Are quite as faithless as their feet.
35
But what of my Eugene?
Half drowsing,
He drives to bed from last night's ball,
While Petersburg, already rousing,
Answers the drumbeat's duty call.
The merchant's up, the pedlar scurries,
With jug in hand the milkmaid hurries,
Crackling the freshly fallen snow;
The cabby plods to hackney row.
In pleasant hubbub morn's awaking!
The shutters open, smoke ascends
In pale blue shafts from chimney ends.
The German baker's up and baking,
And more than once, in cotton cap,
Has opened up his window-trap.
36
But wearied by the ballroom's clamour,
He sleeps in blissful, sheer delight
This child of comfort and of glamour,
Who turns each morning into night.
By afternoon he'll finally waken,
The day ahead all planned and taken:
The endless round, the varied game;
Tomorrow too will be the same.
But was he happy in the flower
The very springtime of his days,
Amid his pleasures and their blaze,
Amid his conquests of the hour?
Or was he profligate and hale
Amid his feasts to no avail?
37
Yes, soon he lost all warmth of feeling:
The social buzz became a bore,
And all those beauties, once appealing,
Were objects of his thought no more.
Inconstancy grew too fatiguing;
And friends and friendship less intriguing;
For after all he couldn't drain
An endless bottle of champagne
To help those pies and beefsteaks settle,
Or go on dropping words of wit
With throbbing head about to split:
And so, for all his fiery mettle,
He did at last give up his love
Of pistol, sword, and ready glove.
38
We still, alas, cannot forestall it
