"Tread me underfoot!" I exclaimed, and flung myself face to the

floor before her.

"I hate all this play-acting," said Wanda impatiently.

"Well, then maltreat me seriously."

An uncanny pause.

"Severin, I warn you for the last time," began Wanda.

"If you love me, be cruel towards me," I pleaded with upraised eyes.

"If I love you," repeated Wanda. "Very well!" She stepped back and

looked at me with a sombre smile. _"Be then my slave, and know what

it means to be delivered into the hands of a woman."_ And at the

same moment she gave me a kick.

"How do you like that, slave?"

Then she flourished the whip.

"Get up!"

I was about to rise.

"Not that way," she commanded, "on your knees."

I obeyed, and she began to apply the lash.

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 press my lips to her stocking foot.

"What impudence."

She shoved me away with her foot.

"Out of my sight, slave!"

- Venus in Furs