In St Petersburg at the end of the reign of Paul I, the haughty Vaninka, daughter of General Count Tchermayloff, watches a serf flogged with the knout in her father’s courtyard. Her secret love for a young officer and a crime among the household servants lead to a story of pride, guilt and terrible punishment.
One of Dumas’s Celebrated Crimes, a short true-crime tale told with a novelist’s flair. Download the free EPUB.