“Have you prayed to-night, Desdemona?” (_He takes a reproduction of the Venus of Palma Vecchio from his bosom._)----Thou wilt not appear to me after the Our Father, darling,----as in that moment of anticipated bliss when I saw thee contemplatively expectant of someone's coming, lying in Jonathan Schlesinger's shop window----just as enticing as thou art now, with these supple limbs, these softly arched hips, these plump, youthful breasts.----Oh how intoxicated with joy the great master must have been when his glance strayed over the fourteen-year-old original stretched out upon the divan! Wilt thou not visit me for awhile in my dreams? I will receive thee with widely open arms and will kiss thee until thou art breathless. Thou drawest me onward as the enchanted princess in her deserted castle. Portals and doors open themselves as if by an unseen hand, while the fountain in the park below begins to splash joyously---- “It is the cause!----It is the cause!” The frightful beating in my breast shows thee that I do not murder thee from frivolous emotion. The thought of my lonely nights is strangling me. I swear to thee, child, on my soul, that it is not satiety which rules me. Who could ever boast of being satiated of thee! But thou suckest the marrow from my bones, thou bendest my back, thou robbest my youthful eyes of their last spark of brilliancy.----Thou art so arrogant toward me in thy inhuman modesty, so galling with thy immovable limbs!----Thou or I! And I have won the victory. Suppose I count them----all those who sleep, with whom I have fought the same battle here----: Psyche by Thumann--another bequest from the spindle-shanked Mademoiselle Angelique, that rattlesnake in the paradise of my childhood; Io by Corregio; Galathea by Lossow; then a Cupid by Bouguereau; Ada by J. van Beers--that Ada whom I had to abduct from a secret drawer in Papa's secretary in order to incorporate in my harem; a trembling, modest Leda by Makart, whom I found by chance among my brother's college books----seven, thou blooming candidate for death, have preceded thee upon this path to Tartarus. Let that be a consolation unto thee, and seek not to increase my torments at this enormity by that fleeting look. Thou diest not for thy sins, thou diest on account of mine!----As protection against myself I go to my seventh wife-murder with a bleeding heart. There is something tragic in the rôle of Bluebeard. I believe the combined sufferings of his murdered wives did not equal the torments he underwent each time he strangled one of them.