Venus in Furs | Page 4

still closer about her
shoulders.
"Much obliged for the classical lesson," I replied, "but you cannot deny, that man and

woman are mortal enemies, in your serene sunlit world as well as in our foggy one. In
love there is union into a single being for a short time only, capable of only one thought,
one sensation, one will, in order to be then further disunited. And you know this better
than I; whichever of the two fails to subjugate will soon feel the feet of the other on his
neck--"
"And as a rule the man that of the woman," cried Madame Venus with proud mockery,
"which you know better than I."
"Of course, and that is why I don't have any illusions."
"You mean you are now my slave without illusions, and for that reason you shall feel the
weight of my foot without mercy."
"Madame!"
"Don't you know me yet? Yes, I am cruel--since you take so much delight in that
word-and am I not entitled to be so? Man is the one who desires, woman the one who is
desired. This is woman's entire but decisive advantage. Through his passion nature has
given man into woman's hands, and the woman who does not know how to make him her
subject, her slave, her toy, and how to betray him with a smile in the end is not wise."
"Exactly your principles," I interrupted angrily.
"They are based on the experience of thousands of years," she replied ironically, while
her white fingers played over the dark fur. "The more devoted a woman shows herself,
the sooner the man sobers down and becomes domineering. The more cruelly she treats
him and the more faithless she is, the worse she uses him, the more wantonly she plays
with him, the less pity she shows him, by so much the more will she increase his desire,
be loved, worshipped by him. So it has always been, since the time of Helen and Delilah,
down to Catherine the Second and Lola Montez."
"I cannot deny," I said, "that nothing will attract a man more than the picture of a
beautiful, passionate, cruel, and despotic woman who wantonly changes her favorites
without scruple in accordance with her whim--"
"And in addition wears furs," exclaimed the divinity.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I know your predilection."
"Do you know," I interrupted, "that, since we last saw each other, you have grown very
coquettish."
"In what way, may I ask?"
"In that there is no way of accentuating your white body to greater advantage than by

these dark furs, and that--"
The divinity laughed.
"You are dreaming," she cried, "wake up!" and she clasped my arm with her
marble-white hand. "Do wake up," she repeated raucously with the low register of her
voice. I opened my eyes with difficulty.
I saw the hand which shook me, and suddenly it was brown as bronze; the voice was the
thick alcoholic voice of my cossack servant who stood before me at his full height of
nearly six feet.
"Do get up," continued the good fellow, "it is really disgraceful."
"What is disgraceful?"
"To fall asleep in your clothes and with a book besides." He snuffed the candles which
had burned down, and picked up the volume which had fallen from my hand, "with a
book by"--he looked at the title page-- "by Hegel. Besides it is high time you were
starting for Mr. Severin's who is expecting us for tea."
"A curious dream," said Severin when I had finished. He supported his arms on his knees,
resting his face in his delicate, finely veined hands, and fell to pondering.
I knew that he wouldn't move for a long time, hardly even breathe. This actually
happened, but I didn't consider his behavior as in any way remarkable. I had been on
terms of close friendship with him for nearly three years, and gotten used to his
peculiarities. For it cannot be denied that he was peculiar, although he wasn't quite the
dangerous madman that the neighborhood, or indeed the entire district of Kolomea,
considered him to be. I found his personality not only interesting--and that is why many
also regarded me a bit mad--but to a degree sympathetic. For a Galician nobleman and
land-owner, and considering his age--he was hardly over thirty--he displayed surprising
sobriety, a certain seriousness, even pedantry. He lived according to a minutely
elaborated, half-philosophical, half- practical system, like clock-work; not this alone, but
also by the thermometer, barometer, aerometer, hydrometer, Hippocrates, Hufeland, Plato,
Kant, Knigge, and Lord Chesterfield. But at times he had violent attacks of sudden
passion, and gave the impression of being about to run with his head right through a wall.
At such times every one preferred to get out of