“Now—” said Wanda. “Why you are all lost in thought. What is the matter with you, everything will remain just as it was, even after you have signed, don’t you know me yet, dear heart?” I looked at the agreement. Her name was written there in bold letters. I peered once more into her eyes with their potent magic, then I took the pen and quickly signed the agreement. “You are trembling,” said Wanda calmly, “shall I help you?” She gently took hold of my hand, and my name appeared at the bottom of the second paper. Wanda looked once more at the two documents, and then locked them in the desk which stood at the head of the ottoman. “Now then, give me your passport and money.” I took out my wallet and handed it to her. She inspected it, nodded, and put it with other things while in a sweet drunkenness I kneeled before her leaning my head against her breast. Suddenly she thrusts me away with her foot, leaps up, and pulls the bell-rope. In answer to its sound three young, slender negresses enter; they are as if carved of ebony, and are dressed from head to foot in red satin; each one has a rope in her hand. Suddenly I realize my position, and am about to rise. Wanda stands proudly erect, her cold beautiful face with its sombre brows and contemptous eyes is turned toward me. She stands before me as mistress, commanding, gives a sign with her hand, and before I really know what has happened to me the negresses have dragged me to the ground, and have tied me hand and foot. As in the case of one about to be executed my arms are bound behind my back, so that I can scarcely move. “Give me the whip, Haydée,” commands Wanda, with unearthly calm. The negress hands it to her mistress, kneeling. “And now take off my heavy furs,” she continues, “they impede me.” The negress obeyed. “The jacket there!” Wanda commanded. Haydée quickly brought her the _kazabaika_, set with ermine, which lay on the bed, and Wanda slipped into it with two inimitably graceful movements. “Now tie him to the pillar here!” The negresses lifted me up, and twisting a heavy rope around my body, tied me standing against one of the massive pillars which supported the top of the wide Italian bed. Then they suddenly disappeared, as if the earth had swallowed them. Wanda swiftly approached me. Her white satin dress flowed behind her in a long train, like silver, like moonlight; her hair flared like flames against the white fur of her jacket. Now she stood in front of me with her left hand firmly planted on her hips, in her right hand she held the whip. She uttered an abrupt laugh. “Now play has come to an end between us,” she said with heartless coldness. “Now we will begin in dead earnest. You fool, I laugh at you and despise you; you who in your insane infatuation have given yourself as a plaything to _me_, the frivolous and capricious woman. You are no longer the man I love, but _my slave_, at my mercy even unto life and death. “You shall know me!