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Nell in Bridewell (Lenchen im Zuchthause)
By Wilhelm Reinhard
Translation from German
Paris: Society of British Bibliophiles, 1900


CHAPTER 13
Spectators rush to the room where the women prisoners are to be flogged — Indecent eagerness of the high-born dames — Reserved seats prepared for them in front of the whipping-bench — "There Stands the handsome girl who has become a criminal through love !" — Unfeeling remarks — Helen called a " dainty bit " — Sabina is the first victim — The tight-fitting whipping-drawers a "second skin" — An overseer's technical ideas on flogging — Sabina cruelly flogged — Brutal lust expressed in the eyes of the executioner, a fearfully strong brute — The eyes of the aristocratic ladies sparkle with delight, their cheeks flush with excitement — Helen's turn — The warder destined to operate upon her a Herculean, ferocious b**st—All the ladies talk at once, and laugh in anticipation of the treat — "What a handsome girl, what voluptuous forms !" —- The Overseer pulls the drawers down tight over the parts to be operated on — The rending of the sentence. Useless and cruel delays — An aristocratic old lady says, "What a magnificent bottom the girl has got !"— The first stroke, its effects. The body writhes and suffers, but the soul awakens and gains strength — Cynical and risky observation of the aristocratic old lady — The strokes succeed each other in slowly-measured rhythm. — A lady finds it still too fast and begs the Overseer to go slower — A young lady is moved to tears and expresses pity for Helen. She is rebuked by another — The fearful torture suffered by Helen — The Governor is taking revenge on her for repelling his immoral overtures.

THE spectators who still remained rushed madly upstairs, for it was known that in the women's workroom several female prisoners would have to tender their bottoms to the rod. The question was often asked: "Is she to be whipped, or will it be the bull's pizzle?"
All at once the passage became alive with people. The high-born ladies came first; everybody else had to give way before them and make room as they passed to the middle of the workroom, where places had been specially reserved for them in front of the whipping-bench. Almost immediately after them came the Governor and the two overseers who were to operate.
"Where are they?" was asked; the Governor pointed to us. "Ah, there is the handsome girl who became a criminal through love."
"Yes, but they'll soon make her feel that love somewhere else than in her heart," was remarked, causing a general laugh.
An elderly very stylish lady, evidently belonging to high society, with sparkling dark eyes and highly rouged cheeks, who possessed unmistakable remains of former beauty and evidently looked forward with keen pleasure to what was about to take place, said, speaking to one of the two overseers, "Well, I hear that you are going to leave us. You have often contributed on similar occasions to make the scene more complete and interesting, and, as I have been informed, this is to be your last appearance."
"Yes, my lady, this is the last time. Yonder are four girls, to whom we shall serve a treat before we go, as it should be done and where it will fit them best, and we shall so manage that they may long remember us."
"Come, that is right, do your business properly-and is there anything particularly extra there?"
"Yes, my lady, there are some 'good' ones in the lot, who can stand something, and one in particular, the like of whom we have never yet had here, nor are likely to have again for many a day; you will see her directly, she is the second to be polished off. There is not another figure like hers; you will recognize that when you look at her. Oh! she's just a magnificent girl from head to foot, and really quite genteel; she walks alone like a Princess, and treads the ground as if she feared nothing. She always seems to want to assume a position out of the common, and I shall take care that to-day she shall get something quite out of the common too. She is a dainty bit, such as one cannot get every day, and must be properly relished."
"Bravo! pretty girls have to be taken, if not to be kissed, to be flogged."
My former bed-fellow, Sabina, had now to come forward. I sat still, praying. The Governor read out the sentence aloud. She was now seized, stretched upon the bench and fastened down; her frock was turned up high and the whipping drawers pulled tight down, so that they did indeed seem to form a "second skin."
"Oh, how delightful; they are to be whipped with drawers on! The outlines of the body show quite distinctly, and one can see the very life of the flesh. All that is needed is now and then to pull them tight, in order that the fork may be well drawn down and detach itself clearly. This can console one pretty well for the loss of the birch. And the stuff is so thin and light! Poor girl! she will have a deal to suffer. Still it will give pleasure to others, and she has brought this fate on herself. It can do her no harm that we look on, and the more publicity is given to the punishment, the more it is likely to deter others. There must be penalties."
"That is indeed as if she had absolutely nothing on-and besides, no shift under the drawers! And one can well perceive that she has no padding underneath; indeed, I wouldn't advise any of them to try that dodge!"
"How many strokes are going to be given?" was asked of one of the overseers.
"One of them has to get five and twenty, the others twenty," he answered, "but the number is not always strictly observed. It often happens, when the proper number has been administered, that the order may be given: 'Overseer, five strokes more.' Or else, on the contrary, before the punishment is ended, the Governor may say: 'Stop, that's enough!' for, as he says, 'I cannot have my hands so tied as not to be able in particular cases, or as circumstances may dictate, to add or take off a few strokes.' Yes, he actually declared, 'It is I who, really and truly, cause the punishment to be inflicted, and not the gentlemen in the capital.' I also know," continued the Overseer, "that counting had been at one time almost given up, and the rule then was to go on striking until the Governor thought it was enough and gave the order to stop. This was necessary, he used to say, when he had to deal with hardened, refractory rebellious natures. I can assure you, ladies, that it is impossible in a House of Correction to deal otherwise with a subject of that kind, of which there are but too many, or that they are but amenable to kind words and take the slightest heed of threats or reprimands. The only language they understand and listen to is that of the rod; with it and with the birch wonders may be done. It is pretty much as with c***dren when it is required to break their self-will; and grown-up people are often the same as c***dren. It is hardly possible to believe the influence that can be exercised on a fellow's mind by strapping him to the bench and serving him with a well-measured number of sound, well-delivered strokes. What the Doctor says must be true: 'All hangs together in man'; and an experienced governor of a prison or overseer very surely observes in a criminal when his obstinacy has been broken. He has a sure sign in the way of shedding tears, in the voice, in the words, in the whole appearance, in the features. Oh, yes! we know it well enough; and if anyone notwithstanding relapses into the same faults, which is of extremely rare occurrence, then may God have mercy on him!"
