“I have been absolutely faithful to you,” replied Wanda, “I swear it by all that is holy to me. All that I have done was merely to fulfill your dream and it was done for your sake. “However, I shall take a lover, otherwise things will be only half accomplished, and in the end you will yet reproach me with not having treated you cruelly enough, my dear beautiful slave! But to-day you shall be Severin again, the only one I love. I haven’t given away your clothes. They are here in the chest. Go and dress as you used to in the little Carpathian health-resort when our love was so intimate. Forget everything that has happened since; oh, you will forget it easily in my arms; I shall kiss away all your sorrows.” She began to treat me tenderly like a child, to kiss me and caress me. Finally she said with a gracious smile, “Go now and dress, I too will dress. Shall I put on my fur-jacket? Oh yes, I know, now run along!” When I returned she was standing in the center of the room in her white satin dress, and the red _kazabaika_ edged with ermine; her hair was white with powder and over her forehead she wore a small diamond diadem. For a moment she reminded me in an uncanny way of Catherine the Second, but she did not give me much time for reminiscences. She drew me down on the ottoman beside her and we enjoyed two blissful hours. She was no longer the stern capricious mistress, she was entirely a fine lady, a tender sweetheart. She showed me photographs and books which had just appeared, and talked about them with so much intelligence, clarity, and good taste, that I more than once carried her hand to my lips, enraptured. She then had me recite several of Lermontov’s poems, and when I was all afire with enthusiasm, she placed her small hand gently on mine. Her expression was soft, and her eyes were filled with tender pleasure. “Are you happy?” “Not yet.” She then leaned back on the cushions, and slowly opened her _kazabaika_. But I quickly covered the half-bared breast again with the ermine. “You are driving me mad.” I stammered. “Come!” I was already lying in her arms, and like a serpent she was kissing me with her tongue, when again she whispered, “Are you happy?” “Infinitely!” I exclaimed. She laughed aloud. It was an evil, shrill laugh which made cold shivers run down by back. “You used to dream of being the slave, the plaything of a beautiful woman, and now you imagine you are a free human being, a man, my lover-you fool! A sign from me, and you are a slave again. Down on your knees!” I sank down from the ottoman to her feet, but my eye still clung doubtingly on hers. “You can’t believe it,” she said, looking at me with her arms folded across her breast. “I am bored, and you will just do to while away a couple of hours of time. Don’t look at me that way—” She kicked me with her foot. “You are just what I want, a human being, a thing, an animal—” She rang. The three negresses entered. “Tie his hands behind his back.”