and it pleased her to make me happy. As for myself--I was as happy
as a young god. What rapture for me to be allowed to lie before her
on my knees, and to kiss her hands, those with which she had scourged
me! What marvellous hands they were, of beautiful form, delicate,
rounded, and white, with adorable dimples! I really was in love with
her hands only. I played with them, let them submerge and emerge in
the dark fur, held them against the light, and was unable to satiate
my eyes with them."

Wanda involuntarily looked at her hand; I noticed it, and had to
smile.

"From the way in which the supersensual predominated in me in those
days you can see that I was in love only with the cruel lashes I
received from my aunt; and about two years later when I paid court
to a young actress only in the roles she played. Still later I became
the admirer of a respectable woman. She acted the part of
irreproachable virtue, only in the end to betray me with a rich Jew.
You see, it is because I was betrayed, sold, by a woman who feigned
the strictest principles and the highest ideals, that I hate that
sort of poetical, sentimental virtue so intensely. Give me rather a
woman who is honest enough to say to me: I am a Pompadour, a Lucretia
Borgia, and I am ready to adore her."

Wanda rose and opened the window.

"You have a curious way of arousing one's imagination, stimulating
all one's nerves, and making one's pulses beat faster. You put an
aureole on vice, provided only if it is honest. Your ideal is a
daring courtesan of genius. Oh, you are the kind of man who will