"Oh! this one can easily stand twenty or five and twenty strokes; there will of course be swellings and blisters, and also a little blood, as there always is, but muscles and flesh will not have been so strained as to prevent her getting up and walking away. What say you, comrade?"
The latter, to whom he had just spoken, was, like himself, fearfully strong, and in appearance, manner and stature brought, with his muscular, sinewy and hairy arms, forcibly to mind the headsman who decapitated John the Baptist as represented in pictures. It was evident that he fully intended to leave a lasting impression of his powerfully wielded bull's pizzle on the buttocks of the poor girls, his victims. He had not time to answer his colleague's question, for at this moment the Governor signed to him to begin. Waving the instrument above his head, he brought down the first stroke with a whirr and a slash on the firm elastic flesh, barely dissimulated beneath the thin and very tight-fitting whipping-drawers. At each succeeding stroke he lifted the pizzle quite slowly above his head, and then, giving it two or three swings with increasing rapidity and raising himself on tiptoe, would bring it with all the strength of his powerful arm on the unhappy target of holy justice. Not a single one of these blows fell that did not communicate a fearful rapid tremor to all that part of the body.
The Overseer, who now saw nothing else before him but the flesh given up to be martyrized, fixed his experienced eye upon it, inflamed with the brutal lust of causing a creature to suffer; nor could any change be noticed on his features as the cries of pain became louder and more distressing together with other symptoms of real torture. No! for the present his world was limited to the trembling rounded contours of his victim.
Yet this man was the younger, smaller and less robust of the two. Oh! I could see through the tricks of this perfidious, ever smiling Governor and recognize his motive for delivering us poor girls to the brutality of these two coarse barbarians and for having reserved me for the taller; more powerful and more savage of the two! Already in this choice of a torturer there was an arbitrary modification, and for me an aggravation of my unhappy fate.
The high and mighty dames, pretty and ugly, and old and young, even some who had but a few years before themselves felt the birch, thronged impatiently round, eager to witness the sight, their eyes sparkling, fixed on the victim, their cheeks flushed with excitement, as poor Sabina, on her couch of torture, called on God and all the saints for mercy, her whole body quivering with agony, starting convulsively upward to fall back again on the hard wooden bench, upon which her knees rattled at each blow. Ah! the salve was of no use, poor Sabina; you evidently made a mistake. No doubt it was meant for use after the flogging and not before that; a means of attenuating the pain inflicted by the rod is altogether incompatible with the ways and character of Cunigund. No! the poor girl suffered exquisite pain, and the flesh swelled visibly as the strokes fell; which they did slowly, but with excessive and savage force. Indeed it was hardly credible how that part of the body could stand such attacks if the executioner had not somewhat diminished the pain by spreading his blows over a more extended surface, for several times he would take a step backwards so that the blow should fall also on the left hip in order to make it even with the right. At last something moist pressed through the stuff, which became red; presently the redness extended downwards and along the thighs as far as the knees, and even down to the calves. Great heavens! and I could witness all this! I was, as it were, struck motionless and yet far more determined than a few weeks previously. God gave me strength, for I much required it.
She was now released from the bench. She could still stand, and even walk away.
"I should have preferred a man," said a greenhorn, who could hardly as yet know both sexes. "Yes," said an elderly lady who was near, "the flesh of men is tougher, all is bigger and stronger, the blow comes down with a sharper smack, and the real enjoyment of the scene lies in the springiness of the flesh, in its firmness and soundness. But here comes the beautiful Helen, the fair delinquent who sacrificed herself to save her sweetheart."
I was now called upon; the moment had come. I shuddered, my limbs trembled, for a moment my sense of hearing was obliterated, and my feet refused to do their office. I called upon God, thought of Isidor and prayed for that strength and for moral self-possession, which lifts one above all that is physical and common, and cares nothing for even the most fashionable mob.
All this sustained me and, proud and determined, I stepped forward.
My appearance and the history of what had brought me here set all tongues in motion, and immediately occasioned an irregular, tumultuous and simultaneous conversation from many sides at once, in which there was neither order nor connection. It is impossible for me to give any idea of this shrill-voiced women's chatter, a very Babel of sounds, nearly all speaking at once in their haste to bring what they had to say to market; incessantly, without a moment's pause, all of them impatient to bring in their word before it was too late. It was indeed a very olla podrida of clashing words and phrases, cries and exclamations.
"Oh, how handsome, how very handsome, but at the same time how proud! Well, she will have her pride rather brought down when she is on the bench!"
"But look, what a splendid figure she has; how beautifully the drawers will fit her! Has she not all the dignity of a Juno, and all the charm of a Venus?" I was already laid upon the bench. I was fastened down by the neck and the heels, my frock was forcibly thrown up, nearly to the shoulders, so that it could hardly hold together, and a considerable portion of my naked skin was exposed-and there were a number of other manipulations to be gone through from the waist to the knees before I should be found to be in the proper orthodox position. At this moment I would fain have been hidden from all the world; I closed my eyes, a warm flood of blood rose to my cheeks and a boiling heat invaded my heart. In this shameful position, exposed to the gaze of so many eyes, how did I differ from a common criminal? What a terrible thought! The cruellest maltreatment of my body, all that has been as yet done to me, has in the opinion of everybody, even of those who are good and humane, been done justly, according to law and because I have deserved it by my crime! And how many are there who in such circumstances put away all feelings of compassion, forget that the criminal is a human being, and believe that it may be done to him as one likes-he has forfeited all right to complain! Of what avail was it to me that my inner conscience raised me above THE GOOD ANTIQUATED BELIEF IN LAW, GOVERNMENT, AUTHORITY AND PUBLIC ORDER? Oh! how the soul suffers when its temple is thus desecrated, and how well it can, under such circumstances, render bodily pain fourfold, to make it more keen, to fan it into a hellish burning flame!
