In the Bedroom of the Countess

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, 1888, as reproduced in Masochism, trans. Jean McNeil (1989), p. 276:

At the age of ten I already had an ideal woman. I yearned for a distant relative of my father’s — let’s call her Countess Zenobia — the most beautiful and the most promiscuous woman in the country.

It happened on a Sunday afternoon: I shall never forget it. I had come to play with the children of my aunt-in-law — as we called her — and we were left alone with the maid. Suddenly the countess, proud and resplendent in her great sable cloak, entered the room, greeted us, kissed me (which always sent me into raptures) and then exclaimed: “Come, Leopold, I want you to help me off with my furs.” She did not have to ask me twice. I followed her into the bedroom, took off the heavy furs that I could barely lift, and helped her into the magnificent green velvet jacket trimmed with squirrel that she wore about the house. I then knelt to put on her gold-embroidered slippers. On feeling her tiny feet in my hands I forgot myself and kissed them passionately. At first my aunt stared at me in surprise, then she burst out laughing and gave me a little kick.

While she was preparing our tea we played hide-and-seek; I do not know what devil prompted me to hide in my aunt’s bedroom. As I stood concealed behind a clothes rack, I heard the doorbell and a few moments later my aunt entered the bedroom followed by a handsome young man. She closed the door without locking it and drew her lover into her arms.

I did not understand what they were saying, still less what they were doing, but my heart began to pound, for I was acutely aware of my situation: if they discovered me I would be taken for a spy. Overcome with dread, I closed my eyes and blocked my ears. I was about to betray my presence by sneezing, when suddenly the door was flung open and my aunt’s husband entered into the room accompanied by two friends. His face was crimson and his eyes flashed with anger. But as he hesitated for a moment, wondering no doubt which of the two lovers to strike first, Zenobia anticipated him.

Without a word, she rose, strode up to her husband and gave him an energetic punch on the nose. He staggered; blood was pouring from his nose and mouth. But my aunt was still not satisfied; she picked up a whip and, brandishing it, showed my uncle and his friends the door. The gentlemen were only too glad to slip away, and not last among them, the young admirer. At that moment the wretched clothes rack fell to the ground and all the fury of Madam Zenobia was poured out on me: “So you were hiding, were you? I shall teach you to play at spying.”

I tried in vain to explain my presence, but in a trice she had seized me by the hair and thrown me on the carpet; she then placed her knee on my shoulder and began to whip me vigorously. I clenched my teeth but could not prevent the tears from springing to my eyes. And yet I must admit that while I writhed under my aunt’s cruel blows, I experienced acute pleasure. No doubt her husband had more than once enjoyed a similar sensation, for soon he returned to her room, not as an avenger but as a humble slave; it was he who fell down at the feet of the treacherous woman and begged her pardon, while she pushed him away with her foot. Then they locked the door. This time I was not ashamed, and did not block my ears, but listened attentively at the door — either from spite or childish jealousy — and again I heard the crack of the whip that I had tasted only a moment before.

This event became engraved on my soul as with a red-hot iron; I did not understand at the time how this woman in voluptuous furs could betray her husband and maltreat him afterward, but I both hated and loved the creature who seem destined, by virtue of her strength and diabolical beauty, to place her foot insolently on the neck of humanity.