INSPIRED BY XIX

Reflection was her friend and pleasure
right from the cradle of her days;
it touched with reverie her leisure,
adorning all its country ways.
Her tender touch had never fingered
the needle, never had she lingered
to liven with a silk atour
the linen stretched on the tambour.
Sign of the urge for domination:
in play with her obedient doll
the child prepares for protocol —
that corps of social legislation —
and to it, with a grave import,
repeats what her mama has taught.

A.S.Pushkin. Eugene Onegin (tr.Ch.Johnston)