of a lie,
And so must wrong me. Only this is true:
The Tsar, because I risked my wretched life
To shield a life as wretched as my own,
Bestows upon me, as supreme reward--
O irony!--the hand of this poor girl.
Says, HERE, I HAVE THE PEARL OF PEARLS FOR YOU,
SUCH AS WAS NEVER PLUCKED FROM OUT THE DEEP
BY INDIAN DIVER, FOR A SULTAN'S CROWN.
YOUR JOY'S DECREED, and stabs me with a smile.

SHE.

And she--she loves you?

HE.

I know not, indeed.
Likes me, perhaps. What matters it?--HER love!
The guardian, Sidor Yurievich, consents,
And she consents. No love in it at all,
A mere caprice, a young girl's spring-tide dream.
Sick of her ear-rings, weary of her mare,
She'll have a lover--something ready-made,
Or improvised between two cups of tea--
A lover by imperial ukase!
Fate said her word--I chanced to be the man!
If that grenade the crazy student threw
Had not spared me, as well as spared the Tsar,
All this would not have happened. I'd have been
A hero, but quite safe from her romance.
She takes me for a hero--think of that!
Now by our holy Lady of Kazan,
When I have finished pitying myself,
I'll pity her.

SHE.
Oh no; begin with her;
She needs it most.

HE.

At her door lies the blame,
Whatever falls. She, with a single word,
With half a tear, had stopt it at the first,
This cruel juggling with poor human hearts.

SHE.

The Tsar commanded it--you said the Tsar.

HE.

The Tsar does what she wills--God fathoms why.
Were she his mistress, now! but there's no snow
Whiter within the bosom of a cloud,
Nor colder either. She is very haughty,
For all her fragile air of gentleness;
With something vital in her, like those flowers
That on our desolate steppes outlast the year.
Resembles you in some things. It was that
First made us friends. I do her justice, see!
For we were friends in that smooth surface way
We Russians have imported out of France.
Alas! from what a blue and tranquil heaven
This bolt fell on me! After these two years,
My suit with Ossip Leminoff at end,
The old wrong righted, the estates restored,
And my promotion, with the ink not dry!
Those fairies which neglected me at birth
Seemed now to lavish all good gifts on me--
Gold roubles, office, sudden dearest friends.
The whole world