Grushenka, Three Times a Woman E-Book

anonymous

• Herausgeber: Erotic eBooks
• Kategorie: Erotik
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

"Grushenka, Three Times a Woman" is the true-life story of a peasant girl in Tsarist Russia, compiled from documents in the Russian police files and private archives.

Leseprobe

Grushenka, Three Times a Woman

Anonymous

Grushenka, Three Times a Woman 1933AnonymousThis ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with.If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy.First edition 2014

Chapter One

Katerina walked in great dismay through one of the unpaved streets in the northerly quarter of Moscow. She had good reason to be uneasy and in bad humor. Here it was spring; soon the whole household would be moved to the country and she had not yet been able to fulfill the command of her mistress, the young and capricious Princess Nelidowa Sokolow.

At first the Princess Nelidowa had only mentioned her request casually, as something she would like to have. But lately she had demanded, nay commanded. The young Princess had become very irritable. She was always on the go, never at rest, not even for a reassuring prayer. It was not for Katerina to question the orders of her mistress. She was the housekeeper, an old and trusted serf, hardened by rough work, now burdened with the weight of running the huge household, to which the young and pleasure-seeking Madame never gave a thought. She had been trained since her early youth to follow orders and to do so promptly.

Katerina was not in dismay because she was afraid she would be punished. She was not in fear of the lash. No, it was not that. She simply wanted to do her duty, and her duty was to satisfy her Lady. What Princess Nelidowa wanted was this: a serf girl, who had exactly her own measurements, who duplicated exactly her own figure. It may seem strange that Nelidowa should have had such a desire, but it was not.

It must be imagined through what nerve-wracking torture (so she thought at least) Nelidowa had to go, standing as a model for hours and hours in her boudoir, while the tailor, the chemise-maker, the bodice-maker, the shoe-maker, the coiffeur and all the other untold clothiers tinkered around her body. Of course, it is every woman’s delight to adorn herself, to choose and to invent what is most becoming to her. But Nelidowa was suddenly in a hurry. In a hurry to live, to enjoy herself, to play the lady, to be everywhere, to be seen, and last but not least, to be adored. To be adored and envied by women meant clothes and more clothes. And that meant to have to stand still and suffer, to be touched all over by the dirty hands of the dress-makers.

The Princess despised the dress-makers as she did all other working people and treated them haughtily and unjustly. She disliked the smell of them, but she had to bear it in order to look lovely and rich. Rich! That was the word which sang always in the ears of the newly wed Princess. Rich, mighty, a figure at the court, a mistress of many souls. Of course there was a price to be paid for it, a price with disgusting features. This price was that she had to be the wife of Alexey Sokolow. She hated it, but what could she do? It was a bargain she could not confide to her most intimate friends. She was always conscious of why she had to endure it, but had not yet thought how she might get around it.

For Nelidowa had been terribly poor. So poor that in the convent, where she had been brought up, she had not been given enough to eat. The nuns had used her as a kitchen maid and on the great holidays, when all the other aristocratic girls donated candles to the Saints as big as logs, she could not even buy a little waxen stick. Her father had been a great general, a superb aristocrat, her mother a Tartar Princess. But when her father, in one of his usual drinking spells, had fallen into the Volga and drowned, his family was left without a kopeck. Ill-meaning relatives scattered his brood, as they called it, into institutions and charity houses.

Grown to be twenty, and without any desire to become a nun, an old and half blind aunt in a little city had taken Nelidowa in. There she was chained to a cranky invalid who gave her the switch once in a while, which was then the mode even for educated girls, as long as they were not married.

Therefore, it was like a miracle when the match with the mighty Alexey Sokolow was suddenly in the air. It was a fata morgana, not to be trusted, and when it finally became true, Nelidowa had to pinch herself many times to make sure she was not dreaming. This match had been made, after the fashion of the times, by correspondence. Now, in the little city where Nelidowa then lived, was a fickle young man, son of the Military Commander of the district. He fell so violently in love with Nelidowa that he told his father - and told him with passion - that he was going to marry the girl of his love, although she was poor and socially a nobody. The father, as it goes in the world, did not want to consent. The best thing therefore, so it seemed to him, would be to remove the girl from the sight of his son, and the best way to remove her was to marry her off. Being a school chum of the mighty Prince Alexey Sokolow, and having corresponded with him for many years, he now sent him such showers of praise about the virtue and charm of Nelidowa, that he succeeded in getting the old bachelor engaged to the girl by mail.

