Part 15 (1/2)

21.

The love you get from tender beauties Is surer than from kin or friend: However turbulent its duties, Your rights are honoured in the end.

That's so. But then there's whirling fas.h.i.+on And nature's wayward disposition, And what the monde thinks is enough...

And our sweet s.e.x is light as fluff.

And then, it is to be expected That virtuous wives will all be true To husbandly opinions, too; Your faithful mistress has defected Before you know it: love's a joke That Satan plays on gentlefolk.

22.

Whom then to love? Whom to have faith in?

Who can there be who won't betray?

Who'll judge a deed or disputation Obligingly by what we say?

Who'll not bestrew our path with slander?

Who'll cosset us with care and candour?

Who'll look benignly on our vice?

Who'll never bore us with his sighs?

Oh, ineffectual phantom seeker, You waste your energy in vain: Love your own self, be your own man, My worthy, venerable reader!

A worthwhile object: surely who Could be more lovable than you?

23.

What followed on from the encounter?

Alas, it is not hard to guess!

Love's pangs continued to torment her, Continued to inflict distress Upon a young soul craving sadness; No, in her pa.s.sion near to madness Still more does poor Tatiana burn; Sleep shuns her bed, will not return; Health, bloom of life that sweetly flowers, Smile, virginal repose and peace a All, like an empty echo cease.

On Tanya's youth a darkness lowers; Thus does the shadow of a storm Enshroud a day that's scarcely born.

24.

Alas, Tatiana's fading, waning; Grows pale, is wasting, does not speak!

There is no joy for her remaining, Nothing to make her soul less bleak.

Shaking their heads, the neighbours gather, Whispering gravely to each other: 'It's high time that we married her!'

But that will do. I much prefer To cheer up the imagination With pictures of a happy love, And from this sad one take my leave.

I cannot help, though, my compa.s.sion; Forgive: I love Tatiana so, It's hard for me to let her go.

25.