The Praelictor's room was sparely and simply furnished. It had, so far as the curtseying entrant was concerned, a low leather hassock, on which was a solid strap.
“Did you get it signed, scum?”
“Yes, Seckendorff.”
“Good. Give it me. I'm going to give you six for an untidy bed. Feeling nice and shivery behind?”
“Yes,” came the glum answer. “Pull up your knickers.”
The Prefects were not allowed to beat on “the bare.”
“They're pulled up, Seckendorff.”
“Well, pull them up higher. If I split them I'll let you off the rest.”
The big girl took up the strap which was about four inches wide and some two feet long; she brought it down with all her strength, and the testimonial of a puff of dust, on the leather hassock set out there. Then thoughtfully, if anything harder, she repeated the gesture. Watching, Anna Erland, aged thirteen, felt the back of her throat dry suddenly; she was nearly in tears.
“Looking forward to it?”
“Ner-ner-no, Seckendorff.”
“Disgusting little scum, ask for it like the filth you are.”
“Per-please may I have a, a… I mean six stripes,” the girl was crying steadily now, her dark hair shaking, “across my bottom, for, for leaving my bed untidy.”
“Idiot! I want an adjective before each noun. Invent. Imagine.”
“P-p-please may I have six stinging stripes… across my wretched bottom, for, for leaving my miserable bed untidy.”
“Not bad. Now three adjectives, and different nouns. Come on, make it colorful. I'm waiting.” So was the swinging strap, it was plain.
The girl bent her head-“I beg to receive six whippy licking juicy strokes of the strap across my small unworthy deserving bottom… arse… for leaving…”
“That's enough. Lie across here.”
Tremors shook the liquid little bottom, when the tunic had been drawn off it. It was small, indeed. The Prefect struck it mercilessly, from in front, at the girl's head, bringing the tail-end of her strap cracking into the underbottoms-three each side- and when it was over, little Anna Erland rolled on the floor in pain.
Simultaneously, in the distant Duty Room, another sinner was feeling sorry for herself, hissing and twisting under two thoughtfully placed “hunting” flicks, both of which plucked up her butties, for having made two errors in Recitation, lines from Cicero set her the previous day.
Promptly at eight thirty-which was to say five minutes beforehand, since everything happened “on the stroke” at the Schloss-classes started to another bell. They were naturally conducted in complete silence and total attention on the girls' part; they continued, with a short break for physical exercises, and milk, until noon. Luncheon was at one.
These classes were not normally punctuated by punishment; the Head discouraged wasting valuable intellectual study in the infliction of bodily pain. All the same, a mistress would and did mete out a few juicy slices with her switch, or crack a slouching back so hard it would twist like a snake for a few seconds or so. Ordinarily a frown sufficed. Else it might be: “Take twenty lines of Recitation”…”Write out a hundred times, Helen, 'I must not yawn in class' ”… “You will have an hour's Detention, Maud”… “See me after school” (and it would not be, the offender knew, in order to play post office exactly), or finally, the most dreaded and serious of all, “Put yourself down in the Book, Clavdia.”
In order not to interrupt the train and concentration of these morning classes, a system of chits had been perfected. The girl was given a 'Zettel (or Strafzettel) of a certain color to take along to the Duty Mistress for completion, and signing. These chits were succinct and to the point, thus:
Schillerin:
Erika Treppe
Unter-Tertia
2
Unaufmerksamkeit.
Klasse:
Stunde:
Fehler:
It was signed by the reporting mistress, and dated.
Pretty Erika Treppe, already frowning with anxiety, watched the mistress writing on the little blue form, and curtseyed as she accepted it. Inattention nearly always merited a “Blue,” as it was called, which was invariably a destiny of seven, with a thin lithe classroom cane across absolutely nothing at all. No matter how tender of flesh the girl in question was, the Duty Mistress took her time, and aim, and cut just as hard as she could. The girl then rejoined her class, presented her now signed chit to the mistress in charge, and tried to look nonchalant.-not as if she was longing to rub all that fiendishly stinging flesh behind.
Anna Erland got a “Yellow” that morning. In a History Class, devoted to the growth of the new German Sparta, she had really been unable to sit still. The glycerine suppository had been too strong. She still had to… go. She plucked desperately at her little brown Grecian chlamys, changing the position of her bottom this way and that on the hard oak seat. The mistress had checked her once, and then accorded the 'Zettel. In a hoarse muffled whisper Anna had asked to be allowed to visit the Matron first; her colleagues hid their grins as she hurried out, crimson-faced. All concerned knew this would mean yet another punishment since there was one time, and one only, permitted for bowel evacuation at Schloss Rutenberg.
Anna took the stairs two at a time, grimacing. Matron Steinkopf presided in a series of chambers at the top of the house. She was a tall, grim-faced woman of over fifty, with a thin mustache lining her upper lip, and she wore a long sweeping black gown. Second only to the Head in power, she performed the function of doctor to the establishment, effecting most of her cures, to be sure, with clyster and castor oil, and she was universally dreaded. It was not that her strokes cut harder than those of any other mistress, but she had a way, a manner of crushing and bruising the soul, rather than the body. There was never any flippancy of lightness on Matron Steinkopf's lips. Nor was there now when she surveyed the slender, twisting youngster, her knickers off already and her skirt tucked into her chain-belt; scum were shaved but this round mound, darkly slit, looked polished as a billiard ball, at the top of the entwining legs.
“Ach, Matrone… please… I can't help… I have to go!”
The good woman moved slowly, and without speaking. First she ranged two hard kitchen chairs back to back, half a yard apart. She placed a bucket between them. She put some oil to heat on a flame, and next reversed an empty hour-glass. Then from some canisters and pans she produced a copper cylinder-the dreaded clyster.
“Please, Matrone, please. I can go without that. In fact, in fact… I can go… any moment.”
The girl followed the deliberate preparations with wide eyes. It was all taking so horribly long. Her skin was goosing all over. Ach Gott, o weh… the nozzle, which was being greased ready now, was so dreadful, she could never… and the yellow chit in her little breast pocket assured her of five frightful cuts afterwards, more if Matron…
“Come here.”
Anna shuffled forward. The oil had started to smoke. The flame was extinguished and the end of the nozzle inserted into the bowl; with a long straight drawing motion the Matron loaded the cylinder with her charge, and took it out. The girl looked at it wildly. It was such a small thing, why should it cause her such irrational fear?
“Lean forward.”
The Matron greased the anus, in between the trim cheeks ruddied by the strap. Then she slid in the cylinder an inch. Anna Erland gasped. It was hot! Then the entire tube was thrust up her, quickly. She stumbled and looked back, impaled as she was, her eyes imploring, her hands wringing before her. There were ways of administering the clyster, more or less mild. A series of squirts hurt less, but incontinency of this sort had to be stopped and with a single, solid drive Matron Steinkopf injected the heated olive oil until the ring in the handle of the clyster clicked audibly home as the cylinder emptied.
Anna cried out. She jerked erect, staggering forward a step so that the Matron had to follow, ramming the nozzle well up her until it had voided itself completely into the young bowel.