There was no doubt that Nelidowa would grasp this opportunity with all ten of her nimble fingers. Ex-Governor Prince Alexey Sokolow was known throughout the country as one of the richest landowners, a figure at court, a political factor and as a host who gave elegant parties. One of the grandees of his time, he had inherited his fortunes and tripled them by bold strokes which often bordered on robbery. That he was thirty-five years her senior did not disturb Nelidowa. It all meant the one great windfall of luck for her. But that he consented to marry her made her wonder very much. It cannot be said whether Sokolow would have been able to get one of the rich ladies of the court as a wife, but it is certain that he had his own special reasons for making the abrupt decision to marry the unknown girl.

These reasons were not that she was an aristocratic girl and the daughter of an old friend of his. No, the real reason was that Sokolow wanted to do some spite work to his relatives. They were already counting on his death, had already figured out what they would inherit from him, would in fact have liked to poison him. Now let them wail! He would marry this girl who was young and healthy, marry her and have children and the whole chorus of loving relatives would have to go away empty handed.

When this clever idea entered his head, he acted with his usual abruptness. Nobody should know beforehand. He simply wrote a letter to Nelidowa, without any explanations or previous correspondence, to the effect that he had heard from his old friend that she was a marriageable person, that enclosed were 5,000 rubles for her dowry, that the ring he was sending her had been worn by his mother, that the carriage sent to her door was hers, and that he expected her without delay. But he advised her to travel by easy stages, so that she should not be tired at the wedding ceremonies, which would take place as soon as she arrived in Moscow.

There was the handsome carriage with a huge coachman and two footmen at her door, there was the 5,000 rubles - Nelidowa had never in her life seen so much money - there was the ring with a ruby, thick as a pigeon’s egg, there was the confirmation of the Military Commander that all this was his work. Well, Nelidowa jumped into the carriage and did not travel in easy stages but in such haste that the coachman often had to change the poor horses. Nelidowa didn’t get tired at all. She was so excited that she did not feel the lack of sleep or food. She was in a trance.

Grushenka’s husbandShe did not even lose this state of excitement when she saw the bridegroom. No poet could have made him into a desirable lover. He was in his middle fifties, short, brutal and bald, with a large belly which protruded from underneath his hairy chest. Only when Nelidowa found herself with him in bed, did she realize the disgusting reality-but that must be told later on. This was the reason why the young Princess plunged herself with vigor into all and every kind of amusement and social debauchery.

She had to make up for the past and she had to make the most of her bargain. Therefore, during the second season of her life in Moscow, she left no stone unturned if it meant any pleasure for herself. She treated her servants with reckless brutality, she became nervous, irritable and restless and was ceaselessly thinking of means to make everything as easy for herself as possible. She had decided that she did not want to try on her own clothes, but that a substitute should be found. That is how Katerina got her order to find and buy the duplicate of Madame.

Katerina had tried to fill this order for quite a while, that is, since Madame had gotten many headaches trying on the last fall styles. But so far Katerina had been unsuccessful. Not that the Princess had such an extraordinary figure. But those tramps, those peasant slave girls, all had such miserable bodies: sturdy undercarriages, broad backs, large hips, terribly thick bottoms and legs. On the other hand, Nelidowa had very full, oval, pointed breasts, carried over an amazingly subtle waist. She had very well formed, straight legs and small, aristocratic hands and feet.

Nobody knew these differences better than the old housekeeper, because she herself had taken the measurements of Nelidowa’s body. The “little mother,” as her household serfs called her, had stood quite still as Katerina took her height, the measurements of her bust - above, over and below the full breasts - of the waist-line, the hips, the bottom, the thighs and the calves, the length of the arms and the legs. Nelidowa had stood quite still and had smiled, thinking it was the last time that she would have to do the trying-on herself.

