Venus in Furs

by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

  “No, Wanda,” I said, “I love you more than myself, I’m devoted to you in life and in death. You can seriously do anything you please to me—whatever your wantonness suggests.”

  “Severin!”

  “Kick me!” I cried and threw myself down in front of her, my face on the floor.

  “I hate all playacting,” said Wanda impatiently.

  “Well, then abuse me seriously.”

  A sinister pause.

  “Severin, this is my last warning,” Wanda began.

  “If you love me, then be cruel to me,” I pleaded, peeking up at her.

  “If I love you?” Wanda repeated. “Very well, then!” She stepped back and contemplated me with a dark smirk. “Well, then be my slave and feel what it means to be put in a woman’s hands.” That same moment she kicked me.

  “So, how do you like that, slave?”

  Then she swung the whip.

  “Straighten up!”

  I tried to stand. “Not like that,” she commanded. “On your knees.”

  I obeyed and she began whipping me.

  The strokes fell swiftly and forcefully on my back, my arms. Each blow cut into my flesh and continued burning there, but the pains delighted me, for they came from the woman whom I worshiped, for whom I was ready at any moment to lay down my life.

  Now she stopped. “I’m beginning to enjoy it,” she said. “That’s enough for today, but I’m devilishly curious to measure the extent of your strength. I feel a cruel lust to see you quaking and writhing under my whip, and finally to hear you moaning, wailing, on and on, until you beg for mercy, and I ruthlessly keep whipping until you faint. You’ve aroused dangerous forces in my character. But now, stand up.”

  I grabbed her hand to press my lips upon it.

  “What impudence!”

  She kicked me away.

  “Out of my sight, slave!”

  After a night of confused and feverish dreams, I woke up. It was barely dawn.

  What was true among the things drifting through my memory? What had I experienced and what had I merely dreamed? I had been whipped—that much was certain; I could still feel every single stroke, I could count the red, burning welts on my body. And she had whipped me. Yes, now I knew everything.

  My fantasy had come true. How did I feel? Was I disappointed by the reality of my dream?

  No, I was just somewhat tired, but her cruelty filled me with delight. Oh, how I loved her, how I worshiped her! Ah, none of this even remotely expresses what I felt for her, how thoroughly devoted I was to her. What bliss to be her slave!

  She called from the balcony. I hurried up the steps. There she stood on the threshold, amiably offering me her hand. “I’m ashamed,” she said, while I hugged her, and she buried her head on my chest.

  “What?”

  “Try to forget yesterday’s ugly scene,” she said in a quivering voice. “I made your insane fantasy come true. Now let’s be reasonable and happy and love one another, and in a year’s time I’ll be your wife.”

  “My Mistress,” I cried, “and I your slave!”

  “Not another word about slavery, about cruelty or the whip,” Wanda broke in. “The only favor I’ll still do for you is to wear the fur jacket. Come and help me into it.”

  The small bronze clock, topped by a Cupid who had just shot his arrow, struck midnight.

  I stood up, I wanted to get out.

  Wanda said nothing, but she embraced me and pulled me back to the sofa and began to kiss me again, and there was something so intelligible, so convincing about that mute language—

  And it said even more than I dared to grasp. Such a yearning devotion imbued Wanda’s entire being, and what voluptuous softness lay in her half-closed, twilight eyes, in the red flood of her hair shimmering lightly under the white powder, in the white and red satin that rustled around her at every movement, the swelling ermine of the kazabaika, in which she casually nestled.

  “I beg you,” I stammered, “but you’ll be angry.”

  “Do whatever you like with me,” she whispered.

  “Well, kick me, I beg you. Otherwise I’ll go crazy!”

  “Haven’t I forbidden you?” Wanda snapped. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “Ah, I’m so dreadfully in love.” I had knelt down and was pressing my hot face into her lap.

  “I truly believe,” said Wanda, musing, “that your entire madness is simply a demonic, unsated sensuality. Our unnaturalness must create such diseases. If you were less virtuous, you’d be completely sensible.”

