Here was the district seat. We got out at the railroad depot. Wanda shed her fur and tossed it over my arm with a charming smile; then she went to buy the tickets.
Upon returning, she was thoroughly transformed.
“Here is your ticket, Gregor,” she said in the tone used by arrogant ladies with their lackeys.
“A third-class ticket,” I replied with comical dismay.
“Naturally,” she went on. “But make sure you don’t go to your own car until I’m settled in my compartment and no longer need you. At each stop you are to hurry over and ask for my orders. Do not fail to do so. And now hand me my fur.”
After I helped her aboard as humbly as a slave, she looked, followed by me, for a first-class compartment, strode in, leaning on my shoulder, then had me wrap her feet in bearskins and place them on a hot-water bottle.
Next she dismissed me with a nod. I slowly climbed into a third-class car, which was filled with the vilest and densest tobacco smoke the way the fog from the Acheron fills Limbo. And now I had the leisure to meditate on the enigmas of human existence, and on the greatest of these enigmas: woman.
Whenever the train halted, I jumped out, dashed to her compartment, and, doffing my cap, awaited her orders. Now she desired a coffee, now a glass of water, at one point a small supper, at another point a basin of warm water to clean her hands. Thus it went. She let herself be courted by a few admirers who had entered her compartment. I was dying of jealousy and had to leap about like a springbok, hurrying to fulfill her demands and get back to my car in time.
Night set in. I could neither eat a morsel nor sleep. I breathed the same oniony air as Polish peasants, Jewish peddlers, and common soldiers, while she, when I mounted the steps to her compartment, lay stretched out on the cushions, in her cozy fur and animal hides—an Oriental despot. And the gentlemen sat upright against the wall, like Indian gods, scarcely daring to breathe.
In Vienna, where she spent one day to do some shopping and, above all, to purchase a set of luxurious garments, she continued treating me as her domestic. I trailed behind her at a respectful distance of ten paces; she handed me her packages without so much as a friendly glance and let me pant along after her, loaded like a donkey.
Prior to our departure, she took all my clothes to donate them to the hotel waiters and ordered me to don her livery: a Cracovian costume in her colors, light blue with red facings and with silver buttons bearing her coat of arms, plus a square red cap adorned with peacock feathers; the outfit didn’t suit me all that badly. I felt as if I had been sold or had pledged my soul to the devil.
My beautiful devil took me on a tour from Vienna to Florence. Instead of Mazurs clad in linen and Jews with greasy earlocks, I now had the company of kinky-haired contadini, a magnificent sergeant of the First Italian Grenadiers, and a poor German painter. The tobacco smoke now smelled of cheese and salami instead of onions.
It was night again. I lay on my wooden bed as if on a rack, my arms and legs feeling shattered. Nevertheless the setting had its poetry: The stars were twinkling all around, the sergeant had the face of the Apollo Belvedere, and the German artist crooned a wonderful German song:
All the shadows darken
Star upon star sheds light.
What breath of hot desire
Flooding through the night!
Through the sea of dreams
Restlessly my soul,
Restlessly it steers
Toward your very soul.
And I thought of the beautiful woman sleeping as calmly as a queen in her soft furs.
Florence! Turmoil, yelling, obtrusive fachini and cabmen. Wanda chose a carriage and waved off the porters.
“What do I have a servant for?” she said. “Gregor, here’s the ticket—get the luggage.”
She wrapped herself in her fur and sat quietly in the carriage while I dragged over the heavy trunks, one after another. For an instant I collapsed under the final one; a friendly carabiniere with an intelligent face came to my rescue. Wanda laughed.
“That one must be heavy,” she said, “it contains all my furs.”
I clambered up to the driver’s seat and wiped the bright drops from my forehead. Wanda gave the cabman the name of the hotel, and he urged the horse on. Within minutes, we fetched up at the dazzling entrance.
“Do you have rooms?” she asked the desk clerk.
“Yes, Madam.”
