"_
Without replying Wanda placed her arms around my neck and kissed me.
I was again seized by my fanatical passion.
"Where is the whip?" I asked.
Wanda laughed, and withdrew a couple of steps.
"You really insist upon being punished?" she exclaimed, proudly
tossing back her head.
"Yes."
Suddenly Wanda's face was completely transformed. It was as if
disfigured by rage; for a moment she seemed even ugly to me.
"Very well, then _you_ whip him!" she called loudly.
At the same instant the beautiful Greek stuck his head of black
curls through the curtains of her four-poster bed. At first I was
speechless, petrified. There was a horribly comic element in the
situation. I would have laughed aloud, had not my position been at
the same time so terribly cruel and humiliating.
It went beyond anything I had imagined. A cold shudder ran down my
back, when my rival stepped from the bed in his riding boots, his
tight-fitting white breeches, and his short velvet jacket, and I saw
his athletic limbs.
"You are indeed cruel," he said, turning to Wanda.
"Only inordinately fond of pleasure," she replied with a wild sort
of humor. "Pleasure alone lends value to existence; whoever enjoys
does not easily part from life, whoever suffers or is needy meets
death like a friend.
"But whoever wants to enjoy must take life gaily in the sense of the
ancient world; he dare not hesitate to enjoy at the expense of
others; he must never feel pity; he must be ready to harness others
to his carriage or his plough as though they were animals.
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