170
Just look how the peasants
Are stretching their hands out,
With hoods, shirts, and waistcoats!
Oh, you, thirst of Russia,
Unquenchable, endless
You are! But the peasant,
When once he is sated,
Will soon get a new hood
At close of the fair....
The spring sun is playing 180
On heads hot and drunken,
On boisterous revels,
On bright mixing colours;
The men wear wide breeches
Of corduroy velvet,
With gaudy striped waistcoats
And shirts of all colours;
The women wear scarlet;
The girls' plaited tresses
Are decked with bright ribbons; 190
They glide about proudly,
Like swans on the water.
Some beauties are even
Attired in the fashion
Of Petersburg ladies;
Their dresses spread stiffly
On wide hoops around them;
But tread on their skirts--
They will turn and attack you,
Will gobble like turkeys! 200
Blame rather the fashion
Which fastens upon you
Great fishermen's baskets!
A woman dissenter
Looks darkly upon them,
And whispers with malice:
"A famine, a famine
Most surely will blight us.
The young growths are sodden,
The floods unabated; 210
Since women have taken
To red cotton dresses
The forests have withered,
And wheat--but no wonder!"
"But why, little Mother,
Are red cotton dresses
To blame for the trouble?
I don't understand you.
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