Katerina had taken these measurements in her own way. She could not read or write, she could not handle the tape measure as those silly-talking French clothiers did so skillfully. Therefore, she took ribbons of all colors, every time another color for another measurement, and cut them exactly to the right length. She was able to remember without fail which color represented, for example, the wrist or the ankle measurement, because this fat and slightly grey and ignorant peasant woman had a better sense of recollection than any of the caste of learned and educated men. These colored ribbons were then carefully sewn together so that they made a long string with which Katerina was taking her measurements. In this way, a practical yardstick of Nelidowa’s proportions was procured.

How often she had tried in vain! First she had gone around to the households of other Grandees, and after a friendly chat with the Major Domo or with the head housekeeper, she had looked the serf girls over, because it was always possible to buy a certain girl if no special reasons kept her in the household such as the master liking her best as a bed companion. But not even among the ladies’ maids and linen girls, who were supposed to be of the finest kind, could she find any who came near her measurements. Then she had gone to the serf markets, which were held from time to time to make exchanges of serfs in the different houses of the aristocracy. After that, she had visited what one would call dealers, certain persons who had once been major domos and were liberated for one reason or another, and who made a scanty commission buying and selling serfs, mostly young, good looking girls who were traded to the many whorehouses which at that time began to flourish in Moscow, a fashion lately imported from Paris.

In this way, Katerina had been hunting the whole winter, and while she found here and there a girl who came near the requirements, she had been told to bring a girl who would fit exactly. But how to get her? All this was on Katerina’s mind on that April afternoon (it must have been, approximately, in the year 1728) while she was on her way to a private dealer in the poor quarters of the north of Moscow. The sudden haste which crept up on her made her do something that was extraordinary for her. She hailed one of the droshkies which hung around a street corner, one of those dilapidated one-horse carriages which were not noted for promising a safe arrival at one’s destination.

The half drunken driver sullenly started with her, after she had made a hard bargain for the fare. Soon she found herself in babbling conversation with the driver, who was her equal in being unable to keep his mouth shut, and who scratched his long hair when his ill-fed and tired horse stumbled over the rough cobblestones. Because it was not Katerina’s way to keep anything to herself, the driver knew very soon that she was out to buy a serf girl for her Princess and mistress. Here he saw a chance for himself and told Katerina that a cousin of his, who had seen better days, was going to sell two of her girls, young, and sturdy, and very obedient workers. But Katerina did not want to listen. She was determined to go to her destination and there they went.

The driver was paid, and his remark that he would wait until his client got through with her business, received no answer.

Katerina was expected at the house of Ivan Drakeshkow, because she had sent him a message that she would look over his girls before they were offered at auction. She was greeted with dignity, almost reverence. A buyer with money is always welcome. Ivan Drakeshkow lived in a small, one story house, surrounded by an untidy little garden, where some chickens were busy looking for prey after the rain.

Ivan had bought the property when he was an ebony cutter, a successful craftsman in his line, and during this time, he had married the parlor maid of a Grand Duchess, who had given the girl her liberty and a dowry. But Ivan had contracted an eye trouble which left him almost blind, and his wife, once good hearted and gay, had become a sour old witch who bossed him mercilessly. In fact, it was she who started the trade in serfs, and she earned just enough for food and fire-wood but never enough for a bottle of hard liquor, for which Ivan craved in vain. “Who does not work shall not drink,” was her motto, and she forced her good-for-nothing husband to wash the dishes.

Katerina was offered, with too much politeness, a huge and comfortable armchair. She was treated with tea from the ever boiling samovar. She was drawn into a long conversation about the Czar and her master. But she was in haste, uneasy, and wanted to see the girls.

Madame Drakeshkow saw that the business had to be started right away. “You see,” she said to Katerina, “I will have for the auction more than twenty girls, but they are not all here yet. The later they come to me the less I have to feed the slobs. So if you don’t find what you are looking for, just keep in touch with me and I am absolutely sure I can serve you. There is nobody who knows so well all the serf girls in town.”

(She had only seven at present and did not expect to have more for her auction, which Katerina knew very well.) She got up and went towards the bedroom next door to fetch the girls and presently came back with them, because the girls had been waiting to be called.

“Open up those curtains and get some light in the room,” she called to her husband, who did obediently as he was told. After that he sat in a dark corner, looking at the wall.

It was because of his eyes that the room was always kept in semi-darkness. Katerina looked the seven girls over. They stood motionless in a row, in short Russian blouses and cheap, wide, woolen skirts; stockingless and in bare feet. Four of them Katerina dismissed right away, while Madame Drakeshkow praised eagerly the beauty and health of them all. The four, who were much too small or too tall, were very reluctantly sent away by Madame Drakeshkow, who was consoled by the demand of Katerina that the three remaining ones should take off their clothes. Buyers usually scrutinized the naked bodies carefully before purchase. The stripping was quickly done. The blouses had to be unbuttoned, the skirts unhooked, and the girls were nude. They now eyed Katerina, because she might become their future mistress, and although they discovered from her costume and bearing that she herself was only a serf, it was evident that she must be in an important position since she was delegated to buy new servants.

Katerina viewed the nude forms. Two of the girls were impossible at a glance. One had very small, almost boyish breasts and of course the wide hips which were so common. The other had such thick thighs and so broad a bottom, that she might already have had a couple of children. Katerina disregarded them entirely and, though they stayed in the room, it was only because it had been forgotten to send them away. Katerina now motioned the last girl nearer to the window and took out, to the amazement of Madame Drakeshkow, the aforementioned multicolored ribbons. With some misgivings she started with the height (which was correct), came to the bust, where more than the thickness of two fingers was missing and gave it up when the hips proved more than a hand’s breadth too large. With a sigh, she put her ribbon back in her sack and moved without speaking to the exit door. She paid no attention to the rain of words from the utterly bewildered Madame Drakeshkow, who had not understood what she had been about. To measure a servant girl! Who had ever heard of such folly? But Katerina was already on the street with the look of a beaten dog in her eyes, undecided what to do next. The droshky driver, warmed meanwhile by a drink from a nearby public house, saluted her cheerfully and coaxed her to hire him again. He hoped that her eminence had completed her mission perfectly and that he could drive her home in roaring speed. Katerina let him know that she had been unsuccessful and that, by the name of her personal Saint, she would have to give up. Then the befuddled driver remembered that she wanted to buy some girls, and anew praised the goods which his cousin wanted to dispose of. He’d drive her over quickly and- Katerina looked at the sun. It was still early. One unsuccessful try more or less did not matter, and she climbed back into the carriage, which answered with a sigh, bending to her weight. We soon see Katerina breathing heavily while climbing up a creaking and steep staircase to the cousin’s attic. It turned out that this cousin, a thin spinster of about fifty years, was handling the embroidery business on a small scale; that she wanted to give up her enterprise and leave Moscow in order to stay with relatives in the south. Lacking money for the long trip, the sale of the two girls should provide the means. Katerina was led into the adjoining room, a large, very light attic room, bare of any furniture except a work table crowded with materials of all kinds. On a bench before this table, bent over their work, sat two girls. The cousin commanded them to rise and it was then that Katerina uttered a cry of amazement. One of the girls was an exact duplicate of her Princess; at least her face and features were so perfectly like those of her mistress that Katerina first feared a spook might have tricked her. Still, the face did not matter at all. It was only the right contours of the body which were sought. The height was right, the form seemed so; Katerina hastily demanded that this dark-haired girl with the shining blue eyes be stripped. The other girl was a short, flat-nosed, sturdy creature and Katerina disregarded her. Not so the cousin. She made it quite clear that she would not sell one girl alone; it must be both or neither. Katerina mumbled that all that could be arranged, just let her see the dark one. The girls, who had no previous knowledge that their madame wanted to get rid of them, flushed slightly, looked at each other and at the cousin, and stood sheepishly. The cousin slapped the dark girl and demanded to know whether she had become deaf and when she wanted to start taking her clothes off. With excited fingers, the buttons of the blouse opened; then came a bodice of common linen, strapped and fastened with many ribbons, and from underneath a rough chemise stood out two full and hard breasts with deep red nipples. Katerina, the never smiling, grinned. It was the kind of bust she was looking for. The wide skirt of flowered and cheap material fell to the floor and a pair of wide trousers, reaching to the ankles, came into view. A bush of thick black hair protruded through the open slit of the drawers, which was there for the sake of commodity. (The women of that time attended to their natural functions through the gap of their trousers, which they opened up while sitting down for the necessity.) Soon shirt and drawers were also removed and Katerina eyed her find with growing satisfaction. She went around and around the nude girl. The waistline was perfect; the legs full and female but subtle; and the flesh seemed to be even softer than that of her mistress. To find out, she came close to the girl and felt her body. She was content. This was not the usual peasant type. This was not a tough and common brat. This girl had the form of an aristocrat, a form which must be like that of her “little mother.” Katerina remembered her measurements, took out her ribbons and began her comparisons. Well, the height was almost perfect, a little too tall, but she could tolerate that small difference. The length of the back, the breasts, the waistline, the thickness of the thighs, were right and what one might call right. Even the wrists and the ankles fitted.

