Venus in Furs, Ritter von Leopold Sacher-Masoch [e book reader pdf TXT] 📗

used to it," he replied eagerly, "but imagine the effect upon one of our delicate, nervous, hysterical ladies—"

"But the moral?"

"That woman, as nature has created her and as man is at present educating her, is his enemy. She can only be his slave or his despot, but never his companion. This she can become only when she has the same rights as he, and is his equal in education and work.

"At present we have only the choice of being hammer or anvil, and I was the kind of donkey who let a woman make a slave of him, do you understand?

"The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.

"The blows, as you see, have agreed with me; the roseate supersensual mist has dissolved, and no one can ever make me believe again that these 'sacred apes of Benares' [Footnote: One of Schopenhauer's designations for women.] or Plato's rooster [Footnote: Diogenes threw a plucked rooster into Plato's school and exclaimed: "Here you have Plato's human being."] are the image of God."

End of Project Gutenberg's Venus in Furs, by Ritter von Leopold Sacher-Masoch