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Venus In Furs 7
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 7 of 8.
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Today I went to see the Venus de' Medici. It was still early in the
morning, and the little octagonal room in the Tribuna was filled with a half-
light like that of a sanctuary or a shrine, and with clasped hands I stood in
profound adoration before the silent image of the goddess.
But I did not remain standing for long...
Not a soul was in the gallery, not even an Englishman, and in a moment I
fell on my knees and gazed up at the lovely slender body, the budding breasts,
the virginal but voluptuous face with its half-closed eyes, the flower-like
curls which seemed to be hiding tiny horns at each side of the brow.
My mistress' bell. It is midday. But she is still in bed, her arms
locked behind her head.
"I wish to bathe," she says. "You will wait on me while I do. Lock the
door."
I obey.
"Now go down and make sure the lower door is locked also."
I went down the winding stairs that led from her bedroom to the bath;
my knees were shaking and I had to cling to the iron stair-rail. Having made
sure the door leading to the loggia and the garden was locked, I returned.
Wanda was now sitting on the bed with her hair loose, wrapped in her fur-
trimmed robe of green velvet. When she made a sudden movement I could see she
was naked beneath her furs, and this sent a terrible shudder through me. I
could not say why, but I felt like a condemned man who knows he is being led
to the scaffold and yet begins to tremble as soon as he sees it.
"Come, Gregor, take me in your arms."
"Mistress, you mean --"
"You are to carry me, do you understand?"
I lifted her so that she lay across my arms, and her own arm twined
around my neck; then, slowly, step by step, I went down the stairs, her hair
brushing against my cheek, her foot braced against my knee, while I trembled
under the lovely burden, thinking every moment I might crumple beneath it.
The bathing room was a wide lofty rotunda which received a soft,
diffused light from a cupola of red glass overhead. Two palm trees extended
their broad leaves, like a roof, over a couch spread with velvet cushions,
from which steps covered with Turkish rugs led down to the wide marble basin
in the centre of the room.
"There is a green ribbon on my toilet-table upstairs," said Wanda as I
laid her on the couch. "Go and get it, and bring the whip also."
I ran upstairs and back again, and then, kneeling, placed both in the
hands of my mistress, who made me twist her heavy, electrically charged hair
into a large knot and tie it with the green ribbon. I then prepared her bath,
which I did most awkwardly, for my hands and feet almost refused to do my
bidding; again and again I had to look at the beautiful woman lying on the
red velvet cushions, with her wonderful flesh gleaming here and there beneath
the dark furs. It was some magnetic power beyond my conscious will which drew
my gaze; I had always felt that all sensuality and lust is awakened by what
is either half hidden or intentionally revealed -- and I recognized the truth
of this when, the basin being full, Wanda threw off her furs with a single
gesture and stood before me like the goddess in the Tribuna.
At that instant, in all her unveiled beauty, she seemed as sacred and
inviolable as the ancient goddess herself; I fell on my knees before her, and
devoutly pressed my lips to her foot.
My soul only recently a prey to stress and confusion all at once became
perfectly calm: I could now discern no element of cruelty in Wanda.
Slowly she descended the marble steps; and I could watch her with a
serenity unalloyed by any atom of torment or desire as she dipped, plunged and
emerged in the crystalline water while the little waves which she raised
played about her as if enamoured of her marmoreal flesh.
Our nihilist aesthetician is right when he says: A real apple is more
beautiful than a painted one, and a living woman more beautiful than a Venus
of stone.
And when she left the bath and the silvery drops streamed down her body
in the rosy light I was seized by a wordless ecstasy. I wrapped the linen
towels about her, drying her splendid body, and the same calm bliss still
filled me even when, placing one foot on me as if on a footstool she sank back
among the cushions in her heavy velvet robe, the springing sables nestling
desirously against the cool marble of her body, leaning on her left arm which
lay like a sleeping swan in the dark fur of her sleeve, while with her right
hand she played idly with the whip.
At that moment my gaze happened to light on the great mirror on the
opposite wall, and I cried out: I saw us both as if in a picture in a golden
frame and this picture was so wonderfully beautiful, so strange, so fantastic,
that I was filled with a sudden sharp sorrow that its outlines and colours
must soon dissolve like a mirage.
"What is it?" Wanda demanded.
I pointed to the mirror.
