Eugene Onegin

And now along Tverskya Street

The sleigh glides over ruts and passes

By sentry booths and peasant lasses;

By gardens, mansions, fashion shops;

Past urchins, streetlamps, strolling fops,

Bokhrins, sleighs, apothecaries,

Muzhiks and merchants, Cossack guards;

Past towers, hovels, boulevards,

Great balconies and monasteries;

Past gateway lions' lifted paws,

And crosses dense with flocks of daws.

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This tiring trek through town extended

For two full hours; then, quite late

Nearby St Chariton's it ended

Before a mansion's double gate.

For now they'll seek accommodation

With Tanya's aunt, a kind relation

Four years consumptive, sad to note.

In glasses and a torn old coat,

A grizzled Kalmuk came to meet them;

With sock in hand he led the way

To where the prostrate princess lay;

She called from parlour couch to greet them.

The two old ladies hugged and cried,

With shouts of joy on either side.

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'Princesse, mon ange!' 'Pachette!' 'Oh, Laura!'

'Who would have thought?' 'How long it's been!'

'I hope you'll stay?' 'Dear cousin Laura!'

'Sit down.. . . How strange! ... I can't begin . . .

I'd swear it's from some novel's pages!'

'And here's my Tanya.' 'Lord, it's ages!

Oh, Tanya sweet, come over here

I think I must be dreaming, dear. . . .

Oh, cousin, do you still remember

Your Grandison?' 'I never knew . . .

Oh, Grandison! ... of course I do!'

'He lives in Moscow. This December,

On Christmas eve, he paid a call:

He married off his son this fall.

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'The other. . .. But we'll talk tomorrow;

And straightway too, to all her kin

We'll show your Tanya.

What a sorrow

That paying visits does me in;

I drag about like some poor laggard.

But here, your trip has left you haggard;