“Two for me, one for my servant, mine with stoves.”
“Two elegant rooms for you, Madam, each with a fireplace,” replied the garçon, hurrying over, “and one without heat for your servant.”
“Show me the rooms.”
She viewed them, then said curtly, “Fine. I’m satisfied. Just light a fire quickly. My servant can sleep in an unheated room.”
I merely looked at her.
“Bring up the baggage, Gregor,” she ordered, ignoring my glances. “Meanwhile I’ll change and go down to the dining room. You can then have a bite of supper, too.”
While she stepped into the next room, I dragged up the trunks and helped the garçon—who tried to ask me about my “Mistress” in bad French—to build a fire in her bedroom. With silent envy I momentarily peered at the flaring flames, the white, airy tester bed, the rugs covering the floors. Then, tired and hungry, I went down a stairway and asked for something to eat. A good-natured waiter, who was an Austrian army veteran, made every effort to converse with me in German as he led me to the dining room and served my food. I had just sipped my first drink in thirty-six hours and had my first warm morsel on my fork when she walked in.
I rose.
“How dare you take me to a dining room where my domestic is eating!” she snapped at the garçon, blazing with anger. Then she whirled around and left.
I thanked heaven that I could at least continue eating unimpeded. Next I trudged up the four flights to my room, where my small valise was already standing and a tiny, dirty kerosene lamp was burning. It was a narrow room, with no fireplace, no windows, but with a meager vent hole. If it hadn’t been so bitterly cold, it would have reminded me of the Piombi, the lead chambers of Venice. I couldn’t help bursting into raucous laughter, which echoed so loudly that I was frightened by my own mirth.
Suddenly the door flew open, and the garçon, with a theatrical gesture, truly Italian, called, “You are to go down to Madam at once!” I took my cap, stumbled down a few steps, and at last safely reached the first landing, where I knocked at her door.
“Come in!”
I entered, closed the door, and stood there.
Wanda had made herself at home. Wearing a negligee of white muslin and lace, she sat on a small red velvet couch, her feet on a matching cushion. She wore her fur coat, the one in which she had first appeared to me as the Goddess of Love.
The yellow lights of the candelabra on the pier glass, their reflections in the large mirror, and the red flames in the hearth played marvelously on the green velvet, the dark brown sable of the coat, on her white, smooth, taut skin, and on the red, flaming hair of the beautiful woman. She turned her radiant but icy face toward me and stared at me with her cold green eyes.
“I am satisfied with you, Gregor,” she began.
I bowed.
“Come closer.”
I obeyed.
“Closer.” She looked down and stroked the sable. “Venus in Furs receives her slave. I see that you are no ordinary dreamer. You at least don’t lag behind your dreams. You are the sort of man who carries out whatever he imagines, no matter how insane. I must confess I like that, I am impressed. It shows strength, and only strength is respected. I even believe that in unusual circumstances, in an era of greatness, you would reveal your seeming weakness as a wonderful strength. Under the first emperors you would have been a martyr, at the time of the Reformation an Anabaptist, during the French Revolution one of those inspired Girondists who mounted the guillotine with the Marseillaise on their lips. But here you are my slave, my—”
She
suddenly leaped up, so that the fur sank down, and she threw her arms around my neck with gentle vehemence.
“My beloved slave, Severin—oh, how I love you, how I worship you, how dapper you look in your Cracovian costume. But you’ll freeze up there in your wretched room tonight. Should I give you my fur, my darling, the big fur—?”
She swiftly picked it up, tossed it over my shoulders, and—before I realized what was happening—had wrapped me up in it completely.
“Ah, how beautifully the fur emphasizes your face, it properly brings out your noble features. Once you’re no longer my slave, you’ll wear a velvet jacket with sable, do you understand? Otherwise I’ll never don another fur jacket….”
And she resumed stroking me, kissing me, and finally drew me down to the small velvet couch.
