e full realization of life and the consciousness of his
own power. This was the sudden death of his favorite sister. He
became serious and quiet, and always regarded this grief as a
turning-point in his life.

At the Universities of Prague and Graz he studied with such zeal
that when only 19 he took his doctor's degree in law and shortly
afterward became a _privatdocent_ for German history at Graz.
Gradually, however, the charms of literature asserted themselves
definitely, and he soon abandoned teaching. He took part,
however, in the war of 1866 in Italy, and at the battle of
Solferino he was decorated on the field for bravery in action by
the Austrian field-marshal. These incidents, however, had little
disturbing influence on Sacher-Masoch's literary career, and he
was gradually acquiring a European reputation by his novels and
stories.

A far more seriously disturbing influence had already begun to be
exerted on his life by a series of love-episodes. Some of these
were of slight and ephemeral character; some were a source of
unalloyed happiness, all the more so if there was an element of
extravagance to appeal to his Quixotic nature. He always longed
to give a dramatic and romantic character to his life, his wife
says, and he spent some blissful days on an occasion when he ran
away to Florence with a Russian princess as her private
secretary. Most often these episodes culminated in deception and
misery. It was after a relationship of this kind from which he
could not free himself for four years that he wrote _Die
Geschiedene Frau, Passionsgeschichte eines Idealisten_, putting
into it much of his own personal history. At one time he was
engaged to a sweet and charming young girl. Then it was that he
met a young woman at Graz, Laura Ruemelin, 27 years of age,
engaged as a glove-maker, and living with her mother. Though of
poor parentage, with little or no knowledge of the world, she had
great natural ability and intelligence. Schlichtegroll represents
her as spontaneously engaging in a mysterious intrigue with the
novelist. Her own detailed narrative renders the circumstances
more intelligible. She approached Sacher-Masoch by letter,
adopting for disguise the name of his heroine Wanda von Dunajev,
in order to recover possession of some compromising letters which
had