Это, насколько мне известно, первый в истории Форума англоязычный Литопыт. Я написал его в далёком
2007 году для конкурса издательства Palmprint Publications, но, к сожалению, он там ничего не выиграл - не те критерии... Рассказ был выставлен на закрывшемся с тех пор форуме britishspanking.com, а также на старом форуме: https://clubpn.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=819Разумеется, если на этом форуме я писал в основном про англоязычные страны, то для англичан - наоборот. На то мы, Expat-ы, и существуем - мосты наводить
. Я очень благодарен Elizabeth79 с форума britishspanking.com, которая внимательно прочла рассказ и поправила несколько языковых недочётов, а также Экзеку, Куно, Мисс Грей и Аните за полезные замечания.
Прошу читателей помнить, что рассказ был написан для английской аудитории, которой нужно объяснять некоторые вещи, которые для нас очевидны
.Expat.
А вот и рассказ:
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Iphigenia in St.Petersburg.
It was a sublime performance, my ladies and gentlemen, a truly exhilarating, cathartic experience – I struggle to find fitting epithets in English. To be honest with you, if I do have to explain myself in a language other than my native Russian, or perhaps my maternal ancestors’ German tongue, I would vastly prefer French... I confess I don’t know much about your time, but surely a perfect command of French would still be expected of anyone of any standing in society? Oh, I am forgetting: you English tend to harbour this innate animosity towards all things French except perhaps the wine. I know you have your reasons - but I, too, saw action against them, I was among the troops that entered Paris in 1815 and I can vouch... are you sure? Very well then, I will endeavour to tell my story in the language of Shakespeare, but you will oblige me by not judging me too severely for an occasional slip of the tongue or the quill.
Which brings us back to the subject of the narrative: as I’ve been telling you, I felt honoured as well as delighted to be invited to a performance at Prince Nikolai Lobansky’s home theatre. I am an occasional guest on Parnassus myself, and my poetry is not unknown in this city - but this alone would hardly have made me a welcome guest in the mansion of one of the foremost grandees in the land. Rather, I owe this to my own lineage, proud and ancient if not quite as aristocratic as the Prince’s, and even more so to my brief period of Army service, when the Prince and I were fellow officers with the Pavlograd Hussar regiment, particularly to an episode near ****burg in Saxony in 1813, when I chanced to help the Prince out of a rather precarious situation in a skirmish with a French cavalry detachment. I will spare you the details of the engagement, a modest man as I am; it suffices to say the Prince owes me a small favour – a favour which, as you will see, was in no small measure repaid on the night of that memorable performance of Racine’s immortal Iphigenia.
The Prince, understandably, scorned the mere suggestion of a Russian translation, and the play was performed in the original French - a truly remarkable feat given the fact that all the actors and actresses, without exception, in this theatre – possibly the last of its kind - were but serfs, sons and daughters of illiterate peasants, forcibly removed in their childhood from their homes and families in the Prince’s vast estates and trained in the art of the stage in order to satisfy any, even the most discerning, viewer, not least their lord and master. Once again, as so often before, I shuddered at the familiar thought that those very men and women whose talents we were admiring could, at the slightest whim of their master, be sold like cattle, or demoted from the service of Melpomena to the meanest manual labour, or worse – much worse, as I was about to be rudely reminded. Serfdom, the shame and curse of Russia, will I ever live to see your end... but enough of that, walls have ears and eyes, in St. Petersburg more than anywhere else, and I was lucky enough to be out of the country in December 1825 and for nearly two years preceding the ill-fated rebellion.
Back to the subject at hand - and oh, there were indeed some talents to admire. Agamemnon was majestically regal and truly moving in his incredible dilemma, torn between his promise to lead the thousand ships to the shores of Troy and the need to sacrifice his own daughter in order to do his duty. Clytaemnestra was the perfect epitome of motherhood whatever we know about this character from other sources, Achilles just the chevalier sans peur et sans reproche one would expect to see... But it was Iphigenia herself who, in my view, stood a head above the rest of the cast. Whilst the others were acting their roles, however impressively, she was living hers – and it is not an easy part to shine in, the hapless heroine being but a toy in other characters’ hands. Yet somehow a natural and deep feeling permeated her every line, a feeling that towards the final scene was clearly taking over the rehearsed performance. Once, then twice I heard her hesitate in recalling her lines and saw the Prince frown – and then finally, when it came to that splendid monologue in which the heroine laments her fate, rues the hour she was born, and declares herself a victim of both human and divine forces, the actress broke down in tears and could speak no longer. There was a commotion among the viewers, the play was of course brought to its conclusion regardless, and in my opinion the tragedy became even more impressive for this outburst – but clearly not everyone shared my view.
