by Ray Furness
‘Do you know that I love you very much today?’ she murmurs, brushing a few loose hairs from my brow and kissing my eyes.
‘How beautiful your eyes are … they have always been your best part, but today they absolutely intoxicate me.
Look I’m expiring …’ and she stretched her lovely limbs and gazed at me tenderly through her red lashes. ‘And you, how cold you are, you are holding me as though I were a piece of wood … Just wait, I’ll make you infatuated!’ she cried, and hung upon my lips, soft and caressing. ‘So, I don’t please you any more … I must be cruel to you again, I was too kind today, apparently. Do you know, you silly little man, I think I’ll beat you a little …’
‘But, darling …’
‘I want to.’
‘Wanda!’
‘Come, let me tie you up,’ she continued, and ran around the room, mischievously. ‘I want to see you truly in love, do you understand? Here are the ropes. I wonder if I can still do it?’
She began tying my feet, then she tied my hands firmly behind my back and then bound my arms like a prisoner.
‘So,’ she said, serene and eager, ‘can you move?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
She made a lasso of a strong piece of rope, threw it over my head and drew it down to my hips; she pulled it tight and tied me to a pillar.
‘I have the feeling that I am being executed,’ I said quietly.
‘You’re going to get a real whipping today again,’ cried Wanda.
‘But, please,’ I said, ‘put on the fur jacket.’
‘Well, I can give you that pleasure,’ she replied, brought forth the jacket and slipped it on, smiling; then she stood there, her arms crossed on her breast and gazed at me, her eyes half closed.
‘Do you know the story of the Ox of Dionys?’ she asked.
‘Only vaguely … What is it?’
‘One of the courtiers dreamed up this new torture-instrument for the despot of Syracuse, an ox made of iron in which they would place the condemned man before putting the whole thing into the fire. When the iron ox began to glow red-hot the prisoner inside would start to scream, and his agony sounded like the roaring of an ox. Dionys smiled graciously at the inventor and in order to make the first demonstration forced the courtier inside his own invention. This is a very useful precept. It was you, you see, who inoculated me with selfishness, arrogance and cruelty and so you shall be my first victim. I really find pleasure in having a human being who thinks, feels and succumbs to my power, particularly a man who is physically and mentally stronger than I am, in order to ill-treat him, and above all a man who loves me.’
‘To distraction!’ I cried.
‘All the better,’ she said, ‘and you’ll find all the more pleasure in that which is about to happen to you.’
‘What is wrong?’ I asked. ‘I don’t understand you, there really seems to be a cruel gleam in your eyes, and you are strangely beautiful, like Venus in Furs …’
Without answering she put her arms about my neck and kissed me. At this moment I was seized again with the full madness of my passion.
‘Well, where is the whip?’ I asked.
Wanda took two steps backward, and laughed.
‘You really want to be beaten?’ she cried, tossing her head back proudly
‘Yes!’
Suddenly Wanda’s face changed, twisted in anger, and for a second she seemed almost ugly.
‘Beat him, Alexis!’ she screamed.
At that moment the handsome Greek thrust his head between the curtains of the four-poster bed. I was struck dumb, rigid. The situation was extremely comical and I would have laughed aloud if it had not been at the same time so desperately sad and shameful for me. And my blood ran cold when my rival stepped forth in his riding boots, his tight white trousers, his close-fitting velvet coat, and my glance fell on his athletic body.
‘You are cruel, indeed,’ he said, turning to Wanda.
‘I am only a hedonist’ she replied with a wild sense of humour. ‘Only pleasure makes life worthwhile; only the one who enjoys life departs unwillingly from it; he who suffers and pines greets death as a friend. He who wishes to enjoy life must accept it serenely, as the ancients did: he must not fear to enjoy life at others’ expense, he must never show pity and must yoke others like animals before his carriage, his plough, others who feel, who would fain enjoy life – he must make them his slaves, he must exploit them for his own ends, his own pleasure, without remorse; he must not ask whether they are suffering, or whether they will perish. He must always remember this: if I were in their hands they would do the same, and I would have to pay with my sweat, my blood, for their souls delight. That was the world of the Ancients; pleasure and cruelty, freedom and bondage went hand in hand. Those who wished to live as Olympian gods had to have slaves whom they could fling into their fishponds and gladiators who would fight whilst they themselves ate opulent meals and never worried if they were sprayed with spurting blood.’