  “Well, then smarten me up,” I murmured. My hands wallowed in her hair and in the shimmering fur, which heaved and sank on her surging bosom like a moonlit wave, confusing all my senses.

  And I kissed her—no, she kissed me, so wildly, so ruthlessly, as if to kill me with her kisses. I was delirious, I had long since lost my powers of reasoning, and now I couldn’t breathe anymore. I tried to extricate myself.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Wanda.

  “I’m suffering terribly.”

  “Suffering?” She burst into loud, wicked laughter.

  “Laugh all you like!” I moaned. “Don’t you have an inkling—?”

  She suddenly turned very serious, drew my head up in her hands, and vehemently pulled me to her breasts.

  “Wanda!” I stammered.

  “Of course. You enjoy suffering,” she said, and began laughing again. “But just wait, I’ll make you reasonable soon enough.”

  “No, I don’t want to ask any more questions,” I cried. “Whether you belong to me forever or only for a blissful instant, I want to enjoy my happiness. You’re mine now, and it’s better to lose you than never to possess you.”

  “Now you’re being reasonable,” she said, and kissed me again with her murderous lips, and I tore apart the ermine, the lace covering, and her bare breasts surged against my chest.

  Then I fainted….

  The first thing I recall is the moment when I saw blood dripping from my hand and I apathetically asked: “Did you scratch me?”

  “No, I think I bit you.”

  It’s truly strange how every relationship in life takes on a different cast as soon as a new person enters.

  We spent marvelous days with each other, we visited the mountains, the lakes, we read together, and I finished my portrait of Wanda.

  And how we loved each other, how radiant was her charming face.

  Then along came a friend of hers, a divorcée, somewhat older, somewhat more experienced, and somewhat less scrupulous than Wanda, and her experience was brought to bear in every respect.

  Wanda frowned and acted somewhat impatient toward me. Had she stopped loving me?

  For almost two weeks that unbearable constraint. Her friend was staying with her, we were never alone. A circle of gentlemen surrounded the two young women. With my earnestness, my melancholy, I played a foolish role as a lover. Wanda treated me like a stranger.

  One day, during a stroll, she lagged behind with me. I saw that it was intentional and I rejoiced. What did she say?

  “My friend doesn’t understand how I can love you. She finds you neither handsome nor particularly appealing, and then she entertains me from morning till late at night, talking about the glamorous, frivolous life in the capital. She tells me about the advantages I could demand, the wonderful matches I would find, the handsome and noble suitors I’d be bound to captivate. But what good is all that? It’s you I love.”

  For an instant I couldn’t breathe. Then I said: “I absolutely don’t want to stand in the way of your happiness, Wanda. Don’t show me any further consideration.” I doffed my hat and let her go ahead. She gaped at me, astonished, but didn’t say a word.

  However, when I happened to get near her on the way back, she stealthily squeezed my hand, and her gaze was so warm, so auspicious, that all the torments of these days were promptly forgotten, all wounds were healed.

  Now I again knew so clearly how much I loved her.

  “
My friend has complained about you,” Wanda told me.

  “She may sense that I despise her.”

  “Why do you despise her, you little fool?” cried Wanda, grabbing my ears with both hands.

  “Because she’s a hypocrite,” I said. “I can respect a woman only if she is truly virtuous or openly lives for pleasure.”

  “Like me,” Wanda countered jokingly. “But look, my child, a woman can do so only in the rarest cases. She can be neither as cheerfully sensual nor as spiritually free as a man. Her love is always a blend of sensuality and spiritual attachment. Her heart longs to captivate the man permanently, while she herself is prey to change. And so, usually against her will, a dichotomy, a pack of lies and deception comes into her conduct, into her being, and corrupts her character.”

  “That’s certainly true,” I said. “The transcendental character that a woman wants to force upon her love will lead her to cheat—”

  “But the world demands it,” Wanda broke in. “Just look at this woman. In Lemberg she has her husband and her lover and here she’s found a new admirer, and she deceives all three of them and yet she’s adored by this trio and esteemed by the world.”

