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.