“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: