She has posted me in the adjoining room behind a heavy curtain, where I can’t be seen, but can see everything.
What does she intend now?
Is she afraid of him? She has driven him insane enough to be sure, or is she hatching a new torment for me? My knees tremble.
They are talking. He has lowered his voice so that I cannot understand a word, and she replies in the same way. What is the meaning of this? Is there an understanding between them?
I suffer frightful torments; my heart seems about to burst.
He kneels down before her, embraces her, and presses his head against her breast, and she—in her heartlessness—laughs—and now I hear her saying aloud:
“Ah! You need another application of the whip.”
“Woman! Goddess! Are you without a heart—can’t you love,” exclaimed the German, “don’t you even know, what it means to love, to be consumed with desire and passion, can’t you even imagine what I suffer? Have you no pity for me?”
“No!” she replied proudly and mockingly, “but I have the whip.”
She drew it quickly from the pocket of her fur-coat, and struck him in the face with the handle. He rose, and drew back a couple of paces.