"I almost wish you might fall into the
hands of a woman of their savage race. In the wolf's skin, under the
teeth of the dogs, or upon the wheel, you would lose the taste for
your kind of poetry."
"Do you think so? I hardly do."
"Have you actually lost your senses."
"Possibly. But let me go on. I developed a perfect passion for
reading stories in which the extremest cruelties were described. I
loved especially to look at pictures and prints which represented
them. All the sanguinary tyrants that ever occupied a throne; the
inquisitors who had the heretics tortured, roasted, and butchered;
all the woman whom the pages of history have recorded as lustful,
beautiful, and violent women like Libussa, Lucretia Borgia, Agnes of
Hungary, Queen Margot, Isabeau, the Sultana Roxolane, the Russian
Czarinas of last century--all these I saw in furs or in robes
bordered with ermine."
"And so furs now rouse strange imaginings in you," said Wanda, and
simultaneously she began to drape her magnificent fur-cloak
coquettishly about her, so that the dark shining sable played
beautifully around her bust and arms. "Well, how do you feel now,
half broken on the wheel?"
Her piercing green eyes rested on me with a peculiar mocking
satisfaction. Overcome by desire, I flung myself down before her, and
threw my arms about her.
"Yes--you have awakened my dearest dream," I cried.
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