Inspirations
and has caused them to sing(?) like flutes.
He has given them a [perfect] heart,
and they have walked in the w[ay of His heart],
He has also caused them to draw near to the w[ay of his heart].
For they have pledged their spirit.
He sent and covered them and commanded that no plague [should affect them].
His angel fixed his camp around them;
He guarded them lest [the enemy?] destroy them.
LEOPOLD SACHER-MASOCH
from Venus in Furs
I had a charming guest.
Opposite me, by the massive Renaissance fireplace, sat Venus: not, mind you, some demimondaine who, like Mademoiselle Cleopatra, had taken the pseudonym of Venus in her war against the enemy sex. No: my visitor was the Goddess of Love – in the flesh.
She sat in an easy chair after fanning up a crackling fire, and the reflections of red flames licked her pale face with its white eyes and, from time to time, her feet when she tried to warm them.
Her head was wonderful despite the dead stone eyes, but that was all I saw of her. The sublime being had wrapped her marble body in a huge fur and, shivering, had curled up like a cat.
‘I don’t understand, dear Madam,’ I cried. ‘It’s really not cold any more; for the past two weeks we’ve had the most glorious spring weather. You’re obviously high-strung.’
‘Thank you for your spring, but no thanks,’ she said in a deep stone voice and instantly sneezed two divine sneezes in quick succession. ‘I truly can’t stand it and I’m beginning to grasp—’
‘Grasp what, dear Madam?’
‘I’m beginning to believe the unbelievable and comprehend the incomprehensible. I suddenly understand Germanic female virtue and German philosophy, and I’m no longer amazed that you northerners are unable to love – indeed, haven’t got the foggiest notion of what love is.’
‘Permit me, Madam,’ I replied, flaring up. ‘I have truly given you no occasion.’
‘Well, you—’ The divine being sneezed a third time and shrugged with inimitable grace. ‘That’s why I’ve always been lenient with you and even visit you every so often although I promptly catch cold each time despite my many furs. Do you recall our first meeting?’
‘How could I forget it?’ I said. ‘You had rich, brown curls and brown eyes and red lips, but I immediately recognized you by the contours of your face and by that marble pallor – you always wore a violet velvet jacket lined with vair.’
‘Yes, you were quite enamoured of that attire, and what a good pupil you were.’
‘You taught me what love is. Your cheerful divine service made me forget two thousand years.’
‘And how incomparably faithful I was to you!’
‘Well, as for being faithful—’
‘Ungrateful wretch!’
‘I won’t reproach you. You may be a godly woman, but you’re a woman all the same, and when it comes to love you are as cruel as any woman.’
‘What you call “cruel”,’ the Goddess of Love vividly retorted, ‘is precisely the element of sensuality and cheerful love – which is a woman’s nature. She must give herself to whatever or whomever she loves and must love anything that pleases her.’
‘Is there any greater cruelty for the lover than the beloved woman’s infidelity?’
‘Ah,’ she countered, ‘we are faithful as long as we love, but you men demand that women be faithful without love and give ourselves without joy. Who is the cruel one here? The woman or the man? On the whole, you northerners take love too earnestly, too seriously. You talk about duties, when all that should count is pleasure.’