Then how cruelly again does memory evoke the past! Oh! my revered good parents, could you ever have imagined to yourselves your daughter in such a terrible situation? Was it for this you educated me, my teachers? My fond girlish friends, is this the flattered, caressed Helen-who may have actually sometimes awakened a passing feeling of envy in your breasts? I had ample time for this torture of the soul, for everything took place very slowly, as if they wanted to gain time, so that my body, the prey of Justice and of cruel lust, should be as long as possible exposed to public gaze. Of course mean, vulgar souls cannot understand-that to those who have to be thus castigated the above-mentioned exposure of their persons to the eyes and appreciations of the crowd is a serious aggravation of their penalty.
The Overseer now placed himself at my head and, stooping down, seized my drawers with both hands at the loins and hips and pulled them down on both sides so as to stretch them to the utmost, which he did with such force as to cause the groove between the legs to hurt me. The stuff of which the drawers were made was barely more protection to my skin than a very thin night shift would have been! HE NOW PASSED HIS COARSE VULGAR HANDS ALONG MY PERSON, IN ORDER FULLY AND PROPERLY TO CONVINCE himself that between the very light whipping-drawers and my skin nothing had been smuggled in for protection from the strokes. And I could perfectly well make out, from the UNMISTAKABLE NATURE OF HIS MANIPULATIONS, that, like a general, he was examining the ground, the real condition of my flesh, as also of the exact situation of the seatbone, which he was obliged to avoid. All this he did with all the knowledge acquired by long experience. No doubt he also wanted to take note of the firmness of my flesh and of its resonant power. Shame and dread vied with hellish distress. This was worse than the guillotine, for beneath the latter I should not have suffered more than an instant's pain. At last the victim was ready for the sacrifice extended flat on my belly on the bench, my head at one end, my feet at the other, my arms crossed so as to form a cushion for my head, the frock so arranged as to leave the back free; the thighs pressed close together, and the body fastened at the neck and at the heels by a wooden bolt to the bench, without interfering, however, with the free movements of the intervening portion of the body. The most prominent parts of the person were thus exactly over the middle of the bench, the forms of the body fully exposed in all their fleshy development beneath a stuff so thin as to be an almost transparent veil, and-putting aside all further preamble-the seat chosen by mother Nature, and destined by her for such a solemn act as that which was about to be accomplished, being manifest to all.
The spectators, nearly all of them of the female sex (for, besides the officials and a very few favoured young gentlemen, kept carefully in the background, all the rest were ladies), strictly ordered according to rank, now crowded closely round, almost all of them manifesting the utmost delight at being able to assist at such a pleasant spectacle, their eyes fixed upon my face to observe the least signs of anguish and of fear, and still more upon the threatened parts, accompanied by experienced prognostics of the effects of the strokes and of the pain caused thereby, so soon to be visible. Oh, God! how weak are Thy creatures; these preliminaries already crushed me, and I underwent all the tortures of hell in most terrible, fearful anticipation. My whole body trembled; I shrank and quivered in dread of the imminent castigation, so horribly pictured in my imagination and rendered still more direful by the long-drawn preparations, the sinister apparatus and the unfeeling crowd around me, awaiting with eager curiosity to feast their eyes upon my martyrdom. I almost suffered more than, a little while later, under the strokes. I can perfectly understand now how people sometimes die from excessive fright! Was it really a part of my sentence that I should first be ignominiously exhibited, and only after that submitted to the lash?
I do not even now know what induced the Governor to delay so long, and why this prologue was so unreasonably lengthened out. Even the noble ladies began to show signs of impatience, being quite taken meantime with the play of my features and the form of my limbs. The principal scene was now to begin, when the well-prepared victim was to be methodically martyrized in soul and body, which process they would be able to follow in all its interesting details-details of a nature to furnish them with matter for conversation for a long time to come. It may seem nearly incredible, but I almost longed for the first stroke to fall, for the unavoidable castigation to begin in earnest, merely to be delivered from this arbitrary and capricious additional torture which pierced my very soul and body!
At last I heard someone enter; the crowd made room for him to pass. It was, I believe, an actuary, whose presence was wanting to give greater solemnity to the ceremony, or else perhaps he brought something with him. I now heard someone call for silence, and in a moment all was still. The Overseer, or more properly speaking the executioner, took down from the wall, where it had been hanging, an obviously brand-new bull's pizzle, fitted with a proper handle, moistened his right hand in a disgusting manner, reached out with all his strength his bare, powerful, muscular right arm, covered with dark hair, to its full extent, as if to test its strength or to prepare to deal the first blow, seized hold of the instrument with his enormous fist and placed himself, with legs apart, at a distance well calculated to the length of the instrument, so that the stroke might fall exactly on the intended spot, and awaited ready to commence at the Governor's signal, all ready to begin. The latter, now that my affair was to come off, had become much more grave and important in face and manner. The Overseer's look was terrible and threatening, expressing unmistakably a fixed savage intention, his eyes glowed with a sombre, brutal fire, he ground his teeth and his arm trembled nervously with impatience and eagerness. He was just to begin, like a dog chained up, that would like to rush out and bite, but cannot, feeling itself held back, so that the bull's pizzle, the end of which rested on the floor, was in a constant shake and tremor. With eyes continually fixed upon his superior denoting his readiness for duty, he stood awaiting the order, which might be, as I was afterwards assured, not only the signal to begin, but also that for sharp or mild, for extreme or attenuated severity, as indicated by well-known discreet signs usually resorted to on such occasions.
The Governor now slowly read out in a loud voice my sentence with all the endless preambles and considerations. This furnished a fresh subject for all sorts of conversation, without, however, for a moment diverting the speakers' attention from the trembling lamb about to be sacrificed.
