INTRODUCTION.
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soldiery and the people of the town. At the twentieth blow I fainted, but the ropes held me up, and the full hundred were counted on my body. They cut me down, rubbed rock salt and water and some iron that eats like fire into my back to stop the bleeding, and carried me to the hospital. I lay there two months, and was discharged. I had but one idea then, and that was vengeance. By patience I managed to get employment in the governor's palace as a seamstress. One afternoon he was in his bath, and he sent for towels. The attendant was tired, and I volunteered to take them. I threw them over my arm, and under them I held a long stiletto, sharp as a needle. I entered the room, and he was reading and smoking in the bath. I laid the towels by his side with my left hand, and at the next moment with my right I drove the knife through his heart. It was splendidly done. He never made a sound, and I escaped to this land. That is why I am a Nihilist: Do any of you doubt?' She sprang excitedly from her chair, and in half a minute had bared herself to the waist. The front of her form from neck to belt might have passed as the model of the Venus di Milo. But the back! Ridges, welts, and furrows that crossed and interlaced as if cut out with a red-hot iron, patches of white, grey, pink, blue, and angry red, holes and hollows with hard, hideous edges, half visible ribs and the edges of ruined muscles, and all of which moved, contracted, and lengthened with the swaying of her body. There was a gasp from everyone present. The aged host rose, silently kissed her on the forehead, and helped her to put back her garments. Then again the wine passed round, and what secret toasts were made as the party drank will never be known."
The historic chapter which this newspaper paragraph brought to my mind was the story of Madame Lapoukin; the briefest account of which is probably the following, from The Knout, by Germain de Lagny:—
In 1760, under the reign of the indolent and luxurious Elizabeth, who had abolished capital punishment, Madame Lapoukin, a woman of rare beauty, of which the Czarina was envious, was condemned to the knout and transportation, in spite of the privilege of the nobility never to suffer the former punishment. She had been fêted, caressed, and run after at court, and had, it was said, betrayed the secret of the Empress' liaison with Prince Razoumowsky. She was conducted by the executioners to the public square, where she was exposed by one of