It turned out that the length of the legs, measured from the crotch to the floor, was a trifle too long, but Katerina had already resolved that this girl was to be bought. The bargaining started. Katerina wanted to buy only the dark girl and she did not want to pay more than 50 rubles. The blonde imp was not wanted; her master owned 100,000 souls and did not need any more. The cousin shrieked that he did not then need to buy the dark girl either. While Katerina zealously defended the money of her master, the blonde girl leaned against the table and the nude, dark one stood motionless with hanging arms in the middle of the room, as if she had nothing to do with the affair. The driver here and there interjected an appeasing word from the door, where he loitered as a witness who is waiting for a handsome commission. The cousin was thin and hard. Katerina was eager to buy and, after a battle, the old housekeeper’s hand went into the bodice which covered her enormous bosom and brought to light an ugly leather purse, from which she paid the cousin 90 rubles in glittering gold.

She had gotten the price down from the demanded hundred, but she had to take both girls. No, she was not sending a carriage for them.

She was going to take both with her. She was afraid she might lose her precious discovery. They would start immediately. The girls had nothing to pack. They had no belongings except some woolen kerchiefs and the like, which were quickly made into a bundle. After the dark girl was hurriedly dressed again, Katerina took a quick leave with her purchase, though not without assuring the cousin anew that the price paid had been outrageous.

The cousin made the sign of the cross over her former serfs. They in turn, automatically and without feeling, kissed the hem of her dress and soon the three women sat in the carriage. The driver was paid a little distance from Sokolow’s house and received what he demanded. It is quite sure that with this money and the commission from his cousin, he was senselessly drunk for several days.

Starting toward the palace, Katerina asked the dark girl what her name was. “Grushenka,” answered the girl readily. That was the first word she spoke after she had become one of the uncounted souls of Prince Alexey Sokolow. She did not then know the name of her new master.

Chapter Two

It must be remembered that our story takes place shortly after the death of Peter the Great and that the revolutionizing changes he had made during his violent dictatorship came at this time to their first blossom. Peter the Great had done away with the seclusion of women who had lived before then in the oriental life of the harem. He had forced them into society, where they were at first so awkward that he got them drunk in order to loosen them up. He had lifted the Bojars, the aristocratic caste, to an elevated position by forcing the working class into unheard of servitude and submission. He had, by the most cruel tortures, in which he participated personally, built up a social order in which might was God and the serf a slave. He had forced Western culture upon his Bojars and one of his orders had been that they should build themselves great castles and houses.

Alexey Sokolow was only a score of years the junior of this great ruler. While eager to take all the advantages which were offered to his class, he had enough cunning to see that it was wiser to stay away from the inner court circle, where the greatest generals or officials were uncertain when they would find themselves on the rack or the wheel and eventually beheaded. Sokolow had therefore established his city life in Moscow instead of St. Petersburg, and here in Moscow, he had erected the magnificent palace which can be seen to this day.

Katerina dismissed the droshky a few blocks away, so as not to be seen by other servants riding in a hired carriage, and led the two bewildered serf girls to the huge arch of the main entrance which was guarded by two soldiers with muskets, high tin helmets and high boots.

They paid no attention to the three women who quickly entered the archway and were admitted to the inner courtyard. Flowers, lampoons, grass, even bushes covered the tremendous square of the inner court. Tables, chairs and benches stood about in great disorder. This courtyard was normally a barren place of cobblestones, but the Princess had given an entertainment the night before for which the flowers and grass had been raised in hot-houses in the country.

