But Tania ne’er displayed a passion For dolls, e’en from her earliest years, And gossip of the town and fashion She ne’er repeated unto hers. Strange unto her each childish game, But when the winter season came And dark and drear the evenings were, Terrible tales she loved to hear. And when for Olga nurse arrayed In the broad meadow a gay rout, All the young people round about, At prisoner’s base she never played. Their noisy laugh her soul annoyed, Their giddy sports she ne’er enjoyed. XXVIII She loved upon the balcony To anticipate the break of day, When on the pallid eastern sky The starry beacons fade away, The horizon luminous doth grow, Morning’s forerunners, breezes blow And gradually day unfolds. In winter, when Night longer holds A hemisphere beneath her sway, Longer the East inert reclines Beneath the moon which dimly shines, And calmly sleeps the hours away, At the same hour she oped her eyes And would by candlelight arise. XXIX Romances pleased her from the first, Her all in all did constitute; In love adventures she was versed, Rousseau and Richardson to boot. Not a bad fellow was her father Though superannuated rather; In books he saw nought to condemn But, as he never opened them, Viewed them with not a little scorn, And gave himself but little pain His daughter’s book to ascertain Which ’neath her pillow lay till morn. His wife was also mad upon The works of Mr. Richardson. XXX She was thus fond of Richardson Not that she had his works perused, Or that adoring Grandison That rascal Lovelace she abused; But that Princess Pauline of old, Her Moscow cousin, often told The tale of these romantic men; Her husband was a bridegroom then, And she despite herself would waste Sighs on another than her lord Whose qualities appeared to afford More satisfaction to her taste. Her Grandison was in the Guard, A noted fop who gambled hard. XXXI Like his, her dress was always nice, The height of fashion, fitting tight, But contrary to her advice The girl in marriage they unite. Then, her distraction to allay, The bridegroom sage without delay Removed her to his country seat, Where God alone knows whom she met. She struggled hard at first thus pent, Night separated from her spouse, Then became busy with the house, First reconciled and then content; Habit was given us in distress By Heaven in lieu of happiness. XXXII