[Note 48: The "kibitka," properly speaking, whether on wheels or runners, is a vehicle with a hood not unlike a big cradle.]

III.

In scenes like these it may be though,

Ye feel but little interest,

They are all natural and low,

Are not with elegance impressed.

Another bard with art divine

Hath pictured in his gorgeous line

The first appearance of the snows

And all the joys which Winter knows.

He will delight you, I am sure,

When he in ardent verse portrays

Secret excursions made in sleighs;

But competition I abjure

Either with him or thee in song,

Bard of the Finnish maiden young.(49)

[Note 49: The allusions in the foregoing stanza are in the first place to a poem entitled "The First Snow," by Prince Viazemski and secondly to "Eda," by Baratynski, a poem descriptive of life in Finland.]

IV.

Tattiana, Russian to the core,

Herself not knowing well the reason,

The Russian winter did adore

And the cold beauties of the season:

On sunny days the glistening rime,

Sledging, the snows, which at the time

Of sunset glow with rosy light,

The misty evenings ere Twelfth Night.

These evenings as in days of old

The Larinas would celebrate,

The servants used to congregate

And the young ladies fortunes told,

And every year distributed

Journeys and warriors to wed.

V.

Tattiana in traditions old

Believed, the people's wisdom weird,

In dreams and what the moon foretold

And what she from the cards inferred.