* * * * *
“My friend has complained about you,” said Wanda to-day.
“Perhaps she feels that I despise her.”
“But why do you despise her, you foolish young man?” exclaimed Wanda,
pulling my ears with both hands.
“Because she is a hypocrite,” I said. “I respect only a woman who is
actually virtuous, or who openly lives for pleasure’s sake.”
“Like me, for instance,” replied Wanda jestingly, “but you see, child,
a woman can only do that in the rarest cases. She can neither be as
gaily sensual, nor as spiritually free as man; her state is always a
mixture of the sensual and spiritual. Her heart desires to enchain man
permanently, while she herself is ever subject to the desire for
change. The result is a conflict, and thus usually against her wishes
lies and deception enter into her actions and personality and corrupt
her character.”
“Certainly that is true,” I said. “The transcendental character with
which woman wants to stamp love leads her to deception.”
“But the world likewise demands it,” Wanda interrupted. “Look at this
woman. She has a husband and a lover in Lemberg and has found a new
admirer here. She deceives all three and yet is honored by all and
respected by the world.”
“I don’t care,” I exclaimed, “but she is to leave you alone; she treats
you like an article of commerce.”
“Why not?” the beautiful woman interrupted vivaciously. “Every woman
has the instinct or desire to draw advantage out of her attractions,
and much is to be said for giving one’s self without love or pleasure
because if you do it in cold blood, you can reap profit to best
advantage.”
“Wanda, what are you saying?”
“Why not?” she said, “and take note of what I am about to say to you.
_Never feel secure with the woman you love,_ for there are more dangers
in woman’s nature than you imagine. Women are neither as _good_ as
their admirers and defenders maintain, nor as _bad_ as their enemies
make them out to be. _Woman’s character is characterlessness._ The best
woman will momentarily go down into the mire, and the worst
unexpectedly rises to deeds of greatness and goodness and puts to shame
those that despise her. No woman is so good or so bad, but that at any
moment she is capable of the most diabolical as well as of the most
divine, of the filthiest as well as of the purest, thoughts, emotions,
and actions. In spite of all the advances of civilization, woman has
remained as she came out of the hand of nature. She has the nature of a
savage, who is faithful or faithless, magnanimous or cruel, according
to the impulse that dominates at the moment. Throughout history it has
always been a serious deep culture which has produced moral character.
Man even when he is selfish or evil always follows _principles,_ woman
never follows anything but _impulses._ Don’t ever forget that, and
never feel secure with the woman you love.”
* * * * *
Her friend has left. At last an evening alone with her again. It seems
as if Wanda had saved up all the love, which had been kept from her,
for this superlative evening; never had she been so kind, so near, so
full of tenderness.
What happiness to cling to her lips, and to die away in her arms! In a
state of relaxation and wholly mine, her head rests against my breast,
and with drunken rapture our eyes seek each other.