The blows fell rapidly and powerfully on my back and arms. Each one cut into my flesh and burned there, but the pains enraptured me. They came from her whom I adored, and for whom I was ready at any hour to lay down my life.
She stopped. “I am beginning to enjoy it,” she said, “but enough for to-day. I am beginning to feel a demonic curiosity to see how far your strength goes. I take a cruel joy in seeing you tremble and writhe beneath my whip, and in hearing your groans and wails; I want to go on whipping without pity until you beg for mercy, until you lose your senses. You have awakened dangerous elements in my being. But now get up.”
I seized her hand to press it to my lips.
“What impudence.”
She shoved me away with her foot.
“Out of my sight, slave!”
* * * * *
After having spent a feverish night filled with confused dreams, I awoke. Dawn was just beginning to break.
How much of what was hovering in my memory was true; what had I actually experienced and what had I dreamed? That I had been whipped was certain. I can still feel each blow, and count the burning red stripes on my body. And she whipped me. Now I know everything.
My dream has become truth. How does it make me feel? Am I disappointed in the realization of my dream?