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