Our bridges long neglected rot,

And at the stages bugs and fleas

One moment's slumber suffer not.

Inns there are none. Pretentious but

Meagre, within a draughty hut,

A bill of fare hangs full in sight

And irritates the appetite.

Meantime a Cyclops of those parts

Before a fire which feebly glows

Mends with the Russian hammer's blows

The flimsy wares of Western marts,

With blessings on the ditches and

The ruts of his own fatherland.

XXXIII.

Yet on a frosty winter day

The journey in a sledge doth please,

No senseless fashionable lay

Glides with a more luxurious ease;

For our Automedons are fire

And our swift troikas never tire;

The verst posts catch the vacant eye

And like a palisade flit by.(72)

The Larinas unwisely went,

From apprehension of the cost,

By their own horses, not the post -

So Tania to her heart's content

Could taste the pleasures of the road.

Seven days and nights the travellers plod.

[Note 72: This somewhat musty joke has appeared in more than one national costume. Most Englishmen, if we were to replace verst-posts with milestones and substitute a graveyard for a palisade, would instantly recognize its Yankee extraction. In Russia however its origin is as ancient at least as the reign of Catherine the Second. The witticism ran thus: A courier sent by Prince Potemkin to the Empress drove so fast that his sword, projecting from the vehicle, rattled against the verst-posts as if against a palisade!]

XXXIV.

But they draw near. Before them, lo!

White Moscow raises her old spires,

Whose countless golden crosses glow

As with innumerable fires.(73)

Ah! brethren, what was my delight