Uncle's Dream / Дядюшкин сон

”

“Oh! how nice it would be to read it over, especially just now, eh, Zina? for we are thinking of getting up a play, you must know, prince, for the benefit of the �martyrs of the Fatherland,’ the wounded soldiers. There, now, how handy your play would come in!”

“Certainly, certainly. I-I would even write you another. I think I’ve quite forgotten the old one. I remember there were two or three such epigrams that (here the prince kissed his own hand to convey an idea of the exquisite wit of his lines) I recollect when I was abroad I made a real furore.

I remember Lord Byron well; we were great friends; you should have seen him dance the mazurka one day during the Vienna Congress.”

“Lord Byron, uncle?-Surely not!”

“Ye-yes, Lord Byron. Perhaps it was not Lord Byron, though, perhaps it was someone else; no, it wasn’t Lord Byron, it was some Pole; I remember now.

A won-der-ful fellow that Pole was! He said he was a C-Count, and he turned out to be a c-cookshop man! But he danced the mazurka won-der-fully, and broke his leg at last. I recollect I wrote some lines at the time: —

“Our little Pole Danced like blazes.”

– How did it go on, now? Wait a minute! No, I can’t remember.”

“I’ll tell you, uncle. It must have been like this,” said Paul, becoming more and more inspired: —

“But he tripped in a hole, Which stopped his crazes.

”

“Ye-yes, that was it, I think, or something very like it. I don’t know, though – perhaps it wasn’t. Anyhow, the lines were very sm-art. I forget a good deal of what I have seen and done. I’m so b-busy now!”

“But do let me hear how you have employed your time in your solitude, dear prince,” said Maria Alexandrovna. “I must confess that I have thought of you so often, and often, that I am burning with impatience to hear more about you and your doings.

”

“Employed my time? Oh, very busy; very busy, ge-generally. One rests, you see, part of the day; and then I imagine a good many things.”

“I should think you have a very strong imagination, haven’t you, uncle?” remarked Paul.

“Exceptionally so, my dear fellow.