The Prince stopped him. He addressed her, almost formally, asking her again to confess who she was. She kept her mouth shut. She bit her lips. A motion from the Prince and the servant made the first turn.
Her feet went numb. The second turn-the pain shot up her body.
Screaming, she twisted in her chair, trying to liberate herself. She was mad with fright and pain, even though the wood had actually not yet cut her skin. Then she gave in. She promised to confess everything; the screw was unloosened, so was her tongue. In a stream of tears, she confessed. When she came to the end, she threw herself at the Prince's feet and begged for mercy, not for herself, but for her poor mistress. He just frowned at her incoherent utterances. He told the servants to lead her away as arranged in advance. She was taken howling and screaming to the torture chamber in the basement. Large torches were set ablaze. She was put on a chair with two arms but no back. Her arms, from the elbows to the wrists, were fastened to the arms of the chair; a leather strap secured her tightly to the corners of the seat. After the two male serfs had done this job, they were uncertain what to do next. They felt her allover, had their jokes with her and discussed whether they should make her service them. While Grushenka had been in the service of her mistress and taken her place with the master, none of the serfs had dared to touch her. But now she seemed doomed. Why shouldn't these servants use her before her bones were broken on the rack! For that was, in their opinion, the least the master would do. Uncertain as the whole affair was, however, they decided to nap until further orders were forthcoming, and they stretched themselves out on the floor in a half sleep. Grushenka looked around. She had plenty of time to observe the gruesome room. Next to her stood a chair similar to the one she was strapped to. All kinds of handles and machinery were underneath the seat, but she could not make out what they were for. In the middle of the room was the flogging block over which she had been laid by Katerina, a kind of saddle on four legs with rings and ropes on it to tie the delinquent in the most receptive position. One wall was covered with all kinds of beating instruments: knouts, leather straps, whips and the like. On the next wall were the racks; ladder-like frames against which the culprit was fastened, while light and heavy bats stood around with which legs or arms could be broken.
Chains and hanging racks, on which the man or woman to be punished was hung in such a way that the arms were twisted backward, completed the outfit of the room, a replica of which existed in the houses of all the masters of that time. While Grushenka observed all these terrors, Prince Sokolow acted according to his plan. He dressed in a Russian blouse and high boots. He had his servants pack his trunks. He then went down to the back entrance through which Nelidowa was to come home. He took a low stool and sat down, watching the door. He sat thus for many hours, motionless, staring at the door, not closing or even blinking an eye. Dawn came, and with it Nelidowa. She entered with light steps, in a hurried and satisfied mood after a good night with her lover. As soon as she closed the door, the short and tremendously strong Prince sprang at her, lifted her high in the air and flung her over his shoulder, her head and the upper part of her body dangling on his back. She uttered a piercing cry. She struggled to liberate herself, not knowing who had seized her. He carried her swiftly to the chamber where Grushenka sat. “Tear the clothes from her body and strap her to that chair!” he commanded the serfs, throwing her in their direction. The Prince sat down on a low bench and waited for his order to be carried out. This was not very easy, for Nelidowa put up a terrific battle. She swore at the servants, she hit with her fists, she bit, she kicked-all to no avail. Her clothes were torn from her body, one man holding her hands against her back, while the other one removed one garment after the other. First came the skirt, then the trousers and the stockings. As soon as the lower part of her body was naked, one slave put his head between her legs. Holding her feet, he raised himself up and stood straight, so that she hung on his back.
The other man took a short knife, cut open her sleeves from the wrist to the shoulder, then did likewise to her blouse and chemise. She was nude. They fastened her on the chair the same way they had Grushenka, and one of the men, with a bow, announced to the Prince that they were finished. The Prince ordered them from the room.
Nelidowa understood the situation perfectly by this time. But with a haughty air she demanded that she be set free immediately, shouting that he had no right to punish her like that squealing brat, that serf girl next to her; that it was his fault and not hers that she had deceived him, because he was a brute, a monster with whom no decent woman would sleep. She told him that he was repulsive to her, that she despised him, that if she had not found this substitute she would have left him openly-and so on. In her rage she made a full confession about her love for Gustavus and how she was going to marry him as soon as she was rid of her tormenter. The Prince did not reply. He inspected the nude women, amazed at their likeness. He felt no pity in his heart, not for them and not for himself. He knew her confession without having to listen to it. It was true! She had deceived him. Everybody but he had known it a long time. She had defied him doubly; put a serf girl in his bed while she lay with her lover. A huge joke on himself. It had to be punished thoroughly.
He first went behind Grushenka's chair. He turned a handle. The seat on which the girl was sitting lowered itself down. Through holes in the seat came wooden nails, the points sticking upwards. Grushenka felt them pierce the flesh of her buttocks. At the same time the arms of the chair gave way while she tried frantically to get a hold on them. The braces of the arms fitted into tubes and she could not hold her weight on them. Her feet did not reach the floor; she sat on the nails and her own weight was driving them slowly and with increasing pain into her tender flesh. The Prince stepped behind the chair of his wife and unloosened here also the bolts which held the seat and the arms. After that he went with slow steps to the wall and took down a short leather strap and turned to his wife. “I should burn your body which betrayed me and your mouth which just now besmirched me, with hot irons to mark you forever,” he said in a low voice. “I will not do so. Not because I love or pity you, but because I understand that you are branded for life with a more terrible stigma. You are a low creature, not born to be a Princess. It was my error that I took you and I beg you to forgive me-” He made a low bow while she sneered at him. “-but you must be punished in order to know who the master is.” Those were his only words to his wife and were the last he ever spoke to her. With firm, strong lashes of his muscular arms, he now began to whip her. He started with her back, laying stroke after stroke from her shoulders down to the lowest part of her body. The lashes hissed through the air. Nelidowa yelled and cried. She was unable to hold still. The points of the nails tore her bottom and cut the flesh more and more when she twisted around under each stroke. Her back, of which she was so proud, was covered with welts, but the Prince was not yet satisfied. He now began in front, hit her feet, her legs, stood before her on an angle and hit into the full length of her thighs. He beat her belly and-without fury or hurry-finished up by laying cutting lashes over her breasts. He stopped only after he found her whole body was a mass of bruises. Nelidowa did not cease to yell and cry and Grushenka mingled her own outcries with those of her mistress, not only because the nails bit into her bottom, but also out of compassion. She expected the same treatment but Sokolow resolved otherwise. He threw the whip away, came very close to her, looked into her fear-striken eyes, and said, “You did wrong. I am your master. You should have told me the first time-" and he gave her two good smacks in the face as he would have done to any servant who had forgotten something. He left the room and slammed the door behind him.