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