As I joined His Grace and a small circle of friends at the reception after the performance, I heard the Prince declare in his usual casual manner of one who can afford not to care about niceties:
“Pity, I had my expectations about the wench, and she had not been doing badly, not doing badly at all in the previous performances. Well, she has just earned herself a trip to the stables come Saturday, and I have a good mind to send her off to the village she came from. The effort of training has been clearly lost on her, let her deal with bovines that have nothing to do with Jupiter if she prefers that, and practise her French with local herdsmen”.
My blood froze. A trip to the stables is a standard euphemism for a public flogging of a serf, traditionally administered in the stables by a specially appointed groom doubling as an executioner, usually wielding a large birch rod, or on occasions a horsewhip, depending on the gravity of the misdeed to be punished. I knew of course that serfs in His Grace’s estates, as in so many others, were routinely meted this barbaric punishment, but surely those graced by the ray of enlightenment would be spared the ignominy? Apparently not. So was this gentle princess, this genius of pure beauty, to quote from our foremost poet, this maiden who has so captivated my imagination on stage, to be dragged to the place of dishonour, to be laid naked before the eyes of grinning and mocking plebs, to be... the rest was too appalling to contemplate.
I thanked God for the ancient Russian custom of deferring whippings of children and serfs to the nearest Saturday – a custom I came to loath in my childhood when it made, on occasions, for a near full week of agonising wait with the punishment looming ahead, but which now gave me a chance to intervene. I grasped at the chance.
“Mon Prince”, said I, doing my best to match His Grace’s casual air, “if it be true that you have written the girl off as an actress, would you consider selling her to me? Surely you would not refuse an old friend...”
I let my sentence hang unfinished, not referring overtly to the little favour I told you about – but the Prince understood me... God only knew how I was going to pay for this purchase - fully trained actresses do not come cheap. But it was not the monetary price I was most concerned about, and the circumstances proved me right. His Grace appeared to hesitate for a moment; then, with a rather dubious smile, he exclaimed:
“Sell her to you? No my dear friend, this may never be, not given the circumstances of our acquaintance. I will never sell her to you – I will give her to you, give her to you as a gift. Just promise me one little thing – promise me that you will see to her getting a sound whipping to start with, lest the spoilt performance goes unpunished, and then you may do with her whatever you wish, she is yours. So is it a deal then? A word of a hussar? “
Damn the fellow. This was so much like him – poisoning a magnanimous gift with the hidden sting of a cruel jest... The man knows full well that I abhor this barbaric custom as just one of the many manifestations of the greater evil our captive homeland has to endure, that this was one of the reasons I resigned from the Army, and that I virtually never have my serfs whipped, least of all women. Not that I have many serfs left to whip – I only owned one village, two hundred and odd souls compared to the Prince’s eleven or twelve thousand - as if a man can really own any soul but his own! – and I set them free years ago, before going on my travels. It’s not as difficult as some people think, just a few simple formalities, and the revenues from the estate actually increased rather than cease as many fear... or so I am told – I am hopeless with money. But I am diverging again. The Prince was eyeing me coldly, expecting an answer – for him, it was but a game of cold reason, pitting my feelings against my principles... A true hussar can find a way out of any situation, but right now I could not think of any quickly enough. What was one to do, my ladies and gentlemen? Should I call off the deal, the girl would only suffer a worse fate... Well, I was sure I would think of something later. Not letting on how annoyed I was, I answered in the same deceptively casual tone:
“So be it. A word of a hussar”.
“Very well then, laughed the Prince. I’ll have her ready for you by the end of the evening, and the paperwork will be forthcoming. Now gentlemen, have you heard the latest story about...”
I did not hear the rest, and the rest of the evening went by as if in some haze.
