Wanda sadly lowers her head, and then sits down on the nearest stone-bench. She sits for a long time, lost in thought. I watch her with a sort of malevolent pleasure, finally I pull myself together by sheer force of will, and ironically step before her. She startles, and trembles all over. “I come to wish you happiness,” I said, bowing, “I see, my dear lady, too, has found a master.” “Yes, thank God!” she exclaimed, “not a new slave, I have had enough of them. A master! Woman needs a master, and she adores him.” “You adore him, Wanda?” I cried, “this brutal person—” “Yes, I love him, as I have never loved any one else.” “Wanda!” I clenched my fists, but tears already filled my eyes, and I was seized by the delirium of passion, as by a sweet madness. “Very well, take him as your husband, let him be your master, but I want to remain your slave, as long as I live.” “You want to remain my slave, even then?” she said, “that would be interesting, but I am afraid he wouldn’t permit it.” “He?” “Yes, he is already jealous of you,” she exclaimed, “he, of you! He demanded that I dismiss you immediately, and when I told him who you were—” “You told him—” I repeated, thunderstruck. “I told him everything,” she replied, “our whole story, all your queerness, everything—and he, instead of being amused, grew angry, and stamped his foot.” “And threatened to strike you?” Wanda looked to the ground, and remained silent. “Yes, indeed,” I said with mocking bitterness, “you are afraid of him, Wanda!” I threw myself down at her feet, and in my agitation embraced her knees. “I don’t want anything of you, except to be your slave, to be always near you! I will be your dog-” “Do you know, you bore me?” said Wanda, indifferently. I leaped up. Everything within me was seething. “You are now no longer cruel, but cheap,” I said, clearly and distinctly, accentuating every word. “You have already written that in your letter,” Wanda replied, with a proud shrug of the shoulders. “A man of brains should never repeat himself.” “The way you are treating me,” I broke out, “what would you call it?” “I might punish you,” she replied ironically, “but I prefer this time to reply with reasons instead of lashes. You have no right to accuse me. Haven’t I always been honest with you? Haven’t I warned you more than once? Didn’t I love you with all my heart, even passionately, and did I conceal the fact from you, that it was dangerous to give yourself into my power, to abase yourself before me, and that I want to be dominated? But you wished to be my plaything, my slave! You found the highest pleasure in feeling the foot, the whip of an arrogant, cruel woman. What do you want now? “Dangerous potentialities were slumbering in me, but you were the first to awaken them. If I now take pleasure in torturing you, abusing you, it is your fault; you have made of me what I now am, and now you are even unmanly, weak, and miserable enough to accuse me.”