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      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.

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      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!

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      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!

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.

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      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 chime⁷

      Announcing to him dinner-time.

⁶ A la “Bolivar,” from the founder of Bolivian independence.

⁷ M. Breguet, a celebrated Parisian watchmaker — hence a slang term for a watch.

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      ’Tis dark. He seats him in a sleigh,

      “Drive on!” the cheerful cry goes forth,

      His furs are powdered on the way

      By the fine silver of the north.

He bends his course to Talon’s, where⁸

He knows Kaverine will repair.⁹

      He enters. High the cork arose

      And Comet champagne foaming flows.

      Before him red roast beef is seen

      And truffles, dear to youthful eyes,

      Flanked by immortal Strasbourg pies,

      The choicest flowers of French cuisine,

      And Limburg cheese alive and old

      Is seen next pine-apples of gold.

⁸ Talon, a famous St. Petersburg restaurateur.

⁹ Paul Petrovitch Kaverine, a friend for whom Pushkin in his youth appears to have entertained great respect and admiration. He was an officer in the Hussars of the Guard, and a noted “dandy” and man about town. The poet on one occasion addressed the following impromptu to his friend’s portrait:

      “Within him daily see the the fires of punch and war,

      Upon the fields of Mars a gallant warrior,

      A faithful friend to friends, of ladies torturer,

      But ever the Hussar.”

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      Still