Yeah. Have chapter two. Within an hour too. I know it's odd to some of you, my hypothetical readers, but this is how the story goes.
What a wonderful accident! A wondering street trader sold me a photograph of my love. Titian's Venus with the Mirror. What a woman! The urge to write grips me once more, yet stronger this time. Upon the back I write Venus in Furs.
He cold skin wrapped in despotic furs. No other could wear them with such grace and cruel beauty. A few lines of Gorthe, maybe?
TO AMOR
"The pair of wings a fiction are,
The arrows, they are naught but claws,
The wreath conceals the little horns,
For without any doubt he is
Like all the gods of ancient Greece
Only a devil in disguise."
Then I put the picture before me on my table, supporting it with a book, and looked at it. Gilbird hops over to be fed but even his chirping cannot distract me from her.
I fear her, too. The look in her eyes, holding no warmth or tenderness. Draped in furs of dark sable. Her face like marble, frozen. Again, I wrote to her:
"To love, to be loved, what happiness! And yet how the glamour of this pales in comparison with the tormenting bliss of worshipping a woman who makes a plaything out of us, of being the slave of a beautiful tyrant who treads us pitilessly underfoot. Even Samson, the hero, the giant, again put himself into the hands of Delilah, even after she had betrayed him, and again she betrayed him, and the Philistines bound him and put out his eyes which until the very end he kept fixed, drunken with rage and love, upon the beautiful betrayer."
I was breakfasting in my honey-suckle balcony, and reading my diary, reliving my first victory celebration. Later on I had scribbled a passage form some religious text:
"The almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into the hands of a woman."
This sentence had impressed me. How rude it was to refer to women as such! "The almighty Lord hath struck him, and hath delivered him into the hands of a woman," I repeated to myself. What shall I do, so that He may punish me? Had I not committed every sin? Can my kind even be criminal?
God, if you are there, preserve us! Here comes the housekeeper, frail as ever. And up there among the green twinning and garlanding the white gown gleams again. Is it Venus, or the Nation?
This time it happens to be the Nation, she has come for something to read. I run to my room, and gather together a couple of volumes from the cluttered mess. Not apologising for them being German rather than Hungarian, she can handle it. All I saw of her where slim white hands, not at all made for the battlefield. He voice higher than I remember. She is a woman, I remind myself.
In the evening I remember my Venus is hidden amongst the pages of one of them. If she picks one up with her pale white hands? What would she say?
I hear her laugh.
Is she laughing at me?
It is now a full moon. It is already peering over the tops of the trees as I make my checks. Must not be seen. The people here don't like those with red eyes. Most don't. Being burnt as a witch is never fun. I should know.
I cannot resist. I feel a strange urge and call within me. I put on my clothes again and go out into the garden. The strange power draws me toward the meadow, toward her, who is my divinity and my beloved. Every single night. It pains me to be apart.
The night is cool. I can handle it. I would brave the Russian winter to see my love again. The intoxicating scent of the forest surrounds me. Making me drowsy. While the stars hang in the sky the gentle song of a nightingale can be heard. The smooth grass coated in a thin layer of dew. There she is. The statue stands in the canter, white body contrasting the dark sky and trees.
It's different this time. From her pale shoulders to her feet is draped and elegant dark fur. It takes much to silence me, let alone make me run. But this! The very sight of my desire fills me with such fear I cannot help but to flee. Not a retreat. I never retreat?
In my haste I miss the main path, running through the maze of bushes and trees until I find my way back. Upon the bench in front of me sits Venus. Not my stone love. The real goddess! Warm blood coursing though her veins. She has come to life just for me? Acknowledging my affections? While she still breaths her white hair is of stone. Her satin gown looks as if it is made of moonlight itself. From her shoulders, the dark fur flows. Her eyes, the coolest green, bore holes into my soul as she serves me. And then, laughs. At the great me.
The sound takes what little breath I have away from me. I cannot describe her laughter. It would be an insult to her voice to even attempt to describe it in mere words. Again, I flee. Unable to face my mistress. Lost in the trees, running from her mocking laughter. Through the dark leaf covered pathways where only pin pricks of moonlight can breach I am lost. How she has changed. It is not my Venus that I saw, I realise. I know her! How she has changed from that timid girl from the woods. Now she could stand tall, confident in whom she is: A warrior princess in all her glory. As close to a Goddess as our kind comes.
