A Story Over Three Centuries
1729
When the Marquis d’Epatant was thrown to the beasts of prey — a story which unfortunately is not mentioned in a single one of the chronicles of the 18th century — he suddenly found himself in a tight scrape, the like of which he had never encountered. He had bid life adieu, and smiling with a look that seemed to emanate from two cleanly cut diamonds, but no longer saw anything, he stepped into nothingness. Yet this nothingness did not cause him to dissolve in eternity, but rather congealed around him in a very actual fashion; in short, not nothingness, but nothing followed, and as soon as he once again used his eyes to see, he noticed a big beast of prey watching him irresolutely. This would not, we must assume, have further ruffled the Marquis — he was afraid, but knew how to comport himself — had he not at that same instant realized that it was a female beast standing before him.
Strindbergian views were not yet current at the time; people lived and died with their 18th-century views, and Epatant’s most natural response would have been to doff his hat and gallantly bow. But then he noticed that the wrists of the lady looking at him were almost as wide as his thigh, and the teeth that became visible in that voluptuous and eagerly opened mouth gave him an inkling of the massacre that awaited him. This creature that stood before him was terrifying, beautiful, strong, but absolutely feminine in her expression and bearing. The ardently playful intent evident in every limb of the wildcat’s body reminded him in all respects of the ravishing, silent eloquence of love. Not only did he have to suffer dread, but he likewise had to contend with the shameful struggles that his dread waged with his masculine need, under any circumstances, to impress a female, to subdue and vanquish the woman in him. Instead of subduing her, however, he felt himself perplexed and defeated by his opponent. The female beast intimidated the beast in him, and the consummately feminine aspect that every one of her movements exuded added the stun of impotence to the failure of any resistance. He, the Marquis d’Epatant, had been reduced to the condition and role of a woman, and this in the last minute of his life! He saw no way to evade this awful affront, lost control of himself, and fortunately, no longer knew what happened to him.
2197 before Our Time
It should not be presumed that the date is correct, but if the State of the Amazons did indeed exist, then ladies to be reckoned with must have lived there. For if they had merely constituted a somewhat violently inclined women’s rights organization, they would have earned the historical reputation of Abderites or Sancho Panzas, and would have remained down to the present day a comic example of unwomanly behavior. Instead, however, they live on in heroic memory, from which we may conclude that in their day they had quite a considerable reputation for burning, murdering, and looting. More than one Indo-Germanic man must have been afraid of them for them to have achieved such a name for themselves. More than one hero must have run away from them. In short, they must have done no small damage to the pride of prehistoric man, until finally, to excuse so much cowardice, he made legendary figures out of them, following the same law by which a vacationer who runs from a cow will always claim it was at least an ox.
But what if this nation of virgins never existed? And this is more than likely, for the simple reason that it would be difficult to imagine divisions and regiments of storks flying new recruits in to the man-killing virgins. What, then, were the ancient heroes afraid of? Was the whole thing nothing but a curious, violently inclined dream? We cannot help but recall that classical man also venerated goddesses by whom, in the frenzy of worship, they were torn to pieces, and the Thebans knowingly visited the Sphinx like the fly visits the spider. We must shamefully wonder just a little at what kind of spider and insect dreams were harbored by these ancestors of our classical training! Exemplary athletes who didn’t think much of women, they dreamed of women whom they could fear. Is it possible in the end that Mr. Sacher-Masoch should have had such a long lineage? This is hardly likely. For we may wish to imagine that the past was dark, so that today things seem all the brighter; but it is hard to believe that there should be something so deranged at the very base of our humanistic education. Were they jokers, those ancient Greeks? Or were they given to vast exaggeration, in the manner of all Levantines? Or did a primal harmlessness underlie their primal perversity, that only much later took root in our sick souls?
Dark are the early days of civilization.
1927
What have two centuries of “Modern Time” made of this story?
In open combat, a man defeats the Amazon horde and the Amazon falls in love with her conqueror. So now things are back to normal! Her obstinacy subdued, she lets her shield and spear fall, and the men, flattered in their vanity, snigger all around. This is all that’s left of the old legend. Of the wild young woman marauder burning to dig the tip of her arrow into man’s ribs, the age of the enlightened middle class has preserved only the moral example, namely, how unnatural drives revert back into natural urges; and perhaps also at best the paltry remains in theaters, in movies, and in the heads of sixteen-year-old bon vivants, where the demonic female, the femme fatale, and the vamp remind us from afar of their man-killing ancestresses.
But times keep changing. We will not here speak about female office managers around whom the male subordinate creeps like lowly ivy around the mighty oak; there are instances that cut closer to the core of masculine pride. Such an instance took place some time ago when the famous researcher Quantus Negatus participated in a conference at which the opposition was led by women. It was not exactly a political conference, but nonetheless, one of those at which new ideas clash with old. Quantus, a man proud of his achievements, sat comfortably ensconced in the pillows of the old. He had absolutely no intention of arguing over attitudes and greeted the presence of the ladies above all as a diverting change. While they expounded above, he eyed their feet in their flat-heeled shoes below. But suddenly he was struck by a detaiclass="underline" He heard them say that the men of the majority were asses. They said it in a ravishing fashion, and not exactly using this word, but all the same without that degree of respect. And when one of them sat down, another stood up, relaxed and ready to repeat the accusation in a slightly different way. Little perpendicular folds of anger and effort formed on their foreheads; their gesticulations were pedantic, as when one is forced to make clear to children what lazy-heads they are; and their sentences were painstakingly articulated, the way a skilled chef carves pheasant.
The famous researcher Negatus smiled; he was no ass, he stood above the situation and could open-mindedly permit himself to be taken in by its charm; when it came to the voting, his own views would of course be approved. By chance, however, he happened to cast an untimely glance at the other gentlemen of the majority. And all at once it seemed to him as if the lot of them sat there stiff-backed, like so many little women, who, faced with a man’s attempt to teach them the overpowering magic of logic, can find no other weapon in their defense than to reply to each new conclusion, But I don’t want to! Then he realized for the first time that he was no different from the rest. With a wandering eye, he examined legs and fingertips, the line of lips and shapely bodily curves, and yet all the while he had to hear how his power of volition had fallen asleep, and his intelligence was that of a fat bourgeois who doesn’t like to exercise it much. And then something happened that in fact rarely happens, Quantus felt himself half-convinced. When he thought of his reputation as a scholar, he seemed to himself like a proper housewife who fiddles around with bottles and pots at home, while these ladies leaped on a sparkling steed through the wide-open world. There were of course a number of particular things about which few people know as much as he did; but what good was this knowledge in the face of such general questions, whose uncertainty required, he was about to say, the certainty of a whole man?! Already he sensed that the arguments his reason came up with to counter the sly contentions of these young women were actually shaky, and his thoughts followed with an almost girlish enthusiasm the wild leaps of their intellect.