Venus has a cold. Speaking about the coldness of Europe and Europeans, she constantly sneezes and wraps her marble shoulders in the dark sables of fur. “The more rude a woman will be with a man, the more she will be loved and idolized by them.” Pleasant interlocutor! However, one must wake up - Severin is already waiting for tea.
"A strange dream!" - says Severin. Strange Severin! A thirty-year-old pedant, living by the clock, thermometer, barometer, Hippocrates, Kant ... but sometimes suddenly overtaken by frantic bouts of passion. A strange house: skeletons, stuffed animals, gypsum, paintings, in the picture - she: Venus in furs. Instead of explanations, Severin takes out a manuscript, and while we read Confession of the Supersensible, he sits with his back to us, dreaming ...
Before us is a slightly corrected diary, begun in the Carpathian resort for boredom. Gogol, headache, cupids ... - oh, friend Severin! You are an amateur in everything! The resort is almost deserted. Only a young widow from the top floor and a statue of Venus in the garden are noteworthy. Moonlit night, widow in the garden, this is it, Venus! No, her name is Wanda von Dunaev. Wanda gives his stone predecessor to wear his fur coat and offers the astonished Severin to become her slave, buffoon, her toy. Severin is ready for anything! They spend days together. He vividly tells her about his childhood, about a second cousin in a fur katsaveik who once hewn him - oh, what a pleasure! - rods; he lectures to her about artists who wrote women in furs, about legendary masochists, about great voluptuous women. Wanda is noticeably excited ...
A few days later, Wanda appears before the shocked Severin in an ermine katsaveyka with a whip in his hands. Hit. Compassion. “Hit me without any pity!” Hail of strokes. “Get out of my sight, slave!”
Painful days - Wanda's arrogant coldness, rare affection, long separation: a voluntary slave should come to the lady only by phone. Severin is a too noble name for a servant. Now he is Gregory. "We are going to Italy, Gregory." Mistress rides first class; wrapping her legs in a fur blanket, the servant retires to his third.
Florence, a magnificent castle, painted - Samson and Delilah - ceiling, sable cloak, document - agreement (the curious reader will find in the appendices to the novel a similar “Agreement between Ms. Fanny von Pistor and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch”). “Ms. Dunaeva has the right to torture him at her first whim or even kill him if she pleases.” Severin fastens this unusual agreement and writes a note about his voluntary departure from life, dictated by Wanda. Now his fate is in her lovely chubby hands. Delilah in a fur coat leans over Samson in love. For his loyalty, Severin was rewarded with a bloody flogging and a month of exile. A tired slave is gardening, a beautiful lady is making visits ...
A month later, the servant Gregory finally assumes his duties: he serves the guests at dinner, receiving a slap in the face for embarrassment, distributes letters to the men to the lady, reads Manon Lesko aloud to her, showers kisses on her face and chest and - “You can be everything, what I want - a thing, an animal! .. ”- drags a plow across a maize field, urged by the Wandins black maids. Madame watches this spectacle from afar.
The new victim of the “Lviv Venus” (Wanda - the compatriot Sacher-Masoch) is a German artist. He writes it in furs on a naked body, trampling the foot of a lying slave. He calls his picture “Venus in Furs,” no matter how strange it may seem to someone.
...Walk in the park. Wanda (purple velvet, ermine edge) rules the horses herself, sitting on the goats. To meet on a slender hot raven - Apollo in a fur jacket. Their views are met ...
Gregory receives an impatient order: to find out everything about the horseman! The servant reports to Vande-Venus: Apollo is Greek, his name is Alex Papadopolis, he is brave and cruel, young and free. Wanda is losing sleep.
The slave is trying to escape, the slave wants to take his own life, the slave rushes to the river ... A vulgar amateur! Moreover, his life does not belong to him. Soaking wet, Severin-Gregory walks around the lady’s house, he sees them together - the goddess and god: Apollo waves his whip and, angry, leaves. Venus trembles: “I love him as I have never loved anyone. I can make you be his slave. "
The slave is furious. Wanda wastes a lot of flattery and affection so that - “We leave tonight” - to calm him down and - “You are completely cold, I will chew you a little” - to bind his hands.
And at that instant the canopy of her bed parted, and the black curly head of a handsome Greek appeared.
Apollo skinned Marcia. Venus laughed, folding her furs into a suitcase and putting on a traveling fur coat. After the first blows, the slave experienced shameful pleasure. Then, when blood spilled over his back, pleasure receded in shame and anger. The sound of the crew door, the sound of hooves, the sound of wheels.
Everything is over.
And then? .. Then - two years of peaceful labor in his father’s estate and Vanda’s letter: “I loved you <...> But you yourself strangled this feeling with your fantastic devotion <...> I found that strong man whom I was looking for ... He fell in a duel <...> I live in Paris with the life of Aspazia ... Accept me a gift <...> Venus in furs. "
Together with the letter, the messenger brought a small box. With a smile - “The treatment was cruel, but I recovered” - Severin extracted from him a picture of a poor German.
