Lessons to give he understood!
XI
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!
[Note 5:
XII
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 chime(7)
Announcing to him dinner-time.
[Note 6: A la 'Bolivar,' from the founder of Bolivian independence.]
[Note 7: M. Breguet, a celebrated Parisian watchmaker—hence a slang term for a watch.]
XIII
'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, where(8)
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.
[Note 8: Talon, a famous St. Petersburg restaurateur.]
[Note 9: Paul Petrovitch Kaverine, a friend for whom Pushkin in his youth appears to have entertained great
