Venus in Furs, Part 2 summary

What happens

1. A reader opens a manuscript whose writer presents diary entries as a way to preserve the immediacy of experience.
2. Severin describes his boredom at a Carpathian spa and admits that he starts artistic projects without completing them.
3. He describes his isolated lodging, its elderly keeper, and a young widow whose balcony remains screened by plants.
4. Severin worships a garden statue of Venus and visits it at night to kneel at its pedestal.
5. After one visit, he sees a pale female figure, imagines the statue has come alive, and runs away.
6. He buys a reproduction of Titian’s Venus, gives it a title involving furs, and adds lines from Goethe.

In this part

What to notice

Severin extends his criticism of unfinished artistic work to his whole way of living. His flight from the mysterious woman gives this self-description a concrete example.

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