"Almighty God," I prayed half aloud, "if such is Thy holy will, deliver up my body, this frail, perishable vessel, to pain, cruelty and shame, but give my soul wings to soar into higher spheres, that what is better in me, and immortal, may find free space for strength and liberty, faith and hope."
I feel the elasticity of the soul, but no less the invincible power of the senses; and I lie shivering in a deathly sweat in fear of the first bodily pain. From one second to another the deadly bolt may fall.
"Ah! the girl has indeed a fine bottom," said the aristocratic old lady already alluded to; "I've really never seen quite such a fine one before, so admirably built and rounded for whipping. Such fullness, such firmness, will defy the hardest bastinade; it is indeed an indestructible mass, and every agitation of its magnificent substance must cause a sympathetic chord to vibrate among the men, aye, and among the women too, for the sex is not visible and such forms may be supposed to belong to either sex."
The first stroke fell. Fear at sight of the terrible exhibition of strength made by the executioner more than actual pain forced a cry from me. I felt the flesh quiver and swell up, a glowing heat spread itself quickly over the part which had been struck, a rapid fire of dread ran through me; I did not yet start, it was as if this first thunder-bolt from the storm which had burst over my head, poor helpless maiden, had paralysed my body. And there are nineteen more to come, thought I; Oh, God in Heaven, what will become of me? The foreboding of horrible pains, of cruel maltreatment, had become a crushing truth; against such blows, or rather outbursts of savage ferocity, the inhuman contrivance of the whipping-drawers was as good as no protection at all; they would only spare me a blush, only serve to save half appearances. From my all but despairing soul there rose a silent fervent prayer for strength and mercy. My condition was now entirely changed; at the first strokes my soul entered into a new phase altogether. The dominion of fear gave way to the dominion of corporal pain; my thoughts no longer wandered hither and thither, but became concentrated and fixed; formerly I felt only a submissive passivity, but now, under the influence of positive suffering, there is a reaction which, commencing in the body, extends to the soul. I had left the vestibule of hell and entered hell itself; but-strange to say!-my situation was now, as long as the bodily pain did not get the upper hand, more supportable than it had been a few minutes previously. I lived again, all my being was in movement. Previously I had been half dead, brooding, half stupefied, with my eyes staring before me; now I took heed of everything, I observed and heard everything, and could have jotted it all down. The sure touching of the instrument of torture, the agony of my body, the nervous shock with its natural concurrent vibration throughout the system, gave me assurance, the attack upon my physical organism gave me new life, my higher powers were awakened as in a sudden fright and called to their post. As if at a sudden alarm of fire, they roused themselves and mustered their forces; before I was ill, but I now felt new strength within me.
"Ha! ha! Now she's had a taste what it'll be like!" said a female voice.
"Oh! what a noble physical development we see before us," interposed the aristocratic old dowager; it is really unique and worthy of serious observation. What salutary elements of the most vigorous youth, what ether of the purest, most exuberant health must here be overflowing, and when there is proper contact, with skin to skin and pore to pore, stream into another body!"
"Well," said another dame, "I do call this a fullness of the flesh! It is for all the world as if the strokes fell upon a high cushion tightly stuffed with horsehair."
During this conversation THE SECOND STROKE WAS GIVEN.
I now felt more keenly the tremulous uplifting of my flesh and the increase of pain.
THE THIRD STROKE FELL.
My eyes filled with tears, and I raised them up in prayer to God.
"Oh, look," said a soft voice, "how beautifully she raised her large blue eyes towards Heaven! And how picturesquely the dazzling white of her forehead and temples shines through the thick tresses of her dark brown hair struggling to escape from beneath the cap! And what splendid teeth she has, like pearls! Oh, she is really quite too beautiful! "
The Overseer slowly raised the rod, swung it three times round his head and brought it down with a crash upon my hinder parts.
THIS WAS THE FOURTH STROKE.
"Oh, God, merciful God!" I cried out. My limbs were violently convulsed; I could feel the palpitations of my flesh: I groaned, quivered and started, the two hemispheres upon which the blows had fallen began to make involuntary motions both vertically and horizontally, the constrictor muscle was hard at work, the whole body thrilled with pain; the thighs also participated in the general vibration, and my feet, which, imprisoned by the wooden bolt, could make no movement, were nevertheless the seat of a cramp-like tremor. I felt that the very fabric of my skin was being destroyed, and endeavoured to reach my hand down to the place where the pain was greatest, but could not succeed. I could feel my nerves vibrating all the way up my back into the brain; while a sort of numbness first began to creep over my frame.
THE FIFTH STROKE WAS FEARFUL.
I cried out: "Isidor, my Isidor!"
The Overseer may have observed a fold or two in the whipping-drawers, for he stretched them again. This time they must have been pulled upwards very forcibly, for at the lower part the fork hurt me. At the same time he busied himself with my back, probably in order to extend the surface upon which the strokes were to fall.
THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH STROKES FOLLOWED EACH OTHER IN QUICK SUCCESSION.
"Merciful God!" I screamed, "behold a victim of love! Oh! Heaven, my poor limbs! Poor, unhappy, defenceless Nell!"
"Oh! the poor, poor girl," I heard somebody say, sobbing. "Could they not stop; surely she has suffered enough? She will not be able to stand many more such blows."
So there is even here a commiserating soul, I said to myself.
"Oh!" said another voice, "such a part, particularly when so richly developed, can stand a great deal! That is why it is, strictly speaking, the proper domain of birch and rod."
"But how the flesh already works! and how full of life are her limbs!"
"Good, good! only not too fast, dear Mr. Overseer," said another lady close by;"else the fun is too short-lived! Let the strokes be dealt as slowly as possible!"
AT THE EIGHTH BLOW I cried out loud in my despair.
