It was evening. A petite and pretty maid brought me an order: I was to appear before the Mistress. I climbed the wide marble stairway, crossed the anteroom, a vast, lavishly appointed salon, and tapped on the bedroom door. Intimidated by the ubiquitous luxury, I tapped very softly, and so I wasn’t heard and I stood at the door for a while. I felt as if I were standing outside the bedchamber of Catherine the Great, who might emerge at any moment in her green sleeping fur with the red sash on her bare breasts and with her white, powdered little curls.
I tapped again. Wanda impatiently yanked open one wing of the door.
“Why so late?” she asked.
“I was standing at the door, but you didn’t hear me knock,” I replied shyly. She closed the door behind her, put her arm through mine, and led me to the red damask sofa where she had been resting. All the furnishings in the room—wallpaper, curtains, portieres, canopy bed—everything was in red damask, and the ceiling was covered with a marvelous painting: Samson and Delilah.
Wanda received me in a bewitching dishabille: The satin robe flowed easy and picturesque down her slender body, exposing her arms and bust, which snuggled, soft and yielding, into the dark skins of the large green velvet sable. Her red hair, half undone and held by strings of black pearls, fell down her back to the hips.
“Venus in Furs,” I whispered as she drew me to her breasts, threatening to suffocate me with her kisses. I didn’t say another word, didn’t think another thought; everything drowned in a sea of bliss beyond my wildest dreams.
In the end Wanda gently extricated herself and, propped on one arm, gazed at me. I had sunk down to her feet; she drew me toward herself and played with my hair.
“Do you still love me?” she asked, her eyes blurring in sweet passion.
“How can you ask!” I cried.
“Do you remember your oath?” she went on with a charming smile. “Well, now that everything’s set up, everything’s prepared, let me ask you again: Are you truly serious about becoming my slave?”
“Am I not your slave already?” I asked in amazement.
“You haven’t signed the documents yet.”
“Documents? What documents?”
“Ah! I see you’ve forgotten,” she said. “Then let it go.”
“But Wanda,” I said. “You do know that there’s no greater joy for me than to serve you, be your slave. I would give anything to be entirely in your control—I would even give my life—”
“How handsome you are,” she whispered, “when you’re so enthusiastic, when you talk so passionately. Ah! I’m more in love with you than ever, and now I’m supposed to act domineering toward you and severe and cruel. I’m afraid I won’t be able to.”
“I’m not worried,” I retorted with a smile. “Where are the documents?”
“Here.” Half embarrassed, she pulled them from her bosom and gave them to me.
“To make you feel entirely in my control, I’ve drawn up a second document, in which you state that you are determined to take your own life. I can then kill you if I like.”
“Hand it over.”
While I unfolded these papers and started reading, Wanda brought pen and ink, then sat with me, put her arm around my neck, and peered at the documents over my shoulder.
The first document said:
Contract between Frau Wanda von Dunajew and Herr Severin von Kusiemski
Herr Severin von Kusiemski ceases as of today to be the fiancé of Frau Wanda von Dunajew and renounces all rights as lover; he then commits himself, on his word of honor as a man and nobleman, to being henceforth the slave of Frau von Dunajew until such time as she herself restores his freedom.
As the slave of Frau von Dunajew he is to have the name Gregor, unconditionally fulfill each of her wishes, obey each of her orders, show submissiveness to his Mistress, and view any sign of her favor as an extraordinary grace.
Not only may Frau von Dunajew punish her slave as she sees fit for the slightest oversight or offense, but she also has the right to mistreat him at whim or merely as a pastime, however it happens to please her, and she even has the right to kill him if she so wishes. In short: He is her absolute property.
Should Frau von Dunajew ever grant her slave his freedom, then Herr Severin von Kusiemski must forget everything he has experienced or endured as a slave and never, under any circumstances whatsoever and in no way, shape, or form whatsoever, consider revenge or retaliation.
