“Lead him to the bath,” Wanda commanded, while she herself hurried
away.
A few moments passed and Wanda arrived; dressed in nothing but the
sable fur, with the whip in her hand; she descended the stairs and
stretched out on the velvet cushions as on the former occasion. I lay
at her feet and she placed one of her feet upon me; her right hand
played with the whip. “Look at me,” she said, “with your deep,
fanatical look, that’s it.”
The painter had turned terribly pale. He devoured the scene with his
beautiful dreamy blue eyes; his lips opened, but he remained dumb.
“Well, how do you like the picture?”
“Yes, that is how I want to paint you,” said the German, but it was
really not a spoken language; it was the eloquent moaning, the weeping
of a sick soul, a soul sick unto death.
* * * * *
The charcoal outline of the painting is done; the heads and flesh parts
are painted in. Her diabolical face is already becoming visible under a
few bold strokes, life flashes in her green eyes.
Wanda stands in front of the canvas with her arms crossed over her
breast.
“This picture, like many of those of the Venetian school, is
simultaneously to represent a portrait and to tell a story,” explained
the painter, who again had become 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 answered with a consuming look fixed on the beautiful
woman in furs, “but let us talk of the picture.”
“Yes, let us talk about the picture.”
“I imagine the goddess of love as having descended from Mount Olympus
for the sake of some mortal man. And always cold in this modern world
of ours, she seeks to keep her sublime body warm in a large heavy fur
and her feet in the lap of her lover. I imagine the favorite of a
beautiful despot, who whips her slave, when she is tired of kissing
him, and the more she treads him underfoot, the more insanely he loves
her. And so I shall call the picture: _Venus in Furs_.”
* * * * *
The painter paints slowly, but his passion grows more and more rapidly.
I am afraid he will end up by committing suicide. She plays with him
and propounds riddles to him which he cannot solve, and he feels his
blood congealing in the process, but it amuses her.
During the sitting she nibbles at candies, and rolls the paper-wrappers
into little pellets with which she bombards him.
“I am glad you are in such good humor,” said the painter, “but your
face has lost the expression which I need for my picture.”
“The expression which you need for your picture,” she replied, smiling.
“Wait a moment.”
She rose, and dealt me a blow with the whip. The painter looked at her
with stupefaction, and a child-like surprise showed on his face,
mingled with disgust and admiration.
While whipping me, Wanda’s face acquired more and more of the cruel,
contemptuous character, which so haunts and intoxicates me.
“Is this the expression you need for your picture?” she exclaimed. The
painter lowered his look in confusion before the cold ray of her eye.
“It is the expression—” he stammered, “but I can’t paint now—”
“What?” said Wanda, scornfully, “perhaps I can help you?”
“Yes—” cried the German, as if taken with madness, “whip me too.”
“Oh! With pleasure,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders, “but if I am
to whip you I want to do it in sober earnest.”
“Whip me to death,” cried the painter.
“Will you let me tie you?” she asked, smiling.
“Yes—” he moaned—
Wanda left the room for a moment, and returned with ropes.
“Well—are you still brave enough to put yourself into the power of
Venus in Furs, the beautiful despot, for better or worse?” she began
ironically.
“Yes, tie me,” the painter replied dully. Wanda tied his hands on his
back and drew a rope through his arms and a second one around his body,
and fettered him to the cross-bars of the window. Then she rolled back
the fur, seized the whip, and stepped in front of him.
The scene had a grim attraction for me, which I cannot describe. I felt
my heart beat, when, with a smile, she drew back her arm for the first
blow, and the whip hissed through the air. He winced slightly under the
blow. Then she let blow after blow rain upon him, with her mouth
half-opened and her teeth flashing between her red lips, until he
finally seemed to ask for mercy with his piteous, blue eyes. It was
indescribable.
* * * * *
She is sitting for him now, alone. He is working on her head.
She has posted me in the adjoining room behind a heavy curtain, where I
can’t be seen, but can see everything.
What does she intend now?
Is she afraid of him? She has driven him insane enough to be sure, or
is she hatching a new torment for me? My knees tremble.
They are talking. He has lowered his voice so that I cannot understand
a word, and she replies in the same way. What is the meaning of this?
Is there an understanding between them?