“Song and dance,” the well-known “khorovod,” in which the dance proceeds to vocal music. “Lovage,” the _Levisticum officinalis_, is a hardy plant growing very far north, though an inhabitant of our own kitchen gardens. The passage containing the reference to the three tears and Trinity Sunday was at first deemed irreligious by the Russian censors, and consequently expunged. _Kvass_ is of various sorts: there is the common _kvass_ of fermented rye used by the peasantry, and the more expensive _kvass_ of the restaurants, iced and flavoured with various fruits. The final two lines refer to the “Tchin,” or Russian social hierarchy. There are fourteen grades in the Tchin assigning relative rank and precedence to the members of the various departments of the State, civil, military, naval, court, scientific and educational. The military and naval grades from the 14th up to the 7th confer personal nobility only, whilst above the 7th hereditary rank is acquired. In the remaining departments, civil or otherwise, personal nobility is only attained with the 9th grade, hereditary with the 4th.] XXXVI Thus age approached, the common doom, And death before the husband wide Opened the portals of the tomb And a new diadem supplied.(28) Just before dinner-time he slept, By neighbouring families bewept, By children and by faithful wife With deeper woe than others’ grief. He was an honest gentleman, And where at last his bones repose The epitaph on marble shows: _Demetrius Larine, sinful man, Servant of God and brigadier, Enjoyeth peaceful slumber here_. [Note 28: A play upon the word “venetz,” crown, which also signifies a nimbus or glory, and is the symbol of marriage from the fact of two gilt crowns being held over the heads of the bride and bridegroom during the ceremony. The literal meaning of the passage is therefore: his earthly marriage was dissolved and a heavenly one was contracted.] XXXVII To his Penates now returned, Vladimir Lenski visited His neighbour’s lowly tomb and mourned Above the ashes of the dead. There long time sad at heart he stayed: “Poor Yorick,” mournfully he said, “How often in thine arms I lay; How with thy medal I would play, The Medal Otchakoff conferred!(29) To me he would his Olga give, Would whisper: shall I so long live?”— And by a genuine sorrow stirred, Lenski his pencil-case took out And an elegiac poem wrote. [Note 29: The fortress of Otchakoff was taken by storm on the 18th December 1788 by a Russian army under Prince Potemkin. Thirty thousand Turks are said to have perished during the assault and ensuing massacre.] XXXVIII