For her part, Frau von Dunajew promises as his Mistress to appear in fur as frequently as possible, especially when she is being cruel to her slave.
Beneath the text, the contract bore the date.
The second document was very brief:
After years of being weary of existence and its delusions, I am, of my own free will, putting an end to my worthless life.
I felt a profound horror when I was done reading. There was still time, I could still back out. But I was swept away by the insanity of passion, the sight of that beautiful woman leaning relaxed on my shoulder.
“First you have to copy this text,” said Wanda, pointing to the second document. “It has to be written completely in your hand. Of course, that’s not necessary for the contract.”
I quickly copied the few lines designating myself a suicide and handed the letter to Wanda. She read it and then, smiling, put it on the table.
“Now do you have the courage to sign this?” she asked, tilting her head with a cunning smile.
I took the pen.
“Let me go first,” said Wanda. “Your hand is trembling. Are you so frightened of your happiness?”
She took the contract and the pen. Struggling with myself, I looked up for an instant, and now I was struck by how anachronistic the ceiling painting was, like many paintings of the Italian and Dutch schools. This unhistorical character provided a strange, for me downright sinister, complexion. Delilah, a voluptuous lady with flaming red hair, lay, half undressed, in a dark fur mantle on a red sofa, smiling and bending toward Samson, whom the Philistines had flung down and tied up. In its mocking coquettishness her smile had a truly infernal cruelty; her eyes, half closed, encountered Samson’s eyes, which, in their final seeing, still clung to hers with insane love, for one of the foes was already kneeling on Samson’s chest, about to blind him with the red-hot poker.
“Goodness,” cried Wanda. “You’re totally absorbed. What’s bothering you? Everything will remain as is even after you sign the agreement. Do you still not know me, darling?”
I looked at the contract. There was her name in large, bold strokes. I peered once again into her magical eyes. Then I took the pen and quickly signed the contract.
“You’re trembling,” said Wanda calmly. “Should I hold the pen for you?”
That same moment she gently took hold of my hand, and there was my name on the second document. Wanda looked at both documents again and then put them away in the desk that stood at the head of the sofa.
“Fine. Now quickly hand over your passport and your money.”
I produced my billfold and handed it to her. She glanced inside it, nodded, and added it to the documents, while I knelt before her, my head resting in sweet intoxication on her bosom.
Suddenly she kicked me away, leaped up, and rang the bell. Three young, slender African women came in—carved out of ebony, as it were, and clad entirely in red satin. Each woman was clutching a rope.
Now I suddenly grasped my situation and I tried to get up. But Wanda, standing erect before me, turning her cold, beautiful, and somber face, her scornful eyes toward me, imperious as my Mistress, gestured. And before I even realized what was happening, the Africans had yanked me to the floor, bound me tightly hand and foot, with my arms behind my back, so that I was like a man about to be executed, barely able to move.
“Give me the whip, Haydée,” Wanda ordered with sinister calm.
The African woman knelt and handed the whip to the Mistress.
“And remove this heavy fur from me,” Wanda contin
ued. “It’s in my way.”
The African obeyed.
Wanda then gave another order: “The jacket there!”
Haydée quickly brought the ermine-trimmed kazabaika, which was on the bed, and Wanda slipped into it with two inimitably charming motions.
“Tie him to the column here.”
The Africans lifted me up, slung a thick rope around my body, and tied me, standing, to one of the massive columns supporting the canopy of the wide Italian bed.
Then they suddenly vanished as if the earth had swallowed them up.
Wanda hurried over to me, the long train of her white satin gown flowing after her like silver, like moonlight, her hair blazing like flames on the jacket’s white fur. She stood before me, her left hand planted on her pelvis, her right hand clutching the whip, and she emitted a brief laugh.
“Now the game-playing has stopped between us,” she said, heartlessly cold. “Now the situation is serious, you fool—whom I deride and despise. In your insane blindness, you’ve surrendered as a plaything to me, an arrogant, capricious woman. You are no longer my lover, you are my slave. Your life and your death are at the mercy of my whims.
