"Be your unrestricted property,
without a will of my own, of which you could dispose as you wished,
and which would therefore never be a burden to you. While you drink
life at its fullness, while surrounded by luxury, you enjoy the
serene happiness and Olympian love, I want to be your servant, put
on and take off your shoes."
"You really aren't so far from wrong," replied Wanda, "for only as
my slave could you endure my loving others. Furthermore the freedom
of enjoyment of the ancient world is unthinkable without slavery. It
must give one a feeling of like unto a god to see a man kneel before
one and tremble. I want a slave, do you hear, Severin?"
"Am I not your slave?"
"Then listen to me," said Wanda excitedly, seizing my hand. "I want
to be yours, as long as I love you."
"A month?"
"Perhaps, even two."
"And then?"
"Then you become my slave."
"And you?"
"I? Why do you ask? I am a goddess and sometimes I descend from my
Olympian heights to you, softly, very softly, and secretly.
"But what does all this mean," said Wanda, resting her head in both
hands with her gaze lost in the distance, "a golden fancy which never
can become true." An uncanny brooding melancholy seemed shed over her
entire being; I have never seen her like that.
"Why unachievable?" I began.
"Because slavery doesn't exist any longer."
"Then we will go to a country where it still exists, to the Orient,
to Turkey," I said eagerly.
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