The most popular work of Púshkin is his novel in verse, _Evghéniy Onyéghin_. In its form it has much in common with Byron’s _Childe Harold_, but it is thoroughly Russian, and contains perhaps the best description of Russian life, both in the capitals and on the smaller estates of noblemen in the country, that has ever been written in Russian literature. Tchaykóvsky, the musician, has made of it an opera which enjoys a great success on the Russian stage. The hero of the novel, Onyéghin, is a typical representative of what society people were at that time. He has received a superficial education, partly from a French _emigré_, partly from a German teacher, and has learned “something and anyhow.” At the age of nineteen he is the owner of a great fortune--consisting, of course, of serfs, about whom he does not care in the least--and he is engulfed in the “high-life” of St. Petersburg. His day begins very late, with reading scores of invitations to tea-parties, evening parties, and fancy balls. He is, of course, a visitor at the theatre, in which he prefers ballet to the clumsy productions of the Russian dramatists; and he spends a good deal of his day in fashionable restaurants, while his nights are given to balls, where he plays the part of a disillusioned young man, who is tired of life, and wraps himself in the mantle of Byronism. For some reason or other he is compelled to spend a summer on his estate, where he has for a neighbour a young poet, educated in Germany and full of German romanticism. They become great friends, and they make acquaintance with a squire’s family in their neighbourhood. The head of the family--the old mother--is admirably described. Her two daughters, Tatiána and Olga, are very different in nature: Olga is a quite artless girl, full of the joy of living, who worries herself with no questions, and the young poet is madly in love with her; they are going to marry. As to Tatiána, she is a poetical girl, and Púshkin bestows on her all the wonderful powers of his talent, describing her as an ideal woman: intelligent, thoughtful, and inspired with vague aspirations towards something better than the prosaic life which she is compelled to live. Onyéghin produces upon her, from the first, a deep impression: she falls in love with him; but he, who has made so many conquests in the high circles of the capital, and now wears the mask of disgust of life, takes no notice of the naïve love of the poor country girl. She writes to him and tells him her love with great frankness and in most pathetic words; but the young snob finds nothing better to do than to lecture her about her rashness, and seems to take great pleasure in turning the knife in her wound. At the same time, at a small country ball Onyéghin, moved by some spirit of mischief, begins to flirt in the most provoking way with the other sister, Olga. The young girl seems to be delighted with the attention paid to her by the gloomy