Habit allayed the grief
that nothing else could ward;
a big discovery soon came
4 to comfort her completely.
Between the dally and the do
a secret she discovered: how to govern
her husband monocratically,
8 and forthwith everything went right.
She would drive out to supervise the farming,
she pickled mushrooms for the winter,
she kept the books, “shaved foreheads,”
12 to the bathhouse would go on Saturdays,
walloped her maids when cross —
all this without asking her husband's leave.
XXXIII
Time was, she wrote in blood
in tender maidens' albums,
would call Praskóvia “Polína,”
4 and speak in singsong tones;
very tight stays she wore,
and knew how to pronounce a Russian n as if it were a French one, through the nose;
8 but soon all this ceased to exist; stays, album,
Princess [Alina],
cahier of sentimental verselets, she
forgot, began to call
12 “Akúl'ka” the one-time “Selína,”
and finally inaugurated
the quilted chamber robe and mobcap.
XXXIV
But dearly did her husband love her,
he did not enter in her schemes,
on every score lightheartedly believed her
4 whilst in his dressing gown he ate and drank
His life rolled comfortably on;
at evenfall sometimes assembled
a kindly group of neighbors,
8 unceremonious friends,
to rue, to tattle,
to chuckle over this or that.
Time passed; meanwhile
12 Olga was told to prepare tea;
then supper came, and then 'twas bedtime,
and off the guests would drive.
XXXV
They in their peaceful life preserved
the customs of dear ancientry:
with them, during fat Butterweek
4 Russian pancakes were wont to be.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
12 kvas was as requisite to them as air,
and at their table dishes were presented
to guests in order of their rank.
XXXVI
And thus they both grew old,
and the grave's portals
opened at last before the husband,
4 and a new crown upon him was bestowed.
He died at the hour before the midday meal,
bewailed by neighbor,
children, and faithful wife,
8 more candidly than some.
He was a simple and kind squire,
and there where lies his dust
the monument above the grave proclaims:
12 “The humble sinner Dmitri Larin,
slave of our Lord, and Brigadier,
enjoyeth peace beneath this stone.”
XXXVII
Restored to his penates,
Vladimir Lenski visited
his neighbor's humble monument,
4 and to the ashes consecrated
a sigh, and long his heart was melancholy.
“Poor Yorick!”16 mournfully he uttered, “he
hath borne me in his arms.
8 How oft I played in childhood
with his Ochákov medal!
He destined Olga to wed me;
he used to say: ‘Shall I be there
12 to see the day?’ ” and full of sincere sadness,
Vladimir there and then set down for him
a gravestone madrigal.
XXXVIII
And with a sad inscription,
in tears, he also honored there his father's
and mother's patriarchal dust.
4 Alas! Upon life's furrows,
in a brief harvest, generations
by Providence's secret will
rise, ripen, and must fall;
8 others in their tracks follow.... Thus
our giddy race
waxes, stirs, seethes,
and tombward crowds its ancestors.
12 Our time likewise will come, will come,
and one fine day our grandsons
out of the world will crowd us too.