submitted these to the most rigorous examination. Long hair, beautiful features, perfect teeth, well-formed breasts and small, juicy love-nests were not the only requirements. She wanted girls who showed vitality and strong resistance. She took them over her lap, she had them open up, she played with the tickler and watched the reaction. She pinched them with sharp nails on the inside of the thighs, and, when they showed any softness, she gave them a couple of coins and sent them away. For those she selected, she made a hard bargain, clothed them in garments which she had brought for that purpose and took them right away with her. After a meal and a bath in her mansion, she administered the first whipping herself. She took this very seriously. It was a further try-out as to whether the girl was to make good. She did not take them down to the black chamber, which she had found in the house when she had bought it from an aristocrat. Nor did she tie them. She put them on the elegant bed which would be theirs for the love-business later on, and, under the threat of sending them back, made them expose those parts of their bodies which she wanted to hurt with the whip. All of the girls had been beaten before, but they mostly had received rough blows and kicks and only few of them had been submitted to a skillful whipping by the leather whip. After applying stinging blows on their buttocks and between their thighs, Grushenka would make them get up, stand erect, and order them to hold their breasts from underneath, ready to receive punishment. Those who complied were not touched at all, but those who were not ready to follow this order would feel the whip again and again on their backs until complete submission was affected. Grushenka had lost her softness; she had forgotten the fear and terror of her own youth. And this made her a success. When she had in this way collected about fifteen girls, she began careful instructions on how to keep the body clean and the nails in perfect shape, how to smile and to walk, how to eat and to talk. She succeeded quickly, especially because she had the most magnificent clothes made for her charges, and fine clothes inspire every woman to refined behavior. Satisfied with this she also gave them special and delicate instructions in how to handle and satisfy the men, instructions which, if repeated here, would make a whole chapter by itself. She spoke to attentive but bewildered girls. They heard the words but did not get the meaning in full, for it turned out that one-third of her fifteen girls were still virgins.
If they had been poked previously at all, they had just lain still when the rough men of their sections were working on them. They did not understand yet how there can be a great difference between an expert courtesan and a peasant girl who just holds her legs open. They should know better soon. When Grushenka felt that she was ready, she held the great and boisterous opening of her establishment.
According to the custom of her time, she had an invitation printed which was quite a document, prettily lithographed and adorned with vignettes displaying love scenes. Here you could read that the famous Madame Grushenka Pawlovsk, just returned from an extensive tour over Europe in search of new and never-dreamed-of sex excitements, was inviting the Honorable Dukes, Counts and Barons for the great opening of her establishment. Here the customer, from the moment that he passed the threshold, would be drowned in an ocean of pleasure, etc., etc., followed by the most startling announcement, namely, that for the opening gala banquet, no charge would be made! On this night, every one-of-the famous beauties would satisfy every whim free of charge and a free lottery would be played, the prizes being five virgins to be raped by the winners! Here-according to the style of the time-a special specification also was made: that the winners could deflower their prizes either in private chambers or “in state.”
It must be known that most marriages of that time started with deflowering “in state,” which means that the bridegroom put his bird into the little nest in the presence of all the near relatives, often all the wedding guests, in order to give a proof by witness that the marriage had been consummated. This habit flourished in the families of reigning houses of Russia right through the better part of the 19th century. The opening party turned out to be a riotous bacchanal.
