I remained kneeling and unresistingly let them do this. They led me into the garden, down to the little vineyard, which forms the southern boundary. Corn had been planted between the espaliers, and here and there a few dead stalks still stood. To one side was a plough. The negresses tied me to a post, and amused themselves sticking me with their golden hair-needles. But this did not last long, before Wanda appeared with her ermine cap on her head, and with her hands in the pockets of her jacket. She had me untied, and then my hands were fastened together on my back. She finally had a yoke put around my neck, and harnessed me to the plough. Then her black demons drove me out into the field. One of them held the plough, the other one led me by a line, the third applied the whip, and Venus in Furs stood to one side and looked on. * * * * * When I was serving dinner on the following day Wanda said: “Bring another cover, I want you to dine with me to-day,” and when I was about to sit down opposite her, she added, “No, over here, close by my side.” She is in the best of humors, gives me soup with her spoon, feeds me with her fork, and places her head on the table like a playful kitten and flirts with me. I have the misfortune of looking at Haydée, who serves in my place, perhaps a little longer than is necessary. It is only now that I noticed her noble, almost European cast of countenance and her magnificent statuesque bust, which is as if hewn out of black marble. The black devil observes that she pleases me, and, grinning, shows her teeth. She has hardly left the room, before Wanda leaps up in a rage. “What, you dare to look at another woman besides me! Perhaps you like her even better than you do me, she is even more demonic!” I am frightened; I have never seen her like this before; she is suddenly pale even to the lips and her whole body trembles. Venus in Furs is jealous of her slave. She snatches the whip from its hook and strikes me in the face; then she calls her black servants, who bind me, and carry me down into the cellar, where they throw me into a dark, dank, subterranean compartment, a veritable prison-cell. Then the lock of the door clicks, the bolts are drawn, a key sings in the lock. I am a prisoner, buried. I have been lying here for I don’t know how long, bound like a calf about to be hauled to the slaughter, on a bundle of damp straw, without any light, without food, without drink, without sleep. It would be like her to let me starve to death, if I don’t freeze to death before then. I am shaking with cold. Or is it fever? I believe I am beginning to hate this woman. * * * * * A red streak, like blood, floods across the floor; it is a light falling through the door which is now thrust open. Wanda appears on the threshold, wrapped in her sables, holding a lighted torch. “Are you still alive?” she asks. “Are you coming to kill me?” I reply with a low, hoarse voice.