The Sexual Life of Our Time in Its Relations to Modern Civilization / Translated from the Sixth German Edition

by Iwan Bloch

CHAPTER XXI

The homosexual and pseudo-homosexual phenomena described in the preceding chapters constitute a far from universal variety of sexual impulse, but “algolagnia” is much commoner. This name was introduced by Schrenck-Notzing as a general term for the phenomena of sadism and masochism, since these two sexual aberrations are closely related one to the other.

Algolagnia, or painful lasciviousness, if we exclude from consideration its most extreme manifestations, such as lust-murder and suicide from lust, belongs unquestionably to the most widely diffused of sexual aberrations; indeed, in its slighter forms it is almost universal. An experienced woman told Havelock Ellis[588] that she had known only one single man who was entirely free from sadistic lust; and, on the other hand, there are few women in whose sexuality no algolagnistic phenomena are demonstrable. This is natural, for algolagnia, differing in this respect from other sexual aberrations, has the deepest biological roots. Its nucleus, pleasure in the pain of others or in one’s own pain (the term “pain” being here used in the very widest significance, both physical and mental), is an elementary phenomenon of amatory activity. “Love is in its very nature pain,” we read in the “Divan” of the Persian poet Rûmi. It is certain that we have here to do with an anthropological phenomenon, one that is normal within wide limits. Algolagnia plays the greatest rôle in the individual life of single human beings and in the civilized life of humanity at large. It enables us to get a view into the hidden depths of the human spirit, and displays to us the remarkable phenomenon of the association of primeval animal instincts with the highest spirituality. It at the same time debases love, and renders it more profound, and it touches the most secret aspects of our nature.

“Der Schmerz beseelt
Und er entfesselt nied’re Triebe,
Die sonst dem Menschenherz gefehlt....
Der Schmerz betäubt—er kann beglücken,
Im Schmerz liegt ein geheimes Fleh’n;
Er lässt mit feurigem Berücken
Ein frevelhaftes Bild ersteh’n,”

[“Pain animates
And unchains lower impulses,
Which had otherwise been absent from the human heart....
Pain benumbs—but may also give happiness,
For in pain is hidden a secret prayer;
With an ardent charm
It gives rise to a wanton idea”]

sings Joseph Lauff in his “Geisslerin” (Cologne, 1901). Is there any pleasure without pain? is there any love without sorrow? He who is familiar with the history of civilization will answer these questions in the negative. Pain is a civilizing factor of the first rank; it is the necessary pre-condition and the inevitable accompaniment of pleasure and the affirmation of life. This is the central idea of the philosophy of Nietzsche. The pain of love is only a special case of the great immeasurable Weltschmerz and Weltlust (world-pain and world-joy), which move us so deeply in the powerful descriptions of Schopenhauer, and have always been the most lofty objects of contemplation to philosophers and to students of civilization.[589]

That love-pleasure and love-pain, the forces of creation and destruction—yes, indeed, that love and death (which Leopardi in a wonderful poem celebrated as twin brothers)—are separated only by a “thin veil” (Havelock Ellis), was an idea first expressed in the celebrated work of the formidable Marquis de Sade,[590] whose books, taken as a whole, are merely a paraphrase of the idea of the connexion between pain and voluptuousness; and, moreover, de Sade does not recognize this connexion only in active algolagnia—that is, in the infliction of pain, the voluptuousness of cruelty, the so-called “sadism”—but he recognizes it equally in passive algolagnia, in the suffering of pain, the voluptuousness of being tortured, in the state named after the author Sacher-Masoch, “masochism.” De Sade, who was the first consistent advocate of the anthropologico-ethnological theory of psychopathia sexualis, himself collected almost all the facts regarding the biological roots of painful lasciviousness, and regarding algolagnistic phenomena in ethnology and in the history of civilization.

The foundation for the understanding of active and passive algolagnia is constituted by the fact that we have here, in the first place, to do with a purely biological phenomenon, which makes its appearance in every normal love. The sexual act exhibits to us pain and pleasure in an indissoluble association. Love’s embrace is a “sweet pain,” a painful pleasure.[591]

The nature of the sense of voluptuousness is still rather obscure, but it is certain that painful sensations make their appearance as its accompaniment, probably indeed as an actual part of voluptuousness. I may remind the reader of the interesting remarks of Edmund Forster, mentioned on [p. 44], regarding the conception of sexual tension as a stimulation of the pain-perceiving nerves of the genital organs. Still more clearly is pain reflected (pain both active and passive) in the love-embrace itself, in the phenomena[592] which we previously ([pp. 50]-[51]) described, such as fierce embraces, convulsive seizures, grinding of the teeth, screaming and biting, both on the part of the man and on the part of the woman. Lucretius (“De Rerum Natura,” iv., verses 1054-1061) gave a vivid description of the normal sadistic and masochistic accompaniments of coitus. In this association sadism certainly predominates on the part of the man, though not exclusively; and, contrariwise, masochism predominates, though not exclusively, on the part of the woman. The sadistic “love-bites,” for example, are more frequently given by the woman, especially among savage races,[593] but among the Slavonic peoples it is the man rather who practises the “biting-kiss” during the sexual act.[594]

“Es brausen mir wie Wirbelwind
Im Busen namenlose Triebe:
Ich möchte dich beissen, einzig Kind,
Du süsse Frucht, vor Lust and Liebe,”

[“Nameless impulses are raging
Like a whirlwind in my breast:
I should like to bite you, little one,
Sweet little fruit, to bite you from desire and love”]

writes Karl Beck in his “Stille Lieder.”

How closely these phenomena are connected with the ideas of blood and cruelty, and how this connexion is favoured by the redness and the flow of blood during sexual excitement, are matters previously discussed ([p. 51]); and in my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis” (vol. ii., pp. 39-41) I have considered the question at greater length. In the same category must also be placed the sexually stimulating influence of red colours.

In association with these algolagnistic manifestations, so long as they remain within physiological bounds, we do not so much see actual physical pain, the actual infliction of suffering or cruelty, as the idea thereof, as mental pain; indeed, actual pain is often not lustful, as such, but only in idea. Eulenburg,[595] especially, has rightly drawn attention to this mental intensification of algolagnia. Mental pain and tears give a wonderful depth to love, increase passion, as Goethe describes in his “Stella.” Love needs pain, in order to be perceived as love. Why? Because pain is something new, a contrast to pleasure, whose eternity would be unbearable. This is described very clearly in the “Letters of Ninon de L’Enclos,” which, though apocryphal, are not less psychologically interesting (German edition, pp. 220, 221; Berlin, 1906).

“Change in the spiritual state is important to the happiness of both the lovers. And what could better provide this advantage than a separation? Have you never experienced the sweetness of a tender separation? The disquiet, the commiseration, the tears which accompany the departing lover, are they not something most valuable to a delicate, sensitive soul? Commonly, lovers regard separation for a few days as an evil. But if they examined the nature of their reputed pain a little more closely, they would soon perceive that this pain does not make a purely disagreeable impression on the soul; on the contrary, an entrancing joy lies hidden therein. The pain enfolds a delightful charm; and we learn that the heart, however much it may be moved with sympathy, always finds itself in an agreeable mood as soon as it is able to exercise its sensibility.”

Similarly, G. H. Schneider remarks (op. cit., pp. 126, 127), that in all love relationships there arises a need for becoming aware of

“the contrast between the pain and the ecstasy of love, by misunderstandings, by transient mental torment, by momentary jealousy on the part of the woman, or by sportive or earnest threats; and this need is gratified instinctively by man, because he feels instinctively that love without it disappears or will disappear.”

He explains this necessity for pain and sorrow in love as dependent upon a degree of exhaustion, a fatigue of the nerve-centres concerned, which demand a period of repose. In the ancestors of the human race, and in the lower animals, this repose was obtained by the alternation of quite opposite feelings, such as love and hate; thus the occasional stimulation of those centres also by which pain is perceived is a physiological necessity for the nervous system.

Nothing, in fact, is harder to bear than a succession of beautiful days; this is true even of love. Why is it that the very best, unalterably tender wives or husbands are so frequently deceived? Certainly it is because they often forget that with the sweetness of love it is necessary to intermingle a little bitterness, and so to allow their partner now and again to experience the “joy of grief.”

“Frau Venus, meine schöne Frau,
Von sussem Wein und Küssen
Ist meine Seele worden krank,
Ich schmachte nach Bitternissen.”

Heinrich Heine.

[“Madame Venus, beautiful lady,
Of sweet wine and kisses
I am sick unto death—
I yearn for a taste of bitterness.”]

Mental pain as a general sociological, literary, and philosophical phenomenon, manifests itself as Weltschmerz and pessimism. Both modes of perception conceal intense feelings of pleasure. Schopenhauer, who was well aware of this fact, remarks (“Works,” ed. Grisebach, i., 508) that the recognition of the sorrows of existence, of the misery which extends itself over the whole of life, is accompanied by a secret joy, which by the “most melancholy” of all nations was termed the “joy of grief.” Admirably also has Kuno Fischer, in his account of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, described the pleasure to be found in the pessimistic mode of perception; and O. Zimmermann has written an interesting psychological work upon the “Joy of Grief” (second edition; Leipzig, 1885).

The pleasure anyone experiences in his own pain, or in that of another, constitutes the nucleus of all algolagnistic phenomena, and to cruelty as an intermediator in this painful lasciviousness there belongs only a secondary rôle. The deeply-rooted instinct of cruelty, which first manifests itself in early childhood, is biologically associated with the perception of pain. Various theories of cruelty have been propounded. Thus, according to Schopenhauer, cruelty gives rise to pain in another, in order to diminish its own pain; and, according to this view, it is only a means of treatment for the relief of one’s own pain. More illuminating is the explanation of the English psychologist Bain, who derives cruelty from the consciousness of power and the enjoyment of power, from the delight felt in dominating the tortured individual. Nietzsche is the most celebrated apostle of this diffusion of power, this enjoyment of power in the “superman,” and by means of the “masterful morality.” He formally does homage to cruelty as a means of advancing towards higher civilization.

“Almost everything,” he says, “which we call higher civilization depends upon the spiritualization and deepening of cruelty.... That which constitutes the painful pleasure of comedy is cruelty; that which is agreeable to our senses in the so-called tragic sympathy—fundamentally, indeed, whatever is pleasurable to us up to the most intense and delicate metaphysical horror—obtains its sweetness only from the intermingled ingredient of cruelty. That which the Romans enjoyed in the arena, that which Christ enjoyed in the Passion of the Cross, the Spaniards regarding an auto-da-fe or a bull-fight, the Japanese of to-day, with his love for the tragic, the Parisian workman who has a passion for sanguinary revolutions, the Wagnerian rejoicing in the spectacle of Tristan and Isolde—all alike enjoy, all alike are suffused with secret ardour as they drain the Circe’s cup of ‘cruelty.’

“We must therefore,” he continues with justice, “for ever deny the absurd psychology which attempted to teach regarding cruelty that it arose only from the view of another’s pain! There exists an abundant—over-abundant—joy also in one’s own pain, in making one’s own self suffer; and whenever man persuades himself—it may be only to self-denial in the religious sense, or to self-mutilation like the Phœnicians and the ascetics, to self-torment in religion, to the puritanic convulsive penitence, to the vivisection of conscience, and to Pascal’s sacrifice of the intellect—in all these alike he is lured onwards and impelled forwards by his cruelty alone, by that dangerous emotion of cruelty directed against himself.”

With a few brilliant words Nietzsche thus describes the principal phenomena of algolagnia. Ethnology and the history of the world offer us in equal measure numerous interesting proofs of the primitive tendency of human nature to sadistic and masochistic manifestations. We must learn to recognize the diffusion throughout the entire world of active and passive algolagnia, making its appearance in the most diverse forms, in order to understand many occurrences of the present day. In my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis” (vol. ii., pp. 43-75, 95, 96, 109-113, 120-157, 228-240) I have collected these anthropological and ethnological data, regarding the universal diffusion of algolagnia in all epochs and in all countries; and I have referred to the occurrence of sadism and masochism as affecting mankind in the mass, a fact of particular importance in this connexion. To give some examples: Campaigns, gladiatorial combats, man-hunts, beast-baiting, bull-fights,[596] sensational dramas, public executions, inquisition and witch trials, lynch-law as practised to-day in North America,[597] in the behaviour of the crowd of onlookers at the former punishment of the pillory, especially also in revolutions, of which to-day once more we have the most horrible examples in Russia (cf. also the [appendix] to this chapter), in the primeval custom of marriage by capture, in cannibalism, the belief in witches and werwolves, in slavery, flagellantism, and the scourgers of the middle ages, the horrible “satanism” of the same period, gynecocracy or the dominion of woman, the service of women of the Minne epoch, the Italian cicisbeato, and the Slavonic sexual slavery of men, asceticism and martyrdom, the ethnological diffusion of skatological, koprological, and urolagnistic practices, etc. These facts suffice to prove that in all times, and among all nations, sadism and masochism, in all the forms we still observe to-day, were most widely diffused; and to show that they arise from certain instincts deeply rooted in the soul of the people, whose existence even to-day manifests itself everywhere. Take, for example, the following extract from the Vossische Zeitung, No. 475, October 10, 1906:

“A great automobile race which took place in Long Island at the beginning of the month presented certain features reminding us of the old gladiatorial games. Three men were killed during the race, a woman and a boy were so seriously injured that at the time of writing they are at the point of death, and from twenty to thirty persons suffered fractures and other grave injuries. From all parts of the United States as many as half a million persons had assembled to see the races. At the very outset the huge crowd was in a state of hysterical excitement. The Automobile Club had taken the utmost care in its preparations for the safety of the course, and had shut it off on both sides by a net 8 feet in height. This protecting wall was, however, torn down by the crowd, which pressed in everywhere, especially at those places which the cars were to pass at their highest speed. Notwithstanding all the warnings of the police, those in search of sensation only tried to get out of the way when the cars were close upon them. At a turning in the course there were assembled 1,000 persons belonging to the best circles of New York society. Every time when, at this dangerous point, one of the cars had an accident, these people rushed forwards, in order to see as closely as possible what was going on; the women screamed and fainted from excitement, while the police bludgeoned the people blindly, in order to make room for the following cars, and in order to prevent worse evils. The spectators were as if mad with the desire to see blood. A lady who was pressing forward with the crowd, when one of the cars had upset, expressed her disappointment plainly, ‘Oh dear, there is no one killed!’”

In an essay entitled “Russia as It Now Is,” regarding the Russian punitive expeditions against the revolutionaries, the St. Petersburg correspondent of a German paper reports:

“These expeditions have long forgotten the political purpose of their ‘mission’; they murder simply out of congenital lust to murder, from racial love of blood, from plainly perceptible morbid perversity. The shooting of boys, the flogging of women, without mentioning the still worse ‘punishments’ which we cannot even venture to describe, which take place in the presence of, or with the actual assistance of, the greater and lesser provincial satraps, and regarding which I have collected extensive material—all produced in me, who have been a student of criminal psychology, very remarkable reflections.”

In these cases, no doubt, the principal cause of the actions in which cruelty becomes pleasurable is the powerful emotional disturbance, the violent excitement, which, again, increases sexual desire. De Sade himself was familiar with the fact that excitement produced by strong emotions had a powerful influence upon sexual processes; that it increased them, changed them, and led to abnormal manifestations. “All sensations increase one another mutually.” Anger, fear, rage, hatred, cruelty, increase sexual tension, and therewith also increase the pleasure of the discharge of that tension. Bouillier[598] drew attention to the fact that frequently in men, who otherwise have exhibited in their life very genial and sympathetic natures, it is not the desire of blood and suffering in itself which evokes sexual cruelty, but it is the desire for this associated increase in emotions. Similarly, Horwicz[599] explains the joy of martyrdom also as dependent upon the powerful sexual stimulation which it produces.

A peculiar form of sexual excitement associated with emotional disturbance has been described by Charles Féré, under the name of ergophilia (“Note sur une Anomalie de l’Instinct Sexuel: Ergophilie,” published in Belgique Médicale, 1905). The case was that of a woman, twenty-six years of age, who when a child of four had first experienced sexual excitement at a fair while watching a little girl juggler of her own age playing with three balls. Subsequently every time when this scene occurred to her memory she had a sexual orgasm; also when once at a circus she was watching some gymnasts whose performance was characterized by elegance and ease, she had the same experience. The same also occurred when she saw a man use a scythe. In a frigid marriage she always returned to these imaginations, as the only means of obtaining sexual gratification. Féré is right in distinguishing from sadism this form of sexual excitement induced by the view of elegant bodily exercises. The generally exciting view of movement had in this case a special exciting influence upon the genital organs of an obviously hysterical person. Perhaps also the case reported by Amrain (Anthropophyteia, vol. iv., p. 242) is similar to this—a case in which a man fifty-three years of age was sexually excited by the spinning round of prostitutes on rapidly rotating stools.

Helvetius, Bain, Lully, James, Herbert Spencer, Steinmetz, and many other psychologists and anthropologists, have endeavoured to explain on evolutionary grounds this intimate association between the emotions, and to establish an association between cruelty and sexuality. They suggest that the gratification of sexual needs is for the individual a love-battle, involving the sacrifice of numerous opponents in order to gain the favour of the beloved being. In this way there arose an association between the shedding of blood and sexual enjoyment; and the rage of battle, as Marro very rightly insists, may sometimes be suddenly transferred from the rival to the female herself, and thus assume a sadistic character. Definite traces of this connexion may still be observed among the popular customs of many nations, as, for example, in New Caledonia, where the girls are pursued by their lovers into the bush, and, after they have been overpowered, and after sexual intercourse has taken place, “they are brought back, bitten, bruised, scratched, covered with bites on the shoulders and the back of the neck.”

I regard the emotional theory of cruelty as the best, because it provides the easiest explanation of all the facts; and above all, because it also explains the frequently observed cruelty of woman, who, as the more easily excited creature, displays a higher, more artificial kind of cruelty than man, whose balance is not so easily disturbed by his emotions. Montaigne[600] makes the acute observation that cruelty is usually accompanied by a feminine softness. Havelock Ellis[601] also remarks that the most extreme, most elaborate degree of sadism is commonly associated with a somewhat feminine organization.

We might explain the cruelty of women, and that of enervated, effeminate voluptuaries from fear and cowardice, from the debasing consciousness of the weakness of their own personality, which by means of cruelty takes revenge on the strength of another, and transiently luxuriates in the associated intoxication of power, in the mere idea of superiority. It is certainly in this way that we must explain the horrible cruelty of worn-out debauchees, such as is described by de Sade in his romances. Such types also were Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, Heliogabalus, and Cæsar Borgia; among women, Catherine de Medici and those “delicate Creole women who, after enjoying voluptuous pleasure in intercourse with a negro slave, proceed to enjoy the further pleasure of seeing the man unmercifully flogged.”[602]

In addition, the blunting of the senses which results from long-continued sexual excesses demands the stronger stimulus of cruelty. Just as in the debauchee, so also in the prostitute, this blunting of the senses induces a predisposition to sadism. Many prostitutes and masseuses become sadists quite as much from inclination as from custom (the latter from intercourse with masochistic clients); and they find sexual pleasure in tormenting men, regarding themselves as incorporate ideals of “mistresses.”

Among Europeans, residence in hot climates gives rise to a peculiar form of tropical cruelty, the so-called “tropical frenzy.” The psychology of this condition is complex. Various predisposing causes must concur in order to produce tropical frenzy. In the first place, it occurs almost exclusively in Europeans who fill official positions giving them very extensive powers, such as they did not enjoy before leaving home. Those who become affected live usually in regions in which all the limitations of conventional morality and of social relationships with their fellow-countrymen are laid aside, so that the civilized man is in a position which enables him to follow without restraint his own inward impulses; also he finds himself in contact with an “inferior” race, which he regards and treats as half or completely animal.[603] The influence of climate is also of great importance, as Hans von Becker assumes. Owing, it may be, to the intense heat, disturbances of metabolism ensue, and by the formation of toxins, the central nervous system and the psyche are injured, and thus there is induced a “tropical moral insanity,” a morbid impulsiveness, associated with complete loss of understanding of ordinary ethical and moral principles. Or, again, it is possible that, as Plehn believes, the abnormally high temperature gives rise to acute outbreaks only in chronic alcoholists, taking the form of tropical frenzy. In any case, this disorder is with especial frequency characterized by marked sadistic practices, as is proved by the colonial scandals of every country. In connexion with this, we do not need any further demonstration of the manner in which the institutions of slavery and serfdom have always induced and furthered sadistic instincts, and, speaking generally, the same is true of all relationships by which isolated individuals are given uncontrolled powers over the bodies and lives of their fellow-men.

A chief cause of algolagnia, of active algolagnia, but more especially of the passive form, is to be found in the diverse sexual demeanour of man and woman respectively, and this, again, depends upon the difference between the masculine and feminine natures. Opposed to the stormy, eager activity of the man, we have the quiet passivity of the woman. The latter has aptly been compared to a magnet which, notwithstanding its own apparent immobility, still irresistibly attracts and holds fast the iron (the man), making the latter in a sense her slave; upon this passivity depends the unmistakable superiority of woman in purely sensual love. Physical nature alone gives her an advantage over man, just precisely in the point to which she outwardly appears subordinated to him. Thus, among the Indians of Central Brazil man is officially lord and master of woman—and does what she wills.[604] Thus it has always been in the highest grades of civilization also, wherever sensual relationships have been solely effective in determining the relative positions of men and women. The true “henpecked husband” (I say “true,” because there also exist such in appearance only) of our European civilization is the man who, from the beginning, has been subjected to the domination of his wife in consequence of his own immoderate sexual needs; by these needs he has been permanently placed under her control, and this control has secondarily been extended to other relationships. This is the psychological secret of the henpecked state, just as it is also of the “mistress rule,” which, beginning as a purely sexual relationship between king or prince on the one hand and his mistress on the other, later extends also to the domain of political activity. The greater the sexual passivity and coldness of the woman, the more readily does she gain dominion over the man. A favourite means for this purpose is the practice of “coquetry” (a matter previously discussed), which can also be defined as the activity of women in fettering men to themselves and in bringing them under feminine dominion. The Anglo-Saxon “flirt” is only a lighter shade of “coquette,” representing rather spiritual-æsthetic coquetry, whilst the true coquette makes use of purely sensual means, and speculates upon sex only, without reference to the intellectual qualities. “A truly coquettish woman listens with pleasure to the rankest flattery of the most insignificant individual; she takes the trouble to stimulate the desires of the most contemptible being, although she is daily surrounded by longing admirers.”[605] Joseph Peladan relates in one of his romances how a distinguished lady, while getting into her carriage, intentionally displayed her leg to a poor man standing by, although at the very same moment she was coquetting audaciously with a gentleman of her own rank. Woman instinctively aims at the subjection of man, and voluptuous stimulation serves her as the best-tried means of doing this. In so far as man becomes the “slave” and victim of his sensuality, does he exhibit a masochistic disposition; but, in so far as by his force and his intelligence he overcomes this sexual dependency, and by means of his natural activity and energy displayed also in sexual relationships, behaves heedlessly and brutally to the woman, who has now become completely passive, does the sadistic element preponderate in him. From this we are able to understand how it is that sadism and masochism may often appear in the same person; they are only the active and the passive form respectively of the algolagnia which lies at the basis of both of them, and in which the true essence of both these phenomena subsists.

When in the following paragraphs we briefly describe the individual phenomena and types of sadism and masochism, we do this always with the tacit implication that the majority of types are not pure forms either of sadism or masochism, but represent a mixture of both. This is especially true of the most widely diffused of all algolagnistic perversions, the so-called flagellomania (sexual desire for flagellation or flagellantism)—that is to say, flogging and whipping, or being flogged and whipped in order to induce sexual excitement. An elaborately critical account of sexual flagellantism in its physiological, psychological, literary, and historical relationships is to be found in the second volume of my work on “The Sexual Life in England,” pp. 336-481 (Berlin, 1903). In this passage there is a fairly complete collection, alike of the older and of the newer literary material devoted to this topic.[606]

Flagellation is, therefore, the principal means by which sadistic tendencies become active, because in this manner all the physiological sadistic accompaniments of sexual intercourse unite, and make their appearance with a stronger potentiality. It is an imitation and a conscious synthesis of these sadistic accompaniments, which in their most primitive form are to be seen in the lower animals. Especially in the case of tritons and salamanders we can observe a typical flagellation, effected by means of the tail, prior to coitus. The voluptuous gratification during flagellation varies in character according as the flagellation is active or passive. The nature of the latter is as follows: by vigorous friction and blows, especially in the region of the genital organs, and more particularly on the buttocks, a peculiarly increased voluptuous stimulus is induced by the painful sensations. Simple massage and friction of the skin suffices to produce such an effect, especially after warm baths, as has long been known in the East, and is employed in the so-called “Turkish baths.” More especially, the rubbing of the buttocks evokes a purely physical reflex stimulation of the spinal and sympathetic ejaculatory centre; still more rapidly is this produced by flogging and whipping of these parts (the so-called “lower discipline”). The painful sensations are said ultimately to undergo complete transformation into voluptuous sensations; unquestionably the imagination must here render much assistance, and the masochistic element is especially marked in those who undergo passive flagellation. The increased flow of blood to the genital organs, to which the flagellation necessarily gives rise, must also obviously play a part in evoking and strengthening the voluptuous sensation. Simultaneously also this congestion gives rise to erection of the penis; hence the very ancient employment of flagellation to relieve impotence, alluded to by Petronius in a celebrated passage of his “Satyricon.”

In the case of active flagellation, the voluptuous stimulation is mainly of a sadistic nature; the view of the parts quivering under the lash, becoming red or even bleeding, the cries of the person who is being whipped, the erotic influence of the kallipygian charms, here play the principal rôle.

The inclination to flagellation, both passive and active, is generally aroused by some chance occurrence, such as looking at a flogging, when the spectator finds himself to be in a state of sexual excitement and recognizes its cause—as, for example, in consequence of the official and ritual practice of flogging in schools, prisons,[607] barracks, monasteries, etc., also by whipping and giving blows in social games. Especially dangerous is the whipping of children, whose sexual impulse is only too often aroused by blows upon the buttocks, and then, unconsciously, this excitement is in their minds permanently endowed with a causal connexion with whipping, from which ultimately a perversion (flagellomania) is induced. Well known is Rousseau’s description of this connexion in his “Confessions.” I append the following description by a patient of this tendency to flagellation:

“In a similar way to that which you describe, flagellantism was unfortunately awakened in me in early youth. This was first developed in me by the fact that my parents allowed the maidservants to exercise a far-reaching right of chastisement. When I was fourteen years old, I still received whippings from the servants, with my father’s knowledge and consent; and these whippings, since my father had forbidden any other kind of chastisement as harmful to health, took place on the buttocks, and were always effected after this region of the body had been bared. I still remember most vividly that when I was at the age mentioned a maidservant who was hardly two years older than myself switched me in this region with especial zeal. I remember also that when I was in my ninth year, owing to the free use which the maidservants commonly made of their privilege, I had entirely ceased to dread this chastisement; indeed from that time I often intentionally incurred a whipping by the maids, which was not difficult; and from the age of fourteen years I personally gave the maidservants my permission to chastise me in the above manner without the knowledge of my parents, and was always thrown by it into a state of sexual excitement. Such excitement was also produced in me by merely witnessing the chastisement of my two sisters, who were somewhat younger than myself, both of whom were still beaten with a switch when they were fifteen years of age. As regards my two sisters, this did not lead to desire on their part that this procedure, which was always disagreeable to them, should be frequently repeated, but they were always glad to see me whipped; and, as a matter of fact, my own sensation of pleasure was greatly increased by their being present, and moreover, especially in later years, I always enjoyed it more if the maidservant whipped me in the presence of her friends or if one of them let me hold her hand during the process. I especially preferred being struck with the bare hands, although occasionally I endured severe whippings with the stick or with the dog-whip at my own special request.”

In a second case which came under my own observation, the person affected being a lawyer, then twenty-eight years of age, the cause of the development of his flagellomania was different and more indirect.

At the age of eleven or twelve years he was lying on the top of a dog-kennel and masturbating, and he had tied his feet to the top of the kennel, lest, when in a state of sexual excitement, he might fall off. Since then he had always felt an impulse to have himself tied, which he sought to satisfy in boyish games (robbers, police, etc.); this always induced in him agreeable sexual feelings, which were further increased by onanistic friction. At the age of fifteen there became associated with this desire to be tied a further need to be whipped while he was tied up. This patient has a disinclination to normal coitus and to the female genital organs, but he desires to receive flagellation only from women. Two successive attempts at normal sexual intercourse were unsuccessful. The patient induced in a maidservant the inclination to passive and active flagellation, and this woman, although she resisted at first, was subsequently, six months later, a passionate flagellant. In other respects the patient is thoroughly healthy, and has been through his one-year term of military service in the cavalry.

