But she, not noticing her sister,
lies with a book in bed,
page after page
4 keeps turning over, and says nothing.
Although that book displayed
neither the sweet inventions of a poet,
nor sapient truths, nor pictures,
8 yet neither Virgil, nor Racine, nor Scott, nor Byron,
nor Seneca, nor even
the Magazine of Ladies' Fashions
ever engrossed anybody so much:
12 it was, friends, Martin Zadeck,33 head of Chaldean sages,
divinistre, interpreter of dreams.
XXIII
This profound work
a roving trader had one day
peddled into their solitude,
4 and for Tatiana finally
with a broken set of Malvina had ceded for three rubles fifty,
moreover taking for them a collection
8 of vulgar fables,
a grammar,
two “Petriads,” plus Marmontel, tome three.
Later with Tanya Martin Zadeck
12 became a favorite. He gives her joyance
in all her sorrows and beside her,
never absenting himself, sleeps.
XXIV
The dream disturbs her.
Not knowing what to make of it,
the import of the dread chimera
4 Tatiana wishes to discover.
Tatiana finds in the brief index,
in alphabetic order,
the words: bear, blizzard, bridge,
8 dark, fir, fir forest, hedgehog, raven, storm,
and so forth. Martin Zadeck
will not resolve her doubts,
but the ominous dream portends
12 to her a lot of sad adventures.
For several days thereafter she
kept worrying about it.
XXV
But lo, with crimson hand34 Aurora from the morning dales
leads forth, with the sun, after her
4 the merry name-day festival.
Since morn Dame Larin's house is full
of guests; in entire families
the neighbors have converged, in sledded coaches,
8 kibitkas, britskas, sleighs.
There's in the vestibule jostling, commotion;
there's in the drawing room the meeting of new people,
the bark of pugs, girls' smacking kisses,
12 noise, laughter, a crush at the threshold,
the bows, the scraping of the guests,
wet nurses' shouts, and children's cry.
XXVI
With his well-nourished spouse
there came fat Pustyakóv;
Gvozdín, an admirable landlord,
4 owner of destitute muzhiks;
a gray-haired couple, the Skotínins,
with children of all ages, counting
from thirty years to two;
8 the district fopling, Petushkóv;
Buyánov, my first cousin,
covered with fluff, in a peaked cap35 (as he, of course, is known to you);
12 and the retired counselor Flyánov,
a heavy scandalmonger, an old rogue,
glutton, bribetaker, and buffoon.
XXVII
With the family of Panfíl Harlikóv
there also came Monsieur Triquét,
a wit, late from Tambóv,
4 bespectacled and russet-wigged.
As a true Frenchman, in his pocket
Triquet has brought a stanza for Tatiana
fitting an air to children known:
8 “Réveillez-vous, belle endormie.”
Among an almanac's decrepit songs
this stanza had been printed;
Triquet — resourceful poet —
12 out of the dust brought it to light
and boldly in the place of “belle Niná”
put “belle Tatianá.”
XXVIII
And now from the near borough,
the idol of ripe misses,
the joy of district mothers,
4 a Company Commander has arrived;
he enters.... Ah, news — and what news!
there will be regimental music:
“the Colonel's sending it himself.”
8 What fun! There is to be a ball!
The young things skip beforehand.36 But dinner's served. In pairs,
they go to table, arm in arm.
12 The misses cluster near Tatiana,
the men are opposite; and the crowd buzzes
as all, crossing themselves, sit down to table.