s 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 even the friendship of his comrades, for they
well knew that it was his arm alone that punished them and that his heart
was not in his work. As Ivan's arm as well as the rest of his body was
the property of the general, and the latter could do as he pleased with
it, no one was astonished that it should be used for this purpose. More
than that, correction administered by Ivan was nearly always gentler than
that meted out by another; for it often happened that Ivan, who was a
good-natured fellow, juggled away one or two strokes of the knout in a
dozen, or if he were forced by those assisting at the punishment to keep
a strict calculation, he manoeuvred so that the tip of the lash struck
the deal plank on which the culprit was lying, thus taking much of the
sting out of the stroke. Accordingly, when it was Ivan's turn to be
stretched upon the fatal plank and to receive the correction he was in
the habit of administering, on his own account, those who momentarily
played his part as executioner adopted the same expedients, remembering
only the strokes spared and not the strokes received. This exchange of
mutual benefits, therefore, was productive of an excellent understanding
between Ivan and his comrades, which was never so firmly knit as at the
moment when a fresh execution was about to take place. It is true that
the first hour after the punishment was generally so full of suffering
that the knouted was sometimes unjust to the knouter, but this feeling
seldom out-lasted the evening, and it was rare when it held out after the
first glass of spirits that the operator drank to the health of his
patient.

The serf upon whom Ivan was about to exercise his dexterity was a man of
five or six-and-thirty, red of hair and beard, a little above average
height. His Greek origin might be traced in his countenance, which even
in its expression of terror had preserved its habitual characteristics of
craft and cunning.

When he arrived at the spot where the punishment was to take place, the
culprit stopped and looked up at the window which had already claimed the
young aide-de-camp's attention; it still remained shut. With a glance
round the throng which obstructed the entrance leading to the stre