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Venus In Furs 8
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 8 of 8.
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All next day she remained locked in her room, served only by the
negress. When the evening star rose glowing in the blue sky, I saw her pass
through the garden; following her at a distance, I watched her as she entered
the shrine of Venus. I crept after her and peered through a chink in the
door.
She stood before the image of the goddess, her hands clasped as if in
prayer, while the sacred light of the star of love cast its blue rays over
her.
That night in my own bed, my fear of losing her, and my despair seized
me so powerfully that they made of me a hero and a libertine. I lit the
little red oil-lamp which hangs under the holy image in the passage, and
entered her bedroom, shielding the light with one hand.
The lioness had been hunted and driven to exhaustion, she had fallen
asleep among her pillows, lying on her back, her hands clenched, breathing
heavily. A dream seemed to be oppressing her. I slowly raised my hand, and
let the red light fall on her beautiful face.
She did not awake.
I placed the lamp quietly on the floor, sank down beside the bed and
laid my head on her soft glowing arm.
She stirred slightly, but still did not waken. I do not know how long I
lay thus, in the middle of the night, as if turned to stone by my horrible
anguish.
At last a violent tremor seized me, and I was able to weep -- my tears
bathed her arm. She quivered once or twice and then sat up, passed her hand
over her eyes and looked at me.
"Severin," she exclaimed, more alarmed than angry.
I was unable to reply.
"Severin," she continued gently, "what is the matter? Are you ill?"
Her voice was so melting, so kind, so full of love, that it seemed to
take hold of my heart like red-hot tongs, and I began to sob aloud.
"Severin," she said again. "My poor unhappy friend." Her hand stroked
my hair softly. "I am sorry, very sorry for you... But I cannot help you --
with all the will in the world, I know of no way to cure you."
"Oh, Wanda -- must it be so?" I murmured in agony.
"What, Severin? What do you mean?"
"Do you love me no longer? Have you not even a shred of pity for me?
Has the beautiful stranger so taken possession of you?"
"I cannot lie," she said gently after a short pause. "He affects me in
a way I cannot yet grasp, except that it makes me tremble and suffer, -- in a
way I have so far only known at second hand, in poetry or on the stage -- with
a feeling I have always regarded as a figment of the imagination. Oh, he is a
man like a lion, strong and beautiful and proud -- and yet gentle too, not
like the brutal men of our northern world... I am sorry for you, Severin,
indeed I am -- but I must possess him -- what am I saying? I must give myself
to him, if he will have me."
"Think of your reputation, Wanda, which is so far unspotted," I
exclaimed, "even if I no longer mean anything to you."
"I am thinking of it," she replied. "I intend to be strong, to resist
him as long as I am able --" she hid her face in the pillows, " -- I wish to
become his wife, if he will have me."
"Wanda!" I cried, gripped once again by that mortal terror which robs me
of my breath and takes away all my control, "you with to be his wife, to
belong to him forever... Oh, do not drive me away! He does not love you --"
"Who says so?" she exclaimed hotly.
"He does not love you," I went on in a passion of despair and entreaty.
"It is I who love you, who adore you, I am the slave who lets you tread him
underfoot, who desires to carry you in his arms forever --"
"Who says he does not love me?" she broke in harshly.
"Oh, be mine!" I cried. "Only be mine! I cannot exist, I cannot live
without you. Have pity on me, Wanda -- have pity!"
She looked at me again, and now her face assumed the familiar cold,
heartless expression, the old evil smile.
"So you say he does not love me," she said contemptuously. "Very well
then, take what consolation you can from that." And with these words she
turned on her side and scornfully showed me her back.
"My God, are you a woman of flesh and blood? Have you no heart at all?"
I cried, my breast heaving convulsively.
"You know what I am," she answered coldly. "I am the woman of stone,
Venus in Furs, your ideal. Kneel down, and pray to me."
"Wanda!" I implored. "Pity!"
She began to laugh. I buried my face in the pillows; pain had
dissolved my grief, and I let my tears flow.
For a long time there was silence in the room; then Wanda slowly raised
herself on her arm.
"You are boring me," she said.
"Wanda!"
"I am tired, let me go to sleep."
"Pity," I begged. "Do not drive me away -- no man, no one, will love
you as I do."
"Let me sleep." She turned her back again.
I sprang up, unsheathed the dagger which hung beside her bed, and placed
its point against my breast.
"I will kill myself, here before your eyes," I whispered.
"Do as you please," Wanda replied with absolute indifference. "Only let
me go to sleep." She yawned. "I am tired."
For a moment I stood as if petrified; then I began to laugh and cry at
the same time -- at last I put the dagger in my belt, and fell on my knees
before her again.
"Wanda -- only listen to me for a few moments," I begged.
"I want to sleep! Don't you understand!" she cried, springing from the
bed and pushing me away with her foot. "Have you forgotten I am your
mistress?"
