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.]