Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

My company was charming. Opposite me by the massive Renaissance fireplace sat Venus: she was not a casual woman of the half-world, who under this pseudonym wages war against the enemy sex, like Mademoiselle Cleopatra, but the real, true goddess of love.

She sat in an armchair and had kindled a crackling fire, whose reflection ran in red flames over her pale face with its white eyes, and from time to time over her feet when she sought to warm them.

Her head was wonderful in spite of the dead stony eyes; it was all I could see of her. She had wrapped her marble- like body in a huge fur, and rolled herself up trembling like a cat.


'I don't understand it,' I exclaimed. 'It isn't really cold any longer. For two weeks past we have had perfect spring weather. You must be nervous.'

'Much obliged for your spring,' she replied with a low stony voice, and immediately afterwards sneezed divinely, twice in succession. 'I really can't stand it here much longer, and I'm beginning to understand -.'

'What, dear lady?'

'I am beginning to believe the unbelievable and to understand the ununderstandable.'

(Translated from German by Joachim Neugroschel)