In the midst of fearful torture I could make out that some change had taken place-probably a blister had burst.
AT THE NINTH STROKE, called out by the Overseer, my body started up, and my legs were seized with such convulsive quivering as to cause me extra pain by their knocking on the bench. In unspeakable agony I uttered cry upon cry as loud as I could. But I soon gathered myself together again.
"Help," I cried, "my clear, beloved dead parents, help; behold your unhappy c***d!"
"Now the dance begins, the blisters will become bleeding sores, the moment of despair is approaching. I should like to know now whether she's going to waggle her hips and strut along so proudly for the future and think such a mighty lot of herself."
"Ah!" said another, "how I do pity her. She's indeed no common vulgar creature; you can see that in a moment, and hear it too."
"Yes! but she committed a theft to help a traitor to his country. That's why I feel no pity for her and can look on quietly to see her fat bottom flogged to pieces, and the shreds s**ttered to the winds."
"Quite right, there must be punishment; nor should it be forgotten that it is Justice we are seeing here."
THE TENTH AND ELEVENTH STROKES NOW FELL AT SHORT INTERVALS.
My spasmodic writhing and starting became quicker and more violent, while the pain tortured every nerve in my body. My brain was fiercely agitated, and I could hear a buzzing and a whirring in my head. At the point of attack, there where the tormented spine could but with difficulty ward off the repeated attacks made upon it, there, on the region specially chosen for the rod, it seemed to me as if my flesh was being torn up by the very roots by red-hot pincers, and the same on the back and thighs. My whole frame was twisting, struggling and contracting, in a sort of unnatural turmoil; the lower part of my body was dreadfully shaken by these terrible cutting strokes, my knees knocked so against the bench that it rattled again, and my hands nervously clutched the sides.
"Oh, Isidor, Isidor," I cried, "see my humiliation; I am suffering for your sake!"
THE TWELFTH STROKE FELL.
A cry of despair escaped me, and another, and then the words:
"Oh! God, oh! merciful Father, give me strength for the torture that I may be able to endure it!"
A young girl wept aloud, but her mother reproved her, saying: "You silly thing, what are you crying for? It's all nothing but acting; they all do it; only this girl is cleverer at her trade than the others."
The Overseer now dealt his blows slower and slower, so as to leave a long interval between each. Oh! these intervals! they made the pain ten times worse, made it enter ten times more deeply into soul and body!
"You want to prolong this beautiful and rare sight," said a lady, speaking to the Overseer; "I thank you for this mark of attention. Really such a treat is not to be had for money."
AT THIS MOMENT THE THIRTEENTH STROKE FELL upon my body, shaking my whole frame.
The Overseer now laid the bull's pizzle along the line which he felt with his hand was most swelled up, and, PRESSING IT DOWN, DREW IT BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS several times (this is called in the jargon of their trade SAWING OR FILING), causing me a really hellish pain; it was as if I felt a thousand scorpion stings at one and the same time. I bent my body, quivered, struggled and shook so that the bench itself partook of the motion and was shaken to right and left. This interval was the longest of all.
This delay is an aggravation specially devised by these brutes. It is only after the stroke has fallen that the pain begins to be felt, burrowing its way downward from the sensitive upper surface, through the network of nerves, communicating with the sinews and muscles, and extending in all directions. The interval between one stroke and another leaves room for all the eloquent natural play of cramps, palpitations and quiverings. The actual stroke generally extorts one single loud cry; the keener sensations that follow find expression in moans, plaintive and woeful exclamations and expressive movements. It is like a shock of earthquake; it is not all at once towers tumble, houses collapse, and walls fall down; one shock helps another, the force accumulates with succeeding shocks until at last all crumbles down together, the falling masses being in themselves a new element of destruction. So is it with that terrible instrument, the bull's pizzle, when working on tightly drawn thin cotton drawers, each effort of strength on the part of the executioner finds an echo in the farthest extremities-and that which in the field of corporal suffering is already a martyrdom becomes now a consuming fire, which finds all around it fuel ready for combustion; it is as if the pain were everywhere and Nature was playing at blind mans buff. It is the same with toothache, where the evil has its seat on one spot only, but the pain extends to all the same side of the jaw. This is not by any means so much the case with the elastic thin cane, the painful reverberation of which in the more remote parts of the body begins only to be felt after the infliction of several blows, lasts but a very short time, is consequently less concentrated and does not give rise to such a central intensiveness of accumulated pain. I was weak enough to implore mercy, not from God, but from miserable fellow-creatures; but I immediately repented having done so and called out:
"Isidor, beloved, behold thy Helen; she is suffering fearful torture for thee, and the direst humiliation. Oh! will you ever be able to compensate me?"
"Oh! to think this really beautiful girl, with such rare elevation of thought too, should be so maltreated! Oh! what a pity to see her lovely body so tortured. Won't it all be quite torn to pieces?"
"Oh! no, the surgeon will come, turn down the whipping-drawers, make a slit with his bistouri here and there, put on some plaster and salve where required, and in a week, or at latest a fortnight, she will be all right again-particularly with her youthful vigour and her fresh healthy blood: undoubtedly with the birch it was less severe and the pleasure of looking on could be prolonged, for then it takes some time before the castigation begins to tell in earnest!"
After THE f******nTH STROKE I felt that my blood was running down.
"Merciful father," I called out, "help me. Oh! goodness infinite, I can stand no more. See, I am suffering shameful torture from the hand of an executioner-and wicked people are laughing, and enjoying my distress!"
"Upon my word, I believe that this creature wants to depreciate and insult us. Should such a thing occur again, we shall demand satisfaction and then, as soon as she is healed, she will be brought again to the whipping- bench."
"Yes, but then, in order to vary the spectacle and because it would be particularly delightful to see such a performance upon so splendid a body, the birch ought to be used-a good big, thick green one, on vhich the leaves are still hanging, made out of a stable birch-broom."