  “Fine with me,” I cried. “But she simply ought to leave you out of the game. Why, she treats you like a commodity.”

  “Why not,” the beautiful woman briskly interrupted me. “Every woman has the instinct, the propensity to profit from her charms, and there’s a lot to be said for giving oneself without love, without pleasure. While doing so, a woman remains quite cold-blooded and can gain her advantage.”

  “Wanda, do you mean that?”

  “Why not?” she responded. “Make a point of remembering what I’m about to tell you: Never feel safe with the woman you love, for a woman’s nature conceals more dangers that you think. Women are neither as good as their admirers and defenders would have it nor as bad as their enemies make them out to be. A woman’s character is her lack of character. The best woman sinks momentarily into filth, the worst woman rises unexpectedly to great good deeds, putting her despisers to shame. No woman is so good or so evil as not to be capable at any moment of both the most diabolical and most divine, both the foulest and the purest thoughts, feelings, actions. Despite all progress of civilization, women have remained exactly as they emerged from the hand of Nature. A woman has the character of a savage, who acts loyal or disloyal, generous or gruesome, depending on whatever impulse happens to rule him at the moment. In all times, only deep and earnest formation has created the moral character. Thus, a man, no matter how selfish, how malevolent he may be, always follows principles, while a woman always follows only impulses. Never forget this and never feel safe with the woman you love.”

  Her friend had departed. Finally an evening alone with Wanda. It was as if after withdrawing her love, she had been saving all of it for this one blissful evening—she was so kind, so intimate, so full of grace.

  What bliss to cling to her lips, to die away in her arms—and then she rested on my chest, so utterly relaxed, so utterly devoted to me, and our gazes, so drunk with bliss, submerged in one another.

  I still could not believe, could not grasp that this woman was mine, all mine.

  “She’s right about one thing,” Wanda began without stirring, without even opening her eyes, as if asleep.

  “Who?”

  She was silent.

  “Your friend?”

  She nodded. “Yes, she’s right. You’re not a man, you’re a dreamer, a charming admirer, and you’d certainly make an invaluable slave, but I can’t picture you as a husband.”

  I recoiled.

  “What’s wrong? You’re trembling.”

  “I’m terrified at the thought of losing you so easily,” I replied.

  “Well, are you any less happy for it?” she countered. “Does it deprive you of any of your joys to know that I belonged to other men before you, that others will possess me after you, and would you have less pleasure if someone else were happy at the same time as you?”

  “Wanda!”

  “Look,” she said, “that would be a solution. You never want to lose me, I care for you, and spiritually you’re so attractive that I would like to live with you forever if along with you—”

  “What a dreadful idea!” I yelled. “You horrify me.”

  “And do you love me any the less?”

  “Quite the opposite.”

  Wanda was now leaning on her left arm. “I think,” she said, “that if a woman wants to captivate a man forever she must, above all, be unfaithful to him. What decent woman has ever been so greatly worshiped as a hetaera?”

  “A woman’s infidelity is certainly a painful stimulus, the supreme voluptuousness.”

  “For you too?” Wanda asked quickly.

  “For me too.”

  “And what if I provided you with this pleasure?” Wanda taunted.

  “Then I will suffer dreadfully, yet worship you all the more,” I replied. “But you must never deceive me, you must have the demonic greatness to tell me: ‘I will love only you, but I will make anyone who appeals to me happy.’ “

  Wanda shook her head: “I abhor deception. I’m an honest person—but what man doesn’t succumb under the brunt of truth? If I told you, ‘This sensually cheerful life, this paganism are my ideal,’ would you have the strength to endure it?”

  “Certainly. I’m willing to endure anything from you so long as I don’t lose you. I can feel how little I mean to you.”

  “But Severin—”

  “It’s true,” I said, “and that’s precisely why—”

  “Why you’d like….” She smirked roguishly. “Have I guessed it?”

