No More Learning

]

XXXIII

From the moist cork the bottle freed
With loud explosion, the bright wine
Hissed forth. With serious air indeed,
Long tortured by his lay divine,
Triquet arose, and for the bard
The company deep silence guard.
Tania well nigh expired when he
Turned to her and discordantly
Intoned it, manuscript in hand.
Voices and hands applaud, and she
Must bow in common courtesy;
The poet, modest though so grand,
Drank to her health in the first place,
Then handed her the song with grace.

XXXIV

Congratulations, toasts resound,
Tattiana thanks to all returned,
But, when Oneguine's turn came round,
The maiden's weary eye which yearned,
Her agitation and distress
Aroused in him some tenderness.
He bowed to her nor silence broke,
But somehow there shone in his look
The witching light of sympathy;
I know not if his heart felt pain
Or if he meant to flirt again,
From habit or maliciously,
But kindness from his eye had beamed
And to revive Tattiana seemed.

XXXV

The chairs are thrust back with a roar,
The crowd unto the drawing-room speeds,
As bees who leave their dainty store
And seek in buzzing swarms the meads.
Contented and with victuals stored,
Neighbour by neighbour sat and snored,
Matrons unto the fireplace go,
Maids in the corner whisper low;
Behold! green tables are brought forth,
And testy gamesters do engage
In boston and the game of age,
Ombre, and whist all others worth:
A strong resemblance these possess--
All sons of mental weariness.

XXXVI

Eight rubbers were already played,
Eight times the heroes of the fight
Change of position had essayed,
When tea was brought. 'Tis my delight
Time to denote by dinner, tea,
And supper. In the country we
Can count the time without much fuss--
The stomach doth admonish us.
And, by the way, I here assert
That for that matter in my verse
As many dinners I rehearse,
As oft to meat and drink advert,
As thou, great Homer, didst of yore,
Whom thirty centuries adore.

XXXVII

I will with thy divinity
Contend with knife and fork and platter,
But grant with magnanimity
I'm beaten in another matter;
Thy heroes, sanguinary wights,
Also thy rough-and-tumble fights,
Thy Venus and thy Jupiter,
More advantageously appear
Than cold Oneguine's oddities,
The aspect of a landscape drear.
Or e'en Istomina, my dear,
And fashion's gay frivolities;
But my Tattiana, on my soul,
Is sweeter than thy Helen foul.
XXXVIII

No one the contrary will urge,
Though for his Helen Menelaus
Again a century should scourge
Us, and like Trojan warriors slay us;
Though around honoured Priam's throne
Troy's sages should in concert own
Once more, when she appeared in sight,
Paris and Menelaus right.
But as to fighting--'twill appear!
For patience, reader, I must plead!
A little farther please to read
And be not in advance severe.
There'll be a fight. I do not lie.
My word of honour given have I.

XXXIX

The tea, as I remarked, appeared,
But scarce had maids their saucers ta'en
When in the grand saloon was heard
Of bassoons and of flutes the strain.
His soul by crash of music fired,
His tea with rum no more desired,
The Paris of those country parts
To Olga Petoushkova darts:
To Tania Lenski; Kharlikova,
A marriageable maid matured,
The poet from Tamboff secured,
Bouyanoff whisked off Poustiakova.
All to the grand saloon are gone--
The ball in all its splendour shone.

XL

I tried when I began this tale,
(See the first canto if ye will),
A ball in Peter's capital,
To sketch ye in Albano's style. (60)
But by fantastic dreams distraught,
My memory wandered wide and sought
The feet of my dear lady friends.
O feet, where'er your path extends
I long enough deceived have erred.
The perfidies I recollect
Should make me much more circumspect,
Reform me both in deed and word,
And this fifth canto ought to be
From such digressions wholly free.

[Note 60: Francesco Albano, a celebrated painter, styled the "Anacreon
of Painting," was born at Bologna 1578, and died in the year 1666. ]

XLI

The whirlwind of the waltz sweeps by,
Undeviating and insane
As giddy youth's hilarity--
Pair after pair the race sustain.