I wept and cried until THE FIFTEENTH STROKE fell with savage force upon my body. How could my poor limbs, which, however much they might be praised for their firmness and fullness, are yet not made of stone or iron, how could they stand such murderous assaults?
"Oh! sir Governor," I called out, beside myself, have pity and compassion on me! I die, my girlish body can stand no more. You have to punish, but your subordinate assassins; oh! moderate his cruel arm. Oh! Isidor, my beloved, if you only knew; if you could see my cruel fate!"
My limbs, which were directly tortured by the cruel brute, and only too highly esteemed by him as a favourable seat for the exercise of his brutality, were now racked by continual cramps and in perpetual violent motion. This was quite involuntary; and in this extremity the portion of my body that was attacked seemed to some degree to have its own separate life of pain, sending the stream of its feelings to the brain. I trembled in every limb; my hands scratched and worked the bench until they were sore. These symptoms were at last so violent that the Overseer thought it advisable to stop for a while so as to give me time to breathe.
"Will she be able to stand it all? The flesh is now evidently much more tender and less resisting, and is already much swollen."
"Oh! yes," said the Overseer; "there's nothing in the world tougher than good thick flesh on that part. She will be able to stand it all right; she'll have had enough when I have done with her."
"You have been accused of brutality, Master Overseer," a bystander remarked to him; "but at any rate you have satisfaction at your command now."
He laughed and again stretched the stuff of the drawers, smoothing down with the flat of his hand the surface of the field of my martyrdom. AND NOW THE SIXTEENTH STROKE FELL, exactly upon a greatly swollen, very sore place. It cracked and burst open, and blood flowed freely. In fact by this time it was flowing everywhere, along the loins, as well as down the thighs and the hips. The brute now let his weapon rest for some moments on the open sore, then pressed it down with all his might and positively sawed the instrument into my flesh!
"Aha!" I heard someone say, laughing," that is in answer to the accusation!"
I held my hands before my mouth and shouted with all my power into them-my only protest against the excruciating pain I was put to.
"I suppose it's quite hot all over now?" said the aristocratic old lady.
"Pretty nearly," answered the Overseer, "and the four remaining strokes shall complete the business."
Yes, it was completed! Sanguinary brute, you have indeed worthily taken farewell of the establishment, and it is to be hoped that nothing of your devilish character has remained behind!
HE STRUCK THE s*******nTH BLOW.
I cried out loud; this was all I could do. It was only with difficulty I could still articulate; both thought and feeling were now getting blunted.
At every blow the blood oozed through the thin stuff. "Look, how the drops of blood are draining through the drawers! She is by this time quite finished up on this part; ought they not now to hit her on the thighs? In Meissner's delightful tale of the flogging with the birch [Meissner's Erzähl und Dial.] he tells how a pretty girl was flogged with birch-rods from the hips down to the hollow of the knees, and that she was near to having her back treated in the same fashion; and, as you may remember, a rich gentleman who had been present fell so deeply in love with her that he afterwards made her his wife."
The Overseer wanted to make me feel the sharpest pain as long as possible; he rested a little, slowly wiping the sweat from his brow. This gave me time to breathe again and to recover my senses; so that when the bull's pizzle came down upon me for THE EIGHTEENTH TIME I could again think of thee, dearest Isidor!
"Oh, surely, beloved of my soul," I cried, "thou willst requite me for this with endless love; for not only am I a martyr, but I am thy darling too!"
"Only two more stripes," said a young lady. "But oh, what must her posterior now look like? That's what I should like to know; it must be far worse than with the birch, for what comparison is there between such whipping and these mighty strokes falling like a flash of lightning, and dealt by such a fearfully strong arm with a long, thick and hard bull's pizzle? Oh! how the flesh must burn! May one not touch it?"
"No!" said the Overseer, "the Governor and the acting Overseer alone have the right to touch the body of a delinquent on the bench of punishment, or the Surgeon, should he think proper to do so; no one else. But now all is glowing with heat; you might cook little birds over it or roast chestnuts."
The pain benumbed me, so that I felt it much less now than at the commencement.' So does God help; there are infinite resources in Nature.
AT THE NINETEENTH IGNOMINIOUS AND PAINFUL STROKE my hands were convulsively agitated. The blow came down with a crash, as it were, upon moist stuff; I felt that where I had been struck everything was swimming in wet.
"All-beneficent God," I cried, "shall I soon be able to say: this bitter sacrifice is now consummated on the altar of love? Oh! if those who love me, if my dear Marie, could see me now, bleeding, swollen, lacerated, torn to pieces-how their hearts would bleed!"
My strength was nearly exhausted. I could, however, still hear the following unfeeling remarks:
"Ah! here comes the last stroke. Oh! but I could go on a long while yet enjoying the sight, and drinking in her cries."
"Yes, you are quite right, to hear she cries, however painful, is part of the fun certainly, for these moans and cries are the music of pain, without which the whole action would be devoid of interest. Text and music go together, and the scale of voice of a soprano singer fastened down to the flogging-bench is a very remarkable barometer for the visible and invisible working of the instrument of punishment."
"Oh, but you are a wonderful flagellator," said one of the ladies to the Overseer, in feeling tones and with grateful looks-and all the others agreed, their eyes glistening and their cheeks glowing.
But a serious looking person, who had hitherto always remained silent, said: "Why is this poor girl so fearfully, so exceptionally punished? Has she then committed some unheard-of crime? Blows have never yet been inflicted with such force, with such an arm, and almost uninterruptedly, on one and the same place! The bullock's pizzle is elastic and bends; if a hazel rod of ordinary thickness had been used, it is certain that it would have been once, if not twice, reduced to fragments. As a rule an Austrian corporal's stick splits in pieces after the tenth blow. It seems to me that, had the number of blows not been limited, she might have been flogged as long as she had breath in her body, as it has sometimes happened to. British soldiers when flogged with the cat-o'-nine-tails for some heinous offence."
