enjoyed two
hours of bliss. She was no longer the severe, capricious mistress, she was
now the gracious lady, the tender beloved. She showed me photographs and
books which had just appeared, and spoke of them with such intelligence,
clarity and taste that more than once I carried her hand to my lips with
rapture. Then she made me recite several poems of Lermontov, and when I was
on fire with enthusiasm she laid her little hand gently on mine with a tender
expression, her eyes filled with a soft and exquisite joy.
"Are you happy?" she asked.
"Not yet."
She sank back on the cushions, and slowly opened her fur-jacket. But I
swiftly covered the half-bared breast with the ermine.
"You are driving me mad," I stammered.
"Come..."
I was lying in her arms and she was kissing my lips with her tongue,
like a serpent, when she whispered once again, "Are you happy?"
"Infinitely!" I cried.
She gave a laugh -- a shrill, evil laugh which sent cold shivers down my
back.
"You used to dream of being the slave, the plaything of a beautiful
woman, and now, now you think 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 slipped from the ottoman to her feet, but my gaze still clung
uncertainly to hers.
"You do not believe it," she said, looking down at me, her arms folded
on her breast. "Well, I am bored, and now you are going to serve me as a
plaything, to while away an hour or two. Do not look at me like that --"
She thrust me away with her foot.
"Yes, you are just what I want -- a creature, a thing, an animal..."
She rang. The three negresses entered.
"Tie his hands behind his back."
I remained on my knees and submitted without protest. Then they led me
to the garden and into the little vineyard at the southern boundary of the
grounds. Corn had been planted between the espaliers, and here and there a
few dead stalks were still standing. To one side was a plough.
The negresses tied me to a post, and amused themselves by pricking me
with their gilt hairpins, but this game ceased as soon as Wanda appeared,
wearing her ermine cap and with her hands in the pockets of her jacket; she
had me unfastened from the post and my arms strapped more tightly together, a
yoke put on my neck and the plough harnessed to me.
Then the black devils drove me into the cornfield; one of them held the
plough-handles, another led me by a line, the third applied the whip, while
Venus in Furs stood and looked on.
As I was serving at dinner the next evening Wanda said suddenly, "Lay
another place, I want you to dine with me today." And when I was about to lay
the cover opposite her she added, "No: over here beside me."
She is in the best of humours, serves me from her own plate, feeds me
with her fork, puts her head on the table like a playful kitten, and flirts
with me. I am so unfortunate as to look at Haid^Be, who is now waiting on
table, a little longer than is called for: for the first time I notice her
noble, almost European features and her magnificent bare breasts which are as
if sculptured in black marble. The beautiful she-devil notices that she
pleases me, and shows her teeth in a flashing grin. She has hardly left the
room before Wanda springs up in a rage.
"What, you dare look at another woman! Perhaps you prefer her to me,
you find her more devilish!"
I am frightened, I have never seen her like this before -- she has
suddenly gone white to the lips, her whole body is trembling. Venus in Furs
is jealous of her slave -- she tears the whip from the wall and lashes me
across the face with it, then she calls her black servants and has them bind
me and carry me down to the cellar where they throne into a dark, damp,
underground room, a regular prison cell.
The lock on the door clicks, the bolts slide home, the key grates in the
lock. I am imprisoned, buried.
I lie there for I don't know how long, bound like a calf about to be
dragged to the slaughter, on a bundle of damp straw, without food or drink,
without sleep -- she is capable of letting me starve here, if I do not freeze
to death first. I am shivering with cold. Or is it fever? I believe I am
beginning to hate this woman.
A streak of light, red as blood, streams across the dark floor -- it is
coming through the door which has just been thrown open.
Wanda appears on the threshold, wrapped in her sables and holding a
lighted torch.
"Are you still alive?" she asks.
"Have you come to kill me?" I reply in a hoarse, feeble voice.
In two swift strides Wanda reaches me, kneels down, takes my head in her
lap. "Are you ill -- your eyes are burning... do you love me? I want you to
love me."
She pulls out a short dagger; I stiffen with terror as the blade gleams
before my eyes, I really believe she is going to kill me... But she laughs,
and cuts the ropes that bind me.
Every evening now, after dinner, she sends for me, has me read to her,
and discusses with me all kinds of interesting topics and subjects. She seems
transformed: it is as if she were ashamed of the savagery she has displayed
and of the cruelty she has shown me. A melting tenderness illuminates her
whole person, and when we bid each other goodnight, as she gives me her hand,
an ineffable power of goodness and love beams from her eyes -- the kind which
calls forth one's tears and makes one forget all the miseries of existence and
all the terrors of death.
I am reading Manon Lescaut to her. She feels the association and utters no
word, but every now and then she smiles; at last she leans forward and closes
the little book.
"Don't you wish to continue reading?" I ask.
"Not today. Today we arc going to play Manon Lescaut ourselves. I have
a rendez-vous in the Cascine, and you, my dear Chevalier, will accompany me.