Her words brought me fully to my senses. ‘Let me loose!’ I screamed angrily.
‘Are you not my slave, my property?’ Wanda retorted. ‘Shall I show you our agreement?’
‘Let me free!’ I threatened, ‘otherwise –’ I tore at the bonds.
‘Can he break free?’ she asked. ‘He’s threatened to kill me.’
‘Don’t worry,’ the Greek replied, inspecting the knots.
‘I’ll scream for help,’ I continued.
‘Nobody will hear you,’ said Wanda, ‘and nobody will stop me from abusing your noblest feelings and playing a frivolous game with you …’ She continued to speak with a diabolical contempt, repeating the phrases of my letter. ‘Do you now find me simply cruel and merciless, or am I about to become common’? Tell me, do you still love me, or are you starting to hate me, to despise me? Take the whip …’ and she gave it to the Greek who quickly stepped up to me.
‘Don’t you dare!’ I yelled, trembling with rage, ‘I won’t take anything from you!’
‘You’re only saying that because I’m not wearing fur,’ the Greek replies, smiling frivolously, and picking his short sable jacket from the bed.
‘You are divine!’ Wanda cried, kissing him and helping him into the fur.
‘May I really whip him?’ he asked.
‘Do whatever you want with him.’
‘You beast!’ I shouted.
The Greek fixed me with his cold eyes, like a tiger and tried out the whip; his muscles rippled as he cracked it, whilst I was tied there like Marsyas and was forced to watch Apollo preparing to skin me.
I looked around the room and fixed my gaze on the ceiling where Samson was being blinded at Delilah’s feet. The picture now seemed a symbol or eternal parable of passion, of lust, of the love of man for woman. ‘Each of us is essentially a Samson,’ I thought, ‘and will be betrayed by the woman he loves, whether she’s wearing a homespun bodice or sable.’
‘Now watch, Wanda, how I’m going to discipline him,’ said the Greek. He bared his teeth and his face assumed that bloodthirsty expression that had terrified me the first time I saw him.
And he began to whip me, so ruthlessly, so dreadfully that I flinched at every blow, my whole body shuddering with pain, with tears pouring down my cheeks, whilst Wanda lay in her fur jacket on the ottoman, her head on her hand: she watched with cruel curiosity, her whole body shaking with laughter.
The feeling of being ill treated by a rival before the woman one worships is indescribable: I almost expired with shame and desperation.
And the most shameful thing was, that in my wretched helplessness, beneath Apollo’s whip and the laughter of Venus, I felt a kind of fantastic, supersensory titillation – but Apollo soon beat this out of me, blow by blow, until I finally bit my teeth in impotent rage and cursed myself, my lubricious fantasies, women and love.
With a fearful clarity I suddenly saw where blind passion, where lust could lead a man, since the days of Holofernes and Agamemnon – int
o the sack, the net, the hands of a treacherous woman, into misery, subjection, death.
It was as though I had woken from a dream.
My blood was already spurting beneath his lashes, I was writhing like a worm which one stamps upon, but he continued to beat me, to whip me mercilessly, and she kept on laughing, mercilessly, as she closed the packed suitcases and slipped into her travelling furs; she was still laughing as she went down the stairs on his arm and got into the carriage.
Then it was still for a moment.
I listened, breathless.
The carriage door slammed shut, the horses started, the wheels rolled – then all was silent.
Extracts from Venus im Pelz. Mit einer Studie über
den Masochismus von Gilles Deleuze..
Insel Taschenbuch 469.