Katerina gave her wards no time to look or to think. She hurried them through the court and down a stone staircase to the basement, which consisted of endless halls, rooms and kitchens. Here Katerina left the blonde girl with a woman who seemed to be an overseer of this underground labyrinth. She then took Grushenka by the hand and marched on with her.

This time she led her up a small and winding wooden staircase, which ended at the second floor. Thick Turkish carpets covered the light hallway and Grushenka soon saw a room which she was going to know very thoroughly afterwards. It was the try-on room of the Princess, fitted with a big oak table in the middle of the room and huge chestnut closets and presses along the walls, between which mirrors of all kinds and dimensions were installed.

On a curt order from Katerina the girl took all her clothes off and, entirely nude, was dragged by the old housekeeper through other rooms, which were magnificently adorned with silks and brocades. Katerina led the substitute of Madame through the half open door of her mistress’ boudoir, in her excitement not waiting for permission to enter.

The Princess was sitting before a mirror at her toilet table. Boris, the coiffeur, was busy curling her long, dark brown hair. A young serf girl knelt on the floor and put rouge on her mistress’ toe-nails. In the corner, near a window, sat “Fraulein,” an elderly spinster who had been a German governess in different houses of the great, and who was now reading aloud in a dry and monotonous voice some French poetry. The Princess listened with only slight understanding or interest. The French poet had worked into his fable all kinds of persons from the Greek and Latin mythology, which meant nothing to the capricious listener. But when he described how the enormous shaft of Mars was pushed into the grotto of Venus, that called for noticeable attention.

In her mirror, Princess Nelidowa had seen Katerina approaching with Grushenka and waved angrily not to be disturbed. So Grushenka had an opportunity to study the group just described. The Princess wore only a short batiste chemise which left her more or less uncovered. She did not mind that Boris, clad in the formal house uniform of the Sokolows with a long pig-tail at his back, could see her nudity, because he was only a serf.

He had been sent to Dresden some years ago to learn the art of hairdressing with a very famous master in the Saxonian capital. Sokolow had intended to rent him out to one of the ladies’ hairdressing parlors recently opened in Moscow, but the Princess had taken the clever man into her private service. He was responsible for her many tufts and locks worn in the daytime and for her powdered wigs decorated with precious stones which went with the evening gowns.

When the reading of the poem had ceased, Katerina could restrain herself no longer. “I have her! I have her!” she cried and dragged Grushenka closer to the Princess. “I found a substitute who fits you perfectly and she is ours now!”

“I know you could have found her sooner,” said Nelidowa maliciously. “But you’ll be forgiven since you dug her up at last. Now show me, does she really have the same measurements or are you lying to me?” She rose hastily from her stool, so that poor Boris was in danger of burning her with his hot irons.

“She really and truly fits,” answered Katerina. “Here, I’ll show you.” And she took out the multicolored ribbons to prove the fact. But Nelidowa was not interested in that.

With sharp eyes she scrutinized Grushenka’s body and she was not dissatisfied. “So! That is how I look. A full pair of good breasts, aren’t they? But mine are better!” - and taking out her own breasts from her thin shirt and holding them close to Grushenka’s, she started a minute comparison - “Mine are oval and that is rare, but this slob’s are round. Look at her nipples! How big and common!” - and she tickled with her own nipples those of the girl.

Now it is true, there was a slight difference, but hardly noticeable. Nelidowa then took hold of Grushenka’s waist with both hands and began to handle her not too tenderly.

“I always said,” the mistress continued, “that I have an excellent waistline and here one can see it. Among all the court ladies, not one can compare with me.” That it was not her own waistline she admired but that of her new slave girl did not come to her mind. She proceeded to the thighs which she pinched, surprised by Grushenka’s very soft flesh. “My legs,” she commented, displaying now her own thighs and squeezing them a bit, “are sturdier than those of this little bitch, but we’ll take the softness out of her.”

With mock laughter she commanded Grushenka to turn around. Nelidowa as well as Grushenka had a remarkably well modeled back; round female shoulders, soft and full lines down to the bottom, small and well rounded hips. Only Grushenka’s buttocks were too small, almost boyish and went too evenly to the thighs. Her legs and feet were normal and straight and could have been used by artists as models.

