Venus in Furs has caught his soul in the red snares of hair. He will paint her, and go mad.
* * * * *
It is a sunny winter’s day. Something that looks like gold trembles on the leaves of the clusters of trees down below in the green level of the meadow. The camelias at the foot of the gallery are glorious in their abundant buds. Wanda is sitting in the loggia; she is drawing. The German painter stands opposite her with his hands folded as in adoration, and looks at her. No, he rather looks at her face, and is entirely absorbed in it, enraptured.
But she does not see him, neither does she see me, who with the spade in my hand am turning over the flower-bed, solely that I may see her and feel her nearness, which produces an effect on me like poetry, like music.
* * * * *
The painter has gone. It is a hazardous thing to do, but I risk it. I go up to the gallery, quite close, and ask Wanda “Do you love the painter, mistress?”
She looks at me without getting angry, shakes her head, and finally even smiles.
“I feel sorry for him,” she replies, “but I do not love him. I love no one. I used to love you, as ardently, as passionately, as deeply as it was possible for me to love, but now I don’t love even you any more; my heart is a void, dead, and this makes me sad.”
“Wanda!” I exclaimed, deeply moved.
“Soon, you too will no longer love me,” she continued, “tell me when you have reached that point, and I will give back to you your freedom.”