With regard to the origin of “schoolmaster’s sadism,” which is, unfortunately, very widely diffused, the well-known case of the schoolmaster Dippold recently gave a horrible example.[608]

The teacher or schoolmaster may, at the commencement of his activity, be entirely free from any flagellantic tendency. This tendency makes its appearance in the course of the customary exercise of his duties of physical chastisement. This gradually induces in him a sense of sexual pleasure. As long as these chastisements are kept within normal bounds, and only occasionally undertaken, we have to do merely with a tendency, with an aberration of sexual gratification, such as occurs in numerous healthy individuals, even when they are not teachers or schoolmasters, persons who seek and find an opportunity for the exercise of these tendencies in the brothel or with “masseuses.” When, however, a systematic flagellomania develops, and the person affected no longer merely chastises, but maltreats and tortures, and does this habitually and with bestial cruelty, as in Dippold’s case, we certainly have always to do with sadism developed in the soil of a morbid predisposition. The following cases appear to be of this nature:

1. A case which reminds us of that of Dippold recently appeared before the Second Criminal Chamber in Hamburg. The accused was a man belonging to the cultured classes, who had had a University education, had become a reserve officer, and had filled many other positions, finally that of the editor of a journal published by an advertising firm. The accused lived in Berlin in the years 1900 to 1903. There he formed an intimacy with a woman, whom he induced to entrust him with her son, for the continuance of his education. Going himself to live in Hamburg in July, 1903, the boy was sent to him in that town in January, 1904, and was placed in a boarding school. “In order not to be disturbed in his teaching,” the man also rented a room in the neighbourhood of the school. When engaging this room he asked the landlady if there were curtains to cover the windows. On the first day on which she visited the room the landlady noticed that the accused flogged the boy, and as she did not wish to allow this in her dwelling, she reported the matter to the police. After some time the woman learned by questioning the boy certain remarkable facts, especially with regard to the “educational methods” which the accused had carried out in Berlin, and in her report to the police she added certain details, which led to the arrest of the accused. The accused admitted that he had caned the boy severely, and he declared that he had done this only for educational reasons, as the boy was of a bad character. In this respect the statement of the accused was confuted by the evidence of the boy’s teacher in Berlin, that of his teacher in Hamburg, and that of the inmates of the pension in which he lived; all of these gave him a very good character. With respect to the mode of chastisement, the details of which were heard in camera, the court held that there was no doubt that the accused had chastised the boy, not for educational reasons, but on account of perverse tendencies of his own, and condemned him to imprisonment for one year and loss of civil rights for two years. It is a noteworthy fact that the accused, during the latter part of this period of association with the boy, had lived in a happy marriage with a young woman.

2. A disciple of Dippold. The following remarkable case was published in the Berliner Tageblatt, No. 629, December 11, 1903: A furniture-polisher of this town accosted boys whom he met in the street, gave them some trifling commission, and so arranged matters with them that they must ultimately return to him at his room. Here he gave himself out to be a detective officer, showed the boy a token which he pretended was his official commission, and then gave the boy a severe lecture. “He regretted,” he said in conclusion, that, owing to the misconduct of the lad, it would be necessary to fine his parents, unless the offences were condoned by the immediate chastisement of the boy. The “detective” easily persuaded his victims that it would be better to accept the immediate flogging. After he had stretched his victim across his knees and beaten him with a stick, he looked to see that the blows had not made too obvious marks, and sent the lad away with a further brief admonition. In most instances the boys who had been whipped concealed what had happened from their parents; but still the matter came to light, and this new Dippold is to be tried for causing grievous bodily harm, and for the false pretence that he occupied an official position. The accused is a young man, twenty-five years of age, and, with his small and slender figure and with a blonde moustache, he makes rather the impression of a young man of eighteen.

Very frequently the tendency to flagellation is at first artificially evoked in brothels. Hogarth, in his “A Harlot’s Progress,” has rightly depicted the switch as a necessary requisite of the interior of a brothel, and this simple instrument of flagellation is rarely absent from a prostitute’s dwelling. It appears to be England alone, the classical country of flagellomania, in which actual “flagellation brothels” have existed.[609] A historical example is that of the celebrated establishment of Theresa Berkley, the inventor of an especial apparatus for the whipping of men, the so-called “Berkley-Horse.” It appears that in England the female sex has a taste for active and passive flagellation; and we find that a German author[610] attributes to woman a greater inclination towards flagellomania than that exhibited by man. This tendency is encouraged by certain male flagellants, who obtain sexual gratification by the flagellation of women. Guénolé (op. cit., pp. 151, 152) reports the existence of secret places in Paris where young women and girls combine to form a kind of “school,” in which male sadists carry out “instruction” with the switch!

In connexion with flagellation we must consider the peculiar tendency to the fettering of the individual to be flogged, who desires to be rendered defenceless. For this purpose various apparatus exist of the same kind as the “fettering-chair” invented in the eighteenth century by the Duke of Fronsac.[611] Of the same nature also is the impulse to wear very tight shoes and gloves and very small corsets, the so-called “corset discipline,” in which the person affected, who may be of either sex, is laced up very tightly in a very small corset. This is met with chiefly in England, especially in association with sexual flagellation.

In comparatively rare cases flagellomania is a morbid condition by which responsibility is entirely abrogated; but from the medico-legal point of view responsibility is impaired or suspended in the majority of cases of well-marked sadism, which we have now to describe. To this category belong:

1. Sadistic Bodily Injuries and “Lust-Murder.”—The main types of this category are the “girl-stabbers” and the “lust-murderers,” who simply for the purpose of producing sexual excitement, or when already under the influence of such excitement, inflict on women more or less severe injuries with a knife or other murderous instrument. The actual intention to kill is present only in very rare cases. The lust-murder is, as a rule, only a murder as a sequel of a sexual act committed by force, the murder being done from fear of discovery, etc.; thus the murder has not in these cases anything directly to do with the sexual act. In other cases we have what appears to be a lust-murder in which death has resulted, contrary to the wish of the offender, from a sadistic bodily injury. Killing from a purely sexual motive is a very rare occurrence, of which, however, some very widely known cases are on record—like those of Andreas Bickel, Menesclou, Alton, Gruyo, Verzeni,[612] and “Jack the Ripper,” the Whitechapel murderer. [Regarding the Whitechapel murders, see E. C. Spitza, “The Whitechapel Murders: their Medico-Legal and Historical Aspects,” published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, December, 1888. Great attention and alarm was aroused in Paris in the years 1818-1819 by a girl-stabber (piqueur). In numerous caricatures, popular songs, and vaudevilles these assaults were “celebrated,” of which a very rare pamphlet, “La Piqure à la Mode” (Paris, 1819), gives evidence. Cf. J. Grand-Carteret in “Les Images Galantes” (1907, No. 7). Much alarm was caused in July, 1902, by the crimes of a new “Jack the Ripper” in New York, and by the horrible child-murders committed in Berlin by an obviously insane sadist, not yet arrested. In a single day he ripped up the abdomens of several small children with a pair of scissors.] Many “murder epidemics” (manie homicide), such as the murders recently committed in Sweden by Nordlund, who, though indubitably insane, was executed for them, are certainly connected with sexuality. The two following cases from German experience relate to typical “girl-stabbers”:

Ludwigshafen am Rhein, March 26, 1901.—After the manner of the Whitechapel murderer, an unknown criminal had for several weeks made the parts of the town lying in the direction of the suburb of Mundenheim unsafe. Not less than eleven girls were seriously injured after nightfall by stabs in the abdomen. To-night the police succeeded in arresting the criminal, who is a drover, Wilhelm Damian by name, twenty-eight years of age. Five years ago he was suspected of having committed a lust-murder on a servant-girl; he was arrested at this time, but was discharged owing to the lack of sufficient proof. Now the suspicion is aroused that Damian is responsible also for the lust-murder committed two years ago near Mundenheim on a little girl seven years of age, because the circumstances of that case suggested that the murderer was a butcher by occupation, and this applies to Damian.

Kiel, November 29, 1901.—It is not yet possible to arrest the stabber who, during the last week, has been active in the poorest quarter of the town. At first he limited himself to the northern districts, and there wounded only women and girls; but in the last day or two he appeared, not only in the central parts of the town, but also in the southern quarter, where, the day before yesterday, in the evening, he wounded a girl by two stabs, one in the neck and one in the hip. Since then a man has been stabbed, apparently by this same evil-doer, but was not seriously hurt. This happened in one of the busiest streets of the town, so that the escape of the criminal is very remarkable.

Other peculiar sadistic injuries sometimes occur. Thus, in the year 1902 a printer, twenty-two years of age, was condemned by the criminal court of Breslau, because in thirteen cases he had thrown oil of vitriol at young ladies! Here also we have probably to do with a sadistic tendency. In the end of October, 1906, in Berlin, a case came under notice in which a young girl took another girl to the dentist (!) and (after previous anæsthetization) had two teeth drawn unnecessarily; but whether this case was or was not of a sadistic nature remains undetermined. But we certainly have to do with sadism in those cases in which men or women inflict slight injuries on their love-partner for the purpose of sucking blood, which gives them sexual gratification (sexual vampirism). Many murders by poison (women murderers commonly prefer the use of poison to that of any other instrument) also arise from sadistic tendencies. At any rate, the majority of professional female prisoners, such as Jegado, Brinvilliers, Ursinus, Gottfried (the celebrated poisoner of Bremen), and others, were unquestionably women given to sexual excesses or sexually very excitable, so that here voluptuousness and the lust for murder appear to have an intimate causal connexion.

The following remarkable case of sadistic deprivation of freedom is reported by Kiernan (“A Remarkable Case of Fetishism,” published in The Alienist and Neurologist, 1906, p. 462):

“Two citizens of good position, of Wladikaukas, in Russia, had repeatedly carried off girls of good family, and had treated them in an extraordinary way. On account of senile dementia they were acquitted of criminality, and were sent to an asylum. The last victim was a young heiress, who was kept prisoner by them for an entire year. Two masked elderly men fell upon her by night, gagged her, put a bandage over her eyes, and drove away with her in a carriage. When the bandage was taken off, she was in a well-furnished drawing-room. The two old men, without saying a word, gave her a scanty dress of feathers, and shut her up in a great gilded cage, which stood in the drawing-room. One of them—she never saw the other again—came in silence to visit her every morning, looked at her through the bars of the cage, often threw her lumps of sugar, and every morning brought her a can of hot water, which he emptied into a vessel inside the cage, saying, ‘Take a bath, little bird.’ These were the only words which she heard. After a year had passed, the man let her out of the cage, put a bandage over her eyes, and drove her in a carriage to a place near her house. No similar case is known to me in medical literature. Everything was conducted Platonically; there was no coitus, no exhibitionism or masturbation, either before or after looking at this peculiar bird. Certainly there must have been some kind of abortive sexual gratification, of a sadistic character, and with the limitation that only young girls of good family, dressed as birds and kept in a cage, could excite libido. But why must they have the appearance of a bird? Possibly in the subconsciousness the idea of the bird as a lascivious animal played a certain part. But why did one only come and see the ‘bird’ every day? That they must be young girls is natural in the case of old men: extremes meet; but that they must be of good family suggests a sadistic element, and still more is this suggested by the imprisonment.”

2. Offences against Property committed from Sadistic Motives.—To this class belong all sadistic injuries not of the person, but of property. For example, pouring vitriol over the clothing, of which the following case (Vossische Zeitung, No. 574, December 7, 1905) is an example:

At the present time an unknown man is making the south-eastern districts of Berlin unsafe by the use of oil of vitriol. This dangerous criminal pours the liquid upon women’s clothing, selecting by preference light-coloured fabrics. Yesterday evening he almost completely ruined the new light-coloured dress of a young lady who was passing along the Hermannstrasse. The offender, who apparently derives pleasure from injuring women’s clothing, is of middle height, about twenty-five years of age, has fair hair, and wears a fashionable overcoat.

To the same category belongs arson from sexual motives, which was formerly[613] attributed to a “passion for fire” (pyromania); but when sexual motives play a part, it is unquestionably of a purely sadistic nature.[614]

Of the same character is sexual kleptomania—theft from sexual motives. Lichtenberg was familiar with this, for he says “the sexual impulse very frequently leads to thefts,” and he alludes to the proposal which has been made in England to castrate thieves.[615]

The organic causation of the kleptomania so often seen at the present day in large shops is very frequently of a sexual nature, dependent upon puberty, the climacteric, menstrual anomalies, etc. Cases of this character have been reported by Worbe, Gönner, Schmidtlein, Unzer, Häussler, Lombroso, and Ferrero. The suspicion of sexual sadistic grounds for kleptomania may always be justifiably entertained when rich ladies repeatedly steal articles of small value of which they have no need.

A typical case of sexual kleptomania is reported by H. Zingerle (“Contributions to the Psychological Genesis of Sexual Perversities,” published in the Annual for Psychiatry and Neurology, 1900):

A woman, twenty-one years of age, who from childhood had been psychopathic, had from her school-days onwards had a definite desire to appropriate certain objects, especially such as were made of brown leather (brown shoes), umbrellas, money. Only the act of stealing gave her any gratification, not the keeping of the stolen objects, which she usually destroyed or gave away. During the act of theft she had a well-developed sense of voluptuousness, accompanied by a discharge of secretion from the genital organs. She performed these thefts as the result of an irresistible impulse, and after them she felt remorse. She preferred large objects such as were difficult to hide, and it was precisely when there were great hindrances to be overcome and dangers to be run, and when in the pursuit of her aim she was subjected to emotional disturbances, that the accompanying voluptuous sensations were most prominent. The psychopathic basis of this condition is unquestionable.

In addition to these two categories of sadism, which for the most part depend upon morbid conditions, we meet also with a symbolic form of sadism, where this manifests itself rather in idea than in reality, and where the person thus affected luxuriates in all possible fantasies of the infliction of pain and of abasement.[616] This mitigated sadism is certainly to some extent connected with physiological sadism. Thus the so-called verbal sadism is nothing more than an increase in, an emphatic instance of, the physiological voluptuous sighing and crying in coitu, whose influence in verbal sadism is increased, and exercises a stronger stimulus, by the accentuation of the animal, the brutal, the coarse, and the obscene. Verbal sadism is not a peculiar refinement of modern debauchees, but a phenomenon belonging to folk-lore and ethnology, an extraordinarily widely diffused mode of expression of the primitive sadistic instinct of the genus homo. In the popular speech of all countries we find that abusive terms and curses are intermingled with extraordinary frequency with sexual matters and ideas. The naïveté of this sexual depravity and cursing, with its thousandfold variations, shows its origin from the purely instinctive sources of the popular soul, as the celebrated brothers Grimm recognized when they devoted a careful, critical investigation in their well-known dictionary to the obscene verbal treasury of the Germans. A rich material for the study of the sources of verbal sadism is offered by the vocabularia erotica of Hesychios; also by the collections of local and provincial riddles and proverbs.[617] A typically developed verbal sadism is found among the Hindus, especially the women. The Indian erotist Vātsyāyana rightly deduces it from the various sounds which are uttered in normal coitus. In European brothels the verbal sadists and verbal masochists are well-known phenomena—men who find sexual enjoyment in the expression of the coarsest, commonest, obscene words, curses, and abusive language; in some cases by doing this themselves (verbal sadism), in other cases by listening to it when done by others (verbal masochism). Such verbal sadists, also, are the individuals described by A. Eulenburg (“Sexual Neuropathy,” p. 104) as “verbal exhibitionists,” people who gladly indulge in lascivious conversation in the presence of women, or who whisper obscene words in women’s ears. Many men visit prostitutes, not for the purpose of having sexual intercourse with them, but merely for the opportunity of such lecherous conversation. The following case, complicated by bisexual or masochistic features, is characteristic of this:

A leading merchant of middle age visits a cocotte from time to time, and puts on the girl’s silken clothing, whilst she must put on man’s dress; they then go out walking arm-in-arm in dark, unfrequented streets, and converse meanwhile in an extremely obscene, indecent manner; this alone suffices him for sexual gratification. During the whole time he does not touch the girl.

