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He sighed and seemed to shudder, and his hand, doubtless because the sight of my white skin excited him, began to wander all over my back, lingered a moment on my bottom, and finished by pressing in lower down.
"It is by this part that woman sins," he uttered in a sepulchral voice "it is by these lower parts that she must suffer!"
He had scarcely pronounced these words, when I felt the terrible strokes of rods, of knotted cords rendered still more terrible by bits of steel wire inserted in their strands.
I clasped the back of the praying stool, I tried my best to stifle my cries, but it was in vain: the pain was too frightful. I rushed out into the hall, crying "Pity, have pity on me! I cannot bear such torture, kill me if you will, but let me be!"
"Miserable little coward," cried my aunt, "you should see what I bear." As she said this, she showed herself courageously quite naked, spread her thighs wide open, and held her bottom lifted up high.
The blows fell pitilesly upon her, and in a moment, her thighs were streaming in blood.
My aunt seemed to be unmoved. From