"I will tell you why. This overseer is today performing his office for the last time, and wishes therefore to leave a name behind him. The girl is magnificently built, the bold roundings of her form seemed, as it were, to defy him, and he no doubt felt a keen delight in having to do with them. Wait a bit, he thought, I'll make you feel now whether your flesh is altogether so much firmer than that of others, and if you are so distinguished, I'll still further distinguish you. You know what these coarse, vulgar natures are. Besides, this girl is said to be very proud, and they won't stand that in a House of Correction, and so no doubt he wanted to drive the pride out of her by main force. The Surgeon ought, properly speaking, to have intervened, and the newly appointed one would not have failed to do so; but did you observe this man as he stood there, his eyes always immovably fixed upon this poor girl? I really believe that he would actually have been only too glad to give her twenty strokes more if he had dared to do so."
During this conversation THE LAST STROKE WAS GIVEN, but I was almost in a faint, my strength was about to abandon me. God, however, measured my pains and sufferings to my power of endurance. The worst that I had to suffer, which I dreaded more than death-the ignominious painful stripes from the hand of a vulgar warder, the humiliating exposure of parts of the body otherwise carefully concealed, their maltreatment before a numerous assembly of spectators, most of them imbued with feelings the reverse of noble-in short, the horrible flagellation on the whipping-bench, called the "Welcome" to the House of Correction, was now a thing of the past.
"Oh, God, I am still alive!" was all I could with the utmost difficulty exclaim, after the last shock of the bull's pizzle upon one particular spot of my terribly swollen, hardened, bleeding body, upon which at least a dozen strokes had already fallen.
But I lay there, my body crushed, my soul annihilated, unable to make a movement. My whole body was the seat of convulsive starts and quiverings. "Look," I could hear someone say, "how filled out, stretched and swelled up is the stuff, and how it is saturated with blood. This 'Welcome' is as good as two; she would not have been able to stand many more strokes."
I could feel that it was impossible for me to rise from my couch of suffering, nor had I any particular desire to do so. Had I been alone and left to myself, I should long have remained stretched out upon the fatal bench; all the middle part of my body was as it were rigid, and it burned with the unspeakable pains of hell fire.
At last, after a while, the Overseer passed his hand down along the parts lacerated by him, pressing it down roughly, in order to ascertain their condition. "It is everywhere burning like fire," he said, "and quite hard all over; the skin and flesh must be all cracked and burst. She may well be satisfied with the 'Welcome' she has got-and a little something extra for her pride and her saucy tongue. One of her hips has also got its share, because the bull's pizzle, which I had only just got fresh from the butcher, has twisted over several times so as to reach down the other side, which thus came in for a good dose too. Try if you can get up," he said to me. I endeavoured to do so, but could not. It was as if my body was held down by heavy weights which I could not lift.
"Oh, the poor girl!" said a pretty young lady, sobbing.
"Nonsense," remarked another. "Poor girl indeed; she has only got what she deserved, and one ought to say that it is to the credit of the worthy Overseer to have operated so vigorously, and in a manner so seldom to be seen. It is not every man that could obtain such a result with only twenty strokes. She deserved it every bit, for is it not said: "Each shall be rewarded according to his works."
In the meantime, according to very trustworthy information supplied to me afterwards and from which I have gathered many of the details given in my narration, the company of ladies whom the Governor had invited, as soon as the entertainment was over, repaired through the nearest doorway into another wing of the building in which was his private residence, where an ample dinner awaited them. The torturing of a fellow-creature was to them only an agreeable occasion for merry-making. The male prisoners who had that day figured, their history, the flogging they got, then that of the girls, and lastly my awful flagellation, furnished them with a subject for conversation which lasted the whole day until sundown. So, while they were sipping their coffee after dinner, the above conversation soon turned into quite a learned discussion, physiological, pedagogical, criminalistic, psychological, aesthetical, statistical and ethnographical, on male and female bottoms, and when from this discussion there came, instead of solid learning, nothing but feminine indications, flowing more from the domain of the senses than from that of the intellect, the instruction to be derived therefrom is richly compensated by a wide insight into woman's nature so naively opened out to us by themselves. It was indeed a regular festival for this aristocratic, highly cultured world. They all of them, more or less, floated softly on the waves of a gently-moving sea, which carried them from moment to moment, from one sensation to another, from image to image, from figure to figure, and left its impress on old as well as on young, an impress destined not to remain without result or fruit. The exclamations that had escaped me while undergoing torture were the subject of varied commentary. The more elderly ladies were of opinion that a nice novel might be written based upon my "Welcome." Here their strong after-taste for cruelty was noticeable in the highly realistic way in which they unrolled from memory all the details of my martyrdom, while their gratitude was shown in the openly expressed hope of being able to continue these interesting and fruitful studies by not missing the opportunity of being again present on the occasion of my "Farewell," when they trusted that the operation might be effected with corresponding severity by means of the birch. But then, under the pretext of alleviating the pain, they expressed a wish that the stripes should be distributed over the entire space from the hollow of the back down to the knees. "Oh!" they cried, enraptured, "what a lovely scene it will be, enhanced by Helen's splendid build, such as we have never seen here before, and by the alabaster whiteness of her satin skin [When the birch was used the skin was bare]. It will far surpass anything previously produced!"
"But," observed somebody, "the birch is no longer used at 'Welcomes' and 'Farewells,' except for boys and girls!"
"Oh! that does not matter," was the answer, "that can easily be managed; all that is required is a declaration by the Surgeon that the application of the bull's pizzle on so delicate a skin might not be without danger to the constitution, and this danger could be avoided by employing the lighter instrument, the birch. Then matters would be conducted in accordance with this professional opinion. Is it not so, Governor?" The latter, whose dismissal was not yet known, simply bowed a smiling assent.