This sexual depravity and obscene language can also be conducted by correspondence. Thus we have a kind of “epistolary sadism” and “epistolary masochism.” The former, especially, is frequently employed in the circles of the “masseuses” and “strict governesses,” in relation to their masochistic clientèle, whilst the answers belong to the second category.

A remarkable symbolic form of sadism or masochism is represented by inunction and lathering, for the purpose of sexual gratification. Lathering with soap more especially is a phenomenon with which those who have to do with brothels are especially familiar. Either the man finds sexual pleasure in lathering the prostitute or he experiences gratification in the passive attitude when she lathers him. Some time ago, in a trial in which a man belonging to one of our leading mercantile houses was accused, I referred in my evidence to analogous occurrences in brothels and among prostitutes. This testimony was disputed by another physician, who stated that this “lathering” for the purpose of inducing sexual excitement was “unknown” to him. It is, however, a well-known phenomenon whose existence has been confirmed to me by colleagues in Berlin, and more especially in Hamburg. According as it is active or passive, it is respectively sadistic or masochistic. Whether, in such cases, a defilement of the woman’s person is effected, as in a case reported by von Krafft-Ebing, in which a man blackened his mistress with charcoal, is indifferent. The larval sadism consists in the act of manipulation, in the inunction or lathering.

As a last form of symbolic sadism may be mentioned blasphemy based on sexual motives, the so-called “satanism,” which played a great part more especially in the middle ages, and as the “black mass” constituted a peculiar cult, in which the Christian Mass was profaned by sexual practices, and was insulted to the uttermost. According to Schwaeblé, these obscene masses are still celebrated at the present day in two places in Paris. He gives a detailed description of such a black mass which was celebrated in a house in the Rue de Vaugirard.[618]

Passive algolagnia, masochism, the desire to endure pain and degradation and abasement of every kind, for the purpose of inducing sexual excitement, is perhaps to-day more widely diffused even than its converse.[619] The cause of this, which is to be found in the conventionality of our time, is a matter to which I have previously more than once alluded (vide supra, [pp. 322]-[324], [467]-[469]). This view is supported also by the remarkable fact that, above all, lawyers, leading State officials, and judges, constitute a disproportionately large contingent of masochists—that is to say, persons whose professional life gives them a certain unusual exercise of power, and whose profession imposes on them a strict official demeanour. Precisely these conditions, perhaps, arouse masochistic tendencies to activity, as a kind of liberation from conventional pressure and the professional mask.

The connexion between love, voluptuousness, and the suffering of pain, has already been discussed. In masochism there also comes into play the important element of abasement, a complete self-surrender of body and soul, self-sacrifice. The union of these perceptions and their voluptuous tinge has been beautifully described by Alfred de Musset:[620]

“My passion for my mistress had become extremely unruly, and my whole life had assumed a kind of monastic savagery. I will give only one example of this: She had given me her miniature likeness in a medallion. I wear it on my heart—many men do this. But one day in the shop of a second-hand dealer I found an iron scourge on the end of which was a small plate covered with little spines. I had the medallion fastened on to the plate and wore it in this way. The spines, which at every movement pierced the skin of my breast, produced in me the most peculiar ecstasy, so that I sometimes pressed my hand on the place in order to drive them deeper. I am well aware that this was folly; but love makes us commit many such follies.”

In masochism physical pain plays an important part. The “mistresses” have at their disposal an extensive instrumentarium for producing such pain, for masochists often have the most peculiar ideas regarding the mode in which their pain should be caused. Probably unique in their kind are the two following authentic cases, which my colleague, Dr. D——, in Hamburg, was so good as to report to me:

1. A rich Hamburg merchant, known among the prostitutes by the name of “Nail William,” had sexual intercourse only with certain prostitutes, who had to allow their nails to grow quite long and pointed. They had to scratch him on the scrotal raphe and on the penis until the blood flowed in streams. One day he consulted a physician on account of extensive œdema of the scrotum and the penis.

2. Another man had his scrotum sewn to the sofa-cushion with thick sail-maker’s needles. He sat for a while in this “fettered” condition, after which the strings were cut!

All possible cutting and stabbing instruments and burning substances are used for the gratification of the masochist’s lascivious love of pain; they have themselves scratched, bitten, pinched, burned, their hair torn out; they are trodden upon, whipped with switches or ox-whips; they have themselves “put to the question” in every possible way in special “torture chambers” or “punishment rooms.” Such a genuine torture chamber, in the house of a Hamburg prostitute, was recently described by the public prosecutor, Dr. Ertel, in Hamburg.[621] Of the dwelling of this prostitute the following account is given in the testimony of the examining judge:

To the side of the flat towards the bath-room is the door of entrance to the so-called “black room.”

The walls of this room, lighted by one window only, were covered with a coal-black material of the nature of calico, and the plaster of the ceiling was similarly covered; to the middle of the ceiling, proceeding from the centre of a black rosette, was attached a pulley, consisting of the usual rollers and blocks, made in this instance of metal, and furnished with a strong twisted cord.

In the dark corner between the window and the wall there stood a peculiar scaffold, made of roughly hewn planks, consisting of two similar parts placed side by side; the back of this scaffold was placed against the wall beside the window.

The purpose of this scaffold was not immediately apparent. Seen sideways, the form of this wooden structure was somewhat like that of a heavy, coarsely-made armchair; the upper parts of the arms were about the height of a man’s shoulders. To the framework along the upper edge there were attached five fairly strong iron rings, which were screwed into the wood. The framework ran on rollers, so that it could be moved about.

On the wall was hung on a nail a leather girdle with buckles; there was also a rope about the thickness of the finger, ending in a loop; there were also two dog-collars, part of a sword-stick, leather reins, and fetters for wrists and ankles, the former being heavy iron handcuffs.

The window in the wall separating the “black room” from the bathroom, the glass of which was frosted, was covered with special hangings. The inner side of the door of the room was also hung with black.

In respect to this “black room” A. testified:

“Z. insisted that one room should be entirely draped with black, as the ‘hall of judgment.’ He sent me pulleys from Cologne, by which he was to be drawn up and hanged.[622] This excited him, his face got quite blue, and it made him ‘ready’ for intercourse. I was afraid that it might kill him, and I only allowed him to have it done once.

“To the wooden framework in the ‘black room,’ Z. was securely fastened, so that he had the illusion that he was on the scaffold.”

In all large towns widely diffused masochistic prostitution subserves the desires of male masochists, and frequently also those of female masochists. These priestesses of Venus flagellatrix hide themselves commonly under the cloak of a “masseuse”[623] an “educationalist,” or “governess,” adding to this professional title the expressive adjective “severe” or “energetic.” “Wanda” is also a favourite pseudonym, which corresponds to the masochistic nickname of “Severin” (the principal character of Sacher-Masoch’s “Venus im Pelz”).

These women, the “mistresses,” treat their masochistic clients as “slaves” or “dogs,” and maintain this fiction not only in personal association, but also in correspondence—masochists are all passionate correspondents. The relationship also of the “lady” to her “page” is a favourite one (the so-called “pagism”). The nature of the relationship is clearly shown in the following original letter of such a masochist:

“Berlin,
“June 7, 1902.

“Gracious Lady,—

“First of all I must sincerely ask your pardon for daring, most honoured lady, to write to you. I saw recently a lady with a glorious figure and magnificent hips enter your house, and I suspect that you are this lady. If you, gracious lady, desire a servant and a slave, who will blindly obey all your commands, and upon your order, as a slave, without any will but your own, will perform the basest and dirtiest services, I should be happy if you would be so gracious as to make me that slave, if I might visit you from time to time in order to serve you, my strict mistress and commander. If at any time I should fail to obey you absolutely, you can treat me most cruelly and chastise me most severely.

“Will you, gracious lady, deign to answer me, your basest servant, and to make use of the enclosed envelope to tell me if you, this evening, will go for a walk, and how, and where, in what café you may chance to spend the evening, and if you will be my strict mistress, and if I may venture to be your slave. Perhaps, most honoured lady, you could be at the Oranienburger Tor at eight o’clock precisely on Friday evening, with a rose in your hand. Full of subjection and abasement, obedient to your strict commands, and slavishly kissing your feet and hands, I am your most abject servant and your basest slave.”

Such a slave luxuriates voluptuously in the lowest services, in the most loathsome abasements, such as are indicated sufficiently in the names “coprolagnia” and “urolagnia.” I have in my possession a series of letters by masochists full of such things, described with the utmost particularity, some even in a poetic form (!), which I cannot print on account of their loathsome contents. A sufficient idea of the slavery of the masochist is given in the above-mentioned report of the public prosecutor, Dr. Ertel, in which a “mistress” states:

“When I took my meals he lay either under the table, or in a corner of the room; I threw him bones, and gave him the remains of my own food. He often barked, and usually had a dog-collar round his neck, with a chain attached to it. He had given himself the name of Nero, so this is what I called him. When anyone wished to come near me without permission, he bit him in the leg; this was the first step in a slave’s duty. He swept out my room, boiled potatoes, roasted meat for me, and did other work of the house. He also wanted to be my horse; I had to ride on him; he carried me in this way from one room to the other.[624] When he disobeyed me in any way, I had to use the whip. He related to me that formerly he had corresponded with a music-hall comedian who played woman’s parts, and subsequently had associated with him, but he got weary of this, and disappeared for a long time to get free from the man. He told me also that he was accustomed to make appointments in the Schaarhof (a street in Hamburg in which the prostitutes visited by the lowest classes of the population live). On Sunday evenings these women have many visitors, when the workmen have got their week’s money.

“Often I had to shut him up in a wardrobe, with a chain round his neck, fastened to the wall of the wardrobe, so short that he could hardly move; the door of the wardrobe was shut upon him.

“In my flat I had to give him a slave’s dress to wear, in order that he might feel himself to be fully a slave. I took away all his money, all the keys of his house, of his office, and of his safe, and returned them to him only after a night and two days. Z. only does this occasionally, when he is utterly beside himself; often he is quite reasonable. He does not associate with any decent people; the society in which he feels happiest is that of whores and other obscure persons; he has himself said this to me. Even the people who make use of him avoid him in the street.

“He would also learn to dress hair, and how to paint the face, if I ordered him. Painted faces stimulate him.

“Once he said to me that I might have another slave; this I did. First of all I had to bind Z. hand and foot, and to wrap up his head in cotton-wool, in order to give the new slave the idea that he had been very badly treated, and had been sent to the hospital. When, later, the new slave came, and I explained everything to him as Z. had told me to, and led him in to see Z., the new man was very much surprised to see Z. tied up in this way, became frightened, and soon went home.”

Another prostitute reports:

“I made the acquaintance of Z. in No. 8, Schwiegerstrasse. He has three or four times had intercourse with me. He had himself whipped by me. Z. once asked me to fetch a man, which I did. This man got into bed with me, and satisfied himself manually, without having intercourse with me. Z. on this occasion lay under the bed: he wished to do so; I believe he had arranged this in order to obtain sexual excitement in this way. Z. and the other man did not see one another.

“When the other man had gone away, Z. did the most disgusting things.

“When Z. had himself whipped, he first had his hands fastened with iron handcuffs.”

It would be quite erroneous to assume that in the case of these masochistic “slaves,” whose human worth has been lowered to the depths, who seem completely to discard their humanity and to sink below the level of animals, that we always have to do with effeminate, degenerated weaklings. No; much more frequently they are healthy, powerful men, of an imposing appearance and distinguished demeanour, who find pleasure in playing such tragic rôles, and who obviously obtain sexual gratification by this complete reversal of their nature. The “slave” just described was “by nature tall and stately. His features were energetic and sympathetic, and he had a large beard. His eyes were clear and bright. In actions and appearance he was a thoroughly masculine being.”[625] In Berlin there exist masochists in high official positions, in appearance and in profession true manly natures—“supermen”—who only become “slaves” in relation to their “mistresses.” According to Sacher-Masoch, Germans and Russians especially are inclined to masochism; but, as a matter of fact, this tendency is also widely diffused in France and England. Zola describes such a type in “Nana.”

The slave type is not always completely developed; more commonly masochism manifests itself in a less marked degree. There are many and various shades: sometimes there is only a spiritual abasement, exhibited in apparently trifling procedures and practices (symbolic masochism). A few authentic cases will serve to illustrate this—they sound incredible, but are in fact true:

1. A handsome and fine-looking officer, married to a beautiful wife, continually associates with an elderly, robust washerwoman, with whom he also has sexual intercourse. Since he refuses to leave this woman, his wife has separated from him.

2. A State official of high position, fifty years of age, visits a prostitute from time to time, and puts on her clothing, with corset and stockings, while she wears man’s clothing. Then for two hours they play cards. At eleven o’clock he lays himself, still clothed, in her bed, whilst she must lie down naked upon the bed covering. Nothing else happens. He does not make the least attempt to touch her; and after a time he goes away, first paying her fifty marks.

3. An active Minister of State (!), now deceased, used often to visit a cocotte, who had to sit upon him, and then in corpus totum ei minxit. This was sufficient to give him sexual gratification (urolagnia).

4. An engineer meets a prostitute (who has been previously instructed what to do) in the street, and asks her if he may go home with her for twenty marks (shillings). Having reached the home of the girl, he suddenly declares with tears that he has only five marks with him. The prostitute overwhelms him with abuse, takes the five marks from him, and then carefully searches his clothing, until somewhere or other she finds a hundred-mark piece! The moment of the discovery of this piece of money is precisely the moment when the man has the sexual orgasm. In answer to his prayers and whining, to his pitiful request that she shall at least give him back half the money, he only receives scornful abuse. Finally, she presses one mark into his hand, and gives him his congé. This procedure is repeated regularly every fortnight—an expensive amusement for a man who is by no means wealthy. But he is unable to give up this peculiar passion, which for him is the only way of obtaining sexual gratification.