It lasted not only one day and one night, but more than-three days and nights, until it was finally disbanded by the discreet and quiet interference of the police. Grushenka received the guests in a gorgeous gown, very audacious, as was becoming for this occasion. From the waist down she wore a purple brocade skirt with a long train which encircled her in gracious swirls wherever she went. From the waist up she had on only a thin silver veil, which left her magnificent breasts and full rounded back bare to the view of the admiring men. She wore a large white wig with many curls which, because she had no diamonds at that time, was adorned with dark red roses. Her girls wore smart evening gowns which just left the nipple free and which were close-fitting in-the waist but wide around the hips and buttocks. They had no undergarments on whatsoever, and, while the men were eating, Grushenka introduced them on a platform, one after the other, lifting their gowns up in front and in the back, displaying and covering up their undercarriages from every angle. Grushenka had counted on about seventy visitors. Over two hundred came. Two oxen had been slaughtered and been roasted in the garden over an open fire, but she soon had to send out for more food. The battalion of bottles of wine and vodka drunk during those days will never be known. A small army of lackeys were busy opening bottles and piling empty ones in the corners. The first feature after the dinner was the lottery for the virgins. After long and more-rowdy-than-witty speeches, the men decided among themselves that anyone who should not “poke in state” should be excluded from participation. The men all were from the aristocratic class, mostly landowners or their offspring, officers of regiments, government officials, and so on. But they were drunk and found that this was one occasion to break down barriers. They cleared a space in the middle of the great dining hall and herded the five young girls into the middle, where they stood sheepishly. Numbers were hung around their necks, and every man received a numbered card, the winners being those who held numbers corresponding with those of the girls. The girls now were told to slip out of their dresses, while the winners proudly stood next to them. The rest of the crowd lay, sat or stood all around the room in a circle. Some had climbed to the window sills to see better. The girls were frightened and began to cry. The crowd answered with cheers and boos. Grushenka stepped into the circle and got her wards close together. She spoke to them with quiet determination, but threatening them if they did not cheerfully obey. They slipped out of their gowns and lay meekly down on the carpet, closed their eyes and kept a hand on their love-nests.
But their ravishers now found themselves also in a predicament.
Two, it is true, had nice, hard shafts when they opened their trousers. But the other three could not so quickly find the trick of how to raise a rod in this noisy crowd. They discarded their coats and opened their trousers and lay on top of their girls alright, but good intentions don't mean a job accomplished. Madame Grushenka now stepped into the breach. She devoted her services at first to those who had their guns ready to fire. Soon enough a piercing cry came from one of the girls and the struggling of her buttocks announced that Madame Grushenka had, with her apt fingers, put the shaft of the first customer into a love-nest. The second outcry came soon afterwards. With the third one-the man in question was a young lieutenant of the cavalry-she had more difficulty. While her left hand tickled his cleft, her right hand massaged his sword so cleverly that she soon inserted it into the sheath. Number four proved a futile attempt. The gentleman in question was more than anxious, his weapon full but flappy. As soon as Grushenka touched him he gushed into the air and over the hairy Venus' Hill of the little virgin underneath.
When he got up, crimson in face and ashamed of his misfortune, the watching crowd did not at first understand what had happened. When they finally did, a bedlam broke loose. Of course, a substitute was quickly found and the maidenheads of numbers four and five were duly pierced. For a moment the half-clothed men lay breathing on top of the nude white forms of the girls whom they covered. The heavy air in the room was filled with rankness. Each fellow, after the climax, got up and proudly exhibited his throbbing tool covered with blood.
Grushenka had a devilish time getting the freshly deflowered girls safely out of the room. She had to fight through the crowd of men who clutched and pawed the scared girls on whose thighs was smeared the blood of their rape. Grushenka turned them all over to the old housekeeper who administered to them in a room on the third floor.
When Grushenka came back, she got into another melee with the excited men. They wanted to auction off the other girls also. A suggestion came from some corner demanding another maidenhead, namely that of the rear entrance. Grushenka did not want to hear anything of that and tried to joke her guests out of it. They started to manhandle her and, as she was about to leave the room, tore the thin veil, even her wide skirt, from her, so that she was left only in her lace pants. They crowded in on her, half good-heartedly and joking, half threatening. She became frightened and promised everything. She reached her ten remaining girls, who were waiting in a room upstairs to hear what was demanded of them. She made a resolution to bundle them all in a. carriage and to hustle them out of the house, leaving the drunken men to get sober and to disperse. But on second thought she remembered how dependent she was on the success of this event. Her very last money had gone, even the house having been mortgaged to provide the food and the wine. Furthermore, it might be good to let the girls get some rough treatment from the start. They would not be the worse thereafter. She had them take their gowns off before
