Indulge in the intoxicating allure of “Venus in Furs” by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch! This provocative tale of desire and domination plunges readers into the seductive world of Severin von Kusiemski, a man enthralled by his obsession with the enigmatic Wanda von Dunajew. Set against the backdrop of 19th-century Europe, the novella explores themes of power, […]
She stops over in Vienna for a day to go shopping, and particularly to buy series of luxurious gowns. She continues to treat me as her servant. I follow her at the respectful distance of ten paces. She hands me her packages without so much as even deigning a kind look, and laden down like […]
Sometimes, nevertheless, I have an uneasy feeling about placing myself so absolutely, so unconditionally into a woman’s hands. Suppose she did abuse my passion, her power? Well, then I would experience what has occupied my imagination since my childhood, what has always given me the feeling of seductive terror. A foolish apprehension! It will be […]
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 […]
“Now you understand the supersensual fool! Under the lash of a beautiful woman my senses first realized the meaning of woman. In her fur-jacket she seemed to me like a wrathful queen, and from then on my aunt became the most desirable woman on God’s earth. “My Cato-like austerity, my shyness before woman, was nothing […]
“Place thy foot upon thy slave, Oh thou, half of hell, half of dreams; Among the shadows, dark and grave, Thy extended body softly gleams.” And—so on. This time I really got beyond the first stanza. At her request I gave her the poem in the evening, keeping no copy. And now as I am […]
“The pair of wings a fiction are, The arrows, they are naught but claws, The wreath conceals the little horns, For without any doubt he is Like all the gods of ancient Greece Only a devil in disguise.” Then I put the picture before me on my table, supporting it with a book, and looked […]
The margin of the manuscript bore as motto a variation of the well-known lines from Faust: “Thou supersensual sensual wooer A woman leads you by the nose.” —MEPHISTOPHELES. I turned the title-page and read: “What follows has been compiled from my diary of that period, because it is impossible ever frankly to write of one’s past, […]
