Princess Volkonsky, waking early, sets out on a stroll through the village, and comes to the mouth of the mine-shaft, guarded by a sentry.
She prevails upon this sentry to let her descend, contrary to orders, and after a long and arduous passage through the rough, dripping corridors, and after running the risk of discovery by an official, and even of death (when she extinguishes her torch to escape the official, and proceeds in the dark), she reaches her husband and the other Decembrist exiles, and delivers to them the letters from their friends, which she has with her.

The poem is most beautiful and affecting.
A third very famous poem is "Who in Russia Finds Life Good ?" Seven peasants meet by chance on the highway, and fall into a dispute on that theme.

One says, "the landed proprietor"; another, "the official"; a third, "the priest." Others say, respectively, "the fat-bellied merchant," "the minister of the empire," "the Tzar." All of the peasants had started out at midday upon important errands, but they argue hotly until sundown, walking all the while, and do not notice even that until an old woman happens along and asks them, "Where are they bound by night ?" On glancing about them, the peasants perceive that they are thirty versts from home, and they are too fatigued to undertake the return journey at once.

They throw the blame on the Forest-Fiend, seat themselves in the woods, and light a fire.

One man goes off to procure liquor, another for food, and as they consume these, they begin the discussion all over again in such vehement wise that all the beasts and birds of the forest are affrighted.