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 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