"Past nine o'clock."

"Breakfast."

I hasten to get it, and then kneel down with the tray beside her bed.

"Here is breakfast, my mistress."

Wanda draws back the curtains, and curiously enough at the first glance when I see her among the pillows with loosened flowing hair, she seems an absolute stranger, a beautiful woman, but the beloved soft lines are gone. This face is hard and has an expression of weariness and satiety.

Or is it simply that formerly my eye did not see this?

She fixes her green eyes upon me, more with curiosity than with menace, perhaps even somewhat pityingly, and lazily pulls the dark sleeping fur on which she lies over the bared shoulder.

At this moment she is very charming, very maddening, and I feel my blood rising to my head and heart. The tray in my hands begins to sway. She notices it and reached out for the whip which is lying on the toilet-table.

"You are awkward, slave," she says furrowing her brow.

I lower my looks to the ground, and hold the tray as steadily as possible. She eats her breakfast, yawns, and stretches her opulent limbs in the magnificent furs.

She has rung. I enter.

"Take this letter to Prince Corsini."

I hurry into the city, and hand the letter to the Prince. He is a handsome young man with glowing black eyes. Consumed with jealousy, I take his answer to her.

"What is the matter with you?" she asks with lurking spitefulness.

"You are very pale."

"Nothing, mistress, I merely walked rather fast."

At luncheon the prince is at her side, and I am condemned to serve both her and him. They joke, and I am, as if non-existent, for both.

For a brief moment I see black; I was just pouring some Bordeaux into his gla.s.s, and spilled it over the table-cloth and her gown.

"How awkward," Wanda exclaimed and slapped my face. The prince laughed, and she also, but I felt the blood rising to my face.

After luncheon she drove in the Cascine. She has a little carriage with a handsome, brown English horse, and holds the reins herself.

I sit behind and notice how coquettishly she acts, and nods with a smile when one of the distinguished gentlemen bows to her.

As I help her out of the carriage, she leans lightly on my arm; the contact runs through me like an electric shock. She _is_ a wonderful woman, and I love her more than ever.

For dinner at six she has invited a small group of men and women. I serve, but this time I do not spill any wine over the table-cloth.

A slap in the face is more effective than ten lectures. It makes you understand very quickly, especially when the instruction is by the way of a small woman's hand.

After dinner she drives to the Pergola Theater. As she descends the stairs in her black velvet dress with its large collar of ermine and with a diadem of white roses on her hair, she is literally stunning.

I open the carriage-door, and help her in. In front of the theater I leap from the driver's seat, and in alighting she leaned on my arm, which trembled under the sweet burden. I open the door of her box, and then wait in the vestibule. The performance lasts four hours; she receives visits from her cavaliers, the while I grit my teeth with rage.

It is way beyond midnight when my mistress's bell sounds for the last time.

"Fire!" she orders abruptly, and when the fire-place crackles, "Tea!"

When I return with the samovar, she has already undressed, and with the aid of the negress slipped into a white negligee.

Haydee thereupon leaves.

"Hand me the sleeping-furs," says Wanda, sleepily stretching her lovely limbs. I take them from the arm-chair, and hold them while she slowly and lazily slides into the sleeves. She then throws herself down on the cushions of the ottoman.

"Take off my shoes, and put on my velvet slippers."

I kneel down and tug at the little shoe which resists my efforts.

"Hurry, hurry!" Wanda exclaims, "you are hurting me! just you wait--I will teach you." She strikes me with the whip, but now the shoe is off.

"Now get out!" Still a kick--and then I can go to bed.

To-night I accompanied her to a soiree. In the entrance-hall she ordered me to help her out of her furs; then with a proud smile, confident of victory, she entered the brilliantly illuminated room.

I again waited with gloomy and monotonous thoughts, watching hour after hour run by. From time to time the sounds of music reached me, when the door remained open for a moment. Several servants tried to start a conversation with me, but soon desisted, since I knew only a few words of Italian.

Finally I fell asleep, and dreamed that I murdered Wanda in a violent attack of jealousy. I was condemned to death, and saw myself strapped on the board; the knife fell, I felt it on my neck, but I was still alive--

Then the executioner slapped my face.

No, it wasn't the executioner; it was Wanda who stood wrathfully before me demanding her furs. I am at her side in a moment, and help her on with it.

There is a deep joy in wrapping a beautiful woman into her furs, and in seeing and feeling how her neck and magnificent limbs nestle in the precious soft furs, and to lift the flowing hair over the collar.

When she throws it off a soft warmth and a faint fragrance of her body still clings to the ends of the hairs of sable. It is enough to drive one mad.

Finally a day came when there were neither guests, nor theater, nor other company. I breathed a sigh of relief. Wanda sat in the gallery, reading, and apparently had no orders for me. At dusk when the silvery evening mists fell she withdrew. I served her at dinner, she ate by herself, but had not a look, not a syllable for me, not even a slap in the face.

I actually desire a slap from her hand. Tears fill my eyes, and I feel that she has humiliated me so deeply, that she doesn't even find it worth while to torture or maltreat me any further.

Before she goes to bed, her bell calls me.

"You will sleep here to-night, I had horrible dreams last night, and am afraid of being alone. Take one of the cushions from the ottoman, and lie down on the bearskin at my feet."

Then Wanda put out the lights. The only illumination in the room was from a small lamp suspended from the ceiling. She herself got into bed. "Don't stir, so as not to wake me."

I did as she had commanded, but could not fall asleep for a long time. I saw the beautiful woman, beautiful as a G.o.ddess, lying on her back on the dark sleeping-furs; her arms beneath her neck, with a flood of red hair over them. I heard her magnificent breast rise in deep regular breathing, and whenever she moved ever so slightly. I woke up and listened to see whether she needed me.

But she did not require me.