"Ah that is really beautiful," she exclaimed. "What a pity this moment
can not be caught and held..."
"And why not?" I asked. "Is there no artist, even the most famous, who
would not be proud to be allowed to paint you so, and make you immortal by his
brush?" I paused. "The very thought that this extraordinary beauty should be
lost to the world is horrible -- this glorious countenance, those mysterious
eyes filled with green fire, this demonic hair, this sumptuous body -- it
fills me with a horror of death and annihilation. No, the hand of an artist
shall snatch you from such a death, you shall not vanish absolutely and
forever like the rest of mankind, without leaving a trace behind -- your
picture must live and breathe even when you yourself have crumbled into dust,
your beauty must triumph over death!
Wanda smiled.
"It is a pity," she said, "that modern Italy has no Titian or Raphael,
but perhaps love may make amends for genius -- who knows? Our little German
might do..." She pondered.
"Yes," she said, "he shall paint me, and I shall see to it that the god
of love mixes his colours."
The young painter has set up his atelier in the villa; he is completely
in her toils. He has even proposed a Madonna -- a Madonna with red hair and
green eyes! Only the idealism of a German would conceive of such a high-bred
woman as a model for the Virgin. The poor fellow is really almost a bigger
donkey than I am. Our misfortune is that Titania has discovered our ass's
ears too soon.
Now she is laughing at us -- and how she laughs! From where I am
standing, listening jealously under the window, I hear her insolent melodious
laughter coming from the studio.
"Are you mad? I -- oh it's unbelievable -- I, as the Mother of God!"
she is crying. "Wait, I will show you another picture of myself, one that I
have myself composed -- and you shall copy it."
Her head appears in the window shining like a red flame in the sunlight.
"Gregor!"
I hurried up the stairs, through the gallery and into the studio.
"Take him to the bathing-room," she ordered, and disappeared.
I beckoned to the painter, and led him downstairs.
In a few moments Wanda appeared, wearing nothing but her sables and
carrying the whip; she descended the stairs and once again stretched out on
the velvet cushions, while I crouched before her and she set her naked foot on
me, her right hand caressing the whip.
"Look at me, Gregor," she said, "with your deep, fanatical expression --
yes -- like that."
The painter had turned terribly pale; he devoured the pose with his
beautiful dreamy blue eyes; his lips opened but he remained speechless.
"Well how do you find the pose?"
"Yes -- that is how I will paint you," said the German, but it was not
so much the language of speech as an eloquent moaning, the weeping of a soul
sick almost to death.
The charcoal outline of the picture is done, the heads and flesh
portions are painted in, her diabolical face has already emerged in a few bold
strokes, and life is flashing from her green eyes.
Wanda stands before the canvas with her arms folded.
"This picture, like those of the Venetian school, is at once a portrait
and tells a story," explained the painter, once again pale as death.
"And what will you call it?" she asked. "But what is the matter with
you? Are you ill?"
"I am afraid --" he began, fixing a devouring look on the beautiful
woman in furs, "but no -- let us talk of the picture."
"Yes, let us talk of the picture."
"I imagine, then, the goddess of love who has descended from Mount
Olympus for the sake of some mortal man and who, shivering in this modern
world, must wrap her sublime body in great heavy furs and warm her feet in the
lap of her lover; I imagine too the favourite of a beautiful despot who whips
him when she has grown tired of kissing him, and the more she treads him
underfoot the more madly he loves her... I shall call the picture Venus in
Furs."
The painter works slowly, but his passion mounts more and more rapidly.
I am afraid he will end by taking his own life. She plays with him and asks
him riddles he cannot answer, while all the time he feels his blood turning to
ice -- but this amuses her.
During the sittings she nibbles at candies and rolls the paper wrappings
into little pellets with which she bombards him.
"I am glad you are in such good humour, Madam," he says, "but -- your
face has lost the expression I need for my picture."
"The expression you need," she replied, smiling. "Wait!"
She rose, and struck me a blow with the whip. The painter looked at her
in stupefaction; a childlike surprise showed in his face -- a blend of
revulsion and admiration.
She struck me again and again, while her face gradually acquired the
cruel, contemptuous expression which so haunts and intoxicates me.
"Is this the expression you need?" she cried, turning to face him. The
painter lowered his eyes in confusion before her cold stare.