“Now!” laughed the Princess. “This is the first time that I see my own back and truly I like it. Isn’t it fine that this tramp should have just my back? Next time my father confessor demands that I inflict some lashes on my own poor back, I can take hers as my substitute and I can be more generous with the number of blows I give myself.”

To demonstrate this splendid idea, she gave a goodly pinch to Grushenka’s flesh below the right shoulder blade. Grushenka twisted her mouth a bit but stood motionless without moving.

The witnesses of this scene, especially Katerina, were astonished by the similarity between these two women as they stood close together. It was astounding to see that not only the figures, but the features and faces of both were so much alike that one could have sworn they were twin sisters. Nature sometimes plays tricks of that kind. Grushenka was younger; she had a whiter skin; she blushed at present in her excitement and looked fresher. Also her flesh was softer and a bit more female than that of Nelidowa, and she had a timid bearing and was not so self contained as the Princess. Otherwise, they were strangely alike, though no one would have dared to tell this to the Princess.

“I am pleased with you, and I’ll present you with my new prayer book with the pictures of the Saints in it which you admired the other day. It’s yours. Go and get it.”

Katerina, with a deep curtsy, kissed her mistress’ hand, overjoyed that she had at last satisfied her. She was taking the girl out of the room when she was stopped by a last word of her mistress, who had watched the nude form depart.

“By the way, Katerina, have all the hair under her arms and on her dirty crotch removed so that she doesn’t infect my garments. And have her spotlessly washed and powdered. You know how filthy these pigs are.”

Katerina assured her she would have the girl taken care of. Katerina had Grushenka take her clothes over her arm and went with her again to the basement. She knew that both girls had to be taken in as new serfs and she took care of the requirements usual on such occasions in her efficient way.

Grushenka and the other girl sat a few minutes later before a huge, cleanly washed table. Soon plates of food, brought quickly by other serf girls, piled up before them. A new serf was always fed to the utmost by the new master, and the girls were hardly able to do justice to the resources of the kitchen of Prince Sokolow. Their former diet as supplied by the stingy cousin had consisted of coarse bread, onions and rice, and many of the dishes which now stood before them were utterly unknown to them. They ate all they could but had to give up when a big apple pudding proved too much for their filled stomachs. Grushenka had been sitting nude through the meal. When they had eaten, the blonde girl was asked to take her clothes off.

They were then requested by the woman in charge of the basement to throw their clothes into a big stove in the kitchen, where they soon burned away. A great master would not allow a servant to wear clothes another master had previously given him, and also it is well known that clothes often brought the germs of disease into a house. Pest and smallpox were flourishing and no precaution against these scourges could be omitted.

After this the girls were brought over to the servants’ bath, where a few bath-girls waited for them. They were soaped all over with a stinging soap and afterwards put in two wooden tubs with very hot water so that their skin became red as boiled lobsters. They were then pushed into the steam-room, in charge of a one-armed invalid, a former soldier and bodyguard of the Prince. He did not look at the girls. He merely coughed and muttered vile and disgruntled words because his body and mind were unbalanced.

Grushenka sat in the large, bare room with its wet brick walls and steaming boilers and began for the first time to give herself an accounting of the last few hours. From the poor rooms of the morose and thin cousin, she had been brought to the fairy palace of a Prince.

For what, she could not understand. And while she wiped away the pearls of water which collected on her bust and belly, she whispered to her companion, “What do they want of me? What do you think they want?” But the blonde one whispered back that it would be ten thousand times better than before and that Prince Sokolow - they had learned the name from the girls who had previously served them - had so many thousands of serfs that if they managed rightly, they certainly would have the time of their lives. So far it was too good for words: a dinner of abundance, a real bath as it was given only to fine people, even a steam-room for the servants! Who would have dreamt of that?

Presently they were called out of the steam-room, their skin loosened by the heat, and were given a very cold washing with clean water which was poured on them from buckets. They shivered and screamed trying to avoid the gushes but it was quickly over. Then they were rubbed with thick towels and dried thoroughly. Katerina now took charge of them again to bring them to their quarters. The male servants lived in the stables or over the stables. The women had their quarters in the loft of the main house which was under the supervision of an elderly serf woman.

Breathing heavily, Katerina led the way up the back stairs, scolding herself inwardly for going so seldom to the loft. (She herself had a chamber in the baseme [...]