Hermann Bahr: The School of Love
The Dandy
Rocking back and forward in his armchair while he manicured his fingernails, he found it pleasantly titillating to imagine the girl – she had not even told him her name – clinging to him under the blossoming apple trees as a gentle breeze wafted over them, or in the evening, gliding homewards over the water, her quivering body pressed against his in the narrow boat. ‘Tant pis pour elle’, he said as he stood up, throwing the nail-scissors in an arc towards the table. ‘I’m not running after her. There are plenty more like that.’
In fact, it was a piece of luck. Good-natured as he was, and with his inability to resist any mood, the most that would have come of it would have been some banal entanglement. The one thing that was certain was that she was not his style
No, she was not his ideal woman, not even a distant cousin a hundred times removed. Now, as he threw off his dressing gown and settled down in front of the mirror, legs spread-eagled over the cushion, to work on the masterpiece of his toilette, carefully twisting his locks into dreamy curls, drawing out the proud lance of his Vandyke, long, very long, with much brilliantine, and subjecting himself to a loving and satisfied scrutiny, now, once again, his ideal appeared before him with almost tangible clarity, so imperial and junoesque; and then this shy, innocent swallow beside her, the image of Gerard’s Psychè, yes, really, even – he remembered – the same ringlets in her hair, at the front, falling down over her forehead. No, there was no comparison; she might well be very sweet, for modest requirements, but he, unfortunately, was already spoken for, sorry and all that.
He lingered for a long time among these pleasant images because, in accordance with his bad habit, he lingered for a long time in front of the mirror, until his mane was finally tamed and his elaborate cravat, with its multicoloured, fluttering points, was tied in its artistic knot. He burst out laughing when he saw from the clock that he had once again wasted two hours prettifying himself – like a cocotte, his friends said, only she makes a profit out of it. They could not get over his vanity.
But no, his was not the common vanity they imagined. Yes, he loved dressing up, and he was happy if he could wear something different, something out of the ordinary, striking and amusing. Yes, he did have a luxurious lace shirt with a soft, broad, turn-down collar, with glorious embroidery such as would have made old d’Aubrevilly green with envy. And yes, he did have a pearl-grey sombrero with a huge brim, such as only the proudest Andalusian picador would wear, so that some people took him for a porter from les Halles. But he did not wear them to please the crowd, nor did he calculate on attracting women’s glances. It was just that he was tormented by the desire to differentiate himself from the rest in his external appearance, just as he knew how incomparably different he was in his inner being. He was different from the rest, why should he not appear so? And every day he needed this reassurance, this confirmation, to counter his pressing doubts as to whether he really was one of a kind and did not belong to the mass. How else could he ever perfect his art?
Ennui
Moody they called him. Yes, why did they not leave him alone, why were they always interfering with him, and why did everyone try to mould him, and everyone want to change him, and everyone want to force him to follow their own prescription, why was no one happy with him as he was! Then of course he ended up losing all his sangfroid and beating his wings against the floor and ceiling, bemused, fluttering round in circles by fits and starts, staggering about in mortal fear of the constant, unceasing drumming and hammering against all the bars of the cage, an infernal din. Why could they not leave him as he was – truly, a modest desire – why not let him follow his own nature, listen to his own wishes, obey his own intentions, why could they not let him be? This was what had spoilt him, this alone and no fault of his, that everywhere the tyranny of the outside world, nothing other than this eternal tyranny, stupid, coarse, imperious, was lying in wait for him in a thousand ambushes, now attacking him like a brigand with open violence, now treacherously camouflaged in flattering counsel, garbed in sympathy and friendship, but unyielding in its daily attacks; no wonder he had finally succumbed to this persecution mania with which he tormented himself and others, bewildered, distrustful, suspicious of the whole world.
* * * *
Bondage and service – that was what they all demanded, and from everyone. This craving to find themselves in another, to subjugate and appropriate foreign territory, to create a new field for their own will in a second body, foreign flesh for their own soul; this greedy, consuming hunger devoured every other desire, and they called it friendship! And he, who was fainting with this nameless longing for a real friend, he who, instead of always wanting only to take, would have surrendered to a friend and enriched his soul instead of pillaging it with fire and sword, like some insatiable vampire!