5. A man of the upper classes, thirty years of age, frequents only prostitutes with artificial teeth. They must take these teeth out, and he puts them in his mouth and sucks them. He then stretches himself upon the covering of the bed, and the prostitute must lay one of her dirty chemises upon his face, whilst he at the same time holds one of her shoes in each hand. This is for him the critical moment. To the girl herself during the whole procedure he does not direct a single glance; for him there exist only the teeth, the chemise, and the shoes. Thus we have to do with a case of masochism with mental fetishistic associations. The previously described medieval “cure by disgust” (the exhibition of a dirty chemise) would in this man have had the opposite effect to that intended.

Masochism is much commoner in men than in women, because the latter have more command over their sexual impulse, and are not so readily subordinated and enslaved thereby as are men. The physiological masochism of woman is of a more spiritual nature. Still, in women who are very excitable sexually a similar “sexual obedience” may appear to that which we encounter in men. Shakespeare, in the “Midsummer-Night’s Dream,” when he makes Helena feel herself to be Demetrius’ little dog, gives her definite masochistic characteristics.

Masochistically inclined, also, are women of good position who play the part of prostitutes, either in brothels or in the streets, such as have recently been described by d’Estoc in “Paris-Eros”; we may regard the celebrated Messalina as their prototype. Similarly disposed are women of good position who have enduring sexual relationships with men of the lower classes, such as workmen, coachmen, etc., and who even seek sexual enjoyment with any casual member of the rabble they may meet in the streets—a practice of which Lombroso has collected examples. Passive algolagnia also occurs in women, as is proved by the following letter of a typical masochist:

“Berlin,
“November 9, 1902.

“Honoured Lady,—

“I allow myself to make the polite inquiry whether you will consent to visit me once a week, in my dwelling in the Kurfurstendamm, after your reception hour. I have a peculiar wish from time to time to be chastised in the most severe and energetic manner, until the blood flows. I am twenty-eight years of age, and widowed, and have a very large and luxuriant figure. For the flagellation I would pay fifty marks (shillings). If you accede to my wish, I beg you to describe how you intend to carry out the chastisement. On what part of the body will you whip me? In what way should this be clothed, if clothed at all? What instrument will you use for the whipping? In what position should I receive the whipping? How many blows should I receive the first time?

“After the sixth blow my voluptuous sensations increase to such a degree that my whole body trembles with sensuality. Are you yourself inclined to sensuality, and do you carry out this chastisement from purely voluptuous motives?”

We cannot determine whether in this case homosexuality plays any part. In my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis” (vol. ii., p. 183), I have printed a letter of another unquestionably heterosexual masochist woman to an “energetic” man.

---

APPENDIX[626]
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION (HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN ALGOLAGNISTIC REVOLUTIONIST).

The author of the following sketch, the Russian anarchist N. K., was arrested in Warsaw in the early months of 1906. Like all those who at this time were considered to be members of the revolutionary party, the intention of the authorities was to shoot him immediately, without any elaborate inquiry, after a drum-head court-martial.

His demeanour during the shooting of his companions, who preceded him to death, and also during the court-martial, showed that his psychical individuality was so profoundly abnormal that the Colonel in command of the firing-party suspected him to be a psychopath, and on his own authority postponed his execution pending further examination in the citadel. While imprisoned K. wrote his reminiscences, which are here given word for word and without comment:

I.

My parents were opposite elements: my father, strong, coarse, brutal, egotistic, material to excess; my mother, suffering, delicate, sensitive, ethereal. From such a cross, a masochistic character must necessarily be produced. My father brought me up with storms, chastisements, and fear; my mother counteracted all this with caresses, kisses, and tears.... I trembled with secret anxiety and exulted inwardly at the same moment when my father stretched me across his knees. As soon as the punishment was over, he immediately proceeded to box someone’s ears—anyone’s, a footman’s, a maid’s, anyone’s. I ran with a smarting posterior to my mother. By her first my injuries were inspected, then I was cried over, embraced, kissed, and finally laughed at and with. This scene repeated itself at irregular intervals. To these years belong my first memory of the masochistic principle of life. This was based upon the following observations:

All my companions, boys and girls alike, endeavoured to play tricks on one another; to tell tales of one another to their parents, tales true and false; in every way to cause suffering, in order then, by redoubled love, to make all right again. On the other hand, I noticed that no child loved another unless it was tormented by that other. Those who did not torment one another were mutually indifferent.

This mutual tormenting and being tormented must therefore, in the nature of things, produce a certain charm, gives rise to a pleasure. This pleasure consisted in increasing, mentally realizing, sympathizing with, the pain of another. This is not sadism—generally speaking, sadism does not exist—it is only refined masochism; for we prepare pains in order to sympathize with them—that is, in order that we may free ourselves.

I especially enjoyed teasing girls, destroying their toys, tearing their dolls to pieces, dirtying their clothing, etc. When, thereupon, they wept bitterly, I fought against their tears, until finally they were consoled. Then I went close to them, embraced them, caressed them, kissed them, and cried with sympathy. What pain and what pleasure did I experience when they pushed me away, struck me, and spat in my face! I bought them once more finer toys, and was so happy when their tears gave place to laughter!

How often I told false tales of other children to their parents, in order to be able to sympathize with the mental pain of an undeserved chastisement! But I was no exception in this, because most of my playmates were the same. I remember how a girl of eleven calumniated a boy of twelve: she declared that he had put his hand on her private parts when she was out walking! The happy, poor lad was frightfully beaten at school and at home. All the children baited him, despised him, and avoided him like the plague.... He became quite afraid of his fellows.

What did I live through at that time?

Moody and spiteful, he lay under a tree; the girl who had told this false tale about him softly drew near, stood by him, and with a pleading voice called his name. Furiously he jumped to his feet, and wished to run away; but she seized his hand, fell upon her knees, and begged for his forgiveness. It was useless for him to abuse her, to strike her, and to tread upon her toes. She threw her arms round him, cried as if her heart was broken, and spoke tenderly to him for so long a time, until at last he sat down beside her, and allowed himself to be caressed. Thus they sat together for a long time, and wept and laughed and wept. Suddenly she seized his hand and pressed it violently between her thighs....

This contact formed the last link of a long logical chain....

These were the facts which first made me feel instinctively how, like every fundamental thing—everything which is of a primeval character: primeval force, primeval matter, primeval impulse, etc.—all represent the union of two extremes; the primeval impulse “love” can also be the coalescence of two opposites. These two opposites in this case are pleasure and pain; as in the case of electricity we have the union of the two opposites, positive and negative electricity; in the case of magnetism, we have the union of positive and negative magnetism; in the case of the atom, the positive and negative ion; in the case of sex, man and woman, etc.

II.

My years of school and University life were spent at St. Petersburg. Tempestuously I threw myself upon simple physical “love” (!), upon the orgies, upon all the varieties, of physical love. Bodily-sexual masochism, with all its artificial sensual charms, was a cup which I drained to the dregs; but I was never able to explain to myself why humanity was satisfied with so crude a definition of the idea of “masochism.” Sexual masochism is indeed one of the most obvious facts of life. But the same is true also of sexual love; and yet we do not maintain that love is only sexual impulse.

I passed beyond this physical masochism; it was for me a necessary phase of development. The spiritual element within me began to sway my existence. At this time I learned to love a girl of a wonderful character. She loved me to a similar degree of insanity.

Had I been a beggar or a tramp, she would have followed me through the streets. She would have accompanied me to forced labour in Kara, Kamtchatka, or Saghalien. For me she would also have mounted the scaffold; to save me she would even have become a prostitute. It was a blessedness to love her and to be loved by her.

How can we wonder that in conformity with this interminable love accompanying sorrows should also extend into infinity, and ultimately lead to a catastrophe?

Every night we slept together, although for months at a time we did not have sexual intercourse; we embraced one another so closely and slept so gently!...

To separate from one another only for a few hours was a torment. If I went out alone, I must tell her the precise moment at which she might expect me to return. If I remained away a quarter of an hour longer, Mascha at once pictured to herself that I had been run over by a tram, that I had fallen down in an epileptic fit, that I had suddenly become insane and jumped into the Neva, or that some other disaster had befallen to me. Thus she stood continually at the window, in order to see what was passing in the street. If anyone came up to our floor, she ran quickly to see who it was. If it was not I, then she felt horrible anxiety. When at length I came, she stood waiting for me in the doorway, laughing and crying at the same time. Then there followed embraces and kisses as if I had returned from a journey to the North Pole; but also reproaches, such as, “You do not love me at all; if you did you would not torture me so! You know how anxious I always am about you when you are away!”

Gradually I began to understand this condition, as an inevitable consequence of the masochistic principle of love.

This martyrdom of the soul, which lovers prepare for themselves in the unceasing dread of losing one another, or of losing one another’s love, is intimately connected with the very nature of love. Without anxiety of this kind, love would be unthinkable. He who loves must continually torment himself with this anxiety; and the stronger the love, the greater is this torment. When the torment is increased by the other’s participation in it, the mutual love is also increased thereby.

This necessity we also felt, and we resolved to procreate an illegitimate child.

What this step meant to us—members of leading families—can readily be understood; but we proudly resolved to defy society at large, in order to consecrate our love by the sorrows which this would entail.

III.

As soon as Mascha became pregnant, I felt an irresistible impulse to increase our mutual torments! To increase them!! To increase them!!! For our love did not appear to me sufficiently great, nor yet sufficiently worthy, nor yet sufficiently holy, for us to crystallize ourselves in a new living being.

This idea racked me continually. In vain I sought to convince myself that our love was a million times greater than the love of ordinary mortals, that it was unique!... Again and again my conscience said to me: “How can you use for yourself the measuring rule of ordinary men, even if they are the leaders of men? You are the conscious masochist! Your ideals must be suited to this fact! Is it anything so much out of the common to have an illegitimate child? You must increase your sorrows! Increase them!!”

(He proceeds to describe how in every possible way he tormented his beloved.)

At length, in consequence of my continued vexation, Mascha became as nervous as I was myself.... Now she really began to take everything perversely.

“Leave me in peace! It is your fault! You are driving me quite out of my mind!!”

On account of the most trifling matters we became furious with rage, mutually making one another more wretched and more bitter. Ten, twenty times a day, we stood facing one another, leaning forwards, shaking with wrath, our mouths gaping with anger, our eyes sparkling, our fingers widely separated, like tigers ready to spring; many times she struck me in the face or spat at me!

“Oh, you wretch! How I hate you!!! I should like—I should like——!”

Then we said to one another calmly and quietly that we did not suit one another; that we had been deceived; that everything was now at an end; we begged one another for forgiveness, and separated.

Soon came the pangs of conscience, the question, “Who is to blame?” Now the pains began: “What have I done? It is impossible that it can be so; I will beg her forgiveness upon my knees. She must be mine again—must be, must be!”

“Oh, love, love! How interminable is your pain!”

Now I began with nervous haste to say to myself, “Where will she be? With Katja? Up! Go to her and ask her!”

“Has Mascha been here?”

“Yes—she has just gone away!”

“Did she not say where she was going?”

“No!... Have you quarrelled once more?”

“H’m!... A little, but it was my fault!... I must find her!... Good-bye!”

At the house of A, B, C, and D she was not to be found. Is it possible that in her pain——? No, no! Not that! Not that!!

This pulsed in my temples, whilst I ran up and down the stairs!

Six o’clock! now she will go out walking on the Newsky-Prospekt!!...

At last I reach the Newsky-Prospekt! I rush up and down looking for her! Is that she? No! Or there? It is not she! That must be she? No—yes—no—yes, yes!... It is she.... Now walk a little more slowly.... Now she sees me.... She turns as if to pass by on the other side.... She changes her mind and stays on this side....

“Have you been out walking long?”...

Mascha lies in my arms. We cry and laugh—cry and laugh.... Never, never, never again!!... Forgive, forgive!!... We embrace one another, press one another, kiss one another, as if we could be absorbed into one another.... We abuse one another, pull one another’s hair, and playfully box one another’s ears.... Then we rub our cheeks together, and give one another the maddest pet names....

Oh, paradise of love! Why did I quarrel with my fate which imposed upon me such unheard-of torments?... Nothing else could have brought me such blessedness as this!!

Oh, fate! More, more, still more martyrdom!... In this way let my love grow!

IV.

Our life together became continually more intolerable, and yet we could not bear to be away from one another a single hour. A terrible fate chained us together, and threw us into the maelstrom of this furious impulse, irresistible in its elemental force. To tear ourselves apart was rendered impossible by the fetters that chained us together.

Continually more frightful, continually more insane, became our scenes, and the love-eruptions which broke out from time to time.

(After mutual spiritual torments, becoming ever worse and worse, K. begs his beloved to procure abortion!)

She wept quietly, then kissed me and went out....

The key grated in the lock....

“Mascha! Mascha! For God’s sake! Mascha! What are you going to do?...”

I shook the door like a madman.... It would not give way.... I tore open the window.... “Help! Help!”... The door was burst open.... Break open Mascha’s door!... It was quickly forced.... She lies there.... Dead.... Poison....

V.

Finally—after weeks—I was once more somewhat calmer, and was able to think a little. I had so utterly lost all power that I was only able to get from my bed to the sofa, or back again, with assistance. They had been afraid that I should not get over it at all.... Week after week to endure the most shattering, superhuman sorrows, to oscillate between death and madness!...

But superhuman love had also been mine! The statue of Saïs had been unveiled to me!... I had quaffed the cup of love to the last dregs!... But he only will have had this experience who has first drunk to the dregs the draught of sorrow!...

Oh, short-sighted world, which will call the murder of Mascha “sadism”!... Had not her pains cut twice as deeply into my own heart? Has not my soul been convulsed by her torment?... I wished only to torture myself!... Am I to blame that it was only possible to do so through her martyrdom?... Has not she shared also all my superearthly blisses?... He who has experienced this does not regret—even if he must pay double the price in sorrows!!

Is not that “masochism”?

Have you who wished to pass judgment on me learned that? No! Who will set up to be a judge of a case of which he knows nothing?

Oh, crude psychology, which teaches that out of an inhuman impulse—out of cruelty—we commit “crimes” on those nearest to us! Only from a purely human impulse—from “love”—do we do to the nearest to us what you call “crimes,” in order that he may share that unnamable happiness which we ourselves feel. Thus the influences which move us are purely ethical.

Do you believe that we only are masochists? Or do you believe that those only are masochists who have themselves trodden on by a prostitute, have had their ears boxed, have been whipped, befouled, and have let the prostitute spit in their faces?

Oh, idiots! I say to you all love is masochistic, and all which leads to it is associated with it, or results from it, bears the imprint “pleasure and pain.”

Nature never fails. Who, then, believes that it was caprice, chance, or irony, on Nature’s part, when she associated love with so much torment?

