"What is your name?" The boor looked dazed,

And "Agathon" replied, amazed.(53)

[Note 53: The superstition is that the name of the future husband may thus be discovered.]

X.

Tattiana (nurse the project planned)

By night prepared for sorcery,

And in the bathroom did command

To lay two covers secretly.

But sudden fear assailed Tattiana,

And I, remembering Svetlana,(54)

Become alarmed. So never mind!

I'm not for witchcraft now inclined.

So she her silken sash unlaced,

Undressed herself and went to bed

And soon Lel hovered o'er her head.(55)

Beneath her downy pillow placed,

A little virgin mirror peeps.

'Tis silent all. Tattiana sleeps.

[Note 54: See Note 30.]

[Note 55: Lel, in Slavonic mythology, corresponds to the Morpheus of the Latins. The word is evidently connected with the verb "leleyat" to fondle or soothe, likewise with our own word "to lull."]

XI.

A dreadful sleep Tattiana sleeps.

She dreamt she journeyed o'er a field

All covered up with snow in heaps,

By melancholy fogs concealed.

Amid the snowdrifts which surround

A stream, by winter's ice unbound,

Impetuously clove its way

With boiling torrent dark and gray;

Two poles together glued by ice,

A fragile bridge and insecure,

Spanned the unbridled torrent o'er;

Beside the thundering abyss

Tattiana in despair unfeigned

Rooted unto the spot remained.

XII.

As if against obstruction sore

Tattiana o'er the stream complained;