“Yes, tie me,” the painter replied dully. Wanda tied his hands on his back and drew a rope through his arms and a second one around his body, and fettered him to the cross-bars of the window. Then she rolled back the fur, seized the whip, and stepped in front of him. The scene had a grim attraction for me, which I cannot describe. I felt my heart beat, when, with a smile, she drew back her arm for the first blow, and the whip hissed through the air. He winced slightly under the blow. Then she let blow after blow rain upon him, with her mouth half-opened and her teeth flashing between her red lips, until he finally seemed to ask for mercy with his piteous, blue eyes. It was indescribable. * * * * * She is sitting for him now, alone. He is working on her head. She has posted me in the adjoining room behind a heavy curtain, where I can’t be seen, but can see everything. What does she intend now? Is she afraid of him? She has driven him insane enough to be sure, or is she hatching a new torment for me? My knees tremble. They are talking. He has lowered his voice so that I cannot understand a word, and she replies in the same way. What is the meaning of this? Is there an understanding between them? I suffer frightful torments; my heart seems about to burst. He kneels down before her, embraces her, and presses his head against her breast, and she—in her heartlessness—laughs—and now I hear her saying aloud: “Ah! You need another application of the whip.” “Woman! Goddess! Are you without a heart—can’t you love,” exclaimed the German, “don’t you even know, what it means to love, to be consumed with desire and passion, can’t you even imagine what I suffer? Have you no pity for me?” “No!” she replied proudly and mockingly, “but I have the whip.” She drew it quickly from the pocket of her fur-coat, and struck him in the face with the handle. He rose, and drew back a couple of paces. “Now, are you ready to paint again?” she asked indifferently. He did not reply, but again went to the easel and took up his brush and palette. The painting is marvellously successful. It is a portrait which as far as the likeness goes couldn’t be better, and at the same time it seems to have an ideal quality. The colors glow, are supernatural; almost diabolical, I would call them. The painter has put all his sufferings, his adoration, and all his execration into the picture. * * * * * Now he is painting me; we are alone together for several hours every day. To-day he suddenly turned to me with his vibrant voice and said: “You love this woman?” “Yes.” “I also love her.” His eyes were bathed in tears. He remained silent for a while, and continued painting. “We have a mountain at home in Germany within which she dwells,” he murmured to himself. “She is a demon.” * * * * * The picture is finished. She insisted on paying him for it, munificently, in the manner of queens.