The girl was indeed duly handed over to my footmen at the end of the evening. Not having any other means of taking her home, I offered her, rather unusually given her station, to share my coach. She thanked me with a blush, and remained silent for most of the journey from the Prince’s mansion on the left bank of the Moika to my own, rather less salubrious, quarters in the Sixth Line of St. Basil’s Island. She did answer my questions - with all the respect and deference due given our respective situations, but as briefly as she could get away with. I found out that she was called Natalia, was eighteen years of age, and hailed originally from somewhere around Great Novgorod (she had the looks of a Northerner, with her blond hair and tall stature, but her accent and manner of speech were more fitting for a daughter of a city-dwelling gentleman than for a Northern peasant, famous for their accented “o”s and singing intonations). It was not until we were approaching our destination that she broke her silence – to thank me heartily for delivering her from the hands of the Prince and the terrible punishment she knew she would have doubtless suffered otherwise. Now a hussar (true, I retired after the war, but once a hussar, always a hussar) is never afraid of telling the truth, ladies and gentlemen, be it to his seniors, to his friends, or to his enemies - but somehow on this occasion I found myself inexplicably tongue-tied. I just could not bear to tell her at once that her deliverance had been but partial…
Once we reached my bachelor quarters, I entrusted the girl to the care of Anna, my energetic and indispensable housekeeper - a freedwoman herself, by the way - under whose supervision the ex-actress would now fall. But what would I do with this jewel, lacking as I do the appropriate setting of a home theatre of my own? And more importantly, how would I go about keeping the promise I gave the Prince? The more I thought the fewer options I saw for avoiding the unpleasant duty I had so lightly taken upon myself. A hussar never balks at any challenge, ladies and gentlemen, but something inexplicable happened to me, and try as I could, I just could not bring myself to do this! She was innocent, ladies and gentlemen, innocent like Racine’s Iphigenia, and as in the great tragedy, some miracle should come, a miracle to save her from the humiliation. But time passed and the miracle was not in evidence – and the promise of a Russian nobleman cannot be broken, least of all that of a hussar. I spent an entire day looking for a solution to this conundrum and could not find any. The next day, Natasha’s ownership documents were delivered from the Prince, and I had a certain business with my attorney to attend to... Wednesday came, then Thursday; Saturday was approaching rapidly, and Saturday was the longest I could possibly delay making good my word.
In the meantime, to justify the lass’s entry into the household, Anna took it upon herself to give her some light domestic duties – and so it came to pass that as I was pretending to read at Friday teatime, alone save for a bottle of French brandy to illuminate my thoughts and a servant boy attending to the candles to illuminate the room, agonising over the same wretched problem, it was none other but the subject of the problem herself who delivered a tray of tea. This is not a particularly menial task, my ladies and gentlemen, I’ve heard that in your country making tea is not trusted to servants at all but reserved for the lady of the house (not that I ever had one). But alas, my poor Iphigenia was more used to holding dramatic pauses than to holding tea trays. As she tried to put the tray on the little table by my bureau, she made a clumsy movement, bringing the entire contents of the tray, including the Meissen teapot I had inherited from my poor Tante Elena, crushing down on the parquet and breaking into smithereens. I’d never particularly liked the thing, but it was a valuable item and a piece of family heirloom.
For the moment though, I was only concerned for Natasha and whether she had scalded herself. She assured me to the contrary in a trembling voice, and then I heard the servant boy whisper to her loudly: “oh yes girl, you will be scalded for this – on your backside”. At that point, I realised this was indeed my chance. I now had a plausible pretext for fulfilling my promise – a reason for punishment anybody, including the girl herself, would see as legitimate. Indeed, she was clearly mortified with guilt, too much even to ask for forgiveness. This was not quite the sort of a miracle I had prayed for, but at least I now had a semblance of a way out. I told the lad to shut up unless he wanted the same treatment, and then informed the girl as matter-of-factly as I could that I would indeed have to have her punished. It was with a very peculiar mixture of relief and guilt that I instructed Anna to make the necessary arrangements for the next day – the Saturday.
I am no Prince Lobansky, so I could not of course subject my Iphigenia to the ultimate indignity of being whipped by a male stranger - but that problem was easy to solve as my good Anna was incandescent with rage about the damage to my property and more than willing to oblige, nor did she lack in experience having on occasions disciplined her own daughters and nieces, not to mention young servants of both sexes - she does not think much of my gentler methods. I felt I had to be present though... I promised the Prince that I would see to the girl’s getting her chastisement, and a hussar keeps his word to the letter. Besides, Anna was so angry I felt I might need to be at hand to intervene should the punishment go too far - the strength and stamina of Russian women from the low orders are proverbial. I cannot vouch I had no other agenda, but I’d rather not elucidate on that – a hussar is always a perfect gentleman.