In such manner are laws and Government regulations evaded and superseded by arbitrary caprice when they have no sufficient guarantee in the individuality of the functionary who is chosen to execute them. In order to satisfy the curiosity and excite the senses of certain persons, whom for various private reasons the Governor may wish to favour by inviting them to an unusual pastime, an unfortunate unprotected creature may be stripped of the last veil to her modesty, and her pure virginal body, by bringing up, example and education a sacred temple of innocence and chastity, given up to the coarsest and most humiliating maltreatment and exposed to the gaze of the most vulgar. Yet everything is in order, for the forms have been observed, and besides, after all this sufferer was only an outlawed criminal, and the prison record can always be arranged-to suit circumstances!
My companions in suffering got off better than I did. How dearly and terribly have I not had to expiate the ephemeral advantage of beauty! Their wounds, although one of them received five more strokes than I did, required only simple means to heal. "Well! these have been at least humanely treated," said the Surgeon (it was the one newly appointed), "but, great heavens! poor Helen yonder has been nearly cut in two. Why did the Governor not prevent this brute of an overseer from acting in such a barbarous manner? He could have done so had he chosen!"
But one of the girls at all events, even under the sting of the rod, put the Governor into a terrible quandary. As the pain increased she recognized that she had been vilely cheated, and that she had not bought herself off from the infliction of the castigation, as he had promised her, by submitting to his kisses and caresses. So she resolved to speak out and shame him in public. Accordingly, while still receiving the strokes, she shouted out: "Well, Mr. Governor, I wonder what I let you kiss me for. Why! I get treated to the 'Welcome' the same as anybody else. Did you not promise me ten times over that it would be a shame for me to be beaten in such a fashion, and that you would arrange matters otherwise? Yet for all that am I not being flogged as if they wanted to cut me in two? Is that just and is it not a crying sin? etc., etc." And so it went on until the last stroke. Everybody was struck of a heap, some laughed and chuckled, but the Governor stood there indescribably dumbfounded.
As soon as the show was over the grand ladies who had witnessed it repaired to the Governor's private apartments, there to enjoy a sumptuous dinner that was awaiting them.
I was obliged to keep my bed, suffering severe and continual pain for eight or ten days. I could lie only on my belly or on the left hip. I could get sleep only when thoroughly exhausted with pain and agitation. The parts attacked were bruised, and the flesh quite deeply cut into. Several times over the Surgeon expressed his sorrow and indignation at the shameful way in which I had been maltreated. "My poor c***d," he said, "were your flesh and blood not so pure and healthy, this might have had far more serious consequences, and been likely to last many a long day." I watered my pillow with tears and sobbed out loud. "Be calm, daughter," he continued, in a voice shaken by emotion," I think that I am not, mistaken in believing that your sentiments are as pure as your body. God will help-have confidence, and, if it is possible, give me an opportunity of being of service to you and I shall be glad to do so." These few words, spoken so feelingly, have strengthened and consoled me! He was a messenger from Heaven.
It was not until a week afterwards that I could sit up in bed. However, my mind has at length become more tranquil; the idea alone of the flagellation, of the pain to be inflicted, and of the humiliation, was enough formerly to cast me down, torment and trouble me; I now feel myself humiliated before God, but not at all before my fellow-creatures, for in my experience I have found too many of these to be beyond all expectation low, depraved and wicked. I stand up straight and firm, my eyes directed to Heaven. Yes! God has so conducted me through this affliction that I must no longer despair, but rally my forces and gather strength and courage for what is spiritual and higher. Beloved Isidor, I have been given back to you once more; my thoughts all gather round your sweet image! I have left hell behind me; before me I see Heaven opening, and it will bring us together again sooner or later. Then in the quiet hours of deepest love your Helen shall relate to you what she suffered for your dear sake, and how steadfastly she bore it all, upheld by thinking of you and of the band of love which binds us together, and how her pride in you, the inmost inclination of her heart, and the conscience of a noble sacrifice, dictated by a holy natural duty, sustained her in moments of almost insupportable torture.
Such is the history of my "WELCOME" to the House of Correction.
Little by little my limbs healed, and the feeling of improving health made me more comfortable and lively. I was soon able to resume my usual work, but this merely physical occupation, so easy and devoid of thought, was not exactly of a nature to divert my thoughts and to deliver me from painful reflections.
Providence once more came to my assistance. The wife of the new Governor, a rich lady, impatient to have her whims satisfied and very vain, took it all at once into her head to have her drawing-room fitted up in the richest modern style, and among other things she wanted as quickly as possible were two stools, the coverings of which were to be richly embroidered with beautiful flowers. She inquired whether I could do that sort of work, and I replied that embroidery work such as she desired done by me had more than once figured at art exhibitions. She was overjoyed, embraced me, took possession of me, and treated me like a spoiled c***d, giving me full liberty in everything to do just as I liked: I might read, write, go about and set to work at my embroidery only when I was in the humour for it! It is evident that, when it is required to reproduce flowers accurately in embroidery, to do so faithfully, correctly and artistically demands the closest attention and entirely absorbs the worker. So that in this case God had been good enough to give me a difficult and interesting work to do, and at the same time the opportunity of recreation.
The task I had undertaken took me a whole fortnight, with many intervals, which I was at liberty to employ as I pleased with intellectual or other occupations. Oh! I must say that I was almost quite happy during that fortnight! In fact the whole life and happiness of a human being is after all a mere question of comparison: the only thing to be considered is what it was just previously, in order to feel at the present moment relatively happy or otherwise. I became once more cheerful, had once more the same confidence in the Father of us all and in myself; the delusive pictures disappeared in the background and like a very phoenix, shining and radiant, triumphant as an Apollo, rose Isidor from his ashes. God be thanked, I was cured, and poor Leonora shed tears of joy (for during this time I had slept in the Govemor's quarters, in his wife's apartment) when she saw me return to her side.
Adieu, dearest Marie.