Eugene Onegin ( without commentary )

XXXVIII

He grew so used to lose himself in this that he almost went off his head or else became a poet. (Frankly, 4 that would have been a boon, indeed!) And true: by dint of magnetism, the mechanism of Russian verses my addleheaded pupil 8 at that time nearly grasped. How much a poet he resembled when in a corner he would sit alone, and the hearth blazed in front of him, is and he hummed "Benedetta" or "Idol mio," and into the fire dropped now a slipper, now his magazine!