The library was chosen as the most remote room in the house, and it was there that the hapless Natasha was escorted by Anna next afternoon.
Just one glance was enough for the girl to take in the entire picture – a long dark room with the curtains nearly completely drawn, save for the gap in the middle casting a ray of light on the long sturdy bench in the middle of the room, covered by a clean sheet for fear of splinters, and a large wooden pail standing by the bench, filled with brine and containing a generous stock of long, pliable willow switches.
She did not notice me. No, I did not deliberately hide, this would have been unworthy of a hussar – I just stayed in the dark corner partly obscured by the bookshelves, as if in an ambush.
For my part, I could not help looking at her face – which instantly went as pale as the marble of Greek statues, but retained something of the expression that had so struck me on stage. This was no serf maidservant about to receive a painful and humiliating, but by no means lethal punishment for a domestic misdemeanour. This was once again Iphigenia of Mycenae, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra – and Euripides’, not Racine’s Iphigenia at that, about to be sacrificed to the wrath of the Gods and fully prepared to take her fate.
Anna was less versed in classics than I was, so took a rather more mundane view of the situation:
“Well my dear, let’s get on with it. Off with your petticoaties, and on the bench you go. I’ll learn you to look after your good master’s property – a Meissen china pot, for God’s sake, where were those shameless eyes of yours? On your bottom, I bet – and will it get the sizzling for it! Wriggled it on stage, did you, for all them ladies an’ gentlemen to see? – now let’s see you wriggle it to the tune of the rod!”
My good housekeeper, as most of the common folk in this country, views the vocation of an actress as little different from that of a harlot – which may be true in the case of some freeborn actresses, but is certainly a false allegation in the case of a serf one, kept in almost monastic conditions. I could not interfere for fear of betraying my presence too soon, but the monologue came to an end naturally. Natasha hesitated for a second, kneeling on the bench and grasping at her skirt, so Anna encouraged her with an ancient Russian proverb:
“Come on, come on, my dear, strip and lie down. Shame is no smoke, it will not damage your eyes. Now, I am going to count, and every count earns you an extra stroke. One…”
Not waiting any longer, the girl stretched herself fully on the bench and only then, lowering her hands, grasped at her petticoats and raised them, baring that part of a lady’s frame a gentleman would never refer to by name. Anna was no gentleman however, nor even a gentlewoman:
“Nice bottom you’ve got here, my dear, the skin all nice and white as a lady’s. Well, we’ll soon see to that, won’t we?”
I could hear she was getting ever so slightly more sympathetic, moved by the girl’s obvious display of modesty, but still clearly convinced that the misdeed required a proper chastisement. Getting a long towel from the back of a chair, Anna tied it round the girl’s body, thus fixing her to the bench. There were two more towels, I noticed, and for an instant the good lady clearly contemplated securing the hands and feet as well, but apparently decided against it.
I tried to look only at the face of my Iphigenia – still dramatically pale, with her low lip clenched between her teeth – but no man of flesh and blood in my position could help a glance at the part of the body my good housekeeper had just referred to. At that point, the poet in me grappled with the hussar. I trust I don’t need to tell you what line of thought the hussar’s mind took – and as for the poet, naturally he thought again of Greek art. You will probably guess which particular statue of Venus I mean, the shape being that perfect, gentle one, innocent but with just a hint of the innate sin, and the colour of the skin, indeed, almost ideally marble white.
Not for long though. It was only a second later that the good lady picked a switch from the pail and gave it a trial swishing movement through the air (oh, that sound! The sound neither the whistling of bullets nor the rattling of sabres had obscured in my memory... It made me recall my childhood days with rather unwelcome vividness, while the poor girl winced and shuddered instinctively). Then, standing by the side of the bench, Anna measured the distance with a glance and, with a force rather unexpected in a woman, brought the switch down on my Iphigenia’s defenceless flesh. An angry red welt appeared on the marble-like surface, the girl’s body twitched and arched before falling back, and her face, for all her acting skills, betrayed her feelings quite clearly. As every schoolboy will tell you, the first stroke of the rod always takes one by surprise with the acuteness of the pain, try as one may to prepare oneself, and regardless of how many times one may have suffered the punishment before. She managed to stifle her scream though, my tragic heroine, my Greek princess, - and continued to endure the pain with the bravery worthy of her character on stage, until a dozen or so burning stripes adorned her delightful frame, and the switch had to be replaced by a new one at least twice.