"It is the expression --" he stammered, "but -- I cannot paint now --"
"Indeed?" she said scornfully. "Perhaps I can help you?"
"Yes," cried the German, as if suddenly gripped by madness, "whip me --
whip me too..."
"Oh, with pleasure," she replied, shrugging her shoulders. "But if I am
to whip you, I must whip you in earnest."
"Whip me to death!" he cried.
"Then I will tie you," she said smiling.
"Yes?"
"Yes..."
She left the room for a moment, and returned with the cords.
"Well, have you still the courage to put yourself in the power of Venus
in Furs?" she asked quizzically, "in the power of the fair tyrant, for better
or worse?"
"Yes, tie me," the painter replied dully. She fastened his hands behind
his back, passed a cord around his arms and another around his waist, and
lashed him to the crossbars of the window; then she threw back the fur from
her naked body, grasped the whip and stepped back.
The scene held a grim attraction for me which I cannot describe; I felt
my heart pounding as, with a smile, she raised her arm for the first stroke
and the whip whistled through the air; he winced slightly -- and then she
rained blow after blow on him, her mouth half open, her teeth shining between
her red lips, until at last he seemed to be begging for mercy with his piteous
blue eyes.
It was indescribable...
She is sitting in her room now, alone with him. He is working on her
head. She has stationed me in the adjoining room behind a heavy curtain,
where I can see everything without being seen.
What is in her mind now?
Is she afraid of him? She has driven him mad enough, to be sure -- or
is she devising some new torment for me? My knees are trembling.
They are talking. He has lowered his voice so that I cannot catch a
word, and she replies in the same tone. What does it mean? Have they come to
an understanding?
I am suffering agonies; my heart seems about to burst.
He is kneeling before her now, embracing her, pressing his head to her
breast -- and she -- in her cruelty -- she is laughing -- and now I can hear
her speaking.
"Ah," she says, "you need another taste of the whip."
"Woman! Goddess! Have you no heart -- are you incapable of love?" he
cried. "Don't you even know what it is to love, to be devoured by desire and
longing, can't you even imagine what I am suffering? Have you no pity for
me?"
"No," she replied proudly, mockingly, "but I have the whip --"
She drew it swiftly from the sleeve of her fur cloak and struck him
across the face with the handle. He stumbled to his feet and fell back a few
steps.
"Now, are you ready to paint again?" she said. He made no reply, but
went back to his easel and took up his brush and palette...
The painting is wonderfully successful. As a portrait the likeness
could not be better; but at the same time it has a purely ideal quality -- so
glowing, so supernatural, I might say so diabolical, are the colours.
The painter has put all his suffering, adoration and execration into the
picture.
Now he is painting me; we are alone for several hours every day. Today
he suddenly turned to me and said in his vibrant voice:
"You love this woman?"
"Yes."
"I also love her." His eyes were full of tears. He remained silent for
a while as he continued to paint.
"We have a mountain at home, in Germany, where she lives," he murmured
to himself. "She is a demon."
The picture is finished. She wanted to pay him generously, royally,
like a queen.
"Oh, you have already paid me," he said, refusing with a painful smile.
Before leaving, he opened his portfolio secretively and let me look at
the sketch inside. I was stupefied. Her head was looking out at me as if
from a mirror, as if it were alive.
"I shall take it with me," he said, "it is mine, she cannot take it from
me; I have paid for it with my heart's blood."
"I am really sorry for the poor painter," she said to me today. "It is
quite absurd to be as virtuous as I am. Don't you think so?"
I did not dare reply.
"Oh, I forgot I was speaking to a slave. I must go out, I want to amuse
myself, to forget... Quick, the carriage!"
Her new costume is wildly extravagant: Russian half-boots of mauve
velvet edged with ermine, and a skirt of the same material trimmed with narrow
bands and rosettes of fur; over it she wears a jacket to match, close-fitting
and also richly trimmed and lined with ermine; on her head is a tall cap in
the style of Catherine the Great, with a small aigrette secured by a diamond
clip; her red hair hangs loose on her back. She mounts the driver's seat and
takes the reins herself, while I take my place in the boot. How she whips the
horses! The carriage flies along madly.
Apparently she means to attract attention today, to make conquests, and
she succeeds. She is the lioness of the Cascine. People bow to her from
their carriages, others gather in groups on the Promenade to talk about her.