Who does not think of all the tragedies of unhappy love, with its murders and suicides, all its physical and spiritual martyrdom, which every day brings to us?

Who does not think of the tragedy of sexual love which is offered to us in the hospitals? all the hundreds of thousands who have to pay for the licentiousness which results from sexual lust—all the tabetics, syphilitics, general paralytics, etc.?

Who does not remember the torments which the sexually perverse have brought on themselves and on humanity? All the lust-murders! And all the punitive measures? The lust-murders which we commit—to prevent lust-murders!...

Who does not think of the torments of pregnancy? its risks of life and death?

Are all these mistakes of Nature? No! No!! The accompaniment of pleasure by pain must have some definite purpose. This purpose is: That pleasure, without its opposite, pain, would not be perceptible, would be unthinkable, would be inconceivable—just as cold could not be apparent to our consciousness without heat, or light without darkness. Thus pleasure, in the absence of pain, would not be perceived as pleasure. Therefore, by increase of pain, pleasure becomes of greater value, for the greater the contrast the more readily do we perceive it.

“Masochism is thus a natural law.”

The more fully it is developed in any individual, the higher, the more superhuman is that person.

VI.

Through the recognition of the masochistic natural law, I passed into a peculiar condition. Individual love and sorrow no longer made any particular impression on me. I began to observe masochism in the life and work of Nature, in the history of humanity, in social life, and in civilization.

Is not the great developmental principle of Nature based upon this—that the existence and progress of the species is dependent upon pressure exercised on it by its environment? The more difficult the conditions of existence, the harder the pressure of the environment, the more suffering the species has to bear, the stronger must be the reaction against these, the more strongly will the powers and capacities of that species become active, and by this the species will be elevated to a higher level.

“Thus suffering is the driving force of Nature. Nature is therefore masochistic!”

Within the species itself the same law holds. Within the “human” species have not those varieties developed to the highest which have had to overcome the hardest environment? Those who by nature have been troubled with the greatest difficulties in providing for their food-supply? Those who have suffered most?

Is not the existence of the living being dependent upon the “struggle for existence,” upon the mutual hostility of the species, striving for one another’s annihilation?

It is a characteristic trait of human nature that all religions are based upon the same fundamental principle: “Only by suffering canst thou become happy!”

Is not this true masochism, when humanity, by means of modern science, has also been robbed of the hope of a beyond, of the hope for eternity and blessedness, and is offered nothing in its place? Look at universal history!

Was not the birth of that great idea associated with frightful sufferings, with the influence of fire and sword, blood and death? Has not humanity crucified its greatest benefactors? Has it not rewarded them with the gallows, the torture-chamber, the wheel, the stake, the prison, and the asylum?

And all out of love for humanity!

All the persecutions of Christians and Jews, the inquisitions and burnings of heretics, witch-trials, the religious sorrows of all times—all were outflows of the love for humanity. Their aim was to safeguard mankind from the robbery of its happiness by heresy!

The love of humanity begat our Neros, our Torquemadas, our Ivans the Terrible, and Schdanows!

Why did these men torture other men?... In order themselves to realize in imagination the others’ torments, to sympathize with them, to feel with them. In order in their own spirit to endure these martyrdoms; that is to say, to torture themselves with the representation of the pain of another.... “Thus in its motives sadism is nothing else than masochism.”

The love of humanity erected the cross of Christ, lighted the faggots with which Huss and Bruno wore burned, tortured Thomas Münzer, stabbed Marat, decapitated Hebert, and built the gallows of Arad, St. Petersburg, Chicago, etc.!

The love of humanity built the Bastille, the Tower of London, the Spielberg, Blackwell’s Island, and the Schlüsselburg, built the torture-chambers of the Inquisition, constructed the medieval penal system, and those of Montjuich, Alcalla del Valle, Borissoglebsk, and many others.

Remarkable! That precisely your “love of humanity” was the most cruel tormentor, the most inexorable executioner, the most bloodthirsty butcher of men, and the greatest of all criminals.

Do you not see in all this the wise rule of the masochistic principle? That it was only persecution which diffused these ideas? All the progress which man makes in civilization must be paid for by means of enormous sacrifice. The superhuman sorrows of millions of slaves created the civilization of antiquity—the Phœnician, the Babylonian, the Persian, the Assyrian, the Greek, and the Roman! (With regard to this often disputed fact, see Mommsen: “In comparison with the sufferings of the slaves of antiquity, all the sufferings of modern negro slaves are simply a drop in the ocean!”)

Indian civilization is the product of the most horrible suppression and plunder of the lower castes by the higher. The soil of the Southern States of America was cultivated through being manured with the sweat, blood, and bones of negro slaves.

The soil of Europe, again, was made fertile by the sufferings of slaves and serfs, and so on!

Amid the most horrible birth-pangs, amid the slave rebellions, peasant wars, and revolutions, in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, mankind was enabled to throw off the shell of the feudal system. Therewith capitalism was born. This newest form of civilization, once more, is based upon horrible plundering, oppression, and misery of millions and millions of proletarians.

What a devastation of humanity results from the acquirements of civilization in respect of engineering and the practical arts!... Every invention and discovery demands its victims!...

How often have chemists been destroyed by an explosion in the creation of new compounds, or killed by the development of poisonous vapours!

Count the engineers who have been sacrificed to their profession, or bacteriologists who have been killed through infection in the study of zymotic diseases!

Count all the victims of professional diseases, of tuberculosis, phosphorus necrosis, lead poisoning, mercurial poisoning, etc.!... Count all those who have fallen from scaffoldings, all the sailors who have been drowned, all the railway employees who have been run over, all the factory hands who have been torn to pieces by machinery, all those who have been destroyed in mines by explosions, etc.!

Think of the hunger and misery of the widows and children of these victims of industry and science, of the loss of work and other social injuries resulting from capitalism!

The rebellion of the victims of this system, again, gives rise to the class war, with new tortures, new sufferings!... In order ultimately, by the creation of a new social system in the future, to free mankind from these sufferings!... People believe it! But that is nonsense! The sufferings will only assume a new form, and will increase!!

Do you, then, believe that all the miseries of mankind at the present time have been the result only of chance, not of foresight?

Oh, no! These sufferings were only the stimulus which drove mankind forward to new construction, to greater progress, in order to avoid suffering!... Progress brought new suffering, and so on.

“Thus suffering is the civilizing factor of mankind! To free mankind from suffering would mean to rob mankind of civilization.”

Can we represent to ourselves a life of complete satisfaction?

No! Without suffering, the needs would be wanting which alone provide the stimulus to progress!... Without suffering, we should also be without enjoyment. For everything reaches our consciousness only by means of its opposite.

“To free us from torment means to rob us of pleasure.... But then we should no longer have any interest in life!”

“Civilization is a union, a hermaphrodite structure, of pleasure and pain—that is, masochism!!... The progress of mankind is only possible by means of the masochistic principle.”

Oh, cruel-sweet philosophy of Golgotha!! Eternally shalt thou remain the Moira and Kismet of humanity!!!

VII.

“Always the more, always the better of your kind shall perish, for it shall always be worse for you. So only—so only—does man grow upwards” (Nietzsche, “Zarathustra,” ii., p. 126).

Magnificent Nietzsche!

Now first do I grasp your “superman”!... Now I share your hatred of the every day and the average!

Away with the philistine cowardice which says, “Above all, do not go too far!... Do everything with moderation and for a definite end!... Never go too far, and never fall into extremes!”...

No!... Go forward with courage into the extreme!... Only slothfulness, comfortableness, and cowardice are afraid of a Turkish bath, with the subsequent cold douche!

But how the body softens under this laisser faire et laisser passer, how it loses its power of resistance, accumulates substances which are superfluous, and therefore harmful! In the same way that part of humanity which follows this device will perish from the philistine disease named “moderation”!

Let mankind get into its Turkish bath—and then get under the cold douche! Thus it will be steeled, rejuvenated, and invigorated! Thus it will be freed from superfluous matters!

“Let things be made continually worse and harder for mankind, then the reaction will step in and drive them forward!”

According to this device I acted henceforward. To increase pain, in order that pleasure might become greater!

An immeasurable love for humanity took possession of me now that I had at length attained the point of view which so perfectly harmonized with my individuality.... I myself became equivalent to humanity; I felt the heart-beat of millions in myself. Their contradictory feelings were united in my own person. I felt equally capitalist and proletarian; equally orthodox Christian and Catholic, Jew and atheist; equally man and woman.

All the sorrows and joys in humanity I felt in myself, and I plunged myself in them to the depths.

I wished to experience them all in my own spirit.... I studied universal history, but with what perception!... I did not confine myself to facts, but I turned to the persons of those who were acting; I represented to myself all the misery of the crowd and the thought of the crowd.

What intolerable pain all these provided for me! How I began to love glorious humanity which suffered all that!

Now the moment had come! Now was the time quickly to plunge into the extreme of life!... To plunge into all the sorrows of the millions, and to increase them tenfold, a hundredfold, a thousandfold! To drink the voluptuous sensation which all experience in the paroxysm of frenzy, and thus to become thoroughly man!!

VIII.

From now onwards I threw myself with enthusiasm into the arms of the most extreme section of the anarchist movement. I gave up the whole of my property to the support of newspapers, to the publication of pamphlets, to the support of agitators, and so on. But, at the same time, I remained in touch with the “upper ten thousand.” I travelled through the principal countries of Europe and America, everywhere forming associations, everywhere developing amid the receptive element of the movement my most radical tendencies—in most cases with good result.

(He now describes in detail his propagandist destructive activity, especially in Spain.)

IX.

Meanwhile, in my home in Eastern Europe the revolutionary tendency was continually gaining force; anarchism also became more influential. I felt that there was the proper field for my further activity.

Henceforward I lived partly in Paris and partly in Genf and Zürich, in order from these places to guide the movement in my direction.

Among my own countrymen I soon found adherents to whom nothing seemed too fantastic, nothing too radical.

Soon we were in possession of a small printing-office, with the aid of which we issued leaflets, pamphlets, and newspapers.

These generally contained the same ideas: the working classes should not bother themselves with political demands, such as “universal suffrage,” “individual liberty,” and the like. For, even if all these were to be gained, social oppression and exploitation would remain unaltered: these are what they feel most deeply, and from these evils all the others result. The working classes should rather aim at the “social revolution,” they should undertake the “expropriation of the expropriators.”

In the newspapers and pamphlets we proved in a scientific manner the justice of all forms of individual expropriation—robbery with violence, theft, extortion, etc.; we conducted an attack on property; we demanded the destruction of wealth, whether in private hands or in the hands of the State, in order that its possession might be more easily gained.

When the war between Japan and Russia broke out, we all felt that the time for increased activity had now arrived—most of us moved to Poland, Lithuania, or Bessarabia. A few only remained in Switzerland, in order to keep a grip upon the organization in these parts.

X.

For me there now began a period of frightful sufferings.... With frenzied haste, I seized all the possible news from the seat of war; greedily I consulted the reports of great battles lasting for entire weeks; I read of the dreadful storming of Port Arthur. All the horrible details passed plainly before my eyes.

All the frightful tortures of the masses I represented in my imagination. I saw how they stood in battle day after day; how they had lost consciousness in consequence of hunger and thirst and fatigue, and so went on fighting as mere automata. Ultimately they even forgot to take nourishment, to drink, and to rest—they actually did not any longer understand that they could free themselves from their torture of hunger and thirst, could save their lives, by eating and drinking—so they went on in a frenzy until they fell.

I was no longer capable of doing anything else than, with a swimming head, with temples pulsating with fever, studying war reports. Day and night these pictures were before me. Oh, if I could only stand with them in this hell!... How I loved them, these people who were capable of such grand actions!... I wished to call out to them: “Be embraced, O millions! Receive the kiss of the whole world!”... Yes, these are the true civilized nations!... To what progress must these horrible sufferings give rise? What a future for mankind! What joys to come!

XI.

Meanwhile the whole of my property had been used up in the revolutionary movement. The little money that was still available, that we were still able to scrape together here and there, was necessarily used for party purposes. I therefore suffered the most horrible poverty—now in Warsaw, now in Lodz, Bialystok, Kiew, or Odessa. ... Most of our adherents were among the poor Jewish quarters of these towns.

My earnings consisted of occasional work and occasional theft. When there was nothing doing in either of these ways, I moved on with a few of my own kind from one of our supporters to another.... These people divided with us the little they had.

It was a voluptuous joy to me, finally, to plunge into the uttermost depths of misery which it is possible to reach.

It was an enormous victory to be able to live in such surroundings. What glorious torments I suffered, until I had overcome the disgust and loathing which the whole environment produced in me! Everywhere we were amidst horrible dirt.

Notwithstanding all the dirt and misery in which I saw these people wallowing—or, precisely, because of these things—I began to love them as hitherto I had loved no others.... When they told me of the frightful persecutions which their people had endured as no other had done, then I experienced an unnamable yearning to be one of them; then I wondered at the enormous power with which, notwithstanding all persecutions, amidst the most frightful misery which I saw around me, yet they were able to be the most ardent revolutionists.

XII.

Everywhere now the revolution was in flood. We developed a feverish activity in all our centres.... At first we had no very great influence, but our emissaries were actively at work everywhere, in order to convert our movement from a political one to a social one, or at least to an economic one.

For this purpose we had provided a secret printing-press in Warsaw, where we prepared the necessary leaflets. They were written by a student, who was a genius in this speciality. No one understood as well as he how to appeal to the instincts of the crowd. The moving power of his style was incomparable.... He put the facts side by side, illuminated them from the side that seemed to him most suitable, and then drew his conclusions, which, in their simple convincing logic, seemed irresistible. Then he turned to inflame fanaticism, reminded us how, then and there, and there, and there, so many victims had been sacrificed to the same idea; how, there and elsewhere, on the barricades men had died for it, and had rather rotted in prison than abandon their just demands. In this way he always succeeded in moving the crowd.

It was very efficacious, also, to remind the people of all the little tricks which had been played upon them by the manufacturers and by the authorities; he drew their attention to the fact how they, who had created everything, were actually not recognized as human beings, far less as human beings with equal rights.... These proofs most readily infuriated the proletarians to frenzy, and in some places, as in Lagonsk, Tiflis, and Baku, we succeeded in turning the movement in the economic direction. It was a great advantage that we had associates everywhere, and we were quickly notified when the rain was likely to begin, so that we could speedily move to another place.

In Tiflis the affair did not go as I wished; here the people were only too practical.... They began neither to strike, nor to demolish, nor to attack the soldiers.... No.... They simply said: “So much wages do we want; then we shall work only for such a time; and no commodity must rise in price.... Every one who will not take part with us we shall shoot.”... All the inhabitants joined them.... After a short time all this came to nothing.