When I did not move she seized the whip and struck me. I got up, and
she struck me again -- this time in the face.
"Wretch! Slave!"
With a clenched fist raised heavenwards, I turned to the door with a
sudden resolve and left her bedroom. She threw the whip aside and burst into
sparkling laughter -- and I can imagine my theatrical gesture must have been
extremely droll.
I have resolved to free myself from this heartless woman who has treated
me so cruelly and is now about to reward my slavish devotion and suffering
with betrayal and infidelity; I have packed my few belongings in a bundle,
and written her the following note:
"Madam,
I have loved you to madness, I have given myself to you as no man
has ever given himself to a woman -- but you have abused my most sacred
feelings and played a shameless and wanton game with me. While you were
cruel and merciless, I could still love you -- but now you are about to
become cheap. I am no longer the slave whom you can kick and beat. You
yourself have set me free and I am leaving a woman I can only hate and
despise.
Severin Kusiemski."
I give these lines to the negress, and hasten away as fast as I can. I
reach the railway-station out of breath, and all at once I feel a sharp pain
at my heart -- I stop -- I begin to weep -- oh, it is shameful! -- I want to
run away, and cannot. I turn back to -- where? To her whom I abominate and
adore at the same time.
Once more I pause. I cannot go back. I dare not.
And how am I to leave Florence? I remember I have no money, not a
penny. Well then, on foot: better to be an honest beggar than eat the bread
of a courtesan.
But I cannot leave: she has my word, my word of honour. I must go
back. Perhaps she will release me from it.
After a few rapid steps I stop again.
She has my word of honour, my pledge to remain her slave as long as she
wishes -- until she herself sets me free; but I am still free to kill myself.
I go through the Cascine and down to the Arno, whose yellow waters
ripple monotonously around a few stray willows. I sit down and cast up my
last accounts with existence -- I pass my whole life in review: a wretched
business on the whole -- a few joys, an endless number of futile and worthless
experiences, and between these a rich harvest of suffering, misery, fear,
disappointment, blighted hopes, afflictions, sadness and grief.
I thought of my mother whom I had loved so deeply, and whom I had to
watch as she was slowly devoured by a terrible illness; of my brother, who
died in the prime of his youth, full of joy and happiness, without ever
raising the cup of life to his lips; of my dead nurse, my childhood comrades,
the friends who had striven and studied with me -- all, all now covered by the
cold, unfeeling earth; I thought of my pet turtle-dove, who so often paid her
cooing addresses to me instead of his mate -- all had returned, dust to dust.
I laugh, and plunge into the water -- but at the same instant I seized
one of the willow branches hanging above the yellow waves -- and I see, as if
in a vision, the woman who has caused all my suffering, hovering over the
surface, luminous in the sunlight as though transparent, with red flames
circling her head and shoulders, and she turns her face towards me and smiles.
I have come back, dripping, soaked through, burning with shame and
fever. The negress has delivered my letter; I am undone, lost, in the power
of a heartless woman I have affronted.
Well then, let her kill me -- I cannot do it myself, and I have no
desire to go on living.
As I pass the corner of the house she is standing in the gallery,
leaning on the railing, her face in full sunlight, her green eyes sparkling.
"You are still alive?" she asked, without moving.
I said nothing, my head bowed.
"At least give me back my dagger," she went on. "It's no use to you.
You haven't even the courage to take your own life."
"I lost it," I replied, trembling, shaken by chills.
She looked me up and down with her haughty, scornful air. "I suppose
you lost it in the Arno?" She shrugged her shoulders. "No matter... Well,
why didn't you leave?"
I muttered something which neither of us could understand.
"Oh, you have no money!" she cried. "Here!" With an ineffably
disdainful gesture she tossed me her purse.
I did not pick it up.
We were silent for a while.
"You don't want to leave then?" she said.
"I cannot."
Wanda drives in the Cascine without me, she goes to the theatre without
me; she receives company, and the negresses wait on her. No one pays me any
attention. I wander about the garden, irresolutely, like an animal that has
lost its master.
Lying in the shrubbery, I watch a pair of sparrows fighting over a
seed...
Suddenly, the rustle of a woman's dress.
Wanda approaches, wearing a dark silk gown modestly closed Up to the
throat; the Greek is with her. They are in animated talk, but I cannot hear
a word they are saying. He stamps his foot, scattering the gravel in all
directions, and cuts the air with his riding-whip. Wanda starts back.
Is she afraid he will strike her?
Have things gone as far as that?
He has left her; she calls to him, but he does not hear her, does not
wish to hear.
Wanda lets her head droop sadly, then sinks down on a stone bench; she
sits there for a long time, lost in thought. I watch her with a kind of
bitter joy, and at last I summon up my strength and approach her with an
ironical expression. She gives a start, and trembles from head to foot.
"I come to wish you happiness," I say, bowing. "I see, dear lady, that
you have found a master in your turn."