She pays no attention to anyone, except now and then to acknowledge with a
slight nod the salutations of the older men.
Suddenly a young man on a spirited black horse dashes towards her at
full speed; as soon as he sees Wanda he reins in his horse to a walk -- they
are already passing each other -- and he stops altogether to let her go by.
And she sees him too: the lioness beholds the lion. Their eyes meet -- she
drives on recklessly, but cannot escape the magic of his gaze; she turns her
head to look back.
My heart stops as I see the half-astonished, half-enraptured look with
which she devours him; but he is worthy of it.
God, what a beautiful man! No, he is rather a man whose like I have
never yet seen among the living. He is in the Belvedere, chiselled in marble,
with the same slender but steely musculature, the same face, the same wavy
locks, and what makes him so peculiarly beautiful is that he is beardless.
Were his lips not so thin one might take him for a woman in masquerade, while
the strange set of his mouth, the curled and leonine lip which just reveals
his teeth below, gives a lambent tinge of cruelty to his beautiful face --
Apollo flaying Marsyas...
He wears high black boots, closely fitting breeches of white leather, a
short coat of black cloth like those worn by Italian cavalry officers but
richly frogged and trimmed with astrakhan; on his black locks is a red fez.
I now understand the masculine Eros, and I marvel at Socrates for having
remained virtuous before such an Alcibiades.
I have never seen my lioness so excited. Her cheeks were flaming as she
sprang from the carriage to the steps of the villa and hastened upstairs,
bidding me follow with an imperious gesture.
Pacing up and down the room with rapid strides, she began speaking so
swiftly that I was alarmed.
"You are to find out who the man in the Cascine is, today, at once --
Oh, what a man! Did you see him? What do you think of him? Tell me."
"The man is beautiful," I said dully.
"He is so beautiful --" she paused, steadying herself on the arm of a
chair, " -- he has taken my breath away."
"I understand the impression he has made on you," I replied, carried
away by the violence of my own imagination. "I am beside myself -- I can
imagine --"
"You may imagine," she said with a laugh, "that this man is my lover --
that he will take the whip to you, and that you will enjoy being whipped by
him... But now, go!"
Before nightfall I had the desired information. Wanda was still fully
dressed when I came back; she was lying on the ottoman, her face framed in
her hands and her hair in wild disarray like the red mane of a lioness.
"What is his name?" she asked with a curious calm.
"Alexis Papadopolis."
"A Greek, then."
I nodded.
"He is very young?"
"Barely older than yourself. They say he was educated in Paris, and
that he is an atheist. He fought against the Turks in Candia, and is said to
have distinguished himself as much by his race-hatred and cruelty as by his
courage."
"All in all, then -- a man!" she cried with flashing eyes.
"At present he is living in Florence," I went on. "He is said to be
enormously rich --"
"I did not ask about that," she said sharply. "The man is dangerous.
Aren't you afraid of him? I am. Has he a wife?"
"No."
"A mistress?"
"No."
"What theatres does he go to?"
"Tonight he will be at the Nicolini, where Virginia Marini and Salvini
are playing -- they are the greatest living artists in Italy, perhaps in
Europe..."
"See that you get a box. Quickly, quickly!"
"But, Mistress-"
"Would you like a taste of the whip?"
"You will wait in the foyer," she said after I had placed her programme
and opera-glasses on the edge of her box and arranged her footstool.
I stood there for a moment, obliged to lean for support against the wall
in order not to faint with envy and rage -- no, rage is not the right word --
with mortal anguish...
I saw her in her box, dressed in blue moire with a great ermine cloak
around her bare shoulders; he was sitting opposite. I saw them devour each
other with their eyes: for neither of them did the stage, Goldoni's Pamela,
Salvini, Marini, the audience, the whole world, exist -- and as for me, what
was I at that moment?
This evening she is attending the ball given by the Greek ambassador.
Does she know she will meet him there?
In any event she is dressed as if she did. A heavy seagreen silk dress
closely moulds her divine form, leaving her breast and arms bare; in her
hair, tied in a single flaming knot, blooms a white water-lily whose reedy
leaves, interwoven with a few loose strands, fall on her neck. There is no
longer any trace of agitation or trembling in her demeanour; she is calm, so
calm that I feel my blood congeal and my heart grow cold beneath her glance.