“I think you enjoy wearing this fur,” she said. “Hand it over, quick, quick! Otherwise I’ll lose all sense of my rank.”
I wrapped the fur around her and Wanda slipped her right arm into the sleeve.
“That’s what the Titian picture looks like. But enough joking. Don’t always have such a morose expression, it saddens me. After all, for now, you’re my servant only in the eyes of the world; you’re not my slave as yet, you haven’t signed the contract as yet. You’re still free, you can leave me at any time. You’ve played your part splendidly. I was delighted. But aren’t you fed up already? Don’t you find me repulsive? Well, speak—I command you to.”
“Must I confess it to you, Wanda?” I began.
“Yes, you must.”
“And even if you misuse it,” I went on, “I’m more in love with you than ever, and I’ll worship you more and more intensely, more and more fanatically the more you mistreat me. The way you’ve just acted toward me ignites my blood, intoxicates all my senses.” I held her tight against me and for several moments clung to her moist lips. “You beautiful woman,” I then cried, contemplating her. And in my enthusiasm I tore the sable from her shoulders and pressed my lips on the back of her neck.
“So you love me when I’m cruel,” said Wanda. “Go away! You bore me! Don’t you hear—?”
She slapped me so hard that I saw stars and my ears rang.
“Help me into my fur, slave.”
I helped as best I could.
“How clumsy,” she cried; and no sooner did she have the fur on than she slapped my face again. I could feel myself turning white.
“Did I hurt you?” she asked, gently touching me.
“No, no,” I cried.
“You mustn’t complain, though—you want it this way. Well, give me another kiss.”
I wound my arms around her, and her lips clung to mine. As she, in that large, heavy fur, lay on my chest, I had a strange, queasy feeling, as if I were being embraced by a wild beast, a female bear, as if I were about to feel her claws in my flesh. But for this time the bear released me mercifully.
My heart full of joyous hopes, I went up to my wretched servant’s room and threw myself down on my hard bed.
“Life is really incredibly funny,” I thought to myself. “Moments ago, the most beautiful woman, Venus herself, was resting on your chest, and now you’ve got the chance to study the hell of the Chinese, who, unlike us, do not fling the damned into flames but let devils drive them out into ice fields.
“The founders of religions must have also slept in unheated rooms.”
That night I started from my sleep with a yell. I had been dreaming about an ice field where I had strayed and was futilely trying to escape. Suddenly along came an Eskimo in a sleigh pulled by reindeer; he had the face of the garçon who had shown me to the unheated room.
“What are you looking for, Monsieur?” he cried. “This is the North Pole.”
A second later he had vanished, and Wanda flew up on small skates across the icy surface, her white satin coat fluttering and rustling. The ermine on her cap and her jacket, and especially her face, were shimmering whiter than the white snow. She shot straight toward me, clasped me in her arms, and began kissing me. Suddenly I felt my warm blood trickling down my side.
“What are you doing?” I cried in dismay.
She laughed, and when I looked at her now, it was no longer Wanda, it was a huge female polar bear drilling her claws into my body.
I screamed desperately and could still hear her diabolical laughter when I awoke and gaped around my room.
Early in the morning I was standing at Wanda’s door, and when the garçon brought the coffee, I took it and served it to my beautiful Mistress. She was already dressed and she looked marvelous, fresh and rosy; she smiled amiably at me, and called me back when I began respectfully withdrawing.
“Have your breakfast quickly, too, Gregor,” she said. “We’re going to look at apartments right away. I want to stay in the hotel as briefly as possible. It’s terribly awkward here. If I chitchat with you, people instantly say: ‘The Russian woman’s having an affair with her footman—you can see that Catherine’s race is not dying out.’ “
Half an hour later, we left the hotel—Wanda in her cloth frock and her Russian cap, I in my Cracovian costume. We caused a sensation. I walked ten paces behind her, frowning, yet fearing that I would burst into raucous laughter at any moment. There was scarcely a street without at least one of the pretty houses flaunting a small sign that announced, “Camere ammobiliate (Furnished Rooms).” Each time, Wanda sent me up the stairs, and it was only when I informed her that the place seemed consistent with her requirements that she went up herself. By noon I was as tired as a hound after a hunt.