"Yes, thank God!" she cried. "Not another slave -- I have had enough of
that. A master. Woman needs a master, and I adore mine."
"You adore this man, Wanda?" I cried. "This brutal person --"
"I love him as I have never loved any other man."
"Wanda!" I clenched my fist -- but tears already filled my eyes, and I
was seized by a delirium of passion, a sweet madness. "Very well, take him as
your husband, let him be your master -- but I, I want to remain your slave as
long as I live."
"You would remain my slave even then?" she said. "That would be
piquant, but I am afraid he would not allow it."
"He?"
"Yes, he is already jealous of you," she cried. "He, of you! He ordered
me to dismiss you, and when I told him who you were --"
"You told him --" I repeated, thunderstruck.
"I have told him everything," she replied, "our whole story, all your
eccentricity, everything -- and he -- instead of being amused -- became angry
and stamped his foot."
"And threatened to strike you?"
Wanda looked at the ground and remained silent.
"Yes, yes," I said with bitter mockery, "you are afraid of him, Wanda!"
I threw myself at her feet, and in my distress embraced her knees. "I desire
nothing from you but to be your slave, to be near you always! I will be your
dog --"
"Do you know, you are boring me?" she said carelessly.
I leapt to my feet. The blood was seething in my veins.
"You are no longer cruel, madam, but cheap," I said, stressing every
syllable.
"You have already said that in your letter," she replied with a haughty
shrug. "An intelligent man never repeats himself."
"The way you are treating me," I burst out, "how else would you describe
it?"
She looked at me quizzically. "See now," she said, "I might punish you
for your insolence, but I prefer to answer you with reasons instead of blows.
You have no right to accuse me. Have I not always been honest with you, did I
not warn you more than once? Did I not love you with all my heart and senses,
and did I ever conceal from you the danger of putting yourself in my power, of
abasing yourself before me -- or that I myself wished to be mastered? But
you wanted to be my plaything, my slave! You found your greatest pleasure in
feeling the foot and the whip of a cruel and arrogant woman. What else could
you expect?"
She paused, and threw back her head.
"Dangerous forces were slumbering in me," she went on, "but you were the
first to awaken them. If I now enjoy torturing and abusing you, the fault is
your own; you made me what I am, and now you are so weak, unmanly and wretched
as to blame me."
"Yes, I am at fault," I said, "but have I not suffered enough on that
account? Let us put an end to this cruel game."
"With all my heart," she replied with a curious, veiled look.
"Wanda!" I cried wildly, "do not drive me to extremes -- you see, I am a
man once more."
"A man? A fire of straw, rather, which makes a great stir for a moment
and goes out as quickly as it flared up. You think you can frighten me, and
you only make yourself ridiculous. If you had been the man I first thought
you were -- serious, composed, stern -- I would have loved you faithfully and
become your wife. A woman needs to look up to a man -- but a man like you,
who wilfully puts his neck beneath her foot, she treats him like an amusing
toy and tosses him aside when she is tired of him."
"Try to toss me aside now," I said scornfully. "Some toys are
dangerous."
"Do not defy me," exclaimed Wanda, her cheeks flushing, her eyes
beginning to flash.
"If you will not be mine," I said, my voice stifled with rage, "no one
else shall have you."
"What play is this from?" she cried scornfully, seizing me by the
breast; she was suddenly white with anger. "Do not stand in my way! I am
not cruel, but I don't know whether I might not become so -- nor, if I do, how
far I might go."
"How much farther can you go," I exclaimed, my rage mounting, "than to
take your lover for a husband?"
"Why, I might make you his slave," she said quickly. "Are you not in my
power? Have I not the contract? But that, of course, would merely give you
pleasure -- if I were to have you bound and tell him, Do with this creature as
you please."
"Woman, are you mad?"
"I am quite sane," she said calmly, "and I am warning you for the last
time -- do not stand in my way. One who has gone as far as I have can well go
further... I feel a kind of hatred for you -- yes, hatred! I would take a
genuine pleasure in seeing him whip you to death -- I am still restraining
myself, but-"
Losing all control at last, I seized her by the waist and thrust her to
the ground so that she was on her knees before me.
"Severin!" she cried, rage and terror painted on her face.
"If you marry him, I will kill you," I said, the words coming hoarsely
and dully from my throat. "You are mine, I will not let you go -- I love you
too much," and I gripped her, pulling her closely to me while my fingers
involuntarily closed on the dagger which was still in my belt.
Wanda fixed me with a wide, calm, incomprehensible gaze.
"I like you this way," she said quietly. "Now you are a man. At this
moment I know that I still love you."
"Wanda..." I burst into tears of rapture and bent down to cover her
dear face with kisses -- and she, suddenly breaking into a gay, ringing laugh,
said, "Have you had enough of your ideal now? Are you satisfied with me?"
"You mean-" I stammered, "-- you were not serious?"
"Oh no, l am quite serious," she continued gaily. "I love you, you only
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