At that point, inevitably, the strokes were landing increasingly in places already afflicted, bringing a new force to the torment. Tears were now visible on my Iphigenia’s cheeks, no more pale but apple-red with the strain of suffering, and presently in a most touching movement of childlike innocence she stretched her arms behind her, trying to shield her exposed, by now undoubtedly burning parts with her hands.
“Hands off, my dear. I say, hands off your bottom, or I will give you a few extra strokes”. For all the severity of the tone, I could hear that Anna, too, was feeling some sympathy for her charge. She paused the flogging, ostensibly to tighten the towel holding Natasha down, to use another one to tie the girl’s hands below the bench (more of an act of mercy than one may think – at least the poor girl did not now need to restrain herself), and to help herself to yet another fresh switch, - but also, perhaps primarily, to give Natasha a few seconds of much needed respite.
It is at this moment that the true nature of my feelings, and the reason for my unusual indecisiveness over the previous few days, became crystal clear to me. I didn’t just admire this girl for her acting, nor for her manners more befitting a noblewoman than a serf, nor for her brave attempts at preserving some dignity in her current, most undignified of situations. I was in love with her, ladies and gentlemen, I was in love, and neither the difference in age nor the abyss separating us in terms of social standing somehow appeared to matter. I’d heard of noblemen of a higher standing than mine marrying their serf girls. I have never been married, I preferred more temporary arrangements in a true hussar fashion, but perhaps time had come for me too to find lasting bliss....
… but a hussar keeps his word, and whatever my feelings were, I had to let Natasha’s torment continue, and mine with it. Anna whipped her and whipped her and whipped her, the strokes were raining down on the tender hemispheres, now bright burning red – those were perhaps ever so slightly gentler strokes now, but then there was by now hardly an inch of flesh intact on my poor Iphigenia’s posterior. The girl was writhing on the bench as much as her restraints allowed her, tears were streaming down her beautiful face, and she could no longer keep down an occasional scream – though even now did she not stoop to pleas for mercy.
I would have given everything in my possession to stop the punishment at once, even if it meant my exchanging places with my Iphigenia, but this was not what I had promised.
Once more did the towel have to be tightened, and on it went, the relentless swishing of the rod, the screams, the sobs, the tears, the writhing of the girl’s beautiful body. As the pain was building up to the point of overwhelming her senses, she seemed to care less and less about her modesty – and, to be fair, she wasn’t aware of there being a man in the room, poor thing – so a couple of times I had to close my eyes hastily lest I caught a glimpse of things I could never forgive myself for spying upon. A hussar is ever the gentleman...
Presently the colour of the afflicted flesh turned from the bright red of a summer apple to the dark purple of that staple dish of Malorossia, the borshch or beetroot soup, and I was sure I could perceive more than an odd drop of blood. Enough was enough, surely this had to be the promised sound whipping if ever there was one, and if His Grace would judge otherwise, well, damn his judgement.
I stepped out of my hiding corner, covering my eyes very ostentatiously with my hand, and declared in a voice less steady than I would have liked:
“That’ll be enough, Annushka. Would you please untie Natalia and help her up”.
My gesture was superfluous – my Iphigenia was in such pain that she seemed hardly to notice my presence in the room, or perhaps she presumed I had just entered. Anna covered her exposed body, untied the towels and helped the girl to her feet (“there, there, my dear, it’s all over now, and as they say, a beaten person is worth two unbeaten ones”). It took Natasha only a minute or so to compose herself, wiping her tearstained face with the selfsame towel, whereupon she begged her leave in a shaky voice and made, a bit unsteadily, towards the door, stepping on the many broken and discarded switches that were now littering the floor.
