Now, twist like a worm,
scream, whine! You will find no mercy in me!"
Finally she seemed tired.
She tossed the whip aside, stretched out on the ottoman, and rang.
The negresses entered.
"Untie him!"
As they loosened the rope, I fell to the floor like a lump of wood.
The black women grinned, showing their white teeth.
"Untie the rope around his feet."
They did it, but I was unable to rise.
"Come over here, Gregor."
I approached the beautiful woman. Never did she seem more seductive
to me than to-day in spite of all her cruelty and contempt.
"One step further," Wanda commanded. "Now kneel down, and kiss my
foot."
She extended her foot beyond the hem of white satin, and I, the
supersensual fool, pressed my lips upon it.
"Now, you won't lay eyes on me for an entire month, Gregor," she
said seriously. "I want to become a stranger to you, so you will more
easily adjust yourself to our new relationship. In the meantime you
will work in the garden, and await my orders. Now, off with you,
slave!"
* * * * *
A month has passed with monotonous regularity, heavy work, and a
melancholy hunger, hunger for her, who is inflicting all these
torments on me.
I am under the gardener's orders; I help him lop the trees and prune
the hedges, transplant flowers, turn over the flower beds, sweep the
gravel paths; I share his coarse food and his hard cot; I rise and
go to bed with the chickens.
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