Again we entered a house and again we left it without finding a suitable apartment. Wanda was in a bad mood. Suddenly she told me, “Severin, your earnestness in playing your role is charming, and the constraint we have put upon ourselves is absolutely thrilling. I can’t stand it anymore, you’re too darling. I have to kiss you. Come into a house.”
“But Madam—” I protested.
“Gregor!” She stepped into the next open vestibule, mounted several steps of a dark staircase, wound her arms around me with ardent tenderness, and kissed me.
“Ah, Severin! You were very smart. As a slave you’re more dangerous than I thought. Why, I find you irresistible. I’m afraid I’m going to fall in love with you all over again.”
“Don’t you love me anymore?” I asked, overcome with sudden dread.
She solemnly shook her head, but kissed me again with her delicious, swelling lips.
We returned to the hotel. Wanda had lunch and ordered me to likewise have a quick bite.
Needless to say, I wasn’t served as quickly as she; and so just as I was raising the second morsel of my beefsteak to my mouth, the garçon entered and, with a theatrical gesture, called, “To Madam at once.”
I took a quick and painful leave of my lunch and, weary and hungry, I dashed over to Wanda, who was already standing in the street.
“I would never, Mistress, have thought you so cruel,” I said reproachfully, “as not even to let me eat in peace after all these fatiguing activities.”
Wanda laughed heartily. “I assumed you were done,” she said, “but never mind. Man is born to suffer, and you especially. The martyrs didn’t eat any beefsteaks either.”
I followed her, resentful and sullen in my hunger.
“I’ve given up on the idea of renting an apartment in town,” Wanda went on. “It’s hard to find an entire floor where one can be secluded and do as one likes. In such a strange and fantastic relationship as ours, everything has to harmonize. I’m going to rent an entire villa and—now, just wait, you’ll be amazed. I’m allowing you to eat your fill now and then look around Florence a while. Don’t come back before evening. If I need you then, I’ll have you summoned.”
I viewed the Duomo, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Loggia di Lanzi, and then stood by the Arno for a long time. I gazed again and again at the splendid, ancient city, whose turrets and cupolas were softly delineated in the blue, cloudless sky. I gazed at the splendid bridges, with t
he beautiful yellow river driving its animated waves through their wide arches. I gazed at the green hills, which, carrying slender cypresses and spacious buildings, palaces or cloisters, surrounded Florence.
We were in a different world, a cheerful, sensual, radiant world. Nor did the landscape have any of the solemnity, the melancholy of ours. Far and wide, to the last white villas scattered in the pale green mountains, there was no spot that the sun did not put in the brightest light. The people were less earnest than we, and might think less, but they all looked happy.
Supposedly, dying is easier in the south.
I now sensed that there are such things as beauty without thorns and sensuality without torment.
Wanda discovered an adorable little villa on one of the charming hills on the left bank of the Arno, across from the Cascine, and she signed a lease for the winter. Located in an attractive garden with delightful lawns, pergolas, and a splendid camellia field, the villa had only two stories and a quadrangular floor plan in the Italian style. One façade was lined with an open gallery, a kind of loggia, with plaster casts of ancient statues and stone steps descending into the garden. From the gallery you reached a bathroom with a magnificent marble basin, from which a spiral staircase led to the Mistress’s bedchamber.
Wanda would reside alone on the second floor.
I was assigned a room on the ground floor; it was very pretty and even had a fireplace.
While roaming through the garden, I discovered a small temple on a round hillock. The door was locked, but it had a chink; and when I put my eye to it, I saw the Goddess of Love standing on a white pedestal. I shuddered slightly. She seemed to be smiling at me: “Is that you? I’ve been expecting you.”
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