Lay all the girls by sleep embraced,

Except one by the window placed

Whom pale Diana's ray illumes -

My poor Tattiana cannot sleep

But stares into the darkness deep.

III.

His visit she had not awaited,

His momentary loving glance

Her inmost soul had penetrated,

And his strange conduct at the dance

With Olga; nor of this appeared

An explanation: she was scared,

Alarmed by jealous agonies:

A hand of ice appeared to seize(62)

Her heart: it seemed a darksome pit

Beneath her roaring opened wide:

"I shall expire," Tattiana cried,

"But death from him will be delight.

I murmur not! Why mournfulness?

He cannot give me happiness."

[Note 62: There must be a peculiar appropriateness in this expression as descriptive of the sensation of extreme cold. Mr. Wallace makes use of an identical phrase in describing an occasion when he was frostbitten whilst sledging in Russia. He says (vol. i. p. 33): "My fur cloak flew open, the cold seemed to grasp me in the region of the heart, and I fell insensible."]

IV.

Haste, haste thy lagging pace, my story!

A new acquaintance we must scan.

There dwells five versts from Krasnogory,

Vladimir's property, a man

Who thrives this moment as I write,

A philosophic anchorite:

Zaretski, once a bully bold,

A gambling troop when he controlled,

Chief rascal, pot-house president,

Now of a family the head,

Simple and kindly and unwed,

True friend, landlord benevolent,

Yea! and a man of honour, lo!