Venus in Furs | Page 3

folly, is to fill
the world with fools." They have a very pointed application in the case of a work like
Venus in Furs.
F. S.
Atlantic City April, 1921

VENUS IN FURS

"But the Almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into the hands of a
woman."
--The Vulgate, Judith, xvi. 7.
My company was charming.
Opposite me by the massive Renaissance fireplace sat Venus; she was not a casual
woman of the half-world, who under this pseudonym wages war against the enemy sex,
like Mademoiselle Cleopatra, but the real, true goddess of love.
She sat in an armchair and had kindled a crackling fire, whose reflection ran in red flames
over her pale face with its white eyes, and from time to time over her feet when she
sought to warm them.
Her head was wonderful in spite of the dead stony eyes; it was all I could see of her. She
had wrapped her marble-like body in a huge fur, and rolled herself up trembling like a
cat.
"I don't understand it," I exclaimed, "It isn't really cold any longer. For two weeks past
we have had perfect spring weather. You must be nervous."
"Much obliged for your spring," she replied with a low stony voice, and immediately
afterwards sneezed divinely, twice in succession. "I really can't stand it here much longer,
and I am beginning to understand--"
"What, dear lady?"
"I am beginning to believe the unbelievable and to understand the un- understandable. All
of a sudden I understand the Germanic virtue of woman, and German philosophy, and I
am no longer surprised that you of the North do not know how to love, haven't even an
idea of what love is."
"But, madame," I replied flaring up, "I surely haven't given you any reason."
"Oh, you--" The divinity sneezed for the third time, and shrugged her shoulders with
inimitable grace. "That's why I have always been nice to you, and even come to see you
now and then, although I catch a cold every time, in spite of all my furs. Do you
remember the first time we met?"
"How could I forget it," I said. "You wore your abundant hair in brown curls, and you
had brown eyes and a red mouth, but I recognized you immediately by the outline of your
face and its marble-like pallor--you always wore a violet-blue velvet jacket edged with

squirrel-skin."
"You were really in love with the costume, and awfully docile."
"You have taught me what love is. Your serene form of worship let me forget two
thousand years."
"And my faithfulness to you was without equal!"
"Well, as far as faithfulness goes--"
"Ungrateful!"
"I will not reproach you with anything. You are a divine woman, but nevertheless a
woman, and like every woman cruel in love."
"What you call cruel," the goddess of love replied eagerly, "is simply the element of
passion and of natural love, which is woman's nature and makes her give herself where
she loves, and makes her love everything, that pleases her."
"Can there be any greater cruelty for a lover than the unfaithfulness of the woman he
loves?"
"Indeed!" she replied. "We are faithful as long as we love, but you demand faithfulness of
a woman without love, and the giving of herself without enjoyment. Who is cruel
there--woman or man? You of the North in general take love too soberly and seriously.
You talk of duties where there should be only a question of pleasure."
"That is why our emotions are honorable and virtuous, and our relations permanent."
"And yet a restless, always unsatisfied craving for the nudity of paganism," she
interrupted, "but that love, which is the highest joy, which is divine simplicity itself, is
not for you moderns, you children of reflection. It works only evil in you. As soon as you
wish to be natural, you become common. To you nature seems something hostile; you
have made devils out of the smiling gods of Greece, and out of me a demon. You can
only exorcise and curse me, or slay yourselves in bacchantic madness before my altar.
And if ever one of you has had the courage to kiss my red mouth, he makes a barefoot
pilgrimage to Rome in penitential robes and expects flowers to grow from his withered
staff, while under my feet roses, violets, and myrtles spring up every hour, but their
fragrance does not agree with you. Stay among your northern fogs and Christian incense;
let us pagans remain under the debris, beneath the lava; do not disinter us. Pompeii was
not built for you, nor our villas, our baths, our temples. You do not require gods. We are
chilled in your world."
The beautiful marble woman coughed, and drew the dark sables