Filimón (taking out his handkerchief). Here it is.
Miller. Close your eyes tight, and tie your kerchief over them. That’s all right! Now listen: you must stand quiet, and don’t move from the spot, nor speak a word to anyone, while I go and see the elder.
Filimón (does all the Miller commands him to do). But suppose someone should come and ask me why I am standing there, and why my eyes are tied up?
Miller. Not a word to anybody; but you may grumble to yourself.
Filimón. May I sing a song?
Miller. You will frighten all. No, you must not.
Filimón (aside). What is it all going to be?
Miller. Stand still and don’t move!
Ippolít Fédorovich Bogdanóvich. (1743-1803.)
Ippolít Bogdanóvich, the son of a minor official, entered the mathematical school connected with the Senate; at fourteen years of age he began to study at the University and to write verses under the guidance of Kheráskov. He then served as secretary of legation in Saxony, and later was connected with the Government Archives. His reputation rests only on his Psyche, which is a paraphrase in verse of La Fontaine’s Les amours de Psyché et de Cupidon, itself an imitation of an episode in Apuleius’s Golden Ass. It is a mock-heroic in the style of Máykov’s Eliséy (see p. 263), and was immensely popular at the end of the eighteenth century, and even Dmítriev, Púshkin and Byelínski found pleasure in reading it. There are traces in his poems of an intimate acquaintance with the Russian popular literature, from which are introduced many characters. The poem found so many admirers because it was an expression of the reverse side of the philosophy, of the eighteenth century, with its frivolity and superficiality.