Venus in Furs | Page 5

his way.
While he remained silent, the fire sang in the chimney and the large venerable samovar
sang; and the ancient chair in which I sat rocking to and fro smoking my cigar, and the
cricket in the old walls sang too. I let my eyes glide over the curious apparatus, skeletons
of animals, stuffed birds, globes, plaster-casts, with which his room was heaped full, until
by chance my glance remained fixed on a picture which I had seen often enough before.
But to-day, under the reflected red glow of the fire, it made an indescribable impression
on me.
It was a large oil painting, done in the robust full-bodied manner of the Belgian school.

Its subject was strange enough.
A beautiful woman with a radiant smile upon her face, with abundant hair tied into a
classical knot, on which white powder lay like a soft hoarfrost, was resting on an ottoman,
supported on her left arm. She was nude in her dark furs. Her right hand played with a
lash, while her bare foot rested carelessly on a man, lying before her like a slave, like a
dog. In the sharply outlined, but well-formed linaments of this man lay brooding
melancholy and passionate devotion; he looked up to her with the ecstatic burning eye of
a martyr. This man, the footstool for her feet, was Severin, but beardless, and, it seemed,
some ten years younger.
"Venus in Furs," I cried, pointing to the picture. "That is the way I saw her in my dream."
"I, too," said Severin, "only I dreamed my dream with open eyes."
"Indeed?"
"It is a tiresome story."
"Your picture apparently suggested my dream," I continued. "But do tell me what it
means. I can imagine that it played a role in your life, and perhaps a very decisive one.
But the details I can only get from you."
"Look at its counterpart," replied my strange friend, without heeding my question.
The counterpart was an excellent copy of Titian's well-known "Venus with the Mirror" in
the Dresden Gallery.
"And what is the significance?"
Severin rose and pointed with his finger at the fur with which Titian garbed his goddess
of love.
"It, too, is a 'Venus in Furs,'" he said with a slight smile. "I don't believe that the old
Venetian had any secondary intention. He simply painted the portrait of some aristocratic
Mesalina, and was tactful enough to let Cupid hold the mirror in which she tests her
majestic allure with cold satisfaction. He looks as though his task were becoming
burdensome enough. The picture is painted flattery. Later an 'expert' in the Rococo period
baptized the lady with the name of Venus. The furs of the despot in which Titian's fair
model wrapped herself, probably more for fear of a cold than out of modesty, have
become a symbol of the tyranny and cruelty that constitute woman's essence and her
beauty.
"But enough of that. The picture, as it now exists, is a bitter satire on our love. Venus in
this abstract North, in this icy Christian world, has to creep into huge black furs so as not
to catch cold--"
Severin laughed, and lighted a fresh cigarette.

Just then the door opened and an attractive, stoutish, blonde girl entered. She had wise,
kindly eyes, was dressed in black silk, and brought us cold meat and eggs with our tea.
Severin took one of the latter, and decapitated it with his knife.
"Didn't I tell you that I want them soft-boiled?" he cried with a violence that made the
young woman tremble.
"But my dear Sevtchu--" she said timidly.
"Sevtchu, nothing," he yelled, "you are to obey, obey, do you understand?" and he tore
the kantchuk [Footnote: A long whip with a short handle.] which was hanging beside the
weapons from its hook.
The woman fled from the chamber quickly and timidly like a doe.
"Just wait, I'll get you yet," he called after her.
"But Severin," I said placing my hand on his arm, "how can you treat a pretty young
woman thus?"
"Look at the woman," he replied, blinking humorously with his eyes. "Had I flattered her,
she would have cast the noose around my neck, but now, when I bring her up with the
kantchuk, she adores me."
"Nonsense!"
"Nonsense, nothing, that is the way you have to break in women."
"Well, if you like it, live like a pasha in your harem, but don't lay down theories for me--"
"Why not," he said animatedly. "Goethe's 'you must be hammer or anvil' is absolutely
appropriate to the relation between man and woman. Didn't Lady Venus in your dream
prove that to you? Woman's power lies in man's passion, and she knows how to use it, if
man doesn't understand himself. He has