“Wait a minute, my dear. Who’s going to kiss the rod and thank barin (the master) for the lesson and his kindness? It’s lightly he’s let you off, you know, very lightly, my dear. Elsewhere, they would... “
“No thank you Anna, this will not be needed”, - not being able to control myself any longer, I took one of the girl’s hands – the hands that a mere minute ago were tied below the bench! – begged her forgiveness – the forgiveness of a just-whipped serf girl! – and explained the nature of my promise to the Prince and the true reason behind her castigation. Her answer was as unexpected as could be:
“I knew, Sir. The messenger who brought my papers over from His Grace’s slipped a word. A footman overheard your conversation with the Prince, and the following morning the whole of the domestic staff knew. They warned me. I could see you were too kind to have me… beaten without a good reason though - you were agonising about it so much I feared you might do something really drastic… I mean do something to yourself, God forbid… so I thought I might help you make up your mind…”
Having understood what she meant, I could hardly help laughing:
“And could you not think of a less drastic way of doing so than destroying my aunt’s china set, you silly girl? Well, even if you deserved a switching, you have just received one. But your movement when you dropped the tray… and your expression of guilt… it all looked so natural!”
“I am an actress, Sir.”
“Well Natasha, let us see how you act now, then. Read this”, - I produced an envelope from my pocket and handed it to her. With an incredulous impression, she opened the envelope, withdrew a paper from it, glanced over it – and then did precisely what one would expect from a tragic actress, slumbering theatrically into an armchair behind her. Alas, in her current predicament this was rather unwise – with a scream of pain, she jumped up, then, with tears of pain and humiliation mixing with tears of joy on her face, threw herself at my feet, covering my hands with kisses while still clutching her vol’naya gramota, or Certificate of Liberation, in hers. Well, I did mention a certain business I had with my attorney - I can now disclose the nature of the business.
“Come on, Natasha, do get up. You are a free woman now, not a serf, and it does not befit you to kneel before a man. Men should kneel before you now!”
“And so he will, Sir, and so he will! Oh thank you Sir, thank you, thank you more than I can say… I cannot believe I am free to marry him now… with your kind permission of course, Sir.”
“To marry him? Who is he then? “
“A publisher’s assistant, Sir, at Smirdin’s. He delivered printouts of our parts for the theatre, we happened to get talking, and this is how it started… He is handsome, Sir, very handsome, and such a pleasure to talk to, he is so well read, and he has actually met all the writers – Mr. Senkovsky, Mr. Pushkin, Mr. Bulgarin, Mr. Venediktov… He says only Mr. Pushkin is genuine though, the rest will be forgotten in a few years, and I think I agree with him. He said he would not care for dowry if only I were free… but we both knew this was impossible… so that night on stage…”
Oh well. I did mention her looking as though she was living her part, not acting it. So much for my hopes, then. Just to think that, just as I thought I had found my happiness, I, a nobleman, a hussar and a poet, had been beaten to the heart of a girl by a mere commoner. I must admit for one second I felt slightly less guilty about this young lady’s having received a good switching. But then I looked in her eyes and... well, ladies and gentleman, a hussar can never be defeated, but even a hussar occasionally concedes the need for tactical retreat. Had she chosen herself a young man of any other trade, I would have felt disappointed. But a publisher’s assistant is a servant of the Muses too, however humble, and a commoner with a good literary taste is to be respected – he might after all be a fitting match for my Iphigenia.
“I’ll take care of your dowry, Natasha. But I will expect a copy of the next instalment of Eugene Onegin at least a week before it is officially out! “
And this brings my story to its end, ladies and gentlemen. You can judge for yourselves whether it belongs in Melpomena’s realm or in Thalia’s, and which Iphigenia’s part did Natasha eventually play – the daughter of Agamemnon or the daughter of Helen, the one miraculously saved or the one who, as it were, sacrificed herself. Whichever the case, I trust I played a plausible Calchas, or perhaps even Agamemnon, to her Iphigenia... Mercifully the sacrifice has been not lethal in this case, and the sacrificial victim found her consolation soon enough (believe it or not, I actually saw her sitting down, if very cautiously, when she introduced her beau to me a mere three or four days after the incident). As for the priest... well I did keep my word, and my conscience is clear... isn’t this what matters most? It is not like a hussar to weep about a woman – there will be others, and now that I have seen with my own eyes that some of them are capable of true love and sacrifice off stage as well as on it, I will look more carefully...
Now ladies and gentlemen, you will excuse me, I think I feel a sonnet coming on...