"Has his kaftan of gold brocade grown threadbare?
Has his cap of sables got shabby?
Has he exhausted his treasure?
Has his well-tempered saber got nicked?
Or has some merchant's son from across the Moscow River overcome him in a boxing match ?" The young lifeguardsman shakes his curly head, and says that all these things are as they should be, but that while he was riding his mettlesome steed in the Trans-Moscow River quarter of the town (the merchant's quarter), with his silken girdle drawn taut, his velvet cap rimmed jauntily with black sables, fair young maidens had stood at the board gates, gazing at him, admiring and whispering together; but one there was who gazed not, admired not, but covered her face with her striped veil, "and in all Holy Russia, our Mother, no such beauty is to be found or searched out.

She walketh swimmingly, as though she were a young swan.

She gazeth sweetly, as though she were a dove.

When she uttereth a word, 'tis like a nightingale warbling.

Her cheeks are aflame with roses, like unto the dawn in God's heaven.