No More Learning

It occupied him from a boy,
A labour, torment, yet a joy,
It whiled his idle hours away
And wholly occupied his day--
The amatory science warm,
Which Ovid once immortalized,
For which the poet agonized
Laid down his life of sun and storm
On the steppes of Moldavia lone,
Far from his Italy--his own. (4)

[Note 4: Referring to Tomi, the reputed place of exile of Ovid.
Pushkin, then residing in Bessarabia, was in the same predicament
as his predecessor in song, though he certainly did not plead
guilty to the fact, since he remarks in his ode to Ovid:
To exile _self-consigned_,
With self, society, existence, discontent,
I visit in these days, with melancholy mind,
The country whereunto a mournful age thee sent.

Ovid thus enumerates the causes which brought about his banishment:

"Perdiderint quum me _duo_ crimina, carmen et error,
Alterius facti culpa silenda mihi est. "
_Ovidii Nasonis Tristium_, lib. ii. 207. ]


IX

How soon he learnt deception's art,
Hope to conceal and jealousy,
False confidence or doubt to impart,
Sombre or glad in turn to be,
Haughty appear, subservient,
Obsequious or indifferent!
What languor would his silence show,
How full of fire his speech would glow!
How artless was the note which spoke
Of love again, and yet again;
How deftly could he transport feign!
How bright and tender was his look,
Modest yet daring! And a tear
Would at the proper time appear.

X

How well he played the greenhorn's part
To cheat the inexperienced fair,
Sometimes by pleasing flattery's art,
Sometimes by ready-made despair;
The feeble moment would espy
Of tender years the modesty
Conquer by passion and address,
Await the long-delayed caress.
Avowal then 'twas time to pray,
Attentive to the heart's first beating,
Follow up love--a secret meeting
Arrange without the least delay--
Then, then--well, in some solitude
Lessons to give he understood!

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.