  “To be your slave!” I cried. “With no will of my own! To be your absolute property, with which you can do as you please and which can therefore never be a burden on you. While you drink life to the full amid sumptuous luxury, while you enjoy cheerful happiness, Olympian love, I would like to serve you, put your shoes on your feet and take them off.”

  “You’re really not all that wrong,” replied Wanda, “for only as my slave could you endure my loving others. And besides, the freedom of enjoyment in the ancient world is unthinkable without slavery. Oh, a person must feel like a God when he sees others kneeling before him, trembling. I want to have slaves, do you hear, Severin?”

  “Am I not your slave?”

  “Now listen,” said Wanda excitedly, grabbing my hand. “I want to be yours so long as I love you.”

  “One month?”

  “Perhaps even two.”

  “And then?”

  “Then you’ll be my slave.”

  “And you?”

  “I? Why do you ask? I am a Goddess and sometimes I descend quietly to you, very quietly and secretly from my Olympus.

  “But what is all this about?” said Wanda, propping her head on her hands, gazing into the distance. “A golden fantasy that can never come true.” A brutal, sinister melancholy infused her entire being. I had never seen her like this.

  “And why can’t it materialize?” I began.

  “Because slavery doesn’t exist in our country.”

  “Then let’s go to a country where it still exists, to the Orient, to Turkey,” I said eagerly.

  “You’d want to—Severin—seriously,” retorted Wanda. Her eyes were burning.

  “Yes, I seriously want to be your slave,” I went on. “I want your power over me to be sanctified by law, I want my life to be in your hands, I want nothing in this world to be able to protect me or save me from you. Oh, what voluptuousness to feel dependent entirely on your whim, your mood, a flick of your finger! And then what bliss when you feel merciful for a change and allow the slave to kiss the lips to which he clings for life or death!” I knelt and leaned my hot forehead on her lap.

  “You’re feverish, Severin,” said Wanda, excited, “and do you really love me so endlessly?” She hugged me and covered me with kisses.

  “So you want to?” she began, hesitant.


  “I swear to you here, by God and my honor, that I am your slave wherever and whenever you like, as soon as you order me,” I cried, barely in control of myself.

  “And if I take you at your word?” asked Wanda.

  “Do it.”

  “It’s the most appealing thing in the world,” she said, “to find a man who worships me, and whom I love with all my soul, and to know that he’s so utterly devoted to me and dependent on my will, my whim, and to possess that man as a slave, while I—”

  She eyed me strangely.

  “If I become quite frivolous, then it’s your fault,” she continued. “I almost believe you’re already afraid of me, but I have your oath.”

  “And I will keep it.”

  “I’ll make sure of that,” she retorted. “Now I’m starting to enjoy it, now it should no longer remain a fantasy, by God. You will be my slave, and I—I will try to be Venus in Furs.”

  I had thought I finally knew and understood this woman, but now I saw that I would have to start all over again. A short time ago she had been so repelled by my fantasies, and now she was so seriously acting upon them.

  She drew up a contract binding me by my oath and word of honor to be her slave as long as she desired it.

  With her arm slung around my neck, she read the outrageous, unbelievable document to me; every sentence was sealed with a kiss.

  “But the contract contains only obligations for me,” I said, teasing her.

  “Naturally,” she retorted very earnestly. “You are no longer my lover, and that releases me from all obligations, all considerations toward you. You must then view my favor as a grace. You have no rights and therefore cannot bring any right to bear. My power over you must be unlimited. Think, you man, you’re not much better than a dog, a lifeless object. You are my thing, my toy, which I can smash just to while away an hour. You are nothing, and I am everything. Do you understand?”

  She laughed and kissed me again, and yet I felt a cold chill running through my body.

  “Won’t you allow me a few conditions—?” I began.

  “Conditions?” She frowned. “Ah, you’re already scared or you’re having second thoughts. But you’re too late, I have your oath, your word of honor. Still, let me hear your conditions.”