Baku was more pleasing to me.... Here the petroleum-borers made their demands, and as these were not agreed to within two days, they set fire to 140 wells.... Then, to my great regret, the proprietors agreed to everything which had been demanded. I had been so inhumanly glad to see my life-ideal fulfilled. It seemed as if the situation was going to be such as I had often imagined....

A long time already had the religious and racial hatred between the Armenians and the Tartars been inflamed to the uttermost. In the whole of the Caucasus there was a bubbling as if in a witch’s cauldron.... Naturally, I remained in Baku, in order to be ready for what I hoped would happen there.

The whole population was at the uttermost point of tension; everything seemed painfully uncertain; would the dance begin or not?... I felt that it would only be necessary to throw a grain of sand into machine, and in an instant it would lead to an avalanche.... I was possessed by a frightful excitement; this mental tension was intolerable.... From minute to minute the horrible anxiety of the undetermined increased in me, and the hellish desire still burned within me; I longed that it might start at this very minute, so that, at last, my nerve-destroying tension might be relieved.

Then I became possessed with a demoniacal idea: one only needed to give the slightest little push at the right place, and the storm would break.

Inwardly I shuddered at the idea of the horrible consequences; and yet something within me drove me forward with an irresistible force—finally, to close the switch, and to allow the current to pass which must give rise to the explosion.... “It is only a kind of benevolent midwifery,” something seemed to whisper in my ear. “It must happen, in any case!... The sooner the storm breaks, the better!”

Thus I was subjected to a conflict of perceptions, which made me quite irresponsible. I was hurled to and fro by momentary feelings like a football. A single word from the other side would have produced in me such a suggestion that I should have blindly done anything I might have been asked to do.

My state resembled that of those people of whom Blanqui says: “Paris at any moment contains 50,000 men who are ready at a wave of the hand to shed blood for any cause.” It is indifferent to them, he might have added, if it is for the cause of freedom or for the cause of reaction.

This “destroy-everything mood,” which had so long been to me a psychological riddle, I was now able to study in my own person, as the result of an intensified masochistic predisposition.... At the foundation of the whole hermaphroditic state, there lay nothing else than the love of humanity.... An everyday humanity offers us no new sensations.... We are only able to love when it is out of the ordinary.... For this reason, we strive to see mankind in pain and poverty—in order that we may love men more ardently; to love them for that reason, because their misery provides for us intense pain.

For days I wandered about, fighting within myself a frightful spiritual battle.... I felt that the only alternatives were either to bring about a catastrophe or suicide. To wait any longer was beyond my powers. A chance must decide....

A kind of trance state had taken possession of my organism.... I knew nothing rightly: I did not know if everything around me was reality or only a dream!... Yes, I even doubted my own existence!... At no moment did I know where I was, how I had come there, what I had just been doing, what I really was.... I remember only that suddenly I was walking in the street in deep conversation with a man entirely unknown to me.... Our conversation turned round the question, What was going to happen?... Both of us were reserved, both on the watch; each seemed to have the feeling—“He is seeing through me; I must not betray myself!... Perhaps I shall be able to get something out of him!”... Thus, we spoke with the most extreme caution about that which each of us read in the soul of the other....

The passers-by stared at us; possibly we had been speaking rather too loudly. It appeared to me that someone was following us in order to listen to our conversation; we stopped, in order that this person might be compelled to walk past us. It was an impudent lad, in the years between boyhood and manhood; he stopped also, with his hands in his trousers pockets, a few paces distant, and listened to us with interest.... My companion was as much taken aback as I was myself, and we both began to stammer. At the moment a crowd of gapers had collected around us, hoping to hear something of interest. We both became continually more confused; my head began to swim, and I began to say something. It must have been nonsense that I spoke, for my companion looked at me, half astonished and half alarmed, and several persons in the crowd began to titter. This made me suddenly lose my head more even than before, and I began to get angry. Suddenly I shouted out to my companion: “That will have the most frightful results; they have cut off the Tartar’s feet and hands, and now the Tartars will massacre the whole town!”... All those around me began to talk to one another at once. “Cut off feet and hands!”... I had turned the switch and the current had passed....

I do not know how I got home.... My landlady rushed to me with the news: “The Tartars are going to burn the town to ashes, and to murder all the Armenians. Some of them have had their feet and hands cut off; their noses have been slit, their eyes cut out; boiling oil has been poured into their ears.... The people are all running away, or barricading themselves in their houses!”

XIII.

I did not see the beginning of the drama, for immediately after my return home I fell into a death-like slumber, which lasted more than fifty hours. No one could have kept about after such a spiritual storm.... When I awoke, I was so weak that only with labour could I move a few paces; my whole body trembled unceasingly.... I had absolutely no other desire but for repose.... After I had somewhat recovered, I went to sleep again until the next morning.

Now I once more felt comparatively strong, although my arms and legs still trembled. My hostess—a German woman, long ago deserted in this town—gave me an account of the atrocities perpetrated by the Tartars. As I went out, the town seemed to be dead. In the streets there still lay numerous horrible, mutilated corpses; the shops were closed; here and there houses were demolished. As far as I could learn, in Tiflis the Tartars had done even worse.... Here in Baku they had fired the boring-wells of the Armenians; from these the fire had spread to the rest, so that the entire petroleum industry was ruined, and 10,000 men were out of work.

All this, however, made no impression on me. A frightful relaxation and apathy had taken possession of me; I felt neither pain, nor pleasure, nor sympathy. It was the reaction following the previous hypertension of the nerves.

I cared no longer to stay here, and I resolved to return to Kiew, and later to Warsaw or to Lodz.

XIV.

After a short stay in Rostow, on the Don, I reached Kiew, and was received by the group with much joy. They had believed that I had fallen in the massacre at Baku or Tiflis.

Our successes in Tiflis and Baku in the economic province, by means of the economic terror, were now utilized at every opportunity; they only regretted that, owing to the racial conflict, everything had been once more destroyed.

During my absence there had been many changes here. In Odessa, Kiew, Warsaw, Lodz, and Bialystok, successful “expropriations” had been effected. These “new tactics” had not only been strikingly successful in almost every case, but they had also attracted towards us the sympathies of those who had hitherto not taken in much earnest our influence upon the revolution.

These “expropriations” were carried out in various ways. For example, by one of our associates, who was an official in the postal service, we were kept informed when, anywhere in the neighbourhood of the town, the post-office coach was to pass an isolated place, carrying anything of considerable value. We then attacked it and plundered it.

Or we sent out spies to learn when, in any great person’s house, or in any bank, large sums of money would be on hand, and at what time the fewest employees would be there. Armed to the teeth, we crowded in, and demanded the surrender of the money, leaving in its place a receipt with the dreaded imprint of our organization. It also happened—as in Odessa—that a bomb was exploded in a business locality. Every one ran up to see what had happened. Meanwhile, one of our bands entered the place of business from behind and plundered the safe.

What a quantity of intelligence, energy, perseverance, and knowledge had to be employed, to render such enterprises possible! How we had to watch for weeks, to form plans and reject them; how our arrangements must be altered at the last moment, or the enterprise entirely abandoned! Of this every one and no one can form an idea for himself.

Here, at any rate, I do not propose to give a detailed description of these affairs, because my sketches do not aim at giving a description of the revolution, or of those who participated in it, but simply and solely to represent the motives of my own activity: Therefore I describe my own environment, only in so far as it is necessary to do so for the understanding of these motives.

These “expropriations” were, moreover, not an anarchist speciality, for they were also undertaken by the other terrorist parties.

He, however, who believes that the revolutionaries employed this money for their personal needs is grossly deceived. After, as before, they remained in their miserable holes, eating rotten herrings and going barefoot, in order not to destroy their union with the workmen, and not to lose the latter’s confidence. The money was used solely for revolutionary purposes—for providing weapons and printing-presses; for the erection of laboratories for making bombs; for the expenses of the journeys of smugglers and propagandists; for bribery; and for the support of those who had been arrested, and of their families—also the families of those who had been killed or wounded.

XV.

Soon after my return from Baku, I was transferred to Warsaw, in order to take part in the May-day celebrations of 1905—these May-day celebrations taking place according to the calendar of non-Russian countries.

The war, the unceasing extensive strikes and disturbances, had resulted everywhere in giving rise to horrible misery, which was further increased by the political crisis and by the arrest of all branches of industry.

All the misery of which I had always dreamed I now saw unceasingly around me. It might be believed that at length my desires would have obtained satisfaction! But this was not so. In the same degree as that with which the poverty around me increased did my sensibility, too, become blunted; I became accustomed to its appearance; I regarded it as an everyday occurrence, as something easily comprehensible.

Somewhat more did I love and honour humanity on account of this misery; but not to the extent of something beyond force, something “superhuman,” which would have been necessary for my complete satisfaction. Perhaps in Baku I should have experienced this superhuman feeling, had it not been that at the decisive moment my body gave way under the strain. Was that, perhaps, prearranged by Nature? Has Nature imposed these limits upon an individual, in order to prevent him from raising himself above the human standard?

Can it be that the state into which I fell at Baku resembled a “syncope of the soul,” which ensued when my psychical state began to verge upon the superhuman, in consequence of the torments around me, just as bodily syncope renders us unconscious when physical pain exceeds the limits of human capacity?

These questions now began to occupy me. I could only attain certainty by means of experiment; and I must obtain certainty, even if the half of humanity had to be sacrificed, as one sacrifices a rabbit in an experiment.

Impatiently I awaited the first of May.... Perhaps that day would bring me a solution of the riddle!... The workmen were still undecided: should they demonstrate or not?... I began to urge them in favour of the demonstration; my reason is easy to understand....

It was unquestionably one of the largest demonstrations that Warsaw had ever witnessed. In the narrow streets there was packed an innumerable crowd. Suddenly from all sides the soldiers charged the demonstration.... A frightful panic—such as I have never before seen—seized the crowd. Resistance was not to be thought of—it was a sauve qui peut!

In mad fear of death, every one began to scream, and to seek refuge in the houses.... At the doors of the houses there ensued a frightful pressure. Many were thrown to the ground; these were trodden to pulp. On the ground-floor the windows were broken in, and people crawled through them into the houses. Meanwhile, the Cossacks were raging up and down, cutting people down with their sabres. There were deafening screams of fear, and with these and with the groans of the wounded there mingled the bestial “Süiy” of the Cossacks, so as to produce a nerve-lacerating concert of hell. And around one could see the unnaturally dilated pupils, the widely opened eyes, and the faces distracted with anxiety, of those who were seeking safety in flight.

The same excitement had seized on me also; with a wildly beating heart, and an unbearably distressing feeling of contracture in the loins, which produced in my entire organism a kind of “anxious ecstasy,” I began to hope.... But it would not come....

XVI.

In Odessa, which was exhausted by unceasing fights and strikes, the strength of the reaction began to make itself felt, and there were fears of a “pogrom” (an attack on the Jews). The forces of the reaction in these pogroms always made use of the Lumpenproletariat (the blackguardly element of the mob).

Since the most trustworthy of our Odessa associates were Jews, and thus had no influence with the Lumpenproletariat, they urged me to go to Odessa, and, as a non-Hebrew, to use my influence to prevent the pogrom. It was not possible for me to refuse, although in secret I rejoiced at the prospect of the pogrom.

In Kiew, where I had some business, I met by chance an acquaintance belonging to my more prosperous past. This man knew nothing of my revolutionary activities. He, for his part, was an arch anti-Semite. In consequence of the disturbances, his business had been completely ruined. He described the whole revolution as the work of the Jews, and also abused the Government, which, in his opinion, was to blame for the weakness which it exhibited in dealing with the revolutionary forces.

“But,” he continued, with a wink, “if the Government does nothing, we shall know how to help ourselves a little!” I pretended to be entirely of his opinion, and he told me in confidence that there already existed in Odessa a secret committee, which was to take the matter in hand. He also was a member. A large sum of money had already been collected, in order to pay certain persons who were to arrange the entire “Hetze.” If I wished, I could be his guest, and he would make me a member of the committee. I agreed.

The next day I was actually enrolled in the committee. Who the members really were I did not learn. One characteristic was common to them all—a frightful indolence.... Everything was ready. They would arrange for patriotic demonstrations, and would then throw proclamations amongst the people, to tell them that the Jews had sworn an oath to combine with the Japanese for the destruction of Holy Russia; that the revolution had been begun by the Jews in order that the Little Father’s army must meet enemies on both sides at once. Thus, for all the present misery the Jews only were to blame, etc.... Everything had been arranged already, and was in the hands of people who were prepared to undertake the whole affair. The only thing now wanting was the proclamation.

My acquaintances now began to praise my genius as an author, and they all pressed me to begin immediately to compose the required leaflet. The proposal suited me; I do not need to say why. With zeal I threw myself upon the task, and the proclamation was a masterpiece of demagogic art, and a crowning example of the “appeal to the beast in man,” as it is ordinarily called.

The diffusion of this “document of civilization,” as it is called by the revolutionists, took place in connexion with the planned demonstration. The day passed without an outbreak, although the imminence of the storm could, as one may say, be felt in the air. Not until the evening were a few Jews beaten here and there.

On the second day our people arranged for a second demonstration. From the other side they endeavoured to form a counter-demonstration, and the two came in conflict. The Black Hundreds (drawn from the Lumpenproletariat), who fought in the name of “patriotism,” dispersed the counter-demonstrators, and began to demolish and to plunder in the Jewish quarter of the town.

The breaking of the panes of glass, and the destruction of the goods in the shop-windows and of the furniture in the houses, seemed to inflame the crowd more and more; they must have experienced a sort of voluptuous sensation in connexion with these activities. Finally, they found some Jews who had hidden themselves. A horrible yell was now raised. The Jews were dragged out into the street; they were struck with everything available—with cudgels, hatchets, and knives—until they were completely unrecognizable. The crowd found more and more of them. Most of them threw themselves on their knees and begged for life; it was most horrible to see them, beaten till their features were no longer distinguishable, still pleading for mercy. Now the mob really began to smell blood, and to display its whole true human nature. Each began to murder according to his own individual fancy. Here a man cut the breast from a nursing mother; there they tore the clothes from some girls, and flogged them naked through the streets. In another place they dragged a Jewess, naked, from her house into the street, tied her hand and foot, and fastened her by the hair to the axle of a cab; then they drove off at a gallop until she was battered to death. Behind the cab there ran street-arabs, striking at her body.... But to what purpose is it to describe these scenes, at which one’s heart is convulsed in one’s body with sorrow, and simultaneously one wishes to exult with joy and triumph?

Here I saw once more, in their proper environment, the 50,000 of whom Blanqui speaks. A wave of the hand would have sufficed—although 99 per cent, of them unquestionably felt no hostility towards the Jews—to produce in all of them the most infernal anti-Semitic excesses. If the police would allow it, as they allow the pogrom, another wave of the hand would direct the mob with no less ease to make an attack on another human variety—for example, on the capitalists.