Finally I stand still, and engage in this little monologue.
It is stupid. Go talk to her. Chat about old times and try not to stare. Run. Cause a fight and get to go home. Kiss her. Run. Hide indoors. Pretend not to see her. Run. Donkey!
Now everything is perfectly clear and distinct before my eyes again. There is the fountain, there the alley of box-wood, there the house which I am slowly approaching.
Yet—suddenly the appearance is here again. Behind the green screen through which the moonlight gleams so that it seems embroidered with silver, I again see the white figure, the woman of stone whom I adore, whom I fear and flee.
With a couple of leaps I am within the house and catch my breath and reflect.
What am I really, a little sissy or a great big donkey?
The next morning, the atmosphere is dead, heavily laden with odours, yet stimulating. Again I am sitting in my honey-suckle arbour, reading in the Odyssey about the beautiful witch who transformed her admirers into beasts. A wonderful picture of antique love. While my own story is wonderful, too, the Greek myths have a beauty describing love in a way not covered by the Bible or fellow soldiers.
Above me, I hear the sound of leaves. I cat my gaze upwards to see a woman's dress. A light blue fabric drags across. Obscured by the mass of green. There is my Venus. Still beautiful without her fur. No. It is Hungary. Still: she is quite a woman. Standing in her light blue gown, looking down at me with a faint smile on her face, no doubt. Simply pretty rather than beautiful. She does not need to be. Her movements remain graceful, no sign of the battle field left upon her. She said she would change. I was a fool not to believe her warning. Her sink infinity delicate. All wounds and scars healed over. He brown hair falling about her in delicate curls. Now her eyes meet mine. Red to green. Green to red. Her I cannot run.
She observes my confusion. In my distraction I have failed to stand. How rude of me. But she smile like she used to. Roguishly. How I have missed her!
As she climbs down from her balcony to mine, somehow reataining her grace, I finally stand then bow to her. As she moves closer she cannot help but burst into childlike laughter. Must she always mock me. I stammer, as only a little sissy or great big donkey can do on such an occasion.
Thus our re-acquaintance began.
The divinity asks for my name, and mentions her own.
Her name is Elizabeta Héderváry. Finally, a human name so no more formalities.
And she is actually my Venus.
We quickly embrace, as old friends do before I manage a sentence: "What ever gave you the idea for such a strange and cruel trick?"
"That little picture, in your book," a smile "don't tell me you don't remember?"
I had forgotten. Now I do."
"And of the curious notes upon it's back?"
"Why do you call them curious?"
She looked at me.
"I have always wanted to know a real dreamer some time—for the sake of the change—and you seem one of the maddest of the tribe."
"Please, My dear lady, I do not think" I manage to force out through my stammer before she interrupts me. My blush might have been appropriate for a youngster of sixteen, but not for me, who had lived for countless decades—
"You were afraid of me last night."
She sat on a wooden chair by my table, gesturing for me to join her. She seemed to enjoy my embarrassment for I feared her more in daylight than beneath the moon. I can see her clearly here. Contempt creeps into her expression too, clearly remembering when we last me on the battlefield.
"The way you view women," she started "as if we are dangerous. Hostile forces. I wonder to what extent I have contributed to that. Their power over you seems to have an unhealthy fascination. A pleasurable torture? Perhaps…"
"Do you not share it?" I question. It quite a modern point of view.
"I do not!" Shaking her said, her curls rising up around to frame her head. "the way you look at love," She continued "it's as if you fear us. The mighty knight, 'terror of Europe' fears us!"
"It is an ideal. The women and men of the Greek myths experience something much stronger. Higher emotions of passion. The love preached by the priests is very different. Call me a heretic, the Greek love is so very different. Maybe I am worse than the heretic you see in me. Maybe it's pagan?"
"HA!" another laugh from her sweet lips. "If only Toris could her you say that!"
"Toris?"
"That boy you waged war against for having polytheism"
"I never learnt their names"
"Clearly."
Another silence fell between us.
"What has turned you from God?"
"I know he is there. I have simply lost my faith in him." I am uncomfortable, yet I cannot help but answer her questions "Maybe that is why my people have put me here."
"Don't be foolish," she snapped "The placed BOTH of us here for diplomatic reasons. They think we cause trouble so they through us from our own courts" I can taste her bitterness in the air.
