“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.