They came together Matched as well as might be, She is a prostitute, A pickpocket he. Ha-ha-ha! Now morning has come, He is planning a theft; While she lies in her bed And laughs like she’s daft. Ha-ha-ha! Comes morning, the laddie Is led to the pen; But for the prostitute His pals await then. Ha-ha-ha! ... [12] While there can be but little doubt that these four stanzas are an actual transcript from life, Heinrich Heine’s “Ein Weib” is such a striking parallel that it may be reproduced here as a matter of interest. The translation is by Mr. Louis Untermeyer.—Trans. A WOMAN They loved each other beyond belief— She was a strumpet, he was a thief; Whenever she thought of his tricks, thereafter She’d throw herself on the bed with laughter. The day was spent with a reckless zest; At night she lay upon his breast. So when they took him, a while thereafter She watched at the window—with laughter. He sent word pleading “Oh come to me, I need you, need you bitterly, Yes, here and in the hereafter.” Her little head shook with laughter. At six in the morning they swung him high; At seven the turf on his grave was dry; At eight, however, she quaffed her Red wine and sang with laughter! And still further a convict song: I’m a ruined laddie, Ruined for alway; While year after year The days go away. And also: Don’t you cry, my Mary, You’ll belong to me; When I’ve served the army I will marry thee. But here suddenly, to the general amazement, the stout Kitty, usually taciturn, burst into laughter. She was a native of Odessa. “Let me sing one song, too. It’s sung by thieves and badger queens in the drink shops on our Moldavanka and Peresip.” And in a horrible bass, in a rusty and unyielding voice, she began to sing, making the most incongruous gestures, but, evidently, imitating some cabaret cantatrice of the third calibre that she had sometime seen: “Ah, I’ll go to Dukovka, Sit down at the table, Now I throw my hat off, Toss it under table. Then I athk my dearie, ‘What will you drink, sweet?’ But all the answer that she makes: ‘My head aches fit to split.’ ‘I ain’t a-athking you What your ache may be, But I am a-athking you What your drink may be: Will it be beer, or for wine shall I call, Or for violet wine, or nothing else at all?’”