“‘I will not reproach you with anything. You are a divine woman, but nevertheless a woman, and like every woman cruel in love.’ ‘What you call cruel,’ the goddess of love replied eagerly, ‘is simply the element of passion and of natural love, which is woman's nature and makes her give herself where she loves, and makes her love everything, that pleases her.’ ‘Can there be any greater cruelty for a lover than the unfaithfulness of the woman he loves?’”

This passage in the narrator’s dream outlines the primary conflict of the novella, in which men perceive women as “cruel” when women pursue their own pleasure. The narrator’s misogynistic views of women introduce his conflicted attitude toward his own sexuality: He both wishes to be dominated by a “divine woman” and yet fears such domination. His conversation with Venus also introduces Venus as an important symbol in the novella (See: Symbols & Motifs).

“‘Look at the woman,’ he replied, blinking humorously with his eyes. ‘Had I flattered her, she would have cast the noose around my neck, but now, when I bring her up with the kantchuk, she adores me.’ ‘Nonsense!’ ‘Nonsense, nothing, that is the way you have to break in women.’”

Severin’s cruelty foreshadows the conclusion of the novella, as his discussion with the narrator regarding his dream of the dominating Venus is broken up by his spontaneous abuse of his maid. The use of a kantchuk, a kind of whip, likewise imbues the abuse with the same symbolism that later characterizes Wanda’s relationship with Severin (See: Symbols & Motifs). This passage also introduces the theme of The Exploration of Sexual Power Dynamics.

“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.”

Severin’s comparisons to Samson frame him as a biblical hero, suffering for the virtue of his love. However, Severin is also rejecting happy, monogamous love in favor of the martyrdom of masochism, in which he can see himself as a happy victim rather than a mutual lover.