I know you will do so, won't you?"
"You order me."
"I do not order you, I beg you," she said with irresistible charm; then
she rose, put her hands on my shoulders and gazed at me. "Your eyes!" she
exclaimed. "I love you, Severin, you do not know how much I love you!"
"Indeed I do," I replied bitterly. "You love me so much you have made
an appointment with someone else."
"Only to allure you the more," she said gaily. "I must have admirers,
lest I lose you, and I do not wish to lose you -- ever, do you hear -- for I
love you only, no one but you."
She kissed me, clinging passionately to my lips.
"Oh," she murmured, "if I could only give you my whole soul in a kiss,
as I would -- like this -- but now come."
She slipped into a plain black velvet coat and put a dark Russian cap on
her head. Then she went quickly along the gallery and got into the carriage
which was already waiting.
"Gregor will drive," she called to the coachman who drew back in
surprise.
I mounted the driver's seat and angrily whipped up the horses.
In the Cascine, where the road at last becomes a leafy path, Wanda got
out. It was night, only a few stars shone now and then through the iron-grey
clouds that fled across the sky. By the bank of the Arno stood a man in a
dark cloak and a kind of brigand's hat, looking at the yellow waves. Wanda
walked swiftly through the shrubbery and tapped him on the shoulder. I saw
him turn and seize her hand -- then they disappeared behind the green wall of
leaves.
An hour full of torment. At last there was a rustling in the bushes to
one side, and they reappeared.
The man went with her to the carriage, and handed her in. The light of
the driving-lamp fell full on an intensely youthful, soft and dreamy face
which I had never seen before, and played on his long fair curls.
She held out her hand to him, which he kissed with profound respect;
then she signed to me, and at once the carriage flew back alongside the wall
of foliage which follows the river like a long green tapestry.
The bell at the garden-gate sounds. I see a familiar face. It is the
man from the Cascine.
"Whom shall I announce?" I ask in French.
He shakes his head timidly. "Do you, perhaps, understand any German?"
"Yes. Your name, please."
"Oh, I have none yet..." he replies in confusion. "Tell your mistress
it is the German painter -- from the Cascine -- and that he would like -- Oh,
but there she is herself."
Wanda had appeared on the balcony; she nodded to the stranger.
"Gregor, show the gentleman up," she said.
I motioned him towards the stairs.
"Thank you," he stammered, "I shall find her now -- thank you, thank you
very much..." He ran up the stairs. I remained standing below, looking with
profound pity at the poor German.
Venus in Furs has caught him in the red snare of her hair. He will
paint her, and be lost.
A sunny winter day: a golden haze gilds the leaves of the clump of
trees beside the green expanse of the cornfield; the camellias at the foot of
the loggia are glorious with their swelling buds. Wanda is sitting in the
gallery, drawing, and the German painter stands opposite her, his hands
clasped as if in adoration, gazing at her -- no, rather he has fixed his eyes
on her face, absorbed, enraptured by the sight.
But she does not look at him, any more than she looks at me who keep
turning a flower-bed with the spade, over and over, only so that I may see her
and feel her nearness which affects me like poetry, like music.
The painter has gone. It is a bold thing to do, but I take the risk. I
go up to the gallery, approach Wanda and ask, "Are you in love with the
painter, Mistress?"
She looks at me without any sign of anger, shakes her head, and at last
even smiles.
"I am sorry for him," she replies, "but I do not love him. I love no
one. I used to love you -- as warmly, as passionately, as deeply as I can
love anyone, but now I do not even love you anymore. My heart is empty,
dead -- and this is what makes me sad."
"Wanda!" I exclaimed, deeply moved.
"Soon you too will cease to love me," she went on. "Tell me, I beg you,
when you have reached that stage, and l will give you back yo freedom."
"Then I shall remain your slave forever, all my life long -- for I adore
you and shall always adore you," I cried, overcome by that absolute frenzy of
love which had conquered me so many times before.
Wanda looked at me with a curious pleasure. "Think well what you are
doing" she said. "I have loved you deeply, and have tyrannized over you so
that your dream might be realized, and something of my early feeling, a sort
of gentle affinity for you, is still lingering in my heart; but when that
also has gone, who knows whether I shall then set you at liberty, or whether I
shall become really cruel, merciless, even brutal, whether I shall not take a
diabolical pleasure in torturing the man who loves me to idolatry while I
myself am either indifferent or love someone else, and perhaps shall even
enjoy the sight of him dying for love of me. Consider this well."
"I have long since considered all this," I replied fervently. "I
cannot live, cannot breathe without you; I will die if you set me free -- let
me remain your slave... Kill me, but do not drive me away."
"Very well then, remain my slave," she replied. "But do not forget that
I no longer love you, that your love means no more to me than a dog's, and
that dogs are meant to be kicked."
|
|
