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"What?" said Wanda, scornfully, "perhaps I can help you?"

"Yes--" cried the German, as if taken with madness, "whipher shoulders, "but if I am to whip you I want to do it in sober earnest"

"Whip me to death," cried the painter

"Will you let

"Yes--" he moaned-Wanda left the room for a moment, and returned with ropes

"Well--are you still brave enough to put yourself into the power of Venus in Furs, the beautiful despot, for better or worse?" she began ironically

"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 theThen 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 arh the air He winced slightly under the blow Then she let blow after blow rain upon hi between her red lips, until he finally seemed to ask for mercy with his piteous, blue eyes It was indescribable

She is sitting for hi on her head

She has postedroom behind a heavy curtain, where I can't be seen, but can see everything

What does she intend now?

Is she afraid of hih to be sure, or is she hatching a new tor He has lowered his voice so that I cannot understand a word, and she replies in the sa between thehtful torments; my heart seems about to burst

He kneels down before her, eainst 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 knohat it means to love, to be consuine what I suffer? Have you no pity for me?"