"Nonsense, nothing, that is the way you have to break in women."

"Well, if you like it, live like a pasha in your harem, but don't
lay down theories for me--"

"Why not," he said animatedly. "Goethe's 'you must be hammer or anvil'
is absolutely appropriate to the relation between man and woman.
Didn't Lady Venus in your dream prove that to you? Woman's power lies
in man's passion, and she knows how to use it, if man doesn't
understand himself. He has only one choice: to be the _tyrant_ over or
the _slave_ of woman. As soon as he gives in, his neck is under the
yoke, and the lash will soon fall upon him."

"Strange maxims!"

"Not maxims, but experiences," he replied, nodding his head, "_I have
actually felt the lash_. I am cured. Do you care to know how?"

He rose, and got a small manuscript from his massive desk, and put
it in front of me.

"You have already asked about the picture. I have long owed you an
explanation. Here--read!"

Severin sat down by the chimney with his back toward me, and seemed
to dream with open eyes. Silence had fallen again, and again the fire
sang in the chimney, and the samovar and the cricket in the old
walls. I opened the manuscript and read: