CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE

BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

IN EIGHT VOLUMES

VANINKA

About the end of the reign of the Emperor Paul I--that is to say,
towards the middle of the first year of the nineteenth century--just as
four o'clock in the afternoon was sounding from the church of St. Peter
and St. Paul, whose gilded vane overlooks the ramparts of the fortress,
a crowd, composed of all sorts and conditions of people, began to
gather in front of a house which belonged to General Count Tchermayloff,
formerly military governor of a fair-sized town in the government of
Pultava. The first spectators had been attracted by the preparations
which they saw had been made in the middle of the courtyard for
administering torture with the knout. One of the general's serfs, he who
acted as barber, was to be the victim.

Although this kind of punishment was a common enough sight in St.
Petersburg, it nevertheless attracted all passers-by when it was
publicly administered. This was the occurrence which had caused a crowd,
as just mentioned, before General Tchermayloff's house.

The spectators, even had they been in a hurry, would have had no cause
to complain of being kept waiting, for at half-past four a young man of
about five-and-twenty, in the handsome uniform of an aide-de-camp, his
breast covered with decorations, appeared on the steps at the farther
end of the court-yard in front of the house. These steps faced the large
gateway, and led to the general's apartments.

Arrived on the steps, the young aide-de-camp stopped a moment and fixed
his eyes on a window, the closely drawn curtains of which did not allow
him the least chance of satisfying his curiosity, whatever may have been
its cause. Seeing that it was useless and that he was only wasting time
in gazing in that direction, he made a sign to a bearded man who was
standing near a door which led to the servants' quarters. The door was
immediately opened, and the culprit was seen advancing in the middle of
a body of serfs and followed by the executioner. The serfs were forced
to attend the spectacle, that it might serve as an example to them. The
culprit was the general's barber, as we have said, and the executioner
was merely the coachman, who, being used to the handling of a whip, was
raised or degraded, which you will, to the office of executioner every
time punishment with the knout was ordered. This duty did not deprive
him of either the esteem or