“You haven’t seen anything yet!
“First of all, you will now get a serious taste of the whip—though for no offense on your part—so that you may understand what you can expect if you act clumsy, disobedient, or rebellious.”
With savage grace she now hiked up the fur-trimmed sleeve and lashed my back.
I winced—the whip cut into my flesh like a knife.
“Well, how do you like it?” she cried.
I held my tongue.
“Just wait. You’ll be whimpering like a dog under my whip,” she threatened, and she promptly began to lash me.
The strokes fell quick and dense, with dreadful force, upon my back, my arms, my neck. I gritted my teeth to keep from shrieking. Then she struck my face, warm blood ran down my skin, but she laughed and kept whipping.
“Now I understand you,” she cried. “It’s really a pleasure to have someone in my power and, in the bargain, a man who loves me—you do love me? No—oh! I’ll shred you to bits. My pleasure is growing with every stroke. Writhe a little, scream, whimper! You’ll get no mercy from me.”
At last she seemed tired.
She tossed away the whip, stretched out on the sofa, and rang.
The African women came in.
“Untie him.”
When they loosened the rope, I collapsed on the floor like a chunk of wood.
The black women laughed, baring their white teeth.
“Untie his feet.”
They obeyed. I could stand up.
“Come to me, Gregor.”
I approached the beautiful woman, who had never looked so seductive as today in her cruelty, in her scorn.
“Another step,” Wanda ordered. “Kneel down and kiss my foot.”
She stretched her foot out from under the white satin hem, and I, the suprasensual fool, pressed my lips on her foot.
“You will not see me for a whole month, Gregor,” she said solemnly, “so that I may become alien to you, and you will adjust more easily to our new relationship. During this time you will work in the garden and await my orders. And now get going, slave!”
A month wore by in humdrum regularity, in hard labor, in mournful yearning, yearning for her, the woman inflicting all this suffering on me. I was assigned to the gardener, helping him to prune trees, clip hedges, transplant flowers, turn over the flowerbeds, sweep the gravel walks, share his crude diet and his hard cot, get up with the chickens and go to bed with the chickens—and from time to time I heard our Mistress enjoying herself, surrounded by admirers, and once I even heard her mischievous laughter all the way down into the garden.
I felt so stupid. Did I become stupid through this present life or had I already been stupid beforehand? The month would be ending the day after tomorrow—what would she do with me now, or had she forgotten me? Would I be trimming hedges and tying bouquets until my dying day?
A written command:
The slave Gregor is hereby ordered into my personal service.
Wanda von Dunajew
With a thumping heart, I parted the damask curtains the next morning and entered my Goddess’s bedroom, which was still full of sweet semi-darkness.
“Is that you, Gregor?” she asked while I knelt at the hearth and started a fire. I trembled at the sound of her beloved voice. I couldn’t see her, she was resting unapproachably behind the curtains of the canopy bed.
“Yes, Madam,” I replied.
“What time?”
“Past nine.”
“Breakfast.”
I hurried to get it and then, holding the coffee tray, I knelt in front of her bed.
“Here is breakfast, Madam.”
Wanda pulled back the curtains and, strangely enough, as I saw her with her undone hair flowing on her white pillows, she at first seemed utterly alien, though a beautiful woman. Those were not the features I loved: that face was hard and had an eerie expression of fatigue, of surfeit.
Or hadn’t I had an eye for all that earlier?
She fixed her green eyes on me, more curious than ominous, or somewhat pitying, and she lethargically drew the dark sheepskin over her bared shoulder.
At that moment she was so charming, so bewildering that I felt the blood rushing to my head and my heart, and the tray in my hand began to wobble. She noticed this and reached for the whip that was lying on her night stand.
“You’re clumsy, slave,” she said, frowning. I lowered my eyes and held the tray as firmly as I could, and she took her breakfast and yawned and stretched her voluptuous limbs in the glorious fur.
She rang. I entered.
