No More Learning

XI

How soon he learnt to titillate
The heart of the inveterate flirt!
Desirous to annihilate
His own antagonists expert,
How bitterly he would malign,
With many a snare their pathway line!
But ye, O happy husbands, ye
With him were friends eternally:
The crafty spouse caressed him, who
By Faublas in his youth was schooled,(5)
And the suspicious veteran old,
The pompous, swaggering cuckold too,
Who floats contentedly through life,
Proud of his dinners and his wife!

[Note 5: _Les Aventures du Chevalier de Faublas_, a romance of a
loose character by Jean Baptiste Louvet de Couvray, b. 1760,
d. 1797, famous for his bold oration denouncing Robespierre,
Marat and Danton. ]

XII

One morn whilst yet in bed he lay,
His valet brings him letters three.
What, invitations? The same day
As many entertainments be!
A ball here, there a children's treat,
Whither shall my rapscallion flit?
Whither shall he go first? He'll see,
Perchance he will to all the three.
Meantime in matutinal dress
And hat surnamed a "Bolivar"(6)
He hies unto the "Boulevard,"
To loiter there in idleness
Until the sleepless Breguet chime(7)
Announcing to him dinner-time.

[Note 6: A la "Bolivar," from the founder of Bolivian independence. ]

[Note 7: M.
Breguet, a celebrated Parisian watchmaker--hence a
slang term for a watch. ]

XIII

'Tis dark. He seats him in a sleigh,
"Drive on! " the cheerful cry goes forth,
His furs are powdered on the way
By the fine silver of the north.
He bends his course to Talon's, where(8)
He knows Kaverine will repair. (9)
He enters. High the cork arose
And Comet champagne foaming flows.
Before him red roast beef is seen
And truffles, dear to youthful eyes,
Flanked by immortal Strasbourg pies,
The choicest flowers of French cuisine,
And Limburg cheese alive and old
Is seen next pine-apples of gold.

[Note 8: Talon, a famous St. Petersburg restaurateur. ]

[Note 9: Paul Petrovitch Kaverine, a friend for whom Pushkin in
his youth appears to have entertained great respect and
admiration. He was an officer in the Hussars of the Guard, and
a noted "dandy" and man about town. The poet on one occasion
addressed the following impromptu to his friend's portrait:

"Within him daily see the the fires of punch and war,
Upon the fields of Mars a gallant warrior,
A faithful friend to friends, of ladies torturer,
But ever the Hussar. "]

XIV

Still thirst fresh draughts of wine compels
To cool the cutlets' seething grease,
When the sonorous Breguet tells
Of the commencement of the piece.
A critic of the stage malicious,
A slave of actresses capricious,
Oneguine was a citizen
Of the domains of the side-scene.
To the theatre he repairs
Where each young critic ready stands,
Capers applauds with clap of hands,
With hisses Cleopatra scares,
Moina recalls for this alone
That all may hear his voice's tone.