sharp finger nails, hurting the tender flesh terribly. Startled and with a cry Grushenka leapt from the woman's lap, holding the injured spot with her hands, instinctively ducking away from her mistress. Nelidowa, upset by the girl's screams, her nerves offended, said the guilty one had to be punished.
As she reached for a leather slipper, her eyes had a gruesome expression. She scolded the girl and made her lie down over her lap.
Cracking slaps fell on Grushenka's backside and thighs, the pain shot in lightning heat with each stroke through her body. The slipper was merciless. Grushenka wiggled and kicked, cried and screamed, then subdued her cries to sobs. Her buttocks and legs felt as if a red hot iron was being applied. The struggling bare form before her eyes did not leave the Princess without feeling. She started to feel rather good, and she acted accordingly. She let Grushenka fall to the carpet, then took hold of her head and forced it between her own legs. One of her hand-maids, seeing what was going on, rushed behind her mistress, embraced her and, coming with her arms from behind, drew her gently back, thus placing her in a position in which to enjoy herself.
Grushenka did not know what to do. Nelidowa took that as obstinate resistance. She let her go and pushed her away with a firm kick of her bare feet. One of her bed-maids immediately took Grushenka's place (the girl said later she had done so to avert murder, so wild were the eyes of her mistress) and with apt and learned strokes she brought the passionate young Princess to fulfillment. Finally she closed her eyes and hung exhausted in the arms of the serf girl who held her. The bed-maids carried her to her bed and put her softly between the sheets. Grushenka slipped out of the room, hoping all would be forgotten the next day. She made up her mind to ask one of the girls how to satisfy Madame in case she should again be called to this duty. The next afternoon it was clear that Nelidowa had not forgotten. Katerina was ordered to appear with Grushenka. The Princess instructed briefly and without explanation, “Give that girl fifty lashes with the cowhide and don't let her make love from now on.” Katerina closed her lips tight. If she followed her mistress' order, the girl would be dead by sunset. She could never stand it. Men died with less than that number of blows.
She led the trembling and loudly sobbing girl to the basement, where in a far corner a room for the punishment of serfs was equipped with instruments of torture. Katerina led her to the whipping block and Grushenka, her eyes full of tears, stripped without resistance and laid herself over the saddle-like middle of the block. Katerina chained her arms and feet to rings. Then she questioned the frightened girl and Grushenka, her head hanging to the floor, related the happenings of the night before. Katerina was thinking hard while she fingered the different whips to find one of lighter weight. She looked at the white body, stripped for punishment, and at the whip, then threw the whip away. “Listen!” she said. “One should not trust such a bitch as you, but I will spare you if you can keep your mouth shut. Right after this you will go to bed and stay there for two days and be sick, and you'll tell everybody that I put a wet linen over you, so as not to blister your skin. If you do as I say, you'll get off lightly, because you did not know better and it was not your fault.” Whereupon Katerina hit her several times with her hand, which did not hurt less than the slipper the night before. “And one thing more. You are going to learn how to love perfectly so that you know better next time. Understand?” Katerina had something on her mind when she made this decision. Nelidowa was using up her maids in quick order and Katerina had always to supply new ones. The Princess, cruel and beastly as she could be (like many people who come from nothing into power), was equally good-hearted and carelessly friendly when she was in a good mood. None of her personal maids liked to stay long with her. The small leather whip with the golden handle was always too near and the moods of the mistress changed too quickly. The way to get away from her was to get married. They sometimes asked her for it outright and got what they wanted, including the men they had picked for themselves. Sometimes they did what they could to get pregnant and then they were scolded or even put for a few days in a dark room with water and bread. They were never severely punished (oriental women have a religious respect for a pregnant woman) and in the end were usually supplied with a husband. Then it was up to Katerina to find another maid: handsome, with a good figure, well trained in washing and clothing the mistress, alert, keen and also a good Lesbian.
The handmaids lived in one big room where, when not busy, they waited the call of the Princess. They passed their time telling lewd stories, playing with each other, indulging in parties. They were ready for that always, because they wore only light Russian blouses with such a low neck that half of the breast was exposed and wide skirts with no other garments below. Bending down and pulling the skirt up offered the necessary position for the whip, and lying down and pulling the skirt up made ready for a little play with the tongue.
After Grushenka had spent two lonesome days in bed, she was turned over to an efficient instructress in the latter. Three or four young girls, not more than seventeen years of age, were broken in by this woman, who was above thirty and understood her job well. The girls had to give each other a work-out, and then they had to show their ability to the teacher. If it had not been for the fact that this teacher always had a switch in her hand, which she used when she was not satisfied, Grushenka would have enjoyed these instructions.
Grushenka was no more to be touched by men. The little divertissement she had while learning to be a Lady's Lover ceased also. She was at a loss what to do to satisfy the passion which she had developed. Should she take a secret lover as many other girls did?
There was the danger of being found out and having her bones broken on the rack. Should she start an affair with another girl? That again would lead to some terrible punishment. She tried her own finger, and played with herself in bed. It was not good, in fact she felt unhappy the next day and cried without reason. But while so far her life had been like that of most of the other girls, a new and exciting chapter was to begin for her.
CHAPTER FIVE
When Nelidowa went to bed for the first time with Alexey Sokolow, she understood immediately what her marriage would cost her. She had known that His Highness, the Ex-Governor, her exalted Prince-husband, was wealthy, and she would have social position and power. But there, lying next to her like an orangutan, was the ugly body of the man who was now by right and law her master, mentally and physically. He was bald but had plenty of woolly hair around the lower part of his head, growing into a thick long beard reaching to his chest, which was covered with thick black hair. His chest was enormously broad, his arms short and muscular with broad short hands, and he had an enormous belly with a tissue of muscles all around the waist line. His skin was dark, his thighs almost brown. He had small piercing eyes and a big mouth with the lower lip especially thick and sensual. During the long stupendous wedding, with a thousand new faces congratulating her, everybody bowing deeply before the Prince, who was in a jovial mood, she had been thrilled. He had seemed handsome, clad in a brilliant blue uniform studded with glittering medals and buttons of real gold and with a snow-white wig with a long pigtail, which had dangled frivolously over the gold collar of his costume. He had worn high patent leather boots and rings with dazzling stones. It was thus that Nelidowa, the bride, had first seen her new spouse. She had been startled when the cannons bellowed on their arrival at the palace and was moved to tears when the Arch-Bishop (think of it, a real Arch-Bishop performing the ceremony, and in her home town, not even the lowest monk would listen to her confession) spoke the blessings for them. She had drunk it into herself, blinded with the splendor, and had made all kinds of good promises to herself. She had been in a trance, had kissed her new handmaids and assured them a heaven on earth when they undressed her late at night, and she had gone to her new husband (according to his orders, quite nude) intending to thank and thank him, to tell him that she was going to be his chattel and his faithful wife. But when she lay next to him, when she observed how this Prince of the costly uniform had changed into an abhorrent brute, she had not been able to say a word. Prince Alexey Sokolow did not expect a word from her.
He had never thought of a woman as a human being but as his property.
He owned many and kept dozens of serf girls always near his bedroom.
He had them follow him on his voyages. He had had them since his father first ordered him to take a girl when he was sixteen years of age. He never had an affair with a society girl, because she was somebody else's property. While he made many daring business ventures and acquired the estates of many men convicted for political or other reasons during his two score years as governor, women were something not to be taken illegally. If you liked a bitch, you could buy her; there was always a price which could be met. During his trips to Western Europe, he had learned that there were harlots, whom one could buy for an hour or a day. He even brought to Russia with him some wenches who did a nice job in bed. It seemed money wasted, however, because his own slave girls could do as well and even better. They were harder, had no moods and were easily put in their places when they did not behave properly. Alexey had no special sex habits.