“This letter to Prince Corsini.”
I hurried into town and delivered the letter to the prince, a young, handsome man with glowing black eyes. Consumed with jealousy, I brought back the response.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, with lurking malice. “You’re so dreadfully pale.”
“Nothing, Mistress, I just walked a bit fast.”
At the déjeuner the prince was at her side, and I was condemned to serve both her and him, while they joked, and I didn’t exist for either of them. For an instant I blacked out while pouring Bordeaux into his glass: the wine spilled on the tablecloth, on her gown.
“How clumsy,” cried Wanda and slapped me. The prince laughed, and she laughed too, and the blood rushed to my face.
After the déjeuner she went off to the Cascine. She herself drove the small carriage with the pretty English chestnuts. I sat behind her and watched her nodding back with a coquettish smile when greeted by any of the august gentlemen.
As I helped her out of the carriage, she leaned lightly on my arm. The contact electrified me. Ah! This woman was truly wonderful, and I loved her more than ever.
A small group of ladies and gentlemen gathered here for dinner at six P.M. I served, and this time I didn’t spill any wine on the tablecloth.
A slap is actually more effective than ten lectures. One grasps it so quickly, especially when it is a woman’s small, full hand that teaches the lesson.
After dinner she drove to the Teatro della Pergola. Descending the stairs in her black velvet gown with a large ermine collar, a diadem of white roses in her hair, she looked truly dazzling. I opened the carriage door and helped her in. Outside the theater, I leaped from the driver’s seat. Stepping out, she leaned on my arm, which quivered under the sweet burden. I opened the door to her box for her and then waited in the corridor. The performance lasted four hours, during which she received visits from her admirers, while I gritted my teeth in anger.
It was far past midnight when the Mistress’s bell rang a final time.
“Fire!” she ordered curtly, and when the flames were crackling in the hearth, “Tea.”
By the time I returned with the samovar, she had already undressed and was being helped into her white negligee by the Afric
an woman Haydée.
Haydée then left.
“Give me the sleeping fur,” said Wanda, drowsily stretching her beautiful limbs. I lifted the fur from the easy chair and held it while she slowly and languidly slipped into the sleeves. Then she dropped upon the cushions of the ottoman.
“Take off my shoes and put the velvet slippers on my feet.”
I knelt down and tugged on the small shoe, which was resisting me. “Quickly! Quickly!” cried Wanda. “You’re hurting me. Just wait—I’ll teach you.” She lashed me with the whip. I succeeded in doing it right!
“And now march!” A kick—then I was permitted to go to bed.
Tonight I accompanied her to a soiree. In the vestibule she ordered me to help her out of her fur; then with a proud smirk and certain of her victory, she entered the dazzling room. And again hour after hour wore by for me in dismal, monotonous thoughts; from time to time strains of music drifted out to me when the door remained open for an instant. A couple of lackeys tried to converse with me, but since I know only a few words of Italian, they soon gave up.
Eventually I fell asleep and dreamed that I murdered Wanda in a raging fit of jealousy and was condemned to death. I saw myself strapped to the plank, the ax dropped, I felt it in the back of my neck—but I was still alive—
Then the executioner slapped my face.
No, it wasn’t the executioner, it was Wanda, standing angrily before me and demanding her fur. I was with her in an instant and helped her into it.
It is really a joy to cloak a beautiful, voluptuous woman in a fur, to see, to feel the back of her neck, her limbs nestling in the soft and exquisite pelt, and to lift her surging curls and place them over the collar. And then, when she tosses off the fur and the sweet warmth and a vague scent of her body cling to the golden tips of the sable hair—it almost drives me insane!
At last a day without guests, without theater, without company. I heaved a sigh of relief. Wanda sat reading in the gallery; she appeared to have no chores for me. At the arrival of twilight and the silvery evening fog, she withdrew. I served her dinner; she dined alone, but didn’t vouchsafe me so much as a glance, a syllable, or even—a slap.
Venus in Furs Page 11