What psychological factor drove them on?... Was it simply a tendency to cruelty?... No!... A love of cruelty considered by itself, without a nobler motive, is inhuman, inharmonious to human nature, and man cannot escape his own nature. There must therefore be other motives at the basis of such actions, motives of a nature more humanly comprehensible.

But look at all those slaughterers! Regard their physiognomy! Not a trace of cruelty—only suffering, unheard-of suffering, is reflected on these faces!... The fear of death and the pain of their victims prepares for themselves incredible torment!... Do you not believe that these people will return to their houses, and will suffer intense mental pain?... They will continually see, in imagination, the last beseeching glance of their victim, full of complaint and reproach, directed upon them!... What hatred, what contempt, will they feel for the animal which has awakened within them! They will feel a longing to spit in their own faces, to strike themselves, to strangle themselves!... Before every one whom they meet they will lower their eyes: “He knows that I have murdered people, amid the most cruel tortures, against whom there was no hatred in my heart—murdered only for this reason: because I had within me the instinctive demand for spiritual torment; because by the situation in which I suddenly found myself one pole of my hermaphrodite nature was suddenly discharged!”

“They are masochists, only they do not know it.”

Self-contempt suddenly seized me amidst this Satanic orgy of suffering on the part of such unconscious, instinctive masochists. The remembrance that all these persons were being led onwards by a blind animal impulse, and that to-morrow they would fall on their knees before their God and pray to Him for pardon, filled me with disgust. I began to hate this stupid mass. I wanted to see them grovel in the dust themselves, and howl for mercy.

For this purpose it was only necessary to organize the Selbstschutz (a union for the prevention of persecution of the Jews). In order to effect this, I tried to get into the Jewish quarter. I succeeded in doing so by means of some side passages. Hardly had I reached this quarter, when I came across masses of these “Self-Protectors.” Finally, I found among them some acquaintances, and I joined them.

A heated contest now began to rage.... As the Black Hundreds were now so energetically attacked, all their heroism was speedily at an end: they took to flight. At this moment the soldiers appeared—not, as one might have imagined, to attack the Black Hundreds, but to attack the “Self-Protectors.”

My arm, which was stretched out in front of me, was traversed longitudinally by a rifle-bullet in a peculiar manner. I sank to the ground at first, but soon recovered sufficiently to get up and run away.

That inexpressible sense of complete satisfaction by means of suffering, for which I was continually searching—which, so to say, I felt to slumber within me—once more appeared in actual experience. I always had the impression that there was something wanting, that it was necessary to awaken something within me which hitherto had existed in my consciousness only in a dormant state.... At the same time, a voice whispered to me that I was demanding something superhuman; that the attainment of such a thing must logically overwhelm my purely human powers, and that it would involve my annihilation.

Day and night these thoughts tormented me: “You must gain this experience—even if it involves your destruction!... But what if, at the last moment—as at Baku—a further incapacity, a ‘spiritual syncope,’ ensues?”

One thing I knew—“When you reach it, it will only be by yourself; all others will break to pieces before you!”

XVII.

I no longer had any interest in the development of revolutionary affairs, since for my own purposes they were no longer serviceable.

The new questions which now arose—as, for example, the propaganda among the Lumpenproletariat—left me cold.... In the pogrom we had seen what an unawakened force—reputed as revolutionary, but in reality masochistic—was slumbering in the Lumpenproletariat. That this force could also be used in the service of reaction was ascribed to the fact that all these thieves, criminals, and prostitutes, came into contact only with the working classes. But since they earn from the latter nothing but contempt, their sensibility was turned against the working classes.

This unfortunate state of affairs it was proposed to counteract by going among the criminals, just as in earlier years they had gone among the working people. An endeavour was made to organize the Lumpenproletariat, in order to win their sympathies.

The movement was in part successful, although it brought with it much corruption. Thus it happened that the criminals endeavoured to turn the matter to their own advantage, and began to pursue their profession in the name of anarchism. For example, in Warsaw they visited the house of an enormously rich Jewish banker, whose father had recently died, and, under the mask of anarchism, demanded from him 10,000 roubles, with the threat that if he did not give the money, they would dig up the corpse of his father and bury it in unconsecrated ground. When we remember there is nothing more horrible for an orthodox Jew than to rest in unconsecrated soil, we shall understand that the banker gave the money; but this occurrence aroused a great sensation, and people began to identify anarchists with common criminals.

Now the anarchists had to endure the persecution, not only of the Government, but also that of other revolutionary parties and of the Lumpenproletariat—the latter for this reason: because they did not wish their names to be associated with actions which were undertaken for personal advantage, and not for revolutionary aims.

This campaign against the anarchists from three different sides must soon bring about disaster.

During this time I was perpetually puzzling over the problem: “Will the idea you have dreamed of be realized within you?... Will it lead to your destruction?... Or will it overwhelm your powers, and lead once more to spiritual syncope?”

By means of an experiment, the matter could be determined!... Supposing one were to distribute broadcast plague bacilli!... If entire towns were to suffer from this disease!... If the fear of death was to seize the whole crowd of those who, in their cowardice at every strike, every demonstration, every fight at the barricades, had hidden behind the stove or crept under the bed!... If this fear of death were to increase to a general panic, affecting entire towns, entire countries, as happened in the middle ages!... If the people, in their despair, should look for the disseminators of the trouble, and should proceed to hew one another to pieces!... Would my relief come then?... Will there be an answer for me?

I shudder to think of the suffering which this would entail for me! I feel that I am not equal to this!... I suffer, on the other hand, inexpressibly, because I have no answer, no recognition, no satisfaction!... I will—and I cannot. To endure longer this hermaphroditic state—this is death or lunacy!... What to do?... How to free oneself from this horrible dilemma?

Oh, why am I not like others?... Why cannot I simply accept that which is?... Why do I torment myself to climb the mountain, in order to stand before a bottomless abyss?... Before an abyss whose secret depths will be manifest to me only if I hurl myself into it!...

What to do?... What to do?... Shall I, or shall I not?... I will!... I must!...

As I was about to do it, I was arrested! Chance or foresight?

Oh, fate, fate! That is too much of suffering!... Oh, mankind, mankind, what have you done?... A single one wished to see. A single one wished to tear a veil from the image—and you have hindered it!... Eternally you will have darkness around you!... But why will you not allow me to see the light?

Is it thus that you thank me, who have loved humanity as no other has loved!

Yes; that is once over again the cruel, the pitiless philosophy of Golgotha—

“He who will love—must suffer!”

---

[588] Havelock Ellis, “Studies in the Psychology of Sex,” vol. iii., “Analysis of the Sexual Impulse.”

[589] A special account of this matter is found in an interesting work by G. H. Schneider, “Joy and Sorrow of the Human Race: a Social and Psychological Investigation of the Fundamental Problems of Ethics” (Stuttgart, 1883).

[590] Cf. Eugen Dühren (Iwan Bloch), “Recent Researches regarding the Marquis de Sade and his Time” (Berlin, 1904). I refer the reader to this, my second, work on the Marquis de Sade, as a critical description of the true de Sade based upon contemporary sources. My former work upon this subject I now regard as inadequate, youthful, and containing numerous errors.

[591] See the description of this in G. Hirth’s “Ways to Love,” p. 638.

[592] They are still more clearly to be observed in animals.

[593] Havelock Ellis, “Eroticism and Pain,” in his “Analysis of the Sexual Impulse.”

[594] Friedrich S. Krauss, “Procreation in the Morals, the Customs, and the Beliefs of the Southern Slavs,” published in Kryptadia, vol. vii., pp. 208, 209 (Paris, 1899).

[595] A. Eulenburg, “Sadism and Masochism,” published in “Borderland Questions of Nervous and Mental Life,” No. 19, pp. 9, 10 (published by Loewenfeld and Kurella, Wiesbaden, 1902).

[596] Ch. Féré, “Sadism in the Bull-fight,” published in the Revue de Médecine, 1900, No. 8.

[597] The sadistic element in lynch law has recently been most vividly described by Feliz Baumann in his interesting book, “In Darkest America: Manners and Customs in the United States.” (Dresden, 1902).

[598] Francisque Bouiller, Du Plaisir et de la Douleur, p. 72 (Paris, 1865).

[599] A. Horwicz, “Psychological Analysis on Psychological Grounds,” p. 361 (Magdeburg, 1878).

[600] Michel Montaigne, “Essais,” p. 35 (Paris, 1886).

[601] Havelock Ellis, “Analysis of the Sexual Impulse.”

[602] J. J. Virey, “Woman,” p. 347.

[603] This point of view has been especially insisted on by Felix von Luschan. Cf. Politsch-anthropologische Revue, 1902, No. 1 p. 71.

[604] K. von don Steinen, “The Savage Races of Central Brazil,” p. 332 (Berlin, 1894).

[605] S. R. Steinmetz, “Ethnological Studies regarding the First Development of Punishment,” vol. i., p. 23 (Leiden and Leipzig, 1894).

[606] Cf. also Albert Eulenburg, “Sadism and Masochism,” pp. 57-68 (with a good bibliography; Wiesbaden, 1902); Iwan Bloch, “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 75-97; Pierre Guénolé, “L’étrange Passion. La Flagellation dans les Mœurs d’Aujourd’hui. Études et Documents” (Paris, 1904); Don Brennus Aléra, “La Flagellation Passionelle” (Paris, 1905); Lord Drialys, “Les Délices du Fouet. Précédé d’un Essai sur la Flagellation et le Masochisme par Jean de Villiot” (contains numerous interesting details; Paris, 1907).

[607] Especially at the time when flogging as a judicial punishment was still practised in Germany. The sadistic influence of this punishment is described by W. Reinhard in his celebrated book “Lenchen im Zuchthause” (“Lenchen in the Penitentiary”), reprinted 1901 (Karlsruhe, 1840). In Russia these conditions remain unaltered.

[608] P. Näcke, “Forensic, Psychiatrical, and Psychological Aspects of the Trial of Dippold, especially in Connexion with Sadism,” published in the Archives for Criminal Anthropology, 1903, vol. xiii., No. 4, pp. 350-372.

[609] Regarding the English flagellation brothels, and regarding Theresa Berkley, see my work, “The Sexual Life in England,” vol. ii., pp. 429-443.

[610] H. Lawes, “Die Weibliche Reize,” p. 180 (Leipzig, circa 1877).

[611] Siegfried Türkel (“Sexual Pathological Cases,” published in the Archives for Criminal Anthropology, vol. xi., pp. 219, 220) reports the case of an actor, who, known under the name of “The Ravisher,” induced prostitutes, whom he paid liberally, to resist him sometimes for hours, and then apparently to yield to his superior force. He once took a young girl into his dwelling, bound her suddenly, and violated her in this state.

[612] In this case, according to von Krafft-Ebing, the life of his victim depended on the fact whether ejaculation occurred soon or late.

[613] Cf. Santlus, “The Psychology of Human Impulses,” published in the Archives for Psychiatry, 1864, vol. vi., p. 255.

[614] Cf. regarding sadistic arson my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 116-118.

[615] G. Chr. Lichtenberg, “Miscellaneous Writings,” edited by L. Chr. Lichtenberg and Friedrich Kries, vol. ii., p. 447 (Göttingen, 1801).

[616] To this category belongs also the peculiar case reported by Siegfried Türkel (“Sexual Pathological Cases,” published in the Archives for Criminal Anthropology, 1903, vol. xi., pp. 215-218) of a historian who became sexually excited by the view of a woman suffering from sexual deprivation, and of her mental trouble. Another man (ibid., p. 222, 223) obtained sexual excitement and gratification only by watching the anxiety of women—for example, of such as he had himself falsely accused of theft!

[617] Cf. the reference to erotic dictionaries in my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 104, 105. Recently F. S. Krauss, in his “Anthropophyteia,” has devoted special attention to this peculiar manifestation of the popular soul.

[618] R. Schwaeblé, “Les Détraquées de Paris,” pp. 3-10.

[619] The typical literary advocate of masochism, who in actual life was a passionate worshipper of the whip, was Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836-1895). Cf. regarding him, his life, his sexual perversions, and his writings, C. F. von Schlichtegroll, “Sacher-Masoch and Masochism” (Dresden, 1901); Wanda von Sacher-Masoch, “Confessions of my Life” (Berlin and Leipzig, 1906); C. F. von Schlichtegroll, “‘Wanda’ without Fur and Mask. An Answer to ‘Wanda’ von Sacher-Masoch’s ‘Confessions of My Life,’ with extracts from Sacher-Masoch’s Diary” (Leipzig, 1906).

[620] A. de Musset, “Confessions of a Child of his Time.”

[621] Ertel, “A ‘Slave,’” published in the Archives for Criminal Anthropology, issued by Hans Gross, vol. xxv., Nos. 1 and 2, p. 107 (Leipzig, 1906). Hamburg appears to be the chief centre of masochistic prostitution. See also the report given by D. Hausen, “The Cane and the Whip,” second edition, pp. 164, 165 (Dresden, 1902).

[622] Regarding the voluptuous sensations connected with hanging, see my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., p. 173, and more especially my “Sexual Life in England,” vol. iii., pp. 94-99 (Berlin, 1903); also Havelock Ellis, “Analysis of the Sexual Impulse.”

[623] Cf. Castor and Pollux, “The Masseuse Improprieties of Berlin” (Berlin, 1900).

[624] This is a favourite masochistic situation. Hans Baldung has immortalized it in a picture, in which Phyllis rides upon Aristotle. I owe to the kindness of my colleague Dr. Kantorowicz, in Hanover, the knowledge that J. von Falke describes an ivory relief representing the same scene. King Alexander looks on, and “rejoices at the scene—how the bearded old man, controlled by the beauty, with the bit in his mouth, is crawling about on all-fours, carrying the lady, armed with a whip.” In Semrau-Lübke’s “Elements of the History of Art,” vol. iii., p. 532 (Stuttgart, 1903), a picture on glass, from the Rahn Collection in Zurich, is described, which represents the same history.

[625] Ertel, op. cit., pp. 105, 106.

[626] The following extremely valuable contribution to the psychology of the Russian revolution now in progress was sent in September, 1906, from Russia to my colleague Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld. He most kindly gave me this extremely interesting sketch for publication in this place. It throws a very clear light upon the nature of algolagnia. We have here a unique psychological document, which deserves the attention of politicians and sociologists no less than that of anthropologists and psychologists.

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CHAPTER XXII
SEXUAL FETICHISM

“With respect to the evolution of physiological love, it is probable that its germ is always to be sought and to be found in an individual fetichistic charm which a person of one sex exercises upon a person of the other sex.”—R. von Krafft-Ebing.

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