Alone, alone – why would they not leave one alone? Was there not pain enough without one having to suffer this cruel, merciless torture, all life through, this bitter, tormenting nausea at those around one? But their meddling fingers tore him apart, and he could see no hope and despaired, and often they spoilt even animals for him, even things, in fact everything that was not a product of his mind.
Yes, finally all this had brought him to a state where he hated everything that was not of his own imagining. He could not bear it. And he remembered that insignificant things, ridiculously insignificant things had unleashed a rabid fury within him – a tune whistled in the street that stuck in his ear, frightening away his own thoughts and resisting all his attempts to shake it off, to drive it out; or a longed-for letter which just would not come with the post, even though it had long since arrived in his imagination; or when he was held up by the crush of people at a counter, while in his mind he had already completed the business; all these endless, loathsome memories, every day, so that he was never alone, was never free.
Then sometimes he was overcome with the feeling that he wanted to smash everything to pieces, all around, to lay waste to every sign of life with fire and sword, to raze to the ground like the Vandals all traces of others, just to put an end to this perpetual, insupportable ordering about by people and things, to create a desert around him, a still, silent desert.
The Artist
Alone, alone – somewhere high up in the ice or deep down on the bed of the bellowing sea, where none of the insistent noise of everyday life could reach him and he would be safe from the coarse, grasping claws of others! Ordinary, common people – yes, they might be able to put up with their self being stolen and replaced with an alien, they did not need their self. But the artist – how could he live without this tool of his craft?
Clearly it was the artist, the artist within him, from which all this suffering came. This comforted him and awoke within him an almost cosy mental image in which he wearily wrapped himself up on the heavy, wide, luxurious divan, above which his wild Japanese masks looked out with their mocking grins, their shaggy horsehair moustaches and twisted mouths. It comforted him because it could not be called suffering if it was a sign of art.
Yes, clearly, the artist within him, the artist … he never tired of repeating it in order to reassure
himself. Of course others did not have this sense of self, so fervent and boundless, nor this dogged defiance the moment anything tried to approach it, nor this mortal fear, breathless and feverish, of losing it. They did not care whether they possessed it or not, because they never made use of it, could easily do without it and not even notice. They could be happy. But the artist!?
True, it was a comfort because it satisfied his pride, but he could not conceal from himself the logical conclusion that this meant his suffering was unavoidable, without help, hopeless, not mere chance, which might change, but necessary, unalterable fate, if it came not from the malice of the world, but from himself and his art. And that again annoyed him, not the fact that it was so, but that he knew it. That took the heart out of him, all his power of decision and even his cheerful hatred of mankind and the world, which at least provided, mingled with hope and sorrow as it was, some pleasant exercise for the soul. As long as he deceived himself about the truth, he could blame fortune and have confidence in the future. Now the clouds of madness were closing round his mind.
But it was one of his unfortunate habits, which he could never escape however many resolutions he made, to spend whole days on the sofa, swinging up and down on the trapeze of his thoughts, to dizzier and dizzier heights, and to insist on poking round in his brain, probing deeper and deeper, right down to its hidden roots. This curiosity about himself was something he had had since his youth, and of course it was the artist again, always the artist, who never tired of thus hearing his confession every day and of exploring every corner of his conscience. But how else could he have any hope of eventually discovering the great mystery that was sleeping and would not wake, somewhere deep down in the depths of his soul.
So he explored, explored within himself, scanning himself with a lamp, as if it were not himself at all but some strange monster that he had been commanded to guard. Holding his breath and leaning forward in concentration, he listened, to see whether the miracle would happen and it would finally show signs of life. In the meantime at least he recorded every detail of what he found, in order to assure himself that he really was an exceptional individual, a superior nature, an homme d’élite.