"Maybe Mount Olympus would be a better place for you." Testing the waters
"To love Anchises to-day, Paris to-morrow, Adonis the day after? For us that is the only way. But I cannot fall for a mortal. I am not Venus. I could move from one man to the next but never get to close? I shall stay alone rather than watch then wither and die."
"Maybe, we, at least, ageing, for us,"
"You mean to say we could try as immortal gods together. I knew you to be arrogant before but this is a new extreme, even for your self centred soul!"
"I only look for one who is beyond those Christian teachings of duties. One who does not look for that masculine ideal"
Her face contorts into another smile "How this exile has broken you!"
"My lady I –
"It is men who look to keep their women in cages like property. No matter how guilded, I shall now be caged. To live like Venus, though. This tempts me. Humans are changeable creatures but Christianity holds them back? Maybe to live as Venus I would not have such constrictions?"
I cannot speak, as she is becoming too close to my ideal.
" So be it. I am willing to take the risk; my principles are very pagan. I will live my own life as it pleases me. I prefer to be happy than respected but humans. But why should I stay forever with one man who I once loved just because we are married? I am still young. I can still be your cruel Venus. I can enjoy it".
While she was speaking her eyes sparkled roguishly, and I had taken hold of her hands without exactly knowing what to do with them, my inexperience showing, I let them go.
"Your frankness," I said, "delights me, and not it alone—"
My confusion choked my words like a nose round my neck. Another long pause as she concedes me and my fantasy. Maybe we both have spent too long in the company of Heracles and Francis? Too many night alone with the exotic tales of love, betrayal and death.
"So," my head jerks back upwards towards her "I am to become a woman of Greece!"
"A goddess," I interrupted.
"Which one," she smiled.
"Venus."
She lifted a hand to her face, moving stray hairs back "Perhaps," another smile " even a 'Venus in Furs' so be careful my furs could smother you. For I have many to catch you in"
"Do you think, as we now have this arrangement, I could ever see you undraped?"
"Undraped, of course not, but in furs," she replied smiling, "would you care to see mine?"
Another uncomfortable silence fell between us. Hungary was a confident woman but she had become blunt. A trait I cannot help but admire. No dancing around a subject like to dumb women of the court. Though, to see her dance would be a delight to behold. She starts again.
"There where some Greeks who simply living in a quest for pleasure. The Cyrenaics. Ultra Hedonists"
"It would only be possible to live as such with the existence of slaves to deal with physical tasks which can become such a trial. People to labour only for their masters. Or mistresses."
"Of course! A divinity such as myself should require an army of slaves. To do my bidding and mine alone. Though that fate would never befit my people. Another's, they must be. Fear me!"
"Why?" Though I was frightened by this sudden declaration. The cold, commanding, tone. The voice had a touch of her battle cries. Maybe… she was not as changed as I thought.
Then, slowly her lips formed as smile as she leant forwards. White teeth visible between her thin lips. I watched as these lips parted and spoke the words that would be my downfall. "Do you," she said "want to be my slave?"
I was shocked with how she asked as if you would ask the time. As if it was nothing. But I did reply. "In love, there is no room for equality. As with people. If you do not rule then you are ruled. There would be nothing greater than to be the slave of a beautiful woman. But I cannot find one. One who is so unlike Francis's women. One with the confidence to rule. One without the need for petty nagging to gain control. One to command."
Again a smile tugged at her lips, which she tried to hide. "Oh, I do not think it would be as had as you imagine."
"Do you think-"
"I, ask you may or may not know, have quite a talent for despotism. I have the furs. And, as was proved both tonight and the last, I can cast that fear that you seem to so desperately desire."
"Desperately."
"And now?"
"Now, I crave it more than I ever did before!"
And so she came to live together. We ate on my balcony and had tea on the thick rugs of her sitting room. I did my best to entertain this little woman. She is only little in size, though. Her presence is impressive and geographically speaking she grows her stronger. In no means little then. While in her face there is much Germanic. She still remains, to me, Greek.
She lets me paint her. A skill that only improves with her as a muse. I paint her as the Gods. Psyche and Asrarte. Once as Ares. God of war and violence. I paint according to the expression. That day fire burnt in her eyes. Reminiscing, no doubt, thought she did not share. She insists that I paint her as she is. None of that avoiding of imperfections to satisfy an ugly princess. There is no need I tell her. She is beautiful to many more than just me.
I shall bring her a gift. Of furs. After all. Ho else would ever be more deserving of such a gift.
