pencil and story: Guido Crepax

presentation by Sergio Finzi

This is the first hardcover book that was given to me by my parents.
I was 17 at the time and was probably recommended by the bookstore.
Given the content, I doubt my mother would have chosen it, had she read it!
It deals with the intimate relationship of a couple, Severin and Wanda, in Vienna at the end of the 19th century (contemporary with Sigmund Freud).
Severin signed a submission contract with his wife, giving her full power.
At first it is not clear that it is a question of husband and wife.
He is called Victor and treated like a servant, whom Wanda regularly punishes with a long riding crop.
The woman invites other men into the house, allowing herself to be courted, but without ever betraying him.
At a certain point, three other women are included in the report, who carry out every order of Wanda, raging on poor Victor.
Wanda reveals that she loves her husband deeply and accepts the role of dominatrix only because he wants it.
This is revealed by the absolutely normal sexual intercourse that asks him in the middle of the story.
Soon after, Major Sandor Meciszevski is introduced, of whom Severin is immediately jealous.
Their contract is upset by the man's doubts, which Wanda ends with a final submission.
He convinces Severin to be tied up, naked, one last time.
As soon as he is immobilized, he calls Sandor and has him whipped by her new lover.
Severin accused of having violated their contract, which forbade suffering pain from others.
Wanda then circumvents the agreement, makes up Severin like a woman and has him sodomized by Sandor.
Severin takes pleasure, so the contract is honored, but Wanda leaves him forever.
In the finale, Severin is on Freud's couch and concludes by admitting that in their historical period a woman cannot be a man's accomplice, but only his slave or mistress.
This is probably one of Guido Crepax's "strongest" stories, but let's not forget that the term "masochism" derives from the author's surname, Masoch!