Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/180



HEN the whole performance was over the robe of the Duchess de Bourblanc was taken off and the dress of St. Cecilia was put on me. This was a simple white gown without sleeves, fastened only with little bows on the shoulders; we could not bear this costume. Well, and then Arkadie came to dress my hair in an innocent fashion, with a thin chaplet surrounding the head, as St. Cecilia is portrayed in pictures, and he saw six men standing outside the door of my closet. This meant, that as soon as he had made me up and returned to the door, he would be seized and taken to be tortured. And the tortures in store for us were such, that it was a hundred times better to be condemned to death. There was the strappado and the cord; the head-vices and the thumbscrews; all these and many more. The state punishments were as nothing compared to them. Under the whole of the house there were secret cellars in which living men were kept chained up like bears. When you had to pass near them it sometimes happened that you heard the sounds of