Der Blutbund

Der Blutbund is presented through Samson Woodford and Ilona Hampstead’s planned but never completed union: for Ilona, the bond promises access to Samson’s wealth, while its anticipated consequences also threaten her privacy. When Samson overhears her speaking about it, he learns that the commitment he had understood as a possible future together is, in her mind, a means of taking control of his fortune. His refusal prevents the bond and exposes the betrayal at the heart of their relationship.

The Bond as a Prospective Commitment

The bond enters this part of the story as something Ilona expects to enter with Samson, not as a completed state. She speaks of what will happen once they have formed it, treating that future as sufficiently certain to plan around. Her language makes the bond a hinge: before it, she must conceal what she intends; after it, she anticipates possessing greater access to Samson’s resources and must manage what he can discover about her thoughts.

That expectation gives the bond an unusually double character. In the conversation Samson overhears, it appears to offer Ilona financial power, but it also appears to give Samson the ability to read her mind. She complains that she will have to be careful about what she thinks and resents the prospect of someone being continually inside another person’s head. The account does not establish every rule of the bond; it does show Ilona understanding it as a commitment that would affect both property and mental privacy.

Ilona’s Intended Use

Ilona’s private remarks reveal the distance between the bond’s apparent intimacy and her actual purpose. She tells her companion that she will not continue performing sexual acts for Samson, even though she expects to form the bond with him. She describes physical contact with him as repellent, then turns to the outcome she values: access to his entire fortune. Her remarks make clear that she is not anticipating the bond as an expression of mutual affection.

The plan is not merely to acquire money in the abstract. Ilona refers to Samson’s wealth, riches, and power as what she expects the bond to put within her reach. Her confidence depends on Samson not knowing what she is arranging. She recognizes that the bond could make concealed thoughts harder to maintain, and complains that this would force her to be cautious. In that sense, the same commitment she hopes will secure her control also threatens to expose her intentions.

Samson hears the scheme from outside the bathroom while Ilona is on the phone. He first understands that she has been discussing their relationship with someone else; then the conversation clarifies that her interest is directed toward his assets. When she notices him, she adopts a smile he now recognizes as an act. The private plan and the performed affection collapse into one revelation: the bond was to be the instrument of a deception already under way.

Refusal and Consequences

Samson rejects the proposed bond outright. After Ilona’s false smile fails to restore the appearance of intimacy, he tells her to leave and makes clear that he will never enter the bond with her. His threat of a stake if she crosses his path again underscores how completely the possibility of a shared future has turned into hostility. Ilona is still alive when he sends her away, but he refuses to let her remain in his house or his life.

The rejection also exposes the emotional injury beneath Samson’s anger. He recalls that Ilona had used him and that he had mistaken her performance for love. He wonders how he could have been so blind, then closes himself off from other people because he no longer trusts the judgment that led him to trust her. The bond therefore remains unrealized, yet its failed prospect has a lasting consequence: it becomes part of the betrayal through which Samson’s capacity for intimacy is damaged.

The narrative links that night to the beginning of Samson’s sexual difficulties. His appetite for sex declines first; later, even when he tries to use sensual pleasure as a distraction, he cannot achieve an erection. This sequence does not make the bond itself a physical cause. Rather, the episode ties his sexual dysfunction to the shock of discovering that the relationship he trusted was organized around his money and a concealed plan to bind their futures.

Significance in the Story

Der Blutbund functions here as a test of what a commitment means when the parties do not share the same understanding of it. Ilona imagines the bond as a route to ownership and influence, while Samson’s rejection makes clear that an anticipated union cannot proceed on deception. Its promised closeness is especially compromised by the thought-reading consequence Ilona fears: she wants access to Samson’s fortune but dislikes the prospect of reciprocal access to her own mind.

The scene also gives the bond a narrative force even though it never takes place. Samson’s discovery prevents the planned transfer of power, but does not spare him the effects of the betrayal. The unmade bond marks a dividing line: before it, he believes Ilona’s affection and anticipates a shared future; afterward, he casts her out, withdraws from trust, and begins the period of sexual dysfunction that troubles him. In this account, the bond matters not as a completed union but as the commitment Ilona tries to exploit and Samson refuses.