Slowly, with a weary, indolent majesty, she ascends the marble staircase, lets
her wrap slip from her shoulders and listlessly enters the great hall where
the fumes of a hundred candles have formed a silvery mist.
For a few moments I watch her forlornly, then I pick up her furs which I
have let fall unawares from my hands. They are still warm from her shoulders.
I kiss the place, and my eyes fill with tears.
He arrives.
In his black velvet coat extravagantly trimmed with sable, he is the
beautiful haughty tyrant who plays with the lives and souls of men. He stands
in the anteroom gazing proudly around him, and his eyes rest on me for a
curiously long time.
Beneath his icy gaze I am once more seized by a mortal anguish, by a
presentiment that this man can enslave her, captivate and subjugate her --
and, feeling how my weakness contrasts with his savage masculinity, I am
filled with envy and jealousy.
How much I feel myself a feeble, twisted intellectual! What is most
humiliating is that I would like to hate him, but cannot. And why, among all
the crowd of servants, does he single me out?
With an inimitably aristocratic lift of the head he summons me to him,
and I -- I obey the summons in spite of myself.
"Take my furs," he says sharply.
My whole frame trembles with resentment, but I obey -- abjectly like a
slave.
All evening long I waited in the anteroom, a prey to feverish fancies.
Strange images passed before my inward eye: I saw their meeting, their long
exchange of glances, I saw her floating through the great salon in his arms,
drunken with passion, lying with half-closed eyes against his breast -- I saw
him in the very sanctuary of love, lying on the ottoman not as slave but as
master, with her at his feet -- I saw myself serving them on my knees, the
tray trembling in my hands and his own arm reaching for the whip... Now the
servants are talking about him.
He is a man who is like a woman; he knows how beautiful he is, and
behaves accordingly; he changes his fancy clothes four or five times a day,
like a courtesan.
In Paris he appeared first in woman's clothing, and the men showered him
with love letters. An Italian singer, famous alike for his art and his
passions, even penetrated his house and falling on his knees before him
threatened to commit suicide if he would not surrender.
"I am sorry," the Greek replied, smiling. "I should like to oblige you,
but you will have to carry out your threat -- for I am a man."
The crush in the rooms has already thinned considerably -- but she has
apparently no thought of leaving.
Dawn is already peering through the blinds.
At last I hear the rustling of her heavy gown as it floats behind her
like a green wave; she comes forward, step by step, deep in conversation with
him.
I barely exist for her; she does not even trouble to give me her
orders.
"The cloak for madame," he says. He, of course, does not think of
waiting on her himself.
While I am putting her furs about her he stands aloof, his arms folded.
As I am on my knees putting on her fur boots, she supports herself lightly
with her hand on his shoulder. She asks:
"And the lioness?"
"When the lion she has chosen, and with whom she pairs, is attacked by
another," the Greek continued his story, "the lioness lies down quietly and
watches the contest, and if her mate is worsted she does not go to his aid --
she looks on indifferently while he bleeds to death under his opponent's
claws, and then follows the victor, the stronger: that is the female's
nature."
At that moment my lioness looked swiftly and searchingly at me. Her
look made me shudder, though I hardly knew why -- and the red dawn bathed all
three of us as if in blood.
She did not retire at once, but only slipped off her ballgown and let
down her hair; then she ordered me to build a fire, and sat down by the
fireplace, staring into the flames.
"Do you need me further, Mistress?" I asked, my voice failing me on the
last word.
Wanda shook her head.
I left the room, passed through the gallery and sat down on one of the
steps leading to the garden. A soft north wind brought a fresh, moist
coolness from the Arno, the green hills were lost in a distant rosy mist and a
golden haze hovered above the city and over the round cupola of the Duomo.
A few stars were still trembling in the pale blue sky.
I tore open my coat and pressed my burning forehead against the marble
balustrade. Everything that had happened until now seemed a mere childish
game; now matters were becoming serious, terribly serious.
I foresaw a catastrophe, I visualized it, I could even grasp it in my
hands, but I lacked the courage to meet it; my strength failed me. And, to
speak truly, neither the pain nor the suffering that threatened me, nor the
humiliations to come, were what frightened me.
I merely felt a fear, the fear of losing her whom I loved with a kind of
fanatical devotion, but this fear was so overwhelming that I suddenly began to
sob like a child.
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